Chapter 7 - Page 2

stilling "Ssssooo"; the ladder disappeared; a line of brass-rimmed
port-holes flashed past; a jet of Steam puffed in Harvey's
helplessly uplifted hands; a spout of hot water roared along the
rail of the "We're Here", and the little schooner staggered and
shook in a rush of screw-torn water, as a liner's stern vanished
in the fog. Harvey got ready to faint or be sick, or both, when he
heard a crack like a trunk thrown on a sidewalk, and, all small in
his ear, a far-away telephone voice drawling: "Heave to! You've
sunk us!"

"Is it us?" he gasped.

"No! Boat out yonder. Ring! We're goin' to look," said Dan,
running out a dory.

In half a minute all except Harvey, Penn, and the cook were
overside and away. Presently a schooner's stump-foremast, snapped
clean across, drifted past the bows. Then an empty green dory came
by, knocking on the 'We're Here's' side, as though she wished to
be taken in. Then followed something, face down, in a blue jersey,
but it was not the whole of a man. Penn changed colour and caught
his breath with a click. Harvey pounded despairingly at the bell,
for he feared they might be sunk at any minute, and he jumped at
Dan's hail as the crew came back.
-
"The Jennie Cushman," said Dan, hysterically, "cut clean in half -
graound up an' trompled on at that! Not a quarter of a mile away.
Dad's got the old man. There ain't any one else, and - there was
his son, too. Oh, Harve, Harve, I can't stand it! I've seen -" He
dropped his head on his arms and sobbed while the others dragged a
grey-headed man aboard.

"What did you pick me up for?" the stranger groaned. "Disko, what
did you pick me up for?"

Disko dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder, for the man's eyes
were wild and his lips trembled as he stared at the silent crew.
Then up and spoke Pennsylvania Pratt, who was also Haskins or Rich
or McVitty when Uncle Salters forgot; and his face was changed on
him from the face of a fool to the countenance of an old, wise
man, and he said in a strong voice: "The Lord gave, and the Lord
hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord! I was - I am a
minister of the Gospel. Leave him to me."

"Oh, you be, be you?" said the man. "Then pray my son back to me!
Pray back a nine-thousand-dollar boat an' a thousand quintal of
fish. If you'd left me alone my widow could ha' gone on to the
Provident an' worked fer her board, an' never known - an' never
known. Now I'll hev to tell her."

"There ain't nothin' to say," said Disko. "Better lie down a
piece, Jason Olley."

When a man has lost his only son, his summer's work, and his means
of livelihood, in thirty counted seconds, it is hard to give
consolation.

"All Gloucester men,