The Mate of the Sally Ann

Summary

Barnacled to the ribs of a rotting schooner, Captain Ward’s universe is salt-stained solitude; inside the hulk, time drips like bilge water through the fingers of his granddaughter Sally, a pearl of unspent youth kept below deck lest the world sniff her fragrance. A lame terrier—Teddy—limps aboard, contraband affection, and bolts for terra firida, luring the girl past the tideline of dread into the Grecian portico of Judge Gordon, jurisprudence’s golden idol. There she collides with Hugh Schuyler, a spruce comet of privilege; their glances solder in silent voltaic arc. Grandfather’s spyglass darkens: he drags her back to the carrion ship, swearing vendetta against the phantom seducer who slew his daughter in childbirth. At a chandeliersoaked soirée—silk purchased by the judge—Sally glows like a chandelier’s captive starling until the captain’s cutlass-shadow eclipses the dance floor. Blood-oath crescendos: the old tar lunges to knife the judge, but Sally intercepts steel with clavicle. On the threshold of death she learns the judge was wed in secret to her late mother, illness severing the marital map; paternity is no longer poltergeist but parchment. Eyes flutter open to reconciliation’s saltless dawn: dog, lovers, patriarchs, and an armada of newborn pups embark under full sail toward a horizon rinsed of ancestral gall.

Synopsis

Old Captain Ward, who hates society, lives in the hulk of his ship with his granddaughter Sally, whom he prevents from meeting people. Because Sally's mother died in childbirth without revealing the name of Sally's father, the captain continually vows to avenge her death. When Sally finds Teddy, a lame dog, she smuggles it aboard, but it runs away, and she follows it to a beautiful house belonging to the famous Judge Gordon. Hugh Schuyler, the judge's young friend, and Sally fall in love. After the captain chases Hugh away, Sally attends the judge's party, dressed in fine clothes which the judge bought, but the captain finds her and takes her away. When the judge visits the captain and confirms his suspicion that Sally is his daughter, the captain attempts to kill him. Sally intercepts a blow, and awakens to find that the judge has proven that he secretly was married to her mother, but because of illness, had lost contact with her. Sally accepts Hugh's proposal, and they sail away with the judge, the captain, and Teddy and his family.