He went upstairs for his own borrowed cloak and by the time he got down she had already donned hers, a warm-looking grey wool wrap with grey woolen mittens to match. Outside the sun was bright and the night chill was off the air. Deborah said, watching her own breath congeal and mingle with his, "I had to come and see that ye made Mistress Cooper's safely. I lay abed and fretted for ye all night long."
"You don't look it," he told her.
Then he looked at the snow-covered city about him. There it stood, the Boston of his studies, of his dreams, the quaint old shops and houses and taverns, many with overhanging eaves and gables, the ancient signs, some fresh, some weathered, the innumerable and oddly-designed weather vanes and chimney pots.
Yet his next impression was one of dinginess. The snow, piled high on either side of the street, looked almost as dirty as snow that had lain for awhile in the side-streets of his own Boston. A narrow passageway had been dug out and even as he and Deborah watched a horse-drawn cart, laden with night-soil, and an ox-cart, evidently proceeding north to market, stood motionless, facing one another, while their drivers indulged in the mutual invective city and countrymen have invoked in like dilemmas since the invention of the wheel.
"What horrid words!" said Deborah, feigning shock. Justin took her arm and they edged past the incipient combatants, about whom a crowd of rough-looking customers was beginning to collect.
A gust of wind caused Deborah's cloak to billow about her and she tugged him away to the half-shelter of the rope-walk, where despite the weather a few hardy souls were engaged in splicing and reeving and other intricate arts of rigging and sailmaking.
A gong rang in Justin's memory. He said, "Where does Sam Adams live?"
"Ye know of him?" she countered, added, "That big run-down house at the next corner. What would ye of Master Adams, Charles?"
"Never mind, honey," he told her but his thoughts were humming. Sam Adams, of course—here was his opportunity, not only to survive in Old Boston, but to do it creditably in Deborah's eyes. Surely the so-called father of the Revolution would not be able to refuse the aid of a man who knew the course of the future.