"And when you saw Joffre you wept?"
"Not exactly. There was a young fellow standing in the crowd quietly, with his arm in a sling. He was hardly more than a boy, and he looked sick. He had beautiful sombre eyes, with a look in them that--well, as if he had seen so much, and as if he did not quite understand. You should have seen his eyes. Like a wild thing. And when Joffre came, I thought he would go crazy. He waved his cap frantically, and the tears just streamed out of his eyes, and you should have heard him. Joffre heard, and saw, and he leaned out of the car, and he saluted that boy. My! That boy was proud. You can guess--that was when I cried. And we got him into the car with us. He didn"t look able to go far. He was a soldier who had been with the Canadians over there, a Frenchman by birth. He told us a little about it, but he didn"t seem to want to talk. He had been wounded, and sick, and had come back over here on sick leave or something of the kind. And he and Lejeune, the chauffeur, got to talking, and we took him home. He wants to get back into the fighting as soon as he can. And when he got out, Lejeune got out too. He was going to enlist."
"Left you on the spot?"
Eve laughed. "Yes," she said, "but I rather guess that it wasn"t unexpected. I shouldn"t be surprised if that was what father took him for. At any rate, father just smiled, and gave them both his blessing, and told Lejeune to come back when the war was over. And he gave him some money, and said that they could divide it between them."
"How much, I wonder?"
"I don"t know how much, but a good deal, considerably more than a hundred dollars. He had a note already written, too, a "character," as the maids call it, saying that he was a good chauffeur. Then Tom--he had been getting uneasy--said that he wanted to be in on this too, but he wasn"t so well prepared as father. And he gave them all he had with him, except a dollar or two. That was too much for the French boy, and he waved his cap again, and cried, "Vive la France! Vive l"Amerique!" with the tears streaming down his face again. And I cried some more, and so did Cecily. Oh, I had a lovely time, Adam."
Eve was laughing again, and pressing closer to me. "That French boy was a machinist before he went to the war, and Lejeune is a good chauffeur, and I shouldn"t wonder if they"d both get into driving when they get over there. I hope so. But he wasn"t thinking of that, the French boy. He is ready to go back, when his time comes, and meet his fate with a high heart. With a high heart, Adam. Oh," she cried, "don"t you think it is stirring--just a little--to the imagination? Don"t you?" And she gave me a little shake.
I nodded soberly, and hugged Pukkie closer. "I rejoice, Eve," I said irrelevantly, "that Pukkie is not yet eleven."
Eve did not reply directly. Her eyes filled with tears, and she drew Pukkie around between us. "I suppose it is selfish," she said. "If a French machinist goes--only about eight or nine years older than Pukkie--and can stir me all up with the idea of it--why--"
She did not finish, so I did not know what she would have asked. But I could guess.
"War is wicked," I said. "There is no novelty in that idea. But if a wicked war is started, it may be more wicked to keep out of it than to go in, and there may be more misery involved in keeping out than in going in. I don"t know about this one, and I don"t believe that anybody knows. One thing I do know, and that is that wars will continue to occur at intervals as long as human nature is what it is. Man is a fighting animal. When he ceases to be, the time of his fall will have arrived. I have spoken."
Eve laughed merrily. "But you have not finished. Go on, oracle."
"No more from the oracle. Only a purely personal observation. I could go into the fighting with a sort of a t.i.tillation--an unholy joy in fighting for its own sake, quite apart from any feeling for any cause. I believe that that is the feeling which animates most men who volunteer to fight. Of course they choose their side from conviction. At least, it is to be hoped that they do. But as for the actual combat, there is a joy in the fight--why, that alone accounts for all our games, at bottom."
Eve was looking at me doubtfully. "But, Adam," she said slowly, "you don"t mean to--you aren"t going to--"
I shook my head. "I have no such intention. Make your mind easy. I have a dependent family. I don"t know what you would do without my efforts to support you. It would be a terrible misfortune if you were cast upon your father"s shoulders. You might starve."
Eve seemed to be amused. But Pukkie had been getting uneasy, and he began to squirm. Then he seized my arm.
"Look, daddy. See that big schooner. I never saw her before. What is it?"
I looked. A great white schooner was headed in, and she was almost at the entrance of the harbor. The wind had fallen light with the approach of the sun to his setting; the schooner had all her light sails set and came on fast. Suddenly the light sails began to come off, slacking down, wrinkling, and gathered in, and stowed, as a man would take off his coat. Before one was well in another would start slacking down, wrinkling, gathered in, and stowed, almost as fast as I tell it. That meant a big crew well trained. All her kites were stowed, and she began rounding into the wind, letting her jibs go as she came around. She shot a long way, but stopped at last, and her chain rattled out, and she began to drift astern. Then her foresail came down steadily, and before it was down, sailors swarmed out upon the footropes of the mainboom, and the great mainsail began to come down, slowly and steadily, gathered in as it came by the men upon the footropes. By the time all her chain was paid out, and she was finally at rest, all her sails were furled, and they were getting out the covers.
A shining mahogany launch was dropped into the water, run back to the gangway, and a girl ran lightly down the steps.
"Elizabeth Radnor," said Eve, wondering. "What can she be doing there?"
"Perhaps the owners take lessons in dancing," I suggested.
Eve smiled. "She gives lessons in swimming too," she said.
A man followed Miss Radnor. He seemed strangely familiar.
"Bobby!" cried Eve. "I think it"s funny. I"m sure it"s Bobby."
I was sure it was Bobby. It might be funny, but it was not strange. The launch made for Old Goodwin"s landing at forty miles an hour.
IV.
I lay against the bank above my clam beds, with my hands clasped behind my head, and I gazed up at the whitish blue of the sky, and at the little floating clouds flecking the blue, and at an occasional herring gull flying across my field of vision with moderate wing-beats and with no apparent object, and at the procession of screaming terns busy at their fishing. For the terns have come, which always marks the change of season for me, but the winter gulls have not all gone. And I looked at the tree over my head, and I cast back over the years. I could see the tree merely by raising my eyes, without raising my head.
That tree has a.s.sociations and a history: for under that tree Eve stood the fifth time that I saw her,--I remember each time,--and it was raining, a hard drizzle from the southeast, and the water dripped from her wide felt hat, and shone upon her long coat, and she was smiling. So that tree has a.s.sociations for me--and for Eve as well, I believe. And sundry pairs of rubber boots have been hung in a crotch of it, both Eve"s, and at a somewhat later time, Old Goodwin"s; wherefore it has a history. And here, too, just where my head was pillowed, Eve had sat but a scant two hours after I had found her out,--I had thought she was a governess in Old Goodwin"s house,--and she had set us both right for ever. And now there were many happy years behind us, and more happy years ahead of us, and there were Pukkie and Tidda; but most of all there was Eve.
So I lay and drank in the sunshine, and basked in its warmth, and my mind was a blank save for these pleasant musings. My poor little son! All of the Sunday that he was here--two days ago--it rained hard. He did not seem to mind it, but dragged me out in it--he had not such hard work to get me out. I like the wet well enough, but we have had a long stretch of cold and wet. But he got me out, and wandered the sh.o.r.e, clad in his rubber coat, and his rubber boots, and his little sou"wester, and he watched the white schooner; but on the schooner there was no sign of life save some sailors standing like statues in their dripping oilskins, and a man in a pea-jacket and faded old blue cap, who paced back and forth at the stern, or stood still by the rail for long periods, and then took up his pacing again. And Pukkie looked up at me and asked whether I thought he was the captain or the mate, and would have gone out there in one of Old Goodwin"s boats, with me to help him row. But I refused. It is wet and uncomfortable rowing in a pouring rain; better standing.
And he would go up to his grandfather"s in the hope of finding Bobby Leverett. So we went, and we found Bobby sitting on the piazza with the telescope and Miss Radnor; and Pukkie bearded Bobby in his chair, and asked him point-blank what he had been doing in that schooner. We had told Pukkie about the Rattlesnake, and Jimmy Wales and Ogilvie.
And Bobby grinned at my son, and answered him, if you call it an answer.
"Sorry not to be able to tell you, Puk, old chap," he said, "but you know we are enjoined not to publish information of the movements of vessels, and the plans of the navy are a dead secret. It might give information to the enemy." And he pointed at me.
"Do you know the plans of the navy?" asked Pukkie.
Bobby laughed, and so did Miss Radnor. "I refuse to answer," said Bobby, "on the ground that it would incriminate me. We may have been out baiting our traps. Ask your father about it."
"I don"t believe the navy has any plans," I said, "so far as you are concerned. They just want to make you think that you are busy."
"Treason!" Bobby cried loudly. "Treason! I"m afraid it"s my duty to lay charges against you, Adam."
"And I," I retorted, "will expel you from membership in the Clam Beds Protective Company--if you persist."
"There!" said Miss Radnor. "How will you like that, Mr. Leverett?"
"I"ll have to give in," Bobby replied. "It"s a cruel and unusual punishment, and therefore unconst.i.tutional, but Adam wouldn"t mind a little thing like that. I am moved by the thought of Eve"s grief, although you wouldn"t think that a good sport like Eve would object to a traitor"s taking off. I surrender, Adam. Be merciful."
Our noise had attracted Old Goodwin, and he joined us. And, thinking that Bobby might as well be left to the society of the telescope and Miss Radnor, we left him, we three, and betook ourselves to the sh.o.r.e. On the white schooner the man in the pea-jacket and old faded blue cap was still pacing back and forth by the rail, and Pukkie turned to his grandfather and asked him the question which I could not answer.
At that moment the man caught sight of Old Goodwin, and waved his arm, and Old Goodwin answered the wave.
"That is Captain Fergus, Pukkie. He"s the captain. Some years ago he was captain of vessels that sailed the deep oceans."
My son was astonished. Captains who sail the deep oceans command his unbounded respect. I inferred from his reply that skippers of yachts, even of great white schooner yachts, do not.
"Was he?" he said. "How does it happen that he is skippering a yacht then?"
Old Goodwin laughed his pleasant, quiet laugh.
"He owns the yacht--or he did. I think it likely that he gave up going to sea on account of his wife. He was married four or five years ago."
"Oh, his wife!" my son replied in accents of deep scorn. It was evidently incomprehensible to him that a man should give up such a delightful occupation for a mere wife.
Old Goodwin laughed again. "I"d take you out there if it weren"t so wet. But never mind. She"ll be in here again some time when you"re at home."
Then we wandered the sh.o.r.es until the rain stopped and the sky was a ma.s.s of heavy gray clouds, but the sun did not come out; and Pukkie had to go in.
The next morning Pukkie found that the yacht had gone, and Old Goodwin took him back to school, alone with him in the great car. Pukkie did not mind going back. He has become acclimated at school, and he likes to ride with his grandfather, sitting in the front seat with all the clocks and meters and switches and the little lamps like eyes and the levers and pedals spread out before him. There is reason to suppose that Old Goodwin gets some pleasure out of it. That is why neither Eve nor I went. There is more pleasure for him when they two are alone. Old Goodwin and his grandson are great chums.
When I had got to this point in my ruminations, I realized that the great pebbles under me, although partly cushioned by sand and by the dried seaweed which had washed up among them, had been getting harder and harder. I moved, and groaned involuntarily, and sat up--and rubbed my eyes. There was the white schooner lying quietly at anchor, her sails all furled and covered, and no movement on her decks. She lay so still that she seemed immovable; as firmly fixed as the breakwater itself, or as the Long Stone, or as one of the distant islands, which swam high in a bluish haze and flickered in mirage.
I got up slowly, and heard a noise of a rolling pebble; and I turned, and there was Eve coming along the sh.o.r.e. I went to meet her, and we came back and sat upon the bank. And Eve looked up at me and smiled, and her hand went out slowly, and mine met it, and we put our clasped hands down between us.
"Now they can"t see," said Eve. "Can they?"
I smiled and shook my head.
"And it wouldn"t make any difference," Eve pursued, "if they could. Would it? Say quickly, Adam," she cried, shaking our clasped hands in mid air. "You are too slow. Would it?"
"No, Eve," I answered, smiling again. Indeed I had not stopped smiling. "But we might excite envy in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which is a sin we pray to be delivered from."
"Oh, well," she said, "there is n.o.body to see but Captain Fergus, and he has not been married long. I love this place, Adam. Do you remember--here were your pebbles, in the sod just here. And here I sat when you warned me not to spot my dress,--when I took you for a fisherman,--and you took me for a governess."
"Did you think I could forget?"
And we fell silent, and presently Eve would have me row her out upon the water, for it was as warm as summer. And, that pleasing me,--although it would have been enough for me that I was pleasing Eve,--we wandered to Old Goodwin"s stone pier, and took one of his boats, and rowed out. And I paddled about, having nowhere in particular to go, and we found ourselves near the great white schooner, almost under her stern; and I looked up, and read her name, Arcadia, and there was Captain Fergus, in his faded old blue cap, looking down at us over the rail. His face was bronzed by sun and wind and rain, and there were little wrinkles about his eyes after the manner of your seafaring men, and his eyes were of a deep blue--the blue of the deep sea. They made me think of Old Goodwin"s eyes, although Old Goodwin"s eyes are not blue.
He touched his cap. "Won"t you come aboard?" he asked in a deep voice which made one think of rolling seas and fresh winds and bellying sails.
"Thank you." I hesitated, and looked at Eve, but she did not wait for me.
"We shall be glad to," she said. And she turned to me. "Hurry, Adam, and row around to the ladder."
So I got us around to the steps, and there was a sailor with a boat-hook to hold the boat for us and to take charge of it, and Captain Fergus waiting at the gangway. And I introduced myself, but Eve did not wait for introductions, but smiled at him, and said that she thought he knew her father.
The wrinkles about Captain Fergus"s pleasant eyes deepened.
"You are very like him," he said. And he led us over to the port side, toward some chairs from one of which had risen a slender woman, with a pleasant face and hair beginning to be well streaked with gray, but not many years older than Eve. Mrs. Fergus, I found, had been Marian Wafer; had been Miss Wafer for so long that she had become confirmed in the habit of spinsterhood, and did not find it easy to get out of that habit now that she was married.
We settled ourselves in the chairs, and had some pleasant, desultory talk; and the sun shone, not too brightly, through a bluish haze; there was hardly a breath of wind to ruffle the calm surface of the bay, and peace was on the face of the waters. The stillness almost seemed to drowse and to make a soft noise, like the distant sound of locusts in August. It soothed us, and the talk died, and we sat motionless and in silence, gazing out at the distant islands in their misty blue veils, or at two tiny sails, motionless too, two or three miles away, or, nearer yet, at an empty expanse of gla.s.sy water.
Suddenly a cat"s-paw swept over the surface like a breath over a mirror, and the shining launch of the Arcadia shot out from Old Goodwin"s landing, and came toward us at great speed; not at forty miles an hour, for the landing was not far off. She was towing an aquaplane, which stood very nearly perpendicular in the water, and I saw one man standing up and steering, and the heads of three or four people showing occasionally above the deck. The launch itself was at a pretty angle, with daylight showing under ten feet of her keel, and throwing cataracts out from either side like a fire engine; and she hid her pa.s.sengers until she swerved. She was not bringing her pa.s.sengers aboard the Arcadia, for she slackened speed and curved prettily, and drifted before us, almost within reach, and I saw that the people aboard of her, besides an officer and a sailor, were Old Goodwin and Elizabeth Radnor and another girl, a stranger. Miss Radnor and the stranger were clad in bathing-suits.
Eve did not seem as much surprised as I should have expected, and she smiled and spoke to her father and Miss Radnor, and he waved his hand; and the strange girl arose, stood poised for a moment on the rail, tossed her arms high above her head, dived overboard and struck out for the aquaplane. Miss Radnor instantly arose and followed, without bothering to poise, and they had a race for it. The strange girl swam well, but Miss Radnor had more power, and she gained.
Captain Fergus"s great voice rang out. "Go it, Olivia! You"re almost there. Once more and more power to you!"
And Olivia spurted, but got to laughing and lost a stroke; and Elizabeth Radnor caught her, but she got to laughing too, so that both seized their goal at the same instant. They drew themselves partly upon it, but the aquaplane sank under their weight, and the water swirled about their knees, for the launch was barely moving. But it began to surge ahead, faster and faster, so that the two girls found a firm support beneath their feet as they rose carefully. Olivia held two ropes fastened at the forward corners, and Miss Radnor steadied herself behind, with a hand on Olivia.
The launch twisted and turned, and made loops and circles and spirals, and Olivia still stood straight, like a Greek charioteer, holding the lines with hands and rigid arms that were beginning to ache; but Miss Radnor"s knees were bending more and more, and she was swaying. And she laughed.
"Good-bye, Olivia," she said; and she dived sidewise, and came up again, and was swimming easily.
The launch stood in nearer to the schooner, and Olivia staggered as they turned; but she got her balance, and once more stood straight. And the launch began to twist and double and turn in loops and circles, faster and faster. Olivia stood upright for two or three turns, then she began to sway; and she saw that it was the beginning of the end, and she stooped quickly, and swung her arms low, then high above her head, and she gave a spring backward, and turned a half-somersault--and a little more.
"Good!" cried Captain Fergus. "A pretty backward dive! Olivia"s a good swimmer--capital. Almost as good as Elizabeth." He turned to us. "Just wait until you see Elizabeth do some of her stunts. Have you ever seen her?"
I smiled and shook my head. "Miss Radnor seems an extremely competent person--in many ways."
Captain Fergus looked sharply at me for an instant, then he chuckled as though there was a good joke somewhere within hail.
"So she is," he said; "so she is, very competent. She"s an able seaman. Elizabeth"s a great favorite of mine, rather more of a favorite than--"
"d.i.c.k!" said Mrs. Fergus warningly.
"Eh?" He turned to Mrs. Fergus, and smiled the smile that crinkled all about his pleasant eyes. His eyes smiled too, those eyes of deepest blue. "I wasn"t going to say anything imprudent, Marian, only that Elizabeth is rather more of a favorite than some others that I could name. Oh, I"m not going to call any names, Marian. You needn"t be scared. Marian"s always afraid," he said to Eve and me, "that I"m going to be indiscreet, and I"ve never in my life been indiscreet. Have I, Marian?"
Mrs. Fergus laughed. "How should I know? I"ve no doubt that you have been, many times. You aren"t politic, d.i.c.k."
"Heaven save us!" said Captain Fergus under his breath. "I hope not. Neither are you, Marian. I don"t know of anybody less politic than you."
Mrs. Fergus laughed again, merrily. "Richard was a sailor for so many years," she said, "that he can"t get out of his sailor"s ways."
"They are good ways," I said. "Don"t you think so, Mrs. Fergus?"
"They are good ways," Mrs. Fergus repeated, looking at her husband, "and I like them." And Eve smiled across at me.
The launch had stopped her engine, and was waiting for the two girls. Elizabeth Radnor reached her first, a white arm shot out of the water and the hand grasped the gunwale, and Old Goodwin helped her aboard, and she stood on the deck and dripped. And Olivia came up on the other side, and Old Goodwin helped her aboard, but she did not stand on the deck to drip. She jumped into the c.o.c.kpit, and dripped on the cushions.
"There!" Mrs. Fergus exclaimed. "If that isn"t just like her to run streams of water on the cushions. Why couldn"t she do as Elizabeth does, and--"
"Doesn"t matter," Captain Fergus growled. "Cushions waterproof, and the sun"ll dry the top in five minutes."
Mrs. Fergus made a motion of impatience, and there was a slight compression of her lips.
"I know that it doesn"t really matter," she said, "a little thing like wetting the cushions--when they could have been kept dry just as easily. Elizabeth--"
"It really isn"t any matter about the cushions," Captain Fergus interrupted gently. "Big crew doing nothing--they"ll be set to work presently scrubbing the launch inside and out. What"s a little water? Doesn"t hurt anything."
Mrs. Fergus laughed softly. "You"d let them do anything, d.i.c.k,--stick pins into you--"
"If it would be any fun for them," said Captain Fergus gruffly, "I guess I could stand it. What"s a pin anyway?"
Mrs. Fergus laughed again. "You"d find out. But I was really thinking of the difference in the girls. Elizabeth is naturally considerate, Olivia is not. Olivia is a good swimmer, of course, and she is pretty and sweet and attractive, but she has done some outrageous things in the last three years. Nothing bad, but absolutely inconsiderate." She was talking to us now more than to her husband. "She swims so well that she jumps in--or she used to--whenever she feels like it, clothes and all. Why, she even took her mother"s parasol in with her one day. It ruined the parasol, of course. She was all dressed up for a party, and had on a lovely dress, with a beautiful old ribbon sash, which was spoiled. Luckily her dress was a wash dress, but it had to be done up again, and the Greshams had no money to waste." She broke out in sudden laughter. "But it was funny, d.i.c.k, to see her swimming about, holding the parasol. Do you remember? At sixteen Olivia Gresham was just a pirate, and she is more or less of one at eighteen. Look at Jack Ogilvie and the way she treats him, and he as nice a boy as ever lived."
"You may look at Jack Ogilvie now," said Captain Fergus quietly, "if you will raise your eyes. There he comes."
Accordingly we raised our eyes, all of us, and we saw nothing but those two tiny sails that I have mentioned, almost in the same place in which they had been for the last half hour; and a motor-boat, almost hidden in the haze and very difficult to make out, seeming to be soaring over the tops of the waves toward us. It must have been five miles away.
"But, d.i.c.k," said Mrs. Fergus, "where is Jack? Is he--"