Part 33 (1/2)
”Awful!” said Mrs. Kobbe. Having said which, she put up her piteous little hands to her face and began weeping as if her heart would break.
The captain, like the man that he was, took a strong new tack.
”Never mind, darlin',” said he; ”ye've got me, 'n' that 's better to ye 'n all the dagarriers. We'll stompede the blasted thing, 'n' we'll go 'n' have a nice sail home.
”Ef I ever sees or hears or knows,” he added to the photographer, ”anywheres on the face o' this 'ere wide an' at the same time narrer 'arth, o' any o' these here dagarrier-ructions 't you've played off on me this day, bein' otherwise 'n destriyed, I sh'll take the first fa'r wind up here, an' if thar' ain't no wind I sh'll paddle, an' my settlemunt 'ith you'll be a final one. Good-arternoon.”
The captain and his wife strolled down to the beach, arm in arm, Miss Pray and I following, forlorn and forgotten, behind. We saw the captain tenderly pin the shawl about his wife's neck before he left us on the windy wharf, to go out without a murmur to bring in the ”Eliza Rodgers.”
”How shall we get major down the slip?” I heard Mrs. Kobbe whisper anxiously to Miss Pray.
The ”slip” was an inclined plane of boards, of some thirty feet in length, ending in the water; it was without steps or railing, smooth, green with sea-water and slime, and it was, at the present state of the tide, the only way of boarding the ”Eliza Rodgers.”
The captain now stood in the boat below, holding her to the slip.
Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray, leaving me with an encouraging smile, both sat themselves down, and by the simplest means of descent slid safely and swiftly down the incline, amid ringing cheers and acclamation from the wharf.
”Come on, major!” called the captain. ”Touch-and-go----”
And I! Where now are my faithful henchmen, the men of mighty stature who do my bidding, the liveried giants who open the door of my carriage? The breeze blew in my face, and the ”Eliza Rodgers” waited below, and I heard the rough audience from the wharf shouting that I should be up to that much!
Ay, and far more.
I sat me down with a smile: that strange and swift period of pa.s.sage is still fresh in my memory; how the wind, aided by some slimy intervening objects, turned me completely about, so that I bounded at last with affectionate violence, back foremost, into the enfolding arms of my friends below; cheered, too, from the wharf, especially as, not having been able to make so judicious an arrangement of my earthly vestments as Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray had done, I was now a startlingly marked object of ridicule.
Little cared we. That adventure down the slip, ignominious though it was, had put fire into my heart. I entered eagerly into the captain's scheme of hauling and rifling the Millport lobster-traps, in the convenient fog which, as if sent by heaven, hid us for a little s.p.a.ce from the land. The blood of ancestral pirates and robbers bounded hilariously once more in my long-easeful, sluggish veins.
The floor of our boat was covered with bright sea-spoils, the fog lifted, the wind blew fair and strong. Hungry eternally, we munched our stolen fried cakes with delight.
The sun set in a spendthrift glory of state and color, the water was as if translated to celestial climes, languidly the fair moon arose.
And I--forever Vesty's face, in some dream of youth and happiness, outlying my estate; pictured, apart from me, yet new-creating me with joy. Afar off in earth-meadows, the love-note of the thrush--not for me, yet pa.s.sing dear and sweet. That slender, languorous moon pointed me to humble village spires and gra.s.s-grown paths, pale lovers whispering at a rustic gate. I, poor sprite, stooped down and loved and blessed them, though I sped away to sail forever and forever on the seas!
XVIII
UNCLE BENNY SAILS AWAY TO GALILEE
Say the philosophers how, to the properly sane mind, there is no sorrow. But Vesty, only a Basin, fighting Christ's war against the flesh--Vesty had sorrow.
”It was,” she confessed to me alone, I being as a ghost or confessor--”it was like pulling my heart out, to have Notely go away so. It was like taking little Gurd away--but it was the only way.”
”He has gone back to his wife?”
”Yes.” Vesty s.h.i.+vered. I had chanced to meet her in the lane, and the wind was chill.
”And what are you going to do, Vesty?”
”I am going where they want me to help.” She held the thin, frayed shawl at her neck, the rosy child wrapped as usual on her arm: ”there is always some one wanting me to help, and little Gurd is not so much care now but I can get along with it.”
”You go out as general drudge or charwoman!” I felt my nostrils quiver and a bitter harshness in my voice.