with me, I will
say to you men--that varmint, that low-down robber o' the dead an' o'
the livin' whose clawlike hands you have unhooked from the chymes o' the
barrel containin' the stolen 'lasses that he hoped to get home fer
Roxana Lee to wallop her dodgers in, is no less or no other than Sandy
Mason, the thief who stole my gal twenty year ago, an' if I hain't plumb
wrong on family favorin', that striplin' is their son."

To all outward appearance, old Ichabod was perfectly calm. The men from
the station regarded the speaker with faces grown suddenly stern as they
realized the nature of the wrong done him. Neither Sandy Mason nor his
son ventured to utter a syllable, as the fisherman continued:

"Sandy, you may think as how tain't none o' my affair, an' that I'd look
a heap better to keep my lip out o' it. Maybe as how that's a fact, but
God knows when I'll ever get another chance to rub it in hard on the
likes o' you. I've heard, year after year, that you was still at the old
tricks--too lazy to work, with your eye always turned to the sea hoping
that some poor devil would misread his reckonin' an' put his ship where
you can ransack its vitals fer an easy livin' fer you and yours. I'll
lay my all agin a two pence that that wife o' your'n has wished many's
the time that she had married an honest man an' not a thief. Judging
from what I knew o' her years ago, I'll allow that it mighty nigh breaks
her heart to see the man that infatuated her as a gal a-takin' her child
an' a-bringin' him up in the ways o' a thief. Shame on ye, Sandy Mason!
I'm goin' to ask the boys to turn ye loose, an' I hope to God that this
will be a lesson that ye'll not soon forget, an' that ye'll straighten
up an' be a man afore it's too late. If so be you an' the woman are past
redemption, quit your thievin' an' beach-combin' for the sake o' the
boy."

Ichabod then turned to the lad, and addressed him in a kindly voice.

"Young man, I'm sorry to have had to hurt your feelin's with the truth,
an' I hope ye'll forgive me. Take this experience of to-day as a
warnin'. Don't be a beach-comber. For when you are, to my mind, you are
what folks call a grave-robber--a ghoul. Now go home to your mammy, who
used to have some good thoughts. Unless they're all gone through livin'
with that no-'count daddy o' your'n, she'll tell you that Captain
Ichabod is right fer once. Yes, I say, quit it all! Be a man, an' show
folks, that, after all, it _is_ possible to