The old woman put down her knife and fork. "That's witch-work," she said. "First, the butter wouldn't come, then I lost that piece of candle; un it's tee-totally gone too. Now rats don't never git up onto that shelf. Then I see a flicker of light in the loft while I was puttin' away the butter, an' you 'n' Zeke a-settin' h-yer by the fire. Then I wuz waked up by that scritch-scratchin' soun' in the chimbley, fer all the world like somebody a-climbin' down into the room, though they wa'n't nobody clum down, fer I listened. It kep' Zeke awake all night an roused 'im out airly this mornin'. Th' ain't nothin' short of witch-work gits Zeke up an' sets him to choppin' wood 'thout callin'. An' it's been a-ridin' ole Gray. Maybe the ghost of that feller that wuz shot over 't the camp-meetin' 's a-ha'ntin' roun' the country, like. I don' b'lieve it'll ever be quiet tell the feller that shot 'im's hung." The old man was very taciturn, and Zeke could not divine whether he was impressed by his wife's mysterious "it," or whether, suspecting the truth about old Gray, he thought best to say nothing. For if anything should set Mrs. Britton going she would not stop scolding for days, and Britton knew well that Zeke would not be the chief sufferer in such a tempest. As soon as he had eaten his breakfast Zeke went out to dig early potatoes in Britton's farther field. About 9 o'clock a clod of earth came flying past his legs and broke upon his hoe. He turned to look, and saw another one thrown from the corn-field near by ascending in a hyperbolic curve and then coming down so near to his head that he moved out of the way. He laid down his hoe and climbed the fence into the corn-field, which at this time of the year was a dense forest of green stalks higher than a man's head. Bob McCord was here awaiting Zeke. He had left Lazar Brown's horse tied in a neighboring papaw patch. "Did you go to Perrysburg?" began Bob. "Yes," said Zeke. "You played it onto 'em good. I wuz ruther more 'n half fooled myself. I 'lowed sometimes ut maybe S'manthy _had_ come it over you." Bob laughed all through his large frame. "When we got to Perrysburg un come to wake up the shurruff he wuz skeered, un ast what 't wuz we wuz arter. "'That murderer,' says Jake Hogan, like a ghos' fum behin' his false-face. "'What murderer?' says the shurruff. 'They hain't no murderer in the jail.' "'They hain't, sonny?' says Jake, weth _sech_ a swing. 'You ketch us with yer dodrotted foolin',' says he; 'we hain't the kind to be fooled. We know what we're about afore we begin, we do. We hain't the sort to be tuck in by lawyers nur nobody else,' says he. "'I tell you they hain't no murderer h-yer,' says the shurruff, says he. "'Tie 's han's, boys,' says Jake, in Jake's way, yeh know, like as if he wuz king uv all creation." "Weth Eelenoys throwed in like a spool uv thread, to make the bargain good," suggested Bob, losing all prudence and giving way to a long, unrestrained peal of laughter.