r and more vigorous generation. There was an
alliance and understanding between them, so close that it was apparently
speechless. They gave much time to watching one another's boats go out
or come in; they lent a ready hand at tending one another's lobster
traps in rough weather; they helped to clean the fish or to sliver
porgies for the trawls, as if they were in close partnership; and when
a boat came in from deep-sea fishing they were never too far out of
the way, and hastened to help carry it ashore, two by two, splashing
alongside, or holding its steady head, as if it were a willful sea colt.
As a matter of fact no boat could help being steady and way-wise under
their instant direction and companionship. Abel's boat and Jonathan
Bowden's boat were as distinct and experienced personalities as the men
themselves, and as inexpressive. Arguments and opinions were unknown
to the conversation of these ancient friends; you would as soon have
expected to hear small talk in a company of elephants as to hear old Mr.
Bowden or Elijah Tilley and their two mates waste breath upon any form
of trivial gossip. They made brief statements to one another from time
to time. As you came to know them you wondered more and more that
they should talk at all. Speech seemed to be a light and elegant
accomplishment, and their unexpected acquaintance with its arts made
them of new value to the listener. You felt almost as if a landmark pine
should suddenly address you in regard to the weather, or a lofty-minded
old camel make a remark as you stood respectfully near him under the
circus tent.

I often wondered a great deal about the inner life and thought of these
self-contained old fishermen; their minds seemed to be fixed upon nature
and the elements rather than upon any contrivances of man, like politics
or theology. My friend, Captain Bowden, who was the nephew of the eldest
of this group, regarded them with deference; but he did not belong to
their secret companionship, though he was neither young nor talkative.

"They've gone together ever since they were boys, they know most
everything about the sea amon'st them," he told me once. "They was
always just as you see 'em now since the memory of man."

These ancient seafarers had houses and lands not outwardly different
from other Dunnet Landing dwellings, and two of them were fathers of
families, but their true dwelling places were the sea, and the stony
beach that edged its familiar shor