“That’s a fact,” said Job humbly, stopping short.
“Come on, Job,” Bayard answered decidedly.
So they came under the salt-house, and sat down. Both were silent at first. Job wiped off an old fish-keg with the sleeve of his jumper, and offered this piece of furniture to the minister; the fisherman perched himself on the edge of a big broken pile which reared its gray head above the wharf; the rising tide flapped with a sinister sound under his feet which hung over, recklessly swinging. Job looked down into the black water. He was man enough still to estimate what he had done, and miserable enough to quench the shame and fire in him together by a leap. Men do such things, in crises such as Job had reached, far oftener than we may suppose. Job said nothing. Bayard watched him closely.
“Well, Job?” he said at last; not sternly, as he had spoken at Trawl’s door.
“I haven’t touched it before, sir, not a drop till last night,” said Job with sullen dreariness. “I was countin’ on it how I should see you the fust time since—I thought of it all the way home from Georges’. I was so set to see you I couldn’t wait to get ashore to see you. I took a clean jump from the dory to the landin’. I upsot the dory and two men.... Mr. Bayard, sir, the cap’n’s right. I ain’t wuth it. You’d better let me drownded off the Clara Em.”
“Tell me how it happened,” said Bayard gently. Job shook his head.
“You know’s well’s I, sir. We come ashore, and Trawl, he had one of his —— runners to the wharf. Ben was there, bossin’ the —— job.”
The minister listened to this profanity without proffering a rebuke. His teeth were set; he looked as if he would have liked to say as much, himself.
“There was a fellar there had made two hundred dollars to his trip. He treated. So I said I didn’t want any. But I hankered for it till it seemed I’d die there on the spot before ’em. Ben, he sent a bar-boy after me come to say I needn’t drink unless I pleased, but not to be onsocial, and to come along with the crowd. So I said, No, I was a goin’ home to my wife and kid. When the fellar was gone, I see he’d slipped a bottle into my coat pocket. It was a pint bottle XXX. The cork was loose and it leaked. So I put it back, for I swore I wouldn’t touch it, and I got a little on my fingers. I put ’em in my mouth to lick ’em off—and, sir, before God, that’s all I know—till I come to, to-day. The hanker got me, and that’s all I know. I must ha’ ben at it all night. Seems to me I went home an’ licked my wife and come away ag’in, but I ain’t sure. I must ha’ ben on a reg’lar toot. I’m a —— drunken fool, and the quicker you let me go to —— the better.”