which sent him reeling against the table, and persuaded him into as great a degree of patience, as, under existing circumstances, he could be well expected to exhibit.  Article after article underwent a like analysis of its strength and texture, and a warm emulation took place among the rioters, as to their several capacities in the work of destruction.  The shining bottoms were torn from the tin-wares in order to prove that such a separation was possible, and it is doing but brief justice to the pedler to say, that, whatever, in fact, might have been the true character of his commodities, the very choicest of human fabrics could never have resisted the various tests of bone and sinew, tooth and nail, to which they were indiscriminately subjected.  Immeasurable was the confusion that followed.  All restraints were removed—­all hindrances withdrawn, and the tide rushed onward with a most headlong tendency.

Apprehensive of pecuniary responsibilities in his own person, and having his neighbors wrought to the desired pitch—­fearing, also, lest his station might somewhat involve himself in the meshes he was weaving around others, the sagacious chairman, upon the first show of violence, roared out his resignation, and descended from his place.  But this movement did not impair the industry of the regulators.  A voice was heard proposing a bonfire of the merchandise, and no second suggestion was necessary.  All hands but those of the pedler and the attorney were employed in building the pyre in front of the tavern some thirty yards; and here, in choice confusion, lay flaming calicoes, illegitimate silks, worsted hose, wooden clocks and nutmegs, maple-wood seeds of all descriptions, plaid cloaks, scents, and spices, jumbled up in ludicrous variety.  A dozen hands busied themselves in applying the torch to the devoted mass—­howling over it, at every successive burst of flame that went up into the dark atmosphere, a savage yell of triumph that tallied well with the proceeding.

“Hurrah!”

The scene was one of indescribable confusion.  The rioters danced about the blaze like so many frenzied demons.  Strange, no one attempted to appropriate the property that must have been a temptation to all.

Our pedler, though he no longer strove to interfere, was by no means insensible to the ruin of his stock in trade.  It was calculated to move to pity, in any other region, to behold him as he stood in the doorway, stupidly watching the scene, while the big tears were slowly gathering in his eyes, and falling down his bronzed and furrowed cheeks.  The rough, hard, unscrupulous man can always weep for himself.  Whatever the demerits of the rogue, our young traveller above stairs, would have regarded him as the victim of a too sharp justice.  Not so the participators in the outrage.  They had been too frequently the losers by the cunning practice of the pedler, to doubt for a moment the perfect propriety—­nay, the very moderate measure—­of that wild justice