"You been thinkin" o" London," I ventured, hoping, if might be, for a moment longer to distract him.
"But not with longing," he answered, quickly. "I left no one to wish me back. Not one heart to want me--not one to wait for me! And I do not wish myself back. I was a dissipated fellow there, and when I turned my back on that old life, when I set out to find a place where I might atone for those old sins, "twas without regret, and "twas for good and all. This," he said, rising, "is my land. This," he repeated, glancing north and south over the dripping coast, the while stretching wide his arms, "is now my land! I love it for the opportunity it gave me. I love it for the new man it has made me. I have forgotten the city. I love _this_ life! And I love you, Davy," he cried, clapping his arm around me, "and I love----"
He stopped.
"I knows, zur," said I, in an awed whisper, "whom you love."
"Bessie," said he.
"Ay, Bessie."
There was now no turning away. My recent fears had been realized. I must tell him what was in my heart.
"Mary Tot says, zur," I gasped, "that love leads t" h.e.l.l."
He started from me.
"I would not have my sister," I continued, "go t" h.e.l.l. For, zur," said I, "she"d be wonderful lonesome there."
"To h.e.l.l?" he asked, hoa.r.s.ely.
"Oh, ay!" I groaned. "T" the flames o" h.e.l.l!"
""Tis not true!" he burst out, with a radiant smile. "I know it!
Love--my love for her--has led me nearer heaven than ever I hoped to be!"
I troubled no more. Here was a holy pa.s.sion. Child that I was--ignorant of love and knowing little enough of evil--I still perceived that this love was surely of the good G.o.d Himself. I feared no more for my dear sister. She would be safe with him.
"You may love my sister," said I, "an you want to. You may have her."
He frowned in a troubled way.
"Ay," I repeated, convinced, "you may have my dear sister. I"m not afraid."
"Davy," he said, now so grave that my heart jumped, "you give her to the man I am."
"I"m not carin"," I replied, "what you was."
"You do not know."
Apprehension grappled with me. "I"m not wantin" t" know," I protested.
"Come, zur," I pleaded, "leave us go home."
"Once, Davy," he said, "I told you that I had been wicked."
"You"re not wicked now."
"I was."
"I"m not carin" what you was. Oh, zur," I cried, tugging at his hand, "leave us go home!"
"And," said he, "a moment ago I told you that I had been a dissipated fellow. Do you know what that means?"
"I"m not _wantin_" t" know!"
"You must know."
I saw the peril of it all. "Oh, tell me not!" I begged. "Leave us go home!"
"But I _must_ tell you, Davy," said he, beginning, now in an agony of distress, to pace the hilltop. "It is not a matter of to-day. You are only a lad, now; but you will grow up--and learn--and know. Oh, G.o.d," he whispered, looking up to the frowning sky, laying, the while, his hand upon my head, "if only we could continue like this child! If only we _need_ not know! I want you, Davy," he continued, once more addressing me, "when you grow up, to know, to recall, whatever happens, that I was fair, fair to you and fair to her, whom you love. You are not like other lads. It is your _place_, I think, in this little community, that makes you different. _You_ can understand. I _must_ tell you."
"I"m scared t" know," I gasped. "Take my sister, zur, an" say no more."
"Scared to know? And I to tell. But for your sister"s sake--for the sake of her happiness--I"ll tell you, Davy--let me put my arm around you--ay, I"ll tell you, lad, G.o.d help me! what it means to be a dissipated fellow. O Christ," he sighed, "I pay for all I did! Merciful G.o.d, at this moment I pay the utmost price! Davy, lad," drawing me closer, "you will not judge me harshly?"
"I"ll hearken," I answered, hardening.
Then, frankly, he told me as much, I fancy, as a man may tell a lad of such things....
In horror--in shame--ay, in shame so deep I flushed and dared not look at him--I flung off his arms. And I sprang away--desperately fingering my collar: for it seemed I must choke, so was my throat filled with indignation. "You wicked man!" I cried. "You kissed my sister.
You--_you_--kissed my sister!"
"Davy!"
"You wicked, wicked man!"
"Don"t, Davy!"
"Go "way!" I screamed.
Rather, he came towards me, opening his arms, beseeching me. But I was hot-headed and willful, being only a lad, without knowledge of sin gained by sinning, and, therefore, having no compa.s.sion; and, still, I fell away from him, but he followed, continuing to beseech me, until, at last, I struck him on the breast: whereupon, he winced, and turned away.
Then, in a flash--in the still, illuminating instant that follows a blow struck in blind rage--I was appalled by what I had done; and I stood stiff, my hands yet clinched, a storm of sobs on the point of breaking: hating him and myself and all the world, because of the wrong he had done us, and the wrong I had done him, and the wrong that life had worked us all.
I took to my heels.
"Davy!" he called.
The more he cried after me, the more beseechingly his voice rang in my ears, the more my heart urged me to return--the harder I ran.
I wish I had not struck him ... I wish, I say, I had not struck him ...
I wish that when he came towards me, with his arms wide open, his grave, gray eyes pleading--wretched soul that he was--I wish that then I had let him enfold me. What poor cleverness, what a poor sacrifice, it would have been! "Twas I--strange it may have been--but still "twas I, Davy Roth, a child, Labrador born and bred, to whom he stretched out his hand. I should have blessed G.o.d that to this remote place a needful man had come. "Twas my great moment of opportunity. I might--I might--have helped him. How rare the chance! And to a child! I might have taken his hand. I might have led him immediately into placid waters. But I was I--unfeeling, like all lads: blind, too, reprehensible, deserving of blame. In all my life--and, as it happens (of no merit of my own, but of his), it has thus far been spent seeking to give help and comfort to such as need it--never, never, in the diligent course of it, has an opportunity so momentous occurred. I wish--oh, I wish--he might once again need me! To lads--and to men--and to frivolous maids--and to beggars and babies and cripples and evil persons--and to all sorts and conditions of human kind! Who knows to whom the stricken soul--downcast whether of sin or sorrow--may appeal? Herein is justification--the very key to heaven, with which one may unlock the door and enter, claiming bliss by right, defiant of G.o.d Himself, if need were: "I have sinned, in common with all men, O G.o.d, but I have sought to help such as were in sorrow, whether of sin or the misfortunes incident to life in the pit below, which is the world. You dare not cast me out!" Oh, men and women, lads and maids, I speak because of the wretchedness of my dear folk, out of their sorrow, which is common to us all, but here, in this barren place, is unrelieved, not hidden. Take the hand stretched out! And watch: lest in the great confusion this hand appear--and disappear. If there be sin, here it is: that the hand wavered, beseeching, within reach of such as were on solid ground, and was not grasped.