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et up here, you young robber!" The farmer jerked his prisoner roughly to his feet, and by this time Josh came up. The arrival of re-enforcements, and the ease with which he was handled, convinced Tom that further resistance was useless, and he began to beg lustily. "O, now, if you will let me go I'll never do it again," he pleaded. "O yes, we'll let you go," was the encouraging reply. "We'll lock you up till morning, and then take you over to the 'squire; that's what we'll do with you. Catch hold of him, Josh." His captor held fast to one arm, Josh took hold of the other, and Tom was marched off between them. Of course he pulled back, and tried hard to escape; but the stalwart young farmers walked him along without the least difficulty. When they reached the house, they pulled him up the steps that led to the porch, and opening a door, ushered him into the kitchen, where Tom found himself in the presence of the female portion of the farmer's family. "Here's one of the rogues, mother," exclaimed Josh. "Sit down, and let's have a good look at you." If Tom at that moment could have purchased his freedom by promising that he would give up his new idea, and leave the students in quiet possession of the Storm King, he would have done it, gladly. He sank into the chair Josh pointed out to him, and sat with his chin resting on his breast, and his eyes fastened on the floor, not daring to look up long enough to ascertain whether or not there was any one in the room with whom he was acquainted. He knew that half a dozen pairs of eyes were looking at him with curiosity; and he felt that if he had never before been utterly disgraced, he was now. No one spoke to him, and in a few minutes the silence became so oppressive that Tom would have welcomed a thunderstorm, or an earthquake. He twisted about in his chair, whirled his cap in his hand, and gazed steadily at a crack in the floor, until he was relieved by the noise of feet on the porch, which was followed by the entrance of the farmer, with the rest of the party who had been guarding the potato-patch. Then, for the first time, he mustered up courage enough to look around him. He noted two things--one was, that every person in the room was a stranger to him; and the other, that he had a companion in his misery, in the shape of his mate, who, unlike his superior officer, did not seem to be at all abashed at finding himself the center of so many eyes. He held his head up
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