Some there are who laugh at these things, which they call superstitions. I have heard my father and the vicar arguing learnedly that the time for witchcraft has passed away, with that of miracles, demoniac possessions, and the casting out of devils. Well, it is not for me to speak of things that belong to the landsman. There may be no such thing as witchcraft; there may be no overlooking; the moon and the planets cannot, perhaps, strike children. But as for what the sailor believes--why, he knows. All the Greek and all the Hebrew in the world will not shake out of his mind what he knows. He learns new knowledge with every voyage, and new experience with every gale, and when those words of poor old Nigra came back to me, and would not leave me, keeping up a continual sing-song in my head, I knew very well, indeed, that some trouble was brewing--and that the trouble had to do with Molly.
When Molly came out of church after morning prayers she stood in the porch to see the company pass out. It was a fashionable company, consisting entirely of ladies who came from the pump room to hear the Reverend Benjamin Purdon, _locum tenens_ for the curate of St. Nicholas, read the prayers of the morning service. This he did with an impressiveness quite overwhelming, having a deep and musical voice, which he would roll up and down like the swelling notes of an organ, insomuch that some ladies wept every morning, while he pronounced the absolution with so much weight that every sinner present rose from her knees in the comfortable faith that her sins were absolved and washed away, and that she could now begin a new series of sins upon a clean slate. Happy condition, when without penance, which the papists enforce; and without repentance, which is demanded by the Protestant faith, a sinner can every morning wipe off the sins of the last twenty-four hours and so begin another day with a robe as white as snow, no sins upon their conscience, and a sure and certain hope. "Let us accept," said this reverend divine, "with gratitude and joy all that Holy Church gives us; above all, her absolution. We have not the sins of yesterday to weigh us down together with the sins of to-day. Madam, your silk apron becomes you highly, pink silk with silver matches the colour of your cheeks. It is the colour of Venus herself, I vow. Ah! there are moments when I could wish I was not an ecclesiastic!"