II.
One evening toward the end of summer there came a loud rap at the knocker of Mrs. Lunn's front door. It was the summons of Captain Asa Shaw, who sought a quiet haven from the discomforts of the society of his sisters-in-law and his notoriously ill-bred children. Captain Shaw was prosperous, if not happy; he had been figuring up accounts that rainy afternoon, and found himself in good case. He looked burly and commonplace and insistent as he stood on the front doorstep, and thought Mrs. Lunn was long in coming. At the same moment when she had just made her appearance with a set smile, and a little extra color in her cheeks, from having hastily taken off her apron and tossed it into the sitting-room closet, and smoothed her satin-like black hair on the way, there was another loud rap on the smaller side-door knocker.
"There must be somebody wanting to speak with me on an errand," she prettily apologized, as she offered Captain Shaw the best rocking-chair. The side door opened into a tiny entry-way at the other end of the room, and she unfastened the bolt impatiently. "Oh, walk right in, Cap'n Crowe!" she was presently heard to exclaim; but there was a note of embarrassment in her tone, and a look of provocation on her face, as the big shipmaster lumbered after her into the sitting-room. Captain Shaw had taken the large chair, and the newcomer was but poorly accommodated on a smaller one with a cane seat. The walls of the old Lunn house were low, and his head seemed in danger of knocking itself; he was clumsier and bigger than ever in this moment of dismay. His sisters had worn his patience past endurance, and he had it in mind to come to a distinct understanding with Mrs. Lunn that very night.
Captain Shaw was in his every-day clothes, which lost him a point in Mrs. Lunn's observant eyes; but Captain Crowe had paid her the honor of putting on his best coat for this evening visit. She thought at first that he had even changed his shirt, but upon reflection remembered that this could not be taken as a special recognition of her charms, it being Wednesday night. On the wharves, or in a down-town office, the two men were by way of being good friends, but at this moment great Captain Crowe openly despised his social inferior, and after a formal recognition of his unwelcome presence ignored him with unusual bravery, and addressed Mrs. Lunn with grave politeness. He was dimly conscious of the younger and lesser man's being for some unexplainable reason a formidable rival, and tried blunderingly to show the degree of intimacy which existed between himself and the lady.
"I just looked in to report about our little matter of business. I've got the estimates with me, but 't will do just as well another time," said the big mariner in his disapproving, soft voice.
Captain Shaw instinctively scuffed his feet at the sound, and even felt for his account-book in an inside pocket to reassure himself of his financial standing. "I could buy him an' sell him twice over," he muttered angrily, as loud as he dared.
Mrs. Lunn rose to a command of the occasion at once; there was no sense in men of their age behaving like schoolboys. "Oh, my, yes!" she hastened to say, as she rose with a simpering smile. "'T ain't as if 't was any kind o' consequence, you know; not but what I'm just as much obliged."
Captain Crowe scowled now; this was still the affair of the shingles, and it had been of enough consequence two days before to protract a conversation through two long hours. He had wished ever since that he had thought then to tell Mrs. Lunn that if she would just say the word, she never need think of those shingles again, nor of the cost of them. It would have been a pretty way to convey the state of his feelings toward her; but he had lost the opportunity, it might be forever. To use his own expression, he now put about and steered a new course.
"I come by your house just now," he said to Captain Shaw, who still glowered from the rocking-chair. "Your young folks seemed to be havin' a great time. Well, I like to see young folks happy. They generally be," he chuckled maliciously; "'tis we old ones have the worst of it, soon as they begin to want to have everything their way."
"I don't allow no trouble for'ard when I'm on deck," said Shipmaster Shaw more cheerfully; he hardly recognized the covert allusion to his drawbacks as a suitor. "I like to give 'em their liberty. To-night they were bound on some sort of a racket—they got some other young folks in; but gen'ally they do pretty well. I'm goin' to take my oldest boy right into the office, first o' January—put him right to business. I need more help; I've got too much now for me an' Decket to handle, though Decket's a good accountant."
"Well, I'm glad I'm out of it," said Captain Crowe. "I don't want the bother o' business. I don't need to slave."
"No; you shouldn't have too much to carry at your time o' life," rejoined his friend, in a tone that was anything but soothing; and at this moment Maria Lunn returned with her best lamp in full brilliancy. She had listened eagerly to their exchange of compliments, and thought it would be wise to change the subject.
"What's been goin' on down street today?" she asked. "I haven't had occasion to go out, and I don't have anybody to bring me the news, as I used to."
"Here's Cap'n Shaw makin' me out to be old enough to be his grandfather," insisted Captain Crowe, laughing gently, as if he had taken it as a joke. "Now, everybody knows I ain't but five years the oldest. Shaw, you mustn't be settin' up for a young dandy. I've had a good deal more sea service than you. I believe you never went out on a long voyage round the Cape or the like o' that; those long voyages count a man two years to one, if they're hard passages."
"No; I only made some few trips; the rest you might call coastin'," said Captain Shaw handsomely. The two men felt more at ease and reasonable with this familiar subject of experience and discussion. "I come to the conclusion I'd better stop ashore. If I could ever have found me a smart, dependable crew, I might have followed the sea longer than I did."
It was in the big captain's heart to say, "Poor master, poor crew;" but he refrained. It had been well known that in spite of Shaw's ability as a money-maker on shore, he was no seaman, and never had been. Mrs. Lunn was sure to have heard his defects commented on, but she sat by the table, smiling, and gave no sign, though Captain Crowe looked at her eagerly for a glance of understanding and contempt.
There was a moment of silence, and nobody seemed to know what to say next. Mrs. Maria Lunn was not a great talker in company, although so delightful in confidence and consultation. She wished now, from the bottom of her heart, that one of her admirers would go away; but at this instant there was a loud tapping at a back door in the farther end of the house.
"I thought I heard somebody knocking a few minutes ago." Captain Crowe rose like a buoy against the ceiling. "Here, now, I'm goin' to the door for you, Mis' Lunn; there may be a tramp or somethin'."
"Oh, no," said the little woman, anxiously bustling past him, and lifting the hand-lamp as she went. "I guess it's only Dimmett's been sick"—The last words were nearly lost in the distance, and in the draught a door closed after her, and the two captains were left alone. Some minutes went by before they suddenly heard the sound of a familiar voice.
"I don't know but what I will, after all, step in an' set down for just a minute," said the hearty voice of little Captain Witherspoon. "I'll just wash my hands here at the sink, if you'll let me, same 's I did the other day. I shouldn't have bothered you so late about a mere fish, but they was such prime mackerel, an' I thought like's not one of 'em would make you a breakfast."
"You're always very considerate," answered Mrs. Lunn, in spite of what she felt to be a real emergency. She was very fond of mackerel, and these were the first of the season. "Walk right in, Cap'n Witherspoon, when you get ready. You'll find some o' your friends. 'Tis 'The Cap'n,' gentlemen," she added, in a pleased tone, as she rejoined her earlier guests.
If Captain Witherspoon had also indulged a hope of finding his love alone, he made no sign; it would be beneath so valiant and gallant a man to show defeat. He shook hands with both his friends as if he had not seen them for a fortnight, and then drew one of the Windsor chairs forward, forcing the two companions into something like a social circle.
"What's the news?" he demanded. "Anything heard from the new minister yet, Crowe? I suppose, though, the ladies are likely to hear of those matters first."
Mrs. Lunn was grateful to this promoter of friendly intercourse. "Yes, sir," she answered quickly; "I was told, just before tea, that he had written to Deacon Torby that he felt moved to accept the call."
Her eyes shone with pleasure at having this piece of news. She had been thinking a great deal about it just before the two captains came in, but their mutual dismay had been such an infliction that for once she had been in danger of forgetting her best resources. Now, with the interest of these parishioners in their new minister, the propriety, not to say the enjoyment, of the rest of the evening was secure. Captain Witherspoon went away earliest, as cheerfully as he had come; and Captain Shaw rose and followed him for the sake of having company along the street. Captain Crowe lingered a few moments, so obtrusively that he seemed to fill the whole sitting-room, while he talked about unimportant matters; and at last Mrs. Lunn knocked a large flat book off the end of the sofa for no other reason than to tell him that it was one of Captain Witherspoon's old log-books which she had taken great pleasure in reading. She did not explain that it was asked for because of other records; her late husband had also been in command—one voyage—of the ship Mary Susan.
Captain Crowe went grumbling away down the street. "I've seen his plaguy logs; and what she can find, I don't see. There ain't nothin' to a page but his figures, and what men were sick, and how the seas run, an' 'So ends the day.'" It was a terrible indication of rivalry that the captain felt at liberty to bring his confounded fish to any door he chose; and his very willingness to depart early and leave the field might prove him to possess a happy certainty, Captain Crowe was so jealous that he almost forgot to play his role of lover.
As for Mrs. Lunn herself, she blew out the best lamp at once, so that it would burn another night, and sat and pondered over her future. "'T was real awkward to have 'em all call together; but I guess I passed it off pretty well," she consoled herself, casting an absent-minded glance at her little blurred mirror with the gilded wheat-sheaf at the top.
"Everybody's after her; I've got to look sharp," said Captain Asa Shaw to himself that night. "I guess I'd better give her to understand what I'm worth."
"Both o' them old sea-dogs is steerin' for the same port as I be. I'll cut 'em out, if only for the name of it—see if I don't!" Captain Crowe muttered, as he smoked his evening pipe, puffing away with a great draught that made the tobacco glow and almost flare.
"I care a world more about poor Maria than anybody else does," said warm-hearted little Captain Witherspoon, making himself as tall as he could as he walked his bedroom deck to and fro.