I left Drislane to go to the theatre with Captain Norman Sickles. The
theatre over, he went with me to my hotel to get a few ship's papers I
had for him. After that we sat in for a smoke and a chat.
Not that there was much chatting on Captain Norman's part. He never did
have much to say of himself, nor too much of anybody else, though he
could praise a man if he liked him. It was the first time I had ever
spent more than an hour together with him except on pure business, and I
was curious to know just what he thought of a lot of things; among
others, of his cousin. I gave him two or three openings, but he didn't
rush in. What he did have to say of him he said at one gulp. It was:
"Where I was raised 'twas common talk that after you'd been getting
naught but fair winds for a long course, it was then a good time to keep
a watch out. The headwinds have to come some time, and the longer they
be in coming the longer they'll stay with you when they does come.
Oliver Sickles's been runnin' with a free sheet so long that I
calc'late he's forgot there's such a thing as headwinds this side the
Western ocean."
Even as Drislane, so did Captain Norman look like a terribly lonesome
man at times. He probably was not yet over losing that girl who had been
tricked into marrying his cousin. His cousin seemed to have got over it.
There was gossip enough between Boston and Norfolk to hang more than a
suspicion of that on--for that and the belief that not so much in
marrying her as in getting the girl away from his cousin was where
Captain Oliver had most likely achieved his main desire.
We talked until Captain Norman thought it was time for him to be getting
back aboard his vessel and turning in. As he stood up to go, he said:
"'Tis said you like a little sea trip now and again? Why don't you go
home with me in the _Sirius_?"
I was pleased at that--he was known to be not over-free with his
invitations--and I thanked him, but on my not saying yes or no at once
he looked chagrined; seeing which, I explained that early that fall his
cousin had invited me, if ever I cared to return to Boston by water, to
take passage with him on the _Orion_.
He tried to smile. He was a whale of a man, bashful in his ways. He
smiled like an overgrown boy who had done something there was no harm in
but of which he was ashamed. "He always appears to be gettin' in ahead
o' me, don't he?" he said, wistfully-like, after a moment, which hurried
me into saying: "But I never said I'd go with him, captain, and he
probably thinks he knows me too well to ask me now. I want to go with
you, captain, and"--I made up my mind then and there--"I will--and proud
to have you ask me."
"Good!" 'Twas a real smile now. "And if the _Orion_ hauls out with us
you may see a wet passage, and maybe a bit of excitement of one kind or
another before we make Boston Light."
We shook hands on the hope of a fast run to Boston, and then, drawing
from my suit-case a package of receipts, coal memoranda, and so on, I
held them up. "For the _Orion_, captain. Where do you suppose I'll find
your cousin this time of night to give them to him?"
"Where but the Tidewater where that girl is?"
I stopped to put one thing to another. "And he is after that red-haired
Rose, too?"
"What else?"
"But doesn't she know, or doesn't her uncle know, that he's a wife in
Boston?"
"Her uncle!" he snorted. "He's no more wit than my ship's cat."
"But Drislane knows--won't he tell her?"
"He don't seem to. A proud one, Drislane. Six months he's been with me
now in the _Sirius_, and if she isn't sure she wants him above anybody
else on this earth, then she needn't have him, that's all; or leastwise,
that's how I sense him. He wouldn't take no odds of the devil, that
lad."