“John Cather,” says I, one day, “you’ve a wonderful tongue in your head.”
’Twas on the cliff of Tom Tulk’s Head. We had climbed the last slope hand in hand, with Judith between, and were now stretched out on the brink, resting in the cool blue wind from the sea.
“A nimble tongue, Dannie,” he replied, “I’ll admit.”
“A wonderful tongue!” I repeated. “John Cather,” I exclaimed, in envious admiration, “you’ve managed t’ tell Judy in ten thousand ways that she’s pretty.”
Judith blushed.
“I wisht,” says I, “that I was so clever as that.”
“I know still another way,” said he.
“Ay; an’ a hundred more!”
“Another,” said he, softly, turning to Judith, who would not look at him. “Shall I tell you, Judith?”
She shook her head.
“No?” said he. “Why not?”
The answer was in a whisper—given while the maid’s hot face was still turned away. “I’m not wantin’ you to,” she said.
“Do, maid!” I besought her.
“I’m not wantin’ him to.”
“’Tis your eyes, I’ll be bound!” said I. “’Twill be so clever that you’ll be glad to hear.”
“But I’m not wantin’ him to,” she persisted.
My tutor smiled indulgently—but with a pitiful little trace of hurt remaining. ’Twas as though he must suffer the rebuff with no offended question. In the maid ’twas surely a wilful and bewildering thing to deny him. I could not make it out: but wished, in the breeze and sunlight of that day, that the wound had not been dealt. ’Twas an unkind thing in Judith, thinks I; ’twas a thing most cruel—thus to coquette with the friendship of John Cather.
“Ah, Judy,” I pleaded, “leave un have his way!”
She picked at the moss.
“Will ye not, maid?”
“I’m afraid!” she whispered in my ear.
“An’ you’d stop for that!” I chided, not knowing what she meant: as how should a lad?
It seemed she would.
“’Tis an unkind thing,” says I, “t’ treat John Cather so. He’ve been good,” says I, “t’ you, Judy.”
“Dannie!” she wailed.
“Don’t, Dannie!” Cather entreated.
“I’d have ye listen, Judy,” said I, in earnest, kind reproach, “t’ what John Cather says. I’d have ye heed his words. I’d have ye care for him.” Being then a lad, unsophisticated in the wayward, mercilessly selfish passion of love, ignorant of the unmitigated savagery of the thing, I said more than that, in my folly. “I’d have ye love John Cather,” says I, “as ye love me.” ’Tis a curious thing to look back upon. That I should snarl the threads of our destinies! ’Tis an innocency hard to credit. But yet John Cather and I had no sensitive intuition to warn us. How should we—being men? ’Twas for Judith to perceive the inevitable catastrophe; ’twas for the maid, not misled by reason, schooled by feeling into the very perfection of wisdom, to control and direct the smouldering passion of John Cather and me in the way she would, according to the power God gives, in infinite understanding of the hearts of men, to a maid to wield. “I’d have ye love John Cather,” says I, “as ye love me.” It may be that a lad loves his friend more than any other. “I’d have ye t’ know, Judy,” says I, gently, “that John Cather’s my friend. I’d have ye t’ know—”
“Dannie,” Cather interrupted, putting an affectionate hand on my shoulder, “you don’t know what you’re saying.”
Judith turned.
“I do, John Cather,” says I. “I knows full well.”
Judith’s eyes, grown all at once wide and grave, looked with wonder into mine. I was made uneasy—and cocked my head, in bewilderment and alarm. ’Twas a glance that searched me deep. What was this? And why the warning? There was more than warning. ’Twas pain I found in Judith’s great, blue eyes. What had grieved her? ’Twas reproach, too—and a flash of doubt. I could not read the riddle of it. Indeed, my heart began to beat in sheer fright, for the reproach and doubt vanished, even as I stared, and I confronted a sparkling anger. But presently, as often happened with that maid, tears flushed her eyes, and the long-lashed lids fell, like a curtain, upon her grief: whereupon she turned away, troubled, to peer at the sea, breaking far below, and would not look at me again. We watched her, John Cather and I, for an anxious space, while she sat brooding disconsolate at the edge of the cliff, a sweep of cloudless sky beyond. The slender, sweetly childish figure—with the tawny hair, I recall, all aglow with sunlight—filled the little world of our thought and vision. There was a patch of moss and rock, the green and gray of our land—there was Judith—there was an infinitude of blue space. John Cather’s glance was frankly warm; ’twas a glance proceeding from clear, brave, guileless eyes—springing from a limpid soul within. It caressed the maid, in a fashion, thinks I, most brotherly. My heart warmed to the man; and I wondered that Judith should be unkind to him who was our friend.
’Twas a mystery.
“You will not listen, Judith?” he asked. “’Tis a very pretty thing I want to say.”
Judith shook her head.
A flash of amusement crossed his face. “Please do!” he coaxed.
“No!”
“I’m quite proud of it,” says he, with a laugh in his fine eyes. He leaned forward a little, and made as if to touch her, but withdrew his hand. “I did not know,” says he, “that I was so clever. I have it all ready. I have every word in place. I’d like to say it—for my own pleasure, if not for yours. I think it would be a pity to let the pretty words waste themselves unsaid. I—I—hope you’ll listen. I—I—really hope you will. And you will not?”
“No!” she cried, sharply. “No, no!”
“Why not?”
“No!” she repeated; and she slipped her hand into mine, and hid them both snugly in the folds of her gown, where John Cather could not see. “God wouldn’t like it, John Cather,” says she, her little teeth all bare, her eyes aflash with indignation, her long fingers so closely entwined with mine that I wondered. “He wouldn’t ’low it,” says she, “an He knowed.”
I looked at John Cather in vague alarm.
XVII
RUM AND RUIN
In these days at Twist Tickle, his perturbation passed, my uncle was most blithe: for the Shining Light was made all ready for sea, with but an anchor to slip, sails to raise, for flight from an army of St. John’s constables; and we were a pleasant company, well fallen in together, in a world of fall weather. And, says he, if the conduct of a damned little Chesterfieldian young gentleman was a labor t’ manage, actin’ accordin’ t’ that there fashionable ol’ lord of the realm, by advice o’ Sir Harry, whatever the lad in the case, whether good or bad, why, then, a maid o’ the place, ecod, was but a pastime t’ rear, an’ there, says he, you had it! ’Twas at night, when he was come in from the sea, and the catch was split, and we sat with him over his rum, that he beamed most widely. He would come cheerily stumping from his mean quarters above, clad in the best of his waterside slops, all ironed and brushed, his great face glossy from soap and water, his hair dripping; and he would fall into the arms of his great-chair by the fire with a genial grunt of satisfaction, turning presently to regard us, John Cather and Judy and me, with a grin so wide and sparkling and benevolently indulgent and affectionate—with an aspect so patriarchal—that our hearts would glow and our faces responsively shine.
“Up with un, Dannie!” says he.
I would lift the ailing bit of timber to the stool with gingerly caution.
“Easy, lad!” groans he. “Ouch! All shipshape,” says he. “Is you got the little brown jug o’ water?”
’Twould surely be there.
“Green pastures!” says he, so radiantly red, from his bristling gray stubble of hair to the folds of his chin, that I was reminded of a glowing coal. “There you haves it, Dannie!” cries he. “I knowed they was some truth in that there psa’m. Green pastu
res! ‘He maketh me t’ lie down in green pastures.’ Them ol’ bullies was wise as owls.… Pass the bottle, Judy. Thank ’e, maid. Ye’re a wonderful maid t’ blush, thank God! For they’s nothin’ so pretty as that. I’m a old, old man, Judy; but t’ this day, maid, ’tis fair painful t’ keep from kissin’ red cheeks, whenever I sees un. Judy,” says he, with a wag, his hand on the bottle, “I’d rather be tempted by mermaids or angels—I cares not which—than by a mortal maid’s red cheeks! ’Twould be wonderful easy,” says he, “t’ resist a angel.… Green pastures! Eh, Dannie, b’y? Times is changed, isn’t they? Not like it used t’ be, when you an’ me sot here alone t’ drink, an’ you was on’y a wee little lad. I wisht ye was a wee little lad again, Dannie; but Lord love us!” cries he, indignant with the paradox, “when ye was a wee little lad I wisht ye was growed. An’ there you haves it!” says he, dolefully. “There you haves it!… I ’low, Dannie,” says he, anxiously, his bottle halted in mid-air, “that you’d best pour it out. I’m a sight too happy, the night,” says he, “t’ be trusted with a bottle.”
’Tis like he would have gone sober to bed had I not been there to measure his allowance.
“Ye’re not so wonderful free with the liquor,” he pouted, “as ye used t’ be.”
’Twas Judy who had put me up to it.
“Ye might be a drop more free!” my uncle accused.
’Twas reproachful—and hurt me sore. That I should deny my uncle who had never denied me! I blamed the woman. ’Tis marvellous how this frailty persists. That Judith, Twist Tickle born, should deliberately introduce the antagonism—should cause my uncle to suffer, me to regret! ’Twas hard to forgive the maid her indiscretion. I was hurt: for, being a lad, not a maid of subtle perceptions, I would not have my uncle go lacking that which comforted his distress and melancholy. Faith! But I had myself been looking forward with a thirsty gullet to the day—drawn near, as I thought—when I should like a man drink hard liquor with him in the glow of our fire: as, indeed, had he, by frank confession, indiscreetly made when he was grown horrified or wroth with my intemperance with ginger-ale.
“God save ye, Dannie!” he would expostulate, most heartily, most piously; “but I wisht ye’d overcome the bilge-water habit.”
I would ignore him.
“’Tis on’y a matter o’ will,” says he. “’Tis nothin’ more than that. An’ I’m fair ashamed,” he groaned, in sincere emotion, “to think ye’re shackled, hand an’ foot, to a bottle o’ ginger-ale. For shame, lad—t’ come t’ such a pass.” He was honest in his expostulation; ’twas no laughing matter—’twas an anxiously grave concern for my welfare. He disapproved of the beverage—having never tasted it. “You,” cries he, with a pout and puff of scorn, “an’ your bilge-water! In irons with a bottle o’ ginger-ale! Could ye but see yourself, Dannie, ye’d quit quick enough. ’Tis a ridiculous picture ye make—you an’ your bottle. ’Twould not be hard t’ give it up, lad,” he would plead. “Ye’ll manage it, Dannie, an ye’d but put your mind to it. Ye’d be nervous, I’ve no doubt, for a spell. But what’s that? Eh, what’s that—ag’in your health?”
I would sip my ginger-ale unheeding.
“An’ what about Chesterfield?” says he.
“I’ll have another bottle, sir,” says I.
“Lord love us!” he would complain, in such distress that I wish I had not troubled him with this passion. “Ye’re fair bound t’ ruin your constitution with drink.”
Pop went the cork.
“An’ here’s me” says he, in disgusted chagrin, “tryin’ t’ make a gentleman out o’ ye!”
Ah, well! ’twas now a mean, poor lookout for the cosey conviviality I had all my life promised myself with my uncle. Since the years when late o’ nights I occupied the arms and broad knee of Cap’n Jack Large at the Anchor and Chain—with a steaming comfort within and a rainy wind blowing outside—my uncle and I had dwelt upon the time when I might drink hard liquor with him like a man. ’Twould be grand, says my uncle, to sit o’ cold nights, when I was got big, with a bottle o’ Long Tom between. A man grown—a man grown able for his bottle! For him, I fancy, ’twas a vision of successful achievement and the reward of it. Lord love us, says he, but the talk o’ them times would be lovely. The very thought of it, says he—the thought o’ Dannie Callaway grown big and manly and helpfully companionable—fair warmed him with delight. But now, at Twist Tickle, with the strong, sly hands of Judith upon our ways, with her grave eyes watching, now commending, now reproaching, ’twas a new future that confronted us. Ay, but that maid, dwelling responsibly with us men, touched us closely with control! ’Twas a sharp eye here, a sly eye there, a word, a twitch of her red lips, a lift of the brow and dark lashes—and a new ordering of our lives. ’Tis marvellous how she did it: but that she managed us into better habits, by the magic mysteriously natural to a maid, I have neither the wish nor the will to gainsay. I grieved that she should deprive my uncle of his comfort; but being a lad, devoted, I would not add one drop to my uncle’s glass, while Judith sat under the lamp, red-cheeked in the heat of the fire, her great eyes wishful to approve, her mind most captivatingly engaged, as I knew, with the will of God, which was her own, dear heart, though she did not know it.
“Dannie,” says she, in private, “God wouldn’t ’low un more’n a quarter of a inch at a time.”
“’Twas in the pantry while I got the bottle.”
“An’ how,” quoth I, “is you knowin’ that?”
“Why, child,” she answered, “God tol’ me so.”
I writhed. ’Twas a fancy so strange the maid had: but was yet so true and reverent and usefully efficient—so high in leading to her who led us with her into pure paths—that I must smile and adore her for it. ’Twas to no purpose, as I knew, to thresh over the improbability of the communication: Judith’s eyes were round and clear and unwavering—full of most exalted truth, concern, and confidence. There was no pretence anywhere to be descried in their depths: nor evil nor subterfuge of any sort. And it seems to me, now, grown as I am to sager years, that had the Guide whose hand she held upon the rough road of her life communed with His sweet companion, ’twould have been no word of reproach or direction he would whisper for her, who needed none, possessing all the wisdom of virtue, dear heart! But a warning in my uncle’s behalf, as she would have it, against the bottle he served. The maid’s whimsical fancy is not incomprehensible to me, neither tainted with irreverence nor untruth: ’twas a thing flowering in the eyrie garden of her days at Whisper Cove—a thing, as I cannot doubt, of highest inspiration.
“But,” I protested, glibly, looking away, most wishful, indeed, to save my uncle pain, “I isn’t able t’ measure a quarter of a inch.”
“I could,” says she.
“Not with the naked eye, maid!”
“Well,” says she, “you might try, jus’ t’ please God.”
To be sure I might: I might pour at a guess. But, unhappily (and it may be that there is some philosophy in this for a self-indulgent world), I was not in awe of Judith’s fantastic conception of divinity, whatever I thought of my own, by whom, however, I was not conjured. Moreover, I loved my uncle, who had continued to make me happy all my life, and would venture far in the service of his comfort. The twinkling, benevolent aspect of the maid’s Deity could not compel a lad to righteousness: I could with perfect complacency conduct myself perversely before it. And must we then, lads and men, worship a God of wrath, quick to punish, niggardly in fatherly forgiveness, lest we stray into evil ways? I do not know. ’Tis beyond me to guess the change to be worked in the world by a new conception of the eternal attributes.
“An’ will you not?” says she.
It chanced, now, that she held the lamp near her face, so that her beauty was illumined and transfigured. ’Twas a beauty most tender—most pure and elfin and religious. ’Tis a mean, poor justification, I know, to say that I was in some mysterious way—by the magic resident in the beauty of a maid, and virulently, wickedly active within
its sphere, which is the space the vision of a lad may carry—that I was by this magic incapacitated and overcome. ’Tis an excuse made by fallen lads since treason was writ of; ’tis a mere excuse, ennobling no traitorious act: since love, to be sure, has no precedence of loyalty in hearts of truth and manful aspiration. Love? surely it walks with glorious modesty in the train of honor—or is a brazen baggage. But, as it unhappily chanced, whatever the academic conception, the maid held the lamp too close for my salvation: so close that her blue, shadowy eyes bewildered me, and her lips, red and moist, with a gleam of white teeth between, I recall, tempted me quite beyond the endurance of self-respect. I slipped, indeed, most sadly in the path, and came a shamefaced, ridiculous cropper.
“An’ will you not,” says she, “pour but a quarter of a inch t’ the glass?”
“I will,” I swore, “for a kiss!”
’Twas an outrageous betrayal of my uncle.
“For shame!” cries she.
“I will for a kiss,” I repeated, my soul offered on a platter to the devil, “regardless o’ the consequences.”
She matched my long words with a great one caught from my tutor. “God isn’t inclined,” says she, with a toss, “in favor o’ kisses.”
And there you had it!
When we sat late, our maid-servant would indignantly whisk Judith off to bed—crying out upon us for our wickedness.
“Cather,” my uncle would drawl, Judith being gone, “ye’re all wore out along o’ too much study.”
“Not at all, Skipper Nicholas!” cries my tutor.
“Study,” says my uncle, in solemn commiseration, “is a bitter thing t’ be cotched by. Ye’re all wore out, parson, along o’ the day’s work.”
The Sea-Story Megapack Page 98
