The squire opened the door, sprang to the bed, and saw his son, sitting up, with bloodshot eye-balls, scarlet face and hands lifted in an imploring attitude. Squire Fuller perceived at a glance that his son was raving in the madness of brain fever! To rouse the housekeeper, call the servants, and to send the groom at a hard gallop to fetch Dr. Jephson was the work of a moment, and then the wretched father went back to keep anxious vigil by the bedside of his stricken boy. Mrs. Bruce, the housekeeper, well-skilled in all the experiences of a sick-room, applied ice and wet cloths to the sufferer’s burning brow, and by and bye the paroxysm seemed partially to subside. Thus they waited, waited in the darkened chamber, waited in silence, for not one word did the squire utter, but sat with his eyes fixed on the moaning youth, listening through hours that seemed ages, until he heard the hoofs of a horse at a rapid gallop ringing on the road, and knew that Dr. Jephson had arrived. Standing by his bed, with his hand upon his patient’s wrist, and looking at the distended pupils of his eyes, the doctor turned at last to speak to the statuesque father by his side. The words, sad words, died upon his tongue. Anything but hope spoken to that shrinking form would have killed him where he stood! * * * * * There was sorrow also in the house of Piggy Morris. The weakly and ailing mother mourned the loss of her first-born as only a mother may. Could she have only known that he was prepared for his sudden and terrible exit from the world she could have better borne the blow. To her, Black Morris had not been a bad or cruel son. His love for his mother was great and abiding, and had it not been for the evil set into which their unhappy choice of a locality had thrown him, she believed with reason, that he would have led a nobler and more reputable life. Her gentle daughter, Mary, though sore crushed by this bereavement, was sustained by the religious principles and experiences obtained by means of the Methodist services in the village, and was enabled to succour her weeping mother in this trying hour. Piggy Morris himself, cannot be credited with any great amount of grief for the loss of his son. His own harsh and repellant nature had loosened his hold upon the wayward youth, and led to an open rebellion which threatened an irreparable breach. His vindictive nature, however, was quick to seize the opportunity, now offered, of revenging himself on those who, according to his crooked notions of right and wrong, had “ruined him,” by dismissing him from his ill-managed and wasted farm. He would not hesitate to gird a halter beneath the grey locks of the squire if he had the chance, and revelled in the prospect of dragging the scion of the hated house of Fuller to the gallows, and extinguishing the race for evermore. For Piggy Morris, to do him justice, never doubted for a moment that Philip Fuller was guilty of