Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
“Certainly not,” stated the spokesman. “If you'll pass on there'll be no
words--or anything else.”
“Then we'll dispense with words!” The quick anger of youth flared in
Mayo. The air of the man rather than his words had offended deeply.
“You'd like to have this room to yourself so that you can attend to your
business, I presume?” he asked the operator.
“Yes, I would.”
Oakum Otie laid his folded paper upon the packet of Captain Mayo.
“You will leave the room gentlemen,” advised the captain.
Mr. Speed thrust out his bony elbows and cracked his hard fists
together. “I have never liked dudes,” he stated. “I have been brought up
that way. All my training with Cap'n Epps has been that way.”
“How do you fit into this thing?” demanded one of the yachtsmen.
“About like this,” averred Mr. Speed. He grabbed the young man by both
shoulders and ran him out into the night before anybody could interfere.
Then Mr. Speed reappeared promptly and inquired, “Which one goes next?”
“I think they will all go,” said the captain.
“Come on,” urged one of the party. “We can't afford to get into a brawl
with natives.”
“You bet you can't,” retorted Oakum Otie. “I hain't hove bunches of
shingles all my life for nothing!”
Mayo said nothing more. But after the yachtsmen had looked him over they
went out, making the affair a subject for ridicule.
“Hope I done right and showed to you that I was thankful for good
advice,” suggested Mr. Speed, seeking commendation.
“Just a bit hasty, sir.”
“Maybe, but there's nothing like handing folks a sample just to show up
the quality of the whole piece.”
“I thank you--both of you,” said the grateful operator.
“You'd better lock your door,” advised Mayo. “Men are thoughtless when
they have nothing to do except play.”
“I am so grateful! And I'm going to break an office rule,” volunteered
the girl. “I shall send off your telegrams first.”
“And I hope you can tuck that little one in second--it won't take
up much room!” pleaded Oakum Otie. “It's to help an awful pretty
girl--looks are a good deal like yours!”
“I'll attend to it,” promised the young woman, blushing.
Outside in the village street Mr. Speed wiped his rough palm against the
leg of his trousers and offered his hand to the captain. “I'll have to
say good-by to you here, sir. I've got a little errunting to do--fig o'
terbacker and a box of stror'b'ries. I confess to a terrible tooth for
stror'b'ries. When the hanker ketches me and I can't get to stror'b'ries
my stror'b'ry mark shows up behind my ear. I hope I have done right in
sending off that tele-graft for her--but it's too bad that a landlubber
beau is going to get such a pretty girl.” Then Oakum Otie sighed and
melted away into the foggy gloom.
When Captain Mayo was half-way down the harbor, on his way back to the
yacht, he was confronted by a spectacle which startled him. The fog
was suddenly painted with a ruddy flare which spread high and flamed
steadily. His first fears suggested that a vessel was on fire. The
_Olenia_ lay in that direction. He commanded his men to pull hard.
When he burst out of the mists into the zone of the illumination his
misgivings were allayed, but his curiosity was roused.
A dozen yacht tenders flocked in a flotilla near the stern of a rusty
old schooner. All the tenders were burning Coston lights, and from
several boats yachtsmen were sending off rockets which striped the pall
of fog with bizarre colorings.
The stern of the schooner was well lighted up by the torches, and Mayo
saw her name, though he did not need that name to assure him of her
identity; she was the venerable _Polly_.
The light which flamed about her, showing up her rig and lines, was
weirdly unreal and more than ever did she seem like a ghost ship.
The thick curtain of the mist caught up the flare of the torches and
reflected it upon her from the skies, and she was limned in fantastic
fashion from truck to water-line. Shadows of men in the tenders were
thrown against the fog-screen in grotesque outline, and a spirit crew
appeared to be toiling in the top-hamper of the old schooner.
Captain Mayo ordered his men to hold water and the tender drifted close
to the flotilla. He spied a yacht skipper whom he had known when both
were in the coasting trade.
“What's the idea, Duncan?”
His acquaintance grinned. “Serenade for old Epps Candage's girl--handed
to her over his head.” He pointed upward.
Projecting over the schooner's rail was the convulsed countenance of
Captain Candage. Choler seemed to be consuming him. The freakish light
painted everything with patterns in arabesque; the captain's face looked
like the countenance of a gargoyle.
Mayo, observing with the natural prejudice of a “native,” detected
mockery in the affair. He had just been present at one exhibition of the
convivial humor of larking yachtsmen.
“What's the special excuse for it?” he asked, sourly.
“According to the story, Epps has brought her with him on this trip to
break up a courting match.”
“Well, does that have anything to do with this performance?”
“Oh, it's only a little spree,” confessed the other. “It was planned out
on our yacht. Old Epps made himself a mucker to-day by sassing some of
the gents of the fleet, and the boys are handing him a little something.
That's all! It's only fun!”
“According to my notion it's the kind of fun that hurts when a girl is
concerned, Duncan.”
“Just as serious as ever, eh? Well, my notion is that a little
good-natured fun never hurts a pretty girl--and they say this one is
some looker! Oh, hold on a minute, Boyd!” The master of the _Olenia_ had
turned away and was about to give an order to his oarsmen. “You ought to
stop long enough to hear that new song one of the gents on the _Sunbeam_
has composed for the occasion. It's a corker. I heard 'em rehearsing it
on our yacht.”
In spite of his impatient resentment on behalf of the daughter of Epps
Candage, Captain Mayo remained. Just then the accredited minstrel of
the yachtsmen stood up, balancing himself in a tender. He was clearly
revealed by the lights, and was magnified by the aureole of tinted fog
which surrounded him. He sang, in waltz time, in a fine tenor:
“Our Polly O,
O'er the sea you go;
Fairer than sunbeam, lovely as moon-gleam,
All of us love thee so!
While the breezes blow
To waft thee, Polly O,
We will be true to thee,
Crossing the blue to thee,
Polly--Polly!
Dear little Polly,
Polly--O-O-O!”
He finished the verse and then raised both arms with the gesture of a
choral conductor.
“All together, now, boys!”
They sang with soul and vigor and excellent effect.
Ferocity nearly inarticulate, fury almost apoplectic, were expressed by
the face above the weather-worn rail.
“They say that music soothes the savage breast, but it don't look like
it in this case,” observed Captain Duncan with a chuckle.
“Clear off away from here, you drunken dudes! I'll have the law on ye!
I'll have ye arrested for--for breaking the peace.”
That threat, considering the surroundings, provoked great hilarity.
“Give way all! Here comes a cop!” warned a jeering voice.
“He's walking on the water,” explained another.
“The man must be a fool,” declared Captain Mayo. “If he'd go below and
shut up, they'd get tired and leave in a few minutes.”
However, Captain Candage seemed to believe that retreat would be greatly
to his discredit. He continued to hang over the rail, discharging as
complete a line of deep-water oaths as ever passed the quivering lips of
a mariner. Therefore the playful yachtsmen were highly entertained and
stayed to bait him still further. Every little while they sang the Polly
song with fresh gusto, while the enraged skipper fairly danced to it in
his mad rage and flung his arms about like a crazy orchestra leader.
Mr. Speed came rowing in his dory, putting out all his strength,
splashing his oars. “My Gawd! Cap'n Mayo,” he gasped, “I heard 'em
hollering 'Oh, Polly!' and I was 'feard she was afire. What's the
trouble?”
“You'd better get on board, sir, and induce Captain Candage to go below
and keep still. He is fast making a complete idiot of himself.”
“I hain't got no influence over him. I ask and implore you to step on
board and soothe him down, sir. You can do it. He'll listen to a Mayo.”
“I'd better not try. It's no job for a stranger, Mr. Speed.”
“He'll be heaving that whole deckload of shingles at 'em next!”
“Get his daughter to coax him.”
“He won't listen to her when he's that fussed up!”
“I'm sorry! Give way men!”
His rowers dropped their oars into the water and pulled away with
evident reluctance.
“Better stay and see it out,” advised Captain Duncan.
“I don't care much for your show,” stated Mayo, curtly.
The cabin curtains were drawn on the _Olenia_, and he felt especially
shut away from human companionship. He went forward and paced up and
down the deck, turning over his troubled affairs in his mind, but making
poor shift in his efforts to set anything in its right place.
There were no indications that the serenading yachtsmen were becoming
tired of their method of killing time during a fog-bound evening. They
had secured banjos and mandolins, and were singing the Polly song with
better effect and greater relish. And continually the hoarse voice of
the _Polly's_ master roared forth malediction, twisted into new forms of
profanity.
But Captain Mayo, pacing under the damp gleam of the riding-light, paid
but little heed to the hullabaloo. He was too thoroughly absorbed in
his own troubles to feel special interest in what his neighbors were
doing. He did not even note that a fog-sodden breeze had begun to puff
spasmodically from the east and that the mists were shredding overhead.
However, all of a sudden, a sound forced itself on his attention; he
heard the chuckling of sheaves and knew that a sail was being hoisted.
The low-lying stratum of fog was still thick, and he could not perceive
the identity of the craft which proposed to take advantage of the
sluggish breeze. The “ruckle-ruckle” of the blocks sounded at quick
intervals and indicated haste; there was a suggestion of vicious
determination on the part of the men who were tugging at the halyards.
Then Captain Mayo heard the steady clanking of capstan pawls. He knew
the methods of the Apple-treers, their cautiousness, and their leisurely
habits, and he could scarcely believe that a coasting skipper was
intending to leave the harbor that night. But the capstan pawls began to
click in staccato, showing that the anchor had been broken out.
Protesting shouts from all about in the gloom greeted that signal.
There was no mistaking the hoarse voice of Captain Candage when it was
raised in reply; his tones had become familiar after that evening of
malediction.
“Dingdam ye, I know of a way of getting shet of the bunch of ye!”
“Don't try to shift your anchorage!”
“Anchorage be hossified! I'm going to sea!” bellowed the master of the
_Polly_.
“Down with that hook of yours! You'll rake this whole yacht fleet with
your old dumpcart!”
“You have driv' me to it! Now you can take your chances!”
The next moment Mayo heard the ripping of tackle and a crash.
“There go two tenders and our boat-boom! Confound it, man, drop your
hook!”
But from that moment Captain Candage, as far as his mouth was concerned,
preserved ominous silence. The splintery speech of havoc was more
eloquent.
Mayo could not see, but he understood in detail what damage was wrought
upon the delicate fabric of yachts by that unwieldy old tub of a
schooner. Here, another boat-boom carried away, as she sluggishly thrust
her bulk out through the fleet; there an enameled hull raked by her