all chimneys,
the mist, notice that curious eye up in the "cupelo" looking through the
slats and watching them?

"Guess I'll go down," said their owner.

The mist continued to wrap Seamont all that day and far into the night.

Will Somers was preparing to leave Dr. Tilton's store that evening. He had
sent off medicine to quiet the last earache in town that had been heard
from. He had also given powders to make poor Miss Persnips sleep quietly.
She was sick with a nervous fever. Will now closed the store, turned the
key in the lock, and went up the street, whistling "The Star-Spangled
Banner." It was half after ten. One by one the house-lamps had been
extinguished, and it was "dark as a pocket" in the lane. Still whistling,
Will neared Aunt Stanshy's. He ceased his tune suddenly for he caught an
outcry.

"Where does that come from!" asked Will. "Back of the barn, I guess. There
it is again! It is from the dock, I know, sure as I'm born."

He sprang across Aunt Stanshy's garden and then leaped a fence which
separated her estate from an open piece of ground bordering the dock and
used for various purposes. Fishermen dried their fish here on long flakes.
Around three sides of the dock went a stone wall, against which the tide
washed and rippled, mildly grumbling because the wall was stubborn and
would not budge an inch. On the stone wall bordering the upper end of the
dock rested that side of Aunt Stanshy's barn in which were the fastened
door below and the fastened window above.

Will, having leaped the fence, ran past the fish-flakes to the edge of the
stone dock-wall. It was so dark that his running was neither rapid nor
straight.

"Somebody is down in the dock," thought Will. "Don't worry!" he shouted,
"I am here."

He now heard a series of noises, some of them distinct and quite human.
Others were confused outcries.

"It's time for low tide," thought Will, and, without further reflection,
down he dropped into the dark, dismal dock, landing in a bed of mud soft
as ever a flounder slept on. He was conscious at once that this bed was a
very yielding one, but he could not stop to calculate how far down he
might sink, shouting at once, "Where are you? Sing out there!"

"M--m--moo--moo," replied the person, as if a cow in distress. "I'm
hic--here--hic!"

"Drank as a fool," thought Will. "Where?"

"Hic--here--hic!"

"Hie--haec--hoc, more likely," said Will, recalling his Latin. "Stay right
where you are."