alone with Providence, and have so little to do with the wickedness
of the land. Many and many is the time that I have stood my watch,
under the equator perhaps, or in the Southern Ocean, when the nights
are lighted up with the fires of heaven; and that is the time, I
can tell you, my hearties, to bring a man to his bearings in the
way of his sins. I have rattled down mine again and again under
such circumstances, until the shrouds and lanyards of conscience
have fairly creaked with the strain. I agree with you, Master
Pathfinder, therefore, in saying, if you want a truly religious
man, go to sea, or go into the woods."

"Uncle, I thought seamen had little credit generally for their
respect for religion?"

"All d----d slander, girl; for all the essentials of Christianity
the seaman beats the landsman hand-over-hand."

"I will not answer for all this, Master Cap," returned Pathfinder;
"but I daresay some of it may be true. I want no thunder and
lightning to remind me of my God, nor am I as apt to bethink on
most of all His goodness in trouble and tribulations as on a calm,
solemn, quiet day in a forest, when His voice is heard in the
creaking of a dead branch or in the song of a bird, as much in my
ears at least as it is ever heard in uproar and gales. How is it
with you, Eau-douce? you face the tempests as well as Master Cap,
and ought to know something of the feelings of storms."

"I fear that I am too young and too inexperienced to be able to
say much on such a subject," modestly answered Jasper.