For a long time, if days may be long, Jehoshaphat Rudd lived in the fear of constables and jails, which were the law, to be commanded by the wealth of old John Wull; and for the self-same period—the days being longer because of the impatience of hate—old John Wull lived in expectation of his revenge. Jehoshaphat Rudd lowed he’d stand by, anyhow, an’ _go_ t’ jail, if ’twas needful t’ maintain the rights o’ man. Ay, _he’d_ go t’ jail, an’ be whipped an’ starved, as the imagination promised, but he’d be jiggered if he’d “_’pologize_.” Old John Wull kept grim watch upon the winds; for upon the way the wind blew depended the movement of the ice, and the clearing of the sea, and the first voyage of the mail-boat. He was glad that he had been robbed; so glad that he rubbed his lean, transparent hands until the flush of life appeared to surprise him; so glad that he chuckled until his housekeeper feared his false teeth would by some dreadful mischance vanish within him. Jail? ay, he’d put Jehoshaphat Rudd in jail; but he would forgive the others, that they might continue to fish and to consume food. In jail, ecod! t’ be fed on bread an’ water, t’ be locked up, t’ wear stripes, t’ make brooms, t’ lie there so long that the last little Rudd would find its own father a stranger when ’twas all over with. ’Twould be fair warning t’ the malcontent o’ the folk; they would bide quiet hereafter. All the people would toil and trade; they would complain no more. John Wull was glad that the imprudence of Jehoshaphat Rudd had provided him with power to restore the ancient peace to Satan’s Trap. * * * * * One day in the spring, when the bergs and great floes of the open had been blown to sea, and the snow was gone from the slopes of the hills, and the sun was out, and the earth was warm and yellow and merrily dripping, old John Wull attempted a passage of the harbor by the ice, which there had lingered, confined. It was only to cross the narrows from Haul-Away Head to Daddy Tool’s Point, no more than a stone’s throw for a stout lad. The ice had been broken into pans by a stiff breeze from the west, and was then moving with the wind, close-packed, bound out to sea, there to be dispersed and dissolved. It ran sluggishly through the narrows, scraping the rocks of the head and of the point; the heave of the sea slipped underneath and billowed the way, and the outermost pans of ice broke from the press and went off with the waves. But the feet of old John Wull were practised; he essayed the crossing without concern—indeed, with an absent mind. Presently he stopped to rest; and he stared out to sea, musing; and when again he looked about, the sea had softly torn the pan from the pack. Old John Wull was adrift, and bound out. “Ahoy, you, Jehoshaphat!” he shouted. “Jehoshaphat! Oh, Jehoshaphat!” Jehoshaphat came to the door of his cottage on Daddy Tool’s Point.