The wagon passed on, and Wade heard no more that was said. The truth was coming out sooner than he expected. Though it was nothing but a suspicion, it had a correct foundation. He wondered what Swikes and his wife would say the next day when they heard the news. So far as Wade knew, Matt’s father and mother had not discovered his absence from the house. If his mother went to his chamber to tell him about the fire, and found he was not there, she would naturally suppose he had seen it, and gone to it. Wade crossed the road as soon as the vehicles had all passed, and made his way to the sail-boat in the creek. He hauled her in, and went on board of her. For a boat so old, and which had been so much abused since the death of her owner, she was very dry and tight. The night was rather chilly, and Wade felt cold in his thin overalls. He dressed himself in the clothes he had brought from his chamber. Rolling up the garments he had taken off, he used the bundle for a pillow, and lay down on the bed of hay. It was not the first time he had slept in the boat; and, on the whole, he thought it was a better place than the garret he occupied. He closed the door of the cuddy so as to keep out the night air, and fastened it on the inside, for the hook his father had put on the door for this purpose was still available. Wade had worked very hard all the day, to say nothing of the excitement he had passed through; and he was tired and sleepy. He had eaten the brown bread taken from the pantry while he was behind the corn-house; for he did not forget at any time before that he was hungry, or not for more than a few minutes at a time. He was therefore in good condition to go to sleep, and he did go to sleep as soon as he was comfortable in his bed of hay. It was not more than ten o’clock in the evening when the fire broke out, and it was not after eleven when Wade went to sleep. He slept very soundly, as a weary boy should. If any one had pounded on the half-deck above his head, it would hardly have waked him. After the fire had burned out all the remnants of Mr. Garlick’s barn, the people of Midhampton went to their homes; and not even a detail of firemen was left to watch the smouldering embers. No doubt the people of the town slept better after they returned to their beds. While the fire was still burning, Capt. Trustleton walked over to the house of Obed Swikes. It was not till the worst of the fire was subsided, that he appeared; and Wade had gone to the creek. “I suppose you have heard the bad news,” said the captain to the Swikeses, whom he found still in front of the old black house, watching the dying-out of the fire. “No! what bad news?” demanded Swikes, with a start. “Haven’t you heard any thing about it?” continued the retired shipmaster, in evident surprise. “Heard about what? I don’t know what you are talking about,” replied Swikes.