The ultimate decision of the court was to the effect that the suffering weavers were to be relieved from the necessity of working for their bread; that they should be permitted to remain a burden on the community; that they should be kept within doors and tended as cripples, and that surgeons should visit them and bandage their legs and arms. These changes met with universal approval. The more humane members of the tribe, who had shuddered at the former barbarities, were convinced that the millennium had arrived, while the sufferers themselves accepted their fate willingly enough. For though it was dull work to be kept indoors with bandaged limbs, it was infinitely preferable to the hatred and scorn of those around them, to say nothing of a violent and painful death; and though many of them at first wished to use their limbs and to take exercise in the open air on the days when there was no glare to hurt their weak eyes, inactivity was less irksome than constant and futile efforts to fulfil their tasks. So, at first, every one was contented with the new decisions. True, all the sufferers died sooner or later in a crippled condition, after a more or less miserable and monotonous existence; but this unhappy result was regarded as inevitable, and no further cure was sought for. Even the invalids themselves came to attribute their bodily helplessness to their original complaint, and not to the total disuse and tight bandaging prescribed by the court. Years went by, and brought no relief either to the disabled weavers or to those who maintained them. On the contrary, the disease continued to increase with frightful rapidity. All classes of the community--which had, for the most part, abandoned its outdoor pursuits--were attacked in turn. Further investigations were made as to the cause of the calamity; a third meeting was convened, and definite conclusions were arrived at. These, in some respects, showed more knowledge than the conclusions of the second meeting. At the same time they showed less humanity. It seemed as though the pendulum of human feeling had swung violently in the direction of intolerance, then in the direction of tolerance, returning once more, not quite to its former position, but to one far beyond the mean of wisdom and moderation. Possibly the pendulum, in its oscillations, would repeatedly pass and repass this mean point, till its range should grow more and more limited, and it should at length find repose.