allow me to come on board I shall feel as though I were stepping upon a sacred spot, and I can assure you that my friends, here, have just as much respect for this craft as I have.”
But this honest appeal did not soften Captain Candage. He did not understand exactly from what source this general rancor of his flowed. At the same time he was conscious of the chief reason why he did not want to allow these visitors to rummage aboard the schooner. They would meet his daughter, and he was afraid, and he was bitterly ashamed of himself because he was afraid. Dimly he was aware that this everlasting fear on her account constituted an insult to her. The finer impulse to protect her privacy was not actuating him; he knew that, too. He was merely foolishly afraid to trust her in the company of young men, and the combination of his emotions produced the simplest product of mental upheaval—unreasonable wrath.
“Fend off, I say,” he commanded.
“Again I beg you, captain, with all respect, please may we come on board?”
“You get away from here and tend to your own business, if you've got any, or I'll heave a bunch of shingles at you!” roared the skipper.
“Father!” The voice expressed indignant reproof. “Father, I am ashamed of you!”
The girl came to the rail, and the yachtsmen stared at her as if she were Aphrodite risen from the sea instead of a mighty pretty girl emerging from a dark companion-way. She had appeared so suddenly! She was so manifestly incongruous in her surroundings.
“Mother o' mermaids!” muttered the yacht-owner in the ear of the man nearest. “Is the old rat still privateering?”
The men in the tender stood up and removed their caps.
“You have insulted these gentlemen, father!”
Captain Candage knew it, and that fact did not soften his anger in the least. At the same time this appearance of his own daughter to read him a lesson in manners in public was presumption too preposterous to be endured; her daring gave him something tangible for his resentment to attack.
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