The brothers of the House of Sh.o.r.e had been, on the whole, slow to take to themselves wives. Matt had never married, nor Noah, nor Mark. John had a wife for the weeks he was at home before his last cruise; but he did not take her with him on that voyage, and there was no John Sh.o.r.e to carry on the name.
John Sh.o.r.e"s widow was called Rachel. She had been Rachel Holt; and her sister"s name was Priscilla. Rachel was one of those women who suggest slumbering fires; she was slow of speech, and quiet, and calm.... But John Sh.o.r.e and Mark had both loved her; and when she married John, Mark laughed a hard and reckless laugh that made the woman afraid. John and Mark never spoke, one to another, after that marriage.
Rachel"s sister, Priscilla, was a gay and careless child. She was six years younger than Joel, and she had acquired in babyhood the habit of thinking Joel the most wonderful created thing. Their yards adjoined; and she was the baby of her family, and he of his. Thus the big boy and the little girl had always been comrades and allies against the world. Before Joel first went to sea, as ship"s boy, the two had decided they would some day be married....
Joel went to supper that night at Priscilla"s home. He was alone in his own house; and Mrs. Holt was a person with a mother"s heart. Rachel lived at home. She gave Joel quiet welcome at the door, before Priscilla in the kitchen heard his voice and came flying to overwhelm him. She had been making popovers, and there was flour on her fingers--and on Joel"s best black coat, when she was done with him. Rachel brushed it off, when Priss had run back to her oven.
They sat down at table. Mrs. Holt at one end, her husband--he was a big man, an old sea captain, and full of yarns as a knitting bag--at the other; and Rachel at one side, facing Priss and Joel. Joel"s ship had come in only that day; the _Nathan Ross_ had been in port for weeks. So the whole town knew Mark Sh.o.r.e"s story. They spoke of it now, and Joel told them what he knew.... Rachel wondered if there was any chance that Mark might still be alive. Her father broke in with a story of Mark"s first cruise, when the boy had saved a man"s life by his quickness with the hatchet on the racing line. The town was full of such stories; for Mark was one of those men about whom legends arise. And now he was gone....
Priscilla listened to the talk with the wide eyes of youth, awed by the mystery and majesty of tragic things. She remembered Mark as a huge man, like a pagan G.o.d, in whose eyes she had been only a thin-legged little girl who made faces through the fence.... After supper, when the others had left them in the parlor together, she said to Joel: "Do you think he"s dead?" Her voice was a whisper.
"I aim to know," said Joel.
Rachel looked in at the door. "You needn"t bother with the dishes, Priss," she said. "I"ll do them."
Priscilla had forgotten all about that task. She ran contritely toward her sister. "Oh, I"m sorry, Rachel. I will, I will do them. Joel and I...."
Rachel laughed softly. "I don"t mind them. You two stay here."
Priscilla accepted the offer, in the end; but she had no notion of staying in the tight-windowed parlor, with its harsh carpet on the floor, and its samplers on the walls. She was of the new generation, the generation which discovered that the night is beautiful, and not unhealthy. "Let"s go outside," she said to Joel. "There"s a moon. We can sit on the bench, under the apple tree...."
They went out, side by side. Joel was not a tall man, but he was inches taller than Priscilla. She was tiny; a dainty, sweetly proportioned creature, built on fine lines that were strangely out of keeping with the stalwart stock from which she sprung. Her hair was darker than Joel"s; it was a brown so dark that it was almost black. But her eyes were vividly blue, and her lips were vividly red, and her cheeks were bright.... She slipped her hand through Joel"s big arm as they crossed the yard; and when they had found the seat, she drew his arm frankly about her shoulders. "I"m cold," she said, laughing up at him. "You must keep me warm...."
The moon flecked down through the leaves upon her face. There was moonlight on her cheek, and on her mouth; but her thick hair and her eyes were shadowed and mysterious. Joel saw that her lips were smiling.... She drew his head down toward hers.... Joel was flesh and blood; and she panted, and gasped, and pushed him away, and smoothed her hair, and laughed at him. "I love you to be so strong," she whispered, happily.
He had not told them, at supper, of his promotion. He told Priscilla now; and the girl could not sit still beside him. She danced in the path before the seat; she perched on his knee, and caught his big shoulders in her tiny hands and tried to shake him back and forth in her delight. "You don"t act a bit excited," she scolded. "You don"t act as though you were glad, a bit. Aren"t you glad, Joe? Aren"t you just so proud?..."
"Yes," he told her. "Of course. Yes. Yes, I am glad, and I am proud."
"Oh," she cried, "I could--I could just hug you in two." She tried it, tightening her arms about his big neck, clinging to him.... He sat stiff and awkward under her caresses, thrilling with a happiness that he did not know how to express. He felt uneasy, half embarra.s.sed. Her ecstasy continued....
Then, abruptly, it pa.s.sed. She became practical. Still upon his knee, she began to ask questions. When would he sail away? She had heard the _Nathan Ross_ was almost ready. When would he come back? When would he be rich, so that they might be married? Would it be long?...
Joel found tongue. "We will be married Monday," he said slowly. "We will go away--on the _Nathan Ross_--together. I do not want to go alone."
She slipped from his knee, stood before him. "Why, Joel! You"re--you"re just crazy to think of it."
He shook his head. "No," he said. "No, I have thought all about it. It is the best thing to do. We will be married Monday; and we will make a bigger cabin on the--_Nathan Ross_...." His voice always slowed a little as he spoke the name of his first ship. "You will be happy on her," he said. "You will like it all.... The sea...."
She returned to his knee, tumbling his hair. "You silly! Men don"t understand. Why, I couldn"t be ready for ever so long. And I wouldn"t dare go away with you. For so awfully long. I just couldn"t...." Her eyes misted with thought, and she said quite seriously: "Why, Joel, we might find we didn"t like each other at all. But we"d be on the ship, with no way to get away from it ... for three years. Don"t you see?"
Joel said calmly: "That is not so; because we know about--liking each other, already. I know how it is with you. It is clothes that you are thinking about. Well, you can get them in the stores. And you have many, already. You have new dresses whenever I see you...."
She laughed gayly. "But, Joel, you only see me once in three years. Of course I have new dresses, then. But I just couldn"t...."
She laughed again, a faint uneasiness in her laughter. She left his knee, and sat down soberly beside him. She was feeling a little crushed, smothered ... as though she were being pushed back against a wall. Joel said steadily:
"Mr. Worthen will be glad to know you go with me. And every one will be glad for you...."
She burst, abruptly, into tears. She was miserable, she told him. He was making her miserable. She hated to be bullied, and he was trying to bully her. She hated him. She wouldn"t marry him. Never. He could go off on his old ship and never come back. That was all. She would not go; and he ought not to ask her to, anyway. To prove how much she hated him, she nestled against his side, and his arm enfolded her.
Joel had not the outward seeming of a wise man; nevertheless he now said:
"The other girls will all be envying you. To be married so quickly, and carried away the very next day...." Her sobs miraculously ceased, and he smiled quietly down upon her dark head against his breast. "Every one will do things for you.... The whole town.... They will come down to see us sail away."
He fell silent, leaving his words for her consideration. She remained very quiet against his side for a long time, breathing very softly. He thought he could almost read her thoughts....
"It will be," he said, "like a story. Like a romance." And the word sounded strangely on his sober lips.
But at the word, the girl sat up quickly, both hands gripping his arm. He could see her eyes dancing in the moonlight.... "Oh, Joe," she cried, "it would really be just loads of fun. And terribly romantic.... Wonderful!"
She pressed a hand to her cheek, thinking: "And I could...."
She could, she said, do thus and so....
Joel listened, and he smiled. For he knew that his bride would sail away with him.
IV
In the few days that remained before the _Nathan Ross_ was to sail, there was no time for remodeling her cabin to accommodate Priscilla; so that was left for the first weeks of the cruise. There were matters enough, without it, to occupy those last days. Little Priss was caught up like a leaf in the wind; she was whirled this way and that in a pleasant and heart-stirring confusion. And through it all, her laughter rang in the air like the sound of bells. To Joel, Sunday night, she said: "Oh, Joe ... it"s been an awful rush. But it"s been such fun.... And I never was so happy in my life."
And Joel smiled, and said quietly: "Yes--with happier times to come."
She looked up at him wistfully. "You"ll be good to me, won"t you, Joel?"
He patted her shoulder.
They were married in the big old white church, and every pew was filled.
Afterwards they all went down to the piers, where Asa Worthen had spread long tables and loaded them so that they groaned. Alongside lay the _Nathan Ross_, her decks littered with the last confusion of preparation.
Joel showed Priscilla the lumber for the cabin alterations, ranked along the rail beneath the boathouse; and she gripped his arm tight with both hands. Afterwards, he took Priscilla up the hill to the great House of Sh.o.r.e. Rachel had prepared their wedding supper there....
At a quarter before ten o"clock the next morning, the _Nathan Ross_ went out with the tide. When she had cleared the dock and was fairly in the stream, Joel gave her in charge of Jim Finch; and he and Priscilla stood in the after house, astern, and looked back at the throng upon the pier until the individual figures merged into a black ma.s.s, pepper-and-salted with color where the women stood. They could see the handkerchiefs flickering, until a turn of the channel swept them out of sight of the town, and they drifted on through the widening mouth of the bay, toward the open sea. At dusk that night, there was still land in sight behind them and on either side; but when Priscilla came on deck in the morning, there was nothing but blue water and laughing waves. And so she was homesick, all that day, and laughed not at all till the evening, when the moon bathed the ship in silver fire, and the white-caps danced all about them.
The _Nathan Ross_ was in no sense a lovely ship. There was about her none of the poetry of the seas. She was designed strictly for utility, and for hard and dirty toil. Blunt she was of bow and stern, and her widest point was just abeam the foremast, so that she had great shoulders that buffeted the sea. These shoulders bent inward toward the prow and met in what was practically a right angle; and her stern was cut almost straight across, with only enough overhang to give the rudder room. Furthermore, her masts had no rake. They stood up stiff and straight as sore thumbs; and the bowsprit, instead of being something near horizontal, rose toward the skies at an angle close to forty-five degrees. This bowsprit made the _Nathan Ross_ look as though she had just stubbed her toe. She carried four boats at the davits; and two spare craft, bottom up, on the boathouse just forward of the mizzenmast. Three of the four at the davits were on the starboard side, and since they were each thirty feet long, while the ship herself was scarce a hundred and twenty, they gave her a sadly cluttered and overloaded appearance. For the rest, she was painted black, with a white checkerboarding around the rail; and her sails were smeared and s.m.u.tty with smoke from burning blubber sc.r.a.ps.
Nevertheless, she was a comfortable ship, and a dry one. She rode waves that would have swept a vessel cut on prouder lines; and she was moderately steady. She was not fast, nor cared to be. An easy five or six knots contented her; for the whole ocean was her hunting ground, and though there were certain more favored areas, you might meet whales anywhere. Give her time, and she would poke that blunt nose of hers right "round the world, and come back with a net profit anywhere up to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in her sweating casks.
Priscilla Holt knew all these things, and she respected the _Nathan Ross_ on their account. But during the first weeks of the cruise, she was too much interested in the work on the cabin to consider other matters. Old Aaron Burnham, the carpenter, did the work. He was a wiry little man, gray and grizzled; and he loved the tools of his craft with a jealous love that forbade the laying on of impious hands. Through the long, calm days, when the ship snored like a sleep-walker through the empty seas, Priscilla would sit on box or bench or floor, and watch Aaron at his task, and ask him questions, and listen to the old man"s long stories of things that had come and gone.
Sometimes she tried to help him; but he would not let her handle an edged tool. "Ye"ll no have the eye for it," he would say. "Leave it be." Now and then he let her try to drive a nail; but as often as not she missed the nail head and marred the soft wood, until Aaron lost patience with her. "Mark you," he cried, "men will see the scar there, and they"ll be thinking I did this task with my foot, Ma"am."
And Priscilla would laugh at him, and curl up with her feet tucked under her skirts and her chin in her hands, and watch him by the long hour on hour.
The task dragged on; it seemed to her endless. For Aaron had other work that must be done, and he could give only his spare time to this. Also, he was a slow worker, accustomed to take his own time; and when Priscilla grew impatient and scolded him, the old man merely sat back on his knees, and scratched his head, and tapped thoughtfully with his hammer on the floor beside him.
"We-ell, Ma"am," he said, "I do things so, and I do things so; and it takes time, that does, Ma"am."