a
fin--at Come-by-Chance; and no more than a catch of tom-cod in the
hopeful places past Skeleton Point of Three Lost Souls. The schooner
_Quick as Wink_, trading the Newfoundland outports in summer weather,
fluttered from cove to bight and tickle of the coast below Mother
Burke, in a great pother of anxiety, and chased the rumor of a catch
around the Cape Norman light to Pinch-a-Penny Beach. There was no fish
in those places; and the _Quick as Wink_, with Tumm, the clerk, in a
temper with the vagaries of the Lord, as manifest in fish and weather,
spread her wings for flight to the Labrador. From Bay o' Love to Baby
Cove, the hook-and-line men, lying off the Harborless Shore, had done
well enough with the fish for folk of their ill condition, and were
well enough disposed toward trading; whereupon Tumm resumed once more
his genial patronage of the Lord God A'mighty, swearing, in vast
satisfaction with the trade of those parts, that all was right with
the world, whatever might seem at times. "In this here world, as Davy
Junk used t' hold," he laughed, in extenuation of his improved
philosophy, "'tis mostly a matter o' fish." And it came about in this
way that when we dropped anchor at Dirty-Face Bight of the Labrador,
whence Davy Junk, years ago, in the days of his youth, had issued to
sail the larger seas, the clerk was reminded of much that he might
otherwise have forgotten. This was of a starlit time: it was blowing
softly from southerly parts, I recall; and the water lay flat under
the stars--flat and black in the lee of those great hills--and the
night was clear and warm and the lights were out ashore.

"I come near not bein' very _fond_ o' Davy Junk, o' Dirty-Face Bight,"
Tumm presently declared.

"Good Lord!" the skipper taunted. "A rascal you couldn't excuse,
Tumm?"

"I'd no fancy for his _religion_," Tumm complained.

"What religion?"

"Well," the clerk replied, in a scowling drawl, "Skipper Davy always
'lowed that in this here damned ol' world a man had t' bite or get
bit. An' as for his manner o' courtin' a maid in consequence----"

"Crack on!" said the skipper.

And Tumm yarned to his theme....

* * * * *

"Skipper Davy was well-favored enough, in point o' looks, for fishin'
the Labrador," he began; "an' I 'low, with the favor he had, such as
'twas, he might have done as well with the maids as the fish, courtin'
as he cotched--ay, an' made his everlastin' fortune in