Abraham and Ruth were ungagged and brought before the people. Their statement of the case at certain points was just like the parson's. They told how the stranger had been admitted, how he treated the ashcake, how he claimed kin, and, lastly, how they had trusted him with the money, and been deceived.
"Innocent! innocent!" shouted the people; "all here are innocent. The stranger alone is guilty. Is there nothing here by which he can be identified?"
"Here," said Abraham, "are his saddlebags and hat, with a name on the former that is doubtless his."
"He must be a strange thief indeed to leave behind him such telling witnesses as these," said the deacon.
"Ah," said the parson, "I fear there is still more mystery in this matter."
While the people were speechmaking and changing their opinions, the two officers who were the first to arrive and hear Abraham's story had been prowling over the farm. Just at this point they bore a man through the crowd and laid him on the floor where the deacon and parson had lain. He was gagged and corded after about the same fashion as they had been.
"Ah," said one, "the stranger has been playing gagging-binding master to another weakling."
"No, my man," said Abraham, "that is the stranger himself."
At this the mob seized the bound man and yelled: "Confess, confess! You shall confess!" They pulled him in and out of the closet. They lowered him into the cistern and hauled him out again and again. At times a hundred voices were bawling: "Confess, confess! You shall confess!" During all this confusion the parson was the only person who noticed that the poor fellow was still gagged.