"You young scoundrel! is this one of your tricks?" said the constable, as he came up; "I'll teach you one of mine;" and he struck him a blow on the side of the head, that knocked the poor boy senseless on the pavement.
Those who stood by cried, "Shame! shame!" and the officer glared furiously around him; but, seeing that the numbers were against him, he raised the boy from the ground. Rodney soon recovered; and the constable, grasping him firmly by the wrist of his coat, and, drawing his arm tightly under his own, led him, followed by a crowd of hooting boys, up Fifth, and through Arch-street, toward the old jail.
What a walk was that to poor Rodney! The officer, stern and angry, held him with so firm a grip as to convince him of the uselessness of a second attempt.
Fatigued, and nearly fainting as he was from the race and the blow, he was compelled almost to run, to keep up with the long strides of the constable. A crowd of boys pressed around, to get a glimpse of his face.
"What has he done?" one would ask of another.
"Broke open a trunk, and stole money," would be the reply.
Rodney pulled Bill Seegor's old hat over his face, and hung his head, in bitter anguish of soul, as he heard himself denounced as a thief at every step; and as he heard doors dashed open, and windows thrown up, similar questions and replies smote his heart. He knew that he was innocent of such a crime; his soul scorned it; he felt that he was incapable of theft; but he felt that he had been too guilty, too disobedient and too ungrateful, to dare to hold up his head, or utter a word in his own defence. It seemed as though that long and terrible walk with the constable would never end, and he felt relieved when he reached the heavy door of the jail, amid two files of staring boys, who had ran before him, and arranged themselves by the gate, to watch him as he entered. He was rudely thrust in, the bolt shot back upon the closed door, and he was delivered over to the keeping of the jailer, with the assurance of the policeman, that "he was a sharp miscreant, and needed to be watched."