Mrs. Holbrook looked at her son sharply.
"What did you do? Do you want to be sent from the table?" she said.
The young man dropped his gaze into his plate and looked abashed. His father smiled. The meal proceeded in silence until they had finished, when Mr. Holbrook led the way on deck with a handful of cigars.
"That wasn't a bad one on the country parson," ventured the yachtsman. "You fellows so seldom joke, a man never knows just when you will break out. Ha, ha, ha—'never did time'—Well, that wasn't half bad." And he quite warmed to the tall man as he offered him a perfecto.
"But you see——"
"Yes, I see well enough. I don't blame you for kicking about such men. Now you can tail on to a sheet or pass a reef point like a man. Will you have a good nip of grog before Mrs. Holbrook comes on deck?"
The sanctified man thought he would. They repaired to the forehatch, where the steward passed up the spirits unseen.
The warmth of the liquor put new life in the tall man's great frame. He had eaten very little for days and the effects of good food and strong drink were very strengthening. The look of challenge took the place of alarm in his large expressive eyes and his great square jaw seemed to set firmer. Half of his cigar disappeared between his teeth, which closed upon it with the set of a vise.
They went aft again in time to meet Mrs. Holbrook coming on deck assisted by the Captain, who placed rugs for her in a steamer chair in the cockpit. It was getting thicker and the wind was now well to the eastward of north, but there was no harbour nearer than Cape Fear, and the Captain had many reasons for not wishing to stop there. He would run along close to the land and after passing would be in Long Bay, where he would have a fair wind to Charleston, one hundred and fifty miles ahead, making a run of more than two hundred miles from Beaufort. This would get the yacht well down the coast to where they might expect good weather.
"I think," said the tall Mr. Jones, during a break in the conversation, "I would head the vessel offshore a couple of points. You know the Frying Pan runs well off here. It will be breaking in three fathoms with this breeze. The ways o' Providence air un——