ved in visions--in the
deep, limpid, mysterious springs of conduct. I believed in visions--in
the unreasoning progress, an advance in the way of life not
calculated, but made in unselfish faith, with eyes lifted up from the
vulgar, swarming, assailing advantages of existence. My uncle and the
fool and I! there was no peril upon the sea to daunt us: we would find
and fetch, to her own place, in perfect honor, the maid I loved. And
of all this I thought, whatever the worth of it, as I ran upon the
Whisper Cove road, in the evening of that gray, blustering day.

Moses was within.

"Here you is," he drawled. "I 'lowed you'd come. How's the weather?"

"'Twill blow big guns, Moses," I answered; "and I'll not deceive
you."

"Well, well!" he sighed.

And would he go with us?

"I been waitin' for you, Dannie," says he. "I been sittin' here in the
kitchen--waitin'."

'Twas a hopeful word.

"If mother was here," he continued, "she'd have 'lowed I'd better
wait. 'You wait for Dannie,' mother would have 'lowed, 'until he
comes.' An' so I _been_ waitin'."

Well, there I was.

"That was on'y mother," he added; "an', o' course, I'm married now."

Walrus Liz of the Labrador came in. I rose--and was pleasantly
greeted. She sat, then, and effaced herself.

"Mrs. Moses Shoos," says Moses, with a fond look upon that woman
of ill-favor and infinite tenderness, "haves jus' _got_ t' be
consulted."

I was grown hopeless--remembering Tumm's story of the babies.

"In a case like this," Moses confided, "mother always 'lowed a man
_ought_ to."

"But your wife?" I demanded.

"Oh, my goodness, Dannie!" cries he. "For shame!"

"Tell me quickly, Moses."

"Mrs. Moses Shoos," he answered, with gravest dignity, "_always_
'lows, agreein' with me--that _mother_ knowed!"

'Twas in this way that Moses Shoos shipped on the _Shining Light_....

* * * * *

Shortly now, by an arrangement long made and persistently continued,
we had the _Shining Light_ ready for sea--provisioned, her
water-casks full. I ran through the house upon a last survey; and I
found my uncle at the pantry door, his bag on his back, peering into
the dark interior of the little room, in a way most melancholy and
desirous, upon the long row of bottles of rum. He sighed, closed the
door with scowling impatience, and stumped off to board the ship: I
was not heroic, but subtracted one from that long row, and stowed it
away in