I
For a quarter of an hour Thomas Medbury had been standing at the east
window of his mother's parlor, gazing out across his neighbor's yard
with an eager intentness that betrayed a surprising absorption in a
landscape without striking features and wholly lacking in any human
interest. The low-studded room in which he stood was closely shut and
darkened, having about it the musty smell peculiar to old houses. There
were sea-fans before the fireplace, flanked on each side by polished
conch-shells. On the wall hung an oil-painting of the brig _North
Star_, with all sail set, and at her foretruck a white burgee, with
her name in red letters, standing straight out in half a gale of wind.
Family portraits in oval gilt frames were ranged with mathematical
precision along the remaining wall-spaces, and on the mantelpiece stood
a curious collection of objects brought from far lands--carved ivories
and strange ware from China, peculiar shells, a Japanese short sword,
and a South Pacific war-club. No one would have needed to be told that
it was the home of a sailor.
Indeed, a keen observer might have guessed it from the young man
himself. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and bronzed to the color of
overripe wheat. His eyes had the steady, far-seeing look of the seaman,
but were not yet marked about by the crow's-feet that the glare of the
sun on the sea brings early in life. It was, moreover, a strong face,
straightforward and pleasant, and irradiated by an almost boyish
eagerness.
Suddenly he leaned forward with quickened interest as the door of his
neighbor's house opened, and there stepped forth a short, stout man
of sixty, who stood a moment for a last word and then hurried down
the boxwood-lined path. He, too, was clearly a sailor: he walked with
his feet far apart, like a man so habituated to the rolling deck that
it seemed a waste of time and energy to alter his gait on the rare
occasions when he trod the firm ground. Medbury perceived that his
face wore a look of placid satisfaction, and with the tightening of
the lines of his own to an unspoken resolution, he hurried through
the house and across the yard, and, vaulting the low dividing fence,
approached his neighbor's back door.
He lifted the latch without knocking, and at once came face to face
with a wet-eyed young woman standing at a table and listlessly cutting
out sugar-cookies with a tin mold. A child of four, leaning against
her, reached eagerly for the cutter, and a boy of ten sat near the
stove, softly crying.
"Annie," said Medbury, abruptly, "where's Bob? I want to see him."
"He's up-stairs, packing. He's going out with Cap'n Joel March," said
the young woman, tragically. The boy by the stove broke into a wail,
and she turned sharply toward him.
"Do stop it, Bobbie!" she exclaimed. Then she walked toward the door to
call her husband.
She returned at once, her husband, tall, brown, and wiry, walking
behind her with the subdued step of a culprit who feels that by
stepping softly, smiling unobtrusively, and gainsaying no man, he may
escape, through his humility, what he deserves for his misconduct. His
good-natured face lighted up at sight of Medbury.
"Bob," said Medbury, without other prelude than a nod, "I want you to
do me a favor: don't go out this trip with Cap'n Joel."
The other smiled uncertainly and seated himself.
"Why, that's a funny thing to ask, Tom," he said wonderingly. "Annie's
been at me, of course; but I don't see what odds it makes to you. It's
a good berth, and it don't seem right to let the chance go by. Besides,
I've promised the old man. I can't back out now."
"But he promised _me_ he'd stay home a spell," broke in his wife. "He
thinks that's nothing. He's just got home, after being away eleven
months. Why, baby didn't know him!"
Under the concentrated gaze of her elders, the child contemplated her
father as a blinking puppy might have looked at an object that, from
being unfamiliar and terrifying, had gradually become an accepted but
still unexplained phenomenon. But presently she turned to Medbury.
"Him gived me a pen-n-y," she said, with a serene gravity that seemed
to concern itself with the fact as a historical statement rather than
as a personal gratification.
Medbury seized her and tossed her, giggling, in his arms.
"He did, did he?" he exclaimed. "Well, he doesn't deserve to have
another if he can't stay home and get acquainted with you." He seated
himself, and, with the child snuggling against him, turned to her
father again.
"It's a shame, Bob, after promising Annie. Mother says she hasn't
talked about anything for six months except your coming home for a
while. She said you were going to paint the house and fix things up,
and she's been running around asking everybody about the best kind of
paint, and planning where to set out shrubs and make flower-beds, and
dig up a little garden for the children. And now you run off at the
first chance!"
"Why, I don't see why you take it so to heart, Tom," said Bob, smiling,
but a little grieved. He felt they ought to feel that he did it only
for the best.
"Well, I'll tell you why: I want to go myself. I asked Cap'n Joel to
take me, but he wouldn't hear to it. Now, if he can't get anybody else,
he's bound to let me go in the end."
Bob looked at him in amazement.
"Why, you're going to have the new bark! What do you care for--" Then
all at once his face broke into a comprehending grin. "Oh, I see," he
added. He sat for a moment smiling down at the floor. "All right, Tom,"
he said, looking up at last. "I'll do it. I wouldn't for anybody else.
I really didn't want to go, but I felt I ought to. But what I'm going
to say to the old man--" He looked at them with a troubled face.
"Nothing," replied Medbury, promptly. He turned to the boy, who
was listening eagerly, the new hope of keeping his father at home
brightening his tear-stained cheeks. "Bobbie, go over and tell my
mother you want my fish-lines; then run up to Cap'n March's and tell
him your father can't go, after all. And hurry right back; your
father's going to take you fishing."
The boy went out of the door and over the fence with a wild whoop of
unrestrained joy. Medbury caught up a hat and put it on his friend's
head.
"You'll find my boat under Simeon's shop; everything's in her," he
told him. "We'll send Bobbie right down. And hurry; the tide's right
for fishing now. You want to get right off." He laughed boyishly. Then
he gently pushed Bob toward the door and watched him going down the
street.
"Well, that's done," he said to Annie, and stepped outside, with his
hand still holding the latch. Suddenly he looked back. "Annie," he
said, "tell Bob I want him to go out with me as mate when the bark's
finished. Of course that's six months away; but tell him to keep it in
mind." With that he hurriedly closed the door.
The boy returned, and followed his father, and five minutes later
Captain March turned in at the gate. His face was no longer placid,
but wore a look of annoyance. Medbury, watching him, saw him go away
a moment later, hurrying toward the harbor, taking shorter steps than
usual, and biting his bearded under lip in his perplexity.
"Seems kind o' mean to bother the old fellow," Medbury said to himself,
looking troubled. He shook the feeling off as he added: "I guess it's
for his good. Now he'll look up Davis; he's the only man he can get."
As he passed out of his gate, Annie called to him from her doorway. She
was smiling.
"I wish you good luck, Tom."
"Thank you, Annie," he replied. "Don't tell about this."
She shook her head and laughed.
"Not till it comes out all right," she promised.
John Davis was sitting in the shipyard watching the carpenters setting
up a stern-post for a new vessel, and there the captain found him.
Medbury, watching them, saw them go away together; but at the corner of
the Shore Road and Main street they separated.
Half-way up High street, Medbury caught up with Davis.
"You're walking fast, John," he said.
"Just shipped with Cap'n Joel," Davis replied, not slacking his gait,
but rather increasing it, as befitted a little man, sensitive as to his
size, when walking with a long-legged companion.
"That's what I wanted to see you about," Medbury told him. "You're not
going." He smiled, but he glanced uneasily at Davis out of the corners
of his eyes.
Davis stopped and looked at him. He was a middle-aged man with a red
beard and an uncertain temper, and now he stared at Medbury with
flushing face. Then he broke into a laugh.
"I ain't, eh?" he demanded good-naturedly. "I'd like to know why not."
Medbury smiled and laid his hand on the other's shoulder.
"Because I want to go myself, John," he replied. "I've _got_ to go."
Davis stared at him with dropping jaw.
"You!"
"That's what I said," Medbury replied.
For a moment Davis stood grinning uncertainly; then he looked up.
"Where's the joke?" he asked. "Blamed if I see it."
"It's no joke," said Medbury, patiently. "I've _got_ to go. I can't
tell why--just now; but some day I may."
Davis gazed up and down the street with an abstracted air; but all at
once he drew himself together and exclaimed:
"Well, I'll be--" He broke off suddenly, and, turning sharply, began to
walk back to the village.
"Where are you going?" asked Medbury, still standing in the road.
Over his shoulder Davis answered laconically:
"To tell the ol' man I can't go." He did not stop.
"It's mighty good of you, John," Medbury called humbly. "I'll make it
up to you somehow--see if I don't."
"Make it up!" cried Davis, stopping in the road. "I don't want nothin'
made up. You made it up, years ago, when you got me out of that affair
in Para. You didn't ask no questions that night; nor when you run
across our bar in that no'theaster to fish up my boy when his boat
capsized. I don't know what you're up to, and I don't care. It's all
right." He waved his hand lightly, as if to dismiss all obligations,
and departed in search of Captain March.
But half a dozen steps away, Medbury heard him laugh, and turned to see
him standing in the road, looking back.
"Just this minute saw what you was aimin' at," he called to Medbury.
"Well, good luck to you!" And, grinning to himself, he went his way.
"Now," thought Medbury, "if Cap'n March'll only keep his eyes open for
the rest of the day, I guess he's not going to miss seeing me. I shall
be near, but not too near. Only I wish I knew of something to hurry
him up before too many people laugh and wish me luck."
Fate, in the hands of a woman, was to do that for him.