“Billy Ill,” said Tumm, “you better turn in.”
“I isn’t sleepy, sir.”
“I ’low you better had,” Tumm warned. “It ain’t fit for such as you t’ hear.”
The boy’s voice dropped to an awed whisper. “I wants t’ hear,” he said.
“Hear?”
“Ay, sir. I wants t’ hear about souls—an’ the devil.”
Tumm sighed. “Ah, well, lad,” said he, “I ’low you was born t’ be troubled by fears. God help us all!”
We waited.
“He come,” Tumm began, “from Jug Cove—bein’,” he added, indulgently, after a significant pause, “born there—an’ that by sheer ill luck of a windy night in the fall o’ the year, when the ol’ woman o’ Tart Harbor, which used t’ be handy thereabouts, was workin’ double watches at Whale Run t’ save the life of a trader’s wife o’ the name o’ Tiddle. I ’low,” he continued, “that ’tis the only excuse a man could have for hailin’ from Jug Cove; for,” he elucidated, “’tis a mean place t’ the westward o’ Fog Island, a bit below the Black Gravestones, where the Soldier o’ the Cross was picked up by Satan’s Tail in the nor’easter o’ last fall. You opens the Cove when you rounds Greedy Head o’ the Henan’-Chickens an’ lays a course for Gentleman Tickle t’ other side o’ the Bay. ’Tis there that Jug Cove lies; an’ whatever,” he proceeded, being now well under way, with all sail drawing in a snoring breeze, “’tis where the poor devil had the ill luck t’ hail from. We was drove there in the Quick as Wink in the southerly gale o’ the Year o’ the Big Shore Catch; an’ we lied three dirty days in the lee o’ the Pillar o’ Cloud, waitin’ for civil weather; for we was fished t’ the scrupper-holes, an’ had no heart t’ shake hands with the sea that was runnin’. ’Tis a mean place t’ be wind-bound—this Jug Cove: tight an’ dismal as chokee, with walls o’ black rock, an’ as nasty a front yard o’ sea as ever I knowed.