chful woe!
High as the heavens your name I'll shout,
If you paint me the picture, and leave that out.

THE SOUTH BREAKER.

IN TWO PARTS

PART II.

Blue-fish were about done with, when one day Dan brought in some
mackerel from Boon Island: they hadn't been in the harbor for some time,
though now there was a probability of their return. So they were going
out when the tide served--the two boys--at midnight for mackerel, and
Dan had heard me wish for the experience so often, a long while ago,
that he said, Why shouldn't they take the girls? and Faith snatched at
the idea, and with that Mr. Gabriel agreed to fetch me at the hour, and
so we parted. I was kind of sorry, but there was no help for it.

When we started, it was in that clear crystal dark that looks as if you
could see through it forever till you reached infinite things, and we
seemed to be in a great hollow sphere, and the stars were like living
beings who had the night to themselves. Always, when I'm up late, I feel
as if it were something unlawful, as if affairs were in progress which
I had no right to witness, a kind of grand freemasonry. I've felt it
nights when I've been watching with mother, and there has come up across
the heavens the great caravan of constellations, and a star that I'd
pulled away the curtain on the east side to see came by-and-by and
looked in at the south window; but I never felt it as I did this night.
The tide was near the full, and so we went slipping down the dark water
by the starlight; and as we saw them shining above us, and then looked
down and saw them sparkling up from below,--the stars,--it really seemed
as if Dan's oars must be two long wings, as if we swam on them through a
motionless air. By-and-by we were in the island creek, and far ahead,
in a streak of wind that didn't reach us, we could see a pointed sail
skimming along between the banks, as if some ghost went before to show
us the way; and when the first hush and mystery wore off, Mr. Gabriel
was singing little French songs in tunes like the rise and fall of the
tide. While he sang, he rowed, and Dan was gangeing the hooks. At length
Dan took the oars again, and every now and then he paused to let us
float along with the tide as it slacked, and take the sense of the
night. And all the tall grass that edged the side began to wave in a
strange light, and there blew on a little breeze, and over the rim of
the world tipped up a waning moon. If there'd