Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/85

 ones, and there was a pervading odor of tar and manila rope abroad. Old men came to lean against piles, even as Jane and Mr. Bolliver were leaning, to stare and sigh aimlessly. Younger ones stood in little groups, running square brown fingers along the newly caulked seams of small boats which lay bottom-up on the shingle, or busying themselves with paint-pot and scraping-knife. New lobster-pots and mended nets were piled beside every wharf-house. April stood at the threshold and summoned Resthaven to sea, as it had always done. In earlier days it had called to deep waters and far lands; there were mighty sails to be spread and great anchors to weigh. Now it led only to the stake-net and lobster-pot a mile or two down-harbor—yet the lure was the same, and in spring Resthaven still turned to the sea.

Jane and Mr. Bolliver felt it as they stood on the gray, hewn timbers of Ingram Wharf and looked at far sails beyond the harbor-mouth and faint smoke at the earth's edge.

"I'd do it all again," Mr. Bolliver said, half to himself. "I'd give much to slip fifty years