The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro

Walter. Another cry, and many people break off dancing, hurrying to look at the water. Mr. Suter rises and goes a few steps in that direction, following the crowd, then turns back.
    “A whale,” he says. “They are saying there is a whale to be seen off the side.”
    “You stay here,” cries Agnes in an angry voice, and he turns to her in surprise. But he sees that her words are meant for Young James, who is on his feet.
    “This is your lad then?” says Mr. Suter as if he has made a remarkable discovery. “May I carry him over to have a look?”
             
    And that is how Mary—happening to raise her face in the crush of passengers—beholds Young James, much amazed, being carried across the deck in the arms of a hurrying stranger, a pale and determined though slyly courteous-looking dark-haired man who is surely a foreigner. A child-stealer, or child-murderer, heading for the rail.
    She gives so wild a shriek that anybody would think she was in the Devil’s clutches herself, and people make way for her as they would do for a mad dog.
    “Stop thief, stop thief,” she is crying. “Take the boy from him. Catch him. James. James. Jump down!”
    She flings herself forward and grabs the child’s ankles, yanking him so that he howls in fear and outrage. The man bearing him nearly topples over but doesn’t give him up. He holds on and pushes at Mary with his foot.
    “Take her arms,” he shouts, to those around them. He is short of breath. “She is in a fit.”
    Andrew has pushed his way in, among people who are still dancing and people who have stopped to watch the drama. He manages somehow to get hold of Mary and Young James and to make clear that the one is his son and the other his sister and that it is not a question of fits. Young James throws himself from his father to Mary and then begins kicking to be let down.
    All is shortly explained with courtesies and apologies from Mr. Suter—through which Young James, quite recovered to himself, cries out over and over again that he must see the whale. He insists upon this just as if he knew perfectly well what a whale was.
    Andrew tells him what will happen if he does not stop his racket.
    “I had just stopped for a few minutes’ talk with your wife, to ask her if she was well,” the surgeon says. “I did not take time to bid her good-bye, so you must do it for me.”
             
    There are whales for Young James to see all day and for everybody to see who can be bothered. People grow tired of looking at them.
    “Is there anybody but a fine type of rascal would sit down to talk with a woman that had her bosoms bared,” says Old James, addressing the sky.
    Then he quotes from the Bible regarding whales.
    “There go the ships and there is that leviathan whom thou hast made to play therein. That crooked serpent, the dragon that is in the sea.”
    But he will not stir himself to go and have a look.
    Mary remains unconvinced by the surgeon’s story. Of course he would have to say to Agnes that he was taking the child to look at the whale. But that does not make it the truth. Whenever the picture of that devilish man carrying Young James flashes through her mind, and she feels in her chest the power of her own cry, she is astonished and happy. It is still her own belief that she has saved him.
             
    Nettie’s father’s name is Mr. Carbert. Sometimes he sits and listens to Nettie read or talks to Walter. The day after all the celebration and the dancing, when many people are in a bad humor from exhaustion and some from drinking whiskey, and hardly anybody looks at the shore, he seeks Walter out to talk to him.
    “Nettie is so taken with you,” he says, “that she has got the idea that you must come along with us to Montreal.”
    He gives an apologetic laugh, and Walter laughs too.
    “Then she must think that Montreal is in Canada West,” says Walter.
    “No, no. I am not making a joke. I looked out for you to talk to you on