The Cruise of the Shining Light

They were more than palatable.

“Hear that, parson!” cries my uncle. “He likes un! Imported direck, sir, from Bermuda,” says he, with all the vanity of riches. “Ever feed so high yourself, parson? Consignment arrived,” says he, “per S.S. Silvia. You’ll see it in the Herald an you looks.”

“Really!” my tutor exclaimed, for lack of something better.

“Fac’,” says my uncle; “an’ paid for–skin an’ eye!”

My tutor gave it up–permitted himself no longer to be troublesomely mystified; but after a quick glance from steerage to cabin, flashed with amused comprehension of the contrast, threw back his head with a little laugh quite detached from our concerns, and presently, innured to the grotesquery, busied himself with relish upon his salt-junk. Thereafter, the rum buzzing in his head, he ran on in a vivacious way upon all things under the sun, save himself, so that the windy night seemed very far away, indeed, and the lamplight and fire to lend an inspiration to his nimble tongue, until, in a lull of the engaging discourse, he caught my uncle peering greedily into the cabin, all but licking his lips, his nostrils distended to the savor, his flooded eyes fixed upon the fresh beef and vegetables in manifest longing, every wrinkle and muscle of his broad face off guard. My tutor–somewhat affected, I fancy, by this display–turned to me with a little frown of curiosity, an intrusive regard, it seemed to me, which I might in all courtesy fend off for the future. ’Twas now time, thinks I, to enlighten him with the knowledge I had: a task I had no liking for, since in its accomplishment I must stir my uncle unduly.

“Uncle Nick,” says I, “’tis like Mr. Cather will be havin’ a cut off my roast.”

“The parson?” my uncle demanded.

“Ay,” says I, disregarding his scowl; “a bit o’ roast beef.”

“Not he!” snaps my uncle. “Not a bite!”

I nerved myself–with a view wholly to Cather’s information. “Uncle Nick,” I proceeded, my heart thumping, such was the temerity of the thing, “’tis a dirty night without, an’ here’s Mr. Cather just joined the ship, an’ I ’low, now, the night, Uncle Nick, that maybe you–”

“Me?” roars my uncle, in a flare of rage and horror. “Me touch it? ME!”

The vehemence of this amazed my tutor, who could supply no cause for the outburst; but ’twas no more than I had expected in the beginning.

“Me!” my uncle gasped.

There was a knock at the door…

Ay, a knock at the door! ’Twas a thing most unexpected. That there should come a knock at the door! ’Twas past believing. ’Twas no timid tapping; ’twas a clamor–without humility or politeness. Who should knock? There had been no outcry; ’twas then no wreck or sudden peril of our people. Again it rang loud and authoritative–as though one came by right of law or in vindictive anger. My uncle, shocked all at once out of a wide-eyed daze of astonishment, pushed back from the board, in a terrified flurry, his face purpled and swollen, and blundered about for his staff; but before he had got to his feet, our maid-servant, on a fluttering run from the kitchen, was come to the door. The gale broke in–rushing noises and a swirl of wet wind. We listened; there was a voice, not the maid-servant’s–thin, high-tempered, lifted in irascible demand–but never a word to be distinguished in that obscurity of wind and rain. ’Twas cold, and the lamp was flaring: I closed the door against this inrush of weather.

My wretched uncle beckoned the tutor close, a finger lifted in caution; but still kept looking at me–and all the while stared at me with eyes of frightened width–in a way that saw me not at all. “Parson,” he whispered, “they wasn’t ar another man landed by the mail-boat the day, was they?”

The tutor nodded.

“Ye wouldn’t say, would ye,” my uncle diffidently inquired, “that he’d be from St. John’s by the cut of um?”

“A gray little man from St. John’s.”

“I ’low then,” says my uncle, “that he talked a wonderful spell about a lad, didn’t um?”

My tutor shook his head.

“Nar a word–about any lad?”

“I’m sure not.”

My uncle tapped the tip of his nose.

“A red mole,” said my tutor.

And now my uncle poured himself a great dram of rum. ’Twas a cataract of liquor! Never such a draught had I known him dare–not in his most abandoned hours at the Anchor and Chain. ’Twas beyond him to down it at a gulp; ’twas in two gulps that he managed it, but with no breath between–and then pushed the glass away with a shudder of disgust. Presently–when the liquor had restored his courage and begun to fetch the color to his pallid face–he got his staff in his fist and stumbled off in a high bluster, muttering gross imprecations as he went. The door slammed behind him; we heard no more–never a sound of growl or laugh from the best room where he sat with the gray little man from St. John’s. ’Twas not a great while he stayed; and when he came again–the stranger having gone–he drew up to the board with all his good-humor and ease of mind regained. The rum had thickened his tongue and given a wilful turn to his wooden leg: no more. There was not a hint of discomposure anywhere about him to be descried; and I was glad of this, for I had supposed, being of an imaginative turn, that all the mystery of the luxury that was mine was at last come to its dreadful climax.

“A ol’ shipmate, Dannie,” my uncle genially explained.

’Twas hard to believe.

“Sailed along o’ that there ol’ bully t’ Brazilian ports,” says he, “thirty year ago.”

I wondered why my uncle had not called for his bottle to be brought in haste to the best room.

“Still storming,” the tutor ventured.

“Blowin’ high,” I remarked.

“I ’low I’ll stay ashore, the morrow,” says my uncle, “an’ have a spurt o’ yarnin’ along o’ that there ol’ bully.”

But the gray little man from St. John’s–the gray little red-moled man–was no old shipmate (I knew), nor any friend at all, else my uncle would have had him hospitably housed for the night under our roof.

XI

THE GRAY STRANGER

We sat late by the fire in the best room: into which I must fairly lug my perverse old uncle by the ears–for (says he) the wear an’ tear of a wooden leg was a harsh thing for a carpet to abide, an’ parlor chairs (says he) was never made for the hulks o’ sea-farin’ folk. ’Twas late, indeed, when he sent young Cather off to bed, with a warning to be up betimes, or go hungry, and bade me into the dining-room, as was our custom, to set out his bottle and glass. I turned the lamp high, and threw birch on the fire, and lifted his gouty wooden leg to the stool, and got his bottle and little brown jug, wondering, all the while, that my uncle was downcast neither by the wind nor the singular intrusion of the gray stranger. ’Twas a new thing in my life–a grateful change, for heretofore, in black gales, blowing in the night, with the thunder of waters under the window, it had been my duty to stand by, giving the comfort of my presence to the old man’s melancholy and terror. ’Twas the company of the tutor, thinks I, and I was glad that the congenial fellow was come from a far place, escape cut off.

“Wonderful late,” says my uncle.

“No,” said I; “not late for windy nights.”

“Too late for lads,” says he, uneasily.

I poured his glass of rum.

“Think you, Dannie,” my uncle inquired, “that he’ve the makin’s of a fair rascal?”

“An’ who?” says I, the stranger in mind.

“The tutor.”

“I’m hopin’ not!” I cried.

“Ay,” says my uncle, an eye half closed; “but think you he would make a rascal–with clever management?”

“’Twould never come t’ pass, sir.”

My uncle sipped his rum in a muse.

“Uncle Nick,” I complained, “leave un be.”

“’Tis a hard world, Dannie,” he replied.