landed at the bottom of the stairs, he was utterly oblivious to all
distinctions between treason and loyalty. Tom was not killed, I need not
inform the ingenious reader, or this would otherwise have been the last
chapter of the story; but the poor fellow did not know whether he was dead
or alive.

In fact, he had not sense enough left to consider the question at all; for
there he lay, in the gloom of the traitor's dark cellar, silent and
motionless--a solemn warning to all our young readers of the folly and
wickedness of indulging an illegal and sinful curiosity. It may seem cruel
and inhuman in us to forsake poor Tom in this sad plight; but we must,
nevertheless, go up stairs, in order that the sufferer may be duly and
properly relieved in due and proper season.

When the committee of three, appointed by the indignant loyalists of
Pinchbrook, had completed their mission in the house of the squire, like
sensible men they proposed to leave; and they so expressed themselves,
through their spokesman, to the unwilling host. They put their hats on,
and moved into the front entry, whither they were followed by the
discomfited traitor. They had scarcely left the room before a tremendous
crash greeted the ears of that portion of the family which remained in the
apartment. This was the precise moment at which poor Tom Somers found
himself on the bottom of the cellar; or, to be entirely accurate, when he
lost himself on the bottom of the cellar.

Mrs. Pemberton heard the crash, and she very naturally concluded that the
hour of retribution had actually come; that the terrible mob had commenced
the work of destruction. To her "fear-amazed" mind it seemed as though the
whole side of the house had fallen in, and, for a moment, she confidently
expected the chimneys would presently go by the board, and the roof come