and in bed, when I saw a tall old man, dressed like a country
shopkeeper, shown into the back parlor, where my father was sitting.
There was a bit of the window open, and I could hear that high words
were passing between them, and, as I thought, my father getting the
worst of it; for the old fellow kept repeating, 'You 'll rue it, Mister
Kellett,--you 'll rue it yet!' And then my father said, 'Give him a good
horsewhipping, Dunn; take my advice, and you 'll spare yourself some
sorrow, and save him from even worse hereafter.' I 'll never forget the
old fellow's face as he turned to leave the room. 'Davy will live to pay
you off for this,' said he; 'and if _you 're_ not to the fore, it will
be your children, or your children's children, will have to 'quit the
debt!'

"We never saw Davy from that hour; indeed, we were strictly forbidden
ever to utter his name; and it was only when alone together, that Matty
and I would venture to talk of him, and cry over--and many a time we
did--the happy days when we had him for our playfellow. There was a
species of martyrdom now, too, in his fate, that endeared him the more
to our memories; every play he had invented, every spot he was fond of,
every toy he liked, were hallowed to our minds like relics. At last poor
Matty and I could bear it no longer, and we sat down and wrote a long
letter to Davy, assuring him of our fullest confidence in his honor,
and our broken-heartedness at separation from him. We inveighed
stoutly against parental tyranny, and declared ourselves ready for open
rebellion, if he, that was never deficient in a device, could only point
out the road. We bribed a stable-boy, with all our conjoined resources
of pocket-money, to convey the epistle, and it came back next morning
to my father, enclosed in one from Davy himself, stating that he could
never countenance acts of disobedience, or be any party to a system
by which children should deceive their parents. I was sent off to a
boarding-school the same week, and poor Matty committed to the charge of
Miss Morse, a vinegar-faced old maid, that poisoned the eight best years
of her life!"

"And when did you next hear of him?"

"Of Davy? Let me see; the next time I heard of him was when he attempted
to enter college as a sizar, and failed. Somebody or other mentioned
it at Kellett's Court, and said that old Dunn was half out of his mind,
insisting that some injustice was dealt out to his son, and vowing he 'd
get th