The result was that an
explosion took place, and the author of the gun-powder plot had all the
skin on both hands blistered. Burnett, in escaping, fell and broke his
collarbone and two ribs. The house in which the affair took place caught
fire, and was badly damaged. And Tweedwell was arrested on the strongest
kind of circumstantial evidence, and had to answer for the whole.
Naturally, in the investigation that followed, the two who were guilty had
to confess or see the candidate for the ministry disgraced forever.
The result of their confession was that Burnett's father, a jovial,
peppery old gentleman--we all know the kind--lost his patience and wrote his
son that he'd better not come home again that year. But Aunt Mary lost her
temper much more completely and the result, as affecting Jack, was awful.
She might not have acted as she did had the disastrous news arrived either
a week later or a week earlier; but it came just in the middle of a
discouraging ten days' downpour, which had caused a dam to break and a
chain of valuable cranberry bogs to be drowned out for that year. The
cranberry bogs were especially dear to their owner's heart.
"Why can't they drain 'em?" she had asked Lucinda, who was particularly
nutcracker-like in appearance since her quarantine episode.
"'Pears like they're lower'n everywhere else," Lucinda answered, her words
sounding as if she had sharpened them on a grindstone.
Aunt Mary bit her lip and frowned at the rain.
Pages:
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73