"I was sorry that my late journey into Connecticut prevented my seeing the poor man who was so suddenly taken away from the house of Widow White," observed the Rev. Mr. Whittle, some little time after he had made his original attack on the sheepshead. "They tell me it was a hopeless case from the first?"
"So Dr. Sage considered it," answered the deacon. "Captain Gar'ner volunteered to go across for the doctor in my boat--" with a heavy emphasis on the possessive pronoun--"and we had him to look at the patient. But, if the salt-water be good for consumptive people, as some pretend, I think there is generally little hope for seamen whose lungs once give way."
"The poor man was a mariner, was he? I did not know his calling, but had rather got the impression that he was a husbandman. Did he belong to Oyster Pond?"
"No; we have none of the name of Daggett here, which is a tribe on the Vineyard. Most of the Daggetts are seafaring folks (folk, Anglice) and this man was one of that class, I believe; though I know nothing of him, or of his pursuits, except by a word, here and there, dropped in discourse."
The deacon thought himself safe in venturing this little departure from the literal truth, inasmuch as no one had been present, or he thought no one had ever been present at his many secret conferences with the deceased mariner. Little, however, did he understand the character of the Widow White, if he flattered himself with holding any discourse under her roof, in which she was not to participate in its subject. So far from this having been the case, the good woman had contrived to obtain, not only a listening-place, but a peeping-hole, where she both heard and saw most of that which passed between her guest and the deacon. Had her powers of comprehension been equal to her will, or had not her mind been prepossessed with the notion that the deacon must be after herself, old Suffolk would have rung with the marvels that were thus revealed. Not only would an unknown sealing-island been laid before the East-enders, but twenty such islands, and keys without number, each of which contained more hidden treasure than 'Gar'ner's Island,' Oyster Pond, the Plumb and Fisher's, and all the coasts of the Sound put together; enriched as each and all of these places were thought to be, by the hidden deposits of Kidd.
Nothing but an accident had prevented these rumours from being circulated. It happened that on only one occasion Daggett was explicit and connected in his narrative. At all other times his discourse was broken, consisting more in allusions to what had been previously said than in direct and clear revelations. The widow, most unfortunately for her means of information, was with "neighbour Stone" when the connected narrative was given, and all that she knew was disjointed, obscure, and a little contradictory. Still, it was sufficient to set her thinking intensely and sufficient to produce a material influence on the future fortunes of the Sea Lion, as will appear in the sequel.
"It is always a misfortune for a human being to take his departure away from home and friends," observed the Rev. Mr. Whittle. "Here was an immortal soul left to take its last great flight, unsupported, I dare say, except by the prayers of a few pious neighbours. I regret having been absent during the time he was here. Getting home of a Friday only, I was compelled to devote Saturday to preparations for the Sabbath; and Sabbath-night, as I understand it, he departed."
"We are all in the hands of Divine Providence," said the deacon, with a sober mien, "and it is our duty to submit. To my thinking, Oyster Pond catches more of its share of the poor and needy, who are landed from vessels passing east and west, and add considerably to our burthens."
This was said of a spot as much favoured by Divine Providence, in the way of abundance, as any other in highly-favoured America. Some eight or ten such events as the landing of a stranger had occurred within the last half-century, and this was the only instance in which either of them had cost the deacon a cent. But, so little was he accustomed, and so little was he disposed, to give, that even a threatened danger of that sort amounted, in his eyes, nearly to a loss.
"Well," exclaimed the literal Roswell Gardiner, "I think, deacon, that we have no great reason to complain. Southold, Shelter Island, and all the islands about here, for that matter, are pretty well off as to poor, and it is little enough that we have to pay for their support."