plantation, an' stock it
with niggers for you. Come, brace up again!"

He offered the brandy-jug, and encouraged the boy to drink heartily, and
affected to do the same himself, though it was but a feint.

While they stood in the shelter of the camp cottage going through this
pastime, a voice from near at hand resounded through the woods, and made
their blood stop to circulate for an instant on the arrested heart.

It was a voice making a prayer at a high pitch, as if intended to cover
all the camp-ground and be heard to the outermost bounds. The sincerity
of the sound made Levin Dennis feel that the camp might still be
inhabited by some spiritual congregation which the eyes of profane
visitors could not see--the remainder of the saints, the souls of the
converted, or an ethereal host from above the solemn organ of the pines.

The idea had scarcely seized upon him when a fluttering of wings was
heard, and on the old camp-ground alighted a flock of white wild-geese.

They balanced their large deacon and elder-like bodies upon the empty
seats, and there set up as grave a squawking as if they were singing a
hymn, with that indifferent knowledge of harmony possessed by
camp-meeting choristers.

The accident of their coming--no unusual thing on these exposed
islands--might have made untroubled people only laugh, but it produced
the contrary effect on both our visitors. Levin felt a superstitious
fear seize upon him, and, turning to Joe Johnson, he saw that person
with a face so pale that it showed his blood-gathered eye yet darker and
more hideous, like a brand upon his countenance, gazing upon the late
empty preaching-booth.

There Levin, turning his eyes, observed a solitary man kneeling, of a
plain appearance and dress, and with locks of womanly hair falling
carelessly upon a large and almost noble forehead, his arms raised to
heaven and his voice flowing out in a mellow stream of supplication, in
the intervals of which the geese could be heard quacking aloud and
paddling their wings as they balanced and hopped over the camp-meeting
arena.

"Who's he a prayin' to?" Levin asked of Joe Johnson.

"Quemar!" muttered Johnson, as if he were terrified at something; "his
potato-trap is swallerin' ghosts! Curse on the swaddler? The kid will
whindle directly. Come, boy, come!"

At this, seizing Levin's hand, partly in persuasion, partly as if he
wanted the lad's protection, Johnson, fairly trembling, ran for the
boat.