satisfaction--and the
little household went to sleep, quite care-free that night.

At two of the clock, with nearly noiseless tread, David Bushnell left
the house.

As the door closed his mother moved uneasily in her sleep, and awoke
with the sudden consciousness that something uncanny had happened. She
looked from a window and saw, by the light of a low-lying moon, that
David had gone out.

Without awakening her husband she protected herself with needful
clothing, and, wrapped about in one of the curious plaid blankets of
mingled blue and white, adorned with white fringe, that are yet to be
found in the land, she followed into the night.

Save for the sleepy tinkle of the water over the stones in the Pochaug
River, and an occasional cry of a night-bird still lingering by the
sea, the air was very still.

With light tread across the bridge she ran a little way, and then
ventured a timid cry of her own into the night:

"David! David!"

Now David Bushnell hoped to escape without awakening his mother. He
was lingering near, to learn whether his going had disturbed anyone,
and he was quite prepared for the call.

Turning back to meet her he thought: "_What_ a mother _mine_ is." And
he said, "Well, mother, what is it? I was afraid I might disturb
you."

"O David!" was all that she could utter in response.

"And so _you_ are troubled about me, are you? I'm only going to chase
the will-o'-the-wisp a little while, and I could not do it, you know,
until moon-down."

"_O_ David!" and this time with emphatic pressure on his arm, "David,
come home. _I_ can't let you go off alone."

"Come with me, then. You're well blanketed, I see. I'd much rather
have some one with me, only Ezra was tired and sleepy."

He said this with so much of his accustomed manner that Mrs. Bushnell
put her hand within his arm and went on, quite content now, and
willing that he should speak when it pleased him to do so, and it
pleased him very soon.

"Little mother," he said, "I am afraid you are losing faith in me."

"Never! David; only--I _was_ a little afraid that you were losing your
own head, or faith in yourself."

"No; but I _am_ afraid I've lost my faith in something else. I showed
you the two bits of fox-fire that were crossed on one end of the
needle in the compass, and the one bit made fast to the other? Well,
to-day, when I went to the bottom of the river, the fox-fire gave no
light, and the compass was useless. Can you unde