“Oh, sir,” cried she to Mr. Eden, “I am glad you are here.  These blackguards have broke into my cell, and they are robbing it.”

“Hush, Mary; what they are doing is the law, and we were acting against the law.”

“Were we, sir?”

“Yes.  It is a bad law, and will be changed; but till it is changed we must obey it.  You are only one victim among many.  Be patient, and pray for help to bear it.”

“Yes, your reverence.  Are they all to be robbed of their tools?”

“All.”

“Poor things!” said Mary Baker.

“Evans, it is beyond my strength—­I am but a man; I can bear even this, but I can’t bear to see it done.  I can’t bear it!  I can’t bear it!”

And his reverence turned his back on the moral butchers, and crept away to his own room.  There he sank into a chair and laid his brow upon the table with his hands stretched out before him and his whole frame trembling most piteously.

Eden and Hawes are not level antagonists—­one takes things to heart, the other to temper.

In this bitter hour it seemed to him impossible that he could ever counteract the pernicious Hawes.

“There is but one chance left for these poor souls.  I shall try it, and it will fail.  Well! let it fail!  Were there a thousand more chances against me than there are I must battle to the last.  Let me mature my plan;” and he fell into a sad but stern reverie.

He lay thus crushed, though not defeated, more than two hours in silence.  Had Hawes seen him he would have exulted at his appearance.

“A man from the jail to speak to you, sir.”

A heavy rap at the parlor door, and Evans came in sheepishly smoothing down his hair.  Mr. Eden turned his head as he lay on the sofa and motioned him to a seat.

“I couldn’t sleep till I had spoken to you.  I obeyed your orders, sir.  We have undone your work.”

“How did the poor souls bear it?”

“Some cried, some abused us, one or two showed they were better than we are.”

“How?”

“They prayed Heaven to forgive us and hoped we might never come to know what they felt.  I wish I’d never seen the inside of a jail.  Fry got a scratched face in one cell, sir.”

“I am sorry to hear that.  I shall have to scold her; who was it?”

“You won’t scold her; you won’t have the heart.”

“I will scold her whether I have the heart or not.  Who was it?”

“No. 57, a gal that had some caterpillars.”

“Silkworms!”

“Yes, sir, silkworms, and it seems she has got to be uncommon fond of them, calls ’em her children, poor soul.  When we came in and went to take them away she stood up for ’em and said we had no right—­his reverence gave them her.”

“Well?”

“Well, sir, of course they made short work and took them away by force.  Then I saw the girl turn white and her eye getting wildish; however, I don’t know as it would have come to anything, but with them snatching away the leaves and the grubs one of them fell on the ground.  The poor girl she goes to lift it up and Fry he sees her and put his foot on it before she could get to it.”