Elkanah considered; but he also worked unceasingly, feeling that the
best way to break through a difficulty is to pepper away at its outer
walls.
Now while he was firing away wearily at this fortress, which held, he
thought, the deepest secret of his life, Hepsy Ann sat in her pantry,
her serene soul troubled by unwonted fears. Captain Elijah Nickerson
had sailed out in his stanch schooner in earliest spring, for the
Banks. The old man had been all winter meditating a surprise; and his
crew were in unusual excitement, peering out at the weather, consulting
almanacs, prophesying (to outsiders) a late season, and winking to each
other a cheerful disbelief of their own auguries. The fact is, they
were intending to slip off before the rest, and perhaps have half their
fare of fish caught before the fleet got along. No plan could have
succeeded better--up to a certain point. Captain Elijah got off to sea
full twelve days earlier than anybody else, and was bowling merrily
down towards the eternal fog-banks when his neighbors were yet scarce
thinking of gathering up their mittens and sea-boots.
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