his pain at that last must have been heavy.

Jeremy Ammidon's mind turned to Gerrit, his son; this interest in Nettie
Vollar, if it had existed, was characteristic of the boy, who had a quick
heart and an honest disdain for the muddling narrow ways of the land. He
would have sought her out simply from the instinct to protest against the
smugness of Salem opinion. A fine sailor, and a master at twenty-two. A
great one to carry sail; yet in the sixteen years of his commands he had
had no more serious accident than the loss of a fore-topgallant mast or
splitting a couple of courses. It was Gerrit's ability, the splendid
qualities of his ship, that made Jeremy hope he would still come sailing
into the harbor with some narration of delay and danger overcome.

He was now on Derby Street, in a region of rigging and sail lofts, block
and pump makers, ships' stores, spar yards, gilders, carvers and workers
in metal. There was a strong smell of tar and new canvas and the flat
odor that rose at low water. Sailors passed, yellow powerful
Scandinavians and dark men with earrings from southern latitudes, in red
or checked shirts, blue dungarees and glazed black hats with trailing
ribbons, or in cheap and clumsy shore clothes. There was a scraping of
fiddle from an upper window, the sound of heavy capering feet and the
stale laughter of harborside women.

On Hardy Street he continued to the last house at the right, the farther
side of which gave across a yard of uneven bricks, straggling bushes and
aged splitting apple trees and an expanse of lush grass ending abruptly
in a wooden embankment and the water. A short fence turned in from the
sidewalk to the front door, where Jeremy knocked. A long pause followed,
in which he became first impatient and then irritable; and he was lifting
his hand for a second summons when the door suddenly opened and he was