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revile me with dismal forebodings as to the gibbet awaiting me when I was caught.
     

Chapter Five
     
    The week passedquietly and uneventfully. There was a shipment due on Friday evening; I was trying to decide whether to have it taken to the school for a change. Even when one has a very good hiding place, it is a good idea to make a change occasionally—just in case. Yes, Crites had given up on the school, so I would revert to it.
    The week was a busy one for Mr. Williams. He was seen to visit not only the Trebars, but two other young females that week. A dull scald it must have been for him all the same, with nowhere better to go than the parlors of a yeoman farmer and the local harness maker. He was not a gentleman, but he might have looked a little higher than that. He regularly took his noonday meal at the tavern with whatever company he could find, bachelors like himself, or travelers. I believe he had very little time to spare for Mr. Milton.
    The shop, Edna informed me, was busier than it had ever been, with all the girls nipping in to buy up one button or spool of thread at a time, to allow as many visits as possible. I did not go back. Even when I ran out of blue wool for Andrew’s slippers, I had Edna pick it up for me sooner than satisfy Mr. Williams by returning. He asked her to convey his compliments to me, the brass box.
    I was always nervous the day of a shipment. As evening wore on, I became very unsettled. It was the routine worked out early in the business that Jem would come to me after the brandy was safely stored, to let me know. I made a point to be lurking about the front door, or if Andrew were still up and about, which he was not usually, Jem knew by the lights that he was to slip a note under the back door.
    Andrew chose that night to be up. He had been practicing a new piece on the organ, and was pestering Edna and myself with details of his feat, without regard to the house. At twelve-thirty I slipped down to the kitchen to await my note. I was there when it came under the door, accompanied by a light tap. As Jem did not usually tap, I feared there was something amiss.
    I went out to talk to him, in case Andrew should decide to follow after me. It was an eerie night. Not yet so very cold, but with a high wind that soughed through branches in a plaintive way. It stirred some feeling of dissatisfaction in me, that wind.
    “What is it?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”
    “I don’t know that it is, miss, but I thought I’d best mention it to you all the same.”
    “Yes, what is it?”
    “The window was open when we got to the school. Since you gave me the key, I thought we were to keep it closed. Did you forget and leave it open?”
    “No, I did not.” I had got the key to be rid of this telltale sign of the open window, in case Crites should tumble to it, or in case some wide-awake vagrant might notice it, and go in to steal what was lying about.
    “It was wide open when we got there.”
    “It’s impossible. Are you sure? Maybe one of our men was there before you.”
    “Nay, I was the scout myself, and it was open.”
    “There was nothing else amiss? No one interrupted you? You didn’t see any sign of Crites?”
    “We fooled him proper tonight. The stuff came down from Ipswich, instead of up water from the ocean. We weren’t burned off at all.”
    “What can it mean?”
    He bunched his shoulders. “I’ve let the lads go on home, as I didn’t want them all hanging about. With nothing better to pass the time, they might take to roistering.”
    “We must move the stuff.”
    “Tonight?”
    “Yes, tonight. I don’t like the looks of this.” I did not worry Jem about the special agent, but it was in my own thoughts that there might be a better brain than Crites working against us now.
    “The lads are all gone off home.”
    “Get them back. They’ll be paid double for double work. Have them bring it here, to the crypt.”
    “It'll take hours to round them all up,