It chanced at Hook-and-Line Harbour before night––Skipper Bill had then for hours been gone towards Jolly Harbour––that a Labrador fishing craft put in for water. She was loaded deep; her decks were fairly awash with her load of fish, and at best she was squat and old and rotten––a basket to put to sea in. Here was no fleet craft; but she was south-bound, at any rate, and Archie Armstrong determined to board her. To get to St. John’s––to open the door of his father’s office on the first of September as he had promised––to explain and to reassure and even to present in hard cash the value of a sloop yacht and a pony and a motor boat––was the boy’s feverish determination. He could not forget his father’s grave words: “Your honour is involved.” Perhaps he exaggerated the importance of them. His honour? The boy had no wish to be excused––had no liking for fatherly indulgence. He was wholly intent upon justifying his father’s faith and satisfying his own sense of honourable obligation. It must be fish or 297 cash––fish or cash––and as it seemed it could not be fish it must therefore be cash.
It must be hard cash––cash down––paid on the first of September over his father’s desk in the little office overlooking the wharves.
“Green Bay bound,” the skipper of the Labrador craft replied to Archie’s question.
That signified a landing at Ruddy Cove.
“I’ll go along,” said Archie.
“Ye’ll not,” the skipper snapped. “Ye’ll not go along until ye mend your manners.”
Archie started in amazement.
“You’ll go along, will ye?” the skipper continued. “Is you the owner o’ this here craft? Ye may ask t’ go along; but whether ye go or not is for me––for me, ye cub!––t’ say.”
Archie straightened in his father’s way. “My name,” said he, shortly, “is Archibald Armstrong.”
The skipper instantly touched his cap.