“I tell ’ee what, Jo,” remarked a stern and rather cross-grained bachelor, named Grime, “you may save yourself the trouble of givin’ chase to that little craft, for although old Bolter ain’t much to boast of—bein’ nothin’ more than the skipper of a small coastin’ craft—he thinks hisself far too big a man to give his darter to a fisherman.”
“Does he?” exclaimed Grain, with vehemence, and then suddenly checked himself.
“Ay, that does he,” returned Grime, with something of a sneer in his tone.
It chanced that Jo Grain had been to the public-house that day, and the sneer, which at other times would have been passed over with indifference, stung him—coupled as it was with a slur on his lowly position. He looked fiercely at Grime, and said, in a loud, angry tone: “It’s a matter of moonshine to me what Bolter thinks of himself. If the girl’s willin’ to have me I’ll wed her in spite o’ the old grampus.”
Now, unhappily for Jo Grain, the “old grampus” chanced at that very time to be sunning himself, and enjoying his pipe on the other side of the pier-wall, and heard distinctly what Jo said. Moreover, there was some truth in what Grime had said about the old skipper looking down on the young fisherman’s position: so that, although he could not deny that Jo was a first-rate man, and knew that Mary was fond of him, he had hitherto felt a strong disinclination to allow his darling and only child to wed, as he considered it beneath her. When, therefore, the speech above quoted broke harshly on his ears, the matter became finally settled in his mind. He dropped his pipe, set his heel on it, and ground it to powder. He also ground his teeth, and, turning round with a snort, worthy of the creature to which he had been compared, sailed wildly homewards.
Next day Jo Grain chanced to meet him in the street, and held out his hand as usual; but the captain, thrusting both hands deep into his trousers pockets, looked the young man firmly in the face—
“No, Grain,” he said sternly. “I’ve done with you!”
“Why so, Captain Bolter?” asked Jo, in great surprise.
“Because,” hissed the Captain, as his wrath rose, “an old grampus don’t choose to have anything more to do with a young puppy!”
Instantly his reckless speech of the day before flashed into Jo’s mind.