Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

a dozen, which she declared to be "immense," though they were but eight or ten inches in diameter; and importuned the old man to teach her how to make them. He saw no way of refusing, and finally agreed to give her lessons, at fifty cents an hour.

And how is your sweet granddaughter?" asked Miss Herkomer with nervous vivacity; "I do hope she is well."

"She is underground these nine years, mum," answered the literal Captain; "I reckon she be comfortable."

"You don't mean to say so. Why no, that isn't possible; for I saw her only the other day, and she looked perfectly lovely."

"She was a likely child, mum, but she turned up her toes, nine years ago, in August, jest as the mackerel come, and the Spanish brigantine was wrecked on the south shore.'

Miss Herkomer, feeling unequal to the further pursuit of the subject, transferred her interest to the wreck, and sat down on an empty soap-box, while the Captain consented to part with some fragments of information concerning the memorable event. He was endeavoring, with the utmost difficulty, to explain the uses of the life-saving apparatus, when the door to the kitchen was opened, and Charity entered. Miss Herkomer jumped up, put her arms about her waist, and kissed her with much effusion. She did not allow the girl's look of surprise in the least to dampen her ardor.

"I have missed you so much since you left, dear," she said; "and I regretted so much that lamentable affair with Mr. Brooks. I think he was horrid to subject you to such a humiliation; and I have never been able to forgive him for it. I assure you, I have not spoken to him once since you left. I don't suppose you have seen him, either, have you?"

66

Yes," said Charity simply; "I have." "Yes, of course, you couldn't help seeing him; but what I mean is, you haven't talked with him."

[ocr errors][merged small]

ity was crowing over her; or that perhaps she was deeper than anybody suspected.

"Now, dear, let us be perfectly frank with each other," she said; "there is nothing that I admire more than perfect sincerity. If there is one virtue I possess, it is that. You know, of course, it is of no consequence to me, one way or another, whether you have talked with Mr. Brooks."

She felt she had struck a false note there, before the words were fairly uttered; but her lips went mechanically and blundered on. There seemed to be a demon in her tongue, who delighted in this kind of transparent mendacity which deceived no one. She felt she was getting into deeper waters the longer she talked; and yet she could not stop without, somehow, appearing to herself awkward and foolish. The fact was, she was new to the rôle, having never cared enough for men to compromise her conscience on their account. But this miserable Brooks, in whom she had interested herself, at first, as a joke, had revenged himself by taking possession of her mind in a wholly unprecedented

manner.

She was now perfectly aware

that she had lodged in Charity's heart the very suspicion she had intended to avert. She was looking anxiously toward the door, expecting, every moment, to see Brooks enter. Charity was sitting, with a kind of chilly wonder, watching her face, and dodging her direct questions with a childlike ingenuity which was admirable, because it looked like candor. As killing time was the object, Miss Anastasia again addressed herself to the Captain, who had been braiding his osiers automatically, and deplored the frequency of wrecks upon the Poltucket coast.

[ocr errors]

It ain't no use whimperin', mum," the old man replied; "ef wrecks wasn't good fer somethin', the Lord wouldn't send 'em."

"Good for something!" exclaimed Miss Herkomer; "you don't mean to say that you like to see people perish!

"I didn't say nuthin' of the sort, mum; but our folks has got ter live: and there ain't nuthin' else fer them to live on now, sence the guvernment killed the shippin'"

“Then you are, on the whole, glad when you hear of a wreck."

"I didn't say that, mum; I don't pray the Lord fer ships ter be wrecked; but I do pray the Lord that ef ships has ter be wrecked, they be wrecked on Pol

tucket."

The Captain showed a vigor of intellect on this one topic which was the more impressive, because of his decrepi

tude.

"I tell you, mum," he went on, after having moved his jaws, for some minutes, in silent indignation, "I voted the Republican ticket every blessed year, but now I don't no more. Sence they put up the two life-savin' stations on the island and six light-houses, I am a Democrat. And many more with me, mum; as they'll find out by and by, mum, when they put up their next man fer President."

VI.

BROOKS was laboring under a difficulty which in all lands makes greatness more or less inconvenient. He was so conspicuous a figure in Poltucket that everything he did or said made something of a sensation. It seemed unchivalrous to him to expose the young girl who filled his thoughts to the cruel village gossip, unless he was irrevocably determined to ask her the fatal question. He despised himself for entertaining such pusillanimous considerations; for his ideal of a lover was a daring and unscrupulous Don Giovanni, whose joyous march of conquest was strewn with wrecked hearts. He saw himself constantly in spirit doing all sorts of audacious things which in the body he never could hope to attain. That little, timorous girl with the sweet, demure face, who looked up at him with those large, trustful blue eyes, how could he afford to experiment with her fragile heart, and throw it away, in case it should not prove to be worth keeping? He knew that, in case he made such a discovery, his pusillanimous conscience would get the better of his heroic aspiration, and he would end by keeping her heart, regardless of its value. He went occasionally to visit the Captain, and for want of anything better to do,

presented him with high-flavored imported cigars, which the mariner ruthlessly bit in two, putting one half into his mouth and chewing it, and the other into his vest-pocket. After having chewed them, he dried the leaves and smoked them in a pipe. Brooks invariably, on these occasions, met Miss Herkomer (for she watched his movements through her telescope with great exactness) and was drawn into conversation with her about all sorts of nightmarish literary topics, which gave her a chance to parade her intelligence. It was obvious that the Fates were against him. There never was a courtship attended with more hopeless difficulties. The wrath of a father with a shot-gun, or of a deceived rival, thirsting for gore, would have been trifles compared with the dire vigilance of Miss Herkomer and a hundred other morbid moralists who sat in windows, on piazzas, and on the house-tops, taking social observations, all on the qui vive for scandalous developments.

It would never have occurred to Brooks that his chief persecutor should be the very one to extricate him from this sad dilemma. Miss Anastasia was inclined to believe that she had now advanced far enough in the young man's favor to risk a change of programme. She knew that the moon had the reputation of stimulating the hidden springs of sentiment in the masculine heart, and determined to arrange a moonlight sail, in which Brooks and herself should be the principal participators. She broached her plan cautiously to the Rev. Mr. Nichols, who, without suspecting ulterior motives, went headlong into the trap. He pleaded, with clerical innocence, for half an hour, to be allowed to invite Brooks, as the young man had, he thought, now been sufficiently punished for his faux pas, which had, after all, not been anything more than a youthful indiscretion. It is superfluous to add that Anastasia was convinced by this argument, and gave Mr. Nichols the desired permission. But when Brooks had accepted, she was not at all anxious to extend her hospitality further. She wanted a small, congenial party, she said, and Mr. Nichols was finally persuaded to coincide in her view. By

some clever manoeuvring, several were invited who, it was known, would be unable to go, and in the end the select and congenial party, when it met at three o'clock in the afternoon on the wharf, was found to consist of but four persons, the fourth of whom was Charity Howland. Brooks, who had done a little plotting of his own, had persuaded Nichols to hire Captain Jewell's catboat, (on charitable grounds as he urged) and as the young girl was amply competent to sail it, the guileless parson had concluded to engage her, and dispense with a sailing-master. That seemed, in view of what had occurred between him and Brooks (in whose good graces he was anxious to re-establish himself), a sort of amende honorable-a vote of confidence, as it were, the delicacy of which no one could fail to appreciate.

I shall not attempt to describe Anastasia's feelings, when she found herself outplotted in this shameful manner. She had to display a cheerful mask, of course, but it cost her a considerable effort. The plan was, to spend the afternoon fishing, take supper on board and sail home by moonlight, returning about 10 or 11 o'clock in the evening. The wind was fair, and the boat shot ahead at a good speed. Charity sat bare-headed at the rudder, holding the tiller with a firm grasp, and with a cool professional glance (which Brooks found ravishing) watching the sail, the water, and the horizon. She commanded "heads down" when she jibed, with a sang froid in which there was no trace of her customary timidity. The low sanddunes that inclosed the harbor floated like enchanted isles upon the bosom of the sea, the vast vault of the sky was steeped in sunshine, and the gulls who rejoiced in its freedom seemed embodiments of bliss. If it had been Nichols and not Miss Herkomer who, in the midst of his glorious absorption in the elements, had asked Brooks what his opinion was of George Eliot's "Theophrastus Such," he would have felt tempted to do him bodily harm. In fact, the question jarred so violently on him that he had to exercise all his selfrestraint, in order to give a polite an

swer.

"Oh, have pity on my youth and in

nocence, Miss Herkomer," he exclaimed with mock entreaty; "what have I done to thee, that thou should'st thus maltreat me?"

"I fear, Mr. Brooks, you are one of those who disapprove of intellect in women," Miss Herkomer rejoined, with a primness which was in itself a rebuke to his levity.

"Not at all. I only hold that there are some things which are more valuable than intellect."

66

وو

'More valuable than intellect! What are they, pray?"

"Health, first of all; innocence and simplicity of soul, sweet and unspoiled emotions."

He looked directly at the unconscious girl at the rudder, as if he read out of her face all the things which he found most admirable.

"You mean to say," demanded Miss Herkomer, with a note of exasperation which she found it hard to suppress, "that the mere crude health which any peasant or fisher-girl possesses is more valuable to the world than the noble intellect of a George Sand or a George Eliot?"

"If it is a question of universal application, I should say yes," answered Brooks fearlessly; "if you mean only in rare individual cases, I should say no. In my opinion, the world could better afford to spare in its womankind the intellect of George Eliot than the health which such intellectual attainments would be apt to undermine. George Eliot, as you know, died childless; if all womankind died childless, but with towering intellects, civilization would expire with us, and we should all have lived in vain."

Mr. Nichols, who had been trolling a bluefish line, here gave a shout, which happily interrupted the discussion. He rose in the boat with visible excitement, and began to haul with all his might.

"Keep your line taut," cried Charity, her eyes suddenly afire with interest; -"no, no! not that way, or you'll unhook him!"

"But he cuts my hands cruelly," whimpered Nichols. "I don't think I can stand it much longer."

"Take the tiller quick; and I'll haul him," said the girl, with quiet decision;

eyes

and no sooner had the clergyman handed during the afternoon, except that sevher the line, than, with five or six strong eral dozen scups were caught and a few and steady pulls, she landed a splendid sea-bass. At about seven o'clock they bluefish, weighing some six or seven anchored near the island of Puckerpounds. Brooks, who could not get his tuck, a mere reef or sand-dune, which is off her, was enchanted at the swift cut up into several islets at high tide, one security and skill with which she han- of them supporting a light-house with dled the big fish, keeping at the same a revolving light of three colors, and time a vigilant watch on the parson, the summer cottage of a Bostonian, who whose manipulation of the tiller she evi- thus advertises his love of solitude. The dently distrusted. Hers was no crude wind had stiffened somewhat, after sunpeasant face in which the primitive bo- set, and the tide was coming in, flowing vine virtues were legibly written. In with considerable violence over the shalher eye the fire of thought had been kin- low sand-flats. On the outer side of the dled, generations ago, and in the chisel- reef they could hear the surf booming, ing of her face nature had traced many and the wind flung, every now and then, a delicate intention. And yet, coupled a shower of spray toward them. The with this, there were an admirable alert- wicks were trimmed in the kerosene ness of sense and practical skill which, stove, and in an amazingly short time to the young man who had spent his the big bluefish found himself split down life among books and in the over-refine- the back and flung into the frying-pan. ment of a foreign civilization, seemed wholly adorable. He had all his life seen helpless women who took a pride in their uselessness and ignorance of practical concerns; and by contrast, an efficient woman who, without the sacrifice of her womanly character and charm, could sail a boat, braid a basket, and cook a beefsteak, struck him as a fascinating novelty. He contrasted her deep and wholesome content with the intellectual contortions of Miss Herkomer, who skimmed with feverish restlessness over all the sciences, and was always uneasy lest she should not secure proper recognition for her attainments.

It is not improbable that Anastasia had a suspicion of what was going on in Brooks's mind; at all events, she was aware that she had displeased him by her question about "Theophrastus Such." She always felt an irrepressible irritation in the presence of men who undervalued the intellect of women; and neglected no opportunity to champion the cause of her oppressed sex. And yet, in the case of Brooks, it somehow heightened her respect for him, to know that he did not take her intellectual claims seriously. It did not occur to her "to give in," of course; but in her heart of hearts she rather liked his contemptuous tone, provoking though it

was.

Nothing of any consequence occurred

"Hand me a match, please," said Charity, who was stooping over the stove, attending to the preliminaries of the banquet.

"A match? Why, certainly," answered Brooks and Nichols in chorus, and fumbled in their pockets.

"I confess I am almost hungry," said Anastasia, a little anxiously.

"I confess I am ravenous," remarked Nichols; "this sea-air has aroused in me a very unclerical appetite."

"Or say, rather, a very clerical appetite," suggested Brooks. "I do hope you have brought matches, for I have none."

"Nor have I," the clergyman rejoined, with a dismayed look; "I could have sworn I had some, but I must have left the box in my room."

An excited consultation ensued, during which Nichols suffered all the horrors of slow starvation, while Anastasia drew lots in fancy as to who was to be eaten, and found that her rival was designated for the sacrifice.

"We shall have to land at Puckertuck," said Charity. "I'll go up to Mr. Bateman's cottage and get some matches."

"But it is getting dark and foggy," Brooks objected. "You might be blown off to sea, and nobody know what had become of you."

"The moon is just rising; and anyway I am not afraid."

[blocks in formation]

"Hold on a minute," cried Brooks; "I am going with you."

He saw her form vanishing in the fog, but managed to catch up with her.

"Why do you want to run away from me?" he asked; but the thunder of the surf on the outer reef nearly drowned his voice and made it impossible to hear what she answered.

"Take my arm," he went on, "or I shall lose you altogether."

But she only hastened tremblingly on, and almost ran, as if to escape him. There was to him something sweet and primitive in this mute flight, which was no sham manœuvre, but prompted by a real fear. He fancied he could almost hear her heart beat in the twilight. All the great emotions lie close to each other in an unspoiled nature. It was not in ancient times only that women stood with fear and trembling in the presence of nature's great mysteries. To this shy and virginal soul the repellant quality of manhood was yet stronger than the attractive.

"It is no good trying to run away from me," said the young man, laughing; "I can beat you racing any day."

The fog was closing about them, and they seemed alone in an empty world. The moon looked like a dimly luminous spot in the mist, but emerged now and then with a pallid, frightened face, as the wind tore rifts in the vapors. The world seemed more than ever a world of shadows, unsubstantial, like the phantasms of a dream. He and she the man and the woman, who loved each other-seemed to loom out of the fog as the only realities.

"Here is the Bateman cottage," said Charity, as an outline of denser obscurity became visible against the brighter mist which the moon pervaded.

"I fear they have all gone to bed," said Brooks; "there is not a light to be seen anywhere."

He walked about the house, knocking at doors and window-shutters, but received no response.

"The house is inhabited by the seven sleepers," he cried, as he rejoined Charity on the porch.

"I fear it is not inhabited at all,” replied the girl; the people must have left yesterday. There were lights in the windows, night before last."

"I suppose, then, we had better try the light-house."

"I'm afraid the tide is too high; we can't get across."

"What do you propose to do, then?" "Get back to town as fast as we can. The chances are that we shall hail some boat, as soon as the fog lifts; and then we can borrow matches."

They groped about in the twilight for a quarter of an hour, he keeping close in her track. The tide rose higher and higher, making the strip of sand upon which they walked narrower and narrower, and the surf roared along the outer reef with a deep and mighty voice. When they reached the point of land where they had put up the catboat, they began to halloo, but received no answer. Presently, they found the anchor and the rope attached to it. They stood long staring at it in speechless amazement.

"What does it mean?" exclaimed Brooks, at last; "is it a bad joke, or have they lost their senses?

[ocr errors]

"I think I see it," Charity replied; "the clergyman was afraid to have the sail up, and so, to let it down, he untied by mistake the anchor line, and they drifted off."

"They will be sure to capsize," cried Brooks; "they will be blown to sea or perish in the breakers."

"No; the tide is running in. It'll take them back to town; if they manage to get the sail down, nothing can happen to them."

She seated herself, without visible agitation, on the beach, and he flung himself down at her feet. They were silent for a long while, listening to the heavy cannonading of the surf, which broke with its hoarse thunder against the narrow strip of sand upon which they were sitting. There was a tremendous rhythm in it—a pause, filled with a dull

« AnkstesnisTęsti »