sparks into the dark air. The black wall of the
cabin had given way to the heat, and through its wide fissure I could
see the interior, now one mass of undistinguishable ruin: nothing
remained, save the charred and blackened walls.

I sat gazing at this sad sight like one entranced. Sometimes it seemed
to me as a terrible dream; and then the truth would break upon me with
fearful force, and my heart felt as though it would burst far beyond my
bosom. The last flickering flame died away, the hissing sounds of
the fire were stilled, and the dark walls stood out against the bleak
background in all their horrible deformity, as I rose and entered
the cabin. I stood within the little room where I had slept the night
before, and looked out into the kitchen, around whose happy hearth
the merry voices were so lately heard. I brought them up before me, in
imagination, as they sat there. One by one I marked their places in my
mind, and thought of the kindness of their welcome to me, and the words
of comfort and encouragement they spoke' The hearth was now cold
and black; the pale stars looked down between the walls, and a chill
moonlight flickered through the gloomy ruin. My heart had no room for
sorrow; but another feeling found a place within it: a savage thirst for
vengeance,--vengeance upon those who had desecrated a peaceful home, and
brought blood and death among its inmates! Here was the very realization
before my eyes of what M'Keown had been telling me; here the horrible
picture he had drawn of tyranny and outrage. In the humble cottagers I
saw but simpleminded peasants, who had opened their doors to some poor
unfriended outcast,--one who, like myself, had neither house nor home.
I saw them offering their hospitality to him who sought it, freely and
openly; and at last adventuring all they possessed in the world, rather
than betray him,--and their reward was this! Oh, how my heart revolted
at such oppression! how my spirit fired at such indignity! I thought a
life passed in opposition to such tyranny were too short a vengeance;
and I knelt me down beside that blackened hearth, and swore myself its
enemy to the death.

CHAPTER VI. MY EDUCATION.

As I thought over the various incidents the last few days of my life had
presented, I began to wonder with myself whether the world always went
on thus, and if the same scenes of misery and woe I had witnessed were
in the ordinary course of nature. The work of years seemed to