THE HALL SERVICE.
Did I not say there was only one store at The Harbor? I beg Miss P.
Green’s pardon. She did not claim in so many words to “keep store,”
and yet if anybody had actually denied her right to the use of that
grand word, “store,” there would have been a tempest at The Harbor.
She merely said that she “kept a few little articles”; and yet the
black king of the Bigboos in the depths of Africa, would not think
more of a red handkerchief and a hand looking–glass, than Miss P.
Green did of her three shelves of “goods,” and one small show–case of
pins, needles, gooseberries, lemon drops, and stationary, in her front
room. Gooseberries and lemon drops, I say, for Miss P. Green kept only
these, believing that you could sell more if you kept one article,
and “got your name up” on the merits of that one article. In this
case there were two articles; but never were there such gooseberries
before, nor have there been such lemon drops since. The gooseberries
would have been excellent to pitch with—just big, and hard, and round
enough—at a game of baseball; and as for the lemon drops, into what
rapture those sugared acids, or that acidulated sugar rather, would
throw any schoolboy or girl, at “recess–time.” Then Miss P. Green kept
the post–office! There is no adjective I can now recall, of sufficient
magnitude and magnificence to represent the importance which Miss P.
Green attached to this position. Her ideas were not unduly exalted
until she had seen the Boston post–office, and enjoyed an interview
with the Boston post–master. She then felt that her position was
unusual. She never looked upon her humble wooden walls as she came
down the street, but that they changed to a granite façade, with lofty
doors and pillars; and when she entered her abode she walked at once
upon a marble pavement. What importance she felt when she handled the
stamp, whose magic impress she must first make, before any letter could
start on its travels from The Harbor. The Great Charlemagne pounding
with his golden seal, did not feel half as grand. And those clumsy
leathern pouches that were called mai–lbags, and which only Miss P.
Green could open—how she venerated them! True Billings, the driver
of the mail–wagon, handled them roughly, and pitched them upon the
doorstep without ceremony, bawling out, “Here you have ’em!” By the
post–mistress, they were approached with a certain respect and awe,
whose weight would crush the official opening the great treasury–vaults
of the nation, did he regard these with corresponding feelings of
importance. It was stoutly secured to the door frame outside with good
shingle nails, that sign indicating Miss P. Green’s official place in
The Harbor world: “Post–office.” On the door leading from the entry
into the front room was the name “P. Green.” This indicated her place
in the great world of trade. If it had been attached to the outer door,
it would have saved me an ugly omission, for I should at once have
given her honorable mention in the business list of The Harbor. The
sign occupied an outer position once, but boys do not always have that
respect for authority which is becoming, and had changed the name one
night to “Pea Green.” It was indignantly withdrawn the next day. It was
just as well removed, I dare say, for if she had continued to daily see
those two signs, “Post–office,” and “P. Green,” as she approached the
building, the sense of her official and commercial importance would
finally have been too much for her. As it was, she passed from the
contemplation of one sign to the other, and there was a gradual letting
down from that sense of exaltation which she had on seeing the front
door.
But all of Miss P. Green’s merits have not been mentioned. She was a
very little body, and that may seem a detraction from her excellencies,
and yet it was only another praiseworthy feature; for never in such
small compass was packed so much knowledge. No “Saratoga” trunk ever
went to “Springs,” so loaded, crowded, jammed. She was the village
register; could tell the births and deaths and marriages for the
year, giving each date. Not so surprising a fact, considering that
the village was small; but when you add to this a complete knowledge
of every household, how many were in each family, their names,
occupations, what they had for breakfast, dinner and supper, what time
they went to bed, and what time they left their beds, the register
kept by P. Green, grew into a village directory and a village history.
But this tree of knowledge did not stop its growth here. It had other
branches. She knew all of the mysteries of dressmaking and millinery;
had a large acquaintance with housekeeping and nursing; kept posted in
politics, and considered it her duty to defend the “administration,”
though unfairly denied the right of suffrage.
One of the latest achievements of this encyclopedia, was to obtain
complete and reliable information about the life saving station. This
she had done by carefully cultivating the acquaintance of Keeper
Barney. She was now at work on these two subjects, the Baggs family
and all its branches; also the Plympton family; and this had the
second place, as Walter’s arrival was the more recent. Such a wonder!
So very much in so very little! It was a terrible satire on her size,
that misnomer Pea Green, for in one sense it was exceedingly unjust.
Not even the mammoth peas that grow in the land of the giants, could
furnish so much comfort and delight to a dining circle of twelve, as
this feminine wonder by the sea. And to all hungry gossipers, she did
what no restaurant will do; she fed without cost all who came.
It was the most natural thing in the world, then, that Aunt Lydia
should say one day to Walter, “I know how I can find out. I can ask
Miss Green.”
She accordingly went to the post–office and asked Miss Green as
follows: “My nephew, Walter Plympton, wants to know about the Hall. Who
has the say about it; that is, who lets people use it?”
Miss Green was delighted. She would not only find out what this use
of the Hall might mean, but oh, what an opportunity to learn about
the Plympton family! Sitting on a tall stool, which was an innocent
contrivance to eke out her scanty height, she persuasively bent her
gray curls over the show–case. Her once bright eyes had softened down
to a faded blue; and time had laid on her forehead and cheeks its stamp
whose mark was as certain as that of the begrimed die with which she
fiercely struck the daily mail. She had a pleasant voice, an affable
manner, a temperament sunny and hopeful; and people liked to talk with
the post–mistress. The initiated also knew that in a certain back
sitting–room there was a brown teapot always kept on the stove, adding
to the charms of that snug retreat to which any tea–toper might be
favored with an invitation.
“The Hall! Indeed! Going to be a singing–school?—a—a?” inquired the
post–mistress.
“Oh, no! Now it’s strange Walter should have such a notion, you may
think, but he’s one of that kind whose head is allers full of suthin’.
He came to me yesterday, and sez to me, ‘Aunt Lyddy!’ Sez I, ‘What?’
He didn’t say any more, for suthin’ called him to the door, and I was
a–ironin’ and went on where I was. It was warm, you know. Don’t you
think it was? I did feel it over the ironin’.”
Aunt Lydia had a tantalizing way sometimes of telling a story. She
would enter very fully into details, amplifying little items and
leaving the main subject untouched.
“But the point—the point—Lyddy,” gently observed the post–mistress.
“Oh, yes. By and by he came back agin; and what do you s’pose he said
he was a thinkin’ about?”
“I don’t know.”
“I was then in the kitchen. No, I was standin’ afore the clock—yes—”
“But that’s no matter. What did he say, Lyddy? The point, dear?”
“Well, he axed who had the say about the Hall. I told him I didn’t
know; and how could I be ’spected to know, Phebe?”
“Of course not. Then you want to know who can let him or anybody else
have the Hall? It’s Cap’n Elliott, you know. He’s the trustee, as I
call it. Why, the Hall was given by old Nathan Grant for the good of
The Harbor, he said, and he made Cap’n Elliott trustee. So Walter must
ask him.”
“I see, I see.”
“Now, Lyddy! Is Walter’s father’s name Adoniram?”
Aunt Lydia perceived at once that the post–mistress now wished to take
her turn in obtaining information, and she knew it would be a long
turn. She moved towards the door, remarking, “Oh, no, it’s Ezra. Thank
you, Miss Green; I guess I must be a–goin’.”
“But do take a cup of tea before you go,” pleaded Miss Green, fastening
on Aunt Lydia a beseeching look. At the same time, the post–mistress
sidled down from her tall, four–legged throne, and began to move
towards the little brown teapot. Aunt Lydia said something to the
effect that yesterday it was warm, but it was a “chilly east wind
to–day”; and she followed the post–mistress in the direction of the
warmer atmosphere of the teapot. Having obtained all the knowledge she
wished in the Plympton line, Miss P. Green poured out another cup of
tea, and remarked suddenly, “And isn’t Baggs queer?”
“Queer! That don’t begin to describe him, Phebe.”
“He was here the other day. Came, you know, on special business about
his mail, and said he had been a–trying to get down here I don’t know
how long. He wanted an arrangement so that letters could come to him,
in a box. Now that’s very nice, you know, when you have a class of
customers wanting it. They have boxes in the Boston post–office you
know, and I thought I might take it into consideration. He said he was
going to send out circulars about something, and answers would come for
‘Rambler, Box one,’ if I would put one in for him. Well, if you believe
it, before I had a chance to give him an answer, he went to that window
in the office that looks toward the harbor—the offing, I mean.” Miss
Green was, or aimed to be, very correct, having once taught school.
“What a start he gave! and he turned round, pale as—as—that paint on
the office–door.” It was not very white. “I didn’t seem to notice it,
but only said in an off–hand way, ‘Do you see anything, Mr. Baggs?’ I
thought it might be a vessel sailing in. But he didn’t take any notice.
Then I said again—mild, sort of—‘The sea quiet, Mr. Baggs? Anything
out of the way? Can you see the Chair? You know if we can’t see the
Chair on account of fog, it is a bad sign any way; and every day,
people look off there.’ You ought to have seen that man start again and
almost give a real jump. ‘Chair?’ he said. ‘What have I got to do with
that Chair? Chair?’ And if he didn’t rush out of the store! I couldn’t
see anything that was the matter with the Chair. And there that man who
had been so anxious to see me, went off and left everything unsettled.
Now wasn’t it queer, Lyddy?”
“Yes, but that Baggs is a very, very unprofitable subject of talk
for me, and I have made up my mind to shet my mouth on him—for the
present.”
Aunt Lydia’s mouth here shut with all the decision of a portcullis.
Miss Green, though, was not prepared to close her portals of speech,
and question after question did she ask about the Plymptons, back to
the first that came from England.
If she had only known there was a Don Pedro in the world! She had a way
of pursing up her mouth after a question, and then of fastening on one
a very direct look, and all this was as irresistible as a corkscrew
in the presence of a stopper. Aunt Lydia left the post–mistress and
returned home.
But what was Walter’s object that led to this interview? What did he
want the Hall for? St. John’s, the parish church, was a mile and a
half away. On days when the wind was right, its bell could be heard
faintly, musically calling all souls to prayer. Not often though did
these sweet notes travel as far as The Harbor, and the consequence
was, that very few souls traveled up to church. In fair weather, Miss
Green and Mrs. Jabez Wherren might walk there, or they would report at
Uncle Boardman’s in season to take passage in his big covered wagon
that, rain or shine, was sure to be heard rattling along to St. John’s
every Sunday. The remainder of the population virtually ignored St.
John’s, and St. John’s ignored them. Its clergyman came down to say a
few words of Christian farewell over the bodies that might rest behind
the stunted firs in the little cemetery swept by the sea–winds, or to
join for a life–long clasp, the two hands willing thus to fall into one
another. Otherwise St. John’s had very little to do with The Harbor,
and The Harbor responded in the same fashion.
“Why,” thought Walter, walking down through The Harbor one Sunday, “it
doesn’t look much like Sunday down here. Uncle Boardman doesn’t live in
one of these houses.”
The Harbor village had anything but that Sunday look which marked Uncle
Boardman’s premises. Some of the fishermen were out in their yards
overhauling and mending their trawls. One or two were doing a little
autumn work in their rough gardens. In an open lot behind the gray,
lichen–patched ledges, several young fishermen, in red shirts, were
playing ball. There was a row of fishing–smacks at an ancient wharf,
and their owners were improving Sunday’s convenient leisure for the
accomplishment of odd little jobs. Sunday at The Harbor was respected
by the inhabitants after their peculiar fashion. Every fishing–boat
came back to its quiet moorings before Sunday, as promptly as if a
police force had ordered it there. Then came a day at home, not of
entire abstinence from work, but of less work. To do less, not to quit
work altogether, was the Sunday fashion of The Harbor. A man would have
lost caste, and been ranked as a heathen, if he had taken his boat out
to sea, every Sunday. He might stay at home, and be busy all day with
little “jobs,” and not hurt his reputation for religion. One fisherman
abstained entirely from work, Jabez Wherren. He did not go to church,
declaring that “somebody must stay at home and look arter it; at which
place all religion began.” He did not work though. He would lounge
about all day, dressed in his very best suit, and decked out with some
very bright necktie, and flourishing a flaming red or yellow silk
handkerchief, so that he looked like a man–of–war decorated with flags.
Because he did not go to church, Jabez knew that his wife ranked him
as a very deficient being; but on the other hand, because he did not
work, he was well aware that in the eyes of his fellow–fishermen, he
was regarded as a person of superior virtues. In his walk that Sunday,
Walter at last was opposite the Hall, an antiquated, one–storied
building that needed the services of both painter and carpenter. It was
prefaced, though, by a porch, with two very imposing Doric pillars.
This porch compensated for all deficiencies; and the villagers walking
between those pillars felt grand as a Roman army, marching under the
triumphal arch of Titus, in the “Eternal City.” Walter halted before
the Hall and there held this soliloquy. “I have got an idea. Mother
wanted me to do some special religious work; and, I’m afraid—I know I
haven’t. She wanted me to get people to go to church if they didn’t go,
and now here is a chance. There’s the new rector at St. John’s. He is
young, and full of life, and I wonder if he couldn’t come down here and
hold services, once every now and then at any rate. It would be just
the thing, I declare.” Walter’s hazel eyes snapped with interest, and a
smile swept over his round, full face.
“What’s Boardman Blake’s nephew up to, a lookin’ at the Hall?” wondered
Jabez Wherren. Walter did not relieve him of his wonder, but soon
turned about and went home.
“The first thing,” he said, “is to find out who has the letting of the
Hall.”
Aunt Lydia ascertained this fact for him, and informed him that the
trustee was May Elliott’s grandfather.
“Then I must go and see the schoolmarm,” remarked Walter, “and get her
to help me.”
“Then you’re going to really try?” said Aunt Lydia.
“Yes,” answered Walter positively.
“Seems to me they might go up to St. John’s.”
“But they won’t, and St. John’s must come to them.”
“Now, Walter, I don’t want to throw a speck of cold water on it, but do
you expect to succeed?”
“Well, Aunt, it won’t do any harm to try, and I am going to expect to
succeed, too. I was reading about Admiral Farragut, what he said, that
any man who is prepared for defeat would be half defeated before he
commenced. He said he hoped for success and would try to have it, and
trust God for the rest.”
“It looks to me jest like castin’ pearls afore swine.”
Walter laughed, and said he would go to the schoolhouse and find its
mistress. May said she would see her grandfather, and ask for the Hall.
“But whom shall we get to play? Somebody said there was a melodeon in
the Hall, and somebody else said—you—you played on it.”
“And you want me to play? Well, I will do what I can. I am interested,
and where I can help, I will. I will see if I can’t get two or three
singers.”
That day, May went to her grandfather’s. He sat by the window of his
little house that looked out upon the river racing, at the base of the
rough, rocky banks, toward the wide, restless sea. He was not a happy
old man. True he had been a successful seaman. He had a sufficient
amount of property to make him comfortable. He had no vices to regret.
He had, though, known sorrow, losing wife and children. He and his
housekeeper were the only ones in his home. He had been disappointed
in his grandson, Woodbury, whom he desired to share his home with; and
people said that old Capt. Elliott wished to give Woodbury the largest
fraction of the money and other valuables he was supposed to keep in a
certain bulky safe in his sitting–room. Woodbury, though, in the short
interval he had tried to live at his grandfather’s, had been twice
intoxicated, and the last time angry words had flamed between them like
hot coals that they were throwing. He left the house in wrath, and in
wrath Capt. Elliott shut the door after him. The captain was not a
religious man. He was very honest, and having once been cheated by a
professor of religion who was a very scanty possessor of it, wholly
lacking it indeed, Capt. Elliott ever afterwards declared himself
superior to the character that the church required. He shut out God
from his soul, because a hypocrite shut him out from his dues. He made
his honesty his all, and was a prayerless, peevish, fault–finding,
selfish old man. When May called, he was still looking out of the
window. The sea–wind lifted and let fall his thin, white hair, but
could not lift from his stern, sharp–cut features, the shadow of a
cheerless, selfish life. He heard his granddaughter’s voice, and turned
to meet her. When she had made her request, he said, “For how long do
you want the Hall?”
“Oh, I don’t know. We are going to begin at any rate. We want to see
what interest there will be.”
“Well, yes, I s’pose you can have it. That’s what the Hall is for, to
hold all kind of reason’ble meetin’s.”
Here May made a bold movement, and her blue eyes were full of courage
as she asked, “And, grandfather, won’t you come too?”
“Oh, nonsense, child! I have more religion now than you could pack into
St. John’s. Why, I’d be ashamed to do what some of them folks do.”
May was a strategist. She knew it was useless to argue with him. She
also knew that he liked to hear her play her melodeon in the sacred
parlor at home, kept in state there all the week with the dried grasses
on the mantel, and the family register on the wall, and the big family
Bible on the mahogany table.
“Won’t you come to hear me play?”
“May, I’ll make this agreement. I’ll come down and stay as long as
you play and sing, but I’m not a–goin’ to stay and have any min’ster
advise me in a long sermon, for I know as much as he about it, and more
too.”
“Well, grandfather, stay while the singing lasts.”
There was another invitation extended. This was given by Walter to
Chauncy Aldrich.
“Ah, ah,” said Chauncy in his self–important way, lifting his hat, and
with great dignity running his hand through his wall of hair, “you want
me to honor the place with the presence of C. Aldrich? Yes, I’ll come.
But look here, none of your long, prosy sermons, but something warm,
and something short. Ha, ha!”
One by one, all preparations were made for the service. Miss Green
promised to lend her cracked voice to the “choir,” and two or three
young fishermen offered to roar in the bass. Don Pedro, whom Uncle
Boardman had kept at his house to assist in some of the autumn work
on the farm, made himself very helpful in sweeping out the Hall and
arranging its seats.
“What time do you expect the clergyman will hold the service?” inquired
Miss Green, as Walter was about leaving the post–office one day.
“Oh, I think he will come in the evening, if we want him,” replied
Walter.
“There!” reflected this young master of ceremonies as he left the
house. “If that isn’t just like me! I declare if I didn’t forget to
ask the clergyman! But of course he will come, and I will take Uncle
Boardman’s team and go up at once, to ask him.”
Alas, the rector couldn’t come!
Walter drove back in despair.
“I’ll stop at the schoolhouse and see the schoolmarm,” he said, “and
ask what is to be done, though I know she will laugh at me.”
The school had just been dismissed; and May only lingered to set away
her few books in her desk.
“Ah, Miss Elliott,” said Walter confusedly. “I—I—I’m afraid it
doesn’t look hopeful—about—about our Hall service?”
“Why not?”
He laughed, and blushed, and said frankly, “I went ahead and got
everything ready but the minister!”
“You hadn’t spoken to him!”
“No, and it was just like me, mother would say. I got my cart and had
it nicely packed, or you did rather,” a compliment which made the young
teacher look quite rosy,—“I got my cart, but I hadn’t thought about
my horse! When I spoke just now to Dr. Ellton, he said his hands were
full, and he couldn’t possibly come. Just like me! I needed it perhaps,
for I was saying, ‘What a grand thing I am helping along!’ And here is
my cart all packed and ready to start, and where is my horse?”
The young teacher was amused and pleased with Walter’s frankness.
“Oh, well, Plympton, we won’t give up. I have done things that way
myself. Somebody can take the service, I know. Isn’t there any one else
at St. John’s?”
“There is a young fellow who, I believe, comes on Sundays to help the
doctor; Raynham, I think, is his name.”
“You ask him.”
Mr. Raynham was asked. Would he come? His black eyes lighted up as he
gave his answer: “I should be delighted. I only help at the morning
service, and I can come down as well as not in the evening. The doctor
would like to have me, I know.”
“It does me good,” thought Walter, “just the way he accepts my
invitation. Wonder if ministers—and other folks—know how much good it
does when they promise a thing that fashion!”
Mr. Raynham engaged to take tea at Aunt Lydia’s, Sunday afternoon, and
for this young prophet, she heaped her table with biscuit, and cake,
and doughnuts, till it looked liked a fort with its outworks.
“Now,” she said to Mr. Raynham, when he was leaving for the Hall, “you
mustn’t go a–flyin’ over our heads to–night when you speak.”
He gave his shoulders a nervous twitch, smiled, and said, “It’s only a
talk, I have, when we have finished evening prayer.”
“If you let it come from the heart,” said Aunt Lydia encouragingly,
“your arrer will be sent out from a strong bow. You see ’twon’t do
allers to have jest what will do for big–folks. You jest talk out of
your heart, and think of us as leetle folks, and your arrers will hit
the mark, sure.”
“I hope so,” thought the young assistant, “and may God give me my
message.”
He felt his need all the more, for May Elliott came to him and said,
“If you see an old man going out when we have finished the singing,
don’t you think anything of it. I could only get him here on the
condition that he might be excused after the music.”
“Indeed!” reflected Mr. Raynham. “I will see that the music lasts some
time.”
What a service that was! The choir sang with remarkable heartiness,
even if it did not execute with remarkable skill. True, Miss Green’s
voice was a little unsteady on the high notes, and fluttered about like
a man on a high ladder, who growing dizzy, and threatening to fall,
catches distractedly at the rounds.
The young fishermen, too, thundered away on the “Ah–men” as if to
atone for previous deficiencies, and roared for half a minute in a
bass monotone that suggested the ocean. Then there was Don Pedro.
When he was clearing up the hall, May Elliott was rehearsing on the
melodeon, and she heard his voice several times accompanying the tunes.
She impressed him into the musical service at once, and never did any
royal tenor or bass from Italy, feel his importance more sensibly. As
Don Pedro was very lacking in the department of “best clothes,” Aunt
Lydia promised to “rig” him out in some of Uncle Boardman’s superfluous
garments. Don Pedro was somewhat tall and slender, and Uncle Boardman
was short and thick, and the “rigging” was not a close fit. The clothes
hung about Don Pedro like the sails of a ship about the slender poles
of a fishing–smack. Genius, though, is superior to all inconveniences,
and above Uncle Boardman’s immense coat, Don Pedro’s head struggled
manfully. He did not have a sharp sense of the ludicrous, and only
remarked, “I guess as how dese clo’es was made for anudder man, shuah.”
And the audience—it filled all the rough seats in the hall. Did Mr.
Raynham see that face of an old man, sad and hopeless, near the door?
No, he only knew some indefinite, nameless “old man” was there, itching
to go out when the musical part of the service had been completed.
“We will vary the usual order of such services as these, to–night, and
after I have spoken five minutes, we will have more music; a hymn,”
said Mr. Raynham.
“Ah,” thought Capt. Elliott, squirming in his seat and ready to
retreat, “I guess I shall have to hold on, for I promised my
grand–darter.”
How Mr. Raynham did talk “out of his heart,” to some imaginary old
sinner trying to avoid his duty, and get away from God’s house!
What would that soul do when God met him in judgment, and he could not
escape, possibly? Capt. Elliott wriggled very uneasily; but there was
his promise to May!
“We will now have some music,” said Mr. Raynham. Again rose the choir,
Don Pedro struggling above his mammoth outfit; Miss Green springing up
with voice ready to mount to the ladder’s top, and there tumble; the
young fishermen on hand for an oceanic roar—at the close.
“I’ll go now,” thought the captain, but the young prophet called out,
“I will say a few words, and then we will have more music, another
hymn.”
Capt. Elliott felt that he was a pinioned bird. Stay he must, and all
the while the young man on the platform shot his arrows.
“He’s a talkin’ out of his heart to some poor prodigal,” thought Aunt
Lydia. “God help him!”
Then that beautiful appeal in the hymnal was sung, that Advent appeal;
“O Jesus, thou art standing
Outside the fast–closed door,
In lowly patience waiting
To pass the threshold o’er:
We bear the name of Christians,
His name and sign we bear:
O shame, thrice shame upon us,
To keep him standing there.”
“O dear!” groaned the captain. “That’s me! I can’t stand this. Guess
I’ll go now.”
The young fishermen were now roaring “Ah–men!” and if they had been
allowed to imitate the ocean long as they pleased, Capt. Elliott
might have escaped. Mr. Raynham saw an old man rising, and guessing
the object of the movement, waved his hand imperatively to the male
singers. The ocean did not finish its roar very gracefully, but
above the confused tumbling of the surf, Mr. Raynham’s voice rose
triumphantly. “We will have music again, in a moment. A few words
more.” Capt. Elliott remembered his promise to May, and reluctantly sat
down.
“Oh, dear! Catch me makin’ sich a promise next time!” inwardly moaned
the captain.
In those “few words more,” Mr. Raynham made a pathetic appeal to his
audience, and especially to those who were old, and yet trying to live
without the love of their Father in heaven.
“That would go to the heart of a stone krockerdile,” declared Aunt
Lydia.
No, it went to the heart of a human being; and stony though it may have
seemed to an outsider, it was tender yet, for homeward went that night
an old man, creeping slowly and alone, sore and wounded in his soul,
conscience–sick.
And Chauncy Aldrich, how did he feel?
“That was a good sermon, Aldrich,” said Walter after the service.
Chauncy gave a laugh, ringing, and hard, and brassy: “Ah—ah! That
young feller did get warmed up, warmed up, Plympton; but you can’t
expect a business man like me, always watching the market and pushing
trade, to be thinking about these things. By and by, Plympton!” Ah,
that by–and–by flag! Many noble ships have sailed fatally under.
The people were interested in the service.
“Come again,” said Aunt Lydia to Mr. Raynham; “come again. We all want
you. Come, if you haven’t anything big for wise folks, and only suthin’
simple for fools; for you will have lots of ’em here.”
Mr. Raynham said he would come another Sunday; perhaps the very next.
The Sunday that the Hall had been occupied, chanced to be Michaelmas
beautiful festival, ripe like the landscape with color and fruitage.
All nature—its maples, its oaks, its fields, its orchards—was shining
with the glow of St. Michael’s triumph over the dragon. And in the
rough little fishing village by the sea, it seemed as if the brave,
mighty archangel had given the old dragon another thrust, and Right had
sorely wounded the Wrong.