The sun had dropped below the western horizon when the aforesaid bare-footed boy might have been seen making his way eastward to the home of farmer Fuller, bearing the following note: 48 to 1001. Dud has cooked the goose. The feathers are left—they are good for Fennland, and the parson needs a text for to-morrow. The loft is good—the cellar better. LEZA. As a result of this note, when darkness had settled down upon the earth, when candles were extinguished alike in farm house and village home, the old-fashioned buggy of Samuel Fuller stood before the little Hartford shop, and Dud, the Caucassian, surrendered his seat to an African of deepest sable, and soon the vehicle was speeding rapidly northward. III. Night, sable goddess, had let her curtains down not only upon a day, but upon a week of toil, for the “Cotter’s Saturday Night” had come to all alike, and the good people of Gustavus, Ohio, had been several hours in the Land of Nod; the dome on the old academy and the spires of the village churches were already casting moonlight shadows eastward, and good old Parson Fenn was dreaming of “Seventeenthly” in to-morrow’s sermon, when there came three distinct raps upon his back door. Such signals were in no wise unusual to him, and he immediately responded to the call, only to find there a friend from fifteen miles away, and beside him a dusky figure crouching and trembling as if fearful of the moonbeams themselves. “There’s no time to be lost, Parson,” said he from without. “The hounds are on the track of this game. It has only been by the most indefatigable energy that he has been kept from their grasp from the Ohio to near here. Even now they are abreast of us, only lured across the Pennsylvania line.” “He can be gotten no farther to-night,” said the Parson musingly, “and all we can do is to put him in hold and keep him till the day goes by. You know the rest.” There was no word of reply, but a figure gliding silently into the street, a vehicle, with muffled wheels, was headed southward and driven rapidly away. The parson having partially dressed himself, took a jug of water from the well, a loaf of bread and a large slice of meat from the pantry and beckoning the silent figure to follow him, proceeded to a building on the northwest corner of the square, on the front of which appeared the name, “George Hezlip.” Passing to the rear, he pushed aside a door. Both having entered, the door was closed, a light struck and the strange figure was soon reposing in one of several hogsheads carelessly stowed away there, whilst good Benjamin Fenn returned to his bed only to ponder on that mysterious providence which had predestined him to this materialistic work of salvation.