Satisfied, now, that Hammond was in the room, I said, slightly elevating my voice: 

“His mother.”

The words were an “open sesame” to the room.  The door was suddenly jerked open, and with a blanching face, the young man confronted me.

“Who says my mother is down-stairs?” he demanded.

“I come from her in search of you,” I said.  “You will find her in the road, walking up and down in front of the tavern.”

Almost with a bound he swept by me, and descended the stairway at two or three long strides.  As the door swung open, I saw besides Green and Hammond, the landlord and Judge Lyman.  It needed not the loose cards on the table near which the latter were sitting to tell me of their business in that room.

As quickly as seemed decorous, I followed Hammond.  On the porch I met him, coming in from the road.

“You have deceived me, sir,” said he, sternly—­almost menacingly.

“No, sir!” I replied.  “What I told you was but too true.  Look!  There she is now.”

The young man sprung around, and stood before the woman, a few paces distant.

“Mother! oh, mother! what has brought you here?” he exclaimed, in an under tone, as he caught her arm, and moved away.  He spoke—­not roughly, nor angrily—­but with respect—­half reproachfulness—­and an unmistakable tenderness.

“Oh, Willy!  Willy!” I heard her answer.  “Somebody said you came here at night, and I couldn’t rest.  Oh, dear.  They’ll murder you!  I know they will.  Don’t, oh!—­”

My ears took in the sense no further, though her pleading voice still reached my ears.  A few moments, and they were out of sight.

Nearly two hours afterward, as I was ascending to my chamber, a man brushed quickly by me.  I glanced after him, and recognized the person of young Hammond.  He was going to the room of Harvey Green!

NIGHT THE SEVENTH

Sowing the wind.

The state of affairs in Cedarville, it was plain, from the partial glimpses I had received, was rather desperate.  Desperate, I mean, as regarded the various parties brought before my observation.  An eating cancer was on the community, and so far as the eye could mark its destructive progress, the ravages were tearful.  That its roots were striking deep, and penetrating, concealed from view, in many unsuspected directions, there could be no doubt.  What appeared on the surface was but a milder form of the disease, compared with its hidden, more vital, and more dangerous advances.

I could not but feel a strong interest in some of these parties.  The case of young Hammond had, from the first, awakened concern; and now a new element was added in the unlooked-for appearance of his mother on the stage, in a state that seemed one of partial derangement.  The gentleman at whose office I met Mr. Harrison on the day before—­the reader will remember Mr. H. as having come to the “Sickle and Sheath” in search of his son—­was thoroughly conversant with the affairs of the village, and I called upon him early in the day in order to make some inquiries about Mrs. Hammond.  My first question, as to whether he knew the lady, was answered by the remark: