I was near enough to feel her tremble--to see her red lips draw away, in stern conviction, from her white little teeth.
"You do not care?" I asked her.
"I do not care."
"Twas a shock to hear the words repeated. "Not care!" I cried out.
"I do not care," says she, turning, all at once, from the sullen crimson of the sky, to reproach me. "Why should I care?" she demanded.
"I have never cared--never cared--about your foot!"
I should have adored her for this: but did not know enough.
"Come!" says she, rising; "there is no sunset now. "Tis all over with.
The clouds have lost their glory. There is nothing to see. Oh, Dannie, lad," says she--"Dannie, boy, there is nothing here to see! We must go home."
I was cast down.
"No glory in the world!" says she.
"No light," I sighed; "no light, at all, Judith, in this gloomy place."
And we went home....
For twelve days after that, while the skirt of winter still trailed the world, the days being drear and gray, with ice at sea and cold rain falling upon the hills, John Cather kept watch on Judith and me.
"Twas a close and anxiously keen surveillance. "Twas, indeed, unremitting and most daring, by night and day: "twas a staring and peering and sly spying, "twas a lurking, "twas a shy, not unfriendly, eavesdropping, an observation without enmity or selfish purpose, ceasing not at all, however, upon either, and most poignant when the maid and I were left together, alone, as the wretched man must have known, in the field of sudden junctures of feeling. I remember his eyes--dark eyes, inquiring in a kindly way--staring from the alders of the Whisper Cove road, from the dripping hills, from the shadowy places of our house: forever in anxious question upon us. By this I was troubled, until, presently, I divined the cause: the man was disquieted, thinks I, to observe my happiness gone awry, but would not intrude even so much as a finger upon the tangle of the lives of the maid and me, because of the delicacy of his nature and breeding. "Twas apparent, too, that he was ill: he would go white and red without cause, and did mope or overflow with a feverish jollity, and would improperly overfeed at table or starve his emaciating body. But after a time, when he had watched us narrowly to his heart"s content, he recovered his health and amiability, and was the same as he had been.
Judith and I were then cold and distant in behavior with each other, but unfailing in politeness: "twas now a settled att.i.tude, preserved by each towards the other, and betraying no feeling of any sort whatever.
"John Cather," says I, "you"ve been ill."
He laughed. "You are a dull fellow!" says he, in his light way. ""Tis the penalty of honesty, I suppose; and nature has fined you heavily. I have not been ill: I have been troubled."
"By what, John Cather?"
"I fancied," he answered, putting his hands on my shoulders, very gravely regarding me as he spoke, "that I must sacrifice my hope.
"Twas a hope I had long cherished, Dannie, and was become like life to me." His voice was fallen deep and vibrant and soft; and the feeling with which it trembled, and the light in the man"s eyes, and the n.o.ble poise of his head, and the dramatic arrangement of his sentences, so affected me that I must look away. "Miserable necessity!" says he. "A drear prospect! And with no more than a sigh to ease the wretched fate! And yet," says he, quite heartily, "the thing had a pretty look to it. Really, a beautiful look. There was a fine reward. A good deed carries it. Always remember that, Dannie--and remember that I told you. There was a fine reward. No encouragement of applause, Dannie--just a long sigh in secret: then a grim age of self-command.
By jove! but there was a splendid compensation. A compensation within myself, I mean--a recollection of at least one heroically unselfish act. There would have been pain, of course; but I should never have forgotten that I had played a man"s part--better than a man"s part: a hero"s part, a G.o.d"s part. And that might have been sufficiently comforting: I do not know--perhaps. I"ll tell you about it, Dannie: the thing was to have been done," he explained, in sincere emotion, every false appearance gone from him, "for whom, do you think?"
I did not know.
"For a friend," says he.
"But John Cather," says I, ""twas too much to require of you."
His eyes twinkled.
"You"ve no trouble now, have you?" I asked.
"Not I!" cries he. "I have read a new fortune for myself. Trouble? Not I! I am very happy, Dannie."
"That"s good," says I; "that"s very good!"
XXIII
THE TIDE-RIP
Next day "twas queer weather. "Twas weather unaccountable, weather most mysteriously bent, weather that laughed at our bewilderment, as though "twere sure of wreaking its own will against us by some trick recently devised. Never before had I known a time so subtly, viciously, confidently to withhold its omens. Queer weather, indeed!
here, in early spring, with drift-ice still coming in vast floes from the north, queer weather to draw the sweat from us, while a midsummer blue loom of the main-land hung high and fantastically shaped in the thick air. Breathless, ominously colored weather! Why, the like, for stillness and beggarly expression of intention, had never been known to Twist Tickle: they talked with indignation of it on Eli Flack"s stage; "twas a day that bred wrecks, said they. Ay, and "twas an outrage upon the poor fishermen of that coast: what was a man to do, said they--what was he to do with his salmon-gear and cod-traps--in this evil, wilful departure from traditional procedure? And what did the weather mean? would it blow wet or dry? would it come with snow?
would the wind jump off sh.o.r.e or from the northeast? and how long, in the name o" Heaven, would the weather sulk in distance before breaking in honest wrath upon the coast? "Twas enough, said they, to make a man quit the grounds; "twas enough, with _this_ sort o" thing keepin" up, t" make a man turn carpenter or go t" Sydney!
All this I heard in pa.s.sing.
"Ah, well, lads," says my uncle, "ye"ll find winter skulkin" jus" over the horizon. An" he"ll be down," he added, confidently, "within a day or two."
I led John Cather to the brink of Tom Tulk"s cliff, where, in the smoky sunshine, I might talk in secret with him. "Twas in my mind to confide my perplexity and miserable condition of heart, without reserve of feeling or mitigation of culpable behavior, and to lean upon his wisdom and tactful arts for guidance into some happier arrangement with the maid I loved. It seemed to me, I recall, as I climbed the last slope, that I had been, all my life, an impa.s.sive lover, as concerned the welfare of the maid: that I had been ill-tempered and unkind, marvellously quick to find offence, justified in this cruel and stupid conduct by no admirable quality or grace or achievement--a lad demanding all for nothing. I paused, I recall, at the cairn, to sigh, overcome and appalled by this revelation; and thereupon I felt such a rush of strenuous intention in my own behalf--a determination to strive and scheme--that I had scarce breath to reach the edge of the cliff, and could not, for the life of me, begin to narrate my desperate state to John Cather. But John Cather was not troubled by my silence: he was sprawled on the thick moss of the cliff, his head propped in his hands, smiling, like the alien he was, upon the ice at sea and the untimely blue loom of the main-land and the vaguely threatening color of the sky. I could not begin, wishful as I might be for his wise counsel: but must lie, like a corpse, beyond all feeling, contemplating that same uneasy prospect. I wished, I recall, that I might utter my errand with him, and to this day wish that I had been able: but then could not, being overwhelmed by this new and convincing vision of all my communion with the maid.
"By Jove!" John Cather e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.
"What is it?" cries I.
"I must tell you," says he, rising to his elbow. "I can keep it no longer."
I waited.
"I"m in love," he declared. "Dannie," cries he, "I--I"m--_in love_!"
And now a peculiar change came upon the world, of which I must tell: whatever there had been of omen or beauty or curious departure from the natural appearance of sea and sky--whatever of interest or moment upon the brooding sh.o.r.e or abroad on the uttermost waters beyond it--quite vanished from my cognizance. "Twas a drear day and place I dwelt in, a very dull world, not enlivened by peril or desirable object or the difficulty of toil, not excused or in any way made tolerable by a prospect of sacrificial employment. I had been ill brought up to meet this racking emergency. What had there been, in all my life, fostered in body and happiness, expanding in the indulgent love and pitiably misdirected purpose of my uncle, to fit me for this denial of pure and confident desire? I tried, G.o.d knows I tried!
summoning to my help all the poor measure of n.o.bility the good Lord had endowed me with and my uncle had cultivated--I tried, G.o.d knows!
to receive the communication with some wish for my friend"s advancement in happiness. In love: "twas with Judith--there was no other maid of Twist Tickle to be loved by this handsome, learned, brilliantly engaging John Cather. Nay, but "twas all plain to me now: my deformity and perversity--my ridiculously a.s.sured aspiration towards the maid. I had forgot John Cather--the youth and person of him, his talents and winning accomplishments of speech and manner.
"And there she comes!" cries he.
"Twas Judith on the Whisper Cove road.
"You"ll wish me luck, Dannie?" says he, rising. "I"ll catch her on the way. I"ll tell her that I love her. I can wait no longer. Wish me luck!" says he. "Wish me luck!"
I took his hand.
"Wish me luck!" he repeated.
"I wish you luck," says I.
"Thanks," says he: and was off.