nto Major Hockin's
"Sea Parade." There we stopped to hear what was going on, and it proved
to be well worth our attention. The old pilot perhaps had exhausted
reason, and now was beginning to give way to wrath. The afternoon was
deepening fast, with heavy gray clouds lowering, showing no definite
edge, but streaked with hazy lines, and spotted by some little murky
blurs or blots, like tar pots, carried slowly.

"Hath Noah's Ark ever told a lie?" the ancient pilot shouted, pointing
with one hand at these, and with a clinched fist at the sea, whence came
puffs of sullen air, and turned his gray locks backward. "Mackerel sky
when the sun got up, mermaiden's eggs at noon, and now afore sunset
Noah's Arks! Any of them breweth a gale of wind, and the three of them
bodes a tempest. And the top of the springs of the year to-morrow.
Are ye daft, or all gone upon the spree, my men? Your fathers would 'a
knowed what the new moon meant. Is this all that cometh out of larning
to read?"

"Have a pinch of 'bacco, old man," said one, "to help you off with that
stiff reel. What consarn can he be of yourn?"

"Don't you be put out, mate," cried another. "Never came sea as could
top that bar, and never will in our time. Go and calk your old leaky
craft, Master Banks."

"We have rode out a good many gales without seeking prophet from
Newport--a place never heerd on when this old town was made."

"Come and wet your old whistle at the 'Hockin Arms,' Banks. You must
want it, after that long pipe."

"'Hockin Arms,' indeed!" the pilot answered, turning away in a rage from
them. "What Hockin Arms will there be this time to-morrow? Hockin legs
wanted, more likely, and Hockin wings. And you poor grinning ninnies,
as ought to have four legs, ye'll be praying that ye had them to-morrow.
However, ye've had warning, and ye can't blame me. The power of the Lord
is in the air and sea. Is this the sort of stuff ye trust in?"

He set one foot against our Major's wall--an action scarcely honest
while it was so green--and, coming from a hale and very thickset man,
the contemptuous push sent a fathom of it outward. Rattle, rattle went
the new patent concrete, starting up the lazy-pated fellows down below.

"You'll try the walls of a jail," cried one. "You go to Noah's Ark,"
shouted another. The rest bade him go to a place much worse; but he
buttoned his jacket in disdain, and marched away, without spoiling the
effect by any more weak words.

"Right