These exhibitions meant nothing particularly to Mr. Tapp. They were escape-valves for a nervous irritability that had grown during his years of idleness. Born of a poor Cape family, but with a dislike for fish-seines and lobster-pots, he had turned his attention from the first to the summer visitors, even in his youth beginning to flock to the old-fashioned ports of the Cape. Catering to their wants was a gold mine but little worked at that time.
He began to sell candy at one of the more popular resorts. Then he began to make candy. His Salt Water Taffy became locally famous. He learned that a good many of the wealthier people who visited the Cape in summer played all the year around. They went to Atlantic City or to the Florida beaches in the winter.
So Israel Tapp branched out and established salt water taffy kitchens all up and down the coast. "I. Tapp, the Salt Water Taffy King" became a catch-word. It was then but a step to incorporating a company and establishing huge candy factories. I. Tapp went on by leaps and bounds. While yet a comparatively young man he found himself a multi-millionaire. Even a rather expensive family could not spend his income fast enough.
He built the ornate villa at The Beaches and, like Lawford, preferred to live there rather than elsewhere. His wife and the older girls insisted upon having a town house in Boston and in traveling at certain times to more or less exclusive resorts and to Europe. Their one ambition was to get into that exclusive social set in which they felt their money should rightfully place them. But a house on the Back Bay does not always assure one's entrance to the circles of the "gilded codfish."
Mr. Tapp went down to the dock again after a time. Lawford had theMerry Andrewall ready to set out on the proposed fishing trip. The sloop was a pretty craft, clinker built, and about the fastest sailing boat within miles of Cardhaven. Lawford was proud of her.
"So you're back at last, are you?" snapped the Salt Water Taffy King.
He was a portly little man with a red face and a bald brow. His very strut pronounced him a self-made man. He glared at his son, whose cool nonchalance he often declared was impudence.
"I've been waiting some time for you, dad. Hop aboard," Lawford calmly said.
"You took your time in getting back here," responded his father, by no means mollified. "And you knew I was waiting. But you had to stand and talk to a girl over there. Cicely says it is that picture actress who is staying at Cap'n Abe's. Is that so?"
"I presume Cicely is right," his son answered. "There is no other here at present to my knowledge."
"Of all things!" ejaculated Mr. Tapp. "You are always making some kind of a fool of yourself, Lawford. Don't, for pity's sake, bethatkind of a fool."
"What do you mean, dad?" and now the young man's eyes flashed. It was seldom that Lawford turned upon his father in anger.
"You know very well what I mean. Keep away from such women. Don't get messed up with actor people. I won't have it, I tell you! I am determined that at leastonerich man's son shall not be the victim of the wiles of any of these stage women."
The flush remained in Lawford's cheek. It hurt him to hear his father speak so in referring to Louise Grayling. He, too, possessed some of the insular prejudice of his kind against those who win their livelihood in the glare of the theatrical spotlight. This gentle, well-bred, delightful girl staying at Cap'n Abe's store was a revelation to him. He held his tongue, however, and held his temper in check as well.
"I don't see," stormed I. Tapp, "why you can't take up with a nice girl and marry. Why, at your age I was married and we had Marian!"
"Don't you think that should discourage me, dad?" Lawford put in."Marian is nobody to brag of, I should say."
"Hah!" ejaculated his father. "She's a fool, too. But there are nice girls. I was talking to your mother about your case last night. Of course, I don't want you to say anything to her about what I'm going to tell you now. She's got the silliest notions," pursued Mr. Tapp who labored under the belief that all the wisdom of the ages had lodged under his own hat. "Expects her daughters to marry dukes and you to catch a princess or the like."
"There are no such fish in these waters," laughed Lawford. "At least, none has so much as nibbled at my hook."
"And no nice girl will nibble at it if you don't come ashore once in a while and get into something besides fisherman's duds."
"Now, dad, clothes do not make the man."
"Who told you such a fool thing as that? Some fool philosopher with only one shirt to his back said it. Bill Johnson proved how wrong that was to my satisfaction years and years ago. Good old Bill! I wanted to branch out. We had just that one little candy factory and I worked in it myself every day.
"I got the idea," continued I. Tapp, launched on a favorite subject now, "that my balance sheet and outlook for trade might impress the bank people. I wanted to build a bigger factory. So I took off my apron one day and walked over to the bank. I saw the president. He looked like a fashion plate himself and he swung a pair of dinky glasses on a cord as he listened to me and looked me over. Then he turned me down—flat!
"I told Bill about it. Bill was kind of tied up just then himself. That was before he made his big strike. But he was a different fellow from me. Bill always looked like ready money.
"'Isra,' he says to me, 'I'll tell you how to get that money from the bank.'
"'It can't be done, Bill,' I told him. 'The president of the bank showed me that my business was too weak to stand such spread-eagling.
"'Nonsense!' says Bill. 'It isn't your business, it's your nerve that you've got to hire money on—and your clothes. You do what I tell you. Come to my tailor's in the morning.'
"Well, to cut a long story short, I did it. I rigged up to beat that bank president himself. When he saw me in about two hundred dollars' worth of good clothes he considered the case again and recommended the loan to his board. 'You put your facts much more lucidly to-day, Mr. Tapp,' is the way he expressed himself. But take it from me, Lawford, it was my clothes that made the impression.
"So!" ruminated Mr. Tapp, "that is one thing Bill Johnson did for me. And later, as you know, he came into the candy business with me and his money helped make I. Tapp, the Salt Water Taffy King. Lawford, Bill is like a brother to me. His girl, Dorothy, is one of the nicest girls who ever stepped in a slipper."
"Dorothy Johnson is a really sweet girl, dad," Lawford agreed. "I like her."
"There!" ejaculated I. Tapp. "You let that liking become something stronger. Dorothy's just the girl for you to marry."
"What?" gasped the skipper of theMerry Andrew, almost losing his grip on the steering wheel.
"You get my meaning," said his father, scowling. "I've always meant you should marry Bill's daughter. I had your mother write her last night inviting her down here. Of course, your mother and the girls think Bill Johnson's folks are too plain. But I'm boss once in a while in my own house."
"And you call mother a matchmaker!"
"I know what I want and I'm going to get it," said I. Tapp doggedly."Dorothy is the girl for you. Don't you get entangled with anybodyelse. Not a penny of my money will you ever handle if you don't do asI say, young man!"
"You needn't holler till you're hit, dad," Lawford said, trying to speak carelessly.
"Oh!Isha'n't holler," snarled the Taffy King. "I warn you. One such play as that and I'm through with you. I'm willing to support an idle, ne'er-do-well; but he sha'n't saddle himself with one of those theatrical creatures and bring scandal upon the family. Do you know what I was doing when I was your age? I had a booth at 'Gansett, two at Newport, a big one at Atlantic City, and was beginning to branch out. I worked like a dog, too."
"That's why I think I don't have to work, dad," said Lawford coolly.
Betty Gallup, clothed as usual in her man's hat and worn pea-coat, but likewise on this occasion with mystery, seized Louise by the hand the instant she appeared and drew her into the kitchen, shutting the door between that and the living-room.
"What is the matter?" the girl asked. "Have you broken something—or is the canary dead?"
"Sh!" warned Betty, her little brown eyes blinking rapidly. "I heard something last night."
"I didn't. I slept like a baby. The night before I heard that old foghorn——"
"I mean," interrupted Betty, "something was told me."
"Well, go on." Louise made up her mind that she could not stem the tide of talk.
"About your uncle, Cap'n Abe. He—he never was seen to take that train to Boston. I got it straight, or pretty average straight. Mandy Baker told me, and Peke Card's wife, Mary Lizbeth, told her, who got it right from Lute Craven who works in the post-office uptown, and Lute got it from Noah Coffin. You know, he't drives the ark you come over in from Paulmouth. Well! Noah was at Paulmouth depot as he always is of course when the clam train stops at five-thutty-five. He says he didn't see Cap'n Abe nor nobody that looked like him board that train yest'day mornin'."
"Why, Betty!" Louise could only gasp. This house-that-Jack-built narrative quite took her breath away.
"Besides," went on Betty; "there's more to it. Cap'n Abe's chest was took back to the depot by Perry Baker when he brought your trunks over, sure 'nough. And Perry Baker says he shipped that chest to Boston for your uncle, marked to be called for. It went by express."
"But—but what of it?" asked the puzzled girl.
"Humph! Stands to reason," declared Mrs. Gallup, "that Cap'n Abe wouldn't have done no such foolish thing as that. It costs money to ship a heavy sea chest by express. He could have took it on his ticket as baggage, free gratis, for nothin'!"
"I really don't see," Louise now said rather severely, "that these facts you state—if they are facts—are any of our business, Betty. Uncle Abram might have taken the train at some other station. He was not sure, perhaps, whether he would join the ship Cap'n Amazon recommended, so why should he not send his chest by express?"
"Cap'n Am'zon! Humph!" sniffed Betty. "Nobody knows whether that's his name or not.Hecomes here without a smitch of clo'es, as near as I can find out."
Louise was amused; yet she was somewhat vexed as well. The curiosity, as well as the animosity, displayed by Betty and others of the neighbors began to appall her. If Cape Cod folk were, as her daddy-professor had declared, "the salt of the earth," some of the salt seemed to have lost its savor.
"We were talking about Cap'n Abe," said Louise severely. "Just as he had his own good reasons for going away when and how he did, he probably had his reasons for taking nobody into his confidence. This Perry Baker, the expressman, must know that Cap'n Abe sent the trunk from the house, here."
"Humph! Yes! Nobody's denyin' that."
"Then Cap'n Abe must have known exactly what he wished to do. Cap'n Amazon surely had nothing to do with the chest, with how his brother took the train, or withwherehe took it. Really, Betty, what do you suspect Cap'n Amazon has done?"
"I don't know what he's done," snapped Betty. "But I wouldn't put nothin' past him, from his looks. The old pirate!"
"You will make me feel very bad if you continue to talk this way about my Uncle Amazon," said the girl, far from feeling amused now. "It is not right. I hope you will not continue to repeat such things. If you do you will some time be sorry for it, Betty."
"Humph!" sniffed the woman. "Mebbe I will. But I'm warnin' you, MissGrayling."
"Warning me of what?"
"Of that man. That old sinner! I never see a wickeder looking feller in my life—and I've sailed with my father and my husband to 'most ev'ry quarter of the globe. He may be twin brother to the Angel Gabriel; but if he is, his looks belie it!"
There was nothing in all this of enough consequence to disturb the girl, only in so far as she was vexed to find the neighbors so gossipy and unkind. She gazed thoughtfully upon Cap'n Amazon as he sat across from her at the breakfast table, and wondered how anybody could see in his bronzed face anything sinister.
That he was rather ridiculously gotten up, it was true. Those gold earrings! But then, she had seen several of the older men about the store wearing rings in their ears. If he did not always have that bright-colored kerchief on his head! But then, he might wear that because he was susceptible to neuralgia and did not wish to wear a hat all the time as seemed to have been Cap'n Abe's custom.
When he smiled at her and his eyes crinkled at the corners, he was as kindly of expression, she thought, as Cap'n Abe himself. And he was a much better looking man than the brother who had gone away.
"Cap'n Amazon," she said to him, "I believe you must be just full of stories of adventure and wonderful happenings by sea and land. Uncle Abram said you had been everywhere."
Cap'n Amazon seemed to take a long breath, then cleared his throat, and said:
"I've been pretty nigh everywhere. Seen some funny corners of the world, too, Louise."
"You must tell me about your adventures," she said. "Your brother told me that you ran away to sea when you were only twelve years old and sailed on a long whaling voyage."
"Yep.South Sea Belle. Some old hooker, she was," said Cap'n Amazon briskly. "We was out three year and come home with our hold bustin' with ile, plenty of baleen, some sperm, and a lump of ambergris as big as a nail keg—or pretty nigh."
Right then and there he launched into relating how the wondrous find of ambergris came to be made, neglecting his breakfast to do so. He told it so vividly that Louise was enthralled. The picture of the whaling bark beating up to the dead and festering leviathan lying on the surface of the ocean to which the exploding gases of decomposition had brought the hulk, lived in her mind for days. The mate of theSouth Sea Belle, believing the creature had died of the disease supposedly caused by the growth of the ambergris in its intestines, had insisted upon boarding the carcass. Driving away the clamorous and ravenous sea fowl, he had dug down with his blubber-spade into the vitals of the whale and recovered the gray, spongy, ill-smelling mass which was worth so great a sum to the perfumer.
"'Twas a big haul—one o' the biggest lumps o' ambergris ever brought into the port of New Bedford," concluded Cap'n Amazon. "Helped make the owners rich, and the Old Man, too. Course, I got my sheer; but a boy's sheer on a whaler them days wouldn't buy him no house and lot. So I went to sea again."
"You must have been at sea almost all your life, Cap'n Amazon."
"Pretty nigh. I ain't never lazed around on shore when there was a berth in a seaworthy craft to be had for the askin'. I let Abe do that," he added, in what Louise thought was a rather scornful tone.
"Why, I don't believe Uncle Abram has a lazy bone in his body! See the nice business he has built up here. And he told me he owned shares in several vessels and other property."
"That's true," Cap'n Amazon agreed promptly. "And a tidy sum in thePaulmouth National Bank. I got a letter to the bank folks he left tointroduce me, if I needed cash. Yes, Abe's done well enough that way.But he's the first Silt, I swanny! that ever stayed ashore."
"And now you are going to remain ashore yourself," she said, laughing.
"I'm going to try it, Louise. I've done my sheer of roaming about.Mebbe I'll settle down here for good."
"With Cap'n Abe? Won't that be fine?"
"Yep. With Abe," he muttered and remained silent for the rest of the meal.
On Saturday the store trade was expected to be larger than usual. Louise told Cap'n Amazon she would gladly help wait on the customers; but he would not listen to that for a moment.
"I'm not goin' to have you out there in that store for these folks to look over and pick to pieces, my girl," he said decidedly. "You stay aft and I'll 'tend to things for'ard and handle this crew. Besides, there's that half-grown lout, Amiel Perdue. Abe said he sometimes helped around. He knows the ship, alow and aloft, and how the stores is stowed."
The morning was still young when Betty came downstairs in hot rage and attacked Cap'n Amazon. It seemed she had gone up to give the chambers their usual weekly cleaning, and had found the room in which the captain slept locked against her. It was Cap'n Abe's room and it seemed it was Cap'n Abe's custom—as it was Cap'n Amazon's—to make his own bed and keep his room tidy during the week. But Betty had always given it a thorough cleaning and changed the bed linen on Saturdays.
"What's that room locked for? I want to know what you mean?" the woman demanded of Cap'n Amazon. "Think I'm goin' to work in a house where doors is locked against me? I'm as honest as any Silt that ever hobbled on two laigs. Nex' thing, I cal'late, you'll be lockin' the coal shed and countin' the sticks in the woodpile."
She had much more to say—and said it. It seemed to make her feel better to do so. Cap'n Amazon looked coolly at her, but did not offer to take the key out of his trousers' pocket.
"What d'ye mean?" repeated Betty, breathless.
"I mean to keep my cabin locked," he told her in a perfectly passive voice, but in a manner that halted her suddenly, angry as she was. "I don't want no woman messin' with my berth nor with my duds. That door's no more locked against you than it is against my niece. You do the rest of your work and don't you worry your soul 'bout my cabin."
Louise, who was an observant spectator of this contest, expected at first that Betty would not stand the indignity—that she would resign from her situation on the spot.
But that hard, compelling stare of Cap'n Amazon seemed to tame her. And Betty Gallup was a person not easily tamed. She spluttered a little more, then returned to her work. Though she was sullen all day, she did not offer to reopen the discussion.
"What a master he must have been on his own quarter-deck," Louise thought. "And he must have seen rough times, as that Lawford Tapp suggested. My! he's not much like Cap'n Abe, after all."
But with her, Cap'n Amazon was as gentle as her own father. He stood on his dignity with the customers who came to the store, and with Betty; but he was most kindly toward Louise in every look and word.
That under his self-contained and stern exterior dwelt a very tender heart, the girl was sure. For the absent Cap'n Abe he appeared to feel a strong man's good-natured scorn for a weak one; but Louise saw him stand often before Jerry's cage, chirping to the bird and playing with him. And at such times there was moisture in Cap'n Amazon's eye.
"Blind's a bat! Poor little critter!" he would murmur. "All the sunshine does is to warm him; he can't see it no more. Out-o'-doors ain't nothin' to him now."
Nor would he allow anybody but himself to attend to the needs of poor little Jerry. He had promised Abe, he said. He kept that promise faithfully.
Diddimus, the cat, was entirely another problem. At first, whenever he saw Cap'n Amazon approach, he howled and fled. Then, gradually, an unholy curiosity seemed to enthrall the big tortoise-shell. He would peer around corners at Cap'n Amazon, stare at him with wide yellow eyes through open doorways, leap upon the window sill and glower at the substitute storekeeper—in every way showing his overweening interest in the man. But he absolutely would not go within arm's reach of him.
"I always did say a cat's a plumb fool," declared Cap'n Amazon. "They'll desert ship as soon as wink. Treacherous critters, the hull tribe. Why, when I was up country in Cuba once, I stopped at a man's hacienda and he had a tame wildcat—had had it from a kitten. Brought it up on a bottle himself.
"He thought a heap of that critter, and when he laid in his hammock under the trees—an' that was most of the time, for them Caribs are as lazy as the feller under the tree that wished for the cherries to fall in his mouth!—Yes, sir! when he laid in his hammock that yaller-eyed demon would lay in it, too, and purr like an ordinary cat.
"But a day come when the man fell asleep and had a nightmare or something, and kicked out, cracking that cat on the snout with his heel. Next breath the cat had a chunk out o' his calf and if I hadn't been there with a gun he'd pretty near have eat the feller!"
The personal touch always entered into Cap'n Amazon's stories. He had always been on me spot when the thing in point happened—and usually he was the heroic and central figure. No foolish modesty stayed his tongue when it came to recounting adventures.
He had all his wits, as well as all his wit, about him, had Cap'nAmazon. This was shown by an occurrence that very Saturday afternoon.
Milt Baker, like the other neighbors, was becoming familiar, if not friendly, with the substitute storekeeper and, leaning on the showcase. Milt said:
"Leave me have a piece of Brown Mule, Cap'n Am'zon. I'm all out o' chewin'. Put it on the book and Mandy'll pay for it."
"Avast there!" Cap'n Amazon returned. "Seems to me I got something in the bill o' ladin' 'bout that," and he drew forth the long memorandum Cap'n Abe had made to guide his substitute's treatment of certain customers. "No," the substitute storekeeper said, shaking his head negatively. "Can't do it."
"Why not, I want to know?" blustered Milt. "I guess my credit's good."He already had the Brown Mule in his hand.
"Your wife's credit seems to be good," Cap'n Amazon returned firmly. "But here's what I find here: 'Don't trust Milt Baker for Brown Mule 'cause Mandy makes him pay cash for his tobacker and rum. We don't sell no rum.' That's enough, young man."
Milt might have tried to argue the case with Cap'n Abe; but not with Cap'n Amazon. There was something in the steady look of the latter that caused the shiftless clam digger to dig down into his pocket for the nickel, pay it over, and walk grumblingly out of the store.
"Does beat all what a fool a woman will be," commented Cap'n Amazon, rather enigmatically; only Louise, who heard him, realized fully what his thought was. Jealous and hard-working Mandy Baker had chosen for herself a handicap in the marriage game.
Sunday morning such a hush pervaded the store on the Shell Road, and brooded over its surroundings, as Lou Grayling had seldom experienced save in the depths of the wilderness.
She beheld a breeze-swept sea from her window with no fishing boats going out. There was nobody on the clam flats, although the tide was just right at dawn. The surfman from the patrol station beyond The Beaches paced to the end of his beat dressed in his best, like a man merely taking a Sunday morning stroll.
The people she saw seemed to be changed out of their everyday selves. Not only were they in Sabbath garb, but they had on their Sabbath manner. Even to Milt Baker, the men were cleanly shaven and wore fresh cotton shirts of their wives' laundering.
Cap'n Amazon appeared from his "cabin" when the first church bells began to ring, arrayed in a much wrinkled but very good suit of "go ashore" clothes of blue, which were possibly those he had worn when he arrived at the store on the Shell Road. He wore a hard, glazed hat of an old-fashioned naval shape and, instead of the usual red bandana, he wore a black silk handkerchief tied about his head.
Just why he always kept his crown thus swathed, Louise was very desirous of knowing. Yet she did not feel like asking him such a very personal question. Had it been Cap'n Abe she would not for a moment have hesitated. Louise had heard of men being scalped by savages and she was almost tempted to believe that this had happened to Cap'n Amazon in one of his wild encounters.
"We'll go to the First Church, Niece Louise," he said firmly. "Abe always did. These small-fry craft, like the Mariner's Chapel, are all right, I don't dispute; but they are lacking in ballast. It's in my mind to attend the church that's the most like a well-founded, deep-sea craft."
Louise was more impressed than amused by this philosophy. The captain seemed to have put on his "Sunday face" like everybody else. As they came out of the yard old Washington Gallup hobbled by, but instead of stopping to chatter inconsequently, for he was an inveterate gossip, he saluted the captain respectfully and hobbled on.
Indeed, the captain was a figure on this day to command profound respect. It is no trick at all for a big man to look dignified and impressive; but Cap'n Amazon was not a big man. However, in his blue pilot-cloth suit, cut severely plain, and with his hard black hat on his head he made a veritable picture of what a master-mariner should be.
On his quarter-deck, in fair or foul weather, Louise was sure that he had never lacked the respect of his crew or their confidence. He was distinctly a man to command—a leader and director by nature. He was, indeed, different from the seemingly easy-going, gentle-spoken Cap'n Abe, the storekeeper.
They had scarcely started up the Shell Road when the whir of a fast-running automobile sounded behind them and the mellow hoot of a horn. Louise turned to see a great touring car take the curve from the direction of The Beaches and glide swiftly toward them. Lawford Tapp was guiding the car.
"Then he's a chauffeur as well as fisherman and boatman," she thought.
She could not see how he was dressed under the coat he wore; but he touched his cap to her and Cap'n Amazon as he drove by.
Beside Lawford on the driving seat was a plump little man who seemed to be violently quarreling with the chauffeur. In the tonneau was a matronly woman and three girls including "L'Enfant Terrible," all, Louise thought, rather overdressed.
"Those folks, so I'm told," said Cap'n Amazon placidly, "come from that big house on the p'int—as far as you can see from our windows. More money than good sense, I guess. Though the man, he comes of good old Cape stock. But I guess that blood can de-te-ri-orate, as the feller said. Ain't much of it left in the young folks, pretty likely. They just laze around and play all the time. If 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,' you can take it from me, Niece Louise, that all play and no work makes Jill a pretty average useless girl. Yes, sir!"
To the First Church it was quite a walk, up Main Street beyond the Inn and the post-office. There was some little bustle on Main Street at church-going time for some of the vacation visitors—those of more modest pretensions than the occupants of the cottages at The Beaches—had already arrived.
At the head of the church aisle Cap'n Amazon spoke apologetically to the usher:
"Young man, my brother, Mr. Abram Silt, hires a pew here; but I don't rightly know its bearings. Would you mind showin' me and my niece the course?"
They were accommodated. After service several shook hands with them; but Louise noticed that many cast curious glances at the black silk handkerchief on Cap'n Amazon's head and did not come near. Despite his dignity and the reverence of his bearing, he did look peculiar with that 'kerchief swathing his crown.
Gusty Durgin, the waitress at the Cardhaven Inn, claimed acquaintanceship after church with Louise.
"There's goin' to be more of your crowd come to-morrow, Miss Grayling," she said. "Some of 'em's goin' to stop with us at the Inn. How you makin' out down there to Cap'n Abe's? Land sakes!thatain't Cap'n Abe!"
"It is his brother, Cap'n Amazon Silt," explained Louise.
"I want to know! He looks amazin' funny, don't he? Not much like Cap'n Abe. You see, my folks live down the Shell Road. My ma married again. D'rius Vleet. Nice man, but a Dutchman. I don't take up much with these furiners.
"Now! what was I sayin'? Oh! The boss tells me there's a Mr. Judson Bane of your crowd goin' to stop with us. Sent a telegraph dispatch for a room to be saved for him. With bath! Land sakes! ain't the whole ocean big enough for him to take a bath in? We ain't got nothing like that. And two ladies—I forget their names. You know Mr. Bane?".
"I have met him—once," confessed Louise.
"Some swell he is, I bet," Gusty declared. "I'm goin' to speak to him.Mebbe he can get me into the company. I ain't soaw-ful fat. I seena picture over to Paulmouth last night where there was a girl bigger'nI am, and she took a re'l sad part.
"She cried re'l tears.Ican do that. All I got to do is to think of something re'l mis'rable—like the time our old brahma hen, Beauty, got bit by Esek Coe's dog, and ma had to saw her up. Then the tears'll squeeze right out,just as ea'sy!"
Louise thought laughter would overcome her "just as easy" despite the day and place. She knew a hearty burst of laughter in the church edifice would amaze and shock the lingering congregation.
Seeing that Cap'n Amazon was busy with some men he had met, the girl walked out to the little vestibule of the church. Here a number of women and men were discussing various matters—the sermon, the weather, clamming, boating, and the colony at The Beaches. Two women stood apart from the others and presently Louise was attracted to them by the sound of Lawford Tapp's name.
"I dunno who he is exactly, bein' somethin' o' a stranger here," one of the women said. "But I was told he was some poor relation who allers lived among the fisher folk. But he does seem to know how to run thet autermobile, don't he?"
"I should say!" returned the other woman. "An' he's well spoken, too—from what I heard him say down to the store."
"Yes, I know that too. Well, I hope he buys the outfit—Jimmy wants to sell it bad enough—an' needs the money, believe me!" And thereupon the two women took their departure.
The conversation hung in Louisa's mind and she looked exceedingly thoughtful when Cap'n Amazon broke away from those with whom he had been talking and joined her.
"Nice man, that Reverend Jimson, I guess," the captain said, as they wended their way homeward; "but he's got as many ways of holdin' a feller as an octopus. And lemme tell you, that's a plenty! Arms seem to grow on devilfish 'while you wait' as the feller said.
"I sha'n't ever forget the time I was a boy in the oldMary Bedloebrig, out o' Boston, loaded with sundries for Jamaica, to bring back molasses—and something a leetle mite stronger. That's 'bout as near as I ever got to having traffic with liquor—and 'twas an unlucky v'y'ge all the way through.
"Before we ever got the rum aboard," pursued Cap'n Amazon, "on our way down there, our water went bad. Yes, sir! Water does get stringy sometimes on long v'y'ges. It useter on whalin' cruises—get all stringy and bad; but after she'd worked clear she'd be fit to drink again.
"But this time in theMary Bedloeit was something mysterioushappened to the drinking water. Made the hull crew sick. Cap'n JimBraman was master. He was a good navigator, but an awful profane man.Swore without no reason to it.
"Well——Where was I? Oh, yes! We had light airs in the Caribbean for once, and didn't make no more headway in a day than a brick barge goin' upstream. We come to an island—something more than a key—and Cap'n Braman ordered a boat's crew ashore for water. I was in the second's boat so I went. We found good water easy and the second officer, who was a nice young chap, let us scour around on our own hook for fruit and such, after we'd filled the barrels.
"I was all for shellfish them days, and I see some big mussels attached to the rocks, it bein' low water. Some o' them mussels, when ye gut 'em same as ye would deep-sea clams, make the nicest fry you ever tasted.
"Wal," said Cap'n Amazon, walking sedately home from church with his amused niece on his arm, "I wanted a few of them mussels. There was a mud bottom and so the water was black. Just as I reached for the first mussel I felt something creeping around my left leg. I thought it was eel-grass; then I thought it was an eel.
"Next thing I knowed it took holt like a leech in half a dozen places. I jumped; but I didn't jump far. There was two o' the things had me, and that left leg o' mine was fast as a duck's foot in the mud!"
"Oh, Uncle Amazon!" gasped Louise.
"Yep. A third arm whipped out o' the water had helt me round the waist tighter'n any girl of my acquaintance ever lashed her best feller. Land sakes, that devilfish certainly give me a hi-mighty hug!
"But I had what they call down in the Spanish speakin' islands a machette—a big knife for cuttin' your way through the jungle. I hauled that out o' the waistband of my pants and I began slicing at them snake-like arms of the critter and yelling like all get-out.
"More scare't than hurt, I reckon. I was a young feller, as I tell you, and hadn't seen so much of the world as I have since," continued Cap'n Amazon. "But the arms seemed fairly to grow on that devilfish. I wasn't hacked loose when the second officer come runnin' with his gun. I dragged the critter nearer inshore and he got a look at it. Both barrels went into that devilfish, and that was more than it could stomach; so it let go," finished the captain.
"Mercy! what an experience," commented Louise, wondering rather vaguely why the minister of the First Church had reminded her uncle of this octopus.
"Yes. 'Twassome," agreed Cap'n Amazon. "But let's step along a little livelier, Niece Louise. I'm goin' to give you a re'l fisherman's chowder for dinner, an' I want to git the pork and onions over. I like my onions well browned before I slice in the potaters."
Cap'n Amazon insisted on doing most of the cooking, just as Cap'n Abe had. Louise had baked some very delicate pop-overs for breakfast that morning and the captain ate his share with appreciation.
"Pretty average nice, I call 'em, for soft-fodder," he observed. "But, land sakes! give me something hearty and kind of solid for reg'lar eating. Ordinary man would starve pretty handy, I guess, on breadstuff like this."
The chowder was both as hearty and as appetizing as one could desire.Nor would the captain allow Louise to wash the dishes afterward.
"No, girl. I'll clean up this mess. You go out and see how fur you can walk on that hard beach now it's slack tide. You ain't been up there to Tapp P'int yit and seen that big house that belongs to the candy king. Neither have I, of course," he added; "but they been tellin' me about it in the store."
Louise accepted the suggestion and started to walk up the beach; but she did not get far. There was a private dock running out beyond low-water mark just below the very first bungalow. She saw several men coming down the steps from the top of the bluff to the shore and the bathhouses; a big camera was set up on the sands. This must be Bozewell's bungalow, she decided; the one engaged by the moving picture people.
If Judson Bane was to be leading man of the company the picture was very likely to be an important production; for Bane would not leave the legitimate stage for any small salary. Seeing no women in the party and that the men were heading up the beach, Louise went no farther in that direction, and instead walked out upon the private dock to its end.
It was not until then that she saw, shooting inshore, the swift launch in which Lawford Tapp had come over in the morning previous. The wind being off the land she had not heard its exhaust. In three minutes the launch glided in beside the dock where she stood.
"Come for a sail, Miss Grayling?" he asked her, with his very widest smile. "I'll take you out around Gull Rocks."
"Oh! I am not sure——"
"Surely you're not down here to work on Sunday?" and he glanced at the actors.
She laughed. "Oh, no, Mr. Tapp. I do not work on Sundays. UncleAmazon would not even let me wash the dishes."
"I should think not," murmured Lawford with an appreciative glance at her ungloved hands. "He's a pretty decent old fellow, I guess. Will you come aboard? She's perfectly safe, Miss Grayling."
If he had invited her to enter the big touring car he had driven that morning, to go for a "joy ride," Louise Grayling would certainly have refused. To go on a pleasure trip at the invitation of a chauffeur in his employer's car was quite out of consideration.
But this was somehow different, or so it seemed. She hesitated not because of who or what he was (or what she believed him to be), but because she had seen something in his manner and expression of countenance that warned her he was a young man not to be lightly encouraged.
In that moment of reflection Louise Grayling, asked herself if she felt that he possessed a more interesting personality than almost any man she had ever met socially before. She did so consider him, she told herself, and so—she stepped aboard the launch.
She did not need his hand to help her to the seat beside him. She was boatwise. He pushed off, starting his engine; and they were soon chug-chugging out upon the limitless sea.
"I saw you with Cap'n Amazon going to church this morning," Lawford said. "To the First Church, I presume?"
"And you?"
"Oh, I drove the folks over to Paulmouth. There is an Episcopal Church there and the girls think it's more fashionable. You don't see many soft-collared shirts among the Paulmouth Episcopalians."
There spoke the "native," Louise thought; and she smiled.
"It scarcely matters, I fancy, which denomination one attends. It is the spirit in which we worship that counts."
He gazed upon her seriously. "You're a thoughtful girl, I guess. I should not have looked for that—in your business."
"In my business? Oh!"
"We outsiders have an idea that people in the theatrical line are a peculiar class unto themselves," Lawford went on.
"But I——" On the point of telling him of his mistake she hesitated.He was unobservant of her amusement and went on with seriousness:
"I guess I'm pretty green after all. I don't know much about the world—your world, at least. I love the sea, and sailing, and all the seashore has to offer. Sometimes I'm out here alone all day long."
"But what is it doing for you?" she asked him rather sharply. "Surely there can be very little in it, when all's said and done. A man with your intelligence—you have evidently had a good education."
"I suppose I don't properly appreciate that," he admitted.
"And to really waste your time like this—loafing longshore, and sailing boats, and—and driving an automobile. Why! you are a regular beach comber, Mr. Tapp. It's not much of an outlook for a man I should think."
She suddenly stopped, realizing that she was showing more interest than the occasion called for. Lawford was watching her with smoldering eyes.
"Don't you think it is a nice way to live?" he asked. "The sea is really wonderful. I have learned more about sea and shore already than you can find in all the books. Do you know where the gulls nest, and how they hatch their young? Did you ever watch a starfish feeding? Do you know what part of the shellfish is the scallop of commerce? Do you know that every seventh wave is almost sure to be larger than its fellows? Do you——"
"Oh, it may be very delightful," Louise interrupted this flow of badly catalogued information to say. He expressed exactly her own desires. Nothing could be pleasanter than spending the time, day after day, learning things "at first hand" about nature. For her father—and of course for her—to do this was quite proper, Louise thought. But not for this young fisherman, who should be making his way in the world. "Where is it getting you?" she demanded.
"Getting me?"
"Yes," she declared with vigor, yet coloring a little. "A man should work."
"But I'm not idle."
"He should work to get ahead—to save—to make something of himself—to establish himself in life—to have a home."
He smiled then and likewise colored. "I—I———A man can't do that alone. Especially the home-making part."
"You don't suppose any of these girls about here—the nice girls, I mean—want a man who is not a home provider?"
He laughed outright then. "Some of them get that kind, I fear, MissGrayling. Mandy Card, for instance."
"Are you planning to be another Milt Baker?" she responded with scorn.
"Oh, now, you're hard on a fellow," he complained. "I'm always busy. And, fixed as I am, I don't see why I should grub and moil at unpleasant things."
Louise shrugged her shoulders and made a gesture of finality. "You are impossible, I fear," she said and put aside—not without a secret pang—her interest in Lawford Tapp, an interest which had been developing since she first met the young man.
He allowed the subject to lapse and began telling her about the ledges on which the rock cod and tautog schooled; where bluefish might be caught on the line, and snappers in the channels going into the Haven.
"Good sport. I must take you out in theMerry Andrew," he said."She's a peach of a sailer—and my very own."
"Oh! do you own the sloop, Mr. Tapp?"
"I guess I do! And no money could buy her," he cried with boyish enthusiasm. "She's the best lap-streak boat anywhere along the Cape. Andsail!"
"I love sailing," she confessed, with brightening visage.
"Say! You just set the day—so it won't conflict with your work—andI'll take you out," he declared eagerly,
"But won't it conflict with your duties?"
"Humph!" he returned. "I thought your idea was that I didn't have any duties. However," and he smiled again, "you need not worry about that. When you want to go I will arrange everything so that I'll have a free day."
"But not alone, Mr. Tapp?"
"No," he agreed gravely. "I suppose that wouldn't do. But we can rake up a chaperon somewhere."
"Oh, yes!" and Louise dimpled again. "We'll take Betty Gallup along.She's an able seaman, too."
"Ibetshe is!" ejaculated Lawford with emphasis.
He handled the boat with excellent judgment, and his confidence caused Louise to see no peril when they ran almost on the edge of the maelstrom over Gull Rocks. "I know this coast by heart," he said. "I believe there's not one of them sailing out of the Haven who is a better pilot than I am. At least, I've learnedthatoutside of textbooks," and he smiled at her.
Louise wondered how good an education this scion of a Cape Cod family really had secured. The longer she was in his company the more she was amazed by his language and manners. She noted, too, that he was much better dressed to-day. His flannels were not new; indeed they were rather shabby. But the garments' original cost must have been prohibitive for a young man in his supposed position. Very likely, however, they had been given him, second-hand, by some member of the family for which he worked.
The more she saw of him, and the more she thought about it, the greater was Louise's disappointment in Lawford Tapp. She was not exactly sorry she had come out with him in the motor boat; but her feeling toward him was distinctly different when she landed, from that which had been roused in her first acquaintance.
It was true he was not an idle young man—not exactly. But he betrayed an ability and a training that should already have raised him above his present situation in the social scale, as Louise understood it. She was disappointed, and although she bade Lawford Tapp good-bye pleasantly she was secretly unhappy.
The next morning she chanced to need several little things that were not to be found in Cap'n Abe's store and she went uptown in quest of them. At midday she was still thus engaged, so she went to the Inn for lunch.
Gusty Durgin spied her as she entered and found a small table forLouise where she would be alone. A fat woman whom Gusty mentioned as"the boss's sister, Sara Ann Whipple," helped wait upon the guests.Several of the business men of the town, as well as the guests of theInn, took their dinners there.
To one man, sitting alone at a table not far distant, Louise saw that Gusty was particularly attentive. He was typically a city man; one could not for a moment mistake him for a product of the Cape.
He was either a young-old or an old-young looking man, his hair graying at the temples, but very luxuriant and worn rather long. A bright complexion and beautifully kept teeth and hands marked him as one more than usually careful of his personal appearance. Indeed, his character seemed to border on that of the exquisite.
His countenance was without doubt attractive, for it was intelligent and expressed a quiet humor that seemed to have much kindliness mixed with it. His treatment of the unsophisticated Gusty, who hovered about him with open admiration, held just that quality of good-natured tolerance which did not offend the waitress but that showed discerning persons that he considered her only in the light of an artless child.
"D'you know who that is?" Gusty whispered to Louise when she found time to do so. The plump girl was vastly excited; her hands shook as she set down the dishes. "That's Mr. Judson Bane."
"Yes. I chanced to meet Mr. Bane once, as I told you," smiled Louise, keeping up the illusion of her own connection with the fringe of the theatrical world.
"And Miss Louder and Miss Noyes have come. My, you ought to seethem!" said the emphatic waitress. "They've got one o' them flivvers. Some gen'leman friend of Miss Noyes' lent it to 'em. They're out now hunting what they call a garridge for it. That's a fancy name for a barn, I guess. And dressed!" gasped Gusty finally. "They're dressed to kill!"
"We shall have lively times around Cardhaven now, sha'n't we?" Louise commented demurely.
"We almost always do in summer," Gusty agreed with a sigh. "Last summer an Italian lost his trick bear in the pine woods 'twixt here and Paulmouth and the young 'uns didn't darest to go out of the houses for a week. Poor critter! When they got him he was fair foundered eating green cranberries in the bogs."
"Something doing," no matter what, was Gusty's idea of life as it should be. Louise finished her meal and went out of the dining-room. In the hall her mesh bag caught in the latch of the screen door and dropped to the floor. Somebody was right at hand to pick it up for her.
"Allow me." said a deep and cultivated voice. "Extremely annoying."
It was Mr. Bane, hat in hand. He restored the bag, and as Louise quietly thanked him they walked out of the Inn together. Louise was returning to Cap'n Abe's store, and she turned in that direction before she saw that Mr. Bane was bound down the hill, too.
"I fancy we are fellow-outcasts," he said. "You, too, are a visitor to this delightfully quaint place?"
"Yes, Mr. Bane," she returned frankly. "Though I can claim relationship to some of these Cardhaven folk. My mother came from the Cape."
"Indeed? It is not such a far cry to Broadway from any point of the compass, after all, is it?" and he smiled engagingly down at her.
"You evidently do not remember me, Mr. Bane?" she said, returning his smile. "Aboard the Anders Liner, coming up from Jamaica, two years ago this last winter? Professor Ernest Grayling is my father."
"Indeed!" he exclaimed. "You are Miss Grayling? I remember you and your father clearly. Fancy meeting you here!" and Mr. Bane insisted on taking her hand. "And how is the professor? No need to ask after your health, Miss Grayling."
As they walked on together Louise took more careful note of the actor. He had the full habit of a well-fed man, but was not gross. He was athletic, indeed, and his head was poised splendidly on broad shoulders. Louise saw that his face was massaged until it was as pink and soft as a baby's, without a line of close shaving to be detected. The network of fine wrinkles at the outer corners of his eyes was scarcely distinguishable. That there was a faint dust of powder upon his face she noted, too.
Judson Bane was far, however, from giving the impression of effeminacy.Quite the contrary. He looked able to do heroic things in real life aswell as in the drama. And as their walk and conversation developed,Louise Grayling found the actor to be an interesting person.
He spoke well and without bombast upon any subject she ventured on. His vocabulary was good and his speaking voice one of the most pleasing she had ever heard.
So interested was Louise in what Mr. Bane said that she scarcely noticed Lawford Tapp who passed and bowed to her, only inclining her head in return. Therefore she did not catch the expression on Lawford's face.
"A fine-looking young fisherman," observed Mr. Bane patronizingly.
"Yes. Some of them are good-looking and more intelligent than you would believe," Louise rejoined carelessly. She had put Lawford Tapp aside as inconsequential.
It was mid forenoon the following day, and quite a week after Louise Grayling's arrival at Cap'n Abe's store on the Shell Road, that the stage was set for a most surprising climax.
The spirit of gloom still hovered over Betty Gallup in the rear premises where she was sweeping and dusting and scrubbing. Her idea of cleanliness indoors was about the same as that of a smart skipper of an old-time clipper ship.
"If that woman ain't holystonin' the deck ev'ry day she thinks we're wadin' in dirt, boot-laig high," growled Cap'n Amazon.
"Cleanliness is next to godliness!" quoted Louise, who was in the store at the moment.
"Land sakes!" ejaculated the captain. "It's next door to a lot of other things, seems like, too. I shouldn't say that Bet Gallup was spillin' over with piety."
Louise, laughing softly, went to the door. There was a cloud of dust up the road and ahead of it came a small automobile. Cap'n Amazon was singing, in a rather cracked voice:
"'The Boundin' Biller, Captain Hanks, She was hove flat down on the Western Banks;———"
With a saucy blast of its horn the automobile flashed past the store. There were two young women in it, one driving. Louise felt sure they were Miss Louder and Miss Noyes, mentioned by Gusty Durgin the day before, and their frocks and hats were all that their names suggested.
"Them contraptions," Cap'n Amazon broke off in his ditty to say, "go past so swift that you can't tell rightly whether they got anybody to the helm or not. Land sakes, here comes another! They're getting as common as sandfleas on Horseneck Bar, and Washy Gallup says that's a-plenty."
He did not need to come to the door to make this discovery of the approach of the second machine. There sounded another blast from an auto horn and a considerable racket of clashing gears.
"Land sakes!" Cap'n Amazon added. "Is it going to heave to here?"
Louise had already entered the living-room, bound for her chamber to see if, by chance, Betty had finished dusting there. She did not hear the second automobile stop nor the cheerful voice of its gawky driver as he said to his fare:
"This is the place, ma'am. This is Cap'n Abe's."
His was the only car in public service at the Paulmouth railroad station and Willy Peebles seldom had a fare to Cardhaven. Noah Coffin's ark was good enough for most Cardhaven folk if they did not own equipages of their own.
When Willy reached around and snapped open the door of the covered car a lady stepped out and, like a Newfoundland after a plunge into the sea, shook herself. The car was a cramped vehicle and the ride had been dusty. Her clothing was plentifully powdered; but her face was not. That was heated, perspiring, and expressed a mixture of indignation and disapproval.
"Are you sure this is the place, young man?" she demanded.
"This is Cap'n Abe Silt's," repeated Willy.
"Why—it doesn't look———"
"Want your suitcase, ma'am?" asked Willy.
"Wait. I am not sure. I—I must see if I——. I may not stay.Wait," she repeated, still staring about the neighborhood.
As a usual thing, she was not a person given to uncertainty, in either manner or speech. Her somewhat haughty glance, her high-arched nose, her thin lips, all showed decision and a scorn of other people's opinions and wishes. But at this moment she was plainly nonplused.
"There—there doesn't seem to be anybody about," she faltered.
"Oh, go right into the store, ma'am. Cap'n Abe's somewheres around.He always is."
Thus encouraged by the driver the woman stalked up the store steps. She was not a ponderous woman, but she was tall and carried considerable flesh. She could carry this well, however, and did. Her traveling dress and hat were just fashionable enough to be in the mode, but in no extreme. This well-bred, haughty, but perspiring woman approached the entrance to Cap'n Abe's store in a spirit of frank disapproval.
On the threshold she halted with an audible gasp, indicating amazement. Her glance swept the interior of the store with its strange conglomeration of goods for sale—on the shelves the rows of glowingly labeled canned goods, the blue papers of macaroni, the little green cartons of fishhooks; the clothing hanging in groves, the rows and rows of red mittens; tiers of kegs of red lead, barrels of flour, boxes of hardtack; hanks of tarred ground-line, coils of several sizes of cordage, with a small kedge anchor here and there. It was not so much a store as it was a warehouse displaying many articles the names and uses for which the lady did not even know.
The wondrous array of goods in Cap'n Abe's store did not so much startle the visitor, as the figure that rose from behind the counter, where he was stooping at some task.
She might be excused her sudden cry, for Cap'n Amazon was an apparition to shock any nervous person. The bandana he wore seemed, if possible, redder than usual this morning; his earrings glistened; his long mustache seemed blacker and glossier than ever. As he leaned characteristically upon the counter, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, the throat-latch of his shirt open, he did not give one impression of a peaceful storekeeper, to say the least.
"Mornin', ma'am," said Cap'n Amazon, not at all embarrassed. "What canI do for you, ma'am?"
"You—you are not Captain Silt?" the visitor almost whispered in her agitation.
"Yes, ma'am; I am."
"Captain Abram Silt?"
"No, ma'am; I ain't. I'm Cap'n Am'zon, his brother. What can I do for you?" he repeated. The explanation of his identity may have been becoming tedious; at least, Cap'n Amazon gave it grimly.
"Is—is my niece, Louise Grayling, here?" queried the lady, her voice actually trembling, her gaze glued to the figure behind the counter.
"'Hem!" said the captain, clearing his throat. "Who did you say you was, ma'am?"
"I did not say," the visitor answered stiffly enough now. "I asked you a question."
"Likely—likely," agreed Cap'n Amazon. "But you intimated that you was the a'nt of a party by the name of Grayling. I happen to be her uncle myself. Her mother was my ha'f-sister. I don't remember—jestwho'dyou say you was, ma'am?"
"I am her father's own sister," cried the lady in desperation.
"Oh, yes! I see!" murmured Cap'n Amazon. "Then you must be her A'nt'Phemie. I've heard Louise speak of you. Tubbesure!"
"I am Mrs. Conroth," said Mrs. Euphemia Conroth haughtily.
"Happy to make your acquaintance," said Cap'n Amazon, bobbing his head and putting forth his big hand. Mrs. Conroth scorned the hand, raised her lorgnette and stared at the old mariner as though he were some curious specimen from the sea that she had never observed before. Cap'n Amazon smiled whimsically and looked down at his stained and toil-worn palm.
"I see you're nigh-sighted, ma'am. Some of us git that way as we grow older. I never have been bothered with short eyesight myself."
"I wish to see my niece at once," Mrs. Conroth said, flushing a little at his suggestion of her advancing years.
"Come right in," he said, lifting the flap in the counter.
Mrs. Conroth glared around the store through her glass. "Cannot Louise come here?" She asked helplessly.
"We live back o' the shop—and overhead," explained Cap'n Amazon."Come right in, I'll have Betty Gallup call Louise."
Bristling her indignation like a porcupine its quills, the majestic woman followed the spry figure of the captain. Her first glance over the old-fashioned, homelike room elicited a pronounced sniff.
"Catarrh, ma'am?" suggested the perfectly composed Cap'n Amazon. "This strong salt air ought to do it a world of good. I've known a sea v'y'ge to cure the hardest cases. They tell me lots of 'em come down here to the Cape afflicted that way and go home cured."
Mrs. Conroth stared with growing comprehension at Cap'n Amazon. It began to percolate into her brain that possibly this strange-looking seaman possessed qualities of apprehension for which she had not given him credit.
"Sit down, ma'am," said Cap'n Amazon hospitably. "Abe ain't here, but I cal'late he'd want me to do the honors, and assure you that you are welcome. He always figgers on having a spare berth for anybody that boards us, as well as a seat at the table.
"Betty," he added, turning to the amazed Mrs. Gallup, just then appearing at the living-room door, "tell Louise her A'nt 'Phemie is here, will you?"
"Say Mrs. Conroth, woman," corrected the lady tartly.
Betty scowled and went away, muttering: "Who's a 'woman,' I want to know? I ain't one no more'nsheis," and it can be set down in the log that the "able seaman" began by being no friend of Aunt Euphemia's.
It was with a sinking at her heart that Louise heard of her aunt's arrival. She had written to her Aunt Euphemia before leaving New York that she had decided to try Cape Cod for the summer and would go to her mother's relative, Captain Abram Silt. Again, on reaching the store on the Shell Road, she had dutifully written a second letter announcing her arrival.
She had known perfectly well that some time she would have to "pay the piper." Aunt Euphemia would never overlook such a thing. Louise was sure of that. But the idea that the Poughkeepsie lady would follow her to Cardhaven never for a moment entered Louise's thought.
She had put off this reckoning until the fall—until the return of daddy-professor. But here Aunt Euphemia had descended upon her as unexpectedly as the Day of Wrath spoken of in Holy Writ.
As she came down the stairs she heard her uncle's voice in the living-room. Something had started him upon a tale of adventure above and beyond the usual run of his narrative.
"Yes,ma'am," he was saying, "them that go down to the sea in ships, as the Good Book says, sartain sure meet with hair-raisin' experiences. You jumped then, ma'am, when old Jerry let out a peep. He was just tryin' his voice I make no doubt. Ain't sung for months they say. I didn't know why till I—I found out t'other day he was blind—-stone blind.
"Some thinks birds don't know nothing, or ain't much account in this man-world——But, as I was sayin', I lay another course. I'll never forget one v'y'ge I made on the brigantineHermione. That was 'fore the day of steam-winches and we carried a big crew—thirty-two men for'ard and a big after-guard.
"Well, ma'am! Whilst she was hove down in a blow off the Horn an albatross came aboard. You know what they be—the one bird in all the seven seas that don't us'ally need a dry spot for the sole of his foot. If Noah had sent out one from the ark he'd never have come back with any sprig of promise for the land-hungry wanderers shut up in that craft.
"'Tis bad luck they do say to kill an albatross. Some sailors claim ev'ry one o' them is inhabited by a lost soul. I ain't superstitious myself. I'm only telling you what happened.
"Dunno why that bird boarded us. Mebbe he was hurt some way. Mebbe 'twas fate. But he swooped right inboard, his wing brushing the men at the wheel. Almost knocked one o' them down. He was a Portugee man named Tony Spadello and he had a re'l quick temper.
"Tony had his knife out in a flash and jumped for the creature. The other steersman yelled (one man couldn't rightly hold the wheel alone, the sea was kicking up such a bobberation) but Tony's one slash was enough. The albatross tumbled right down on the deck, a great cut in its throat. It bled like a dog shark, cluttering up the deck."
"Horrid!" murmured Mrs. Conroth with a shudder of disgust.
"Yes—the poor critter!" agreed Cap'n Amazon. "I never like to see innocent, dumb brutes killed. Cap'n Hicks—he was a young man in them days, and boastful—cursed the mess it made, yanked off the bird's head, so's to have the beautiful pink beak of it made into the head of a walking-stick, and ordered Tony to throw the carcass overboard and clean up the deck. I went to the wheel in his stead, with Jim Ledward. Jim says to me: 'Am'zon, that bird'll foller us. Can't git rid of it so easy asthat.'
"I thought he was crazy," went on Cap'n Amazon, shaking his head. "I wasn't projectin' much about superstitions. No, ma'am! We had all we could do—the two of us—handlin' the wheel with them old graybacks huntin' us. Them old he waves hunt in droves mostly, and when one did board us we couldn't scarce get clear of the wash of it before another would rise right up over our rail and fill the waist, or mebbe sweep ev'rything clean from starn to bowsprit.
"It was sundown (only we hadn't seen no sun in a week) when that albatross was killed and hove overboard. At four bells of the mornin' watch one o' them big waves come inboard. It washed everything that wasn't lashed into the scuppers and took one of our smartest men overboard with it. But there, floatin' in the wash it left behind, was the dead albatross!"
"Oh, how terrible!" murmured Mrs. Conroth, watching Cap'n Amazon much as a charmed bird is said to watch a snake.
"Yes, ma'am; tough to lose a shipmate like that, I agree. But that was only the beginning. Cap'n Hicks pitched the thing overboard himself. Couldn't ha' got one of the men, mebbe, to touch it. Jim Ledward says: 'Skipper, ye make nothin' by that. It's too late. Bad luck's boarded us.'
"And sure 'nough it had," sighed Cap'n Amazon, as though reflecting. "You never did see such a time as we had in gettin' round the Cape. And we got it good in the roarin' forties, too—hail, sleet, snow, rain, and lightnin' all mixed, and the sea a reg'lar hell's broth all the time."
"I beg of you, sir," breathed the lady, shuddering again. Cap'n Amazon, enthralled by his own narrative, steamed ahead without noticing her shocked expression.
"One hurricane on top of another—that's what we got. We lost four men overboard, includin' the third officer, one time and another. I was knocked down myself and got a broken arm—had it in a sling nine weeks. We got fever in a port that hadn't had such an epidemic in six months, and seven of the crew had to be took ashore.
"Bad luck dogged us and the ship. Only, it never touched the skipper or Tony Spadello—the only two that had handled the albatross. That is, not as far as I know. Last time I see Cappy Hicks he was carryin' his cane with the albatross beak for a handle; and Tony Spadello has made a barrel of money keeping shop on the Bedford docks.