The East End Road, which circles the eastern end of the Cattle Ridge, is not at all like the Salem Road. It is wilder and crookeder, to begin with, but that is a superficial matter. It passes through thick woods, dips into gullies, and changes continually, while along the Salem Road there is just the smoky haze on the meadows and dust in the chalices of the flowers; there too the distance blinks stupidly and speculation comes to nothing. But the real point is this: the Salem Road leads straight to Hagar and stops there; the East End Road goes over somewhere among the northern hills and splits up into innumerable side roads, roads that lead to doorways, roads that run into footpaths and dwindle away in despair, roads of which it must be said with sorrow that there was doubt in Salem whether they ever ended or led anywhere. Hence arose the tale that all things which were strange and new, at least all things which were to be feared, came into Salem over the East End Road; just as in Hagar they came down from the Cattle Ridge and went away to the south beyond Windless Mountain.
Along this road, a month later than the last incident, came the black-bearded peddler with his pack, whistling; and indeed his pack, though large, seemed to weigh singularly little; also the peddler seemed to be in a very peaceful frame of mind. And along this road too came the plodding gray horse, with the serious boy driving, and the yellow dog in the rear; all at a pace which slowly but surely overtook the peddler. The peddler, reaching a quiet place where a bank of ferns bordered the brushwood, sat down and waited, whistling. The dog, catching sight of him, came forward with a rush, wagging the back end of himself; and Billy, the gray horse, came gently to a standstill.
“How goes it?” said the peddler, pausing a moment in his whistling. “Pretty good?”
“Mostly.”
The peddler took a cigar-case from his pocket, a cigar wrapped in tin-foil from the case, and lay back lazily among the ferns, putting his long thin hands behind his head. “My notion was,” he murmured, “that it would take a month, a month would be enough.”
The serious boy said nothing, but sat with his chin on his fists looking down the road meditatively.
“My notion was,” went on the peddler, “that a doctor's boy, particularly that doctor's boy, would get into all the best houses around—learn the lay of things tolerably neat. That was my notion. Good notion, wasn't it, Jack?” Jack muttered a subdued assent. The peddler glanced at him critically. “For instance now, that big square house on the hill north of Hagar.”
Jack shook his head. “Nothing in it. Old man, name Map, rich enough, furniture done up in cloth, valuables stored in Hamilton; clock or two maybe; nothing in it.”
“Ah,” said the other, “just so;” and again he glanced critically through his half-closed eyes. “But there are others.” Again Jack muttered a subdued assent.
“Good?”