clumsy leap to the broken string-piece of the pier. Lazy and old, they straggled away to group themselves again in the burdock patch; unmoved by the fisherman's harangue, they deliberated over their fish for dinner; and presently, in a slow and scattered file of ones and twos, through the wide, glaring street of pink sand, moved homeward, each swinging by a bit of rope-yarn a scarlet lobster or a pale, limp haddock.
All but Captain Christy: he remained leaning with elbows on the schooner's rail, staring hard into the green depths, where sunfish wavered past, vague disks of bending pulp. Once he shook his head as if something would never do; once he cast a slow survey over his vessel, from stern davits to round, apple bow, from the gray old planks underfoot up to the drooping dog-vane; but for a long time he leaned motionless, looking down at a black tress of seaweed in the water. At last, with something like a sigh, he turned away, and walked over to the cabin door.
He was staring at the finished peg in the staple, when Zwinglius Turner swung himself
