“Oh, if it comes to that! He’s not much brains and he knows nothing of the ships. He is none too good here in this lonely place and what wouldn’t he be were he to mingle with sailors and the like? They must be terrible people from all I hear—and the danger, sir. They say they fall off masts and they go mad and jump in the sea and the sharks follow them and in the ports they get drunk and get killed and for the least thing they tie them to masts or whatever they are and whip their poor bare backs till the blood streams and they hit them with iron weights and—oh, from all they tell me it’s a hell’s own life, if you’ll excuse the saying. And at best my boy would be gone for maybe five years or more and we never hearing a word of how he is, or if he’s alive even. Oh, I couldn’t abear it, Mr. RoBards. I need Jud at home. He’s strong and helps me sometimes and when the strange tempers are not on him he’s as good a boy to his mother as ever boy was; and when the strange tempers are on him, he needs his mother more than I can tell you. “To-day now, he came home all bloody and battered like, and I misdoubt he was trespassin’ on your property, often as I’ve told him never to bother you. He said he fell out of a tree into your pond up there whilst he was robbin’ birds’ nests. I don’t believe him and it’s likely you had to thrash him. I see your knuckles is all scarred and I’m sorry for any trouble he gave you, and welcome you are to whip him whenever he annoys you, and the punishment is what he needs, but don’t send him away, Mister RoBards. “To-day I could wash his wounds and tie them up and put him to bed where his father won’t find him and whip him again. But oh, if he was at sea and was hurt or punished, who would wash his wounds for him and tie them up and give him a little petting when he needs it? “He’s a lonely boy, sir. He’s like a haunted house sometimes, full of ghosts and queer notions and—but I’m taking too much of your valuable time. I came over only to ask you, would you take back your advice and tell him not to go to sea, sir!—if you please, sir!” “I’m sorry, Mrs. Lasher, very sorry, but I can’t.” “Oh, but to send him away whalin’! Five years gone into the storms and the wickedness, with nobody to pray for him or give him a kind word. The wickedness of the sailors——” “There’s wickedness everywhere, Mrs. Lasher.” “But not up here where everything’s so clean and sweet and beautiful. There’s wickedness of course here in plenty, but it’s nothing to what the ships has on them. It’s as good as sending my boy to hell to send him to sea.” “I can’t help you. I’m sorry—very sorry.” Her wildly beseeching eyes fell before the sad sternness of his. She nodded meekly: “All right, sir. Thank you, sir. You know best, I suppose.”