"I b'lieve this is the boy wot was saved from the wreck o' that brigantine. So he's gwine to be your boy now, Mrs. Peake? Well, I understand he's got the makin' o' a man in him, so Mr. Keeler sez to me last night, and I hope you'll never have no reason to be sorry. I want to know, Darry, what about this here fire?"
"I'll be only too glad to tell you all I know, sir," replied the boy promptly.
"When did it happen?" began the constable, with the air of a famous lawyer, with a bewildered witness on the rack.
"I think it was somewhere near midnight. I have no watch, and Mrs. Peake took the little clock in her room with her."
"That was near the time. It was half-past one when I went back to my bed with my two little girls," remarked the owner of the house.
"S'pose you tell me what happened, jest as it comes to you, lad."
With this invitation Darry soon related the whole matter, even to his firing after the vanishing culprits.
This latter event appeared to interest the constable more than anything else.
"Do you think you hit any o' 'em?" he asked, eagerly.
"They didn't stop to tell me, but I heard a lot of howling, and they ran faster than ever," replied Darry, smiling.
"That sounds as if you did some damage. Mrs. Peake, I must look into this outrage closer, and if I can only git my hands on any dead-sure evidence somebody's boys is a gwine to pay for the fiddlin'. I'm tired o' sech goings-on. They sure are a disgrace to our village. But you know how it is--my hands are tied acause theys politics back o' it all. If I arrested Jim Dilks now on the strength o' a suspicion I'd get tied up in litigation and lose my job in the bargain. I hears as how theys gwine to be a meetin' called at the house o' the dominie to discuss this question, an' see what kin be did to change things."
"I'm sure I'm glad to know it, and if they want another to join in tell them to count on Nancy Peake. The women must take this thing in hand, since the men are too much afraid of that ruffian, big Jim Dilks, to do anything. Be sure and let me know when that meeting is coming off, Mr. Squires," said Abner's better half; and when he saw the fire in her eyes and the determination shining there Constable Squires realized that the day of salvation for Ashley village was not so very far away.