Chapter VI: Part 6

They waited in dull patience for the wind to blow the floe against the coast.

* * * * *

It began to snow--a thick fall, by-and-by: the flakes fine and dry as dust. A woolly curtain shut coast and far-off sea from view. The wind, rising still, was charged with stinging frost. It veered; but it blew sufficiently true to the favorable direction: the ice still made ponderously for the shore, reeling in the swell.... The great pan bearing Salim Awad and Tommy Hand lagged; it was soon left behind: to leeward the figures of the skipper, the cook, the first hand, and the crew turned to shadows--dissolved in the cloud of snow. The cook's young son and the love-lorn peddler from Washington Street alone peopled a world of ice and water, all black and white: heaving, confined. They huddled, cowering from the wind, waiting--helpless, patient: themselves detached from the world of ice and water, which clamored round about, unrecognized. The spirit of each returned: the one to the Cedars of Lebanon, the other to Lobster Cove; and in each place there was a mother. In plights like this the hearts of men and children turn to distant mothers; for in all the world there is no rest serene--no rest remembered--like the first rest the spirits of men know.

* * * * *

When dusk began to dye the circumambient cloud, the pan of ice was close inshore; the shape of the cliffs--a looming shadow--was vague in the snow beyond. There was no longer any roar of surf; the first of the floe, now against the coast, had smothered the breakers. A voice, coming faintly into the wind, apprised Tommy Hand that his father was ashore.... But the pan still moved sluggishly.

Tommy Hand shivered.

"Ah, Tom-ee!" Salim Awad said, anxiously. "Run! Jump! You weel have--what say?--cotch seek. Ay--cotch thee seek. Eh? R-r-run, Tom-ee!"

"Ay, ay," Tommy Hand answered. "I'll be jumpin' about a bit, I'm thinkin', t' keep warm--as me father bid me do."

"Queek!" cried Salim, laughing.

"Ay," Tommy muttered; "as me father bid me do."

"Jump, Tom-ee!" Salim clapped his hands. "Hi, hi! Dance, Tom-ee!"

In the beginning Tommy was deliberate and ponderous; but as his limbs were suppled--and when his blood ran warm again--the dance quickened; for Salim Awad slapped strangely inspiring encouragement, and with droning "la, la!" and sharp "hi, hi!" excited the boy to mad leaps--and madder still. "La, la!" and "Hi, hi!" There was a mystery in it. Tommy leaped high and fast. "La, la!" and "Hi, hi!" In response to the strange Eastern song the fisherboy's grotesque dance went on.... Came then the appalling catastrophe: the pan of rotten, brittle salt-water ice cracked under the lad; and it fell in two parts, which, in the heave of the sea, at once drifted wide of each other. The one part was heavy, commodious; the other a mere unstable fragment of what the whole had been: and it was upon the fragment that Salim Awad and Tommy Hand were left. Instinctively they sprawled on the ice, which was now overweighted--unbalanced. Their faces were close; and as they lay rigid--while the ice wavered and the water covered it--they looked into each other's eyes.... There was, not room for both.

"Tom-ee," Salim Awad gasped; his breath indrawn, quivering, "I am--mus'--go!"

The boy stretched out his hand--an instinctive movement, the impulse of a brave and generous heart--to stop the sacrifice.

"Hush!" Salim Awad whispered, hurriedly, lifting a finger to command peace. "I am--for one queek time--have theenk. Hush, Tom-ee!"

Tommy Hand was silent.

* * * * *

And Salim Awad heard again the clatter and evening mutter of Washington Street, children's cries and the patter of feet, drifting in from the soft spring night--heard again the rattle of dice in the outer room, and the aimless strumming of the canoun--heard again the voice of Khalil Khayyat, lifted concerning such as lose at love. And Salim Awad, staring into a place that was high and distant, beyond the gaudy, dirty ceiling of the little back room of Nageeb Fiani's pastry-shop near the Battery, saw again the form of Haleema, Khouri's star-eyed daughter, floating in a cloud, compassionate and glorious. "'The sun as it sets,'" he thought, in the high words of Antar, spoken of Abla, his beloved, the daughter of Malik, when his heart was sore, "'turns toward her and says, "Darkness obscures the land, do thou arise in my absence." The brilliant moon calls out to her: "Come forth, for thy face is like me, when I am in all my glory." The tamarisk-trees complain of her in the morn and in the eve, and say: "Away, thou waning beauty, thou form of the laurel!" She turns away abashed, and throws aside her veil, and the roses are scattered from her soft, fresh cheeks. Graceful is every limb; slender her waist; love-beaming are her glances; waving is her form. The lustre of day sparkles from her forehead, and by the dark shades of her curling ringlets night itself is driven away!'".... They who lose at love? Upon what quest must the wretched ones go? And Khalil Khayyat had said that the Thing was to be found in this place.... Salim Awad's lips trembled: because of the loneliness of this death--and because of the desert, gloomy and infinite, lying beyond.

"Tom-ee," Salim Awad repeated, smiling now, "I am--mus'--go. Goo'-bye, Tom-ee!"

"No, no!"

In this hoarse, gasping protest Salim Awad perceived rare sweetness. He smiled again--delight, approval. "Ver' much 'bliged," he said, politely. Then he rolled off into the water....

One night in winter the wind, driving up from the Battery, whipped a gray, soggy snow past the door of Nageeb Fiani's pastry-shop in Washington Street. The shop was a cosey shelter from the weather; and in the outer room, now crowded with early idlers, they were preaching revolution and the shedding of blood--boastful voices, raised to the falsetto of shallow passion. Khalil Khayyat, knowing well that the throne of Abdul-Hamid would not tremble to the talk of Washington Street, sat unheeding in the little back room; and the coal on the narghile was glowing red, and the coffee was steaming on the round table, and a cloud of fragrant smoke was in the air. In the big, black book, lying open before the poet, were to be found, as always, the thoughts of Abo Elola Elmoarri.

Tanous, the newsboy--the son of Yusef, the father of Samara, by many called Abosamara--threw _Kawkab Elhorriah_ on the cook's counter.

"News of death!" cried he, as he hurried importantly on. "_Kawkab_! News of death!"

The words caught the ear of Khalil Khayyat. "News of death?" mused he. "It is a massacre in Armenia." He turned again, with a hopeless sigh, to the big, black book.

"News of death!" cried Nageeb Fiani, in the outer room. "What is this?"

The death of Salim Awad: being communicated, as the editor made known, by one who knew, and had so informed an important person at St. John's, who had despatched the news south from that far place to Washington Street.... And when Nageeb Fiani had learned the manner of the death of Salim Awad, he made haste to Khalil Khayyat, holding _Kawkab Elhorriah_ open in his, hand.

"There is news of death, O Khalil!" said he.

"Ah," Khayyat answered, with his long finger marking the place in the big, black book, "there has been a massacre in Armenia. God will yet punish the murderer."

"No, Khalil."

Khayyat looked up in alarm. "The Turks have not shed blood in Beirut?"

"No, Khalil."

"Not so? Ah, then the mother of Shishim has been cast into prison because of the sedition uttered by her son in this place; and she has there died."

"No, Khalil."

"Nageeb," Khayyat demanded, quietly, "of whom is this sad news spoken?"

"The news is from the north."

Khayyat closed the book. He sipped his coffee, touched the coal on the narghile and puffed it to a glow, contemplated the gaudy wall-paper, watched a spider pursue a patient course toward the ceiling; at last opened the big, black book, and began to turn the leaves with aimless, nervous fingers. Nageeb stood waiting for the poet to speak; and in the doorway, beyond, the people from the outer room had gathered, waiting also for words to fall from the lips of this man; for the moment was great, and the poet was great.

"Salim Awad," Khayyat muttered, "is dead."

"Salim is dead. He died that a little one might live."

"That a little one might live?"

"Even so, Khalil--that a child might have life."

Khayyat smiled. "The quest is ended," he said. "It is well that Salim is dead."

It is well? The people marvelled that Khalil Khayyat should have spoken these cruel words. It is well? And Khalil Khayyat had said so?

"That Salim should die in the cold water?" Nageeb Fiani protested.

"That Salim should die--the death that he did. It is well."

The word was soon to be spoken; out of the mind and heart of Khalil Khayyat, the poet, great wisdom would appear. There was a crowding at the door: the people pressed closer that no shade of meaning might be lost; the dark faces turned yet more eager; the silence deepened, until the muffled rattle of trucks, lumbering through the snowy night, and the roar of the Elevated train were plain to be heard. What would the poet say? What word of eternal truth would he speak?

"It is well?" Nageeb Fiani whispered.

"It is well."

The time was not yet come. The people still crowded, still shuffled--still breathed. The poet waited, having the patience of poets.

"Tell us, O Khalil!" Nageeb Fiani implored.

"They who lose at love," said Khalil Khayyat, fingering the leaves of the big, black book, "must patiently seek some high death."

Then the people knew, beyond peradventure, that Khalil Khayyat was indeed a great poet.

IX--THE REVOLUTION AT SATAN'S TRAP

Jehoshaphat Rudd of Satan's Trap was shy--able-bodied, to be sure, if a gigantic frame means anything, and mature, if a family of nine is competent evidence, but still as shy as a child. Moreover, he had the sad habit of anxiety: whence tense eyelids, an absent, poignant gaze, a perpetual pucker between the brows. His face was brown and big, framed in tawny, soft hair and beard, and spread with a delicate web of wrinkles, spun by the weather--a round countenance, simple, kindly, apathetic. The wind had inflamed the whites of his eyes and turned the rims blood red; but the wells in the midst were deep and clear and cool. Reserve, courageous and methodical diligence at the fishing, a quick, tremulous concern upon salutation--by these signs the folk of his harbor had long ago been persuaded that he was a fool; and a fool he was, according to the convention of the Newfoundland outports: a shy, dull fellow, whose interests were confined to his punt, his gear, the grounds off the Tombstone, and the bellies of his young ones. He had no part with the disputatious of Satan's Trap: no voice, for example, in the rancorous discussions of the purposes and ways of the Lord God Almighty, believing the purposes to be wise and kind, and the ways the Lord's own business. He was shy, anxious, and preoccupied; wherefore he was called a fool, and made no answer: for doubtless he _was_ a fool. And what did it matter? He would fare neither better nor worse.

Nor would Jehoshaphat wag a tongue with the public-spirited men of Satan's Trap: the times and the customs had no interest, no significance, for him; he was troubled with his own concerns. Old John Wull, the trader, with whom (and no other) the folk might barter their fish, personified all the abuses, as a matter of course. But--

"I 'low I'm too busy t' think," Jehoshaphat would reply, uneasily. "I'm too busy. I--I--why, I got t' tend my _fish!_"

This was the quality of his folly.

* * * * *

It chanced one summer dawn, however, when the sky was flushed with tender light, and the shadows were trooping westward, and the sea was placid, that the punts of Timothy Yule and Jehoshaphat Rudd went side by side to the Tombstone grounds. It was dim and very still upon the water, and solemn, too, in that indifferent vastness between the gloom and the rosy, swelling light. Satan's Trap lay behind in the shelter and shadow of great hills laid waste--a lean, impoverished, listless home of men.

"You dunderhead!" Timothy Yule assured Jehoshaphat. "He've been robbin' you."

"Maybe," said Jehoshaphat, listlessly. "I been givin' the back kitchen a coat o' lime, an' I isn't had no time t' give t' thinkin'."

"An' he've been robbin' this harbor for forty year."

"Dear man!" Jehoshaphat exclaimed, in dull surprise. "Have he told you that?"

"Told me!" cried Timothy. "No," he added, with bitter restraint; "he've not."

Jehoshaphat was puzzled. "Then," said he, "how come you t' know?"

"Why, they _says_ so."

Jehoshaphat's reply was gently spoken, a compassionate rebuke. "An I was you, Timothy," said he, "I wouldn't be harsh in judgment. 'Tisn't quite Christian."

"My God!" ejaculated the disgusted Timothy.

After that they pulled in silence for a time. Jehoshaphat's face was averted, and Timothy was aware of having, in a moment of impatience, not only committed a strategic indiscretion, but of having betrayed his innermost habit of profanity. The light grew and widened and yellowed; the cottages of Satan's Trap took definite outline, the hills their ancient form, the sea its familiar aspect. Sea and sky and distant rock were wide awake and companionably smiling. The earth was blue and green and yellow, a glittering place.

"Look you! Jehoshaphat," Timothy demanded; "is you in debt?"

"I is."

"An' is you ever been out o' debt?"

"I isn't."

"How come you t' know?"

"Why," Jehoshaphat explained, "Mister Wull _told_ me so. An' whatever," he qualified, "father was in debt when he died, an' Mister Wull told me I ought t' pay. Father was _my_ father," Jehoshaphat argued, "an' I 'lowed I _would_ pay. For," he concluded, "'twas right."

"Is he ever give you an account?"

"Well, no--no, he haven't. But it wouldn't do no good, for I've no learnin', an' can't read."

"No," Timothy burst out, "an' he isn't give nobody no accounts."

"Well," Jehoshaphat apologized, "he've a good deal on his mind, lookin' out for the wants of us folk. He've a _wonderful_ lot o' brain labor. He've all them letters t' write t' St. John's, an' he've got a power of 'rithmetic t' do, an' he've got the writin' in them big books t' trouble un, an'--"

Timothy sneered.

"Ah, well," sighed Jehoshaphat, "an I was you, Timothy, I wouldn't be harsh in judgment."

Timothy laughed uproariously.

"Not harsh," Jehoshaphat repeated, quietly--"not in judgment."

"Damn un!" Timothy cursed between his teeth. "The greedy squid, the devil-fish's spawn, with his garden an' his sheep an' his cow! _You_ got a cow, Jehoshaphat? _You_ got turnips an' carrots? _You_ got ol' Bill Lutt t' gather soil, an' plant, an' dig, an' weed, while you smokes plug-cut in the sunshine? Where's _your_ garden, Jehoshaphat? Where's _your_ onions? The green lumpfish! An' where do he get his onions, an' where do he get his soup, an' where do he get his cheese an' raisins? 'Tis out o' you an' me an' all the other poor folk o' Satan's Trap. 'Tis from the fish, an' _he_ never cast a line. 'Tis from the fish that we takes from the grounds while he squats like a lobster in the red house an' in the shop. An' he gives less for the fish 'n he gets, an' he gets more for the goods an' grub 'n he gives. The thief, the robber, the whale's pup! Is you able, Jehoshaphat, t' have the doctor from Sniffle's Arm for _your_ woman! Is _you_ able t' feed _your_ kids with cow's milk an' baby-food?"

Jehoshaphat mildly protested that he had not known the necessity.

"An' what," Timothy proceeded, "is you ever got from the grounds but rheumatiz an' salt-water sores?"

"I got enough t' eat," said Jehoshaphat.

Timothy was scornful.

"Well," Jehoshaphat argued, in defence of himself, "the world have been goin' for'ard a wonderful long time at Satan's Trap, an' nobody else haven't got no more'n just enough."

"Enough!" Timothy fumed. "'Tis kind o' the Satan's Trap trader t' give you that! _I'll_ tell un," he exploded; "I'll give un a piece o' my mind afore I dies."

"Don't!" Jehoshaphat pleaded.

Timothy snorted his indignation.

"I wouldn't be rash," said Jehoshaphat. "Maybe," he warned, "he'd not take your fish no more. An' maybe he'd close the shop an' go away."

"Jus' you wait," said Timothy.

"Don't you do it, lad!" Jehoshaphat begged. "'Twould make such a wonderful fuss in the world!"

"An' would you think o' that?"

"I isn't got _time_ t' think," Jehoshaphat complained. "I'm busy. I 'low I got my fish t' cotch an' cure. I isn't got time. I--I--I'm too busy."

They were on the grounds. The day had broken, a blue, serene day, knowing no disquietude. They cast their grapnels overside, and they fished until the shadows had fled around the world and were hurrying out of the east. And they reeled their lines, and stowed the fish, and patiently pulled toward the harbor tickler, talking not at all of the Satan's Trap trader, but only of certain agreeable expectations which the young Timothy had been informed he might entertain with reasonable certainty.

"I 'low," said Jehoshaphat, when they were within the harbor, "I understand. I got the hang of it," he repeated, with a little smile, "now."

"Of what?" Timothy wondered.

"Well," Jehoshaphat explained, "'tis your first."

This was a sufficient explanation of Timothy's discontent. Jehoshaphat remembered that he, too, had been troubled, fifteen years ago, when the first of the nine had brought the future to his attention. He was more at ease when this enlightenment came.

* * * * *

Old John Wull was a gray, lean little widower, with a bald head, bowed legs, a wide, straight, thin-lipped mouth, and shaven, ashy cheeks. His eyes were young enough, blue and strong and quick, often peering masterfully through the bushy brows, which he could let drop like a curtain. In contrast with the rugged hills and illimitable sea and stout men of Satan's Trap, his body was withered and contemptibly diminutive. His premises occupied a point of shore within the harbor--a wharf, a storehouse, a shop, a red dwelling, broad drying-flakes, and a group of out-buildings, all of which were self-sufficient and proud, and looked askance at the cottages that lined the harbor shore and strayed upon the hills beyond.

It was his business to supply the needs of the folk in exchange for the fish they took from the sea--the barest need, the whole of the catch. Upon this he insisted, because he conscientiously believed, in his own way, that upon the fruits of toil commercial enterprise should feed to satiety, and cast the peelings and cores into the back yard for the folk to nose like swine.

Thus he was accustomed to allow the fifty illiterate, credulous families of Satan's Trap sufficient to keep them warm and to quiet their stomachs, but no more; for, he complained: "Isn't they got enough on their backs?" and, "Isn't they got enough t' eat?" and, "Lord!" said he, "they'll be wantin' figs an' joolry next."

There were times when he trembled for the fortune he had gathered in this way--in years when there were no fish, and he must feed the men and women and human litters of the Trap for nothing at all, through which he was courageous, if niggardly. When the folk complained against him, he wondered, with a righteous wag of the head, what would become of them if he should vanish with his property and leave them to fend for themselves. Sometimes he reminded them of this possibility; and then they got afraid, and thought of their young ones, and begged him to forget their complaint. His only disquietude was the fear of hell: whereby he was led to pay the wage of a succession of parsons, if they preached comforting doctrine and blue-pencilled the needle's eye from the Testament; but not otherwise. By some wayward, compelling sense of moral obligation, he paid the school-teacher, invariably, generously, so that the little folk of Satan's Trap might learn to read and write in the winter months. 'Rithmetic he condemned, but tolerated, as being some part of that unholy, imperative thing called l'arnin'; but he had no feeling against readin' and writin'.

There was no other trader within thirty miles.

"They'll trade with me," John Wull would say to himself, and be comforted, "or they'll starve."

It was literally true.

* * * * *

In that winter certain gigantic forces, with which old John Wull had nothing whatever to do, were inscrutably passionate. They went their way, in some vast, appalling quarrel, indifferent to the consequences. John Wull's soul, money, philosophy, the hopes of Satan's Trap, the various agonies of the young, were insignificant. Currents and winds and frost had no knowledge of them. It was a late season: the days were gray and bitter, the air was frosty, the snow lay crisp and deep in the valleys, the harbor water was frozen. Long after the time for blue winds and yellow hills the world was still sullen and white. Easterly gales, blowing long and strong, swept the far outer sea of drift-ice--drove it in upon the land, pans and bergs, and heaped it against the cliffs. There was no safe exit from Satan's Trap. The folk were shut in by ice and an impassable wilderness. This was not by the power or contriving of John Wull: the old man had nothing to do with it; but he compelled the season, impiously, it may be, into conspiracy with him. By-and-by, in the cottages, the store of food, which had seemed sufficient when the first snow flew, was exhausted. The flour-barrels of Satan's Trap were empty. Full barrels were in the storehouse of John Wull, but in no other place. So it chanced that one day, in a swirling fall of snow, Jehoshaphat Rudd came across the harbor with a dog and a sled.

John Wull, from the little office at the back of the shop, where it was warm and still, watched the fisherman breast the white wind.

"Mister Wull," said Jehoshaphat, when he stood in the office, "I 'low I'll be havin' another barrel o' flour."

Wull frowned.

"Ay," Jehoshaphat repeated, perplexed; "another barrel."

Wull pursed his lips.

"O' flour," said Jehoshaphat, staring.

The trader drummed on the desk and gazed out of the window. He seemed to forget that Jehoshaphat Rudd stood waiting. Jehoshaphat felt awkward and out of place; he smoothed his tawny beard, cracked his fingers, scratched his head, shifted from one foot to the other. Some wonder troubled him, then some strange alarm. He had never before realized that the lives of his young were in the keeping of this man.

"Flour," he ventured, weakly--"one barrel."

Wull turned. "It's gone up," said he.

"Have it, now!" Jehoshaphat exclaimed. "I 'lowed last fall, when I paid eight," he proceeded, "that she'd clumb as high as she could get 'ithout fallin'. But she've gone up, says you? Dear man!"

"Sky high," said the trader.

"Dear man!"

The stove was serene and of good conscience. It labored joyously in response to the clean-souled wind. For a moment, while the trader watched the snow through his bushy brows and Jehoshaphat Rudd hopelessly scratched his head, its hearty, honest roar was the only voice lifted in the little office at the back of John Wull's shop.

"An' why?" Jehoshaphat timidly asked.

"Scarcity."

"Oh," said Jehoshaphat, as though he understood. He paused. "Isn't you got as much as you _had?_" he inquired.

The trader nodded.

"Isn't you got enough in the storehouse t' last till the mail-boat runs?"

"Plenty, thank God!"

"Scarcity," Jehoshaphat mused. "Mm-m-m! Oh, I _sees_," he added, vacantly. "Well, Mister Wull," he sighed, "I 'low I'll take one of Early Rose an' pay the rise."

Wull whistled absently.

"Early Rose," Jehoshaphat repeated, with a quick, keen glance of alarm.

The trader frowned.

"Rose," Jehoshaphat muttered. He licked his lips. "Of Early," he reiterated, in a gasp, "Rose."

"All right, Jehoshaphat."

Down came the big key from the nail. Jehoshaphat's round face beamed. The trader slapped his ledger shut, moved toward the door, but stopped dead, and gazed out of the window, while his brows fell over his eyes, and he fingered the big key.

"Gone up t' eighteen," said he, without turning.

Jehoshaphat stared aghast.

"Wonderful high for flour," the trader continued, in apologetic explanation; "but flour's wonderful scarce."

"Tisn't _right!_" Jehoshaphat declared. "Eighteen dollars a barrel for Early Rose? 'Tisn't right!"

The key was restored to the nail.

"I can't pay it, Mister Wull. No, no, man, I can't do it. Eighteen! Mercy o' God! 'Tisn't right! 'Tis too _much_ for Early Rose."

The trader wheeled.

"An' I _won't_ pay it," said Jehoshaphat.

"You don't have to," was the placid reply.

Jehoshaphat started. Alarm--a sudden vision of his children--quieted his indignation. "But, Mister Wull, sir," he pleaded, "I got t' have it. I--why--I just _got_ t' have it!"

The trader was unmoved.

"Eighteen!" cried Jehoshaphat, flushing. "Mercy o' God! I says 'tisn't right."

"Tis the price."

"'Tisn't right!"

Wull's eyes were how flashing. His lips were drawn thin over his teeth. His brows had fallen again. From the ambush they made he glared at Jehoshaphat.

"I say," said he, in a passionless voice, "that the price o' flour at Satan's Trap is this day eighteen."

Jehoshaphat was in woful perplexity.

"Eighteen," snapped Wull. "Hear me?"

They looked into each other's eyes. Outside the storm raged, a clean, frank passion; for nature is a fair and honest foe. In the little office at the back of John Wull's shop the withered body of the trader shook with vicious anger. Jehoshaphat's round, brown, simple face was gloriously flushed; his head was thrown back, his shoulders were squared, his eyes were sure and fearless.

"'Tis robbery!" he burst out.

Wull's wrath exploded. "You bay-noddy!" he began; "you pig of a punt-fisherman; you penniless, ragged fool; you man without a copper; you sore-handed idiot! What you whinin' about? What right _you_ got t' yelp in my office?"

Of habit Jehoshaphat quailed.

"If you don't want my flour," roared Wull, fetching the counter a thwack with his white fist, "leave it be! 'Tis mine, isn't it? I _paid_ for it. I _got_ it. There's a law in this land, you pauper, that _says_ so. There's a law. Hear me? There's a law, Mine, mine!" he cried, in a frenzy, lifting his lean arms. "What I got is mine. I'll eat it," he fumed, "or I'll feed my pigs with it, or I'll spill it for the fishes. They isn't no law t' make me sell t' _you_. An' you'll pay what I'm askin', or you'll starve."

"You wouldn't do that, sir," Jehoshaphat gently protested. "Oh no--_no_! Ah, now, you wouldn't do that. You wouldn't throw it t' the fishes, would you? Not flour! 'Twould be a sinful waste."

"Tis my right."

"Ay,' Mister Wull," Jehoshaphat argued, with a little smile, "'tis yours, I'll admit; but we been sort o' dependin' on you t' lay in enough t' get us through the winter."

WUll's response was instant and angry. "Get you out o' my shop," said he, "an' come back with a civil tongue!"

"I'll go, Mister Wull," said Jehoshaphat, quietly, picking at a thread in his faded cap. "I'll go. Ay, I'll go. But--I got t' have the flour. I--I--just _got_ to. But I won't pay," he concluded, "no eighteen dollars a barrel."

The trader laughed.

"For," said Jehoshaphat, "'tisn't right."

Jehoshaphat went home without the flour, complaining of the injustice.

* * * * *

Jehoshaphat Rudd would have no laughter in the house, no weeping, no questions, no noise of play. For two days he sat brooding by the kitchen fire. His past of toil and unfailing recompense, the tranquil routine of life, was strangely like a dream, far off, half forgot. As a reality it had vanished. Hitherto there had been no future; there was now no past, no ground for expectation. He must, at least, take time to think, have courage to judge, the will to retaliate. It was more important, more needful, to sit in thought, with idle hands, than to mend the rent in his herring seine. He was mystified and deeply troubled.

Sometimes by day Jehoshaphat strode to the window and looked out over the harbor ice to the point of shore where stood the storehouse and shop and red dwelling of old John Wull. By night he drew close to the fire, and there sat with his face in his hands; nor would he go to bed, nor would he speak, nor would he move.

In the night of the third day the children awoke and cried for food. Jehoshaphat rose from his chair, and stood shaking, with breath suspended, hands clinched, eyes wide. He heard their mother rise and go crooning from cot to cot. Presently the noise was hushed: sobs turned to whimpers, and whimpers to plaintive whispers, and these complaints to silence. The house was still; but Jehoshaphat seemed all the while to hear the children crying in the little rooms above, He began to pace the floor, back and forth, back and forth, now slow, now in a fury, now with listless tread. And because his children had cried for food in the night the heart of Jehoshaphat Rudd was changed. From the passion of those hours, at dawn, he emerged serene, and went to bed.

* * * * *

At noon of that day Jehoshaphat Rudd was in the little office at the back of the shop. John Wull was alone, perched on a high stool at the desk, a pen in hand, a huge book open before him.

"I'm come, sir," said Jehoshaphat, "for the barrel o' flour."

The trader gave him no attention.

"I'm come, sir," Jehoshaphat repeated, his voice rising a little, "for the flour."

The trader dipped his pen in ink.

"I says, sir," said Jehoshaphat, laying a hand with some passion upon the counter, "that I'm come for that there barrel o' flour."

"An' I s'pose," the trader softly inquired, eying the page of his ledger more closely, "that you thinks you'll get it, eh?"

"Ay, sir."

Wull dipped his pen and scratched away.

"Mister Wull!"

The trader turned a leaf.

"Mister Wull," Jehoshaphat cried, angrily, "I wants flour. Is you gone deaf overnight?"

Impertinent question and tone of voice made old John Wull wheel on the stool. In the forty years he had traded at Satan's Trap he had never before met with impertinence that was not timidly offered. He bent a scowling face upon Jehoshaphat. "An' you thinks," said he, "that you'll get it?"

"I does."

"Oh, you does, does you?"

Jehoshaphat nodded.

"It all depends," said Wull. "You're wonderful deep in debt, Jehoshaphat." The trader had now command of himself. "I been lookin' up your account," he went on, softly. "You're so wonderful far behind, Jehoshaphat, on account o' high livin' an' Christmas presents, that I been thinkin' I might do the business a injury by givin' you more credit. I can't think o' _myself_, Jehoshaphat, in this matter. 'Tis a _business_ matter; an' I got t' think o' the business. You sees, Jehoshaphat, eighteen dollars more credit--"

"Eight," Jehoshaphat corrected.

"Eighteen," the trader insisted.

Jehoshaphat said nothing, nor did his face express feeling. He was looking stolidly at the big key of the storehouse.

"The flour depends," Wull proceeded, after a thoughtful pause, through which he had regarded the gigantic Jehoshaphat with startled curiosity, "on what I thinks the business will stand in the way o' givin' more credit t' you."

"No, sir," said Jehoshaphat.

Wull put down his pen, slipped from the high stool, and came close to Jehoshaphat. He was mechanical and slow in these movements, as though all at once perplexed, given some new view, which disclosed many and strange possibilities. For a moment he leaned against the counter, legs crossed, staring at the floor, with his long, scrawny right hand smoothing his cheek and chin. It was quiet in the office, and warm, and well-disposed, and sunlight came in at the window.

Soon the trader stirred, as though awakening. "You was sayin' eight, wasn't you?" he asked, without looking up.

"Eight, sir."

The trader pondered this. "An' how," he inquired, at last, "was you makin' that out?"

"Tis a fair price."

Wull smoothed his cheek and chin. "Ah!" he murmured. He mused, staring at the floor, his restless fingers beating a tattoo on his teeth. He had turned woebegone and very pale. "Jehoshaphat," he asked, turning upon the man, "would you mind tellin' me just how you're 'lowin' t' get my flour against my will?"

Jehoshaphat looked away.

"I'd like t' know," said Wull, "if you wouldn't mind tellin' me."

"No," Jehoshaphat answered. "No, Mister Wull--I wouldn't mind tellin'."

"Then," Wull demanded, "how?"

"Mister Wull," Jehoshaphat explained, "I'm a bigger man than you."

It was very quiet in the office. The wind had gone down in the night, the wood in the stove was burned to glowing coals. It was very, very still in old John Wull's office at the back of the shop, and old John Wull turned away, and went absently to the desk, where he fingered the leaves of his ledger, and dipped his pen in ink, but did not write. There was a broad window over the desk, looking out upon the harbor; through this, blankly, he watched the children at play on the ice, but did not see them. By-and-by, when he had closed the book and put the desk in order, he came back to the counter, leaned against it, crossed his legs, began to smooth his chin, while he mused, staring at the square of sunlight on the floor. Jehoshaphat could not look at him. The old man's face was so gray and drawn, so empty of pride and power, his hand so thin and unsteady, his eyes so dull, so deep in troubled shadows, that Jehoshaphat's heart ached. He wished that the world had gone on in peace, that the evil practices of the great were still hid from his knowledge, that there had been no vision, no call to revolution; he rebelled against the obligation upon him, though it had come to him as a thing that was holy. He regretted his power, had shame, indeed, because of the ease with which the mighty could be put down. He felt that he must be generous, tender, that he must not misuse his strength.

The patch of yellow light had perceptibly moved before the trader spoke. "Jehoshaphat," he asked, "you know much about law?"

"Well, no, Mister Wull," Jehoshaphat answered, with simple candor; "not _too_ much."

"The law will put you in jail for this."

Constables and jails were like superstitious terrors to Jehoshaphat. He had never set eyes on the brass buttons and stone walls of the law.

"Oh no--_no_!" he protested. "He wouldn't! Not in _jail_!"

"The law," Wull warned, with grim delight, "will put you in jail."

"He _couldn't_!" Jehoshaphat complained. "As I takes it, the law sees fair play atween men. That's what he was _made_ for. I 'low he ought t' put you in jail for raisin' the price o' flour t' eighteen; but not me--not for what I'm bound t' do, Mister Wull, law or no law, as God lives! 'Twouldn't be right, sir, if he put me in jail for that."

"The law will."

"But," Jehoshaphat still persisted, doggedly, "'twouldn't be _right_!'

The trader fell into a muse.

"I'm come," Jehoshaphat reminded him, "for the flour."

"You can't have it."

"Oh, dear!" Jehoshaphat sighed. "My, my! Pshaw! I 'low, then, us'll just have t' _take_ it."

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_."