Uncle William watched him, with deep, detached eye—“I’ll tell you how it is, Mr. Carter—You wouldn’t ever ’a’ been happy here on the Island—not really happy. You see, here on the Island, we gen’ally fish, or cut bait, or go ashore. You ’d like it better to go ashore.”
The man moved away a few steps. “To tell you the truth, I am glad to be out of it,” he said, “I was making your land altogether too valuable—and nothing in it for me.”
“That’s the way I felt,” said Uncle William cordially. “I don’t like things ’t I own to get too val’able. It makes a lot of bother owning ’em.... You ’ll just about get the boat—if you was thinkin’ of going today,” he suggested.
The man looked at him—then he smiled and held out his hand. “Good-by, Mr. Benslow. I think I know a gentleman—when I meet him.”
Uncle William rubbed his hand down his trouser leg and took the one that was held out. “Good-by, Mr. Carter. I don’t suppose I’ll see you again. You won’t be comin’ back to the Island, I suppose. But we ’ll buy your lumber—we can work it in somehow, I reckon.”
The man moved away, and Uncle William returned to his net. Now and then his eyes sought the little dark boat that sailed back and forth against the misty horizon—and a smile crept up to the eyes and lingered in them—a little smile of humor and gentleness and kindly pity and strength.
XX
I’d LET him go, Benjy, if I was you.” Two weeks had gone by and the mackerel continued to run. George Manning had stayed by the house, driving nails with big, fierce strokes and looking out over the harbor with his set face.... The house had come on rapidly—the shingling was done and most of the inside woodwork was up. A new set of men had been put on, to replace the mackerel men, and Manning drove them hard. It had not been easy to get men, or to keep them—with the mackerel schooling red out there in the harbor. But something in Manning’s eye held them to their work.