The little Basin boats were old and frail; only Gurdon had lately been building a new fishing-boat. While we were looking off he had been hauling it down the steep bank by the cottage.
Now when we saw him Vesty ran to him and put the child in his arms and clung to him. I saw a great light come over his face.
"Gurd," said his father sternly, the old stained hand still stroking his white face, "ye have strength and skill above the most—but look at yon! Put up your boat, lad; it's no use. Moreover, there are five men yonder on the masts—your boat, tested in an ordinar' sea, holds but five alone!"
"Will ye go out jest to give them another chance to wrack themselves, and ye put yerself by to drown?" said another, with a trembling, half-ferocious laugh. "Look to yer wife and child. Don't be a fool!"
"There 's not one o' ye," cried Gurdon, "but if ye had a boat fit 'u'd do all ye could, an' men sinkin' and a-wavin' ye like that—let me off! There 's no other way——"
His voice broke. He looked at his wife and child, a look the woman understood for all eternity.
Vesty stood like marble; her shawl had escaped from her own throat, but was warm about the child that Gurdon had placed back on her breast.
As we waited, watching, transfixed, Fluke came running breathless from the woods where he had been as guide with the party of Notely's pleasure-seekers who had stayed behind that morning.
Captain Rafe ran to him, with the hand still stroking his pallid face: "That was Gurdon out there, making so near the sinking boat—he would go—only five——"
But Fluke heard never a word. He saw; his face flushed with a kind of mad joy; he tossed his hair back, and leaping into the waves, swam to his own frail little fishing-boat that was tossing at anchor.