"I was called to a patient down on Sligo Point, beyond the Gulf Road, just before we sailed," said Green presently, in a more friendly tone. "’T was an old woman of unsteady brain, but of no common-place fancy, who was under one of her wildest spells, and had mounted the house roof to sell all her neighbors at auction. She was amusing enough,—’t is a pretty wit when she is sane; but I heard roars of laughter as I rode up the lane, and saw a flock of listeners at the orchard edge. She had knocked off the minister and both deacons, the lot for ninepence, and was running her lame neighbor Paul to seventy thousand pounds." "I heard that they called the minister to pray with her when her fit was coming on, and she chased him down the lane, and would have driven him into the river, if there had not been some men at fall ploughing in a field near by. She was a fixed Calvinist in her prime, and always thought him lax," said Dickson, with relish, continuing the tale. "They had told the good man to come dressed in his gown and bands, thinking it would impress her mind." "Which it certainly seemed to do," agreed the doctor. "At any rate, she knocked him down for nine-pence. ’T was a good sample of the valuation most of us put upon our neighbors. She likes to hear her neighbor Paul play the fiddle; sometimes he can make her forget all her poor distresses, and fall asleep like a baby. The minister had somehow vexed her. Our standards are just as personal here aboard ship. The Great Day will sum up men at their true value,—we shall never do it before; ’t would ask too much of poor human nature." Dickson drummed on the bulkhead before he spoke. "Some men are taken at less than their true value." "And some at more, especially by themselves. Don’t let things go too far with Simpson. He ’s a good man, but can easily be led into making trouble," said the surgeon; and Dickson half rose, and then sat down again, with his face showing an angry red. "We must be patient," added the surgeon a moment later, without having looked again at his companion. "’T is just like a cage of beasts here: fierce and harmless are shut in together. Tame creatures are sometimes forced to show their teeth. We must not fret about petty things, either; ’t is a great errand we have come out upon, and the honest doing of it is all the business we have in common." "True, sir," said Dickson, with a touch of insolent flattery. "Shall we take a hand at cards?" *XIV* *TO ADD MORE GRIEF* "O garlands, hanging by these doors, now stay, Nor from your leaves too quickly shake away My dew of tears. (How many such, ah me! A lover’s eyes must shed!)" Captain Paul Jones was waiting, a most affable and dignified host, to greet his guest. Wallingford stood before him, with a faint flush of anger brightening his cheeks. "You commanded me, sir," he said shortly.