By day we heard
strange stories from the shopkeepers and cottagers, of carts that
went about in the dead of night, drawn by horses shod with felt,
and guarded by men in dark clothes, going round the town, no doubt
in search of some unwatched house or some unfastened door.
Miss Pole, who affected great bravery herself, was the principal
person to collect and arrange these reports so as to make them
assume their most fearful aspect. But we discovered that she had
begged one of Mr Hoggins's worn-out hats to hang up in her lobby,
and we (at least I) had doubts as to whether she really would enjoy
the little adventure of having her house broken into, as she
protested she should. Miss Matty made no secret of being an arrant
coward, but she went regularly through her housekeeper's duty of
inspection--only the hour for this became earlier and earlier, till
at last we went the rounds at half-past six, and Miss Matty
adjourned to bed soon after seven, "in order to get the night over
the sooner."
Cranford had so long piqued itself on being an honest and moral
town that it had grown to fancy itself too genteel and well-bred to
be otherwise, and felt the stain upon its character at this time
doubly. But we comforted ourselves with the assurance which we
gave to each other that the robberies could never have been
committed by any Cranford person; it must have been a stranger or
strangers who brought this disgrace upon the town, and occasioned
as many precautions as if we were living among the Red Indians or
the French.
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