An owl began to hoot in the bosky recesses far up the slope. At the sound, carrying far in the twilight stillness, a hound bayed from the door of the little cabin in the Cove, by the river. A light, stellular in the gloom that hung about the lower levels, suddenly sprung up in the window. A tremulous elongated reflection shimmered in the shallows close under the bank where the juggler had been lying. Was he there yet? Sims wondered, quivering with the excitement of the moment. His anxiety was not quelled, but a great relief came upon him when Peter Knowles echoed his own thought, which seemed thus the natural sequence of the event, and not some far-fetched fantasy. “That thar man hev killed somebody, ez sure ez ye live!” exclaimed Peter Knowles. “‘But the one who lives!’ An’ who is the one who died?” “Jes’ so, jes’ so,” interpolated Sims, reassured to see his own mental process so definitely duplicated in the thoughts of a man held to be of experienced and just judgment, and much regarded in the community. “He be a-runnin’ from jestice,” resumed Knowles. “He ain’t no juggler, ez he calls hisself.” There was a general protest. “Shucks, Pete, ye oughter seen him swaller a bay’net.” “An’ Mis’ Sims tole him she’d resk her shears on it, she jes’ felt so reckless an’ plumb kerried away. An’ he swallered them, too, an’ then tuk ’em out’n his throat, sharp ez ever.” “An’ he swallered a paper o’ needles an’ a spool o’ thread, an’ brung ’em out’n his mouth all threaded.” There was a delighted laugh rippling round the circle. “Look-a-hyar, my frien’s,” remonstrated Peter Knowles in a solemn, sepulchral voice, “I never viewed none o’ these doin’s, but ye air all ’bleeged ter know ez they air on-possible, the devices o’ the devil. An’ hyar ye be, perfessin’ Christians, a-laffin’ at them wiles ez air laid ter delude the onwary.” There was a general effort to recover a sobriety of demeanor, and one of the men then observed gravely that on the occasion when these wonders were exhibited Parson Benias Greenought taxed the performer with this supposition. “Waal,” remarked Ormsby, “ye air ’bleeged ter hev tuk notice, ef ye war thar las’ night, ez old Benias never moved toe or toe-nail till arter all the jinks war most over. He seen nigh all thar war ter see ’fore he ’lowed how the sinners war enj’yin’ tharse’fs, an’ called up the devil ter len’ a han’.” “What the man say?” demanded Peter Knowles. “He ’peared cornsider’ble set back a-fust, an’ then he tried ter laff it off,” replied Gideon Beck. “He ’lowed he could l’arn sech things ter folks ez he had l’arnt ’em, too.” “Now tell me one thing,” argued Peter Knowles; “how’s a man goin’ ter l’arn a pusson ter put a persimmon seed in a pail o’ yearth, an’ lay a cloth over it, an’ sing some foolishness, an’ take off’n the cloth, an’ thar’s a persimmon shoot with a root ez long ez my han’ a-growin’ in that yearth?” There were sundry gravely shaken heads.