Among those who disembarked were two Jesuit priests
and an Iroquois Indian, who immediately set out for the episcopal
palace. They passed unobserved through the streets, for the blinding,
whirling snow turned them into shadow-shapes, or effaced them totally
from sight. Besides, wayfarers were few and the hardy mariners had by
this time sought the warm chimney in the favorite inn. For well they
knew that there were times when God wished to be alone with His sea;
and he was either a poor Catholic or a bad Huguenot who refused to be
convinced that the Master had contrived the sea and the storm for His
own especial pastime.
The favorite inn! What a call to food and wine and cheer the name of
the favorite inn sounded in the ears of the mariners! It meant the
mantle of ease and indolence, a moment in which again to feel beneath
one's feet the kindly restful earth. For in those days the voyages
were long and joyless, fraught with the innumerable perils of outlawed
flags and preying navies; so that, with all his love of the sea, the
mariner's true goal was home port and a cozy corner in the familiar
inn. There, with a cup of gin or mulled wine at his elbow and the bowl
of a Holland clay propped in a horny fist, he might listen tranquilly
to the sobbing of the tempest in the gaping chimney.
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