“Sssh! here comes Nat.  Be kind to him.  He’s sufferin’, too; maybe more’n you imagine.  Here she is, Nat.  Take her back home and be good to her.”

The broad-shouldered skipper led his charge out of the gate and down the “Turn-off.”  Josiah Badger looked after them disgustedly.  As Keziah approached, he turned to her.

“I swan to man!” he exclaimed, in offended indignation, “if I ain’t losin’ my respect for that Nat Hammond.  He’s the f-f-fuf-for’ardest critter ever I see.  I was just agoin’ to hail Gracie and ask her what she thought about my leadin’ some of the meetin’s now her uncle has been called aloft.  I wanted to ask her about it fust, afore Zeke Bassett got ahead of me, but that Nat wouldn’t let me.  Told me she mustn’t be b-b-b-bothered about little things now.  Little things!  Now, what do you think of that, Mrs. Coffin?  And I spoke to Lot Taylor, one of our own s-s-sas-sassiety, and asked what he thought of it, and he said for me to go home set d-d-down and let my h-h-h-hah-hair grow.  Of all—­”

“I tell you what you do, Josiah,” broke in the voice of Captain Zeb Mayo, “you go home or somewhere else and set down and have it cut.  That’ll take pretty nigh as long, and’ll keep it from wearin’ out your coat collar.  Keziah, I’ve been waitin’ for you.  Get in my shay and I’ll drive you back to the parsonage.”

Mrs. Coffin accepted the invitation and a seat in the chaise beside Captain Zeb.  The captain spoke of the dead Come-Outer and of his respect for him in spite of the difference in creed.  He also spoke of the Rev. John Ellery and of the affection he had come to feel for the young man.

“I like that young feller, Keziah,” he said.  “Like him for a lot of reasons, same as the boy liked the hash.  For one thing, his religion ain’t all starch and no sugar.  He’s good-hearted and kind and—­and human.  He seems to get just as much satisfaction out of the promise of heaven as he does out of the sartainty of t’other port.  He ain’t all the time bangin’ the bulkhead and sniffin’ brimstone, like parsons I have seen.  Sulphur’s all right for a spring medicine, maybe, but when June comes I like to remember that God made roses.  Elkanah, he comes to me a while ago and he says, ‘Zebedee,’ he says, ’don’t you think Mr. Ellery’s sermons might be more orthodox?’ ‘Yes,’ says I, ’they might be, but what a mercy ‘tis they ain’t.’  He, he, he!  I kind of like to poke Elkanah in the shirt front once in a while, just to hear it crackle.  Say, Keziah, you don’t think the minister and Annabel are—­”

“No,” was the emphatic interruption; “I know they ain’t; he ain’t, anyway.”

“Good!  Them Danielses cal’late they own the most of this town already; if they owned the minister they’d swell up so the rest of us would have to go aloft or overboard; we’d be crowded off the decks, sure.”

“No one owns him.  Haven’t you found that out?”

“Yup, I cal’late I have and I glory in his spunk.”