"Preaching," Foster answered.
"Wall, he couldn't call up mourners—the wagins would run over 'em. What do you think of all this, Jasper?"
"Who, me?" the old man replied as if startled out of a dream, "I wasn't thinkin' of it—didn't see it."
"I don't reckon," said Laz, "that all these folks knows we air goin' to jail."
Old Jasper shook as if with a chill. "We know it, an' that's enough," he replied.
The wagon, directed by Foster, turned into a darker street, into an alley, and drew up in front of a building black in the dusk. The old man's legs were so stiffened that they had to help him out and rheumatically he walked through the portals of stone-walled disgrace. Into a cell they turned him, and when the bolt grated, he leaped from the rock beneath his feet, leaped as he had when he struck Peters; and then into a corner he sank with a groan.
The two boys were given the liberty of a long corridor, and up and down they walked, light of foot, in reverence for the dejected man behind the bars.