“Well, sir, this is what I mean. I learned yesterday that the storm we encountered crossing the Atlantic coming home had strained my ship so badly that it will be two months before she is out of the shipwright’s hands.”
“What of that, Jack,” broke in the darker J. Dunlap. “Take a rest at home. I know your mother will be delighted, and speaking from a financial standpoint, as you know, it makes not the least difference.”
“I was going to add, sir, that this morning I learned that Captain Chadwick of your ship ‘Adams,’ now loaded and ready to sail for Australia, was down with pneumonia and could not take the ship out, and that there was some difficulty in securing a master that filled the requirements of your house. I therefore applied to Mr. Burton for the command of the ‘Adams,’ but he absolutely refused to consider the application saying that as I had been away for almost two years, that it would be positively brutal to even permit me to go to sea again so soon, and that the ‘Adams’ might stay loaded and tied to the dock ten years rather than I should leave home so speedily.”
“Burton is exactly right, I endorse every word he has said. You can’t have the ‘Adams’!” said James Dunlap with emphasis. “What would Martha Dunlap, your mother, and our dear cousin’s widow, think if we robbed her of her only son so soon after his return from a long absence from home?”
“My mother knows, sir, that my stay at home will be very brief. She expects me to ask to go to sea again almost immediately. I told her all about it when I first met her upon my return,” and as he spoke the shipmaster’s gaze was never raised from the nautical cap that he held in his hand.
“Well! You are not going to sea again immediately, that is all about it. You have handled the ‘Lucy’ for two years, away from home, using your own judgment, in a manner that, even were you not our kinsman, would entitle you to a long rest at the expense of our house as grateful shipowners,” said Lucy’s grandfather.
The young man giving no heed to the compliment contained in the remarks made by James Dunlap, but looking up and straight into the eyes of the brother just arrived from Haiti, said so earnestly that there could be no question of his purpose:
“I wish to get to sea as soon as possible. If I cannot sail in the ‘Adams,’ much as I dislike to leave you, sirs, I must seek other employ.”
“The devil you will!” exclaimed his godfather angrily.
“Why, if you sail now you will miss your cousin’s wedding and disappoint her,” added James Dunlap.