The Cruise of the Shining Light

XII

NEED O’ HASTE

When I awoke ’twas to a gray morning. The wind had fallen to half a gale for stout craft–continuing in the east, the rain gone out of it. Fog had come upon the islands at dawn; ’twas now everywhere settled thick–the hills lost to sight, the harbor water black and illimitable, the world all soggy and muffled. There was a great noise of breakers upon the seaward rocks. A high sea running without (they said); but yet my uncle had manned a trap-skiff at dawn (said they) to put a stranger across to Topmast Point. A gentleman ’twas (said they)–a gray little man with a red mole at the tip of his nose, who had lain the night patiently enough at Skipper Eli Flack’s, but must be off at break o’ day, come what might, to board the outside boat for St. John’s at Topmast Harbor. He had gone in high good-humor; crackin’ off along o’ Skipper Nick (said Eli) like he’d knowed un all his life. An’ Nick? why, ecod! Nick was crackin’ off, too. Never knowed such crackin’ off atween strangers. You could hear the crew laughin’ clear t’ the narrows. ’Twould be a lovely cruise! Rough passage, t’ be sure; but Nick could take a skiff through that! An’ Nick would drive her, ecod! you’d see ol’ Nick wing it back through the narrows afore the night was down if the wind held easterly. He’d be the b’y t’ put she to it!

I scanned the sky and sea.

“Ay,” quoth Eli, of the gale; “she haven’t spit out all she’ve got. She quit in a temper, at dawn,” says he, “an’ she’ll be back afore night t’ ease her mind.”

’Twas a dismal prospect for my uncle.

“But ’twould be a clever gale at flirtin’,” Eli added, for my comfort, “that could delude an’ overcome ol’ Nick!”

My tutor would go walking upon the roads and heads of our harbor (said he) to learn of this new world into which he had come in the dark. ’Twas gray and windy and dripping on the hills; but I led him (though his flimsy protection against the weather liked me not) over the Whisper Cove road to the cliffs of Tom Tulk’s Head, diligently exercising, as we went, for my profit and his befitting entertainment, all the Chesterfieldian phrases ’twas in me to recall. ’Twas easy to perceive his delight in this manner of speech: ’twas a thing so manifest, indeed, such was the exuberance of his laughter and so often did he clap me on the back, that I was fairly abashed by the triumph, and could not for the life of me continue, but must descend, for lack of spirit, to the common tongue of our folk, which did him well enough, after all, it seemed. It pleased him mightily to be set on the crest and brink of that great cliff, high in the mist, the gray wind blowing by, the black sea careering from an ambush of fog to break in wrathful assault upon the grim rocks below. ’Twas amazing: the slender figure drawn in glee to breast the gale, the long arms opened to the wind, the rapt, dark face, the flashing eyes, the deep, eager breaths like sighs of rapture. A rhapsody: the rush and growl and frown of the world (said he)–the sombre colors, the veil of mist, the everlasting hills, rising in serenity above the turmoil and evanescent rage. To this I listened in wonder. I had not for myself discovered these beauties; but thereafter, because of this teaching, I kept watch.

Came, then, out of the mist, Judith, upon accustomed business. “Dannie, lad,” she asked me, not shy of the stranger, because of woful anxiety, “you’ve not seed my mother hereabouts, is you?”

I grieved that I had not.

“She’ve been gone,” said Judith, with a helpless glance, sweeping the sombre, veiled hills, “since afore dawn. I waked at dawn, Dannie, an’ she were gone from the bed–an’ I isn’t been able t’ find she, somehow. She’ve wandered off–she’ve wandered off again–in her way.”

I would help, said I.

“You’re kind, Dannie,” said she. “Ay, God’s sake, lad! you’re wondrous kind–t’ me.”

My tutor tipped the sad little face, as though by right and propriety admitted long ago, and for a moment looked unabashed into Judith’s eyes–an engaging glance, it seemed, for Judith was left unresisting and untroubled by it. They were eyes, now, speaking anxious fear and weariness and motherly concern, the brows drawn, the tragic little shadows, lying below, very wide and blue.

“You are a pretty child,” said my tutor, presently; “you have very beautiful eyes, have you not? But you knew it long ago, of course,” he added, smiling in a way most captivating, “didn’t you?”

“No, sir.”

I remember the day–the mist and wind and clamoring sea and solemn hills, the dour, ill-tempered world wherein we were, our days as grass (saith the psalmist). Ay, an’ ’tis so. I remember the day: the wet moss underfoot; the cold wind, blowing as it listed; the petulant sea, wreaking an ancient enmity, old and to continue beyond our span of feeling; the great hills of Twin Islands hid in mist, but yet watching us; the clammy fog embracing us, three young, unknowing souls. I shall not forget–cannot forget–the moment of that first meeting of the maid Judith with John Cather. ’Twas a sombre day, as he had said–ay, a troubled sea, a gray, cold, sodden earth!

“And has nobody told you that you were pretty?” my tutor ran on, in pleasant banter.

She would not answer; but shyly, in sweet self-consciousness, looked down.

“No?” he insisted.

She was too shy of him to say.

“Not even one?” he persisted, tipping up the blushing little face. “Not even one?”

I thought it very bold.

“Come, now,” says he. “There is a boy. You are so very pretty, you know. You are so very, very pretty. There must be a boy–a sweetheart. Surely there is at least one lad of taste at Twist Tickle. There is a sweetheart; there must be a sweetheart. I spell it with a D!” cries he, triumphantly, detecting the horrified glance that passed between Judy and me. And he clapped me on the back, and stroked Judith’s tawny hair, his hand bold, winning; and he laughed most heartily. “His name,” says he, “is Daniel!”

“Yes, sir,” said Judith, quite frankly.

My tutor laughed again; and I was glad that he did–in that kind way. I was glad–’twas a flush of warm feeling–that my tutor and Judith were at once upon terms of understanding. I was glad that Judith smiled, glad that she looked again, with favor, in interested speculation, into the dark eyes which smiled back at her again. I would have them friends–’twas according to my plan…

At mid-day the wrath of the sea began to fail. The racing lop, the eager, fuming crests–a black-and-white confusion beneath the quiet, gray fog–subsided into reasonableness. ’Twas wild enough, wind and sea, beyond the tickle rocks; but still ’twas fishing weather and water for the courageous.

The fool of Twist Tickle came to our gate. “Mother always ’lowed,” says he, “that when a man could he ought t’; an’ mother knowed.”

“You’re never bound out, Moses!”

“Well,” he drawled, “mother always ’lowed that when a man could pick up a scattered fish an’ wouldn’t, he were a mean sort o’ coward.”

“An’ you’ll be takin’ me?”

“I was ’lowin’,” he answered, “that us might get out an’ back an us tried.”

’Twas a brave prospect. Beyond the tickle in a gale o wind! ’Twas irresistible–to be accomplished with the fool of Twist Tickle and his clever punt. I left the pottering Cather to put ship-shape his cabin (as he now called it) for himself–a rainy-day occupation for aliens. In high delight I put out with Moses Shoos to the Off-and-On grounds. Man’s work, this! ’Twas hard sailing for a hook-and-line punt–the reel and rush and splash of it–but an employment the most engaging. ’Twas worse fishing in the toss and smother of the grounds; but ’twas a thrilling reward when the catch came flopping overside–the spoil of a doughty foray. We fished a clean half-quintal; then, late in the day, a rising wind caught us napping in Hell Alley. It came on to blow from the east with fury. There was no beating up to the tickle in the teeth of it; ’twas a task beyond the little punt, drive her to it as we would. When dusk came–dusk fast turning the fog black–the fool turned tail and wisely ran for Whisper Cove. ’Twas dark when we moored the punt to the stage-head: a black night come again, blowing wildly with rain–great gusts of wind threshing the trees above, screaming from cliff to cliff. There were lights at Judith’s: ’twas straightway in our minds to ask a cup of tea in her kitchen; but when we came near the door ’twas to the discovery of company moving in and out.

There were women in the kitchen.

“’Tis Judith’s mother, Dannie,” Aunt Esther All whispered. “’Tis on’y she. ’Tis on’y Elizabeth.”

We had found her on the hills that morning.

“She’ve come t’ die all of a suddent. ’Tis another of her spells. Oh, Lord! she’ve come t’ die.”

There was no solemnity in this outer room.

“She’ve woful need o’ salvation,” Aunt Esther pattered. “She’s doomed, lad, an she doesn’t repent. Parson Stump ought t’ be fetched t’ work on she.”

There was grief–somewhere there was grief. I heard a sob; it came from a child’s breast. And there followed, then, some strange, rambling words of comfort in Elizabeth’s voice–a plea, it was, to never mind. Again a sob–Judith’s grief.

“’Tis Judith,” Aunt Esther sighed. “She’ve gone an’ give way.”

The child’s heart would break!

“Mother always ’lowed, Dannie,” Moses whispered, “that they ought t’ be a parson handy–when It come.”

’Twas beyond the power of the fool to manage: who was now a fool, indeed–white and shivering in this Presence. I would fetch the parson, said I–and moved right willingly and in haste upon the errand. Aunt Esther followed me beyond the threshold. She caught my arm with such a grasp that I was brought up in surprise. We stood in the wind and rain. The light from the kitchen fell through the doorway into the black night. Aunt Esther’s lean, brown face, as the lamp betrayed, was working with eager and shameless curiosity. They had wondered, these women of Whisper Cove, overlong and without patience, to know what they wished to know but could not discover. “She’ve been wantin’ Skipper Nicholas,” says she. “She’ve been callin’ for Skipper Nicholas. She’ve been singin’ out, Dannie, like a wretch in tarture. Tell un t’ come. She’ve been wantin’ un sore. She’ve a thing on her mind. Tell un not t’ fail. ’Tis something she’ve t’ tell un. ‘I wants Skipper Nicholas!’ says she. ‘Fetch Nicholas! I wants a word with he afore I die.’ Hist!” Aunt Esther added, as though imparting some delight, “I ’low ’tis the secret.”

I asked her concerning this secret.

“It haves t’ do,” says she, “with Judith.”

“An’ what’s that?”

She whispered.

“For shame!” I cried.

“Ay, but,” says she, “you isn’t a woman!”

“’Tis gossips’ employment, woman!”

“’Tis a woman’s wish t’ know,” she answered.

The thing concerned Judith: I was angered…

And now the door was shut in my face. ’Twas opened–closed again. The fool fled past me to his own place–scared off by the footsteps of Death, in the way of all fools. I was in haste–all at once–upon the road from Whisper Cove to Twist Tickle in a screaming gale of wind and rain. I was in Judith’s service: I made haste. ’Twas a rough road, as I have said–a road scrambling among forsaken hills, a path made by chance, narrow and crooked, wind-swept or walled by reaching alders and spruce limbs, which were wet and cold and heavy with the drip of the gale. Ah, but was I not whipped on that night by the dark and the sweeping rain and the wind on the black hills and the approach of death? I was whipped on, indeed! The road was perverse to hurrying feet: ’twas ill going for a crooked foot; but I ran–splashing through the puddles, stumbling over protruding rock, crawling over the hills–an unpitying course. Why did the woman cry out for my uncle? What would she confide? Was it, indeed, but the name of the man? Was it not more vital to Judith’s welfare, imperatively demanding disclosure? I hastened. Was my uncle at home? For Elizabeth’s peace at this dread pass I hoped he had won through the gale. In rising anxiety I ran faster. I tripped upon a root and went tumbling down Lovers’ Hill, coming to in a muddy torrent from Tom Tulk’s Head. Thereafter–a hundred paces–I caught sight of the lights of the Twist Tickle meeting-house. They glowed warm and bright in the scowling night that encompassed me…

’Twas district-meeting time at Twist Tickle. The parsons of our Bay were gathered to devise many kindnesses for our folk–the salvation of souls and the nourishment of bodies and the praise of the God of us all. ’Twas in sincerity they came–there’s no disputing it–and in loving-kindness, however ingenuously, they sought our welfare. When I came from the unkind night into the light and warmth of that plain temple, Parson Lute, of Yellow Tail Tickle, whom I knew and loved, was seeking to persuade the shepherds of our souls that the spread of saving grace might surely be accomplished, from Toad Point to the Scarlet Woman’s Head, by means of unmitigated doctrine and more artful discourse. He was a youngish man, threadbare and puckered of garment–a quivering little aggregation of bones and blood-vessels, with a lean, lipless, high-cheeked face, its pale surface splashed with freckles; green eyes, red-rimmed, the lashes sparse and white; wide, restless nostrils. “Brethren,” said he, with a snap of the teeth, his bony hand clinched and shaking above his gigantic head, “con-vict ’em! Anyhow. In any way. By any means. Save ’em! That’s what we want in the church. Beloved,” he proceeded, his voice dropping to a hissing whisper, “save ’em. Con-vict ’em!” His head shot forward; ’twas a red, bristly head, with the hair growing low on the brow, like the spruce of an overhanging cliff. “It’s the only way,” he concluded, “to save ’em!” He sat down. “I’m hungry for souls!” he shouted from his seat, as an afterthought; and ’twas plain he would have said more had not a spasmodic cough put an end to his ecstasy.

“Praise God!” they said.

“’Low I got a cold,” Parson Lute gasped, his voice changed now by the weakness of an ailing man.

I feared to interrupt; but still must boldly knock.

“One moment, brethren!” Parson Stump apologized. “Ah, Daniel!” he cried; “is that you? What’s amiss, boy? You’ve no trouble, have you? And your uncle–eh? you’ve no trouble, boy, have you?” The brethren waited in silence while he tripped lightly over the worn cocoanut matting to the rear–perturbed, a little frown of impatience and bewilderment gathering between his eyes. The tails of his shiny black coat brushed the varnished pine pews, whereto, every Sunday, the simple folk of our harbor repaired in faith. Presently he tripped back again. The frown of bewilderment was deeper now–the perturbation turned anxious. For a moment he paused before the brethren. “Very awkward,” said he, at last. “Really, I’m very sorry.” He scratched his head, fore and aft–bit his lip. “I’m called to Whisper Cove,” he explained, pulling at his nose. “I’m sorry to interrupt the business of the meeting, just at this time, but I do not see how it can be got around. I s’pose we’d better adjourn until such a time as I–”

The chairman would hear of no adjournment.

“But,” Parson Stump complained, “I’m the secretary!”

“We’ll go right on, brother.”

“I can’t very well stay, brethren,” said Parson Stump, chagrined. “It’s a case of–of–of spiritual consolation.”

“Ah!” ejaculated Parson Lute.

“And I–”

“Now, Brother Wile,” the chairman interrupted, “we’re ready to hear you.”

“One moment,” said Parson Lute, rising. He struggled to suppress his cough. “Excuse me,” he gasped. And, “I don’t quite see, brethren,” he proceeded, “how this meeting can get along without the services of Brother Stump. It seems to me that this meeting needs Brother Stump. I am of opinion that Brother Stump owes it to the cause in general, and to the clergy of this district in particular, to report this discussion to the conference. It is my conviction, brethren, that Brother Stump–by his indefatigable industry, by his thorough acquaintance with the matters under discussion, by his spiritual insight into problems of this character, by his talent for expression–ought to be present through the whole of this discussion, in its entirety, and ought to present the views of this body to the conference in person.” And, “Look here, Brother Stump,” he concluded, turning, “why can’t I make this call for you?”

“Well, of course, you could, Brother Lute,” Parson Stump admitted, his face beginning to clear, “but really I–”

“Oh, come now, brother!”

“Brother Lute,” said Parson Stump, with sincere affection, “I don’t like to think of you on the road to Whisper Cove to-night. I tell you, it–it–goes against the grain. You’re not well, brother. You’re not well at all. And it’s a long way–and there’s a gale of wind and rain outside–”

“Come, come, now!”

“A dirty night,” Parson Stump mused.

“But it’s the Lord’s business!”

“Of course,” Parson Stump yielded, “if you would be so kind, I–”

Parson Lute’s face brightened. “Very well,” said he. “It’s all settled. Now, may I have a word with you? I’ll need some pointers.” To the five brethren: “One moment, brethren!”

They moved towards the rear, and came to rest, heads close, within my hearing. Parson Lute put his arm over Parson Stump’s shoulder. “Now,” said he, briskly, rubbing his hands in a business-like way, “pointers, brother–pointers!”

“Yes, yes, brother!” Parson Stump agreed. “Well, you’ll find my oil-skins hanging in the hall. Mrs. Stump will give you the lantern–”

“No, no! I don’t mean that. Who is this person? Man or woman?”

“Maid,” said Parson Stump.

“Ah!”

Parson Stump whispered in Parson Lute’s ear. Parson Lute raised his eyebrows. He was made sad–and sighed. He was kind, was this parson, and sweetly wishful for the goodness and welfare of all the erring sons and daughters of men.

“Has the woman repented?” he asked.

“I fear not. In fact–no; she has not.”

At once the battle-light began to shine in Parson Lute’s green eyes. “I see,” he snapped.

“Rather difficult case, I fear,” said Parson Stump, despondently. “She–well, she–she isn’t quite right. Poor creature! Do you understand? A simple person. Not idiotic, you know. Not born that way, of course. Oh no! born with all her senses quite intact. She was beautiful as a maid–sweet-natured, lovely in person, very modest and pious–very merry, too, and clever. But before the child came she–she–she began to wait. Do you understand? To wait–to wait for the return of–of some one. She said–I remember that she said–that he would come. She was really quite sure of it. And she waited–and waited. A promise, no doubt; and she had faith in it. For a long time she had faith in it. Rather pitiful, I think. I used to see her about a good deal. She was always waiting. I would meet her on the heads, in all weathers, keeping watch for schooners. The clerk of a trading-schooner, no doubt; but nobody knows. Waiting–waiting–always waiting! Poor creature! The man didn’t come back, of course; and then she got–well–flighty. Got flighty–quite flighty. The man didn’t come back, of course, you know; and she had waited–and waited–so long, so very long. Really, a very difficult case, brother! Something snapped and broken–something missing–something gone, you know. Poor creature! She–she–well, she waited too long. Couldn’t stand it, you see. It seems she loved the man–and trusted him–and, well, just loved him, you know, in the way women will. And now she’s flighty–quite flighty. A difficult case, I fear, and–”