"Is Peggy Lacey a wasteful maid?" Skipper John inquired.

"No; she's not a wasteful maid."

"Is she good?"

"She's pious enough for me."

"Is she healthy?"

"Nothin' wrong with her health that anybody ever fetched t' my notice.

She seems sound."

"Is she fair?"

"She'll pa.s.s."

"I'm not askin' if she pa.s.s. I'm askin' you if she isn't the fairest maid in Scalawag Run."

"'Tis a matter o' taste, father."

"An' what's your taste--if you have any?"

"If I was pickin' a fault," d.i.c.kie replied, "I'd say that she might have a touch more o' color in her cheeks t' match my notion o'

beauty."

"A bit too pallid t' suit your delicate notion o' beauty!" Skipper John scoffed. "Well, well!"

"I knows rosier maids than she."

"I've no doubt of it. 'Tis a pity the good Lord's handiwork can't be remedied t' suit you. Mm-mm! Well, well! An' is there anything else out o' the way with G.o.d Almighty's idea o' what a fair maid looks like?"

"Dang me!" d.i.c.kie protested again. "I isn't denyin' that she's fair!"

"No; but----"

"Ah, well, isn't I got a right t' my notions? What's the harm in admirin' rosy cheeks? Isn't nothin' the matter with rosy cheeks, is there?"

"They fade, my son."

"I knows that well enough, sir," d.i.c.kie declared; "but they're pretty while they last. An' I'd never be the man t' complain, sir, when they faded. You'd not think so ill o' me as all that, would you?"

"You'd not--complain when they faded?"

"I'd not shame my honor so!"

"Ah, well, d.i.c.k," said Skipper John, having reflected a moment upon this fine, honest sentiment, "'tis not the pallid cheeks o' the maid that trouble you. I knows you well, an' I knows what the trouble is.

The maid has been frank enough t' leave you see that she cares for you. She've no wiles to entangle you with; an' I 'low that she'd despise the use o' them anyhow. Did she cast her line with cunnin', she'd hook you soon enough; but that she'll never do, my son--she's too proud an' honest for that. Ay; that's it--too innocent t' conceal her feelin's an' too proud to ensnare you. You was always the lad, d.i.c.k, t' scorn what you could have an' crave that which was beyond your reach. Do you mind the time when you took over the little _Robin's Wing_ from Trader Tom Jenkins for the Labrador fishin'? She was offered you on fair credit, an' you found fault with the craft an'

the terms, an' dawdled an' complained, until Trader Tom offered her t'

Long George Long o' Hide-an'-Seek Harbor; an' then you went flyin' t'

Trader Tom's office, with your heart in your mouth, lest you lose the chance afore you got there. Had Trader Tom withheld the _Robin's Wing_, you would have clamored your voice hoa.r.s.e t' get her. Speak me fair, now--is you sorry you took the _Robin's Wing_?"

"I isn't."

"Is you ever repented a minute?"

"No, sir. Why should I?"

"Then there's a hint for your stupidity in that matter. Take the maid an' be done with it. G.o.d be thanked I isn't a widower-man. If I was, I'd bring your chance into peril soon enough," said his father. "'Tis t' be a fair day for fishin' the Skiff-an'-Punt grounds the morrow. Go t' bed. I'll pray that wisdom may overcome your caution afore you're decrepit."

Skipper John thought his son a great dunderhead. And d.i.c.kie Blue was a dunderhead. No doubt about it. Yet the failing was largely the fault of his years. A strapping fellow, this young d.i.c.kie Blue, blue-eyed in the Newfoundland way, and merry and modest enough in the main, who had recently discovered a critical interest in the comparative charms of the maids of the harbor. There were so many maids in the world! Dang it, it was confusing! There was Peggy Lacey. She was adorable. n.o.body could deny it. Had she worn roses in her cheeks she would have been irresistible altogether. And there was the new schoolmistress from Grace Harbor. That superior maid had her points, too. She did not lack attractions. They were more intellectual than anything else. Still, they had a positive appeal. There were snares for the heart in brilliant conversation and a traveled knowledge of the world. Dang it, anyhow, a man might number all the maids in the harbor and find charms enough in each! Only a fool would choose from such an abundance in haste. A wise man would deliberate--observe, compare, reflect; and a sure conviction would come of that course.

Well, now, pretty Peggy Lacey, pretty as she was, was not aggressively disposed. She was a pa.s.sive, too sanguine little creature; and being limpid and tender as well, and more loyal than artful, she had failed to conceal her ardent attachment and its anxious expectancy. Had she loosed a wink of challenge from her gray eyes in another direction, the reluctance of d.i.c.kie Blue might have been reduced with astonishing rapidity, and she could have punished his stupidity at will, had she been maliciously inclined. Conceiving such practices to be both cheap and artful, however, and being, after all, of a pretty st.u.r.dy turn of character, she rejected the advantages of deceitful behavior, as she called it, and in consequence lived in a state of cruel uncertainty.

Worse than that, she was no longer sought; and for this, too, she was wholly responsible. In a spirit of loyalty to d.i.c.kie Blue, who deserved nothing so devoted, she had repelled other advances; and when, once, in a wicked mood of pique, as she afterward determined, she had walked with Sandy Watt on the Squid Cove road, the disloyalty implied, mixed with fear of the consequences, made her too wretched to repeat that lapse from a faithful and consistent conduct. She was quite sure that d.i.c.kie Blue would be angered again if she did (he was savagely angry)--that he would be driven away for good and all.

"You must not do it again, Peggy," d.i.c.kie Blue had admonished. "Now, mind what I'm tellin' you!"

"I won't," the soft little Peggy promised in haste.

"Now, that's sensible," said d.i.c.kie Blue. He was in earnest. And his purpose was high.

"Still an' all," Peggy began, "there's no harm----"

"What does a maid know about that?" d.i.c.kie interrupted. "It takes a man t' know a man. The lad's not fit company for the likes o' you." It was true. "You must look upon me, Peggy, as an elder brother, an' be guided by my advice. I'll watch over you, Peggy, jus' as well as an elder brother can."

"I'm grateful," Peggy murmured, flushed with pleasure in this interest. "I thanks you."

"There's no call t' thank me," d.i.c.kie protested. "'Tis a pleasure t'

serve you."

"Thank you," said Peggy.

Skipper John Blue was a hearty old codger. Pretty Peggy Lacey, whose father had been cast away in the _Sink or Swim_, long ago, on the reefs off Thumb-an'-Finger of the Labrador, loved and used him like a father and found him sufficient to her need. To pretty Peggy Lacey, then, Skipper John cautiously repeated the substance of his conversation with d.i.c.kie Blue, adding a whisper of artful advice and a chuckle of delight in it. Peggy Lacey was appalled by the deceitful practice disclosed by Skipper John, whose sophistication she suspected and deplored. She had no notion at all, said she, that such evil as he described could walk abroad and unshamed in the good world, and she wondered what old mischief of his youth had informed him; and she would die a maid, loveless and childless, she declared, rather than have the guilt of a deception of such magnitude on her soul. Moreover, where were the means to be procured for executing the enormity? There was nothing of the sort, she was sure, in Trader Tom Jenkins's shop at Scalawag Run. There was nothing of the sort to be had anywhere short of St. John's; and as for sanctioning a plan so bold as sending a letter and a post-office order to Skipper John's old friend in St.

John's, the lively widow o' the late Cap'n Saul Nash, o' the _Royal Bloodhound_, pretty Peggy Lacey jus' pos'tively would not do no such thing.

Skipper John found his head convenient to a.s.sist the expression of his emotion. He scratched it.

"Well, I'm bewildered," said he, "an' I'm not able t' help you at all no more."

"I'll have n.o.body's help," Peggy Lacey retorted.

"Why not, Peggy?"

"I've my pride t' serve."

"My dear," said Skipper John gravely, "you've also your happiness t'

gain."