THE CAPTAIN COMMANDS
The jitney stopped.
“Oh, hello, Sam! That you?” asked Hal, recognizing the driver.
“Horn spoon! Ef it ain’t Hal!” exclaimed the jitney-man. “Back ag’in,
eh? What the devil _you_ been up to? Shirt tore, an’ one eye looks like
you’d been—”
“Oh, nothing,” Hal answered, while certain taggers-on stopped at a
respectful distance. “I’ve just been arguing with McLaughlin, aboard
the _Sylvia Fletcher_. It’s nothing at all.” He helped his grandfather
into the car and then, gripping the Airedale so that it yelped with
pain, he pitched it in. “How much do you want to take us down to Snug
Haven?”
“Well—that’ll be a dollar ’n’ a half, seein’ it’s you.”
“You’ll get one nice, round little buck, Sam.”
“Git out! You, an’ the cap’n, an’ the dog, an’ a tussik! Why—”
Hal climbed into the car. He leaned forward, his face close to Sam’s.
The seethe of rage seemed to have departed. Now Hal was all joviality.
Swiftly the change had come upon him.
“Sam!” he admonished. “You know perfectly well seventy-five cents would
be robbery, but I’ll give you a dollar. Put her into high.”
The driver sniffed Hal’s breath, and nodded acceptance.
“All right, seein’ as it’s you,” he answered. He added, in a whisper:
“Ain’t got nothin’ on y’r hip, have ye?”
“Nothing but a bruise,” said Hal. “_Clk-clk!_”
The jitney struck its bone-shaking gait along the curving street of
Endicutt. No one spoke. The old captain, spent in forces and possessed
by bitter, strange hauntings, had sunk far down in the seat. His
beard made a white cascade over the smart blue of his coat. His eyes,
half-closed, seemed to be visioning the far-off days he had labored so
long to forget. His face was gray with suffering, beneath its tan. His
lips had set themselves in a grim, tight line.
As for Hal, he filled and lighted his pipe, then with a kind of bored
tolerance eyed the quaint old houses, the gardens and trim hedges.
“Some burg!” he murmured. “Some live little burg to put in a whole
summer! Well, anyhow, I started something. They ought to hand me a
medal, for putting a little pep into this prehistoric graveyard.”
Then he relapsed into contemplative smoking.
Presently the town gave place to the open road along the shore, now
bathed in a thousand lovely hues as sunset died. The slowly fading
beauty of the seascape soothed what little fever still remained in
Hal’s blood. With an appreciative eye he observed the harbor. The
town itself might seem dreary, but in his soul the instinctive love
of the sea awoke to the charms of that master-panorama which in all
its infinite existence has never twice shown just the same blending of
hues, of motion, of refluent ebb and fall.
Along the dimming islands, swells were breaking into great bouquets of
foam. The murmurous, watery cry of the surf lulled Hal; its booming
cadences against the rocky girdles of the coast seemed whispering
alluring, mysterious things to him. In the offing a few faint specks
of sail, melting in the purple haze, beckoned: “Come away, come away!”
To Captain Briggs quite other thoughts were coming. Not now could the
lure of his well-loved ocean appeal to him, for all the wonders of the
umber and dull orange west. Where but an hour ago beauty had spread its
miracles across the world, for him, now all had turned to drab. A few
faint twinkles of light were beginning to show in fishers’ cottages;
and these, too, saddened the old captain, for they minded him of Snug
Haven’s waiting lights—Snug Haven, where he had hoped so wonderfully
much, but where now only mournful disillusion and bodings of evil
remained.
The ceaseless threnody of the sea seemed to the old man a requiem over
dead hopes. The salt tides seemed to mock and gibe at him, and out of
the pale haze drifting seaward from the slow-heaving waters, ghosts
seemed beckoning.
All at once Hal spoke, his college slang rudely jarring the old
captain’s melancholy.
“That was some jolt I handed Mac, wasn’t it?” he laughed. “He’ll be
more careful who he picks on next time. That’s about what he needed, a
good walloping.”
“Eh? What?” murmured the old man, roused from sad musings.
“Such people have to get it handed to them once in a while,”
the grandson continued. “There’s only one kind of argument they
understand—and that’s this!”
He raised his right fist, inspected it, turning it this way and that,
admiring its massive power, its adamantine bone and sinew.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Hal, don’t do that!” exclaimed the captain.
With strange eyes he peered at the young man.
Hal laughed uproariously.
“Some fist, what?” he boasted. “Some pacifier!”
As he turned toward the old man, his breath smote the captain’s senses.
“Lord, Hal! You haven’t been drinking, have you?” quavered Briggs.
“Drinking? Well—no. Maybe I’ve had one or two, but that’s all.”
“One or two what, Hal?”
“Slugs of rum.”
“Rum! Good God!”
“What’s the matter, now? What’s the harm in a drop of good stimulant? I
asked him for a drink, and he couldn’t see it, the tightwad! I took it,
anyhow. That’s what started all the rough-house.”
“Great heavens, Hal! D’you mean to tell me you’re drinking, now?”
“There, there, gramp, don’t get all stewed up. All the fellows take a
drop now and then. You don’t want me to be a molly-coddle, do you? To
feel I can’t take a nip, once in a while, and hold it like a gentleman?
That’s all foolishness, grampy. Be sensible!”
The old man began to shiver, though the off-shore breeze blew warm. Hal
made a grimace of vexation. His grandfather answered nothing, and once
more silence fell. It lasted till the first scattering houses of South
Endicutt came into view in the fading light.
The driver, throwing a switch, sent his headlights piercing the soft
June dusk. The cones of radiance painted the roadside grass a vivid
green, and made the whitewashed fences leap to view. Hedges, gardens,
gable-ends, all spoke of home and rest, peace and the beatitude of snug
security. Somewhere the sound of children’s shouts and laughter echoed
appealingly. The tinkle of a cow-bell added its music; and faint in the
western sky, the evening star looked down.
And still Captain Briggs held silent.
A little red gleam winked in view—the port light of Snug Haven.
“There’s the old place, isn’t it?” commented Hal, in a softer tone.
He seemed moved to gentler thoughts; but only for a moment. His eye,
catching a far, white figure away down by the smithy, brightened with
other anticipations than of getting home again.
“Hello!” he exclaimed. “That’s Laura, isn’t it? Look, gramp—isn’t that
Laura Maynard?”
Peering, Captain Briggs recognized the girl. He understood her innocent
little subterfuge of being out for a casual stroll just at this time.
His heart, already lacerated, contracted with fresh pain.
“No, no, Hal,” he exclaimed. “That can’t be Laura. Come now, don’t be
thinking about Laura, to-night. You’re tired, and ought to rest.”
“Tired? Say, that’s a good one! When was I ever tired?”
“Well, _I’m_ tired, anyhow,” the captain insisted, “and I want to cast
anchor at the Haven. We’ve got company, too. It wouldn’t look polite,
if you went gallivanting—”
“Company? What company?” demanded Hal, as the car drew up toward the
gate.
“A very special friend of mine. A man I haven’t seen in fifty years. An
old doctor that once sailed with me. He’s waiting to see you, now.”
“Another old pill, eh?” growled the boy, sullenly, his eyes still fixed
on the girl at the bend of the road. “There’ll be time enough for
Methuselah, later. Just now, it’s me for the skirt!”
The car halted. The captain stiffly descended. He felt singularly spent
and old. Hal threw out the suit-case, and lithely leaped to earth.
“Dig up a bone for Sam, here,” directed Hal. “Now, I’ll be on my way
to overhaul the little dame.”
“Hal! That’s _not_ Laura, I tell you!”
“You can’t kid me, grampy! That’s the schoolma’m, all right. I’d know
her a mile off. She’s some chicken, take it from me!”
“Hal, I protest against such language!”
“Oh, too rough, eh?” sneered the boy. “Now in your day, I suppose you
used more refined English, didn’t you? Maybe you called them—”
“Hal! That will do!”
“So will Laura, for me. She’s mine, that girl is. She’s plump as a
young porpoise, and I’m going after her!”
The captain stood aghast, at sound of words that echoed from the very
antipodes of the world and of his own life. Then, with a sudden rush of
anger, his face reddening formidably, he exclaimed:
“Not another word! You’ve been drinking, and you’re dirty and torn—no
fit man, to-night, to haul up ’longside that craft!”
“I tell you, I’m going down there to say good evening to Laura,
anyhow,” Hal insisted, sullenly. “I’m going!”
“You are _not_, sir!” retorted Briggs, while Sam, in the car, grinned
with enjoyment. “You’re _not_ going to hail Laura Maynard to-night! Do
you want to lose her friendship and respect?”
“Bull! Women like a little rough stuff, now and then. This ‘Little
Rollo’ business is played out. Go along in, if you want to, but I’m
going to see Laura.”
“Hal,” said the old man, a new tone in his voice. “This is carrying too
much canvas. You’ll lose some of it in a minute, if you don’t reef. I’m
captain here, and you’re going to take my orders, if it comes to that.
The very strength you boast of and misuse so brutally is derived from
money I worked a lifetime for, at sea, and suffered and sinned and
bled and almost died for!” The old captain’s tone rang out again as in
the old, tempestuous days when he was master of many hard and violent
men. “Now, sir, you’re going to obey me, or overside you go, this
minute—and once you go, you’ll never set foot on my planks again! Pick
up your dunnage, sir, and into the Haven with you!”
“Good _night_!” ejaculated Hal, staring. Never had the old man thus
spoken to him. Stung to anger, though Hal was, he dared not disobey.
Muttering, he picked up the suit-case. The dog, glad to be at home once
more, leaped against him. With an oath, Hal swung the suit-case; the
Airedale, yelping with pain, fawned and slunk away.
“Into the Haven with you!” commanded Briggs, outraged to his very
heart. “_Go!_”
Hal obeyed, with huge shoulders hulking and drooping in their
plenitude of evil power, just like the captain’s, so very long ago.
Alpheus Briggs peered down the street at the dim white figure of
the disappointed girl; then, eyes agleam and back very straight, he
followed Hal toward Snug Haven—the Haven which in such beatitude of
spirit he had left but an hour ago—the Haven to which, filled with so
many evil bodings, he now was coming back again.
“Oh, God,” he murmured, “if this thing must come upon me, Thy will be
done! But if it can be turned aside, spare me! Spare me, for this is
all my life and all my hope! Spare me!”