Say and Seal, Volume I

"The Squire only said there was room on the shore," added Miss Danforth.

"Is the shore wide enough for us to drive down there? or must we walk?" asked Mr. Linden.

"But you'll eat supper with them, of course," said Mrs. Derrick.

"Of course, mother. The wagon must go, Mr. Linden. There's room enough for anything."

Mr. Linden made no comment upon that, and finished his tea in comparative silence. Then went forth, as was his custom, to the post-office, and—as was not his custom—returned very soon. Mrs. Derrick and Miss Danforth had gone out to see a neighbour, and Faith sat alone in the twilight parlour. It was very twilight there, but he walked in and stood waiting for his eyes to discover what there might be.

"There is nobody here but me, Mr. Linden," said a very soft and clear voice. "Do you want anything?"

"I wanted to see you—and am foiled by the darkness. Are you tired,Miss Faith?"

"Never. I wasn't sitting in the dark for that."

"Would you object to coming into the light?"

"Not at all," said Faith laughing. "Which way?"

"There is to be a fine illumination to-night, which I should like to have you see."

"An illumination! Where is it? Shall I want my bonnet?"

"You will be better illuminated without it,—but you may perhaps take cold."

"How do you make your scholars understand you?" said Faith. "I am sureI must need illuminating.—So much, that I had better leave my bonnet,Mr. Linden?"

"I think you may—if you will take some light substitute. Why my scholars are my scholars, Miss Faith."

"What then?" said Faith stopping short.

"Why then I am their teacher."

"I half wish I was a scholar too," said Faith with a tone which filled up the other 'half'—"I don't know much, Mr. Linden."

"About illuminations? I will promise you some light upon that point."

With which encouragement, Faith fetched the scarf which was to do duty for a bonnet if desired, and they set out.

"Now Miss Faith," said her companion as he closed the gate, "if you will shew me the road, I will shew you the shore.—Which will not at all interfere with your shewing it to me to-morrow."

"The shore!" said Faith. "To-night? Are you in earnest?"

"Very much in earnest. You prefer some other road?"

"No indeed—it's beautiful, and I like it very much. Cindy," she said to that damsel whom they opportunely passed at the entrance of the lane—"you tell my mother I am gone to take a walk." And so they passed on.

The way was down a lane breaking from the high road of the village, just by Mrs. Derrick's house. It was a quiet country lane; passing between fields of grass or grain, with few trees near at hand. Here and there a house, small and unnotable like the trees. Over all the country the moon, near full though not high, threw a gentle light; revealing to the fancy a less picturesque landscape than the sun would have shewn; for there were no strong lines or points to be made more striking by her partial touches, and its greatest beauty lay in the details which she could not light up. The soft and rich colours of grain and grass, the waving tints of broken ground and hillside, were lost now; the flowers in the hedges had shrunk into obscurity; the thrifty and well-to-do order of every field and haystack, could hardly be noted even by one who knew it was there. Only the white soft glimmer on a wide pleasant land; the faint lighting of one side of trees and fences, the broader salutation to a house-front, and the deeper shadow which sometimes told of a piece of woodland or a slight hilly elevation.

Then all that was passed; and the road descended a little steep to where it crossed, by a wooden bridge, a small stream or bed of a creek. Here the moon, now getting up in the sky, did greater execution; the little winding piece of water glittered in silver patches, and its sedgy borders were softly touched out; with the darker outlines of two or three fishing-boats.

And so on, towards the shore. Now the salt smell met and mingled with the perfume of woods and flowers, and the road grew more and more sandy. But still the fields waved with Indian-corn, were sweet with hay, or furrowed with potatoes. Then the outlines of sundry frame bathing-houses appeared in the distance, and near them the road came to an end.

The shore was improved by the moonlight,—its great rocks, slippery with sea-weed, glittered with a wet sheen. The Sound wore its diamonds royally, and each tiny wave broke in a jewelled light upon the sand. Far in the distance the dim shore of Long Island lay like a black line upon the water; and sloops and schooners sailed softly on their course, or tacked across the rippling waves, a fleet of "Black spirits and white."

"What do you think of the illumination, Miss Faith?" said her companion, when they had sat still for five minutes.

"What do you think of it, I think I should say. Mr. Linden, I have shewed you the shore!"

"You!"—

"Who else?

"Were you ever here before by moonlight?"

"I don't know—No, I think not. Were you ever here before at all?"

"Is it owing to you that I am here now?"

"You couldn't have got here without me," said Faith, stooping to turn over some of the glittering pebbles at her feet;—"and I couldn't have got here without you. I am willing to allow that we are square, Mr. Linden. I must!—for you will turn a corner faster than I can catch you."

"If you really suppose that first proposition to be true," said Mr. Linden raising his eyebrows, "why of course there is no more to be said. Miss Faith, how would you like to be sailing about in one of those phantom ships?"

"I should like it very well," said Faith, "in a good time. I went to Pequot in one once. It was very pleasant. Why do you call them phantoms?"

"Look at that one standing off across the moonlight towards the other shore,—gliding along so silently with her black sails all set,—does she look real?—You cannot even hear the creaking of a rope."

Faith looked, and drew an interrupted deep breath. She had lived in a world of realities. Perhaps this was the first 'phantom' that had ever suggested itself—or been suggested—to her imagination. Possibly something of the same thought crossed her mind; for she drew her breath again a little short as she spoke.

"Yes!—it's beautiful!—But I live in such a different world, Mr.Linden,—I never thought of such a thing before."

He smiled—pleasantly and thoughtfully. "How came you to see the sunrise colours the other day, Miss Faith?"

"O I see them always. And that puts me in mind of something I have been wanting to say to you every day all the week! and I could never find a chance. You asked me that morning, Mr. Linden, if I was true to my name, finding enough in a cloudy sky. What did you mean? What did you mean by being true to my name'?"

"I shall have to use your name a little freely, to tell you," he said. "It is faith's privilege to be independent of circumstances. Faith always finds something wherein to rejoice. If the sky be clear,

'Far into distant worlds she pries,   And brings eternal glories near.'

If cloudy, faith uses her glass as a prism, and in one little ray of light finds all the colours of the rainbow."

"I don't know what a prism is," said Faith somewhat sadly.

"A prism, in strictness, is a piece of glass cut in a particular way, so that the colourless sunbeams which pass through it are divided into their many-coloured members. But other things act as prisms,—the rain-drops in a shower—the lustres upon your church chandelier. You have seen the colours there?"

"Well, how do they do that?"

"I must take some other time to tell you,—it would be too long a matter to-night. And I doubt whether you ought to sit here any longer."