“Mis’ Purvine, she ’lowed ez she an’ you-uns hearn everybody sayin’ the rescuers tuk him out afore ye lef’ Shaftesville that mornin’. That war town talk. But ’twarn’t true. The jailer an’ the sher’ff tied an’ gagged him, an’ tuk him out tharse’fs in the midst o’ the dark, whenst nobody could see ’em. Makes me laff ter think how they fooled them boys! They jes’ busted up the jail so ez ’twarn’t safe ter try ter keep him thar no mo’, an’ the nex’ day the dep’ty an’ two gyards tuk him down ter the jail at Glaston,—an’ thar he’s safe enough.” Alethea’s first thought, charged with vague, causeless self-reproach, was that she had let Sam Marvin, who had seen Tad since the disaster at the mill, go in the belief that Mink had been released. But how could she have detained him? And would he, a moonshiner, suffer himself to be subpœnaed as a witness, and thus insure his own arrest? Her lips moved without a sound, as if she were suddenly bereft of the power to articulate. “Glaston, that’s a fac’,” reiterated Mrs. Jessup, noticing the demonstration, “’kase I see ’Lijah Miles, ez war one o’ the gyards. He kem up ter the cove ter the fun’el, bein’ ez his wife war kin ter the corpse. She war one o’ the Grinnells afore she war married,—not the Jer’miah fambly, but Abadiah’s darter; an’ Abadiah’s gran’mother war own cousin ter the corpse’s mother”— “I dunno ’bout’n that,” said Mrs. Sayles, following this genealogical detail with a knitted brow and a painstaking attention. “Corpse war ’bleeged ter hev hed a mother wunst, ef ever he war alive,” said Mrs. Jessup, recklessly. “I reckon I know _that_” retorted Mrs. Sayles. “But ’Lijah Miles’s wife’s father’s grandmother war the aunt o’ the corpse, stiddier his mother’s cousin,”—she tossed her head with a cheerful sense of accuracy,—“sure ez ye air a born sinner.” Mrs. Jessup paused in her recital, leaned her elbows on her knees, and fixed her eyes on the fire, as if following some abstruse calculation. The wind swept about the house and whistled down the chimney, till even Tige roused himself, and lifted his head to listen and to growl. “Waal, hev it so,” said the young woman, unable to contradict. “Howbeit he war kin ter the corpse, he kem ter the fun’el, an’ arterward, ez he war goin’ back ter Shaftesville, he stopped at Mis’ Purvine’s an’ stayed all night. An’ he tole us ’bout’n takin’ Mink ter jail in Glaston. An’ ’twar the fust Mis’ Purvine knowed ez Mink warn’t out. But she ’lowed she’d miss him less in jail ’n out.” “I reckon everybody feels that-a-way ’bout Mink,” interpolated Mrs. Sayles. “Folks never knowed what _could_ happen onexpected an’ upsettin’ till Mink’s capers l’arned ’em.” “Waal, none o’ his capers ever war like this las’ one o’ his’n,” said Mrs. Jessup, nodding seriously. “They tuk him ter Glaston, an’ ’Lijah Miles war one o’ the gyards. They tuk him on the steam-kyars.”