Academy, which was well enough, since it is necessary that a few should have larnin', so the may know how to govern the rest,—not contented with that, you must run the thing into the ground, by settin' up a evenin' school, and offerin' to larn readin', writin', and 'rithmetic, free gratis, to whosomever wanted to 'tend. Which is contrary to the sperrit of our institootions, as you have been warned more 'n oncet. That's charge Number Two. Charge Number Three is, that you stand up for the old rotten Union, and tell folks, every chance you git, that secession, that noble right of southerners, is a villanous scheme, that'll ruin the south, if persisted in, and plunge the whole nation into war. Your very words, I believe. Can you deny it?"

"Certainly, I have said something very much like that, and it is my honest conviction," replied Penn, firmly.

"Gentlemen, take notice!" said Mr. Ropes. "We will now pass on to charge Number Four, and be brief, for the tar is a-coolin'. Suthin' like eight days ago, when the afore-mentioned Dan Pepperill was in the waller of his degradation, some noble-souled sons of the sunny south"—the orator smiled with pleasant significance—"lifted him up, and hung him up to air, in the crotches of two trees, jest by the edge of the woods here, and went home to supper, intending to come back and finish the purifying process begun with him later in the evenin'. But what did you do, Mr. Schoolmaster, but come along and take him down, prematoorely, and go to corruptin' him agin with your vile northern principles! Didn't he, Dan?"

"I—I dun know" faltered Dan.

"Yes, you do know, too! Didn't he corrupt you?"

These words being accompanied by a severe hint from Sile's boot, Mr. Pepperill remembered that Penn did corrupt him.

"And if I hadn't took ye in season, you'd have returned to your base-born mire, wouldn't you?"

"I suppose I would," the miserable Dan admitted.

"Wal! now!"—Sile spread his palm over the tar to see if it retained its temperature,—"hurry up, Dan, and tell us all this northern agitator said to you that night."

"O Lord!" groaned Pepperill, "my memory is so short!"

"Bring that rope, boys! and give him suthin' to stretch it!" said Silas, growing impatient.

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