A long silence followed, in which no one changed in any wise the posture in which he found himself when Hackett began to speak.  Cap’n George Wray, tilted back against the wall in his chair, continued to stare at the store-keeper; Cap’n Jabez Wray, did not look up from whittling the chair between his legs; their cousin, Cap’n Wray Storrell, seated on a nailkeg near the stove, went on fretting the rust on the pipe with the end of a stiff, cast-off envelope; two other captains, more or less akin to them, continued their game of checkers; the Widow Seth Wray’s boy rested immovable, with his chin and hand on the counter, where he had been trying since the Widow Holman went out to catch Hackett’s eye and buy a corn-ball.  Old Cap’n Billy Wray was the first to break the spell.  He took his cigar from his mouth, and held it between his shaking thumb and forefinger, while he pursed his lips for speech.  “Jabez,” he said, “did Cap’n Sam’l git that coalier?”

“No,” answered the whittler, cutting deeper into his chair, “she did n’t signal for him till she got into the channel, and then he’d got a couple o’ passengers for Leyden; and Cap’n Jim brought her up.”

“I don’t know,” said Cap’n Billy, with a stiff yet tremulous reference of himself to the storekeeper, “as spryness would help her, as long as he took the notion.  I guess he’s master of his own ship.  Who’s he going to marry?  The grahs-widow got well enough?”

“No.  As I understand,” crackled the store-keeper, “her husband’s turned up.  Folks over there seem to think’t he’s got his eye on the other doctor.”

“Going to marry with her, hey?  Well, if either of ’em gets sick they won’t have to go far for advice, and they won’t have any doctor’s bills to pay.  Still, I shouldn’t ha’ picked out just that kind of a wife for him.”

“As I understand,” the storekeeper began; but here he caught sight of Widow Seth Wray’s boy, and asked, “What’s wanted, Bub?  Corn-ball?” and turning to take that sweetmeat from the shelf behind him he added the rest in the mouth of the hollowly reverberating jar, “She’s got prop’ty.”

“Well, I never knew a Mulbridge yet ’t objected to prop’ty,—­especially, other folks’s.”

“Barlow he’s tellin’ round that she ’s very fine appearin’.”  He handed the corn-ball to Widow Seth Wray’s boy, who went noiselessly out on his bare feet.

Cap’n Billy drew several long breaths.  When another man might have been supposed to have dismissed the subject he said, “Well, I never knew a Mulbridge that objected to good looks in women folks.  They’ve all merried hahnsome wives, ever since the old gentleman set ’em the example with his second one.  They got their own looks from the first.  Well,” he added, “I hope she’s a tough one.  She’s got either to bend or to break.”

“They say,” said Cap’n George Wray, like one rising from the dead to say it, so dumb and motionless had he been till now, “that Mis’ Mulbridge was too much for the old doctor.”