"I rushed to the door an' hopped into the yard, an' not a livin' creature did I see; but there on the window-shelf was packages of salt, coffee, tea, and flour, and a half a dollar in silver! I run back in the house, white as a ghost myself, an' I cried out, 'Mother, it's father's sperrit come again!'
"She made me git on my knees an' pray with her to give poor father's spirit comfort in his home or in heaven!"
Chapter XVII.
SABBATH AND CANOE.
They now approached an island with low bluffs, on which appeared a considerable village, shining whitely amid the straight brown trunks of a grove of pine-trees; but no people seemed moving about it, and they saw but a single vessel at anchor in the thoroughfare or strait they steered into—a canoe, which revealed on her bow, as they rounded to beside her, a word neither Levin nor Jack could read, except by hearsay: The Methodist.
"Jack," said Levin, "that was a big pine-tree the parson hewed his canoe outen. She fell like cannon, going off inter the swamp. She's a'most five fathom long, an' a man can lie down acrost her. She's to carry the Methodis' preachers out to the islands."
"Hadn't we better wake him up now?" said Jack Wonnell; "I 'spect you want a drink, Levin?"
"Yes; I got a thirst on me like fire," Levin exclaimed. "I could do somethin' wicked now, I 'spect, for a drink of that brandy."
Mooring against the shore, Levin went to his passenger, who was still in deep sleep stretched upon the bare floor of the hold or cabin—a brawny, wiry man, with strong chin and long jaws, and his reddish, dark beard matted with the blood that had spilled from his disfigured eye, and now disguised nearly one half his face, and gave him a wild, bandit look.