CIHM 
 
 Microfiche 
 
 Series 
 
 (IVIonographs) 
 
 ICIVIH 
 
 Collection de 
 
 microfiches 
 
 (monographles) 
 
 Canaan Institut* for Historical IMicroraproductlont / Institut Canadian da microraproductions hittoriquas 
 
Technical and Bibliographic Notes / Notes techniques at bibllographlques 
 
 The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original 
 copy available for filming. Features of this copy which 
 may be blWiographically unique, which may alter any of 
 the images in the reproduction, or which may 
 significantly change the usual method of filming are 
 checked below. 
 
 Coloured covers / 
 Couverture de couleur 
 
 □ Covers damaged / 
 Couverture ernilommagie 
 
 □ Covers restored and/or laminated / 
 Couverture restaur^ et/ou pellicuMe 
 
 I . Cover title missing / Le titre de couverture manque 
 
 [ Coloured maps / Cartes giographiques en couleur 
 
 Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black) / 
 Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) 
 
 □ 
 
 □ Coloured plates and/or illustrations / 
 Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur 
 
 □ 
 □ 
 □ 
 
 □ 
 
 Bound with other material / 
 Relid avec d'autres documents 
 
 Only edition available / 
 Seule dditton disponible 
 
 Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along 
 interior margin / La reliure serrSe peut causer de 
 I'ombre ou de la distorsion le long de la marge 
 intirieure. 
 
 Blank leaves added during restorations may appear 
 within the text. Whenever possible, these have been 
 omitted from filming / II se peut que certaines pages 
 blanches ajout^es lors d'une restauration 
 apparaissent dans le texte, mais. lorsque cela <tait 
 possible, ces pages n'ont pas M film^es. 
 
 L'Institut a microfilm* le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a 
 6\6 possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exem- 
 plaire qui sonl peut-Stre uniques du point de vue bibli- 
 ographique, qui peuvent modifier une image reproduite, 
 ou qui peuvent exiger une modification dans la mithch 
 de normale de fiimage sont indiquds d-dessous. 
 
 I I Coloured pages/ Pages de couleur 
 I I Pages damaged / Pages endommagies 
 
 □ Pages restored and/or laminated / 
 Pages restaur^es et/ou pellicul^es 
 
 r—y Pages discoloured, stained or foxed / 
 Lli Pages d6color6es, tachetdes ou piqu6es 
 
 I I Pages detached/ Pages d^tach^es 
 
 Showlhrough/Transparertce 
 
 □ 
 □ 
 □ 
 
 □ 
 
 Quality of print varies / 
 Oualitd {negate de I'impression 
 
 Includes supplementary m'*9rial / 
 Comprend du matirfei -i pr'f nentaire 
 
 Pages wholly or partiii y _ jscured by errata slips, 
 tissues, etc., have beer. r--f iimed to ensure the best 
 possible image / Les -:ies totalement ou 
 partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une 
 peiure. etc.. ont 6xi filmies k nouveau de (afon k 
 obtenir la meUleure Image possible. 
 
 Opposing pages with varying colouration or 
 discolourations are filmed twice to ensure the best 
 possible image / Les pages s'opposant ayant des 
 colorations variables ou des decolorations sont 
 film^es deux fois afin d'obtenir la meilleure image, 
 possible. 
 
 □ 
 
 Additional comments / 
 Commentaires suppl^mentaires: 
 
 Thtt Item Is filmed at the reduction ratio ehtelccd below / 
 
 Ca document est lilmi au taux de riduetion Indiqui el-desseui. 
 
 10x 
 
 14X 
 
 18x 
 
 22x 
 
 26x 
 
 30x 
 
 12x 
 
 16x 
 
 20x 
 
 24x 
 
 28x 
 
 32x 
 
The copy filmad h«r« has baan raproducad thanks 
 to tb« ganarosity of: 
 
 National Library of Canada 
 
 Tha imagaa appaaring hara ara tha bast quality 
 possibia considaring tha condition and lagibility 
 of tha original copy and in kaaping with tha 
 fHminf contract spacif icctiona. 
 
 Original copies in printad papar covars ara fiimad 
 beginning with tha front covar and anding on 
 tha laat page with a printed or lliustratad impras- 
 sion. or tha back covar whan appropriate. All 
 other original copies are filmed beginning on the 
 first page with a printad or illustrated impres- 
 sion, and anding on the last page with a printad 
 or illustrated impraaaion. 
 
 Tha last recorded frame on each microfiche 
 shall contain tha symbol — (meaning "CON- 
 TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), 
 whichever appliaa. 
 
 IMapa, plates, charts, etc.. may be filmed at 
 different reduction retioa. Those toe large to be 
 entirely included in one exposure are filmed 
 beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to 
 right and top to bottom, as many frames as 
 required. The following diagrams illustrate the 
 method: 
 
 L'axamplaire film* fut roproduit grica I la 
 g*n«rositi da: 
 
 BIbllotMque national* du Canada 
 
 Lea images suivantea ont M raproduites avec le 
 plua grand soin. compta tenu de la condition at 
 do la nattet* de I'exemplaira film*, et en 
 conformit* avac lea eonditiona du eontrat de 
 filmage. 
 
 Las axamplairas originaux dont la couvartura en 
 papier est imprimie sent filmis en commanpant 
 par le premier plat at an tarminant soit par la 
 darniire page qui comporte une empreinte 
 d'impreasion ou d'illustration, soit par le second 
 plat, salon le cas. Tous las autras axamplaires 
 originaux sont filmte an commandant par la 
 pramiire page qui comporte une empreinte 
 d'impreasion ou d'illustration at en torminant par 
 la darnlAre page qui comporte une telle 
 empreinte. 
 
 Un dee symboles suivants apparaltra sur la 
 derniAre image da cheque microfiche, seion le 
 cas: le symbole — signifie "A SUIVRE", le 
 symbole ▼ signifie "FIN ". 
 
 Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc.. peuvent Atre 
 filmis A des taux da reduction diffirents. 
 Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre 
 reproduit en un seul clichA. 11 est film* A partir 
 de Tangle supiriaur gauche, de gauche i droite, 
 et de haut en bas, an prenant le nombre 
 d'imegea nAcassaire. Lea diagrammes suivants 
 iilustrent la mithode. 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
THE SEA-FARERS 
 
' THE 
 
 SEA-FARERS 
 
 A ROMANCE OF A NEW 
 ENGLAND COAST TOWN 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY GRAY MORRISON 
 
 TORONTO 
 THE MUSSON BOOK CO. 
 1901 
 
psssas 
 
 Copyright, vioo. by 
 |)0UHI.F.nAV, Haijf & Co. 
 
 Isaac H. Blanchard Co. 
 
 NBW YOUK 
 
To THE Memory 
 MY MOTHER 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. Ancestry i 
 
 BOOK FIRST 
 FLOOD TIOB 
 
 II. Barbara 7 
 
 lil. Father and Son 21 
 
 IV. An Exotic ... .... 37 
 
 V. By the Shore 50 
 
 VI. A Will o' tiik Wisp 75 
 
 VII. An Unlnvited Guest 87 
 
 BOOK SECOND 
 
 BREAKERS 
 
 VIII. An Odd Angle OK THE Sea 113 
 
 IX. A Pirate Ship 131 
 
 X. A Temi est 148 
 
 XI. Sprin(j 168 
 
 XII. Clouds and Night 191 
 
 BOOK THIRD 
 EBB TIDE 
 
 XIII. A New England Girl 209 
 
 XIV. Tkmi'Eramf.nt . . 334 
 
 X\' . A Traveler Returns 347 
 
 XVI. The Heart of a Temptation 264 
 
 XVII. Anchoka;;e 280 
 
 .XV 111. The Fulfilling of the Law 294 
 
 XIX. Palingenesis 314 
 
 ▼ii 
 
THE SEA-FARERS 
 
 ANCESTRY 
 
 The tide was nearly full. The crust of barnacles 
 and the stain of salt water upon the piers of the 
 oldest quay were hidden by new waves washing 
 restlessly over them. As far as eye could reach 
 from left to right stretched tht; wharves, and the 
 masts of ships at anchor seemed to crowd the sky 
 with delicate dark lines. Myriads of men, blue- 
 eyed New Englanders and black-bearded Spaniards 
 and Portuguese, shouted hoarsely to one another in 
 uncouth English or foreign jargon. Out of the ap- 
 parent confusion great wagons which they had been 
 loading rumbled across the docks and rattled away 
 through the narrow streets close by, where old men 
 and idle women and children stared from windows 
 and doors, speculating on their contents. The 
 gambrel-roofed houses seemed to be wondering 
 too. They stood at all angles to the highway line, 
 peering at the ships over one another's shoulders, 
 as if they had hurried down to the shore in the 
 early days, homesick for England, but had been 
 refused in their prayer to be taken away. They 
 were once the best houses in the town, but they 
 would never be painted again. Mean little shops, 
 representing spiritless attempts at living had been 
 
2 The Sea-Farers 
 
 opened on their street floors and the squalid poor 
 cruwded the rooms above. Beyond the busy 
 wharves the harbor shores, dressed in the faded 
 green of the late fall, stretched out protectingly. 
 A brig at anchor was hoisting its sails, the great 
 folds ilapping loosely as they climbed the masts. 
 A ship from the east was slowly moving up the 
 bay. Beyond its three masts, beyond the harbor 
 arms, was the sea. A haze was upon it, and the 
 sky line was dim. The old mystery waited there, 
 leading the senses away. The ear heard no longer 
 the oaths and clatter on the wharves; the smell of 
 cinnamon and musk mingling with the saltness 
 from the brine was forgotten. As though in an- 
 swer to a call the mind Hew from the land-locked 
 present, out to the ancient sea, there hovered, 
 dipping now and then, or swinging up and down 
 with the wave. 
 
 Fitfully, at intervals, we realize the truth of our 
 descent from this mother of all life. Faintly at 
 such moments we trace the line of that unwritten 
 pedigree. Her nature, echoed in our humanity, we 
 recognise; the transmutation of the ways of matter 
 into the ways of spirit. Her witless storms and 
 surges repeat their motions in our wrung and pas- 
 sionate human heart. We are her many times 
 great-grandchildren. Time has broken the links 
 between. Her language we have lost. Lonely 
 and hungry and mysterious and large she is, rolling 
 on about the worid when our small atoms rest 
 
Ancestry 
 
 3 
 
 under the younger earth; a ravening mother, who 
 has forgotten her offspring and would devo»ir us if 
 we risked our lives too nt^r. The wild tiger is 
 nearer her than we,— ages nearer and more like. 
 Separated between us and her is something which 
 impels us to attribute to that huge, moaning savage 
 the longings, despair, fancies and hopes which . - e 
 has never known. Always young because she 
 cannot feel, she sees us age and die. We o to 
 her, and she seems to listen ; it is but the echo of 
 our own voice calling. Sympathy she has none. 
 
 And therefore has every vestige of that dawn from 
 which we came faded out of us ? The vat.t, phan- 
 tasmal atmosphere of the commencement of workis 
 is hers, and when we need that breath of a simf^er 
 day,— for complication chokes us, and we must 
 begin anew,— we go to her for whom there is no 
 modem life. A bigger unrest, but still one akin to 
 ours is hers, and the lesser dies away in its mightier 
 presence. Struggle, born of swam and desper- 
 ation, is too new a thing for her ♦o understand. 
 Alone she was at her emergv nee, and lonely she is 
 still in all this varied world. Thought, creation, 
 faith, aspiration, in the modem force called soul, 
 what has the long-outgrown sea to do with these ? 
 She does His will and waits, far back in time, soul- 
 less, mindless, pitiless, loveless, but our mother 
 stiU. And we, who were atoms driven to and fro 
 as foam is torn, crying for a moment, then forever 
 silent, or else tossed upon the shore, gasping, fight- 
 
4 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 ing, we have age by age been growing, humaniz- 
 ing, levelling mountains, chaining rivers, l./ting our 
 small imaginings in wood and stone against the sky 
 and winds, the greens and snows, of the longer 
 thoughts of God. 
 
 Such has been what we call our life. But the 
 sullen sea we left has never changed. Some gentler 
 natures of us turn to her in pain, with perhaps some 
 faint remembrance of the tie between. Some 
 wilder natures of us are not far from her; more one 
 with storm and waves than with the quiet land, 
 they recognize upon their hot hearts a mother's 
 touch of healing. Such are of the ancient order, 
 the early world, at odds with this, unlearned in the 
 latest lore of soul and heart, savage sons of the 
 grey sea. 
 
 The brig that was hoisting her canvas has 
 
 weighed anchor and sailed. The incoming ship is 
 lying at the wharf. The past is dead. The pres- 
 ent with its loaded vessel home from Celebes, its 
 cargo ready for Sumatra, its merchant and its deck- 
 hand, seem all that really is. The sea is dim and 
 out of mind; all but the sound of its small impa- 
 tient waves fretting against the piers. 
 
Book First 
 FLOOD TIDE 
 
II 
 
 BARBARA 
 
 The iteration of the stroices droning musically in 
 from the hall roused Barbara Temple when it was 
 eleven o'clock. She drew the shade at one window 
 and looked up the street Her eyes were so dazzled 
 by the fireUght into which she had been staring for 
 an hour, that at first the night seemed to be alone 
 outside, but she was soon aware that a wind was 
 with the night, swaying the elm branches, delicately 
 fine in their last leaves, and sweeping their shadows 
 restlessly back and forth across the closely shaven 
 grass. The gorgeous leaves which had been drop- 
 ping from the maple-trees all day in the sun, were 
 disguised in dark dominoes now, and went whiri- 
 ing by to some morrior dancing ground where It was 
 light. Barbara glanced in the direction from which 
 they came, but the lamp in the hall was shining 
 upon the Wide low steps and the fluted stone 
 columns of the portico so that she could see nothing 
 beyond. The house, which stood at a distance 
 from the wharves, was separated from the street by 
 a small lawn, and a paved roadway to the left led 
 to the stables in the rear, as well as to the conserva- 
 tory from which a bridge crossed to one of the long 
 
 windows. The dm-tree, the twinging shadows 
 
 7 
 
8 
 
 The Sea-Farcrs 
 
 and (lying leaves looked strange to Barbara as though 
 in some sense she were seeing them for the first 
 time. "Behold I make all things new," flashed 
 into her mind amidst a chaos of other images hur- 
 tling through it. Her breath was short against the 
 windowpane, her eyes wide open, her cheeks 
 flushed. For the moment the barriers seemed down 
 between time and eternity, between life and death. 
 A tide within had risen above its high water line; 
 it had lifted old landmarks away, wrecks of many 
 things were driving here and there upon its crests, 
 the roar of its strong wave was beating in her ears. 
 Bits of forgotten songs, stray verses from the 
 Psalms, illuminated, flashing with meaning, faces 
 of old friends suddenly interpreted, all were flung 
 up in tumult from the deeps and were the sport of 
 this almost awful rising of the inmost nature through 
 which she had faced herself as a stranger. The 
 waves wftre subsiding now, but she wondered as 
 she stoofk there whether the face of the worid would 
 ever be the same again, or would always remain a 
 place of vast possibilities, new and bewildering and 
 beautiful, like this. 
 
 All at once she pressed her forehead against the 
 cold glass. " O, poor papa ! " she said in a whisper, 
 — " poor mamma! " A man and woman had started 
 out of the shadows in the street. Both glanced up 
 when they were opposite the window and the man 
 nodded and smiled. Barbara ran into the hall and 
 opened the door before her father could find his 
 
Barbara 9 
 
 key. "Well, Im glad to get home, little girl," he 
 said as he followed his wife into the house. 
 "Thank heaven that dinner will never have to be 
 eaten again ! " 
 
 "Barbara," called Mrs. Temple, standing under 
 the lamp before she loosened the lace about her 
 head, "I wish you would see if there is any 
 mud on the skirt of this dress. Light grey shows 
 everything, and that crossing was a disgrace to the 
 town. No, farther round at the side. 1 don't 
 know but it would have been better to have had the 
 carriage out even for that distance. There, do you ' 
 see any ?" 
 
 "No, mamma," said Barbara after a careful 
 jearch. ' ' You never get splashed as I do. " 
 
 "Only because 1 am more careful," replied her 
 mother in the same even voice in which she had 
 made her complaints. 
 
 "I've had two of those old twinges in my 
 shoulder to-night, Barbara," continued Temple, 
 pausing on his way to the drawing-room door. 
 "No, come to think of it, I've had three; one was 
 slight. I'm convinced they're always worse when 
 I'm bored." 
 
 "Dull, was it? "she asked. 
 
 "Dull!" echoed her father expressively, walking 
 away into the room Barbara had left. 
 
 She stood watching her mother's face as the elder 
 woman folded her lace scarf, a pretty face, with 
 pale brown hair about it and not a line in the skin 
 
10 
 
 The Sea-Farere 
 
 but the tingle furrow between the grey eyes. A 
 remark she had made the day before was in her 
 
 daughter's mind. 
 
 ••I often think," Mrs. Temple had said, "that 1 
 would rather risk my health by staying indoors in- 
 definitely than get into the state you did in the rain 
 this morning. 1 could not think of my eternal wel- 
 fare nor that of anybody else if I had mi' 1 >n my 
 shoes. 1 shouldn't feel that things matched." 
 
 Barbara slipped her hand under her mother's arm 
 as they went together into the room. 
 
 " I'm especially glad your dress escaped to-night, 
 mamma. " she said softly. 
 
 "Let's have more light, little girl!" exclaimed 
 her father with his head resting against the back of 
 the large armchair before the hearth. "I hate a 
 lugubrious pit like xhis." 
 
 Barbara brought another, lamp and poked and 
 lifted the logs until the fire roared with flame. 
 Then she sat on a low seat between her parents in 
 a silence they did not at first notice, for the 
 thoughts of both were busy with the festivity they 
 had ju^t left, the man lazily denouncing the soup, 
 the cigars, the politics of the host, and the plainness 
 of the women. 
 
 "Who was there ?" Barbara asked. 
 
 "Your mother had young Tweedle-Dee Corenzin 
 next her. He can talk if he can't do anything else," 
 said Temple discontentedly. " Piano strumming 
 seems to be looking up. I heard him talking about 
 
Birbani n 
 
 saddle horses. I had a woman visiting there; deaf 
 as an adder; Lord, Lord, how she tired me! " 
 
 "You started her on the subject of foreign 
 missions; what could you expect ? " asked his wife 
 
 calmly. 
 
 • Missions! I asked her If she had heard GrIsI 
 sing, and she answered me that her father was 
 
 one. Tlie only fun I had was watching John 
 Sumner. He had the oldest Fosdick, Saccharine 
 
 Sally." 
 
 " Mr. Temple!" corrected his wife languidly. 
 
 •"O, general,' she says, 'I suppose you really 
 killed dozens with your own hand! Isn't it thrill' 
 tng to be a patriot ? ' John jerked a bud out of his 
 buttonhole and threw It over his shoulder against 
 the wall. 'Well, maam,' he says. 'I lost an ar.. 
 in a war I never believed In; If you call that pa- 
 triotism ! ' I caught his eye two or t!'ree times but 
 he would not laugh. What do you wa u my hand 
 for, pussy ? " 
 
 Without answering Barbara reached for her 
 mother's sKm fingers also, which drew that lady's 
 eyes to her. 
 
 "You're sitting too near the fire, child," she 
 said. "Your face is scariet. At twenty-five you 
 still think that it is no matter, but you'U have no 
 complexion at all by the time you're forty." 
 
 The girl turned her heaJ and gave her mother 
 one glance, shy, bright, and full of some new ex- 
 pression which checked Mrs. Temple's speech for 
 
,2 The Sea-Farcrs 
 
 an instant, then she hurried on as if she had not 
 noticed. 
 
 " 1 don't want you to be silly or vain, but it is 
 unfeminine not to mind about one's looks, to a 
 reasonable degree, and care does a great deal." 
 
 " Yes, mamma." 
 / don't see that it does much," remarked the 
 man. " Here am 1 having twinges just as if 1 sat 
 in draughts like Tom, Dick and Harry, and was 
 careless about my flannels. Well, how have you 
 come on this evening, pussy ? Any one in ? " 
 
 "Yes, papa." Then after a faint pause, "Al- 
 den." 
 
 " O, Brother Alden! I wish you could have seen 
 his father when he was asked if he didn't thrill. 
 Well, what did he want?" 
 
 Barbara loosed her hands from those of her par- 
 ents, and clasped them tightly round her knee. 
 "He wanted me, papa." 
 
 " What! What! " exclaimed her father. 
 
 Her mother sat upright in her chair. 
 
 '•O, 1 didn't mean to say it like this," Barbara 
 went on breathlessly, " I meant to lead up to it!" 
 
 "Let me understand,"— and there was a little 
 tremble in her mother's voice,—" has Alden Sum- 
 ner told you that he— that you " 
 
 At this period in New England delicate considera- 
 tion for others showed itself by sparing them all 
 emotional expression, so Barbara hurried to say, 
 
 " Yes, mamma; if you and papa,— but you wiU! 
 
Barbara 
 
 You're glad, mamma? Papa, tell me! You're 
 
 glad, aren't you ? " 
 
 He made an ineffectual attempt to rise from his 
 chair, for she held him down. 
 "I want my cigar," he said. 
 "HI get it." 
 
 When she had turned away he remarked in a 
 tone that sounded sulky, " It's too much like mar- 
 rying your first cousin." 
 
 "O, he's seemed quite distant since he was at 
 home this time," she answered, laughing with a 
 little catch in her voice. "Haven't you noticed 
 how seldom he has come here ? " 
 
 She seemed to have a long search for the cigar, 
 and when she brought it she stood where she was 
 until her mother raised her head. The lines about 
 JVIrs. Temple's eyes had contracted, and she looked 
 older than usual. Barbara knelt upon the cushion 
 where she had been sitting and her mother took 
 her face between her hands and kissed her. 
 
 "Now. papa," said Barbara, "if you're satisfied 
 that's the main thing of course." 
 
 He removed his cigar to say, " I suppose so." 
 
 Barbara faltered. " I'm new to myself. I'm not 
 used to it. But I know 1 can't be perfectly happy 
 unless you both are. 1 couldn't bear that anything 
 like this should be built up on any one's unhappi- 
 ness. Say you're glad, if you honestly can ! Do, 
 papa." 
 
 "Of course I'm glad if you are. There, there I 
 
14 The Sea-Farers 
 
 Don't cry, or I'll go upstairs and not hear another 
 word. How did all this come about ? " 
 
 "I hardly know. It seemed to happen all at 
 once, as it were," explained Barbara with natural 
 embarrassment. " He says he hadn't meant to tell 
 me just yet. He expected to find you both in, you 
 see. He says he has thought of it— always." 
 
 She was looking into the fire, and her mother was 
 watching her with an expression in which curiosity 
 and sympathy were odd^ mingled. 
 
 " I know he's immensely clever; everybody says 
 that. But 1 shouldn't care how clever he was if he 
 weren't good. 1 think he is the best man in the 
 whole world,— of his age, of course. Then his 
 father being such an old friend of yours, papa, 
 makes a difference, doesn't it ? Alden says the gen- 
 eral will be glad. He wanted to stay and tell you 
 both himself, but I said No. 1 made him leave be- 
 fore you came. 1 thought you would rather he did. 
 It is a strange, strange thing," she went on softly 
 after a pause, "that a girl can go on year after year, 
 contented and commonplace, doing little things, 
 and then be suddenly dizzy with a happiness above 
 anything she ever deserved or imagined, like this. 
 But you know how it is, mamma ; you've been 
 through it." 
 
 "1 thought young Tweedle-Dum hsJ half a 
 chance, some time ago," suggested her father. 
 
 Never ! " exclaimed Barbara indignantly. He 
 always admired mamma much more than he did 
 
Barbara 
 
 15 
 
 me. Mamma's the belle of this family," she added 
 with loving flattery, patting her mother's fingers. 
 
 "Alden went out quite the fire-eater to-night, I 
 dare say. He will be wanting to carry you off and 
 then he'll see how it feels to have No said to him." 
 
 " O, there's no danger of his hearing it," replied 
 Barbara laughing. " He said that was one reason 
 he hadn't meant to say this to me yet. We can't 
 afford it for a long time." 
 
 "Can't afford '\? Stuff! 1 should oppose any 
 such high-handed proceeding, as 1 told you, but he 
 can afford it as well as other army men." 
 
 " He says not," replied Barbara contentedly. " It's 
 a comfort to me that you always liked him so 
 much." 
 
 " Urn ! As the son of my old friend he was well 
 enough, but in the hard light of a son-in-law he has 
 developed all sorts of flaws." 
 
 "O, papa, flaws !" 
 
 " He gives me the impression of a scoffing young 
 blade, not over-re$pectful to his elders. 1 know 
 he's conceited." 
 
 "Just fancy such a thing !" laughed the girl. 
 "Alden ! Why, he told me he wasn't half good 
 enough for me, and he couldn't be less conceited 
 than that, 1 should think." 
 
 " Dear me ! Did Alden say that, just like every- 
 body else?" 
 
 " He didn't say it like anybody else. I thoui^ht." 
 
 "I suppose we agree that he's not good looking. 
 
i6 
 
 The Sea-Faren 
 
 I don't like his hair. It was red when he was a 
 boy." 
 
 " You can be just as unappreciative as you please 
 to-night, but mamma agrees with me that his eyes 
 are wonderful, don't you, mamma ?" 
 
 " Wonderful in whit way ?" asked her mother. 
 
 " Haven't you ever noticed that they are the color 
 of the leaves in the bed of a brook, when the sun is 
 shining down through the water ? " 
 
 " Dear me ! " observed Mr. Temple protestingly. 
 
 "I'm not worth it ! " announced Barbara, leaning 
 forward to arrange the logs which had fallen apart. 
 " But perhaps I shall grow to it. I've never had to 
 find out what the world was like without Alden, 
 and now perhaps 1 never shall. It is as if every- 
 thing I've ever read or seen or imagined has some- 
 how become him. Lately when I've seen him pass 
 in the street it seemed to me that the sun followed 
 him." 
 
 Her father moved uneasily in his chair, and her 
 mother bent forward so that Barbara met her aston- 
 ished eyes when she turned from the fire. 
 
 " But you know how it all is. It was so with you 
 once, years ago, and you can understand." 
 
 " Yes," said her mother vaguely, sitting back 
 again. 
 
 " Yes, yes," echoed her father as she looked at 
 
 him. 
 
 He rose abruptly to his feet. An old memory, 
 too far back for the lady in the grey silk to share in 
 
Barbara 
 
 it, lifted its reproachful head and he stood instinc- 
 tively, to put his heel upon it. 
 
 "Well, pussy," he said, shutting ofF one of the 
 lamps. "Your poor old father is no poet and must 
 have his sleep. You will think of nobody but the 
 red-haired lieutenant of engineers from this time 
 forth. Why did 1 have a friend to rear a son! 
 There's the new barque waiting for her name. I'll 
 warrant you've never thought once about it. But as 
 I'm to be deserted so soon 1 had better begin to find 
 names for my ships myself." 
 
 "Call it The Flight," suggested Barbara mis- 
 chievously, holding her father's head between her 
 hands. 
 
 "1 will," he said. 
 
 "No, no!" she cried, seizing him by both arms, 
 and shaking him to and fro. "You shall not! 1 
 was only in fun. I'll think of a pretty one." 
 
 "That one strikes my fancy. The Flight it shall 
 be! " he replied disjointedly. " My shoulder, pussy! 
 Dear me, child! " 
 
 " 0, 1 forgot! I'm so sorry, poor little, little papa! " 
 
 The attempt at a laugh ended in a catch of the 
 breath; two tears overflowed and hurried down the 
 cheeks. 
 
 Her mother detained her at the top of the stairs 
 after her father had passed on. She kissed Barbara 
 and then said in a hesitating way she had when al- 
 luding to awkward subjects, 
 
 " My daughter is a — »— is naturally rather demon- 
 
i8 
 
 The Sea-Faren 
 
 strative. She means no harm, but now that she is 
 —is engaged, as it were, she must remember that 
 gentlemen, though they may be careless themselves, 
 always respect a girl more if she is— is quite dig- 
 nified—quite reserved." 
 
 "Yes, mamma," replied Barbara. Her forehead 
 flushed scarlet. " 1—1 let him— kiss me," she added 
 huskily. 
 
 "Well, I believe that is considered, in certain 
 cases, more nearly proper than when 1 was a girl," 
 admitted her mother, whose embarrassment at the 
 necessary turn of the conversation was greater than 
 Barbara's own, " but I am sure no daughter of mine 
 would ever allow herself to have free ways with 
 gentlemen. 1 feel 1 can trust you, Barbara." 
 
 " I told you there was something of the kind go- 
 ing on," remarked Temple to his wife a few minutes 
 later. 
 
 " It was evident enough," she answered. 
 "Will she keep up that poetic strain from this 
 time on, do you think ?" he proceeded. 
 "Of course not." 
 
 "Lord, Lord, I trust not," h :y.oine\ What 
 does she mean by that talk of poverty ? V< nat does 
 he do with his money ? " 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know," answei-ed Mrs. Temple 
 
 with u'. usual irritatic .. 
 
 She pulled off the lace about her neck carelessly, 
 as Barbara might have done, letting the delicate 
 meshes catch as they would. 
 
Baibsira 
 
 "9 
 
 "I'm glad he feels so about it, but there's no 
 sense in it," asserted her husband, and turned to 
 sleep. 
 
 She lay awake, and across the new calamity old 
 memories flitted; common, common things; her 
 pretty young self in the midst of her restless, shock- 
 headed pupils, release coming with a letter from this 
 well-to-do merchant whose only encumbrance, a yel- 
 low-eyed, tawny-haired boy, was sent away to 
 school. Now Barbara was going to leave her. How 
 dull and grey the years would be ! She had never felt 
 as Barbara did to-night, and she almost fiercely envied 
 the vividness of her girl's experience. Bitterly she 
 said to herself that she had been cheated out of half 
 her life. She thought the tears in her eyes were for 
 the loss of her child, but they were for herself. 
 
 Barbara meantime was leaning out of the window 
 of her room and letting the cool wind blow in her 
 face. The excitement was past and she was calm, 
 but the old look had not come back to the world. 
 Mingled with an awed gratitude, a large sense of 
 things seemed vaguely to have come to her, — a 
 wider horizon, a recognition of the whole. Hence- 
 forth there was no outsider anywhere in the universe 
 of God. Beyond her own possession of him, Aiden 
 seemed to be in a new way the type of something 
 eternal, of something the worid needed, not she 
 alone, of some great and beautiful, but dimly com- 
 prehended truth, of some sweet and universal ex- 
 perience. And so in her deepest emotion she felt 
 
20 The Sea-Farere 
 
 the drawing of the tie between eternity and time. 
 The effect of such moments is never wholly lost. 
 To Barbara up in her window this ner air had 
 come, and life was its word, life even in the leaves 
 which seemed to be dead, hope in the sweeping 
 wind, and high up in the kind and sympathizing 
 heavens Venus was evening star. 
 
Ill 
 
 FATHER AND SON 
 
 " No, sir, I didn't get nothin' like I expected on 
 that there pension and I didn't expect 1 should. " 
 
 Military discipline and a habit of silence had not 
 tended to clarify Locker's speech. He had rashly 
 attempted to express himself with a water pitcher in 
 one hand and a bread plate in the other. He set 
 them on the table. 
 
 "Pensions and prayers 1 guess ain't no great dif- 
 ferent, come down to it. 1 heard a preacher say 
 that the use o' prayin' was that if ye kep' on yer 
 knees long enough, hoUerin' to the Lord for any- 
 thin', — he put it maybe more fancy, but that was 
 his idee, — at last you'd quit wantin' it. I'm thinkin' 
 o' tryin' that on with my pension. I'm thinkin' o' 
 hammerin' at the gover'ment till I don't want no 
 more pension." 
 
 "The logo seems convincing," said Alden 
 Sumner. 
 
 He rose from his chair, laid down his volume of 
 
 Emerson s Essays, — they were comparatively new 
 
 in this year of grace 1855, — and leaning both arms 
 
 upon the mantelpiece looked down into the tire 
 
 upon the hearth. 
 
 "That view of prayer interests me. A woman 
 
 at 
 
aa The Sea-Farers 
 
 loses her child. She searches the house and runs 
 down the road. Here she meets a man who telb 
 her, 'It is pleasant to see you looking for your 
 child. It develops your imagination, it excites your 
 torpid brain; it is an excellent physical stimulus. 
 You won't find your boy to be sure, but if you 
 keep it up long enough you won't care to find 
 him.'" 
 
 A smile played about his eyes while he spoke, 
 but the subject seemed even more humorous as he 
 thought it over and he laughed softly aloud. Locker 
 did not echo him. His was not a plastic spirit and 
 he had brooded upon his pension. Anything amus- 
 ing in his presentation of so serious a topic had 
 been accidental. He was laying the tea-table in the 
 sitting-room, disposing each knife and fork with 
 patient precision. He limped, but not painfully, and 
 three fingers of his left hand were mere stumps. 
 His square figure was ligidly erect, his small, joy- 
 less eyes saw everything and his hair was cut in a 
 thick grey shock straight across the back of his 
 head. 
 
 " Locker's first enlistment," Alden had once said, 
 
 "was with Oliver Cromwell." After pondering 
 this Locker had repeated it to his friend Jacob 
 Minns. "It ain't true so it must be a joke," he 
 added, "but book-larnin' jokes never do ♦'ave no 
 laugh in 'em." To which Jacob had replied no, 
 and that they were often of a very questionable 
 character. 
 
Father and Son aj 
 
 Locker's face wore the expression of waiting, of 
 
 trying to read the will of another, of repression 
 carried into the habit of the life, which we see 
 in dogs and other animals that have liv?d with 
 men. It was a look which exasperated Alden 
 and he was always trying to break it up, and spoil 
 Locker, as his father said. 
 
 " I suppose you attended to this pension matter 
 yourself?" Alden presently aslted. 
 
 "Yes, sir, I done it" 
 
 "You went to some cheap fellow who adver- 
 tises in the newspapers." 
 
 " Yes, sir— advertises in all the papers." 
 
 " Why didn't you speak to my father about it at 
 once instead of letting the matter drag on for years, 
 and then come out lik^ this ? He knows more than 
 that man and has more influence." 
 
 Locker began to cut even slices of bread with a 
 very sharp knife and muttered something unin- 
 telligible. 
 
 "Come," persisted Alden, "why Locker?" 
 "The general, sir," responded Locker, scowUng 
 
 at the loaf, " is a general, sir." 
 "What of that?" 
 
 "Wal, it's considerable, sir!" exclaimed Locker, 
 irritated by this insistent call upon the expression 
 of his feelings. " Mebbe a feller doos talk up to a 
 general as if he was common truck. Mebbe he 
 doos, I don' know nothin' 'bout it Mebbe he 
 doos." 
 
24 The Sca-Farers 
 
 "Talk to him as man to man, can't you? He's 
 a soldier as you are. hi Heaven's name what are 
 
 you afraid of ?" 
 
 "I follered him up the hill at Cerro Gordo. I fit 
 behind him in the gateway at Molino del Rey," 
 explained the goaded Locker. He cut two slices 
 of bread in rapid succession and turned upon 
 Alden. " If him an' me had a been throwed up on 
 a desert shore," he continued in an outbunt of im- 
 aginative eloquence, "one strip o' that there sand 
 would alters be betwixt my old Colonel an' me an' 
 I never could 'a' put my hoof acrost it." 
 
 The tall figure at the fireplace straightened and 
 Alden laughed. 
 
 ' How Cromwell must have stalked over you in 
 his day, locker," he said. "What a tidbit for 
 tyrants you'd make!" He laughed again, a pleas- 
 ant laugh, not loud but -as if out of the depths of 
 many well conditioned and cheerful thoughts. But 
 as he turned to look at the man he saw hfi his face 
 something of the break which an unusual effort 
 makes in stolid features. 
 
 "Locker, old fellow," he said, "/ never saw a 
 Mexican hill or a Mexican gateway. Bring me your 
 papers to-morrow morning after breakfast." 
 
 "Yes, lieutenant." 
 
 Locker brought boiling water for the tea before 
 he spoke again. 
 "He's been that worrited, two years," he added. 
 "Yes, I know." 
 
Father and Son 
 
 As Locker opened the door to the dimly-Ughted 
 hall, a fox terrier waiting outside dashed across the 
 room to Alden and stopping close at his feet whined 
 
 piteously. 
 
 "What is it, Tray?" the young man asked, 
 stooping to pull his ear. The dog. searching the 
 human eyes with his. and restless for flight, uttered 
 a prolonged howl. 
 
 What's the trouble, old fellow?" But listen- 
 ing to no soothing words the animal rushed through 
 the door as he had conie, whining, and his quick 
 leaps could be heard as he went up the stairs. 
 
 "Is that dog mad. or what is the matter with 
 him ?" roared a deep voice from the hall. 
 
 A tall man, with large thin shoulders, on which 
 an old coat hung loosely, stood on the threshold. 
 His eyebrows were ferocious and white, every 
 separate hair on his head stood up with a distinct 
 energy of its own. H - held a double daguerreo- 
 type case in his hand. 
 
 " He's been a yelpin' an' yawlin' since you fetched 
 him home this afternoon, sir," answered his subal- 
 tern, setting the tea-pot on its old-fashioned stand. 
 
 "Locker," proceeded the newcomer in a hoarse 
 tone of displeasure, "was it you who took this 
 case off the mantel in my room and put it on the table 
 by my bed ? " 
 
 "No, sir," said Locker. 
 . "Of course it was you! " in a still louder voice. 
 "Don't keep telling me over and over that it was 
 
26 
 
 The Sca-Farcrs 
 
 not! I saw it in its place when I left my room. 
 You changed it, Locker I You changed it, I tell 
 you." 
 
 The man made no reply. 
 
 "Once more, Locker, didn't you change it?" 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 "You're losing your mind! You're denying a 
 plain fact!" asserted the old man in a furious bass, 
 which was echoed by the howl of the dog on the 
 stairs. 
 
 "I ain't seed the inside o' your room, General, 
 since I half done it up this mornin'. Ain't even 
 dusted it, sir." 
 
 "Why not? Says he hasn't dusted itl Why 
 not?" 
 
 " You locked the door an' kerried off the key, sir, 
 an" spent the day at Mr. Temple's, sir." 
 
 The questioner felt in his pocket and a whimsical 
 expression spread over his face; his hair dropped 
 limply on his head. The key was in his hand. 
 
 " General Sumner begs your pardon, Locker," he 
 said, in a tone as quiet as his son's own. " You've 
 all the mind you ever had," he added, with grim 
 pleasantry. " It's your superior officer who is losing 
 his. Be off for the mail now, quickstep." 
 
 The light from tlie two lamps and the flickering 
 blaze of the fire brought out the points of his face 
 and figure as he crossed the room. He walked 
 stiffly erect, measuring his steps with old-fashioned 
 exactness. His keen eyes burned deep under his 
 
Father and Son 27 
 
 white brows and one empty sleeve was doubled 
 back and o-.ng n.'tlv from the shoulder. 
 
 "Ca ' you e.vplaiti that, Alden?" he said, when 
 they w re alone. 1 knocked it over by arcident 
 this morning mid set it up, so 1 remember all about 
 it,— yet that case was on my table, where it's never 
 been before, and closed—closed, sir, just now 
 Who did it?" 
 
 He placed the open case upon the mantel and 
 both men paused to look at the faces within. They 
 were portraits of two girls. The eyes of the one 
 on the left had the delicate brightness and the shy 
 hostility of a bird; the intelligence and the faint 
 smile of the other face belonged to one who looked 
 without revolt upon a world which had always been 
 kind. It was Barbara Temple. The younger man 
 glanced to the right as they stood there, the elder to 
 the left. 
 
 "I'm a forgetful dog myself," said Alden as they 
 turned from the hearth-rug, and he sat down at the 
 
 table. 
 
 "No, sir! No, sir!" shouted the general, jerk- 
 ing out a chair and dropping sharply into it. "I 
 did not do it! I knew you'd say that. I did not! " 
 
 "Tea, governor, look out! - said Alden. who had 
 poured the beverage and now passed his father's 
 cup. " What spirits the little girl was in, wasn't 
 she? I haven't heard her laugh like that for years." 
 
 "Perhaps I walk in my sleep," the general went 
 on, for he had passed the facile stage of life. I've 
 
28 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 read of weak-minded creatures who did. May be 
 I balance and teeter on ridge poles and cut capers 
 without waking up. Go on! Say what you 
 think." 
 
 Alden had thrust a long toasting fork through a 
 slice of bread and reaching from his chair held it 
 before the fire; then he turned it, browning the 
 other side, buttered it quickly and passed it on the 
 plate to his father. He smiled across at him as he 
 did so, a peculiar quiet smile which the general in- 
 advertently met. 
 
 "You disrespectful young popinjay!" he mur- 
 mured in a caressing growl. 
 
 A flash of resemblance passed over the two faces, 
 usually so unlike. Alden's mother had long ago 
 said to her husband in her epigrammatic way, " He 
 is my boy in ordinary circumstances and yours in 
 extraordinary." 
 
 There had been times in the past two years, dur- 
 ing the Government survey for the proposed railroad 
 to the Pacific, when his resemblance to his father 
 would have been very marked to those prepared to 
 see it. 
 
 With eyes narrowed against the heat he was now 
 applying himself steadily to toasting bread as long 
 as either of them needed it. 
 
 "No tarts," said the general with an indifferent 
 wave of the hand when Alden passed them, "no 
 tarts, thank you." 
 
 '• I have been young and now I am old and I have 
 
Father and Son 29 
 
 never seen the tarts forsaken," began the son, still 
 holding out the plate. 
 
 "lol, ct to your degrading the scriptural form of 
 expression, sir," said the general shortly. 
 
 "First eggs, then cigars, now tarts," remarked 
 Alden slowly, setting the plate down. " There's 
 no need of it, governor." 
 
 " I don't care to discuss my appetite," snapped the 
 general. 
 
 " 1 had a letter this week from old man Jackson 
 out in Pittsburg," Alden proceeded. " He's struck 
 something on his place,— oil, or some spouting thing 
 or other,— and he means to pay me, he says, a mat- 
 ter of two hundred dollars 1 lent him three years 
 ago. If he does,— I've known him to try being 
 honest for luck— if he does we'll turn that in. Take 
 a tart, governor." 
 
 "Nothing for me. Locker?" the general asked 
 with the abrupt change to a colloquial tone which 
 made conversation with him a series of surprises. 
 
 Locker was crossing straight to Alden with the 
 letters and papers, but he saluted and said, "Noth- 
 ing, sir." 
 
 Every night the officer made the same inquiry and 
 received the same reply, if Alden was not at a dis- 
 tance. He sat waiting in silence while his son 
 hastily ran over the few enclosures and then sat 
 down to write at an old desk in one corner. 
 
 " Locker," Alden said as his quill creaked off the 
 address, "take this to the office like a good fellow. 
 
30 
 
 The Sca-Farcrs 
 
 1 want it to go to-night. There," he added after 
 the messenger had left the room. " We are so 
 much nearer the end. Jackson's squared up every- 
 thing, principal and interest. I must fall on his 
 long neck by letter to-morrow morning." 
 
 The general's hair bristled on his head. 
 
 "Alden ! See here, sir. You didn't send that 
 check to Corenzio just now." 
 
 " Yes," serenely answered his son, " it's gone to 
 the bottomless pit." 
 
 "Why didn't you tell me before you did such a 
 fool thing ! " shouted his father. 
 
 Alden rose and strolled back to the table. " Have 
 one now, governor," he said taking up one of the 
 flaky jam confections, "I'm going to." 
 
 "No, sir!" 
 
 " They're better than eyer. Do." 
 
 " Jehoshaphat and Mars! " roared the general, with 
 an accent like pain in his voice. " Let me have the 
 say about something, won't you ? " 
 
 Before Aldvin had finished the tart his elder said 
 with his abrupt change of tone, " Look here, Alden, 
 show just a little sense if you have any. You're 
 sweethearting and all that tomfoolery now. A man 
 has to have some fling with money then. Drives by 
 moonlight and such fiddlededees. Flowers, man." 
 
 "Barbara's not like most girls. She'll under- 
 stand." 
 
 "Stuff, stuff! She won't." 
 
 "She will when 1 tell her." 
 
Father and Son 
 
 3» 
 
 "Tell her!" thundered the general, rising to his 
 feet. " Do you know what that means ? It means 
 blackening your grandfather's name, sir. Blacken- 
 ing his name." 
 
 "As I have always said," observed Alden, "I 
 think the odium lies with the man who broke faith 
 with a poor fellow who trusted him, not with the 
 descendant who speaks of it twenty-five years 
 later." 
 
 The general stalked twice across the room and at 
 the second turn stopped before the flat and dun- 
 colored painting of a clergyman in gown and bands. 
 
 " He was settled for life as minister of the gospel 
 in this town," he said stiffly. " He was respected 
 throughout the State. He was a just man. He be- 
 lieved in justice above everything. You're young 
 and so you're hard as steel. You judge him by one 
 act. It was not iik» him. I knew him, sir. It was 
 not like him." 
 
 "Governor!" exclaimed Alden, "see here, see 
 here!" He went up to the general; his eyes were 
 like his mother's. " 1 ought not to revile my pro- 
 genitor, 1 know that, but it's like this, governor. If 
 Barbara must wait two or three years for me she 
 has a right to know why. She's one of us now. 
 She's going to take poor little Susie's place to you. 
 It will go no further. That fellow and Barbara and 
 you and I are all that need ever know it You say 
 he was just I've inherited the quality. This b 
 just" 
 
32 
 
 The Sca-Farers 
 
 The general stood silent, but Alden knew his 
 father. 
 
 " Look here, governor. Command me never to 
 abuse my grandfather's memory again. Go ahead! 
 Have 1 ever positively disobeyed you ?" 
 
 "No," admitted the general, "not exactly, 
 but,—" He avoided his son's glance, for gruffness 
 meant dignity when he learned his soldiering,— 
 " But I've had to be more chary and discriminating 
 with my commands than my parents were with 
 me. Lucky generation! Paradise of fathers! 1 
 wish I had belonged to it." 
 
 "You and he weren't half the chums we are. 
 Come, now." 
 
 "Chums! " ejaculated the elder man, going back 
 to his chair. " He thrashed me Saturday nights on 
 general principles. He, made me learn Leviticus, 
 Numbers and Deuteronomy by heart. He tied me 
 up in a dark closet all one Sunday for picking up 
 apples by the front orchard wall before church. 
 But it was good for me. It was the making of 
 me." 
 
 "O, he was a greater success as a father than 
 you've been," said Alden, rocking back and forth 
 as he stood, both hands in his pockets. 
 
 " He was conscientious. He was! " asserted the 
 general, who having relinquished his point about 
 Barbara, was determined to have his way for some 
 time to come. "I recollect when the decision was 
 left to him about the site for the meeting-house 
 
Father and Son 33 
 
 There were the two lots, the one where John Merri- 
 am's house stands now, and the one where the 
 church is. What are you laughing at, sir ? " 
 
 "I've helped pump out the cellar of the one he 
 did select, " 
 
 "That wasn't his fault! The tide comes up 
 higher than it did in his day. I tell you he walked 
 the floor all one night before he decided." 
 
 " O, I see. That explains it. If he had only 
 walked the floor say till twelve o'clock, and then 
 gone to bed and had some sleep, don't you think, 
 candidly now, he might have chosen John Mer- 
 riam's.?" 
 
 " Don't you think I shall grin with you while you 
 flout your ancestors!" growled the general, " for I 
 will not, sir." 
 
 A long howl from above echoed him. Alden 
 went to the door and whistled. Whining all the 
 way down the stairs came the dog Tray. "Stop 
 whimpering. Hungry? Here," and Alden put 
 some food on a plate by the hearth. 
 
 "What's the matter with that confounded 
 brute ? " asked the general anxiously, for the dog, 
 after hastily swallowing his supper fled with 
 another howl upstairs. 
 
 Alden had already turned to the desk. 
 
 "Do you feel like going over those figures 
 now? " he asked. "Then we will start for the 
 Temples'! " 
 
 "Again? We've been with them aU day," 
 
34 
 
 The Sea-Faren 
 
 grumbled the veteran, but pulled a cha<r nearer 
 his son. 
 
 " It won't take long. If you can see just read 
 off those items and I'll do the figuring. Go ahead, 
 governor." 
 
 "To mending fence, five dollars, seventy-five 
 cents. To Corenzio, Ugh! three hundred and 
 fifty, — now by your infernal stubbornness, two 
 hundred and fifty more. You didn't show com- 
 mon sense about that, — To provisions twenty- 
 two dollars and ninepence. To— Sums, — 1 can't 
 make out your new tricks of writing,— Sums 
 what? Right there." 
 
 "Susie's stone/' said Alden with a change of 
 tone. 
 
 "Um! Um! I don't see the place. Yes, fifty 
 dollars. To flour seven dollars. To pew rent, 
 quarter, ten dollars. They've raised that; minis- 
 ter's struck on salary; preaches from notes, too." 
 
 The general read on for some time from various 
 bills, scraps of paper and notebooks. When he 
 had done Alden fell to figuring at the columns for 
 some minutes. The lights from lamps and fire 
 threw distorted shadows upon ceiling and walls. 
 Locker had come in ard was clearing the table, his 
 quaint figure moving jnobtrusively back and forth. 
 
 The room was square and low with a great black- 
 ened fireplace and diamond-paned windows. The 
 carpet was faded and the red curtains streaked by 
 the sun. Men's hats, pipes and newspapers occu- 
 
Father and Son 
 
 pied the most prominent places. A crayon portrait 
 ot a lady in a cap with lace strings, hung over the 
 mantel, and here and there were to be seen wo- 
 manly belongings of a later date; a guitar lay on 
 a table, its blue ribbon tossed across it, a red silk 
 cap embroidered in gold such as women in the 
 Orient might wear, hung at one end of a swinging 
 shelf upon which a few books, mostly fairy tales 
 and Italian grammars and romances were piled in 
 disorder. All about the room was the unmistakable 
 evidence of man's occupation and any one with 
 moderate perceptions would have been sure that a 
 woman's presence was in that house no longer. 
 
 "We've done pretty well lately," announced 
 Alden briskly. " At this rate it will take just two 
 years and one month longer." 
 
 "When I'm sixty-four years old," commented 
 the general. " Give Barbara a few of her sweet- 
 heart's rights and make it sixty-five." 
 
 "O, we're all right," answered Alden cheerfully. 
 "Come on. Tray! Tray!" he called hastily, 
 gathering the papers into a drawer. A prolonged 
 howl replied. 
 
 "Is that fool dog mad, or what is the matter 
 with him?" exclaimed the exasperated general, 
 going out into the hall. "Stop that noise, Tray! 
 Come downl " The dog gave one shuddering 
 whine but stood still at the top of the stairs. 
 "He's mad," said the general, "mad as a March 
 hare. What has he been doing up there, Locker?" 
 
36 The Sea-Faren 
 
 " Pawin' and yelpin', sir. 1 promised to whack 
 him with a club. sir. Nosin' the floor, sir. 
 Barkin'." 
 
 When Alden was ready he called Tray and the 
 dog after a little hesitation walked down the stairs 
 and went out protestingly with the two men. 
 
IV 
 
 AN EXOTIC 
 
 Barbara in her white dress appeared in the hall 
 its soon as they were admitted and a sound of 
 voices followed her from the room she had left. 
 The general shrank back against the door. 
 
 " Corenado here ^ " he asked in a loud whisper. 
 
 " Yes. He has just come in. You don't mind." 
 
 Barbara smiled at him; Alden was still holding 
 her hand; the general saw the path of his duty, 
 stiffened himself and stalked alone into the room. 
 " Evening, sir," he said gruffly after he had shaken 
 hands with Temple and his wife. 
 
 A young man who had been sitting next to Mrs. 
 Temple sprang up and stood beaming upon the 
 newcomer, his eyebrows, half closed eyes, smiling 
 lips and black moustache all forming so many 
 parallel lines tilted slightly upward at the ends. 
 
 "How are you, general?" he said with easy 
 
 familiarity, widening the circle of chairs about the 
 
 hearth as though he were at home while the others 
 
 greeted Alden. The old soldier making no reply, 
 
 the other surveyed him with genial scrutiny. 
 
 "Color's excellent," he remarked, "eyes full of 
 
 martial spirit. You hold your own charmingly, 
 
 general. Sit here, please." 
 
 " He does not like being so near the fire," inter- 
 
 37 
 
The SeapFaren 
 
 posed Barbara. " There. Now he and papa can 
 have their favorite seats." 
 
 "But you— where are you to be?" asked the 
 young man. 
 
 "O, never mind me. I sit anywhere. Here's 
 your footstool, mamma. Now Mr. Corenzio can 
 have his old place. I am going to sew by the 
 
 lamp." 
 
 "Come, little girl," said her father, "you were 
 just about t ) sing again. Don't run off till you've 
 given us something lively to take out the taste of 
 that last doleful dumps of a song. Don't you know 
 a jig or something to wake us up ? No psalm tune 
 this time." 
 
 Barbara went to the piano and sang one of the 
 negro melodies just coming into favor, giving its 
 swinging rhythm in a clear, high voice. Her father 
 led the clapping of hands when It was ended and 
 
 asked for one more; so she sang another, and even 
 a third. Her mother murmured that they were not 
 ladylike songs, but her father laughed uncontrolla- 
 bly and asked the rest what better songs any one 
 wanted, and added that he ought to be a judge of 
 music, for Barbara, after weeks of work with his 
 big stiff fingers, had taught him to play " Cm^ yt 
 disconsolate " so that he had once gone through it 
 alone without a mistake; he wished that he had put 
 the great effort of his life into a nigger melody in- 
 stead. He wondered at his daughter's taste for 
 songs of longing and sorrow, but at his time of life 
 
An Exotic 
 
 39 
 
 ail ideality in grief is generally over and the unfor- 
 given sin to middle age is to make it either un- 
 comfortable or sad. 
 The engagement had not bMR mouncod to 
 
 young Corenxio and he preff#r«d to remiiNi blind to 
 any symptoms of its ei^itMce. He was tolerably 
 
 successful in ignorinif to his inner sdf what he 
 pleased; he believed that if a man refused to recog- 
 nize what was painful, disagreeable or sad he 
 blotted such things from the world, at least, so far 
 as th ' 'lumar. being was conct-rned. He hoped to 
 perfect himself wholly in t of life later on, 
 
 but as he had not fully done so yet, he reseated 
 himself rather slowfy to take up the tfiread of con- 
 versation with his hostess. 
 
 Leaning forward wMie he talked he could slip a 
 sidewise glance unobserved under his lowered eye- 
 lids at the two figures who had elected to sit by the 
 lamp. Barbara had a square of embroidery in her 
 hands and was smoothing it out on her lap before 
 beginning to sew. 
 
 " That s the stitching piece I always enjoy seeing 
 whenever I am on leave," said Alden, bending 
 nearer to study the design. " Preserved cherries, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 "Strawberries," laughed Barbara. "It's com- 
 pany work. The pattern is old-fashioned already. 
 
 My last hope is that it will wear." 
 
 "I'm sure of that; it has worn so well already. 
 Your father says The Fl^ht " 
 
 i 
 
 L 
 
40 The Sea-Farers 
 
 "See how stubborn he was!" interrupted Bar- 
 bara. " I'd rather he had kept the old name." 
 
 "What! Iht Amiable Matilda} O, never! We 
 watched her loading all the afternoon; gimcracks 
 and lumber. She will sail to-morrow. Your fa- 
 ther says there will be a nor'easter." 
 
 "He never has been right about winds," smiled 
 his daughter. 
 
 " That's why I know The Flight will sail How 
 do you manage not to tangle those silks ? See, I've 
 knotted the only one I've touched. The evergreen 
 self-confidence of the weather prophet seems to 
 point a moral, if I could only find it. I should think 
 the clergy would snap at it. Why does our friend 
 by the fire drive me to conventional speech by 
 staring at us so ? " 
 
 " You must be mistaken. He is still deep in the 
 Italian singing method virith mamma." 
 
 "Perhaps so. If The Flight sails to-morrow 
 shall we see her off and then take a walk some- 
 where ? I want to talk to you about several things." 
 
 • • O, yes. Where shall we go ? " 
 
 "Anywhere you please. You always know just 
 what you want to do. I don't. If I'm with the 
 people I like I don't care where I go or whether I do 
 anything but breathe." 
 
 A skein of crimson silk slid from her white dress 
 toward the floor; Alden's hand detained hers as 
 they both tried to stop it, and their eyes were for 
 an instant fixed on each other. Then they both 
 
An Exotic 41 
 
 glanced apprehensively in the direction of the 
 hearth, but the episode seemed to have passed un- 
 noticed. 
 
 The general was plunging the logs into wild 
 and strained relations by his goadings with the 
 
 poker. 
 
 "He's been restless since daybreak," said Alden, 
 bending forward again. " I've kept him moving 
 and talking all day. That's why I stayed at the 
 wharf this afternoon. It's two years to-day, you 
 know, since poor little Susie was drowned." 
 
 "Yes, and poor Robert," Barbara gave another 
 furtive glance at the group near the fire. " But, 
 Alden,— 1 never said it before to any one,— it has 
 sometimes seemed to me that papa has been more 
 —more cheerful,— no, of course not that exactly, 
 but less irritable since that day. I do hope I'm not 
 saying anything wicked." 
 
 "You couldn't," remarked Alden briefly. 
 
 " You see I never really knew my brother Robert; 
 he was always away from home. Even in those 
 last two months of his life " 
 
 " Was he here two months then ? I supposed it 
 was only a week or two." 
 
 " Yes, August and September; not in the house, 
 you ki.ow, but in town. What was he like when 
 he was a boy, when you were at school together ? " 
 
 "Handsome fellow; hair and eyes yellow, like a 
 lion's cub. He was the best boxer and hurdle 
 jumper there. What a curious stitch that is. I 
 
42 The Sea-Farers 
 
 never could understand how you do it so evenly. 
 Let me see it nearer like a good girl." 
 He drew the work out of her hands so firmly that 
 
 she looked at him in amused astonishment. 
 
 " You keep your attention so fixed on it," he said 
 apologetically. ' What color are your eyes, dear, 
 blue or grey ? " 
 
 ' ' Whichever you like. You are sure to have your 
 way." 
 
 "It will taki me longer to decide. You must 
 try me again." 
 
 Barbara lifted her face in which the pink beneath 
 them had once more modified the color of the non- 
 descript eyes. The eagerness in the young man's 
 own was replaced by a look of intent and perfect 
 satisfaction. 
 
 " I like them, dear," he said below his breath. 
 
 " I'm glad," she answered in the same way. 
 
 "No, sir!" thundered the general from the hearth- 
 stone. "He didn't know what he was talking 
 about, sir! Paper fighting! As hot as the worid 
 ever saw. Paper— ugh! He was a fool, sir! A 
 fool!" 
 
 Corenzio's sidelong glance left the two figures by 
 the lamp as Alden straightened himself in his chair, 
 and was changed to a wondering inspection of the 
 soldier, who with hair bristling and nose curved 
 was glaring at him from the armchair opposite. A 
 ring flashed in the light as the musician brought the 
 tips of his slim fingers together. 
 
An Exotic 
 
 43 
 
 "Well, well, John," Temple was saying, "the 
 young man was only asking for information." 
 
 "Merely for information," echoed the offender, 
 smiling into the face of the angry old man. " I did 
 not mean to excite you, general" 
 
 " You said the war with Mexico was paper fight- 
 ing, sir!" retorted the veteran loudly. 
 
 "My dear sir, hear me, pray! Not I at all. A 
 friend of mine, my dear general, a simple-hearted 
 man, with malice for none, said in the course of 
 conversation that our affair with our neighbor state 
 was a toy war." 
 
 " That was enough ! Jehoshaphat and Mars, man ! 
 Was he at Chapultepec ? Was he at Cerro Gordo 
 or Buena Vista ? Toy war! " 
 
 The maddened general raked his upright hair 
 with his fingers in impotence of explanation. 
 
 " Ah, my friend was a clumsy, tactless fellow like 
 me, dear general, while you, a gallant officer enjoy- 
 ing a good pension " 
 
 " Good pension! " roared the general rising to his 
 feet and glowering down upon his^miling tormentor. 
 "Did you know, sir, that General Scott appeared 
 before the G>ngressional Committee, when a bill 
 was up for increased pay to army men? 'Don't 
 you have pay enough ? ' says the Chairman. ' Leave 
 me out! ' says Scott like a man, ' Leave out the gen- 
 erals!'" 
 
 Alden and Barbara had risen and w«re strolling 
 down the room. 
 
44 
 
 The Sca-Farers 
 
 " How unfair that would have been, wouldn't 
 it ? " and Corenzio seemed to meditate. " He knew 
 they wouldn't leave those brave officers out and yet 
 he said it— said it handsomely I have no doubt. I 
 tell you," he added with a kind of archness, "it 
 takes you old army men to handle committees! " 
 
 " They did leave them out! " shouted the general 
 and with a muttered exclamation, which luckily no 
 one caught, he turned sharply from the group about 
 him. 
 
 "1 say, general," began Corenzio rising. 
 
 " That is enough," said Alden Sumner quietly. 
 
 Corenzio avoided his eye by bending hastily over 
 Mrs. Temple; an occasional word reached the ears 
 of the rest. "Please excuse,— natural— iieated— 
 yes, yes, at his age, " 
 
 "Toy war!" snorted the general, who for the 
 first time snatched his hand away when Barbara 
 made a mute attempt at consolation. 
 
 "O, forgive and forget, general! Please dol" 
 cried Corenzio from Mrs. Temple's side, 
 
 " Paper fighting! " gasped the general, struggling 
 with his overcoat which Temple was holding for 
 him. 
 
 "There, there, John. The young fellow meant 
 nothing. You and I ought not to go off hidf- 
 cocked at our age," said Temple, who hated a dis- 
 turbance of any kind. 
 
 "Enjoying a good pension!" muttered the gen- 
 eral, seizi g his hat 
 
An Exotic 45 
 
 Meanwhile Alden, leaning upon the back of a 
 chair, kept his eyes upon the young man beside his 
 hostess whose murmured phrases became fewer 
 and smaller until they ceased altogether, and 
 Corenzio suddenly flushed with annoyance. He 
 lifted his eyes, and swept each face in turn except 
 Alden's. " What can 1 do," he exclaimed sharply, 
 "except to say I am sorry, desperately sorry ?" 
 
 Then Alden at once left his place, took leave of 
 Mrs. Temple and went out to the hall, whither 
 Temple and Barbara had followed his father. She 
 was holding the general's one glove, standing be- 
 side him as he waited for Alden, his old face 
 swelled and quivering with feeling. Though Tem- 
 ple tried to make light of the matter to his friend 
 and Mrs. Temple came out and shook hands with 
 him, they both, after the door had closed, felt 
 ashamed of him. 
 
 Corenzio had already seated himself at the piano 
 and as they passed the windows the general and 
 Alden heard the plaintive rippling of the notes and 
 the passionate plea of the heavier chords. 
 
 Once out of the house the general expressed his 
 mind with such force and freedom of speech as to 
 effectually calm himself by the end of one block. 
 Then he remarked to his silent companion in the 
 mildest voice and manner, I'm afraid you wanted 
 to stay longer, my boy, didn't you?" 
 
 " O, no, not to-night," replied Alden with a grim 
 smile under his moustache. " But I tell you, gov- 
 
46 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 ernor, I wouldn't let that fellow work me up so 
 every time. He does it on purpose." 
 
 " O, he tried to do it. 1 know that. Tried hard." 
 replied the general in the friendliest tone, "lhad 
 to keep cool. Perfectly cooL" 
 
 The two men entered the blackness of their en- 
 trance hall at home together but when Alden had 
 lighted the candles left ready on the old settle, he 
 found his father emerging from the dark sitting- 
 room with the daguerreotype case in his hand. 
 
 After they had gone upstairs and the general 
 had been a few moments in his own room, he went 
 without stock or coat to his son's door. 
 
 "That poor, pitiful, toadying, sneaking Jacka- 
 napes over there didn't mean anything. I guess. He 
 doesn't know any better," he remarked. This was 
 pardon and confession in one and he went back to 
 his room. His spirits were fully recovered and he 
 moved briskly about, preparing for his rest in his 
 plain iron cot like a soldier's pallet. 
 
 He set the case upon the mantel and Alden heard 
 him say, "Now stay there this time," as if he were 
 speaking to a disobedient child. He took up an old 
 Bible from the table and standing still with his 
 round spectacles on his nose, he read the psalm 
 where he found a faded ribbon as a mark. His 
 wife had always done this before retiring and aftor 
 her death he had taken up her old book and gone 
 on where she had left off. 
 
 " For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of 
 
An Exotic 47 
 
 the deceitful are opened against me," read the Gen- 
 eral slowly. "Set thou a wicked man over him 
 and let Satan stand at his right hand. When he 
 shall be judged, let him be condemned and let his 
 prayer become sin. Let his days be few and let 
 another take his office. Let his children be father- 
 less, and his wife a widow. Let his children be 
 continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their 
 bread also out of their desolate places. Let the ex- 
 tortioner catch all that he hath and let the strangers 
 spoil his labour. Let there be none to extend 
 mercy unto him neither let there be any to favour 
 his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; 
 and in the generation following let their name be 
 blotted out" 
 
 He read on with perfect content Not one 
 thought of personal application in the words en- 
 tered his mind. Any such use of the Bible would 
 have seemed to him almost impious. Its anathemas 
 were remote and sacred. Scrutiny and criticism of 
 The Book were not common in 1855. It was the 
 word of God and that was enough for most people 
 of General Sumner's generation. 
 
 His son in the next room, already in his bed, but 
 with his eyes wide open and his mind busy with 
 many thoughts, heard the recurrent sound of the 
 creaking of a board as his father crossed and re- 
 crossed the room, when his Scripture reading was 
 over and he had begun to sing as he made his 
 preparations for rest. He had a way of doing this 
 
4$ The SeapFaren 
 
 at such times, using some old hymn he had learned 
 in his boyhood. The habit was probably a rem- 
 iniscence of family prayers to which he was long 
 ago accustomed, now robbed of any social or per- 
 haps even religious significance. 
 
 " Far in the deep where darkness dwells," 
 
 quavered the general's bass. His voice sounded 
 much older in singing than in speech, and this 
 hymn had always been too high for him. 
 
 " The land of Horror and despair, 
 Justice has built a dismal helL" 
 
 Here evidently a refractory something disturbed 
 the flow of the melody, but with a jerk on the first 
 word it moved on, — 
 
 <• And laid her itom of vengeance Oere. 
 Eternal plagacs of heavy ehains— " 
 
 Here the window went up and the Minds were 
 arranged,— 
 
 « Tormenting racks and fiery coals. 
 And darts to inffict unmortal pains," 
 
 crooned the general, creaking lengthwise on the 
 plank toward the candle — 
 
 " Dipt in the blood of damned souls." 
 
 The faint light Alden could see shining into the 
 haU went out. 
 
 - Dift in the blood of damned sonb," 
 
An Ezodc 
 
 49 
 
 softly carolled the singer for the last time that 
 night, the tune demanding the repetition of the 
 closing line. , 
 
 Utter silence followed. Alden still lay revolving 
 many things in his active brain, but the gentle old 
 soldier was asleep. 
 
V 
 
 BY THE SHORE 
 
 There was no squall. At three o'clock, beneath 
 a cloudless sky, and attended by soft but vivid Sep- 
 tember airs, the Flight sailed upon the only fortunate 
 voyage that was ever to be hers. Those members 
 of the Temple and Sumner families who were most 
 interested in lier departure dined hastily at one 
 o'clock instead of the accustomed hour of two and 
 were upon the wharf as early as possible to watch 
 the last preparations. 
 
 Mrs. Temple had declined to accompany them as 
 she saw no good reason why the nap ordered by 
 her physician should be given up because one of 
 her husband's ships was bound for the Mediterranean 
 fruit and wine ports, instead of pepper-ridden Su- 
 matra. This passage had to Temple and his 
 daughter, however, the importance of a new ven- 
 ture. Not only had the brig Amiable Matilda been 
 altered to a barque and its name changed, but, 
 chiefly through Barbara's agreement with the views 
 of several sea-captains in whose company Temple 
 laid out his moderately lucrative, but monotonous 
 voyages, he had decided to risk a new course. 
 
 These men had given glowing accounts of the 
 ease, speed and certain profits connected with the 
 
 50 
 
By the Shore 51 
 
 nearer ports, and Barbara whose mind was active in 
 more directions than her mother thought quite lady- 
 like, had warmly expressed her approval of the 
 Mediterranean route. She knew the particulars of 
 lading, the composition of cargoes, the geography 
 of the east, the winds and distances, as well as her 
 father did, and many a time an old East India cap- 
 tain, as he planned a voyage after dinner with his 
 host, turned in his chair to explain some point to 
 the pretty young lady waiting at her father's request 
 to sing for him, only to fmd she knew all about the 
 matter and was ready with suggestions. 
 
 When the bustle of the Flight's weighing anchor 
 was over, and she was moving lightly down the 
 harbor with the sun on her new sails, the little 
 party who had been watching her walked away to- 
 gether up the wharf and broke up where the street 
 began, the general and Temple separating from the 
 younger people. Their steps fell together in ac- 
 customed rhythm and at a slow pace. Long ago 
 the impulsive soldier had learned to fit his quick 
 stride to the persistent evenness of his friend's prog- 
 ress. When h« was alone he moved quickly otill, 
 but he had waiited with Phineas Temple before 
 had marched for the United States and the habit of 
 the boy was the unconscious adaptation of the man. 
 When they reached the first comer both men 
 stopped as though by mutual understanding, and 
 looked toward the two figures hastening vtttif to 
 the left. Barbara turned at the same moment and 
 
St The SnKFaicrs 
 
 waved her hand to them, while Aldeti reminded by 
 her, swung his hat boyishly above his head. 
 
 "I thotifiit they were going aiong the shore," 
 said the general as the two men wmi on their way. 
 
 " Her mother wanted a message left for Venus 
 Diggs, I believe. They seem to like each other well 
 enough so far," his friend j .wered. 
 
 "NotTustake about that, ' guess," and the -n- 
 eral jocularly clapped Teiiiple's nick shoulder to 
 emphasize is belief more strongly. "Hope they II 
 have a chance to get married souie day." 
 
 "Wt 'l, John, you know me," replied Temple 
 "I'm not going to stand in my girl's way when tht 
 time comes, she m aH I have. But that boy of 
 ywm, spending the best part of his life out in that 
 desert is *e worst feature of the case. 1 wWi he'd 
 leave the army an 1 build bridges nearer hoote. 
 He'd make money h^nd over fist." 
 
 " After he's paid the United States for iis educa- 
 tion he . night consider that, ' ? i^^neral 
 grimly. " I ve respected nionc;* . -id ^ta ,ny 
 life, and I've tried to bring iiim u n ti t k. 
 but 1 don't know whether I've su eeaec 
 
 "That's a fait^ul eSd joke of yours, > n 
 it ? " said his friend, the brief inritating quality m 
 voke giving wi^ to m accuslof^ con^tory 
 gentleness. 
 
 " Money's su. a n? u thing thj.t a lot of old moss- 
 backs like our inilv haven't the hang of • yet. 
 That's what Aiacn said neda mi ♦'^ nk u comes 
 
% the Shoie 53 
 
 pretty neir being true. We haven't K rned how to 
 get it or bov to fook at the possibilities in it. You al- 
 ways thin^ i m jokhig about t^ thing. I'm not 
 I recognize that nuking money is a test of capacity, 
 
 Phin. a mode n test. And I tell you this, if I had 
 ' . ch( e wh fthei I d jnder a government of 
 
 hat led blu«- b mxj >r a government of money, 
 i say nu ney t v tirr It took brains to tuake 
 
 It 
 
 ^ eii, y figf- ig cock who bled 
 
 !s c fv, dugl Tem^ . "That sounds 
 bet er. Y< o'- ^raphy will tell how you rose to 
 enef- 
 
 ' dre ' soAd the other shortly. 
 Tney iad wafted some distance in silerce bMcn 
 Temp]- aid, " I had quite a start yesterdav 
 ' kind of a sUrt?" asked the ^ 
 
 t. i\, 
 
 walking home just as usual in tirr 
 raised my eyes— you know 1 walk looking 
 do i usually,— raised them for no particular reason 
 at ^ crossing. 1 saw, just before me, on the other 
 4de of Fruit Street— Robert " 
 
 Robert! " echoed the genend aghast 
 > hat is, I thought I saw him. The roots of my 
 r felt queer on my head and I stood still where I 
 was. The young fellow came strait toward me 
 across the street. He stared at me as he came close. 
 I suppose I looked dazed. And will you believe it, 
 John, I saw at once that he wasn't even the least 
 
54 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 like Robert in any way. Now how do you account 
 for that?" 
 
 " For an accidental resemblance ? I don't account 
 for it" 
 
 "It was not even a resemblance, I could see that 
 in a moment. But at the first glance 1 thought it 
 was he. I haven't been warm since." 
 
 "Come in and get something hot. You're nerv- 
 ous, man." 
 
 "Stuff! I'm as well as you are. It isn't the first 
 time this sort of thing has happened to me. But 
 every other time I met the real person just after- 
 ward." 
 
 "Well, it's certain you can't meet that boy. 
 Neither he nor anybody else comes back from the 
 grave. So pull yourself together and come in and 
 
 take your dose." 
 
 Barbara had been asked by her mother to leave a 
 message at one of the tenements near the wharves, 
 so she and Alden began their walk by turning into 
 the decayed street close at hand. At several of the 
 doors black women with red and yellow bandannas 
 twisted about their heads, and ebony babies held 
 in their arms formed one of the picturesque re- 
 minders of distant lands with which New England 
 seaports were filled forty years ago. Barbara knew 
 a number of them and stopped to look at each child 
 in turn as its smiling mother held it toward her. 
 
 " Venus am' feeUn peart to-day," a young mu- 
 latto volunteered. 
 
By the Shore 
 
 55 
 
 "She may be ill," Barbara said to Alden. " If not, 
 I will be back in a moment." 
 
 While he waited he crossed the road to speak to 
 a Portuguese sailor he had often seen with Robert 
 Temple in former years. A dark old face, sunken 
 black eyes, long grizzled hair and a ferocious 
 beard, a scarlet handkerchief tied loosely about the 
 throat made the man an ideal pirate of the Spanish 
 main whom it was a distinction to know. Some 
 dramatic instinct in him, awakened by the curiosity 
 he excited, had caused him of late to add a watch- 
 chain of small gold nuggets, strung roughly to- 
 geliier, and now dangling across his greasy waist- 
 coat. 
 
 Barbara went upstairs and knocked at a door at 
 the head of the next landing. It was wrenched 
 open at once, and a woman's African face peered 
 through the aperture, the flat features swelled to 
 an unnatural size and the eyes dim with distress. 
 
 "O, honey, am dat you smilin' sweeter dan de 
 May?" she said puUing the door wider,— it had 
 sagged on its hinges,—" Praise de Lord white folks 
 can be peart. Set right down dar, honey, an' res' 
 yo' little feet." 
 
 "What is the matter, Venus?" asked Barbara in 
 dismay. 
 
 The room looked as if a wild beast had been let 
 loose in it. Chairs were overturned, dishes smashed 
 to atoms, axes, shovels, knives, brooms, baking 
 pans and clothing were strewn in confusion. 
 
56 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 "Don't pay no 'tcntion to dcm derc tings," said 
 Venus carelessly, "I was jes* 'spressin' my min", 
 dat's all." 
 
 " But why ? " asked Barbara. 
 
 The negro standing where she was in the midst 
 of the wreclt, uttered a sudden, long-drawn howl. 
 " It's dat 'Dolphus! " she cried, when she drew in her 
 breath. ' It's him. Dat's what it is. 0I0!0! " 
 
 " Wha'. has he done ? You haven't been married 
 to him six months." 
 
 " He done run away. Miss Barbara. Run away 
 wid dat rancid, cross-eyed nigger Tamson down de 
 alley. Dat's wot he done. Miss Barbara. O, lemme 
 cotch her! I'll razor dat Tamson " 
 
 "Hush! Hush! Don't talk like that, Venus. 
 Where can they have gone ? " 
 
 "Don' know, don' care. He's trash an' he alius 
 was trash. Don* see how 1 could 'a' took up wid 
 him nohow. When youse had t ree husbands, 
 besser stop. Miss Barbara. Dem after dat is scum 
 ob de earth, alius is. Don' you nebber try more'n 
 free. Miss Barbara. I 'spised dat nigger de fust 
 time I seed him grinnin' wid him green specs on. 
 Den spite o' dat I done marry him. Done so. Of 
 an* he stole dem pants o' yo' pa's wot yo' gib me 
 for Israel; dem wid de checks on 'em. I was 
 savin' 'em up for Israel to grow to 'em. An' dey're 
 gone! O, Miss Barbara, wot trash are dat! Dey 
 was hangin' handsome in de pantry. Stole! Dat's 
 wot dey is. O, lemme cotch him! " 
 
By the Shore 57 
 
 " Had you any reason to think he would do such 
 a shocking thing?" asked Barbara when she could 
 be heard. 
 
 "Steal dem pants? He's hankered on 'em, I 
 knowed dat. I had orter kep' em under my pillar. 
 Had so." 
 
 " No, I mean his leaving you." 
 " O, dat! Lor', Miss Barbara, he's alius dat way. 
 Mean doin's like dat don' s'prise me 't aU. it's 
 Israel s pants dat worries mc. Israel's dyin' mad. 
 Wisht I'd cut 'em off long ago. Lor' be praised, I 
 reckon 1 besser pick up dis yere trash. Reckon ycr 
 ma wants me, don' she?" 
 
 Barbara gave the message and expressed regret 
 that Adolphus had turned out so badly. 
 
 Lor', you can' make no use ob a nigger like 
 dat," said his wife. "Men-trash bees all alike. 
 Won' hab no more 'em roun'. Don' you hear to 
 none ob em. Miss Barbara. My littie missy down 
 under de salt waves, she ain't know de bodderin* 
 wid em. Dey'II bring down yo' gray hairs. Miss 
 Barbara, an' bring down yo' brown hairs, too. A 
 lyin', lazy, selfish, drinkin', thievin' lot. Wisht de 
 good Lord would razor 'em all. Would so." 
 
 The door had been !eft half open and Alden after 
 waiting until he was impatient, went into the house. 
 Both women saw him appear at the head of the 
 stairs and Barbara stepped into the hall closely fol- 
 lowed by Venus who adroitly pulled the door after 
 her, shutting out the scene of destruction. 
 
58 
 
 The Sea-Faren 
 
 "Well, how goes it with you, Venus?" asked 
 the newcomer cheerfully. 
 
 "Wai, I'm spared. Lor', if it ain' Mahsa Alden 
 an' handsomer dan ebbor. I done been talkln't' 
 Miss Barbara jes' now dat de good Lord's ways 
 warn' our ways nohow," answered Venus, who 
 having lived many years in the Sumner household 
 had preserved a vivid fear of the general's military 
 discipline and an equally vivid remembrance of 
 Aldan's teasing cleverness from his youth up. "1 
 says t' Miss Barbara 1 ain' know but one young 
 gem'men dat was good 'nough for her. 'Good 
 looks,' I done tell 'Dolphus when he was cockin' 
 him hat in dis kink and dat kink fo' de glass, ' good 
 looks,' I says, ' is on'y skin deep, 'Dolphus, 'cept in 
 Mahsa Alden. Dere's a young gem'men clear on 
 through him,' I says. ' You razor way inter Mahsa 
 Alden,' 1 says, 'an' you'-ll keep on strikin' g«n'man 
 's deep 's you go. An' handsome gem'man, too,' I 
 says." 
 
 "How I have improved!" laughed the young 
 man. 
 
 " Reckon 1 didn' 'preciate yer in dem ole days," 
 grinned Venus. " How's yer pa ?" 
 
 "I suppose she's 'got her come-uppance,' as 
 Locker prophnied when she left us to marry that 
 sneaking little barber young enough to be her son," 
 remarked Alden laughing when they were again in 
 the street " He's left her, hasn't he ?" 
 
 " Yes, poor soul," said Barbara. 
 
By the Shore 59 
 
 "I thought so. She didn't want me to ask any 
 questions. I know her of old." 
 
 The first, second and third husbands of Venus, 
 indeed, had successively reigned during her alle- 
 giance to the Sumners. Two of them had been 
 also in the employ of the family. The third was a 
 chicken-hearted African whose flight under the 
 stress of a biU : of wood from the hand of his wife 
 was the final result of a scorn which had long been 
 less convincingly expressed. With her last view of 
 his black eyes rolling in terror over his shoulder she 
 considered that chapter in her life closed. She 
 promptly accompanied the youthful barber to the 
 altar, brushing aside the trivialities and delays of 
 divorce, even after her attention had been called to 
 them. 
 
 "She doesn't think out everything years in ad- 
 vance. Now if you should make ? mistake in an 
 affair of the heart," and Barbara tooked out to the 
 sea with a smUe all about her mouth and eyes, 
 " there d be no sort of excuse for you." 
 
 Of course Alden improved the opportunity to say 
 something pleasant, thus presented to him. As 
 she talked he turned constantly for the satisfaction 
 of seeing the strong young figure and bright face, 
 as well as to feel the certainty that she was walking 
 there beside him, for Alden was a New Englander and 
 although he had somewhat freed himself from doubts 
 concerning the righteousness of happiness, he had 
 retained Ws Wrttar^ in a doulH of Its probability. 
 
6o 
 
 The Sea-Farm 
 
 The excitement of motion and air and of his pres- 
 ence had for the moment effaced the hereditary se- 
 riousneu of Barbara's eyes and mouth. With head 
 erect she went, well equipped, for the latest fashion 
 was always pretty to Iwr and she was quick to 
 catch a onlwi style wesring it Inexperienced 
 on nuuqrsiibs of lifc; she gape tha impression of 
 being prepared fof anytlui^. It was partly because 
 of this alertness that Alden, whose temper was 
 more introspective, admired and wondered at her. 
 "The readiness is all," he thought involuntarily as 
 her firm step kept pace with his ; and more than 
 once, in love's humility, "The readiness is all." 
 
 As they skirted the shore, still following the road, 
 he suddenly said, " I was thinking afterward about 
 Robert being at home so long that last time. What 
 was he doing P " 
 
 " I don't kno^ where he spent the greater part of 
 every day ; in his boat, I think. I used to ask him 
 to walk with me, to go here and there, but he sel- 
 dom did. Papa was restless and mamma silent. 
 Perhaps women are never very fond of their step- 
 sons." 
 
 " Susie did not see much of him either, I sup- 
 pose." 
 
 " Nothing of him at ail. Your father forbade it 
 years ago, so of course she never spoke to him. I 
 was at Uie window that afternoon when I saw dd 
 Tom Briggs, the boat builder, coming up to the 
 door. I knew by his face som^ng had happened. 
 
By the Shore 
 
 6i 
 
 I see his eyes in my dreams yet, sometimes, and I 
 wal<e from a sound sleep." 
 
 "Poor child; 1 ought not to speak of it. But 
 I've never had a good chance to ask all 1 wslxxu '. 
 know." 
 
 " You were away so long on that survey ! Is 
 there anything else I could tell you, Alden ?" 
 
 " What sort of boat was Robert's ? " 
 
 " A little cockle shell thing. Poor boy, he had no 
 chance when the squall struck." 
 
 "And Susie's?" 
 
 " Hers was a white row boat that could be used 
 with a little sail. They found it afterward, you 
 know." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "It was very still on the water that morning. 
 Susie promised her father not to go when it was 
 choppy." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " 1 can't think of her as dead. She was the most 
 wholly living creature 1 ever knew." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Barbara glanced up at him, his eyes lowered as he 
 walked, and with love's clairvoyance she said 
 quickly, "Alden, Susie never had anything to do 
 with Robert She never disobeyed the general in 
 her life." 
 
 "She owed him that" Alden answered. "He 
 was strict with her but she must have known how 
 much sIm was to him. He wotdd not give im up 
 
62 
 
 The Sea-Faren 
 
 till the last East Indiaman that had sailed before that 
 day was in. The Laughing Sal was gone twenty- 
 two months, and when she was in port we put up 
 the stone. You can convince him easily enough 
 that he is mistaken sometimes, if you go about it 
 right, but rank disobedience the dear old fellow 
 cannot forgive." 
 
 "I know it," replied Barbara making a desperate 
 leap from the subject. "Papa says it is quite a re- 
 sponsibility to give an order, remembering that you 
 also have to see it obeyed." 
 
 Alden laughed. " I was thinking what a contrast 
 he makes to his father. The voice of that bluff old 
 sea dog was hoarse with shouting at people to keep 
 moving. It tak^ two generations of jrou to show 
 the pattern, doesn't it?" he said. 
 
 "1 dare say it does. We shall rcakt a good foil 
 for you. Your father- can show the whole of it in 
 two minutes," exclaimed Barbara laughing, and 
 turning suddenly from the road she sprang from one 
 rocky ledge to the other toward the water. 
 
 The black hulk of a brig lost years before lay at a 
 little distanre from the shore. The rocks over 
 which Alden hurried after her were worn and dark, 
 cracked into figures and streaked with veins of 
 useless stone in paler hues, or colored by dyes 
 burned into them in their hot youth. In the depths 
 of the clefts here and tho^e the water boomed like 
 distant cannonading. 
 
 The young man and woman sat to rest at last 
 
By the Shore 
 
 63 
 
 upon a flat rock warm with a whole day's sun, and 
 leaned against the face of the stone behind them. 
 Near by a few white butterflies flitted, restless and 
 unafraid, lilce biu of flying foam. Inland the 
 autumnal silence, which means the ceasing of num- 
 berless unnoticed but blended noises <^ the day, had 
 begun to be felt in the migration of birds and the 
 chilling of insects at the first touch of the fall. But 
 this change had not come near the sea. The roar 
 of the incoming tide was louder and deeper than in 
 the summer days, as though the premonition of 
 winter had brought an added note of seriousness 
 into the voice of the ocean. But above the rhyth- 
 mic thunder of the waves sounded the shriU chirp 
 of crickets in the coarse grass growing in crevices 
 of the rocks mingled with thin bkx>ms of golden- 
 rod. 
 
 The leaves of a bush which had gained a preca- 
 rious foothold not far from the two silent figures 
 were rustling in a stray breeze for even at this dis- 
 tance from the sea an early frost had smitten them 
 and they were brown and I'ry. A little way out 
 from the shore the base of a rock looked black 
 where the seaweed was laid bare. The water about 
 it was crinkled by a million petty waves, stirring 
 and glittering in the sun. A sail still farther out 
 was a patch of white, another was dark as ink. At 
 intervals an insect passed with a sharp, whizzing 
 sound and a salt smell came up over the rocks far 
 below. 
 
64 
 
 The Sca-Faren 
 
 Alden had taken off his hat, and the fitful 
 breeze occasionally lifted the hair about his fore- 
 head. 
 
 "I wish I could do that," Barbara said, "but I 
 
 should get tanned." 
 
 " You'd be all the prettier. Try it and see." 
 
 With a furtive glance around her and out to sea, 
 Barbara shpped off her hat and threw it down be- 
 side her. "My face will shoclc mamma and papa 
 at tea-time, but 1 like it," she said, tilting her head 
 back and half closing her eyes against the light 
 " Akien, the girl you have chosen is not quite a lady. 
 It's best you should know the truth." 
 
 He turned to look at her, ready to smile when he 
 should see the point. 
 
 "She hates gloves," she continued, checking off 
 her faults on her fingers. 
 
 " Yet she will wear them! " interjected Alden. 
 
 " Of course. Haven't you learned that that is as 
 it must be in this life ? She has a vulgar appetite, 
 especially after being long out of doors. She has 
 rough hair, not like either of her parents. She has 
 enormous feet" 
 
 "She hasn't" said Alden comprehensively. 
 
 " Look at them! " and she brought the heels down 
 decidedly upon the rock where they rested beyond 
 the ruffles of her blue dress. " Anybody who was 
 truthful would say they were huge. Four and a 
 half. Keep it to yourself, won't you, Alden, for 
 it's a most mortifying thing. I don't see how it 
 
By the Shore 
 
 65 
 
 happened. Pi^pa's mother wore only number one, 
 and mamma wears number two." 
 
 " I'm sure 1 should have gunsed yours were num- 
 ber two, if you had asked me," replied Alden, 
 gravely. " 1 despise very small feet myself." They 
 both laughed aloud. " Haven't you noticed," he 
 went on after a pause, " how groups of men in sea- 
 ports sit on the rocks like this hour by hour, not 
 talking or thinking, everything of them but their 
 clumsy bodies drifting in a dumb sort of way with 
 the tide ? Of course Harold lived by the sea. I'm 
 so content now that my mind b sinking into a calm 
 and all my purpose is dulled. My dear little girl, I 
 have two things to tell you. See how tightly you 
 can hold my hand so I shall not flcMt into a Uissful 
 silence and not say them." 
 
 He took her hand between both of his and Bar- 
 bara looked at him searchingly. 
 
 " Tell me, de«r," she said, "if it's unpleasant, let's 
 have it over. " 
 
 " You know the ships have brought stray Italians, 
 Spaniards and Greeks here for a good many years," 
 began Alden, frowning at the water in his efforts at 
 concentration. "The father of that young fellow 
 Corenzio was a stroBing Italian fiddler who came 
 with one of the cargoes. I never heard any harm 
 of him. He spoke broken English, worked hard 
 and lived on half rations with his wife and ? large 
 young family. My grandfather was the parson here 
 and interested himself in the children, 1 suppose, so 
 
66 The Sea-Faren 
 
 that Coreruio met him in that way. He seemi to 
 have had a mania of distrust, was afraid of banks 
 and business men, so what he saved from his teach- 
 ing, or made by bargaining with other foreigners, 
 
 he deposited with the preacher.— Are you comfort- 
 able, little girl ? Let me put an end of your shawl 
 between your shoulders and the stone. There, is 
 that better ?— O, yes, I'm all right, more than com- 
 fortable. Well, this thrifty and worthy Italian had 
 some sort of accident from which he died suddenly. 
 Hb wife was an American, but a silly, inefficient 
 woman, and we find he never told her he had saved 
 anything. My grandfather <Hed after a long illness. 
 Twenty years went by." Alden paused and Bar- 
 bara observed that the one slight line always be- 
 tween his eyes had deepened. She reached up to 
 smooth it with her finger and he smiled. 
 
 "I shall keep you beautiful as long as 1 can, if 
 warning you will do it. That's what mamma says 
 to me when I contort my face, as she calls it. And 
 twenty years went by " 
 
 "One day," resumed Alden slowly, "the son, 
 the one you know, came to my father with a pack- 
 age of ragged papers. A part of them were receipts 
 for sums of money, written in the old pai^on's hand 
 and the rest were the corresponding items scrawled 
 upon the backs of envelopes in Italian. The son 
 said he could find no evidence that the money had 
 been returned, either through papers or the memory 
 of any one in the family. His mother was living 
 
By the Shore 
 
 67 
 
 then, notfly three years ago. and sIm Mid nothing 
 had mr been ptid to htr by my grandfather. Their 
 poverty after the hu^NUtd'a doith teemed to verify 
 her statemmt The last date in the papers Cerenzio 
 brought us was about a month before the Italian's 
 accident. We examined every scrap of writing in 
 the olu desic at home, my father and 1. We found 
 a memorandum bool( in which the corresponding 
 sums to Corenzio's list were set down in order. 
 And there was one other paper. Corenzio had evi- 
 dently called at the house, and. not finding my 
 grandfather in, stmie one had given him a sheet 
 upon which he had written a request for the return 
 of his money. Tte was dated one WMk before 
 the Italian's death." 
 
 "He paid it at once and so never chanced to speak 
 of it. That ! )ks simple enough, 1 should think," 
 said Barbara pre 
 
 Alden only Uu\ and hurried to the end his 
 explanation. " 1 he family were left penrnli'ss 1 
 know that. Everybody helped them i. V>^p the 
 oki house, to be fed and ctothed. The three chU- 
 dren who lived tomed out de^ntl^' wi^, two of 
 them went West. Of course my fath«' toki ycMing 
 Corenzio that as no receipt could be found the 
 money should be paid. With interest for twenty 
 years it would reach above t«i thousuid dollars. 
 My little girl " 
 
 "Yes. Alden." 
 
 "It will take us two years more unless some 
 
68 
 
 The Sea-Faren 
 
 miracle should happen. Did you ever hear of a 
 lieutenant of engineers being miraculously assisted 
 in money difficulties?" asked Alden with an at- 
 tempt at a laugh. 
 
 Barbara did not speak for a moment. " I shall 
 read everything about life on the plains," she said at 
 last, "I shall not make so many mistakes as if 1 
 went now." 
 
 "It's an eternity!" exclaimed Alden with sharp 
 impatience, "and there's no use trying to pretend 
 anything else." 
 
 "Why should he have done such a thing, if he 
 ever did ? " she asked presently. 
 
 " O, I don't know, I don't know. 1 never thought 
 he pocketed the money. I believe he invested it 
 with poor judgment and lost it But if so some 
 note ought to be found." 
 
 "What was he like personally ? " 
 
 " He seems to have been particularly interested 
 in Satan," replied Alden, his impatience breaking 
 up in sudden amusement. " Studies of his character 
 in the shape of warnings form the bulk of his writ- 
 ings ; but that personage seems to have got even 
 with him." 
 
 " Alden ! How can you joke on such a thing ? " 
 "You ought to be glad that my generation can 
 look at his ruling passi<ms in such a cheerful light." 
 
 "O, Alden!" 
 
 "I was very severe on him three years ago, but 
 now 1 fall to wondering what the stress could have 
 
By the Shore 69 
 
 been. My mother used to say 'Never wonder till 
 you know the circumstances and then you'll never 
 wonder.' At any rate it wiU aU be set right now 
 and no one else need ever hear of it. My father's 
 attitude is a curious one. All at once the lawgiver 
 of his youth turns out a weak and faulty man. If 
 he were living my father would hardly have saved 
 him from prison, but he would have loved him for 
 the first time. He thinks the old parson tried to 
 say something just at the last; perhaps, as he be- 
 lieves, it was an attempt to explain this. I dare say 
 a man like him suffered his fill for it Let him rest 
 in peace." 
 
 Thus Alden blackened his grandfather's name. 
 
 When Barbara spoke again it was of the trouble 
 in both their minds. 
 
 "Very likely two years passing along day by 
 day won't seem so long as it sounds in a mass," she 
 said, " I'm quite sure it won't." 
 
 "If I weren't moving about so — ' began Alden. 
 " But no, it wouldn't do. I couldn't risk it for you. 
 My dear, how can 1 stand it! How can I! " 
 
 "We won't look ahead. We'tt just fill each 
 
 minute, you out there and I " Barbara stopped 
 
 short " I'm glad you told me," she added after a 
 while. 
 
 " I did it because I thought it right you should 
 understand, " said Alden with a sigh. 
 " It wouldn't have mattered to me about that" 
 "Mattered? " 
 
70 
 
 The Sea-Faien 
 
 " About understttiding." 
 " You are a dear good 
 
 Then by common consent th^ dMUifid tiie Mb- 
 
 ject. 
 
 Alden related the incident of the misplaced 
 miniature and expressed his opinion that his father 
 and hers were a couple of well-meaning chaps, old- 
 fashioned, of course, to which Barbara responded 
 quietly that all old people were a little queer. 
 
 There was no evident decrepitude in ei^r of the 
 men under consideration, for the loss of his arm 
 had not brolcen the general's iron constitution, but 
 they were spoken of by these younger people with 
 something akin to the pity which most of us fed 
 for the dead. 
 
 "Alden, we are to be sacrificed to our friends. 
 The decre*; has gone forth," proceeded Barbara. 
 
 " In what form are we to he offered up ?" he in- 
 quired. 
 
 "An evening party, mamma says. O, Alden, 
 don't look like that! " laughed the girl. 
 
 "But why, dearest heart? Why m evening 
 party," groaned the man. 
 
 " It's the custom to announce sngnpmrnti in 
 that way here." 
 
 "Question: What is a custom ? Answer: An 
 unbaked law. When will the torture be applied ? " 
 
 " In ten days if that suits you. Mamma told me 
 to ask you." 
 
 " Ten days, " repeated Alden blankly. The recall 
 
By the Shore 71 
 
 he had then in his pocket, received that morning, 
 gave him just ten days more. " Could she make it 
 eight days, do you think ? 1 can hardly wait for it 
 you see," he added, trying 10 smile pleasantly. 
 "Who will be there?" 
 
 " Every one we know." 
 
 " How jolly that will be. Corcnzio, of course." 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 I didn't know until Utdy thM he cm^d Mfe- 
 
 cially for you." 
 
 You don't know it yet. He behaves the same 
 toward a d<aen gifte. Some people think \m 
 handsome." 
 
 "You?" 
 
 " No, indeed," declared Barbara, " I never did. 1 
 —think— I like a different coloring myself. O. 
 Alden, somebody might come ! " 
 
 "Yes," replied Alden, "this fock beM m 
 might speak its mind. I see some emo^«m km 
 cracked its heart once and perhaps je^ousy wll 
 split it afain. Of course some one from Portugrf 
 may drop in untimely, as Coren«io did last night 
 But let's sit here and risk it." 
 
 The tide was rising, for the black ring of seaweed 
 about the ledge was gone. Across a cleft of rock 
 close by a spider was sitting at the centre of his 
 frail, bright house upon which the sun was shining, 
 and the wind at random swayed it to and H^. 
 
 "Not just yet," Alden said hwiari f, Hmom- 
 •ira^ng with the messai^ of *aeaB #at iftMtd 
 
72 The Sea-Farers 
 
 clamoring to be heard, " Not to-day." But the un- 
 spoken words colored his thoughts and guided his 
 tongue more than once to talk of that savage out- 
 post where 1^ work lay. 
 
 " Evca though there's no possibility for a man to 
 see Urn end of a thing, don't you think he's lucky 
 to see the commencement of it ? " lie asked, after 
 they had talked and fallen into silence several 
 times. 
 
 " What do you mean, Alden dear?" 
 "1 mean we don't know how big a thing we 
 may be doing out there." 
 "¥«?" 
 
 " WiteH Ihat railroad comeg it's going to bind the 
 Hales ^ether as fast as the new ones grow. The 
 people will come from the east and the te^, birt 
 Kbe civilization they build will not be eastern or 
 southern, see if it is! I should not be surprised if 
 the section 1 am in out there turneu out to be the 
 most representative and American place in the 
 Union. " 
 
 He laughed apolc^etically as he met the puzzled 
 gravity in her face. 
 
 " I think of th^ thii^ on the plains tMcai^ ¥m 
 alofie so much." 
 
 "R's interesting," she said. " Tell me about it." 
 
 " There is a curious imitation of the sea on the 
 prairies; the wind blows the grass into waves, the 
 sky spaces are as huge and of course the loneliness 
 is sonMthing like it. We are going to surv^ the 
 
By the Shore 
 
 73 
 
 copy, though, whiz across it and seed it down, dig 
 it and pave it and uphdster it" 
 "Not for ages yet" 
 
 "Very soon, I thinlc. You've no idea how 
 strongly the tide sets that way. Did you Icnow 
 one-fourth of all Americans leave their own state ? 
 I tell you there's an immense impulse everywhere. 
 I feel it so that it makes me restless. Such a lot of 
 cramped old rubbish is breaking up, so many new 
 things are coming on. Why, that very upward 
 dash of families toward elegancies they've never 
 known, that parvenu freshness, is inspiring if you 
 only look at it right What an oppt^rtunityl The 
 kwt chance the world may ever give for a nation to 
 commence with every advantage. Ours has been 
 in training a hundred years and she's now ready to 
 start. It's splendid to live at just this time of all 
 times and help give the United States a send-oflf. — 
 Dear little girl, dear little heart, why don't you re- 
 mind me now that I cannot even settle the affairs of 
 our world of two as we both wish ? " 
 
 "I ttked to heiH- you." 
 
 "You see I hmre a hdrit of talking to you exactly 
 M If you wm wit my own; fa^ as 
 
 laldy, balwaefi mtmimf Image In ^ glass, 
 
 I see bR>wn hair and pink cheeks and eyes that are 
 blue one day and gray the next. So I find mys^ 
 
 talking exactly twice as much as I used." 
 
 " Dear," said Barbara, "I see a difference between 
 m tlvkt makes me afraid sometimes. You look so 
 
74 The Sea-Farcrs 
 
 much farther. Don't get discouraged with me, 
 Aider), yet awhile when I stumble along behind. 
 You must wait for me." 
 
 "See here! " exclaimed Alden with his pleasant 
 lati^h. "See here! I've been showing off ail my 
 good points ever since I came home. 1 am a rough, 
 Unpatient man. You make me a little better every 
 time I see you. But don't get discouraged with me, 
 sweetheart, for at every point except bridge-build- 
 ing and fighting you must wait for me." 
 
VI 
 
 A WRX O' TUB WBP 
 
 The day of the party given in honor of Bart»ra's 
 engagement was bright until nearly sunset. Then 
 the white and decorative clouds were succeeded by 
 
 rougher masses which grew darker and darker to- 
 ward the close of light. Finally through the level 
 grays low in the west a last yellow gleam glittered 
 for an instant and then sank from sight. 
 
 A monotony of murky color spread over earth 
 and sky, the faces of those who looked out of the 
 windows were darkened and the s«ious night came 
 down. 
 
 After Uie genoal in his Uue coat with tit gik 
 buttons, and Alden in his uniform had set out in 
 
 their different moods for the scene of hospitality, 
 Locker seated himself before the deserted fire in the 
 sitting-room when his evening duties were done. 
 He put out the lamp for he meant to do nothing but 
 rest, and he leaned forward in his chair, holding one 
 hand to the heat of the blazing logs until the palm 
 was nearly blistered before he warnMd the other, as 
 though to remind himsdf tiMt even ti^ limir of 
 phyiieil ease might not shirk tts due rim ef Mi's 
 unremittifig iUs. Nt was rnnnHig^ imft vMsli 
 must stffl efaipse before an answer to tiie^ppicaies 
 
 7S 
 
76 The Sca-Faren 
 
 made out by Aklen and endorsed by the general, 
 could be reasonably expected from Washington; 
 and he was fuither reconciling the comfort of the 
 moment with his conscience by assuring himself 
 that if there were a way by which he could be 
 cheated out of his dues, the Government could be 
 depended upon to find it. 
 
 The schism between conscience and sensation was 
 honorably ended by the arrival of Jacob Minns. He 
 settled with an old sailor's clumsiness into the 
 chair Locker pushed toward him. Though all cere- 
 monial of visiting between them had shrunk into a 
 symbol, Jacob never omitted that, and upon enter- 
 ing the general's house he always patted down the 
 straggling lock which had remained on duty over 
 the centre of his forehead when all the rest of his 
 top hair had deserted its post. The fact that he for- 
 got this observance until after he was seated marked 
 a grave preoccupation of mind. 
 
 "Wal, what's in the wind now, Jacob?" asked 
 Locker, for it was evident enough that something 
 was there. 
 
 "She's off," replied the guest, jerking a thick 
 thumb toward the window. 
 "When?" 
 
 "Jest before supper, I guess. Table was set and 
 kettle a boilin'. A piece o* paper on my plate says 
 • Gone to sister s for an hour. Jemima's sick. New 
 gingerbread in cake box.' That means three days. 
 Sometimes it's Almiry Ann that's sick. 1 left every- 
 
A WiU o' the Wi^ 
 
 77 
 
 thing as it was and come out I didn't fed no call 
 for victuals." 
 
 "Be they all three jest aUke about it?" ques- 
 tioned Locker with smothered indignation. 
 
 " Wal, no, they bea'nt. Maria doM wrastle with 
 it. She don't know anything what to do she feels 
 so bad. And she don't never keep none in the 
 house." 
 
 " Queer about them three respectable females all 
 takin' to drink in their old age, ain't it, now ?" 
 
 "All risin' forty 'fore tiiey teched a drop," as- 
 serted Jacob stonily. " Inherited, every mite of it 
 Rum killed the okl man." He shifted one knM to 
 the other by assisting it with both hands, his i^oomy 
 eyes on the fire. "Wisht she could make out to 
 stop it" he said thoughtfully. " ^e's a dom good 
 woman all but that" 
 
 The expression as Jacob used it had an emphasis 
 of benediction in it But Locker who had less 
 sympathy with the erring wife held his peace, 
 smoking in silence some moments before he added, 
 " Things that ain't straight in your own house has 
 got a heap o' reasons why that they ain't got in no- 
 body else's house." ^ 
 
 " That's so," admits Jacob Minns. 
 
 The friends sat ruminating upon this matter for 
 some time. Locker's tactful remark, though merely 
 intended to express disapproval of his course with- 
 out really wounding his friend, had, like all gener- 
 alities tended to calm the wh<^ s^uation, by lead- 
 
78 
 
 The Sea-Farert 
 
 ing its conditions up from the hot and personal into 
 the cool and universal. 
 
 "She see a ha'nt last time," Jacob said after the 
 pause. "DidlteUye?" 
 
 "No. Where?" 
 
 "Sht was comin' home on the third day. kinder 
 slow and shaky, and jest by Sam Parker's orchard 
 
 she see it. She says she warn't ten feet from it, 
 right in the path, and she stood stock still and shet 
 her eyes a mite an' then looked agin an' it was 
 gone." 
 
 " Was it in a sheet or in flumes o' fire an' horns?" 
 asked Locker with heavy waggish f ss. 
 
 " It warn't in none of 'em, " replied Jacob stolidly. 
 " It was as lifelike as a wax figger. That's what 
 she says, eyes an' alL It had took the shape of 
 young Robert Temple .who was drownded nigh on 
 to two years ago." 
 
 Locker turned in his chair and stared at his friend. 
 "What put him into her head to see?" he said in 
 slow surprise. 
 
 " Wal, she done sewin' on the mournin' up there, 
 I recollect, and what with havin' seed him roysterin' 
 around Jhat fall and then heerd of him drownded 
 all at once, I guess it was some of a shock to her. 
 So when she ain't quite right it all comes back as a 
 ha'nt. That's how I sense it. It scairt her good. I 
 tell ye. She was shakin' like the numb palsy. I 
 couldn't make out to git her dress oflf for a speU. If 
 she'd jist had the luck o' seein' it on her way to her 
 
A Will o* the Wisp 
 
 79 
 
 sister s three days afore, I swan! I believe ihe'd V 
 turned back." 
 
 " b the oftin took this way. Jacob, seein' things ?" 
 
 "No, sir, never was afore. That was one thing 
 that scairt her so. She thought she was goin' 
 queer the way some on 'em doos, I've heerd, when 
 they keep it up a good spell. I did think then it'd 
 "a* cured her of the taste. But she's gone agin." 
 
 In Locker's opinion the symptoms were too bad 
 for any hollow phrases, so he attempted none. 
 When at an early hour Jacob rose to go his friend 
 went out to the door with him and stood looking up 
 at the dull sky. 
 
 " I alius leave a lamp at sich times in the settin - 
 room," observed Jacob as he lingered on the paved 
 walk. " An' when she gits round to comin* back 
 she puts it out if I'm not there and goes to bed." 
 
 The two men turned their eyes in the direction of 
 Jacob's home, though the house could not be seen 
 from that point. Then without any ceremony of 
 farewell they separated and Jacob went with bent 
 head as was his wont along the dimly-lighted street. 
 He raised his eyes from habit as he came within 
 sight of the small house. It was dark from top to 
 bottom. Incredulous he blinked and looked again. 
 Stumbling with haste he hurried forward. The ex- 
 tingubhed beacon was lighted again in the man's 
 unbeautiful but eager face. 
 
 After Jacob had gone Locker went back to the 
 room where the logs had declined from winged 
 
8o 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 sympathizers to red-eyed blockheads, as fires will 
 which have been tamed with burning upon hearths, 
 but which like other domestic pets resent being left 
 alone and preen themselves the best when human 
 eyes are watching them. 
 
 He sat down with a sigh again in his old place. 
 It was very still in the house; even Tray had been 
 taken to the Temples' to pass an evening with their 
 dog with whom he had agreed upon a truce. Now 
 and then a log dropped apart with a soft sound. 
 The stairs in the hall beyond the open door creaked 
 sharply at intervals, as though with the progress of 
 a ghostly foot the dumb boards cried out. Locker 
 threw another log upon the embers and in the noise 
 of snapping sparks and cheerful blaze the stairs 
 were silent and the ceasing of the footfalls of hurry- 
 ing passers-by became less noticeable. 
 
 Locker had resumed the alternate heating of his 
 palms, the fire was settling down to quiet flame 
 when he thought he heard a footstep, light and 
 guarded but at regular intervals, somewhere beyond 
 the door leading to the hall. When he sat up and 
 listened as sharply as his slowly dulling ears would 
 allow he concluded he was mistaken, but a moment 
 later he fancied he heard a door close. If so it must 
 have been that between the kitchen and the shed 
 which always gave out a small creak when it was 
 nearly shut. 
 
 He rose and walked along the hall through the 
 open door into the kitchen and there stood. The 
 
A Will o' the Wisp 
 
 8i 
 
 darkness was absolutely still. He felt for the door 
 to the shed, opened it and going down the three 
 steps struck a match. The light flared up as he 
 held it high above his peering old eyes but showed 
 only the usual array of articles, silent and unsus- 
 picious. 
 
 " I'm a dumed fool, I guess," he mentioned aloud. 
 
 The match went out, he trod the spark under foot 
 and returned to the sitting-room, leaving all the 
 doors wide open. He was again sinking com- 
 fortably back in his chair when he was convinced 
 that another sound came from the same direction as 
 before, and when he stiffened himself to listen he 
 certainly heard the click of a latch falling as though 
 inadvertently dropped. With an exclamation of 
 rage he hurried out to the shed door. Determined 
 on a thorough search this time he reached for the 
 lantern upon its hook in the wall beside the three 
 steps. It was not there. Bewildered by the dis- 
 covery Locker stood where he was an instant, then 
 hastily took down an old lantern which had been 
 seldom used since the new one came three years be- 
 fore, lighted it, put on his working hat and went 
 out of the back door. It had a heavy latch and was 
 not bolted. 
 
 Somebody had been there and stolen the lantern. 
 He ran down the path to the street and there hold- 
 ing his light behind him, inspected the long straight 
 highway in both directions. 
 
 A spark at some distance to the left was flitting 
 
82 
 
 The Sca-Farcrs 
 
 away into the darkness. Locker dashed down the 
 street. 
 
 The spark swung as the holder moved, not 
 quickly as if in haste but at a leisurely pace, as 
 though unsuspicious of pursuit. 
 
 Locker's breath soon gave out and all he could do 
 was to walk as fast as possible and keep the light 
 in view. 
 
 Around the separated figures the change in the 
 landscape which night had wrought was having iis 
 weird way. All gradations of color had died with 
 the sunlight and a prevailing sombreness of hue had 
 wrapped the world whence the cheer that dwells in 
 green had departed. A great melancholy seemed to 
 brood over the trees. Was that a jocund orchard, 
 that gloomy grouping of dun masses held aloft upon 
 slender stems? By night's strange transformation 
 the foliage rising without evidence of effort from 
 the trunk by day, seemed now to weigh like a heavy 
 bulk upon stems too slight to bear it Here and 
 there an elm-tree in its soaring height, the dull sky 
 showing through its leaves and branches, avoided 
 somewhat this sense of weariness and burden. 
 
 At the corner the swinging spark turned to the 
 right, and Locker relaxed his panting speed. It s 
 that cussed little Dan of Jackson's," he growled as 
 he went. He's been at our pears twice this week. 
 I'll wallop him good." 
 
 When Locker turned the comer the light had 
 gained upon him and looked smaller. 
 
A Will o' the Wisp 
 
 83 
 
 "It's passing Jackson's," he said aloud in his 
 iamazement. "If it ain't Dan that's got it, who 
 has?" 
 
 The road after passing Jackson's was little used 
 and he stumbled more than once in its uneven 
 places. The light in advance moved steadily at the 
 same pace as before. The narrowing street had 
 now no goal but the graveyard on the hiU. Locker's 
 surprise was overpowering his indignation. 
 
 Close to the path beyond the open gateway 
 through which the spark had passed the grass was 
 heavy with dew and its chill was brushing against 
 his ankles. It was very still, the trees closing in 
 about him here and there, each a shadow of itself ; 
 the headstones as his light struck them standing out 
 as if they answered to their names and disappearing 
 again. But at some distance ahead he saw that the 
 light which he was following had stopped. A wind 
 rose suddenly and blew a dark fold against the 
 stranger's lantern. Locker paused in his rough 
 walk so as to see better. A second time was it 
 whisked against the light, obscuring it, and Locker 
 said to himself that no man's cloak could be lifted 
 like that, and the garment reached too near the 
 ground besides. The fitful breeze could only raise 
 something thin and loose of fold. 
 
 "It's a woman! " whispered Locker. 
 
 Slowly and cautiously he moved nearer, drawing 
 into the shade of the cedar trees and slipping from 
 one to the next The other light was quite still, at 
 
84 The Sea-Farers 
 
 though the holder were looking carefully at some- 
 thing. 
 
 "I vum it's the old lady's stone she's reading!" 
 he observed to himself as he reached . nother tree. 
 
 While he spoke the light moved on. but stopped 
 suddenly again. The gleam of a white stone among 
 the gray ones Hashed as the lantern's beams fell 
 upon it Then the light was set down and glittered 
 starlike in the tall grass for a moment, while the 
 figure stood beside it. In his curiosity Locker un- 
 guardedly stepped out from the trees and pressed 
 forward. Perhaps the lantern-bearer saw his light, 
 for all at once the spark was swaying from side to 
 side and moving quickly away. 
 
 Locker hurried to the spot it had left, but no 
 flower or other sign of the halt could be seen at the 
 gray stone, none at the white one beside it upon 
 which he turned his lantern rays, so that the new 
 words cut upon it might have been read as he ran. 
 
 Sttsan Rockingham, only daughter of John and 
 Martha Rockingham Sumner, born June ij, i8ji, 
 drcvncd September 27, 183J, aged 22 years, ) months, 
 14 days. And there shall be no more sea.' 
 
 Without further delay LocKer followed the light, 
 which was not advancing as rapidly as it might, be- 
 cause it constantly flitted to left and right like a fire- 
 fly. Whether this were done to bewilder the pur- 
 suer, or arose from some superstitious feeling about 
 treading on the graves, there was none to tell. 
 Tired and angry he plunged forward in a straight 
 
A Will o' the Wisp 85 
 
 line across the mounds, shuffling, catching in black- 
 berry vines, trampling the flowers which loving 
 hands had tended, while the light before him went 
 daintily on without pause or stumbling, until all at 
 once it was gone. 
 
 When the exhausted Locker reached the street it 
 was far away, a mere spark moving straight as an 
 arrow, and soon lost at the turn of the road. 
 
 Jackson's old dog sprang fiercely from the dark- 
 ness upon the tired man, snarling and clinging to 
 the sleeve of his coat until he gasped out the brute's 
 name. 
 
 "Jack, Jack, old fellow! " and the dog let him go. 
 
 Why had he let the otb:r figure pass unharmed? 
 
 When Locker reached the street on which he 
 lived, wet, weary, one sleeve torn by the animal's 
 teeth, no light was to be seen in all the world of 
 darkness before him. Two figures hurried from the 
 narrow street, whose comer he was nearing, and 
 crossed the thoroughfare just in advance of him. 
 
 "Say, anybody lef me a fortune? Jes' tell me 
 dat much anyhow—" urged the woman, panting 
 at the man's elbow. 
 
 Locker lowered the lantern which he had raised 
 to scan the counle now lost in the gloom. 
 
 "That good-for-nothin' Venus was hired to stay 
 through an' they ain't more'n begun to eat at the 
 party yet. What's she traipsin' after that Portoogee 
 cutthroat for anyhow? She ain't more'n half 
 baked, that nigger," he muttered, shambling on. 
 
86 
 
 The Sea-Farm 
 
 His light had grown dim. for there was little oil 
 in its can, and as he shuffled up the path to the 
 door, It flickered and went out He lifted the latch, 
 set down his useless lantern and crossed the shed, 
 drawing the back of his hand along his streaming 
 forehead and flinging his hat from Wm. He struck 
 a match. The small flame flared up ? .j was re- 
 flected back from something near the I ...en door. 
 A lantern hung by its hook upon the wall. 
 
 Lockers match went out. He groped to the 
 steps and reaching up he touched the lantern above 
 him with his hand. The glass was warm. 
 
VII 
 
 AN UNINVITED GUEST 
 
 " For the first time in my life I'm glad to be 
 poor," muttered the general, breaking the silence 
 in which he and his son had walked the greater 
 part of their way. "If 1 were rich I suppose I 
 should have to give a tumtum like this for you." 
 
 ••No fatted calf for good boys! " observed Alden. 
 
 •'Urn! Phin's going to grill his friends. I can 
 see the shine of his lamp oil clear across the street. 
 They class this bonfire under amusements, don't 
 they ? If you can't get married and let me settle 
 down and be quiet, 1 11 be hanged if I don't secede." 
 
 Alden laujr'-.-d ?loud from a sudden impulse of 
 gayety as . ^ 1 into the flagged walk upon 
 which the i.^ cnmed when the door opened. 
 
 In the blanches of the elm overhead lanterns 
 glowed as if Barbara's dreams on the night of her 
 engagement had blazed out little flames to tell the 
 secret to the worid. Beneath the tree the darkness 
 by contrast seemed blacker than usual. 
 
 The young man checked his laugh and stopped 
 short at the foot of the low steps. " Who is that?" 
 he said sharply. He was looking intently into the 
 gloom between the large wisteria trellis and the 
 trunk of the elm. 
 
88 The Sea-Farers 
 
 "What did you say?" asked his father from the 
 doorway, but his son had already stepped into the 
 shadow near the house wail. 
 
 "What's the matter, Alden?" demanded the 
 general impatiently. 
 
 The lieutenant came back slowly past the light of 
 the nearer window. That was queer," he only 
 said in reply, and they entered the house. 
 
 "Gem'men one flight back, sah," explained the 
 ofTicial, whose old black face was the first to greet 
 the guests and the last to speed their parting as he 
 stood at the door on special occasions in house after 
 house whose only servants were women. 
 
 "Ah, Sambo," interjected Alden in recognition of 
 the negro's grin, " very queer." 
 
 The perfume of roses fiUed the hall. He leaned 
 back to smile at some one just within the entrance 
 to the resplendent drawing-room, who was quick 
 to catch his eye as he ran up the stairs. 
 
 "Did you notice anything in that shadow near 
 the door, governor?" he asked as they prepared to 
 go down. 
 
 "Nothing at all. There wasn't anything," an- 
 swered the general with his usual promptness. 
 
 Was there nothing then ? The orchestra below 
 were tuning their pieces, sounding the same note 
 over and over again: men and women talking and 
 laughing were coming nearer up the stairs. Un- 
 seen, the girl near the drawing-room door was call- 
 ing to every impatient pulse in him. 
 
An Uninvited Guest $q 
 
 Was it only a dever trick of shadows or had h« 
 seen a figure break the mass of darkness with a 
 
 swift thrust of its arm ? Did he hear a whispered 
 "Curse you!" or was it only the swish of the 
 wisteria leaves and the delusion of unaccustomed 
 light and shade ? 
 
 "Well, I'm ready when you are," announced the 
 general to his waiting son. 
 
 Half a dozen men met Alden and stopped him 
 with the boisterous congratulations of old acquaint- 
 ance, as they passed him In the hall. 
 
 There was no tragedy in air Uke this. The inci- 
 dent took on the unhuman qualities of a remem- 
 bered dr-am, and from unreality passed to forget- 
 fulness with the touch of Barbara's hand. 
 
 " I hoped you would like it," she said in answer 
 to his first remark. "Its the same old combina- 
 tion, white and roses." 
 
 She looked more vivid even than usual in the 
 brilliancy of the lights and in contrast with her 
 mother's clear pallor and gray velvet. 
 
 "You look fine as a fiddle. Where's your 
 father?" the general asked her after he had shaken 
 her hand with a stiff motion which seemed to say 
 that his relations with society were distant and he 
 meant to keep them so. 
 
 "I haven't seen him since 1 came downstairs," 
 she said in some wonder, glancing at each door in 
 turn. "1 know he was dressed early. I heard him 
 walk toward the desk-room on the next floor. I'm 
 
90 The Sca-Faren 
 
 glad to see you, Mrs. Whittemore," for a stream 0/ 
 guetU was now passing her mother and Barbara 
 had not an insUnt more to herself. 
 
 The rooms were indeed half filled before Temple 
 quietly appeared at his daughter's side. His wife 
 gave him a look whose depth of displeasure he well 
 understood though it was accomplished at so slight 
 a cost of facial change. 
 
 "Did you fall asleep?" exclaimed Barbara, turn- 
 ing to him at the first opportunity. 
 
 "Perhaps so," he said, glancing vaguely at one 
 buzzing group and another. " How is it going ? " 
 
 WeU enough, 1 think. What is the matter with 
 the lights, papa ? Or don't you feel well ? " 
 
 "Pterfectiy well," he answered impatiently. 
 "Aha ! Judge, glad to see you. Isn't Sam here? 
 O, I see with Mrs. Temple," and the slowly moving 
 file, brol(en for the moment, swept past the hostess 
 again. 
 
 Within the memory of those whose only gray is 
 a few threads about the forehead, the evening party 
 in New England was the one compulsory form of 
 social entertainment for those who aimed to fulfil 
 such duties at all. In theory it had good points ; 
 an open house, a generous and catholic hospitality, 
 like that of the great democracy under which it 
 flourishei. In practice it was a mass of heated 
 humanity, of all ages except childhood, of every 
 shade of taste, profession and business, crowded 
 into a space which gave small choice of compan- 
 
An Uninvited Guest qi 
 
 ionship during the entire evening. In due time 
 aisles were formed by vigorous shoulders through 
 which men and women pushed steadily toward the 
 dining-room where the same large and indiscrimi- 
 nating spirit governed the provision for the appetite, 
 so that the supper given by well-to-do families like 
 the Temples was discussed weeks by those who 
 had partaken of it and to whom it had been the ob- 
 jective point of the four hours. 
 
 The essence of the evening party was drearily 
 material and was the natural outgrowth of the 
 crudeness and the haste after riches of the time. 
 Neither condition had developed social tact but had 
 imposed the promiscuous gatherings of the village 
 or the mining camp upon the more varied society 
 which had resulted from the growth of towns and 
 the spread of financial prosperity. 
 
 The houses in which these hospitable rites were 
 performed had a kinship with the feasts. Beautiful 
 in the owners' eyes were the heavy gilt of the 
 cornices, the crimson brocade of the drape: :.v, the 
 baskets of huge roses at exact intervals in the 
 carpet, the horsehair and black walnut, the mawk- 
 ish engravings and the chilly crayon portraits. The 
 women, more facile and more sensitive than their 
 fathers, husbands and brothers, had been quicker 
 than they to grasp the opportunities for refinement 
 which the improvement in domestic conditions had 
 provided for them. The men, excited by prosperity 
 and engrossed in new and wider schemes for mak- 
 
92 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 ing money had not as yet the freedom of mind or 
 the leisure to give to the artistic possibilities of their 
 natures. The Puritan blood in their veins had not 
 hastened them toward the graces of life. People 
 still spoke of dramatic artists as play actors and the 
 words had in them an echo of the spirit of that 
 brief commonwealth over the seas two centuries 
 before. 
 
 These men were proud of their delicate wives 
 and daughters; proud, too, of their own newly-ac- 
 quired talent for spending money. Their fathers 
 had known how to make it nearly as weU as they, 
 but hud never been graceful in letting it go. The 
 will being there, it was not a difficult art for these 
 men and women to learn, and generously and joy- 
 fully did they practise iu 
 
 The women were fair in a style which had grad- 
 ually become in the Eastern States the type of a 
 lady; spare of figure, contracted of waist, dainty of 
 appetite, with flitting rose color in their soft, fine- 
 skinned faces, pouring the innocent upwellings of 
 their hearts through the small pipes of sentimental 
 songs to guitar accompaniment. The most of them 
 went wonderingly to their graves with quick con- 
 sumption. To such a texture outwardly had the 
 women of the stalwart race of English Puritans 
 come when half the century was over. Cold, strain 
 and repression had attenuated the broad figures and 
 shPinken the rude vitality to this. No foreign ele- 
 ment had as yet mingled with its blood ; it was an 
 
An Uninvited Guest 93 
 
 English race, surviving after a long war. But in 
 some way those families which had outlived two 
 hundred years like these, were strong, must have 
 been strong. Something had helped them in the 
 struggle they had passed through besides muscle 
 and bone. Intelligence had entered into the hewing 
 of their trees, the building of their churches and 
 schools, the sailing of their myriad ships, the con- 
 quest of their stony fields. 
 
 A vast amount of talent, wrote Emerson about 
 this time of the English in the old home, runs into 
 manners. So, too, a vast amount runs into common 
 needs before a state is built up in all its branches 
 by the handsf and brains of the same men and 
 women. 
 
 The intellect in New England had not wasted 
 with the flesh. Up sprang among the people then 
 the giants of the country's literature, and the mind 
 of New England was lifting to them : its body, long 
 bent with toil, stood up released, straightened it- 
 self, with outspread arms, and cried aloud, "At 
 last! " An Integrity which had not faded with the 
 red color in their cheeks, a refinement of inner life 
 which the Puritan self-questioning had left as an in- 
 heritance, a new sense of freedom and of shy joy in 
 life, marked those years when with the loosening 
 bondage of material things the spirit in many ways 
 was straining upward. Clumsy and mistaken 
 many of the efforts were, but it is a noteworthy 
 period to any one who feels that nothing is so inter- 
 
94 
 
 The Sca-Farcrs 
 
 esting in this world as the upward movement of 
 
 souls. 
 
 Barbara was a daughter of her age, and was as 
 ready as her mother to banish the clawfoot sofas 
 and straight-back chairs to the garret's dust. She 
 was ashamed of her rounded figure and the cheeks 
 in which heat and excitement this evening had deep- 
 ened the color to a rich crimson, and she looked 
 with admiration at her fragile friends who followed 
 their mothers to take her hand; slender girls with 
 pure eyes and thin white shoulders bare above their 
 lace berthas. 
 
 "Mamma saves the family. She is certainly lady- 
 like, if I am not," she thought consolingly. 
 
 One of the lulls which break the monotony of ad- 
 vancing crowds had come at this moment and her 
 eyes searched the room for Alden. She watched 
 him an instant after they had exchanged a quick 
 smile over the heads of the intervening guests. He 
 was moving toward her, listening to Dr. Lyman, 
 with a look of courteous amusement in his eyes, 
 and she wondered, just as all other girls in such cir- 
 cumstances have wondered since the world was 
 young, how it was possible that any one could find 
 another man in the room interesting when he was 
 there. 
 
 As the two men came quite near they paused 
 while she heard Alden say, "Of course you are 
 right, doctor, in special instances. But I can't agree 
 with you about this wholesale vulgarity. Our aim 
 
An Uninvited Guest 
 
 95 
 
 to have the biggest hotels and the biggest cities is 
 only the taste of a child. It's natural to our age, 
 and I don't call it vulgar or hopeless any more than 
 a half-grown boy's fancy for giants is hopeless. 
 For my part, I'm glad to be young and growing. 
 I'm a rabid optimist yet, Jim. Miss Temple is free 
 for a minute; excuse me, won't you ?" 
 
 "Where's that deserter, papa ?" she said after a 
 little. 
 
 "There's a tangle of bored fathers condoling to- 
 gether in the alcove. He's one, mine's another. 
 He's all right to-night, isn't he ?" 
 
 " I don't know that anything is the matter. 
 Why?" 
 
 " Only that the governor found him locked in the 
 desk room just after we came, and " 
 
 " Locked in the desk room! " exclaimed Barbara. 
 " I went there to look for him before I came down 
 stairs at all. I stood on the threshold and the room 
 was quite empty then, the door open." 
 
 " He wanted forty winks, I dare say. What a 
 crowd! Our friend Corenzio seems to be doing his 
 duty by his hostess, which is more than I have 
 done. 1 must talk to your mother when I get a 
 chance." 
 
 Corenzio was evidently doing his duty with 
 cheerfulness. His slight figure was erect and he 
 smiled continually; he had large, long eyes, a small 
 mouth, a weak chin concealed by its short beard. 
 A shock of dark hair was tossed with apparent 
 
96 The Sea-Farera 
 
 carelessness about his head, but those who had 
 troubled themselves to make a study of the subject 
 found that it invariably disposed itself so that one 
 oosely curling lock fell into exactly the same re- 
 lations with the right side of his forehead. Of 
 course this may have been its line of least resistance 
 but there was a rude suspicion among such as did 
 not have temperament that it was a bush placed to 
 proclaim the wine of the gods within. 
 
 "Art." he had said with a laugh to his young ad- 
 mirer Richard Adams, "art isn t only long, Dicky 
 dear ,ts wide and it's deep. I tell you. Emotion's 
 weak. Hold yourself in, Dicky boy; don't let 
 yourself go or you're lost for an artist. You don't 
 want to feel anything except just enough to build 
 your work upon. That's the way I manage. Hang 
 It. let other people do the feeling and you just look 
 on and take notes. That's being an artist. Dicky 
 
 He often spoke tenderly of Italy, the land of his 
 race, though he had never seen it. and to a few 
 intimates, of the pain it was to a fellow with an ar- 
 tistic background to be imprisoned on this money- 
 grubbmg coast where his soul was vexed hourly by 
 Its churls, or its girls. Perhaps he was not far 
 wrong m his estimate of the esthetic shortcomings 
 in middle-aged men of business who had so far ad- 
 vanced as to recognise in art a decorative grace for 
 women, but looked still with Cromwellian eyes 
 askance at men making a profession of it 
 
An Uninvited Guest 97 
 
 The general and Temple, though the latter will- 
 ingly paid the young man the highest price ever 
 known in town for Barbara's instruction, agreed be- 
 tween themselves that it was a pitiful sight to see a 
 grown man thrumming a piano, especially if he did 
 it well, and that it showed some lack of moral fibre 
 when a clever lad like this young G)renzio left a 
 good place in a merchant's counting-room where he 
 was doing a man's work, to philander in priors 
 over young ladies' music lessons. 
 
 Corenzio could wax witty among his friends 
 when he disposed of these men and their class, and 
 young Adams took it much to heart that a genius 
 should be depressed by association with fellows 
 to whom, as Corenzio sarcastically said, a man who 
 was reading a book was doing nothing at all and 
 a man who was writing one was doing next to 
 nothing. 
 
 Mrs. Temple, in the secret revolt in which she 
 lived, was ready to take the side of any one v;ho 
 was dissatisfied with existing conditions, and she 
 sympathized with him, not in words, she was chary 
 of them, but by a flattering attention to his pert 
 cleverness, and a profound belief in his talents. As 
 she stood listening to his half-playful, half-sneering 
 comments, spoken in a slightly foreign accent, 
 though he was bom in the town, she was more 
 amused than she had been all the evening and did 
 not guess that the young man who nursed his popu- 
 larity too carefully to risk a lack of attention to a 
 
98 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 woman of her imporunce, was at the same time 
 aiming to attract her daughter's eyes to himself, 
 after having frankly failed to make her notice his 
 pointed avoidance of her. What force he had left 
 was employed to accentuate the envy in the furtive 
 eyes of a group of his pretty young pupils gathered 
 not far away. 
 
 Mrs. Temple's eyes, the only restless feature in 
 her face, turned with unconscious jealousy to follow 
 him after he had bowed himself backward at Al- 
 den's approach, and she received her future son-in- 
 law without effusion. Her unsatisfied temper gave 
 her a resentment against him which she could not 
 have explained except to say that in taking from 
 her the only being she really loved he seemed to 
 treat it all as a matter of course. Her glance, after 
 leaving Corenzio as Alden talked to her fell disap- 
 provingly upon her husband. He stood against the 
 wall half-way down the room, but even to her un- 
 sympathetic eyes he looked pale, almost haggard; 
 his mouth half open as though for air, his thin hair 
 clinging damply to his forehead. 
 
 The rooms were cooled by open windows above, 
 and no one else had this look. She said to herself 
 that he could not be as tired as she; he had had no 
 care. Everything Corenzio said was received with 
 a burst of merriment by those silly girls. Surely it 
 must be nearly morning. 
 
 Alden saw she was not listening to him, and he 
 soon moved away. Except for the unavoidable 
 
An Uninvited Guest 
 
 99 
 
 'glamour which surrounds the relatives of the beloved 
 she would have been wholly uninteresting to him. 
 He understood her no more than if he had been the 
 dullest clod of her acquaintance, nor did he care to 
 penetrate what he called her artificiality and see 
 what it concealed. 
 
 The rooms seemed filled with people, all clamor- 
 ing at once. One after the other men tried to inter- 
 est their hostess for a moment in some living sub- 
 ject, Sebastopol, Rachel, the Paris Exposition, Walker 
 in Nicaragua, the Kansas elections or Florence Night- 
 ingale. They supposed her manner must be per- 
 fect, but their words seemed to fall back from its 
 surface. Most of those who had been through 
 nearly four hours of heat and a struggle to sf»y 
 pleasant things and attain their supper, were flushed 
 and limp. 
 
 The young things who in time detected a small 
 white space of floor left, while their elders were in 
 the dining-room, and had hurriedly seized the op- 
 portunity for a cramped polka, were lau^^ing as 
 they smoothed their well-ordered hair; the dainty 
 head and perfect folds of their hostess' dress seemed 
 to rebuke the vulgarity of deterioration. 
 
 Corenzio among the other young men circled 
 about with one after the other of the prettiest girls 
 or the richest, and with his usual audacity even 
 asked Mrs. Temple to dance with him. When she 
 refused she smiled more genuinely than she had all 
 the evening. There was a call for him to play. 
 
100 The Sea-Faren 
 
 Alden stopped the orchestra, and Corenzio. after a 
 little persuasion, shrugged his shoulders as though 
 to say it was too trifling a thing to discuss, walked 
 quickly to the piano, and struck into a florid concert 
 piece of the stamp he personally despised. After a 
 moment his cold, pale hands moved more languidly 
 through its cheap harmonies, giving the perform- 
 ance the character of an improvisation. His eyes 
 were wrapt and uplifted, his fingers wandered over 
 the keys as though groping after a lost trail of in- 
 spiration. When he quickened the action his seem- 
 ing Impatience with the heavy hair which fell across 
 his forehead was effective; but the note deepened 
 perhaps in spite of himself, for the musician was 
 truer than the man; something thrilled in the last 
 chords that seemed to beat against the hearts of 
 those who heard. 
 
 He took Adams' arm when he rose, bowing 
 slightly, as if the ;ipplause were a profanation of his 
 mood, and moved away through the parting crowd. 
 "Where was she?" he asked, as soon as they were 
 out of the press. 
 
 Back near the door. She left her place to talk 
 to those three old tabbies in lace caps. She's look- 
 ing downright sad. Shoot a look and see." 
 "Ah, well, poor girl," replied Corenzio with a 
 
 slight sigh. 
 
 It had been agreed between these two young 
 men that B;.rbara had accepted Alden Sumner from 
 Pme. Corenzio himself had not really believed it 
 
An Uninvited Guest loi 
 
 at first, but his vanity had caused him to impress it 
 as a fact upon Adams, whose unquestioning faith 
 almost persuaded the original instigator. 
 
 If Corenzio had ever trusted the sincerity of any 
 one who had brains,— he never paid Richard Adams 
 the compliment of reckoning with him on any score 
 but dog-like devMion,— it was to Barbara Sumner 
 that he had given that confidence, and something 
 more than mere vanity had suffered when she be- 
 came engaged to another man. Adams' invulner- 
 able hero was ashamed to acknowledge this, but 
 an impotent malice was in consequence at the bot- 
 tom of his feeling toward the Sumners, unsatisfied 
 by his lucky discovery of past money relations be- 
 tween his family and theirs. 
 
 "And by George," Corenzio went on, still stroll- 
 ing with his henchman, "the old lady is as bad as 
 the rest, Dicky. Did you see her watch me? 
 What's a fellow to do ? Just tell me." 
 
 Adams replied that it was a thing, don't you 
 know, that all the big chaps had :o put up with, 
 and Corenzio went on, — 
 
 " 1 say, Dicky boy, wouldn't it be a great joke to 
 see how much nonsense the old lady would swal- 
 low ? That would be something new, I swear, in 
 this monotony of emotional buds. Hang it, a man 
 can't speak a civil word to a womari, but the first 
 thing he knows she's in love with him and there's 
 no end of trouble." 
 
 Barbara had in truth a wistful face above her fad- 
 
102 
 
 The Sea-Farera 
 
 ing roses. She had been busy from morning till 
 night for several days, and unwelcome thoughts of 
 the coming separation, images of danger and tales 
 of Indian uprisings were crowding into her tired 
 mind, now that her responsibility about the evening 
 was over. Hazily through these Intruders loomed 
 the faces of departing guests, and even her unobserv- 
 ant father, meeting her serious eyes as he stood 
 near by recognized with unwonted sensitiveness to- 
 night a something akin. 
 
 Alden was patiently waiting for a few last words 
 when he caught a glimpse of his father at bay 
 against a wall, that gadfly Corenzio, as Alden men- 
 tally called him, hovering in front of him, bent on 
 mischief. 
 
 The young pupils had been carried off by reso- 
 lute parents, the ladies of the house were busy 
 and Corenzio espied the general, bored and weary 
 and quite alone, the carnation m his buttonhole 
 wilted about the edges. 
 
 " Private soldier, sirl" Alden heard his father say 
 loudly as he drew near. "I never spoke of my 
 m n as common soldiers in my life, sir, and I never 
 allow any one else to do it in my presence." 
 
 "Had you any idea that you're dramatic, gen- 
 eral?" asked the young man with head tilted crit- 
 ically to one side and eyes narrowed to long lines. 
 " He is dramatic, isn't he, Dick ? I'm always in ad- 
 miration of your style. It's splendid you know, 
 the way you did that just now. 'I never spoke of 
 
An Uninvited Guest 
 
 my men as common soldien, sir, in my life, sir— ' 
 I wish I could hit it It's Early English but if s big, 
 it's the grand style. You'd make your fortune on 
 the rostrum in the South and West; or even on the 
 
 stage, by George! Wouldn't he, Dicic? Ah, lieu- 
 tenant, hail and farewell," he added airily but 
 swiftly turning away, and taking Richard's arm 
 sauntered down the room before Alden could 
 speak. 
 
 "Clown! Fool!" gasped the almost strangled 
 general. . 
 
 "Come, governor, nearly every one has gone. 
 I'll manage to have a few words with that school- 
 boy before I leave \mc"^. Come ahead, governor, 
 it's late." 
 
 " 1 wouldn't demean myself to care a brass far- 
 thing what he said," fumed the general, whose face 
 was scarlet,—" putting on his confounded airs and 
 patronizing me ! " He walked a few steps by his 
 son's side in silence, and then almost groaned, 
 " That debt! That debt! It takes a man's dignity 
 out of me." 
 
 The carpet was strewn with ragged rose petals, 
 the lights were going out, and when the last guest 
 left the rooms Mrs. Temple immediately retired. 
 
 The general and his host considerately went to 
 the supper-room so as to leave their son and daugh- 
 ter alone a moment. 
 
 "Great affair, fuss and heat and noise, ' said the 
 general testily. "Takes aU this, does it, to get 
 
»04 The Sea-Farers 
 
 young people engaged nowadays. What's tht 
 
 matter with you to-night ? " 
 
 •Matter with me?" repeated Temple faintly. 
 "Don't Hook all right?" 
 
 Thunder and Mars, Phin. don't shuffle with met 
 What is it, liver or rheumatics or what ? " 
 
 " I'm five thousand dollars poorer than I was last 
 night," replied Temple slowly. 
 " This rout didn't cost that money, man." 
 "Not for this at all." 
 
 "By investment or wild-cat speculation?" de- 
 manded the general sternly. Temple hesitated. 
 
 " By investment," he answered finally. 
 
 "Then don't growl, don't whine," said his 
 friend, sharply jerking the flower from his button- 
 hole with a characteristic movement. Yoa ought 
 to be ashamed of yourself." 
 
 Thfir host went out upon the doorstep with the 
 two 1 after Barbara had taken leave of them and 
 only wnen they had walked down the path did he 
 turn to go in. A faint light, he did not notice 
 whence, was glinting under the elm upon the huge 
 wisteria vine, and by one of th« tricks of memory 
 some words rose in his mind at the sight of it. 
 "Good-bye, dad." 
 
 He shivered, hurried inside and slammed and 
 locked the door. But for the one lamp in the hall 
 the rooms were dark. Barbara had offered to ex- 
 amine with him the windows and bolts, but he had 
 said. "No, no. child, go to bed." He wanted to be 
 
An Uninvited Guest 105 
 
 atone. He felt tired to the last limit of his strength 
 from the ttnnge trembling in aU his limbs which he 
 had endured for hours. He went into the deserted 
 drawing-room where the smell of heated flowers 
 filled the dusk in which the glimmer from the 
 windows soon lost itself. The wisteria vine was 
 
 - Adding against the pane. 
 
 "Good-bye, dad." 
 
 He held his breath but there was not a sound ; 
 reaching out for the sofa near by he sat down, and 
 laying his arm along its wooden bacit, rested his 
 head upon it. 
 
 - The images he had fought with all the evening 
 swarmed into the vacant, weary mind. He was in 
 the desk room upstairs, the window was open upon 
 the balcony. "Robert/" he heard himself say 
 
 again, "you were drowned." 
 
 The relief there had been in the conviction that 
 this boy was quiet under the ocean, the sick despair 
 at the thought of taking back the burden of anxiety 
 an*! complication, he acknowledged unreservedly to 
 himself here in the dark. 
 
 "hfo such luck. I never was more alive. ' ' 
 
 " Where did you come from and what do you 
 want ? You can't stay here." 
 
 "Stay here I" His odd, short laugh; his father 
 shivered as he recalled It "Stay here! The new 
 madam turned me out when ! was six years old." 
 
 How like his own mother he had looked as he 
 stood there! She had held her head like that, her 
 
io6 
 
 The Sea'Farers 
 
 thin nostrils and small ears had stirred a little as his 
 did now under excitement. Yet the beauty of the 
 woman had once been enthralling and this was only 
 terrible, repelling. 
 
 " Little Bab is to be married, I hear. Sumner 
 thrashed me once, but it was fair enough. When a 
 thing's fair I bear no grudge. But I hate a fellow 
 with his luck. Curse him, what a run he's had ! 
 Suppose I should step downstairs,— don't stir. I'm 
 not going to do it." 
 
 "What do you want?" 
 
 Temple huskily formed the words with his lips as 
 he remembered them. 
 
 " A little money, that's all. Two gentlemen are 
 waiting who will not be put off." 
 
 " IVhat have you done this time ? " 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "Nothing/ I'm not quite a fool. Don't lie to 
 me." 
 
 " I stopped a game of theirs,— I don't expect you to 
 believe me,— and they were too much for me. I must 
 pay for it. ! shall never ask you again." 
 
 " Papa, where are you ? " 
 
 Temple started and sat rigid as though he heard 
 his daughter s call again. The clock ticked loudly 
 In the hall. He rose to his feet. His heart thumped 
 as it had after that quick flight to the balcony 
 whence he had seen in his outer darkness the white- 
 robed figure in the study doorway. 
 
 " Five thousand dollars. I must have it. Now." 
 
An Uninvited Guest 107 
 
 How strong he looked, standing with his baclc 
 against the closed French window. 
 " You shall not have it." 
 
 "Come! Listen! It is the last time ! I will take 
 my oath." 
 
 " Settle down under my eye and work like a man. 
 I will give you Jive thousand dollars to start in 
 an honest business here. But I will give it for wak- 
 ing else." 
 
 "I'm in too deep. I'm in over my head. This 
 may get me out. Can't you understand ? I must 
 have it, now ! " 
 
 " l^ot one cent more of my money to squander on 
 thieves and " 
 
 Ah! Temple stopped abruptly in a hushed tramp 
 across the floor. He felt the same cold dampness 
 on his forehead, the same sinking at the heart. His 
 breath was short as it had been when he stood 
 helpless in that savage grasp and heard the sharply 
 whispered, " Will you sign the checks ? " 
 
 "No! no! no!" 
 
 " Then I will fling you over this balcony/" 
 He had not struggled or cried out any more than 
 he did now, standing tense and alone, staring into 
 the dark. The horror of it was not mere physical 
 terror, any more than it was now. Was it his son, 
 his flesh and blood, that tall demon glaring with the 
 quick fury of a wild beast? Why should he have 
 remembered at that awful moment how two 
 childish hands had held his arms so, many years 
 
io8 The Sca-Farcrs 
 
 before, begging for a toy ? But the poignancy of 
 human pain is in association like this. 
 
 ' ' / will sign. Let me go. " 
 
 His signature was hardly recognizable after he 
 had written it at the desk behind the locked door. 
 
 ' * Tkavk you. I didn't hurt you, did I? I some- 
 times hurt more than I mean." 
 
 "Go! Go from my sight ! I never want to see 
 your face again." 
 
 " This seems rough to you. You're not used to 
 it. I've been shot at so often, chased ly dogs, chased 
 by men, starved in swamps, nearly drowned,— it 
 seems tame to me, you see, this hind of thing." 
 
 " IVm you go? That is all I ask. Only go! 
 Go.'" 
 
 The figure had slid over the balcony edge and 
 paused half-way. "Good-bye, dad." A repulsion 
 which made him shudder now at the mere recollec- 
 tion of the v'ords had kept his eyes turned away, 
 though he seemed still to see the face, even as he 
 heard the voice. It was gone. 
 
 Merciful Heaven, had he come again ? No, only 
 the old and mutilated moon had pierced the 
 bianches outside the window. In his relief he 
 fiercely pulled the curtains together to shut out the 
 reminder. The movement roused him. He tried 
 the house door, forgetting he had fastened it, and 
 went up the stairs. Through the window over the 
 hall door the persistent yellow moon spied on him, 
 throwing nodding shadows in advance of him like 
 
An Uninvited Guest 109 
 
 the trellis, like the climbing figure. Faces in the 
 darkness below peered unsym pathetically to see 
 how he bore this new revelation of his only son. 
 He felt tifed, tired, tired. But thank Heaven I it 
 was over. The law should deal with him next; 
 perhaps there were bars strong enough even for a 
 tiger like him. How wearisome, how insistent, 
 how uninteresting suffering was! He had avoided 
 a strain like this all his life by the simple method of 
 averted eyes, not knowing that in unwillingness to 
 accept its tragedy he was living but half his life. 
 Perhaps his race had suffered so much in two hun- 
 . dred years of harsh conditions, that its heir was 
 weary from his birth, and turned a sick man's eyes 
 from any form of pain. 
 
 He said to himself as he reached his room that he 
 would sleep until noon and get this business out of 
 his head. Everything weakened in force with 
 time; this would. Doubtless by to-morrow it 
 would be a dull ache only, which would soon pass. 
 As he entered his dark chamber the misshapen 
 moon was looking in. 
 
 " / will fling yoii over this balcony." 
 
 He hurried across the floor with an unaccustomed 
 oath below his breath. 
 Good-bye, dad." 
 
 He shut and locked the blinds. 
 
Book Second 
 BREAKERS 
 
VIII 
 
 AN ODD ANCLE OF AN ISLE 
 
 The room was as small as a cell. The dark 
 silence outside of its curtainless window was not 
 the dense hush of midnight but the expectant hush 
 of dawn. A woman who had been hurriedly dress- 
 ing without light or noise lumbered softly across 
 the floor and slid her large shape through the half- 
 open door. Before she had taken her first step 
 down the black passage a man's voice came out 
 from the gloom somewhere beyond. "Who's 
 there?" it said, not in the tones of one aroused by 
 a sound but with the deliberate clearness of a per- 
 son fully awake. "It's Venus, mahsa. Cahn' 
 sleep," she answered in a thick whisper, and the 
 voice asked no more. 
 
 : •» groped to the house door, lifted the heavy bar 
 of sv'iod from the iron supports at each side and 
 .si i; carefully in a comer. When she had opened 
 the door she eagerly drew in two or three whiffs of 
 air as if she had not breathed freely for some time; 
 then she listened sharply. The stars were still over- 
 head although they looked faded and thin with the 
 approach of day. A pale light fell from them upon 
 the sea before her. Closing the door she stepped 
 
 cautiously down the beach, stopping at intervals to 
 
 113 
 
"4 The Sea-Faren 
 
 look about her and Usten. A low ridge of rock 
 stretched away to the left and as the side nearest 
 her was an easy incline she walked to the crest 
 
 The sea spread out before her, which she dis- 
 missed with one hasty glance, was one whose per- 
 sonality is unique and unequalled. If it be true that 
 inundations deep into the heart of a continent have 
 stimulated the brain of man then this broken coast- 
 line has roused into activity more generals and 
 poets, lawgivers and philosophers, artists, scien- 
 tists and statesmen than any other seaboard in the 
 world. Around its borders the chieftain races from 
 the commencement of history have encamped, as 
 Plato said " Like frogs around a swamp." Its in- 
 tensely salt waters owe their brilliant blue to the 
 impurities below in the ooze, sharks slip shadowy 
 above its coral beds and lower still imprisoned fires 
 chafe and threaten, envying their free brother to 
 the north who puflFs his vaporous breath from his 
 hot heart forever in scorn of empires and time. Its 
 poison and its pain alike concealed, without a rest- 
 less wave these deeps borrow the glory of a perfect 
 world and a peace that looks eternal. 
 
 The day was dawning upon the island of Lam- 
 pedusa in the Mediterranean Sea. Mariners have 
 named it The Enchanted Island, and after one night 
 on shore have gladly hoisted sail and sped away. 
 Far below its surface, like the hidden links of our 
 own life, lie the proofs of its ancestry, the explana- 
 tk)n of its spirit. As we put up our heads above 
 
An Odd Angle of an Isle 115 
 
 chaos into time so it rears upon its past a pealc of 
 existence above the waves. But beneath the dol- 
 phins' playground, beneath the coral and the ooze, 
 lies the long bank that connects it not with alert, 
 progressive Europe, but with Africa — mysterious, 
 savage Africa. Outwardly, because of man's greed, 
 it is the acquired property of Europe; inwardly, 
 haunted by demons and played about by phantoms, 
 weird, untamed and ill-understood, it is always and 
 unalterably an African in bonds. 
 
 To the east Venus saw a range of purple hills, 
 every pealc of their dark outlines sharp against the 
 horizon. She did not remember that no coast lay 
 there by day. The expanse of stillness was so 
 great thr \ this height she could hear the breeze, 
 compoui of its myriad murmura, as it passed 
 through trees somewhere in the distance. All was 
 dark and still about the huts below upon which her 
 eyes were watchfully fixed. They were grouped 
 into the form of a settlement around one of the 
 little coves toward which the abrupt and craggy 
 coasts of the island had shelved in the southwest. 
 The dwelling from which she had issued was the 
 only house to be seen and, although one of the 
 comfortless meaner sort in which not a door or 
 window would properly shut, it yet represented 
 what touch of elegance belonged to the camp. In 
 one of the numerous attempts at habitation through 
 which the island had passed since it had made one 
 of the last Phoenician strongholds in the west, this 
 
ii6 The Sea-Farers 
 
 house was built. The huts extending from it to 
 the right varied in their construction, but the larger 
 number were erected of poles woven with reeds 
 and partially covered with sails from lost ships. 
 To the west the heights above the white cllflfs were 
 crowned with swart masses of dwarf olive-trees 
 and not far out on the water lay a barque, a black 
 object swaying slightly upon its anchorage of 
 gravelly sand. No hope of anything which she 
 might be seeking lay in that dark vessel. It be- 
 longed to the settlement and its peculiar business 
 was generally conducted after nightfall not many 
 leagues from its present roadstead. 
 
 As Venus pulled her shawl tighter about her thick 
 shoulders she thought with bitterness of her last 
 night dt home when she was lured away from a 
 splendid supper in the Temples' kitchen by honeyed 
 intimations of good fortune given by the Portuguese 
 sailor at the rear door, and in her rooms had found 
 Mahsa Robert come up from the grave with two 
 foreigners. Constrained, as it then appeared, by a 
 relentless doom, she had thrust a few things hap- 
 hazard into a bandanna handkerchief and then had 
 been spirited out of the house and upon a ship, in 
 almost exact reproduction of her mother's experi- 
 en a generation before on the west coast of Af- 
 rica. Fifty years of America, however, had pre- 
 pared Venus for a more intense dissatisfaction with 
 such methods than her parent had had at her com- 
 mand, and this resentment set in as soon as she had 
 
An Odd Angle an Isle 117 
 
 "sense." Two tears of self-pity rolled over her 
 great cheeks as she stood on this peak of Lampe- 
 dusa rehearsing her immolation and her wrongs. 
 
 AU at once out of the dark came the voice of a 
 man singing, the melody keeping time to the oars 
 of a boat. Venus could not see the singer, but 
 every one of the unfamiliar words was distinct to 
 her ears. 
 
 « I'm wearin' awa', Jean, 
 like mow in the thaw, Jemn, 
 I'm wearin' awa' to the Land of the LeaL 
 There's na sorrow there, Jean, 
 There's neither cold nor care, Jeai 
 The day is aye fair 
 In the Land of the Leal." 
 
 "Singin'l Singin', are ye? Ye must aye cackle 
 yer new mischief like a hen that's laid an egg," 
 growled a deep voice so close that Venus, too 
 startled to stir, cowered where she stood with her 
 frightened eyes rolling in the direction of the sound. 
 Even by the faint light it was unmistakable that the 
 spe, ker who stood not far away was a woman. 
 She was a thick-set figure in a very short skirt and 
 she was looking off at the water apparently un- 
 aware of Venus' existence. She held a gun in her 
 huud and after a moment more she raised it, and 
 aiming below at a spot on the beach, fired. The 
 report seemed > shock the sacredness of the com- 
 ing dawn, but the woman who strode at once to- 
 ward the water took no heed of that The song 
 
ii« The Sea-Faren 
 
 which had stopped en instant after the shot was 
 flred now went on as before. 
 
 - Out bonnic bairn's there, Jean, 
 She's baith good and fair, Jeaa, 
 O, we grudged her right sair 
 To tht Land of the Leal." 
 
 ' Scairt ye, did it ?" chuckled the hard voice of 
 the woman who returned to her old place before 
 the cramp of terror had left Venus. 
 
 " Bide ycr time. Ifsnolang. It s no lang. noo. 
 An' ye think ye'sel' canny, McCoy ? Ye re a fool, 
 and a poor fool, McCoy." 
 
 The rude cadence had been taught by a rougher 
 
 sea than this. 
 
 Suddenly a tongue of fire leaped upward from 
 one of the purple peaks in the east. Summit after 
 summit flashed into light. In a blaze of splendor 
 the unsubstantial pageant of the hills burned itself 
 away. The sun burst forth a globe of fire, sweep- 
 ing the sea, flaming up the sky, shaming the ex- 
 pectant dawn with its boldness of fulfilment. A 
 boat in which a man was rowing so that he faced 
 his course, came into sight around the curve of the 
 small bay. Still singing softly as though deter- 
 mined to finish the air he propelled the skiff to the 
 beach, jumped out. fastened it. and walked up the 
 shore. He glanced sidewise at first one and then 
 the other of the two women, but making no salu- 
 tation, passed on. His face was thin, the cheeks 
 dropping abruptly into deep hollows from the high 
 
An Odd Angle of an Iile 119 
 
 cheek bones. His mouth shut stubbornly beneath 
 the coarse red beard, and his eyes were bright, nar- 
 row and very small. Hi& figure though not tall was 
 
 broad and lean, his firm legs were bowed, his large, 
 pale hatids much freclcled, his cap drawn over his 
 whole head to the ears. He did not look like a man 
 who had been singing " The Land of the Leal." 
 
 "How be ye?" asked the deep-voiced woman, 
 turning sharply on Venus as soon as the sullen fig- 
 ure had passed. She held in one hand a limp wild 
 duck which had just accomplished its weary migra- 
 tion across the sea, and whose head she had shot 
 away. 
 
 "Wal, I'm so's to be outer bed, missis, thank 
 you," Venus said with frightened haste, having 
 
 {lever in her life been known to say she was well. 
 
 "Sight anything o' nights here?" questioned the 
 other, keenly fixing upon her eyes which were .n- 
 bedded in furrows. 
 
 " Debbles. Nightmares," replied Venus briefly. 
 
 The number and depth of the wrinkles became 
 formidaUe as the newcomer gave a hoarse croak of 
 amusement. 
 
 " Ye will na be so distrackit wi' 'em after a bit," 
 she went on with another outburst of questionable 
 
 mirth, "they'll be company for ye. Spiteful idle 
 devils those be. My ain wee folk ha' tellt me mony 
 a bit thing. Mebbe it'd coom true if they had na 
 warned me in time. Do ye mind me, eh ? " 
 "Yes, missus," faltered Venus. 
 
120 
 
 The Sea-Farera 
 
 " If a body should be thinkin' of fleein' awa' on a 
 ship frae here, say," continued the stranger care- 
 lessly, "I'd ken it weel. That makes things in- 
 teresting here, for me. Dinna ye think so, eh, 
 
 woman ? " 
 
 "I been goin* along home now," said Venus 
 faintly, turning away, hardly knowing what she 
 
 was doing. 
 
 Her tormentor walked beside her. The short 
 locks of her thin gray hair straggled about her 
 wrinkled face, her eyebrows were white and so 
 long that they drooped over her eyes, the blood on 
 her knotted hands, as she swung the dead bird 
 when she moved, sickened Venus. 
 
 "What's ye name, eh?" was the next ques- 
 tion. 
 
 " Venus Diggs, missis-." 
 
 " Like it ? " inquired the stranger. 
 
 "Yes, missis." 
 
 "He! He! Fetched by the cap'n an' her, was 
 ye?" 
 "Yes, missis." 
 "Fetched frae hamc?" 
 "Yes." 
 
 "She's bonny-like, yon," proceeded the brisk old 
 woman, jerking the object in her hand in the direc- 
 tion of the house. " Did ye mind that weddin' ring 
 o' hers ? I ha' na tellt her where't was bidin' afore 
 
 she had it." 
 
 "Mahsa Robert can stan' de dispensary ob t 
 
An Odd Angle of an Isle m 
 
 gold ring for Miss Susie hisself, ! crkon," replied 
 Venus, with a temporary stil ening of the back- 
 bone. 
 
 Venus, in assuming the gra .ir ;lways pre- 
 sumed upon her slight acquaintance with Latin de- 
 rivatives in the same intrepid spirit with which she 
 treated the marriage laws. 
 
 "Aye, aye," observed her companion with a 
 short guffaw and surveying Venus with closer at- 
 tention. "I ha' na had laugh enough for me guid 
 o' late. Mebbe there's a jig or twa in ye yet, Judy, 
 if I jerk yer strings sharp. They sailed awa' in sair 
 haste frae the weddin*, she tellt me, sae she hadna a 
 ring. I kennt where tae find one. It was as guid 
 as new, yon. Hadna been wore lang." 
 
 Something in the tone more than in the words set 
 Venus' knees trembling. 
 
 The figures of men and women now moving on 
 the beach among the little huts, the smoke curling 
 upward in the sun, looked Uke home to her as she 
 floundered on. 
 
 " 11! tell ye aboot it some day," added the bag, 
 
 nodding pleasantly. 
 "No! "gasped Venus. 
 
 The stranger seized her arm, driving the small 
 bony ends of her fingers deep into the flesh. 
 
 "Hoots, woman, don't pry an' peep into things 
 here that are no yer beesiness. Dinna ye speak o' 
 that ring to livin' soul or hist noo! I'U beckon a 
 crony o' mine, that harries bad folks for me an' it'll 
 
122 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 coom o' nights tae ye, wi' bluid drippin' frae every 
 finger. Be off wi' ye!" 
 
 Venus needed no second hint. She left her com- 
 panion standing as though to obtain a comprehen- 
 sive view of the settlement before entering into its 
 details. Shrill voices of two angry women were 
 exhibiting the coarse possibilities of the Sicilian 
 speech. A group of men had gathered around two 
 crouching figures who were already playing morra, 
 a game in which gambling was conducted on the 
 simplest principles. Each extended at the same in- 
 stant as many fingers as he chose, while they 
 shouted together the guess at the combined number 
 on the two hands. 
 
 "Three!" yelled the players. "Six!" "Four!" 
 
 A lame dog limped about the place where smoke 
 was most actively ascending, sniffing eagerly. A 
 man with an exclamation which was like a growl of 
 thunder amidst the shrill voices, kicked him out of 
 his path. It was he who had sung "The Land of 
 the Leal." The sailcloth, partially covering some of 
 the huts near by, glittered white under the shelving 
 cliff. Along the beach were strewn cables, spars, 
 rags of sail, fishing nets and row boats. The sea 
 as far as eye could reach this morning was an 
 intense blue, except at a short distance from the 
 shore. Here its color seemed to reflect the green of 
 grassland, as if like other mothers it entered as far 
 as its own nature would allow into the life of its 
 child, the youthful earth. 
 
An Odd Angle of an Isle 123 
 
 For a moment after Venus left her the old woman 
 stood taking in the whole scene then with an utter- 
 ance between a grunt and a snarl which was more 
 contemptuous than a spoken word, she strode down 
 into the midst of the busy groups below. Since she 
 was dressed in a suit of faded brown and the ker- 
 chief about her head was of the same dingy color- 
 ing, she was as inconspicuous an object as hues 
 could make her. Occasionally some one in the 
 scattered company started and mechanically crossed 
 himself when she passed. An odor of coffee was 
 in the air; a man with a wide flabby face was boil- 
 ing something in a kettle suspended over a crackling 
 fire. 
 
 A deaf man looking on at the noisy camp would 
 have known by the variety of movements in the 
 mouths that it represented a number of races. 
 Italians predominated among the twenty-five or 
 thirty figures, and it was evident that the few black- 
 browed women, wearing large earrings and grimy 
 white sleeves were Sicilians. McCoy, with a mug 
 of coffee in one hand, and a lump of bread in the 
 other, was walking restlessly about as he ate, stop- 
 ping to speak to a man here and there) who then 
 eagerly questioned him; and he paid scant atten- 
 tion to the consumptive Italian who waited for him 
 each time and matched his gait to the Scotchman's 
 uneven steps, turning « face dark with Its combina- 
 tion of jaundice and tan continually toward McCoy 
 as they went 
 
124 The Sea-Farcre 
 
 e air of the November morning was fresh and 
 radiant. Groups of Italians, men and women, were 
 eating their frugal breakfast of barley bread and 
 salted olives, the epicur-s among them having 
 soaked their crusts in oil, or procured sardines for a 
 relish. A man carrying coffee, bread and sardines 
 in an improvised wooden tray dashed hurriedly 
 across to the house and disappeared within. He re- 
 turned empty-handed in a moment, flung himself 
 on the ground beside a knot of his countrymen, and 
 with one arm supporting his recumbent figure be- 
 gan his own breakfast. 
 
 A neat, small man whose dose-cut hair was 
 nearly white, and whose face was disfigured by a 
 scar which crossed the nose and one cheek to the 
 ear, was sitting upon a cask, swallowing boiling 
 hot coffee in easy gulps. One of his eyes did not 
 follow the direction of- the other. Perhaps it was 
 blind. It looked however, as if it were plotting 
 schemes of its own; as if it had attained an inde- 
 pendence of its owner which its fellow had not. 
 The man lounging on the ground beside him, drink- 
 ing his black coffee from a can which held a quart, 
 was evidently an Englishman. Huge of build, 
 square of shoulders, with thick brown hair and 
 muscular throat, the man seemed at first sight to be 
 a giant of strength and endurance. His immense 
 frame was lean and seemingly sound, his blue eyes 
 as he raised them to the alert little face with its 
 pointed moustache and beard were slow and dull, 
 
An Odd Angle of an Isle 125 
 
 but wholesome enough, though he was paler than 
 a strong man of his ruddy race should be. The 
 Frenchman beside him was the best dressed man in 
 the company; his blue frock coat with brass buttons 
 was well brushed and closed across his breast, his 
 stock and colliar worn with rigid exactness though 
 the collar was not clean, and leaning against the 
 cask on which he sat was a small silver-headed 
 cane. Two mongrel dogs, snapping over a bone 
 disturbed the current of his speech, and he skipped 
 lightly down from his seat, stepped to the fire, 
 daintily dipped a tin of boiling water from the 
 kettle and flung it deliberately over the curs. Their 
 howls made him smile and he resumed his breakfast 
 cheerfully on the cask r.ear the impassive English- 
 man. 
 
 "In the land of unlick-cub you and Gomez have 
 found the family Temple in a respectability ver' 
 great, he tells me yesterday," he began. 
 
 "Rich," replied Swan briefly. "Give me half 
 that— that— " he indicated by a dull impatience of 
 gesture the bread in the Frenchman's hand. 
 
 " More potboil was a— was possible ? " suggested 
 Delavigne, dividing the bread unequally and giving 
 Swan the smaller piece. 
 
 "Rich. Rich," muttered Swan with his mouth 
 full. 
 
 "Ah, ah! Pity! I tells Charpiot I says mare/ 
 You see this pious family ?" 
 "Saw them through — through," Swan seemed to 
 
126 The Sea-Farers 
 
 have dropped his bread and to have paused while 
 he clumsily felt for it, but his huge face hidden 
 from his companion was contorted with an agony 
 of effort as he repeated below his breath " the— the 
 
 _the " Then a look apprehensive yet vacant 
 
 spread across his features. He had lost the idea as 
 well as the word.- 
 
 "Through the window?" asked Delavigne 
 sharply. " How many was they ? " 
 
 " How many what ? " 
 
 "Temples! Temples! Temples! Pull yourself 
 whole, man!" 
 
 The abruptness was tonic; Swan's eyes bright- 
 ened. 
 
 "Temple, yes. Pretty sister," he said wagging 
 his head slowly to and fro. " Give me! — " and he 
 reached for the bread the Frenchman was still finger- 
 ing. 
 
 Delavigne watched his last morsel disappear be- 
 hind the immense teeth. His own appetite was 
 
 flickering but he was of a greedy temper and he 
 grudged Swan his capacity of getting more than 
 his share. 
 
 While Swan was picking up every crumb 
 which had fallen within reach Delavigne spoke 
 again. 
 
 " Pretty sister, rich father, pretty— urn— wife, and 
 capuin. Captain! Pah! Zat brute! And / am 
 here. Who should be cMef in Lampedusa ?" 
 
 "1! 1! " exclaimed Swan thickly. 
 
An Odd Angle of an Isle 127 
 
 " You! It vill have ze brain or ze strength. He 
 is stronger zan you." 
 "Nol" 
 
 " Yes, and quicker. His muscles are steel." 
 "No, no!" 
 
 " You are flabby. He does not drink." 
 
 "I hate him!" roared Swan, and brought a big, 
 swollen fist down on the pebbles beside him. 
 
 "Pfeu! You are old. You have no ze elastic, 
 pauvre! He spring three metres at Juarez." 
 
 "I hate, I hate him! I hate him!" groaned 
 Swan. 
 
 " No finesse ! No delicate, no grace. " complained 
 the Frenchman. " Has you see a lion in trap ?" 
 
 "1 am stronger! I am the strongest man in 
 Europe," blubbered Swan in a sudden gush of self- 
 pity. 
 
 "I has. He had kill nine men. He walk in his 
 trap like ze mutton. Captain ! To-day he fight, 
 he fight like ze devil. To-morrow he fight d contre 
 caeiir. It fools vote, vote, vote for heem. He is 
 big, zay say to me, he has no ze fear. Pah! Pah! 
 Ze hag deal ze card. Git! " 
 
 "Cat!" echoed Swan. 
 
 He turned his dull eyes toward the point to which 
 Oelavigne had swept his. The old wimian wheeled 
 about and darted a swift glance at the two men. 
 She could not with mortal ears have heard the word, 
 but her look said that she had. 
 
 Delavigne met her stare with his narrowed eyes. 
 
128 The Sea-Farers 
 
 Swan dropped his. "Who's afraid? Whos 
 afraid ? " he muttered. 
 
 The pebble upon which his glance fell seemed to 
 wither his body from neck to foot His eyes di- 
 lated and stood out veined and bulbous from their 
 sockets as they travelled restlessly from spot to spot 
 near him. A pallor had altered his face; only his 
 eyes seemed to live. The Frenchman turning from 
 Mother Graham laughed as he watched the convul- 
 sive hands, the mouth which had begun to twitch. 
 
 "My pale Swan," he said, "how he is dr61e!" 
 and with his cane made two or three thrusts at the 
 sufferer's arms and legs. 
 
 The sharp lunges given with a fencer's skill roused 
 the man. He caught his breath, his features recov- 
 ered their stolidity. He rose heavily to his feet. 
 
 "Did they creep or crawl, my dear?" asked 
 Delavigne. Swan gave- a short loud laugh. " I was 
 joking you, Frenchy," he said roughly, and with 
 several vigorous imprecations brought his heavy 
 hand down upon Delavigne with a weight beneath 
 which the small frame staggered; then with broken 
 laughter he slouched away down the beach, his 
 arms hanging inertly with nerveless fingers at their 
 ends. The Frenchman gently brushed the shoulder 
 of his coat as though Swan's touch had left a mark 
 upon it The eye under his control followed the 
 man as he went; something had sent the blood into 
 the ugly scar. 
 
 A man suddenly appeared at the open door of the 
 
An Odd Angle of an Isle 129 
 
 house. Delavigne glowered at him, then at the 
 bio. i back of Swan, then again at the newcomer 
 as though comparing them. The stranger stood 
 looking keenly at one after the other of the indi- 
 viduals before him, and gradually talking and quar- 
 reling ceased as the whole assembly drew near to 
 him. 
 
 It could only be the new captain, Robert Temple. 
 In his tall figure, which nearly filled the narrow 
 door, the shoulders and back seemed to have been 
 broadened and deepened to an unusual degree, leav- 
 ing the lower half of the frame at its ordinary size 
 in a large man. From a belt about his waist hung 
 a fringe of foxtails, hinting of a life in colder lands. 
 His eyes, passing from face to face, were of a yel- 
 low tinge, flecked with brown, and the white about 
 the iris was singularly clear. His hair was a mass 
 of tawny color, thick and rather long, and the short 
 beard of the same shade did not conceal the heavy 
 squareness of the jaw. The neck at which the 
 shirt lay open was large, and in spite of weather, 
 noticeably white in comparison with the skins about 
 him. His eyes in the search over the company had 
 a look of anticipation in them, and indeed the whole 
 figure from head to foot suggested readiness. Not 
 only the alert eyes seemed to see, but the whole 
 body was, as it were, impregnated with the special 
 senses, as though he saw with the vivid hair, heard 
 with the rigid shoulders and the ever ready jaw and 
 hands. Yet behind the vigilance a close observer 
 
130 The Sca-Farers 
 
 would have caught a glimpse of that melancholy 
 which lurks in an animal's eye, and might have 
 noted also that his ears moved slightly at the least 
 sound. 
 
 " Where is Carriacci?" he said with swift empha* 
 sis. " Bring him, Gomez. The rest come on." 
 
 The men made a rapid and disorderly movement 
 forward, pushing in at the doorway after him. 
 
 "Ah, but he is handsome, our captain," one of 
 the women turned her head over her shoulder to 
 say, with a smile thrown at a man who had lingered 
 in passing her, among the last to go in. He scowled 
 blackly at her and cursed the captain under his 
 breath. Mother G ' im after all the rest walked 
 deliberately into the nouse, and the beach was left 
 to the black-haired women, munching and snarling 
 at one another, or breaking out into shrill laughs 
 that had only emptinef^r or mockery in them. 
 
IX 
 
 A PIRATE CHIEF 
 
 For the size of the house the room into which the 
 men jostled and crowded was large. The ceiling 
 was roughly groined from the corners and the floor 
 was of stones which had settled into hollows and 
 ledges. The newcomers stumbled about into places 
 which suited them, some leaning against the wall, 
 some perching upon kegs and bales wheieon the 
 names of merchants and cities, Marseilles, New 
 York, Bordeaux, London, Liverpool, were to be 
 easily deciphered beneath the clumsy attempts to 
 erase them. 
 
 Though Mother Graham was the only woman 
 present, she did not obtrude the fact upon the con- 
 sciousness of the company after she was seated and 
 only the brown face, fierce eyebrows and bristhng 
 hair upon lip -md chin were prominently visible. A 
 creased plaid handkerchief was knotted about her 
 throat so low as to display the mahogany-colored 
 skin, deeply furrowed horizontally and intersected 
 by strong, sharp cords. Her custom was to sit 
 with closed eyes, or what appeared to be such, since 
 beneath the eyelids upon which the veins stood out 
 in ridges, she had never failed to detect the most 
 compromising move of a conspiracy or the most 
 pertinent expression of rebellion or hatred. This 
 
131 The Sea-Faren 
 
 band was made up of the remnants of several 
 outlawed organizations, reinforced by individuals 
 whose career or tastes fitted them for the associa* 
 tion; Mother Graham had come as one fragment of 
 these survivals. Of the section to which she be- 
 longed McG>y alone was left. She had appeared 
 among the Scotch robbers upon another coast when 
 her son Andy was dying of wounds. She said she 
 had a warning and none of them doubted it. After 
 his death she stayed to complete the rure of the 
 other sick and injured men. She could probe and 
 bandage. She knew the virtues of herbs, and few 
 in this company at Lampedusa had not needed the 
 help of her scraggy old hands. She despised the 
 men about her but she took a savage pleasure in 
 keeping them in condition for their fight against an 
 unjust and mismanaged world. Dreaded yet indis- 
 pensable, hedged about by mysterious powers and 
 usefulness, she was a factor to be reckoned with 
 among them, and her influence over any one man 
 was only discovered by him when some occasion 
 arose in which she hurled the force of her will 
 ugainst his. 
 
 A few of those mustered in the room were old, 
 the most were very young; only one here and there 
 was in the prime of life. The majority were evi- 
 dently d^cendants of ti restless Latin races and 
 many wore the short, blue cloak of Sicily. Black 
 ey^, and coarse black hair, regular features and 
 faulty skins, were the rule among them. 
 
A Ptiatc Chief 133 
 
 Where is Carrlacci ? " asked Robert angrily as 
 the man for whom they waited still failed to appear. 
 
 "Washing his hands, captain." answered Matleo, 
 the consumptive Italian who had the only rlwiwfiit 
 face in the room. 
 
 A burst of rude laughter rewarded his seemtaigfy 
 good hit. The young men shifted from one spot to 
 another but on the whole it was not a taik.itive 
 throng. McCoy stood sullenly against the wail, a 
 pipe held between his short, discolored teeth. 
 
 Whether or not it was due to the scars upon many 
 of the faces and heads an ini^/iession was certainiv 
 conveyed that this was an assemblage of men who 
 were in some way maimed. The eyes of a large 
 number, whether from intemperance ch- strain. w«e 
 Moodshot. They had the appearance of individuals 
 for whom life has held little but struggle, the |^m 
 of some, the low heads and ill-bakHiced expression 
 of others, displaying little in common with a light 
 heart. Perhaps the shadow of the spectred night 
 on this rock was still upon them and the sun had 
 not yet worked its cheer. They looked thin and 
 hungry in the bright daylight as though regularity 
 of food, sleep or habits was unknown to them, and 
 it was z st'^king fact that the lines of most of the 
 faces, ever, in those who were quite young, showed 
 the predominance of anger. It is possible but not 
 probable that more than one of them ha<i aimed 
 only at liberty and followed a will o' the wisp into 
 license and proscription. Physical unr^ vi^fue 
 
,34 The Sea-Farere 
 
 hopes of easy gain and mere vulgar lawlessness had 
 plainly led to a score or more of broken lives. Of a 
 few, like the ^oy the rest called Lorenzo, it might 
 be guessed that a sudden act of crime or weakness 
 had sent them beyond the pale of law. In more 
 than one face could be read the evidence that some 
 influence behind their own existence had lamed the 
 soul and disordered the will. 
 
 But the joy of life without restraints, where was 
 that ? The gayety and daring, the lusty cheer, the 
 freedom, reckless and vivid and irresponsible, where 
 were these ? Vikings and buccaneers, adventurers 
 and sea-kings,— the names felon and pirate, convict 
 and murderer are poor substitutes for splendid 
 words like those. 
 
 Perhaps, degenerate as they were, these men were 
 less harmful here, out in the open air, having the 
 freedom that comes from following the instincts, 
 than if worming through the dark places of cities, 
 preying upon the effort of civilized life. 
 
 "All here," shouted the captain when the dazed 
 and begrimed Carriacci, evidently just out of bed, 
 had bolted through the entrance with an impetus 
 not his own. " Bar the door." 
 
 The lithe Mexican who had brought the straggler 
 tossed the wooden beam from one hand to the 
 other in mere pride of dexterity before he dropped 
 it upon the bent irons driven into the wall at each 
 side. 
 
 Twifk spoke slowly and distinctly. 
 
A Pirate Chief 135 
 
 •* Men, I have only one thing to say. McCoy tells 
 us he has sighted a brig, disabled, drifting south- 
 east." 
 
 He paused and swept a quick glance over the 
 eyes intent upon him. The word "wines," whis- 
 pered in many tongues passed along like a breath. 
 
 "We have provisions for three months. The 
 Vishnu's cargo is still on our hands. Even beasts 
 only eat when they are hungry. The flat boats and 
 harpoons for the tunny net will be ready at the time 
 I ordered last night. The barque will not go out." 
 
 There v."": a sharp exclamation from those who 
 understood and eager cries of "What is it ? What 
 does the captain say?" from the others. Temple 
 repeated his words loudly in Italian amidst a rising 
 tumult 
 
 "Tyranny! Tyranny!" 
 
 "Santo Diavolo, what outrage!" 
 
 "Slavery! Slavery!" 
 
 The room was filled with the din, with wild ges- 
 ticulations, angry eyes. The confined space blended 
 the cries into an uproar. 
 
 "It shall go! It shall! " yelled a Sicilian, leaping 
 up and down and buffeting the air with his fists. 
 
 In the rush forward men became entangled in an 
 inextricable mass, storming oaths andtursei as they 
 shmildered one another. A half circle surrounded 
 the captain, arguing, threatening, clamoring. 
 
 " Captain ! For the love of the Virgin hear me! " 
 
 "Captain! Usten!" 
 
136 The Sea-Farers 
 
 "Charpiot was a tyrant. Be warned by him! 
 Be warned!" 
 
 " It was not rough when he went overboard! " 
 
 Temple's half-closed eyes had in them more of 
 menace than defence; the lines of his face had all 
 drawn toward the mouth and the heavy jaw. 
 
 Delavigne moved about the outskirts of iwe mob 
 with his neat sttp, speaking here and there to men 
 who were lookers-on, but wherever he had paused 
 a man dashed forward crying dreadful words, as 
 though volcanic fire had touched a pool anc. it leaped 
 up m hissing steam. 
 
 "Down with traitors!" shrieked Matteo with all 
 his feeble lungs and slipped his thin shoulders be- 
 tween the crowding men. The boy Lorenzo seized 
 hisuirm, bent back his lean waist until the bones 
 cracked, wrenched open the fingers and thrust the 
 stiletto he had found there into his own belt. 
 
 " Assassin ? You ! " he cried with a contemptu- 
 ous laugh into the other's face in which impotence 
 and unconquerable passion warred as the man stood 
 gasping, the hectic flaming in his hollow cheeks. 
 
 Those at the centre of the tumult mouthed vio- 
 lence but the half circle around the captain did not 
 close upon him. Some of them remembered 
 Juarez, some* another, and life was sweet to each 
 man. An Italian whose voice had broken with 
 shouting beat his head against the wall and whis- 
 pered "Tyranny!" 
 
 Swan pushed roughly from the back of the room 
 
A Pirate Chief ,37 
 
 to the front rank of the mutineers. His smoulder- 
 ing face had kindled. He flung the last two men 
 out of his path with a loud oath and stood before 
 his chief, his shoulders squared and his jaw set with 
 the coarse courage of the professional bully. 
 
 " The barque goes out! " he said raising his husky 
 voice. "It goes to-night! Do you hear? It is our 
 ship and not yours and it goes out! " 
 " It will not go out," said Temple. 
 The Englishman stepped a pace nearer. "You 
 Yankee ploughman!" he exclaimed, every vein 
 swelling in his head and neck. " It is because Mc- 
 Coy says the brig is American. You will sack our 
 ships but not yours. You are a brute! A sneak! 
 You are— you are " A spasm of effort; an- 
 other. "Delavigne! What— what " A pained 
 
 blankness wiped all passion from his face, standing 
 where he was. 
 
 At his first words Robert Temple's eyes opened 
 wide, and flamed yeUow and white, dark cords 
 sweUed in his forehead, his hands curled, the mus- 
 cles at the corners of his mouth drew upward to- 
 ward the wings of the nose, showing the gleaming 
 incisor teeth. The great body swept backward for 
 its momentum. 
 
 "Sh! St-t!" 
 
 The sharp hiss cut ttirough the voices as though a 
 sword had smitten them. The clamor thinned 
 suddenly, the tangle of men and outcries fell apart. 
 
 With superstitious shock those nearest him 
 
138 The Sea-Farers 
 
 watched the captain check himself, poised as he 
 stood, saw the blaze in his face react, recover, recoil 
 again and drop into suUenness. Inch by inch as 
 though compelled his eyes turned toward Mother 
 Graham and fell before the steady light that shot 
 from amidst her furrows. Leaning half across a 
 rough box she kept her close watch on his face 
 which had grown swarthy as if the red blood had 
 been changed to black. 
 
 The Englishman had not stirred. He did not 
 shrink from the ominous change in his chief's face. 
 His lips moved now and then but there was only a 
 vacant disquiet in his heavy features, no terror. All 
 at once he swayed as if he would have fallen. The 
 smaller men impatiently jostled his huge frame to 
 and fro; a Spaniard and a Mexican upon whom he 
 had leaned too heavily hurled him against a wall 
 where he lolled inert} his big head rolling forward 
 on his breast. 
 
 "Rebels!" 
 
 The two men turned swiftly from Swan. Temple 
 had sprung upon a cask head. The excitement of 
 his thwarted purpose was in his quivering nostrils 
 and bloodshot eyes. 
 
 '* I hear you ! But board my ship if you dare ! 
 There it lies. Touch it! I am captain here. It 
 goes out when we want food. Can I fight then ? 
 You fellows know me. Am 1 to be obeyed ? If 
 not, you five scoundrels with stilettos along your 
 wrists strike now 1 I am unarmed." 
 
A Pirate Chief ,39 
 
 There was an instant's pause. The men seemed 
 to be taking in the sense of his words. 
 
 "Viva il capitan!" shouted the boy Lorenzo, 
 pushing to the front. 
 
 " Viva! Viva! " cried one man and another in his 
 path. 
 
 "Our captain!" 
 
 "Down with them!" 
 
 "Our friend! " 
 
 " Our chief! " yelled the volatile crowd stimulat- 
 ing one another with their cheers. 
 
 They were eager for the outer air. They had ex- 
 hausted their own rebellion. 
 
 "Good!" exclaimed Temple when he could be 
 heard. " Have the flat boats and harpoons ready in 
 an hour. Go!" 
 
 The men swarmed out of the door seemingly as 
 contented as if they had won the day. The captain 
 strode across the room and through a side door into 
 anoth-r part of the house. 
 
 "Andy McCoy! " 
 
 The man had stood, pipe in mouth, leaning in his 
 place all through, watching Temple with his nar- 
 row, sidelong glance. 
 
 " Ye'rc canny, McCoy. I hae no doot o' that noo," 
 said Mother Graham with one arm akimbo as if to 
 bar his way as he slouched out alone. •« Yon was 
 a braw fine tale, Andy boy. Ye kennt it was j4meri- 
 can, wi' out doot, didna ye ? An' hoc mony leagues 
 oot did ye say ? O, Lord! UrdI " she cackled. 
 
140 The Sca-Farers 
 
 He pushed her roughly out of his way. 
 
 " Ye wadna run frae a wumman, McCoy ? Though 
 it s no a black-haired hizzie the day," she continued 
 keeping pace with him. " Gin I be in micklc haste 
 I'll e'en gae wi' ye a bit, though a body aye speaks 
 louder that's walkin'!" 
 
 The man stopped short. 
 
 •* Hark noo. If I telit the captain where the night- 
 watch was bidin" till nigh the dawn what wad he 
 say? American barque! Huh! Ye were na bidin' 
 in the track where barques be sighted. Weel eno' 
 ye kennt he wadna gae oot, but ye hae na set his 
 men on him this time. Tak tent wi' yon tricks, 
 mon. Tak tent. I canna read print as I read a 
 Scotch face, Andy McCoy." 
 
 The man's hands moved like claws but he made 
 no sound as he shuffled past her. She turned 
 squarely about upon Robert as he came out of the 
 house. 
 
 "Aye, but ye're a bletherin' idiot, Temple!" she 
 said scornfully, fixing her beady eyes on his face. 
 " Aye, glower, mon! 1 dinna shake for ye. So ye'd 
 strike down the dazed fule, wad ye ? An' his wits 
 gaein' frae him." 
 
 "Wits?" 
 
 •*Ayc, wits. Ha' na ye eyes, mon? Sin he 
 fetched ye back frae America wi' that spy Gomez a 
 bairn might see he's broken. He's scairt o' himsel'. 
 Drink, drink, drink night an' day an' nae sleep,— he 
 kens that he's ganc. But there's a bit o' gude fight 
 
A Pirate Chief ,4, 
 
 in him yet. Shoot him like a mon when ye*d be rid 
 o' him. Ill deal wi' Matteo. Lorenzo was braw 
 but he's feckless. Watch McCoy sharp." 
 
 " McCoy's well enough," said Robert sullenly. 
 
 "Huh! Ye've yer one chance as chief. Keep 
 yer eyes wide open, mon." 
 
 As she walked on beside him she changed the 
 subject. 
 
 "O'Connor'lI no last a day mair. Hc'U nae be 
 mickle loss. His head's been flighty nigh on to a 
 year. He robbed the mail, 1 mak nae doot, in New 
 York. He was baggin' the letters an' shakin' an' 
 mumblin' o't all the night through." 
 " Did you stay with him all night ? " 
 "Aye, aye. Cat naps serve me. A' looked 
 aboot a bit when he slept. A body that wad be 
 canny mought pick up information mebbe, sperin' 
 aboot But a'm ower old an' dour an' me eyes ha' 
 failed me." 
 
 They had turned down the beach. Two women 
 were strolling in the same direction at a litde dis- 
 tance in advance. One was unmisUkably Venus. 
 The other's figure was slender and her motions were 
 those of youth. The mass of her hair was dark but 
 certain short threads escaping from the rest and 
 struck by the sun formed a bronze haze about her 
 head. 
 
 Temple did not call but loosening one of the fox- 
 tails at his belt went swiftly forward. 
 He moved with a singular grace which to many 
 
142 The Sea-Farers 
 
 had something terrible about it. No one ever heard 
 Robert Temple's coming ; ears of civilized life were 
 not quiclt enough for that. It may have been due 
 to some pecuUarity in the placing of his feet, but 
 the movement was not stealthy since it was evi- 
 dently neither acquired nor intended by him, and was 
 probably the result of his unusually acute sense for 
 sound. His reputation for seeing at the back of his 
 head was probably due as much to his ears as his 
 eyes, though these were keen beyond the habit of 
 his fellows. 
 
 Mother Graham hurried after him as fast as her 
 breath and her squat figure would allow. His 
 eyes, dull and sullen under her reproof, had quick- 
 ened with some purpose. She was still far behind 
 when she saw Robert lightly toss the fox-tail 
 through the air so dexterously that it dropped upon 
 the shoulder of the younger of the women, brush- 
 ing her neck and cheek. With a piercing scream 
 and a spring to one side which threw the offending 
 substance far from her, she gasped for breath and 
 turned her pale face toward him. Her startled 
 gray eyes darkened swiftly as she looked at him ; 
 she threw off the hand which Venus had laid upon 
 her stiffened arm. 
 
 " Why did you do it ? " she cried as soon as she 
 could speak. "What had 1 done? What had 1 
 done ? " 
 
 Robert standing still stared at her in sheer per- 
 plexity. 
 
A Pirate Chief 143 
 
 "Susie!" he said, "1— meant " 
 
 "You meant to be cruel to me! That is all you 
 meant! I've told you "—choking as she went on,— 
 "that the touch of fur is like death to me, and you 
 — you—O, can't 1 get away somewhere? Away 
 from this fearful country? Must I stay here and 
 die ? 1 hate it! I hate it! I will not be treated so! 
 1 will not be married any longer! There! " 
 
 She wrenched the gold band from her finger and 
 flung it down the beach. Robert's stupefied eyes 
 followed the glittering circle hurrying away. 
 
 The same instant Susie turned and ran wildly 
 down the shore. Her hair loosened and streamed 
 abroad as though every part of her body were in 
 sympathy with the desperation of her mood. 
 Robert, after an instant's hesitation, sprang after her. 
 
 "Missy! Missy! Missy!" Venus caUed Im- 
 potently. 
 
 Mother Graham came up out of breath and 
 
 temper. 
 
 " He's as fit to take care of her as a dumb beast," 
 she snarled, panting in loud puffs as she watched 
 the figures of pursuer and pursued. " Mind her 
 weel, do ye hear?" she exclaimed, turning sharply 
 upon her companion and clenching the fist not 
 encumbered with her gun. " I'll see yer black skin 
 pinched, pinched o' nights, pinched wi' hot irons. 
 Do ye mind, Judy ? Do ye ? " 
 
 Venus involuntarily fell back a step, but her 
 conscience was clear. The intention hidden in her 
 
144 The Sea-Faren 
 
 heart to escape from daily and nightly terrors by 
 flight in a ship had been detected and had withered 
 as if by the evil eye. 
 
 " I did'n nebber circumbobble dis yere globe for 
 git to Miss Susie," she replied, with breathless 
 grandeur, "an* den go 'way an' exert her." The 
 large roll of the words steadied her nerves. "My 
 black am on de outside oh de skin where de sun kin 
 git at it, bress de good Lord," she added, backing 
 away. 
 
 "Ye've reached a state o* grace, Judy. Let it 
 bide," replied the other with her usual mixture of 
 humor and contempt, and having recovered a 
 measure of her breath she walked on. Once she 
 stooped to pick up the belt of fox-tails which 
 Robert had flung aside as he went. She stood still 
 an instant. " It's to cross the seas," she said aloud, 
 and so it came to pass. 
 
 The race was short, for Susie was hindered by 
 her stifled sobs. Robert seized the little figure in 
 his arms and held her with merciless firmness. 
 
 The small rebellious head was thrown back in 
 vain struggle, the hair not imprisoned by his arm 
 tossed about the face as with eyes shut and panting 
 breath she wildly and frantically tried to escape. 
 She could not move, but the hands at her sides 
 were clenched and white. Robert had not spoken 
 a word, looking down at her face and never 
 relaxing his hold. Her strength soon failed and as 
 she strained with less force she weakly sobbed. 
 
A Pirate Chief 145 
 
 After one helpless last effort she opened her eyes 
 and looked up at him. Perhaps the heavy beating 
 of the heart against which she was held had worked 
 upon her; perhaps the dumb haggardness in his 
 eyes broke her anger, or utter weariness had con- 
 quered her. She gave one long, gasping breath and 
 dropped her face against him. The arm he had held 
 around her shoulders moved up about her neck, but 
 not a word was said between them. 
 
 When Susie did raise her head she smiled up at 
 him. There was a pallid ring still around her 
 mouth. She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder 
 and closed her fingers upon a fold of the rough shirt 
 he wore. 
 
 "Ut's find it," she said. 
 
 In retracing their steps they soon came face to 
 
 face .v'th their defeated followers. 
 
 "Well, well," exclaimed Susie in her usual tone, 
 " they look black as crows, don't they, Robert ? " 
 
 "Aye, aye. me leddy. A ha' seen bairns but a' 
 ha' na met mony bairns o' five an' twenty years," 
 retorted Mother Graham, snappishly. 
 
 Venus looked away in hurt dignity and Susie 
 laughed. Except for a slight paleness, her face 
 now retained not a trace of wiu.. had passed. 
 " Croak 1 Croak 1" She imitated a raven's note 
 with startling exactness and laughed again. 
 "Come, let's all look for my wedding ring. I 
 dropped it about here somewhere. What will you 
 give to the one who finds it, Robert?" 
 
146 The Sea-Farm 
 
 He did not reply. He was stalking on beside 
 her with eyes to the ground. Susie's glance was 
 searching right and left along the beach, but it took 
 a quick, bird-like survey of him several tioict after 
 
 her unanswered question 
 
 His sitin loolied as smooth and young as ever but 
 tile expression of the eyes gave to his whole face 
 the seeming of a gt^ .a - hangc. The emotions of 
 the morning had been crn.1 \^^<me at ne expense of 
 some strain which mere waste of iDuscniar tissue 
 had never caused thus far in aii his, ecklcss life. 
 He C(^ bear cdd, wet and hunger, could carry 
 immenie burdens; he had been often wounded 
 when his flesh had healed as a deft closes in ipow- 
 ing wood. But feeling seemed to age Imn m a 
 moment; to be an dfort which no eas% amgered, 
 easily appeased natures could understand. 
 
 "Don't glower like that, Robert," exc: dmed Susie 
 impatiently, stopping to stamp her foot on the 
 white ground. " When a thing is over and done 
 with forget all about it, " she went < , hurrying be- 
 side hini. "Think of something else. That's what 
 I do. Why can't you?" 
 " I don't know, Susie." 
 
 " You can learn," she continued, still impel i»u^. 
 " I did. It is easy enough if you make tts 
 effort. Will you try, Robert ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Try now, then. Look at me and smile 
 
 He raised his head but something in the ^trmpt 
 
A Pirat*» Chief 
 
 '47 
 
 made her laugh . ' ;tvcrt h -r ^yes. She braided 
 li!^ fingers n an. out with it-rs. t imp her head 
 now and then ; , ma^t- oni i. bu. always 
 flippant endeavor to cone- late I other silent com- 
 panions. 
 
 All at once she and Robert wiJked faster :r a 
 signal from her 
 
 "Dear, " she sa J w ten they /ere o 
 "dear, de^r, dear." as a bird ohirp 
 over and over u.th iv iteration vi 
 briclt walls v- ould ti j re stless n rves 
 
 Ot)' 
 
 b 
 
 lote 
 
 -en 
 .1 in 
 
 *s and the wind 
 th jrain which 
 ts old dull calm, 
 man because he 
 
 woods blends ii h n of 
 through trees 'hat pf; to 
 passion has it met i 
 So she sl( "ly wr(. ir .f i o uu 
 loved her. "Dear ear, dea ' 
 
 Fte Ie4 her wit >ut an in nt's uncertainty to a 
 hoBaw armag: the pehJ* id shells above the 
 higt«« water line. Sht - ibe third finger of her 
 left imd r^y and he the ring again. 
 
X 
 
 A TEMPEST 
 
 A FEW years before the barque Maybtrd anchored 
 in this cove Sicily had forcibly populated Lam- 
 pedusa with immigrants and had since then ex- 
 pended generous sums for their contentment. She 
 had built bastions, improved the smaU harbor, re- 
 stored the castle of an earlier day, erected a chapel. 
 But something was wrong; the numbers of the 
 inhabitants remained stationary and the happy 
 colonists of the government reports toiled sullenly 
 in boat and field, hungering for home. Rabbits 
 burrowed about the roots and bit off the tops of 
 their carefully nurtured sprouts, the damsel, most 
 graceful of cranes, set her sentinels, and calmly 
 devoured the pods as they formed; suns parched 
 their fields of new and unfamiliar grains, and the 
 dread sirocco swept them. Their homesick eyes 
 turned from the splendors of cerulean sea and sky, 
 white cliffs and gray green olive trees, and strained 
 to see the cone of Etna. On holidays men and 
 women came sometimes to this cove where saints' 
 days were like other days, and talked with the 
 Sicilians among the Maybird's crew, watching the 
 chance to pick up and slip beneath their cloaks a 
 bit of rope, a piece of sailcloth, as an ant hurries 
 
 «4» 
 
A Terripest 149 
 
 away to hidden places a dead fly's wing. Some- 
 times a girl at v/ork in field or vineyard looked up. 
 half coy, half frightened, to meet the bold young 
 eyes of one who had strayed from the camp into 
 the outside world of Lampedusa; not often, for 
 discipline was strict and every man was watching 
 his neighbor in Robert Temple's crew. If one be- 
 trayed the res. too, lost all, for the treasure in 
 the chest would be confiscated and only hated 
 governments would profit by it. 
 
 Little did the poor exiles of Lampedusa know of 
 the work of the Maybird. She weighed anchor at 
 midnight, and silently drop.^ed anchor a day, two 
 days, later. England had only recently resumed her 
 long broken relations with the east and wrecks were 
 frequent in the Mediterranean when half this 
 century was over. Ships mysteriously sank at that 
 time when the knowledge of certain shoals now 
 marked upon every chart was the property of a few 
 who did not tell. The chief treasure of the May- 
 bird's men was not the gold secreted in the chest, 
 guarded night and day by one of their number; it 
 was their acquaintance with a shallow spot upon 
 which it was sonwtimes their delicate task to per- 
 suade a merchantman to go. There had been wild 
 hours in their experience before the cargo bound 
 for America or England was deposited upon the 
 beach at Lampedusa and carried into caves before 
 dawn. The sale of such merchandise, piecemeal, 
 —not « simple m«tter,~was idwiyt mtrusted to 
 
ISO The Sea-Farcrs 
 
 Delavigne. As he was the only one in the company 
 fit for such subtle bargaining the rest sulkily endured 
 the payment of a commission out of proportion, as 
 it seemed to them, even to services lilce his. 
 
 Constant alternations of shock and lethargy, 
 wounds from these midnight raids,-for the mer- 
 chantmen were armed and the crews fought well, 
 —sickness and the dissipation which was the ex- 
 pression of desperate and breathless rejoicing among 
 the survivors, aU were weakening influences whose 
 paths led toward the end, since a jealous disinclina- 
 tion to admit new men to share in their hard-won 
 gains made them choose rather to attempt by plot- 
 ting or by reckless daring to do the work of twice 
 their number. More than once they had come 
 close to detection and capture. Several nations 
 would have been interested in their punishment. 
 England among the .rest, sane England of whose 
 carrying trade the perverted Maybird had once 
 formed a part. The rapidity of the change of flags 
 had become a fine art 
 
 A whispered chaiye against the new captain had 
 risen into sound and fbry in the late revolt A few 
 like Delavigne had prariously sug^ted the proba- 
 bihty, which his attitude at the cotmdl confirmed 
 as fact to them all, that he did not mean to take the 
 vigorous steps for the increase of the hoard which 
 had been as the breath of life to the former chief, 
 whose passionate temper, greed nnd cruelty it now 
 — ' to his men, might have been endured a lit- 
 
A Tempest 151 
 
 tie longer. It had occurred to the more avaricious 
 and the more intelligent among them to ask them- 
 selves before the election whether a man, who, be- 
 cause he was careless about possessions would not 
 snatch more than his share of gold, might not be 
 equally indifferent to such acquisition on the part of 
 men who worshipped it. But his undeniable charm 
 made him the choice of the unthinking masses who 
 had drowned all doubting voices with cheers. 
 
 To a community in which thews and sinews are 
 the ruling force a man like this is a natural leader. 
 They soon discovered, however, that his ignorance 
 of command other than by dealing with men singly 
 was a serious failing when contrasted with the dis- 
 cipline en corps of Charpiot who had been a soldier 
 of Napoleon. This man, taking advantage of a 
 knowledge of the family circumstances obtained 
 piecemeal from Robert himself, had sent him by a 
 passing vessel on parole to collect from his father 
 the fine imposed upon him for an act of insubordi- 
 nation. This insubordination had been his vigor- 
 ous resistance to a cold-blooded and unnecessary 
 order. His father's refusal to accept his word had 
 roused his always too ready sense of injustice to- 
 ward himself into a fierce and hasty threat. The 
 desperation of his need goaded him like a sword. 
 His Hfe, perhaps su. ;c's, hung upon the possession 
 of that one last . um of money, and he could not 
 make the man see! He had given his promise to 
 return with it as the price of his r«tease, and Char- 
 
152 
 
 The Sea-Faren 
 
 piot, who knew men. had shown him a soldier s 
 confidence by allowing his wife to go with him. 
 Unwelcome care indeed she would have been to 
 the old chief had she been left behind. On their 
 return they found the captain gone. It was re- 
 ported that he had been accidentally knocked over- 
 board by a falling spar, and McCoy was acting 
 temporarily in his stead. By almost universal con- 
 sent Temple, who had meant to move on after his 
 restless fashion to other scenes of activity, had been 
 elected to the vacant post and so remained. 
 
 At noon of a day late in January a rude tattoo of 
 blows upon the wood brought Venus to the house 
 door. When she saw Carriacci she stood on the 
 centre of the threshold so as completely to bar the 
 entrance and waited for him to speak. The winter 
 rains had broken the uniformity of the smudge on 
 his face into zigzag patches and his black eyes 
 twinkled out from the midst like bits of coal in a 
 mud-bank. After a glance at her as she stood on 
 guard he feU back a step, pulled his red cap low on 
 his forehead, clasped his sides with his hands, puffed 
 out his thin cheeks, stiffened his neck, distended his 
 eyes into indignant spheres, and stared back at her. 
 The imitation was too patent to ignore. 
 
 Insults from the contemptible nip the heart 
 Venus waddled backward, seized the door and 
 slammed it against the man's shoulder and foot 
 which he had inserted just in time. 
 "Blacky, my heart," he said softly whUe she 
 
A Tempest 153 
 
 viciously liurled tier wfiole weight upon tiie wooden 
 bmrier between them. "Sweet Sooty-face, tell 
 captain that the gallant Carriacd would speak with 
 him," and with practised agility he slipped out un- 
 hanned. 
 
 "Delavigne is missing," announced Robert ab- 
 ruptly, when he returned from an interview with 
 
 the messenger. 
 
 "Missing? There has been no storm since he 
 went out with McCoy day before yesterday," Susie 
 answered, looking through the branches of red 
 pomegranate flowers in the jug she was carrying 
 toward the table, for it was about the hour of the 
 midday meal. 
 
 " The smack is coming in. McCoy signals that 
 he is alone. I must eat something and be off to see 
 
 him land." 
 
 He flung himself into a seat for an instant, but 
 was on his feet again, walking the length of the 
 floor with such impatient strides that Susie went 
 away to remind Venus that the master was in haste. 
 When she returned she pushed aside to their limit 
 the dull blue curtains that the fitful sun might 
 brighten the room, then as she stood waiting beside 
 the brazier of charcoals burning in the middle of 
 the stone floor she threw sugar upon them to per- 
 fume the air. 
 
 " I wonder," she said, if it was an acddent I 
 wonder if his cane went with him, and if it made a 
 hissing sound as it struck the water." 
 
154 The Sea-Faren 
 
 One waking from sleep in this room might have 
 believed he was at sea. It was tvident tiM the 
 articles of funyture hai never bees at re^ before. 
 
 but in ships' cabins had traveled east and wm «id 
 north. The curtains were made <rf faded latine 
 
 sails, a whale's tooth hung upon the wall bende a 
 shark's skin which had once softened and moist- 
 ened in an East Indiaman at the approach of storms. 
 Shells from Asia, branching coral, fans and bowls 
 of sandalwood, an ugly idol of yellowing ivory, 
 hits of embroidered sillis fastened lilce pictures to 
 the wall, books of many kinds, a chart of the 
 Mediterranean, all were flotsam and jetsam. Rods 
 of blossoming pink stood in great blue jars here 
 and tliere about the floor, for all over the island the 
 almond tree was flourishing. 
 
 Venus brought in a dish of smoking pottage 
 with macaroni and bread, and Robert threw him- 
 self into a seat opposite his wife. 
 
 "We shall take a long breath," he said. "He 
 was like a miasma." 
 
 As he hurried through his dinner Susie's eyes 
 seemed to be following the gloom in his own back 
 to its farthest recesses. Never until recently had 
 he been impatient, restless, anxious, and at times 
 now all expressions of eye and feature sharpened 
 into one— that of the recklessness of the captive. 
 
 Lawlessness hung like an atmosphere about the 
 camp. Life to Temple had become unbearable 
 there. The men were right in their instinctive 
 
A Tempest 
 
 impression that there was no consistency in his 
 course. Honor may fail among thieves, in the 
 long run, but logic does not, and there was a sug- 
 gestion of insuflRciency about the captain s logic. 
 He would fight fiercely for his rights; he was un- 
 equaled in reckless courage at the boarding of a 
 merchantman; he would work his men inhumanly 
 at the nets or on the ship, through night hours and 
 hot noons; he would exact obedience to himself on 
 pain of death; but on the other hand he was indif* 
 ferent to most things, to money, to drink and 
 cards, lo all that implied comradeship, and his im- 
 mense and tyrannical energy was followed by 
 periods of utter inaction when he would lie for 
 hours on the warm beach seemingly asleep but 
 seeing and hearing everything with his half-dosed 
 eyes and sensitive ears. The men had logic on 
 their side when they asked one another if this was 
 all that banishment from the world was to mean 
 for them, and, if they were not upon this incon- 
 spicuous island for prey, what were they here for? 
 
 His own discontent arose from other causes than 
 theirs. He had soon wearied of hearing com- 
 plaints, devising punishments, marshalling men, 
 appointing guards, listening to details of provisions, 
 quarrels, sickness, crime. Incapable of reasoning 
 he felt by instinct that a combat was being waged 
 between the forces of his life. On the one side, 
 holding him back from impulsive ferocity were two 
 women, one constitutionally timid and gentle, the 
 
156 
 
 The Sea-Faren 
 
 other old but strong wHh some strange power 
 under which he had again and again writhed and 
 struggled and sunk. His popularity had steadily 
 
 waned. Delavigne was he to whom the men 
 listened, his bitter gibes voicing their own unrest 
 For some reason, which could but be sinister com- 
 ing from that source, he elected to defend Robert 
 Temple to his crew, and the captain owed what 
 authority he still held to this Frenchman. Wher- 
 ever the man appeared a group of idlers ready to 
 be amused surrounded him, like the buzzing of flies 
 about rotten fruit 
 "No more, no morel" 
 
 Robert left the table and was out of the house 
 with the swiftness of wind. His wife set down 
 the plate she was holding toward him, on which 
 sections of an orange she had separated lay like 
 wedges of gold, and followed him to the door. 
 She saw him crossing the pale beach with strides 
 toward a knot of men in red caps who were gestic- 
 • ulating and shouting to a solitary figure standing in 
 the skiff in which he had just left an anchored fish- 
 ing craft The feUow did not even lift h^s surly 
 head in answer, but sent the boat skilfully for- 
 ward with one oar. Susie watched the tall captain 
 mingle with the unquiet men before she went in 
 and closed the door. ?f was unusual to see them 
 collected at the beach during the hours of the 
 siesta. At such time of day all through the island 
 it was still, and things that were hidden crept 
 
A Tempest 1^7 
 
 forth then, whether shy creatures of the woods or 
 schemes in the brains of men. As though the days 
 yet were when the gods also slept away the noon- 
 tide, human beings who were astir went softly and 
 spoke low, like the goatherd in Theocritus who dared 
 not play on his pipe for fear of awakening Pan. 
 
 When Temple opened the door again a clamor 
 of rude cheers blew in with him, such a sound as 
 had long been unheard at the cove even from the 
 demonstrative Italians. Robert met his wife with 
 bright, peremptory eyes. It was a look she knew, 
 one which was only in his face when the savagery, 
 inherent in youth and which he had never out- 
 grown, had risen at some call. She surmised what 
 lis sudden flash of popularity meant, yet she made 
 her protest 
 
 "No, no." she said breathlessly, with her back 
 against the house door. 
 
 "Must, Pussy, must," replied Robert hastily. 
 " Ddavigne has been picked up by a Portuguese 
 barque only twenty miies southeast. She's out of 
 her course. Be reasonable, Pussy. Where's my 
 belt > We must get him back or the rat will sell us 
 to the highest bidder." 
 
 He had found the belt while he was speaking and 
 Susie stood beside him while he pulled on his long 
 boots. He turned away from her to slip pistols and 
 knife into their places. 
 
 " Robert! " she cried sharply, seizing his arm with 
 both hands, "Don't! And don't let /*«»/" 
 
158 
 
 The Sea-Faren 
 
 " There, there, there! You're a silly baby! It's 
 the custom to be armed, isn't it ? Then kiss me and 
 don't fuss and fret. It s going to be a wild-goose 
 chase. It's as black as thunder in the west Yes, 
 I'll be in before we start." 
 
 The crew entered eagerly into the preparations for 
 weighing anchor. Interest and action, even for the 
 veriest trilles, were not hard to rouse in this singular 
 community in wiiich no man was indifferent about 
 anything, except his sins. 
 
 Mother Graham left an unruly Savoyard, her only 
 patient for the time, and went to the beach to see 
 what the stir meant. She strode up to McCoy and 
 with hands on hips put a few short questions to 
 him. 
 
 ••The dour rapscaUion teUt the truth," she reluc- 
 tantly admitted to Temple, clutching at his arm to 
 stop him as he hurried past her. " I' fixit him wi' 
 me e'e an' he didna shuffle. He's no gabby but he 
 kens a barque, a bit dismasted an' a*. O yes, he s 
 sure aboot the silks an' the wines. Deil tak him ! I 
 askit him hoo cooms that yellow snake aboard an' 
 he tellt me a lie. Yes. So tak tent, mon. Bide 
 here. DInna gael " 
 
 '•Be still, you busybody! " Robert jerked his 
 sleeve from her grasp. •' I've had enough of med- 
 dlers. Leave my work to me! " 
 
 " Huh! So a' will, so a' wiU! " screamed Mother 
 Graham after him. "O yes! Ye're sae shrewd! 
 Ye're sae cunning I Y . puir Wetherin' loon I " 
 
A Tempest 15^ 
 
 Yet none was generally quicker than this elderly 
 dame to recognize the mood upon which wits can 
 but be dulled. Impelled by a vague uneasiness like 
 a petrel before a storm she scudded up and down 
 the beach. Old age, wooden shoes and heavy 
 skirts flapping above the ankles seemed unnatural 
 trammeb for this fierce spirit. 
 
 The broken clouds drifting across the sky all the 
 morning had not dimmed the color of the sea which 
 was deeply and vividly blue. The men worked 
 with might and main. The ship was soon ready. 
 Robert, who was the best sailor among them, di- 
 rected every move. He went to the house again as 
 he had promised and when he returned he stopped 
 abruptly on the beach before the glowering coun- 
 sellor he had spumed. 
 
 " If anything happens to me " 
 
 " Huh I It will na coom by water, ye " 
 
 " Remember what 1 told you to do tor " 
 
 "Hoots! A' ha' na the trick o' forgettin's, 
 like " 
 
 In a few moments more the barque was moving. 
 
 all sail set. 
 
 In less than an hour later the clouds had thickened 
 so fast that the persistent blue of the sea began to 
 give way. The wind had been veering from east to 
 south, and when the sky was wholly overcast the 
 waters had become a sombre green. The night came 
 on before its time, black but without rain. Round 
 patches of phosphoresc^e followed in the widce 
 
i6o The Sea-Fucii 
 
 of ships, as though the moon had faUen Into the sea 
 •nd was detiriotisly dancing with other moons, per- 
 haps dead worlds that dropped from the sJcy ages 
 •go and had achieved an undignified immortality. 
 
 As the evening wore on Susie grew so restfeuand 
 insisted so strongly upon having a wallt that Venus 
 reluctantly prepared to accompany her with the un- 
 derstanding that she would go to bed after she re- 
 turned. The darkness outside as the two women 
 stepped into it was unusually still, but for the un- 
 easy waves. Flashes of lightning had begun to 
 play about the horison and grumblings of thunder 
 came from great <»stances. The wind blowing in 
 their faces was fresh but not yet boisterous. Susie 
 said not a word, looking as she walked out at tiie 
 scrambling upheavals of ynm lighted by broken 
 phosphorescence. 
 
 Venus made a few attempts at conversation but 
 receiving no answer retreated into resentful but un- 
 heeded silence. Missy seemed to her to be growing 
 more mute day by day and her old nurse felt the 
 difference in her to be a personal slight. She 
 thought of a morning not long before when Susie, 
 who had been singing Italian peasant songs quite as 
 usual, had become suddenly silent, and at some 
 trifling question from her had unaccountably flung 
 herself upon the stone floor and sobbed aloud. 
 Venus had gone painfully upon her. knees beside her 
 calling her "Darling heart," "Honey love, "-all 
 the pet names of her chUdhood. but only once had 
 
A Tempest i6i 
 
 little missy spoken. " O, mammy, mammy! I 
 shall never be happy again! 1 shall never be young 
 any more!" Then with a start she had sat up, 
 rubbed her eyes dry, pushed Venus away, and when 
 upon her feet would allow no allusion to her action 
 then or since. Venus remembered Israel also as she 
 lumbered along against the wind, and yearned for 
 the stupid boy who was yet her own. The too 
 amorous 'Dolphus had probably come back to his 
 own wife long ago only to find her gone, not as he 
 would fear with cnother mate, but to a loverless 
 rock in the sea where missy was treating her ole 
 mammy like a nigger hired by de day. 
 
 " I'm tired," Susie said at last, turning her back to 
 the wind. " It's no use. I can't see anything. 
 Let's go home." 
 
 She went obediently to bed but could no sleep. 
 She heard the thunder coming nearer, and nniy 
 in the next room cry out in thick terror now and 
 then when her dreams were especially insistent; 
 but Mother Graham's prophecy had come true and 
 Venus would have missed the excitement of her 
 fears; they were her theatre, concert and re> - .ul 
 meeting. A ship's lantern hung by a hook ort rne 
 wall of Susie's room. Once when she sat up to 
 listen a white moth blindly fiuttered from beneath 
 her pillow and wheeled toward the light. The 
 h^vy sailcloth c^efuOy drawn acr(»s the window 
 by Venus before she left missy for tiie f^ht could 
 only partially screen it against the hkleous pink 
 
i62 The Sca-Farers 
 
 flashes as the storm broke overhead, nor could it 
 dull her ear to the crash of thunder close upon 
 them. With head covered by the blankets and 
 eyes tightly shut poor Susie lay until the worst had 
 passed, then rose and went to the window again 
 and again when she fancied she heard a new sound. 
 The receding lightning glared occasionally upon 
 the leagues of water which seemed empty of sails. 
 She had no drowsiness, but at last through sheer 
 weariness she slept 
 
 She woke with a great start. The lantern had 
 gone out and in the darkness she was at first be- 
 wildered and could not recaU her anxiety. She 
 cried out as it came back to her and rising she 
 threw a ' urnous about her and puUed back the 
 curtains. 
 
 Over the sea the morning was breaking and the 
 ship was uneasily swinging at anchor. A group of 
 men were on the shore busy with its boats. She 
 felt the rhythm of a step creeping back and forth 
 below the window where she stood. Softly she 
 stole to the house door and opened it. 
 
 Robert stood akme outside. Even when he saw 
 her he did not go toward her but stoyed where he 
 was two paces away. The first rays of the sun 
 were touching him as he stood bareheaded and his 
 very hair had the upward toss of strei^h in it. 
 Though he was past thirty in years, youth had 
 never been more emphasized in him than now in 
 the trying early light which exposed no blemish 
 
A Tempest 163 
 
 nor haggardness in the skin, no droop in the strong 
 figure; yet in the eyes was the look of one whose 
 spirit is weary unto death. 
 
 Susie held out both arms to him with a little cry 
 of gladness and relief. 
 
 " Wait," he said.. " I gave the order to board 
 that ship." 
 
 A shadow appeared to start from within her eyes 
 and to settle beneath them when he had spoken, 
 and she swayed backward from him, but only as it 
 afterward seemed so as to make the impulse for- 
 ward of tenderness and outstretched arms the 
 greater as she leaned toward him again. 
 
 "Poor love," she answered. "How you have 
 suffered for itl " 
 
 A- moment later as they went down the room 
 together he wrenched himself suddenly free from 
 her and walked alone in advance. 
 
 " That's not the worst of it," he said shortly. 
 
 "Don't tell me yet," Su«e replied, following 
 quietly behind him. 
 
 Ft was indeed late in the day, after he had 
 been refreshed with bath and food, and when 
 the excited crew, among whom he passed several 
 more dangerous hours than she ever knew, had for 
 the most part become passive either from exhaus- 
 tion or thrtH^ the potency of Bordeaux wine 
 drunk in cans from a broken cask, that Temple 
 slept soundly for an hour. Then he tdd her, 
 helped on by her questions, for his powm d 
 
i64 The Sea-Faren 
 
 cominuoiis narrative were of the slightest, the 
 story of the night. 
 McCoy had been at the wheel After dark they 
 
 saw the lights of a merchantman. The converging 
 courses of the vessels soon brought them nearly side 
 by side. The stranger was not moving at full speed. 
 The Maybird carried no light; it was not her cus- 
 tom nor was it unusual at that time. One murky 
 lantern was hanging to the mast, and when the 
 storm came on, the St. Elmo's Fire glowed like a 
 misty star at the ends of the yards. The lightning 
 running along behind the merchantman showed her 
 mass and how near she was coming. 
 
 " I was leaning on the rail watching her. 1 heard 
 breathing close behind me. It was Matteo. He 
 had a grappling hook in his hand. He was puffing 
 for breath and his eyes were bright as fire. At his 
 back were the rest of the gang, all with hooks and 
 all looking at me. McCoy steered us close to her 
 side. I heard her helmsman yell to us. Somebody 
 jerked our lantern down. We grated her side. 1 
 said 'Let gol AU together!' They cast like one 
 man. The hooks caught We were over the rail- 
 on her deck What's the use talking about it! ' 
 
 "What next?" 
 
 "A fellow fired at us and hollered 'Come on!' 
 in English. Rickety voice. I thought he was 
 scared but he wasn't. O Brien knocked him over 
 with his pistol; only stunned him. Three Jacks 
 behind him fired and stumbled backward down t|ie 
 
aiiin stafafs. They looked white, like corpses. 
 Our feUows were making such a noise I strained 
 my throMt ydling at them." 
 
 "WasDelafvignetbefe?" 
 
 " He came up from tbt cabin and I asked him if 
 there was a plague on board. They were all sick; 
 i could see that. 1 couldn't hear him answer. It 
 was thundering and lightning like a thousand 
 devils. Our men were hoisting bales and caslcs to 
 our deck by a pulley." 
 
 " And you ? " 
 
 "I went down to the forecastle. I couldn't see 
 much; the lantern was black with smoke. I made 
 out two feUows in bunks, face down. Somebody 
 from the far end said, ' Robert! Robert Temple! ' " 
 
 "What!" 
 
 " Just that. 1 tokl you there was worse " 
 
 "O, go on!" 
 
 " I went up to him. He was leaning on one arm, 
 staring at me. He looked like an old tree covered 
 with snow. One of the other fellows turned over 
 then and looked up at me. I knew him. Name 
 was Jacob Minns." 
 
 "Yes. Yes." 
 
 " 'Roboft Temple.' the «ld one says agiifl, and I 
 asked hfait, 'Who are yotfT He didnt tefl, only 
 kept mumbling 'His father's sMp, father's sMp, 
 father's ship,' till ! told him to shut up. I asked 
 him was he Peter Dane, and he said, 'TliaC'sn^ 
 name.' When 1 wasa boy be " 
 
i66 The Sca-Farere 
 
 "O, Robert! Robert! " 
 
 "Yes, I know. What's the use? The thing's 
 done." 
 
 " He will never forgive it Of aU the ships that 
 
 sail " 
 
 "Yes, yes. McCoy swore of course that it was 
 Portuguese. Dad never iiad a barque called the 
 fl^kt. How was 1 to know ? You would hear 
 it." 
 
 "I must know it if you must. He has never 
 forgiven anything that imde bim wicomfortable for 
 an hour. What is to come of this? Wim is to 
 come ? " 
 
 "O, he'll come round. ri send the casks back. 
 
 He needs stiff measures when you've no time to 
 argue with him, but he im't Ihe wwst fdlow to 
 deal with, dad isn't." 
 "What else.?" 
 
 " ' What ails your crew ?' 1 asked Peter, and he 
 said 'poisoned, last night.' 'Who.?' and he said 
 'Debvipie.' Planned it with McCoy, you see. 
 T«efc one ef the koflto and played off beinc 
 adrift' 
 
 " Where isle?" 
 
 ' Shot through the shoyMor ami th%h." 
 
 "Killed?- 
 
 "No. / haven't dealt with Mm." 
 
 " Then it wasn't you ? " 
 
 "Who shot him? No, the captain, the fellow 
 O'Brien stunned, pulled himself together and fired. 
 
A Tempest 167 
 
 Delavigne laughed all the way to our deck and then 
 fell on his face." 
 "And then?" 
 
 "That's alL 1 meant to send the cargo back. 
 Their fellows made a stand at the hold but it was no 
 use. The gold was there, and our men knew it I 
 
 covered the gangway. Six of our men mutinied, 
 but 1 managed them somehow. We hoisted one 
 cask to pitch it back, but the ships had parted. 
 Somebody had cut the ropes." 
 
 " Then you did nothing." 
 
 "I put McCoy in irons with my own hands." 
 
 • ' I dread the man f Dread him I " 
 
 "Pouf! He's a human being. Delavigne isn't." 
 
 " Peter Dane ? ' 
 
 " Dead, ft mmt have been while I was carrying 
 him to our deck; he was too ll^vy to have been 
 
 alive." 
 
 " Did you tell him you did not know what ah^ it 
 was ? That you did not send Delavigne ? " 
 
 "Yes, I said something about it as we Wint. 
 But that was like ail the rest." 
 
XI 
 
 mUNO 
 
 Delavigne lived. His wound stretched his help- 
 less body on his bed. b\A his shallow, malignant 
 eyes watched day after day the raindrops gather 
 
 and fall in a corner where they had gained an 
 entrance through the roof of his hut. He first 
 muttered and then railed at their remorseless 
 rhythm until he screamed in his high-pitched fury, 
 reached for his cane and madly flung it at the 
 glistening spot. This was after an inflammation 
 and fever had set in, during which Mother Graham 
 nursed him faithfully but without unction. 
 
 *'Ye're frettin' lest he'U dee, mebbe," she sug- 
 gested to Robert with one of her short laughs. 
 " Dinna grieve, mon. A'll hae him ready in his 
 war paint for ye. Trust auld Tibbie." 
 
 McCoy wore his irons three silent days, then he 
 asked to see the captain, asserted that the poison- 
 ing was done without his consent or connivance, 
 and that he mistook the barque for one he knew, 
 American-built, but sold ten years before to a 
 Portuguese firm; a ship on whose deck he had been 
 felled with a blow, the scar of which he still wore 
 on hki forehead. Mother Graham heard tl^ story 
 frwn Ten^ with hooting and butter, bttt 
 
Spring ,69 
 
 Robert, who always insisted that McG>y was no 
 worse than a sullen boor, released him. 
 
 "His e'e is black," she said scowling when told 
 that he was free. "A" ken an' e'e, an' yons black. 
 Twas an uncanny e'e forty year syne when it coom 
 frae Lord, or deil, rn' the carle's been rubbin' on 
 the dell's ain polish tae it till it s noo nobbut a fear- 
 some gem o' wickedness. Aye, aye I Gae yer ain 
 gait, ye stubborn fule I" 
 
 But the days went and McCoy seemed to do 
 nothing to justify her harsh opinion. He fished 
 alone or with Matteo, between whom and himself 
 there seemed always to be a loose bond of sympathy, 
 and when he had been drinking he made awkward 
 love to the peasant women and bragged of his 
 Scotch ancestry and connections as of old. 
 
 The cargo of the unfortunate American barque, 
 with the exception of three casks which were not 
 intact, was deposited by Robert's orders in a place 
 by itself and whUe there was wine to drink and 
 Delavigne was too ill to attend to its disposal, the 
 crew had made no objection. 
 
 The only change apparent in the picture of the 
 camp was a deepening of the shadows. Attacks 
 upon the villagers became more open, gambling 
 more reckless, quarrels more violent, the marks of 
 dissipation and gloom more evident in the faces, 
 while the careless glances of the authorities were 
 sharpening into espionage. 
 Meanwhile spring crept over limestone and marl 
 
170 The Sea-Faren 
 
 in Latnpedusa as universally as the wind unseen 
 stirred every leaf. A sense of movement, like an 
 inherent soul, was everywhere. The peasants 
 sowed fennel in patches of ground left bare when 
 they had pulled up the green barley for fodder a 
 month before; then dragged the harrow over the 
 same small spaces, which lay between fields where 
 wheat was flourishing, or where the crimson-topped 
 clover was nearly ready to bloom. 
 
 Although the February morning of the Feast of 
 St. Agatha, the patron saint of Sicily, was as warm 
 as summer there was the lift of spring in the fresh, 
 hot air. Susie who was interested in any show 
 however meagre, started early with Venus in time 
 to choose a quiet place near the old grotto chapel 
 to which the image was to be borne as a guest, 
 since it dwelt of late in the fine new church upon 
 the strip of land stretching out into the harbor. 
 Mother Graham accompanied them to the entrance 
 of the narrow path leading upward from the beach. 
 
 "Was the drowned lady dark or fair? 1 never 
 asked you that," Susie said, pausing at the leave- 
 taking of the old woman and glancing toward a 
 cross near by made of two rough fragments of 
 timber bound together. 
 
 " Black-browed, so they tell me," replied that es- 
 timable person, but the instant Susie turned away 
 the hag seized Venus's arm, in quick pantomime 
 touched the third finger of her left hand, jerking 
 the thumb first toward the wooden symbol, then 
 
Spring 17, 
 
 toward the young climbing figure. The loud breath 
 which the negress drew seemed to reward her en- 
 tertainer. 
 
 Susie stopped often to rest in the ascent. Myrtle 
 and bramble encrcMched upon the path, ivy swung 
 from tree to tree. '* There's the chapel," she gasped 
 at last, leaning against an old fig-tree at the end of 
 the dim path. It was in truth a cave, the largest 
 among the many upon the island. Sumach and 
 bramble had stepped aside at its low door to give a 
 clear space for myrtle and roses. There were in- 
 deed little plants in Lampedusa which had retreated 
 as far as they could from the sumach and bramble, 
 descendants they of the wild bloom and leaf that 
 had rioted there once before human eyes had stared 
 at them. Susie had found them hiding away in se- 
 cret places, shrinking snuOler and smaller every 
 spring as they cowered before the triumphant 
 growths that had followed in the footsteps of man, 
 able to bear his gaze, his presence, his ruthless vio- 
 lence, and yet live. 
 
 "Some say that this is Prosperous cell," Susie 
 said, after she had regained her breath. 
 
 "Prospo. Yes, honey, mammy knows all dat," 
 replied Venus, who did not know but whose nature 
 recoiled from instruction. 
 
 "Where Ferdinand and Miranda played at 
 chess, " 
 
 " Sho! Yes, yet. ' 
 
 " And where the two fathos weie reeenciieA.'* 
 
Thr Sea-Farers 
 
 " Reckon so. O, yes, yes, so dey was. Reckon 
 so. 
 
 Down in the gaudy new chapel at the harbor 
 mass was now being celebrated; lanterns were 
 hanging above tlM roadway near by ready to be 
 lighted in the evening; Catherine wiweb and rock- 
 ets were waiting to brighten the moonless night in 
 honor of her to whom most of the Sicilian prayers 
 ascended. But about this ancient place of worship, 
 which Nature herself had built, all was still as yet. 
 
 Susie walked softly to the open door, hesitated, 
 and then entered. On one side, against the wall 
 of limestone rock, was erected a meagre little altar 
 of the Christian church. In the lump of stone rest- 
 ing upon it might be traced the faint resemblance 
 to a woman and child. Small hearts of wood, of 
 wax, ol shell, miniature boats, locks of black hair, 
 were suspended from this image or grouped about 
 it. Discolored and almost unrealizable under dust 
 and mould were these symbols of forgotten grati- 
 tude and outgrown prayers. On the opposite side 
 of the cave, facing the east, was stretched the 
 prayer-rug of the Mohammedans. If this were in 
 very truth the poor cell of the magicia:-, a greater 
 reconciliation still had taken place within it where 
 the two young faiths of the world knelt side by side. 
 
 When Susie came out she stood looking about 
 her a moment as though slowly realizing her sur- 
 roundings, then crossed the open space before the 
 chapd door and sat herself down at the foot of a 
 
Spring ,73 
 
 fig-tree. Venus, who had waited for her out in the 
 sun, followed her to the spot she had selected and 
 lowered herself heavily to the ground, apparently 
 ufinotked. Qom to Susie's hand lay a dead beetle 
 on its back, its stiff, helpless legs uplifted. Slowly 
 scraping at the hard earth with a bit of twig she 
 hollowed a shallow grave in which she laid the 
 early victim of mischance and covered him with dust 
 As she brushed away a morsel of earth which had 
 fallen upon her sleeve, the black, averted face be- 
 side her seemed to rouse her consciousness of an- 
 other presence. 
 
 What sort of dress does Barbara wear in these 
 days, mammy ? " she asked. " 1 did not see her." 
 
 "Sweet purty. Blue. Sweet purty, an' de 
 rufHes done go roun' an' roun', up to de waist 
 Dat am hibly/' asserted Venus with a touch of ag- 
 gressiveness. 
 
 "Ruffles!" exclaimed Susie, In some dismay. 
 "And all up the skirt! O, it's no use. I couldn't 
 manage ruffles. I made this myself, and I put a 
 sort of fold on the bottom of it," she added, kick- 
 ing the edge of her skirt lightly and contemptu- 
 ously with her foot, " but it isn't much." 
 " Reckon it'll do fur common," admitted Venus. 
 " Reckon it will," echoed Susie. " What makes 
 my father's hair look so queer?" she demanded 
 suddenly. 
 
 " Reckon it's cos o' <te ways him chile done treat 
 him," replied mammy, dryly. 
 
MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART 
 
 (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 
 
 ^ /APPLIED IN/HGE Inc 
 
 1653 EqsI Mom Street 
 ~— Rochester, Ne» York 14609 USA 
 (716) 482 - 0300 - Photw 
 (716) 288 - 5989 - Fo» 
 
174 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 "No!" cried Susie, sharply. "Nobody's hair 
 ever turned white from feeling bad but Marie An- 
 toinette's, and it took the French Revolution to do 
 that." She clasped her hands tightly on her knee. 
 " 1 promised not to let them see me. I gave my 
 word to come back. He said he would tell his 
 father the fine wasn't for anything bad, but he 
 wouldn't listen to him. Everything went wrong 
 and here we are. Mammy "—with a swift change 
 of tone,—" I have been up and down the stairs at 
 home. 1 saw them but they didn't see me, and 
 they've put up a white stone for me. I'm counted 
 out in the family, so you can't ever say again that 
 you never saw a ghost, mammy. I'm one. " 
 
 "Don't talk dat!" exclaimed Venus, starting 
 away from her. " What yo' pa say to youse talkin' 
 in dem dare wicked ways! " 
 
 " I like to scare you, mammy. 1 like to see you 
 shake and your head wobble. Fat people are ten 
 times as much fun as thin ones when they're fright- 
 ened. There ! Listen, the band's coming." 
 
 Drums and fifes were drawing near and nearer; 
 soon young voices mingled with them. Then a 
 vanguard of children darted out of the twilight of 
 the path into the sunny open, many of them clad 
 only in their one garment of tow cloth. The band 
 behind them advanced proudly at the head of a 
 poor but gay little show. Drums were over- 
 zealous in the music. Behind the players walked 
 two little boys in tattered red cassocks, throwing 
 
Spring 175 
 
 rose petals right and left as they went. After them 
 followed a man, also in red, sturdily lifting a huge 
 brass crucifix. Behind him strode the priest, and 
 close at his heels, borne by two red-robed, shabby 
 acolytes, was the stand upon which rested the im- 
 age of St. Agatha, decked in tinsel and ribbons, her 
 hair freshly powdered. Lastly came the men and 
 boys who had chanted the service just ended in the 
 chapel below, their grimy scarlet and white vest- 
 ments swinging as they passed, their hands filled 
 with the pomegranate flowers of peace and the roses 
 of love. Behind them fell in the disorderly mass of 
 the people— men, women and children, scrambling 
 for the rose petals, their clothing mingling into a 
 kaleidoscopic mass of colors as they moved. The 
 drums seemed to be beating upon their hearts. 
 
 The forward part of the procession with the im- 
 age passed into the cave. Some of those left out- 
 side knelt a moment, then flung themselves upon 
 the grass, gesticulating, chattering, arranging for 
 their gambling in groups. Half hidden by a rose- 
 tree Susie silently watched them. Money seemed 
 scarce with them all. Some of the men risked 
 small coins, but the women and children used beans 
 or buttons, or even bits of macaroni. Venders of 
 sweets and pasteboard saints vainly thrust their 
 wares under the players' eyes, and children nearly 
 smothered by the flowers they carried, lingered 
 about the assemblage with gentle insistence in their 
 dark eyes. They soon found the two heretics from 
 
176 The Sca-Farers 
 
 a far country sitting apart from the activities of the 
 morring, and Susie was their best customer. She 
 was soon crowded by a ring of bloom and small 
 faces. A musician near by began to play for her 
 pleasure upon two pipes inserted in an inflated dog's 
 skin from which the head and paws of the animal 
 stood stiffly out Judging by the sounds which 
 were produced, it would have seemed the poor 
 beast still retained all his old faculties except the 
 powers of retaliation and retreat. 
 
 " There is nothing more," said Susie, and rose to 
 her feet, but seeing her companion still engrossed 
 in the scene she waited a moment before making 
 the move to go. As she stood she herself became 
 absorbed in watching a young woman who was 
 corning toward them with a baby in her arms. 
 She was one of the peasants who had followed the 
 procession. 
 
 "Neber see de like o' dem head rigs since I got 
 sense," muttered Venus as the Italian came quite 
 close to them. 
 
 Her dark eyes were fixed on Susie in admiring 
 wonder. She looked like a mere girl as she ad- 
 vanced, but when Susie made an involuntary ges- 
 ture for her to pause, there was no doubt about the 
 relationship she held to the child in her arms. The 
 unmistakable something that means motherhood in 
 the youngrat face was there. She was tall and 
 strong as though she had come from the mountains, 
 her dress neat but poor and her gentle eyes looked 
 
Spring 177 
 
 questioningly at the stranger who had stopped her. 
 Susie asked some trivial question about the fete day 
 and the Sicilian smiled as she answered that St. 
 Agatha would visit Our Lady at the old chapel for 
 two hours. The baby with eyes like its mother 
 noticed nothing but the string of branching coral 
 about the strange lady's neck, and he beat ineffect- 
 ively with a fat fist against his mother's arm. 
 Susie lingered, asking one question after another 
 the answers to which she knew already. Venus 
 condescendingly looked on. The Sicilian, hold- 
 ing herself in pleased readiness to say or do any- 
 thing the lady wished, seemed puzzled as Susie 
 stood full in her path with hesitating words and 
 eyes that wandered from the child to the mother. 
 
 " Mammy," she said at last in English, " walk on 
 without me. I will follow." 
 
 "Cahn' nohow. Mahsa am dat partider. Dere 
 ain' no hurry on me, I reckon." 
 
 "Go on! " cried Susie, with a littic break in her 
 voice, "go on!" 
 
 After one look of lofty stupefaction Venus turned 
 with a grand motion and walked away. 
 
 "How old is he? " Susie asked when she had 
 gone. 
 
 "Four months and twenty-one days, signora. 
 Toni, let the beautiful eyes of the lady see you clap 
 your hands." 
 
 But the baby with unwinking gaze fixed on the 
 coral looked as if he pondered many things. 
 
178 The Sca-Farers 
 
 "He never will," the mother said in smiling 
 apology. " You must forgive him, signora." 
 
 Susie reached out one finger and stroked the little 
 hand nearest her, timidly and softly. 
 
 "Would you like to hold him, signora," volun- 
 teered the Sicilian. " He will not cry." 
 
 •*0, no," said Susie quickly. 
 
 She drew back her fmger, but from two steps 
 away made a close study of the bare head and 
 small round face. 
 
 " Do they cry much ?" she asked. 
 
 •'Some do. O, my sister's, how it cries! All 
 night. Her husband wishes 't dead. But Toni 
 sleeps till five in the morning now, the Blessed 
 Virgin be praised. Is your husband good to you, 
 signora ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Susie. 
 
 " I am glad. My Beppo is very good to me when 
 he wins. See what he gave me." 
 
 From her bodice she pulled a tinsci locket held 
 by a brass chain, and showed how it would open 
 
 and vlose. 
 
 "1 pray eveiy day to the Blessed Virgin that he 
 may win at cards," she added. "We are always 
 laughing when he is lucky, and it is hard to play 
 nearly all night and then lose." 
 
 "Do they die if you are not very careful?" in- 
 quired Susie with eyes on the child. 
 
 "O, no. they grow, like him. He is not much 
 trouble. He is never ill even for his teeth. He has 
 
Spring ,79 
 
 two, see. " She parted his lips to show them. "I 
 pray Our Lady that his back may be strong. Bep- 
 po's is a little weak so he cannot work in the fields 
 like me. And I prayed that his hair may curl. See, 
 I think the Blessed Virgin has answered." 
 
 She turned the child about to show loose rings 
 of fine hair just above the neck. " It was not so 
 when he was bom," she added triumphantly. 
 
 When the baby was in his old position on her 
 arm she asked with a touch of doubt in her smile, 
 " The signora prays to Our Lady of Mercy ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "O, do, do. signora ! She hears every word. I 
 want something for Toni now and 1 ask on my 
 knees every night and morning." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "O, I must not say, signora," the young wife 
 said, with sudden shyness. 
 
 "Are you sure he would not cry if I took him 
 just one moment ? " asked Susie abruptly. 
 
 "He will not. O, no! See, but it is better to 
 hold him so," and she laid the child in the stran- 
 ger's arms. "Now laugh a little Toni, sweetest 
 dove! Show the pretty lady how you smile! 
 Come!" But the child only clutched at the coral 
 with grave energy. 
 
 Susie slowly and timidly drew him nearer to her. 
 bent her cheek against the warm bare head and 
 closed her fingers about the small hand that was 
 free. The Sicilian made encouraging but unintel- 
 
i8o The Sea-Farers 
 
 ligible sounds to him meanwhile, chatted about her 
 sister, her husband, her work, but she stopped short 
 when Susie lifted her eyes from the child's face. 
 The indescribable look of one moving forward into 
 a great mystery was in them and it awed the simple 
 soul before her. The peasants of all ages ' ive not 
 understood the whole of what they saw theirs 
 has ever been the outward vision that ur jiisciously 
 observes. 
 
 The boy made a little impatient cry for his play- 
 thing as Susie gave him back and she stooped, took 
 one of his chubby feet in her hand and kissed it. 
 Then she loosened the string of coral and put it 
 about his neck. 
 
 "O, but the signora ought notl" exclaimed the 
 Sicilian breathlessly. "It gives health and happi- 
 ness to a child. The beautiful and gracious lady 
 will need it for her own." 
 
 " 1 have another," Susie said. 
 
 "O, then all is good!" cried the other, her face 
 beaming with pleasure. "Our Lady be praised 1 
 Did 1 not tell you that she heard? It was for a 
 string of coral to put on his neck that 1 prayed 
 night and day. And see how it comes, more beau- 
 tiful than when I dreamed of it! " 
 
 "I am glad. Good-bye." 
 
 "The Blessed Virgin and all the saints give you 
 joy ! Felice notte ! " 
 
 " Happy night, " echoed Susie and turned on her 
 way. 
 
Spring i8i 
 
 5'ie found mammy at a short distance, her back 
 and shoulders rigid with hurt pride ; and yet her 
 great black face was curiously picturesque since she 
 had come to live on Lampedusa, due to some har- 
 mony of environment, as though she had been a 
 statue of Africa which had been hoisted into the 
 right position. 
 
 Missy slipped her hand under the fat, unyielding 
 arm and leaned her face against it as they walked on. 
 There was a little catch in the soft monotony of her 
 voice and she said very few words, but Venus uttered 
 such a sound as an animal makes to its young and 
 turned upon her with a gesture which signified she 
 would take her up in her arms as if she were a child 
 again. With uncouth ejaculations, explosive and ten- 
 der, she was her old self now that this silence which 
 had seemed to her alienation was broken at last 
 
 When the bon i r v> ,a ^ flaring in the evening and 
 the musketry s . .7 .racking at intervals, when 
 the non-resonant iittle bells were jangling, the 
 lanterns lighted across the roadway and the whole 
 population of Lampedusa gathered at the harbor, 
 Robert and Susie were at home. The captain had 
 made his round of the camp, seen that the guards 
 were on duty and then walked to the scene of fes- 
 tivity, recognizing some of his men at each of its 
 noisiest centres, for the bonds laid upon them by 
 his predecessor had snapped one by one and the 
 crew mingled with the Sicilians to their mutual di&> 
 advantage. 
 
l82 
 
 The Sea-Farcre 
 
 Anchored at the harbor on the point lay huddled 
 a few light craft, and as if at the beck of this petty 
 commerce, castle and bastion, storehouse, even 
 chapel, elbowed each other upon the headland 
 above them. This cape, now seemingly dedicated 
 to religion and the arts of peace, had entertained 
 quite different visitors. Plague-smitten ships, 
 driven by storms without and horrors within, 
 shut out from port after port, long ago took their 
 terrible presence to this lonely island, and when 
 they sailed again most of its inhabitants were 
 dead. 
 
 On his way back he detected Mother Graham 
 moving like a ferret through the dark, just starting 
 on one of her nocturnal prowls. 
 
 " He'll put in a sair nicht," she said, when he 
 stopped her and they spoke of her detnted patient, 
 " or else mebbe he's shammin'. A'll ken aboot two 
 o' the clock, an' so it's ain o' his curst tricks a'll 
 gie him it!" she added viciously. She peered up 
 at the tall figure before her. " Get oot," she said 
 sharply, "get oot o' this pest hole! Ye're decent 
 fouk. Tak her hame." 
 
 " I can't," answered Robert shortly. 
 
 "What ha' ye doon ower yon ?" she inquired as 
 sharply as before. • • Oot wi't I " 
 
 Robert for answer gave an impatient shrug and 
 pushed past her, but the old woman with incredible 
 quickness intercepted him. 
 
 " Ha' ye killt a mon ? " she asked relentlessly. 
 
Spring 
 
 183 
 
 It's 
 
 " I thought I had," replied Robert sullenly, 
 none of your business." 
 
 "O, yes, O, yes! It's nane o' me beesness! An' 
 ye ll kill her, too, will ye ? Ye ha' nobbut a puir, 
 silly auld body for freend, an' it's no her beesness 
 hoo ye fare! " replied Mother Graham with intense 
 bitterness. 
 
 Robert was striding on but he stopped. 
 " He didn't stir," he said with surly reluctance. 
 " I had good cause. I left on a ship." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 ' ' Four years ago. 1 went back once. You know 
 that." 
 "What did ye find?" 
 "He was dead." 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " Not then. Three months after I struck him." 
 
 " Gae hame, then, like a mon, ye dour loon! " 
 
 "His brother heard 1 was there. 1 would have 
 fought him out in the air, and six more like 
 him." 
 
 "Wal.?" 
 
 "But he had a warrant of arrest." 
 
 " So ye ran awa', did ye ? " 
 
 " Whatever you call it! " he exclaimed with a fret- 
 ful impatience that was like his father. " I wanted 
 her and I could not breathe in a jail." 
 
 His companion said nothing. 
 
 " A cell! " he continued in the same tone, " black, 
 barred, close! A man could not live, " 
 
i84 
 
 The Sea-Farera 
 
 " O, aye, hoois! A body can live in em. A've 
 
 doon it." 
 
 " I will not! 1 am not afraid of death or of men, 
 or of beasts. Butajaill A jail!" 
 
 He strode on at full speed. Mother Graham ran 
 at his side. 
 
 " Risk it, mon! " she urged breathlessly. 
 
 "No! No!" 
 
 "She mustna bide a month more here!" she ex- 
 claimed, gasping for breath with the speed. " She 
 
 will dee!" 
 
 "1 am in a trap!" he cried savagely, stopping 
 short, flinging both arms out as though to break 
 the mahtfS of a net. The old woman sprang back 
 to avoid the reckless force of the movement and 
 when she had recovered herself he was out of 
 sight 
 
 His last gesture was characteristic of himself. 
 Another's point of view, his victim's side of the 
 question except in certain matters of the simplest 
 justice, had never troubled his mind. The ques- 
 tions Is it right ? Is it best ? had seldom in his life 
 weakened the native vigor and impulse of his will. 
 In his vague anxieties about Susie and in his misdi- 
 rected energies as a leader he found himself racked 
 with tortures of late such as he had never known 
 before atid which he fiercely resented. 
 
 When he went into the house he found Susie in 
 the fragrant gloom of the room. A fire of char- 
 coals burning in the brazier at the centre of the 
 
Spring 
 
 «85 
 
 floor and a ship's lantern hanging on the wall were 
 the only lights. It was very still there after the din 
 of the Je&ta, and the scene he had just passed 
 through had left on his brain the effect of noise. 
 Susie met him at the door and when he had flung 
 his cap across the room in a way which had be- 
 come his habit he tramped quickly up and down 
 the room for some Ume. The night wind on his 
 forehead and the haste at which he had stalked 
 through the darkness since he left Mother Graham 
 had partially quieted him but he stiU felt a repug- 
 nance to enter upon other subjects. Susie stood 
 looking at him a few minutes as he passed and re- 
 passed her, then she sat down under the dingy 
 lantern and waited. She had not spoken a 
 word. 
 
 Contrary to what might have been expected from 
 a frame so large, no place in which Temple was 
 ever seemed smaU because of him. Something in 
 his long, free stride, in his uplifted head, or, quite 
 possibly, something less easy to define, caused . 
 impression of confinement or of size in his sur- 
 roundings to be forgotten in connection with him. 
 The captain carried his spaces with him. 
 
 No sound but the distant firing of guns came 
 from without Robert suddenly stopped before 
 his wife, lifted her in his arms and sitting in her 
 old place held her on his knee. She hdd her head 
 against his shoulder as she often did when they sat 
 and talked together. 
 
i86 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 "They're a crowd of jolly beggars down there," 
 he said, with an effort to throw aside the insistent 
 memory of Mother Graham's meddling. "Every- 
 body out who isn't in his grave. I saw a 
 fellow sitting on a boat reciting some gibberish, a 
 battle-piece 1 should say, to a lot of old hulks and 
 cripples who couldn't dance." 
 
 "Orlando Furioso," murmured Susie, without 
 raising her head. "1 heard him once. Be- 
 loved " 
 
 "Yes, pussy." 
 
 "When the little boy comes where shall we 
 live?" 
 
 Robert stirred as though he would have risen, 
 but relaxed and was silent. She had never spoken 
 of this voluntarily before, impatiently or perhaps 
 with a thrill of fear, keeping her thoughts to her- 
 self, "Not here," she added, seeing he did not 
 answer. 
 
 " No," said Robert promptly. "No. Not here." 
 
 "He will have to be educated, won't he?" she 
 went on taking a long breath. "And yet you 
 must live where you are free. I can't see anything 
 for us to do." 
 
 "Freel" exclaimed Robert with a loud, sharp 
 sigh, " I expect to be always crazed in a cage as I 
 am now! " 
 
 "O, 1 wonder you haven't left me long ago!" 
 He strained her suddenly close to him. 
 "I'm a brute!" he said. 
 
Spring 
 
 187 
 
 "I wonder if there is such a thing as freedom," 
 she began after a pause. 
 
 "I've never found it," answered Robert with 
 another impatient sigh. 
 
 "A man with wife and children Isn't free, " pro- 
 ceeded Susie, " and a man who cares for right and 
 wrong, like you, isn't free." 
 
 Robert gave a short laugh. "I haven't much to 
 do with wrongs and rights. I just live," he said. 
 
 "I should think a person would have to be 
 utterly selfish to be free in these days. And per- 
 haps he would get into some chains even through 
 his selfishness. Shouldn't you think so?" Susie 
 asked after a moment. 
 
 " O, how do I knowl I thought I was going to 
 be free when I was captain. Tnat's why I stayed 
 here. But look at it! I'm nigger for every rickety 
 jail-bird here. There may be nothing better for us 
 but at least let's leave this! " 
 "There is something better." 
 "What is that?" 
 
 She was sitting upright and she laid both hands 
 on his shoulders. We needn't be thieves." 
 
 His muscles stifTened under her fingers. 
 
 "You won't understand!" he exclaimed, jerking 
 his head angrily back. Can t you see a plain fact 
 when it's put to you? I've explained It often 
 enough. It's a fair fight, I tell you again! Except 
 that last cursed affair it's been hard work. We 
 must live. Everything we need is owned by some- 
 
i88 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 body. We all fight and the strongest takes what 
 there is. It's natural. The world's made so. Why 
 can't you see ? " 
 
 "Alden's work is hard and dangerous, but 
 it's " 
 
 She stopped as she saw the look that came into 
 Robert's face at the mention of Alden's name. 
 Alden had never wronged him and Robert had a 
 certain sense of justice which acknowledged that. 
 His feeling was not defined to himself. It was the 
 instinctive shrinking of the savage before the 
 civilized man. Alden's mental construction was 
 an ofTence, a restless cause of dislike, to this man 
 between whose nature and his own were countless 
 aeons of time. He could not breathe in its com- 
 pany. Susie dimly understood how it was. She 
 slipped both hands from his shoulders and clasped 
 them behind his neck. 
 
 "Dear, I can't say what hurts you," she said. 
 " We mustn't hurt each other. We agree we will 
 go away from this place. It shall be where you 
 will. My home is only where you are. We will 
 live in the woods in America somewhere. You 
 shall hunt and fish, and 1 will teach the little boy 
 what I can. Mother taught me until I was seven, 
 and I learned quicker with her than at schod. I 
 might try it. Don't you think so ? " 
 
 " You've read everything worth reading I should 
 think," said Robert. 
 
 "O, 1 don't believe quite that," replied Susie, 
 
Spring 189 
 
 modestly. " I wonder if he will hate school as we 
 did?" 
 "O, yes," said Robert. 
 
 " I knew all the parables when I was seven," 
 Susie added. 
 "Parables?" 
 
 "Yes, the house on the sand and the prodigal 
 
 son " 
 
 " O, is that one ? " 
 
 " When I was lying awake last night I tried to 
 remember that psalm about the shepherd and the 
 pastures and the other one about the water brooks. 
 I found I knew every word. They're pretty for 
 children to recite on Sunday afternoons. I used to 
 wear my blue shoes when I said them." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I'm afraid he'll ask me questions I can't answer. 
 What should 1 do then ? 1 don't know the answers 
 to ever so many things myself," 
 
 Robert made no reply, the subject having passed 
 the bounds of his exact knowledge. 
 
 "Shall it be in the west, dear?" Susie asked 
 after a pause. 
 
 "You ought to be in a town somewhere," began 
 Robert, slowly. " I know that. If I must live my 
 sort of life It ought to have been alone. It's not 
 fair." 
 
 " Yes, it is ! We are alike. We both belong out 
 
 of doors. But the child " 
 
 "Not for any child! If I stifle my lungs and 
 
190 The Sea-Farers 
 
 starve my muscles, mince and truckle and lie in 
 what's called Christian civilization, I do it to be just 
 to you, understand that, and for nothing else. Per- 
 haps dad would give me something like a man's 
 work to do about the wharves or ships if I'm not 
 in Whatever comes you shall go home." 
 
 Susie laid her head back on his shoulder. " If it 
 is all for me," she said, "may I say what it shall 
 be?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 *' Then I choose the woods, dear heart." 
 
XII 
 
 CLOUDS AND NIGHT 
 
 McCoy was in an evil mood next morning, It 
 
 was nearly noon when he dragged himself from his 
 
 bed fully dressed as he had been the day before. 
 
 While he searched for his cap among the piles of 
 
 niibish in his hut, kicking everything right and left 
 
 and swearing at his luck, one of the men pushed 
 
 aside the sailcloth hanging across his door and 
 
 stepped in without ceremony after the habit of the 
 
 Maybird's crew. The visitor was received with so 
 
 tierce a volley of anathema from the man who had 
 
 been over-genial with him the night before that he 
 
 flung a letter across the floor and left without a 
 
 word, feeling light-headed and indisposed to 
 
 quarrel on so hot a morning. McCoy pursued 
 
 him to the door with expressions whose variety 
 
 could not keep pace with their vigor, and when the 
 
 man was out of hearing the Scotchman still mouthed 
 
 abuse of him as he clumsily stooped to pick up the 
 
 letter lying with its large black seal uppermost 
 
 Heavily seating himself upon a cask he shattered 
 
 the seal and tore the sheet half across in opening it. 
 
 After he had read it he sat arms on knees, head and 
 
 shoulders hanging, for some time When he rose, 
 
 straightened and shook himself his f. ce had 
 
 191 
 
192 The Sea-Farers 
 
 changed; a glitter had come into the dull eyes, a 
 copper-colored flush into the dingy cheek and a 
 look of relief was mingled with an elation which 
 was not noble. He made no pretense of breakfast- 
 ing, but when he had found his cap among the 
 coverings of his bed he sidled out of his door and 
 hurried behind the hut to avoid the notice of a 
 group of idlers near by, skirted the cove in the 
 shadow of its cliff wall and shambled on toward 
 the harbor. 
 
 He hung about the barracks until the sentry 
 asked his business, when he advanced and with 
 his surly bluster said he would see the command- 
 ant. He would give no explanation of his message 
 
 in reply to the sharp questions of the soldier except 
 that it was important and immediate. He was re- 
 luctantly allowed to pass. 
 
 When he returned to the camp an hour later he 
 had evidently supplied the need of food by some- 
 thing other than bread, for his high-pitched boast- 
 fulness had reached its limit Hardly had he arrived 
 before every man an^ woman in the settlement 
 knew that his uncle was dead and that he was now 
 Laird of Duntulloch. Oil-skin jackets and grimy 
 white sleeves pressed upon him, rough tongues 
 and shrill questioned him. Under the spur of this 
 excitement he became eloquent over the past glories 
 of his house, numbering among his ancestors many 
 a Scotch hero powerless to deny the relationship. 
 At last he broke violently through the crowd, shout- 
 
Clouds and Night 193 
 
 that he would let the Yankee chief know what 
 manner of man he had handcuffed, called to the 
 others to follow a gentleman when they had the 
 chance and stumped away toward the house. 
 Stepping up to the door he struck the panels 
 several blows with his fist. 
 "Stop that!" 
 
 The captain's voice behind him made him invol- 
 untarily pause and look over his shoulder. 
 "What do you want, McCoy?" demanded 
 
 Temple. 
 
 "Have a care, mon! Ye spak f the Laird o' 
 Duntulloch. Aye, that! " and McCoy tried to square 
 his short figure which barred the way. 
 
 " I don't care what you call yourself. Say what 
 you want and be oflfl" 
 
 " I'm aboot tae cut loose frae this den o" damaged 
 
 characters." 
 
 The representatives of damaged characters before 
 him groaned and laughed as McCoy threw them an 
 uncertain smile. 
 
 "I'll bide amongst gentlemen the rest o' me days. 
 I'm a gentleman bom." McCoy steadied himself 
 and gave a heavy thump to his chest. "O, yes, 
 cap'n, O, yes. Ye'll think o' me when I'm gone, 
 willna ye, cap'n? Ye will, ye will. Ye'll find ye 
 canna forget me. Ye may try, cap'n " 
 
 "The sooner the better," said Robert, brushing 
 him aside with an arm that nearly threw the Scotch- 
 man on his back and opening the door. " Do you 
 
194 The Sea-Farere 
 
 leave to-day?" he asked sharply, pausing at the 
 entrance. 
 "Yes. an' I'll— I'll " 
 
 "Your share will be given you at three o'clock." 
 
 McCoy lunged forward with a muttered threat of 
 violence if he were not treated fairly, but the door 
 was already shut in his face. 
 
 "Cap'n would rather insult a gentleman than 
 eat," suggested one of the men with a laugh at the 
 deepened purple in McCoy's face. 
 
 "Jealous," replied that fire-eater, tapping his fol- 
 lower on the arm with unsteady fingers, "Jealous." 
 
 With a quick, fierce gesture he stretched out both 
 arms so that the red ring left by the handcuffs was 
 visible about each wrist. 
 
 "Do ye see that an' that}" he asked in a thick, 
 trembling voice, turning from one man to another. 
 "1 took me oath them shouldna fade till I'd got 
 even wi' him." 
 
 He dropped both hands and bent his body toward 
 his listeners. " I've got even," he said in a hoarse 
 whisper. 
 
 " How ? How ? " asked several in a breath. 
 
 " Ah, I dinna trust ye," he said, nodding and cau- 
 tious. He slouched on after speaking, his hands 
 buried deep in his pockets. 
 
 "Come, tell us!" urged the men mockingly. 
 
 " 1 maun see Frenchy first," he answered, shaking 
 his shoulders as though to cast off the curious and 
 mischievous swarm about him. They jeered at 
 
Clouds and Night 195 
 
 him, they baited him with every gibe thdr idle 
 
 minds could invent. 
 
 "Ah! Yell see!" he said over his shoulder. 
 " Before to-morrow dawns ye ll see." 
 "Then spealc up now, ' they cried laughing. 
 " I maun see Frenchy first." 
 He shook them oflf at his hut but he came out as 
 soon as they were gone, watched Mother Graham's 
 brisk figure out of sight, shuffled hurriedly to Del- 
 avigne s door, pushed it softly and went into the 
 sick man's room. 
 
 At four o'clock he passed the captain's house 
 again without a glance or farewell, accompanied by 
 two-thirds of the crew, a disorderly rabble, singing 
 and laughing their loudest. The laughter in Lampe- 
 dusa had indeed lost all genial character and was 
 but a sardonic outlet for spleen, like the bubbling 
 of a poisoned spring. 
 
 The procession straggled toward the harbor in 
 which the small vessel which made regular trips 
 to the parent island lay ready to sail. The rough 
 escort waited on the wharf, eyed closely by a de- 
 tachment of soldiers, until the anchor was weighed 
 and they saw the last of McCoy, the only one 
 among them destined to pass from Umpedusa to 
 worldly honors. 
 
 Matteo, Carriacci and Gomez, the leaders of the 
 opposition to Robert, were not among those who 
 thus took their leave of the Laird of Duntulloch. 
 All three had an interview with the sick Frenchman 
 
196 The Set-Faren 
 
 during the time that Mother Graham and Robert 
 were anticipating an outbreak of some sort among 
 McCoy's noisy followers. When these returned to 
 the camp the three men mingled with them. 
 
 Temple had not acted upon his first impulse, as 
 was his wont, but had unwillingly deferred thie 
 announcement of his resignation for a day. This 
 was done at Mother Graham's earnest request since 
 the men were invariably late and quarrelsome after 
 a festa, unfit to make a peaceable agreement on his 
 successor. Soon after their return from the harbor, 
 however, he sent Lorenzo through the settlement to 
 call a meeting at nine o'clock the next morning to 
 consider the surrender of hUi command. 
 
 The news had a strange reception. Some men 
 laughed aloud, others nudged each other, turned their 
 half-closed eyes with a sidewise glance at the mes- 
 senger and winked slowly, whik a few enfeebled 
 in wits and body stared dully and clamored with 
 questioiis. Lorenzo was puzzled but had no oppor- 
 tunity to show his aggressive loyalty to his chief 
 by calling out any one, the temper of the camp was 
 so determinedly amiable. Swan sat at his hut door 
 bare-headed, his brown hair auburn in the slanting 
 sun as he sifted shells and sand through his huge 
 fingers. His eyes looked glazed when he lifted 
 them to Lorenzo and horrors within the man had 
 grooved nis face into ridges. Matteo, Gomez and 
 Carriacci talked apart now, their hands as they ges- 
 ticulated making gigantic menacings beside their 
 
Clouds and Night 
 
 «97 
 
 gaunt shadows. Matteo made a palpable excuse to 
 sit before lo g, for though he allowed none to speak 
 to him of it he was mort easily fatigued day by day 
 and his breath was short Dissipation and exceu in 
 greater or less degree marked every face upon which 
 the setting sun was shining, for each man there lay 
 in bondage to the ways of his own spirit. 
 
 " Midnight ?" questioned one man of his com- 
 panion when he thought Lorenzo had passed. 
 
 "F*romptly at midnight," was the low answer, 
 and the captain's messenger supposed they meant 
 the appointment for a game at cards or a lawless 
 lovemaking. 
 
 Meanwhile the captain ..talked through the camp 
 in the long sunset. No man in all that throng but 
 
 Lorenzo said one word of regret at what they had 
 heard. The dislike of him and dissatisfaction with 
 him, then, was as general as this! He felt even 
 more keenly than had his youthful ally the atmos- 
 phere of gesture, of glance and grimace, of airy 
 comment, soundless mirth, as if all space were filled 
 with taunting spirits, unseen but flouting him with 
 their wings. Groups parted as he came near, low 
 words ceased or men ostentatiously spoke of trivial 
 things in a louder key. He supposed they were 
 busy with the name of their new chief, with the 
 construction of binding promises which, taught by 
 experience, they would exact of him in advance. 
 One fragment of talk which reached him seemed to 
 confirm this. 
 
199 The SearFaxtn 
 
 "His share would have been a third?" one man 
 Mked another. 
 " Charpiot said so. McCoy only got his sUce of 
 
 two-thirds, " replied his neighbor. 
 
 That night at twelve Susie cried out and sat up. 
 ••What is it. Robert?" 
 
 He was softly going out of the door. •• Nothing, 
 nothing," he said, looking bacl«. 
 
 "Is anything wrong?" 
 
 "No, no. I am going once around the camp. 
 That is all. Go to sleep, pussy." 
 He slipped out with no further word and Susie 
 
 lay down again. 
 
 He often had done this since he was chief and 
 had felt a new sense of responsibility. To-night, 
 however, a vague sense of ill which had colored 
 the dreams of his first thin sleep deepened with 
 wa^'ncr. 
 
 1 night outside was moonless and dark except 
 the occasional glint of a misty star just overhead, 
 but the sea itself was a blaze of splendor. Along 
 the shore was a band of white light, glowing, soft, 
 and the base of every cHfT v as a wreath of fire. 
 Over the calm surface of the water on which the 
 milky waves were undulating, green sparks and 
 globes of fire were flashing, quivering. 
 
 Something black against the white sea moved! 
 It skimmed too slowly for a huge speck flitting be- 
 fore imperfect vision. 
 
 The ship! 
 
Clouds and Night 
 
 »99 
 
 It had 
 
 Th« sails changed suddenly to shadows, 
 veered northward. 
 Temple ran down the shore. The huts were 
 
 dark and still. No late marauder was singing and 
 
 cursing on his way to bed, with dulled instincts 
 that no longer forbade him shock the brooding si- 
 lenr^ A the night. Nothing stirred about him as 
 he sped. A clump of olive-trees upon the bank 
 above him seemed to have lost the frank cheer with 
 which they looked men in the face by day. Mys- 
 terious, suspicious, gloomy they were now, furtive 
 like outlaws, scowling, or with heads together, 
 whispering; not malignant it may be, but defensive 
 merely, for perhaps strange forces are abroad by 
 night and honest nature stands at guard against 
 shapes we cannot see. 
 
 At full speed Robert passed hut after hut. A 
 lame dog dashed from one of them, barked harshly 
 and flung itself against him. 
 
 Temple kicked open the door Delavigne had 
 with much toil swung at his entrance. A faint 
 sound met his car. The darkness was heavy with 
 odors of oils and pastes. He struck a spark and by 
 the flanng tow he lighted a candle near his hand. 
 The slight and husky moan seemed to fill the room 
 but the bed was empty, the clothing dragged upon 
 the floor. 
 
 The next instant he had sprung jicross the space 
 and cut the ropes about Mother Graham's hands and 
 feet and the handkerchief tied fast across her mouth. 
 
200 
 
 The Sea-Farera 
 
 "The ship!" she gasped with her first breath. 
 
 "Gone." 
 
 "The chest?" 
 
 He did not seem to hear her. He stood vacantly 
 turning his eyes from place to place in the room. 
 His alertness had suddenly left him. 
 
 "The chest, men!" screamed the old woman, 
 striking at him with her bruised fist. "Gae, look 
 if it's gang wi' 'em! McCoy was tae canny for ye! 
 I telit ye! I tellt ye! But auld Tibbie was a gouk. 
 O, yes! a puir, silly gouk. Gael Look! " 
 
 He did not stir. She half raised herself from the 
 floor, pouring a volley of imprecations through her 
 stiffened jaws. 
 
 " Will ye gae or sail I shoot ye like a dog where 
 ye stand ? " 
 
 Her cramped legs failed her and she fell back, 
 but she seized a rusty gun from the corner and 
 flung it at him with all her force. Its barrel struck 
 his arm and he turned a dull glance upon her. 
 
 " What is it ?" he asked. ' ' What is it ? " 
 
 "The chest! The chest! The chest!" she 
 shrieked, and crawled on hands and knees to- 
 ward him, pushing him ahead of her with one 
 swollen hand. 
 
 He went outside. The breeze that comes with 
 the morning was stirring there. Urged on by 
 Mother Graham's cries he walked up the beach, to 
 the cave in the bank where Carriacci should be 
 standing on guard, stooped and crept in at its en- 
 
Clouds and Night 201 
 
 trance. His fingers touched two cold links of an 
 iron chain dangling from a staple in the rock. The 
 lower one was broken. He felt of the jagged ends 
 again and again as though to convince himself. 
 
 When he left them it was to stand dumbly a 
 while in the absent sentry's place. He faced the 
 sea, but his eyes followed the undulations of the 
 fading light upon it with scarcely more purpose than 
 did the seaweed trailing in them. About his head 
 fireflies flitted, glowing with hundreds of blue 
 lights. 
 
 The constant recurrence of one small black ob- 
 ject against the wavering whiteness on the water 
 finally roused his benumbed attention. As soon as 
 he had made it out as an open boat his mind was 
 too tired to pursue the subject further. 
 
 He mechanically walked along the line of huts, 
 pushing away the matting at the entrance of one 
 after the other. Most of them were empty. Swan 
 lay muttering with his eyes half open, Lorenzo was 
 curled up in sound boyish sleep. A poor drunken 
 fellow who had sprained a leg the day before 
 moaned in his broken rest. A few whom disease 
 or strong drink had hopelessly crippled, a still 
 smaller number suspected, like Lorenzo, of loyalty 
 to their chief, were aU that had been left behind. 
 
 He walked on toward home. As he passed be- 
 low the group of sinister olive-trees a thrill of his 
 old readiness stirred in him. Instinct, not reason, 
 warned him that he was watched. He stopped 
 
202 
 
 The Sca-Farers 
 
 short, his eyes fixed upon the mass of dark foliage 
 against the sky. 
 
 A sharp word, one word, broke the stillness. A 
 squad of black shapes hurled themselves down the 
 steep slope. 
 
 "Surrender! " shouted a voice in Italian. 
 
 For answer Temple fired a pistol shot into the 
 swarm closing about him. A dozen vigorous forms 
 had flung themselves upon him before his hand 
 dropped. 
 
 " Remember ! Alive! " yelled the same voice. 
 
 Once Robert beat them back with blows so un- 
 expected and so quick that they loosened the coil 
 around him. But the strong men pressed upon 
 him again, gripping his arms, tripping him from 
 every side, choking him, dragging him down. Not 
 a word or a sound but breath was raised during the 
 hideous, blind struggle before Temple fell, carrying 
 most r f his assailants with him. Ropes bound 
 him hand and foot where he lay silent, his chest 
 heaving. 
 
 A burning torch was soon thrust into the ground, 
 the black and oily smoke flaring in a long ribbon. 
 By its wrinkled light two Sicilian unifoitns at his 
 side seemed but casually related to the bearded 
 faces above them. The lame dog crouching by 
 Robert's head growled at them until he was kicked 
 away. 
 
 Screams and hoarse shouts came from the di- 
 rection of the huts for the pistol shot had roused 
 
Clouds and Night 203 
 
 some of the sleepers and the soldiers were driving 
 the sullen and bewildered men and women before 
 them toward the spot where their chief lay a 
 prisoner. When they stood huddled into a group 
 about him the torchlight in the wind distorted 
 amazement into grimace upon their wretched faces. 
 A few cursed and snarled ; an under officer struck 
 them with the flat of his sword. Lorenzo, who had 
 grappled, bit and clawed like a wild bea'" was 
 gagged as well as bound. 
 
 Robert spoke but once, to his guard. "Keep 
 them out!" h. shouted, lifting himself half-way 
 from the ground. "Tell them!" He tried to 
 spring to his feet but feU back. A squad of men 
 were entering at his open door. 
 
 "Be still!" said the impassive guard, raising his 
 piece as his prisoner impotentiy tugged at his bonds. 
 "We have strict orders about the women." 
 
 With his eyes strained toward the house door, 
 Robert asked where he and his men were to be 
 taken. 
 
 "To Napoli," he was told. 
 "On what charge?" 
 " Piracy." 
 
 The chill of the night's passing was in the air; 
 the phosphorescence had faded from the sea. The 
 leader of the soldiers, a young man with military 
 stiffness of head and shoulders stood in silence at a 
 iittle distance from Temple waiting for the return 
 of two deuchments of his men. Half dragging, 
 
 mi 
 
204 The Sea-Farers 
 
 half carrying a new prisoner whom they had seized 
 in his boat as he landed, one squad came along the 
 shore. Crazed with rage Matteo only used his 
 breath to gasp denunciations of his companions 
 who had set him adrift, refusing at the last moment 
 to take with them a dying man. 
 
 Mother Graham sat upon the ground, her head 
 swinging slowly from side to side. Somelimes she 
 mumbled " McCoy ! McCoy! " drawing her breath 
 with a hiss through her toothless jaws and fum- 
 bling her bruised hands. Blue moths in swarms 
 flung themselves upon the waving flame, and 
 dropped scorched upon Temple's breast 
 
 His eyes never left his door till the soldiers came 
 out. Two women were with them. The white 
 dress of one blew backward in slow folds. Her 
 head and neck were lifted like those of a fright- 
 ened deer. She walked straight on even when 
 ordered to stop. She saw the figure lying beneath 
 the s -'aming torch, and nothing else. Again the 
 under officer commanded her to halt Venus 
 standing where she had been told, called to her 
 " missy 1 missy!" 
 
 She only stretched out both arms toward the cap- 
 tive and walked forward. A guard as she passed 
 him seized her shoulder and pushed her back. 
 
 As the man touched her Robert Temple cried out 
 in a loud and terrible voice. He sprang upward with 
 such sudden and mighty strain of '•very muscle in 
 him that the ropes about him snapped. Before a 
 
Clouds and Night 
 
 205 
 
 man had stirred to stop him he held Susie in his 
 arms. 
 
 The young Sicilian captain checked the guards 
 with a motion of his hand. 
 
 For an instant all was still but the whimper of 
 the dog, limping round and round the two locked 
 
 figures. 
 
 The Sicilian boy captain stepped forward, sword 
 
 in hand. 
 
 "Now, signer," he said. 
 " Take her! " 
 
 Robert called Venus hoarsely, fiercely. 
 Susie's head had drooped and the black woman 
 lifted her fainting charge into her great arms. 
 
XIII 
 
 A NEW ENGLAND GIRL 
 
 "There! There! Stay where ye be! I'll be 
 stirrin' my stumps fur hum 'fore long:" said Jacob 
 Minns, settling heavily into a wooden chair, whose 
 arms had been polished by the smoothing of hands 
 that repeated the motions of ruminating brains. 
 
 "She don't let ye out late now days, doos she, 
 Jacob," commented Locker, thriftily passing his 
 finger around the top of his pipe-bowl to save the 
 shreds of go^ * tobacco which had lodged there. 
 
 Jacob Wi . his own brown lump into his 
 curved palm l moment before he answered. " My 
 rheumatics git their 'tarnal work in after dark, I tell 
 ye. I'm nigh jacked up double some nights with 
 'em. How's leftenant?" 
 
 "Fairtomiddlin'." 
 
 The door of the kitchen stove was open before 
 which they sat and thus arranged after supper the 
 little bed of glowing coals economically encouraged 
 to die out instead of wasting itself by burning out 
 reproduced the lost open fire of earUer kitchens in 
 the shape of this wizened reminder. 
 
 "Leg better?" inquired Jacob after he had suc- 
 ceeded in starting his pipe with one of the red hot 
 morsels from the stove. 
 
 «9 
 
a 10 The Sca-Farers 
 
 " Got ahead the last fortnight like a house afire." 
 
 "Old Sawbones is here, ain't he ? " 
 
 " In the settin' room, jawin' on as usual." 
 
 " 1 see him as I come along. Passed me when 1 
 stopped at the minstrel show. Cocky little bantam, 
 
 ain't he ? " 
 
 "What was you doin' at the minstrel show ? " 
 asked Locker. 
 "Buyin' tickets." 
 
 Locker slowly turned his head and looked at 
 Jacob, who was studying the coals. 
 
 "Urn," said Locker. "So!" 
 
 They smoked in complete silence for a while 
 before Jacob remarked, " They don't come so dear 
 as meerschaums." 
 
 Locker lifted his eyes at the words and let them 
 rest on a pipe-rcase of red leather braced against 
 The Farmer's Almanac on the shelf over the stove. 
 For many years he had desired above all other 
 worldly possessions, a meerschaum pipe, a pas- 
 sion not even Jacob had suspected in the lonely 
 man. With his first pension money he had half 
 defiantly bought one, and night after night since 
 had looked up at its case as he smoked his 
 blackened clay stump beneath it, for it was still 
 beautiful with the beauty of a grate in which a fire 
 had never been kindled. With its purchase his de- 
 sire seemed to have been sated. He knew that he 
 should never smoke it; and, beside the mere out- 
 lay of money, it had cost him an object in life. 
 
A New England Girl 
 
 311 
 
 So when Jacob had uttered this saying about the 
 expense of meerschaums he responded, "That's 
 
 SO. 
 
 This sort of frankness between the friends had 
 l<ept their relations whdesome for many years. 
 
 "As you've said agin an' agin," Jacob proceeded, 
 changing his attitude so that his bubbly hand 
 should rest on his .ight knee instead of his left, 
 "As you've said agin an' agin, Ebenezer, she did 
 talce rayther a queer kind of a time of life fur 
 sowin' her wild oats, but 1 swan, 1 guess the crop's 
 in now for good an' all." 
 
 Locker made no answer. Long acquaintance 
 generally does this much for us, that we know 
 when our friend is bringing up a subject for Some 
 definite purpose and we need not waste our 
 words. 
 
 "She ain't teched a drop sence she seed that 
 there ha'nt six months ago." 
 
 "Which.?" asked Locker briefly. 
 
 "Miss Susie Sumner. When she sot eyes on 
 that sh~ jest cut an* run all the way back hum. She 
 despises the sight o* liquor sence." 
 
 • O, now it's Susie she seen, is it ? " asked Locker 
 lazily. ' ' Wal, 1 guess when them air kind o* things 
 is a raisin' theirselves outer the ground anyway, it 
 ain't much matter how many they be, nor which 
 ones they be. Bi ye tole me at the time it war 
 young Robert Temple she sighted." 
 
 " Robert— Temple ? " 
 
aia The Sea-Farert 
 
 " Yet. Don't ye recollect ? In the tettin'-room. 
 The night o' the jamt oree over to Temple's ?" 
 " Yes. That was the very night she seed her an' 
 
 cut home." 
 
 " Seed him ye mean. She ain't hed a hull grave- 
 yard of 'em, hes she }" 
 
 "Seed her, I tell ye. But— a spell afore— she- 
 Lord! " The explosion of the last word seemed to 
 heave the sailor to his feet. He turned his back to 
 Locker while his lips opened and shut without a 
 sound. He had sailed for the old house of Temple 
 and Son since he went cabin*boy. He stood there 
 now, too loyal to speak, to even show his face. He 
 and the owner, to whom he had gone straight on 
 his return, alone knew what he had seen by the 
 murky lantern that terrible night on the Mediterra- 
 nean, and he had promised and held his tongue since. 
 He stared at the blackened kitchen wall and did not 
 see it. " Her, too; her, too," his stiff lips said but 
 not aloud. 
 
 " Set down, man. What's the matter with ye ? " 
 suggested his friend. 
 
 " Gosh darned all hemlock! " gasped Jacob Minns. 
 He jerked his chair half about and dropped into it. 
 
 "Got a pain?" inquired Locker with real con- 
 cern. 
 
 "No, no. Chewing my cud, as ye might say," 
 replied Jacob with effort. " No harm done, Eb- 
 enezer." 
 
 "I teUye a man can't git to your time o' life," 
 
A New England Girl nj 
 
 began Locker irritably, "an' rank able-bodied much 
 longer ef he's a-goin' to worrit in his family, an' then 
 git chewed up by pirates a spell, an' fight the rheu- 
 matics to top off with. You've looked peaked ever 
 sence that there Flight business. Yer eyes stick 
 right oui o' yer head, an' yer jaw's fell in. Ye ain't 
 lost no back teeth lately ? " 
 "No, I ain't." 
 
 "Wal then, stands to reason what the matter 
 is." Silence. " What kind of a darn face did that 
 there robber chieftain hev anyhow, Jacob?" asked 
 Locker fmally . « • Was he a blackamoor like ? " 
 
 " No, he wam't." 
 
 "Why, he wam't light-complected? Couldn't 
 a' ben. Who ever heerd o' a light complected 
 
 pil. ir ?" 
 
 " Wal, he warn't no black, Til say that." 
 
 " I guess you was right sick 'long about then, an' 
 ye ain't none o' the observin' kind at the best o' 
 times. What language did he talk ? " 
 
 Jacob Minns put down one foot stiffly and hoisted 
 the other knee into the first one's place. 
 
 " Portugee ?" queried Locker. 
 
 " No, no. 'Twam't Portugee exactly." 
 
 " Mebbe 'twas GreeK or Turkey ? " 
 
 "Mebbe." 
 
 " Did it seem to hev any words like English in 
 
 it?" 
 
 Jacob turned a quick eye sidewise to see if there 
 were any sinister meaning in this chance shot, but 
 
214 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 Locker's face showed his old friend that there was 
 none. 
 
 " Shet up on that there subject, Ebenezer, will ye, 
 to obleege me? It goes to my stomach," he said 
 
 quietly. 
 
 " Do ii ? There then ! I tele ye it took a grip on 
 ye." They sat still a few minutes. Jacob slowly 
 filled his pipe again and lighted it. 
 
 " What was ye sayin' a spell back about yer do- 
 mestic affliction, Jacob, if it don't go to yer vitals to 
 talk about that ? " asked Locker. 
 
 This stung Jacob even if it did not reach any sub- 
 cutaneous deeps in him. He took on a dogged air, 
 and set both feet to the floor. " I ain't got no do- 
 mestic affliction that 1 knows on," he said deliber- 
 ately. "She ain't hed no fun in her life an' she's 
 a-goin' to hev ?ome if it costs me two dollars a 
 week. She's scrubbed an' cooked an' sewed an' 
 swep',— done 'em good, too. But that ain't enough 
 for no woman. She ain't hed chick nor child to 
 speak to in that house when 1 wam't in port. 
 Nights when I be to hum she's ben a-peggin' at her 
 stitches whiles I read my Universe an' Recorder an' 
 then went to bed. She took to drink for some fun, 
 1 tell ye, an' nothin' else in this born earth. I see it 
 plain enough now it's borne in on me. I'm goin' to 
 take her to every circus that comes along, an' to 
 every nigger minstrels, an' to ice-cream saloons, an' 
 to hev her daguerreotype took. She's goin' to horse 
 trots an* baby shows an' wax figgers, all of 'em." 
 
A New England Girl 215 
 
 Locker murmured that a horse trot v: --u't no great 
 place for a female to be seen at, I n Jacob re^i ; 1, 
 "No, it ain't, for such females as hu;, lived jn fea 
 an* hot milk, but for females that h^:» go: z tjsta for 
 strong drinks, I tell ye it takes strong stuff to beat 
 it. She's goin' to horse trots, an' every other dom 
 show that comes to this town." 
 
 Dr. Lyman, sitting forward in his chair, opposite 
 his patient, who was leaning back in his with one 
 leg extended in an attitude which indicated care, 
 seemed to fit his cognomen of Sawbones singularly 
 ill. He was slender and small, with white, thin 
 hands, and that look of studied cleanliness which is 
 generally an accompaniment of his profession. 
 
 He had devoted skill and thought to the young 
 engineer's case since he had been at home on leave. 
 Alden had been thrown and his leg injured by a faU 
 of rock loosened by frost in a cafton he was cross- 
 ing. The exposure before he was relieved had re- 
 sulted in a dangerous inflammation in his lungs, and 
 at the earliest possible day he had been orr^ered 
 home, where he arrived pale and lean from insuffi- 
 cient nursing and the jolting of an emigrant wagon. 
 His constitution, his native air, love, care, rest, 
 helped the doctor toward his cure and he improved 
 day by day, but the end of his leave was near and 
 he refused to asked for an extension, assuring Ly- 
 man that when his time was up he would be quite 
 able to travel. 
 
 When Alden Sumner meant to be firm he had a 
 
2i6 The Sca-Farers 
 
 quiet kindness in his eyes as tliey met those of the 
 person against whom his will was to be set. They 
 had this look to-night as he listened to his phy- 
 sician warn, argue, threaten and urge; the ex- 
 pression of one who said, "I'm really sorry, old 
 fellow, — on your account" 
 
 Gratitude for what he had been given beyond 
 mere professional duty, deference to his opinion, 
 and a sense of justice which recognized the doctor's 
 right to state his case as well as his own right to 
 do what he thought best, kept Alden from showing 
 a trace of impatience at remarks which finally be- 
 came mere impotent sarcasms. When, however, 
 the physician had accepted Alden's challenge for a 
 change of subject, he made no further allusion to 
 the matter, though his failure in it perhaps in- 
 sensibly affected his attitude in what followed, as 
 our past emotions do color the problems that sue* 
 ceed them. 
 
 For the last two years Alden Sumner had been 
 one of the members of the Engineer Corps of the 
 United States Army appointed by the government 
 to survey the territory west of the Mississippi 
 River, the purpose being to fix the location of a 
 future railroad to the Pacific Ocean. By four 
 parallel routes, these energetic men during a year 
 and a-half pushed their way across the continent 
 Mountain chains with summits ten thousand feet 
 high stretched from north to south across their 
 way. cleft here and there by gorges whose walls 
 
A New England Girl 217 
 
 rose in sheer rock two thousand feet above the 
 midfects toiling through them. Riv s, swelled by 
 melting snows into raging floods, plateaus over 
 whose brief green buffaloes roamed in spring, and 
 which became parched deserts by the early fall, 
 wateriess, treeless, trackless miles, hideous silences 
 where animal life had departed, and only the hard 
 glint of mineral and stone, salt, iron, granite, met 
 the aching eyes. Snows fifty feet deep lay in the 
 ravines, snows that in August were still there, and 
 in summer, homesick longings for the lift of soul 
 that comes from nature's fulness were fed by vast 
 plains of wild sage, or but a few evergreens in two 
 hundred miles. The strongest of these men reached 
 the Pacific Ocean. It was one of the greatest feats 
 of engineering ever done in the world. 
 
 When it was finished, and the young officers had 
 made their drawings and written their reports to the 
 Secretary of War, then the wrangle about the selec- 
 tion to be made from the routes began. The choice 
 was almost at once narrowed to two out of the 
 four. Political parties divided on the subject, the 
 Republicans in this year endorsing the central route 
 m their convention, while the Democrats, north and 
 south, headed by the President, preferred the south- 
 em route, which was already the overland wagon 
 way to California. 
 
 "Man. your central route's a track for demons, 
 not for flesh and blood to use! My head swims it 
 your idea of a train curling and writhing up the face 
 
j,g The Sca-Farers 
 
 of those cliffs. Mark my words, if we're such 
 blockheads as to take it, there'll never be a better 
 settlement than a government fort from end to 
 end!" exclaimed the doctor, plunging with vigor 
 into the new subject. 
 
 "The best passes," said Alden, with his thought- 
 ful eyes on the fire. " The temperate zone, the free 
 states, you know." 
 
 "Buffalo grass and the dried bones of fools!" 
 snapped the doctor. " A stunted cedar or two be- 
 tween the Green and the Platte rivers. Snowdrifts 
 
 and wind!" 
 
 " Yes, but the other is too far south *' 
 
 "They're both detestable," interrupted the phy- 
 sician, irritably. " I'm tired of hearing about rough, 
 raw conditions. I hate a growing town. 1 feel 
 stretched on the rack of this house-building and 
 haste. We haven't finished the east yet! Heaven 
 knows we have enough to do here for centuries. 
 Let the overiand wagons crawl a while longer, I 
 say. But no! We must be stirred up about this 
 cursed railroad; more taxes, more breathless rush, 
 more disgraceful building, more broken rails, more 
 flimsy bridges. Nothing well done, nothing rest- 
 ful. A few of us who want to stand outside of 
 it are deafened with the clamor in the air. I'm sick 
 of this country, sir, tired of what is called progress. 
 It will come to collapse, mark me! Like your- 
 rivers out there that make a great noise and end in 
 a marsh." 
 
A New England Girl 
 
 " The fight those same rivers make to reach the 
 Pacific is splendid, Jim. I've watched it and 1 tell 
 you I never see that marshy lake where the Hum- 
 boldt River sinks but I think of one of our fellows, 
 Morey, who led a charge on the redskins out on the 
 Platte. Fell, you know, just as they turned." 
 
 The doctor frowned, jumped up and thrust both 
 hands deep into his pockets. " Stick to facts! " he 
 said furiously. " I say, stick to facts 1 Don't try 
 to bejuggle my ears with a figure of speech, sir. 
 I'm a plain, practical man. That style of talking is 
 an example of what I call Americanism. Fdeas, O 
 yes, ideas and to spare, and the devil take the exe- 
 cution of them! That's American." 
 
 "A plan of the house Is a good thing to have 
 before commencing to build " 
 
 "O, yes, yes, yes, but " 
 
 "We're just commencing to build," continued 
 Alden gravely, prying at a log to let more air play 
 under it. If we only keep to the plan, I've such 
 faith in the race we belong to that I know the house 
 will be all right some day." 
 
 " I'm glad you're so hopeful." 
 
 "We're the Anglo-Saxon intensified by ozone, 
 and prodded by the primitive necessities on one 
 side and European civilization on the other. We're 
 out of breath cutting trees, building roads, fighting 
 for freedom, making states, inventing, educating, 
 manufacturing. You're the most exacting American 
 of us all. Give us time, old fellow, give us time! " 
 
220 The Sea-Farers 
 
 He looked up in the light of the leap of fire that fol- 
 lowed his eiTorts with the logs, and smiled at the 
 impatient face above him. " You agree with me ? " 
 
 "No!" shouted the doctor. "Hang it, no! 
 You're taking it for granted the American plan is 
 right and will make an ideal state when it is real- 
 ized. I say," and Dr. Lyman brought one fist 
 down again and again into his other palm to em- 
 phasize the words, "I say for one thing, stirring 
 up this country every four years over an election 
 for its chief magistrate is folly in the act and folly 
 in the idea!" 
 
 " It keeps up the public interest " 
 
 " It tears off one plaster every little while so as 
 to try another. I should like to see the wound heal 
 by the first intention, sir." 
 
 "And what was the first intention ?" 
 
 " Monarchy, by George ! O, yes, laugh ! Laugh ! 
 1 say a limited monarchy." 
 
 "O, limiUd. That's modern." 
 
 " It's the natural order of life. It's the primeval 
 law. Heaven, if there is such a place, would look 
 well as a republic, wouldn't it ? " 
 
 Alden, leaning a little frrward, gave a slight touch 
 to one of the logs which sent a shower of sparks 
 like quick laughter up the chimney. "He never 
 lived under any monarchy on this earth," he re- 
 marked in a conversational aside to the bright atoms 
 he had roused. "It is just an idea with him, isn't 
 it?" 
 
A New England Girl 221 
 
 The doctor gave a short guffaw. "You ribald 
 scoffer! " he said affectionately. " 1 did not expect 
 you could answer me." 
 
 " It's in your blood, Jim," said Alden, laying the 
 poker aside and sitting back in his chair. Some- 
 thing from your ancestors that has been tough 
 enough to survive the Revolution. Your father 
 seems to be without it, but a fellow is oftener the 
 son of his great-grandfather than of his own par- 
 ents. You and I know how things that were once 
 bone and muscle become opinions. They affect 
 society after they have done with war. Curious, 
 always, that transformation. Blustering fire-eaters 
 become a part of the mass of material from which 
 people draw conclusions; they feed the mind and 
 the heart of us. They have been translated, in a 
 way, and come back filtering sociably through our 
 veins and arteries for exercise. That is where your 
 loyalty to England is sojourning, Jim. It is mighty 
 picturesque and interesting, old fellow. I see that 
 though I'm an arid outsider whose heart is where 
 his treasure is, in this raw republic; who reads his 
 Emerson and hitches his wagon to thirty-one stars. 
 The fighting powers of that loyalty of yours have 
 been dead nearly a hundred years, but intellectually 
 it is a fresh, even a stimulating subject for discussion. 
 Sit down and be comforUble and let's have more 
 of it." 
 
 "You're a soldier and an engineer," replied the 
 doctor, standing with one hand on Alden's chair, 
 
The Sca-Farers 
 
 his eyes following the flickering of the fire. "To 
 push forward frontiers is ycur trade. The point of 
 view of both soldier and engineer is always this of 
 yours. To scramble on and leave others to finish is 
 their business, and so of course, to underrate the 
 advantages of rest, of the broadening and enriching 
 of civilization. I've noticed it before. It s natural." 
 
 " Perhaps it is so," answered Alden thoughtfully. 
 " i think out on the plains we drop out of modern 
 life too completely. But on the other hand, I've 
 often felt that some of us ask a great deal of civili- 
 zation as it follows us, and finishes what we have 
 left undone. Away from it, we keep the ideal of 
 it the clearer. If it does not make men better than 
 we rough fellows have been, finer in motive and 
 finer in act, it's a failure." He looked up, and the 
 fire-light struck on his bright eyes. " That's what 
 all its advantages are for, to my mind, Jim; not just 
 to take the boor out of a man, to give him a smooth 
 tongue and a white shirt front. If it drives the 
 primitive things, honesty and such homely old 
 friends, into corners to give room for graces, if it 
 makes a smaller man of him on any side, it's a fail- 
 ure, a failure 1 That's what we on the plains think 
 about it." 
 
 They looked at each other an instant, as m' i do 
 who see a new expression in a familiar face, then 
 with a few commonplace words, advice on the 
 physician's part, thanks and cordiality on Alden's, 
 the guest went out to the hall for his hat and stick. 
 
A New England Girl 
 
 223 
 
 Bve years bter, wh«i the OvU War came. Dr. 
 
 Lyma 1 was one of those civilians who realized for 
 the first time in their lives, whether northerner or 
 southerner, that their native sod was dearer to them 
 than they knew. He volunteered at the earliest 
 call, and as a surgeon during the four years of the 
 war, refusing pay, he gave his services to his 
 country. 
 
 A series of sharp knocks on the street door had 
 indeed hastened his final leave-taking. Alden heard 
 Locker limp through the hall, then the bustle of 
 several persons entering, and new voices greeting 
 
 the departing guest. 
 
 At the first sounds Alden sat forward, leaned 
 firmly with both hands upon the arms of his chair 
 and pulled himself slowly to his feet. When Bar- 
 bara came in he was standing, and he made two 
 halting steps toward her. She gave a little cry of 
 gladness and anxiety as she hurried forward to pre- 
 vent another step, and holding his arm against her 
 shoulder with one hand, to encourage him to lean 
 upon it, she helped him back to his chair. 
 
 The girl's erect head, her bright color and a cer- 
 tain vividness due to many subtle causes, combined 
 with physical health, made it seem as if all out-of- 
 doors had come into the lamp-lighted room. 
 
 "He ought not!" she said, turning to her father 
 and the general behind her. "But didn't he do it 
 well?" 
 
 " That fellow Tim Smith," answered the general. 
 
 11 
 
224 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 pushing a chair forward with his one hand,— "cor- 
 poral of mine; you know him, Phin? Bedridden 
 old bloclchead, lives with his sister down wharf 
 
 way " 
 
 "Talks you to death. Yes, 1 icnow him," re- 
 plied Temple, seating himself with a sigh. 
 
 "Well I've just come from there. Fellow'll go 
 crazy, trying to explain the Lord's doings." 
 
 " Big order," replied Temple. 
 
 "So 1 told him. 'Mind your company's bugle,' 
 1 said, 'and let the Commander-in-Chief do His 
 own planning.' 1 told him that There he was, 
 dinning it into me that the Lord meant this and 
 meant that by Al -'s accident, as if He and Smith 
 had consulted tOfc,ciher about the matter before- 
 hand. It was making too free with the Almighty 
 to suit me. I told him so. I didn't like it, sir. 1 
 said flat and slammed the door on it, that I hadn't 
 been informed from - ,adquarters why my son was 
 hurt and I didn't propose to inquire." 
 
 "He was just doing his duty, wasn't he?" said 
 Barbara, looking down into Alden's upturned eyes 
 as she still stood by his chair. 
 
 " I should hope so! " roared the old soldier. " I 
 should hope any poor stick of a man would do as 
 little as that! But was he ordered to do his work 
 like a chamois goat ? By the Lord Harry, no ! Well, 
 what did Lyman say ? " 
 
 " He said he wished we had a limited monarchy," 
 replied Alden in the quiet tone of the last remark. 
 
A New England Girl 
 
 225 
 
 " The fellow's a traitor! " shouted the general, 
 who had been about to seat himself but nr<v tow- 
 ered to his full height "A Benedict Arnold! A 
 Judas, sir. Yes, sir. he'd sell his country for— 
 
 for " 
 
 " For a box of British Lustre," suggested Temple. 
 
 "Yes, sir, for a box of stove poiish! Ha! Ha! 
 So he would, the black-souled pilgarlic! Good fel- 
 low, too. What are you roaming about after, 
 Phin?" 
 
 For Temple had risen and was wallcing up and 
 down behind the others, his hands under his coat- 
 tails. The Ught hurts my eyes," he answered 
 restlessly. "I'm tired to death. " 
 
 " Then sit down, man! That's what 1 do when 
 I'm fagged. " 
 
 " You said you wanted a walk, papa," said Bar- 
 bara in surprise. And we did not go a mile." 
 
 " It was too soon after dinner, and a walk isn't 
 carrying soap and jelly to rat-holes like those wharf 
 tenements. I agiee to pay for jellies and soap. 
 But I want to keep away fron^ the unfortunate my- 
 self. I have enough on my mind without them. 
 1 hate smells. I hate sickness and whines. I hate 
 people who grub." 
 
 "You went so uncomplainingly that I did not 
 know it was so hard on you." 
 
 "O, I didn't mind much," he replied. "Let's 
 change the subject. Nothing ever matters long." 
 Alden adroitly asked a question about business 
 
226 The Sea-Farers 
 
 and discovering a ship was overdue, supposed he 
 had detected the real cause of irritation. But in 
 truth his daughter's indignant uprightness, her 
 taking for gr:mteJ that he would always do the 
 thing that looked right, sometimes made her father 
 feel as if he had stood too long on tiptoe. In per- 
 fect innocence she often asked uncomfortable ques- 
 tions. Tiiere were times when her very trust in 
 him tired him. With a quite transparent excuse 
 the old friends went away upstairs presently so as 
 to leave the two young people to themselves. 
 
 Barbara sat on a low footstool just out of Alden's 
 reach, and steadily refused to move it one inch 
 nearer. Her eyes were on the dull red embers, but 
 in them was the light which always softened them 
 for some moments after they had turned from his. 
 She sat in silence for a while, her mind, even while 
 Alden spoke,- busy with many thoughts. Her 
 father's words had jarred upon a tremulous mood 
 of elation and doubt, in which the possession of a 
 new purpose had held her for several days. Young, 
 strong, buoyant, she was still at a loss to under- 
 stand how any life could remain in a valley where 
 hope and all energies but one lay passionless. His 
 feeling, therefore, toward those less fortunate in 
 outward circumstances than he, was one of the 
 sides of his charactf A^hich was always strange to 
 her. 
 
 She was by no means dull, and she had reached 
 that critical point when the young see their nearest 
 
A New England Girl tiy 
 
 of kin somewhat at others see them. This period 
 is the crucial test of the family bond, for if there Is 
 not left a great affection and at least a foundatimi 
 of trmt in the place of the unsubstantial fabric of 
 
 unquestioning faith that preceded it, then comes 
 alienation, or the fatal knowledge of the spots to 
 which words may be sent that they shall rut ♦he 
 most, if, however, there be affection and this basis 
 of trust the new insight only opens up fresh springs 
 of sympathy, and sounds new deeps of tender un- 
 derstandings for the faults, weaknesses and failures 
 which the sensitive nature now sees chnrty, but 
 which bind the aspiring but faulty child cmly the 
 closer to the constrained or defeated parent 
 
 It was in this light that Barbara was learning to 
 know her father. She had discovered that he was 
 self-indulgent, and easily moved to generosity in 
 ways in which an immediate result was to be seen; 
 tliat he often sentenced by the word "unpractical" 
 what another man would call noble. But the one 
 energetic force, which was directed toward the ac- 
 cumulation of money, seemed to her htfdiy a thing 
 to blame in him, since it was so evidently a ques- 
 tion of inherited inertia. 
 
 His fathe^^ ad struggled with moderate success 
 toward that end, his grandfather had panted after 
 it and failed; it had become a habit of the race. 
 Poor Robert appeared to have broken the line 
 short in that respect. A constantly recurring 
 doubt visited Barbara of late years, whether the 
 
228 
 
 The Sea-Farcrs 
 
 sketch of her brother which had been guardedly 
 shown t . her, was a perfect likeness. Of course 
 her father believed it to be correct. Not a doubt of 
 Temple's truthfulness or his uprightness in business 
 had ever crossed her mind. 
 
 She felt, indeed, at this season of her life, the 
 boundlessness of the universe and the largeness of 
 her heart. All, all were held within it. There was 
 no outcast, no loneliness, no stranger; all humanity, 
 even animals, trees and grass, even stones and 
 earth, were palpitating things, were all embraced 
 in a tender, pitying, loving grasp for one man's 
 sake. 
 
 "I left mamma playing one of those Chopin pre- 
 ludes a great deal better than ever 1 did it," she 
 began after a time. " 1 told you that she had taken 
 up her music again with Mr. Corenzio since I 
 stopped my lessons. " 
 
 Alden laughed. "1 see I am to be one of the 
 thousands of men who are responsible for their 
 wives' dwindling accomplishments, little girl," he 
 said. 
 
 " I never had any talent for music and I need the 
 
 time. Alden " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " 1 want to ask you a question. Answer it hon- 
 estly. You may tell the exact truth. " 
 "Thank you." 
 
 "Mamma said once that it was sweet and 
 womanly to be passive, not to feel too much for 
 
A New England Girl 229 
 
 any man. Has it ever seemed to you, — has it ever 
 crossed your mind,— that I care— too much for 
 
 you?" 
 
 People did not speak of loving any one in New 
 England about the middle of this century; they 
 liked him, or they cared for him. Puritan repres- 
 sion had produced a shyness in speaking of many 
 harmless things, as well as in the expression of 
 deeper feelings. Love seemed somehow too emo- 
 tional a word to be altogether decent 
 
 " If either of us cared any less for the other than 
 we do," began Alden, "I shouldn't feel this abso- 
 lute certainty that we belong together. I've often 
 thought how sweet and womanly it was in my 
 little girl to give me so much more than I deserve 
 because I needed it so badly. 1 have very few 
 who are near to me. The dear old governor and 
 Locker, and Tom Ward and Louis Montgomery out 
 there on the survey are about alL You've no id^, 
 sweetheart, hedged round by affection and admira- 
 tion and all that sort of thing, what this is to me." 
 
 "Dear, 1 want to say something to you," she 
 proceeded slowly. " After I once get started 1 shall 
 put it quite clearly, but it is hard to begin." 
 
 " 1 know what it is and 1 11 help you out." 
 
 "O," cried Barbara, lifting her head with a little 
 gasp. " Are you sure you know ? " 
 
 "I often can tell Aomething that is passing 
 through your mind even if you stand behind me 
 where I can't tee you. But my dear Uttle girl. I 
 
The Sea-Farers 
 
 must not let you do this. Don't make me a weak, 
 selfish wretch who will despise himself the rest of 
 his life. A self-despising man would not be a 
 winning personality in the house, would he ? No, 
 no. You haven't the least idea of the loneliness, the 
 cold, even the dangers. You don't know the 
 homesickness, the bare necessities of hfe,— a girl 
 like you! Seel Very soon when that money is 
 paid and I am ordered to some festive spot like a 
 
 fort in the east near your friends. O, it isn't 
 
 new to me! I've though* it over ana put it away 
 from me scores of tir-^as. Don't, dear; don't let us 
 talk of it. 1 mean you shall never know what it is 
 like out there! " 
 
 "If you were well," she faltered, "I could not 
 say it. But you are not fit to ^o back alone. 1 will 
 not cost you a cent. You shall save as much as 
 you did without me; more, for I wiU help you. 
 You don't have any idea how little I can live upon. 
 I made over all my dresses this spring myself and 
 did not buy anything new, so I'm sure about that. 
 And 1 have a little money of my own to pay for 
 the other things " 
 
 "O, darling!" groaned the man, turning in his 
 chair. 
 
 "Alden," she exclaimed hastily, "it isn't much. 
 I assure you it is very little. I dare say it won't 
 last much over two years. I am so strong that I 
 never mind cold. I should like living in a fort or a 
 post or a construction house or whatever there is to 
 
A New England Girl 231 
 
 live in. If I were to go into a life of ease don't you 
 see I could not say this? But because it is hard 
 and bare and poor, because you are hurt, Alden, 
 
 let me have it!" 
 
 "A man has some pride. He wants to give his 
 wife something." 
 
 "Your mother once said, I remember, that at 
 times it is more generous to receive than to give," 
 replied Barbara Temple." 
 
 In the long silence that followed Alden's mental 
 vision was vivid. He saw the rough construction 
 camp where he and the men lived. It would be im- 
 possible to take a lady there. The fort in which a 
 few of the officers' wives existed in a state of 
 cramped hostility, and the little community of Per- 
 fectionists, building and planting in the flush of 
 their yet unfaded dream, were the only available 
 spots in his vicinity. It could be done, but how 
 different from the home he had hoped to give her! 
 To be sure it was better tiian the savage outposts of 
 the world into which the government survey had 
 led him. The state in which he was now con- 
 structing bridges and forts was in the path of the 
 white-topped emigrant wagons which had never 
 ceased to move across the central plains since Mass- 
 achusetts sent her hundreds of armed men to 
 Blseding Kansas two years before, to defend the 
 territory against the extension of slavery. The 
 western life had a charm to him as it had for most 
 men to whom its rdaxation in r^ard to accepted 
 
23* The Sea-Farers 
 
 standards of civilized life made the old social re- 
 straints an irksome memory, and the painful cen- 
 turies of social progress seem an unreality. 
 
 But Alden Sumner was too thoughtful for mere 
 lawlessness to appeal to him. Insensibly the vast 
 distances widened his mental horizon. There was 
 no limit to effort, to achievement. He saw the poor 
 wooden roads, the frail bridges, the long trestle 
 works hastily crossing swamps, warped, burned 
 and shrunken by the hot engines passing over them; 
 but he did not see them with the scorn of Dr. 
 Lyman. He understood. He knew the west where 
 with flying steps and breathless speed, life was 
 rushing toward unattainable myriads of goals, and 
 it only warned men like him to hold themselves in 
 hand, to do well and trust the wild energy of the 
 boy to grow to a man's faithfulness in time. His 
 experience there gave him a new point of view by 
 which to judge the east from which he came. He 
 saw in its rigidity a lingering habit of mind, not an 
 indication of its lack of sympathy or kindness; as 
 though St. Simeon Stylites had modified his ideal of 
 life, and were painfully stumbling and stiffly run- 
 ning on his errands of love. 
 
 He tred to bring to this question before him now, 
 the impartiality his broader vision had taught him ; 
 he tried to think only for her. He fought with his 
 own longing that shook his will again and again, 
 pleading th?* life was so short, so short. His camp 
 could be cut to pieces by Indians, he might be 
 
A New England Girl 233 
 
 drowned or struck down by some force of that 
 nature which was fiercely resisting the invasion of 
 
 her solitudes; yet this girl, seemingly safe at home 
 
 might be ill,— might He checked his very 
 
 breath. He dared not think the name of death. If 
 some mischance should spoil the promise of their 
 lives, how pitifully poor would plain fare and a rough 
 hut appear as cause of their separation to the one 
 who was left! The sweep of Alden's later life had 
 opened his eyes also to his besetting danger, the 
 tendency to stand tenaciously by a position he had 
 once decided to be right, and to find it impossible, 
 even against his reason, to recede. 
 
 Suddenly now he saw it best to change his deter- 
 mination not to be happy until Corenzio were fully 
 paid, and when he not only recognized that, but 
 found himself able to act upon it, he laughed aloud 
 like a man freed. 
 
 Turning in his chair he reached impulsively for 
 the hand jarbara had withheld from a delicate dread 
 of influencing his judgment by its unconscious ap- 
 peal. At the touch, a mighty impulse in him rose 
 from the depths of a human need, swept before it 
 the poor obstacles thrown down by artificial life, 
 poverty, material hardship, worldly ambitions; made 
 the way of a pure and passionate love the luminous 
 track in which suffering was accepted, even glori- 
 fied, and the gray and dusty world was young 
 again. 
 
XIV 
 
 TEMPERAMENT 
 
 Mrs. Temple was playing a prelude of only 
 moderate difficulty and continued her attempts to 
 strengthen the weak places in its execution for half 
 an hour after her husband and daughter had started 
 on their errand to the wharf tenements which was to 
 be followed by a visit to Alden. She was sufficiently 
 appreciative to see that her own touch when com- 
 pared with Corenzio's lacked a certain dainty grace, 
 but she was far from suspecting the depth of short- 
 coming indicated by his remark to young Adams 
 that she invested Chopin with a sort of lumpish 
 dignity. 
 
 Outward signs of the emotional temperament 
 with which she was born had been systematic- 
 ally stifled. Her life had never been articulate, and 
 below its surface disaffection, eujiut, contempt, 
 strange thrills and embryo passions, stirred and 
 crept. A woman who walked the floor of herrjom 
 for hours of the night after hearing Grisi sing or 
 seeing Rachel play and still let pass without protest 
 her husband's theory that she was suffering from 
 neuralgia, whose nerves quivered under her pale 
 skin as the tide of music swept her to and fro 
 within and the instant the sounds had ceased forced 
 
 234 
 
Tempenunent 235 
 
 herself to speak a few commonplace w<Mrds to show 
 her self-control, was a woman upon whom several 
 starved impulses might even yet avenge themselves. 
 
 Her early life had given her no knowledge of the 
 world and her relations toward humanity since her 
 marriage had comprised only the most respectable 
 persons in the most moral of all communities, a pro- 
 vincial New England town at the middle of this cen- 
 tury. To her secret sense all who were makers of 
 music or devotees of art were lifted Into the ideal. 
 Neither her friends nor those of her husband had 
 been artists by any name and to her such were the 
 race of gods. Almost at the outset this temper 
 leads the worshipper into confounding the per- 
 former with his act, the instrument with the strains 
 it utters, the poor flesh with the deathless spirit. 
 
 When the clock struck the quarter past eight she 
 heard it through a shower of notes and stopped 
 playing. She sat an instant, her eyes, the only tell- 
 tale feature of her face, fixed with some thought. 
 Then she suddenly rose, went out into the ha^l, 
 caught a glimpse of her pale hair and bright eyes in 
 the glass as she wound a scarf about her head, and 
 threw about her a long cloak lying ready upon a 
 chair, softly opened the street door and went out, 
 closing it as quietly behind her. She stood looking 
 up and down the street an instant from the steps, 
 then hurried down the path. She turned at the first 
 side street, walked quickly through it and reached 
 the more secluded road which soon became the 
 
236 The Sea-Farere 
 
 grass-grown way to the burial ground, the same in 
 which Susie had swung her lantern on the night 
 when she had eluded Locker, and seen the appari- 
 tion of the new white stone beside her mother's 
 gray one. Trees crowded with thin spring leaves 
 stood at uniform distances. Under the largest elm 
 on the left side she stood still, pressed closely 
 against the trunk, panting guardedly from her speed 
 as she held a fold of her cloak before her face. 
 
 All was still but the regular croak of a tree toad 
 and the occasional lugubrious sawing of one limb 
 against another in the tree over her head, for the 
 wind unfelt below was fitfully blowing in upper 
 branches. The rack was obscuring the full moon, 
 now heavily, now lightly. The whispering of two 
 figures hidden in the shadow of tree and wall 
 across the road was lost before it reached her. 
 
 " Ah, ha! Dicky boy! O ho! Dicky mio, what do 
 you say now? Have you lost? Fairly? 1 told 
 you she'd come," said one, seizing the other's arm 
 and pulling him nearer. 
 
 "It's monstrous!" answered the other, freeing 
 his arm and speaking with husky emphasis. " A 
 woman of her age! It's weak and disgusting." 
 
 The other laughed softly and patted his shoulder 
 with the tips of his fingers, " O no, no! Nothing 
 of the kind. It's natural on the contrary. They're 
 all alike. They can't help it, bless 'em! Give them 
 one droop of your eyes and it's over with them, 
 poor dears. What do you bet she's thinking about ? 
 
Tempeiament 
 
 237 
 
 Wondering why I linger, linger in the glo»ning, of 
 course. I say, it's queer now isn't it, by Jove, 
 what they'll do for a fellow." 
 
 "Go across and spealc to her," replied Adams, 
 with unusual spirit. " It's the only decent thing to 
 do. See her safely home at least," 
 
 "Not so, Horatio. No entanglement for me, 
 thank you. Too poor for any risks. Do you sup- 
 pose 1 want a scandal about myself and the old 
 lady? Ha! Ha! Well, well. To hear such a sug- 
 gestion from you, Dicky boy! It grieve me. Ha! 
 Ha! No, there are so many pretty giris smiling on 
 a fellow that he doesn't know what to do, let alone 
 the faded ones. Halloa! What's struck her? 
 Look!" • 
 
 For the cloaked figure had darted from the 
 shadow where it stood and was fleeing down the 
 road. 
 
 "She didn't hear a word! She couldn't!" ex- 
 claimed Corenzio. breathlessly. "What hap- 
 pened?" 
 
 " I don't know. Let's go home," replied Adams, 
 leading the way to the street. 
 
 " A shadow frightened her, I suppose. Ugh! 
 How damp my feet are! I hope they're only cold, 
 not really wet. The cigars were to be good ones, 
 you know, Dicky." 
 
 " O, you've won. I shan't cheat you, old fellow," 
 replied Adams. 
 
 Mrs. Temple did not pause in her hasty flight un- 
 
The Sea-Faren 
 
 til she was in her own room with the key turned in 
 the loclc. Then without loosening cloak or scarf 
 she sank into the nearest chair, panting with a 
 
 haste she had not attempted since some foolish 
 fright in her girlhood had sent her scurrying home 
 when belated in the winter dusk. 
 
 What had sent her now? Not human voices; 
 she had heard none. But away from the warm 
 room filled with music, alone, chilled, timid, a hor- 
 ror of her escapade had seized her. What had 
 seemed a simple, natural thing when it was men- 
 tioned, now leered at her as lawless. Why had she 
 not said to her husband and daughter as they all sat 
 at their early tea, " I am going down the road to see 
 an effect of light and shade Mr. Corenzio is to show 
 me. He has reproduced it in one of his works — 
 that nocturne he played us the other night, Bar- 
 bara. I suppose neither of you care to see it ? It 
 is curious and interesting always to find out how 
 artists get their ideas, don't you think so 
 
 This simple thing had not been easy to say, 
 though she did not understand why. "I never 
 supposed I could be vulgar," she whispered to her- 
 self with stiffened lips, while she sat there after her 
 return. Wosds her grandmother had said to her 
 when she was but sixteen came up to her now, and 
 the clean, small room in which they were spoken : 
 "I have never kissed my husband in my life. I 
 should not think it the act of a modest woman." 
 Reason and experience combined had not been 
 
Tempeiaineiit 
 
 ^39 
 
 strong enough to wholly invalidate this ideal of 
 womanly virtue. " You! " she went on under her 
 breath, staring at herself in the mirror opposite, 
 " forty-seven years old, the gray coming Into your 
 hair, lines about your eyes, your color gone, your 
 daughter about to be mdrried,— you creep out of 
 your house at night at the bidding of a boy who has 
 made your old nerves stir with a piano jingle. You 
 poor, ridiculous fool!" 
 
 With two quiclc, indrawn breaths the hard lines 
 suddenly softened in her face and she sobbed as she 
 sat there, the almost tearless sobs of middle age. 
 It was the merest dribble of a (Mssion which she 
 felt for the musician. She had never suspected its 
 possibility until to-night. His airy, mocking grace 
 fed \-^ii.e starved aesthetic sense in her. Unknown 
 to herself he expressed in his life and art a certain 
 freedom, lightness, elation, which she had missed. 
 The occasional call of some hunger in her had risen 
 consciously before at the sight of passionate feeling 
 in others. Perhaps Barbara's happiness had roused 
 the vague restlessness always present in her mother's 
 unfulfilled life into this expression to-night, for we 
 are strange beings, working upo eich other in 
 more ways than we know. Perhaps the vision of 
 a satisfying love had moved the deeps of this other 
 heart into futile movement, as the Great Spring in 
 Boston, choked with stones beneath the feet of 
 burr} mp; business men, moistens the ground above 
 it when the April floods are sweeping the rivers of 
 
240 The ScapFaicn 
 
 New England to the sea. Mrs. Temple had no 
 remembnmce of the failure of the yotmf man to 
 appear. She recalled it next morning wh«i the 
 wrote the note discotitifiuing her lessons. 
 
 Corenzio soon exhausted the subject of his irre- 
 sistible charm and Mrs. femple's infatuation. His 
 pleasure in mischit ^ . .is l rj?f like the naughtiness 
 of a child. Before n. uiv i inutes was hurrying 
 his compani(Hi along through the crooked streets, at 
 the quick, light gait which was natund to him 
 when his brain was active, talking of the plans for 
 his annual concert. All at once they stopped before 
 a blistered green door which he i^riocked Md they 
 both went in. 
 
 The young man lived in the •=ma!i house in which 
 he had been born and whose shelter al; the rest of 
 his race had left for the gold fields c- the grave. 
 He had stayed there with his one serva it in p .ler- 
 ence to taking bachelor apartments in a newer 
 section of the town, partly becat^ he had the 
 artist's dread of a change of oivtronment and 
 partly because he meant to after his outward life 
 radically if at all. "A great leap, Dicky," he once 
 said, "is dazzling, is picturesque, but cfin^ng is 
 caddish." 
 
 The room into which they turned from the hall 
 was low in the walls, with a wide fireplaci where a 
 log smouldered. The moon shone out si idenlv .-s 
 they entered and streamed a flood of <idtance 
 through the two windows from which the Omin 
 
TempenyBWfit 
 
 >v 
 
 were drawn. The hght fell acrois the piano, i^on 
 which, and upwi the floor beside it '■hevts (rf music 
 were scattered. A vi<rioncetk> sto^ d in the corner 
 
 near by, a pillow covered w Ih fed cloth lay upon 
 ihe rug before the fir; with he p'''n' of he young 
 ov > head st !1 trcsh in it, jnd a b'oke.i-tMKke ' 
 ndvei face .! )wn c'id*' ' 
 
 Corel, ziu " liked ; wini' 
 le xclaimea aloud h ^tood v\\ 
 gazing. "Beautiful!" he said ag- 
 breath. 
 
 When he turrdl away r was to ' down at the 
 piano. He tot^s ed tht- vhite -e^s softly, un- 
 certainly. Mystery w^. n tt; rrv^ved chords, 
 he tumblii seven*'^i>, v jr 
 ments of f 'i. ^ n crie 
 prayers, the^ :n a 'e the g 
 of h man ng ng, cage- ? - 
 iiai; ig at its bonds. 
 Th nsood totoxi atet' 
 
 p. groping, frag- 
 like awe-stricken 
 sway ind sweep 
 chi g, passionate, 
 
 the = 
 
 eves bneht ani 
 
 lan, his breath came 
 HftiMl w«re following 
 jtinn vhii. the Sounds were madly racbig 
 o ui For^ fui his surroundings, the moon- 
 iigut . fa sitowed in it a pale splendor cf 
 which r ous, though the full, 
 
 sensuous i ixeu arted, under no control 
 f the wi!!, seemed at variance with the ideal beauty 
 f the head and eyes. The boy Adams sat watch- 
 ng . im, Hstoiing for the first time in their acquaint- 
 nee unnK»ved. The music was crowding the Bttle 
 
242 The Sea-Farcfs 
 
 room with ecstasy, but young Adams never raised 
 his eyes from the flying fingers whose mere 
 mechanical skill was wonderful. 
 
 A cloud dimmed one side of the moon, crept 
 across the disk. A pathetic chord crashed suddenly 
 and Corenzio rose. He drew a hard breath; his 
 face was wet with tears. Adams stood and the 
 musician rested one hand upon his shoulder as they 
 walked the length of the room together toward its 
 shadowy end. 
 
 Corenzio was moving quickly, as though he 
 needed relief in action. He struck with great force 
 some heavy and unexpected obstacle, staggered and 
 nearly fell. When he recovered his balance he 
 limped across the room with a shower of curses 
 and lighted a lamp. 
 
 "1 told her!" he cried in a shrill and broken 
 voice. "1 said that old chair was to go to the 
 attic to-day. She did it on purpose! Recom- 
 mended to me as faithful and good-natured! 
 Good-natured! Told me it was too heavy for her 
 to lift, the lazy idiot, and then left it there! My 
 old Jane never complained of lifting that nor any- 
 thing else. Why need she break down and leave 
 me to be treated like a dog! O, I'll get even with 
 her in the morning. 1 wish 1 had her here nowl" 
 
 " It is heavy," remarked Adams. " Try it." 
 Try it ? Good Lord, did you ever know me to 
 lift a chair ? Is a musician to have no regard for his 
 hands at all? No, sir, 1 pay that woman to lift 
 
Temperament 043 
 
 things and do it she shall if she keeps her place. I 
 shall be lame for a week. I struck the sharpest 
 point of the rocker, of course. Things arrange 
 themselves so for me. I've always noticed that." 
 
 I'm sorry. Can 1 do anything ? It'll be all right 
 in the morning. Well, 1 must go. • 1 won't forget 
 about the cigar?. Good-night." 
 
 Corenzio limped with him to the door to finish his 
 complaints. He stopped before the offending article 
 when he went back and scowled at it blackly. It 
 was a wide chair, as if intended for a large man, 
 and its mahogany frame though strong was not 
 massive, the back formed of two separated bands of 
 wood, the stuffed seat covered with threadbare 
 crimson velvet It had been given to his father by 
 the old clergyman, when the parish had presented 
 him with a new one. 
 
 Corenzio lifted his unhurt foot and tried to tilt the 
 chair by placing it under the seat. Finding he could 
 not, he carefully tipped it to one side with both 
 hands. It was heavy. He whistled a few notes, 
 walked to the piano, tried them, and jotted them 
 down on a sheet of music paper in pendL Then 
 he took the lamp away after another glance at the 
 chair and returned with a little hammer and chisel 
 He pried up the cushion. It was of hair and very 
 light. He examined the wooden rest below it. He 
 saw at once that the one piece of wood composing 
 the top was a perfect parallelogram not fitted about 
 the legs. He inserted the chisel, struck it with the 
 
244 I'hc Sca-Farers 
 
 hammer and in an instant with this leverage had 
 
 lifted the cover, for such it was. 
 
 He drc^ped the tools and knelt upon the floor. 
 The space was stuffed with newspapers rolled into 
 tight balls and he impatiently pulled them out. 
 Three were not mere paper but were wrappers for 
 something else. The enclosures we.-e very heavy. 
 
 He rose, tiptoed to the door and locked it. With 
 shaking fingers he tore one of the papers away. 
 
 A bag of thick canvas tied tightly came to view. 
 When he had cut the string he poured the contents 
 upon the floor. 
 
 It could only be the lost gold. He had not a mo- 
 ment's doubt about that from the first. He counted 
 it piece by piece from the three bags, the dingy 
 coins that seemed to have been dimmed by their 
 connection with temptation as well as by the grime 
 and sweat of their earning. It was the very sum 
 his father had named in the note he had left record- 
 ing his defx}^ wi^ tiie Reverend Amos Sumner. 
 
 G>r«iao pi»hed ^ piles of goUd togethor into 
 one heap with a i»rveless hai»L Then that old 
 man gave it back when it was demanded. The 
 money paid since had never been owed. He felt 
 dull and could not think collectedly. Having 
 grasped one idea his mind flitted from it at once 
 upon something else. 
 
 A paper which had been in one of the bags had 
 fallen out with the gold. He unfolded and read 
 the few liMs written upon it; the ink had faded to 
 
Temperament 
 
 245 
 
 a pale brown. In one handwriting were the words: 
 Received of Amos Sumner ^j,8oo.6t, and beneath 
 them the signature in another hand, Antonio 
 Coreniio,, with the date, September 20, i8yo. The 
 old minister had forgotten to talce his receipt away. 
 
 Then those two could be married at once. The 
 payments might have prevented it for a year more. 
 He pressed both hands to his forehead tightly and 
 seemed to think better. He could not return what 
 had been paid without using some of this. He had 
 treated himself to a few luxuries needed by his sed- 
 entary life, a saddle horse, a riding dress; he had 
 bought his new piano, his 'cello and dressing case, 
 but more important still he had purchased a tract of 
 land just beyond the town limits which would be 
 very valuable in a few years if he could hold it. 
 Without conscious intention he gathered up the 
 pieces and filled the bags one by one. 
 
 When he rose with them in his hands he un- 
 locked a long drawer of the desk in one comer, 
 pushed them into it with a gesture of repugnance 
 and turned the key. Was Alden Sumner to have 
 all the good things of this earth, honwrs, strength, 
 an old name and Barbara Temple? Men had to 
 take justice into their own hands sometimes since 
 the Powers abov.- not. With irritable haste he 
 collected the mat newspapers and tossed them 
 into the fireplace, fitted the cover into the seat and 
 crammed down the cushion upon it. 
 
 He picked up the fatit^l receipt again and stood 
 
246 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 with It open in his hand, looking at the words so 
 lonp that they seemed to mean nothing. He 
 walked mechanically across the room as the news- 
 papers blazed up suddenly in the fireplace, and he 
 threw the scrap of paper in. 
 
 By a deliberate choice to take the evil before the 
 good is a serious responsibility, since it lessens the 
 sum of spiritual life in the world. This man had 
 turned his back upon the sun, and thenceforth he 
 saw all things in the shadow of his own heart 
 
XV 
 
 A TRAVEiXR RETURNS 
 
 "I WISH it were not business, papa, for I would 
 go with you," Barbara said. 
 
 Temple did not answer her until he had reached 
 the flagged pathway. Then feeling her presence 
 still waiting in the doorway, he muttered, " Busi- 
 ness, business," and without lool(ing back turned 
 into the street. 
 
 His daughter stood a moment more, her eyes 
 following his retreating figure. The joy of spring, 
 the wistfuiness of spring had come, and was filling 
 the misty Uue of the afterruon. "What is the 
 matter, mamma ? " she aslced a moment later. 
 
 " You make me start, Barbara, you are so ab- 
 rupt," murmured her mother, lifting the head bent 
 over her sewing. "A quiet manner is always so 
 
 attractive in young girls. I wish, Matter with 
 
 whom ?" 
 
 "I'm sorry, mamma. With papa, 1 mean." 
 
 " How should I know more than you ?" said Mrs. 
 Temple, turning a comer deftly in her hemstitch- 
 ing, " what did he say f" 
 
 "O, it wasn't so much anything he said. He 
 isn't like himself in a hundred ways lately. When 
 I spoke of the wedding just now he looked dazed; 
 
 •47 
 
248 
 
 The Sea-Farcrs 
 
 then he said, 'Wedding? What wedding?' and 
 after I told him that of course he knew all about it 
 and had approved it, and mentioned the day, he 
 said, 'O, nonsense, child; nonsense! Don't talk 
 of it.' He seems not to have it on his mind at all." 
 
 " He gets tired at the office, I suppose, " her nwther 
 answered, "lie does not sleep very well." 
 
 "Doesn't sleep!" exdaimed Bmbaxz, who w» 
 stai standing; " he overslept twice last week, don't 
 you remember ? And we waited breakfast for him." 
 
 "Yes," replied her mother after a little pause, 
 "so he did, to be sure." The furrow between her 
 eyes deepened. She did not mention to her daugh- 
 ter her suspicion that on both occasions the sleep 
 had not been a natural one. It was new to her to 
 have any worry about her husband's health. 
 
 " I've noticed his appetite is not good," Barbara 
 continued. " Don't you remember he said at dinner 
 yesterday, 'Roast Iamb is a staple with us, isn't 
 it ? ' when we hadn't had it before for a week. I 
 spoke to Alden about that, and he suggested that 
 papa was still fretting about that wine lost from the 
 /7/]fA/,— detestable nanre, and no good ever came 
 of it! That affair did take hold upon him unac- 
 countably. You and I remarked it, and Alden says 
 it seemed to wither him about the edges. Have 
 you noticed how he goes down the steps lately? 
 It gives me a lump in my throat to see his shoul- 
 ders. They look old." 
 
 " Constat dread of 1<^ with valuabte cargoes is 
 
A Traveler Retunu 249 
 
 a strain upon a man, I imagine," replied her mother 
 with a touch of reproof in her voice which parried 
 any emotional turn the conversation might possibly 
 talte; "it means more to the bread-winner in a 
 family than to a careless young girl of course. 
 Where did he say he was going ? " 
 
 " To the office. Winslow Brothers' Sea Queen is 
 just in, and I offered to walk to the wharf with him, 
 but he dkin't want me." And Barbara, who was 
 not 9Hle a OHreless young girl, turned away for 
 her work and sat down by her mother. The two 
 women stitched for some time in silence. Barbara 
 finished basting a hem, took a deep breath, and en- 
 tered upon the long monotony of its sewing. "I 
 suppose," she suggested, "that when any one is 
 going away from home she always thinks over the 
 old days, doesn't she ? " 
 
 " One is apt to, I think," her mother answered. 
 
 " They've been coming up to me lately, night and 
 day," Barbara bent lower over her seam as she 
 spoke; "things I had forgotten,— kind little things 
 that you and papa did for me, and that Robert did, 
 too, when 1 was a child." An electric thrill seemed 
 to go through the room at the mention of this name, 
 so long avoided and unspoken. 
 
 Barbara waited to see how her experiment of 
 speaking of this lost member of the family would 
 be received. To her surprise her mother repOed 
 with but slight hesiution, "Yes: what kind of 
 things?" 
 
as© The Sca-Farers 
 
 "Do you remember the time I followed a hurdy- 
 gurdy until I was lost ? 1 wasn't afraid at all until I 
 saw you run toward me into the road without your 
 bonnet. That made me cry. And Robert built my 
 boat for me. He took his whole vacation for it, 
 you know, and he painted it" 
 
 " Yes, I remember." 
 
 " Mamma, I want to ask you something." 
 After a perceptible pause Mrs. Temple said, 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Was Robert really bad, mamma, or was he only 
 a mischievous boy, and a man who hated conven- 
 tionalities, and would have his own .way ? 1 think 
 I ought to know." 
 
 Her mother's needle snapped, and she rose to 
 throw the pieces among the embers on the hearth. 
 " I never knew him well." she said, when she had 
 returned, selected a new one and threaded it "He 
 was a peculiar child, violent and wilful. I was 
 very young when 1 was married." 
 
 " Yes, mamma." 
 
 "And my grandmother, your great-grandmother 
 Dale, was an unusually wise worn? .. She had 
 brought me up. She thought it was beyond me to 
 attempt to manage him, so we, — so he was sent to 
 school It was the best school in the state, people 
 said." 
 
 " But, mamma," began Barbara with some hesi- 
 tation, "you had been a school-teacher yotinelf. 
 Was he so impossible to influence at his age ? " 
 
A Traveler Returns 
 
 asi 
 
 " Your great-gnndmotlMr believed so. She was 
 a woman of vary strong diaracter. Sht said he 
 seemed to have no soul." 
 
 " Poor child I At five years old/' murmured her 
 
 daughter. 
 
 Mrs. Temple, with needle set, looked up at the 
 bent head. " It sounds but a lame excuse to you, I 
 can see," she said in a constrained voice. " If I had 
 been older, if 1 had lived in this advanced age, I 
 might have tried " 
 
 " O. mamma, don't think I mean to— to " 
 
 " I might have tried. I acknowledge it I do 
 not need my daughter to remind me of it 1 have 
 thought about it. I am not at all sure it would have 
 maie the least difference in his career, but I think 
 now it was my duty. I did not see it so then, but 
 as one gets older, — as one sees in one's self the pos- 
 sibilities of doing — of doing — as one gets older " 
 
 "Mamma," remonstrated Barbara, "don't mind 
 what 1 said, don't! I am so ignorant of the circum- 
 stances " 
 
 "One sees how things happen— one undor- 
 stands " 
 
 Barbara looked at her mother in sheer v/onder, at 
 the dull pink in her cheeks, the strained contraction 
 of her eyes, fixed in h«r unusual effort at expres- 
 sion. 
 
 "One understands—" Mrs. Temple began again, 
 pushing the needle point through and through the 
 linen in her hands. 
 
252 
 
 The Sea-Faien 
 
 "You are so gentle, nuunma, you nevor couM 
 have been unkind," the daughter urged. 
 
 "I am not gentle." Mrs. Temple rose as she 
 spoke and swiftly left the room. The girl stood 
 staring at the door, bewildered, but after a few in- 
 stants' indecision went back to her seat. When 
 Mrs. Temple returned she appeared much as usual. 
 Barbara placed her footstool and kissed her on the 
 cheek. 
 
 "It is later than I thought," the elder woman 
 said, taking up her work, " but the days are grow- 
 ing long." Her face was pale and composed, but 
 
 her thread jerked quickly as she sewed. 
 
 Barbara, without glancing at them, noted the 
 tense fingers, and talked of plain household matters. 
 In all her days now the glad and the sorry mingled 
 in about equal proportions. She and Alden had 
 been prepared for more opposition than they were 
 called upon to face when their plan was laid before 
 the members of both families, for the general 
 threw the whole weight of his influence in their 
 favor, md Temfrfe had acquiesced without a 
 struggle, to the surprise of every one, agreeing with 
 all that was urged in behalf of the scheme, and 
 seeming to accept all of his daughter's premises. 
 
 The mother said, "Your sewing cannot be done 
 in that time." While evidently unconvinced by 
 Barbara's reasons why endurance and not variety 
 was the quality needed ki her outflt, she yet gave a 
 grave consent to the marriage. The girl had put an 
 
A Traveler Returns 253 
 
 arm around her mother's neck, and with her cheek 
 against hen had said, "You don't mind, mamma? 
 You don't mind too much?" And Mrs. Temple 
 had answered, "There, there!" patting the daugh- 
 ter's shoulder as she spoke, and gently freeing 
 herself with that slight recoil of shame at family 
 demonstration which was habitual to her. As the 
 days went by she had, until to-day, met her daugh- 
 ter's eyes with that dumb smile behind which so 
 much repressed affection lay in bonds. 
 
 The girl had been accustomed to a less strenuous 
 companionship with her easy-going father, and It 
 was new and puzzling to find him unresponsive for 
 the first time in her ^e. 
 
 Most of the sick saikm had recovered from the 
 effects of their experience with the pirates, and two 
 months after their adventure the Flight, like a broken 
 life, crept home. The story of the seizure of a part 
 of the cargo, and the narrow escape of the crew, 
 was told at every corner of the streets, but Robert 
 Temple's name was never coupled with it 
 Through the loyalty of an old saik>r the family 
 honor had never been bandied from mouA to mouth 
 among the gossips on the wharves. 
 
 Meanwhile on this spring afternoon as Barbva 
 Temple sewed her seam the threads of fate were 
 spinning. Mammy was walking slowly from the 
 wharf to her old home. She set one clumsy foot 
 down heavily after the other, and assisted her mo- 
 mentum by swinging slightly the bundle she carried 
 
as4 The Sea-Fuen 
 
 in one hand. The dittinca at we know was not 
 great Few idlers were about tlM doorways and 
 she saw no one whom she knew. As though she 
 
 had only been away over night she went up the 
 dingy stairs, fitted a key into the lock of her old 
 rooms at their head, and opened the door. 
 
 The room was in a confusion which was unlike 
 her favorite style of disorder. A man's coats, boots 
 and other belongings were scattered upon the floor 
 and flung across every wooden chair. The cot bed 
 in one comer had been untouched since its owner 
 left it The room was only inddentaUy a sleeping 
 apartment in mammy's reign. It had been eminently 
 a kitchen. Now a water kettle humn^ dully over 
 the coal fire low in the itove, and one saucepan on 
 the floor near by seemed to hint at simplicity, per- 
 haps enforced simplicity, of taste in cookery. 
 Mammy took up a coat and dropped it. 
 
 " Israel," she said aloud. She went into the small 
 bedroom leading from the kitchen, in which she 
 found a simihH' scene, uncomplicated by the presence 
 of a stove. She lifted an okl hat and dropped it 
 A slow triumph burned in her directed eyes. 
 '"Dolphus," she whispered. 
 
 When these two members of the family returned, 
 preparations for corn-cake and flapjacks were going 
 forward. 
 
 " Yas, here I be, sho's yo' born. What youse 
 stamfin* dere gawkin' at? Git to work, you lazy 
 nigger, an' fetch some wood from somewheres. 
 
A Traveler Retumt sss 
 
 Wal, 'Dolphus, you don' pretty much d«s« dijff. 
 Reckon the didn' fe«l ye up good «ft«r aU youM 
 scuttlln' tway from yo' own wife for her mi* iteato* 
 dem pants." 
 
 "Where you been, Venus, darlin'?" inquired 
 AdolfAut in the soft voice he liept for cus- 
 
 lomers. 
 
 "Don* bodder where 1 been. P'raps gallivantin' 
 like youse. Han' me ober a couple dem dere 
 kindlin's, Israel Now fly roun'. bofe of yer, an* 
 wash up fo' dem flapj 'cics come aboard or yoo ion' 
 git none, tell yer! " 
 
 At eight o'clock when the long May twIBght was 
 tun^ to dusk, when her bread was set to rise and 
 her rooms were put in order, Venus, who had ac- 
 quired habits of eedom, thumped down t! j stairs 
 and out of the house, deigning no explan * >n in 
 answer to the honeyed questions of hus' -.ia 
 son sitting in two dark lumps on the doorstej... 
 
 "RecKon it'll be a year dis time," remarked 
 Adolphus, dropping back into the place from which 
 he had obsequiously risai to let his wife pass. 
 " What flapjacks! O, uml Ah!" Adolphus slowly 
 drew in his lips with remembered pleasure, vatcin 
 ing the fat figure di«q^>ear in the gloom down the 
 street. 
 
 " She's skedaddled," replied the pessimistic Israel. 
 "Skedaddled agin. 1 knowed sich cqm-cakes 
 couldn' las'." 
 
 Venus went more and more slowly after die Wt 
 
256 The Sea-Farers 
 
 her own neighborhood and made her way through 
 old but stiU respectable streets, until sfie stopped be- 
 fore the litUe brown gate of General Sumner's 
 house. She glanced furtively at the windows, then 
 softly pushed the gate open and hurried past them 
 to the rear door. Locker was out. the woman who 
 assisted him during the day had gone home, Alden 
 was at the Temples', and her repeated faint knocks 
 finally roused only the geneial in the sitting-room. 
 He rose, and striding through the two rooms be- 
 tween, suddenly opened the door. Tray dashed 
 past him and with breathless, joyful barks threw 
 himself upon a large something at the foot of the 
 steps. The general peered into the dusk which 
 seemeato have gathered thickly into one spot, as 
 clouds sometimes form into big and fantastic human 
 shapes. 
 
 " Who is it ?" he asked sharply as if calling for a 
 countersign. 
 "It's me, mahsa." 
 "Who are you?" 
 " Venus, mahsa." 
 
 The general stood still an instant and the dog still 
 
 leaped upon her. 
 
 "Come in," he said, and after they had reached 
 the sitting-room, "Sit down," he added as abruptly. 
 
 After she h^d obeyed, Tray put his forepaws on 
 her knee and barked shortly twice, then clumsUy 
 whirled about several times and barked again. 
 
 "Leave the room, sir!" roared the general, and 
 
A Traveler Returns 
 
 »57 
 
 the dog crept out of the door. He stood just be- 
 yond the threshold uttering quivering, low whines, 
 and the soldier crossed the floor and closed the 
 door. He paused in front of Venus on his way 
 back, a terrific figure with gray eyebrows beetling 
 above fierce eyes and grim mouth. 
 
 " Where have you been ?" he demanded. 
 
 The black face looked up like that of a submissive 
 animal. "With Miss Susie, mahsa." 
 
 The severity of the general's look altered to a 
 keen scrutiny. " She's mad," he said as though to 
 a third person in the room. 
 
 "No, mahsa," ventured Venus. 
 
 " Look me in the eye. Collect yourself. Where 
 —have— you been these last six months ?" 
 
 " I been with Miss Susie, mahsa." 
 
 " Miss Susie is not Uving," explained the general 
 with slow sternness. " You were her old nurse. I 
 am her father. Have you nobody but Israel to Uke 
 care of you ?" 
 
 "1 done jes' come home," faltered Venus. "1 
 been with Miss Susie, mahsa." 
 
 "Don't say that to me again! " thundered the 
 general. 
 
 "No, mahsa." She lifted herself heavily to her 
 feet as if to go. 
 
 " Sit down. You say you have just c<mim iMMne. 
 Where were you ? " 
 
 "On de Sea Quutt, mahsa. An' missy,— 01" 
 She stopped short 
 
258 
 
 The Sca-Farers 
 
 "The Sea Queen/" exclaimed the general. 
 " The Sea Queen landed to-day." 
 
 "Yes, mahsa." 
 
 " What has that to do with her ? She died two 
 years and six months ago. Do you hear ? Do you 
 understand?" 
 
 Venus crouching in her chair looked up once at 
 the face just above her. "No, mahsa," she whis- 
 pered, "no, mahsa. Six weeks ago." 
 
 The general grasped her shoulder with a grip of 
 steel. "Stand up! Look me in the eyes. The Sea 
 Queen Now tell me, if you can, that my daugh- 
 ter, my daughter, was on board the Sea Queen/" 
 
 "No, mahsa. In Naples. In Naples, mahsa. 
 O, she's dead! Good Lord! O, honey! UT 
 missy! " 
 
 "Stop! No whimpering. What was it you 
 said? Say it again. 1 couldn't hear." 
 
 She would have sunk to the floor but his iron 
 grasp held her up. 
 
 " I was with missy," she said helplessly. 
 
 "No crying, I tell you! Answer me this, how 
 came she there ? " 
 
 "De men— dey carry off Mahsa Robert " 
 
 "Robert! " 
 
 "Mahsa Robert Temple. Yes, mahsa. 
 
 " Where was he ? I'll hear this crazy rubbish to 
 the end. Where was he ? " 
 
 "With me an' missy, on de island. Didn' no- 
 body nefober tell yot»e dat, mahsa ? 01 O ! O ! " 
 
A Traveler Returns 159 
 
 The faneraTs heavy hand pushed her down opon 
 the chair. Ht stood before her, his voice forced 
 and stem. 
 
 "Listm to tat. My daughter and my friend 
 Temple's son were drowned the same day, Sep- 
 tember twenty-sixth, two years ago. Can't you re- 
 member it, woman? Or are your wits clean 
 
 gone ?" 
 
 Venus huddled into a heap and with hands over 
 her eyes answered in desperation, "Deydone got 
 married. Dey d<me sail away. O, de good Lord 
 sabeusi Hallelu|ahl Lordl Urd!" 
 
 The stillness that foHowed lasted so tong that 
 Veni» ventured upon a half smothered sob. No 
 one checked it, and the relief it gave was so great 
 that she slipped to the floor and cried aloud. When 
 tears failed she mopped her face with her apron and 
 observing that the general stood in the same spot 
 but with eyes turned away, she managed to get 
 upon her feet and into the chair again. 
 
 "IfehM." 
 
 He MMde a motion with his hand for hcrto fl^ 
 
 on. 
 
 " He broke de ropes, snap! " 
 
 " Who P " The genend's mkit seemed to eome 
 
 from miles awny. 
 
 " Why, Mahsa Robert, 'co'se. Reckon youse for- 
 got 1 tole yer dat, mahsa," replied Venus, tolerant 
 in her turn. 
 
 "Who bound him?" 
 
a6o The Sea-Fare» 
 
 " Dunno, mahsa. Sojers." 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Dunno, mahsa. Hadn* done noflRn'." 
 
 Again the general motioned her to speak. 
 
 ' ' Den de baby come. Den dey fctdMd us on de 
 ship. Dat's all." 
 
 "The baby?" The generals lips formed the 
 words but without sound. 
 
 " Didn' Ise tole yer dat 'fore, mahsa ? Couldn' a' 
 forg*^ dat nohow." 
 
 bnpatienlfy he moved Mt hand. 
 
 " Li r gat, tmiuM. Rcdutn ht 4m' hoK. Wf 
 gal, mahsa. 'Pearai mm k doat ftwer mm Susie 
 'bout de mouf." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "'Bout de mouf, mahsa." 
 
 " Where is she, woman ? Where is she ? " 
 
 "Dunno. Done gone. Dunno, dunno,' mut- 
 tered Venus, rising from her seat after one look at 
 his face. 
 
 " "mm TeM flie! Tell me, I si^." He sfkted 
 har shoulder more fiercely than he knew, and col- 
 lapsing undir Ms iHnd she dropped a nervdees heap 
 
 into the chair. 
 "Naples • 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 ' ' Uey done ukc har—— Of " 
 
 "Go on!" 
 
 "Aaf me, m' de baby " 
 
 "ToNapfn. Yat. What then? What then?" 
 
A Traveler Returns 
 
 a6i 
 
 " Den I wake up, an' missy she done gone. An' 
 
 debaby " 
 
 ••Where?" 
 
 ••Dunno. Dead. I'se walk an' walk an' call 
 'missy!' De men done curse at me in de street. 
 She done drown herself, an' de baby. Dey say dat 
 an' done curse at me in de street. ' Cahn lib, cahn 
 lib nohow,' missy done say. 'Cahn lib an' him 
 gone, 
 
 ••Was she W? Suffering? Crazy? TeU It aU 
 for Oti** sake! TeU it all" 
 
 "She warn' nuffin' hm skin an' bone, mahsa. 
 Reckon her eyes was m nateral as youse be now, 
 mahsa— more nateral 'n youse be. I done run 'bout 
 de strMt an' call ' missy.' Den dey cotch me by 
 de arm an' dey say, 'She's dead, you fool!' Den 
 dey drag me by de arms, mahsa, an' done frow 
 dis yere po' ole nigger down in de Sea Queen. 
 Lord, dats all. Lord," she gasped piteously, 
 "don' kMw nuffin* mt^. Dmif, mahsa, 'tkn lo 
 Gawd." 
 
 Wksn she ventured to look up she saw that 
 
 he had walked to the wMmt «id that his terrible 
 eyes were fixed upon that. Quietly Venus dragged 
 herself to her feet and stole away toward the door. 
 At its wooden barrier she stopped, not daring to fo 
 without his permission. He stood stiffly facing the 
 darkening panes. 
 
 •• Missy was alius afeard o youse. mahsa," she 
 faltered coilciliatingly, after a long widt 
 
262 
 
 The Sca-Farers 
 
 Some time after she had decided that he had not 
 heard he answered, " Yes." 
 " She was mighty sweet on Mahsa Robert," softly 
 
 feeling as she spoke for the latch of the door. 
 
 "Why did you leave her?" 
 
 At the swift, harsh words the black hand dropped. 
 " Lef me, mahsa. Done lef' me. " 
 
 "Was it at night?" 
 
 "Night, mahsa?" 
 
 " When she disappeared ? At night ? " 
 
 " Yes, mahsa. 'Pears like I done aUus sleep like a 
 
 log an' dat night " 
 
 • • Were you ne«r the water ? " 
 
 "Lord, yes, mahsa, as nigh as if youse was 
 
 to 
 
 "Did she uke anything with her? Anytfaiiig 
 
 with her?" 
 "De baby, yes) mahsa." 
 "Yes, and what else?" 
 
 "Nuffin* else. No hat, an' no cloak, an' no 
 mammy. Done fit 'em good when dey drag me 
 •long. I>Biie bite 'em hands an' kick 'em an* dey 
 done say — dey — say " 
 
 "What? " 
 
 " Dey 'Clare fo' Gawd dey done find htr " 
 
 "Find?" 
 
 "In de water O! " Something had fallen 
 
 from the wide window-seat and crashed in the 
 darkness oa the floor. " Li'l missy's vase, mahsal 
 Da rotes' vase " 
 
A Traveler Returns 263 
 
 "Go!" She jerked the door wide and hurried 
 across the thre^M^ ' ' Venus ! " 
 " Yes, yes, raahsa." 
 "Thank you.'* 
 
 " T ank you, t'anlt you, malisa. Lanme pidc up 
 
 dem dere " 
 
 "Go! Go!" 
 
 At the street door Tray leaped from a black cor- 
 ner, barking loudly, blocking her retreat In 
 nervous eTMiperatiwi she sm^ched him up, and 
 noisekirfy opening the aitting-room door ag«n, she 
 thrust Ite inaMi. In om ^ick g^nce she aaw the 
 tall ^gan on its knees before the window, \M0g 
 the bUi «f batkm ctoia uim by aid*. 
 
XVI 
 
 THE HEART OF A TEMPTATION 
 
 The next morning Phincas Temple sat in his office 
 with a map of the Mediterranean spread out before 
 
 him and the point of his pencil moving along Italian, 
 Greek and Turltish coastlines. He missed the goad 
 of that younger mind after which he had scrambled 
 in these latter years as it darted to brilliant possibil- 
 ities, if also to impracticable ventures. Of late he 
 had relied on his daughter for the sketch of many a 
 voyage and upon paper seas they had traveled to- 
 gether over half the world. Without her he worked 
 slowly through the details of figs and raisins, marble 
 and rags, a deflection to St. Petersburg with oil, a 
 return to Gallipoli, Leghorn, Genoa, for the home- 
 ward cargo. One of his oaken ships was in the 
 Indies, loading with coffee for Amsterdam, one 
 would land next day with pepper from Sumatra, 
 another was selling gunpowder in Pernambuco to 
 make room for hides. 
 
 Coasting about Africa and the stray Azores, skim- 
 ming about the islands of the Indian Ocean, familiar 
 with savage Patagonia, oriental Bombay, far China 
 and Japan, the ships of New England went and 
 came in the splendor of a commercial supremacy 
 she was so soon to lose. They seemed to steep the 
 seaports in the atmosphere of distant lands, for am 
 
 *4 
 
The Heart of a Temptation 265 
 
 morning one might awake to find the air filled with 
 the odors of spice and perfumes from the east and 
 the wharves piled with sillcs and ivories and dyes» 
 fruits, wines and camphor wood. 
 
 Those were the days of individuality in business, 
 when the stamp of a man's personal character was 
 ujjon his fortune, and even after his descendants had 
 utterly spent this image of their ancestor, traces of 
 him flitted through the family. The race was not 
 especially adapUUe, having English sturdiness at the 
 roots, but it is evident that an inherited weariness, 
 like that of Phineas Temple, is a soil in which dain- 
 tiness would easily sprout. 
 
 A boy of sixteen sat at a desk in one corner of the 
 office, busily writing. He was the son of a nian far 
 richer than Temple, who had considered the path 
 along which exigency had lashed him toward suc- 
 cess, had seen it to be good, and so had thrust his 
 heir into It The boy swept and dusted the offices 
 at dawn every mornhii. His emptoyer for several 
 weeks had not worked in his private office without 
 having one of the clerks in the room, and ten days 
 ago a place had been arranged there in which this 
 boy was permanently to stay. Many a lime, the 
 older man, leaning back a moment in his chair for 
 rest, looked across at the patient brown head whose 
 hair made one curve toward the ear on its Sflwoth 
 way to his neck, and said to himself that a God of 
 justice could not blame men who. ^ugh no fault 
 of theirs, had been given sons urMm tMs. 
 
266 
 
 The Sca-Farers 
 
 In the private <^ce the two occupants this morn- 
 ing as usual worked in silence. At every point on 
 
 the map before him Temple was rtininded of his 
 daughter. He could see her hand and wrist moving 
 across the waters of the Meditt ranciin and obscur- 
 ing the whole of Northern Africa. 
 
 A loud rap at the door brought the nu rchant to 
 his feet; the boy only looked up. The door was 
 thrown wide immediately after the ceremony of 
 knoclcing and General Sumner stood in the entrance. 
 His great height and the ferocity of his eyes, his 
 frown, his bristling white moustache, but, more 
 than all. some concentrated emotion in the man 
 seemed to exhaust the air before him. 
 
 "Come in, John," said Temple, seating himself 
 with apparent rehef after seeing his visitor. "What's 
 the news?" 
 
 Phineas Temple was not a courageous man, but 
 with the instinct of the timid, he had discovered 
 early in his school days that John Sumner was not 
 to be classed among the truly dangerous, while the 
 
 general himself had all his life been secretly grateful 
 and attached to those who said that his manner was 
 only his way, and were not afraid ol him. He 
 stood an instant glaring upon the boy at the desk 
 before he accepted the invitation. 
 
 As soon as he strode forward a clerk appeared 
 upon the threshold he had left, holding a small, 
 roughly-made box in his hand. 
 
 " What is it, Ames ? " asked the merchant sharply. 
 
The Heart of a Temptation 167 
 
 " I don't know, sir. It It addresied to you per- 
 sonally." 
 " Where did it come from ?" 
 The Sea Quten, sir." 
 
 "Let's see it." 
 
 He eyed it doubtfully through his glasses ; the 
 handwriting was unfamiliar to him, but the address 
 was perfect. 
 
 " Talce it out and draw the nails, then bring it 
 here." 
 
 He watched it out of the room. 
 
 " Gunpowder, I dare say," he muttered. " How 
 are you, John ? Sit down." 
 
 The general had been pacing to and fro since Ke 
 came in and paid no attention to the request. 
 
 "You're nervous, John. Aren't you well?" in- 
 quired Temple, to whom restlessness was always 
 irritating. 
 
 " Didn't sleep. Old pain in my arm. Got it yet," 
 growled the general, tramping more vigorously than 
 ever. 
 
 Temple took a fokted paper from his pocket, care- 
 fully opened it and extracting two brown pUs held 
 tiMm out in the palm of his hand. 
 
 "What confounded stuff is it?" asked the gen- 
 eral, stopping an instant. 
 
 "Only a little morphine. Go home and try 
 them." 
 
 " No, sir! " The general resumed his walk. " 1 
 deserve all I get and I'll face It awake. I want to 
 
MldOCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART 
 
 (ANSI ond ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 
 
 A /1PPLIED IN/MGE Inc 
 
268 The Sea-Farers 
 
 speak to you," and he made a fierce motion with his 
 head toward the unconscious youth. 
 
 ••Enoch, take your books Into the outer oflRce 
 and don't come back till I send for you." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 The boy gathered his belongings with incredible 
 speed and left the room, passing the other clerk re- 
 turning with the box. 
 
 "Shut the door," and when this was done and 
 he and the general were alone Temple cautiously 
 lifted the loose lid and pulled out a hard wad of 
 Italian newspaper used as padding. The general 
 took no heed until a smothered exclamation of 
 anger and terror made him pause. 
 
 He turned to see his friend drop a scrap of paper 
 he was reading and fling a man's leather belt fringed 
 deeply with foxtails into an open closet behind him, 
 slam and bolt the door. He shook his hand violently 
 two or three times as if the touch of the fur still 
 clung to it, his face white, his mouth working. 
 Then he hastily unlocked an old cabinet near him, 
 took out a squat, dark bottle, poured a glass nearly 
 full of the contents and with an instinctive but 
 evidently unconscious motion toward his friend, 
 drank it off. 
 
 "Cursed impudence," he whispered, locking the 
 
 cabinet. He jerked his chair about and sat down. 
 •' 1 said cursed impudence! Cursed impudence. " 
 
 The general had watched him in some surprise. 
 Temple was the first to recover himself. 
 
The Heart of a Temptation 269 
 
 "Sit down, John. You had something to say. 
 Now, what is it?" 
 
 "Phin," the general stood like a column before 
 his seated companion, "my little girl, Susie, has 
 been alive all these years." 
 
 " Susie! " repeated Temple, " alive! " 
 
 " No, not now. But six weeks ago she was liv- 
 ing. 
 
 "Where?" asked Temple. "Where?" 
 
 "On an island in the Mediterranean. With 
 Robert. With your son." 
 
 A look of mortal sickness came into Temple's up- 
 lifted eyes, his face was gray. 
 
 "Did you know he was not dead?" demanded 
 the general, striding forward until he stood over 
 him. "Did you know?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Tell me ! Did you know she was there ? " 
 
 "No! No!" 
 
 " How long have you known he was alive?" 
 " Since— September." 
 
 The general turned abruptly from him to tramp 
 the floor again. Muttered exclamations, his daugh- 
 ter's name, the name of his Creator, mingled in 
 crude prayers and tenderness. He stopped abruptly 
 beside the table. 
 
 "Her old nurse told me last night," he said 
 harshly. "She was with them. Did you know 
 they were on Lampedusa ? " 
 
 "Yes." Temple was writing the letter R. all 
 
270 
 
 The Sca-Farers 
 
 over the sheet before him. " I knew he was there. 
 In all that— has happened, I swear to you, John, I 
 never knew about Susie." 
 
 " They were man and wife," the general asserted 
 hoarsely. " I have just seen the parsons certificate. 
 She is dead. Where is he ? " 
 
 Temple turned away his head. The pencil went 
 on moving in faint scratches. 
 
 " Where ? " repeated the general. 
 
 Temple threw the pencil down and drew in a 
 long breath. 
 
 "Sit down, John. I want to talk to you. Sit 
 down, do, and let's have done with it. Is that door 
 shut? Those cursed boys are always leaving it 
 open." 
 
 He pulled himself up from his chair, walked to 
 the closed door and sharply turned the key. The 
 general seated himself stiffly on the edge of a chair 
 as the merchant resumed his place. 
 
 " Go <m," said the soldier. 
 
 " You remember Robert, what a trial he was, al- 
 ways running away from school or building fires in 
 woods or defying his teachers; and yet I wanted 
 that boy to turn out well, like other fathers." 
 
 "Yes, yes." 
 
 "Well, he failed me. You know that, John, as 
 well as 1 do. At last we believed he was drowned. 
 You remember that evening affair at the house last 
 September ? He turned up then." 
 
 "What did he want?" 
 
The Heart of a Temptation 271 
 
 "O, money, money, of course; money." 
 
 " Susie was with him here." 
 
 "No, no, she wasn't. We were alone on the 
 balcony. I said he should not have it." 
 
 "What did he want it for? " 
 
 "The devil only knows. He began to tell 
 me some yarn, but I didn't listen to it. 1 told 
 him to come home and settle down and behave 
 himself. He threatened to fling ine over the 
 balcony." 
 
 " He wouldn't have dared." 
 
 "He would dare anything. I gave him the 
 money." 
 
 "To spare the family " 
 
 " Certainly, to spare the family. I heard no more 
 of him until Minns,— Jacob Minns,— your Locker's 
 friend, — you remember him " 
 
 " 1 don't know. Go on." 
 
 "This was after the Flight was boarded and 
 sacked by robbers. Minns was lying sick in a 
 berth. He saw their captain. He heard him speak. 
 He watched him carry off poor old Dane to his 
 death — no one has ever seen him since. John, the 
 captain was Robert." 
 "Robert!" 
 
 " Minns held his tongue— he knew 1 would pay 
 him,— a third of the cargo belonged to Greene and 
 Weld.— He came to me and told me that the man 
 who sacked my ship and poisoned my crew was 
 my own son!" 
 
The Sca-Farers 
 
 " And Susie was his wife Is there anything 
 more ? " 
 
 " Yes." He pushed back his chair,— he had been 
 emphasizing his last points by occasionally gripping 
 his friend's arm —rose and walked across the floor, 
 came back to his chair and dropped into it. " Yes.' 
 He was betrayed by one of his own men, taken and 
 tried as a pirate." He spoke thickly. 
 When ? " asked the general shortly. 
 
 " The authorities would give him up for a ransom 
 as he was an alien. The consul came to me." 
 
 "Lately?" 
 
 "It was seventy-five thousand dollars. I re- 
 fused.' 
 
 The general s eyes were fixed on his face but he 
 asked no more questions. 
 
 " That was on the twenty-sixth of March. He 
 told me— the consul told me, when— what the sen- 
 tence would be when the ship went back." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Last Friday, at twelve o'clock, noon, he was 
 hanged at Naples." 
 
 Upon the silence that followed, the roar of myriad 
 waves jf sound seemed to break and fill the room, 
 eager murmurs of human life, frettings of the aim- 
 less sea, all mingled together like the useless 
 clamor that surges across the dead. 
 
 It oppressed Temple. He swept a glance upward 
 at his companion's face without changing his atti- 
 tude. The general's look was stern, but there was 
 
The Heart of a Temptation 273 
 
 not the horror in it he had feared. He stretched a 
 timid hand out and moved it slowly toward him. 
 
 •.John " 
 
 No answer. 
 
 John, you blame me! You think I did wrong." 
 
 "No! No! " The voice was deep, like the boom 
 of brealters pounding against stone. "He broke 
 the law. The penalty was death. You had no 
 right to ••emit that punishment because he was your 
 flesh and blood. Phineas— you are a strong man— 
 a stronger man than I. I thank the Lord God 
 Almighty who has spared me such a test." 
 
 With a low exclamation of gratitude Temple tried 
 to seize his friend's hand, but the general had risen 
 hastily and was pacing the floor. 
 
 "It's a relief, John, to hear you say that," Temple 
 fell in with his step and they walked to and fro to- 
 gether. " 1 felt sure you would stand by me. I've 
 had to keep it to myself and I've needed some one 
 to tell me 1 was right. The thing has nearly driven 
 me mad." 
 
 He straightened his shoulders and drew a long 
 breath. 
 
 " I've sometimes wondered, in these last weeks 
 and months, when this cursed subject would not 
 let me rest, whether 1 had ever failed in my duty 
 toward that boy. But I can't see that 1 did, any- 
 where. 1 sent him to the best school, and I had a 
 right to expect that his teachers would instil civi- 
 lized and Christian ideas into him. That was partly 
 
274 
 
 The Sea-Farcrs 
 
 what they were paid for doing. Bi t he was as 
 wild as a hawk from the hojr he was bom. 
 Nothing would have made any difference." 
 
 He waited for some word of corroboration but 
 the general stalked back and forth in silence. 
 
 " I did it for my v ife and daughter. They ought 
 not to be depriv ; their comforts so as to set 
 loose upon us all „ iife like his, outlawed, disgraced, 
 worthless." 
 
 As the general still made no answer, Temple 
 studied his face during one length nf the room, then 
 left him to unlock the cabinet . ..n which he had 
 taken the glass of spirits. He brought out a box of 
 cigars and opened it. " Have one, John," he said 
 in the gloomy tone befitting the occasion and his 
 friend's face. "New brand." 
 
 The general gave a slight but peremptory nega- 
 tive by a motion of his head without looking up. 
 
 "You say I did right!" Temple said querulously, 
 standing with the rejected cigars in his hand. "I 
 meant right When a man does that why should 
 the thing cripple him for life? It isn't fair! I'm 
 not the man I was before. Something seems to 
 have gone out of me. It isn't just." 
 
 The general stood still, grasping the back of his 
 chair with his large, lean hand. He moistened his 
 lips as if speech were difficult. 
 
 "Discipline must be preserved. He broke the 
 law of nations," he said slowly. " You were right, 
 but it was a damnable thing you had to do! " 
 
The Heart of «i Temptation 275 
 
 He relaxed his stiffened grip of the chair and 
 rested his arm along the back instead. 
 
 "I was thinking of my little girl. I would have 
 been marched out to be shot for her, and she was 
 afraid of me. Pirate, outlaw as he was she was 
 not afraid of him. She loved him to the end. Her 
 last words to her nurse that night were that she 
 could not live without him. He must have been 
 kind to her, kinder than I was." 
 
 "He showed no kindness to me, his own fa- 
 ther!" exclaimed Temple. "He threatened my 
 very life. O, what's the use of talking about it! 
 It's done. Good or bad, it's over. 1 I low you 
 were fond of Susie, just as I am of my only girl. 
 But I'm giving her up. Practically, I've lost her." 
 
 The general lifted his eyes and looked at him. 
 
 "She is going in honor among her friends," he 
 
 •d slowly, " in honor and happiness; not stealing 
 at from her home in disobedience and fear. You 
 iiave allowed a guilty man to take his punishment; 
 you haven't sent a frightened girl to her death. 
 You haven't my reproach." 
 
 "Well, of course," admitted Temple vaguely. 
 " But you've had two years since. In all that time 
 you've never expected to see her again. My trou- 
 bles are fresh. They give me no peace. For 
 Heaven's sake, John, let's drop the whole subject!" 
 
 He irritably pushed away the articles before him 
 on the table, sending a shower of pencils, rulers and 
 papers, upon the floor. The general's eyes me- 
 
276 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 chanically followed them there and turned back to 
 Temple who had taken out two cigars, was meas- 
 uring their lengths and examining the ends. 
 
 Some sense of incongruity forced itself upon 
 General Sumner, producing the effect of distance. 
 He watched his friend steadily as if to bring his 
 face into the old focus. It was one, which to 
 judge by the relative position of the features, had 
 been a smaller face than It was now, and showed 
 little havoc except such as the erosion of sixty years 
 must work upon the flesh. The few deep furrows 
 characteristic of the general's face were connected 
 this morning by myriads of fainter new ones. He 
 was a man who recognized black and white but 
 had a contempt for the shades of gray. 
 
 Dimly through Temple's tired mind his friend's 
 words were echoing, "You are a strong man, 
 stronger than I. You did right. You had no 
 choice," and he was quieting himself with them. 
 Perhaps, after all. heroism in its essence was really 
 this; perhaps the heart of it was always some ter- 
 ror, some almost involuntary and desperate act, 
 some personal need. 
 
 And so the heights of goodness became to him 
 
 phantasma. 
 
 Temple laid one of the two cigars upon the desk 
 beside the general and lighted his own. 
 
 " No. sir! " shouted the veteran suddenly. " No 
 sir!" 
 
 Temple drew back his gift with a start at the ex- 
 
The Heart of a Temptation 277 
 
 plosive word but something about the exclamation 
 seemed to refer it to other sources than cigars and 
 he unobtrusively pushed it forward again. 
 
 " 1 shall make a new will to-morrow," he said, 
 sliding slowly into his chair. "I want to tell you 
 in confidence, John, that I'm not as rich as I'm 
 thought to be. I haven't let it be known, but I lost 
 fifty thousand dollars through V/ales & Clinton's 
 failure. Curse them, 1 wish they were both at hard 
 labor in the mines 1 One speculated, the other 
 winked at it. Then look at what luck 1 had with 
 my share of the FligMs cargo! If I had had to pay 
 that ransom now, it would have crippled me. I 
 want my wife and daughter to have enough, if 
 anything happens to me." 
 
 The general took a step forward. 
 
 "Leave it all to your wife!" he said fiercely. 
 "Leave it all to her!" 
 
 Temple laughed as he flicked a bit of ash from 
 his black sleeve. 
 
 "No, no, John, no, no, no. There's enough for 
 two," he said. 
 
 " Let Alden take care of his wife! It's his work! 
 It s his work." 
 
 Temple with eyes half blinded by the fragrant 
 smoke took out the cigar again. 
 
 "Why, man, what is the matter with you? 
 Anstice will have enough " 
 
 "Give her all!" 
 
 Temple held the cigar with its little upcurling line 
 
27« 
 
 The Sea-Farcn 
 
 of smoke in his fingera, and reiUly loolced at his 
 friend now. The tone was more than common 
 gruffness. The rigid lines of the face were shaken 
 
 and strained. 
 
 "Let the young make their way. Their fathers 
 did. They don t need it. Give her all! " 
 
 Temple spoke slowly when he answe.ed, "Then 
 you think I did wrong." 
 
 "I don't" The general stood stiff and bristling, 
 his words sharp as gun shots. " You were right. 
 1 respect it, sir. CaU me a fool! QU me a 
 driveUing, cranky, infernal fool, if you Hke! A 
 broken-down fighter has his notions. He must be 
 humored, sir." 
 
 "You won't have the money in your family. 
 That's your notion, is it? " asked Temple deliber- 
 ately. 
 
 " I'm any kind of an idiot you please. That's my 
 notion. Yes." 
 
 Temple sat a long time flaccid in his chair, his 
 arms nerveless, his duU eyes nearly hidden by their 
 lids. 
 
 "There is no justice anywhere," he said at last 
 
 monotonously, as if to himself. "What have 1 
 done? What has the little girl done? I have 
 worked all my days, for what ? I will leave it all 
 to her mother, to charity, to any one who will take 
 it. Barbara will never understand. She will de- 
 spise her father. But what does it matter ? What 
 does anything matter in this failure of a world! " 
 
The Heart of a Temptatkm 179 
 
 Before he had finished the general had dashed 
 forward, grasped his limp hand and wrung It hard. 
 
 ••I will see that she respects,— respects— " he 
 began. 
 
 He stopped short, abruptly 1* ft him and pulled 
 violently at the loclied door. Temple rose and went 
 after him. 
 
 Your hat, John," he said gently. " You are for- 
 getting it." 
 
XVII 
 
 ANCHORAGE 
 
 Alden woke in the very early hours of the morn- 
 ing on his wedding day and lay a long time think- 
 ing without opening his eyes. Outside in the dark 
 a stray whip-poor-will was monotonously calling its 
 three notes like a voice of night itself. 
 
 All at once through his closed lids light seemed to 
 strike. He opened his eyes. Some of the strange- 
 ness of that state we call sleep must have still 
 lingered in his brain for he saw outside the window 
 near his bed an island in the sea. Against a dull 
 soft blue low in the sky the peaks of its mountains 
 cut a jagged outline, the sharp ridges defined with 
 the distinctness which only a clear air can give. It 
 was a long and narrow island, for through the clefts 
 formed by its valleys he could catch glimpses of the 
 encircling sea, pale and quiet. Above the low blue 
 in the sky a rose-pink flush fading into faint yellow 
 still higher toward the zenith, lighted the scene. 
 No beams of sun, no strong shadows, the whole 
 land and sea and sky were bathed in the lustre of a 
 less common world than this of dazzle and gloom. 
 Silent as though no sound of earth had ever reached 
 it, the island had the eerie picturesqueness of a thing 
 grown in secret which the eyes of men would pro- 
 
Anchorage 281 
 
 fane by merely seeing; a remote world, a land 
 where thought flashed its own speech and the fal- 
 tering tongue that would speak for it was excused ; 
 a place of aspiration and ideals. Alden closed his 
 eyes and laid his head back on his pillow. The 
 ache that accompanies such vision, we know not 
 why, had come with this. 
 
 A quick light in a moment more pierced his thin 
 eyelids and he looked again. The island and its sea 
 were gone. A row of fir-trees perforated with 
 sparse and broken growths, stood where it had 
 been, the sun was flooding all the sky above them 
 and the sea of mist had dried. 
 
 He lay a moment contemplating the bare frame- 
 work of the vision, his mind growing keener for 
 the subtitles of the half-dream, its blending of his 
 coming joy with his past and present anxieties. 
 The joy lapped all his senses in a delicious calm, the 
 anxieties prodded him awake. He pulled himself 
 out of bed, for he was still lame and stiff so that 
 bath and dressing were weary work. When, after 
 a long, happy evening with his beloved, he had been 
 met on his return home by his father's voice from 
 the dark sitting-room calling him to hear mammy's 
 tale, the two men had entered into an exhaustive 
 discussion of the situation and planned what should 
 be done. 
 
 Definite information on every point connected 
 with Susie's fate and Robert's whereabouts must be 
 obtained with only tlw necessary c^y. Of all that 
 
282 The Sea-Farers 
 
 he learned from Phineas Temple next day, save only 
 the boarding of the Flight, the general never opened 
 his lips, even to his son. In the course of the com- 
 ing investigation Robert's end would perhaps be 
 known to all men, but of his father's share in that 
 result it was not for his old friend to spealc. 
 
 Alden's duties kept him at home; the general was 
 unfitted for the work, and Jacob Minns was fixed 
 upon as the man. He it was whom Temple had 
 mentioned as the sailor who recognized his em- 
 ployer's son yet kept the thing to himself. As he 
 had done this once so could he do again, and he 
 alone beside themselves knew the strange truth. 
 Naples, too, was a familiar port to Minns, for many 
 a time as the cargoes were unloaded and loaded 
 on its wharves, had he moused about the Sicilian 
 capital, noting it with his narrowed Yankee 
 eyes. 
 
 Impatiently father and son waited while the 
 Etiropa, to which he had been transferred from the 
 Flight, collected her leisurely cargo for the Mediter- 
 ranean. At last, to-day, she was to sail with lum- 
 ber and hardware and close-mouthed Jacob Minns. 
 
 Alden, realizing that he would have no other time 
 to himself that day, and wishing to impress upon 
 his messenger certain small points which had newly 
 occurred to him, rose thus early before any one was 
 astir. " Happy the bride whom the sun shines on," 
 he thought as he closed the street-door softly be- 
 hind him, and looked up into the misty blue with a 
 
Anchorage 
 
 283 
 
 wordless joy and gratitude and willing acceptance 
 of all the future could bring to him, which in his 
 ancestors would have been conscious prayer. 
 
 Clear in the stillness the bell in his grandfather's 
 old church belfry struck five. No one was moving 
 in the sunny old street, upon whose pavement the 
 dew clung in beads. Dampness left from night 
 soaked the soft air which blew against his face. 
 He walked slowly, leaning upon his cane. As he 
 neared the wharves there was something like bustle 
 in the narrow lanes,— children flitting by on errands, 
 women hurrying past with shawls held about their 
 heads— all with the night silence upon their unready 
 tongues. A straggling procession of pea-jacketed 
 backs was setting toward the water, and as Alden 
 followed them he saw Minns, just before he reached 
 his house, enierge from the door, accompaninl by 
 a woman whom he identified as the recalcitrant 
 Maria. Husband and wife turned at Alden's "Ja- 
 cob! " but Mrs. Minns only acknowledged the lifted 
 hat of the young officer by unceremoniously scut- 
 tling toward the water, leaving Minns to walk back 
 and meet him. 
 
 "What's going on at the long wharf?" Alden 
 called again, ahead of his limping steps. 
 
 "Adams & Fales' My Pretty Jane 's in," an- 
 swered the tar, instinctively curving and raising his 
 hand as though to shout through its hollowed palm. 
 " Dumed old tub," he added unaggressively as he 
 came up. " Ske'i got a brother shipped first mate 
 
 ■ I 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
a84 The Sea-Farers 
 
 aboard her, so we looked spry to give him a hand. 
 Wal, sir, nothin' new, be they?" 
 
 The men walked slowly, talking as they went, 
 out upon the wharf into the full air. Before them 
 lay the brig which had just anchored. The sea over 
 which she had come in safety stretched in a defeated 
 blue haze behind her, but the encompassment of 
 nights and ocean seemed to be still clinging to her 
 hull and dropping sails. As they stood a moment ' 
 watching her, Maria Minns detached herself from 
 the mass of restless movement about the gangway, 
 and ran in awkward leaps up the wharf, her gaunt 
 knees thrusting angles out in her thin skirts, her 
 hands clutching at the air to help her speed. Even 
 as we started toward her Jacob checked himself, and 
 turned back to Alden. 
 
 "She was aUus light on her feet." he said gravely 
 and apologetically. " She ain't teched a drop. It 
 ain't that. An' yet that there's a *«'«/ look." The 
 woman rushed by abreast of them and Minns 
 stumped after her. 
 
 Alden, left alone, «tood a while awaiting his pos- 
 sible return, looking away from the crowd and 
 hurry at the landing-place to the masts and sails 
 moving phantom-like beyond the black edge of the 
 wharf. They seemed to melt Into the mood of the 
 young man who, on his wedding morning, saw 
 clearly but one face to which the great seii, even for 
 the moment the universe Itself, was a background 
 merely. There It was, smiling, satisfying, between 
 
Anchorage 285 
 
 himself and the blue, and he stood still lest he 
 should jar the image or cause its fnts to fade. 
 
 Then something happened. The fac* was gone. 
 His very breath left his body; his heart gave two 
 slow, loud beats, then seemed to stop also. From 
 the haze which Barbara had filled two other figures 
 had formed suddenly and were walking toward 
 him out of the sea. With an eflfort he closed his 
 eyes. Behind their lids h^ saw again the island of 
 illusion, the sea of mist in his half dream that 
 morning, and he waited as he had then for these 
 figments of spume to be struck by sun and change 
 to water-sodden posts fixed to the wharf. 
 
 All else was real, now he was blind; the brig's 
 chains rattled naturally, the curses exchanged be- 
 tween wharf-master and sailors had only the usual 
 quality of imagination in them. He opened his 
 eyes. The figures were there but farther away. 
 Their eyes,— they had eyes,— were fixed upon hiift, 
 apprehension, doubt and sorrow in them, as they 
 retreated slcwly toward the sea from which they 
 came. 
 
 Alden dashed forward, but with a groan stopped 
 short. 
 
 "Susie!" he called in a strong voice, "Susie! 
 Come, come here! I am lame." 
 
 He limped onward before he ceased speaking. 
 
 "O, he knows me! And he's kind, Robcrtl 
 He's kind! " 
 
 She crossed the space between them as a sea- 
 
286 The Sea-Farers 
 
 bird skims. She threw both thin a'-ms round 
 his neck as he held her close, bowing his head 
 over hers in silence. Ail at once, in the midst of 
 a shower of kisses on his cheek, Susie straight- 
 ened herself, and Alden lifting his face met her 
 eyes. He loosened his arm and walked toward his 
 reluctant brother-in-law with outstretched hand. 
 As the tall man before him shifted a smaU white 
 something from his right arm to his left, to free his 
 hand, Alden's amazement. which had ♦ ken on cor- 
 diality^now changed to stupefaction. 
 
 "It's the b^iby, of course," Susie explained in her 
 nervous, shaken voice which yet held such familiar 
 accents in it. " She is named for mother. I knew 
 he'd be good to us, Robert. I told you I was sure 
 of him. But how thin he is! And I'm so changed! 
 But he knew me. Nobody else says anything. I 
 don't see why I do all the talking except that I'm 
 feeling queer and happy. You can take her if you 
 want to, Alden. See. I d hold her like this— so! 
 Robert does it beautifully now, but I thought he 
 would never learn." 
 
 Alden surprised himself quite as much as the two 
 before him by a sudden and violent burst of laughter. 
 It was a boy's uncontrollable mirth, so hearty, so 
 kindly, that Susie's broken and astonished little echo 
 at last mingled with it, and even Robert s rigid 
 muscles yielded. A lion in a cage would have stood 
 still and looked pleasant when Alden Sumner 
 laughed. 
 
Anchorage 
 
 387 
 
 "0, I don't mean it, dear! " he exclaimed before 
 he had half done, "don't mind me, Robert! Ha! 
 ha! ha! But the last 1 heard cf you, on the Flight 
 —you see,— and now you ' know how," so ' beauti- 
 fully • Ha, ha, ha! There, you U forgive me. 
 
 It's only that I'm so glad, and on this day of aU 
 days." 
 
 Alden shook hands with Robert over again, and 
 the laughter had brought tears to his eyes, as laughter 
 will, so that he had to reach out for the little sister 
 to be sure she was still there. Then he raised his 
 hat. "Thank Cod!" he said simply, "now well 
 
 all go home." 
 
 The driver of a passing carriage hastening toward 
 the group about the vessel, not expecting a fare on 
 this distant corner of the wharf, drew up at Lieu- 
 tenant Sumner's nod, and watched him give his 
 hand to a littie lady in a foreign dress, while the 
 man beside her, who must be some noted athlete, 
 handed in a very small baby to her after she 
 was seated, and saying he would walk turned 
 away. 
 
 Susie had paused with one foot on the carriage 
 step. "Father," she whispered. 
 
 "Glad," Alden answered, "most glad of aU." 
 When they were moving over the stony pavement 
 neither spoke. Alden had again taken the child. 
 The covering fell back from the small bare head as 
 he lifted it, and they both looked it the sleeping 
 face. A family likeness at the moment could be 
 
 i * 
 
 i ■ 
 
The Sea-Farcre 
 
 strongly traced in brother and sister, -a resemblance 
 in structure evident perhaps for the first time since 
 the disguise of the flesh had worn thin. 
 
 "We only heard three weeks ago," Alden began 
 gravely, our messenger sails to-day." 
 
 "Hasn't mammy come tuck? She must have 
 told you everything," answered Susie swifUy. 
 
 " She told us you " 
 
 "Ran away from her? So I did. I couldn't go 
 home then 1 had so much to do. O, you don't 
 know that yet, do you ? And you think 1 ought to 
 have written, Alden. don't you? 1 see it in your 
 face. But 1 disobeyed him and I thought he would 
 rather think I was drowned, as the stone said. Tell 
 me the truth, Alden. Would you all feel easier if 
 we were— gone?" 
 
 "If you knew all your silence has cost us. little 
 sister, you wouldn't ask that" 
 
 "O, did you care? I was the odd one in the 
 .amily. Did you a// care ? But we have suflfered, 
 too. O. we've suffered, Alden." She shivered in 
 the hot sun. 
 
 Alden had turned to speak, but he only looked a 
 moment at the quivering little face, so thin and 
 colorless as to be hardiy recognizable, the eyes in it 
 seeming to have grown in size and expression, 
 while the rest had faded and the figure drooped. 
 " I know. 1 know," he said. 
 
 "I'm afraid!" she cried suddenly, leaning for- 
 ward, her quick hand clutching at the window 
 
Anchorage 289 
 
 ledge. " We're so near. There's the old square. 
 I can't face him. I can't bear much scolding. ' 
 
 "Dear child " 
 
 "O, Alden, 1 can't! leant!" 
 "There is nothing to fear, Susie, I give you my 
 word. There, sit back— so. Now hold my hand 
 —see, like this. He has suffered too, Susie, more 
 than you know. You will find him much changed." 
 
 "Yes," she answered, grasping her brother's 
 hand as he bade her. " His hair. Mammy said it 
 was because— but 1 didn't believe her. I saw him 
 
 when I was here " 
 
 "When you were here ?" repeated Alden. 
 
 " Don't look at me so, as if I were light-headed ! It 
 
 was when Robert's fiither O, I can't go through 
 
 it! I'm not strong enough, Alden. 1 wish we 
 hadn't come. We ought to go west somewhere. 
 Give her to me. Let me get outl " 
 
 "Susiel" said Alden firmly. She jerked at her 
 hand In his strong grasp. 
 
 " Nobody wants us. We don't belong here. It's 
 as if we'd walked out of our graves! " 
 
 "Susie," said Alden again, "listen to me, dear. 
 For the sake of all the pain your going caused him, 
 can't you face his pardon ?" He bent forward, his 
 beautiful, sane eyes upon her tense face. " You are 
 young and will be strong again. For your share of 
 all these mistakes of ours can't you take the penalty 
 of forgiveness? See now. This Is my wedding- 
 day, Susie,— Barbara's and mine. Few brothers 
 
190 The Sea-Farers 
 
 have a wedding gift like mine. Thii afternoon, 
 
 when we are all together " 
 
 But Susie had broken down in a tempestuous sob- 
 bing which shook her little body. Alden, upon 
 whose arm the baby had begun to stir its arms and 
 legs under the blanket, looked out to order the 
 driver to walk his horses slowly up and down. 
 Seeing she had no handkerchief Alden silently put 
 his own into Susie's hand, and in its capacious 
 whiteness she hid her face and cried until she was 
 tired. Then she suddenly lifted her head and smiled 
 down into its wet folds. 
 
 " He might like the baby," she said, "its eyes are 
 like mother's." 
 
 The carriage stopped. Robert looked in at the 
 window, puzzled at its erratic progress. 
 
 " We're aU right in here," Alden exclaimed, with 
 hurried cheerfulness. In the face at the window, 
 beneath its questionings of the wife's half-dried 
 tears, he read clearly enough the intention of escape. 
 
 "I was thinking—" Robert began. 
 
 "So was I," broke in Susie, to Alden's relief. 
 ' ' Take the baby, dear heart. Alden is going to get 
 out so you can sit here with me. Black sheep 
 aren't any more afraid than white ones. We came 
 here of our own accord and we'll face it all. 
 Come." 
 
 She took the child from her brother's arm and 
 held it toward its father. Gloomily, with hesi- 
 tation, as one who after a glimpse of liberty goes 
 
Anchorage 291 
 
 back Into a cage, Robert bent his shoulders and 
 stepped into the place which the other man had left. 
 
 " That's good," said Alden, who had for a mo- 
 ment felt that the situation was too much for him. 
 "I'll be here again in an instant. It's all right— 
 everything is all right." 
 
 He motioned the cabman to continue his slow 
 pacing, and at his own best speed hastened to the 
 house now close at hand, a terrible misgiving in his 
 mind that even now they might slip away. 
 
 On his return he drew a breath of relief at seeing 
 the carriage still creeping bacli and forth in the 
 sun. 
 
 " He is at breakfast.— Come! " he said eagerly. 
 
 He did not feel quite sure of them until he limped 
 behind them up the flagged walk beside which 
 Susie's flowers were springing lean and strag- 
 glingly, made them pass before him In at the side 
 door, and then taking the child from Robert mo- 
 tioned him reassuringly into a room at the end of 
 the hall and sent Susie up to her old room. " Put 
 on the blue iress," he whispered hastily, "it is 
 where you left it." 
 
 " Blue dresses will not fill out my cheeks or make 
 me young again," she whispered back, and went 
 away up the stairs, groping for the baluster rail. 
 
 "When I call you, Robert, come like a good fel- 
 low, won't you?" Alden said to his caged brother- 
 in-law, with a nod and a smile, as though nothing 
 were out of the common th^e. Then he jMused a 
 
*9t The Sea-Faren 
 
 perceptible inst;int at the sitting-room door, opened 
 it and went quietly in. 
 
 "Where the deuce have you been?" asked the 
 old soldier, looking up, egg-shell in hand. • • Shov- 
 ing poetry under her door, I'll bet a continental. 
 Where did you say you'd been 
 
 Down to the wharf, father. Morning, Ucaer. 
 I'm in no hurry. Stay here a minute, please. 
 Father " 
 
 "Well? Nothing knoclts a man up worse than 
 exercise on an empty stomach. Sit down." 
 
 " I never felt better in my life, inside. Father, 
 Adams & Fales' My Pretty Jane is in." 
 
 " What on earth is that to us ? We don't own 
 her, nor anything else but some fresh eggs you're 
 too love-sick to eat. What ails that dog, .unning 
 all over my feet ? He's shammed his rheumatics." 
 
 " No, father." The general looked up at some- 
 thing in the tone. His senses are sharper than 
 ours, that's all. Let him out, Locker." 
 
 The elder man rose to his feet. "What— 
 what—" h» said. His voice was thin and old. 
 
 " A solaier is always braced and ready for death,' 
 — Alden spoke slowly,— "but for life he has to be 
 prepared. She has come back, father. They are 
 here." 
 
 The general stared at him— blank, uncompre- 
 hending. A queer sound in his throat all at once 
 announced that some meaning in the vivid face be- 
 fore him had entered his consciousness. As the 
 
Anchorage 193 
 
 muscles In hU face twitched he turned his back on 
 
 his son. 
 ••Where ?" he asked weakly. 
 ••In her room, waiting. Her husband Is hew." 
 There was a silence, then the old man half turned. 
 "Robert!" called Alden. 
 
 In the itUlnen a dog's hoarw, excited bark rang 
 through the house. 
 
 The general wheeled about, erect, his one hand 
 held behind his back. He looked the splendid, 
 gloomy figure which filled the doorway straight in 
 the eyes. 
 
 ••Sir, have you escaped from justice?" he de- 
 manded sternly. 
 
 •• General, I have been pardoned." 
 
 The soldier strode across the space between and 
 held out hit hand. 
 
XVffl 
 
 THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW 
 
 The simplicity of Barbara's wardrobe pained her 
 mother. There was no time for all the dainty sew- 
 ing she had meant to do for her in that distant day 
 when she should go away, all the embroidery and 
 the hemming in which pride was hidden with the 
 stitches. The sight of the plain articles of dress 
 needed for the rough conditions into which she was 
 going, hurt her mother when she saw them lying 
 ready, as though she had failed in her duty toward her 
 only child. For years after she tried to make up for 
 it by constantly sending delicate work which meant 
 much, done with aging eyes. In a room upstairs 
 Jacob Minns' wife and two other seamstresses had 
 sewed day after day on Barbara's household linen, 
 for to Mrs. Temple's mind there was a kind of dis- 
 grace in allowing sheets and pillow-cases to be 
 hemmed outside of the house doors; reminiscent 
 perhaps of that older day when a maiden's marriage 
 clothes were spun in the sanctity of her home. 
 
 Now the white dress and veil were finished and 
 the day had come. Four of Barbara's girl friends 
 had risen early and driven out of town to the home 
 of a fifth. There the long orchard of apple-trees 
 stretched Jo the southern wall of the house itself. 
 
 m 
 
The Fulfilling of the Law 295 
 
 The trees farther away had delayed their expected 
 blossoming, but those close to the house had burst 
 into a glory of pink and white, as if through prox- 
 imity their sympathy had been won for human 
 hearts. Bobolinks were calling in the meadows. 
 
 The late New England spring had come, but 
 hints and repetitions of different seasons ran through 
 its youth like traits of ancestry in a child. The 
 delicate red of the distant trees, promise of green 
 though it was, reflected the color of autumn when 
 the leaves are old, and the wind flowers, crowded 
 into little groups here and there upon the fields, 
 looked like patches of the last snow. The pungent 
 smell of burning brush was the same as that of 
 waste fagots and corn-stalks in November, and the 
 barrels of seedling potatoes standing ready for their 
 beds might have been a harvest newly gathered. 
 
 The girls laughed and chattered as they cut the 
 branches of blossoms all about their heads, and 
 piled the carriage so high with them that when 
 they drove away their faces looked out from amidst 
 the bloom, pink and white like itself. 
 
 Barbara was a favorite among them. She had 
 once gayly announced that she liked all women and 
 some men. She had never been disloyal, heartless 
 or dishonorable to any other girl, and women ap- 
 preciate and understand what that means. At 
 home she was occupied with such small acts as 
 were considered fitting for her on a day like this, 
 until it was time for her to dress. Her mother 
 
296 
 
 The Sea-Farcrs 
 
 busied herself with last things all the morning and 
 looked pale as though she had not slept. Instinc- 
 tively the two women spoke only of trifles. 
 
 In every familiar thing she touched that morning, 
 Barbara recognized the tender dignity which is in- 
 variably the grace of a last time. She brought out 
 and set up in place several half-forgotten things, 
 for her mind was active with the past. 
 
 The girls were flitting about the room, busy with 
 the apple-blossoms, when Barbara led her father 
 there. He drew in his breath sharply and checked 
 his steps; she felt a thrill pass through the arm on 
 which her hand was resting. 
 " What is it, papa ? " she said in quick anxiety. 
 The man's eyes had been fixed in a wide stare, 
 but he dropped 'them when she spoke, muttered 
 something she could not hear and snatched his arm 
 from her touch. Barbara and two of the girls who 
 had seen his face, stood watching him in a dull 
 wonder as he left the room. 
 
 "Was it anything on the mantel?" one of them 
 suggested. " He feemed to look that way." 
 
 Barbara crossed to the spot and took up an open 
 daguerreotype, a picture of a four-year-old boy 
 with tawny hair and rebellious eyes glowering in 
 the restraint of a long sitting. 
 " How could 1! " she said aloud. 
 " It's Robert, isn't it?" asked her friend gently. 
 
 "Yes. I liked to think they were all here " 
 
 She closed the case with its small hook and gath- 
 
The Fulfilling of the Law 297 
 
 ered up the other daguerreotypes, among the rest a 
 constrained little portrait of Susie. " It was selfish 
 in me and nothing else," she went on indignantly, 
 "not to have remembered that it might hurt him. 
 Isn't it discouraging for a girl to find out as late as 
 her wedding-day that she hasn't learned common 
 thoughtfulness!" 
 
 Turning away toward the window as she spoke 
 she was the first to recognize Aiden leaving a car- 
 riage before the house. She did not need to see 
 his face to be startled at sight of him, for New 
 England etiquette did not admit a visit from bride- 
 groom to bride on the marriage morning. She 
 slipped into the hall, let him in before he could 
 knock, and led the way to the vacant reception- 
 
 m 
 
 room. 
 
 "Is anything wrong?" she breathlessly asked, 
 her back against the closed door. 
 
 "No, no, dear. All is right," Alden whispered 
 eagerly. " Come. Here. Now I can talk better. 
 Where is your other hand? They're both cold, 
 aren't they?" 
 
 " Yours are hot. O, what is it, Alden ?" 
 
 She listened without a word, surprised, intent, 
 awed, and after he had done still stood a moment 
 without speaking while the bewilderment passed. 
 
 " Living ? " she said slowly, " married ? I heard 
 you, Alden, didn't I?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Then we skaU aU be here." They looked A 
 
298 
 
 The Sea-Farcrs 
 
 each other till the man smiled. As her eyes and 
 mouth relaxed in answer her words seemed 
 
 loosed. 
 
 "How do they look? Well? Or are they 
 changed in every way ? And the baby ? Is it boy 
 or girl ? How old ? Tell me all the little things 
 now; they will make it seem more true. Are they 
 glad to be at home ? Henrietta Gary has a white 
 dress that will just fit Susie for this afternoon. Or 
 is she thinner now, poor child ? My clothes are all 
 too big. What can we do for Robert? But per- 
 haps they are in some native dress, hung about 
 with ingots and pearls." She checked her excited 
 speech to lean back against the door. "I seem 
 flippant, don't 1 ? " she said, the tears starting to her 
 eyes, "but everything to-day is so strange— part- 
 ings and meetings " 
 
 "I know, dear. I laughed long and loud. Think 
 of thatl I suppose it is because we are such a 
 strenuous race that our laughter is oftener from re- 
 lief than mirth." 
 
 "Robert," she began again in a moment, "is he 
 just the same ? " 
 
 " In features and figure, yes, and yet there's ' a 
 sea change' somewhere. He is different," Alden 
 frowned, trying to put his impression into words. 
 " His eyes have altered, I think. There is a human 
 look in them." 
 
 " A human look," repeated Barbara. 
 
 "Yes, as if there were more variety to his 
 
The Fulfilling of the Law 299 
 
 thoughts. I suppose a lion, for instance, always 
 thinks along one groove." 
 "And 1 suppose you know just what you mean, 
 
 dear, but I don't." 
 
 "Well, let us hope marriage will improve your 
 •swain as much, my girl." 
 
 "And me," sighed Barbara, "there's room for it. 
 I opened all the old daguerreotypes upon the mantel 
 this morning. So tactful, wasn't it ? Papa turned 
 ash color when he saw Robert's face. 1 never 
 realized he cared so much but, oh, Alden, he must 
 have been suffering all this time more than we 
 guessed. I ought to go upstairs now. How shall I 
 tell it?" 
 
 "You will know best, dear." 
 
 She closed again the door she had half opened 
 and turned back. "What has Robert been doing 
 all this time ?" she said. " Papa might ask." 
 
 Alden's hesitation though evident was brief. 
 "He had a ship— a brig, though, I think they 
 said." 
 
 "O, I see, fishing for tunnies, or pearls, or 
 sponges and coral. I know the Mediterranean. 
 Not fishing?" she interrupted herself to say, inter- 
 preting his dissenting eyes. " Then it was rags or 
 oil. He was what we call a trader. No? Then 
 what was he ? " 
 
 «• He— was what some call a— a pirate, you know." 
 
 "Alden!" 
 
 " Yes, tha* was what was claimed out there." 
 
300 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 "Do you mean to say," demanded Barbara, 
 "that he boarded something? And flew a black 
 
 flag?" 
 
 "He boarded something now and then. O, it's 
 quite the commonplace of that region, 1 understand 
 —boarding something. But in his case one of his 
 men sold him to the authorities so that he was taken 
 and tried. 1 didn't tell you that, did I ? " 
 
 "I should think not." 
 
 "No. You see it would have gone rather hard 
 with him on the whole, of course, things being as 
 they were, though he's a splendid fellow, Barbara, 
 under it all, and there's something primitive and big 
 about him, and the boarding of that particular ship 
 was a mistake as it happened." 
 
 "You're not very lucid, Alden." 
 
 "No, not very lucid. But now," and her soldier 
 straightened his shoulders and smiled down at her 
 like himself, " now I'll try to be more so. Little 
 Susie, who was always afraid of her shadow, what 
 do you suppose she did? Went alone, with o iJ,- 
 the baby, to the king! " 
 
 "The king?" echoed Barbara, "wh„t king?' 
 
 " Of Sicily, of course. I don't know much about 
 the ways of potentates, but I'm learning all the time.. 
 1 gather that they are diffic U to reach, but Susie 
 finally crossed a large hall and kneeled down before 
 a middle-aged man, with thick, pursed-up lips, and 
 told him she was an American whose husband 
 needed a pardon. He turned to a fellow in epaulets 
 
The Fulfilling of the Law 301 
 
 and medals and said he had troubles enough with 
 his own traitors and America should have her own 
 rascals back to deal with herself, ransom or no ran- 
 som. I judge that to have been a form of royal 
 graciousness, for he added to Susie, that she was too 
 good-looking to cry her eyes out, and he signed the 
 papers next day. Would you have believed that 
 little Susie could have done it ? " 
 
 "Yes," answered Barbara, after a pause, "for I 
 could have done it for you, only my Italian would 
 have been such that he would have been guessing 
 still what I had wanted of him. It isn't like any- 
 thing natural and real, is it? It's like a book. The 
 general must be glad." 
 
 "Glad!" 
 
 "This is a greater day than ever, isn't it? We 
 must try to deserve it, mustn't we?" 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Now I must go," Barbara whispered hurriedly, 
 "I ought not to have delayed like this. Even 
 mamma will be happy. She said something lately, " 
 and the girl turned to Alden at the door a face of 
 
 honest, watery smiles and then was gone. 
 
 It seemed to the young officer a long time that he 
 waited, conscious for the first time of severe pain in 
 his abused knee, but as soon as he heard voices and 
 movement above he hobbled into the hall. 
 
 Temple coming precipitately down the stairs in 
 advance of the rest did not see the young man in 
 his path. His face was unusually flushed. His 
 
302 
 
 The Sca-Farcrs 
 
 wife paler even than her wont, and his daughter 
 with eyes wide open and anxious, followed him. 
 
 "What is it, papa?" said Barbara at his elbow. 
 "What do you want to do ? " For the man seemed 
 all at once to have lost the clue to his intention, and 
 stood rolling his eyes vaguely about the room. 
 
 "May 1 bring him, sir?" asked Alden, with the 
 incisive promptness learned at West Point. 
 
 "No, no!" Temple started forward with the 
 words, and fumbled the articles upon the settle be- 
 fore him. "No, no!" he repeated, even more 
 sharply. "Where's my hat, child ?" 
 
 "Here, papa, just here. You're not going away 
 anywhere, papa, are you ? " 
 
 " Now my gloves. No, 1 don't need my gloves." 
 
 " May he come ? " Alden tried again. He is " 
 
 "No, I say no!" shouted Temple vehemently, 
 and was out at the door. 
 
 Alden hurriedly followed, limping in long strides 
 down the walk. 
 
 " Let me drive you," he urged hastily. "Get in, 
 sir." 
 
 Unhearing, unheeding, Temple bolted away 
 down the street. Alden climbed into Lhe cab, 
 ordering the man to take the same direction. With 
 eyes to the ground the merchant forged ahead, 
 while the passers-by stood aside and looked after 
 him. At the corner where two streets diverged 
 Alden's anxiety quickened his breath. Any one 
 who knew him would have been able from his 
 
The Fulfilling of the Law 303 
 
 youth up to predict Phineas Temple s probable ac- 
 tion in any affair of life. Suddenly no one could. 
 
 When he turned to the left Alden's misgivings did 
 not lessen although his wonder increased. He had 
 been convinced from his knowledge of the man's 
 character that his constitutional tendency to avoid 
 discomfort or annoyance, had risen on occasion into 
 an eagerness and that he was bent upon hiding him- 
 self in his office, there to study out a way of escape 
 from a scene which he felt himself for the present 
 unable to face. But what could he be meaning to 
 do now ? Confront his son and denounce him for 
 the injury done to his ship? Order him from the 
 country? Threaten him with the law ? SucLbold 
 defiance of a sea of troubles had never been Phineas 
 Temple's way. Alden could only follow. 
 
 Temple pushed open General Sumner's door and 
 went in. The owner, fuU in his path, stepped 
 aside. Robert Temple was standing like a column 
 in the centre of the hall when his father saw him. 
 
 Not a sound was in the house but the short, loud 
 breathing of the tired man, trying to speak. He 
 took two steps forward, holding out both hands. 
 "Dad!" exclaimed Robert, in a voice which 
 
 shook the room. "Dad! It was for me to 
 
 Here! Brandy, Alden. He's faint, that's all." 
 
 Lifting him as easily as if he had been a child he 
 carried him into the next room. The general, 
 treading close behind, had some painful association 
 with the act sweep over him as he saw ti i white 
 
304 The Sea-Farers 
 
 head against the great shoulder. " Then I uiltfting 
 you aver this balcony." A shiver hurried through 
 him like an evil ghost's leave-taking, and its icy 
 passing left him warm. 
 
 In that mysterious way in which the atmosphere 
 becomes quickly saturated with human change, so 
 that he who runs breathes in the news, groups of 
 people clinging together in eager speech, gathering 
 recruits at every comer, slipped along, fascinated, 
 after Phineas Temple as soon as he emerged to 
 walk slowly his accustomed beat from General 
 Sumner's house to his own, leaning upon the arm 
 of his recovered son. At the house door the bold- 
 est, or kindliest, of his neighbors impulsively sprang 
 forward to grasp the hand of each. 
 
 When the hurly-burly of question, exclamaiior 
 and emotion had passed, and the general and Alden 
 were left alone, they went upstairs and stopped be- 
 fore a closed door. It opened cautiously and 
 mammy's black eyes peered out at them. 
 
 "Asleep," she whispered with some importance, 
 " bofe of em, bress de Lord," and the men tiptoe^ 
 down the hall. 
 
 At Alden's door they stood again. Locker's tread 
 as he moved about in the young officer's room was 
 the only noise to be heard. Father and son looked 
 at each other,— a look of complete understanding. 
 They had been good friends. 
 
 "Call me when you're ready," the elder said in a 
 hoarse whisper, and first strode, then tiptoed, away. 
 
The Fulfilling of the Law 305 
 
 When Locker not long after appeared to summon 
 him, the veteran met the eyes of his Cromwellian 
 follower with a glance whimsical, pleased, boyishly 
 young. 
 
 ••Great doings, Locker," he said. 
 "Great doin's, sir," replied the other veteran, 
 with augmented emphasis. 
 Neither of the men was a matter in emotional 
 
 expression. 
 
 "There's a rose for your coat, governor," said 
 Alden. 
 
 ••Stand back, you young martinet, and let's see 
 if you'll do," replie the general. 
 
 Alden, with the aid of his cane obeyed. His 
 face, thin though it had i own, had a faint flush in 
 it, his eyes were bright and fme, his hair showed Its 
 auburn color in the sunlight. His bhie regimentals, 
 briUiant with gold buttons and epaulets, were the 
 honored uniform of the engineer corps which only 
 the three leading men of each class at West Point 
 might enter. 
 
 •'Well, Locker, what do you say? Speak up, 
 man! " said the general gruffly after a head to foot 
 scrutiny of his son. 
 
 Locker s hand went to his forehead in habitual 
 salute. " I guess he'll do, sir," he answered. 
 
 Alden laughed and looked at his watch. " Time 
 enough yet," he said. "Locker, you are going to 
 finish my packing like a good feUow. Everything 
 can go in now. Sit down, governor." 
 
3o6 The Sea-Farrrs 
 
 " It rained the day your mother and I were mar- 
 ried, I recollect," said the general, slowly descend- 
 ing into the chair Locker had ready for him. " I 
 never saw your grandfaii^er in such spirits as he 
 was that last day I was at home." 
 
 You had been a trial, of course," remarked Alden. 
 
 " He thought so, he thought so," replied the gen- 
 eral with a grim answering smile. 
 
 "You're pretty bobbish to-day yourself, gover- 
 nor, I ve noticed." 
 
 " Nothing to him. He told a story that morning 
 while we waited for your mothers great uncle, old 
 Parson Alden, who was deaf and nearly blind and 
 had forgotten all about marrying us. Your grand- 
 father's story was about a young woman vv ho came 
 to him the night before her wedding and blubbered 
 out that she couldn't marry the man because he was 
 too old. Father reminded her that he couldn't have 
 aged a great deal since the day before, but she said, 
 'I'm eighteen and he's thirty-six. twice as old. 
 When I'm forty he'll be eighty. I never thought of 
 it before and I can't stand it! '—I've told that before, 
 have 1 ? You didn't laugh naturally." 
 
 "I meant to." 
 
 "Look here, Alden!" exclaimed the general ex- 
 plosively, " if I'm a broken-winded old bore I want 
 to know it now. I'm not going on in ignorance, I 
 tell you! No, sir. How many times have I told 
 you that story ? Answer me that 1 " 
 
 " It's good for more " 
 
The Fulfilling of the Law 307 
 
 *' Tell me that! " dematuled the general. 
 
 "Well, I only remember severi " 
 
 "Seven times!" gasped the old man. "Seven 
 times and a poor story ai that! Thunder and Mars, 
 how many times have I told some of my good ones! 
 What do you mean, sir, by letting your father make 
 a fool of himself and not stopping, collaring and 
 choking him? Seven times!" ejaculated the gen- 
 eral, who had riswi and was walking the floor. 
 
 I wouldn't have missed one of them, ' proceeded 
 Alden. The first time was when 1 was a boy and 
 we had some great gun of the ministry to tea. 
 Mother was afraid of him. and the recipe for cakes 
 that Aunt Rachel had given her hadn't worked weU. 
 He ate three after you told that story; 1 remember 
 counUng. The next time was in town meeting 
 when the selectmen were having that jolly row 
 with old Balch just over the line, about the age of 
 the hickory we claimed was, the boundary. It's 
 lucky for the town Balch had such a sense of 
 humor for 1 always thought he was right." 
 
 Right! He hadn't a foot to stand on! " inter- 
 jected the general. 
 
 "Once it was on the morning when you were 
 leaving us for the war.— you told a number of good 
 things that moming,-another time it was to cheer 
 
 up old " -" 
 
 " That's enough! " groaned the general. " What 
 a record of senility! You ought to be ashamed to 
 keep tally on your father's dotage, sir! " 
 
3o8 
 
 The Sca-Farers 
 
 Alden laughed. "O, there are other good quali- 
 ties to a story besides novelty, I can tell you. Gov- 
 ernor, you're an old brick! " 
 
 According to the prevailing custom in New Eng- 
 land, Barbara Temple was to be married in her 
 father's house, and from several causes those who 
 were bidden hasted to this wedding. Long before 
 the hour of three the rooms were crowded. The 
 air buzzed with curiosity and wild tales that often 
 hit the rings but not the bull's-eye of the truth. 
 Beside the interest in the rescued pair the claims of 
 the bride herself had paled. 
 
 Susie had had a fitful sort of popularity as a girl, 
 —the young secretly sympathizing with her at- 
 tempts to choose her friends without heed to social 
 distinctions, the old approving the triumph of dis- 
 cipline which had borne the fruit of a well-bred do- 
 cility in such a soil. And yet after all she had mar- 
 ried Robert Temple! Parents glanced apprehen- 
 sively at their own offspring and spoke apart. 
 
 Such was her power of rebound still, that after 
 her sleep Susie was able to take a childish pleasure 
 in trying on Henrietta Gary's white dress which 
 Henrietta herself brought in, and the two old 
 schoolmates were closeted with little bursts of 
 laughter, and small gurglings and brief cries from 
 the baby, mingled with mammy's soft voice, — 
 strange sounds indeed in that masculine household. 
 
 Even Robert, who it was expected would be a 
 social snag, drifted with the stream, and did his 
 
The Fulfilling of the Law 309 
 
 best to oblige every one, even his stepmother, when 
 she joined in thp a. sertion that he must make a 
 grand entry wit .i Susie. 
 Before he prt nised he sou,^ht out Alden and said 
 
 abruptly, "Thav an-ir Sharpe " 
 
 "Yes, 1 know," Alden interrupted him, "I've 
 heard all about it. You had no more to do with 
 his taking off, I fmd, than I have. I looked into 
 the matter since I came home this time, and some- 
 body told me about Dave Sharpe's vendetta. Dave 
 has been at the gold diggings these four months. 
 As to that brute, Jim Sharpe— I have all the facts, so 
 you don't need to go over it,— for the honor of the 
 town I'd have thrashed him if you hadn't." To 
 his own surprise Alden found he had laid a reassur- 
 ing hao-i upon Robert Temple's shoulder. In the 
 general overturn of conditions that morning the 
 unusual only seemed natural. 
 
 I've been a brute myself," said Robert, moving 
 restlessly though without hostility under the touch. 
 "1 may be one again." He dre at in a hard breath 
 and squared his shoulders. "But 111 try ii. I'll 
 try it," he added with gloomy emphasis. 
 
 "Yes." replied Alden heartily, "but I wouldn't 
 force the note just at first. The east agrees with 
 some men's constitutions, but you need more room. 
 Come out with us!" he exclaimed, with a sugges- 
 tion of sympathy in his voice. 
 
 The look with which h!$ companion met his eyes 
 left the Impression of a smile. 
 
 ■ 
 
310 
 
 The Sea-Farers 
 
 " Not yet," Temple answered, " I have something 
 to do here first." 
 
 Alden wondered an instant what it could be as 
 he watched the strange, imperative figure stride 
 
 away. 
 
 The dreaded ordeal of entrance was over soon 
 after and Robert Temple and Susan, his wife, had 
 resumed their old places in society. Familiar faces 
 smiled into theirs in wonder and in kindness. The 
 general brought this and that neighbor to swell the 
 crowd about his daughter, standing each time to 
 peer again over the heads at the delicate, small 
 lady in white, with pink flushed cheeks and the 
 look like a frightened bird in the eyes, recogniz- 
 able anew against the background of conventional 
 humanity. 
 
 Corenzio, observing the pair with the rest, re- 
 marked upon this resemblance to young Adams, 
 adding that she was picturesque but unlovable. 
 " Her husband now," he went on, yawning daintily 
 behind his long fingers, "is really impressive. He 
 ought to be dressed in skins." 
 
 "By Jove, see the apple-blossoms!" commented 
 Adams in answer. Pretty idea, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Yes. Economical," replied the musician, staring 
 at the ceiling as he leaned his slim back against the 
 wall. "But you see she is marrying a fellow for 
 
 whom economy O! " and the young man stood 
 
 upright, realizing just in time that a taller than 
 Adams had taken his place. Corenzio looked about 
 
The Fulfilling of the Law 311 
 
 only to find his ally buttonholed by a Philistine, and 
 so lifted his glance reluctantly again to the face 
 above him. 
 
 The general's gaze swept the slender figure and 
 delicate features before him with eyes whose con- 
 sciousness seemed to be coming from a great dis- 
 tance toward some painful reminder. For the mo- 
 ment the two were alone at that end of the room. 
 " Sir " said the soldier, before the other had thought 
 what to do, I think it my duty to tell you that my 
 son's marriage will not alter the regularity of our 
 present procedure." 
 
 " Ahl" replied Corenzio, the sensitive muscles in 
 his face stirring once before he stiffened them. 
 
 " When the last payment is made," the general 
 went 01, in a lower key, " 1 shall ask your permis- 
 sion to say a word to you, sir." 
 
 Say it now. pray," replied the younger man, re- 
 covering with a snatch the insolence which seemed 
 slipping from him. "This is a festival. I beUeve. 
 I like contrasts of color. You, too, are dramatic. 
 Out with it, please." He seemed trying to drop his 
 shoulders negUgently against the waU as before, but 
 halted half-way, constrained. 
 
 "Thank you, sir. It is this." The general 
 moved nearer. "1 shall believe in my soul, sir, 
 until 1 die, that my father never wilfully defrauded 
 yours. Don't go, sir! He lost the money certainly, 
 through some carelessness no doubt But character 
 tells, sir, character tdls. A poor business man, sir. 
 
The Sea-Farers 
 
 but no more a thief in the sight of Almighty God 
 than you or me!" 
 Hr stalked past his companion, his vehemence 
 
 carrying him to the centre of the room before he 
 pulled Miuself up. Then he walked back. 
 
 "Sir," he said again, standing before the limp 
 figure which, as if in an instinctive aversion, moved 
 along the wall at his approach, "your pardon. 1 
 seemed perhaps to grudge you your just dues. Not 
 so, sir, not so. There has been a mistake made in 
 former years. I am proud to do my share to rectify 
 it But I knew my father, sir. / knew him. And 
 when I think of this wrong which he cannot ex- 
 plain, I sometimes fmd a difficulty in keeping cool, 
 sir, perfectly cool." 
 
 In the glow of his good-will he hardly noticed how 
 the chill, reluctant fingers which met his outstretched 
 palm dropped from it to rejoin the rest of the body 
 which recoiled from him, for all at once the crowd 
 swept backward upon the two men. Some one 
 hurried the general away to his place. The ushers 
 cleared a space to the door and all talk was sud- 
 denly hushed. 
 
 To the bride in the room above the voices of old 
 friends, as if in presage of the distances to be, had 
 mingled into one dim murmur, and now it was in 
 this utter silence that she came out with her mother 
 from her chamber, and stepped down the stairs in 
 the amber lighi of the afternoon sun. In the con- 
 tinued stillness she went forward on her father's arm. 
 
The Fulfilling of the Law 313 
 
 Her eyes and throat had ached with unshed tears 
 all the morning, but at this moment a look that 
 thrilled the most frivolous girl who saw it, had 
 come into her face,— not of simple happiness, rather 
 of wonder and fearless trust, to which love had 
 lifted the nature above the level of mere experience. 
 Old people whispered that she was like all her race 
 just then, for glints of ancestral expression and fea- 
 ture came and went amid the young outlines of her 
 face, or seemed to come and go, as they often do to 
 the eyes of the beholders at vivid moments in an- 
 other's life. Perhaps thus kind ghosts come back 
 and mingle with our friends. All held their breath 
 to see her,— all but one, who feeling ashes round his 
 heart, shut his eyes close, and seemed to be alone 
 there amidst the throng. 
 
 Onward Barbara went, lifting her head once to 
 look at father, mother, brother, sister, about her 
 like a guard. Then Alden took her hand, and they 
 stood together before the old clergyman who had 
 known them all their Uves. 
 
XIX 
 
 PALINGENESIS 
 
 In and out of the hollows worn in the ledges be- 
 yond the wharves, the tide washed lazily, resting, 
 as nearly as it ever did rest, at high water. Hun- 
 dreds of jelly fish were swaying monotonously up 
 and down as if by a mighty breathing, and the 
 waves noisily swirling about the piers concealed 
 their worm-eaten attenuation and the barnacles en- 
 crusting them to the flood-mark. The sky was 
 streaked with faint gray lines and the sea was pale 
 to the horizon. A coal schooner and a barque laden 
 with lumber were the only craft lying at the 
 wharves, and a fleet of fishing sloops was anchored 
 at a little distance. Taking their daily exercise. 
 Phineas Temple and General Sumner tramped back 
 and forth, outlined against the sea. . 
 
 At the wharfs edge a row of idle men sat smok- 
 ing, their legs dangling, their eyes nearly closed 
 against the light. Twelve years had passed since 
 the wedding-day, and at every seaport along the 
 coast men no longer young were sitting like this, 
 in groups, on the rocks or wharves, their eyes be- 
 hind moat and walls of crinkled brown skin, watch- 
 . g the little happenings on the water. Their slow 
 
 3H 
 
Palingenesis 
 
 3>S 
 
 breaths came and went in unison with the rise and 
 fall of the waves, the motions of their brains had 
 taken the rhythm of the sea. In that pulsation dull 
 images, shifting bubbles, drifted like seaweed. 
 They hardly spoke more than the barnacles clinging 
 to the piers below them. They would never do 
 the world's work again. All that was sentient of 
 them the sea had claimed. 
 
 The commerce of which they had been a part 
 was dead. When the Civil War of four years was 
 over it, too, was gone. The hammers were still in 
 the shipyards and the old vessels were rotting like 
 the wharves. Four years withdrawn from the race, 
 unwise legislation and taxation, steam and iron 
 usurping the place of oak and sails meanwhile, had 
 thrown America's splendid opportunity into Eng- 
 land's ready grasp. The inevitable chill and check 
 to youth's hope had come, perhaps for the best, 
 upon the buoyant republic. The Civil War had 
 concentrated all energy in New England upon the 
 union of States; wandering fancies came home and 
 grew stern; the mirage of the Levant faded into 
 air. Here and there a summerhouse in an old gar- 
 den still discloses its pagoda form in the midst of 
 neglected vines and shrubs; or a broken fan of san- 
 dalwood which children have handled, an ugly jar 
 placed high beyond their reach, two great sea shells 
 laid at either side of a modest house door, speak, 
 like the pilgrim's scallop shell, of travels in the east. 
 Strange to see the likeness of a hoary government 
 
3i6 The Sea-Farers 
 
 in the baby republic! Strange that the end to an '- 
 thing should have come to one so young! 
 
 In the financial crash which had preceded this si- 
 lence, the old house of Temple & Son fell in the 
 general ruin. Phineas and his wife, in their first 
 bewilderment, had allowed themselves to be borne 
 away to the western frontier to recover their tone 
 in the cheerful company of Barbara and Alden; 
 thence swept onward to complete their cure with 
 Robert and Susie. Affection, sympathy, attention, 
 met them everywhere, but they confessed to each 
 other, once at home again in a quiet old house near 
 the general, that they feU as if they had passed 
 through a hurricane. 
 
 Alden was on duty, and the fort in which his wife 
 was contentedly living seemed a place of barbarous 
 fears to her mother, who hardly closed her eyes at 
 night for apprehension; while the ranche which 
 Robert was successfully extending left upon the 
 minds of his visitors an impression of wild eyes and 
 flying hoofs, pistol-shots, lassoes and savage con- 
 fusion which was, if possible, worse. They were 
 glad to creep back to the safe east, and be allowed 
 to grow old in peace. 
 
 For two whole years af* ;r his return from the 
 Mediterranean, Robert Temple worked as a ship s 
 carpenter in the dockyards where his father's ships 
 were built. No remonstrance moved him. Some 
 crude sense of justice needed to be satisfied and 
 could only be reckoned with in his own way. 
 
Palingenesis 
 
 3«7 
 
 Such wrongs as he had done of his own free will 
 he seemed neither to repent nor remember, but the 
 injury to the Flight, unpremeditated as it was, ap- 
 peared to require full reparation. Many a time dur- 
 ing that period of voluntary servitude, as he 
 straightened his tall figure to watch a ship put out 
 to sea, those near him were startled by the fierce- 
 ness of unrest in his face, and never thought to see 
 him bend his back again over the bolts and screws. 
 He stayed, but when the time which he had set 
 himself had ended, he and Susie and the children 
 went into the west He seemed to breathe with 
 an eager joy out in those wilds, as if to make the 
 most of a brief while, for he recognized that with 
 his boys and girls he must again go back to civilized 
 life. To the last he was akin to his Saxon fore- 
 fathers who, when they had captured and pillaged 
 a Romano-British city, hurried away from the place 
 into the vast silences and reaches of grassy land, in 
 dread of the evil spirits that haunted the streets of 
 walled towns. 
 
 He and Alden drew nearer together than ever be- 
 fore through their experience,— the one as officer, 
 the other as private soldier, in that most hideous of 
 all crimes against progress— a civil war, bringing as 
 it does the methods of savagery to bear upon the 
 disagreements inevitable between independent and 
 enlightened minds. Something of the boy in him 
 passed into the man. 
 Susie and the children and the general helped one 
 
3i8 The Sea-Faren 
 
 another through the long anxiety of those year* of 
 bloodshed. 
 
 It would seem that in Robert and Susie the linger- 
 ing remnants of the revolt against Puritanism left 
 in the race of each, had gathered themselves to- 
 gether and banded into one for a last effort against 
 the new order which, rising out of the crude young 
 civilization, had reached its point of vantage. The 
 attempt was hopeless, a desperate onslaught by 
 powers doomed to defeat and extinction, but sure, 
 from the nature of things, to come. If it had oc- 
 curred solely on the battle-ground of the spirit it 
 wvould have been none the less real or less tragic 
 
 Alden realized that the heat, the uproar, the fright- 
 ful bayonet charges roused in himself more than 
 once not the patriot but the brute and the barbarian. 
 C his two friends one, knightly Montgomery, con- 
 
 :ientiously offered his services to the southern 
 state from which he came. The other, Ward, 
 student and gentleman, rode at Alden's side, his face 
 grimed with powder, his gentle eyes wide and 
 bloodshot. Detached by Alden to reconnoitre with 
 a small command, he was surprised by Colonel Mont- 
 gomery's cavalry and obliged to retreat One of his 
 men reported that he fell mortally wounded from 
 his horse but refused to let a man stop to help him. 
 A comrade who only left him v/hen the enemy 
 were close upon him. turned and saw Ward lift 
 himself to strike an impotent blow, cursing the 
 trampling horsemen with his last breath. 
 
Palingenesis 
 
 319 
 
 Alden was a brave man. He had many times 
 faced dangers that ^at natural and had never 
 ninched. He braced himself to this war, but it was 
 unnatural and therefore horrible to him. Something 
 was jarred thereby in his well-strung organization, 
 but he was young and strong and the old elasticity 
 came back in time. They called him General like 
 his father when the war was over but he returned 
 to his profession as an engineer. He has never lost 
 his eye for the first hints of spring, his ear for the 
 first bird, the capacity of lift in his nature, his cheer 
 or his quick sense of humor. His marriage had the 
 promise of happiness in it and has fulfilled it. Freer 
 by nature than his because less in danger from an 
 inherent rigidity. Barbara's mind first accustomed 
 itself to his higher plane and then reached far and 
 ■ wide in its intense enthusiasm for even the smaUest 
 details of this interesting lifr They never merged 
 their personal affection in the parental one as their 
 four children made constantly new demands upon 
 their hearts and brains, but caUed each other by the 
 old names always. As long as she lived Mrs. 
 Temple spent a part of every spring with the house- 
 hold. Added years perhaps, and the presence of the 
 little grandchildren, cooled the re&Uessness in her 
 blood. 
 
 All about Alden and Barbara live those who like 
 them came out from the youth and strength of the 
 east. Fierce party confiict, Indian fighting, held the 
 place when first we met them, but these have swept 
 
3ao Hie Sea-Faren 
 
 beyond them and all is calm there. It is a region 
 from which one may look all ways, seeing the cur- 
 rents of thought throughout the states; child of the 
 east, sympathetic with the west, not Puritan, nor 
 French, not all conservatism, not all disorder, a 
 place in which to weigh and judge, at the centre of 
 a whirlpool where the waters are still. The mys- 
 terious Atlantic has become to them only a friendly 
 reminder of youth. The occasional homesickness 
 for the sea is often satisfied as they rise and fall 
 with its waves and hear the hollow roar along the 
 New England beaches when the shell of sleep is 
 laid against their ears. Awake they are not restless 
 from the broken cadence, the loss of unison, be- 
 tween the sea and them. A new rhythm, that of 
 the modem world, has filled its place. Their sons 
 and daughters have their pulses set to the new 
 movement. Born of the inspiration of the east they 
 owe to their environment an energy which may 
 well come from soil and air into which has been 
 poured such an infinity of hope. 
 
 Locker and his chief belonged more perfectly to 
 each other every year, until the angles of the one 
 had all fitted into tiie hollows and limitations of the 
 other. We sYoM not need to think of them as 
 sepa.^ ed. 
 
 A week before the Thanksgiving following the 
 marriage of Alden and Barbara. Jacob appeared at 
 the Sumner house one evening. Locker, who was 
 fastening the doors and windows for the night. 
 
FkUngenesU 3*> 
 
 was surprised by the sight of his friend runiriilf up 
 the path to the rear door. 
 
 ••Be ye sick, Jacob, or l» yer liouse byroifi' 
 up?" he Inquired from the window hewn «bwit 
 to close. 
 
 Jacob at once fell into a walk and slouched with 
 
 habitual deliberation up to tr^e door. 
 
 "Nothin" of the kind that 1 A>/t>v of, " he drawled 
 as usual. " 1 was atakin' ot the air." 
 
 Locker left the window and unbarred the door. 
 
 "Come in and set down," he • 'd suspkkwity. 
 "Folks don't lot no ptat on ai. . en o'clock at 
 night." 
 
 "Why, ye «in*t goln'to bed, be ye?" asked 
 Jacob after he was inside, "h's the edge of the 
 evenin'." 
 
 "1 guess to play-actors it is the edge o' the 
 evenin'. I've heerd some sech a yarn, " admitted 
 Locker. "But for folks in quiet walks o' life it's 
 late. Set down." 
 
 "Wal, wal, 1 must be goin' along soon," and 
 Jacob sank into a chair in the murky kitchen lighted 
 only by the lamp in Locker's hand. *' How's gen- 
 eral?" 
 
 They discussed the price of several household 
 commodities after Jacob had learned that the 
 general was fair to middlin', but the talk was 
 languid for Locker did not mean to encourage this 
 untimely visiting and sat, lamp in hand, yawning 
 visibly. 
 
322 
 
 The Sea-Faren 
 
 " Wal, I guess I better be goin'," Jacob remarked 
 after a protracted interval of silence. 
 
 "Wal, good-night, Jacob," replied Locker. 
 
 "O, before 1 forget it," and the guest turned 
 with his hand on the door, " Maria says jest now 
 for me to ask ye, when I see ye, if ye won't come 
 over an' talce a bite o' Thanksgivin' with us. 
 'Twon't be no great of a dinner, I guess. Maria 
 calculates to cook good, plain victuals, but that's all 
 she doos calculate to do. Anyhow mebbe ye can 
 make out a meal." 
 
 Locker stood where he was, his eyes widely star- 
 ing at his friend above the lamp. His voice when 
 he spoke sounded constrained. 
 
 " I don' knov/ but Td jest as soon," he said. 
 
 " Wal, I hope ye'll make out," replied Jacob, and 
 hurried out of the door. 
 
 Locker continued to stand still a moment more, 
 then he mechanically barred the door. No one had 
 ever bidden him as an honored guest to a Thanks- 
 giving dinner before. Maria Minns had felt a co- 
 vert hostility toward herself in her husband's friend 
 and had never hitherto been cordial to him, but her 
 skill in cookery was famous far and wide. 
 
 When he left the door he walked to the stove, 
 raised the lamp and looked up at the meerschaum 
 pipe. Next morning he looked at it again, and 
 longer. When he was ready for the feast on the 
 great day, his individuality somewhere lost in the 
 unsympathetic grip of his new clothes, he went to 
 
?*ilingcncsi8 323 
 
 the kitchen, took down the pipe and dusted the 
 case, wrapped it in a sheet of white paper and tied 
 it up with a fresh string. It adorned Jacob Minns' 
 parlor mantel, unsullied, till the day of his death. 
 
 During the year after he had stood with eyes closed 
 to the pageant of tremulous joy at Barbara's wed- 
 ding, Corenzio inherited a small fortune from an old 
 man by whom he had been engaged to play an hour 
 every day to case the tedium of a wasting illness. 
 His life had been creeping slowly, like a torpid 
 November wasp, since that day when the end he 
 had faUed to hinder had come, and his sin seemed 
 to him in vain. His thwarted revenge left him 
 lonely when the greatest power in the world had 
 overridden his poor snare, unseeing, unguessing it. 
 An irritated scorn at the fate that was against him 
 gave a desperate determination to match its spite 
 with all the powers at his disposal, forcing every- 
 thing out of life which it could show him. 
 
 As soon as possible after the legacy was In his 
 hands he went abroad. The instalments came to 
 him regulariy from Alden Sumner until principal 
 and interest were fully paid. Perhaps he found it 
 easier to acknowledge them with leagues of sea be- 
 tween him and the sender. It was a sum barely 
 exceeding ten thousand dollars in all. The invest- 
 ment in land which he had made yielded him a 
 great increase over the original outlay when It was 
 sold. 
 
 His unusual gifts never made his name famous 
 
324 The Sea-Farers 
 
 but a competence which provides the opportunity 
 for idleness without the stimulation of a large fortune 
 is often accountable for that result He became a 
 citizen of the world. He had acquaintances in every 
 capital in Europe. Denationalized, he drifted with 
 the tide of travel, north in the spring, south in the 
 autumn, like a derelict. He made a collection of 
 musical manuscripts and spent hours at a time over 
 those brought to him for sale, passing his smooth 
 fingers over the papers and holding them to the 
 light, in search of fraud. His luminous skin be- 
 came sallow and the brightness faded from his 
 eyes, but his grace had become polish and his epi- 
 grams left a sting. He died at middle age, unmar- 
 ried, in Vienna. 
 
 In his will he left ten thousand dollars as the nu- 
 cleus for a public library in his native town, and 
 grateful citizens gave his name to the building when 
 completed, adding to the sum yearly with such en- 
 thusiasm as to produce healthful emulation in neigh- 
 boring towns. 
 
 Many a hospital, asylum, school, mission, library, 
 is the outward form of an inward remorse, of a 
 baffled hope, of a revenge upon thwarted heirs, of 
 a bitter disappointment, of an atonement for a fault 
 buried deep in the heart. The stones cannot speak, 
 but there are hungers and tragedies in them. The 
 symbol, redeemed from its dark birth by its contact 
 with human needs is a source of refreshment, health 
 and joy, as the sewage water of a great city is 
 
Palingenesis 3*5 
 
 poured over successive beds of clay and comes out 
 pure. 
 
 On the small Mediterranean island all hot human 
 breath has cooled, loneliness and homesickness m 
 the exile are assuaged, violence and treachery, jeal- 
 ousy, hatred, even love, are gone. The elves have 
 it all their own way now for Umpedusa is unin- 
 habited. . 
 
 Before the leaves that were budding on the south 
 slopes of DuntuUock when Robert Temple was 
 captured had aU blown from the trees the laird was 
 riding at dusk across a moor heavy with autumn 
 rains. A gunshot cracked from a copse at its east- 
 em border and the horse made its way riderless 
 home. The mystery was never explained but we 
 know that Mother Graham was a wonderful shot at 
 her age, especially at long range. 
 
 The barque Maybird was never certainly heard 
 from. Depredations, perhaps committed by other 
 ships, have been foisted upon her. She became a 
 symbol of outlawry, gathering upon her decks, as 
 the tales about her grew, the robbers and marauders 
 of widely separated years, and. type of successful 
 lawlessness, skimming unharmed about the borders 
 of the last occasions for such prowess left in the 
 world. Perhaps in reality she is peacefully trading; 
 perhaps she has scattered the poisoned presence of 
 her old crew to the four winds and is wrecked and 
 rotting, like the system to which she belonged; per- 
 haps she hovers about the last stove coasts, vigitont 
 
326 The Sea-Farers 
 
 for the opportunities of war; every year the range 
 of her possibilities narrowed by the sweeping cir- 
 cles of two great friends, the spirit of science and 
 the spirit of Christianity. 
 
 THE END 
 
r- 
 id