第31章 IN WHICH CAPTAIN NAT PICKS UP A DERELICT(1)

It is probable that John Ellery never fully realized the debt of gratitude he owed to the fog and the squall and to Captain Nat Hammond.Trumet,always hungry for a sensation,would have thoroughly enjoyed arguing and quarreling over the minister's visit to Come-Outer meeting,and,during the fracas,Keziah's parson might have been more or less battered.But Captain Nat's brilliant piloting of the old packet was a bit of seamanship which every man and woman on that foam-bordered stretch of sand could understand and appreciate,and the minister's indiscretion was all but forgotten in consequence.The Daily Advertisersgloated over it,of course,and Captain Elkanah brought it up at the meeting of the parish committee,but there Captain Zeb Mayo championed the young man's course and proclaimed that,fur's he was concerned,he was for Mr.Ellery more'n ever.A young greenhorn with the spunk to cruise single-handed right into the middle of the Come-Outer school and give an old bull whale like Eben the gaff is the man for my money,declared Zebedee.Most of his fellow-committee agreed with him.Not guilty,but don't do it again,was the general verdict.

As for the Come-Outers,they professed to believe that their leader had much the best of the encounter,so they were satisfied.There was a note of triumph and exultation in the test imony given on the following Thursday night,and Captain Eben divided his own discourse between thankfulness for his son's safe return and glorification at the discomfiture of the false prophets.

Practically,then,the result of Ellery's peace overture was an increased bitterness in the feeling between the two societies and a polishing of weapons on both sides.

Keziah watched anxiously for a hint concerning her parson's walk in the rain with Grace,but she heard nothing,so congratulated herself that the secret had been kept.Ellery did not again mention it to her,nor she to him.A fortnight later he preached his great sermon on The Voyage of Life,and its reference to gales and calms and lee shores and breakers made a hit.His popularity took a big jump.

He met Nat Hammond during that fortnight.The first meeting was accompanied by unusual circumstances,which might have been serious,but were actually only funny.

The tide at Trumet,on the bay side,goes out for a long way,leaving uncovered a mile and a half of flats,bare and sandy,or carpeted with seaweed.Between these flats are the channels,varying at low water from two to four feet in depth,but deepening rapidly as the tide flows.

The flats fascinated the young minister,as they have many another visitor to the Cape,before or since.On cloudy days they lowered with a dull,leaden luster and the weed-grown portions were like the dark squares on a checkerboard,while the deep water beyond the outer bar was steely gray and angry.When the sun shone and the wind blew clear from the northwest the whole expanse flashed into fire and color,sapphire blue,emerald green,topaz yellow,dotted with white shells and ablaze with diamond sparkles where the reflected light leaped from the flint crystals of the wet,coarse sand.

The best time to visit the flats--tide serving,of course--is the early morning at sunrise.Then there is an inspiration in the wide expanse,a snap and tang and joy in the air.Ellery had made up his mind to take a before-breakfast tramp to the outer bar and so arose at five,tucked a borrowed pair of fisherman's boots beneath his arm,and,without saying anything to his housekeeper,walked down the lawn behind the parsonage,climbed the rail fence,and cut across lotsto the pine grove on the bluff.There he removed his shoes,put on the boots,wallowed through the mealy yellow sand forming the slope of the bluff,and came out on the white beach and the inner edge of the flats.Then he plashed on,bound out to where the fish weirs stood,like webby fences,in the distance.

It was a wonderful walk on a wonderful day.The minister enjoyed every minute of it.Out here he could forget the petty trials of life,the Didamas and Elkanahs.The wind blew his hat off and dropped it in a shallow channel,but he splashed to the rescue and laughed aloud as he fished it out.It was not much wetter than it had been that night of the rain,when he tried to lend his umbrella and didn't succeed.This reflection caused him to halt in his walk and look backward toward the shore.The brown roof of the old tavern was blushing red in the first rays of the sun.

A cart,drawn by a plodding horse and with a single individual on its high seat,was moving out from behind the breakwater.Some fisherman driving out his weir,probably.

The sand of the outer bar was dimpled and mottled like watered silk by the action of the waves.It sloped gradually down to meet the miniature breakers that rolled over and slid in ripples along its edge.Ellery wandered up and down,picking up shells and sea clams,and peering through the nets of the nearest weir at the horsefoot crabsand squid and flounders imprisoned in the pound.

There were a few bluefish there,also,and a small school of mackerel.

The minister had been on the bar a considerable time before he began to think of returning to the shore.He was hungry,but was enjoying himself too well to mind.The flats were all his that morning.Only the cart and its driver were in sight and they were half a mile off.He looked at his watch,sighed,and reluctantly started to walk toward the town;he mustn't keep Mrs.Coffin's breakfast waiting TOO long.

The first channel he came to was considerably deeper than when he forded it on the way out.He noticed this,but only vaguely.The next,however,was so deep that the water splashed in at the top of one of his boots.He did notice that,because though he was not wearing his best clothes,he was not anxious to wet his other ones.The extent of his wardrobe was in keeping with the size of his salary.