An' de boats will be blowed away;
But de Lord is good, an' mornin' will come,
An', oh, Hagar, sing hallelujah!
Fur de Lord is in it all!"
Here she stopped her chanting, and began to sing "Hallelujah!" softly, ceasing her swaying, to look into the coals. The fire burned down to rosy embers, in which little blue-tongued flames darted up fitfully,—anon lighting up the room brilliantly, then dying away and leaving it almost in darkness,—while Hagar's crooning died away to a whisper. A little gray light still shone in at the kitchen-window, but it was fast flitting. The roar of the sea became thunder, the wind grew tempestuous. By and by the rain began to fall, sounding strangely soft and still, when compared with the din of wind and waves.
"God bress us!" said Hagar, "dis yer is an awful night. Keep de boats off de Rock, Lord, and pity de sailors in dis yer awful storm!"
The old woman knew how the sea must look now,—yeasty, horrible, its white wave-caps shining through the darkness and hurrying to topple over and thunder against the rocks. To her, as she sat crouched before the fire, it seemed to howl and scream and mourn hoarsely, like some great voice rending the night with lamentation.
"Call on de Lord, Hagar," she muttered frequently; "can't nuffin else help ye now!"
Sometimes she fell to chanting her thoughts,—the sound of her own voice was pleasant to her in the loneliness,—and she piled cedar chips on the fire to see their cheerful blaze and enjoy their brisk crackle.
"Might as well hab a candle," she said, after a time. "Git yer knittin', chile, an' 'pear as ef ye didn't distrus' de Lord. What ef de wind is blowin'? what ef de sea is a-screamin'? Don't ye know whose wind and whose sea 'tis?" She got up to grope for a candle on the shelf over the fireplace.