Two things lay heavy on Zeke Tucker's mind as he hastened toward Britton's. For the life of him he could not tell whether Perrysburg was the destination to which Bob wished to send Jake, or whether Jake might not be right in supposing that Bob had incautiously betrayed his own secret. But this was Bob's affair; what troubled him most was to devise a way by which he could get possession of a piece of candle. Mrs. Britton would not allow a hired man to have a light. "Any man that could n' feel 'is way into bed mus' be simple," she said. Zeke found the old people out of bed later than usual. Mrs. Britton had been churning, and the butter "took a con_tra_ry streak," as she expressed it, and refused to come until she and the old man had churned alternately for two hours. She was working the butter when Zeke came in and sat down. Watching his chance, he managed to snatch a tiny bit of candle-end that had been carefully laid up on the mantel-piece. But when Mrs. Britton's lighted candle flickered in its socket, she went to get the piece that was already in Zeke's pocket. "I declare to goodness," she said, as she fumbled among the bits of string and other trumpery on the shelf, "where's that piece of candle gone to? Do you know, Cyrus?" [Illustration: "WHERE'S THAT PIECE OF CANDLE GONE TO?"] This question was addressed to her husband, who never did know where anything she wanted "had gone to." But she always gave vent to her feelings by asking him, and he always answered, as he did now, with an impassive "No." "Zeke, d' you see that short piece of candle that was here on the shelf?" Zeke rose and affected to look for it. "I don't see nothin' uv it," he said at length. "Well, if the rats ain't a-gittin' no better fast. Who'd a' believed they'd 'a' got up on the shelf?" So saying, she reluctantly lighted a fresh candle to take her butter to the spring. By the time she was well out of the back door, Zeke, with one eye on the lethargic Britton, who was now a-doze in his chair, raked a hot coal from the ashes, and blowing it to a flame lighted his bit of candle with it. Then he quickly climbed to the loft, and opening the window-shutter put the candle in the glassless window on the side of the chimney toward Perrysburg. He was shivering for fear the old woman would see the light, though she was at the other end of the house, and he was yet more afraid that Bob would not see it before it should burn out. Hearing, at length, the crack of Bob's rifle, he extinguished the expiring wick and slipped down the ladder without arousing the slumbering old man. "I expect they's another man shot," said Mrs. Britton, when she came back. If she had ever been a planter's wife her pronunciation had probably degenerated, though her archaic speech was perhaps a shade better than the "low down" language of Broad Run. "Why?" asked Zeke.