Jehoshaphat Rudd of Satan's Trap was shy--able-bodied, to be sure, if a
gigantic frame means anything, and mature, if a family of nine is
competent evidence, but still as shy as a child. Moreover, he had the
sad habit of anxiety: whence tense eyelids, an absent, poignant gaze, a
perpetual pucker between the brows. His face was brown and big, framed
in tawny, soft hair and beard, and spread with a delicate web of
wrinkles, spun by the weather--a round countenance, simple, kindly,
apathetic. The wind had inflamed the whites of his eyes and turned the
rims blood red; but the wells in the midst were deep and clear and cool.
Reserve, courageous and methodical diligence at the fishing, a quick,
tremulous concern upon salutation--by these signs the folk of his harbor
had long ago been persuaded that he was a fool; and a fool he was,
according to the convention of the Newfoundland outports: a shy, dull
fellow, whose interests were confined to his punt, his gear, the grounds
off the Tombstone, and the bellies of his young ones. He had no part
with the disputatious of Satan's Trap: no voice, for example, in the
rancorous discussions of the purposes and ways of the Lord God Almighty,
believing the purposes to be wise and kind, and the ways the Lord's own
business. He was shy, anxious, and preoccupied; wherefore he was called
a fool, and made no answer: for doubtless he _was_ a fool. And what did
it matter? He would fare neither better nor worse.
Nor would Jehoshaphat wag a tongue with the public-spirited men of
Satan's Trap: the times and the customs had no interest, no
significance, for him; he was troubled with his own concerns. Old John
Wull, the trader, with whom (and no other) the folk might barter their
fish, personified all the abuses, as a matter of course. But--
"I 'low I'm too busy t' think," Jehoshaphat would reply, uneasily. "I'm
too busy. I--I--why, I got t' tend my _fish!_"
This was the quality of his folly.
* * * * *
It chanced one summer dawn, however, when the sky was flushed with
tender light, and the shadows were trooping westward, and the sea was
placid, that the punts of Timothy Yule and Jehoshaphat Rudd went side by
side to the Tombstone grounds. It was dim and very still upon the water,
and solemn, too, in that indifferent vastness between the gloom and the
rosy, swelling light. Satan's Trap lay behind in the shelter and shadow
of great hills laid waste--a lean, impoverished, listless home of men.
"You dunderhead!" Timothy Yule assured Jehoshaphat. "He've been robbin'
you."
"Maybe," said Jehoshaphat, listlessly. "I been givin' the back kitchen a
coat o' lime, an' I isn't had no time t' give t' thinkin'."
"An' he've been robbin' this harbor for forty year."
"Dear man!" Jehoshaphat exclaimed, in dull surprise. "Have he told you
that?"
"Told me!" cried Timothy. "No," he added, with bitter restraint; "he've
not."