onds, occupied our
minds, whilst Mr Clare turned over the leaves beneath the table lamp,
and then his clear, strong voice slowly and feelingly uttered the words:
"I will say of the Lord, _He is_ my refuge and my fortress: my God; in
Him will I trust. Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the
fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with His
feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust: His truth _shall_ be
_thy_ shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by
night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that
walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday...
Because thou hast made the Lord which is my refuge, even the Most High,
thy habitation... For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to
keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest
thou dash thy foot against a stone... He shall call upon Me, and I will
answer him. I will be with him in trouble: I will deliver him and
honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and show him My
salvation."

And when the prayers had ended, we separated quietly for our beds, the
Captain going off as usual to the brig.

I turned the key in the hall-door as he went out--the first time such a
thing had been done during our stay on the cape. Ugly coiled himself up
on the horsehair sofa in the dining-room, and in half an hour more, I
suppose, every soul in the old house was asleep.

I dreamed that a lot of rabbits were in a hole together and making a
humming noise, which, I believed, was a whispering they were having
together, and I wanted to hear what they said, but that Ugly made such a
barking I could not. I woke up, and, sure enough, Ugly was very noisy
in the room below, barking regularly and harshly. No one else in the
house seemed to be disturbed. There was a placid snoring in the attic,
a pattering of rain on the roof, and a splashing of water, as it ran off
steadily in a stream to the ground. But in a minute or two, between
Ugly's barks I thought I heard something which recalled what I had been
dreaming of, the rabbits whispering in their burrow. I listened. Yes,
some persons outside the house were talking together in low voices. I
crawled to a window and looked out. There was an indistinct group of
three or four persons standing by the rock, twenty yards from the house.
Their talk was only a murmur of different voices in discussion,
sometim