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‘But with the prisoners, though many a time her heart melted for them, she was always very careful, and let it be known that she never smuggled tobacco or messages even for her best customers. After a while they got to understand this, and (though you may think it queer) liked her none the less. The agent, on his part, trusted her–and the turnkeys and the military officials–and didn’t respect her the less because she never told tales, though they knew she might have told many.

‘This went on, staid and regular, for close upon three years; and then, one fine October evening, my grandmother, after reaching home with her little cart, unharnessing and bedding up the donkey in his stable, walked out to the orchard, where my grandfather was looking over his cider apples, and says she to him,–

‘”William, I’ve a-done a dreadful deed.”

‘My grandfather took off his hat, and rubbed the top of his head. “Good Lord!” he says. “You don’t tell me!”

‘”I’ve helped a prisoner to escape,” says she.

‘”Then we’m lost and done for,” says my grandfather. “How did it come about?” And with that he waited a little, and said, “Damme, my dear, if any other person had brought me this tale I’d have tanned his skin.” For I must tell you my grandfather and grandmother doted on one another.

‘”I know you would,” said my grandmother, dismally. “And I can’t think how the temptation took me. But the poor creatur’ was little more’n a boy–and there were a-something in the eyes of him–” She meant to say there was a-something that reminded her of her own eldest, that she had lost a dozen years before.

‘I don’t know whether my grandfather understood or whether he didn’t. But all he said was, “However did you contrive it?”

‘”It came,” she said, “of my takin’ they six white rabbits to market. I sold mun all; and when they were sold, and the hutch standin’ empty–” My grandmother pulled out her handkerchief and dabbed her eyes.

‘”You drove him out in the rabbit hutch?” asked my grandfather.

‘”With a handful of straw between him and the bars,” she owned. “He’s nobbut a boy. You can’t think how easy. And the look of him when he crep’ inside–“

‘”Where is he?” asked my grandfather.

‘”Somewheres hangin’ about the stable at this moment,” she told him, with a kind o’ sob.

‘So my grandfather went out to the back. He could not find the prisoner in the stable, but by-and-by he caught sight of him on the slope of the stubble field behind it. The poor lad had taken a hoe, and was pretending to work it, while he edged away in the dimmety light.

‘”Hallo!” sings out my grandfather across the gate; and goes striding up the field to him. “If I were you,” says he, “I wouldn’t hoe stubble; because that’s a new kind of agriculture in these parts, and likely to attract notice.”

‘”I was doin’ my best,” twittered the prisoner. He was a delicate-lookin’ lad, very white just now about the gills. “I come from Marblehead,” he explained, “and, bein’ bred to the sea, I didn’t think it would matter.”

‘”It will, you’ll find, if you persevere with it. But come indoors. We’ll stow you in the cider-loft for to-night, after you’ve taken a bite of supper. And to-morrow–well, I’ll have to think that out,” said my grandfather.

‘For the next few hours he felt pretty easy. He and his wife had a good reputation with the agent, who would take a long time before suspecting them of any hand in an escape. The three ate their supper together in good comfort, though from time to time my grandfather pricked up his ears as though he heard the sound of a gun. But the wind blew from the south-west that night, and if a gun was fired the sound did not carry.