Into the dusky red darkness of the room below--for the glow of the embers could hardly be reckoned as light--a feeble white glimmer was stealing. Mrs. Larrabee, without her sunbonnet for once, had hustled on her homespun dress, buttoned all awry, and was striking a light for a tallow dip. Perhaps its dim flicker revealed the young man standing high in the deep shadows on the stair that led to the roof-room, or perhaps she only distinguished his step in the midst of the clamor at the door, for she called out suddenly to him, "Open the door, Jack, open the door, sonny, no matter who it be! Every chile in the house will be a-swarmin' up d'rectly ef that thar bangin' be 'lowed ter go on, an' I reckon we'll _never_ git the baby inter bed agin!" The turkey was already awake and alert, its piercing pipe adding to the confusion and nervous stress of the situation, as Jack Espey, after one irresolute moment, strode to the door, and Mrs. Larrabee rose from her knees on the hearth and stood in the dusky brown background, shading with her hand the timorous flame of the candle. Perhaps it was well for Jack Espey that the bars went down with so resolute and hearty a clangor, for, as he confronted the men at the door, they did not doubt that they faced the son of the house. "Widder Lar'bee lives hyar?" said a keen, tall, dark-eyed man, with high cheek-bones and a hooked nose, above which his thick black eyebrows met. His soft black hat had a sort of peaked crown, and he wore a suit of plaided "store clothes," as befitted one having access to the towns, but which were much creased, and his boots were drawn, country fashion, over his trousers to the knees. "Air that enny reason ter bust the door down?" demanded Espey, looking at the stout battens as if expecting to discern injury as it swayed in his hand. Mrs. Larrabee interposed blandly, "I be Widder Lar'bee. 'Tain't no use ter talk loud. I got some mighty fractious chil'n hyar 'sleep." The fractious turkey stood upon the hearth and piped till the end of its tail quivered with the energy of its vocalization. A cricket was shrilling keenly. The trivial sounds seemed to throb in Espey's brain when the visitor said, "I be dep'ty sher'ff o' this county, Mis' Lar'bee, an' I hear ez thar war a stranger in the Cove a-puttin' up hyar." The two men behind the officer looked over his shoulder, their bearded faces sharply inquisitive. "Naw, sir, I ain't got no stranger hyar; not but whut I would take 'em in,--me an' my son hev made a rule o' that,--but we-uns bide too fur off'n the road." She did not account Espey a stranger, so accustomed a figure had he become in the domestic circle. There was a definite disappointment in the officer's keen, high-featured face. Mrs. Larrabee turned to Espey. "Ye ain't hearn o' enny stray man hyarabouts, hev ye, sonny?" "Thar be a stranger down at Tems's," said Espey; "though I reckon he ain't done nuthin' agin the law,--saaft-spoken an' perlite an' peaceable."