He was sobbing now, his face hidden by his wrist and the cuff of his coat, the big tears striking his pea-jacket and bounding off. It had been many years since these springs had yielded a drop—not when anybody could see. They must have scalded his rugged cheeks as molten metal scalds a sand-pit.
Tod stood amazed. The outburst was a revelation. He had known the captain ever since he could remember, but always as an austere, exacting man.
"I'm glad, captain," Tod said simply; "the men'll be glad, too. Shall I tell 'em?"
The captain raised his head.
"Wait a minute, son." His heart was very tender, all discipline was forgotten now; and then he had known Tod from his boyhood. "I'll go myself and tell 'em," and he drew his hand across his eyes as if to dry them. "Yes, tell 'em. Come, I'll go 'long with ye and tell 'em myself. I ain't 'shamed of the way I feel, and the men won't be 'shamed neither."
The sitting-room was full when he entered. Dinner had been announced by Morgan, who was cook that week, by shouting the glad tidings from his place beside the stove, and the men were sitting about in their chairs. Two fishermen who had come for their papers occupied seats against the wall.
The captain walked to the corner of the table, stood behind his own chair and rested the knuckles of one hand on the white oilcloth. The look on his face attracted every eye. Pausing for a moment, he turned to Polhemus and spoke to him for the others:
"Isaac, I got a letter just now. Fogarty brought it over. You knew my boy Bart, didn't ye, the one that's been dead nigh on to twenty years?"
The old surfman nodded, his eyes still fastened on the captain. This calling him "Isaac" was evidence that something personal and unusual was coming. The men, too, leaned forward in attention; the story of Bart's disappearance and death had been discussed up and down the coast for years.
"Well, he's alive," rejoined the captain with a triumphant tone in his voice, "and he'll be here in a week—comin' to Amboy on a steamer. There ain't no mistake about it; here's his letter."