The Golden Age of Pulp Fiction MEGAPACK ™, Vol. 1: George Allan England. George Allan England

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СКАЧАТЬ to leave you, Ruddy. None of us can go anywhere to-day. Hal’s coming home. Know that? We mustn’t be away when he comes!” The captain advanced once more. Half-way down the walk he paused, picked up a snail that had crawled out upon the distressful sand. He dropped the snail into the sheltering grass and went forward again. At the gate he stopped, leaned his crossed arms on the clean top-board, and for a moment peered at Jacob perched on the load of kelp that overflowed the time-worn, two-wheeled cart.

      “What is it, cap’n?” Jacob queried. “Somethin’ I kin do fer you?”

      “No, nothing you can do for me, but something you can do for Uncle Everett and for yourself, if you will.”

      At sound of that name the kelp-gatherer stiffened with sudden resentment.

      “Nothin’ fer him, cap’n!” he ejaculated. “He’s been accommodatin’ as a hog on ice to me, an’ the case is goin’ through. Nothin’ at all fer that damned—”

      “Wait! Hold on, Jacob!” the old man pleaded, raising his hand. “You can’t gain anything by violence and hate. I know you think he’s injured you grievously. He thinks the same of you. In his heart I know he’s sorry. You and he were friends for thirty years till this petty little quarrel came up. Jacob, is the whole boat worth cutting the cables of good understanding and letting yourselves drift on the reefs of hate? Is it, now?”

      “You been talkin’ with him ’bout me?” demanded Jacob irefully.

      “Well, maybe I have said a few words to Uncle Everett,” admitted the captain. “Uncle’s willing to go half-way to meet you.”

      “He’ll meet me nowheres ’cept in the court-room down to ’Sconset!” retorted Jacob with heat. “He done me a smart trick that time. I’ll rimrack him!”

      “We’ve all done smart tricks one time or another,” soothed the old captain. The sun through the arching elms flecked his white hair with moving bits of light; it narrowed the keen, earnest eyes of blue. “That’s human. It’s better than human to be sorry and to make peace with your neighbor. Uncle Everett’s not a bad man at heart, any more than you are. Half a dozen words from you would caulk up the leaking hull of your friendship. You’re not going to go on hating uncle, are you, when you could shake hands with him and be friends?”

      “Oh, ain’t I, huh?” demanded Jacob. “Why ain’t I?”

      “Because you’re a man and can think!” the captain smiled. “Harkness and Bill Dodge were bitter as gall six months ago, and Giles was ready to cut Burnett’s heart out, but I found they were human, after all.”

      “Yes, but they ain’t me!”

      “Are you less a man than they were?”

      “H-m! H-m!” grunted Jacob, floored. “I—I reckon not. Why?”

      “I’ve got nothing more to say for now,” the captain answered. “Good-by, Jacob!”

      The kelp-gatherer pushed back his straw hat, scratched his head, spat, and then broke out:

      “Mebbe it’d be cheaper, after all, to settle out o’ court rather ’n’ to law uncle. But shakin’ hands, an’ bein’ neighbors with that—that—”

      “Good day, Jacob!” the captain repeated. “One thing at a time. And if you come up-along to-morrow, lay alongside, and have another gam with me, will you?”

      To this Jacob made no answer, but slapped his reins on the lean withers of his horse. Creakingly the load of seaweed moved away, with Jacob atop, rather dazed. The captain remained there at the gate, peering after him with a smile, kindly yet shrewd.

      “Just like the others,” he murmured. “Can’t make port all on one tack. Got to watch the wind, and wear about and make it when you can. But if I know human nature, a month from to-day Jacob Plummer will be smoking his pipe down at Uncle Everett’s sail-loft.”

      The sound of piping voices, beyond the blacksmith-shop, drew the old captain’s attention thither. He assumed a certain expectancy. Into the pocket of his square-cut blue jacket he slid a hand. Along the street he peered—the narrow, rambling street sheltered by great elms through which, here and there, a glint of sunlit harbor shimmered blue.

      He had not long to wait. Round the bend by the smithy two or three children appeared; and after these came others, with a bright-haired girl of twenty or thereabout. The children had school-bags or bundles of books tightly strapped. Keeping pace with the teacher a little girl on either side held her hands. You could not fail to see the teacher’s smile, as wholesome, fresh and winning as that June day itself.

      At sight of the captain the boys in the group set up a joyful shout and some broke into a run.

      “Hey, lookit! There’s cap’n!” rose exultant cries. “There’s Cap’n Briggs!”

      Then the little girls came running, too; and all the children captured him by storm. Excited, the Airedale set up a clamorous barking.

      The riot ended only when the captain had been despoiled of the peppermints he had provided for such contingencies. Meanwhile the teacher, as trimly pretty a figure as you could meet in many a day’s journeying, was standing by the gate, and with a little heightened flush of color was casting a look or two, as of expectancy, up at Snug Haven.

      The old captain, smiling, shook his head.

      “Not yet, Laura,” he whispered. “He’ll be here before night, though. You’re going to let me keep him a few minutes, aren’t you, before taking him away from me?”

      She found no answer. Something about the captain’s smile seemed to disconcert her. A warm flush crept from her throat to her thickly coiled, lustrous hair. Then she passed on, down the shaded street; and as the captain peered after her, still surrounded by the children, a little moisture blurred his eyes.

      “God has been very good to me in spite of all!” he murmured. “Very, very good, and ‘the best is yet to be’!”

      He turned and was about to start back toward the house when the cloppa-cloppa-clop of hoofs along the street arrested his attention. Coming into view, past Laura and her group of scholars, an old-fashioned buggy, drawn by a horse of ripe years, was bearing down toward Snug Haven.

      In the buggy sat an old, old man, wizen and bent. With an effort he reined in the aged horse. The captain heard his cracked tones on the still afternoon air:

      “Pardon me, but can you tell me where Captain Briggs lives—Captain Alpheus Briggs?”

      A babel of childish voices and the pointing of numerous fingers obliterated any information Laura tried to give. The old man, with thanks, clucked to his horse, and so the buggy came along once more to the front gate of Snug Haven. There it stopped.

      Out of it bent a feeble, shrunken figure, with flaccid skin on deep-lined face, with blinking eyes behind big spectacles.

      “Is that you, captain?” asked a shaking voice that pierced to the captain’s heart with a stab of poignant recollection. “Oh, Captain—Captain Briggs—is that you?”

      The captain, turning pale, steadied himself by gripping at the whitewashed gate. For a moment his staring eyes met the eyes of the old, withered man in the СКАЧАТЬ