it were clustered the principal houses and shops, shaded by silver-leaf
poplars, a few elms, and some willows and spruces. Each tree bent
slightly away from the northeast, the direction from which blew the
heavy winter gales. Beyond the main road were green slopes and pastures,
with swamps in the hollows, swamps which were to be cranberry bogs in
the days to come. Then the lower road, with more houses, and, farther
on, the beach, the flats--partially uncovered because it was high
tide--and the bay.

Behind the Mayo house was the crest of Cannon Hill, more hills, pastures
and swamps, scattered houses and pine groves. Then began the tumbled,
humped waste of sand dunes, and, over their ragged fringes of beach plum
and bayberry bushes, the deep blue of the wide Atlantic. The lighthouse
was a white dot and the fish shanties a blotch of brown. Along the inner
edge of the blue were scars of dancing white, the flashing teeth of
hungry shoals which had torn to pieces and swallowed many a good ship.
And, far out, dotted and sprinkled along the horizon, were sails.

"See?" said Captain Zeb, puffing still from the exertion of climbing
the ladder to the "cupoler," for he was distinctly "fleshy." "See? The
beacon's up. Packet come in this mornin'. There she is. See her down
there by the breakwater?"

Sure enough, the empty barrel, painted red, was hoisted to the top of
its pole on the crest of Cannon Hill. And, looking down at the bay and
following the direction of the stubby pointing finger, Ellery saw a
little schooner, with her sails lowered, lying, slightly on her side,
in a shallow pool near a long ridge of piled stones--the breakwater. A
small wharf made out from the shore and black figures moved briskly upon
it. Carts were alongside the schooner and there more dots were busy.

"Eben's pennant's flyin'," said Captain Zeb. "He always sets colors
when the packet's in. Keeps packet tavern, Eben does. That's it, that
old-fashioned, gambrel-roofed house on the rise by the wharf. Call it
'Saints' Rest,' they do now, 'cause Eben's so mighty religious."

The minister saw the long, rambling house, with one lonely, twisted tree
in its yard, a flag flying from a pole beside it. So that was where
the Hammonds lived. And where the girl lived who was certain he was a
"conceited snippet." Whatever he might be in reality he hoped it was not
that. "Snippet" was not in his dictionary, but he didn't like the sound
of it.

"Who owns the pack