But somehow he and Hamilton, after a few days' acquaintance, seemed to glide into the subject imperceptibly. Mutual confidences followed in the course of nature. It seemed that Hamilton too, like Kettle, was a devotee of the stiller forms of verse.
"You see, Skipper," he said, "I've been a pretty bad lot, and I've made things hum most of my time, and so I suppose I get my hankerings after restfulness as the natural result of contrast."
"Same here, sir. Ashore I can respect myself, and in our chapel circle, though I say it myself, you'll find few more respected men. But at sea I shouldn't like to tell you what I've done; I shouldn't like to tell any one. If a saint has to come down and skipper the brutes we have to ship as sailormen nowadays, he'd wear out his halo flinging it at them. And when matters have been worst, and I've been bashing the hands about, or doing things to carry out an owner's order that I'd blush even to think of ashore, why then, sir, gentle verse, to tunes I know, seems to bubble up inside me like springs in a barren land."
"Well, I don't know about that," said Hamilton doubtfully, "but when I get thoroughly sick of myself, and wish I was dead, I sometimes stave off putting a shot through my silly head by getting a pencil and paper, and shifting my thoughts out of the beastly world I know, into--well, it's hard to explain. But I get sort of notions, don't you see, and they seem to run best in verse. I write 'em when the fit's on me, and I burn 'em when the fit's through; and you'll hardly think it, but I never told a living soul I ever did such a thing till I told you this minute. My set--I mean, I couldn't bear to be laughed at. But you seem to be a fellow that's been in much the same sort of box yourself."
"I don't know quite that. At any rate, I've never thought of shooting myself."
"Oh, I didn't mean to suggest we were alike at all in detail. I was only thinking we had both seen rough times. Lord forbid that any man should ever be half the fool that I have been." He sighed heavily.--"However, sufficient for the day. Look out over yonder; there's a bit of color for you."
A shoal of flying-fish got up out of the warm, shining water and ran away over the ripples like so many silver rats; yellow tangles of Gulf-weed swam in close squadron on the emerald sea; and on the western horizon screw-pile lighthouses stood up out of the water, marking the nearness of the low-lying Floridan beaches, and reminding one of mysterious Everglades beyond.
"A man, they tell me," said Hamilton, "can go into that country at the back there, and be a hermit, and live honestly on his own fish and fruit. I believe I'd like that life. I could go there, and be decent, and perhaps in time I should forget things."
"Don't you try it. The mosquitoes are shocking."
"There are worse devils than mosquitoes. Now I should have thought there was something about those Everglades that would have appealed to you, Skipper?"