"They can kill your wife and break down your children," said Mr. Eldridge. "Women and children can't stand it. Now there's that man they were speaking of; he lived down my way. He sued a poor, shiftless fellow that had come from Pennsylvania to his daughter's funeral, and had him arrested and taken off, crying, just before the funeral begun--after they'd even set the flowers on the coffin; and nobody'd speak to him after that--they just let him alone; and after a while his wife took sick of it--she was a nice, kindly woman--and she had sort of hysterics, and, finally, he moved off West. And 'twasn't long before the woman died. Now, you can't undertake to do different from everybody else." "Well," said Eli; "I know I wish it was done with." Mr. Eldridge stretched his arms and yawned. Then he began to walk up and down, and hum, out of tune. Then he stopped at Captain Thomas's chair. "Suppose we try a ballot," he said. "He seems to give a little." In a moment the foreman rapped. "It is time we were taking another ballot, gentlemen," he said. The sleepers rose, grumbling, from uneasy dreams. "I will write 'guilty' on twelve ballots," said the foreman, "and if any one desires to write in 'not,' of course he can." When the hat came to Eli, he took one of the ballots and held it in his hand a moment; and then he laid it on the table. There was a general murmur. The picture which Mr. Eldridge had drawn loomed up before him. But with a hasty hand he wrote in "not," dropped in the ballot, and going back to his chair by the window, sat down. There was a cold wave of silence. Then Eli suddenly walked up to the foreman and faced him. "Now," he said, "we'll stop. The very next turn breaks ground. If you, or any other man that you set on, tries to talk to me when I don't want to hear, to worry me to death--look out!" How the long hours wore on! How easy, sometimes, to resist an open pressure, and how hard, with the resistance gone, to fight, as one that beats the air! How the prospect of a whole hostile town loomed up, in a mirage, before Eli! And then the picture rose before him of a long, stately bark, now building, whose owner had asked him yesterday to be first mate. And if his wife were only well, and he were only free from this night's trouble, how soon, upon the long, green waves, he could begin to redeem his little home! And then came Mr. Eldridge, kind and friendly, to have another little chat. * * * * * Morning came, cold and drizzly. An officer knocked at the door, and called out, "Breakfast." And, in a moment, unwashed, and all uncombed, except the tin-peddler, who always carried a beard-comb in his pocket, they were marched across the street to the hotel. There were a number of men on the piazza waiting to see them--jurymen, witnesses, and the accused himself, for he was on bail. He had seen the procession the night before, and, like the others, had read its meaning.