Cursed

“Don’t ye worry none about Master Hal,” said he gravely. “Worry’s wuss’n a dozen leaks an’ no pump. Ef ye must worry, worry somebody else.”

“What’s the boy doing? Drinking again?”

“Not a drink, cap’n. Now my idea about liquor is – ”

“Judas priest!” interrupted Briggs. “You’ll drive me crazy! If the world was coming to an end you’d argue with Gabriel. You say Hal’s not touched it this morning?”

“Nary drop, sir.”

“Oh, that’s good news!”

“Good news is like a hard-b’iled egg, cap’n. You don’t have to break it easy. Hal’s fine an’ fit this mornin’, sir. I thought maybe he might hunt a little tot o’ rum, this mornin’, but no; no, sir, he’s sober as a deacon. The way he apologized was as han’some.”

“Apologized? Who to?”

“Me an’ the doctor. He come out to the barn, an’ begged our pardons in some o’ the doggondest purtiest language I ever clapped an ear to. He’s slick. Everythin’s all right between Master Hal an’ I an’ the doctor. After he apologized he went fer a swim, down to Geyser Rock.”

“Did, eh? He’s wonderful in the water! Not another man in this town dares take that dive. I – I’m mighty glad he had the decency to apologize. Hal’s steering the right course now. He’s proved himself a man anyhow. Last night I’d almost lost faith in him and in all humanity.”

“It ain’t so important fer a man to have faith in humanity as fer humanity to have faith in him,” affirmed the old cook. “Now, cap’n, you git up, please. You’ll want to see Master Hal afore breakfast. Listen to me, cap’n, don’t never drive that boy out, same’s I was drove. Master Hal’s sound an’ good at heart. But he’s had his own head too long now fer you to try rough tactics.”

“Rough! When was I ever rough with Hal?”

“Mebbe if you had of been a few times when he was small it’d of been better. But it’s too late now. Let him keep all canvas aloft; but hold a hard helm on him. Hold it hard!”

The sound of singing somewhere across the road toward the shore drew the captain’s attention out the window. Striding home from his morning plunge, Hal was returning to Snug Harbor, “coming up with a song from the sea.”

The captain put on his bathrobe, then went to the window and sat down there. He leaned his arms on the sill, and peered out at Hal. Ezra discreetly withdrew.

No sign seemed visible on Hal of last night’s rage and war. Sleep, and the exhilaration of battling with the savage surf along the face of Geyser Rock, had swept away all traces of his brutality. Molded into his wet bathing-suit that revealed every line of that splendidly virile body, he drew near.

All at once he caught sight of Captain Briggs. He stopped his song, by the lantern-flanked gateway, and waved a hand of greeting.

“Top o’ the morning to you, grandfather!” cried he. There he stood overflooded with life, strength, spirits. His body gleamed with glistening brine; his face, lighted by a smile of boyish frankness, shone in the morning sun. His thick, black hair that he had combed straight back with his fingers, dripped seawater on his bronzed, muscular shoulders.

“God, what a man!” the captain thought. “Hard as nails, and ridged with muscle. He’s only twenty-one, but he’s better than ever I was, at my best!”

And once again, he felt his old heart expand with pride and hope – hope that reached out to lay eager hold upon the future and its dreams.

“I want to see you, sir, before breakfast,” said the captain.

Hal nodded comprehension. From the hedge he broke a little twig, and held it up.

“Here’s the switch, gramp,” said he whimsically. “You’d better use it now, while I’ve got bare legs.”

The old man had to smile. With eyes of profound affection he gazed at Hal. Sunlight on his head and on Hal’s struck out wonderful contrasts of snow and jet. The luminous, celestial glow of a June morning on the New England coast – a morning gemmed with billions of dewdrops flashing on leaf and lawn, a morning overbrooded by azure deeps of sky unclouded – folded the world in beauty.

A sense of completion, of loveliness fulfilled compassed everything. Autumn looks back, regretfully. Winter shivers between memories and hopes. Spring hopes more strongly still – but June, complete and resting, says: “Behold!”

Such was that morning; and the captain, looking at his boy, felt its magic soothing the troubled heart within him. On the lawn, two or three robins were busy. Another, teetering high on the plumy crest of a shadowing elm, was emptying its heart of melody.

A minute, old man and young looked steadily at each other. Then Hal came up the white-sanded walk, between the two rows of polished conches. He stopped at the old man’s window.

“Grandfather,” said he in a low tone. “Will you listen to me, please?”

“What have you got to say, sir?” demanded Briggs, and stiffened his resolution. “Well, sir?”

“Listen, grandfather,” answered Hal, in a very manly way, that harmonized with his blue-eyed look, and with his whole air of ingenuous and boyish contrition. He crossed his bare arms, looked down a moment at the sand, dug at it a little with a toe, and then once more raised his head. “Listen, please. I’ve got just one thing to ask. Please don’t lecture me, and don’t be harsh. I stand here absolutely penitent, grandfather, begging to be forgiven. I’ve already apologized to Dr. Filhiol and Ezra – ”

“So I understand,” put in Briggs, still striving hard to make his voice sound uncompromising. “Well?”

“Well, grandfather – as for apologizing to you, that’s kind of a hard proposition. It isn’t that I don’t want to, but the relations between us have been so close that it’s pretty hard to make up a regular apology. You and I aren’t on a basis where I really could apologize, as I could to anybody else. But I certainly did act the part of a ruffian on the Sylvia Fletcher, and I was certainly a rotter here last night. There’s only one other thing – ”

“And what’s that, sir?” demanded Briggs. The captain still maintained judicial aloofness, despite all cravings of the heart. “What’s that?”

“I – you may not believe it, gramp, but it’s true. I really don’t remember hardly anything about what happened aboard the schooner or here. I suppose I can’t stand even a couple of drinks. It all seems hazy to me now, like a kind of nightmare. It’s all indistinct, as if it weren’t me at all, but somebody else. I feel just as if I’d been watching another man do the things that I really know I myself did do. The feeling is that somebody else took my body and used it, and made it do things that I myself didn’t want it to do. But I was powerless to stop it. Grampy, it’s true, true, true!”

He paused, looking at his grandfather with eyes of tragic seriousness. Old Briggs shivered slightly, and drew the bathrobe more tightly around his shoulders.

“Go on, Hal.”

“Well, there isn’t much more to say. I know there’ll be consequences, and I’m willing to face them. I’ll cut out the booze altogether. It was foolish of me to get into it at all, but you know how it is at college. They all kidded me, for not drinking a little, and so – well. It’s my own fault, right enough. Anyhow, I’m done. You’ll forget it and forgive it, won’t you, grandpa?”

“Will I, my boy?” the old man answered. He blinked to keep back the tears. “You know the answer, already!”

“You really mean that, gramp?” exclaimed Hal, with boyish enthusiasm. “If I face the music, whatever it is, and keep away from any encores, will you let me by, this time?”

The captain could answer only by stretching out his hand and gripping Hal’s. The boy took his old, wrinkled hand in a grip heartfelt and powerful. Thus for a moment the two men, old and young, felt the strong pressure of palms that cemented contrition and forgiveness. The captain was first to speak.

“Everything’s all right now, Hal,” said he, “so far’s I’m concerned. Whatever’s wrong, outside Snug Haven, can be made right. I know you’ve had your lesson, boy.”

“I should say so! I don’t need a second.”

“No, no. You’ll remember this one, right enough. Well, now, least said soonest mended. It was pretty shoal water there, one while. But we’re floating again, and we’re not going to run on to any more sandbars, are we? Ah, there’s Ezra blowing his bo’sun’s whistle for breakfast. Let’s see which of us gets to mess-table first!”

CHAPTER XXIV

DARKENING SHADOWS

Breakfast – served on a regulation ship’s table, with swivel-chairs screwed to the floor and with a rack above for tumblers and plates – made up by its overflowing happiness for all the heartache of the night before. Hal radiated life and high spirits. The captain’s forebodings of evil had vanished in his newly-revivified hopes. Dr. Filhiol became downright cheerful, and so far forgot his nerves as to drink a cup of weak coffee. As for Ezra, he seemed in his best form.

“Judgin’ by your togs, Master Hal,” said he, as Hal – breakfast done – lighted his pipe and blew smoke up into the sunlit air, “I cal’late Laura Maynard’s got jest the same chances of not takin’ a walk with you, this mornin’, that Ruddy, here, has got of learnin’ them heathen Chinee books o’ yourn. It says in the Bible to love y’r neighbor as y’rself, so you got Scripture backin’ fer Laura.”

“Plus the evidence of my own senses, Ezra,” laughed the boy, as he drew at his pipe. His fresh-shaven, tanned face with those now placid blue eyes seemed to have no possible relation with the mask of vicious hate and rage of the night before.

As he sat there, observing Ezra with a smile, he appeared no other than an extraordinary well-grown, powerfully developed young man.

“Must have been the rum that did it,” the captain tried to convince himself. “Works that way with some people. They lose all anchors, canvas, sticks and everything – go on the rocks when they’ve only shipped a drink or two. There’ll be no more rum for Hal. He’s passed his word he’s through. That means he is through, because whatever else he may or may not be, he’s a Briggs. So then, that’s settled!”