Author of
"Sonnie Boy's People," "Wide Courses," "Out
of Gloucester," etc.
NEW YORK
Charles Scribner's Sons
1914
_Copyright, 1914, by Charles Scribner's Sons_
_Published November, 1914_
* * * * *
I
To John Snow's home in Gloucester came the tale this night of how Arthur
Snow was washed from the deck of Hugh Glynn's vessel and lost at sea;
and it was Saul Haverick, his sea clothes still on him, who brought the
word.
"I'm telling you, John Snow," said Saul--and he out of breath almost
with the telling--"and others than me will by an' by be telling you,
what a black night it was, with a high-running sea and wind to blow the
last coat o' paint off the vessel, but o' course _he_ had to be the
first o' the fleet--nothing less would do _him_--to make the market
with his big ketch. It was for others, not for him, to show the way to
take in sail, he said, and not a full hour before it happened that was."
Such was Saul Haverick's ending.
John Snow said nothing; Mrs. Snow said nothing. Saul looked to me, but I
gave no sign that I had heard him. Only John Snow's niece, Mary, looking
up from her hands folded in her lap, said: "Surely you must find it
painful, Saul Haverick, to ship with such a wicked man and take the big
shares of money that fall to his crew?"
"Eh!" said Saul, frightened-like at her. "I'm not denying that he is a
great fish killer, Mary Snow, and that we haven't shared some big trips
with him; but it is like his religion, I'm telling you, to be able to
say how he allowed no man ever he crossed tacks with to work to wind'ard
of him. He's that vain he'd drive vessel, himself, and all hands to the
bottom afore he'd let some folks think anything else of him."
"He lost my boy--we'll say no more of him," said John Snow.
"Ay," said Saul Haverick, "we'll speak no more of him. But I was
Arthur's dory mate, John Snow, as you well know, and my heart is sick to
think of it. I'll be going now," and go he did, softly and by way of the
back stairs; and he no more than gone when a knock came to the door.
After a time, the clock on the mantel ticking loud among us, John Snow
called out: "Come in!"