Levin stepped out of the shanty and looked at the wind and water, his pulses all a-flutter between the strong brandy and the wonderful gold in his pocket; and as he watched the veering of the pine-boughs to see which way they moved, their moaning seemed to be the voice of his widowed mother by her kitchen fire that day, saying, "He is in trouble. Where is my son? Why stays he, O my Levin?"
"The tide is on the stand, cap'n, an' will turn in half an hour. It will take us up the Manokin with this wind by dark, ef we can get water enough in the thoroughfare without going around by Little Deil's."
Johnson came out and made the same observations on wind and flood.
"I reckon it's eighteen miles to the head of deep water on Manokin, Levin?"
"Not quite, sir, through the thoroughfare; it's nigh eighteen. We've got four hours and a half of daylight yet."
"Then stand for the head of Manokin an' obey all my orders like a 'listed man, an' I'll git ye and yer mother a plantation, an' stock it with niggers for you. Come, brace up again!"
He offered the brandy-jug, and encouraged the boy to drink heartily, and affected to do the same himself, though it was but a feint.
While they stood in the shelter of the camp cottage going through this pastime, a voice from near at hand resounded through the woods, and made their blood stop to circulate for an instant on the arrested heart.
It was a voice making a prayer at a high pitch, as if intended to cover all the camp-ground and be heard to the outermost bounds. The sincerity of the sound made Levin Dennis feel that the camp might still be inhabited by some spiritual congregation which the eyes of profane visitors could not see—the remainder of the saints, the souls of the converted, or an ethereal host from above the solemn organ of the pines.
The idea had scarcely seized upon him when a fluttering of wings was heard, and on the old camp-ground alighted a flock of white wild-geese.