Over his shoulder Davis answered laconically:
"To tell the ol' man I can't go." He did not stop.
"It's mighty good of you, John," Medbury called humbly. "I'll make it up to you somehow--see if I don't."
"Make it up!" cried Davis, stopping in the road. "I don't want nothin' made up. You made it up, years ago, when you got me out of that affair in Para. You didn't ask no questions that night; nor when you run across our bar in that no'theaster to fish up my boy when his boat capsized. I don't know what you're up to, and I don't care. It's all right." He waved his hand lightly, as if to dismiss all obligations, and departed in search of Captain March.
But half a dozen steps away, Medbury heard him laugh, and turned to see him standing in the road, looking back.
"Just this minute saw what you was aimin' at," he called to Medbury. "Well, good luck to you!" And, grinning to himself, he went his way.
"Now," thought Medbury, "if Cap'n March'll only keep his eyes open for the rest of the day, I guess he's not going to miss seeing me. I shall be near, but not too near. Only I wish I knew of something to hurry him up before too many people laugh and wish me luck."
Fate, in the hands of a woman, was to do that for him.
With something of the serene imperturbability that was a part of his habitual attitude toward life, the Rev. Robert Drew sat in a rocking-chair on the little porch of his house and, slowly rocking, looked out across the waters of the placid bay while he awaited Captain March's summons. For twenty-four hours he had scarcely stirred from home, that he might be in instant readiness for departure on the coming of the captain's messenger; but the messenger still tarried, and the _Henrietta C. March_, lying quietly at anchor off the harbor with her mainsail up, seemed no nearer to sailing than she had been the day before.
It was early in March--March that had come in like a lamb and now lay drowsing under a sun that hourly reddened the buds and gleamed white on the salt-meadows and the shining boles of trees. There were bird-calls at intervals; barnyard fowls sunned themselves in garden spaces and sent up cloudy veils of dust: the life of the earth was awakening. Drew could see dark specks about the harbor's mouth: he knew that the boats had begun to go out for flatfish. The thought of even that mild activity moved him to impatience, and, getting to his feet, he walked to an open window and looked in.