When Walter left Miss Green’s, he turned away from the sea and walked rapidly in the direction of his uncle’s. A sleigh with jingling bells went by him. The driver of the team was well protected against the cold, and the style as well as the extent of the protection—the rich buffalo robe snugly tucked about his person, the handsome cap of fur that could not wholly conceal his gray hair, the warm, heavy, riding gloves of fur—showed that the driver of the team did not have a mean and scanty share of this world’s goods. The bright, sharp, intelligent eyes under the rich cap of fur gave evidence that the owner of the team was smart enough and shrewd enough to hold whatever he had gained and also add to it.
“Do you know that man?” Walter said to Jabez Wherren, who, twisted up by the cold, was moving slowly, shiveringly, over the road.
“That man! He’s Squire Tuck, your uncle’s lawyer. He lives in Groveton.”
“He looks as if he knew something.”
“Knows suthin! For what he knows, I wouldn’t swap all the clams ’tween here and Novy Scoshy,” replied Jabez, who was a famous clam digger, and all his estimates of value were determined by one famous standard, a clam.
“Then,” thought Walter, “Squire Tuck is on his way to that meeting at uncle’s that Chauncy spoke about. That is my guess.”
He soon came in sight of the well–known buildings so associated with his life the past autumn. There was the old–fashioned house from whose big, red chimney lazily drifted the purplish smoke. There was the store. There was the sign above the door. And there at the post before the door, was Squire Tuck’s horse.
“And there’s another team at the other post,” said Walter. “Guess that is Baggs’ team.”
When he entered the store, he noticed that a row of nails near the door opening into the sitting–room had been already covered with hats and coats. And who was the thief that Walter saw near one of the coats, lifting its folds and examining them with such intentness of look that the ringing of the bell above the door as Walter entered, was scarcely noticed?