She shook her head.
"No?" said he. "Why not?"
The answer was in a whisper--given while the maid"s hot face was still turned away. "I"m not wantin" you to," she said.
"Do, maid!" I besought her.
"I"m not wantin" him to."
""Tis your eyes, I"ll be bound!" said I. ""Twill be so clever that you"ll be glad to hear."
"But I"m not _wantin"_ him to," she persisted.
My tutor smiled indulgently--but with a pitiful little trace of hurt remaining. "Twas as though he must suffer the rebuff with no offended question. In the maid "twas surely a wilful and bewildering thing to deny him. I could not make it out: but wished, in the breeze and sunlight of that day, that the wound had not been dealt. "Twas an unkind thing in Judith, thinks I; "twas a thing most cruel--thus to coquette with the friendship of John Cather.
"Ah, Judy," I pleaded, "leave un have his way!"
She picked at the moss.
"Will ye not, maid?"
"I"m afraid!" she whispered in my ear.
"An" you"d stop for that!" I chided, not knowing what she meant: as how should a lad?
It seemed she would.
""Tis an unkind thing," says I, "t" treat John Cather so. He"ve been good," says I, "t" _you_, Judy."
"Dannie!" she wailed.
"Don"t, Dannie!" Cather entreated.
"I"d have ye listen, Judy," said I, in earnest, kind reproach, "t"
what John Cather says. I"d have ye heed his words. I"d have ye care for him." Being then a lad, unsophisticated in the wayward, mercilessly selfish pa.s.sion of love, ignorant of the unmitigated savagery of the thing, I said more than that, in my folly. "I"d have ye love John Cather," says I, "as ye love me." "Tis a curious thing to look back upon. That I should snarl the threads of our destinies! "Tis an innocency hard to credit. But yet John Cather and I had no sensitive intuition to warn us. How should we--being men? "Twas for Judith to perceive the inevitable catastrophe; "twas for the maid, not misled by reason, schooled by feeling into the very perfection of wisdom, to control and direct the smouldering pa.s.sion of John Cather and me in the way she would, according to the power G.o.d gives, in infinite understanding of the hearts of men, to a maid to wield. "I"d have ye love John Cather," says I, "as ye love me." It may be that a lad loves his friend more than any other. "I"d have ye t" know, Judy,"
says I, gently, "that John Cather"s my friend. I"d have ye t" know--"
"Dannie," Cather interrupted, putting an affectionate hand on my shoulder, "you don"t know what you"re saying."
Judith turned.
"I do, John Cather," says I. "I knows full well."
Judith"s eyes, grown all at once wide and grave, looked with wonder into mine. I was made uneasy--and c.o.c.ked my head, in bewilderment and alarm. "Twas a glance that searched me deep. What was this? And why the warning? There was more than warning. "Twas pain I found in Judith"s great, blue eyes. What had grieved her? "Twas reproach, too--and a flash of doubt. I could not read the riddle of it. Indeed, my heart began to beat in sheer fright, for the reproach and doubt vanished, even as I stared, and I confronted a sparkling anger. But presently, as often happened with that maid, tears flushed her eyes, and the long-lashed lids fell, like a curtain, upon her grief: whereupon she turned away, troubled, to peer at the sea, breaking far below, and would not look at me again. We watched her, John Cather and I, for an anxious s.p.a.ce, while she sat brooding disconsolate at the edge of the cliff, a sweep of cloudless sky beyond. The slender, sweetly childish figure--with the tawny hair, I recall, all aglow with sunlight--filled the little world of our thought and vision. There was a patch of moss and rock, the green and gray of our land--there was Judith--there was an infinitude of blue s.p.a.ce. John Cather"s glance was frankly warm; "twas a glance proceeding from clear, brave, guileless eyes--springing from a limpid soul within. It caressed the maid, in a fashion, thinks I, most brotherly. My heart warmed to the man; and I wondered that Judith should be unkind to him who was our friend.
"Twas a mystery.
"You will not listen, Judith?" he asked. ""Tis a very pretty thing I want to say."
Judith shook her head.
A flash of amus.e.m.e.nt crossed his face. "Please do!" he coaxed.
"No!"
"I"m quite proud of it," says he, with a laugh in his fine eyes. He leaned forward a little, and made as if to touch her, but withdrew his hand. "I did not know," says he, "that I was so clever. I have it all ready. I have every word in place. I"d like to say it--for my own pleasure, if not for yours. I think it would be a pity to let the pretty words waste themselves unsaid. I--I--hope you"ll listen.
I--I--really hope you will. And you will not?"
"No!" she cried, sharply. "No, no!"
"Why not?"
"No!" she repeated; and she slipped her hand into mine, and hid them both snugly in the folds of her gown, where John Cather could not see.
"G.o.d wouldn"t like it, John Cather," says she, her little teeth all bare, her eyes aflash with indignation, her long fingers so closely entwined with mine that I wondered. "He wouldn"t _"low_ it," says she, "an He knowed."
I looked at John Cather in vague alarm.
[5] This Sir Harry Airworthy, K.C.M.G., I must forthwith explain, was that distinguished colonial statesman whose retirement to the quiet and bizarre enjoyments of life was so sincerely deplored at the time. His taste for the picturesque characters of our coast was discriminating and insatiable. "Twas no wonder, then, that he delighted in my uncle, whose familiar companion he was in St. John"s. I never knew him, never clapped eyes on him, that I recall; he died abroad before I was grown presentable. "Twas kind in him, I have always thought, to help my uncle in his task of transforming me, for "twas done with no personal responsibility whatsoever in the matter, but solely of good feeling. I owed him but one grudge, and that a short-lived one, going back to the year when I was seven: "twas by advice o" Sir Harry that I was made to tub myself, every morning, in the water of the season, be it crusted with ice or not, with my uncle listening at the door to hear the splash and gasp.
XVII
RUM AND RUIN
In these days at Twist Tickle, his perturbation pa.s.sed, my uncle was most blithe: for the _Shining Light_ was made all ready for sea, with but an anchor to slip, sails to raise, for flight from an army of St.
John"s constables; and we were a pleasant company, well fallen in together, in a world of fall weather. And, says he, if the conduct of a d.a.m.ned little Chesterfieldian young gentleman was a labor t" manage, actin" accordin" t" that there fashionable ol" lord of the realm, by advice o" Sir Harry, whatever the lad in the case, whether good or bad, why, then, a maid o" the place, ecod! was but a pastime t" rear, an" there, says he, you had it! "Twas at night, when he was come in from the sea, and the catch was split, and we sat with him over his rum, that he beamed most widely. He would come cheerily stumping from his mean quarters above, clad in the best of his water-side slops, all ironed and brushed, his great face glossy from soap and water, his hair dripping; and he would fall into the arms of his great-chair by the fire with a genial grunt of satisfaction, turning presently to regard us, John Cather and Judy and me, with a grin so wide and sparkling and benevolently indulgent and affectionate--with an aspect so patriarchal--that our hearts would glow and our faces responsively shine.
"Up with un, Dannie!" says he.
I would lift the ailing bit of timber to the stool with gingerly caution.
"Easy, lad!" groans he. "Ouch! All ship-shape," says he. "Is you got the little brown jug o" water?"
"Twould surely be there.
"Green pastures!" says he, so radiantly red, from his bristling gray stubble of hair to the folds of his chin, that I was reminded of a glowing coal. "There you haves it, Dannie!" cries he. "I knowed they was some truth in that there psa"m. Green pastures! "_He maketh me t"
lie down in green pastures._" Them ol" bullies was wise as owls....
Pa.s.s the bottle, Judy. Thank "e, maid. Ye"re a wonderful maid t"
blush, thank G.o.d! for they"s nothin" so pretty as that. I"m a old, old man, Judy; but t" this day, maid, "tis fair painful t" keep from kissin" red cheeks, whenever I sees un. Judy," says he, with a wag, his hand on the bottle, "I"d rather be tempted by mermaids or angels--I cares not which--than by a mortal maid"s red cheeks! "Twould be wonderful easy," says he, "t" resist a angel.... Green pastures!
Eh, Dannie, b"y? Times is changed, isn"t they? Not like it used t" be, when you an" me sot here alone t" drink, an" you was on"y a wee little lad. I wisht ye was a wee little lad again, Dannie; but Lord love us!"
cries he, indignant with the paradox, "when ye _was_ a wee little lad I wisht ye was growed. An" there you haves it!" says he, dolefully.
"There you haves it!... I "low, Dannie," says he, anxiously, his bottle halted in mid-air, "that _you"d_ best pour it out. I"m a sight too happy, the night," says he, "t" be trusted with a bottle."
"Tis like he would have gone sober to bed had I not been there to measure his allowance.