The Trawler | Page 7

have thought of it."
"And with some one woman in mind?"
"It may be." He answered that, too, without a pause.
"And does she know?"
"It may be she knows. No knowing when they know, Simon. As men

best understand the soul, so it is woman's best gift to understand the
heart. But no fair play in me to ask her. I've had my great hour, and
may not have it again with another. To offer the woman I have in mind
anything less than a great love--it would be to cheat, Simon. No, no,
no--it's not the kind of a man I am now, but the kind you are, Simon,
should marry."
"It's not my kind that women like best, captain," I said.
"There are women to like every kind, Simon, and almost any kind of a
woman would like your kind, Simon, if you would only learn to be less
ashamed of what should be no shame. And it is you, already in love,
who----"
"Me--in love?" I was like a vessel luffing to escape a squall, he had
come on me so quickly.
"There it is, Simon--the upbringing of you that would never own up to
what you think only yourself know. Three weeks to sea now you've
been with me, and never a gull you've seen skirling to the west'ard that
your eyes haven't followed. By no mistake do you watch them flying
easterly. And when last evening I said, 'To-morrow, boys, we'll swing
her off and drive her to the west'ard--to the west'ard and Gloucester!'
the leaping heart in you drove the blood to your very eyes. Surely that
was not in sorrow, Simon?"
I made no answer.
Back and forth we paced, and talked as we paced, until the stars were
dimming in the sky and the darkness fading from the sea. He stopped
by the rail and stared, aweary-like, I thought, upon the waters.
"Simon, surely few men but would rather be themselves than anybody
else that lives; but surely, too, no man sailing his own wide courses but
comes to the day when he wishes he'd been less free in his navigation at
times. You are honest and right, Simon. Even when you are wrong you
are right, because for a man to do what he thinks is right, whether he be
right or wrong, at the time, is to come to be surely right in the end. And

it is the like of you, not yet aweary in soul or body, should mate with
the women moulded of God to be the great mothers."
"You have done much thinking of some matters, captain," I said, not
knowing what else to say.
"Alone at sea before the dawn--it is a wonderful hour for a man to
cross-question himself, Simon; and not many nights of late years that I
haven't seen the first light of dawn creeping up over the edge of the
ocean. You marry Mary Snow, Simon."
He knew. What could I say? "I never thought to talk like this, captain,
to a living man." In the growing light we now stood plain to each
other's sight. "I don't understand what made me," I said, and said it,
doubtless, with a note of shame.
"It may be just as well at your age that you don't understand every
feeling that drives you on, Simon. Our brains grow big with age, but
not our hearts. No matter what made you talk to-night, Simon, you
marry Mary Snow."
I shook my head, but opened my heart to him, nevertheless. "I haven't
the clever ways of Saul Haverick."
"Simon, it's my judgment this night that Mary Snow will never marry
Saul Haverick."
"I'm glad to hear you think that, captain. 'Twould spoil her life--or any
woman's."
"No, no," he said, quick-like. "Almost any woman's--yes; but not Mary
Snow's--not altogether."
"And why?"
"Because she's too strong a soul to be spoiled of her life by any one
man; because no matter what man she marries, in her heart will be the
image, not of the man her husband is, but of the man she'd wish him to

be, and in the image of that man of her fancy will her children be born.
Women moulded of God to be the mothers of great men are fashioned
that way, Simon. They dream great dreams for their children's sake to
come, and their hearts go out to the man who helps to make their
dreams come true. If I've learned anything of good women in life,
Simon, it is that. And, no saying, I may be wrong in that, too, Simon,
but so far I've met no man who knows more of it than I to gainsay me.
You marry Mary Snow, Simon, and she will bear you children who