“‘Ecod!’ thinks I, ‘I’ll just take a run ashore t’ see how bad a mess really was made o’ Jug Cove.’
“Which bein’ done, I crossed courses for the first time with Abraham Botch—Botch by name, an’ botch, accordin’ t’ my poor lights, by nature: Abraham Botch, God help un! o’ Jug Cove. ’Twas a foggy day—a cold, wet time: ecod! the day felt like the corpse of a drowned cook. The moss was soggy; the cliffs an’ rocks was all a-drip; the spruce was soaked t’ the skin—the earth all wettish an’ sticky an’ cold. The southerly gale ramped over the sea; an’ the sea got so mad at the wind that it fair frothed at the mouth. I ’low the sea was tired o’ foolin’, an’ wanted t’ go t’ sleep; but the wind kep’ teasin’ it—kep’ slappin’ an’ pokin’ an’ pushin’—till the sea couldn’t stand it no more, an’ just got mad. Off shore, in the front yard o’ Jug Cove, ’twas all white with breakin’ rocks—as dirty a sea for fishin’ punts as a man could sail in nightmares. From the Pillar o’ Cloud I could see, down below, the seventeen houses o’ Jug Cove, an’ the sweet little Quick as Wink; the water was black, an’ the hills was black, but the ship an’ the mean little houses was gray in the mist. T’ sea they was nothin’—just fog an’ breakers an’ black waves. T’ land-ward, likewise—black hills in the mist. A dirty sea an’ a lean shore!
“‘Tumm,’ thinks I, ‘’tis more by luck than good conduct that you wasn’t born here. You’d thank God, Tumm,’ thinks I, ‘if you didn’t feel so dismal scurvy about bein’ the Teacher’s pet.’
“An’ then—
“‘Good-even,’ says Abraham Botch.
“There he lied—on the blue, spongy caribou-moss, at the edge o’ the cliff, with the black-an’—white sea below, an’ the mist in the sky an’ on the hills t’ leeward. Ecod! but he was lean an’ ragged: this fellow sprawlin’ there, with his face t’ the sky an’ his legs an’ leaky boots scattered over the moss. Skinny legs he had, an’ a chest as thin as paper; but aloft he carried more sail ’n the law allows—sky-scraper, star-gazer, an’, ay! even the curse-o’-God-over-all. That was Botch—mostly head, an’ a sight more forehead than face, God help un! He’d a long, girlish face, a bit thin at the cheeks an’ skimped at the chin; an’ they wasn’t beard enough anywheres t’ start a bird’s nest. Ah, but the eyes o’ that botch! Them round, deep eyes, with the still waters an’ clean shores! I ’low I can’t tell you no more—but only this: that they was somehow like the sea, blue an’ deep an’ full o’ change an’ sadness. Ay, there lied Botch in the fog-drip—poor Botch o’ Jug Cove: eyes in his head; his dirty, lean body clothed in patched moleskin an’ rotten leather.
“An’—
“‘Good-even, yourself,’ says I.
“‘My name’s Botch,’ says he. ‘Isn’t you from the Quick as Wink?’
“‘I is,’ says I; ’an’ they calls me Tumm.’