CHAPTER II
"FAIRWINDS" AND "BLUSTER"
As trim and as trig as a homeward-bound ship—for then, as all sailors will tell you, above the water-line at least, they are cleanest—was the Fell place. Clapboards, cobbles, and conch-shells around the walks and flower-beds, were glistening white; so also the fence and the trunks of the trees. For colour-relief there were green shutters; the moss-grey of a pleasantly-sloping roof; the maroon of hollyhocks and marigold yellow against the walls; and, over towards the orchard, an old skiff, green-painted, with a cargo of old-fashioned flowers, foaming in myriad hues over oarlocks and gunwales.
Captain Fell, or "Ole Cap'n Bluster," to use the villagers' soubriquet, was seated—or rather "set"—on the porch. Sighting his daughter's convoy, he tossed "The Salthaven Log, Founded in 1809," in the corner, and puffed down the path like an ineffectual gale upon a ship cleared for rough weather.
"Good-day, sir"—it was a dismissal, not a greeting. The white hair bristled under the slightly-askew visored cap; the Adam's apple swelled like a turkey-cock's; his choleric face purpled; the grey whiskers stood out in the blast of his
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