“You hadn’t no business to lick my boy,” added Swikes. “Now, if there is to be any law about the fire, there must be some more about this flogging,” continued Capt. Trustleton. “Do you mean to prosecute me for that, after I have had my property burned by these boys?” demanded Mr. Garlick. “If my boy is prosecuted for burning the barn, I certainly shall prosecute you for flogging my son.” “And I shall do it for licking my boy,” added Obed Swikes, who began to see his way out of the scrape in the light of the captain’s threat. “That looks a little as though you meant to scare me out of it,” added Garlick. “Not at all; and I don’t mean any thing of the kind,” replied the captain. “If these boys set the fire, they did it under strong provocation. You had no more right to flog them than I have to flog you. You took the law into your own hands, and so did the boys; and you have got the worst of it, Mr. Garlick. I would rather have my barn burned than my son flogged as you flogged him. I do not believe in flogging: I saw enough of it on board ship when I was a young man.” “You seem to think it was right for your son to burn the barn because I whipped him for stealing my peaches,” said the farmer. “I do not say that; but I have no doubt my son Alonzo, who was never flogged in his life before so far as I know, thought the burning of the barn could no more than atone for the flogging you gave him.” “I did not say I meant to prosecute the boys,” replied Garlick, who doubtless found by this time that there were two sides to the question. “What I say is not to be considered as a threat. If my boy is taken before the courts on the charge of firing your barn, I wish the people to know why he did it, if he did it at all,” answered Capt. Trustleton. “Now we will examine the boys, one at a time.” Lon was called into the room first, and questioned by his father and the farmer. He adhered to his story so well that he puzzled his father, who was prepared to see him convicted. Matt told the same story, as they had agreed beforehand; though a shrewd lawyer would perhaps have caused them to make more slips than they did. “You see there is no evidence, Mr. Garlick, though the whipping can all be proved,” said Capt. Trustleton. “It is a hard case that my property should be burned up by a couple of boys,” complained Garlick. “And it is a hard case that two boys should be flogged as those were; and I think it is harder than your case,” added the captain. “If each party is to take the law into his own hands, he is also to do as much mischief as he thinks will cover the wrong he has suffered.” “I suppose I shall get my insurance; but it will not cover the loss into five or six hundred dollars,” suggested Garlick, with this hint at a compromise. The captain would not take the hint, and said nothing at all about paying any money to have the matter hushed up; for it was all over town now.