When James Done was five years old the only murder that had been
committed in Chisley district within the memory of the oldest inhabitant
was done by a member of little Jim's family. The murderer was tried,
found guilty, and sentenced accordingly.

The murder had a romantic plot and melodramatic tableaux, and was
incorporated in the history of Chisley--in fact, it was the history of
Chisley.

The murderer passed out, but his family remained, and upon them fell the
horror of his deed, the disgrace of his punishment. They became creatures
apart. With all Chisley understood of the terror in those dread words,
'Thou shalt not kill,' it invested the unhappy family, and they bowed as
if to the will of God.

Jim's mother, a thin, sensitive woman, with a patient face, put on a
black veil, and was never afterwards seen abroad without it. She helped
her boy a few weary miles along the road of life, and then one evening
went quietly to her room and died. Jim's sister, ten years older than
himself, took up the struggle where the mother dropped it, and sustained
it until the boy could go into the fields and earn a mean living for
himself, at which point she drowned herself, leaving a quaint note in
which she stated that life was too dreadful, but she hoped 'God and Jimmy
would forgive her--especially Jimmy.'

At this stage Chisley might have forgiven Jimmy, and condescended to
forget, and even indulge itself in some sentimental compassion for the
poor orphan, had the boy shown any disposition to accept these advances
kindly and with proper gratitude; but for years Jim had been reasoning
things out in a direct, childish way, and in his loneliness he was filled