Miss Abigail was in an upper chamber, sweeping; but on hearing the unusual racket below, she scented an accident and came ambling downstairs with a bottle of the infallible hot-drops in her hand.

Nothing but the firmness of my grandfather prevented her from giving Sailor Ben a table-spoonful on the spot. But when she learned what had come about--that this was Kitty's husband, that Kitty Collins wasn't Kitty Collins now, but Mrs. Benjamin Watson of Nantucket--the good soul sat down on the meal-chest and sobbed as if--to quote from Captain Nutter--as if a husband of her own had turned up!

A happier set of people than we were never met together in a dingy kitchen or anywhere else. The Captain ordered a fresh decanter of Madeira, and made all hands, excepting myself, drink a cup to the return of "the prodigal sea-son," as he persisted in calling Sailor Ben.

After the first flush of joy and surprise was over Kitty grew silent and constrained. Now and then she fixed her eyes thoughtfully on her husband. Why had he deserted her all these years? What right had he to look for a welcome from one he had treated so cruelly? She had been true to him, but had he been true to her? Sailor Ben must have guessed what was pa.s.sing in her mind, for presently he took her hand and said--"Well, la.s.s, it's a long yarn, but you shall have it all in good time. It was my hard luck as made us part company, an' no will of mine, for I loved you dear."

Kitty brightened up immediately, needing no other a.s.surance of Sailor Ben's faithfulness.

When his hour had expired, we walked with him down to the wharf, where the Captain held a consultation with the mate, which resulted in an extension of Mr. Watson's leave of absence, and afterwards in his discharge from his ship. We then went to the "Mariner's Home" to engage a room for him, as he wouldn't hear of accepting the hospitalities of the Nutter House.

"You see, I'm only an uneddicated man," he remarked to my grandfather, by way of explanation.

Chapter Sixteen--In Which Sailor Ben Spins a Yarn

Of course we were all very curious to learn what had befallen Sailor Ben that morning long ago, when he bade his little bride goodby and disappeared so mysteriously.

After tea, that same evening, we a.s.sembled around the table in the kitchen--the only place where Sailor Ben felt at home--to hear what he had to say for himself.

The candles were snuffed, and a pitcher of foaming nut-brown ale was set at the elbow of the speaker, who was evidently embarra.s.sed by the respectability of his audience, consisting of Captain Nutter, Miss Abigail, myself, and Kitty, whose face shone with happiness like one of the polished tin platters on the dresser.

"Well, my hearties," commenced Sailor Ben--then he stopped short and turned very red, as it struck him that maybe this was not quite the proper way to address a dignitary like the Captain and a severe elderly lady like Miss Abigail Nutter, who sat bolt upright staring at him as she would have stared at the Tyc.o.o.n of j.a.pan himself.

"I ain't much of a hand at spinnin' a yarn," remarked Sailor Ben, apologetically, "'specially when the yarn is all about a man as has made a fool of hisself, an' 'specially when that man's name is Benjamin Watson."

"Bravo!" cried Captain Nutter, rapping on the table encouragingly.

"Thankee, sir, thankee. I go back to the time when Kitty an' me was livin' in lodgin's by the dock in New York. We was as happy, sir, as two porp.u.s.s.es, which they toil not neither do they spin. But when I seed the money gittin' low in the locker--Kitty's starboard stockin', savin' your presence, marm--I got down-hearted like, seem' as I should be obleeged to ship agin, for it didn't seem as I could do much ash.o.r.e. An' then the sea was my nat'ral spear of action. I wasn't exactly born on it, look you, but I fell into it the fust time I was let out arter my birth. My mother slipped her cable for a heavenly port afore I was old enough to hail her; so I larnt to look on the ocean for a sort of step-mother--an'

a precious hard one she has been to me.

"The idee of leavin' Kitty so soon arter our marriage went agin my grain considerable. I cruised along the docks for somethin' to do in the way of stevedore: an' though I picked up a stray job here and there, I didn't arn enough to buy ship-bisket for a rat; let alone feedin' two human mouths. There wasn't nothin' honest I wouldn't have turned a hand to; but the 'longsh.o.r.emen gobbled up all the work, an' a outsider like me didn't stand a show.

"Things got from bad to worse; the month's rent took all our cash except a dollar or so, an' the sky looked kind o' squally fore an' aft. Well, I set out one mornin'--that identical unlucky mornin'--determined to come back an' toss some pay into Kitty's lap, if I had to sell my jacket for it. I spied a brig unloadin' coal at pier No. 47--how well I remembers it! I hailed the mate, an' offered myself for a coal-heaver. But I wasn't wanted, as he told me civilly enough, which was better treatment than usual. As I turned off rather glum I was signalled by one of them sleek, smooth-spoken rascals with a white hat an' a weed on it, as is always goin' about the piers a-seekin' who they may devower.

"We sailors know 'em for rascals from stem to starn, but somehow every fresh one fleeces us jest as his mate did afore him. We don't larn nothin' by exper'ence; we're jest no better than a lot of babys with no brains.

"'Good mornin', my man,' sez the chap, as iley as you please.

"'Mornin', sir,' sez I.

"'Lookin' for a job?' sez he.

"'Through the big end of a telescope,' sez I--meanin' that the chances for a job looked very small from my pint of view.

"'You're the man for my money,' sez the sharper, smilin' as innocent as a cherubim; 'jest step in here, till we talk it over.'

"So I goes with him like a nat'ral-born idiot, into a little grocery-shop near by, where we sets down at a table with a bottle atween us. Then it comes out as there is a New Bedford whaler about to start for the fishin' grounds, an' jest one able-bodied sailor like me is wanted to make up the crew. Would I go? Yes, I wouldn't on no terms.

"'I'll bet you fifty dollars,' sez he, 'that you'll come back fust mate.'

"'I'll bet you a hundred,' sez I, 'that I don't, for I've signed papers as keeps me ash.o.r.e, an' the parson has witnessed the deed.'

"So we sat there, he urgin' me to ship, an' I chaffin' him cheerful over the bottle.

"Arter a while I begun to feel a little queer; things got foggy in my upper works, an' I remembers, faint-like, of signin' a paper; then I remembers bein' in a small boat; an' then I remembers nothin' until I heard the mate's whistle pipin' all hands on deck. I tumbled up with the rest; an' there I was--on board of a whaler outward bound for a three years' cruise, an' my dear little la.s.s ash.o.r.e awaitin' for me."

"Miserable wretch!" said Miss Abigail, in a voice that vibrated among the tin platters on the dresser. This was Miss Abigail's way of testifying her sympathy.

"Thankee, marm," returned Sailor Ben, doubtfully.

"No talking to the man at the wheel," cried the Captain. Upon which we all laughed. "Spin!" added my grandfather.

Sailor Ben resumed:

"I leave you to guess the wretchedness as fell upon me, for I've not got the gift to tell you. There I was down on the ship's books for a three years' viage, an' no help for it. I feel nigh to six hundred years old when I think how long that viage was. There isn't no hour-gla.s.s as runs slow enough to keep a tally of the slowness of them fust hours. But I done my duty like a man, seem' there wasn't no way of gettin' out of it.

I told my shipmates of the trick as had been played on me, an they tried to cheer me up a bit; but I was sore sorrowful for a long spell. Many a night on watch I put my face in my hands and sobbed for thinkin' of the little woman left among the land-sharks, an' no man to have an eye on her, G.o.d bless her!"

Here Kitty softly drew her chair nearer to Sailor Ben, and rested one hand on his arm.

"Our adventures among the whales, I take it, doesn't consarn the present company here a.s.sembled. So I give that the go by. There's an end to everythin', even to a whalin' viage. My heart all but choked me the day we put into New Bedford with our cargo of ile. I got my three years' pay in a lump, an' made for New York like a flash of lightnin'. The people hove to and looked at me, as I rushed through the streets like a madman, until I came to the spot where the lodgin'-house stood on West Street.

But, Lord love ye, there wasn't no sech lodgin'-house there, but a great new brick shop.

"I made bold to go in an' ask arter the old place, but n.o.body knowed nothin' about it, save as it had been torn down two years or more. I was adrift now, for I had reckoned all them days and nights on gittin' word of Kitty from Dan Shackford, the man as kept the lodgin'.

"As I stood there with all the wind knocked out of my sails, the idee of runnin' alongside the perlice-station popped into my head. The perlice was likely to know the lat.i.tude of a man like Dan Shackford, who wasn't over an' above respecktible. They did know--he had died in the Tombs jail that day twelvemonth. A coincydunce, wasn't it? I was ready to drop when they told me this; howsomever, I bore up an' give the chief a notion of the fix I was in. He writ a notice which I put into the newspapers every day for three months; but nothin' come of it. I cruised over the city week in and week out I went to every sort of place where they hired women hands; I didn't leave a think undone that a uneddicated man could do. But nothin' come of it. I don't believe there was a wretcheder soul in that big city of wretchedness than me. Sometimes I wanted to lay down in the sheets and die.

"Driftin' disconsolate one day among the shippin', who should I overhaul but the identical smooth-spoken chap with a white hat an' a weed on it! I didn't know if there was any spent left in me, till I clapped eye on his very onpleasant countenance. 'You villain!' sez I, 'where's my little Irish la.s.s as you dragged me away from?' an' I lighted on him, hat and all, like that!"

Here Sailor Ben brought his fist down on the deal table with the force of a sledge-hammer. Miss Abigail gave a start, and the ale leaped up in the pitcher like a miniature fountain.

"I begs your parden, ladies and gentlemen all; but the thought of that feller with his ring an' his watch-chain an' his walrus face, is alus too many for me. I was for pitchin' him into the North River, when a perliceman prevented me from benefitin' the human family. I had to pay five dollars for hittin' the chap (they said it was salt and b.u.t.tery), an' that's what I call a neat, genteel luxury. It was worth double the money jest to see that white hat, with a weed on it, layin' on the wharf like a busted accordiun.

"Arter months of useless sarch, I went to sea agin. I never got into a foren port but I kept a watch out for Kitty. Once I thought I seed her in Liverpool, but it was only a gal as looked like her. The numbers of women in different parts of the world as looked like her was amazin'. So a good many years crawled by, an' I wandered from place to place, never givin' up the sarch. I might have been chief mate scores of times, maybe master; but I hadn't no ambition. I seed many strange things in them years--outlandish people an' cities, storms, shipwracks, an' battles. I seed many a true mate go down, an' sometimes I envied them what went to their rest. But these things is neither here nor there.

"About a year ago I shipped on board the Belphoebe yonder, an' of all the strange winds as ever blowed, the strangest an' the best was the wind as blowed me to this here blessed spot. I can't be too thankful.

That I'm as thankful as it is possible for an uneddicated man to be, He knows as reads the heart of all."

Here ended Sailor Ben's yarn, which I have written down in his own homely words as nearly as I can recall them. After he had finished, the Captain shook hands with him and served out the ale.

As Kitty was about to drink, she paused, rested the cup on her knee, and asked what day of the month it was.

"The twenty-seventh," said the Captain, wondering what she was driving at.

"Then," cried Kitty, "it's ten years this night sence--"

"Since what?" asked my grandfather.