the listener's interest was flagging--nay he half fancied that much that
he had been saying, and in his best style, had fallen upon drowsy
senses. Nobody likes to have his best things thrown away, and, as the
reader will readily conceive, our friend Forrester had a sneaking
consciousness that all the world's eloquence did not cease on the day
when Demosthenes died. But he was not the person to be offended because
the patient desired to sleep. Far from it. He was only reasonable enough
to suppose that this was the properest thing that the wounded man could
do. And so he told him; and adjusting carefully the pillows of the
youth, and disposing the bedclothes comfortably, and promising to see
him again before he slept, our woodman bade him good night, and
descended to the great hall of the tavern, where Jared Bunce was held in
durance.

The luckless pedler was, in truth, in a situation in which, for the
first time in his life, he coveted nothing. The peril was one, also,
from which, thus far, his mother-wit, which seldom failed before, could
suggest no means of evasion or escape. His prospect was a dreary one;
though with the wonderful capacity for endurance, and the surprising
cheerfulness, common to the class to which he belonged, he beheld it
without dismay though with many apprehensions.

Justice he did not expect, nor, indeed, as Forrester has already told
us, did he desire it. He asked for nothing less than justice. He was
dragged before judges, all of whom had complaints to prefer, and
injuries to redress; and none of whom were over-scrupulous as to the
nature or measure of that punishment which was to procure them the
desired atonement. The company was not so numerous as noisy. It
consisted of some twenty persons, villagers as well as small farmers in
the neighborhood, all of whom, having partaken _ad libitum_ of the