It would ill become me to take a late revenge on Adam Dishart now
by saying what is not true of him. Though he died a fisherman he
was a sailor for a great part of his life, and doubtless his
recklessness was washed into him on the high seas, where in his
time men made a crony of death, and drank merrily over dodging it
for another night. To me his roars of laughter without cause were
as repellent as a boy's drum; yet many faces that were long in my
company brightened at his coming, and women, with whom, despite my
yearning, I was in no wise a favorite, ran to their doors to
listen to him as readily as to the bell-man. Children scurried
from him if his mood was savage, but to him at all other times,
while me they merely disregarded. There was always a smell of the
sea about him. He had a rolling gait, unless he was drunk, when he
walked very straight, and before both sexes he boasted that any
woman would take him for his beard alone. Of this beard he took
prodigious care, though otherwise thinking little of his
appearance, and I now see that he understood women better than I
did, who had nevertheless reflected much about them. It cannot be
said that he was vain, for though he thought he attracted women
strangely, that, I maintain, is a weakness common to all men, and
so no more to be marvelled at than a stake in a fence. Foreign
oaths were the nails with which he held his talk together, yet I
doubt not they were a curiosity gathered at sea, like his chains
of shells, more for his own pleasure than for others' pain. His
friends gave them no weight, and when he wanted to talk
emphatically he kept them back, though they were then as
troublesome to him as eggs to the bird-nesting boy who has to
speak with his spoil in his mouth.

Adam was drowned on Gavin's fourth birthday, a year after I had to