Part 13

Jehoshaphat went to the door of the shop. It was cold and gloomy in the shop. He opened the door. The public of Satan's Trap, in the persons of ten men of the place, fathers of families (with the exception of Timothy Yule, who had qualified upon his expectations), trooped over the greasy floor, their breath cloudy in the frosty air, and crowded into the little office, in the wake of Jehoshaphat Rudd. They had the gravity of mien, the set faces, the compassionate eyes, the merciless purpose, of a jury. The shuffling subsided. It was once more quiet in the little office. Timothy Yule's hatred got the better of his sense of propriety: he laughed, but the laugh expired suddenly, for Jehoshaphat Rudd's hand fell with unmistakable meaning upon his shoulder.

John Wull faced them.

"I 'low, Mister Wull," said Jehoshaphat, diffidently, "that we wants the storehouse key."

The trader put the key in his pocket.

"The key," Jehoshaphat objected; "we wants that there key."

"By the Almighty!" old John Wull snarled, "you'll all go t' jail for this, if they's a law in Newfoundland."

The threat was ignored.

"Don't hurt un, lads," Jehoshaphat cautioned; "for he's so wonderful tender. He've not been bred the way _we_ was. He's wonderful old an' lean an' brittle," he added, gently; "so I 'low we'd best be careful."

John Wull's resistance was merely technical.

"Now, Mister Wull," said Jehoshaphat, when the big key was in his hand and the body of the trader had been tenderly deposited in his chair by the stove, "don't you go an' fret. We isn't the thieves that break in an' steal nor the moths that go an' corrupt. We isn't robbers, an' we isn't mean men. We're the public," he explained, impressively, "o' Satan's Trap. We got together, Mister Wull," he continued, feeling some delight in the oratory which had been thrust upon him, "an' we 'lowed that flour was worth about eight; but we'll pay nine, for we got thinkin' that if flour goes up an' down, accordin' t' the will o' God, it ought t' go up now, if ever, the will o' God bein' a mystery, anyhow. We don't want you t' close up the shop an' go away, after this, Mister Wull; for we got t' have you, or some one like you, t' do what you been doin', so as we can have minds free o' care for the fishin'. If they was anybody at Satan's Trap that could read an' write like you, an' knowed about money an' prices--if they was anybody like that at Satan's Trap, willin' t' do woman's work, which I doubts, we wouldn't care whether you went or stayed; but they isn't, an' we can't do 'ithout you. So don't you fret," Jehoshaphat concluded. "You set right there by the fire in this little office o' yours. Tom Lower'll put more billets on the fire for you, an' you'll be wonderful comfortable till we gets through. I'll see that account is kep' by Tim Yule of all we takes. You can put it on the books just when you likes. No hurry, Mister Wull--no hurry. The prices will be them that held in the fall o' the year, 'cept flour, which is gone up t' nine by the barrel. An', ah, now, Mister Wull," Jehoshaphat pleaded, "don't you have no hard feelin'. 'Twouldn't be right; We're the public; so _please_ don't you go an' have no hard feelin'."

The trader would say nothing.

"Now, lads," said Jehoshaphat, "us'll go." In the storehouse there were two interruptions to the transaction of business in an orderly fashion. Tom Lower, who was a lazy fellow and wasteful, as Jehoshaphat knew, demanded thirty pounds of pork, and Jehoshaphat knocked him down. Timothy Yule, the anarchist, proposed to sack the place, and him Jehoshaphat knocked down twice. There was no further difficulty.

"Now, Mister Wull," said Jehoshaphat, as he laid the key and the account on the trader's desk, "the public o' Satan's Trap is wonderful sorry; but the thing had t' be done."

The trader would not look up.

"It makes such a wonderful fuss in the world," Jehoshaphat complained, "that the crew hadn't no love for the job. But it--it--it jus' had t' be done."

Old John Wull scowled.

* * * * *

For a long time, if days may be long, Jehoshaphat Rudd lived in the fear of constables and jails, which were the law, to be commanded by the wealth of old John Wull; and for the self-same period--the days being longer because of the impatience of hate--old John Wull lived in expectation of his revenge. Jehoshaphat Rudd lowed he'd stand by, anyhow, an' _go_ t' jail, if 'twas needful t' maintain the rights o' man. Ay, _he'd_ go t' jail, an' be whipped an' starved, as the imagination promised, but he'd be jiggered if he'd "_'pologize_." Old John Wull kept grim watch upon the winds; for upon the way the wind blew depended the movement of the ice, and the clearing of the sea, and the first voyage of the mail-boat. He was glad that he had been robbed; so glad that he rubbed his lean, transparent hands until the flush of life appeared to surprise him; so glad that he chuckled until his housekeeper feared his false teeth would by some dreadful mischance vanish within him. Jail? ay, he'd put Jehoshaphat Rudd in jail; but he would forgive the others, that they might continue to fish and to consume food. In jail, ecod! t' be fed on bread an' water, t' be locked up, t' wear stripes, t' make brooms, t' lie there so long that the last little Rudd would find its own father a stranger when 'twas all over with. 'Twould be fair warning t' the malcontent o' the folk; they would bide quiet hereafter. All the people would toil and trade; they would complain no more. John Wull was glad that the imprudence of Jehoshaphat Rudd had provided him with power to restore the ancient peace to Satan's Trap.

* * * * *

One day in the spring, when the bergs and great floes of the open had been blown to sea, and the snow was gone from the slopes of the hills, and the sun was out, and the earth was warm and yellow and merrily dripping, old John Wull attempted a passage of the harbor by the ice, which there had lingered, confined. It was only to cross the narrows from Haul-Away Head to Daddy Tool's Point, no more than a stone's throw for a stout lad. The ice had been broken into pans by a stiff breeze from the west, and was then moving with the wind, close-packed, bound out to sea, there to be dispersed and dissolved. It ran sluggishly through the narrows, scraping the rocks of the head and of the point; the heave of the sea slipped underneath and billowed the way, and the outermost pans of ice broke from the press and went off with the waves. But the feet of old John Wull were practised; he essayed the crossing without concern--indeed, with an absent mind. Presently he stopped to rest; and he stared out to sea, musing; and when again he looked about, the sea had softly torn the pan from the pack.

Old John Wull was adrift, and bound out.

"Ahoy, you, Jehoshaphat!" he shouted. "Jehoshaphat! Oh, Jehoshaphat!"

Jehoshaphat came to the door of his cottage on Daddy Tool's Point.

"Launch that rodney,"[1] Wull directed, "an' put me on shore. An' lively, man," he complained. "I'll be cotchin' cold out here."

With the help of Timothy Yule, who chanced to be gossiping in the kitchen, Jehoshaphat Rudd got the rodney in the open water by the stage-head. What with paddling and much hearty hauling and pushing, they had the little craft across the barrier of ice in the narrows before the wind had blown old John Wull a generous rod out to sea.

"Timothy, lad," Jehoshaphat whispered, "I 'low you better stay here."

Timothy kept to the ice.

"You been wonderful slow," growled Wull. "Come 'round t' the lee side, you dunderhead! Think I wants t' get my feet wet?"

"No, sir," Jehoshaphat protested. "Oh no; I wouldn't have you do that an I could _help_ it."

The harbor folk were congregating on Haul-Away Head and Daddy Tool's Point. 'Twas an agreeable excitement to see John Wull in a mess--in a ludicrous predicament, which made him helpless before their eyes. They whispered, they smiled behind their hands, they chuckled inwardly.

Jehoshaphat pulled to the lee side of the pan.

"Come 'longside," said Wull.

Jehoshaphat dawdled.

"Come 'longside, you fool!" Wull roared. "Think I can leap three fathom?"

"No, sir; oh no; no, indeed."

"Then come 'longside."

Jehoshaphat sighed.

"Come in here, you crazy pauper!" Wull screamed, stamping his rage. "Come in here an' put me ashore!"

"Mister Wull!"

Wull eyed the man in amazement.

"Labor," said Jehoshaphat, gently, "is gone up."

Timothy Yule laughed, but on Haul-Away Head and Daddy Tool's Point the folk kept silent; nor did old John Wull, on the departing pan, utter a sound.

"Sky high," Jehoshaphat concluded.

The sun was broadly, warmly shining, the sky was blue; but the wind was rising smartly, and far off over the hills of Satan's Trap, beyond the wilderness that was known, it was turning gray and tumultuous. Old John Wull scowled, wheeled, and looked away to sea; he did not see the ominous color and writhing in the west.

"We don't want no law, Mister Wull," Jehoshaphat continued, "at Satan's Trap."

Wull would not attend.

"Not law," Jehoshaphat repeated; "for we knows well enough at Satan's Trap," said he, "what's fair as atween men. You jus' leave the law stay t' St. John's, sir, where he's t' home. He isn't fair, by no means; an' we don't want un here t' make trouble."

The trader's back was still turned.

"An', Mister Wull," Jehoshaphat entreated, his face falling like a child's, "don't you have no hard feelin' over this. Ah, now, _don't_!" he pleaded. "You won't, will you? For we isn't got no hate for you, Mister Wull, an' we isn't got no greed for ourselves. We just wants what's fair--just what's fair." He added: "Just on'y that. We likes t' see you have your milk an' butter an' fresh beef an' nuts an' whiskey. _We_ don't want them things, for they isn't ours by rights. All we wants is just on'y fair play. We don't want no law, sir: for, ecod!" Jehoshaphat declared, scratching his head in bewilderment, "the law looks after them that _has_, so far as I _knows_, sir, an' don't know nothin' about them that _hasn't_. An' we don't want un here at Satan's Trap. We won't _have_ un! We--we--why, ecod! we--we can't _'low_ it! We'd be ashamed of ourselves an we 'lowed you t' fetch the law t' Satan's Trap t' wrong us. We're free men, isn't we?" he demanded, indignantly. "Isn't we? Ecod! I 'low we _is_! You think, John Wull," he continued, in wrath, "that _you_ can do what you like with _we_ just because you an' the likes o' you is gone an' got a law? You can't! You can't! An' you can't, just because we won't _'low_ it."

It was an incendiary speech.

"No, you can't!" Timothy Yule screamed from the ice, "you robber, you thief, you whale's pup! _I'll_ tell you what I thinks o' you. You can't scare _me_. I wants that meadow you stole from my father. I wants that meadow--"

"Timothy," Jehoshaphat interrupted, quietly, "you're a fool. Shut your mouth!"

Tom Lower, the lazy, wasteful Tom Lower, ran down to the shore of Haul-Away Head, and stamped his feet, and shook his fist. "I wants your cow an' your raisins an' your candy! We got you down, you robber! An' I'll _have_ your red house; I'll have your wool blankets; I'll have your--"

"Tom Lower," Jehoshaphat roared, rising in wrath, "I'll floor you for that! That I will--next time I cotch you out."

John Wull turned half-way around and grinned.

"Mister Wull," Jehoshaphat asked, propitiatingly, "won't you be put ashore?"

"Not at the price."

"I 'low, then, sir," said Jehoshaphat, in some impatience, "that you might as well be comfortable while you makes up your mind. Here!" He cast a square of tarpaulin on the ice, and chancing to discover Timothy Yule's jacket, he added that. "There!" he grunted, with satisfaction; "you'll be sittin' soft an' dry while you does your thinkin'. Don't be long, sir--not overlong. _Please_ don't, sir," he begged; "for it looks t' me--it looks wonderful t' me--like a spurt o' weather."

John Wull spread the tarpaulin.

"An' when you gets through considerin' of the question," said Jehoshaphat, suggestively, "an' is come t' my way o' thinkin', why all you got t' do is lift your little finger, an' I'll put you ashore"--a gust of wind whipped past--"if I'm able," Jehoshaphat added.

Pan and boat drifted out from the coast, a slow course, which in an hour had reduced the harbor folk to black pygmies on the low rocks to windward. Jehoshaphat paddled patiently in the wake of the ice. Often he raised his head, in apprehension, to read the signs in the west; and he sighed a deal, and sometimes muttered to himself. Old John Wull was squatted on the tarpaulin, with Timothy Yule's jacket for a cushion, his great-coat wrapped close about him, his cap pulled over his ears, his arms folded. The withered old fellow was as lean and blue and rigid and staring as a frozen corpse.

The wind had freshened. The look and smell of the world foreboded a gale. Overhead the sky turned gray. There came a shadow on the sea, sullen and ominous. Gusts of wind ran offshore and went hissing out to sea; and they left the waters rippling black and flecked with froth wherever they touched. In the west the sky, far away, changed from gray to deepest black and purple; and high up, midway, masses of cloud, with torn and streaming edges, rose swiftly toward the zenith. It turned cold. A great flake of snow fell on Jehoshaphat's cheek, and melted; but Jehoshaphat was pondering upon justice. He wiped the drop of water away with the back of his hand, because it tickled him, but gave the sign no heed.

"I 'low, Mister Wull," said he, doggedly, "that you better give Timothy Yule back his father's meadow. For nobody knows, sir," he argued, "why Timothy Yule's father went an' signed his name t' that there writin' just afore he died. 'Twasn't right. He didn't ought t' sign it. An' you got t' give the meadow back."

John Wull was unmoved.

"An', look you! Mister Wull," Jehoshaphat continued, pulling closer to the pan, addressing the bowed back of the trader, "you better not press young Isaac Lower for that cod-trap money. He've too much trouble with that wife o' his t' be bothered by debt. Anyhow, you ought t' give un a chance. An', look you! you better let ol' Misses Jowl have back her garden t' Green Cove. The way you got that, Mister Wull, is queer. I don't know, but I 'low you better give it back, anyhow. You _got_ to, Mister Wull; an', ecod! you got t' give the ol' woman a pound o' cheese an' five cents' worth--no, ten--ten cents' worth o' sweets t' make her feel good. She _likes_ cheese. She 'lows she never could get _enough_ o' cheese. She 'lows she _wished_ she could have her fill afore she dies. An' you got t' give her a whole pound for herself."

They were drifting over the Tombstone grounds.

"Whenever you makes up your mind," Jehoshaphat suggested, diffidently, "you lift your little finger--jus' your little finger."

There was no response.

"Your little finger," Jehoshaphat repeated. "Jus' your little finger--on'y that."

Wull faced about. "Jehoshaphat," said he, with a grin, "you wouldn't leave me."

"Jus' wouldn't I!"

"You wouldn't."

"You jus' wait and see."

"You wouldn't leave me," said Wull, "because you couldn't. I knows you, Jehoshaphat--I knows you."

"You better look out."

"Come, now, Jehoshaphat, is you goin' t' leave an old man drift out t' sea an' die?"

Jehoshaphat was embarrassed.

"Eh, Jehoshaphat?"

"Well, no," Jehoshaphat admitted, frankly. "I isn't; leastways, not alone."

"Not alone?" anxiously.

"No; not alone. I'll go with you, Mister Wull, if you're lonesome, an' wants company. You sees, sir, I can't give in. I jus' _can't_! I'm here, Mister Wull, in this here cranky rodney, beyond the Tombstone grounds, with a dirty gale from a point or two south o' west about t' break, because I'm the public o' Satan's Trap. I can die, sir, t' save gossip; but I sim-plee jus' isn't able t' give in. 'Twouldn't be _right_."

"Well, _I_ won't give in."

"Nor I, sir. So here we is--out here beyond the Tombstone grounds, you on a pan an' me in a rodney. An' the weather isn't--well--not quite _kind_."

It was not. The black clouds, torn, streaming, had possessed the sky, and the night was near come. Haul-Away Head and Daddy Tool's Point had melted with the black line of coast. Return--safe passage through the narrows to the quiet water and warm lights of Satan's Trap--was almost beyond the most courageous hope. The wind broke from the shore in straight lines--a stout, agile wind, loosed for riot upon the sea. The sea was black, with a wind-lop upon the grave swell--a black-and-white sea, with spume in the gray air. The west was black, with no hint of other color--without the pity of purple or red. Roundabout the sea was breaking, troubled by the wind, indifferent to the white little rodney and the lives o' men.

"You better give in," old John Wull warned.

"No," Jehoshaphat answered; "no; oh no! I won't give in. Not _in_."

A gust turned the black sea white.

"_You_ better give in," said Jehoshaphat.

John Wull shrugged his shoulders and turned his back.

"Now, Mister Wull," said Jehoshaphat, firmly, "I 'low I can't stand this much longer. I 'low we can't be fools much longer an' get back t' Satan's Trap. I got a sail, here, Mister Wull; but, ecod! the beat t' harbor isn't pleasant t' _think_ about."

"You better go home," sneered old John Wull.

"I 'low I _will_," Jehoshaphat declared.

Old John Wull came to the windward edge of the ice, and there stood frowning, with his feet submerged. "What was you sayin'?" he asked. "That you'd go home?"

Jehoshaphat looked away.

"An' leave me?" demanded John Wull. "Leave _me? Me?_"

"I got t' think o' my kids."

"An' you'd leave me t' _die?_"

"Well," Jehoshaphat complained, "'tis long past supper-time. You better give in."

"I won't!"

The coast was hard to distinguish from the black sky in the west. It began to snow. Snow and night, allied, would bring Jehoshaphat Rudd and old John Wull to cold death.

"Mister Wull," Jehoshaphat objected, "'tis long past supper-time, an' I wants t' go home."

"Go--an' be damned!"

"I'll count ten," Jehoshaphat threatened.

"You dassn't!"

"I don't know whether I'll _go_ or not," said Jehoshaphat. "Maybe not. Anyhow, I'll count ten, an' see what happens. Is you ready?"

Wull sat down on the tarpaulin.

"One," Jehoshaphat began.

John Wull seemed not to hear.

"Two," said Jehoshaphat. "Three--four--five--six--seven."

John Wull did not turn.

"Eight."

There was no sign of relenting.

"Nine."

Jehoshaphat paused. "God's mercy!" he groaned, "don't you be a fool, Mister Wull," he pleaded. "Doesn't you _know_ what the weather is?"

A wave--the lop raised by the wind--broke over the pan. John Wull stood up. There came a shower of snow.

"Eh?" Jehoshaphat demanded, in agony.

"I won't give in," said old John Wull.

"Then I got t' say ten. I jus' _got_ to."

"I dare you."

"I will, Mister Wull. Honest, I will! I'll say ten an you don't look out."

"Why don't you _do_ it?"

"In a minute, Mister Wull. I'll say it just so soon as I get up the sail. I will, Mister Wull, honest t' God!"

The coast had vanished.

"Look," cried Jehoshaphat, "we're doomed men!"

The squall, then first observed, sent the sea curling over the ice. Jehoshaphat's rodney shipped the water it raised. Snow came in a blinding cloud.

"Say ten, you fool!" screamed old John Wull.

"Ten!"

John Wull came to the edge of the pan. 'Twas hard for the old man to breast the gust. He put his hands to his mouth that he might be heard in the wind.

"I give in!" he shouted.

Jehoshaphat managed to save the lives of both.

* * * * *

Old John Wull, with his lean feet in a tub of hot water, with a gray blanket over his shoulders, with a fire sputtering in the stove, with his housekeeper hovering near--old John Wull chuckled. The room was warm and his stomach was full, and the wind, blowing horribly in the night, could work him no harm. There he sat, sipping herb tea to please his housekeeper, drinking whiskey to please himself. He had no chill, no fever, no pain; perceived no warning of illness. So he chuckled away. It was all for the best. There would now surely be peace at Satan's Trap. Had he not yielded? What more could they ask? They would be content with this victory. For a long, long time they would not complain. He had yielded; very well: Timothy Yule should have his father's meadow, Dame Jowl her garden and sweets and cheese, the young Lower be left in possession of the cod-trap, and there would be no law. Very well; the folk would neither pry nor complain for a long, long time: that was triumph enough for John Wull. So he chuckled away, with his feet in hot water, and a gray blanket about him, bald and withered and ghastly, but still feeling the comfort of fire and hot water and whiskey, the pride of power.

And within three years John Wull possessed again all that he had yielded, and the world of Satan's Trap wagged on as in the days before the revolution.

[1] A rodney is a small, light boat, used for getting about among the ice packs, chiefly in seal-hunting.

X--THE SURPLUS

To the east was the illimitable ocean, laid thick with moonlight and luminous mist; to the west, beyond a stretch of black, slow heaving water, was the low line of Newfoundland, an illusion of kindliness, the malignant character of its jagged rock and barren interior transformed by the gentle magic of the night. Tumm, the clerk, had the wheel of the schooner, and had been staring in a rapture at the stars.

"Jus' readin', sir," he explained.

I wondered what he read.

"Oh," he answered, turning again to contemplate the starlit sky, "jus' a little psa'm from my Bible."

I left him to read on, myself engaged with a perusal of the serene and comforting text-book of philosophy spread overhead. The night was favorably inclined and radiant: a soft southerly wind blowing without menace, a sky of infinite depth and tender shadow, the sea asleep under the moon. With a gentle, aimlessly wandering wind astern--an idle, dawdling, contemptuous breeze, following the old craft lazily, now and again whipping her nose under water to remind her of suspended strength--the trader _Good Samaritan_ ran on, wing and wing, through the moonlight, bound across from Sinners' Tickle to Afterward Bight, there to deal for the first of the catch.

"Them little stars jus' _will_ wink!" Tumm complained.

I saw them wink in despite.

"Ecod!" Tumm growled.

The amusement of the stars was not by this altered to a more serious regard: everywhere they winked.

"I've seed un peep through a gale o' wind, a slit in the black sky, a cruel, cold time," Tumm continued, a pretence of indignation in his voice, "when 'twas a mean hard matter t' keep a schooner afloat in a dirty sea, with all hands wore out along o' labor an' the fear o' death an' hell; an', ecod! them little cusses was winkin' still. Eh? What d'ye make o' that?--winkin' still, the heartless little cusses!"

There were other crises, I recalled--knowing little enough of the labor of the sea--upon which they winked.

"Ay," Tumm agreed; "they winks when lovers kiss on the roads; an' they winks jus' the same," he added, softly, "when a heart breaks."

"They're humorous little beggars," I observed.

Tumm laughed. "They been lookin' at this here damned thing so long," he drawled--meaning, no doubt, upon the spectacle of the world--"that no wonder they winks!"

This prefaced a tale.

* * * * *