Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/251

 "And the huge one!" Elspeth exclaimed, pointing to the cod. "'A bid, bid fis!' as Garth used to say long ago."

"I caught it!" Garth shouted. "That is, he was on my line, only Cap'n 'Bijah hauled him in, because he was too much for me. We thought he was the ol' Sea-Sarpint himself."

'Bijah, helping Garth out of the Lydia, kept an arm about him a moment longer than was necessary; then shook his hand long and hard.

"Wal, so long, mate," he said. "I'd like real well to hev ye come out with me agin, real well, an' you, too, Miss Kirkland."

"Nothing could keep me from coming, Cap'n 'Bijah," said Joan, clasping his hand.

He waved his arm to them. The Lydia wheeled off from the landing and puffed away, with a bubble of water behind her. Cap'n 'Bijah stood in the stern, a straight, brown-faced figure. But above him Joan seemed to see a ghostly cloud of canvas, and beneath his hand, not the rusted iron tiller of the dingy launch, but the wheel of the Bella S. in all her youth and beauty.

Jim, on his way to the landing next day, found his son seated behind the boat-house.