X—THE SURPLUS To the east was the illimitable ocean, laid thick with moonlight and luminous mist; to the west, beyond a stretch of black, slow heaving water, was the low line of Newfoundland, an illusion of kindliness, the malignant character of its jagged rock and barren interior transformed by the gentle magic of the night. Tumm, the clerk, had the wheel of the schooner, and had been staring in a rapture at the stars. “Jus’ readin’, sir,” he explained. I wondered what he read. “Oh,” he answered, turning again to contemplate the starlit sky, “jus’ a little psa’m from my Bible.” I left him to read on, myself engaged with a perusal of the serene and comforting text-book of philosophy spread overhead. The night was favorably inclined and radiant: a soft southerly wind blowing without menace, a sky of infinite depth and tender shadow, the sea asleep under the moon. With a gentle, aimlessly wandering wind astern—an idle, dawdling, contemptuous breeze, following the old craft lazily, now and again whipping her nose under water to remind her of suspended strength—the trader _Good Samaritan_ ran on, wing and wing, through the moonlight, bound across from Sinners’ Tickle to Afterward Bight, there to deal for the first of the catch. “Them little stars jus’ _will_ wink!” Tumm complained. I saw them wink in despite. “Ecod!” Tumm growled. The amusement of the stars was not by this altered to a more serious regard: everywhere they winked. “I’ve seed un peep through a gale o’ wind, a slit in the black sky, a cruel, cold time,” Tumm continued, a pretence of indignation in his voice, “when ’twas a mean hard matter t’ keep a schooner afloat in a dirty sea, with all hands wore out along o’ labor an’ the fear o’ death an’ hell; an’, ecod! them little cusses was winkin’ still. Eh? What d’ye make o’ that?—winkin’ still, the heartless little cusses!” There were other crises, I recalled—knowing little enough of the labor of the sea—upon which they winked. “Ay,” Tumm agreed; “they winks when lovers kiss on the roads; an’ they winks jus’ the same,” he added, softly, “when a heart breaks.” “They’re humorous little beggars,” I observed. Tumm laughed. “They been lookin’ at this here damned thing so long,” he drawled—meaning, no doubt, upon the spectacle of the world—“that no wonder they winks!” This prefaced a tale. * * * * *