Thus it came to pass that Captain Carey lived at home with his two sons and wife and wife’s niece.
He stood in a bay window one day, and it entered his head to dig out a pond and place a fountain in the middle of it.
“It’ll improve the property,” said Captain Carey, turning to his wife and sons, who were lingering at the breakfast-table. “We’ll fix a pedestal amidships of the pond and put a female statue upon it—one of them white figures who keep their right hands aloft for the holding of a whirligig fountain. There’s nothing prettier than a revolving fountain a-sparkling and a-showering down over a noode statue.”
“You’ll be striking salt water, father, if you fall a-digging,” said the sailor son named Tom.
“And what then?” exclaimed Captain Carey. “Ain’t brine as bright to the eye as fresh water? And it’s not going to choke the fountain either. Blessed if I don’t think the fountain might be set a-playing by the rise and fall of the tide.”
When breakfast was ended, the father and the two sons stepped out of doors to decide upon a spot in which to dig the pond for the fountain. After much discussion they agreed to dig in front of the house, about a hundred paces distant, within a stone’s throw of the wash of the water when the tide was at its height.
The Captain’s grounds lay open to the sea, though they were jealously fenced, as has been already said, at the back and on either hand. There could be no intrusion on the sea-fronting portion of the grounds. The mud came to the embankment, and the embankment was the ocean-limit of Carey’s little estate. There was no path, and no right of way if there had been. Selkirk and his goats could scarcely have enjoyed greater seclusion than did Carey and his family. The father and sons proposed to dig out the pond to the shape, depth, and area decided upon, and then bring in a mason to finish it. They went to work next day; it was something to do—something to kill the time which, perhaps, now and again lay a little heavy upon this isolated family. The old skipper dug with vehemence and enjoyment. He had been bred to a life of hard work, and was never happier than when toiling. His giant half-witted son laboured with the energy of steam. The sailor son stepped in when he had done with his parson and his studies for the day, and drove his spade into the reclaimed soil with enthusiasm. This went on for several days, and something that resembled the idea of a pond without any water in it began to suggest itself to the eye.
It was on a Friday afternoon in the month of April, as the Captain whom I am calling Carey himself informed me, that this retired skipper, who had not felt well enough that day to dig, was seated in his parlour reading a newspaper and smoking a pipe. Suddenly the door was flung open, and the giant half-witted youth whose name was Jack walked in.
“Father,” said he, “ain’t gold found in the earth?”
“Nowhere else, sonny,” answered the Captain, looking at the giant over the top of the newspaper.