The Trawler | Page 3

I've
known to find his grave under the green-white ocean, but never a

smarter, never an abler fisherman than your boy Arthur. Boy and man I
knew him, and, boy and man, he did his work. I thought you might like
to hear that from me, John Snow. And not much more than that can I
say now, except to add, maybe, that when the Lord calls, John Snow,
we must go, all of us. The Lord called and Arthur went. He had a good
life before him--if he'd lived. He'd 've had his own vessel
soon--could've had one before this--if he'd wanted. But 'No,' he says,
'I'll stay with you yet a while, Captain Hugh.' He loved me and I loved
him. 'I'll stay with you yet a while, Captain Hugh,' he says, but, staying
with me, he was lost, and if I was old enough to have a grown son o'
my own, if 'twas that little lad who lived only long enough to teach me
what it is to have hope of a fine son and then to lose him, if 'twas that
little lad o' mine grown up, I doubt could I feel it more, John Snow."
John Snow let slip his book and stood up, and for the first time looked
fair at Hugh Glynn. "We know, Captain Glynn," John Snow said, "and
I'm thanking you now. It's hard on me, hard on us all--our only son,
captain--our only child. But, doubtless, it had to come. Some goes
young and some goes old. It came to him maybe earlier than we ever
thought for, or he thought for, no doubt, but--it come. And what you
have told us, captain, is something for a man to be hearing of his
son--and to be hearing it from you. And only this very night, with the
word of you come home, my mind was hardening against you, Captain
Glynn, for no denying I've heard hard things even as I've heard great
things of you. But now I've met you, I know they mixed lies in the
telling, Captain Glynn. And as for Arthur--" John Snow stopped.
"As for Arthur"--'twas something to listen to, the voice of Hugh Glynn
then, so soft there was almost no believing it--"as for Arthur, John
Snow, he went as all of us will have to go if we stop long enough with
the fishing."
"Ay, no doubt. As you may go yourself, captain?"
"As I expect to go, John Snow. To be lost some day--what else should I
look forward to?"
"A black outlook, captain."

"Maybe, maybe. And yet a man's death at the last."
"So 'tis, captain--so 'tis."
John Snow and Hugh Glynn gripped hands, looked into each other's
eyes, and parted--Hugh Glynn out into the night again and John Snow,
with Mrs. Snow, to their room, from where I could hear her sobbing. I
almost wanted to cry myself, but Mary Snow was there. I went over
and stood behind her. She was looking after some one through the
window.
It was Hugh Glynn walking down the steep hill. Turning the corner
below, I remember how he looked back and up at the window.
For a long silence Mary Snow sat there and looked out. When she
looked up and noticed me, she said: "It's a hard life, the bank fishing,
Simon. The long, long nights out to sea, the great gales; and when you
come home, no face, it may be, at the door to greet you."
"That it is, Mary."
"I saw his wife one day, Simon," said Mary Snow softly, "and the little
boy with her. But a week before they were killed together that was; six
years ago, and he, the great, tall man, striding between them. A
wonderful, lovely woman and a noble couple, I thought. And the grand
boy! And I at that heedless age, Simon, it was a rare person, be it man
or woman, I ran ahead to see again."
"Come from the window, Mary," I said to that, "and we'll talk of things
more cheerful."
"No, no, Simon--don't ask me to talk of light matters to-night." With
that and a "Good night" she left me for her room.
Out into the street I went. John Snow's house stood at the head of a
street atop of a steep hill, and I remember how I stood on the steps of
John Snow's house and looked down the slope of the hill, and below the
hill to the harbor, and beyond the harbor to clear water. It was a cold

winter moonlight, and under the moon the sea heaved and heaved and
heaved. There was no break in the surface of that sea that night, but as
it heaved, terribly slow and heavy, I thought I could