He drew it out and made a sudden movement as if to toss it overboard.

Then, with a grunt expressive of the absurdity of the thing, he replaced it in his pocket and began to walk slowly toward the bow of the ship.
He wondered, as he noted the lifting of the fog, what he would have been had he possessed a sister like Mary Standish.

Or any family at all, for that matter--even an uncle or two who might have been interested in him.
He remembered his father vividly, his mother a little less so, because his mother had died when he was six and his father when he was twenty.
It was his father who stood out above everything else, like the mountains he loved.

The father would remain with him always, inspiring him, urging him, encouraging him to live like a gentleman, fight like a man, and die at last unafraid.

In that fashion the older Alan Holt had lived and died.