e, and the fish-houses, where much
salt brine from the mackerel kits had soaked the very timbers into a
state of brown permanence and petrifaction. It had also affected the old
fishermen's hard complexions, until one fancied that when Death claimed
them it could only be with the aid, not of any slender modern dart, but
the good serviceable harpoon of a seventeenth century woodcut.

Elijah Tilley was such an evasive, discouraged-looking person,
heavy-headed, and stooping so that one could never look him in the
face, that even after his friendly exclamation about Monroe Pennell, the
lobster smack's skipper, and the sleepy boy, I did not venture at once
to speak again. Mr. Tilley was carrying a small haddock in one hand, and
presently shifted it to the other hand lest it might touch my skirt. I
knew that my company was accepted, and we walked together a little way.

"You mean to have a good supper," I ventured to say, by way of
friendliness.

"Goin' to have this 'ere haddock an' some o' my good baked potatoes;
must eat to live," responded my companion with great pleasantness and
open approval. I found that I had suddenly left the forbidding coast and
come into the smooth little harbor of friendship.

"You ain't never been up to my place," said the old man. "Folks don't
come now as they used to; no, 'tain't no use to ask folks now. My poor
dear she was a great hand to draw young company."

I remembered that Mrs. Todd had once said that this old fisherman had
been sore stricken and unconsoled at the death of his wife.

"I should like very much to come," said I. "Perhaps you are going to be
at home later on?"

Mr. Tilley agreed, by a sober nod, and went his way bent-shouldered and
with a rolling gait. There was a new patch high on the shoulder of
his old waistcoat, which corresponded to the renewing of the Miranda's
mainsail down the bay, and I wondered if his own fingers, clumsy with
much deep-sea fishing, had set it in.

"Was there a good catch to-day?" I asked, stopping a moment. "I didn't
happen to be on the shore when the boats came in."

"No; all come in pretty light," answered Mr. Tilley. "Addicks an' Bowden
they done the best; Abel an' me we had but a slim fare. We went out
'arly, but not so 'arly as sometimes; looked like a poor mornin'. I got
nine haddick, all small, and seven fish; the rest on 'em got more fish
than haddick. Well, I don't expect they feel like bitin' every day; we
l'arn to humor 'em a lit