“I can’t say as I do,” admitted the constable, after he had quailed a bit under the keen, straightforward stare of the ex-mariner’s hard, gray eyes.

“Take ’em off, then,” directed the Cap’n, in tones of authority.  And when it was done, he straightened his hat, set back his shoulders, and said: 

“Drive me to the town house where I was bound when that hoss of yours run away with me.”  Mr. Nute stared at him wildly, and drove on.

They were nearly to their destination before Constable Nute ventured upon what his twisted brow and working lips testified he had been pondering long.

“It ain’t that I’m tryin’ to pry into your business, Cap’n Sproul, nor anything of the kind, but, bein’ a man that never intended to do any harm to any one, I can’t figger out what grudge you’ve got against me.  You said on the station platform that—­”

“Nute,” said the Cap’n, briskly, “as I understand it, you never went to sea, and you and the folks round here don’t understand much about sailormen, hey?”

The constable shook his head.

“Then don’t try to find out much about ’em.  You wouldn’t understand.  The folks round here wouldn’t understand.  We have our ways.  You have your ways.  Some of the things you do and some of the things you say could be called names by me, providin’ I wanted to be disagreeable and pick flaws.  All men in this world are different—­especially sailormen from them that have always lived inshore.  We’ve got to take our feller man as we find him.”

They were in the town-house yard—­a long procession of teams following.

“And by-the-way, Nute,” bawled the Cap’n, from the steps of the building as he was going in, using his best sea tones so that all might hear, “it was the fault of your horse that he run away, and you ought to be prosecuted for leavin’ such an animile ’round where a sailorman that ain’t used to hosses could get holt of him.  But I’m always liberal about other folks’ faults.  Bring in your bill for the wagon.”

Setting his teeth hard, he walked upon the platform of the town-hall, and faced the voters with such an air of authority and such self-possession that they cheered him lustily.  And then, with an intrepidity that filled his secret heart with amazement as he talked, he made the first real speech of his life—­a speech of acceptance.

“Yes, s’r, it was a speech, Louada Murilla,” he declared that evening, as he sat again in their sitting-room with his stockinged feet to the blaze of the Franklin.  “I walked that platform like it was a quarter-deck, and my line of talk run jest as free as a britches-buoy coil.  And when I got done, they was up on the settees howlin’ for me.  If any man came back into that town-house thinkin’ I was a lunatic on account of what happened to-day, they got a diff’runt notion before I got done.  Why, they all come ’round and shook my hand, and said they must have been crazy to tackle a prominunt citizen that way on the word of old Nute.  It must have been a great speech I made.  They all said so.”