Harvey announced that he never felt better in his life; but it was not till he saw the We’re Here, fresh from the lumper’s hands, at Wouverman’s wharf, that he lost his all-overish feelings in a queer mixture of pride and sorrowfulness. Other people—summer boarders and suchlike—played about in catboats or looked at the sea from pier-heads; but he understood things from the inside—more things than he could begin to think about. None the less, he could have sat down and howled because the little schooner was going off. Mrs. Cheyne simply cried and cried every step of the way and said most extraordinary things to Mrs. Troop, who “babied” her till Dan, who had not been “babied” since he was six, whistled aloud.
And so the old crowd—Harvey felt like the most ancient of mariners dropped into the old schooner among the battered dories, while Harvey slipped the stern-fast from the pier-head, and they slid her along the wharf-side with their hands. Everyone wanted to say so much that no one said anything in particular. Harvey bade Dan take care of Uncle Salters’s sea-boots and Penn’s dory-anchor, and Long Jack entreated Harvey to remember his lessons in seamanship; but the jokes fell flat in the presence of the two women, and it is hard to be funny with green harbour-water widening between good friends.
“Up jib and fores’l!” shouted Disko, getting to the wheel, as the wind took her. “See you later, Harve. Dunno but I come near thinkin’ a heap o’ you an’ your folks.”
Then she glided beyond earshot, and they sat down to watch her up the harbour. And still Mrs. Cheyne wept.
“Pshaw, my dear,” said Mrs. Troop: “we’re both women, I guess. Like’s not it’ll ease your heart to hev your cry aout. God He knows it never done me a mite o’ good, but then He knows I’ve had something to cry fer!”
Now it was a few years later, and upon the other edge of America, that a young man came through the clammy sea fog up a windy street which is flanked with most expensive houses built of wood to imitate stone. To him, as he was standing by a hammered iron gate, entered on horseback—and the horse would have been cheap at a thousand dollars—another young man. And this is what they said:
“Hello, Dan!”
“Hello, Harve!”
“What’s the best with you?”
“Well, I’m so’s to be that kind o’ animal called second mate this trip. Ain’t you most through with that triple invoiced college of yours?”
“Getting that way. I tell you, the Leland Stanford Junior, isn’t a circumstance to the old We’re Here; but I’m coming into the business for keeps next fall.”
“Meanin’ aour packets?”
“Nothing else. You just wait till I get my knife into you, Dan. I’m going to make the old line lie down and cry when I take hold.”
“I’ll resk it,” said Dan, with a brotherly grin, as Harvey dismounted and asked whether he were coming in.
“That’s what I took the cable fer; but, say, is the doctor anywheres araound? I’ll draown that crazy nigger some day, his one cussed joke an’ all.”
There was a low, triumphant chuckle, as the ex-cook of the We’re Here came out of the fog to take the horse’s bridle. He allowed no one but himself to attend to any of Harvey’s wants.
“Thick as the Banks, ain’t it, doctor?” said Dan, propitiatingly.
But the coal-black Celt with the second-sight did not see fit to reply till he had tapped Dan on the shoulder, and for the twentieth time croaked the old, old prophecy in his ear.
“Master—man. Man—master,” said he. “You remember, Dan Troop, what I said? On the We’re Here?”
“Well, I won’t go so far as to deny that it do look like it as things stand at present,” said Dan. “She was a noble packet, and one way an’ another I owe her a heap—her and Dad.”
“Me too,” quoth Harvey Cheyne.
Colophon
Captains Courageous
was published in by
Rudyard Kipling.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Chris Spurgeon,
and is based on a transcription produced in by
David Reed and Bill Stoddard
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
The Fog Warning,
a painting completed in by
Winslow Homer.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in and by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/rudyard-kipling/captains-courageous.
The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at standardebooks.org.
Uncopyright
May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.
Copyright pages exist to tell you that you can’t do something. Unlike them, this Uncopyright page exists to tell you that the writing and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the United States public domain; that is, they are believed to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. The United States public domain represents our collective cultural heritage, and items in it are free for anyone in the United States to do almost anything at all with, without having to get permission.
Copyright laws are different all over the world, and the source text or artwork in this ebook may still be copyrighted in other countries. If you’re not located in the United States, you must check your local laws before using this ebook. Standard Ebooks makes no representations regarding the copyright status of the source text or artwork in this ebook in any country other than the United States.
Non-authorship activities performed on items that are in the
