These were tidings of great joy to the weary
wayfarers beneath the sycamore; their resolution to return to their
native city was formed at once, and before a week had passed, they
were slowly journeying to the capital of the State.
Meanwhile, an extraordinary revulsion of feeling had taken place at
Philadelphia. Newspapers and other periodicals which had formerly
been loud in condemnation of the locksmith, now blazoned abroad the
robber's confession--wondered how any man could have been for a
moment suspected upon such evidence as was adduced on the
trial--drew pictures of the domestic felicity once enjoyed by the
Sparkses, and then painted--partly from what was known of the
reality, and partly from imagination--their sufferings, privations,
and wrongs in the pilgrimage they had performed in fleeing from an
unjust but damnatory accusation. The whole city rang with the story.
Old friends and neighbours, who had been the first to shun them, now
became the loud and vehement partisans of the family.
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