My uncle clasped her close. “‘The Lard is my shepherd,’” says he, looking up, God knows to what! his eyes streaming, “‘I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.’” By the wind, by the breaking of the troubled sea, the old man’s voice was obscured. “‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me: thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.’” Judith still sobbed, uncomforted; my uncle stroked her hair––and again she broke into passionate weeping. “‘Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.’” Returned, again, in a lull of the gale, my fancy that I caught the lamentation of a multitude. “‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.’”
“Bless God!” cried the parson. “Bless God, brother!”
“Ay,” said my uncle, feelingly, “bless God!”
The parson wrung my uncle’s hand.
“That there psa’m don’t seem true, parson, b’y,” says my uncle, “on a night like this here dirty night, with schooners in trouble at sea. Ever been t’ sea in 172 a gale o’ wind, parson? Ah, well! it don’t seem true––not in a gale o’ wind, with this here poor, lonely little maid’s mother lyin’ there dead in the nex’ room. It jus’ don’t seem true!”
Parson Lute, poor man! started––stared, pained, anxious; in doubt, it may be, of the Christian congeniality of this man.
“It don’t seem true,” says my uncle, “in the face of a easterly gale an’ the death o’ mothers. An’, look you, parson,” he declared, “I’ll be––well, parson, I’ll jus’ be jiggered––if it do! There you haves it!”
“Brother,” the parson answered, accusingly, “it is in the Bible; it must be true.”
“’Tis where?” my uncle demanded, confounded.
“In the Bible, sir.”