But I have sometimes thought that the pseudo-sportsmen were used to give Braddish a foolhardy sense of security, so that other secret-service men, less open in method and less comic in aspect, might work unobserved. Indeed, it turned out that an under-gardener employed by Mrs. Kirkbride, our neighbor, about this time, a shambling, peaceful, half-witted goat of a man, was one such; and a perfect red-Indian upon a trail. It was Mary who spotted him. He hung about our kitchen door a good deal; and tried to make friends with her and sympathize with her. But he showed himself a jot too eager, and then a jot too peppery when she did not fall into his nets. Mary told my father, and my father told Mrs. Kirkbride. Mrs. Kirkbride had had a very satisfactory job at painting done for her by Braddish; and although a law-abiding woman, she did not propose personally to assist the law--even by holding her tongue. So she approached the under-gardener, at a time when the head-gardener and the coachman were in hearing, and she said, plenty loud enough to be heard: "Well, officer, have you found a clew yet? Have you pumped my coachman? He was friends with Braddish," and so on, so that she destroyed that man's utility for that place and time. But others were more fortunate. And all of a sudden the country was convulsed with excitement at hearing that Braddish had been seen on the Bartow Road at night, and had been fired at, but had made good his escape into the Boole Dogge Farm. Bloodhounds were at once sent for. I remember that my father stayed up from town that thrilling morning, and walked up and down in front of the house looking up at the sky. I now know that he was conjuring it to rain with all his power of pity--prayer maybe--though I think, like most commuters, he was weak on prayer. Anyhow, rain it did. The sky had been overcast for two days, drawing slowly at the great beds of moisture in the northeast, and that morning, accompanied by high winds, the first drops fell and became presently a deluging northeaster, very cold for midsummer.