’"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.

’When supper was done my grandmother made a suggestion that the lad, instead of turning out to the cider-loft, should sleep in the garret overhead; and my grandfather, after a look at the lad’s face, shut his lips, and would not gainsay her, though—­as in bed he couldn’t help reminding her—­it would be difficult to pass off a visitor in the garret, with two blankets, for a housebreaker.

’As it happened, though, they were not disturbed that night.  But my grandfather, for thinking, took a very little sleep, and in the morning he went up to the garret with the best plan he could devise.