Ah, well! she needed the grooming, this _Shining Light_, whatever the occasion. "Twas scandalous to observe her decay in idleness. She needed the grooming--this neglected, listless, slatternly old maid of a craft. A craft of parts, to be sure, as I had been told; but a craft left to slow wreck, at anchor in quiet water. Year by year, since I could remember the days of my life, in summer and winter weather she had swung with the tides or rested silent in the arms of the ice. I had come to Twist Tickle aboard, as the tale of my infancy ran, on the wings of a nor"east gale of some pretensions; and she had with heroic courage weathered a dirty blow to land me upon the eternal rocks of Twin Islands. For this--though but an ancient story, told by old folk to engage my presence in the punts and stages of our harbor--I loved her, as a man, Newfoundland born and bred, may with propriety love a ship.
There are maids to be loved, no doubt, and "tis very nice to love them, because they are maids, fashioned in a form most lovely by the good Lord, given a heart most childlike and true and loving and tenderly dependent, so that, in all the world, as I know, there is nothing so to be cherished with a man"s last breath as a maid. I have loved a maid and speak with authority. But there is also a love of ships, though, being inland-born, you may not know it. "Tis a surpa.s.sing faith and affection, inspired neither by beauty nor virtue, but wilful and mysterious, like the love of a maid. "Tis much the same, I"m thinking: forgiving to the uttermost, prejudiced beyond the perception of any fault, savagely loyal. "Twas in this way, at any rate, that my uncle regarded the _Shining Light_; and "twas in this way, too, with some gentler shades of admiration, proceeding from an apt imagination, that I held the old craft in esteem.
"Dannie," says my uncle, presently, as we walked homeward, "ye"ll "blige me, lad, by keepin" a eye on the mail-boat."
I wondered why.
"You keep a eye," he whispered, winking in a way most grave and troubled, "on that there little mail-boat when she lands her pa.s.sengers."
"For what?" I asked.
"Bra.s.s b.u.t.tons," says he.
"Twas now that the cat came out of the bag. Bra.s.s b.u.t.tons? "Twas the same as saying constables. This extraordinary undertaking was then a precaution against the accident of arrest. "Twas inspired, no doubt, by the temper of that gray visitor with whom my uncle had dealt over the table in a fashion so surprising. I wondered again concerning that amazing broil, but to no purpose; "twas "beyond my wisdom and ingenuity to involve these opposite natures in a crime that might make each tolerable to the other and advantage them both. "Twas plain, at any rate, that my uncle stood in jeopardy, and that of no trivial sort: else never would he have employed his scant savings upon the hull of the _Shining Light_. It grieved me to know it. "Twas most sad and most perplexing. "Twas most aggravating, too: for I must put no questions, but accept, in cheerful serenity, the revelations he would indulge me with, and be content with that.
"An" if ye sees so much as a single bra.s.s b.u.t.ton comin" ash.o.r.e," says he, "ye"ll give me a hail, will ye not, whereever I is?"
This I would do.
"Ye never can tell," he added, sadly, "what"s in the wind."
"I"m never allowed t" know," said I.
He was quick to catch the complaint. "Ye"re growin" up, Dannie," he observed; "isn"t you, lad?"
I fancied I was already grown.
"Ah, well!" says he; "they"ll come a time, lad, G.o.d help ye! when ye"ll know."
"I wisht "twould hasten," said I.
"I wisht "twould never come at all," said he.
"Twas disquieting....
Work on the _Shining Light_ went forward apace and with right good effect. "Twas not long--it might be a fortnight--before her hull was as sound as rotten plank could be made with gingerly calking. "Twas indeed a delicate task to tap the timbers of her: my uncle must sometimes pause for anxious debate upon the wisdom of venturing a stout blow. But copper-painted below the water-line, adorned above, she made a brave showing at anchor, whatever she might do at sea; and there was nothing for it, as my uncle said, but to have faith, which would do well enough: for faith, says he, could move mountains. When she had been gone over fore and aft, aloft and below, in my uncle"s painstaking way--when she had been pumped and ballasted and cleared of litter and swabbed down and fitted with a new suit of sails--she so won upon our confidence that not one of us who dwelt on the neck of land by the Lost Soul would have feared to adventure anywhere aboard.
The fool of Twist Tickle pulled a long face.
"Hut, Moses!" I maintained; "she"ll do very well. Jus" look at her!"
"Mother always "lowed," says he, "that a craft was like a woman. An"
since mother died, I"ve come t" learn for myself, Dannie," he drawled, "that the more a woman haves in the way o" looks the less weather she"ll stand. I"ve jus" come, now," says he, "from overhaulin" a likely maid at Chain Tickle."
I looked up with interest.
"Jinny Lawless," says he. "Ol" Skipper Garge"s youngest by the third."
My glance was still inquiring.
"Ay, Dannie," he sighed; "she"ve declined."
"You"ve took a look," I inquired, "at the maids o" Long Bill Hodge o"
Sampson"s Island?"
He nodded.
"An" they"ve--"
"_All_ declined," says he.
"Never you care, Moses," said I. "Looks or no looks, you"ll find the _Shining Light_ stand by when _she_ puts to sea."
"I"ll not be aboard," says he.
"You"re not so sure about that!" quoth I.
"I wouldn"t ship," he drawled. "I"d never put t" sea on she: for mother," he added, "wouldn"t like t" run the risk."
"You dwell too much upon your mother," said I.
"She"s all I got in the way o" women," he answered. "All I got, Dannie--yet."
"But when you gets a wife--"
"Oh," he interrupted, "Mrs. Moses Shoos won"t mind _mother_!"
"Still an" all," I gravely warned him, ""tis a foolish thing t" do."
"Well, Dannie," he drawled, in a way so plaintive that I found no answer to his argument, "I _is_ a fool. I"m told so every day, by men an" maids, wherever I goes; an" I jus" can"t help _bein"_ foolish."
"G.o.d made you," said I.
"An" mother always "lowed," said Moses, "that He knowed what He was up to. An", Dannie," says he, "she always "lowed, anyhow, that _she_ was satisfied."
"Twas of a Sunday evening--upon the verge of twilight: with the light of day still abroad, leaving the hills of Twin Islands clear-cut against the blue sky, but falling aslant, casting long shadows. Came, then, straggling from the graveyard in the valley by Thunder Head, the folk of our harbor. "Twas all over, it seemed; they had buried old Tom Hossie. Moses and I sat together on the hill by Old Wives" Cove, in the calm of the day and weather: there was no wind stirring--no drip of oar to be heard, no noise of hammer, no laughter of children, no cry or call of labor. They had buried old Tom Hossie, whom no peril of that coast, savagely continuing through seventy years, had overcome or daunted, but age had gently drawn away. I had watched them bear the coffin by winding paths along the Tickle sh.o.r.e and up the hill, stopping here to rest and there to rest, for the way was long; and now, sitting in the yellow sunshine of that kind day, with the fool of Twist Tickle for company, I watched them come again, their burden deposited in the inevitable arms. I wondered if the spirit of old Tom Hossie rejoiced in its escape. I wondered if it continued in pitiable age or had returned to youth--to strength for action and wish for love. I wondered, with the pa.s.sionate curiosity of a lad, as I watched the procession of simple folk disperse, far off, to supper and to the kisses of children, if the spirit of old Tom Hossie had rather sail the seas he had sailed and love the maids of our land or dwell in the brightest glory painted for us by the prophets. I could, then, being a lad, conceive no happier world than that in which I moved, no joy aside from its people and sea and sunlight, no rest apart from the mortal love of Judith; but, now, grown older, I fancy that the spirit of old Tom Hossie, wise with age and vastly weary of the labor and troublous delights of life, hungered and thirsted for death.
The church bell broke upon this morbid meditation.
"Hark!" says Moses. ""Tis the first bell."
"Twas a melodious call to worship--throbbing sweetly across the placid water of our harbor, beating on, liquidly vibrant, to rouse the resting hills of Twin Islands.
"You"ll be off, Moses?"