Indeed, just then a dim figure arose from the earth, and appeared slowly and painfully moving away.
"Hold on there!" cried Stackridge. "Needn't be afeared of us. We're your friends."
The figure stopped, uttering a deep groan.
"No," answered the most miserable voice in the world. "It's me."
"Pepperill--Dan Pepperill; ye know me, don't ye, Stackridge?"
"You? you scoundrel!" said the farmer. "What have ye been doing to the schoolmaster? Answer me this minute, or I'll----"
"O, don't, don't!" implored the wretch. "I'll answer, I'll tell every thing, only give me a chance!"
The poor man looked around at his captors in the starlight, stooping dejectedly, and rubbing his bent knees.
"I ain't to blame--I'll tell ye that to begin with. I've been jest knocked about, from post to pillar, and from pillar to post, till I don't know who's my friends and who ain't. I reckon more ain't than is!" added he, dismally.
"That's neither here nor there!" said Stackridge. "Where's Hapgood? that's what I want to know."
"Ye see," said Dan, endeavoring to collect his wits (you would have thought they were in his kneepans, and he was industriously rubbing them up), "Ropes sent me to tote the kittle home, and when I got back here, I be durned if they wasn't all gone, schoolmaster and all."
"I don't know, I'm shore! That's what I was a comin' back fur to see. He let me down when I was hung up on the rail, and helped me home; and so I says to myself, says I, 'Why shouldn't I do as much by him?' so I come back, and found him gone."
"What was in the kittle?" Stackridge took him by the throat.
"O, don't go fur to layin' it to me, and I'll tell ye! Thar'd been tar in the kittle! It had been used to give him a coat. That's the fact, durn me if it ain't! They put it on with the broom--my broom--they made me bring my own broom, that's the everlastin' truth! made me do it myself, and spile my wife's best broom into the bargain!" And Pepperill sobbed.
"Don't kill me, and I'll own up! I did put on some on't, that's a fact. Ropes would a' killed me if I hadn't, and now you kill me fur doin' of it. He did knock me down, 'cause he said I didn't rub it on hard enough; and arter that he rubbed it himself."
"Next, they rolled him in the feathers, and sent me, as I told ye, to tote the kittle home. Now don't, don't go fur to hang me, Mr. Stackridge! Help me, men! help me, Withers,--Devit! For he means to be the death of me, I'm shore!"