The Cruise of the Shining Light

“Anyhow,” said the stranger, “take that with my compliments!”

’Twas a brutal blow with the closed fist. I cried out. My uncle, with the sting and humiliation of the thing to forbear, was deaf to the cry; but the gray little man from St. John’s, who knew well enough he would have no buffet in return, turned, startled, and saw me. My uncle’s glance instantly followed; whereupon a singular thing happened. The old man–I recall the horror with which he discovered me–swept the lamp from the table with a swing of his hand. It hurtled like a star, crashed against the wall, fell shattered and extinguished. We were in darkness–and in silence. For a long interval no word was spoken; the gale was free to noise itself upon our ears–the patter of rain, the howl of the wind, the fretful breaking; of the sea.

“Dannie, lad,” says my uncle, at last, “is that you?”

“Ay, sir.”

“Then,” says he, tenderly, “I ’low you’d best be t’ bed. I’m feared you’ll be cotchin’ cold, there in the draught, in your night-gown. Ye’re so wonderful quick, lad, t’ cotch cold.”

“I’ve come, sir,” says I, “t’ your aid.”

The stranger tittered.

“T’ your aid, sir!” I shouted, defiantly.

“I’m not needin’ ye, Dannie. Ye’re best in bed. ’Tis so wonderful late. I ’low ye’ll be havin’ the croup again, lad, an you don’t watch out. An’ ye mustn’t have the croup; ye really mustn’t! Remember the last time, Dannie, an’ beware. Ah, now! ye’ll never have the croup an ye can help it. Think,” he pleaded, “o’ the hot-water cloths, an’ the fear ye put me to. An’ Dannie,” he added, accusingly, “ye know the ipecac is all runned out!”

“I’ll stand by, sir,” says I.

“’Tis kind o’ you!” my uncle exclaimed, with infinite graciousness and affection. “’Tis wonderful kind! An’ I’m glad ye’re kind t’ me now–with my ol’ shipmate here. But you isn’t needed, lad; so do you go t’ bed like the good b’y that you is. Go t’ bed, Dannie, God bless ye!–go t’ bed, an’ go t’ sleep.”

“Ay,” I complained; “but I’m not wantin’ t’ leave ye with this man.”

“True, an’ I’m proud of it,” says he; “but I’ve no means o’ curin’ the croup. An’ Dannie,” says he, “I’m more feared o’ the croup than o’ the devil. Do you go t’ bed.”

“I’ll go,” I answered, “an you wills it.”

’Twas very dark in the dining-room; there was no sight of the geometrical gentlemen on that geometrically tempestuous sea to stay a lad in his defiance.

“Good lad!” said my uncle. “God bless ye!”

On the landing above I encountered my tutor, half-dressed, a candle in hand. ’Twas a queer figure he cut, thinks I–an odd, inconsequent figure in a mysterious broil of the men of our kind. What was this cockney–this wretched alien–when the passions of our coast were stirring? He would be better in bed. An eye he had–age-wise ways and a glance to overawe my youth–but what was he, after all, in such a case as this? I was his master, however unlearned I might be; his elder and master, to be sure, in a broil of our folk. Though to this day I respect the man for his manifold virtues, forgetting in magnanimity his failings, I cannot forgive his appearance on that night: the candle, the touselled hair, the disarray, the lean legs of him! “What’s all this?” he demanded. “I can’t sleep. What’s all this about? Is it a burglar?”

It made me impatient–and no wonder!

“What’s this, you know?” he repeated. “Eh? What’s all this row?”

“Do you go t’ bed!” I commanded, with a stamp, quite out of temper. “Ye’re but a child! Ye’ve no hand in this!”

He was dutiful…

By-and-by my uncle came to my room. He would not enter, but stood at the door, in much embarrassment, all the while looking at the flame of his candle. “Dannie, lad,” he inquired, at last, “is you comfortable?”

“Ay, sir,” says I.

“An’ happy?”

“Ay, sir.”

“An’ is you content,” says he, “all alone with ol’ Nick Top at Twist Tickle?”

I was content.

“You isn’t upsot, is you, by the capers o’ my ol’ shipmate?”

I answered as he wished. “No, sir,” said I.

“Oh no,” says he; “no need o’ bein’ upsot by that ol’ bully. He’ve wonderful queer ways, I’ll not deny, but ye’re not in the way o’ knowin’, Dannie, that he’ve not a good heart. I ’low ye’ll maybe take to un, lad–when you comes t’ know un better. I hopes ye will. I hopes ye’ll find it easy t’ deal with un. They’s no need now o’ bein’ upsot; oh my, no! But, Dannie, an I was you,” says he, a bit hopelessly, “times bein’ what they is, an’ life uncertain–an I was you, lad–afore I went t’ sleep I–I–I ’low I’d overhaul that there twenty-third psa’m!”

He went away then…

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.