Mary-Gusta | Page 5

don't do that again, Zoeth," he protested. "That's the
tenth 'Ah hum' you've cast loose in a mile. I know we're bound to a
funeral but there ain't no need of tollin' the bell all the way. I don't like
it and I don't think Marcellus would neither, if he could hear you."
"Perhaps he can hear us, Shadrach," suggested his companion, mildly.
"Perhaps he's here with us now; who can tell?"
"Humph! Well, if he is then I KNOW he don't like it. Marcellus never
made any fuss whatever happened, and he wouldn't make any at his
own funeral no more than at anybody else's. That wasn't his way. Say
nothin' and keep her on the course, that was Marcellus. I swan I can
hardly make it seem possible that he's gone!"

"Neither can I, Shadrach. And to think that you and me, his old partners
and lifelong chums as you might say, hadn't seen nor spoken to him for
over two years. It makes me feel bad. Bad and sort of
conscience-struck."
"I know; so it does me, in a way. And yet it wasn't our fault, Zoeth.
You know as well as I do that Marcellus didn't want to see us. We was
over to see him last and he scarcely said a word while we was there.
You and me did all the talkin' and he just set and looked at us--when he
wasn't lookin' at the floor. I never saw such a change in a man. We
asked--yes, by fire, we fairly begged him to come and stay with us for a
spell, but he never did. Now it ain't no further from Ostable to South
Harniss than it is from South Harniss to Ostable. If he'd wanted to come
he could; if he'd wanted to see us he could. We went to see him, didn't
we; and WE had a store and a business to leave. He ain't had any
business since he give up goin' to sea. He--"
"Sshh! Shh!" interrupted Mr. Hamilton, mildly, "don't talk that way,
Shadrach. Don't find fault with the dead."
"Find fault! I ain't findin' fault. I thought as much of Marcellus Hall as
any man on earth, and nobody feels worse about his bein' took than I do.
But I'm just sayin' what we both know's a fact. He didn't want to see us;
he didn't want to see nobody. Since his wife died he lived alone in that
house, except for a housekeeper and that stepchild, and never went
anywhere or had anybody come to see him if he could help it. A reg'lar
hermit--that's what he was, a hermit, like Peleg Myrick down to
Setuckit P'int. And when I think what he used to be, smart, lively, able,
one of the best skippers and smartest business men afloat or ashore, it
don't seem possible a body could change so. 'Twas that woman that
done it, that woman that trapped him into gettin' married."
"Sshh! Shh! Shadrach; she's dead, too. And, besides, I guess she was a
real good woman; everybody said she was."
"I ain't sayin' she wasn't, am I? What I say is she hadn't no business
marryin' a man twenty years older'n she was."

"But," mildly, "you said she trapped him. Now we don't know--"
"Zoeth Hamilton, you know she must have trapped him. You and I
agreed that was just what she done. If she hadn't trapped him--set a
reg'lar seine for him and hauled him aboard like a school of
mackerel--'tain't likely he'd have married her or anybody else, is it? I
ain't married nobody, have I? And Marcellus was years older'n I be."
"Well, well, Shadrach!"
"No, 'tain't well; it's bad. He's gone, and--and you and me that was with
him for years and years, his very best friends on earth as you might say,
wasn't with him when he died. If it hadn't been for her he'd have stayed
in South Harniss where he belonged. Consarn women! They're
responsible for more cussedness than the smallpox. 'When a man
marries his trouble begins'; that's gospel, too."
Zoeth did not answer.
Captain Gould, after a sidelong glance at his companion, took a hand
from the reins and laid it on the Hamilton knee.
"I'm sorry, Zoeth," he said, contritely; "I didn't mean to--to rake up
bygones; I was blowin' off steam, that's all. I'm sorry."
"I know, Shadrach. It's all right."
"No, 'tain't all right; it's all wrong. Somebody ought to keep a watch on
me, and when they see me beginnin' to get hot, set me on the back of
the stove or somewheres; I'm always liable to bile over and scald the
wrong critter. I've done that all my life. I'm sorry, Zoeth, you know I
didn't mean--"
"I know, I