"Ever sence the accident," said Captain Pharo, with a gloom not wholly
impersonal, "my woman 's been d'tarmined to haul me over to a
dagarrier's to have my pictur' took.
"I told 'er that there wa'n't no danger in the old 'Lizy Rodgers,' sech
weather as I go out in. 'But ye carn't never tell,' says she; 'and
asides,' says she, 'ye're a kind o' baldin' off an' dryin' away, more
or less, every year,' says she, 'an' I want yer pictur' took afore----'
"Gol darn it all!" said Captain Pharo, making an unsuccessful attempt
to light his pipe, and kicking out his left leg testily.
"'Afore ye gits to lookin' any meachiner,' says she.
"'When I dies,' says I, 'th' inscription on my monniment won't be by no
drowndin',' says I; 'it'll be jest plain, "Pestered ter death,"' says I.
"Wal, 't that she began a-boohooin', so in course I told 'er, says I,
'I s'pose I c'n go and have my dagarrier took ef you're so set on it,'
says I.
"For with regards t' female grass, major, my exper'ence has all'as made
me think o' that man in Scriptur' 't was told to do somethin'. 'No, by
clam!' says he, 'I ain't a-goin' to,' and hadn't more 'n got the words
outer his mouth afore somehow he found himself a-shutin' straight outer
the front door to go to executin' of it.
"When I thinks o' that tex'--an' I ponders on it more 'n what I does on
mos' any other tex' in Scriptur'--I says to myself, 'Thar' 's Pharo
Kobbe--thar' 's my dagarrier, 'ithout no needs o' goin' nowheres to
have it took."
"I should think it would be very nice," I said, "to have somebody
wanting your picture.--I am not pressed with entreaties for mine."
Captain Pharo sighed kindly; his pipe was going.
"Poo! poo! hohum! Never mind; never mind.
[Illustration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass. Or as--']
I s'pose ye hain't never worked yerself up to the p'int o' propoundin'
nothin' yit to Miss Pray, have ye?"
"No."
[Illustration: Music fragment: "'Or as the morning flow'r,--]
"Why don't ye, major?"
"When I think of how much better off she is with seven dollars a week
for my board than she would be taking me as a husband, for nothing----"
"Oh, pshaw! major, pshaw!" said Captain Pharo, with deep returning
gloom; "seven dollars a week ain't nothin' to the pleasure she'd take,
arfter she'd once got spliced onto ye, in houndin' on ye, an' pesterin'
ye, an' swipin' the 'arth with ye."
Conscious that he had rather over-reached himself in presenting this
picture of marital joys to my horizon, Captain Pharo resumed the
subject with sprightliness.
"In course the first preliminary essence o' all these 'ere ructions
'ith female grass is, 't ye've got to go a-co'tin'."
"Yes."
"And in goin' a-co'tin', ye've got to ile yer ha'r out some, an' put
essence on yer han'kercher, an' w'ar a smile continnooal, an' keep
a-arskin' 'em ef tobakker smoke sickens on 'em, an' all sech o' these
ere s'ciety flourishes an' gew-gaws 's that."
"Yes," said I, attentively.
"I'd ort ter know," said Captain Pharo, alone with me in the lane,
assuming a gay and confident air, "f'r I've been engaged in co'tin'
three times, an' ain't had nary false nibble, but landed my fish every
time."
"I know you have."
"Now ef you don't feel rickless enough, major, and kind o' wanter see
how it 's done, you ask Miss Pray t' sail along with us up to Millport,
whar I've got to go to have my condum' pictur' took."
The recollection of personal grievances again beclouded Captain Pharo;
he was silent.
"And what?" I said.
"Wal," said my soul's companion, with the fire all gone from his
manner, "I'll kinder han' 'er into the boat, an' shake my han'kercher
at 'er an' smile, when Mis' Kobbe ain't lookin', an' the rest o' these
ere s'ciety ructions, jest t' show ye how."
I appreciated the motives, the sacrifice even, of this conduct as
anticipated toward Miss Pray, whose society, as far as his own peculiar
taste went, Captain Pharo always rather tolerated than affected.
Still, it was with doubtful emotions, on the whole, that I wended my
steps with Miss Pray toward the enterprise.
The scow "Eliza Rodgers" was waiting for us at anchor among the
captain's flats. We went first to the house.
There it became at once evident to me that, rather than preparing
himself with oil and incense for the occasion, Captain Pharo had been
undergoing severe and strict manipulations at the hands of his wife.
He had on the flowered jacket, but as proof against the sea air until
he should be photographed, Mrs. Kobbe had applied paste to the locks of
hair flayed out formidably each side of his head beyond his ears.
Altogether, I could not but divine that during my absence his flesh had
been growing more and more laggard to the enterprise, his spirit testy
and unreconciled.
"'F I can't find my pipe I shan't go," said he, with secret source of
sustainment; "stay t' home 'nless I c'n find my pipe, that's sartin as
jedgment."
Now I knew from the way the captain's hand reposed in his pocket that
his treasure was safely hidden there--that he was dallying with us.
Knowing, too, that he could not escape by such means, but was only
weakly delaying his fate, I took occasion to whisper in his ear, as I
affected to join in the search:
"Take her out, captain, and light her up. Let 's go through with it.
Remember you promised to show me how to act."
"Hello! why, here she is a-layin' right on the sofy," said he, in a
tone of forlorn acquiescence that could never have recommended him to
the footlights, especially as this remark antedated, by some anxious
breathings on my part, the sheepish and bungling withdrawal of his pipe
from his pocket.
"Captain Pharo Kobbe," said his wife, regarding him, "ain't you a smart
one!"
The captain's manner certainly did not justify this taunt. As he led
us, with an exaggerated limp, toward the beach, I looked in vain for
any of those light and elegant attentions toward Miss Pray at which he
had hinted. But when we arrived in view of the "Eliza Rodgers" and saw
that the tide had so far receded that we must pick our way gingerly
thither over the mud flats, by stepping on the sparsely scattered
stones, Captain Pharo looked at me and took a stand.
"Miss Pray," said he, "'f it 's agreeable to you, I'll hist ye up an'
carry on ye over."
"Cap'n Pharo Kobbe," said his wife, as if it were suddenly and
startlingly a subject of physics, "whatever is the matter with you?"
"Carn't I be p'lite ef I want to?" roared the captain; but as he
surveyed his contemplated burden, who was a good many inches taller
than he, and by all odds sprightlier, he paled.
"Ef 't you _could_ get anything, Cap'n Kobbe," said his wife, "I sh'd
think you had."
This unblessed dark reminder of a causeless deprivation settled it.
Captain Pharo seized Miss Pray, blushing with alarm and amaze at such
sudden retributive lightning on the part of her long-delayed charms,
and bore her out into the mud.
But he had labored but a few steps with her, giving vent meanwhile to
audible, involuntary groans, before it became evident to her, or to
them both, that his grasp was failing, his feet sinking. She threw up
a hand and partly dislodged his pipe; it was instantly a question of
dropping his pipe or Miss Pray; the captain dropped Miss Pray.
Both women were now angry with him; between all that sea and sky
Captain Pharo appeared not to have a friend save his pipe and me.
Miss Pray indignantly picked the rest of her steps alone. "Ye'll have
to do the rest o' yer co'tin' in yer own way," murmured the captain to
me, darkly and vaguely, as he stepped into the boat: "but my 'dvice to
ye is, drop it! drop it right whar 'tis!"
"Oh, that is all right," I tried to assure him. "I--I hadn't hardly
begun, you know."
We scoured the bottom successfully with the "Eliza Rodgers," but as we
got into deep water there fell a perfect calm.
"'T 'd be bad enough," said Captain Pharo, set against the world, and
tugging wrathfully at the oars, "t' go on sech idjit contractions as
these 'ith a breeze t' set sail to, but when 't comes to pullin' over
thar' twenty mile, with the sea as flat as a floor, t' have yer darn
fool pictur' took----" He laid down the oars with an undoubted air of
permanency, and lit his pipe.
Mrs. Kobbe pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. "Cap'n Pharo Kobbe,
them 't knew you afore ever I was born say as 't you was the best
master of a vessel 't ever sailed, and everybody knows 't you can sail
this coast in the dark, an' though--though you did act queer a little
while ago, I don't--don't like to have you call yourself a da--darn
fool."
Captain Pharo glanced at me with suicidal despair.
Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray took out their knitting, with the implicit
Basin superstition of "knitting up a breeze." They as seriously
advised me to "scratch the mast and whistle," which, agreeably, I began
to do.
Thus occupied, I saw a sudden light break over the captain's face, as
sighting something on the waves.
"Fattest coot I've seen this year, by clam!" said he, seizing his gun
from the bottom of the scow and firing. He fired again, and then rowed
eagerly up to it. It was a little wandering wooden buoy bobbing
bird-like on the waters.
We did not look at him. Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray knitted; I scratched
the mast with painful diligence.
A breeze arose. The captain silently hoisted sail; at length he lit
his pipe again, and returned, in a measured degree, to life.
As we sailed thus at last with the wind into Millport it seemed that
the "Eliza Rodgers" and we were accosted as natural objects of marvel
and delight by the loafers on the wharf.
"What po-ort?" bawled a merry fellow, speaking to us through his hands.
"Why, don't ye see?" said a companion, pointing to Captain Pharo, who
was taking down sail, with the complete flower turned shoreward;
"they're Orientiles!"
A loud burst of laughter arose. Personal allusions equally
glove-fitting were made to Mrs. Kobbe, to Miss Pray, to me, and to the
"Eliza Rodgers."
"Say! come to have your pictures took?" bawled the first merry fellow,
as the height of sarcasm and quintessence of a joke.
"Look a' here, major," almost wept poor Captain Pharo, "how in thunder
'd they find that out?"
"Never mind," said I; "we're going up to the hotel, and we'll have a
better dinner than they ever dreamed of."
"Afore I'm took to the dagarrier's?"
"Yes, indeed."
"See here, wife!" said Captain Pharo, completely broken down--for we
were all suffering, as usual, from the generic emptiness and craving of
our natures for food--"major says 't we're goin' up to git baited,
afore I'm took to the dagarrier's."
"I wish 't you could have your picture took jest as you look now,
Captain Pharo Kobbe!" exclaimed his wife kindly and admiringly.
At the inn the most conspicuous object in the reception-room was a sink
of water, with basins for ablutions.
Captain Pharo waited, visibly holding the leash on his impatience, for
a "runner"--or travelling salesman--to complete his bath, when he
plunged in gleefully, face and hands. Mrs. Kobbe drew him away with
dismay. The paste that had endured the whole sea voyage he had now
ruthlessly washed from one side of his head, the locks on the other
side still standing out ebullient.
"'M sorry, wife," said the captain. But the captain, smelling the
smoke from the kitchen, was not the forlorn companion of our
treacherous voyage. "I reckon she'll stan' out ag'in, mebbe," said he,
"soon 's she 's dry." But he winked at me with daring inconsequence.
In vain Mrs. Kobbe tried to flay out those locks to their former
attitude with the hotel brush and comb, which the runner had finally
abandoned.
"Poo! poo! woman, never mind," said the captain; "one side 's fa'r to
wind'ard, anyhow. I can have a profiler took, jest showin' one side on
me, ye know."
"I didn't want a profiler," lamented Mrs. Kobbe; "I wanted a
full-facer."
"Wal, wal, woman, I hain't washed my face off, have I?" said the
captain cheerfully, resurrecting his pipe. "Put up them thar' public
belayin' pins," he added, referring to the hotel brush and comb, "and
don't le's worry 'bout nothin' more, 'long as we're goin' to be baited."
The "runner" meanwhile was looking at us with the pale, scientific
interest of one who covets curiosities which he yet dare not approach
too intimately.
"Do you smoke before eating, sir?" said he to the captain, at the same
time standing off a little way from the elephant.
"Poo! poo!" said Captain Pharo, turning the whole flower indifferently
to his questioner, and drawing a match with a slight, genteel uplifting
of the leg; "I smoke, as the 'postle says, on all 'ccasions t' all men,
in season an' outer season, an' 'specially when I'm a darn min' ter."
The runner, withered, vanquished by horse and foot, thereafter regarded
us silently.
At the table I made haste first of all to catch the eye of our waiter,
who was also the proprietor of the little inn. I pressed a wordless
plea into his hand. "We are eccentric," I murmured in explanation,
"and you must look well to our wants."
He winked at me as though we had been life-long cronies. "Eccentric
all ye wan' ter," said he, "the more on 'er the better."
I pointed to the captain, who, the table-cloth before him, sat rigid
with hunger.
"The ladies will consider the bill of fare," I said, "and request that
Captain Kobbe may be first served."
"Which'll ye have--boil' salmon, corn' beef, beef-steak, veal stew,
liver an' bacon?" quickly bawled the proprietor into the captain's ear.
"Sartin, sartin, fetch 'em along," said the compliant and nervy
captain, "and don't stand thar' no'ratin' about 'em--'ceptin' liver,"
he added. "I hain't got so low down yit 's to eat liver."
The runner, sitting with a few guests at another table, served by the
proprietor's daughter, gazed at us with fixed vision, not even having
taken up his knife and fork, for that pale, scientific interest which
absorbed him.
"I know that squar's are fash'nable," said the captain, taking up the
napkin by his plate on the point of his knife and giving it an airy
toss into the middle of the table; "but I'd ruther have the sea-room.
Is your mess all fillers to-day, or have ye got some wrappers?"
"Wrappers? Oh, certainly--doughnuts, mince pie, apple pie, an' rhubub
pie."
"Sartin, sartin; fetch 'em along. I'll try a double decker o'
rhubub--I'm ruther partial to 'er. Fetch 'em all in: all'as survey yer
country, ye know, afore ye lays yer turnpike. F'r all these favors, O
Lord, make us duly thankful. Touch-and-go is a good pilot," mumbled
the captain in a religious monotone, and began.
From this time on our table fairly scintillated with mirth and good
cheer, in the midst of which, his first hunger appeased, the captain's
resonant tones were frequently heard pealing through the dining-room,
singing, as if particularly, it seemed, to the edification of the pale
runner, that "His days were as the grass, or as the morning flower."
I observed how Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray now and then warily conveyed a
"doughnut" from the table to their pockets, with an air of dark
declension from the moral laws. Having filled their own receptacles,
they whispered me an entreaty to do the same, as we might be late with
the tide and hungry on our way home. I complied in this, as in every
case, gallantly; but in my very first essay was detected by the
proprietor with a large edible of this description half-way to my
trousers' pocket. He winked unconsciously and obligingly turned his
back. Captain Pharo, however, oblivious to sense of guilt, approved my
action in clear words: "Tuck in the cheese too, major," said he; "it'll
do for the mouse-trap."
I was equally unfortunate when, some time after, in settling for our
dinner I drew out first, instead of my purse, the very same fried cake
which had formerly betrayed me; and, to add to my discomfiture, Miss
Pray and Mrs. Kobbe, who had six of these stolen products each in their
capacious pockets, retired into a corner, innocently giggling.
But an unexpected formidable dilemma arose when Captain Pharo, braced
up to such a degree by his dinner and his pipe, declared that "He
didn't know as he should be took to any dagarrier's, after all! Tide
and wind both serve f'r a fa'r sail home," said he, "and I'm a-goin'."
"Not till we've been to a tobacconist's," said I, "anyway."
I purchased a quantity of smoking tobacco. With this parcel peeping
enticingly from my pocket, and with persuasive argument that I could
never again leave the Basin without his likeness, as aid to Mrs.
Kobbe's tears, we at last seduced him up the stairs of the studio to
the long-anticipated ordeal.
Now if young Mrs. Kobbe had had the discretion to keep silence! But "I
wish, pa," said she, made bodeful by the agonized and even villanous
aspect of the captain's usually stoical features, "'t you could look
just as you did when major said he was goin' to take us up to dinner!"
"Good Lord! woman, how can I tell how I looked then? I didn't see
myself, did I?"
"You looked so--so happy!" moaned Mrs. Kobbe, "and your face was all
break--breaking out into a smile, and you didn't have that
suf--sufferin' kinder look 't you've got now."
"I think, myself, sir," said the bland photographer--"ah! let me
arrange your hair a little, just this side--or this?--which side?--ah!
so--that a little less severe expression--we all have our trials, I
know, but----"
"I hain't!" said the captain ferociously. "I hain't got a darn thing
t' worry me. 'F my woman wants me ter have to git a boat an' row out
for the 'Lizy Rodgers' on high tide, an' not git home till sun-up, I
don't care. What ye screwin' my head into--hey?"
"Merely a head-rest, sir; merely an assistance toward composing
the--ah--features."
"I can compose my feetur's without any darn nihilism machine back on
me," said the captain; which he straightway did in a manner that froze
the operator's veins.
"Has nothing pleasant occurred to you recently, sir. No--ah?"
"O Cap'n Kobbe," exclaimed his wife, with desperate fated mirth, "think
o' how you shot the buoy this mornin' 'stead of a coot!"
The photographer, observing Mrs. Kobbe's face rather than his victim's,
and seizing this as probably the opportune moment, transferred the
captain's features to his camera.
We waited for the result. After some time our artist approached us
with mincing steps and a hand thrust in his breast-pocket as if for
possible recourse to defence.
In the type before us, even the gloom and wrath of the captain's
countenance were lost sight of in the final skittish and disastrous
arrangement, through the day's perils, of his hair.
"Ye see now what ye've done, don't ye?" said the captain to his wife.
Mrs. Kobbe came over and stood beside me.
"'T looks 'like somethin' 't the cat brought in, don't it?" said she,
still gazing, pale with curiosity.
"I don't know," I said, not knowing what to say; "does she bring in a
great variety?"
"Awful!" said Mrs. Kobbe. Having said which, she put up her piteous
little hands to her face and began weeping as if her heart would break.
The captain, like the man that he was, took a strong new tack.
"Never mind, darlin'," said he; "ye've got me, 'n' that 's better to ye
'n all the dagarriers. We'll stompede the blasted thing, 'n' we'll go
'n' have a nice sail home.
"Ef I ever sees or hears or knows," he added to the photographer,
"anywheres on the face o' this 'ere wide an' at the same time narrer
'arth, o' any o' these here dagarrier-ructions 't you've played off on
me this day, bein' otherwise 'n destriyed, I sh'll take the first fa'r
wind up here, an' if thar' ain't no wind I sh'll paddle, an' my
settlemunt 'ith you'll be a final one. Good-arternoon."
The captain and his wife strolled down to the beach, arm in arm, Miss
Pray and I following, forlorn and forgotten, behind. We saw the
captain tenderly pin the shawl about his wife's neck before he left us
on the windy wharf, to go out without a murmur to bring in the "Eliza
Rodgers."
"How shall we get major down the slip?" I heard Mrs. Kobbe whisper
anxiously to Miss Pray.
The "slip" was an inclined plane of boards, of some thirty feet in
length, ending in the water; it was without steps or railing, smooth,
green with sea-water and slime, and it was, at the present state of the
tide, the only way of boarding the "Eliza Rodgers."
The captain now stood in the boat below, holding her to the slip.
Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray, leaving me with an encouraging smile, both
sat themselves down, and by the simplest means of descent slid safely
and swiftly down the incline, amid ringing cheers and acclamation from
the wharf.
"Come on, major!" called the captain. "Touch-and-go----"
And I! Where now are my faithful henchmen, the men of mighty stature
who do my bidding, the liveried giants who open the door of my
carriage? The breeze blew in my face, and the "Eliza Rodgers" waited
below, and I heard the rough audience from the wharf shouting that I
should be up to that much!
Ay, and far more.
I sat me down with a smile: that strange and swift period of passage is
still fresh in my memory; how the wind, aided by some slimy intervening
objects, turned me completely about, so that I bounded at last with
affectionate violence, back foremost, into the enfolding arms of my
friends below; cheered, too, from the wharf, especially as, not having
been able to make so judicious an arrangement of my earthly vestments
as Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray had done, I was now a startlingly marked
object of ridicule.
Little cared we. That adventure down the slip, ignominious though it
was, had put fire into my heart. I entered eagerly into the captain's
scheme of hauling and rifling the Millport lobster-traps, in the
convenient fog which, as if sent by heaven, hid us for a little space
from the land. The blood of ancestral pirates and robbers bounded
hilariously once more in my long-easeful, sluggish veins.
The floor of our boat was covered with bright sea-spoils, the fog
lifted, the wind blew fair and strong. Hungry eternally, we munched
our stolen fried cakes with delight.
The sun set in a spendthrift glory of state and color, the water was as
if translated to celestial climes, languidly the fair moon arose.
And I--forever Vesty's face, in some dream of youth and happiness,
outlying my estate; pictured, apart from me, yet new-creating me with
joy. Afar off in earth-meadows, the love-note of the thrush--not for
me, yet passing dear and sweet. That slender, languorous moon pointed
me to humble village spires and grass-grown paths, pale lovers
whispering at a rustic gate. I, poor sprite, stooped down and loved
and blessed them, though I sped away to sail forever and forever on the
seas!