"And what are you going to do now, Renny?" I asked him, as the steamer slipped out of sight behind the lighthouse rock.
He stared at me a little contemptuously, a manner he has always had.
"Do, Mr. Biddles?" says he, with a queer laugh. "Why, what would I do, sor? They ain't no less fish to be catched, is they, off Halibut Head, just because I got quit of a son or two?"
He left me, with a toss of his crisp, tawny-gray curls, jumped into his little two-wheeled cart, and was off. And I thought, "Ah, Renny Marks, outside you are still the same wild beast as when I had my first meeting with you, two-and-thirty years ago; but inside—yes, I knew then it must come; and it was not for me to order the how of it."
So as I took my way homeward, alone, toward the Rectory, I found myself recalling, as if it were yesterday, the first words I had ever exchanged with that tawny giant, just then in his first flush of manhood, and with a face as ruddy and healthy-looking as one of these early New Rose potatoes. Often, to be sure, I had seen him already in church, of a Sunday, sitting defiant and uncomfortable on one of the rear benches, struggling vainly to keep his eyes open; but before the last Amen was fairly out of the people's mouth, he had always bolted for the door; and I had never come, as you may say, face to face with him until this afternoon when I was footing it back, by the cove road, from a visit to an old sick woman, Nannie Odell. And here comes Renny Marks on his way home from the boat; and over his shoulder was the mainsail and gaff and a mackerel-seine and two great oars; and by one arm he had slung the rudder and tackle and bait-pot; and under the other he lugged a couple of bundles of lath for to mend his traps; and so he was pacing along there as proud and careless as Samson bearing away the gates of Gaza on his back (Judges xvi, 3).
Now I had entertained the belief for some time that it was my duty, should the occasion offer, to have a serious word with Renny about matters not temporal; and this was clearly the moment. Yet even before we had met he gave me one of those proud, distrustful, I have said contemptuous, looks of his; and I seemed suddenly to perceive the figure I must cut in his eyes, pattering along there so trimly in my clerical garb, and with my book of prayers under one arm; and, do you know, I was right tongue-tied; and so we came within hand-reach, and still never a word.
At last, "Good-day to ye, Mister Biddles," says he, with a scant, off-hand nod; and, as if he knew I must be admiring of his strength, "I can fetch twice this load, sor," says he, "without so mucht as knowing the difference."
"It's a fine thing, Renny Marks," said I, gaining my tongue again, at his boast, "a fine thing to be the strongest man in three parishes, if that's what ye be, as they tell me."
"It is that, sor," says he. "I never been cast yet; and I don't never expect for to be."