Captain Weir went into the coach-house and wrote his letter; when he came out with it in his hand he found a likely-looking horse ready saddled, and the man standing beside it. "To be delivered to either of the two persons whose name is written here," said Weir. "And, now, all haste; your money will be waiting you when you return." As the captain went back to the counting-house, the sky was becoming overcast; a trace of chilliness was in the air. Weir was not the only one to mark the change; for scores of lips muttered prayers that it might be the end of the summer's heat, that the chill in the air might lower the death-rate, that a frost might come whose touch would end the course of the plague. Toward nightfall the wind rose; rain began to fall. It was still falling and the wind was still blowing when Captain Weir started for his house in Shackamaxon; when he reached there a gale had set in; he could see the river creaming under its whip, and heard the hissing and complaining among chimney-pots and ships' rigging; the rain drove smartly before the wind in steadily increasing volume. Captain Weir threw off his cloak and boots; a servant had lighted a small fire in his sitting-room, and here a glass of brandy, hot and spiced, was given him; and he sat down and sipped it slowly. His house was one of the period of George I, and excellently conceived; it stood on a knoll overlooking the river while behind it and to the south and north were green, level fields and clumps of spreading trees. Captain Weir's sitting-room was a comfortable place, high-ceilinged, with polished floor and broad, deep chairs; upon the walls were some prints that told of a taste in such things; a few pieces of Eastern bronze stood on a shelf between two windows. In the sudden turn of the weather the fire was most desirable, and Captain Weir sat beside it and sipped at the glass of spiced brandy with appreciation. But all the time there was a frown upon his brow, the same that had come upon it at the visit of the two Bulfinches, and it was plain to see that his mind still remained fixed to the things the two had said and the things these sayings promised.