Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 4 — page 127: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BROTHERS O’ SPINKLE’S CHIMNEY, them had been quick enough to see what direction he came from. eas ‘“‘ What’s ailin’ the rest of ye?” bantered the captain. ‘ Every day is Eastrup’s day. He’s Jonah to ye. Ye'll have to throw him over, boys, ere ye’ll haul again!”’ What! ” cried Darrance, starting up. “ What’s that?” “There’s a story old sea-dogs tell,” laughed the skipper. ‘‘ Sometimes a fellow on board a ship brings ’em bad hick, they think. So, come a dark night with a slip- pery deck, next mornin’ he can’t be found. Only a yarn, of course—all foolishness.” He laughed again, uneasily, sensing the bad spirit abroad. ‘ Well, only joking, boys,—good luck to all!” Eastrup, laughing, sang out: ‘“ Good luck” and: ‘“ See you to-morrow!” Then he noticed that the others standing around were all grey-faced and silent. Darrance’s fingers were knitted white as he scowled at the plankmg down before him. Two or three more were talking together softly. Stuffing the pay for the fish into his pocket, Eastrup got into his dory and rowed away. For a week after that Darrance was not seen in the street from morning to night of any day. His friends said he was im bed, recovering from his hurt. But Neysa Mc- Gann, hovering about the tree shadows like “a ghost, twice saw him, coming from the mountain, enter his gate just before dawn. A few days later, returning one afternoon from a trip to-Tiverton, Eastrup stopped at his foster-mother’s to see Fred. ‘“‘ He’s wild at the sight 0’ ye, now ain’t he?” muttered the old crone testily, hands on her hips and head wagging side to side. ‘“‘God’s truth, he loves ye dear, that poor shadow of a b’y, an’ never a thought o’ what he almost come to, side o’ your bally- hooin’. A ripe geod beatin’ it was ye gave the bully, the way he’d ought not to be troublin’ you a long time comin’. But he’s main sore about the fishin’, himself is.” She shot him a bird-like glance. ‘“ Do ye be carryin’ a weapon, the time you're walkin’ the roads at dark? Or a good stick ahead of you to poke out the shadows in the rocks, along the cliff edge? Half a score full o’ lads and men have I raised up and seen go out to sea since I was a young girl 597 at Garragh village with the sunshine on my yellow hair. The water-women have pulled them all down, all, and it’s you last two ’'m wantin’ to be keepin’, the way I’ll have someone besides the priest to look down on me when I’m buried in my grave. Is it careful, ye are, Lawrence Eastrup, whom I pulled like a drowned rat out of the waves and brought up to be my son, careful for the sake of—” “It’s main careful I am, Mother Neysa. There’s no surprise can catch me, that I promise you.” Sudden rage seemed to seize her at his answer. Her eyes flashed as she stepped back, and her features knotted into a rri- . Mace. “Well, then away with you! Get out! Clear out of my house, you robber. Don’t let. me see your face! May the fiend strike you for an idle loafer! May all the devils of—”’ But Eastrup, long since familiar with the old woman’s meaningless tirades, was half way up the hill. He did not know that from the cover of her door-frame she watched him out of sight, and after that had gone in and folded the chattering imbecile in her wiry old arms. By degrees West Cove settled back to normal. Darrance, his face restored as much as it would ever be, returned to Lar-. kin’s steps. Fred McGann, the dumb, half- witted boy, got well of the pain in his side and began again to shamble and gawk about the village, roosting like a human jackdaw for hours at a time on the end of the spare counter at the store, eavesdropping without rebuff at private conversations, thrusting himself with an insatiable curiosity into the midst of whatever was going on. For hours at a time he would disappear. Farmers occasionally caught sight of him rambling through the fields. Fishermen passing up and down the shore saw his un- gainly, fluttering figure against the sky-line. Like the birds, he came and went unnoticed. Yet dusk never failed to find him back at the cottage, sitting opposite the old woman, his grandmother, and the ently supper of tea and porridge. Unfailingly, however, at a given hour of every day, he and Eastrup made their way EO DOO SS (CCC)