“Well, well, Master,” said the other, “‘tweren’t no fault of mine that I weren’t here yesterday. Wind and tide be to blame, so whatever ye lose ye may just charge up ag’in’ them. We can’t sail without wind, can we? and we can’t sail ag’in’ the tide, can we? As for the men, why, the sooner I get my clearance papers and the men aboard the better ’twill suit me. The tide turns at eight o’clock, and if the wind comes up, as ’tis like to do, why, I’ll drop out and away with the turn o’ the water.”
Master Hezekiah looked around. Jack was still standing in the doorway. “You go in and get your supper, Jacky,” said he, and then he got up and closed the door, and Jack went back into the supper-room.
All the time that Jack sat at his meal old Deborah scolded him ceaselessly for being so late.
“’Tis always so,” said she, her voice growing shriller and shriller. “You be always late, and think of nobody but your own self.”
“No, I’m not always late, neither,” said Jack; “I wasn’t late to breakfast, or to supper either, yesterday.”
“But you didn’t come home to dinner at all,” said old Deborah, “and I kept it for you, and I kept it for you, and the ’taties all like wax in the oven, and not fit to eat.”
“I didn’t want any dinner,” said Jack. “I had something to eat down at the wharf.”
“Well,” said old Deborah, “you might just as well have been late as not to come at all, for I kept a-waiting and a-waiting for you till it was all dried up and wasted—aye, all wasted, and it what many a pore body ’u’d’a’ been glad enough to ’a’ had, too.”
In the interval of her scolding Jack could occasionally hear the distant rumbling of Captain Butts’s voice in the office.
It grew darker and darker in the twilight gloom of the kitchen, until Jack could hardly see the food upon his plate.
“I wish you’d bring a candle, Deborah,” said he, “I can’t see to find the way to my own mouth.”
“A candle!” said Deborah; “if you’d come to your supper in time you’d not need a candle to see. Now you may just go without.”
“Very well,” said Jack, “I don’t care, for I’m done.”
“Then, if you’re done, you may go down to the pump and fetch back some water.”
Jack took the pail and went off with it. He was gone a long time, and the night was fairly settled when he came stumbling back into the kitchen, slopping the water upon the steps and the floor.