Every Man for Himself Part 38

"One," Jehoshaphat began.

John Wull seemed not to hear.

"Two," said Jehoshaphat. "Three-four-five-six-seven."

John Wull did not turn.

"Eight."

There was no sign of relenting.

"Nine."

Jehoshaphat paused. "G.o.d's mercy!" he groaned, "don't you be a fool, Mister Wull," he pleaded. "Doesn't you _know_ what the weather is?"

A wave-the lop raised by the wind-broke over the pan. John Wull stood up. There came a shower of snow.

"Eh?" Jehoshaphat demanded, in agony.

"I won't give in," said old John Wull.

"Then I got t' say ten. I jus' _got_ to."

"I dare you."

"I will, Mister Wull. Honest, I will! I'll say ten an you don't look out."

"Why don't you _do_ it?"

"In a minute, Mister Wull. I'll say it just so soon as I get up the sail. I will, Mister Wull, honest t' G.o.d!"

The coast had vanished.

"Look," cried Jehoshaphat, "we're doomed men!"

The squall, then first observed, sent the sea curling over the ice.

Jehoshaphat's rodney s.h.i.+pped the water it raised. Snow came in a blinding cloud.

"Say ten, you fool!" screamed old John Wull.

"Ten!"

John Wull came to the edge of the pan. 'Twas hard for the old man to breast the gust. He put his hands to his mouth that he might be heard in the wind.

"I give in!" he shouted.

Jehoshaphat managed to save the lives of both.

Old John Wull, with his lean feet in a tub of hot water, with a gray blanket over his shoulders, with a fire sputtering in the stove, with his housekeeper hovering near-old John Wull chuckled. The room was warm and his stomach was full, and the wind, blowing horribly in the night, could work him no harm. There he sat, sipping herb tea to please his housekeeper, drinking whiskey to please himself. He had no chill, no fever, no pain; perceived no warning of illness. So he chuckled away. It was all for the best. There would now surely be peace at Satan's Trap.

Had he not yielded? What more could they ask? They would be content with this victory. For a long, long time they would not complain. He had yielded; very well: Timothy Yule should have his father's meadow, Dame Jowl her garden and sweets and cheese, the young Lower be left in possession of the cod-trap, and there would be no law. Very well; the folk would neither pry nor complain for a long, long time: that was triumph enough for John Wull. So he chuckled away, with his feet in hot water, and a gray blanket about him, bald and withered and ghastly, but still feeling the comfort of fire and hot water and whiskey, the pride of power.

And within three years John Wull possessed again all that he had yielded, and the world of Satan's Trap wagged on as in the days before the revolution.

----- [1] A rodney is a small, light boat, used for getting about among the ice packs, chiefly in seal-hunting.

X-THE SURPLUS

To the east was the illimitable ocean, laid thick with moonlight and luminous mist; to the west, beyond a stretch of black, slow heaving water, was the low line of Newfoundland, an illusion of kindliness, the malignant character of its jagged rock and barren interior transformed by the gentle magic of the night. Tumm, the clerk, had the wheel of the schooner, and had been staring in a rapture at the stars.

"Jus' readin', sir," he explained.

I wondered what he read.

"Oh," he answered, turning again to contemplate the starlit sky, "jus' a little psa'm from my Bible."

I left him to read on, myself engaged with a perusal of the serene and comforting text-book of philosophy spread overhead. The night was favorably inclined and radiant: a soft southerly wind blowing without menace, a sky of infinite depth and tender shadow, the sea asleep under the moon. With a gentle, aimlessly wandering wind astern-an idle, dawdling, contemptuous breeze, following the old craft lazily, now and again whipping her nose under water to remind her of suspended strength-the trader _Good Samaritan_ ran on, wing and wing, through the moonlight, bound across from Sinners' Tickle to Afterward Bight, there to deal for the first of the catch.

"Them little stars jus' _will_ wink!" Tumm complained.

I saw them wink in despite.

"Ecod!" Tumm growled.

The amus.e.m.e.nt of the stars was not by this altered to a more serious regard: everywhere they winked.

"I've seed un peep through a gale o' wind, a slit in the black sky, a cruel, cold time," Tumm continued, a pretence of indignation in his voice, "when 'twas a mean hard matter t' keep a schooner afloat in a dirty sea, with all hands wore out along o' labor an' the fear o' death an' h.e.l.l; an', ecod! them little cusses was winkin' still. Eh? What d'ye make o' that?-winkin' still, the heartless little cusses!"

There were other crises, I recalled-knowing little enough of the labor of the sea-upon which they winked.

"Ay," Tumm agreed; "they winks when lovers kiss on the roads; an' they winks jus' the same," he added, softly, "when a heart breaks."

"They're humorous little beggars," I observed.

Tumm laughed. "They been lookin' at this here d.a.m.ned thing so long," he drawled-meaning, no doubt, upon the spectacle of the world-"that no wonder they winks!"

This prefaced a tale.

"Somehow," Tumm began, his voice fallen rather despondent, I fancied, but yet continuing most curiously genial, "it always made me think o'

dust an' ashes t' clap eyes on ol' Bill Hulk o' Gingerbread Cove. Ay, b'y; but I could jus' fair hear the parson singsong that mean truth o'

life: 'Dust t' dust; ashes t' ashes'-an' make the best of it, ye sinners an' young folk! When ol' Bill hove alongside, poor man! I'd think no more o' maids an' trade, o' which I'm fair sinful fond, but on'y o'

coffins an' graves an' ground. For, look you! the ol' feller was so white an' wheezy-so fishy-eyed an' crooked an' shaky along o' age. 'Tis a queer thing, sir, but, truth o' G.o.d, so old was Bill Hulk that when he'd board me I'd remember somehow the warm breast o' my mother, an'