The discovery of Louise's identity was but a mild shock to Lawford after all. His preconceived prejudice against the ordinary feminine member of "The Profession" had, during his intercourse with Cap'n Abe's niece, been lulled to sleep. Miss Louder and Miss Noyes more nearly embodied his conception of actresses—nice enough young women, perhaps, but entirely different from Louise Grayling.
Lawford forgave the latter for befooling him in the matter of her condition in life; indeed, he realized that he had deceived himself. He had accepted the gossip of the natives—Milt Baker was its originator, he remembered—as true, and so had believed Louise Grayling was connected with the moving picture company.
Her social position made no difference to him. At first sight LawfordTapp had told himself she was the most charming woman he had ever seen.
For a college graduate of twenty-four he was, though unaware of the fact, rather unsophisticated regarding women.
He had given but slight attention to girls. Perhaps they interested him so little because of his three sisters.
He remembered now that he and Dot Johnson had been pretty good "pals" before he had gone to college, and while Dot was still in middy blouse and wore her hair in plaits.
Now, as he walked along the beach and thought of the daughter of his father's partner, he groaned. He, as well as the women of the family, knew well the Taffy King's obstinacy.
His streak of determination had enabled I. Tapp to reach the pinnacle of business wealth and influence. When he wanted a thing he went after it, and he got it!
If his father was really determined that Lawford should marry Dot Johnson, and her parents were willing, the young man had an almost uncanny feeling that the candy manufacturer's purpose would be accomplished.
And yet Lawford knew that such was a coward-nature feeling. Why should he give up the only thing he had ever really wanted in life—so it seemed to him now—because of any third person's obstinacy?
"Of course, she won't have me anyway," an inner voice told him. And, after a time, Lawford realized that that, too, was his coward-nature speaking.
On the other hand: "Why should I give her up? Further, why should I marry Dot Johnson against my will, whether I can get Louise Grayling or not?"
This thought electrified him. His easy-going, placid disposition had made a coward of him. In his heart and soul he was now ready to fight for what he desired. It was now not merely the question of winning Louise's love. Whether he could win her or not his determination grew to refuse to obey his father's command. He revolted, right then and there. Let his father keep his money. He, Lawford Tapp, would go to work in any case and would support himself.
This was no small resolve on the part of the millionaire's son. He could not remember of ever having put his hand into an empty pocket. His demands on the paternal purse had been more reasonable than most young men of his class perhaps, because of his naturally simple tastes and the life he had led outside the classroom. Without having "gone in" for athletics at Cambridge he was essentially an out-of-door man.
Nevertheless, to stand in open revolt against I. Tapp's command was a very serious thing to do. Lawford appreciated his own shortcomings in the matter of intellect. He knew he was not brilliant enough to make his wit entirely serve him for daily bread—let alone cake and other luxuries. If his father disinherited him he must verily expect to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow.
It was that evening, after his fruitless call at Cap'n Abe's store, that the young man met his father and had it out. Lawford came back to Tapp Point in the motor boat. As he walked up from the dock there was a sudden eruption of voices from the house, a door banged, and the Taffy King began exploding verbal fireworks as he crunched the gravel under foot.
"I'll show him! Young upstart! Settin' the women on me! Ha! Thinks he can do as he pleases forever and ever, amen! I'll show him!"
Just then he came face to face with "the young upstart." I. Tapp seized his son's arm with a vicious if puny grasp and yelled:
"What d'you mean by it?"
"Mean by what, dad?" asked the boy with that calmness that always irritated I. Tapp.
"Settin' your ma and the girls on me? They all lit on me at once. All crying together some foolishness about your marrying this Grayling girl and putting the family into society."
"Into society?" murmured Lawford. "I—I don't get you."
"You know what they're after," cried the candy manufacturer. "If a dynamite bomb would blow in the walls of that exclusive Back Bay set, they'd use one. And now it turns out this girl's right in the swim———I thought you said she was a picture actress?"
"I thought she was," stammered Lawford.
"Bah! You thought? You never thought a thing in your life of any consequence."
The young man was silent at this thrust. His silence made I. Tapp even angrier.
"But it makes no difference—no difference at all, I tell you. If she was the queen of Sheba I'd say the same," went on the candy manufacturer wildly. "I've said you shall marry Dorothy Johnson—I've always meant you should; and marry her you shall!"
"No, dad, I'm not going to do any such thing."
Suddenly the Taffy King quieted down. He struggled to control his voice and his shaking hands. A deadly calm mantled his excitement and his eyes glittered as he gazed up at his tall son.
"Is this a straight answer, Lawford? Or are you just talking to hear yourself talk?" he asked coldly.
"I am determined not to marry Dot."
"And you'll marry that other girl?"
"If she'll have me. But whether or no I won't be forced into marriage with a girl I do not love."
"Love!" exploded the Taffy King. Then in a moment he was calm again, only for that inward glow of rage. "People don't really love each other until after marriage. Love is born of propinquity and thrives on usage and custom. You onlythinkyou love this girl. It's after two people have been through a good deal together that they learn what love means."
Lawford was somewhat startled by this philosophy; but he was by no means convinced.
"Whether or no," he repeated, "I think I should have the same right that you had of choosing a wife."
His father brushed this aside without comment. "Do you understand what this means—if you are determined to disobey me?" he snarled.
"I suppose you won't begrudge me a bite and sup till I find a job, dad?" the son said with just a little tremor in his voice. "I know I haven't really anything of my own. You have done everything for me. Your money bought the very clothes I stand in. You gave me the means to buy theMerry Andrew. I realize that nothing I have called my own actually belongs to me because I did not earn it——"
"As long as you are amenable to discipline," put in his father gloomily, "you need not feel this way."
"But I do feel it now," said Lawford simply. "You have made me. And, as I say, I'll need to live, I suppose, till I get going for myself."
His father winced again. Then suddenly burst out:
"D'you think for a minute that that society girl will stand for your getting a job and trying to support her on your wages?"
"She will if she loves me."
"You poor ninny!" burst out I. Tapp. "You've got about as much idea of women as you have of business. And where are you going to work?"
"Well," and Lawford smiled a little whimsically, serious though the discussion was, "I've always felt a leaning toward the candy business. I believe I have a natural adaptability for that. Couldn't I find a job in one of your factories, dad?"
"You'll get no leg-up from me, unless you show you're worthy of it."
"But you'll give me a job?"
"I won't interfere if the superintendent of any of the factories takes you on," growled I. Tapp. "But mind you, he'll hire you on his own responsibility—he'll understand that from me. But I tell you right now this is no time to apply for a job in a candy factory. We're discharging men—not hiring them."
"I will apply for the first opening," announced the son.
I. Tapp stamped away along the graveled walk, leaving the young man alone. Lawford's calmness was as irritating to him as sea water to a raw wound.
Those days were dark for Louise Grayling; on her shoulders she bore double trouble. Anxiety for her father's safety made her sufficiently unhappy; but in addition her mind must cope with the mystery of Cap'n Amazon's identity and Cap'n Abe's whereabouts.
For she was not at all satisfied in her heart that the storekeeper had sailed from the port of Boston on theCurlew; and the status of the piratical looking Amazon Silt was by no means decided to her satisfaction. Her discoveries in his bedroom had quite convinced the young woman that Cap'n Amazon was in masquerade.
His comforting words and his thoughtfulness touched her so deeply, however, that she could not quarrel with the old man; and his insistence that Cap'n Abe had sailed on the Curlew and would be at hand to assist Professor Grayling if the schooner had been wrecked was kindly meant, she knew. He scoffed at the return of Cap'n Abe's chest as being of moment; he refused to discuss his brother's reason for stuffing the old chest with such useless lumber as it contained.
"Leave Abe for knowing his own business, Niece Louise. 'Tain't any of our consarn," was the most he would say about that puzzling circumstance.
Louise watched the piratical figure of Cap'n Amazon shuffling around the store or puttering about certain duties of housekeeping that he insisted upon doing himself, with a wonder that never waned.
His household habits were those which she supposed Cap'n Abe to have had. She wondered if all sailors were as neat and as fussy as he. He still insisted upon doing much of the cooking; it was true that he had good reason to doubt Betty Gallup's ability to cook.
When there were no customers in the store Louise often sat there with Cap'n Amazon, with either a book or her sewing in her hand. Sometimes they would not speak for an hour, while the substitute storekeeper "made up the books," which was a serious task for him.
He seemed normally dexterous in everything else, but he wrote with his left hand—an angular, upright chirography which, Louise thought, showed unmistakably that he was unfamiliar with the use of the pen. "Writing up the log" he called this clerkly task, and his awkward looking characters in the ledger were in great contrast to Cap'n Abe's round, flowing hand.
For several days following the discovery in the "Globepaper" of the notice about theCurlew, Louise Grayling and Cap'n Amazon lived a most intimate existence. She would not allow Betty Gallup to criticise the captain even slightly within her hearing.
They received news from New York which was no news at all. The Boston Chamber of Commerce had heard no further word of the schooner. Louise and the captain could only hope.
The world of seafaring is so filled with mysteries like this of theCurlew, that Louise knew well that no further word might ever be received of the vessel.
Cap'n Amazon rang the changes daily—almost hourly—upon sea escapes and rescues. He related dozens of tales (of course with the personal note in most), showing how ships' companies had escaped the threat of disaster in marvelous and almost unbelievable ways.
Louise had not the heart now to stop this flow of narrative by telling him bluntly that she doubted the authenticity of his tales. Nor would she look into the old books again to search out the originals of the stories which flowed so glibly from his lips.
Who and what he could really be puzzled Louise quite as much as before; yet she had not the heart to probe the mystery with either question or personal scrutiny. The uncertainty regarding theCurlewand those on board filled so much of the girl's thought that little else disturbed her.
Save one thing. She desired to see Lawford Tapp and talk with him.But Lawford did not appear at the store on the Shell Road.
Mr. Bane came frequently to call. He was an eager listener to Cap'n Amazon's stories and evidently enjoyed the master mariner hugely. Several of the young people from the cottages along The Beaches called on Louise; but if the girl desired to see Aunt Euphemia she had to go to the Perritons, or meet the Lady from Poughkeepsie in her walks along the sands. Aunt Euphemia could not countenance Cap'n Amazon in the smallest particular.
"It is a mystery to me, Louise—a perfect mystery—how you are able to endure that awful creature and his coarse stories. That dreadful tale of the albatross sticks in my mind—I cannot forget it," she complained. "And his appearance! No more savage looking man did I ever behold. I wonder you are not afraid to live in the same house with him."
Louise would not acknowledge that she had ever been fearful of Cap'n Amazon. Her own qualms of terror had almost immediately subsided. The news from theCurlew, indeed, seemed to have smothered the neighborhood criticism of the captain, if all suspicions had not actually been lulled to rest.
Cap'n Amazon spoke no more of his brother, save in connection with Professor Grayling's peril, than he had before. He seemed to have no fears for Cap'n Abe. "Abe can look out for himself," was a frequent expression with him. But Cap'n Amazon never spoke as though he held the danger of Louise's father in light regard.
"I'll give 'em a fortnight to be heard from," Cap'n Joab Beecher said confidently. "Then if ye don't hear from Cap'n Abe, or the noospapers don't print nothin' more about the schooner, I shall write her down in the log as lost with all hands."
"Don't you be too sartain sure 'bout it," growled Cap'n Amazon."There's many a wonder of the sea, as you an' I know, Joab Beecher.Look at what happened the crew of theMailfast, clipper built, out o'Baltimore—an' that was when you an' I, Cap'n Joab, was sharpenin' ourmilk teeth on salt hoss."
"What happened her, Cap'n Am'zon?" queried Milt Baker, reaching for a fresh piece of Brown Mule, and with a wink at the other idlers. "Did she go down, or did she go up?"
"Both," replied Cap'n Amazon unruffled. "She went up in smokean'flame, an' finally sunk when she'd burned to the Plimsol mark.
"Every man of the crew and afterguard got safely into two boats. This wasn't far to the westward of Fayal—in mebbe somewhere near the same spot where that Portugee fisherman reports pickin' up theCurlew'sboat.
"When theMailfastburned the sea was calm; but in six hours a sudden gale came up and drove the two boats into the southwest. They wasn't provisioned or watered for a long v'y'ge, and they had to run for it a full week, ev'ry mile reeled off takin' them further an' further from the islands, and further and further off the reg'lar course of shipping."
"Where'd they wind up at, Cap'n Am'zon?" asked Milt.
"Couldn't hit nothin' nearer'n the Guineas on that course," growledCap'n Joab.
"There you're wrong," the substitute storekeeper said. "They struck seaweed—acres an' acres of it—square miles of it—everlastin' seaweed!"
"Sargasso Sea!" exploded Washy Gallup, wagging his toothless jaw. "I swanny!"
"I've heard about that place, but never seen it," said Cap'n Joab.
"And you don't want to," declared the narrator of the incident. "It ain't a place into which no sailorman wants to venture. TheMailfast'scomp'ny—so 'tis said—was driven far into the pulpy, grassy sea. The miles of weed wrapped 'em around like a blanket. They couldn't row because the weed fouled the oars; and they couldn't sail 'cause the weed was so heavy. But there's a drift they say, or a suction, or something that gradually draws a boat toward the middle of the field."
"Then, by golly!" exclaimed Milt Baker, "how in tarnation did they git aout? I sh'd think anybody that every drifted into the Sargasso Sea would be there yit."
"P'r'aps many a ship an' many a ship's companyhavefound their grave there," said Cap'n Amazon solemnly. "'Tis called the graveyard of derelicts. But there's the chance of counter-storms. Before the two boats from theMailfastwere sucked down, and 'fore the crew was fair starved, a sudden shift of wind broke up the seaweed field and they escaped and were picked up.
"The danger of the Sargasso threatens all sailin' ships in them seas. Steam vessels have a better chance; but many a craft that's turned up missin' has undoubtedly been swallowed by the Sargasso."
Louise, who heard this discussion from the doorway of the store, could not fail to be impressed by it. Could theCurlew, with her father and Cap'n Abe aboard, have suffered such a fate? There was an element of probability in this tale of Cap'n Amazon's that entangled the girl's fancy. However, the idea colored the old man's further imagination in another way.
"Sargasso Sea," he said reflectively, between puffs of his pipe, after the idlers had left the store. "Yes, 'tis a fact, Niece Louise. That's what Abe drifted in for years—a mort of seaweed and pulp."
"Whatdoyou mean, Uncle Amazon?" gasped the girl, shocked by his words.
"This," the master mariner said, with a wide sweep of his arm taking in the cluttered store. "This was Abe's Sargasso Sea—and it come nigh to smotherin' him and bearin' him down by the head."
"Oh! you mean his life was so confined here?"
Cap'n Amazon nodded, "I wonder he bore it so long."
"I am afraid Uncle Abram is getting all he wants of adventure now,"Louise said doubtfully.
Cap'n Amazon stared at her unwinkingly for a minute. Then all he said was:
"I wonder?"
Lawford Tapp did not appear at the store and Louise continued to wonder about it; but she shrank from asking Betty Gallup, who might have been able to inform her why the young man did not come again. However, on one bright morning the gray roadster stopped before the door and Louise, from her window, saw that the three Tapp girls were in the car.
She thought they had come to make purchases, for the store on the Shell Road was often a port of call for the automobiles of the summer colonists. Suddenly, however, she realized that L'Enfant Terrible was standing up in the driver's seat and beckoning to her.
"Oh, Miss Grayling!" shrilled Cecile. "May I come up? I want to speak to you."
"No," commanded Prue firmly, preparing to step out of the car. "I will speak to Miss Grayling myself."
"I don't see why she can't come down," drawled Marian, the languid. "Ihave a message for her."
"Why!" ejaculated the surprised Louise, "if you all wish to see me I'd better come down, hadn't I?" and she left the window at once.
She had remarked on the few occasions during the last few days that she had met the Tapp sisters on the beach, that they had seemed desirous of being polite to her—very different from their original attitude; but so greatly taken up had Louise's mind been with more important matters that she had really considered this change but little.
Therefore it was with some curiosity that she descended the stairs and went around by the yard gate to the side of the automobile.
"Dear Miss Grayling," drawled Marian, putting out a gloved hand. "Pardon the informality. But mother wants to know if you will help us pour tea at our lawn fete and dance Friday week? It would be so nice of you."
Louise smiled quietly. But she was not a stickler for social proprieties; so, although she knew the invitation savored of that "rawness" of which her aunt had remarked, she was inclined to meet Lawford's family halfway. She said:
"If you really want me I shall be glad to do what I can to make your affair a success. Tell your mother I will come—and thank you."
"So kind of you," drawled Marian.
But Cecile was not minded to let the interview end so tamely—or so suddenly.
"Say!" she exclaimed, "did Ford see you, Miss Grayling, before he went away?"
"He has gone away, then?" Louise repeated, and she could not keep the color from flooding into her cheeks.
"He wanted to see you, I'm sure," Cecile said bluntly. "But he started off in a hurry. Had a dickens of a row with dad."
"Cecile!" admonished Prue. "That sounds worse than it is."
Louise looked at her curiously, though she did not ask a question.
"Well, they did have a shindy," repeated L'Enfant Terrible. "When daddy gets on his high horse———"
"Ford wished to see you before he went away, Miss Grayling," broke in Prue, with an admonitory glare at her young sister. "He told us he was so confused that day he fell overboard from theMerry Andrewthat he did not even thank you for fishing him out of the sea. It was awfully brave of you."
"Bully,Isay!" cried Cecile.
"Really heroic," added Marian. "Mother will never get over talking about it."
"Oh! I wish you wouldn't," murmured Louise. "I'm glad Betty and I saved him. Mrs. Gallup did quite as much as I——"
"We know all that," Prue broke in quickly. "And daddy's made it up toher."
"Yes. I know. He was very liberal," Louise agreed.
"But mercy!" cried Prue. "He can't sendyoua check, Miss Grayling. And we all do feel deeply grateful to you. Ford is an awfully good sort of a chap—for a brother."
Louise laughed outright at that. "I suppose, though never having had a brother, I can appreciate his good qualities fully as much as you girls," she said. "Will he be long away?"
"That we don't know," Marian said slowly. Louise had asked the question so lightly that Miss Tapp could not be sure there was any real interest behind it. But Cecile, who had alighted to crank up, whispered to Louise:
"You know what he's gone away for? No? To get a job! He and father have disagreed dreadfully."
"Oh! I am so sorry," murmured Louise. She would not ask any further questions. She was troubled, however, by this information, for L'Enfant Terrible seemed to have said it significantly. Louise wondered very much what had caused the quarrel between Lawford and his father.
She got at the heart of this mystery when she appeared at the lawn fete to help the Tapp girls and their mother entertain. She was introduced at that time to the Taffy King. Louise thought him rather a funny little man, and his excitability vastly amused her.
She caught him staring at her and scowling more than once; so, in her direct way, she asked him what he meant by it.
"Don't you approve at all of me, Mr. Tapp?" she asked, presenting him with a cup of tea that he did not want.
"Ha! Beg pardon!" ejaculated the candy manufacturer. "Did you think I was watching you?"
"Iknowyou were," she rejoined. "And your disapproval is marked. Tell me my faults. Of course, I sha'n't like you if you do; but I am curious."
"Huh! I'd like to see what that son of mine sees in you, MissGrayling," he blurted out.
"Does he see anything particular in me?" Louise queried, her color rising, but with a twinkle in her eye.
"He's crazy about you," said I. Tapp.
"Oh! Isthatwhy you and he disagreed?"
"It's going to cost him his home and his patrimony," the candy manufacturer declared fiercely. "I won't have it, I tell you! I've other plans for him. He's got to do as I say, or——"
Something in the girl's face halted him at the very beginning of one of his tirades. Positively she was laughing at him?
"Isthatthe reef on which you and Lawford have struck?" Louise asked gently. "If he chooses to address attentions to me he must become self-supporting?"
"I'll cut him off without a cent if he marries you!" threatened I. Tapp.
"Why," murmured Louise, "then that will be the making of him, I have no doubt. It is the lack I have seen in his character from the beginning. Responsibility will make a man of him."
"Ha!" snarled I. Tapp. "How aboutyou? Will you marry a poor man—a chap like my son who, if he ever makes twenty dollars a week, will be doing mighty well?"
"Oh! This is so—so sudden, Mr. Tapp!" murmured Louise, dimpling."You are not seriously asking me to marry your son, are you?"
"Asking you to?" exploded the excitable Taffy King, with a wild gesture. "I forbid it! Forbid it! do you hear?" and he rushed away from the scene of the festivities and did not appear again during the afternoon.
Mrs. Tapp, all of a flutter, appeared at Louise's elbow.
"Oh, dear, Miss Grayling! Whatdidhe say? He is so excitable."She almost wept. "I hope he has said nothing to offend you?"
Louise looked at her with a rather pitying smile.
"Don't be worried, Mrs. Tapp," she assured her. "Really, I think your husband is awfully amusing."
Naturally disapproval was plainly enthroned upon Aunt Euphemia's countenance when she saw her niece aiding in the entertainment of the guests at the Tapp lawn fete. The Lady from Poughkeepsie had come with the Perritons because, as she admitted, the candy manufacturer's family must be placated to a degree.
"But you go too far, Louise. Even good nature cannot excuse this. I am only thankful that young man is not at home. Surely you cannot be really interested in Lawford Tapp?"
"Do spare my blushes," begged Louise, her palms upon her cheeks but her eyes dancing. "Really, I haven't seen Lawford for days."
"Really, Louise?"
"Surely I would not deceive you, auntie," she said. "He may have lost all his interest in me, too. He went away without bidding me good-bye."
"Well, I am glad of that!" sighed Aunt Euphemia. "I feared it was different. Indeed, I heard something said———Oh, well, people will gossip so! Never mind. But these Tapps are so pushing."
"I think Mrs. Tapp is a very pleasant woman; and the girls are quite nice," Louise said demurely.
"You need not have displayed your liking for them in quite this way," objected Aunt Euphemia. "You could easily have excused yourself—the uncertainty about your poor father would have been reason enough. I don't know—I am not sure, indeed, but that we should go into mourning. Of course, it would spoil the summer——"
"Oh! Aunt Euphemia!"
"Yes. Well, I only mentioned it. For my own part I look extremely well in crepe."
Louise was shocked by this speech; yet she knew that its apparent heartlessness did not really denote the state of her aunt's mind. It was merely bred of the lady's shallowness, and of her utterly self-centered existence.
That evening, long after supper and after the store lights were out, and while Cap'n Amazon and Louise were sitting as usual in the room behind the store, a hasty step on the porch and a rat-tat-tat upon the side door announced a caller than whom none could have been more unexpected.
"Aunt Euphemia!" cried Louise, when the master mariner ushered the lady in. "What has happened?"
"Haven't you heard? Did you not get a letter?" demanded Mrs. Conroth.But she kept a suspicious eye on the captain.
"From daddy-prof?" exclaimed Louise, jumping up.
"Yes. Mailed at Gibraltar. Nothing has happened to that vessel he is on. That was all a ridiculous story. But there is something else, Louise."
"Sit down, ma'am," Cap'n Amazon was saying politely. "Do sit down, ma'am."
"Not in this house," declared the lady, with finality. "I do not feel safe here. And it's not safe for you to be here, Louise, with this—this man. You don't know who he is; nobody knows who he is. I have just heard all about it from one of the—er—natives. Mr. Abram Silt never had a brother that anybody in Cardhaven ever saw. There is no Captain Amazon Silt—and never was!"
"Oh!" gasped Louise.
"Nor does your father say a word in his letter to me about Abram Silt being with him aboard that vessel, theCurlew. Nobody knows what has become of your uncle—the man who really owns this store. How do we know but that this—this creature," concluded Aunt Euphemia, with dramatic gesture, "has made away with Mr. Silt and taken over his property?"
"It 'ud be jest like the old pirate!" croaked a harsh voice from the kitchen doorway, and Betty Gallup appeared, apparently ready to back up Mrs. Conroth physically, as well as otherwise.
That hour in the old-fashioned living-room behind Cap'n Abe's store was destined to be marked indelibly upon Louise Grayling's memory. Aunt Euphemia and Betty Gallup had both come armed for the fray. They literally swept Louise off her feet by their vehemence.
The effect of the challenge on Cap'n Amazon was most puzzling. As Mrs. Conroth refused to sit down—she could talk better standing, becoming quite oracular, in fact—the captain could not, in politeness, take his customary chair. And he had discarded his pipe upon going to the door to let the visitor in.
Therefore, it seemed to Louise, the doughty captain seemed rather lost.It was not that he displayed either surprise or fear because of AuntEuphemia's accusation. Merely he did not know what to do with himselfduring her exhortation.
The fact that he was taxed with a crime—a double crime, indeed—did not seem to bother him at all. But the clatter of the women's tongues seemed to annoy him.
His silence and his calmness affected Mrs. Conroth and Betty Gallup much as the store idlers had been affected when they tried to bait him—their exasperation increased. Cap'n Amazon's utter disregard of what they said (for Betty did her share of the talking, relieving the Lady from Poughkeepsie when she was breathless) continued unabated. It was a situation that, at another time, would have vastly amused Louise.
But it was really a serious matter. Mrs. Conroth was quite as excited as Betty. Both became vociferous in acclaiming the captain's irresponsibility, and both accused him of having caused Cap'n Abe's disappearance.
"Mark my word," declared Aunt Euphemia, with her most indignant air, "that creature is guilty—guilty of an awful crime!"
"The old pirate! That he is!" reiterated Betty.
"Louise, my child, come away from here at once. This is no place for a young woman—or for any self-respecting person. Come."
For the first time since the opening of this scene Cap'n Amazon displayed trouble. He turned to look at Louise, and she thought his countenance expressed apprehension—as though he feared she might go.
"Come!" commanded Mrs. Conroth again. "This is no fit place for you; it neverhasbeen fit!"
"Avast, there, ma'am!" growled the captain, at last stung to retort.
"You are an old villain!" declared Aunt Euphemia.
"He's an old pirate!" concluded Betty Gallup. Here Louise found her voice—and she spoke with decision.
"I shall stay just the same, aunt. I am satisfied that you all misjudge Captain Amazon." His face—the sudden flash of gratitude in it—thanked her.
"Louise!" cried her aunt.
"You better come away, Miss Lou," said Betty. "The constable'll git that old pirate; that's what'll happen to him."
"Stop!" exclaimed Louise. "I'll listen to no more. I do not believe these things you say. And neither of you can prove them. I'm going to bed. Good-night, Aunt Euphemia," and she marched out of the room.
That closed the discussion. Cap'n Amazon bowed Mrs. Conroth politely out of the door and Betty went with her. Louise did not get to sleep in her chamber overhead for hours; nor did she hear the captain come upstairs at all.
In the morning's post there was a letter for Louise from her father—a letter that had been delayed. It had been mailed at the same time the one to Aunt Euphemia was sent. TheCurlewwould soon turn her bows Bostonward, the voyage having been successful from a scientific point of view. Professor Grayling even mentioned the loss of a small boat in a squall, when it had been cast adrift from the taffrail by accident.
Betty, with face like a thundercloud, had brought the letter up to Louise. When the girl had hastily read it through she ran down to show it to Cap'n Amazon. She found him reading an epistle of his own, while Cap'n Joab, Milt Baker, Washy Gallup, and several other neighbors hovered near.
"Yep. I got one myself," announced Cap'n Amazon.
"Oh, captain!"
"Yep. From Abe. Good reason why your father didn't speak of Abe in his letter to your a'nt. Didn't in yours, did he?"
Louise shook her head.
"No? Listen here," Cap'n Amazon said. "'I haven't spoke to ProfessorGrayling. He don't know Abe Silt from the jib-boom. Why should he? Iam a foremast hand and he lives abaft. But he is a fine man.Everybody says so. We've had some squally weather——'
"Well! that's nothin'. Ahem!"
He went on, reading bits to the interested listeners now and then, and finally handed the letter to Cap'n Joab Beecher. The latter, looking mighty queer indeed, adjusted his spectacles and spread out the sheet.
"Ye-as," he admitted cautiously. "That 'pears to be Cap'n Abe's handwritin', sure 'nough."
"Course 'tis!" squealed Washy Gallup. "As plain, as plain!"
"Read it out," urged Milt while the captain went to wait upon a customer.
Louise listened with something besides curiosity. The letter was a rambling account of the voyage of theCurlew, telling little directly or exactly about the daily occurrences; but nothing in it conflicted with what Professor Grayling had written Louise—save one thing.
The girl realized that the arrival of this letter from Cap'n Abe had finally punctured that bubble of suspicion against the captain that had been blown overnight. It seemed certain and unshakable proof that the substitute storekeeper was just whom he claimed to be, and it once and for all put to death the idea that Cap'n Abe had not gone to sea in theCurlew.
Yet Louise had never been more puzzled since first suspicion had been roused against Cap'n Amazon. A single sentence in her father's letter could not be made to jibe with Cap'n Abe's epistle, and therefore she folded up her own letter and thrust it into her pocket. In speaking of his companions on shipboard, the professor had written:
"I am by far the oldest person aboard theCurlew, skipper included. They are all young fellows, both for'ard and in the afterguard. Yet they treat me like one of themselves and I am having a most enjoyable time."
Cap'n Abe was surely much older than her daddy-prof! It puzzled her. It troubled her. There was not a moment of that day when it was not the uppermost thought in her mind.
People came in from all around to read Cap'n Abe's letter and to congratulate Cap'n Amazon and Louise that theCurlewwas safe. The captain took the matter as coolly as he did everything else.
Louise watched him, trying to fathom his manner and the mystery about him. Yet, when the solution of the problem was developed, she was most amazed by the manner in which her eyes were opened.
Supper time was approaching, and the cooler evening breeze blew in through the living-room windows. Relieved for the moment from his store tasks, Cap'n Amazon appeared, rubbing his hands cheerfully, and briskly approached old Jerry's cage as he chirruped to the bird.
"Well! well! And how's old Jerry been to-day?" Louise heard him say.Then: "Hi-mighty! What's this?"
Louise glanced in from the kitchen. She saw him standing before the cage, his chin sunk on his breast, the tears trickling down his mahogany face.
That hard, stern visage, with its sweeping piratical mustache and the red bandana above it, was a most amazing picture of grief.
"Oh! What is it?" cried the girl, springing to his side.
He pointed with shaking index finger to the bird within the cage.
"Dead!" he said brokenly, "Dead, Niece Louise! Poor old Jerry's dead—and him and me shipmates for so many, many years."
"Oh!" screamed the girl, grasping his arm. "You are Cap'n Abe!"
After all, when she considered it later, Louise wondered only that she had not seen through the masquerade long before.
From the beginning—the very first night of her occupancy of the pleasant chamber over the store on the Shell Road—she should have understood the mystery that had had the whole neighborhood by the ears during the summer.
She, more than anybody else, should have seen through Cap'n Abe's masquerade. Louise had been in a position, she now realized, to have appreciated the truth.
"You are Cap'n Abe," she told him, and he did not deny it. Sadly he looked at the dead canary in the bottom of the cage, and wiped his eyes.
"Poor Jerry!" her uncle said, and in that single phrase all the outer husk of the rough and ready seaman—the character he had assumed in playing his part for so many weeks—sloughed away. He was the simple, tender-hearted, almost childish Cap'n Abe that she had met upon first coming to Cardhaven.
Swiftly through her mind the incidents of that first night and morning flashed. She remembered that he had prepared her—as he had prepared his neighbors—for the coming of this wonderful Cap'n Amazon, whose adventures he had related and whose praises he had sung for so many years.
Cap'n Abe had taken advantage of Perry Baker's coming with Louise's trunk to send off his own chest, supposedly filled with the clothes he would need on a sea voyage.
Then, the house clear of the expressman and Louise safe in bed, the storekeeper had proceeded to disguise himself as he had long planned to do.
Not content with the shaving of his beard only, he had dyed his hair and the sweeping piratical mustache left him. Walnut juice applied to his face and body had given him the stain of a tropical sun. Of course, this stain and the dye had to be occasionally renewed.
The addition of gold rings in his ears (long before pierced for the purpose, of course) and the wearing of the colored handkerchief to cover his bald crown completed a disguise that his own mother would have found hard to penetrate.
Cap'n Abe was gone; Cap'n Amazon stood in his place.
To befool his niece was a small matter. At daybreak he had come to her door and bidden Louise good-bye. But she had not seen him—only his figure as he walked up the road in the fog. Cap'n Abe had, of course, quickly made a circuit and come back to re-enter the house by the rear door.
From that time—or from the moment Lawford Tapp had first seen him on the store porch that morning—the storekeeper had played a huge game of bluff. And what a game it had been!
In his character of Cap'n Amazon he had commanded the respect—even the fear—of men who for years had considered Cap'n Abe a butt for their poor jests. It was marvelous, Louise thought, when one came to think of it.
And yet, not so marvelous after all, when she learned all that lay behind the masquerade. There had always been, lying dormant in Cap'n Abe's nature, characteristics that had never before found expression.
Much she learned on this evening at supper, and afterward when the store had been closed and they were alone in the living-room. Diddimus, who still had his doubts of the piratical looking captain, lay in Louise's lap and purred loudly under the ministration of her gentle hand, while Cap'n Abe talked.
It was a story that brought to the eyes of the sympathetic girl the sting of tears as well as bubbling laughter to her lips. And in it all she found something almost heroic as well as ridiculous.
"My mother marked me," said Cap'n Abe. "Poor mother! I was born with her awful horror of the ravenin' sea as she saw the Bravo an' Cap'n Josh go down. I knew it soon—when I was only a little child. I knew I was set apart from other Silts, who had all been seafarin' men since the beginnin' of time.
"And yet I loved the sea, Niece Louise. The magic of it, its mystery, its romance and its wonders; all phases of the sea and seafarin' charmed me. But I could not step foot in a boat without almost swoonin' with fright, and the sight of the sea in its might filled me with terror.
"Ah, me! You can have no idea what pains I suffered as a boy because of this fear," said Cap'n Abe. "I dreamed of voyagin' into unknown seas—of seein' the islands of the West and of the East—of visitin' all the wonderful corners of the world—of facin' all the perils and experiencin' all the adventures of a free rover. And what was my fate?
"The tamest sort of a life," he said, answering his own question. "The flattest existence ever man could imagine. Hi-mighty! Instead of a sea rover—a storekeeper! Instead of romance—Sargasso!" and he gestured with his pipe in his hand. "You understand, Louise? That's what I meant when I spoke of the Sargasso Sea t'other day. It was my doom to live in the tideless and almost motionless Sea of Sargasso.
"But my mind didn't stay tame ashore," pursued Cap'n Abe. "As a boy I fed it upon all the romances of the sea I could gather. Ye-as. I suppose I am greatly to be blamed. I have been a hi-mighty liar, Louise!
"It began because I heard so many other men tellin' of their adventoors, an' I couldn't tell of none. My store at Rocky Head where I lived all my life till I come here (mother came over to Cardhaven with her second husband; but I stayed on there till twenty-odd year ago)—my store there was like this one. There's allus a lot of old barnacles like Cap'n Joab and Washy Gallup clingin' to such reefs as this.
"So I heard unendin' experiences of men who had gone to sea. And at night I read everything I could get touchin' on, an' appertainin' to, sea-farin'. In my mind I've sailed the seven seas, charted unknown waters, went through all the perils I tell 'bout. Yes, sir, I don't dispute I'm a hi-mighty liar," he repeated, sighing and shaking his head.
"But when I come here to the Shell Road, where there warn't nobody knowed me, it struck me forcible," pursued Cap'n Abe, "that my fambly bein' so little known I could achieve a sort of vicarious repertation as a seagoin' man.
"Ye see what I mean? I cal'lated if I'd had a brother—a brother who warn't marked with a fear of the ocean—hewould ha' been a sailor. Course he would! All us Silts was seafarin' men!
"An' I thought so much 'bout this brother that Imightha' had, and what he would ha' done sailin' up an' down the world, learnin' to be a master mariner, an' finally pacin' his own quarter-deck, that he grew like he was real to me, Niece Louise—he re'lly did. I give him a name. 'Am'zon' has been a name in our fambly since Cap'n Reba Silt first put the nose of his oldTigristo the tidal wave of the Am'zon River—back in seventeen-forty. He come home to New Bedford and named his first boy, that was waitin' to be christened, 'Am'zon Silt.'
"So I called this—this dream brother of mine—'Am'zon.' These Cardhaven folks warn't likely to know whether I had a brother or not. And I made up he went to sea when he was twelve—like I told ye, my dear. Ye-as. I did hate to lie to ye, an' you just new-come here. But I'd laid my plans for a long while back just to walk out, as it were, an' let these fellers 'round here have a taste o' Cap'n Am'zon Silt that they'd begun to doubt was ever comin' to Cardhaven. An' hi-mighty!" exploded Cap'n Abe, with a great laugh, "Ihavegive 'em a taste of him, I vum!"
"Oh, you have, Uncle Abram! You have!" agreed Louise, and burst, into laughter herself. "It is wonderful how you did it! It is marvelous! Howcouldyou?"
"Nothin' easier, when you come to think on't," replied Cap'n Abe. "I'd talked so much 'bout Cap'n Am'zon that he was a fixed idea in people's minds. I said when he come I'd go off on a v'y'ge. I'd fixed ev'rything proper for the exchange when you lit down on me, Niece Louise. Hi-mighty!" grinned Cap'n Abe, "at first I thought sure you'd spilled the beans."
Louise rippled another appreciative laugh. "Oh, dear!" she cried, clapping her hands together. "It's too funny for anything! How you startled Betty! Why, even Lawford Tapp was amazed at your appearance. You—you do look like an old pirate, Uncle Abram."
"Don't I?" responded Cap'n Abe, childishly delighted.
"That awful scar along your jaw—and you so brown," said the girl."How did you get that scar, Uncle Abram?"
"Fallin' down the cellar steps when I was a kid," said the storekeeper. "But these fellers think I must ha' got it through a cutlass stroke, or somethin'. Oh, I guess I've showed 'em what a real Silt should look like. Yes, sir! I cal'late I look the part of a feller that's roved the sea for sixty year or so, Niece Louise."
"You do, indeed. That red bandana—and the earrings—and the mustache—and stain. Why, uncle! even to that tattooing——"
He looked down at his bared arm and nodded proudly.
"Ye-as. That time I went away ten year ago and left Joab to run the store (and a proper mess he made of things!) I found a feller down in the South End of Boston and he fixed me up with this tattoo work for twenty-five dollars. Course, I didn't dare show it none here—kep' my sleeves down an' my throat-latch buttoned all winds and weathers. But now———"
He laughed again, full-throated and joyous like a boy. Then, suddenly, he grew grave.
"Niece Louise, I wonder if you can have any idea what this here dead-and-alive life all these years has meant to me? Lashed hard and fast to this here store, and to a stay-ashore life, when my heart an' soul was longin' to set a course for 'way across't the world? Sargasso—that's it. This was my Sargasso Sea—and I was smothered in it!"
"I think I understand, Cap'n Abe," the girl said softly, laying her hand in his big palm.
"An' now, Louise, that I've got a taste of romance, I don't want tocome back to humdrum things—no, sir! I want to keep right on bein'Cap'n Am'zon, and havin' even them old hardshells like Cap'n Joab andWashy Gallup look on me as a feller-salt."
"But how———?"
"They never really respected Cap'n Abe," her uncle hurried on to say. "I find my neighborsdidlove him, an' I thank God for that! But they knew he warn't no seaman, and a man without salt water in his blood don't make good with Cardhaven folks.
"But Cap'n Am'zon—he's another critter entirely. They mebbe think he's an old pirate or the like," and he chuckled again, "but they sartin sure respect him. Even Bet Gallup fears Cap'n Am'zon; but, to tell ye the truth, Niece Louise, she used to earwig Cap'n Abe!"
"But when theCurlewarrives home?" queried the girl suddenly.
"Hi-mighty, ye-as! I seethat," he groaned. "Looks to me as though somethin'll have to happen to Abe Silt 'twixt Boston and this port. And you'll have to stop your father's mouth, Louise. I depend upon you to help me. Otherwise I shall be undone—completely undone."
"Goodness!" cried the girl, choked with laughter again. "Do you mean to do away with Cap'n Abe? I fear you are quite as wicked as Betty Gallup believes you to be—and Aunt Euphemia."
He grinned broadly once more. "I got Cap'n Abe's will filed away already—if somethin' should happen," said the old intriguer. "Everything's fixed, Niece Louise."
"I'll help you," she declared, and gave him her hand a second time.
The next week Gusty Durgin made her debut as a picture actress. She had pestered Mr. Bane morn, noon, and night at the hotel until finally the leading man obtained Mr. Anscomb's permission to work the buxom waitress into a picture.
"But nothin' funny, Mr. Bane," Gusty begged. "Land sakes! It's the easiest thing in the world to get a laugh out of a fat woman fallin' down a sand bank, or a fat man bein' busted in the face with a custard pie. I don't want folks to laugh at my fat. I want 'em to forget that Iamfat."
"Do you know, Miss Grayling," said Bane, recounting this to Louise, "thatis art. Gusty has the right idea. Many a floweret is born to blush unseen, the poet says. But can it be we have found in Gusty Durgin a screen artist in embryo?"
Louise was interested enough to go to the beach early to watch Gusty in a moving picture part.
"A real sad piece 'tis, too," the waitress confided to Louise. "I got to make up like a mother—old, you know, and real wrinkled. And when my daughter (she's Miss Noyes) is driv' away from home by her father because she's done wrong, I got to take on like kildee 'bout it. It's awful touchin'. I jest cried about it ha'f the night when this Mr. Anscomb told me what I'd have to do in the picture.
"Land sakes! I can cry re'l tears with the best of 'em—you see if I can't, Miss Grayling. You ought to be a movie actress yourself. It don't seem just right that you ain't."
"But I fear I could not weep real tears," Louise said.
"No. Mebbe not. That's a gift, I guess," Gusty agreed. "There! I got to go now. He's callin' me. The boss's sister will have to wait on all the boarders for dinner to-day. An' my! ain't she sore! But if I'm a success in these pictures you can just believe the Cardhaven Inn won't seemepassin' biscuits and clam chowder for long."
In the midst of the rehearsal Louise saw a figure striding along the shore from the direction of Tapp Point, and her heart leaped. Already there seemed to be a change in the appearance of Lawford.
His sisters, who came frequently to see Louise at Cap'n Abe's, had told her their brother, was actually working in one of his father's factories. He had not even obtained a position in the office, but in the factory itself. He ran one of the taffy cutting machines, for one thing, and wore overalls!
"Poor Ford!" Cecile said, shaking her head. "He's up against it. I'm going to save up part of my pocket money for him—if he'll take it. I think daddy's real mean, and I've told him so. And when Dot Johnson comes I'm not going to treat her nice at all."
Lawford, however, did not look the part of the abused and disowned heir. He seemed brisker than Louise remembered his being before and his smile was as winning as ever.
"Miss Grayling!" he exclaimed, seizing both her hands.
"Lawford! I amsoglad to see you," she rejoined frankly. And then she had to pull her hands away quickly and raise an admonitory finger. "Walk beside me—and be good," she commanded. "Do you realize that two worlds are watching us—the world of The Beaches and the movie world as well?"
"Hang 'em!" announced Lawford with emphasis, his eyes shining. "Think! I've never even thanked you for what you did for me that day. I thought Betty Gallup hauled me out of the sea till Jonas Crabbe at the lighthouse put me wise."
"Never mind that," she said. "Tell me, how do you like your work? And why are you at home again?"
"I'm down here for the week-end—-to get some more of my duds, to tell the truth. I'm going to be a fixture at the Egypt factory—much to dad's surprise, I fancy."
"Do you like it?" she asked him, watching his face covertly.
"I hate it! But I can stick, just the same. I have a scheme for improving the taffy cutting machines, too. I think I've a streak in me for mechanics. I have always taken to engines and motors and other machinery."
"An inventor!"
"Yes. Why not?" he asked soberly, "Oh! I'm not going to be one of those inventors who let sharp business men cheat them out of their eye-teeth. If I improve that candy cutter it will cost I. Tapp real money, believe me!"
Louise's eyes danced at him in admiration and she dimpled. "I think you are splendid, Lawford!" she murmured.
It was a mean advantage to take of a young man. They were on the open beach and every eye from the lighthouse to Tapp Point might be watching them. Lawford groaned deeply—and looked it.
"Don't," she said. "I know it's because of me you have been driven to work."
"You know that, Miss Grayling? Louise!"
"Yes. I had a little talk with your father. He'ssucha funny man!"
"If you can find anything humorous about I. Tapp in his present mood you are a wonder!" he exclaimed. "Oh, Louise!" He could not keep his hungry gaze off her face.
"You're a nice boy, Lawford," she told him, nodding. "I liked you a lot from the very first. Now I admire you."
"Oh, Louise!"
"Don't look like that at me," she commanded. "They'll see you.And—and I feel as though I were about to be eaten."
"You will be," he said significantly. "I am coming to the store to-night. Or shall I go to see your aunt first?"
"You'd better keep away from Aunt Euphemia, Lawford," she replied, laughing gayly. "Wait till my daddy-prof comes home. See him."
"And you really love me? Do you? Please . . . dear!"
She nodded, pursing her lips.
"But eighteen dollars a week!" groaned Lawford. "I think the super would have made it an even twenty if it hadn't been for dad."
"Never mind," she told him, almost gayly. "Maybe the invention will make our fortune."
At that speech Lawford's cannibalistic tendencies were greatly and visibly increased. Louise was no coy and coquettish damsel without a thorough knowledge of her own heart. Having made up her mind that Lawford was the mate for her, and being confident that her father would approve of any choice she made, she was willing to let the young man know his good fortune.
Nor was Lawford the only person to learn her mind. Cap'n Abe said:
"Land sakes! you come 'way down here to the Cape to be took in by a feller like Ford Tapp, Niece Louise? I thought you was a girl with too much sense for that!"
"But what has love to do with sense, uncle?" she asked him, dimpling.
"Hi-mighty! I s'pect that's so. An', anyway, he does seem to improve. He's really gone to work, they tell me, in one of his father's candy factories."
"But that's the one thing about him I'm not sure I approve of," sighed Louise. "We could have so much better times if he and I could play along the shore this summer and not have to think about hateful money."
"My soul an' body!" gasped the storekeeper, as though she had spoken irreverently about sacred things. "Money ain't never hateful, Niece Louise."
On Sunday I. Tapp did not accompany his family to church at Paulmouth. Returning, the big car stopped before Cap'n Abe's store and Mrs. Tapp came in to call on Louise. The good woman hugged the girl and wept on her bosom.
"I'm so happy and so sorry, both together, that I'm half sick," she said. "Lawford is so proud and joyful that I could cry every time I look at him. And his father's so cross and unhappy that I have to cry for him, too."
Which seemed to prove that Mrs. Tapp was being kept in a moist state most of the time.
"But I know I. Tapp is sorry for what he's done. Only there's no use expectin' him to admit it, or that he'll change. If Fordy won't marry Dot Johnson I. Tapp will never forgive him. I don't know what I shall say to her when she does come."
"Maybe she will not appear at all," Louise suggested comfortingly.
"I don't know. I got a letter from her mother putting the visit off till later. But it can't be put off forever. Anyhow, when she comes Lawford says he won't be at home. I hope the girls will act nice to her."
"Iwill," Louise assured her. "And I'll make Mr. Tapp like me yet; you see if I don't."
"Oh, I can't hope for that much, my dear," sighed the lachrymose lady, shaking her head; but she kissed Louise again.
Lawford waved a hand to her at her chamber window early on Monday morning as L'Enfant Terrible drove him in the roadster to Paulmouth to catch the milk train. All the girls were proud of their brother because, as Cecile said, he was proving himself to be "such a perfectly good sport after all." And perhaps I. Tapp himself admired his son for the pluck he was showing.
They corresponded after that—Louise and Lawford. As she could not hope to hear from theCurlewagain until the schooner made the port of Boston, Lawford's letters were the limit of her correspondence. Louise had always failed to make many close friends among women.
Her interests aside from those at the store and with the movie people were limited, too. The butterfly society of The Beaches did not much attract Louise Grayling.
Aunt Euphemia manifestly disapproved of her niece at every turn. The Lady from Poughkeepsie had remained on the Cape for the full season in the hope of breaking up the intimacy between Louise and Lawford Tapp. His absence, which she had believed so fortunate, soon proved to be merely provocative of her niece's interest in the heir of the Taffy King.
Nor could she wean Louise from association with the piratical looking mariner at Cap'n Abe's store. The girl utterly refused to be guided by the older woman in either of these particulars.
"You are a reckless, abandoned girl!" Aunt Euphemia declared. "I am sure, no matter what others may say, that awful sailor is no fit companion for you.
"And as, for Lawford Tapp——Why, his people are impossible, Louise. Wherever you have your establishment, if you marry him, his people, when they visit you will have to be apologized for," the indignant woman continued.
"Let—me—see," murmured Louise. "How large an 'establishment' should you think, auntie, we could keep up on eighteen dollars a week?"
"Eighteen dollars a week!" exclaimed Aunt Euphemia, aghast.
"Yes. That is Lawford's present salary. Wages, I think they call it at the factory. He gets it in cash—in a pay envelope."
"Mercy, Louise! You are not in earnest?"
"Certainly. My young man is going to earn our living. If he marries me his father will cut him off with the proverbial shilling. I. Tapp has other matrimonial plans for Lawford."
"What?" gasped the horrified Mrs. Conroth. "He does not approve of you?"
"Too true, auntie. I have driven poor Lawford to work in a candy factory."
"That—that upstart!" exploded the lady. But she did not refer toLawford.
It was evident that Aunt Euphemia saw nothing but the threat of storm clouds for her niece in the offing. Trouble, deep and black, seemed, to her mind to be hovering upon the horizon of the future,
As it chanced, the weather about this time seemed to reflect AuntEuphemia's mood. The summer had passed with but few brief tempests.Seldom had Louise seen any phase of the sea in its wrath.
September, however, is an uncertain month at best. For several days a threatening haze shrouded the distant sea line. The kildees, fluttered and shrieked over the booming surf.
Washy Gallup, meeting Louise as she strolled on the beach, prognosticated:
"Shouldn't be surprised none, Miss Lou, if we had a spell of weather.Mebbe we'll have an airly equinoctooral. We sometimes do.
"Then ye'll hear the sea sing psalms, as the feller said, an' no mistake. Them there picture folks'll mebbe git a show at a re'l storm. That's what they been wishin' for—an' a wreck off shore. Land sakes! if they'd everseeda ship go to pieces afore their very eyes they wouldn't ask for a second helpin'—no, ma'am!"
That evening threatening clouds rolled up from seaward and mantled the arch of the sky. The fishing boats ran to cover in the harbor before dark. The surf rumbled louder and louder along the shore.
And all night the sea mourned its dead over Gull Rocks.