Wouldn"t it make anyone melancholy? No wonder he"s mysterious. I"m going to get his spygla.s.s. He told me I might always use it."
She pushed open the door and entered, followed by Ethel. The interior was rough but clean. It was a small room, lighted by one tiny window looking out on the water. In one corner a rough ladder led up to the loft above. The bare lathed walls were hung with fishing jackets, nets, mackerel lines and other sh.o.r.e appurtenances. A little stove bore a kettle and a frying pan. A low board table was strewn with dishes and the cold remnants of a hasty repast; benches were placed along the walls. A fat, bewhiskered kitten, looking as if it were cut out of black velvet, was dozing on the window sill.
"This is Young Si"s cat," explained Agnes, patting the creature, which purred joyously and opened its sleepy green eyes. "It"s the only thing he cares for, I believe. Witch! Witch! How are you, Witch? Well, here"s the spygla.s.s. Let"s go out and have a look. Si"s catching mackerel," announced Agnes a few minutes later, after she had scrutinized each boat in turn, "and he won"t be in for an hour yet. If you like, we have time for a walk up the sh.o.r.e."
The sun slipped lower and lower in the creamy sky, leaving a trail of sparkles that ran across the water and lost itself in the west. Sea gulls soared and dipped, and tiny "sand peeps" flitted along the beach. Just as the red rim of the sun dipped in the purpling sea, the boats began to come in.
"Most of them will go around to the Point," explained Agnes, with a contemptuous sweep of her hand towards a long headland running out before them. "They belong there and they"re a rough crowd. You don"t catch Young Si a.s.sociating with the Pointers. There, he"s getting up sail. We"ll just have time to get back before he comes in."
They hurried back across the dampening sand as the sun disappeared, leaving a fiery spot behind him. The sh.o.r.e was no longer quiet and deserted. The little spot where the fishing house stood had suddenly started into life. Roughly clad boys were running hither and thither, carrying fish or water. The boats were hauled up on the skids. A couple of s.h.a.ggy old tars, who had strolled over from the Point to hear about Young Si"s catch, were smoking their pipes at the corner of his shanty. A mellow afterlight was shining over sea and sh.o.r.e. The whole scene delighted Ethel"s artist eyes.
Agnes nudged her companion.
"There! If you want to see Young Si," she whispered, pointing to the skids, where a busy figure was discernible in a large boat, "that"s him, with his back to us, in the cream-coloured boat. He"s counting out mackerel. If you go over to that platform behind him, you"ll get a good look when he turns around. I"m going to coax a mackerel out of that stingy old Snuffy, if I can."
She tripped off, and Ethel walked slowly over to the boats. The men stared at her in open-mouthed admiration as she pa.s.sed them and walked out on the platform behind Young Si. There was no one near the two.
The others were all a.s.sembled around Snuffy"s boat. Young Si was throwing out the mackerel with marvellous rapidity, but at the sound of a footstep behind him he turned and straightened up his tall form.
They stood face to face.
"Miles!"
"Ethel!"
Young Si staggered back against the mast, letting two silvery bloaters slip through his hands overboard. His handsome, sunburned face was very white.
Ethel Lennox turned abruptly and silently and walked swiftly across the sand. Agnes felt her arm touched, and turned to see Ethel standing, pale and erect, beside her.
"Let us go home," said the latter unsteadily. "It is very damp here--I feel chilled."
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Agnes penitently. "I ought to have told you to bring a shawl. It is always damp on the sh.o.r.e after sunset. Here, Snuffy, give me my mackerel. Thank you. I"m ready now, Miss Lennox."
They reached the lane before Agnes remembered to ask the question Ethel dreaded.
"Oh, did you see Young Si? And what do you think of him?"
Ethel turned her face away and answered with studied carelessness. "He seems to be quite a superior fisherman so far as I could see in the dim light. It was very dusky there, you know. Let us walk a little faster. My shoes are quite wet."
When they reached home, Miss Lennox excused herself on the plea of weariness and went straight to her room.
Back at the sh.o.r.e Young Si had recovered himself and stooped again to his work. His face was set and expressionless. A dull red burned in each bronzed cheek. He threw out the mackerel mechanically, but his hands trembled.
Snuffy strolled over to the boat. "See that handsome girl, Si?" he asked lazily. "One of the Bentleys" boarders, I hear. Looks as if she might have stepped out of a picture frame, don"t she?"
"We"ve no time to waste, Curtis," said Young Si harshly, "with all these fish to clean before bedtime. Stop talking and get to work."
Snuffy shrugged his shoulders and obeyed in silence. Young Si was not a person to be trifled with. The catch was large and it was late before they finished. Snuffy surveyed the full barrels complacently.
"Good day"s work," he muttered, "but hard--I"m dead beat out. "Low I"ll go to bed. In the name o" goodness, Si, whar be you a-goin" to?"
Young Si had got into a dory and untied it. He made no answer, but rowed out from the sh.o.r.e. Snuffy stared at the dory blankly until it was lost in the gloom.
"Ef that don"t beat all!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "I wonder if Si is in his right senses? He"s been actin" quar right along, and now to start off, Lord knows whar, at this hour o" night! I really don"t believe it"s safe to stay here alone with him."
Snuffy shook his unkempt head dubiously.
Young Si rowed steadily out over the dark waves. An eastern breeze was bringing in a damp sea fog that blurred darkly over the outlines of horizon and sh.o.r.e. The young fisherman found himself alone in a world of water and grey mist. He stopped rowing and leaned forward on his oars.
"To see her here, of all places!" he muttered. "Not a word, scarcely a look, after all this long heartbreak! Well, perhaps it is better so.
And yet to know she is so near! How beautiful she is! And I love her more than ever. That is where the sting lies. I thought that in this rough life, amid all these rude a.s.sociations, where nothing could remind me of her, I might forget. And now--"
He clenched his hands. The mist was all around and about him, creeping, impalpable, phantom-like. The dory rocked gently on the swell. From afar came the low persistent murmur of the ocean.
The next day Ethel Lennox declined to visit Si"s sh.o.r.e. Instead she went to the Point and sketched all day. She went again the next day and the next. The Point was the most picturesque part of the sh.o.r.e, she averred, and the "types" among its inhabitants most interesting.
Agnes Bentley ceased to suggest another visit to Si"s sh.o.r.e. She had a vague perception that her companion did not care to discuss the subject.
At the end of a week Mrs. Bentley remarked: "What in the world can have happened to Young Si? It"s a whole week since he was here for milk or b.u.t.ter. He ain"t sick, is he?"
Mr. Bentley chuckled amusedly.
"I "low I can tell you the reason of that. Si"s getting his stuff at Walden"s now. I saw him going there twice this week. "Liza Walden"s got ahead of you at last, Mary."
"Well, I never did!" said Mrs. Bentley. "Well, Young Si is the first that ever preferred "Liza Walden"s b.u.t.ter to mine. Everyone knows what hers is like. She never works her salt half in. Well, Young Si"s welcome to it, I"m sure; I wish him joy of his exchange."
Mrs. Bentley rattled her dishes ominously. It was plain her faith in Young Si had received a severe shock.
Upstairs in her room, Ethel Lennox, with a few undried tears glistening on her cheeks, was writing a letter. Her lips were compressed and her hand trembled:
"I have discovered that it is no use to run away from fate," she wrote. "No matter how hard we try to elude it, and how sure we are that we have succeeded, it will rise and meet us where we least expect it. I came down here tired and worn out, looking for peace and rest--and lo! the most disquieting element of my life is here to confront me.
"I"m going to confess, Helen. "Open confession is good for the soul,"
you know, and I shall treat myself to a good dose while the mood is on.
"You know, of course, that I was once engaged to Miles Lesley. You also know that that engagement was broken last autumn for unexplained reasons. Well, I will tell you all about it and then mail this letter speedily, before I change my mind.
"It is over a year now since Miles and I first became engaged. As you are aware, his family is wealthy, and noted for its exclusiveness. I was a poor school teacher, and you may imagine with what horror his relatives received the news of Miles"s attentions to one whom they considered his inferior. Now that I have thought the whole matter over calmly, I scarcely blame them. It must be hard for aristocratic parents who have lavished every care upon a son, and cherished for him the highest hopes, when he turns from the women of his own order to one considered beneath him in station. But I did not view the subject in this light then; and instead of declining his attentions, as I perhaps should have done, I encouraged them--I loved him so dearly, Nell!--and in spite of family opposition, Miles soon openly declared his attachment.
"When his parents found they could not change his purpose, their affection for him forced them into outward acquiescence, but their reluctant condescension was gall and wormwood to me. I saw things only from my own point of view, and was keenly sensitive to their politely concealed disapprobation, and my offended vanity found its victim in Miles. I belonged to the cla.s.s who admit and resent slights, instead of ignoring them, as do the higher bred, and I thought he would not see those offered to me. I grew cold and formal to him. He was very patient, but his ways were not mine, and my manner puzzled and annoyed him. Our relations soon became strained, and the trifle necessary for an open quarrel was easily supplied.
"One evening I went to a large At Home given by his mother. I knew but few and, as Miles was necessarily busy with his social duties to her guests, I was, after the first hurried greeting, left unattended for a time. Not being accustomed to such functions, I resented this as a covert insult and, in a fit of jealous pique, I blush to own that I took the revenge of a peasant maid and entered into a marked flirtation with Fred Currie, who had paid me some attention before my engagement. When Miles was at liberty to seek me, he found me, to all appearances, quite absorbed in my companion and oblivious of his approach. He turned on his heel and went away, nor did he come near me the rest of the evening.
"I went home angry enough, but so miserable and repentant that if Miles had been his usual patient self when he called the following evening I would have begged his forgiveness. But I had gone too far; his mother was shocked by my gaucherie, and he was humiliated and justly exasperated. We had a short, bitter quarrel. I said a great many foolish, unpardonable things, and finally I threw his ring at him. He gave me a startled look then, in which there was something of contempt, and went away without another word.
"After my anger had pa.s.sed, I was wretchedly unhappy. I realized how unworthily I had acted, how deeply I loved Miles, and how lonely and empty my life would be without him. But he did not come back, and soon after I learned he had gone away--whither no one knew, but it was supposed abroad. Well, I buried my hopes and tears in secret and went on with my life as people have to do--a life in which I have learned to think, and which, I hope, has made me n.o.bler and better.
"This summer I came here. I heard much about a certain mysterious stranger known as "Young Si" who was fishing mackerel at this sh.o.r.e. I was very curious. The story sounded romantic, and one evening I went down to see him. I met him face to face and, Helen, it was Miles Lesley!