“Waal, naow, Cap’en Eben, haow’s tricks? I see you’re still splashin’ araound in ten fathom and in smell of the land!” The other took his pipe from his mouth and stared curiously at Nickerson. “Ye’ve got me guessin’, matey,” he drawled. “I ain’t seen you afore, hev I? An’ yet that face o’ your’n seems mighty familiar—”
Nickerson laughed. “Eben Westhaver!” he said, “d’ye recollect th’ time we shipped on that coal drogher an’ took sixty days to run from Sydney to Saint John an’ you lost your only pair of pants by gettin’ them—” The listeners had no opportunity of learning how Captain Westhaver lost his only pair of pants, as he jumped out of the wheel-house with hand outstretched, shouting, “Young Juddy Nickerson, by the Great Hook Block! An’ where’n Tophet hev you sprung from? H’ard ye was lime-juicin’ ... ain’t seen ye raound for nigh four or five year. Well, well, an’ haow be ye, Juddy-boy?” And the two men started a “gamm” in which Nickerson narrated and Eben listened and interjected strange “Down-east” ejaculations—“I reckon you did!” “Th’ devil ye say!” “Waal, I swan!” and “D’ye tell me so!”
The boys were lolling over the steamer’s rail gazing on the wharf, when Nickerson called them over and introduced them to Captain Westhaver. “Come into the wheel-house, my sons,” he invited. “Set ye daown, fill up yer pipes, and make yourselves to home. I reckon ye ain’t had much layin’ back of late ... a long v’y’age ye made in that little hooker ... a long v’y’age!” Then, addressing Nickerson, he continued. “Not much change in Eastville Harbor sence you left, Juddy. Fishin’s good. Sev’ral noo vessels in the salt Bank fleet, and they’re buildin’ a few every year. Your father is kept full o’ work at his yard. The old man’s pretty hearty, Jud—don’t age any, an’ your mother’s spry—purty spry for a woman what had all the sickness she’s had. Guess they’ll be glad to see you home an’ to know you’re home for good. Goin’ to take a shot at the fishin’, are ye? Ain’t forgot haow to rig trawls, bait up, an’ haul gear in the bow of a dory, hev ye, Jud? When a man’s bin a brass-bound mate in lime-juicers, he’s li’ble to git kinder soft—”
Nickerson snorted indignantly. “By the Lord Harry, Eben Westhaver,” he said grimly, “I’d give a lot to see you a ‘brass-bound mate in a lime-juicer’ as you call it! You’d sweat some, by Godfrey! Ef you was mate of the four-posted scow that Donald here and I were in and shovin’ her araound from Glasgow to Vancouver—seven weeks’ beatin’ about off Cape Stiff—you wouldn’t be so glib with yer talk abaout gittin’ soft. It ’ud trim some of the bilge off that ol’ belly o’ yours, I’d swear! You prate of hard times coastin’? Wait ’til you’ve been southabout in a starvation Scotch wind-jammer big enough to carry this coaster on her davits and with hardly enough men in two watches to swing her yards raound. I was mate and skipper of a twenty-five hundred ton four-mast barque, Eben, an’ Scotch, an’ tight Scotch at that. Ef you know ships, you’ll know what that means—gear, stores and crowd—cheap and scanty. Six ruddy months and two blushin’ weeks on the passage ... a reg’lar blinder too! Second mate—a no-nothing Squarehead! Old Man—a cowardly old rum-hound! Kicked the greaser forrad and locked the skipper in his room when off the Horn, and took the ship to port myself ... would never ha’ got there else. An’ you, you fat old coaster, lyin’ back and takin’ it easy, to talk about me gittin’ soft. I like yer blushin’ gall!” And he grunted in mock resentment at the imputation.
The other laughed and lit up his pipe. “Well, Juddy, you were always the boy to tackle hard traverses!” he remarked calmly. “Why didn’t you stay to home? There was no call for you to go barging araound. Your folks are snug ... ye’ve bin a dam’ fool!”
A far-away expression came into the other’s keen grey eyes and the stern lines of his sea-tanned face softened. Pulling at his mustache, he sighed. “You’re right, Eben,” he said at last, “I have been a dam’ fool! I don’t see what should ever take our Nova Scotians away from our own country. But I’ve seen a lot and I’ve l’arned a lot. I’ve got an English Board of Trade certificate as master and I’ve handled big ships. I haven’t chucked my money araound either. But after all I’ve seen and experienced, I’ve found nawthin’ to beat Nova Scotia, and I believe I’ll make more money and be better off all raound if I stick by home and take a vessel to the fishin’. And money ain’t everything. To be home is worth more than any money. These are my honest convictions and I’m agoin’ to try them aout. Yes, sir, me and my two young buckos here.”
They left Halifax about midnight and steamed out of the harbor and to the west’ard. Chebucto flashed them a “Good morning!” when the little packet rounded the Head to negotiate the ledge-strewn channels behind Sambro Island, and picking up the lights, she poked into coves and inlets and delivered her parcels on silent wharves. Sometimes a sleepy wharfinger would awake at the steamer’s whistle and emerge from a nearby shed. “Two bar’ls fish for daown th’ shore, Cap!” he would growl drowsily, and after the two “bar’ls” were hustled aboard, he would pocket his receipt and depart for bed again with a “Fine mornin’, Cap. Hope ye strike no fog this time!”
Donald and Joak were awakened early by Captain Nickerson. “Gittin’ in naow, boys,” he said. “We’re jest coming up by Eastville Cape and it’s a fine morning.” The boys rolled out of the berths in which they had been sleeping “all standing,” and after a wash, they went on deck. It was indeed a fine morning—a glorious March morning of clear blue sky and brilliant spring sunshine, and the cool off-shore breeze seemed to carry the odors of balsam and spruce from the wooded shores which they were approaching. Eastville Cape, a high, rocky promontory, crowned by a white painted light-house and a warm-looking forest of evergreen spruce, flanked the entrance to a spacious cove or bay surrounded by gentle slopes of tilled fields and green spruce bush. The entrance was somewhat devious by reason of numerous underwater ledges on the western side, but the channel was evidently wide enough to be negotiated by a schooner, even with the wind ahead, as one could be seen tacking up the passage abreast of the packet steamer. The Cape faced a twin brother west of the ledges, and the two headlands stood like grey stone sentinels watching the Atlantic and guarding the bay behind.
On either side of the passage, green slopes, flecked with the remains of the winter’s snow in the sun-shaded hollows, rose abruptly from the sand and shingle beaches, and nestling among the spruce clumps, white wooden cottages with cedar shingle roofs, peered cosily from out of the wind-break of greenery. A strip of tilled ground invariably flanked the gentler slopes of those cottage estates, and on the beach, dories and boats betokened that the owners farmed both land and sea. “Those are all fishermen’s houses,” explained Captain Nickerson. “They farm a little, cut spruce logs, and fish alongshore for lobsters, cod, haddock, mackerel and so on in season. Some o’ them go vessel fishing on the Banks in summer. It’s a pretty place.”
It was indeed a pretty place. Donald thought it was magnificent. The clean stone beaches, with here and there a strip of white sand, the rocks, bold and rugged and with verdure growing in the fissures, the grassy slopes at odd intervals and the clumps of evergreen, the all surrounding hills clothed with thick forests of coniferous trees, and the clear pellucid waters of the Bay, made a picture which an artist would itch to portray on canvas.