his action, as will be seen hereafter.




CHAPTER VII.

THE TOWN MOVED WITH INDIGNATION.


It was less than a week after the scenes we have described in the
foregoing chapter took place, that the good sloop Heinrich arrived,
having made her weekly voyage to New York and back. A small, ill-favored
man, with a very long red beard, and very long red hair, might have been
seen stepping ashore, with a book and an umbrella under his arm, and
wending his way up the lane, followed by Tite, carrying a corpulent
carpet-bag. There was a combative air about the little man, who stared
with a pair of small, fierce eyes, through a pair of glaring spectacles
at every one he met. He was dressed in a shabby black suit, that hung
loosely on his lean figure. This, with a broad, rolling collar, a pair
of russet brogans, and a common straw hat, turned up at one side,
completed his wardrobe, and gave an odd appearance to the man. Indeed,
the gentleman had no taste for the vanities of the world, and parted his
hair in the middle to save trouble. The ordinary observer might easily
have mistaken him for a school-master out of employment and in distress.
That such a man was to upset the settled opinions of a big town, few
persons would have believed. Such, however, was this odd-looking little
man's mission, and there was no end of new ideas contained in that
little bumpy forehead of his.