“D’ye hear me? Get out of that!” the ship-owner repeated, more truculently. “What d’ye mean by rubbing the paint off my boat?”
Silently Jack cast off, and let the Sea-Lark swing back across the slip.
“Don’t let me catch you over here again!” bellowed Mr. Barker, as he made his way back toward his office at the head of the wharf.
“Don’t you worry about that,” muttered Jack, smarting, as he fended the sloop from a spile and tossed her line over it. “You wouldn’t have found me there then if I’d realized where I was.” He looked disgustedly after the ship-owner, whose back was disappearing through a doorway. “I wouldn’t tie up to one of your old tubs if it were the only thing afloat, you old skinflint!”
But in that Jack was mistaken, as events soon proved.
Two days later there came a blustery, rainy day—the sort of weather known to the down-east fishermen as a “smoky so’easter.” For a brief spell summer was in a grumpy mood. Drizzle fell constantly, and sharp gusts of wind swept at intervals across the harbor. Jack, having made one profitless run across to the Point, was wondering whether or not there was any chance of the sun taking another peep at Greenport that day. He hoped that for once Cap’n Crumbie was wrong in his assertion that it was going to last till nightfall. George was not on board that morning, as it was one of the days when his father needed assistance, but Rodney had joined the sloop, in no wise discouraged by the weather. Both boys were enveloped in oilskins.
While the Sea-Lark was lying at her berth Cap’n Crumbie strolled to the edge of the wharf, casting a glance far out to sea for some sign of a break.
“There’s a schooner in trouble down near Four Fathom Shoal,” he announced. “They’ve just telephoned from the Light about her.”
“A Greenport schooner?” Jack asked.