“It has come at last, then! I knew it was coming. I have felt it for months; waking and sleeping, I have felt it. In my dreams I have seen blood in the skies, and heard sounds of battle in the air and earth. Dreams of themselves, I know, are generally without sign or significance; but when the spirit of a dream remains on the mind through the waking hours, as it has on mine, I know it has a meaning. Something has been hurrying me to be ready for the great event. I could not help coming here to-night. I cannot help being here to-morrow. The event and the time are at hand! I see it now--resistance, and battle, and blood! Let it come! the victims are ready; and their blood, poured out on the wood on the altar of liberty, will bring down fire from heaven to consume the oppressors!” There was a short silence among the company, who seemed to pause, in surprise and awe at the strange words and manner of the young man, which evidently made an impression on his hearers at the time, and which were afterwards remembered, and often repeated, at the fireside, in recounting his untimely fate. “Mr. Fletcher,” at length observed the chairman, breaking the silence--“Mr. Fletcher, of Newfane, is next entitled to speak, I believe.” “I rose, Mr. Chairnan,” said the latter, a fine specimen of the hardy, resolute, and intelligent yeoman of the times--“I rose but to ask whether the news just received can be relied on: can it be, that Judge Chandler, after his pledge to us at Chester, would be guilty of conduct reflecting so deeply on his character as a man?” “I am not wholly unprepared to believe the story myself,” replied the chairman; “our young friend here may have his peculiarities; but I consider him a thousand times more honest and honorable, than some of those whose sly hints and treacherous conduct he has so well described.” “Ditter, look here, Mr. Moderator,” interposed Dunning. “I was once, ditter travelling, in the Bay State, with a friend, when we came across a meeting-house with eight sides, and my friend asked me what order of architecture I called it. Ditter well, I was fairly treed, and couldn't tell. But I should be able to tell now. I should ditter call it the Chandler order.” A desultory but animated debate now arose. Various methods of accomplishing what appeared to be the settled determination of all--that of preventing the sitting of the court--were suggested. Some proposed to dismantle or tear down the Court House; others were for arming the people, seizing the building, and bidding open defiance to their opponents. At this stage of the deliberations, Colonel Carpenter, whose character had secured him great influence, rose, and requested to be heard.