Three years passed, and in the summer of the third year Captain Nummy Tangye, of the Touch-me-not, relinquished his command. Captain Tangye’s baptismal name was Matthias, and Bideford, in Devon, his native town. But the Touch-me-not, which he had commanded for thirty-five years, happened to carry for figurehead a wooden Highlander holding a thistle close to his chest, and against his thigh a scroll with the motto, Noli Me Tangere, and this being, in popular belief, an effigy of the captain taken in the prime of life, Mr. Tangye cheerfully accepted the fiction with its implication of Scottish descent, and was known at home and in various out-of-the-way parts of the world as Nolim or Nummy. He even carried about a small volume of Burns in his pocket; not from any love of poetry, but to demonstrate, when required, that Scotsmen have their own notions of spelling.

Captain Tangye owned a preponderance of shares in the Touch-me-not, and had no difficulty in getting Zeke (who now held a master’s certificate) appointed to succeed him. The old man hauled ashore to a cottage with a green door and a brass knocker and a garden high over the water-side. In this he spent the most of his time with a glittering brass telescope of uncommon length, and in the intervals of studying the weather and the shipping, watched John Penaluna at work across the harbour.

The Touch-me-not made two successful voyages under Zeke’s command, and was home again and discharging beside the Town Quay, when, one summer’s day, as John Penaluna leaned on his pitchfork beside a heap of weeds arranged for burning he glanced up and saw Captain Tangye hobbling painfully towards him across the slope. The old man had on his best blue cut-away coat, and paused now and then to wipe his brow.

“I take this as very friendly,” said John.

Captain Tangye grunted. “P’rhaps ’tis, p’rhaps ‘tisn’. Better wait a bit afore you say it.”

“Stay and have a bit of dinner with me and the missus.”

“Dashed if I do! ’Tis about her I came to tell ‘ee.”

“Yes?” John, being puzzled, smiled in a meaningless way.

“Zeke’s home agen.”

“Yes; he was up here two evenin’s ago.”

“He was here yesterday; he’ll be here again today. He comes here too often. I’ve got a telescope, John Penaluna, and I sees what’s goin’ on. What’s more, I guess what’ll come of it. So I warn ‘ee — as a friend, of course.”

John stared down at the polished steel teeth of his pitchfork, glinting under the noonday sun.

“As a friend, of course,” he echoed vaguely, still with the meaningless smile on his face.

“I b’lieve she means to be a good ‘ooman; but she’s listenin’ to ‘en. Now, I’ve got ‘en a ship up to Runcorn. He shan’t sail the Touch-me-not no more. ’Tis a catch for ‘en-a nice barquentine, five hundred tons. If he decides to take the post (and I reckon he will) he starts tomorrow at latest. Between this an’ then there’s danger, and ’tis for you to settle how to act.”

A long pause followed. The clock across the harbour struck noon, and this seemed to wake John Penaluna up. “Thank ‘ee,” he said. “I think I’ll be going in to dinner. I’ll — I’ll consider of it. You’ve took me rather sudden.”

“Well, so long! I mean it friendly, of course.”

“Of course. Better take the lower path; ’tis shorter, an’ not so many stones in it.”

John stared after him as he picked his way down the hill; then fell to rearranging his heaps of dried rubbish in an aimless manner. He had forgotten the dinner-hour. Something buzzed in his ears. There was no wind on the slope, no sound in the air. The shipwrights had ceased their hammering, and the harbour at his feet lay still as a lake. They were memories, perhaps, that buzzed so swiftly past his ears — trivial recollections by the hundred, all so little, and yet n............