"Oh, no," he answered gravely, and went away, leaving her to the silent laughter that always seemed to him, whenever he was a witness of it, as something peculiarly elusive and almost pagan.
In all Blackwater there was no cooler spot than Myron Beckwith's boat-shop. Facing the Shore Road, and standing on piles, with big sliding doors opening at each end, on a hot summer afternoon one could always find a cool breeze drawing through it and hear the water lapping about the piles beneath the floor. The panorama of village life passed by on the Shore Road, and at the back doors one could sit and watch all the activity of harbor and wharves and see the vessels going up and down the sound. To sailors ashore and to idlers in general it was an attractive spot. Here Drew found Captain March standing in a little group near the rear doors, ruminating on life.
"No," he was saying, "things go best by contraries. A sailor ought to marry a girl from the inboard, who doesn't know a scow from a full-rigged ship and is just a little scart at sight of salt water. A man like the dominie here," he added, as Drew halted by the group, "ought to marry a girl who's never been under conviction and has got a spice of old Satan in her. That's what gives 'em variety and keeps 'em interested. When you know just what you're going to have for your meals every day, you kind o' lose interest in your eating."
"Dominie," said Jehiel Dace, "you ought to get the cap'n to supply your pulpit while you're off on your vacation. He's a good deal of a preacher."
"I have other uses for him," said Drew, with a smile.
"'Twouldn't be a bad notion if we'd all change places now and then," replied the captain. "We'd appreciate each other better. I don't know but I could preach about as well as the dominie could run the Henrietta C. I ain't so sure about the prayers. One thing, there's several in that congregation I'd like to talk at."
"Nothin' to hender you from freein' your mind as it is," suggested Dace, brightening at the prospect. "You don't need no pulpit for that."
There was a twinkle in Captain March's eyes, but he shook his head.
"No," he said with an air of finality, "it wouldn't be official. Wisdom has got to have authority to give it weight. Otherwise it's just blamed impudence."
"That's so," admitted Dace; "that's a good deal so. See what a man will take from his wife without—"