After he had finished them, he strolled slowly about the dark town--past his
school-house, thinking that his teaching days would soon be over--past
Peter's blacksmith shop, thinking what a good fellow he always was--past Mr.
Bradford's editorial room, with a light under the door and the curtain drawn
across the window. Two or three times he lingered before show-windows of
merchandise. He had some taste in snuff-boxes, being the inheritor of
several from his Scotch and Irish ancestors, and there were a few in the new
silversmith's window which he found little to his liking. As he passed a
tavern, a group of Revolutionary officers, not yet gone to the ball, were
having a time of it over their pipes and memories; and he paused to hear one
finish a yarn of strong fibre about the battle of King's Mountain. Couples
went hurrying by him beautifully dressed. Once down a dark street he fancied
that he distinguished Amy's laughter ringing faintly out on the still air;
and once down another he clearly heard the long cry of a pet panther kept by
a young backwoods hunter.
The Poythress homestead was wrapped in silence as he stepped upon the porch;
but the door was open, there was a light inside, and by means of this he
discovered, lying asleep on the threshold, a lad who was apprentice to the
new English silversmith of the town and a lodger at the minister's--the bond
of acquaintanceship being the memory of John Wesley who had sprinkled the
lad's father in England.
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