Nancy looked at her trencher and said no more, but she thought there was already enough to bear without having Gran’ther Wattles added to her troubles.  Daniel, meanwhile, had attacked his porringer of clams, and in his excitement over the journey was gobbling at a fearful rate.  His mother looked at him despairingly.

“Daniel,” she said, “thou art pitching food into thy mouth as if thou wert shoveling coals into the oven!  Take thy elbows off the table and eat more moderately.”  Daniel glued his elbows to his side.  “Sit up straight,” she went on, “or thou wilt grow up as crooked as a ram’s horn.”  Daniel immediately sat up as if he had swallowed the poker.  “I wish thee to practice proper manners at home, lest my aunt should think thee a person of no gentility.  Remember thou must not ask for anything at the table.  Wait until it is offered thee, and then do not stuff it down as if thine eyes had not looked upon food for a fortnight!”

“But,” protested poor Dan, who was beginning to feel that the journey might not be all his fancy had painted, “suppose they should n’t offer it?”

“I do not fear starvation for thee,” his mother answered briefly; “and oh, Daniel, I beg of thee to wash thy hands before going to the table!  The Governor is a proper man and my aunt is very particular.”  She paused for breath, and to get more brown-bread for the table.

When she sat down again, Daniel said, “If you please, I think I ’d rather go on to Provincetown with the Captain.”

“That must be as we are guided at the time,” said his father.

The busy day passed quickly, and before sunset a fine array of pies and brown loaves were cooling on the table, the chores were done, and a Sabbath quiet had settled down over the household, not to be broken until sunset of the following day.

When Daniel opened the cabin door the next morning, he was confronted by a wall of gray mist which shut the landscape entirely from view.  He had hoped to catch a glimpse of the Lucy Ann, in order to assure himself that he had not merely dreamed the events of the day before, but nothing could he see, and he began dispirited preparations for church.  They had no clock, and on account of the fog they could not tell the time by the sun, so the whole family started early to cross the long stretch of pasture land which lay between them and the meeting-house in the village.  They reached it just as Gran’ther Wattles, looking very grave and important, came out on the church steps and beat a solemn tattoo upon a drum to call the people together.  They came from different directions across the fields and through the one street of the village, looking anxious for fear they should be late, yet not daring to desecrate the Sabbath by any appearance of haste.  Among the rest, red-faced and short of wind, who should appear but Captain Sanders?  Sabbath decorum forbade any show of surprise; so Goodman Pepperell and his wife merely bowed gravely, and the Captain, looking fairly pop-eyed in his effort to keep properly solemn, nodded in return, and they passed into the meeting-house together.