At last the sleepy atmosphere was stirred - and vigorously: the murder trial came on in the court. It became the absorbing topic of village talk immediately. Tom could not get away from it. Every refe

"My! we couldn't get him out, Tom. And besides, 'twouldn't do any good; they'd ketch him again." "Yes - so they would. But I hate to hear 'em abuse him so like the dickens when he never done - that."

help him more if they could." Tom went home miserable, and his dreams that night were full of horrors. The next day and the day after, he hung about the courtroom, drawn by an almost irresistible impu