The Sea-Story Megapack

by Jack Williamson

  My tutor laughed.

  “Too much study for the brain,” says my uncle, sympathetically, his eye on the bottle. “I ’low, parson, if I was you I’d turn in.”

  Cather was unfailingly obedient.

  “Dannie,” says my uncle, with reviving interest, “have he gone above?”

  “He have,” says I.

  “Take a look,” he whispered, “t’ see that Judy’s stowed away beyond hearin’.”

  I would step into the hall—where was no nightgowned figure listening on the stair—to reassure him.

  “Dannie,” says he, wickedly gleeful, “how’s the bottle?”

  I would hold it up to the lamp and rattle its contents. “’Tis still stout, sir,” says I. “’Tis a wonderful bottle.”

  “Stout!” cries he, delighted. “Very good.”

  “Still stout,” says I; “an’ the third night!”

  “Then,” says he, pushing his glass towards me, “I ’low they’s no real need o’ puttin’ me on short allowance. Be liberal, Dannie, b’y—be liberal when ye pours.”

  I would be liberal.

  “’Tis somehow sort o’ comfortable, lad,” says he, eying me with honest feeling, “t’ be sittin’ down here with a ol’ chum like you. ’Tis very good, indeed.”

  I was glad that he thought so.

  And now I must tell that I loved Judith. ’Tis enough to say so—to write the bare words down. I’m not wanting to, to be sure: for it shames a man to speak boldly of sacred things like this. It shames a lad, it shames a maid, to expose the heart of either, save sacredly to each other. ’Tis all well enough, and most delightful, when the path is moonlit and secluded, when the warmth and thrill of a slender hand may be felt, when the stars wink tender encouragement from the depths of God’s own firmament, when all the world is hushed to make the opportunity: ’tis then all well enough to speak of love. There is nothing, I know, to compare in ecstasy with the whisper and sigh and clinging touch of that time—to compare with the awe and mystery and solemnity of it. But ’tis sacrilegious and most desperately difficult and embarrassing, I find, at this distant day, to write of it. I had thought much upon love, at that wise age—fifteen, it was, I fancy—and it seemed to me, I recall, a thing to cherish within the heart of a man, to hide as a treasure, to dwell upon, alone, in moments of purest exaltation. ’Twas not a thing to bandy about where punts lay tossing in the lap of the sea; ’twas not a thing to tell the green, secretive old hills of Twin Islands; ’twas not a thing to which the doors of the workaday world might be opened, lest the ribaldry to which it come offend and wound it: ’twas a thing to conceal, far and deep, from the common gaze and comment, from the vulgar chances, the laugh and cynical exhaustion and bleared wit of the life we live. I loved Judith—her eyes and tawny hair and slender finger-tips, her whimsical way, her religious, loving soul. I loved her; and I would not have you think ’twas any failure of adoration to pour my uncle an honest dram of rum when she was stowed away in innocency of all the evil under the moon. ’Tis a thing that maids have nothing to do with, thinks I; ’tis a knowledge, indeed, that would defile them.…

  “Dannie,” says my uncle, once, when we were left alone, “he’ve begun t’ fall.”

  I was mystified.

  “The parson,” he explained, in a radiant whisper; “he’ve begun t’ yield.”

  “T’ what?” I demanded.

  “Temptation. He’ve a dark eye, lad, as I ’lowed long ago, an’ he’ve begun t’ give way t’ argument.”

  “God’s sake, Uncle Nick!” I cried, “leave the poor man be. He’ve done no harm.”

  He scratched his stubble of hair, and contemplatively traced a crimson scar with his forefinger. “No,” he mused, his puckered, weathered brow in a doubtful frown; “not so far. But,” he added, looking cheerily up, “I’ve hopes that I’ll manage un yet.”

  “Leave un alone,” I pleaded.

  “Ay,” says he, with a hitch of his wooden leg; “but I needs un.”

  I protested.

  “Ye don’t s’pose, Dannie,” he complained, in a righteous flash, “that I’m able t’ live forever, does ye?”

  I did not, but heartily wished he might; and by this sincere expression he was immediately mollified.

  “Well,” says he, his left eyelid drooping in a knowing way, his whole round person, from his topmost bristle to his gouty wooden toe, braced to receive the shock of my congratulation, “I’ve gone an’ worked that there black-an’-white young parson along! Sir Harry hisself,” he declared, “couldn’t have done it no better. Nor ol’ Skipper Chesterfield, neither,” says he.

  ’Twas a pity.

  “No,” he boasted, defiantly; “nor none o’ them wise ol’ bullies of old!”

  I sighed.

  “Dannie,” says he, with the air of imparting a grateful secret, “I got that there black-an’-white young parson corrupted. I got un,” he repeated, leaning forward, his fantastic countenance alight with pride and satisfaction—“I got un corrupted! I’ve got un t’ say,” says he, “that ’tis sometimes wise t’ do evil that good may come. An’ when a young feller says that,” says he, with a grave, grave nodding, so that his disfigurements were all most curiously elongated, “he’ve sold his poor, mean soul t’ the devil.”

  “I wisht,” I complained, “that you’d leave the poor man alone.”

  “Why, Dannie,” says my uncle, simply, “he’s paid for!”

  “Paid for!” cries I.

  “Ay, lad,” he chided; “t’ be sure, that there young black-an’-white parson is paid for.”

  I wondered how that might be.

  “Paid for!” my uncle repeated, in a quivering, indrawn breath, the man having fallen, all at once, into gloom and terror. “’Tis all paid for!”

  Here again was the disquieting puzzle of my childish years: my uncle, having now leaned forward to come close to me, was in a spasmodic way indicating the bowels of the earth with a turned thumb. Down, down: it seemed he pointed to infinite depths of space and woe. Down, down—continuing thus, with a slow, grevious wagging of the great, gray head the sea had in the brutal passion of some wild night maltreated. The familiar things of the room, the simple, companionable furniture of that known place, with the geometrically tempestuous ocean framed beyond, were resolved into a background of mysterious shadows as I stared; there was nothing left within the circle of my vision but a scared gargoyle, leaning into the red glow of the fire. My uncle’s round little eyes protruded—started from the bristles and purpling scars and brown flesh of his broad face—as many a time before I had in sad bewilderment watched them do. Paid for—all the pride and comfort and strange advantages of my life! All paid for in the black heart of this mystery! And John Cather, too! I wondered again, with an eye upon my uncle’s significantly active thumb, having no courage to meet his poignant glance, how that might be. According to my catechism, severely taught in other years, I must ask no questions, but must courteously await enlightenment at my uncle’s pleasure; and ’twas most marvellously hard—this night of all the nights—to keep my soul unspotted from the sin of inquisitiveness.

  “Paid for,” my uncle repeated, hoarse with awe, “by poor Tom Callaway!”

  ’Twas kind in my father, thinks I, to provide thus bounteously for my welfare.

  “Poor Tom!” my uncle sighed, now recovering his composure. “Poor, poor ol’ Tom—in the place he’s to!”

  “Still an’ all, Uncle Nick,” I blundered, “I wisht you’d leave my tutor be.”

  “Ye’re but a child!” he snapped. “Put the stopper in the bottle. ’Tis time you was in bed.”

  ’Twas an unexpected rebuke. I was made angry with him, for the only time in all my life; and to revenge myself I held the bottle to the lamp, and deliberately measured its contents, before his astonished eyes, so that, though I left it with him, he could not drink another drop without my knowing it; and I stoppered the bottle, as tight as I was able, and left him to get his wooden toe from the stool wit
h the least agony he could manage, and would not bank the fire or light his night-lamp. I loved my tutor, and would not have him corrupted; ’twas a hateful thought to conceive that he might come unwittingly to ruin at our hands. ’Twas a shame in my old uncle, thinks I, to fetch him to despair. John Cather’s soul bargained for and bought! ’Twas indeed a shame to say it. There was no evil in him when he came clear-eyed from the great world beyond us; there should be no evil in him when he left us, whenever that might be, to renew the life he would not tell us of. I looked my uncle in the eye in a way that hurt and puzzled him. I wish I had not; but I did, as I pounded the cork home, and boldly slipped the screw into my pocket. He would go on short allowance, that night, thinks I: for his nails, broken by toil, would never pick the stopper out. And I prepared, in a rage, to fling out of the room, when—

  “Dannie!” he called.

  I halted.

  “What’s this?” says he, gently. “It never happened afore, little shipmate, betwixt you an’ me. What’s this?” he begged. “I’m troubled.”

  I pulled the cork of his bottle, and poured a dram, most liberally, to delight his heart; and I must turn my face away, somehow, to hide it from him, because of shame for this mean doubt of him, ungenerous and ill-begotten.

  “I’m troubled,” he repeated. “What’s this, lad?”

  I could not answer him.

  “Is I been unkind, Dannie?”

  “No,” I sobbed. “’Tis that I’ve been wicked t’ you!”

  He looked at me with eyes grown very grave. “Ah!” says he, presently, comprehending. “That’s good,” says he, in his slow, gentle way. “That’s very good. But ye’ll fret no more, will ye, Dannie? An’ ye’ve growed too old t’ cry. Go t’ bed, lad. Ye’re all wore out. I’ll manage the lamp alone. God bless ye. Go t’ bed.”

  I waited.

  “That’s good,” he repeated, in a muse, staring deep into the red coals in the grate. “That’s very good.”

  I ran away—closed my door upon this wretched behavior, but could not shut its ghastly sauciness and treachery from the chambers of my memory. The habit of faith and affection was strong: I was no longer concerned for my friend John Cather, but was mightily ashamed of this failure in duty to the grotesque old hook-and-line man who had without reserve of sacrifice or strength nourished me to the lusty years of that night. As I lay in bed, I recall, downcast, self-accusing, flushed with shame, I watched the low clouds scud across the starlit sky, and I perceived, while the torn, wind-harried masses rushed restlessly on below the high, quiet firmament, that I had fallen far away from the serenity my uncle would teach me to preserve in every fortune.

  “I’ll not fail again!” thinks I. “Not I!”

  ’Twas an experience profitable or unprofitable, as you shall presently judge.

  XVIII

  A LEGACY OF LOVE

  Moses Shoos, I recall, carried the mail that winter. ’Twas a thankless task: a matter of thirty miles to Jimmie Tick’s Cove and thirty back again. Miles hard with peril and brutal effort—a way of sleet and slush, of toilsome paths, of a swirling mist of snow, of stinging, perverse winds or frosty calm, of lowering days and the haunted dark o’ night—to be accomplished, once a week, afoot and alone, by way of barren and wilderness and treacherous ice. ’Twas a thankless task, indeed; but ’twas a task to which the fool of Twist Tickle addressed himself with peculiar reverence.

  “Mother,” says he, “always ’lowed that a man ought t’ serve his Queen: an’ mother knowed. ‘Moses,’ says she, afore she died, ‘a good man haves just got t’ serve the Queen: for an good men don’t,’ says she, ‘the poor Lady is bound t’ come t’ grief along o’ rascals. Poor, poor Lady!’ says she. ‘She’ve a wonderful lot t’ put up with along o’ stupid folk an’ rascals. I’m not knowin’ how she bears it an’ lives. ’Tis a mean, poor dunderhead, with heart an’ brains in his gullet,’ says she, ‘that wouldn’t serve the Queen. God save the Queen!’ says mother. ‘What’s a man worth,’ says she, ‘that on’y serves hisself?’”

  Not much, thinks I!

  “An’ mother knowed,” says Moses, softly. “Ay, Dannie,” he declared, with a proud little grin, “I bet you mother knowed!”

  ’Twas this exalted ideal of public service, fashioned in the wisdom of the simple by the amazing mother who bore him, that led the fool, as by the hand, from a wilderness of snow and night and bewildered visions, wherein no aspiration of his own shaped itself, to the warm hearth of Twist Tickle and the sleep of a child by night.

  Once I watched him stagger, white and bent with weather and labor, from the ice of Ship’s Run, his bag on his back, to the smoking roofs of Twist Tickle, which winter had spread with a snowy blanket and tucked in with anxious hands. ’Twas a bitter day, cold, windy, aswirl with the dust of snow, blinding as a mist. I sat with Judith in the wide, deeply cushioned window-seat of my lib’ry, as my uncle called the comfortable, book-shelved room he had, by advice o’ Sir Harry, provided for my youth. John Cather was not about; and I caressed, I recall, the long, slender fingers of her hand, which unfailingly and without hesitation gave themselves to my touch. She would never deny me that, this maid; ’twas only kisses she would hold me from. She would snuggle close and warmly, when John Cather was not about, but would call her God to witness that kisses were prohibited where happiness would continue.

  “’Tis not ’lowed, child,” says she.

  Her cheek was so close, so round and soft and delicately tinted, that I touched my lips to it, quite unable to resist.

  “I don’t mind that,” says she.

  ’Twas vastly encouraging.

  “’Twas so brotherly,” she added.

  “Judy,” I implored, “I’m in need of another o’ that same kind.”

  “No, no!” she cried. “You’d never find the spot!”

  ’Twas with the maid, then, I sat in the window-seat of my warm room, content with the finger-tips I might touch and kiss as I would, lifted into a mood most holy and aspiring by the weight of her small head upon my shoulder, the bewildering light and mystery of her great, blue eyes, the touch and sweet excitement of her tawny hair, which brushed my cheek, as she well knew, this perverse maid! John Cather was not about, and the maid was yielding, as always in his absence; and I was very happy. ’Twas Moses we observed, all this time, doggedly staggering, upon patriotic duty, from the white, swirling weather of that unkind day, in the Queen’s service, his bag on his back.

  “He’ve his mother t’ guide un,” says she.

  “An’ his father?”

  “’Tis said that he was lost,” she answered, “in the Year o’ the Big Shore Catch; but I’m knowin’ nothin’ about that.”

  I remembered the secret Elizabeth would impart to my uncle Nicholas.

  “My father,” says Judith, in challenge, “was a very good man.”

  I was not disposed to deny it.

  “A very good man,” she repeated, eying me sharply for any sign of incredulity.

  ’Twas her fancy: I might indulge it.

  “I ’low, Dannie,” says she, “that he was a wonderful handsome man, though I never seed un. God’s sake!” cries she, defiantly, “he’d be hard t’ beat for looks in this here harbor.” She was positive; there was no uncertainty—’twas as though she had known him as fathers are known. And ’twas by no wish of mine, now, that our hands came close together, that her eyes were bent without reserve upon my own, that she snuggled up to my great, boyish body: ’twas wholly a wish of the maid. “’Twas blue eyes he had,” says she, “an’ yellow hair an’ big shoulders. He was a parson, Dannie,” she proceeded. “I ’low he must have been. He—he—was!” she declared; “he was a great, big parson with blue eyes.” I would not be a parson, thinks I, whatever the maid might wish. “An’ he ’lowed,” she continued, pursuing her wilful fancy, “that he’d come back, some day, an’ love my mother as she knowed he could.” We watched Moses Shoos come across the harbor ice and break open the door of the postmaster’s cottage
. “But he was wrecked an’ drowned,” says Judith, “an’ ’twas an end of my mother’s hope. ’Twas on’y that,” says she, “that she would tell Skipper Nicholas on the night she died. ’Twas just the wish that he would bring me up, as he’ve fetched up you, Dannie,” she added: “jus’ that—an’ the name o’ my father. I’m not sorry,” says she, with her head on my shoulder, “that she never told the name.”

  Elizabeth carried her secret into the greater mystery to which she passed; ’twas never known to us, nor to any one.…

  “Moses,” says I, in delight, when the news got abroad, “I hears you got the contract for the mail?”

  “I is,” says he.

  “An’ how in the name o’ Heaven,” I demanded, “did you manage so great a thing?”

  There had been competition, I knew: there had been consideration and consultation—there had been the philosophy of the aged concerning the carrying of mail in past years, the saucy anarchy of the young with regard to the gruelling service, the chatter of wishful women upon the spending value of the return, the speculatively saccharine brooding of children—there had been much sage prophecy and infinitely knowing advice—there had been misleading and secrecy and sly devising—there had been envy, bickering, disruption of friendship—there had been a lavish waste and disregard of character—there had been all this, as I knew, and more pitiable still, in competition for the weekly four dollars of government money. ’Twas a most marvellous achievement, thinks I, that the fool of Twist Tickle had from this still weather of reason and tempest of feeling emerged with the laurel of wisdom (as my tutor said) to crown him. ’Twas fair hard to credit! I must know the device—the clever political trick—by which the wags and wiseacres of Twist Tickle had been discomfited. ’Twas with this hungry curiosity that I demanded of the fool of Twist Tickle how he had managed so great a thing.

  “Eh, Moses,” says I; “how was it?”

  “Dannie,” he gravely explained, “’tis very simple. My bid,” says he, impressively, “was the lowest.”