Like a red lamp the sun swung above the smoky east, its round, inflamed lens peering through the smother beneath which Boston lay, blanketed by the thick vapours of the bay.
From my window I could distinguish the shadowy ship-yards close by. Northeast, across Green Lane, lay the Mill Pond, sheeted in mist, separated from the bay by an indented causeway.
On Corps Hill the paling signal-fires went out, one by one; a green light twinkled aloft in the dusky tangle of a war-ship's rigging; the smoky beacon in its iron basket flared, sank, glimmered, and went out.
Across the street, through the white mist lifting, spectral warehouses loomed, every shutter locked, iron gates dripping rust.
Jack Mount came in, and sat down on the edge of the bed with a silent nod of greeting, clasping his large hands between his knees.
"I have been thinking of that damned thief-taker," he said, yawning. "If he's tracked me from Pitt he's a good dog, and his wife should cast a prime dropper some day."
A servant brought us a bowl of stirabout and some rusks and salted codfish, and we breakfasted there in my chamber, scarcely speaking. Instead of exultation at my nearness to Silver Heels, a foreboding had weighed on me since first I unclosed my eyes. The depression deepened as I sat brooding by the window where the white sea-fog rolled against the sweating panes. Mount ate in silence; I could scarcely swallow any food. Presently I pushed away my plate, drew paper and ink before me, and fell to composing a letter. From the tap-room below a boy came to bring us our morning cups, and we washed the salty tang from our throats. Mount lighted his yard of clay and lay back, puffing smoke at the smeared window-panes. I wrote slowly, drinking at intervals.
The morning draught refreshed us; and when at length sunshine broke out over the bay, something of our dormant spirits stirred to greet it.
"How silent is the world outside," said I, listening to the sea-birds' mewing, and mending my quill with my hunting-knife.
"Misery breeds silence," he said.