love, I'll be
bound, an' kep' it at compound interest through the eternal years--had
his heart been as tender as his fear o' the world was large, or had he
give way, by times, t' the kindness o' soul he was born with. A
scrawny, pinch-lipped, mottled little runt of a Labrador skipper, his
face all screwed up with peerin' for trouble in the mists beyond the
waters o' the time: he was born here at Dirty-Face Bight, but sailed
the _Word o' the Lord_ out o' Rickity Tickle, in the days of his
pride, when I was a lad o' the place; an' he cotched his load, down
north, lean seasons or plenty, in a way t' make the graybeards an'
boasters blink in every tickle o' the Shore. A fish-killer o' parts he
was: no great spectacle on the roads o' harbor, though--a mild,
backward, white-livered little man ashore, yieldin' the path t' every
dog o' Rickity Tickle. 'I gets my fish in season,' says he, 'an' I got
a right t' mind my business between whiles.' But once fair out t' sea,
with fish t' be got, an' the season dirty, the devil hisself would
drive a schooner no harder than Davy Junk--not even an the Ol' Rascal
was trappin' young souls in lean times, with revivals comin' on like
fall gales. Neither looks nor liver could keep Davy in harbor in a
gale o' wind, with a trap-berth t' be snatched an' a schooner in the
offing; nor did looks hamper un in courtship, an' that's my yarn,
however it turns out, for his woe or salvation. 'Twas sheer perversity
o' religion that kep' his life anchored in Bachelors' Harbor--'A man's
got t' bite or get bit!'

"Whatever an' all, by some mischance Davy Junk was fitted out with red
hair, a bony face, lean, gray lips, an' sharp an' shifty little eyes.
He'd a sly way, too, o' smoothin' his restless lips, an' a mean habit
o' lookin' askance an' talkin' in whispers. But 'twas his eyes that
startled a stranger. Ah-ha, they was queer little eyes, sot deep in a
cramped face, an' close as evil company, each peekin' out in distrust
o' the world; as though, ecod, the world was waitin' for nothin' so
blithely as t' strike Davy Junk in a mean advantage! Eyes of a
wolf-pup. 'Twas stand off a pace, with Davy, on first meetin', an' eye
a man 'til he'd found what he wanted t' know; an' 'twas sure with the
look of a Northern pup o' wolf's breedin', no less, that he'd search
out a stranger's intention--ready t' run in an' bite, or t' dodge the
toe of a boot, as might chance t' seem best. 'Twas a thing a man
marked first of