to settle on Sparks; but yet his poverty and known integrity seemed to give them the lie.  The story of the iron chest, which the merchant had hitherto been ashamed, and Amos too forgiving, to tell—­for the latter did not care to set the town laughing at the man who had wronged him—­now began to be told.  The merchant, influenced by a vindictive spirit, had whispered it to the directors of the bank, with sundry shrugs and innuendoes; and of course it soon spread far and wide, with all sorts of exaggerated variations and additions.  Amos thought for several days that some of his neighbours looked and acted rather oddly, and he missed one or two who used to drop in and chat almost every afternoon; but not suspecting for a moment that there was any cause for altered behaviour, these matters made but a slight impression on his mind.  In all such cases, the person most interested is the last to hear disagreeable news; and the first hint that the locksmith got of the universal suspicion was from the officer of the police, who came with a party of constables to search his premises.  Astonishment and grief were the portion of Amos and his family for that day.

‘Cheer up, my darlings,’ said Amos, who was the first to recover the sobriety of thought that usually characterised him—­’cheer up—­all will yet he well; it is impossible that the unjust suspicion can long hover about us.  A life of honesty and fair-dealing will not be without its reward.  The real authors of this outrage will probably be discovered soon, for a fraud so extensive will make all parties vigilant; and if not, why, then, when our neighbours see us toiling at our usual occupations, with no evidences of secret wealth or lavish expenditure on our persons or at our board, and remember how many years we have been so occupied and so attired, without a suspicion of wrong-doing even in small matters attached to us, there will be good-sense and good-feeling enough in the city to do us justice.’

There was sound sense and much consolation in this reasoning:  the obvious probabilities of the case were in favour of the fulfilment of the locksmith’s expectations.  But a scene of trial and excitement—­of prolonged agony and hope deferred—­lay before him, the extent of which it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for him then to have foreseen.  Toiled in the search, the directors of the bank sent one of their body to negotiate with Amos—­to offer him a large sum of money, and a guarantee from further molestation, if he would confess, restore the property, and give up his accomplices, if any there were.  It was in vain that he protested his innocence, and avowed his abhorrence of the crime.  The banker rallied him on his assumed composure, and threatened him with consequences; until the locksmith, who had been unaccustomed to dialogues founded on the presumption that he was a villain, ordered his tormentor out of his shop, with the spirit of a man who, though poor, was resolved to preserve his self-respect, and protect the sanctity of his dwelling from impertinent and insulting intrusion.