lk
with the constable would never end, and he felt relieved when he
reached the heavy door of the jail, amid two files of staring
boys, who had ran before him, and arranged themselves by the
gate, to watch him as he entered. He was rudely thrust in, the
bolt shot back upon the closed door, and he was delivered over
to the keeping of the jailer, with the assurance of the
policeman, that "he was a sharp miscreant, and needed to be
watched."

CHAPTER VIII.

RODNEY IN JAIL.

Such are the rewards which sin gives to its votaries; full of
soft words and tempting promises in the beginning, they find, in
the end, that "it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an
adder." Thoughts like these passed through Rodney's mind, as the
jailer led him to a room in which were confined three other
lads, all older than himself. At that time, the system of
solitary confinement had not been adopted in Pennsylvania, and
prisoners were allowed to associate together; but it was deemed
best to keep the boys from associating with older and more
hardened culprits, whose conversation might still more corrupt
them, and they were therefore confined together, apart from the
mass of the criminals.

At first Rodney suffered the most intense anguish. A sense of
shame and degradation overwhelmed him. He staggered to a corner
of the room, threw himself on the floor, and, for a long time,
sobbed and wept as though his very heart would break. For a
while the boys seemed to respect his grief, and left him in
silence. At last one of them went to him, and said,

"Come, there's no use in this; we are all here together, and we
may as well make the best of it!"

Rodney sat up, and looked at them, as they gathered around him.

They were ragged in dress, and pale from their confinement, and
Rodney involuntarily shrank from the idea of associating with them,
regarding them as criminals in jail. But he soon remembered his own
position,--that he was now one of them,--and he thought he would
take their advice, and "make the best of it."

"Well, what did they squeeze you into this jug for, my covey?"
asked the eldest boy.

Rodney told them his story, and protested that he was innocent
of any crime.

The boy put his thumb to the end of his nose, and twirled his
fingers, saying, "You can't gammon us, my buck; come, out with
it, for we never _peach_ on one another."

Rodney was very angry at this mode of treating his story. But, in
spite of himsel