The Cruise of the Shining Light

XXIV

JOHN CATHER’S FATE

’Twas with a start that I realized the lateness of the hour. Time for liquor! ’Twas hard to believe. My uncle sat with his bottle and glass and little brown jug. The glass was empty and innocent of dregs; the stopper was still tight in the bottle, the jug brimming with clear water from our spring. He had himself fetched them from the pantry, it seemed, and was now awaiting, with genial patience, the arrival of company to give an air of conviviality to the evening’s indulgence. I caught him in a smiling muse, his eye on the tip of his wooden leg; he was sailed, it seemed, to a clime of feeling far off from the stress out of which I had come. There was no question: I was not interrogated upon the lapse of the crew, as he called John Cather and Judy and me, from the politeness of attendance at dinner, which, indeed, he seemed to have forgotten in a train of agreeable recollections. He was in a humor as serene and cheerfully voluble as ever I met with in my life; and when he had bade me join him at the table to pour his first dram, he fell to on the narrative of some adventure, humorously occurring, off the Funks, long, long ago, in the days of his boyhood. I did not attend, nor did I pour the dram: being for the time deeply occupied with reflections upon the square, black bottle on the table before me–the cure of moods my uncle had ever maintained it would work.

I got up resolved.

“Where you goin’, Dannie?” says my uncle, his voice all at once vacant of cheerfulness.

“To the pantry, sir,” I answered.

“Ah!” says he. “Is it ginger-ale, Dannie?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s good,” says he, blankly; “that’s very good. For Judy,” he added, “is fell into the habit o’ tipplin’ by day, an’ the ginger-ale is all runned out.”

I persevered on my way to the pantry.

“Dannie!” he called.

I turned.

“Is you quite sure, lad,” he asked, with an anxious rubbing of his stubble of gray beard, “that ’tisn’t ginger-ale?”

“I’m wanting a glass, sir,” I replied, testily. “I see but one on the table.”

“Ah!” he ejaculated. “A glass!”

I returned with the glass.

“Dannie,” says my uncle, feigning a relief he dared not entertain, “you was wantin’ a drop o’ water, wasn’t you?” He pushed the little brown jug towards me. “I ’lowed ’twas water,” says he, hopefully, “when you up an’ spoke about gettin’ a glass from the pantry.” He urged the jug in my direction. “Ay,” he repeated, not hopefully now at all, but in a whisper more like despair, “I jus’ ’lowed ’twas a drop o’ water.”

The jug remained in its place.

“Dannie,” he entreated, with a thick forefinger still urging the jug on its course, “you is thirsty, I knows you is!”

I would not touch the jug.

“You been havin’ any trouble, shipmate?” he gently asked.

“Yes, sir,” I groaned. “Trouble, God knows!”

“Along o’ Judy?”

’Twas along o’ Judy.

“A drop o’ water,” says he, setting the glass almost within my hand, “will do you good.”

’Twas so anxiously spoken that my courage failed me. I splashed water into the glass and swallowed it.

“That’s good,” says he; “that’s very good.”

I pushed the glass away with contempt for its virtue of comfort; and I laughed, I think, in a disagreeable way, so that the old man, unused to manifestations as harsh and irreligious as this, started in dismay.

“Good,” he echoed, staring, unconvinced and without hope; “that’s very good.”

And now, a miserable determination returning, I fixed my eyes again on the square, black bottle of rum. ’Twas a thing that fairly fascinated my attention. The cure of despair was legendary, the palatable quality a thing of mere surmise: I had never experienced either; but in my childhood I had watched my uncle’s fearsome moods vanish, as he downed his drams, one by one, giving way to a grateful geniality, which sent my own bogies scurrying off, and I had fancied, from the smack of his lips, and from the eager lifting of the glasses at the Anchor and Chain, the St. John’s tap-room we frequented, that a drop o’ rum was a thing to delight the dry tongue and gullet of every son of man. My uncle sat under the lamp: I remember his countenance, aside from the monstrous scars and disfigurements which the sea had dealt him–its anxious regard of me, its intense concern, its gathering purpose, the last of which I did not read at that moment, but now recall and understand. ’Twas quiet and orderly in the room: the geometrical gentlemen were there riding the geometrically tempestuous sea in a frame beyond my uncle’s gargoylish head, and the tidied rocking-chair, which I was used to addressing as a belted knight o’ the realm, austerely abode in a shadow. I was in some saving way, as often happens in our lives, conscious of these familiar things, to which we return and cling in the accidents befalling us and in the emergencies of feeling we must all survive. The room was as our maid-servant had left it, bright and warm and orderly: there was as yet no disarrangement by the conviviality we were used to. ’Tis not at all my wish to trouble you with the despair I suffered that night, with Judith gone from me: I would not utter it–’twas too deep and unusual and tragical to disturb a world with. But still I stared at that square, black bottle of rum, believing, as faith may be, in the surcease it contained.

I watched that bottle.

“Dannie,” says my uncle, with a wish, no doubt, for a diversion, “is the moon up?”

I walked to the window. “’Tis up,” I reported; “but ’tis hid by clouds, an’ the wind’s rising.”

“The wind rising?” says he. “’Twill do us no harm.”

Of course, my uncle did not know which of us was at sea.

“The wind,” he repeated, “will do no harm.”

I sat down again: and presently got my glass before me, and reached for the square, black bottle of rum. I could stand it no longer: I could really stand it no longer–the pain of this denial of my love was too much for any man to bear.

“I’ll have a drop,” says I, “for comfort.”

My uncle’s hand anticipated me.

“Ah!” says he. “For comfort, is it?”

Unhappily, he had the bottle in his hand. ’Twas quite beyond my reach–done with any courtesy. I must wait for him to set it down again. The jug was close enough, the glass, too; but the bottle was in watchful custody. My uncle shook the bottle, and held it to the lamp; he gauged its contents: ’twas still stout–he sighed. And now he set it on the table, with his great, three-fingered hand about the neck of it, so that all hope of possession departed from me: ’twas a clutch too close and meaning to leave me room for hope. I heard the wind, rising to a blow, but had no fret on that account: there was none of us at sea, thank God! we were all ashore, with no care for what the wind might do. I observed that my uncle was wrought up to a pitch of concern to which he was not used. He had gone pale, who was used, in exaltation of feeling, to go crimson and blue in the scars of him; but he had now gone quite white and coldly sweaty, in a ghastly way, with the black bottle held up before him, his wide little eyes upon it. I had never before known him to be in fact afraid; but he was now afraid, and I was persuaded of it, by his pallor, by his trembling hand, by the white and stare of his eyes, by the drooping lines of his poor, disfigured face. He turned from the bottle to look at me; but I could not withstand the poignancy of his regard: I looked away–feeling some shame, for which I could not account to myself. And then he sighed, and clapped the black bottle on the table, with a thump that startled me; and he looked towards me with a resolution undaunted and determined. I shall never forget, indeed, the expression he wore: ’twas one of perfect knightliness–as high and pure and courageous as men might wear, even in those ancient times when honorable endeavor (by the tales of John Cather) was a reward sufficient to itself.

I shall never forget: I could not forget.

“Dannie,” says he, listlessly, “’tis wonderful warm in here. Cast up the window, lad.”

’Twas not warm. There was no fire; and the weather had changed, and the wind came in at the open door, running in cold draughts about the house. ’Twas warm with the light of the lamp, to be sure; ’twas cosey and grateful in the room: but the entering swirl of wind was cold, and the emotional situation was such in bleakness and mystery as to make me shiver.

I opened the window.

“That’s good,” he sighed. “How’s the tide?”

“’Tis the ebb, sir.”

“Could ye manage t’ see Digger Rock?” he inquired.

The moon, breaking out, disclosed it: ’twas a rock near by, submerged save at low-tide–I could see it.

“Very good,” says he. “Could ye hit it?”

“I’ve nothing to shy, sir.”

“But an you had?” he insisted.

My tutor entered the hall. I heard him go past the door. ’Twas in a quick, agitated step, not pausing to regard us, but continuing up the stair to his own room. I wondered why that was.

“Eh, Dannie?” says my uncle.

“I might, sir,” I answered.

“Then,” says he, “try it with this bottle!”

I cast the bottle.

“That’s good,” says he. “Ye’re a wonderful shot, Dannie. I heared un go t’ smash. That’s good; that’s very good!”

We sat, my uncle and I, for an hour after that, I fancy, without managing an exchange: I would address him, but he would not hear, being sunk most despondently in his great chair by the empty, black grate, with his eyes fixed in woe-begone musing upon the toes of his ailing timber; and he would from time to time insinuate an irrelevant word concerning the fishing, and, with complaint, the bewildering rise and fall of the price of fish, but the venture upon conversation was too far removed from the feeling of the moment to engage a reply. Presently, however, I commanded myself sufficiently to observe him with an understanding detached from my own bitterness; and I perceived that he sat hopeless and in fear, as in the days when I was seven, with his head fallen upon his breast and his eyes grown tragical, afraid, but now in raw kind and infinite measure, of the coming of night upon the world he sailed by day. I heard nothing from my tutor–no creak of the floor, no step, no periodical creaking of his rocking-chair. He had not, then, thinks I, cast off his clothes; he had not gone to reading for holy orders, as was, at intervals, his custom–he had thrown himself on his bed. But I neither cared nor wondered: I caught sight of my uncle’s face again–half amazed, wholly despondent, but yet with a little glint of incredulous delight playing, in brief flashes, upon it–and I could think of nothing else, not even of Judith, in her agony of mysterious shame upon the Whisper Cove road, nor of her disquieting absence from the house, nor of the rising wind, nor of the drear world I must courageously face when I should awake from that night’s sleep.

I considered my uncle.

“Do ye go t’ bed, Dannie,” says he, looking up at last. “Ye’ve trouble enough.”

I rose, but did not wish to leave him comfortless in the rising wind. I had rather sit with him, since he needed me now, it seemed, more than ever before.

“Ye’ll not trouble about me, lad?”

I would not be troubled.

“That’s good,” says he. “No need o’ your troublin’ about me. Ol’ Nick Top’s able t’ take care o’ hisself! That’s very good.”

I started away for bed, but turned at the door, as was my custom, to wish my uncle good-night. I said nothing, for he was in an indubitable way not to be disturbed–having forgotten me and the affection I sought at all times to give him. He was fallen dejectedly in his chair, repeating, “For behold the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with the flames of fire.” I paused at the door to watch him, and I saw that his maimed hand wandered over the table until it found his glass, and that he caught and raised the glass, and that he set it down again, and that he pushed the empty thing away.

I saw all that…

And I went to bed; but I did not go to sleep. In the first place, I could not, and, for better reason, my tutor got astir the moment my door was closed. I heard his cautious descent to the dining-room. The man had been waiting to get me out of the way; but I heard him go down, and that right easily, in the fall of his stockinged feet, and in the click of his door-latch, and in the creak of the stair. I cast my clothes off in haste, but lay wide awake in my bed–as who would not?–listening to the ominous murmur of voices from below. My tutor, it seemed, was placid and determined; my uncle was outraged. I heard the old man’s voice rise in a rage, fall to a subdued complaint, patter along in beseeching. It seemed ’twas all to no purpose; my tutor was obdurate, and my uncle yielded to his demands, however unwillingly. There was the mutter of agreement, there was the click of my uncle’s strong-box, there was the clink of gold coin. I listened for the pop of a new cork; but I did not hear it: I heard the jug of spring water exchange hands–no more than that. ’Twas very queer. But I was not concerned with it, after all. Let my uncle and John Cather deal with each other as they would, in any way engaging the clink of gold from my uncle’s strong-box; ’twas for me, unconcerned, to look out of my window, to discover the weather. And this I did; and I found the weather threatening–very dark, with the moon hid by clouds, and blowing up in a way promising a strength of wind not to be disregarded by folk who would put to sea.