A Singular Life by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

Job Slip went down to the water, and it was dark. He walked apart, and took himself into that solitary place on the wharves which he remembered, where he had knelt in the rain, one night, and said, "God," for Mr. Bayard.

A mackerel keg was there -- the same one, perhaps; he overturned it, and sat down, and tried to understand. Job had not been able to understand since Mr. Bayard was hurt.