Even for the sake of his
sick wife, the brave farmer could not refrain from uttering groans
of anguish which brought the poor woman with faltering steps into
his presence. After one glance at the awful scene she sank, half
fainting, on a settee near the door.
When the desire for plunder got the better of their fiendish
cruelty, one of the gang threw a noosed rope over Mr. Reynolds's
head, and then they hanged him to the trammel or iron hook in the
great chimney.
"You can't smoke us out this time," they shouted. "You've now got
to settle with the avengers of Claudius Smith; and you and some
others will find us ugly customers to settle with."
They then rushed off to rob the house, for the farmer was reputed
to have not a little money in his strong box. The moment they were
gone Phebe seized a knife and cut her father down. Terror and
excitement gave her almost supernatural strength, and with the aid
of the boy in her father's service she got the poor man on a bed
which he had occupied during his wife's illness. Her reviving
mother was beginning to direct her movements when the ruffians
again entered; and furious with rage, they again seized and hanged
her father, while one, more brutal than the others, whipped the
poor child with a heavy rope until he thought she was disabled.
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