I was grown hopeless––remembering Tumm’s story of the babies.
“In a case like this,” Moses confided, “mother always ’lowed a man ought to.”
“But your wife?” I demanded.
“Oh, my goodness, Dannie!” cries he. “For shame!”
“Tell me quickly, Moses.”
“Mrs. Moses Shoos,” he answered, with gravest dignity, “always ’lows, agreein’ with me––that mother knowed!”
’Twas in this way that Moses Shoos shipped on the Shining Light....
Shortly now, by an arrangement long made and persistently continued, we had the Shining Light ready for 313 sea––provisioned, her water-casks full. I ran through the house upon a last survey; and I found my uncle at the pantry door, his bag on his back, peering into the dark interior of the little room, in a way most melancholy and desirous, upon the long row of bottles of rum. He sighed, closed the door with scowling impatience, and stumped off to board the ship: I was not heroic, but subtracted one from that long row, and stowed it away in a bag I carried. We dropped the anchor of the Shining Light, and beat out, through the tickle, to the wide, menacing sea, with the night coming down and a gale of wind blowing lustily up from the gray northeast. ’Twas thus not in flight the Shining Light continued her cruise, ’twas in pursuit of the maid I loved: a thing infinitely more anxious and momentous––a thing that meant more than life or death to me, with the maid gone as cook on a Labrador craft. ’Twas sunset time; but there was no sunset––no fire in the western sky: no glow or effulgent glory or lurid threat. The whole world was gone a dreary gray, with the blackness of night descending: a darkening zenith, a gray horizon lined with cold, black cloud, a coast without tender mercy for the ships of men, a black sea roughening in a rage to the northeast blasts. ’Twas all hopeless and pitiless: an unfeeling sea, but troubled, it seemed to me, by depths of woe and purpose and difficulty we cannot understand. We were bound for Topmast Harbor, on a wind favorable enough for courageous hearts; and my uncle had the wheel, and the fool of Twist Tickle and I kept the deck to serve him. 314 He did not call upon us to shorten sail, in answer to the old schooner’s complaint; and I was glad that he did not, as was the fool also....