who used the ocean as a mere playground. But more especially, during
those later days, his general temper was touchy in regard to dapper
young men, for he had faced a problem of the home which had tried his
soul. He felt an unreasoning choler rising in him in respect to these
chaps, who seemed to have no troubles of their own.
“I am a writer,” explained the other. “If I may be allowed on board I'll
take a few pictures and--”
“And make fun of me and my bo't by putting a piece in the paper to
tickle city dudes. Fend off!” he commanded, noticing that the tender was
drifting toward the schooner's side and that one of the crew had set a
boat-hook against the main chain-plate.
“Don't bother with the old crab,” advised the owner, sourly.
But the other persisted, courteously, even humbly. “I am afraid you do
not understand me, captain. I would as soon make jest of my mother as of
this noble old relic.”
“Go ahead! Call it names!”
“I am taking off my hat to it,” he declared, whipping his cap from his
head. “My father's grandfather was in the war of eighteen twelve. I want
to honor this old patriot here with the best tribute my pen can pay.
If you will allow me to come on board I shall feel as though I were
stepping upon a sacred spot, and I can assure you that my friends, here,
have just as much respect for this craft as I have.”
But this honest appeal did not soften Captain Candage. He did not
understand exactly from what source this general rancor of his flowed.
At the same time he was conscious of the chief reason why he did not
want to allow these visitors to rummage aboard the schooner. They would
meet his daughter, and he was afraid, and he was bitterly ashamed of
himself because he was afraid. Dimly he was aware that this everlasting
fear on her account constituted an insult to her. The finer impulse to
protect her privacy was not actuating him; he knew that, too. He was
merely foolishly afraid to trust her in the company of young men, and
the combination of his emotions produced the simplest product of mental
upheaval--unreasonable wrath.
“Fend off, I say,” he commanded.
“Again I beg you, captain, with all respect, please may we come on
board?”
“You get away from here and tend to your own business, if you've got
any, or I'll heave a bunch of shingles at you!” roared the skipper.
“Father!” The voice expressed indignant reproof. “Father, I am ashamed
of you!”
The girl came to the rail, and the yachtsmen stared at her as if she
were Aphrodite risen from the sea instead of a mighty pretty girl
emerging from a dark companion-way. She had appeared so suddenly! She
was so manifestly incongruous in her surroundings.
“Mother o' mermaids!” muttered the yacht-owner in the ear of the man
nearest. “Is the old rat still privateering?”
The men in the tender stood up and removed their caps.
“You have insulted these gentlemen, father!”
Captain Candage knew it, and that fact did not soften his anger in the
least. At the same time this appearance of his own daughter to read him
a lesson in manners in public was presumption too preposterous to be
endured; her daring gave him something tangible for his resentment to
attack.
He turned on her. “You go below where you belong.”
“I belong up here just now.”
“Down below with you!”
“I'll not go until you apologize to these gentlemen, father!”
“You ain't ashore now, miss, to tell me when to wipe my feet and not
muss the tidies! You're on the high seas, and I'm cap'n of this vessel.
Below, I say!”
“These gentlemen know the _Polly_, and they will find out the name of
the man who commands her, and I don't propose to have it said that the
Candages are heathens,” she declared, firmly. “If you do not apologize,
father, I shall apologize for you.” She tried to crowd past him to the
rail, but he clapped his brown hand over her mouth and pushed her back.
His natural impulse as commander of his craft dominated his feelings as
a father.
“I'll teach ye shipboard discipline, Polly Candage,” he growled, “even
if I have to take ye acrost my knee.”
“Hold on there, if you please, captain,” called the spokesman of the
yachtsmen.
Captain Candage was hustling his daughter toward the companionway. But
there was authority in the tone, and he paused and jutted a challenging
chin over his shoulder.
“What have any of you critters got to say about my private business?”
The formality of the man in the tender was a bit exaggerated in his
reply. “Only this, sir. We are going away at once before we bring any
more trouble upon this young lady, to whom we tender our most respectful
compliments. We do not know any other way of helping her. Our protests,
being the protests of gentlemen, might not be able to penetrate; it
takes a drill to get through the hide of a rhinoceros!”
The skipper of the _Polly_ did not trouble himself about the finer
shadings in that little speech, but of one fact he felt sure: he
had been called a rhinoceros. He released his daughter, yanked the
marlinespike away from Otie, who had been holding himself in the
background as a reserve force, and stamped to the rail. He poised his
weapon, fanning it to and fro to take sure aim. But the engineer had
thrown in his clutch and the speed boat foamed off before the captain
got the range, and he was too thrifty to heave a perfectly good
marlinespike after a target he could not hit, angry as he was.
The girl faced her father. There was no doubting her mood. She was a
rebel. Indignation set up its flaming standards on her cheeks, and the
signal-flames of combat sparkled in her eyes.
“How did you dare to do such a thing to me--those gentlemen looking on?
Father, have you lost your mind?”
Otie expressed the opinion tinder his breath that the captain, on the
contrary, had “lost his number.”
Otie's superior officer was stamping around the quarterdeck, kicking at
loose objects, and avoiding his daughter's resentful gaze. There was
a note of insincerity in his bluster, as if he wanted to hide
embarrassment in a cloud of his own vaporings, as a squid colors water
when it fears capture.
“After this you call me Cap'n Candage,” he commanded. “After this
I'm Cap'n Candage on the high seas, and I propose to run my own
quarter-deck. And when I let a crowd of dudes traipse on board here to
peek and spy and grin and flirt with you, you'll have clamshells for
finger-nails. Now, my lady, I don't want any back talk!”
“But I am going to talk to you, father!”
“Remember that I'm a Candage, and back talk--”
“So am I a Candage--and I have just been ashamed of it!”
“I'm going to have discipline on my own quarterdeck.”
“Back talk, quarter-deck discipline, calling you captain! Fol-de-rol and
fiddlesticks! I'm your own daughter and you're my father. And you have
brought us both to shame! There! I don't want to stay on this old hulk,
and I'm not going to stay. I am going home to Aunt Zilpah.”
“I had made up my mind to let you go. My temper was mild and sweet till
those jeehoofered, gold-trimmed sons of a striped--”
“Father!”
“I had made up my mind to let you go. But I ain't going to give in to a
mutiny right before the face and eyes of my own crew.”
Smut-nosed Dolph had arrived with the supper-dishes balanced in his arms
while he crawled over the deckload. He was listening with the utmost
interest.
“Your Aunt Zilpah has aided and abetted you in your flirting,” raged the
captain. “My own sister, taking advantage of my being off to sea trying
to earn money--”
“Do you mean to insult everybody in this world, father? I shall go home,
I say. I'm miserable here.”
“I'll see to it that you ain't off gamboling and galley-westing with
dudes!”
In spite of her spirit the girl was not able to bandy retort longer with
this hard-shelled mariner, whose weapon among his kind for years
had been a rude tongue. Shocked grief put an end to her poor little
rebellion. Tears came.
“You are giving these two men a budget to carry home and spread about
the village! Oh, father, you are wicked--wicked!” She put her hands to
her face, sobbed, and then ran away down into the gloomy cabin.
There was a long silence on the quarter-deck. Otie recovered his
marlinespike and began to pound the eye-bolt.
“Without presuming, preaching, or poking into things that ain't none of
my business, I want to say that I don't blame you one mite, cap'n,” he
volunteered. “No matter what she says, she wasn't to be trusted among
them dudes on shore, and I speak from observation and, being an old
bach, I can speak impartial. The dudes on the water is just as bad. Them
fellows were flirting with her all the time they was 'longside. Real men
that means decent ain't called on to keep whisking their caps off and on
all the time a woman is in sight--and I see one of 'em wink at her.”
Captain Candage was in a mood to accept this comfort from Oakum Otie,
and to put out of his contrite conscience the memory of what Captain
Ranse Lougee had said.
“Don't you worry! I've got her now where I can keep my eye on her, and
I'm cap'n of my own vessel--don't nobody ever forget that!” He shook his
fist at the gaping cook. “What ye standing there for, like a hen-coop
with the door open and letting my vittels cool off? Hiper your boots!
Down below with you and dish that supper onto the table!”
The skipper lingered on deck, his hand at his ear.
The fog was settling over the inner harbor. In the dim vastness seaward
a steamer was hooting. Each prolonged blast, at half-minute intervals,
sounded nearer. The sound was deep, full-toned, a mighty diapason.
“What big fellow can it be that's coming in here?” the captain grunted.
“Most likely only another tin skimmer of a yacht,” suggested the mate,
tossing the eye-splice and the marline-spike into the open hatch of the
lazaret. “You know what they like to do, them play-critters! They stick
on a whistle that's big enough for Seguin fog-horn.” He squinted under
the edge of his palm and waited. “There she looms. What did I tell ye?
Nothing but a yacht.”
“But she's a bouncer,” remarked the skipper. “What do you make her?”
“O--L,” spelled Otie--“O--L--_Olenia_. Must be a local pilot aboard.
None of them New York spiffer captains could find Saturday Cove through
the feather-tide that's outside just now.”
“Well, whether they can or whether they can't isn't of any interest to
me,” stated the skipper, with fine indifference. “I'd hate to be in
a tight place and have to depend on one of them gilded dudes! I smell
supper. Come on!”
He was a little uncertain as to what demeanor he ought to assume
below, but he clumped down the companion-way with considerable show of
confidence, and Otie followed.
The captain cast a sharp glance at his daughter. He had been afraid that
he would find her crying, and he did not know how to handle such cases
with any certainty.
But she had dried her eyes and she gave him no very amiable
look--rather, she hinted defiance. He felt more at ease. In his opinion,
any person who had spirit enough left for fight was in a mood to keep on
enjoying life.
“Perhaps I went a mite too far, Polly,” he admitted. He was mild, but
he preserved a little touch of surliness in order that she might not
conclude that her victory was won. “But seeing that I brought you off to
sea to get you away from flirting--”
“Don't you dare to say that about me!” She beat her round little fist on
the table. “Don't you dare!”
“I don't mean that you ever done it! The dudes done it! I want to do
right by you, Polly. I've been to sea so long that I don't know much
about ways and manners, I reckon. I can't get a good line on things as
I ought to. I'm an old fool, I reckon.” His voice trembled. “But it made
me mad to have you stram up there on deck and call me names before 'em.”
She did not reply.
“I have always worked hard for you--sailing the seas and going without
things myself, so that you could have 'em--doing the best I could ever
after your poor mother passed on.”
“I am grateful to you, father. But you don't understand a girl--oh, you
don't understand! But let's not talk about it any more--not now.”
“I ain't saying to-night--I ain't making promises! But maybe--we'll
see how things shape up--maybe I'll send you back home. Maybe it 'll be
to-morrow. We'll see how the stage runs to the train, and so forth!”
“I am going to leave it all to you, father. I'm sure you mean to do
right.” She served the food as mistress at the board.
“It seems homelike with you here,” said Captain Can-dage, meekly and
wistfully.
“I will stay with you, father, if it will make you happier.”
“I sha'n't listen to anything of the sort. It ain't no place aboard here
for a girl.”
Through the open port they heard the frequent clanging of the
steam-yacht's engine-room bell and the riot of her swishing screws as
she eased herself into an anchorage. She was very near them--so near
that they could hear the chatter of the voices of gay folk.
“What boat is that, father?”
“Another frosted-caker! I can't remember the name.”
“It's the _Oilyena_ or something like that. I forget fancy names pretty
quick,” Otie informed her.
“Well, it ain't much use to load your mind down with that kind of
sculch,” stated Captain Candage, poising a potato on his fork-tines and
peeling it, his elbows on the table. “That yacht and the kind of folks
that's aboard that yacht ain't of any account to folks like us.”
The memory of some remarks which are uttered with peculiar fervor
remains with the utterer. Some time later--long after--Captain Candage
remembered that remark and informed himself that, outside of weather
predictions, he was a mighty poor prophet.
V ~ ON THE BRIDGE OF YACHT “_OLENIA_”
O the times are hard and the wages low,
Leave her, bullies, leave her!
I guess it's time for us to go,
It's time for us to leave her.
--Across the Western Ocean.
Captain Mayo was not finding responsibility his chief worry while the
_Olenia_ was making port.
It was a real mariner's job to drive her through the fog, stab the
harbor entrance, and hunt out elbow-room for her in a crowded anchorage.
But all that was in the line of the day's work. While he watched the
compass, estimated tide drift, allowed for reduced speed, and listened
for the echoes which would tell him his distance from the rocky shore,
he was engaged in the more absorbing occupation of canvassing his
personal affairs.
As the hired master of a private yacht he might have overlooked that
affront from the owner, even though it was delivered to a captain on the
bridge.
But love has a pride of its own. He had been abused like a lackey in the
hearing of Alma Marston. It was evident that the owner had not finished
the job. Mayo knew that he had merely postponed his evil moment by
sending back a reply which would undoubtedly seem like insubordination
in the judgment of a man who did not understand ship discipline and
etiquette of the sea.
It was evident that Marston intended to call him “upon the carpet” on
the quarter-deck as soon as the yacht was anchored, and proposed to
continue that insulting arraignment.
In his new pride, in the love which now made all other matters of life
so insignificant, Mayo was afraid of himself; he knew his limitations in
the matter of submission; even then he felt a hankering to walk aft
and jounce Julius Marston up and down in his hammock chair. He did not
believe he could stand calmly in the presence of Alma Marston and listen
to any unjust berating, even from her father.
He tried to put his flaming resentment out of his thoughts, but he could
not. In the end, he told himself that perhaps it was just as well! Alma
Marston must have pride of her own. She could not continue to love a man
who remained in the position of her father's hireling; she would surely
be ashamed of a lover who was willing to hump his back and take a
lashing in public. His desire to be with her, even at the cost of his
pride, was making him less a man and he knew it. He decided to
face Marston, man fashion, and then go away. He felt that she would
understand in spite of her grief.
Then, turning from a look at the compass, he saw that the yacht's owner
was on the bridge. Half of an un-lighted cigar, which was soggy with the
dampness of the fog, plugged Marston's-mouth.
He scowled when the captain saluted.
“You needn't bother to talk now,” the millionaire broke in when
Mayo began an explanation of his delay in obeying the call to the
quarter-deck. “When I have anything to say to a man I want his undivided
attention. Is this fog going to hold on?”
“Yes, sir, until the wind hauls more to the norrard.”
“Then anchor.”
“I am heading into Saturday Cove now, sir.”
“Anchor here.”
“I'm looking for considerably more than a capful of wind when it comes,
sir. It isn't prudent to anchor offshore.”
Marston grunted and turned away. He stood at the end of the bridge,
chewing on the cigar, until the _Olenia_ was in the harbor with mudhook
set. Mayo twitched the jingle bell, signaling release to the engineer.
“I am at your service, sir,” he reported, walking to the owner.
Marston rolled the plugging cigar to a corner of his mouth and inquired,
“Now, young man, tell me what you mean by saluting a Bee line steamer
with my whistle?”
“I did not salute the _Conomo_, sir.”
“You gave her three whistles.”
“Yes, but--”
“You're on a gentleman's yacht now, young man, and not on a
fishing-steamer. Yachting etiquette doesn't allow a steam-whistle to
be sounded in salute. Mr. Beveridge has just looked it up for me, and I
know, and you need not assume any of your important knowledge.” Marston
seemed to be displaying much more irritation than a small matter
warranted. But what he added afforded more light on the subject. “The
manager of the Bee line was on board that steamer. You heard him hoot
that siren at me!”
“I heard him give me cross-signals in defiance of the rules of the road,
sir.”
“Didn't you know that he whistled at me as an insult--as a sneer?”
“I heard only ordinary signals, sir.”
“Everything is ordinary to a sailor's observation! You allowed him to
crowd you off your course. You made a spectacle of my yacht, splashing
it around like a frightened duck.”
“I was avoiding collision, sir.”
“You should have made your bigness with my yacht! You sneaked and dodged
like a fishing-boat skipper. Was it on a fishing-boat you were trained
to those tricks?”
“I have commanded a fishing-steamer, sir.”
“On top of it all you gave him three whistles--regular fishing-boat
manners, eh?”
Captain Mayo straightened and his face and eyes expressed the spirit of
a Yankee skipper who knew that he was right.
“I say,” insisted Marston, “that you saluted him.”
“And I say, sir, that he cross-signaled, an offense that has lost
masters their licenses. When I was pinched I gave him three whistles to
say that my engines were going full speed astern. If Mr. Beveridge had
looked farther in that book he might have found that rule, too!”
“When I looked up at the bridge, here, you were waving your hand to
him--three whistles and a hand-wave! You can't deny that you were
saluting!”
“I was shaking my fist at him, sir.”
Within himself Captain Mayo was frankly wondering because the owner of
the _Olenia_ was displaying all this heat. He remembered the taunt from
the pilot-house of the _Conomo_ and understood vaguely that there were
depths in the affair which he had not fathomed. But he was in no mood to
atone vicariously for the offenders aboard the _Conomo_.
“If I could have found a New York captain who knew the short cuts along
this coast I could have had some decency and dignity on board my yacht.
I'm even forgetting my own sense of what is proper--out here wasting
words and time in this fashion. You're all of the same breed, you
down-easters!”
“I am quite sure you can find a New York captain--” began Mayo.
“I don't want your opinion in regard to my business, young man. When I
need suggestions from you I'll ask for them.” He flung his soggy cigar
over the rail and went down the ladder, and the fog closed immediately
behind him.
Captain Mayo paced the bridge. He was alone there. A deck-hand had
hooded the brass of the binnacle and search-light, listening while the
owner had called the master to account. Mayo knew that the full report
of that affair would be carried to the forecastle. His position aboard
the yacht had become intolerable. He wondered how much Marston would
say aft. His cheeks were hot and rancor rasped in his thoughts. In the
hearing of the girl he adored his shortcomings would be the subject for
a few moments of contemptuous discourse, even as the failings of cooks
form a topic for idle chatter at the dinner-table.
Out of the blank silence of the wrapping fog came many sounds. Noises
carried far and the voice of an unseen singer, who timed himself to
the clank of an Apple-treer pump, brought to Mayo the words of an old
shanty:
“Come all you young fellows that follow the sea,
Now pray pay attention and lis-ten to me.
O blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!
Way-ay, blow the man down.
O blow the man down in Liverpool town!
Give me some time to blow the man down.
'Twas aboard a Black-Bailer I first served my time,
And in that Black-Bailer I wasted my prime.
'Tis larboard and starboard on deck you will sprawl,
For blowers and strikers command the Black Ball.
So, it's blow the man down, bullies--”
Alma Marston's voice interrupted his somber appreciation of the
significance of that ditty. “Are you up there, Boyd?” she asked, in
cautious tones.
He hurried to the head of the ladder and saw her at its foot, half
hidden in the mists even at that short distance. He reached down his
hand and she came up, grasping it.
She was studying his expression with both eagerness and apprehension. “I
couldn't stay away from you any longer,” she declared. “The fog is good
to us! Father could not see me as I came forward. I must tell you, Boyd.
He has ordered me to stay aft.”
He did not speak.
“Has he dared to say to you what he has been saying below about you?”
“I don't think it needed any especial daring on your father's part; I am
only his servant,” he said, with bitterness.
“And he--he insulted you like that?”
“I suppose your father did not look on what he said as insult. I repeat,
I am a paid servant.”
“But what you did was right! I know it must have been right, for you
know everything about what is right to do on the sea.”
“I understand my duties.”
“And he blamed you for something?”
“It was a bit worse than that from my viewpoint.” He smiled down at
her, for her eyes were searching his face as if appealing for a bit of
consolation.
“Boyd, don't mind him,” she entreated. “Somebody who has been fighting
him in business has been very naughty. I don't know just what it's all
about. But he has so many matters to worry him. And he snaps at me just
the same, every now and then.”
“Yes, some men are cowards enough to abuse those who must look to them
for the comforts of this world,” he declared.
“We must make allowances.”
“I'll not stay in a position where a man who hires me thinks he can
talk to me as if I were a foremast hand. Alma, you would despise me if I
allowed myself to be kicked around like a dog.”
“I would love you all the more for being willing to sacrifice something
for my sake. I want you here--here with all your love--here with me as
long as these summer days last.” She patted his cheek. “Why don't you
tell me that you want to stay with me, Boyd? That you will die if we
cannot be together? We can see each other here. I can bring Nan Burgess
on the bridge with me. Father will not mind then. Let each day take care
of itself!”
“I want to be what you want me to be--to do what you want me to do. But
I wish you would tell me to go out into the world and make something of
myself. Alma, tell me to go! And wait for me!”
She laid her face against his shoulder and reached for his fingers,
endeavoring to pull one of his arms about her. But both of his hands
were clutching the rail of the bridge. He resisted.
“Are you going to be like all the rest? Just money and trouble and
worry?” She stretched up on tiptoe and brushed a kiss across his fog-wet
cheek. “Are you asleep, my big boy? Yesterday you were awake.”
“I think I am really awake to-day, and that I was dreaming yesterday.
Alma, I cannot sneak behind your father's back to make love to you. I
can't do it. I'm going to give up this position. I can't endure it.”
“I say 'No!' I need you.”
“But--”
“I'll not give you up.”
There was something dramatic in her declaration; her demeanor expressed
the placid calm of absolute proprietorship. She worked his unwilling
fingers free from the rail.