For the third time, Ralph went down to the boat-house to question the old sailor, whom he found housed up, as he called it, in a fit of sullen grief, which it required some tact to break in upon.
Ben was sitting in his domicile before a rousing fire, which he now and then stooped to feed with hickory logs, till the whole room was filled with a warm glow of light. So many additions and ornaments had been added to the boat-house, that it took the appearance of a ship's cabin more than anything else. The fire revealed a trap-door in the centre of the room, which answered for a gangway, while coils of rope, carpenters' tools, cans of pitch, and bits of iron, all in their place and ship-shape, as Ben would have said, gave both a busy and maritime look to the premises.
Everything was very comfortable in the boat-house, but Ben kept piling on wood and raking out the coals with an iron bar, as if the heat and light were still insufficient, when in fact he thought nothing of either, but was making desperate efforts to work off the anxieties that had beset him like so many hounds, ever since his interview with Lina.
"What can a feller do now?" he said, looking wistfully up to the models of gun-boats, brigs, and clippers, that occupied the rude shelves and brackets on the wall, as if taking counsel from them. "I have sarched the woods from hill to hill, and nary a sign of her. She 'caint a gone and fell through the ice, for it's friz two feet thick; and, as for running away, or going for to kill herself, it wasn't in the gal to do no sich thing. Ben Benson, you was a brute, beast, and two or three sarpents to boot, not to tell the gal all she wanted to know. You obstinate old wretch, you've gone and done it now, and no mistake. It's as much as I can do to keep from knocking you on the head with a marlin-spike, you sneakin' old sea-dog! What if she was dead now, friz stiff agin a tree, or a lyin' in the bottom of the river, what would you think of yourself, I'd like to know?"
Thus half in muttered breath, half in thought, Ben gave forth the burden of his anxieties, till at last self-reproachful beyond endurance, he seized a fragment of pine wood, and opening his jack-knife with superfluous energy, began to whittle, as if his life depended on sharpening the stick to a point.
He was interrupted by the crunching sound of snow beneath footsteps that came in haste toward the boat-house. Ben cut a deep gash into the wood, and sat motionless, with his hand on the knife, listening.
"It's too heavy—she never trod down the snow-crust like that, poor bird!" and, resuming his work, Ben kicked the shavings he had made into the fire, and flung the mutilated pine after them.
"Is't you, mister Ralph?" said Ben, rising as the door opened, and seating himself moodily on a bench, that his guest might come to the fire. "You look flustered, and out of sorts, but this isn't no place to get ship-shape in. It's awful lonesome here, sin' that night."
"Then, you have heard nothing!"
"No, not a whisper. That fool, Ben Benson, has been sarching and sarching, like an old desarter as he is, but it ain't no sort o' good; the gal may be dead for what he cares—a toasting hisself before a fire, while she—may be Mr. James has hearn something."