She had need of them both for the task which she had imposed upon herself, and which now, with infinite caution and trepidation, she set herself about. This was nothing less than to secure the papers which the old ’squire had brought from Cadmus, and which, from something she remembered his having said, must be in the inner pocket of one of his coats. Slowly and deftly she opened button after button of his overcoat, and gently pushed aside the cloth until her hand might have free passage to and from the pocket, where, after careful soundings, she had discovered a bundle of thick papers to be resting. Then whole minutes seemed to pass before, having taken off her glove, she was able to draw this packet out. Once during this operation Reuben half turned to speak to her, and her fright was very great. But she had had the presence of mind to draw the robe high about her, and answer collectedly, and he had palpably suspected nothing. As for Gedney, he never once stirred in his drunken sleep.
The larceny was complete, and Jessica had been able to wrap the old man up again, to button the parcel of papers under her own cloak, and to draw on and fasten her glove once more, before the panting horses had gained the outskirts of the village. She herself was breathing almost as heavily as the animals after their gallop, and, now that the deed was done, lay back wearily in her seat, with pain racking her every joint and muscle, and a sickening dread in her mind lest there should be neither strength nor courage forthcoming for what remained to do.
For a considerable distance down the street no person was visible from whom the eager Tracy could get news of what had happened. At last, however, when the sleigh was within a couple of blocks of what seemed in the distance to be a centre of interest, a man came along who shouted from the sidewalk, in response to Reuben’s questions, sundry leading facts of importance.
A fire had started—probably incendiary—in the basement of the office of the Minster furnaces, some hour or so ago, and had pretty well gutted the building. The firemen were still playing on the ruins. An immense crowd had witnessed the fire, and it was the drunkenest crowd he had ever seen in Thessaly. Where the money came from to buy so much drink, was what puzzled him. The crowd had pretty well cleared off now; some said they had gone up to the Minster house to give its occupants a “horning.” He himself had got his feet wet, and was afraid of the rheumatics if he stayed out any longer. Probably he would get them, as it was. Everybody said that the building was insured, and some folks hinted that the company had it set on fire themselves.
Reuben impatiently whipped up the jaded team at this, with a curt “Much obliged,” and drove at a spanking pace down the street to the scene of the conflagration. There was not much remaining to see. The outer walls of the office building were still gloomily erect, but within nothing was left but a glowing mass of embers about level with the ground. Some firemen were inside the yard, but more were congregated about the water-soaked space where the engine still noisily throbbed, and where hot coffee was being passed around to them. Here, too, there was a report that the crowd had gone up to the Minster house.
The horses tugged vehemently to drag the sleigh over the impedimenta of hose stretched along the street, and over the considerable area of bare stones where the snow had been melted by the heat or washed away by the streams from the hydrants. Then Reuben half rose in his seat to lash them into a last furious gallop, and, snorting with rebellion, they tore onward toward the seminary road.
At the corner, three doors from the home of the Minster ladies, Reuben deemed it prudent to draw up. There was evidently a considerable throng in the road in front of the house, and that still others were on the lawn within the gates was obvious from the confused murmur which came therefrom. Some boys were blowing spasmodically on fish-horns, and rough jeers and loud boisterous talk rose and fell throughout the dimly visible assemblage. The air had become thick with large wet snowflakes.
Reuben sprang from the sleigh, and, stepping backward, vigorously shook old Gedney into a state of semi-wakefulness.
“Hold these lines,” he said, “and wait here for me.—Or,” he turned to Jessica with the sudden thought, “would you rather he drove you home?”
The girl had been in a half-insensible condition of mind and body. At the question she roused herself and shook her head. “No: let me stay here,” she said, wearily.