oil; my cup
runneth over._'" Returned, again, in a lull of the gale, my fancy that
I caught the lamentation of a multitude. "'_Surely goodness and mercy
shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house
of the Lord for ever._'"

"Bless God!" cried the parson. "Bless God, brother!"

"Ay," said my uncle, feelingly, "bless God!"

The parson wrung my uncle's hand.

"That there psa'm don't seem true, parson, b'y," says my uncle, "on a
night like this here dirty night, with schooners in trouble at sea.
Ever been t' sea in a gale o' wind, parson? Ah, well! it don't seem
true--not in a gale o' wind, with this here poor, lonely little maid's
mother lyin' there dead in the nex' room. It jus' don't seem true!"

Parson Lute, poor man! started--stared, pained, anxious; in doubt, it
may be, of the Christian congeniality of this man.

"It don't seem true," says my uncle, "in the face of a easterly gale
an' the death o' mothers. An', look you, parson," he declared, "I'll
be--well, parson, I'll jus' be _jiggered_--if it do! There you haves
it!"

"Brother," the parson answered, accusingly, "it is in the Bible; it
must be true."

"'Tis _where_?" my uncle demanded, confounded.

"In the Bible, sir."

"An' it--it--must be--"

"True, sir."

My uncle sighed; and--for I know his loving-kindness--'twas a sigh
that spoke a pain at heart.

"It must be true," reiterated the wretched parson, now, it seemed,
beset by doubt. "It _must_ be true!"

"Why, by the dear God ye serve, parson!" roared my uncle, with healthy
spirit, superior in faith, "I _knows_ 'tis true, Bible or St. John's
noospaper!"

Aunt Esther put her gray head in at the door. "Is the kettle b'ilin'?"
says she.

The kettle was boiling.

"Ah!" says she--and disappeared.

"'_Though I walk,_'" the parson repeated, his thin, freckled hands
clasped, "'_through the valley of the shadow of death!_'"

There was no doctor at Twist Tickle: so the parson lay dead--poor
man!--of the exposure of that night, within three days, in the house
of Parson Stump....

XV

A MEASURE OF PRECAUTION

With the threats of the gray stranger in mind, my uncle now began
without delay to refit the _Shining Light_: this for all the world as
though 'twere a timely and reasonable thing to do. But 'twas neither
timely, for the fish were running beyond expectation off Twist Tickle,
nor reasonable, for the _Shining Light_ had been left to rot and foul
in the wate