er fleeing, terror-stricken, in the growing
darkness.

The physical facts which are further related to this tragedy are of
little moment to me now. The stranger was dead and we took his body to
our home and my uncle set out for the constable. Over and over again
that night I told the story of the shooting. We went to the scene of the
tragedy with lanterns and fenced it off and put some men on guard there.

How the event itself and all that hurrying about in the dark had shocked
and excited me! The whole theater of life had changed. Its audience had
suddenly enlarged and was rushing over the stage and a kind of terror
was in every face and voice. There was a red-handed villain behind the
scenes, now, and how many others, I wondered. Men were no longer as they
had been. Even the God to whom I prayed was different. As I write the
sounds and shadows of that night are in my soul again. I see its
gathering gloom. I hear its rifle shot which started all the galloping
hoofs and swinging lanterns and flitting shadows and hysterical
profanity. In the morning they found the robber's footprints in the damp
dirt of the road and measured them. The whole countryside was afire with
excitement and searching the woods and fields for the highwayman.

"Mr. Purvis," who had lost confidence suddenly in the whole world, had
been found, soon after daylight next morning, under a haycock in the
field of a farmer who was getting in his hay. Our hired man rose up and
reported in fearful tones. A band of robbers--not one, or two, even, but
a band of them--had chased him up the road and one of their bullets had
torn the side of his trousers, in support of which assertion he showed
the tear. With his able assistance we see at a glance both the quality
and the state of mind prevailing among the humbler citizens of the
countryside. They were, in a way, children whose cows had never
recovered from the habit of jumping over the moon and who still
worshiped at the secret shrine of Jack the Giant Killer.

The stranger was buried. There was nothing upon him to indicate his name
or residence. Weeks passed with no news of the man who had slain him. I
had told of the gun with a piece of wood broken out of its stock, but no
one knew of any such weapon in or near Lickitysplit.

One day Uncle Peabody and I drove up to Grimshaw's to make a payment of
money. I remember it was gold and silver which we carried in a little
sack. I asked where Amos was and Mrs. Gri