The rustle grew and spread.
Captain Eben drawled on to the twentieth verse: "'My tabernacle is spoiled and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth from me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains! "'For the pastors are become brutish and have not sought the Lord: therefore they shall not prosper, and--'" "A-MEN!" The shout came from the second bench from the front, where Ezekiel Bassett, clam digger and fervent religionist, was always to be found on meeting nights.

Ezekiel was the father of Susannah B.Bassett, "Sukey B." for short, who played the melodeon.

He had been, by successive seizures, a Seventh Day Baptist, a Second Adventist, a Millerite, a Regular, and was now the most energetic of Come-Outers.

Later he was to become a Spiritualist and preside at table-tipping seances.
Ezekiel's amen was so sudden and emphatic that it startled the reader into looking up.

Instead of the faces of his congregation, he found himself treated to a view of their back hair.