Part 8 (1/2)

”Thank you. I hope HE will, but I have my doubts. Where is he?”

”Who? the lobster? There's dozens down in the car by the wharf. Lift the cover and fish one out with the dip net. Pick out the biggest one you can find, 'cause I'm likely to be hungry when I get back, and your appet.i.te ain't a hummin' bird's. There! I've got to go if I want to get anything done afore-- . . . Humph! never mind. So long.”

He hurried away, as if conscious that he had said more than he intended.

At the corner of the house he turned to call:

”I say! Brown! be kind of careful when you dip him out. None of 'em are plugged.”

”What?”

”I say none of them lobsters' claws are plugged. I didn't have time to plug the last lot I got from my pots, so you want to handle 'em careful like, else they'll nip you. Tote the one you pick out up to the house in the dip-net; then you'll be all right.”

Evidently considering this warning sufficient to prevent any possible trouble, he departed. John Brown seated himself in the armchair by the door and gazed at the sea. He gazed and thought until he could bear to think no longer; then he rose and entered the kitchen, where he kindled a fire in the range and filled a kettle with water. Having thus made ready the sacrificial altar, he took the long-handled dip-net from its nail and descended the bluff to the wharf.

The lobster car, a good-sized affair of laths with a hinged cover closing the opening in its upper surface, was floating under the wharf, to which it was attached by a rope. Brown knelt on the string-piece and peered down at it. It floated deep in the water, the tide rippling strongly through it, between the laths. The cover was fastened with a wooden b.u.t.ton.

The subst.i.tute a.s.sistant, after a deal of futile and exasperating poking with the handle of the net, managed to turn the b.u.t.ton and throw back the leather-hinged cover. Through the square opening the water beneath looked darkly green. There was much seaweed in the car, and occasionally this weed was stirred by living things which moved sluggishly.

John Brown reversed the net, and, lying flat on the wharf, gingerly thrust the business end of the contrivance through the opening and into the dark, weed-streaked water. Then he began feeling for his prey.

He could feel it. Apparently the car was alive with lobsters. As he moved the net through the water there was always one just before it or behind it; but at least ten minutes elapsed before he managed to get one in it. At length, when his arms were weary and his patience almost exhausted, the submerged net became heavy, and the handle shook in his grasp. He shortened his hold and began to pull in hand over hand. He had a lobster, a big lobster.

He could see a pair of claws opening and shutting wickedly. He raised the creature through the opening, balanced the net on its edge, rose on one knee, tried to stand erect, stumbled, lost his hold on the handle and shot the lobster neatly out of the meshes, over the edge of the car, and into the free waters of the channel. Then he expressed his feelings aloud and with emphasis.

Five minutes later he got another, but it was too small to be of use. In twenty minutes he netted three more, two of which got away. The third, however, he dragged pantingly to the wharf and sat beside it, gloating.

It was his for keeps, and it was a big one, the great-grandaddy of lobsters. Its claws clashed and snapped at the twine of the net like a pair of giant nut crackers.

Carrying it as far from his body as its weight at the end of the handle would permit, he bore it in triumph to the kitchen. To boil a lobster alive had seemed a mean trick, and cruel, when Seth Atkins first ordered him to do it. Now he didn't mind; it would serve the thing right for being so hard to catch. Entering the kitchen, he balanced the net across a chair and stepped to the range to see if the water was boiling. It was not, and for a very good reason--the fire had gone out. Again Mr. Brown expressed his feelings.

The fire, newly kindled, had burned to the last ash. If he had been there to add more coal in season, it would have survived; but he had been otherwise engaged. There was nothing to be done except rake out the ashes and begin anew. This he did. When he removed the kettle he decided at once that it was much too small for the purpose required of it. To boil a lobster of that size in a kettle of that size would necessitate boiling one end at a time, and that, both for the victim and himself, would be troublesome and agonizing. He hunted about for a larger kettle and, finding none, seized in desperation upon the wash boiler, filled it, and lifted it to the top of the stove above the flickering new fire.

The fire burned slowly, and he sat down to rest and wait. As he sank into the chair--not that across which the netted lobster was balanced, but another--he became aware of curious sounds from without. Distant sounds they were, far off and faint, but growing steadily louder; wails and long-drawn howls, mournful and despairing.

”A-a-oo-ow! Aa-ow-ooo!”

”What in the world?” muttered Brown, and ran out of the kitchen and around the corner of the house.

There was nothing in sight, nothing strange or unusual, that is. Joshua, Seth's old horse, picketted to a post in the back yard and grazing, or trying to graze, on the stubby beach gra.s.s, was the only living exhibit.

But the sounds continued and grew louder.

”Aa-ow-ooo! Ow-oo-ow-ooo!”

Over the rise of a dune, a hundred yards off, where the road to Eastboro village dipped towards a swampy hollow, appeared a horse's head and the top of a covered wagon. A moment later the driver became visible, a freckled faced boy grinning like a pumpkin lantern. The horse trotted through the sand up to the lights. Joshua whinnied as if he enjoyed the prospect of company. From the back of the wagon, somewhere beneath the shade of the cover, arose a heartrending wail, reeking of sorrow and agony.

”Aa-ow-OOO! Ooo-aa-OW!”

”For heaven's sake,” exclaimed the lightkeeper's helper, running to meet the vehicle, ”what is the matter?”

The boy grinned more expansively than ever. ”Whoa!” he shouted, to the horse he was driving. The animal stopped in his tracks, evidently glad of the opportunity. Another howl burst from the covered depths of the wagon.