Widow Molly sank into a chair, and let her arms fall beside her in an exhausted way. After a brief space she summoned energy sufficient to go to the window and assure herself that they were not returning. She was just in time to see them disappear below the curve of the cedar lot. One outlaw at the rear, she noticed, carried a gun. She turned swiftly and went into the adjoining room to see whether the gun had been taken from behind the door. It was gone. Then Widow Molly buried her face in her hands and cried bitterly.
“Devil Dan’l showed that gang the way, you may be sartin’. Who else ’ud know the place and Widow Molly’s name?” was the common remark from Swan River to Penataquit.
The feeling against the outlaws was intense, and a company of men from five leagues along the South Road was organized to be ready at courier’s summons.
For a few days the schooner’s masts were seen outside the Beach, coursing one day westward, and the next eastward—lingering for some purpose off the coast.
Another descent was expected, and the inhabitants conjectured it would be made during the night. Squads of five or six men patrolled their neighborhoods, with horses ready to summon other squads in any emergency.
On the fourth night, the scattered guard-groups noticed, early in the evening, the low beat of the surf upon the Beach. In the course of the night it grew stronger, and the pounding of each huge breaker could be distinctly told.
In those days every man was a weather-prophet, and every man awake that night said, “There’s a big storm off at sea, and we’ll likely get it here.”
The next day broke with a dull sky and a raw east wind that betokened the coming of the storm. The wind rose as the day progressed, and mid-afternoon a few drops of rain—the harbingers of the storm—showed themselves upon the window-panes. At that very hour, the schooner, low-reefed, was seen close in under the Beach, scudding westward. It was evident to those who saw her that she was making for some near harbor.
The night came wild and wet. The wind blew great rushing sweeps from the south-east, crowding the water up into the western part of the Bay, forcing it up creeks and over meadows. Between midnight and morning, the wind suddenly shifted into the west, like the banging of a door, and blew with just as great fury. The whole black area of clouds and rain bore back from the west. The gulls alone found life in it.
In three hours the wind wore itself out, but there followed a thick morning, with the Bay and the sky all one wet blend of gray. At noon the dampness lifted, and the Beach showed itself.