n ready, and our own Civil War General Ulysses
Grant. Of that ever memorable session but three days remained, and
those who had been prepared to rise in the good cause had long since
despaired. The Pingsquit bill, and all other bills that spelled liberty,
were still prisoners in the hands of grim jailers, and Thomas Gaylord,
the elder, had worn several holes in the carpet of his private room in
the Pelican, and could often be descried from Main Street running up
and down between the windows like a caged lion, while young Tom had been
spied standing, with his hands in his pockets, smiling on the world.

Young Tom had his own way of doing things, though he little dreamed of
the help Heaven was to send him in this matter. There was, in the lower
House, a young man by the name of Harper, a lawyer from Brighton, who
was sufficiently eccentric not to carry a pass. The light of fame, as
the sunset gilds a weathercock on a steeple, sometimes touches such
men for an instant and makes them immortal. The name of Mr. Harper is
remembered, because it is linked with a greater one. But Mr. Harper was
the first man over the wall.

History chooses odd moments for her entrances. It was at the end of
one of those busy afternoon sessions, with a full house, when Messrs.
Bascom, Botcher, and Ridout had done enough of blocking and hacking and
hewing to satisfy those doughty defenders of the bridge, that a slight,
unprepossessing-looking young man with spectacles arose to make a
motion. The Honourable Jacob Botcher, with his books and papers under
his arm, was already picking his way up the aisle, nodding genially to
such of the faithful as he saw; Mr. Bascom was at the Speaker's desk,
and Mr. Ridout receiving a messenger from the Honourable Hilary at the
door. The Speaker, not without some difficulty, recognized Mr. Harper
amidst what seemed the beginning of an exodus--and Mr. Harper read his
motion.

Men halted in the aisles, and nudged other men to make them stop
talking. Mr. Harper's voice was not loud, and it shook a trifle with
excitement, but those who heard passed on the news so swiftly to those
who had not that the House was sitting (or standing) in amazed silence
by the time the motion reached the Speaker, who had actually risen to
receive it. Mr. Doby regarded it for a few seconds and raised his eyes
mournfully to Mr. Harper himself, as much as to say that he would give
the young man a chance to take it back if he could--if the w