"What is it, Aaron?" asked his wife, with wistful apprehensiveness.
"Northin'," he growled.
"But I know it's something," she insisted, "and I'm always ready to share your burdens."
Cap'n Sproul looked around on the peace of his home, and some deep feeling seemed to surge in his soul.
"Louada Murilla," he said, sadly, "this isn't anything to be written in the book, and I didn't ever mean to speak of it to you. But there are times when a man jest has to talk about things, and he can't help it. There was one thing that I've been sorry for. I've said so to myself, and I'm goin' to say as much to you. Confession is good for the soul, so they say, and it may help me out some to tell you."
The horrified look on her face pricked him to speak further. 'Tis a titillating sensation, sometimes, to awe or shock those whom we love, when we know that forgiveness waits ready at hand.
"There was once—there was one man—I hit him dretful hard. He was a Portygee. But I hit him too hard. It was a case of mutiny. I reckon I could have proved it was mutiny, with the witnesses. But I hit him hard."
"Did he—?" gasped his wife.
"He did," replied the Cap'n, shortly, and was silent for a time.
"The thing for me to have done," he went on, despondently, "was to report it, and stood hearin'. But it was six weeks after we'd dropped him overboard—after the funeral, ye know—before we reached port. And there was a cargo ashore jest dancin' up and down to slip through the main hatch as soon as t' other one was over the rail—and freights 'way up and owners anxious for results, and me tryin' for a record, and all that, ye know. All is, there wa'n't nothin' said by the crew, for they wa'n't lookin' for trouble, and knowed the circumstances, and so I lo'ded and sailed. And that's all to date."