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I guess I won't set," said the captain. "I cal'lated not to eat till I got
home, in the middle o' the afternoon. No, I 'll set down in eye-shot of
the mare, and read the paper while you eat."
"I hope they don't want me to testify anywhere to-day," said Wood;
"because my boat's half verdigris'd, and I want to finish her this
afternoon."
"No testimony to-day," said the captain. "Hi! hi! Kitty!" he called to the
mare, as she began to meander across the road; and he went out to a
tree by the front fence, and sat down on a green bench, beside a
work-basket and a half-finished child's dress, and read the country
paper which he had taken from the office as he came along.
After dinner Wood went out bareheaded, and leaned on the fence by the
captain. His wife stood just inside the door, looking out at them.
The "bank case" was the great sensation of the town, and Wood was
one of the main witnesses, for he had been taking the place of the
absent cashier when the safe was broken open and rifled to the
widespread distress of depositors and stockholders, and the ruin of Hon.
Edward Clark, the president. Wood had locked the safe on the
afternoon before the eventful night, and had carried home the key with
him, and he was to testify to the contents of the safe as he had left it.
"I guess they 're glad they 've got such a witness as John," said his wife
to herself, as she looked at him fondly, "and I guess they think there
won't be much doubt about what he says."

"Well, Captain," said Wood, jocosely, breaking a spear of grass to bits
in his fingers, "I did n't know but you 'd come to arrest me."
The captain calmly smiled as only a man can smile who has been
accosted with the same humorous remark a dozen times a day for
twenty years. He folded his paper carefully, put it in his pocket, took
off his spectacles and put them in their silver case, took a red silk
handkerchief from his hat, wiped his face, and put the handkerchief
back. Then he said shortly,--
"That's what I have come for."
Wood, still leaning on the fence, looked at him, and said nothing.
"That's just what I 've come for," said Captain Nourse. "I 've got to
arrest you; here's the warrant." And he handed it to him.
"What does this mean?" said Wood. "I can't make head or tail of this."
"Well," said the captain, "the long and short is, these high-toned
detectives that they 've hed down from town, seein' as our own force
was n't good enough, allow that the safe was unlocked with a key, in
due form, and then the lock was broke afterward, to look as if it had
been forced open. They 've hed the foreman of the safe-men down, too,
and he says the same thing. Naturally, the argument is, there was only
two keys in existence,--one was safe with the president of the bank, and
is about all he 's got to show out of forty years' savings; the only other
one you hed: consequently, it heaves it onto you."
"I see," said Wood. "I will go with you. Do you want to come into the
house with me while I get my coat?"
"Well, I suppose I must keep you in sight,--now you know."
And they went into the house.
"Mary," said her husband, "the folks that lost by Clark when the bank
broke have been at him until he 's felt obliged to pitch on somebody,

and he's pitched on me; and Captain Nourse has come to arrest me. I
shall get bail before long."
She said nothing, and did not shed a tear till he was gone.
But then--

II.
Wide wastes of salt-marsh to the right, imprisoning the upland with a
vain promise of infinite liberty, and, between low, distant sandhills, a
rim of sea. Stretches of pine woods behind, shutting in from the great
outer world, and soon to darken into evening gloom. Ploughed fields
and elm-dotted pastures to the left, and birch-lined roads leading by
white farm-houses to the village, all speaking of cheer and freedom to
the prosperous and the happy, but to the unfortunate and the indebted,
of meshes invisible but strong as steel. But, before, no lonesome
marshes, no desolate forest, no farm or village street, but the free blue
ocean, rolling and tumbling still from the force of an expended gale.
In the open doorway of a little cottage, warmed by the soft slanting rays
of the September sun, a rough man, burnt and freckled, was sitting, at
his feet a