Page:Barbour--The mystery of the sea-lark.djvu/21

Rh the sea beyond the breakwater reflected the blue of the heavens in their dancing, white-capped waves.

A mile away, Gull Island was fringed with creamy foam, and, farther still, at the tip-end of the Point, the squat stone lighthouse gleamed snowy-white against the clear horizon. Washed and swept by rain and wind, the little Massachusetts fishing-town of Greenport looked bright and clean this May afternoon. The fishing-schooners, some at anchor, some lying snug at the wharves, were drying their sails in the warm sunlight.

Cap'n Crumbie viewed them approvingly as, with Jack at his side, he paced to and fro on Garnett and Sayer's wharf, his short, slightly bowed legs working with the regularity of a pendulum, six paces nor'east, then six paces so'west. He had traveled a good many miles in that fashion in the last twenty years, for he was watchman at Garnett and Sayer's, and this stretch of clear space on the busy wharf was the Cap'n's quarter-deck. He was, let it be confessed, no ancient deep-sea mariner, al-