“Marshall Elliott!” cried Anne. “Oh, Captain Jim—it wasn’t—yes, it WAS his voice—oh, Captain Jim, I didn’t know him—and I was quite insulting to him! WHY didn’t he tell me? He must have seen I didn’t know him.”
“He wouldn’t say a word about it—he’d just enjoy the joke. Don’t worry over snubbing him—he’ll think it fun. Yes, Marshall’s shaved off his beard at last and cut his hair. His party is in, you know. I didn’t know him myself first time I saw him. He was up in Carter Flagg’s store at the Glen the night after election day, along with a crowd of others, waiting for the news. About twelve the ’phone came through—the Liberals were in. Marshall just got up and walked out—he didn’t cheer or shout—he left the others to do that, and they nearly lifted the roof off Carter’s store, I reckon. Of course, all the Tories were over in Raymond Russell’s store. Not much cheering THERE. Marshall went straight down the street to the side door of Augustus Palmer’s barber shop. Augustus was in bed asleep, but Marshall hammered on the door until he got up and come down, wanting to know what all the racket was about.
“Come into your shop and do the best job you ever did in your life, Gus,’ said Marshall. 'The Liberals are in and you’re going to barber a good Grit before the sun rises.’
“Gus was mad as hops—partly because he’d been dragged out of bed, but more because he’s a Tory. He vowed he wouldn’t shave any man after twelve at night.
“'You’ll do what I want you to do, sonny,’ said Marshall, 'or I’ll jest turn you over my knee and give you one of those spankings your mother forgot.’
“He’d have done it, too, and Gus knew it, for Marshall is as strong as an ox and Gus is only a midget of a man. So he gave in and towed Marshall in to the shop and went to work. 'Now,’ says he, 'I’ll barber you up, but if you say one word to me about the Grits getting in while I’m doing it I’ll cut your throat with this razor,’ says he. You wouldn’t have thought mild little Gus could be so bloodthirsty, would you? Shows what party politics will do for a man. Marshall kept quiet and got his hair and beard disposed of and went home. When his old housekeeper heard him come upstairs she peeked out of her bedroom door to see whether ’twas him or the hired boy. And when she saw a strange man striding down the hall with a candle in his hand she screamed blue murder and fainted dead away. They had to send for the doctor before they could bring her to, and it was several days before she could look at Marshall without shaking all over.”
Captain Jim had no fish. He seldom went out in his boat that summer, and his long tramping expeditions were over. He spent a great deal of his time sitting by his seaward window, looking out over the gulf, with his swiftly-whitening head leaning on his hand. He sat there tonight for many silent minutes, keeping some tryst with the past which Anne would not disturb. Presently he pointed to the iris of the West:
“That’s beautiful, isn’t, it, Mistress Blythe? But I wish you could have seen the sunrise this morning. It was a wonderful thing—wonderful. I’ve seen all kinds of sunrises come over that gulf. I’ve been all over the world, Mistress Blythe, and take it all in all, I’ve never seen a finer sight than a summer sunrise over the gulf. A man can’t pick his time for dying, Mistress Blythe—jest got to go when the Great Captain gives His sailing orders. But if I could I’d go out when the morning comes across that water. I’ve watched it many a time and thought what a thing it would be to pass out through that great white glory to whatever was waiting beyant, on a sea that ain’t mapped out on any airthly chart. I think, Mistress Blythe, that I’d find lost Margaret there.”
Captain Jim had often talked to Anne of lost Margaret since he had told her the old story. His love for her trembled in every tone—that love that had never grown faint or forgetful.
“Anyway, I hope when my time comes I’ll go quick and easy. I don’t think I’m a coward, Mistress Blythe—I’ve looked an ugly death in the face more than once without blenching. But the thought of a lingering death does give me a queer, sick feeling of horror.”