Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
“Get back into that boat, you and your gang, whatever it is!”
“Mr. Marston, this young woman needs--”
“Get into that boat, or I'll have the bunch of you thrown overboard!”
The owner spoke in low tones, but his furious determination was
apparent.
“We will go without being thrown, sir. Will you order us set aboard that
fisherman?” He pointed to the little schooner which was almost within
hailing distance.
“Get off! I don't care where you go!” He crowded past Mayo, seized his
daughter's arm, and led her aft.
She seemed to have expended all her determination in her sensational
outburst.
The captain met her pleading gaze as she turned to leave. “It's for the
best,” he declared, bravely. “I'll make good!”
The pathetic castaways from the _Polly_ made a little group at the
gangway, standing close to the rail, as if they feared to step upon the
white deck. Mate McGaw intercepted Mayo as he was about to join them.
“Hadn't I better stretch Section Two of the collision act a mite and
scare him with the prospect of a thousand-dollar fine?” asked the mate,
eagerly. “My glory, Captain Mayo, I'm so weak I can hardly stand up!
Who'd have thought it?”
“We'll go aboard the schooner, Mr. McGaw. It's the place for us.”
“Maybe it is, but I'll speak up if you say the word, and make him set
you ashore--even if I leave along with you?”
“Keep your job, sir. Will you pick up my few little belongings in my
stateroom and bring them to me, Mr. McGaw? I'd better stay here on deck
with my friends.” He emphasized the last word, and Captain Candage gave
him a grateful look. “I'm sorry, mates! I can't say any more!” Captain
Mayo did not allow himself to make further comment on the melancholy
situation. The others were silent; the affair was out of their
reckoning; they had no words to fit the case. Polly Candage stood
looking out to sea. He had hoped that she would give him a glance of
understanding sympathy, at least. But she did not, not even when he
helped her down the steps into the tender.
Mate McGaw came with the captain's bag and belongings, and promptly
received orders from the owner from the quarter-deck.
“Go on to the bridge and hail that schooner. Tell her we are headed for
New York and can't be bothered by these persons!”
Mr. McGaw grasped Mayo's hand in farewell, and then he hurried to his
duty. His megaphoned message echoed over their heads while the tender
was on its way.
“Ay, ay, sir!” returned the fishing-skipper, with hearty bellow. “Glad
to help sailors in trouble.”
“And that shows you--” blurted Captain Candage, and stopped his say in
the middle of his outburst when his daughter shoved a significant fist
against his ribs.
Captain Mayo turned his head once while the tender was hastening toward
the schooner. But there were no women in sight on the yacht's deck.
There was an instant's flutter of white from a stateroom port, but he
was not sure whether it was a handkerchief or the end of a wind-waved
curtain. He faced about resolutely and did not look behind again. Shame,
misery, hopelessness--he did not know which emotion was stinging him
most poignantly. The oarsmen in the tender were gazing upward innocently
while they rowed, but he perceived that they were hiding grins. His
humiliation in that amazing fashion would be the forecastle jest.
Through him these new friends of his had been subjected to insult. He
felt that he understood what Polly Candage's silence meant.
The next moment he felt the pat of a little hand on the fist he was
clenching on his knee.
“Poor boy!” she whispered. “I understand! It will come out right if you
don't lose courage.”
But she was not looking at him when he gave her a quick side-glance.
The fisherman had come into the wind, rocking on the long swell, dingy
sails flapping, salt-stained sides dipping and flashing wet gleams as
she rolled. Her men were rigging a ladder over the side.
“I want to say whilst we're here together and there's time to say it,”
announced Captain Candage, “that we are one and all mighty much obliged
for that invite you gave us to come aboard the yacht, sir, and we all
know that if--well, if things had been different from what they was you
would have used us all right. And what I might say about yachts and the
kind of critters that own 'em I ain't a-going to say.”
“You are improving right along, father,” observed Polly Candage, dryly.
“Still, I have my own idees on the subject. But that's neither here nor
there. You're a native and I'm a native, and I want ye should just look
at that face leaning over the lee rail, there, and then say that now we
know that we're among real friends.”
It was a rubicund and welcoming countenance under the edge of a rusty
black oilskin sou'wester hat, and the man was manifestly the skipper.
Every once in a while he flourished his arm encouragingly.
“Hearty welcome aboard the _Reuben and Esther_,” he called out when the
tender swung to the foot of the ladder. “What schooner is she, there?”
“Poor old _Polly_,” stated the master, first up the ladder. In his haste
to greet the fishing-skipper he left his daughter to the care of Captain
Mayo.
“That's too bad--too bad!” clucked the fishing-skipper, full measure of
sympathy in his demeanor. “She was old, but she was able, sir!”
“And here's another poor Polly,” stated Captain Candage. “I was fool
enough to take her out of a good home for a trip to sea.”
The skipper ducked salute. “Make yourself to home, miss. Go below. House
is yours!”
Then the schooner lurched away on her shoreward tack, and the insolent
yacht marched off down across the shimmering waves.
Mayo shook hands with the solicitous fisherman in rather dreamy and
indifferent fashion. He realized that he was faint with hunger, but he
refused to eat. Fatigue and grief demanded their toll in more imperious
fashion than hunger. He lay down in the sun in the lee alley, put his
head on his crossed arms, and blessed sleep blotted out his bitter
thoughts.
XI ~ A VOICE FROM HUE AND CRY
But when the money's all gone and spent,
And there's none to be borrowed and none to be lent,
In comes old Grouchy with a frown,
Saying, “Get up, Jack, let John sit down.”
For it's now we're outward bound,
Hur-rah, we're outward bound!
--Song of the Dog and Bell.
Captain Mayo, when he woke, had it promptly conveyed to him that
hospitality on board the _Reuben and Esther_ had watchful eyes. While he
was rubbing feeling back into his stiffened limbs, sitting there in the
lee alley, the cook came lugging a pot of hot coffee and a plate heaped
with food.
“Thought you'd rather have it here than in the cuddy. The miss is asleep
in the house,” whispered the cook.
Captain Candage came to Mayo while the latter was eating and sat down on
the deck. Gloom had settled on the schooner's master. “I don't want to
bother you with my troubles, seeing that you've got aplenty of your own,
sir. But I'm needing a little advice. I have lost a schooner that has
been my home ever since I was big enough to heave a dunnage-bag over
the rail, and not a cent of insurance. Insurance would have et up all my
profits. What do you think of my chances to make a dollar over and above
providing I hire a tugboat and try to salvage?”
“According to my notion your chances would be poor, sir. Claims in such
cases usually eat up all a craft is worth. Besides, you may find those
yachtsmen on your back for damages, providing you get her in where she
can be libeled.”
“I shouldn't wonder a mite,” admitted Captain Can-dage. “The more some
folks have the more they keep trying to git.”
“I was looking her bottom over while we sat there, and it must be owned
up that her years have told on her.”
“I hate to let her go.”
“That's natural, sir. But I have an idea that she will be reported as
a menace to navigation, and that a coastguard cutter will blow her up
before you can get around to make your salvage arrangements.”
“When a man is down they all jump on him.”
“I can agree with you there,” affirmed Captain Mayo, mournfully.
“She showed grit--that girl,” ventured Candage, giving the other man
keen survey from under his grizzled brows.
“I must ask you to furl sail on that subject, sir,” snapped Mayo, with
sailor bluntness.
“I only said it complimentary. Lots of times girls have more grit than
they are given credit for. You think they're just girls, and then you
find out that they are hero-ines! I thought I had some grit, but my own
Polly has shamed me. I was just down watching her--she's asleep in Cap'n
Sinnett's bunk. Made the tears come up into my eyes, sir, to ponder
on what she has been through on account of my cussed foolishness. Of
course, you haven't been told. But confession is good for a man, and I'm
going to own up. I took her with me to get her away from a fellow who is
courting her.”
Mayo did not offer comment. He wanted to advise the skipper to keep
still on that subject, too.
“I don't say he ain't good enough for her. Maybe he is. But I 'ain't
been realizing that she has growed up. When I found she was being
courted it was like hitting a rock in a fairway. You are young, and you
are around consid'able and know the actions of young folks. What's your
advice?”
“I don't know anything about the circumstances, sir.”
“But speaking generally,” insisted Captain Candage. “I want to do what's
right. There ain't many I can bring myself to ask. I'm a poor old fool,
I'm afraid. Won't you kind of grab in on this, Captain Mayo? I do need a
little advice.” His rough hands trembled on his knees.
“If the young man is worthy--is the right sort,” returned Mayo, in
gentler tones, “I think you are making a great mistake by interfering.”
“I'll go look that young fellow over--re-survey him, as ye might say,”
stated the skipper, after a moment's meditation.
“I don't know your daughter very well, sir, but I have much faith in her
judgment. If I were you I'd allow her to pick her own husband.”
“Thanks for that advice. I know it comes from a man who has shown that
he knows exactly what to do in emergencies. I have changed my mind about
her being courted, sir.”
“Honest love isn't a question of money, Captain Candage. Many good girls
are ruined by--” He was speaking bitterly and he checked himself. “Where
is Captain Sinnett going to set us ashore?”
“Maquoit. He is going to take his fish to the big market. But he said he
would set us ashore anywhere, and so I said Maquoit. I might as well be
there as anywhere till I know what I'm going to do.”
“Same thing holds good for me, I suppose. I don't feel like going to the
city just yet.”
Captain Sinnett came rolling into the alley, and when Mayo started to
thank him for the trouble he was taking he raised in genial protest a
hand which resembled in spread a split codfish.
“Trouble! It ain't trouble. Was going to call into Maquoit to ice up,
anyway. I know my manners even if them yachting fellows didn't.”
Captain Candage preserved the demeanor of innocence under Mayo's
scrutiny.
“I've missed you off the fishing-grounds--didn't know you had gone on to
a yacht, sir,” pursued Captain Sinnett. “Hope to see you back into the
fishing business again; that is, providing you don't go on one of
them beam trawlers that are hooking up the bottom of the Atlantic and
sp'iling the thing entire for us all.”
“I agree with you about the trawler; that's why I quit. And as to
yachting, I think I'll go after a real man's job, sir!”
“So do! You'll be contenteder,” replied the other, significance in his
tones.
Mayo knew that his secret had been exposed, but he had no relish for an
argument with Captain Candage on the subject of garrulity. He finished