“God! I felt bad when she told me that....”
Tumm stopped, sighed, picked at a knot in the table. There was silence in the forecastle. The _Good Samaritan_ was still nodding to the swell--lying safe at anchor in Heart's Ease Cove. We heard the gusts scamper over the deck and shake the rigging; we caught, in the intervals, the deep-throated roar of breakers, far off--all the noises of the gale. And Tumm picked at the knot with his clasp-knife; and we sat watching, silent, all.... And I felt bad, too, because of the maid at Whooping Harbor--a rolling waste of rock, with the moonlight lying on it, stretching from the whispering mystery of the sea to the greater desolation beyond; and an uncomely maid, wishing, without hope, for that which the hearts of women must ever desire....
“Ay,” Tumm drawled, “it made me feel bad t' think o' what she'd been wantin' all them years; an' then I wished I'd been kinder t' Liz.... An', 'Tumm,' thinks I, 'you went an' come ashore t' stop this here thing; but you better let the skipper have his little joke, for t'will on'y s'prise him, an' it won't do nobody else no hurt. Here's this fool,' thinks I, 'wantin' a wife; an' he won't never have another chance. An' here's this maid,' thinks I, 'wantin' a baby; an' _she_ won't never have another chance. 'Tis plain t' see,' thinks I, 'that God A'mighty, who made un, crossed their courses; an' I 'low, ecod!' thinks I, 'that 'twasn't a bad idea He had. If He's got to get out of it somehow,' thinks I, 'why, _I_ don't know no better way. Tumm,' thinks I, 'you sheer off. Let Nature,' thinks I, 'have doo course an' be glorified.' So I looks Liz in the eye--an' says nothin'.
“'Don't you be scared o' nothin',' says I. 'He's a lad o' good feelin's,' says I, 'an' he'll treat you the best he knows how. Is you goin' t' take un?'
“'I wathn't thinkin' o' that,' says she. 'I wathn't thinkin' o' _not_. I wath jutht,' says she, 'wonderin'.'
“'They isn't no sense in that, Liz,' says I. 'You just wait an' find out.'
“With that she up with her pinny an' begun t' cry like a young swile.
“I 'low I couldn't tell what 'twas all about. But she was like all the women. Lord! 'tis the little things that makes un weep when it comes t' the weddin'.