nd Bess had gone and delivered her message to Leary's crew at Caplin
Cove. "Be all hands aboard afore dawn and have her ready to sail," was
Bessie's message, and with that put off for home in her father's little
sloop. There had been stars on her run over, bright, cheerful stars that
made you overlook the frost in the air, but no stars now. But that was
the way of the weather in the bay.

In the lee of Shingle Spit it was calm enough, and so, for all the boom
of the sea outside, Bess had time for revery. A gran' figur' of a man,
Sammie Leary. Strong he was. Ay, strong. An' not stern. Lord knows,
there was enough of that to home. No, no, saft-like same as Sammie--that
was the kind for a woman to love.

And Sammie now. Out under the shadow of the porch he had said: "You're
the lass for me." Ay, he did. But so many talked like that and meant
naught by it, but took your kiss and your heart wi' the kiss and sailed
away, and you never again see 'em, mayhap. There was Jessie Mann,
and--Oh, no matter them. Sammie was none o' their kind o' men. An'
yet--there were those who said that one like Sammie never made a good
husband. Sailed wi' too free a sheet, he did. An' yet, did ever a vessel
get anywhere without a free sheet at times?

And, thinking of a free sheet, Bess gave the little sloop a foot or two
more of main-sheet. And there she was going through the water faster for
it. And she would need to go fast through the water if so be she was to
get home this night. And if she didn't get home--but 'twas o'er-early to
worry about what her father would say.

But was it all so true about a free sheet? Was it no' true that, holdin'
a vessel's nose to the wind, she'd sail her course wi' never a foot o'
leeway? 'Twas so her father maintained. Always safest to be on the
straight course, her father held. True enough, but wi' the wind ahead,
what headway? None at all--while, if you let them run off a bit, when
they did come back on the course they was farther on the road, arter
all. Ay, so it was. And Sammie? What did the poor boy ever know of a
home or a lovin' heart to guide him! Oh, ay, women should make
allowances for men like Sammie. 'Twas the good heart in him.

Out beyond the end of the spit the little boat began to feel the
pressure of the wind and the thump of the sea. She jumped so because
there wasn't much ballast in her. An' there was the matter o' ballast
now. A gran' thing in a vessel, a bit o' ballast--like religion in