"Come, now," he said in an authoritative voice, "let me get that chair and set down and then I'll see what all this amounts to. Sounds like a yarn of a horse-marine." As he spoke he crossed the room and, dragging a rocking-chair from its place beside the wall, settled himself in it. Martha found a seat upon the sofa and turned her tear-stained face toward him.
"Now, what's these young people been doin' that makes ye so almighty narvous?" he continued, lying back in his chair and looking at her from under his bushy eyebrows, his fingers supporting his forehead.
"Everything. Goes out sailin' with her and goes driftin' past with his head in her lap. Fogarty's man who brings fish to the house told me." She had regained something of her old composure now.
"Anything else?" The captain's voice had a relieved, almost condescending tone in it. He had taken his thumb and forefinger from his eyebrow now and sat drumming with his stiffened knuckles on the arm of the rocker.
"Yes, a heap more—ain't that enough along with the other things I've told ye?" Martha's eyes were beginning to blaze again.
"No, that's just as it ought to be. Boys and girls will be boys and girls the world over." The tone of the captain's voice indicated the condition of his mind. He had at last arrived at a conclusion. Martha's head was muddled because of her inordinate and unnatural love for the child she had nursed. She had found a spookship in a fog bank, that was all. Jealousy might be at the bottom of it or a certain nervous fussiness. Whatever it was it was too trivial for him to waste his time over.
The captain rose from his chair, crossed the sitting-room, and opened the door leading to the porch, letting in the sunshine. Martha followed close at his heels.
"You're runnin' on a wrong tack, old woman, and first thing ye know ye'll be in the breakers," he said, with his hand on the knob. "Ease off a little and don't be too hard on 'em. They'll make harbor all right. You're makin' more fuss than a hen over one chicken. Miss Jane knows what she's about. She's got a level head, and when she tells me that my Bart ain't good enough to ship alongside the daughter of Morton Cobden, I'll sign papers for him somewhere else, and not before. I'll have to get you to excuse me now; I'm busy. Good-day," and picking up his paper, he re-entered the house and closed the door upon her.