“Ye better not go.”
“Think not?” He looked again at the harbor. “It’s my last chance for a sail—I’ll watch out.”
“All right. ’T ain’t my business,” said the man. He went on slitting fish.
The harbor held a still light—ominously—grey with a tinge of yellow in its depths. Uncle William hurried down the face of the cliff, a telescope in his hand. Now and then he paused on the zigzag path and swept the bay with it. The grey stillness deepened.
On the beach below, the man paused in his work to look up. As Uncle William approached he grunted stiffly. “She’s off the island,” he said. He jerked a fishy thumb toward the water.
Uncle William’s telescope fixed the boat and held it. His throat hummed, holding a kind of conversation with itself.
The man had returned to his fish, slitting in rough haste and tossing to one side. “Fool to go out—I told him it was coming.”
The telescope descended. Uncle William regarded him mildly. “I o’t to ’a’ kept an eye on him,” he said humbly. “I didn’t jest sense he was goin’. I guess mebbe he did mention it. But I was mixin’ a batch of biscuit and kind o’ thinkin’ to myself. When I looked up he wa’n’t there.” He slid the telescope together and slipped it into his pocket. “I’ll hev to go after him,” he said.
The other looked up quickly. “How’ll you go?”
Uncle William nodded toward the boat that dipped securely at anchor. “I’ll take her,” he said.