"'Moses,' says she," he pursued, "'don't you mind the price o' fish;
you _cotch_ un. Fish,' says she, 'is fish; but prices goes up an'
down, accordin' t' the folly o' men. You _do_,' says she; 'an' you
leave what you _gets_ t' take care of itself.' An' I 'low," says
Moses, gently, a smile transfiguring his vacant face, "that mother
knowed."
'Twas all, it seemed to me, a defensive argument.
"An' mother 'lowed, afore she died," he added, looking up to a gray
sky, wherein a menace of snow dwelt, "that a good man would save his
Queen from rascals."
"Ay," I complained; "but what was the bid that won from Eli Flack?"
"The bid?"
"Ay; the bid."
"Not expensive," says he.
"But how much, Moses?"
"Well, Dannie," he answered, with a sigh and a rub of his curly,
yellow beard, "I 'lowed mother wouldn't charge much for servin' the
Queen: for," says he, enlivened, "'twould be too much like common
labor t' carry Her Majesty's mail at a price. An' I bid," he added,
eying me vaguely, "accordin' t' what I 'lowed mother would have me do
in the Queen's service. _Fac' is, Dannie_," says he, in a squall of
confidence, "_I 'lowed I'd carry it free!_"
* * * * *
'Twas this contact with the world of Jimmie Tick's Cove that embarked
the fool upon an adventurous enterprise. When, in the spring of that
year, the sea being open, the _Quick as Wink_ made our harbor, the
first of all the traders, Tumm, the clerk, was short-handed for a
cook, having lost young Billy Rudd overboard, in a great sea, beating
up in stress of weather to the impoverished settlement at Diamond Run.
'Twas Moses, the choice of necessity, he shipped in the berth of that
merry, tow-headed lad of tender voice, whose songs, poor boy! would
never again be lifted, o' black nights in harbor, in the forecastle of
the _Quick as Wink_. "Ay, Dannie," says Moses, "you'd never think it,
maybe, but I'm shipped along o' Tumm for the French shore an' the
Labrador ports. I've heared tell a wonderful lot about Mother Burke,
but I've never seed the ol' rock; an' I've heared tell a wonderful lot
about Coachman's Cove an' Conch an' Lancy Loop an' the harbors o' the
straits shores, but I've never seed un with my own eyes, an' I'm sort
o' wantin' t' know how they shapes up alongside o' Twist Tickle. I
'low," says he, "you don't find many harbors in the world like Twist
Tickle. Since I been travellin' t' Jimmie Tick's Cove with the mail,"
he continued, with a stammer and flush, like a man misled from an
austere path by the flesh-pots of earth, "I've cotched a sinful
hankerin' t' see the world."