hout, and chanting, waveringly,--

"Oh, Hagar, don't ye know
De Lord's on de sea?
De wind blows, an' de sky is dark,
An' de sea _cries like a little chile_,
An' de boats will be blowed away;
But de Lord is good, an' mornin' will come,
An', oh, Hagar, sing hallelujah!
Fur de Lord is in it all!"

Here she stopped her chanting, and began to sing "Hallelujah!" softly,
ceasing her swaying, to look into the coals. The fire burned down to
rosy embers, in which little blue-tongued flames darted up
fitfully,--anon lighting up the room brilliantly, then dying away and
leaving it almost in darkness,--while Hagar's crooning died away to a
whisper. A little gray light still shone in at the kitchen-window, but
it was fast flitting. The roar of the sea became thunder, the wind
grew tempestuous. By and by the rain began to fall, sounding strangely
soft and still, when compared with the din of wind and waves.

"God bress us!" said Hagar, "dis yer is an awful night. Keep de boats
off de Rock, Lord, and pity de sailors in dis yer awful storm!"

The old woman knew how the sea must look now,--yeasty, horrible, its
white wave-caps shining through the darkness and hurrying to topple
over and thunder against the rocks. To her, as she sat crouched before
the fire, it seemed to howl and scream and mourn hoarsely, like some
great voice rending the night with lamentation.

"Call on de Lord, Hagar," she muttered frequently; "can't nuffin else
help ye now!"

Sometimes she fell to chanting her thoughts,--the sound of her own
voice was pleasant to her in the loneliness,--and she piled cedar
chips on the fire to see their cheerful blaze and enjoy their brisk
crackle.

"Might as well hab a candle," she said, after a time. "Git yer
knittin', chile, an' 'pear as ef ye didn't distrus' de Lord. What ef
de wind is blowin'? what ef de sea is a-screamin'? Don't ye know whose
wind and whose sea 'tis?" She got up to grope for a candle on the
shelf over the fireplace.

"Hagar!" exclaimed a voice at the farther end of the kitchen,--a
voice so full of compressed fear and anxiety that the old negress
tumbled back in her chair with affright,--"Hagar! are you here?"
demanded the voice.

"Bress ye! yes, I's here, Mas'r Dick!" she answered, catching sight of
his white face by the dining-room door. "I's here, but ye spoke so
suddent! Jes' wait, an' I'll hab a candle in a minnit."

The candle was fo