th.' Nor was
he! A beat into the gray wind--hangin' on off a lee shore--a hard
chance with the Labrador reefs in foggy weather--a drive through the
ice after dark: Davy Junk, clever an' harsh at sea, was the skipper
for _that_, mild as he might seem ashore. 'Latch-string out for Death,
any time he chances my way, at sea,' says he; 'but I isn't goin' t'
die o' want ashore.' So he'd a bad name for drivin' a craft beyond her
strength; an' 'twas none but stout hearts--blithe young devils, the
most, with a wish t' try their spirit--would ship on the _Word o' the
Lord_. 'Don't you blame _me_ an we're cast away,' says Davy, in fair
warnin'. 'An you got hearts in your bellies, you keep out o' _this_.
This here coast,' says he, 'isn't got no mercy on a man that can't get
his fish. _An' I isn't that breed o' man!_' An' so from season t'
season he'd growed well-t'-do: a drive in the teeth o' hell, in
season--if hell's made o' wind an' sea, as I'm inclined t' think--an'
the ease of a bachelor man, between whiles, in his cottage at Rickity
Tickle, where he lived all alone like a spick-an'-span spinster. 'Twas
not o' the sea he was scared. 'Twas o' want in an unkind world; an'
t'was jus' that an' no more that drove un t' hard sailin' an' contempt
o' death--sheer fear o' want in the wolf's world that he'd made this
world out t' be in his own soul.

"'Twas not the sea: 'twas his own kind he feared an' kep' clear
of--men, maids, an' children. Friends? Nar a one--an' 'twas wholly his
choosin', too; for the world never fails t' give friends t' the man
that seeks un. 'I doesn't _want_ no friends,' says he. 'New friends,
new worries; an' the more o' one, the more o' the other. I got
troubles enough in this here damned world without takin' aboard the
thousand troubles o' friends. An' I 'low they got troubles enough
without sharin' the burden o' mine. _Me_ a friend! I'd only fetch
sorrow t' the folk that loved me. An' so I don't want t' have nothin'
t' do with nobody. I wants t' cotch my fish in season--an' then I
wants t' be left alone. Hate or love: 'tis all the same--trouble for
the hearts o' folk on both sides. An', anyhow, I isn't got nothin' t'
do with this world. _I'm_ only lookin' on. No favors took,' says he,
'an' none granted.' An', well--t' be sure--in the way the world
has--the world o' Rickity Tickle an' the Labrador let un choose his
own path. But it done Davy Junk no good that any man could see; for by
fits he'd be bitter as s