But Aunt Tibbie burst out crying.
VII—“BY-AN’-BY” BROWN OF BLUNDER COVE
“By-an’-by” Brown he was called at Blunder Cove. And as “By-an’-by” Brown he was known within its fishing radius: Grave Head to Blow-me-down Billy. Momentarily, on the wet night of his landing, he had been “Mister” Brown; then—just “By-an’-by” Brown.
There was no secret about the baby. Young Brown was a bachelor of the outports: even so, there was still no secret about the baby. Nonsense! It was not “By-an’-by’s.” It never had been. Name? Tweak. Given name? She. What! Well, then, It! Age? Recent—somewheres ’long about midsummer. Blunder Cove was amazed, but, being used to sudden peril, to misfortune, and strange chances, was not incredulous. Blunder Cove was sympathetic: so sympathetic, indeed, so quick to minister and to assist, that “By-an’-by” Brown, aged fifteen, having taken but transient shelter for the child, remained to rear it, forever proposing, however, to proceed—by-and-by. So there they were, “By-an’-by” Brown and the baby! And the baby was not “By-an’-by’s.” Everybody knew it—even the baby: perhaps best of all.
“By-an’-by” Brown had adopted the baby at Back Yard Bight of the Labrador. There had been nothing else to do. It was quite out of the question, whatever the proprieties, whatever the requirements of babies and the inadequacy of bachelors—it was quite out of the question for “By-an’-by” Brown, being a bachelor of tender years and perceptions, to abandon even a baby at Back Yard Bight of the Labrador, having first assisted at the interment of the mother and then instantly lost trace of the delinquent father. The monstrous expedient had not even occurred to him; he made a hasty bundle of the baby and took flight for more populous neighborhoods, commanding advice, refuge, and infinitely more valuable assistance from the impoverished settlements by the way. And thereafter he remembered the bleak and lonely reaches of Back Yard Bight as a stretch of coast where he had been considerably alarmed.
It had been a wet night when “By-an’-by” Brown and the baby put into Blunder Cove—wind in the east, the sea in a tumble: a wet night, and late of it. All the windows were black; and the paths of the place—a water-side maze in the lee of great hills—were knee-deep in a flood of darkness. “By-an’-by” Brown was downcast: this because of his years. He was a lad of fifteen. Fifteen, mark you!—a gigantic fifteen: a wise and competent fifteen, too, having for seven years fended for itself in the turf huts of the Labrador and the forecastles of the lower coasts. But still, for the moment, he was downcast by the burden upon his youth. So he knocked diffidently at the first kitchen door; and presently he stood abashed in a burst of warm light from within.
Shelter? Oh, ay! T’ be sure. But (in quick and resentful suspicion):
“B’y,” Aunt Phoebe Luff demanded, “what ye got in them ile-skins? Pups?”
“By-an’-by” Brown observed that there were embers in the kitchen stove, that steam was faintly rising from the spout of the kettle.
“Baby,” said he.