“Oh, nuthin'. Only I thought maybe, long as Elkanah was feelin' that Mr. Ellery wa'n't orthodox enough, he might be goin' to make a change.”
“He might? HE might! Say, Keziah Coffin, there was Mayos in this town and in this church afore the fust Daniels ever washed ashore; and they'll be here when the last one blows up with his own importance. I'm on that parish committee—you understand?—and I've sailed ships and handled crews. I ain't so old nor feeble but what I can swing a belayin' pin. Boss! I'll have you to know that no livin' man bosses me.”
“All right! I didn't mean to stir you up, Zebedee. But from things Cap'n Daniels has said I gathered that he was runnin' the committee. And, as I'm a friend of Mr. Ellery, it—”
“Friend! Well, so'm I, ain't I? If you ever hear of Daniels tryin' any tricks against the minister, you send for me, that's all. I'LL show him. Boss! Humph!”
The wily Keziah alighted at the parsonage gate with the feeling that she had sown seed in fertile ground. She was quite aware of Captain Zeb's jealousy of the great Daniels. And the time might come when her parson needed an influential friend on the committee and in the Regular society.
The news of the engagement between Captain Nat Hammond and Grace Van Horne, told by Dr. Parker to one or two of his patients, spread through Trumet like measles through a family of small children. Didama Rogers learned it, so did Lavinia Pepper, and after that it might as well have been printed on the walls for all to read. It was talked over and gossiped about in every household from the lighthouse keeper's family to that of George Washington Cash, who lived in the one-room hovel in the woods near the Wellmouth line, and was a person of distinction, in his way, being the sole negro in the county. And whenever it was discussed it was considered a fine thing for both parties concerned. Almost everyone said it was precisely what they expected.
Annabel Daniels and her father had not expected it. They were, however, greatly pleased. In their discussion, which lasted far into the night, Captain Elkanah expressed the opinion that the unexpected denouement was the result of his interview with Eben. He had told the old Come-Outer what would happen to his ward if she persisted in her impudent and audacious plot to entrap a Regular clergyman. She, being discovered, had yielded, perforce, and had accepted Nat as the next best catch.
Annabel was not satisfied with this explanation. Of course, she said, she did not pretend to believe Grace's statement that she had found her uncle unconscious. No doubt the pair had had an interview and all that. But she believed the minister himself had come to his senses and had dismissed the brazen creature. She did not blame Mr. Ellery so much. He was a young man, with a kind heart, and no doubt the “Van Horne person” had worked upon his sympathies and had taken advantage of his inexperience of feminine wiles.
“I think, pa,” she said, “that it's our duty, yours and mine, to treat him just as we always have. He doesn't know that we know, and we will keep the secret. And, as Christians, we should forget and forgive. We'll invite him here as we always have, keep him under our good influence, and be very kind to him, poor innocent. As for Captain Hammond, I'm sorry for him, knowing the kind of wife he is going to have, but no doubt Come-Outers are not particular.”
Kyan Pepper was another whom the news of the engagement surprised greatly. When Lavinia told him of it, at the dinner table, he dropped the knife he was holding and the greasy section of fish-ball balanced upon it.