"I understand," said Tarrant. There was a silence; then he asked: "And am I to further understand that old arrangements between us, in matters of this kind, still stand?"
"They do. And your share of the labor is to see to it that the Bulfinches hold both their hands and their tongues."
Tarrant now laughed gleefully. All the anger had gone out of his face; he was vastly excited; words poured from him.
"They'll do it," he said. "To be sure, they'll do it! The richest cargo that ever came out of the East! Well, well! That's saying a deal, for some fine ones have come from that part of the world. Oh, yes, have no fear of the twins. They will give what time is needed. So the old rat is dead! Well, well! But what matter? I can manage the sons. They'll do what I ask. They'll hold their hands until the Rufus Stevens is stowed, and weighs for home, if it takes till doomsday, or the day after!"
XXX
The storm of wind and rain lasted through the night; straight out of the north it washed and blew sturdily, and with the deep voice of fall. By dawn the rain had abated; but the wind continued to blow shrewdly, and there was a cut to it, a keenness that hadn't been felt since the early spring.
It was six o'clock when Anthony arose; he looked from his window into Sassafras Street; the way was drenched clean; the gutters were full of running rainwater; and the tang in the air caught his attention.
"A little more!" said he. "Let the wind hold in the north another day, and we'll have frost."
And hold to the north it did; not only for another day, but for two days; and under its cold, clear breath of a night a thin ice began to form in the hollows. It got under the sickly miasma of the city and scattered it across the world. The death-rate dropped like magic; people took heart and regarded life with a new eye; even those who had clung to the heights in fear began in thought to venture back; and those who had held to the town, facing death and fighting the advance of the pestilence, allowed their nerves to go slack, and rested from their labors, white and worn and all but beaten.