“Don’t get any ideas about sailing to Boston to see your mother,” he said. “I will be there, and I meant what I said about not seeing your faces. Won’t do you any good to come ashore here, either, in case you get a notion to spend a foul night cozy in your beds. Nobody’ll be here. Not me, not Moira, not Gideon or Mrs. Carter or Dailey. As of today, Mingulay’s closed up for the season. The boat’s your home now. There’s worse. Anything not understood?”

“No, sir,” said Nathaniel, though in fact he understood nothing.

“All right, then.” He grasped a shroud, and swung himself down into the dory. “Cast me off, Nat.”

“Where are you going?”

Before he could answer, Eliot butted in:

“Where are we supposed to go?”

“Boston excepted, wherever the wind and your inclinations take you. Don’t much care.”

“You don’t much care?” Eliot sounded a little indignant and a little fearful. Nathaniel, too, was troubled by the cold sincerity of those last three words.

“One of you cast me off.”

Eliot uncleated the painter and tossed it into the dory. Their father began to pull away, stroke after stroke. With a panicky look, Drew grabbed a shroud and leaned out over the water. Nathaniel thought he was going to dive in and swim after the boat.

“Father?” Drew called. “Father!”

He did not say anything. He rowed.

“Father! Why are you leaving us?”

He laughed then; the only laugh they had heard from him in weeks, and it was as brief as it was bitter.

“It’s a new century, boys. Yes, indeed, a brand-new century,” he shouted, and rowed on, and all they heard then was the squeak of the pins in the oarlocks.

2