things I’ve seen or helped to do. I’ve ’em all jotted down in my life-book, but I haven’t got the knack of writing them out properly. If I could hit on jest the right words and string ’em together proper on paper I could make a great book. It would beat A Mad Love holler, and I believe Joe’d like it as well as the pirate yarns. Yes, I’ve had some adventures in my time; and, do you know, Mistress Blythe, I still lust after ’em. Yes, old and useless as I be, there’s an awful longing sweeps over me at times to sail out—out—out there—forever and ever.”
“Like Ulysses, you would
- ‘Sail beyond the sunset and the baths
- Of all the western stars until you die,’”
said Anne dreamily.
“Ulysses? I’ve read of him. Yes, that’s just how I feel—jest how all us old sailors feel, I reckon. I’ll die on land after all, I s’pose. Well, what is to be will be. There was old William Ford at the Glen who never went on the water in his life, ’cause he was afraid of being drowned. A fortune-teller had predicted he would be. And one day he fainted and fell with his face in the barn trough and was drowned. Must you go? Well, come soon and come often. The doctor is to do the talking next time. He knows a heap of things I want to find out. I’m sorter lonesome here by times. It’s been worse since Elizabeth Russell died. Her and me was such cronies.”
Captain Jim spoke with the pathos of the aged, who
