Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [144]
didn't say a word: he didn't need to. He just looked. Then he raised his eyebrows at Colonel Pepperrell. "Any comments, Colonel Pepperrell?"
The colonel asked politely, "Would I make any comments if you swore that the moon was a netful of sardines?"
Justice Penhallow signed the paper, pushed it across his desk, and without a word stood up and opened the door for Langman, White and Mellen to go out.
He came back and shook hands with all of us. "There's nothing to be done in a case like that," he said. "If you could spare the time and the money, you might prosecute him for perjury, but you'd do yourself more harm than good. That man would feel honored to be noticed, but he'd never be noticed by anyone worthy of the name of mariner."
We took our departure from Pepperrell's Cove on a soft April morning, with the southeast breeze bringing us the sweet Maine odors of young willows, damp beaches and newly turned earth. A shipowner couldn't want a pleasanter cove than Pepperrell's. It was shielded from the sea by the spruces of Odiorne's Point and Champernowne's Island, and from the north by the hills behind Braveboat Harbor. It was a safe anchorage, always, and I hated to leave it; but our testy good friend Colonel Pepperrell had arranged for Captain Dean, Henry Dean and myself to sail from it on one of his brigantines. Langman he avoided as he would the pestilence.
"If it hadn't been for Langman and his lies," the colonel told me disgustedly, "you and Captain Dean would be working for me today, instead of wasting the best time of
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year doing nothing! John Wentworth wanted me to provide Langman and his cronies with passage on this same brigantine, and at government expense. I'd see 'em in hell first! Let the British Navy take charge of Langman and his two dogfish, I told John. All three of 'em need a taste of the cat every day or two, just to remind 'em to be human! Drat such dod-ratted truth-twisters, and drat the fools who always believe 'em!"
The colonel eyed his son William, the problem child, with disfavor. He and Neal Butler stood beside me on the colonel's wharf. I'd always thought of Neal as a younger brother, but he suddenly seemed grown up, and to me his new friend William didn't look like a problem: he looked like a young man who'd be handy in an emergency.
On the shore behind the colonel and Neal and William stood half the population of Kittery Point, studiously scanning the cloudless sky, as if they had found themselves near the wharf purely by accident. By now I had come to know these Maine people a little, and I suspected why they were there. They wanted us to know they were resentful of any person who expected them to believe that Captain Dean would have wrecked a ship on Boon Island in a December northeaster. Under most conditions they were patient; but when aroused, they took steps.
"Seems to me," the colonel said severely to his son, "you'd be better off up at the house, learning to write."
"Yes, sir," Neal said, "but we figured you wouldn't mind if we said a final word to Miles about coming back. Also I wanted to tell him something."
"Well, go ahead and tell him," the colonel said.
"I wanted to tell him that someday I'd try to be worthy of what's been done for mefor ushere."
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The colonel looked from Neal and William to Captain Dean and me. He cleared his throat. "Why," he said, "that's all right. Under the circumstances, both of you can have the day off."
"Yes, sir," William said, "and I'd like to say that if Miles will come back, there's quite a few things we'd like to show him when summer's here. It's pretty countrya lot different from Boon Island."
The colonel blew his nose loudly. "Oh my, yes," he said. "I talk about going back to Revelstoke, but I'll never do it!"
I tried to speak, but couldn't. They had us by the arms, urging and helping us into the long boat. There was a fluttering of hands and a babel of cries. The oars rattled in the thole pins; the gulls squalled and squealed overhead;