Chapter 9

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_ CHAPTER IX

Sears Kendrick never forgot that drive from the town hall. The pouring rain, the lurch and roll and bounce of the old chaise, the alternate thud and splash of the horse's hoofs, the black darkness--and the errand upon which he was going. Mike told him a little concerning the seizure. Judge Knowles had been, so Emmeline Tidditt and the doctor thought, appreciably easier during the day.

"He was like himself, the ould man was," said Mike. "I went in to see him this mornin'--he sent for me, you understand--and he give me the divil and all for not washin' the front room windows. 'Dom ye,' says he, 'I've only got a little while to look out of thim windows; don't you suppose I want thim so I _can_ look out of thim?' And the windows clean as clean all the time, mind ye. Sure, I didn't care: 'Twas just his way of bein' dacint to me. He give me a five dollar bill before I left, God rest him. And now----"

Mike was tremendously upset. The captain learned that the attack had developed about six, and the judge had grown steadily worse since. The upper windows of the Knowles house were bright with lights as they drove in at the yard gate. Mrs. Tidditt met them at the door. Her thin, hard face was tear-streaked and haggard.

"Oh, I'm so glad you've come, Cap'n Kendrick," she cried. "He's been askin' for you."

In the hall at the foot of the stairs Doctor Sheldon was waiting. They shook hands and Sears looked a question.

"Not a chance," whispered the doctor. "Barring miracles, he will go before morning. He shouldn't see any one, but he insisted on seeing you. I'll give you five minutes, no more. Don't excite him."

The judge looked up from the pillow as Sears tiptoed into the room. His face was flushed with fever, but otherwise he looked very much as when the captain last visited him. It did not seem possible that this could really be the end.

"Hello, Kendrick," whispered Judge Knowles. "Sit down. Sorry I can't shake hands with you."

The voice was weak, of course, but not much weaker than when he had last heard it. No, it did not seem possible. Captain Sears murmured something about his sorrow at finding the judge ill again.

"That's all right, that's all right," was the testy rejoinder. "You didn't expect to find me any other way, did you? Kendrick, I wasn't so far off when I talked about that graveyard trip, eh?... Umph--yes. How much time did Sheldon say you might have with me?... Don't fool around and waste any of it. How many minutes--come?"

"Five."

"Humph! He might have made it ten, blast him! Well, then listen. When I'm gone you're going to be the head of that Fair Harbor place. You're going to keep on being the head, I mean. I've fixed it so you'll get your salary."

"But, Judge----"

"Hush! Let me do the talking. Good Lord, man," with an attempt at a chuckle, "you wouldn't grudge me any of the little talk I have left, would you? You are to keep on being the head of the Fair Harbor--you _must_ for a year or so. And Elizabeth Berry is to be the manager and head, under you--if she wants to be. Understand?"

"Why, yes. But, Judge, how----"

"I've fixed it, I tell you. Wait a little while and you'll know how. But that isn't what I want to say to you. Lobelia is dead."

"What?"

"Don't keep asking me what. Listen. Lobelia Seymour--hanged if I'll call her Lobelia Phillips!--is dead. She died over a month ago. I got a letter this afternoon mailed in Florence by that husband of hers. There it is, on that table, by the tumbler.... Yes, that's it. Don't stop to read it now. Put it in your pocket. You will have time to read it. Time counts with me. Now listen, Kendrick."

He paused and asked for water. The captain put the glass to his lips. He swallowed once or twice and then impatiently jerked his head aside.

"There are two things you've got to promise me, Kendrick," he whispered, earnestly. "One is that, so long as you can fight, that condemned Egbert Phillips shan't have a cent of the Fair Harbor property, endowment fund, land or anything else. Will you fight the scamp for me, Kendrick?"

"Of course. The best I know how."

"You know more than most men in this town. I shouldn't have picked you for your job if you didn't. That's one thing--spike Egbert's guns. Here's the other: Look out for Elizabeth Berry."

The captain was not expecting this. He leaned back so suddenly that his chair squeaked. The sick man did not notice, or, if he did, paid no attention.

"She's Isaac Berry's daughter," he went on, "and Ike Berry was my best friend. More than that, she's a good girl, a fine girl. Her mother is more or less of a fool, but that isn't the girl's fault. Keep an eye on her, will you, Kendrick?"

"Why--why, I'll do what I can, of course."

"Like her, don't you?"

"Yes. Very much."

"You couldn't help it. She is pretty thick with that young Kent, I believe. He's a bright boy."

"Yes."

"All right.... But there's time enough for that; they're both young.... Watch her, Kendrick. See that she doesn't make too big mistakes. She--she's going to have a little money of her own pretty soon--just a little. Don't let that--that Phillips or--or anybody else get hold of it. I.... Oh, here you are! Confound you, Sheldon, you're a nuisance!"

The doctor opened the door and entered. He nodded significantly to Kendrick. The latter understood. So, too, did Judge Knowles.

"Time's up, eh?" he panted. "Well, all right, I suppose. Good luck to you, Kendrick. And good night."

He smiled cheerfully. One might have thought he expected to see his caller the next morning. The captain simply could not believe this was to be the last time.

"Good night, Judge," he said. "I'll drop in to-morrow, early."

The judge did not answer. His last word had to do with other things.

"Don't you forget, Kendrick," he whispered. "I've banked on you."

The feeling of the absolute impossibility of the situation still remained with Sears as Mike drove him to his own door and Judah helped him down from the chaise. It was not possible that a brain like that, a bit of machinery capable of thinking so clearly and expressing itself so vigorously, could be so near its final breakdown. A personality like Judge Knowles' could not end so abruptly. He would not have it so. The doctor must be mistaken. He was over pessimistic.

He sat in the rocking chair until nearly half-past one thinking of the judge's news, that Lobelia Phillips was dead, and of the charge to him. Fight Egbert--there was an element of humor in that; Knowles certainly did hate Phillips. But for him, Kendrick, to assume a sort of guardianship over the fortunes of Elizabeth Berry! The fun in that was too sardonic to be pleasant. He thought of many things before he retired, but the way ahead looked foggy enough. And behind the fog was--what? Why, little sunshine for him, in all human probability. Before blowing out his lamp he peered out of the window at the Knowles house. The lights there were still burning.

The next morning when he came out for breakfast, Judah met him with a solemn face.

"Bad news for Bayport this mornin', Cap'n Sears," said Judah. "Judge Knowles has gone. Slipped his cable about four o'clock, so Mike told me. There's a good man gone, by Henry! Don't seem hardly as if it could be, does it?"

That was exactly what Bayport said when it heard the ill tidings. It did not seem as if it could be. The judge had been so long a dominant figure in town affairs, his strong will had so long helped to mould and lead opinion and his shrewd common sense had so often guided the community, and individuals, through safe channels and out of troubled waters, that it was hard to comprehend the fact that he would lead and guide no more. He had many enemies, no man with his determined character could avoid that, but they were altogether of a type whose enmity was, to decent people, preferable to their friendship. During his life it had seemed as if he were a lonely man, but his funeral was the largest held in Bayport since the body of Colonel Seth Foster, killed at Gettysburg, was brought home from the front for burial.

It was a gloomy, drizzly day when the long line of buggies and carryalls and folk on foot followed the hearse to the cemetery amid the pines. Captain Sears, looking back at the procession, thought of the judge's many prophecies and grim jokes concerning this very journey, and he wondered--well, he wondered as most of us wonder on such occasions. Also he realized that, although their acquaintanceship had been brief, he was going to miss Judge Knowles tremendously.

"I wish I had been lucky enough to know him sooner," he told Judah that evening.

Judah pulled his nose reflectively. "It kind of surprised me," he observed, "to hear what the minister said about him. 'Twas the Orthodox minister, and he's pretty strict, too, but you heard him say that the judge was one of the best men in Ostable County. Yet he never went to meetin' what you'd call reg'lar and he did cuss consider'ble. He did now, didn't he, Cap'n Sears?"

Sears nodded. He was thinking and paying little attention to the Cahoon moralizing.

"Um-hm," went on Judah. "He sartin did. He never said 'sugar' when he meant 'damn.' But I don't know, I cal'late I'd ruther been sworn at by Judge Knowles than had a blessin' said over me by some others in these latitudes. The judge's cussin' would have been honest, anyhow. And he never put one of them swear words in the wrong place. They was always just where they belonged; even when he swore at me I always agreed with him."

Feeling, somehow, that the death of the man who had chosen and employed him for the position increased his responsibility in that position, Captain Sears worked harder than ever to earn his salary as general manager of the Fair Harbor. He had already made some improvements in systematizing and thereby saving money for the institution. The groceries, flour, tea, sugar, and the rest, had heretofore been purchased at Bassett's store in the village. He still continued to buy certain articles of Eliphalet, principally from motives of policy and to retain the latter's good will, but the bulk of supplies he contracted for in Boston at the houses from which he had so often bought stores for his ships. He could not go to the city and negotiate by word of mouth, more was the pity, and so was obliged to make his trades by mail, but he got bids from several firms and the results were quite worth while. Besides groceries he bought a hogshead of corned beef, barrels of crackers, a barrel of salt pork, and, from one of the local fishermen, a half dozen kegs of salt mackerel. The saving altogether was a very appreciable amount.

The Fair Harbor property included, besides the land upon which the house was situated, several acres of wood lot timbered with pine and oak. Mrs. Berry--or her daughter--had been accustomed to hire a man to cut and haul such wood as was needed, from time to time, for the stoves and fireplaces. Also, when repairs had to be done, they hired a carpenter to make them. Sears, when he got around to it, devoted some consideration to the wood and repair question and, after much haggling, affected a sort of three-cornered swap. Benijah Black, the carpenter, was a brother-in-law of Burgess Paine, who owned the local coal, wood, lumber and grain shop by the railway station. The captain arranged that Black should do whatever carpenter work might be needed at the Harbor and take his pay in wood at the wood lot, selling the wood--or a part of it--to Paine, for whom he was in debt for coal and lumber; and, also, for whom he, Black, was building a new storage shed. It was a complicated process, but it resulted in the Fair Harbor's getting its own firewood cut, hauled and split for next to nothing, its repair costs cut in half, its coal bills lessened, while Black and Paine seemed to be perfectly satisfied. Altogether it was a good deal of a managerial triumph, as even the manager himself was obliged to admit.

Elizabeth was loud in her praises.

"I don't see how you ever did it, Cap'n Kendrick," she declared. "And Benijah and Mr. Paine are just as contented as we are. It is a miracle."

Sears grinned. "I don't know quite how I did it, myself," he said. "'Twas the most complicated piece of steerin' I ever did, and if we come out without shipwreck it _will_ be a miracle! I'm goin' to tackle that hay question next. There's hay enough on that lower meadow of ours to pay for corn for the hens for quite a spell. I'll see if I can't make a dicker there somehow. Then if I can fix up a deal with the hens to trade corn for eggs, we'll come out pretty well, won't we?"

This sort of thing interested him and made him a trifle more contented with his work. His talents as a diplomat, such as they were, were needed continually. The interior of the Fair Harbor was a sort of incubator for petty squabbles, jealousies, prejudices and complaints, some funny, many ridiculous, and almost all annoying. The most petty he refused to be troubled with, bidding the complainants go to Mrs. Berry. His refusals were good-natured but determined.

"Well, I tell you, Miss Peasley," he said, when that lady had come to him with a long, involved wail concerning the manner in which Mrs. Constance Cahoon, who occupied the seat next her at table, insisted on keeping the window open all through meals, "so's I sit there with a draft blowin' right down my neck the whole time." "I tell you, Miss Peasley," said the captain, "if I were you I would shut the window."

"But I do shut it," declared Desire. "And every time I jump up and shut it, up she bounces and opens it again."

"Humph! I see.... Well, exercise helps digestion, so they say. You can jump as long as she can bounce, can't you?"

Miss Peasley was disgusted. "Well," she snapped, "I don't call that much help. I supposed if I went to the _manager_ he'd put his foot down."

"He's goin' to--and then take it up and put it down again. I've got to hobble out to see to mowin' the meadow. You tell Mrs. Berry all about it."

As a part of his diplomacy he made it a point to spend half an hour each morning in consultation with Cordelia Berry. The matron of the Fair Harbor was at first rather suspicious and ready to resent any intrusion upon her rights and prerogatives. But at each conference the captain listened so politely to her rambling reports, seemed to receive her suggestions so eagerly and to ask her advice upon so many points, that her suspicions were lulled and she came to accept the new superintendent's presence as a relief and a benefit.

"He is so very gentlemanly, Elizabeth," she told her daughter. "And so willing to learn. At first, as you know, I couldn't see why the poor dear judge appointed him, but now I do. He realized that I needed an assistant. In many ways he reminds me of your father."

"But, mother," exclaimed her daughter, in surprise, "Cap'n Kendrick isn't nearly as old as father was."

"Oh it isn't the age that reminded me. It's the manner. He has the same quick, authoritative way of making decisions and saying things. And it is so very gratifying to see how he defers to my judgment and experience."

Captain Sears did defer, that is he seldom opposed. But, when each conference was over, he went his own sweet way, using his own judgment and doing what seemed to him best. With Elizabeth, however, he was quite different. When she offered advice--which was seldom--he listened and almost invariably acted upon it. He was daily growing to have a higher opinion of her wisdom and capabilities. Whether or not it was the wisdom and capabilities alone which influenced that opinion he did not attempt to analyze. He enjoyed being with her and working with her, that he knew. That the constant companionship might be, for him, a risky and perhaps dangerous experience, he did not as yet realize. When he was with her, and busy with Fair Harbor affairs, he could forget the slowness with which his crippled legs were mending, and the increasing longing--sometimes approaching desperation--for the quarter deck of his own ship and the sea wind in his face.

He worked hard for the Harbor and did his best to justify his appointment as manager, but, work as he might, he knew perfectly well that such labors would scarcely earn his salary. But, on the other hand, he knew that the man who appointed him had not expected them to do so. He had been put in charge of the Fair Harbor for one reason alone and that was to be in command of the ship when the redoubtable Egbert came alongside. Judge Knowles had as much as told him that very thing, and more than once. Egbert Phillips had been, evidently, the judge's pet aversion and, in his later days illness and fretfulness had magnified and intensified that aversion. When Sears attempted to find good and sufficient reasons for belief that the husband of Lobelia Seymour was any such bugbear he was baffled. He asked Judah more questions and he questioned citizens of Bayport who had known the former singing teacher before and after his marriage. Some, like Judah, declared him "slick" or "smooth." Others, and those the majority, seemed to like him. He was polite and educated and a "perfect gentleman," this was the sum of feminine opinion. Captain Sears was inclined to picture him as what he would have called a "sissy," and not much more dangerous than that. The judge's hatred, he came to believe, was an obsession, a sick man's fancy.

He had, of course, read the Phillips letter, that which Judge Knowles bade him take away and read that night of his death. He hurriedly read it on that occasion before going to bed; he had reread it several times since.

It was a well-written letter, there was no doubt of that, a polite letter, almost excessively so, perhaps. In fact, if Sears had been obliged to find a fault with it it would have been that it was a little too polite, a little too polished and flowery. It was not the sort of letter that he, himself, would have written under stress of grief, but he realized that it was not the sort of letter he could have written at all. Taken as a whole it was hard to pick flaws which might not be the result of prejudice, and taken sentence by sentence it stood the test almost as well.

"Our life together has been so happy," wrote Phillips, "so ideal, that the knowledge of its end leaves me stunned, speechless, wordless."

That was exaggeration, of course. He was not wordless, for the letter contained almost a superfluity of words; but people often said things they did not mean literally.

"My dear wife and I spoke of you so often, Judge, her affection for you was so great--an affection which I share, as you know----"

Judge Knowles had not returned the writers affection, quite the contrary. But it was possible that Phillips did not know this and that he was fond of the judge. Possible, even if not quite probable.

"She and I never had a difference of opinion, never a thought which was not shared. This, in my hour of sorrow--" Phillips had written "my stricken hour" first, and then altered it to "hour of sorrow"--"is my greatest, almost my only consolation."

Yet, as Judge Knowles had expressly stated, Lobelia herself had told him that her husband did not know of the endowment at the Fair Harbor and she had at least hinted that her married life was not all happiness.

But, yet again, the judge was ill and weak, he had never liked Phillips, had always distrusted and suspected him, and might he not have fancied unhappiness when there was none?

The letter said nothing concerning its writer's plans. It told of Mrs. Phillips' death, her burial at Florence, and of the widower's grief. The only hint, or possible hint, concerning a visit to Bayport was contained in one line, "When I see you I can tell you more."

The captain puzzled over the letter a good deal. He showed it to Elizabeth. He found that Judge Knowles had not discussed Egbert with her at all. To her the ex-singing teacher was little more than a name; she remembered him, but nothing in particular concerning him. She thought the letter a very beautiful one--very sad, of course, but beautiful. Plainly she did not have the feeling which Sears had, but which he was inclined to think might be fathered by prejudice that it was a trifle too beautiful, that its beauty was that of a painting by a master, each stroke carefully touched in at exactly the right place for effect.

There was no demand for money in it, no hint at straitened circumstances; so why should there be any striving for effect? He gave it up. If the much talked of Egbert was what Judge Knowles had declared him to be, then neither the judge nor any one else had exaggerated his smoothness.

Emmeline Tidditt, for so many years the Knowles housekeeper, made one remark which contained possible food for thought.

"So he buried her over there amongst them foreigners, did he?" observed Emmeline. "That seems kind of funny. When she and him was visitin' here the last time she told me herself--and he was standin' right alongside and heard her--that when she died she wanted to be fetched back here to Bayport and buried in the Orthodox cemetery alongside her father and mother and all her folks. Said, dead or alive, it wasn't really home for her anywheres else. She must have changed her mind since, though, I cal'late."

Bayport talked a good deal about Lobelia Phillips and what would become of the Fair Harbor now that its founder and patroness was dead. It was surmised, of course, that Mrs. Phillips had provided for her pet institution in her will, but that will had not yet been offered for probate. Neither had the will of Judge Knowles, for that matter. Lawyer Bradley, over at Orham, the attorney with whom George Kent was reading law, was known to be the judge's executor. And Judge Knowles and Mr. Bradley were co-executor's for Lobelia Phillips, having been duly named by Lobelia on her last visit to Bayport. So, presumably, both wills were in Bradley's possession. But why had they not been probated?

Bradley himself made the explanation.

"The judge had a nephew in California," he said. "He was the nearest relative--although that isn't very near. Of course he couldn't get on for the funeral, but he is coming pretty soon. I thought I would wait until he came before I opened the will. As for Mrs. Phillips' will, I expect that her husband must be on his way here now. I haven't heard from him, but I take it for granted he is coming. I shall wait a while for him, too. There is no pressing hurry in either case."

So Bayport talked about the wills and the expected arrival of the heirs, but as time passed and neither nephew nor husband arrived, began to lose interest and to talk of other things. Sears Kendrick, remembering his last conversation with Judge Knowles, was curious to learn exactly what the latter meant by his hints concerning "fixing things" for the Fair Harbor and Elizabeth having "money of her own," but he was busy and did not allow his curiosity to interfere with his schemes and improvements. He and Miss Berry saw each other every day, worked together and planned together, and the captain's fits of despondency and discouragement grew less and less frequent. He had an odd feeling at times, a feeling as if, instead of growing older daily, he was growing younger. He mentioned it to Elizabeth on one occasion and she did not laugh, but seemed to understand.

"It is true," she said. "I have noticed it. You _are_ getting younger, Cap'n Kendrick."

"Am I? That's good. Be better yet if I didn't have such a tremendous long way to go."

"Nonsense! You aren't old. When I first met you I thought--it sounds dreadful when I say it--I thought you were fifty, at least. Now I don't believe you are more than--well, thirty-five."

"Oh, yes, I am. I am--humph!--let's see, I am--er--thirty-eight my next birthday. And I suppose that sounds pretty ancient to you."

"No, indeed it doesn't. Why, thirty-eight isn't old at all!"

The interesting discussion of ages was interrupted just then, but Sears found pleasure in the thought that she, too, had noticed that he looked and acted younger. It was being at work again, he believed, which was responsible for the rejuvenation; this and the now unmistakable fact that, although the improvement was still provokingly slow, his legs were better, really better. He could, as he said, navigate much more easily now. Once, at supper time, he walked from his room to the table without a cane. It was a laborious journey, and he was glad when it was over, but he made it. Judah came in just in time to see the end.

"Jumpin', creepin', hoppin' hookblocks, Cap'n Sears!" cried Judah. "Is that you, doin' that?"

"What's left of me, Judah. I feel just this minute as if there wasn't much left."

"Well, creepin' prophets! I couldn't believe it. Thinks I, 'There's fog in my deadlights and I can't see through 'em right.' Well, by Henry! And a little spell ago you was tellin' me you'd never be able to cruise again except under jury rig. Humph! You'll be up to the town hall dancin' 'Hull's Victory' and 'Smash the Windows' fust thing we know."

After supper the captain, using the cane but whistling a sprightly air, strolled out to the front gate, where, leaning over the fence, he looked up and down the curving, tree-shaded road, dozing in the late summer twilight. And up that road came George Kent, also whistling, to swing in at the Fair Harbor gate and stride to the side door.

Before that object lesson of real youth Sears' fictitious imitation seemed cheap and shoddy. He leaned heavily upon his cane as he hobbled back to the kitchen.

The next day something happened. Sears had been busy all the forenoon superintending the carting in and stowing of the Fair Harbor share of oak and pine from the wood-lot. Thirteen cords of it, sawed and split in lengths to suit the Harbor stoves and fireplaces, were to be piled in the sheds adjoining the old Seymour barn at the rear of the premises. Judah had been engaged to do the piling. The captain had hesitated about employing him for several reasons, one being that he was drawing wages--small but regular--as caretaker at the General Minot place; another, that there might be some criticism--or opportunity for criticism--because of the relationship, landlord and lodger, which existed between them. Judah himself scorned the thought.

"Mean to tell me I can't work for you just because you're boardin' along of me, Cap'n Sears?" he protested. "I've cooked for you a good many years and I worked for you then, didn't I?"

"Ye--es, but you had signed up to work for me then. That's what they paid you for."

"Well, it's what _you_ pay me for now, ain't it? And Ogden Minot he pays me to be stevedore aboard his house yonder. And the Fair Harbor's cal'latin' to pay me for pilin' this wood, ain't it? You ain't payin' for that, nor Ogden nuther. Well, then!... Oh, don't let's waste time arguin' about it now, Cap'n Sears. Let's do the way Abe Pepper done when the feller asked him to take a little somethin'. Abe had promised his wife he'd sign the pledge and he was on his way to temp'rance meetin' where he was goin' to meet her and sign it. And on the way he ran acrost this feller--Cornelius Bassett 'twas--and Cornelius says, 'Come have a drink with me, Abe,' he says. Well, time Abe got around to meet his wife the temp'rance meetin' hall was all dark and Abe was all--er--lighted up, as you might say. 'Why didn't you tell that Bassett man you was in a hurry and couldn't stop?' his wife wanted to know. 'Didn't have time to tell him nothin',' explains Abe. 'I knew I was late for meetin' as 'twas.' 'Then why didn't you come right on _to_ meetin'?' she wanted to know. 'If I'd done that I'd lost the drink,' says he."

The captain laughed, but looked doubtful.

"I don't quite see where that yarn fits in this case, Judah," he observed.

"Don't ye? Well, I don't know's it does. But anyhow, don't let's waste time arguin'. Let me pile the wood fust and then we can argue afterwards."

So he was piling busily, carrying the wood in huge armfuls from the heaps where the carts had left it into the barn, and singing as he worked. But, bearing in mind his skipper's orders concerning the kind of song he was to sing, his chantey this time dealt neither with the eternal feminine nor the flowing bowl. Suggested perhaps by the nature of his task, he bellowed of "Fire Down Below."

"'Fire in the galley,
Fire in the house,
Fire in the beef-kid
Burnin' up the scouce.
Fire, _fire_, FIRE down below!
Fetch a bucket of water!
Fire! down BELOW!'"

Captain Sears, after watching and listening for a few minutes, turned to limp up the hill, past the summer-house and the garden plots, to the side entrance of the Fair Harbor. The mystery of these garden patches, their exact equality of size and shape, had been explained to him by Elizabeth. The previous summer the Fair Harbor guests, or a few of them, led, as usual, by Miss Snowden and Mrs. Brackett, had suddenly been seized with a feverish desire to practice horticulture. They had demanded flower beds of their own. So, after much debate and disagreement on their part Elizabeth and her mother had had the slope beneath the Eyrie laid out in plots exactly alike, one for each guest, and the question of ownership had been settled by drawing lots. Each plot owner might plant and cultivate her own garden in her own way. These ways differed widely, hence the varied color schemes and diversifications of design noted by Sears on his first visit. The most elaborate--not to say "whirliggy"--design was the product of Miss Snowden's labor. The captain would have guessed it. The plot which contained no flowers at all, but was thickly planted with beets, onions and other vegetables, belonged to Esther Tidditt. He would have guessed that, too.

He had stopped for an instant to inspect the plots, when he heard a footstep. Looking up, he saw a man descending the slope along the path by the Eyrie.

The man was a stranger, that was plain at first glance. The captain did not know every one in Bayport, but he had at least a recognizing acquaintance with most of the males, and this particular male was not one of them. And Sears would have bet heavily that neither was he one of the very few whom he did not know. He was not a Bayport citizen, he did not look Bayport.

He was very tall and noticeably slim. He wore a silk hat what Bayport still called a "beaver" in memory of the day's when such headpieces were really covered with beaver fur. There was nothing unusual in this fact; most of Bayport's prosperous citizens wore beavers on Sundays or for dress up. But there was this of the unusual about this particular hat: it had an air about it, a something which would have distinguished it amid fifty Bayport tiles. And yet just what that something was Sears Kendrick could not have told he could not have defined it, but he knew it was there.

There was the same unusual something about the stranger's apparel in general, and yet there was nothing loud about it or queer. He carried a cane, but so did Captain Elkanah Wingate, for that matter, although only on Sundays. Captain Elkanah, however, carried his as if it were a club, or a scepter, or a--well, a marlinspike, perhaps. The stranger's cane was a part of his arm, and when he twirled it the twirls were graceful gestures, not vulgar flourishes.

Sears's reflections concerning the newcomer were by no means as analytical as this, of course. His first impressions were those of one coming upon a beautiful work of art, a general wonder and admiration, not detailed at all. Judah, standing behind him with an armful of wood, must have had similar feelings, for he whispered, hoarsely, "Creepin' Moses, Cap'n Sears, is that the Prince of Wales, or who?"

The man, standing in the path above the gardens, stopped to look about him. And at that moment, from the vine-covered Eyrie emerged Miss Elvira Snowden. She had evidently been there for some time, reading--she had a book in her hand--and as she came out she and the stranger were brought face to face.

Sears and Judah saw them look at each other. The man raised his hat and said something which they could not hear. Then Miss Snowden cried "Oh!" She seemed intensely surprised and, for her, a good deal flustered. There was more low-toned conversation. Then Elvira and the stranger turned and walked back up the path toward the house. He escorted her in a manner and with a manner which made that walk a sort of royal progress.

"Who was that?" asked Sears, as much of himself as of Judah.

But Mr. Cahoon had, by this time, settled the question to his own satisfaction.

"It's one of them slick critters peddlin' lightnin' rods," he declared, with conviction. "When you sight somebody that looks like a cross between a minister and one of them stuffed dummies they have outside of the stores in Dock Square to show off clothes on, then you can 'most generally bet he's peddlin' lightnin' rods. Either that or paintin' signs on fences about 'Mustang Liniment' or 'Vegetine' or somethin'. Why, a feller like that hove alongside me over in our yard one time--'twas afore you come, Cap'n Sears--and I give you my word, the way he was togged up I thought----"

The captain did not wait to hear the Cahoon thought. He walked away. In a few minutes he had forgotten the stranger, having other and more important matters on his mind. There was a question concerning the Fair Harbor cooking range which was perplexing him just at this time. It looked as if they might have to buy a new one, and Sears, as superintendent of finances, hated to spend the money that month.

He limped up the slope and along the path to the side door. And when he entered that door he became aware that something unusual was going on. The atmosphere of the Fair Harbor for Mariners' Women was, so to speak, electrified, it was vibrant with excitement and mystery.

There was no one in the dining room, and no one in the sitting room. Yet in each of these apartments were numerous evidences that people had been there very recently and left in a great hurry. A cloth partially laid and left hanging. Drawers of the buffet left open. A broom lying directly in the middle of the floor where it had been dropped. An upset work-basket, disgorging spools, needle packets, and an avalanche of stockings awaiting darning. A lamp with the chimney standing beside it on the table. These were some of the signs denoting sudden and important interruption of a busy forenoon.

Captain Sears, wondering much, turned from the sitting room into the hall leading to the parlor. Then he became aware that, ahead of him, was the center and core of excitement. From the parlor came a murmur of voices, exclamations, giggles--the sounds as of a party, a meeting of the sewing-circle, or a reception. He could not imagine what it was all about.

He reached the parlor door and stood there for an instant looking in. Every inmate of the Harbor was in that room, including Elizabeth and her mother and even Caroline Snow, who, because it was Monday, was there to help with the washing. And every one--or almost every one--was talking, and the majority were crowded about one spot, a spot where stood a man, a man whom Sears recognized as the stranger he had seen in the garden.

And then Mrs. Berry, who happened to be facing the door, saw him. She broke through the ring of women and hurried over. Her face was aglow, her eyes were shining, there were bright spots in her cheeks, and, altogether, she looked younger and handsomer than the captain had ever seen her, more as he would have imagined she must have looked in the days when Cap'n Ike came South a-courting.

"Oh, Captain Kendrick," she cried, "I am so _very_ glad you have come. We have just had such a surprise! Such a very unexpected surprise, but a very delightful one. Come! You must meet him."

She took his hand and led him toward the stranger. The latter, seeing them approach, politely pushed through the group surrounding him and stepped forward. Sears noticed for the first time that the sleeve of his coat was encircled by a broad band of black. His tie was black also, so were his cuff buttons. He was in mourning. An amazing idea flashed to the captain's brain.

"Captain Kendrick," gushed Mrs. Berry, "I have the honor to present you to Mr. Phillips, husband of our beloved founder."

Mr. Phillips smiled--his teeth were very fine, his smile engaging. He extended a hand.

"I am delighted to meet Captain Kendrick," he said.

The captain's stammered answer was conventional, and was not a literal expression of his thought. The latter, put into words, would have been:

"Egbert! I might have known it."

But there was no real reason why he should have known it, for this Egbert was not at all like the Egbert he had been expecting to see. _

Read next: Chapter 10

Read previous: Chapter 8

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