CHAPTER XIV
IN WHICH THE SEA MIST SAILS
They buried Captain Eben in the little Come-Outer cemetery at the rear of the chapel. A bleak, wind-swept spot was that cemetery, bare of trees and with only a few graves and fewer headstones, for the Come-Outers were a comparatively new sect and their graveyard was new in consequence. The grave was dug in the yellow sand beside that of Mrs. Hammond, Nat's mother, and around it gathered the fifty or sixty friends who had come to pay their last tribute to the old sailor and tavern keeper.
The Come-Outers were there, all of them, and some members of the Regular society, Captain Zeb Mayo, Dr. Parker, Keziah Coffin, Mrs. Higgins, and Ike. Mrs. Didama Rogers was there also, not as a mourner, but because, in her capacity as gatherer of gossip, she made it a point never to miss a funeral. The Rev. Absalom Gott, Come-Outer exhorter at Wellmouth, preached the short sermon, and Ezekiel Bassett added a few remarks. Then a hymn was sung and it was over. The little company filed out of the cemetery, and Captain Eben Hammond was but a memory in Trumet.
Keziah lingered to speak a word with Grace. The girl, looking very white and worn, leaned on the arm of Captain Nat, whose big body acted as a buffer between her and over-sympathetic Come-Outers. Mrs. Coffin silently held out both hands and Grace took them eagerly.
“Thank you for coming, Aunt Keziah,” she said. “I was sure you would.”
“Least I could do, deary,” was the older woman's answer. “Your uncle and I was good friends once; we haven't seen each other so often of late years, but that ain't changed my feelin's. Now you must go home and rest. Don't let any of these”—with a rather scornful glance at Josiah Badger and Ezekiel and the Reverend Absalom—“these Job's comforters bother you. Nat, you see that they let her alone, won't you?”
Captain Nat nodded. He, too, looked very grave and worn. “I'll tend to them,” he said shortly. “Come, Grace,” he added; “let's go.”
But the girl hung back. “Just a minute, Nat,” she said. “I—I—would you mind if I spoke to Aunt Keziah—alone? I only want to say a word.”