make a new and more bitter vow of retaliation in some form.

One day, Rover and a large dog belonging to Skivers got into a fight
about something. Dick's interest in his dog brought him at once to the
scene of action. His master, seeing this, ordered him, in a harsh, angry
tone, to clear out and mind his own business. As he did so, he took a
large club, and commenced beating Rover in a most cruel manner. Dick
could not stand this. His blood was up to fever heat in an instant.
Seizing a long, heavy pole, used for turning and adjusting hides in the
vats, he sprang towards Skivers, and giving it a rapid sweep, brought it
with tremendous force against his head, knocking him into a vat
half-full of a strong infusion of astringent bark, to the bottom of
which he instantly sank.

So incensed did the lad feel, that he made not the slightest attempt to
extricate his master from a situation in which death must have
inevitably ensued in a few minutes, but walked away to another part of
the yard. Two or three journeymen, however, who witnessed the whole
affair, were on the spot in a moment, and took out the body of Skivers.
He was completely insensible. There was the bloody mark of a large wound
on his head. A physician was immediately called, who bled him profusely.
This brought him back to consciousness. In a day or two he was out
again, and apparently as well as ever. In the mean time, both Dick and
his inseparable companion, Rover, had disappeared, and gone no one knew
whither. No effort was made to discover the place to which the boy had
fled, as every one was too much rejoiced that he had left the village,
to care about getting him back. About twelve months after, his mother
died--her gray hairs brought down to the grave in sorrow. Year after
year then passed away, and the memory of the lad was gradually effaced
from the minds of all, or retained only among the dim recollections of
the past.

Mr. Acres, who had first placed temptation in the way of Dick Lawson,
continued to prosper in all external things, and to hold his position of
influence and respectability in the neighbourhood. He, perhaps, more
than others, thought about the lad in whom he had once felt a good deal
of pride and interest, as exhibiting a fair promise for the future. But
he never felt exactly easy in mind when he did think of him. Something
whispered that, perhaps, he had been to blame in encouraging his wild
habits. But, then, how could he have dream