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Adelbert Bysshe, rector of the Church of England chapel, had held a secret conclave the night before at the squire's house. It was believed that the signs were the result, and intimated in certain obscure quarters that Pete Ellinwood, who had always claimed literary aspirations, had printed them. Odd Fellows' Hall was the biggest and most pretentious building in Freekirk Head.
In Freekirk Head, next morning, painted signs nailed to telegraph-poles at intervals along the King's Road as far as Castalia read: MASS-MEETING TO-NIGHT ODD FELLOWS HALL 8 O'CLOCK ALL COME
Even when she married "Hard-Luck" Jim Mallaby she had always seemed to regard Code Schofield as the one man in Freekirk Head. But Jim, being too busy with his strange affairs, had not noticed. Jim it was who, after twenty years of horrible poverty and ill-luck, had caught the largest halibut ever taken off the Banks and made thousands of dollars exhibiting it alive.
"Well, I've sworn all along that you shouldn't come to any harm through him, so I just left Freekirk Head the next morning on the steamer, took a train to Halifax, and had the schooner pick me up there. Off Halifax they told me that the Nettie B. was six hours ahead of us and going hard, so we had to wing it out for all there was in this one.
He hoped that his triumph would not be lost upon his wife. Nor was it, for it was a month afterward before the neighbors ceased to hear how her Bige was the best captain that ever sailed out of Freekirk Head.
They were the two natural leaders of the Freekirk Head young bloods, but they were never on the same side of an argument. Schofield wondered why Nat Burns was not at the fire, as usual attempting to make himself leader of the battle without doing much of the work, and now the reason was apparent.
In fact, Burns was a good example of a youth brought up without those powers of self-control that are absolutely necessary to any one who expects to take a reasonable position in society even as simple as that of Freekirk Head.
"You've earned your rest more than any man in Freekirk Head to-night. I'm afraid, though, we're going to make more trouble for you. Ma Schofield wouldn't let me go anywhere else but here till the Rosan gets back from St. John's. "Oh, I hate to think of their coming! They'll sail around Flag Point and look for the kiddies waving in front of the house.
"Better take in them tops'ls, hadn't ye, skipper?" "Take in nothing!" snapped Code across the cabin table. "Any canvas that comes off this vessel between here and Freekirk Head blows off, unless we have passed all those schooners ahead of us. Haven't raised any of 'em, have you?" "Not yet, skipper; but we ought to by night," said Ellinwood as though he felt he was personally to blame.
"It is my schooner; why shouldn't I be in it?" she smiled. "Yours?" He was mystified. "But why should you have a vessel like this? You never used one before that I know of." "True, Code; but I have always loved the sea, and it amuses me. You remember that sometimes I have been away from Freekirk Head for a month at a time. I have been cruising in this schooner.
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