Under Rocking Skies

For a quarter of an hour Thomas Medbury had been standing at the east window of his mother's parlor, gazing out across his neighbor's yard with an eager intentness that betrayed a surprising absorption in a landscape without striking features and who ... Read more

For a quarter of an hour Thomas Medbury had been standing at the east window of his mother's parlor, gazing out across his neighbor's yard with an eager intentness that betrayed a surprising absorption in a landscape without striking features and wholly lacking in any human interest. The low-studded room in which he stood was closely shut and darkened, having about it the musty smell peculiar to old houses. There were sea-fans before the fireplace, flanked on each side by polished conch-shells. On the wall hung an oil-painting of the brig[Pg 4] North Star, with all sail set, and at her foretruck a white burgee, with her name in red letters, standing straight out in half a gale of wind. Family portraits in oval gilt frames were ranged with mathematical precision along the remaining wall-spaces, and on the mantelpiece stood a curious collection of objects brought from far lands—carved ivories and strange ware from China, peculiar shells, a Japanese short sword, and a South Pacific war-club. No one would have needed to be told that it was the home of a sailor. Less