"And why not?" asked the girl. "Why should you not? For me, I'd credit him with a deal of knowledge, a deal deeper than most. His mind is quite clear, for all his manner is odd, as the matters I've heard he's said to Anthony Stevens and the things he's pointed out have shown. He is the one among them all in the counting-room who had the keenness to see and the purpose to remember."
"It is so," said the little apothecary. "It is so, indeed. I had something of that in my mind, and it troubled me."
"I should like to speak with him," said mademoiselle. "It may be that with questioning he would say more."
"That's a thing that's easily put to the test," said Christopher. "He lives in Pump Court, but a step or so from this; and we shall go see him any time you wish."
"Thank you," said the girl. "If he returns to your shop in a night or two, send me word; if not, we shall go see him, as you say."
And so Christopher Dent went at once back to his apothecary shop, and in a much more peaceful state of mind.
XXXV
Anthony Stevens' journey across New Jersey was slow; the track he followed was through the pine barrens, dismal even in the flush of spring. The wheels of the wagon sank in the sand, and the span of stout horses sweated in their collars. Of an evening—the fourth since his start—he arrived at a small white town, standing sparsely upon the banks of a creek which let out into the bay. This was Barnegat; and here the young man bargained for transportation to his journey's end.
His goods were transferred to a flat-boat, and with the first peep of morning they were out of the creek; the patched sail filled, and the boat stood away for the long, low shore that faced them. The morning was still wet with mist when they grounded in a cove; across the meadows Anthony saw the blue-white of the dunes, and beyond them was the shine of the moving sea; thousands of migrating birds filled the sky, coming from the south, and hovered in twittering hordes over the wax-myrtle thickets; here and there a pair of black-ducks, delayed in their journey north, paddled about, feeding on the edge of the cove.