So
that by enforcing the sale in his case, two birds would, so to speak,
be killed with one stone, and the political and spiritual interests of
the parish be coincidently furthered, making it altogether an
undertaking on which the blessing of Heaven might be reasonably looked
for.
At three o'clock in the afternoon the sale took place. Everything
worked as the Squire had expected. It being the general popular
supposition that there were to be no more sheriffs' sales, there were
no persons present at the auction save the officers of the law and the
gentlemen who were to bid. Only here and there an astonished face
peered out of a window at the proceedings, and a knot of loafers, who
had been boozing away the afternoon, stood staring in the door of the
tavern. That was all. There was no crowd, and no attempt at
interruption. But the news that a man had been sold out for debt
spread fast, and by sunset, when the men and boys came home from their
farm-work or mechanical occupations, numerous groups of excited
talkers had gathered in the streets. There was a very full meeting
that night at the tavern.
"I declar for't," said Israel Goodrich, with an air of mingled
disappointment and wrath, "I be reel put aout, an disappinted like.
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