But Daggett did not appear to be disposed to be more communicative than heretofore.  He went over the narrative of the discovery of the sealing-island, and gave a graphic account of the number and tame condition of the animals who frequented it.  A man might walk in their midst without giving the smallest alarm.  In a word, all that a gang of good hands would have to do, would be to kill, and skin, and secure the oil.  It would be like picking up dollars on a sea-beach.  Sadly! sadly! indeed, was the deacon’s cupidity excited by this account; a vivid picture of whales, or seals, having some such effect on the imagination of a true Suffolk county man, or more properly on that of an East-ender, as those who live beyond Riverhead are termed, as a glowing account of a prairie covered with wheat has on that of a Wolverine or a Buck eye; or an enumeration of cent per cent. has on the feelings of a Wall-street broker.  Never before had Deacon Pratt been so much “exercised” with a love of Mammon.  The pirate’s tale, which was also recapitulated with much gusto, scarce excited him as much as Daggett’s glowing account of the number, condition, and size of the seals.

Nothing was withheld but the latitudes and longitudes.  No art of the deacon’s, and he practised many, could extort from the mariner these most material facts, without which all the rest were useless; and the old man worked himself into a fever almost as high as that which soon came over Daggett, in the effort to come at these facts—­but all in vain.

At that hour the pulse of the sick man usually quickened; but, on this occasion, it fairly thumped.  He had excited himself, as well as his listener; and the inconsiderate manner in which both had yielded up their energies to these enticing images of wealth, contributed largely to increase the evil.  At length, exhaustion came to put an end to the scene, which was getting to be dramatic as well as revolting.

So conscious was the deacon, on returning home that evening, that his mind was not in such a condition as it behoved him to keep it in on the Lord’s Day, that he was afraid to encounter the placid eye of his devout and single-minded niece.  Instead of joining her, and uniting in the services that were customary at that hour, he walked in the adjoining orchard until near nine o’clock.  Mammon was uppermost in the place of the Deity, and habit offered too strong a barrier to permit him to bring, as it were, the false god openly into the presence of the true.

Chapter IV.

  “Oh! mourn not for them, their grief is o’er,
  Oh! weep not for them, they weep no more;
  For deep is their sleep, though cold and hard
  Their pillow may be in the old kirk-yard.”

  Bayly.

Early on the succeeding morning, the whole household of deacon Pratt, himself included, were up and doing.  It was as the sun came up out of the waters that Mary and her uncle met in the porch, as if to greet each other.