Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
moments wordlessly, found no speech adequate, and stamped out of the
store. He no longer dreaded to meet Polly Candage. He felt that he
needed to see her. He was seeking the comfort of sanity in that shore
world of incomprehensible lunacy; he had had experience with Polly
Candage's soothing calmness.
She came out from her little school and controlled her emotions with
difficulty when she saw his piteous condition.
“Let's walk where I can feel the comfort of green grass under my feet,”
he pleaded; “that may seem real! Nothing else does!”
By her matter-of-fact acceptance of him and his appearance and his mood
she calmed him as they walked along.
“And even Rowley,” he added, after his blunt confession of failure, “he
has just turned me down. He won't follow his five thousand with another
cent. The old rascal deserves to be cheated if we fail. He is telling
me that he always believed we would never make good in the job. Is he
crazy, or am I?”
“Make all allowances for Deacon Rowley,” she pleaded. “Keep away from
him. He is not a consoling man. But there must be some way for you,
Boyd. Let us think! You have been keeping too close to the thing--to
your work--and there are other places besides Limeport.”
“There's New York--and there's a way,” he growled.
“You must try every chance; it means so much to you!”
“Is that your advice?”
“Certainly, Boyd!”
He stopped and pulled the sealed packet from his coat. In the stress of
his despair and resentment he was brutal rather than considerate.
“There are papers in there with which I can club Julius Marston until
he squeals. I haven't seen them, but I know well enough what they are. I
can scare him into giving back all he has taken away from me. I can make
him give back a lot to other folks. And from those other folks I can get
money to finish our work on the _Conomo_. Look at the monogram on that
seal, Polly!” He pointed grimy finger and held the packet close.
“From--Miss Marston?” she asked, tremulously.
“Yes, Polly.”
“And she is helping you?”
“I suppose she is trying to.”
“Well, it's what a girl should do when she loves a man,” she returned.
But she did not look at him and her lips were white.
“And you think I ought to use her help?”
“Yes.” She evidently realized that her tone was a mere quaver of assent,
for she repeated the word more firmly.
“But these papers are not hers, Polly. She stole them--or somebody stole
them for her--from her own father,” he went on, relentlessly.
“She must love you very much, Boyd.”
They turned away from each other and gazed in opposite directions. He
was wondering, as he had through many agonized hours, just what motive
was influencing Alma Marston in those later days. With all his soul
he wanted to question Polly Candage--to get the light of her woman's
instinct on his troubled affairs; but the nature of the secret he was
hiding put effective stopper on his tongue.
“Under those circumstances, no matter what kind of a sacrifice she has
made for you, you ought to accept it, Boyd.”
“I want to accept it; every impulse in me says to go in and grab. Polly,
hell-fire is blazing inside of me. I want to tear them down--the whole
of them. I do! You needn't jump! But if I use those papers which that
girl has stolen from her father I'll be a dirty whelp. You know it, and
I know it! Suppose you should tell me some secret about your own father
so I could use it to cheat him out of his share of our partnership? You
might mean all right, but after I had used it you would hate me! Now
wouldn't you?”
“Perhaps--probably I wouldn't hate you,” she stammered. “But I'd think
more of you if you--yes, I'm sure I'd think more of you if you didn't
take advantage of my foolishness.”
“That's it, exactly! Any man, if I told him about this situation, would
say that I'm a fool not to use every tool I can get hold of. But
you understand better! I'm glad I came to talk with you. I have been
dreadfully tempted. Your advice is keeping me straight!”
“I have not advised you, Boyd!”
“You don't need to use words! It's your instinct telling me what is
right to do. You wouldn't think it was a square deal for me to use these
papers, would you?”
“If you love her so much that you're willing to sacrifice yourself and
your work and--”
“Say it, Polly! I'm sacrificing your father, too! It's for a notion--not
much else!”
“No, it must be because you love her so much. You are afraid she will
think less of you if you take advantage of her. I think your stand is
noble, Boyd!”
“I don't! I think it's infernal foolishness, and I wish the Mayo breed
didn't have so much of that cursed stiff-necked conscience! Our family
wouldn't be where it is to-day.” He spoke with so much heat that she
turned-wondering eyes on him.
“But it's for her sake, Boyd! It's--”
“Nothing of the sort! That is, it isn't as you think it is.”
“I only think you love her.”
“I don't want you to say that--or believe it!” he raved. “If you only
knew--if I could tell you--you'd see that it's insulting my common sense
to say that I'm in love with Alma Marston. I don't love her! I--I don't
know just where I stand. I don't know what's the matter with me. I'm in
the most damnable position a man can be in. And I'm talking like a fool.
Isn't that so?”
“I don't understand you,” she faltered.
“Of course you don't. I reckon I'm a lunatic. I'll be rolling over here
and biting the grass next!”
His passion puzzled her. His flaming eyes, his rough beard, his rage,
and all the uncouth personality of him shocked her.
“Boyd, what--whatever is the matter? I'm afraid.”
“I don't blame you. I'm afraid of myself these days!” He shook his
swollen fists over his head.
“It ought to encourage you because she is trying to help you!”
“Be still!” he roared. “You don't know what you're talking about. Help
me! There are women who can help a man--do help a man, every turn he
makes. There are other women who keep kicking him down into damnation
even when they think they are helping. I'm not going to stay here any
longer. I mustn't stay, Polly. I'll be saying things worse than what I
have said. What I said about women doesn't refer to you! You are true
and good, and I envy that man, whoever he is.”
He started down the slope toward the beach.
“Are you going back to the wreck?” she asked, plaintively.
“To the wreck!”
“But wait!” She could not control either her feelings or her voice.
“I can't wait. I don't dare to stay another minute!”
She called again and he halted at a little distance and faced her. He
was absolutely savage in demeanor and tone.
“Remember what I said about her! Don't insult my common sense! She
is--Oh, no matter!” He shook his fists again and went on his way.
She stood on the hillside and watched him row out to the little
schooner. And through her tears she did not know whether he waved salute
to her with those poor, work-worn hands, or again shook his fists. He
made some sort of a flourish over the rail of the quarter-deck. The
grieving and mystified girl was somberly certain that his troubles had
touched Mayo's wits.
XXXI ~ THE BIG FELLOW HIMSELF
Will had promised his Sue that this trip, if well ended,
Should coil up his ropes and he'd anchor on shore.
When his pockets were lined, why his life should be mended,
The laws he had broken he'd never break more.
--Will Watch.
They needed food, lease-money for their hired equipment was due, and the
dependents at Maquoit must be looked after.
Pride and hope had inspired the crew at Razee to salvage the _Conomo_
intact. Material removed from her would immediately become junk to be
valued at junk prices, instead of being a valuable and active asset
on board. But there was no other resource in sight. No word came from
Captain Wass; and Mayo had put little confidence in that possibility,
anyway.
There was nothing else to do--they must sell off something on which they
could realize quickly.
In the estimation of many practical men this procedure would have been
a warrantable makeshift, its sole drawback being a sacrifice of values.
But to the captains on Razee it seemed like the beginning of complete
surrender; it was the first step toward the dismantling of the
steamship. It was making a junk-pile of her, and they confessed to
themselves that they would probably be obliged to keep on in the work of
destruction. In the past their bitterest toil had been spiced with the
hope of big achievement; the work they now set themselves to do was
melancholy drudgery.
They brought the _Ethel and May_ alongside and loaded into her the
anchors, chains, spare cables, and several of the life-boats. Mayo took
charge of the expedition to the main.
The little schooner, sagging low with her burden, wallowed up the harbor
of Limeport just before sunset, one afternoon. Early June was abroad
on the seas and the pioneer yachting cruisers had been coaxed to the
eastward; Mayo saw several fine craft anchored inside the breakwater
and paid little attention to them. He paced the narrow confines of his
quarter-deck and felt the same kind of shame a ruined man feels when he
is on his way to the pawnshop for the first time. He had his head down;
he hated to look forward at the telltale cargo of the schooner.
“By ginger! here's an old friend of yours, this yacht!” called Mr.
Speed, who was at the wheel.
They were making a reach across the harbor to an anchorage well up
toward the wharves, and were passing under the stern of a big yacht.
Mayo looked up. It was the _Olenia_.
“But excuse me for calling it a friend, Captain Mayo,” bawled the mate,
with open-water disregard of the possibilities of revelation in his
far-carrying voice.
A man rose from a chair on the yacht's quarter-deck and came to the
rail. Though the schooner passed hardly a biscuit-toss away, the man
leveled marine glasses, evidently to make sure that what he had guessed,
after Mr. Speed's remark, was true.
Mayo felt an impulse to turn his back, to dodge below. But he did
not retreat; he walked to his own humble rail and scowled up into the
countenance of Julius Mar-ston. The schooner was sluggish and the breeze
was light, and the two men had time for a prolonged interchange of
visual rancor.
“I didn't mean to holler so loud, Captain Mayo,” barked Oakum Otie,
in still more resonant manner, to offer apology. “But seeing her, and
remembering last time I laid eyes on her--”
“Shut up!” commanded the master. “I'll take the wheel. Go forward and
clear cable, and stand by for the word!”
He looked behind, in spite of himself, and saw that a motor-tender
had come away from the _Olenia_. It foamed along in the wake of
the schooner. It circled her after it had passed, and kept up those
manouvers until the schooner's anchor was let go. Then the tender came
to the side and stopped. The mate and engineer in her were new men; Mayo
did not know them. The mate tipped respectful salute and stated that Mr.
Marston had sent them to bring Captain Mayo on board the yacht at once.
“My compliments to Mr. Marston. But I am not able to come.”
They went away, but returned in a short time, and the mate handed a note
over the rail. It was a curt statement, dictated and typewritten, that
Mr. Marston wished to see Captain Mayo on business connected with
the _Conomo_, and that if Captain Mayo were not able to transact that
business Mr. Marston would be obliged to hunt up some other party who
could do business regarding the _Conomo_. Remembering that he had the
interests of others to consider, Mayo dropped into the tender, sullen,
resentful, wondering what new test of his endurance was to be made, and
feeling peculiarly ill-equipped, in his present condition of courage and