"Dannie," she ventured, softly, "you"re able t" take it."
"Ay--but will not."
"You"re wonderful strong, Dannie, an" I"m but a maid."
"I"ll wrest no kisses," said I, with a twitch of scorn, "from maids."
She smiled. "Twas a pa.s.sing burst of rapture, which, vanishing, left her wan and aged beyond her years.
"No," she whispered, but not to me, "he"d _not_ do that. He"d not--do that! An" I"d care little enough for the Dannie Callaway that would."
"You cares little enough as "tis," said I. "You cares nothing at all.
You cares not a jot."
She smiled again: but now as a wilful, flirting maid. "As for carin"
for _you_, Dannie," she mused, dissembling candor, "I _do_--an" I don"t."
The unholy spell that a maid may weave! The shameless trickery of this!
"I"ll tell you," she added, "the morrow."
And she would keep me in torture!
"There"ll be no to-morrow for we," I flashed, in a pa.s.sion. "You cares nothing for Dannie Callaway. "Tis my foot," I cried, stamping in rage and resentment. ""Tis my twisted foot. I"m nothin" but a cripple!"
She cried out at this.
"A limpin" cripple," I groaned, "t" be laughed at by all the maids o"
Twist Tickle!"
She began now softly to weep. I moved towards the ladder--with the will to abandon her.
"Dannie," she called, "take the kiss."
I would not.
"Take two," she begged.
"Maid," said I, severely, "what about your G.o.d?"
"Ah, _but_--" she began.
"No, no!" cries I. "None o" that, now!"
"You"ll not listen!" she pouted.
""Twill never do, maid!"
"An you"d but hear me, child," she complained, "I"d "splain--"
"_What about your G.o.d?_"
She turned demure--all in a flash. "I"ll ask Un," said she, most piously. "You--you--you"ll not run off, Dannie," she asked, faintly, "when I--I--shuts my eyes?"
"I"ll bide here," says I.
"Then," says she, "I"ll ask Un."
The which she did, in her peculiar way. "Twas a ceremony scandalously brief and hurried. Once I caught (I thought) a slit in her eye--a peep-hole through which she spied upon me. Presently she looked up with a shy little grin. "G.o.d says, Dannie," she reported, speaking with slow precision, the grin now giving place to an expression of solemnity and highest rapture, "that He "lows He didn"t know what a fuss you"d make about a little thing like a kiss. He"ve been wonderful bothered o" late by overwork, Dannie, an" He"s sorry for what He done, an" "lows you might overlook it this time. "You tell Dannie, Judy,"
says He, "that he"ve simply no idea what a G.o.d like me haves t" put up with. They"s a woman t" Thunder Arm," says He, "that"s been worryin"
me night an" day t" keep her baby from dyin", an" I simply can"t make up my mind. She"ll make me mad an she doesn"t look out," says He, "an"
then I"ll kill it. An" I"ve the heathen, Judy--all them heathen--on my mind. "Tis enough t" drive any G.o.d mad. An" jus" now," says He, "I"ve got a wonderful big gale blowin" on the Labrador, an" I"m near drove deaf," says He, "by the noise them fishermen is makin". What with the Labradormen an" the woman t" Thunder Arm an" the heathen "tis fair awful. An" now comes Dannie," says He, "t" make me sick o" my berth!
You tell Dannie," says he, "t" take the kiss an" be done with it.
Tell un t" go ahead," says He, "an" not be afeared o" me. I isn"t in favor o" kissin" as a usual thing," says He, "for I"ve always "lowed "twas sort o" silly; but if _you_ don"t mind, Judy," says He, "why, _I_ can turn my head.""
"Twas not persuasive.
""Tis a white kiss," said she, seeking, in her way, to deck the thing with attractions.
I would not turn.
""Tis all silk."
It budged me not, though I craved the kiss with a mounting sense of need, a vision of despair. It budged me not: I would not be beguiled.
"An" oh, Dannie!" she besought, with her hands appealing, ""tis _awful_ expensive!"
I returned.
"Take it," she sobbed.
I pecked her lips.
"Volume II., page 26!" roared my uncle, his broad red face appearing at that moment in the companionway. "You done well, Dannie! "Tis quite t" the taste o" Skipper Chesterfield. You"re sailin" twelve knots by the log, lad, on the course you"re steerin"!"
So I did not have another; but the one, you may believe! had done the mischief.
[4] I am informed that there are strange folk who do not visualize after the manner of Judith and me. "Tis a wonder how they conceive, at all!
IX
AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART
My uncle"s errand, speedily made known, for Judith"s restoration, was this: to require my presence betimes at tea that evening, since (as he said) there was one coming by the mail-boat whom he would have me favorably impress with my appearance and state of gentility--a thing I was by no means loath to do, having now grown used to the small delights of display. But I was belated, as it chanced, after all: for having walked with Judith, by my uncle"s hint, to the cairn at the crest of Tom Tulk"s Head, upon the return I fell in with Moses Shoos, the fool of Twist Tickle, who would have me bear him company to Eli Flack"s cottage, in a nook beyond the Finger, and lend him comfort thereafter, in good or evil fortune, as might befall. To this I gave a glad a.s.sent, surmising from the significant conjunction of smartened attire and doleful countenance that an affair of the heart was forward. And "twas true; "twas safely to be predicted, indeed, in season and out, of the fool of our harbor: for what with his own witless conjectures and the reports of his mates, made in unkind banter, his leisure was forever employed in the unhappy business: so that never a strange maid came near but he would go shyly forth upon his quest, persuaded of a grateful issue. "Twas heroic, I thought, and by this, no less than by his attachment, he was endeared to me.