The Cruise of the Shining Light

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.

The end of this was that John Cather and my uncle came above. My tutor went straightway to his room, with steps that hastened past my door; but my uncle paused, pushed the door cautiously ajar, thrust in his head.

“Is you asleep, Dannie?” says he.

“No, sir. I’m wonderful wide awake.”

“Ah, well!” he whispered, in such a way that I perceived his triumphant glee, though I could not see his face for the darkness of my room; “you might as well turn over an’ go t’ sleep.”

“An’ why, sir?” I asked.

“Like a babe, Dannie,” says he, addressing me with fondness, as though I were a little child again–“jus’ like a babe.”

He walked to my window and looked out to sea.

“Dirty weather the morrow, sir,” I ventured.

“The lights o’ the mail-boat!” he exclaimed. “She’ve left Fortune Harbor. Ecod, b’y!”

He withdrew at once and in haste, and I heard him stump off to my tutor’s quarters, where, for a long time after that, there occurred many and mysterious noises. I could not understand, but presently made the puzzle out: John Cather was packing up. ’Twas beyond doubt; the thump and creak, the reckless pulling of drawers, steps taken in careless hurry and confusion, the agitation of the pressing need of haste, all betrayed the business in hand. John Cather was packing up: he was rejected of Judith–he was going away! It hurt me sorely to think that the man would thus in impulsive haste depart, after these years of intimate companionship, with a regard so small for my wishes in the matter. Go to sleep like a babe? I could not go to sleep at all; I could but lie awake in trouble. John Cather was packing up; he was going away! My uncle helped him with his trunks down the stairs and to the stage-head, where, no doubt, my uncle’s punt was waiting to board the belated mail-boat–the mean little trunk John Cather had come with, and the great leather one I had bought him in London. I was glad, at any rate, that my gifts–the books and clothes and what-not I had bought him abroad–were not to be left to haunt me. But that John Cather should not say good-bye! I could not forgive him that. I waited and waited, lying awake in the dark, for him to come. And come he did, when the trunks were carried away and the whistle of the mail-boat had awakened our harbor. He pushed my door open without knocking, knowing well enough that I was wide awake. ’Twas then dark in my room; he could not see me.

“Where are your matches?” says he.

I told him, but did not like the manner of his speech. ’Twas in a way to rouse the antagonism of any man, being most harsh and hateful.

“I can’t find them,” he complained.

“You’ll find them well enough, John Cather,” I chided, “an you looks with patience.”

He had no patience, it seemed, but continued to fumble about, and at last, with his back turned to me, got my lamp lighted. For a moment he stood staring at the wall, as though he lacked the resolution to turn. And when he wheeled I knew that I looked upon the countenance of a man who had been broken on the wheel; and I was very much afraid. John Cather was splashed and streaked with the mud of the hills. ’Twas not this evidence of passionate wandering that alarmed me; ’twas his pallor and white lips, his agonized brows, the gloomy depth to which his bloodshot eyes had withdrawn.

“Now,” says he, “I want to look at you.”

I did not want to be looked at.

“Sit up!” he commanded.

I sat up in bed.

“Put the blanket down,” says he. “I have come, I say, to look at you.”

I uncovered to my middle.

“And this,” says he, “is the body of you, is it?”

The lamp was moved close to my face. John Cather laughed, and began, in a way I may not set down, to comment upon me. ’Twas not agreeable. I tried to stop him. ’Twas unkind to me and ’twas most injurious to himself. He did us vile injustice. I stopped my ears against his raving, but could not shut it out. “And this is the body of you! This is the body of you!” Here was not the John Cather who had come to us clear-eyed and buoyant and kindly out of the great world; here was an evil John Cather–the John Cather of a new birth at Twist Tickle. ’Twas the man our land and hearts had made him; he had here among us come to his tragedy and was cast away. I knew that the change had been worked by love–and I wondered that love could accomplish the wreck of a soul. I tried to stop his ghastly laughter, to quiet his delirium of brutality; and presently he was still, but of exhaustion, not of shame. Again he brought the lamp close to my face, and read it, line upon line, until it seemed he could bear no longer to peruse it. What he saw there I do not know–what to give him hope or still to increase the depth of his hopelessness. He betrayed no feeling; but the memory of his pale despair continues with me to this day, and will to the end of my years. Love has never appeared to me in perfect beauty and gentleness since that night; it can wear an ugly guise, achieve a sinister purpose, I know.

John Cather set the lamp on the table, moving in a preoccupation from which I had been cast out.

“John Cather!” I called.

My uncle shouted from below.

“John!” I urged.

“Parson,” my uncle roared, “ye’ll lose your passage!”

Cather blew out the light.

“John,” I pleaded, “you’ll not go without saying good-bye?”

He stopped on the threshold; but I did not hear him turn. I called him again; he wheeled, came stumbling quickly to my bed, caught my hand.

“Forgive me, Dannie!” he groaned. “My heart is broken!”

He ran away: I never saw him again…

And now, indeed, was the world gone all awry! What had in the morning of that day been a prospect of joy was vanished in a drear mist of broken hopes. Here was John Cather departed in sore agony, for which was no cure that ever I heard of or could conceive. Here was John Cather gone with the wreck of a soul. A cynical, purposeless, brooding life he must live to his last day: there was no healing in all the world for his despair. Here with us–to whom, in the years of our intercourse, he gave nothing but gladness–his ruin had been wrought. ’Twas not by wish of us; but there was small comfort in the reflection, since John Cather must suffer the same. Here was John Cather gone; and here, presently, was my uncle, pacing the floor below. Up and down, up and down: I thought the pat of his wooden leg would go on forever–would forever, by night and day, express the restlessness of thirst. And here was Judy, abroad, in trouble I could not now divine–’twas a thing most strange and disturbing that she should stand in distress before me. I had accounted for it, but could not now explain–not with John Cather gone. I was mystified, not agitated by alarms. I would meet the maid on the Whisper Cove road in the morning, thinks I, and resolve the puzzle. I would discover more than that. I would discover whether or not I had blundered. But this new hope, springing confidently though it did, could not thrive in the wretchedness of John Cather’s departure. I was not happy.

My uncle roughly awoke me at dawn.

“Sir?” I asked.

“Judy,” says he, “haves disappeared.”

He held me until he perceived that I had commanded myself…

XXV

TO SEA