“Again, gentlemen, I say that I shall get to sea within a few days. I either go in the ‘Adams’ or seek other employ,” and all the time he was speaking not once did the sailor remove his steady gaze from the eyes of him for whom he was named.
To say that the Dunlap brothers were astonished is putting it too mildly; they were amazed. The master of a Dunlap ship was an object of envy to every shipmaster out of Boston—the pay and employ was the best in America—that a kinsman and master should even propose to leave their employ was monstrous. In amazement both of the old gentlemen looked at the young man in silence.
Suddenly as old John Dunlap looked into young John Dunlap’s honest eyes he read something there, for first leaning forward in his chair and gazing more intently into the gray eyes of the sailor, he sprang to his feet and grasping the arm of his young kinsman he fairly hauled him to the window at the other end of the room, then facing him around so that he could get a good look at his face, he almost whispered:
“Jack, when did you learn first that Lucy was to be married?”
“When I came ashore at Boston one week ago.”
The answer came so quickly that the question must have been read in the eyes of the older man before uttered.
“I thought so,” said the old man softly and sadly, as he walked, still holding the sailor by the arm, back to the fire, and added as he neared his brother:
“James, Jack wants the ‘Adams’ and is in earnest. I can’t have him leave our employ; therefore he must go as master of that ship.”