Part 2 (1/2)

”And when you saw Joffre you wept?”

”Not exactly. There was a young fellow standing in the crowd quietly, with his arm in a sling. He was hardly more than a boy, and he looked sick. He had beautiful sombre eyes, with a look in them that--well, as if he had seen so much, and as if he did not quite understand. You should have seen his eyes. Like a wild thing. And when Joffre came, I thought he would go crazy. He waved his cap frantically, and the tears just streamed out of his eyes, and you should have heard him. Joffre heard, and saw, and he leaned out of the car, and he saluted that boy. My! That boy was proud. You can guess--that was when I cried. And we got him into the car with us. He didn't look able to go far. He was a soldier who had been with the Canadians over there, a Frenchman by birth. He told us a little about it, but he didn't seem to want to talk. He had been wounded, and sick, and had come back over here on sick leave or something of the kind. And he and Lejeune, the chauffeur, got to talking, and we took him home. He wants to get back into the fighting as soon as he can. And when he got out, Lejeune got out too. He was going to enlist.”

”Left you on the spot?”

Eve laughed. ”Yes,” she said, ”but I rather guess that it wasn't unexpected. I shouldn't be surprised if that was what father took him for. At any rate, father just smiled, and gave them both his blessing, and told Lejeune to come back when the war was over. And he gave him some money, and said that they could divide it between them.”

”How much, I wonder?”

”I don't know how much, but a good deal, considerably more than a hundred dollars. He had a note already written, too, a 'character,' as the maids call it, saying that he was a good chauffeur. Then Tom--he had been getting uneasy--said that he wanted to be in on this too, but he wasn't so well prepared as father. And he gave them all he had with him, except a dollar or two. That was too much for the French boy, and he waved his cap again, and cried, 'Vive la France! Vive l'Amerique!' with the tears streaming down his face again. And I cried some more, and so did Cecily. Oh, I had a lovely time, Adam.”

Eve was laughing again, and pressing closer to me. ”That French boy was a machinist before he went to the war, and Lejeune is a good chauffeur, and I shouldn't wonder if they'd both get into driving when they get over there. I hope so. But he wasn't thinking of that, the French boy. He is ready to go back, when his time comes, and meet his fate with a high heart. With a high heart, Adam. Oh,” she cried, ”don't you think it is stirring--just a little--to the imagination? Don't you?” And she gave me a little shake.

I nodded soberly, and hugged Pukkie closer. ”I rejoice, Eve,” I said irrelevantly, ”that Pukkie is not yet eleven.”

Eve did not reply directly. Her eyes filled with tears, and she drew Pukkie around between us. ”I suppose it is selfish,” she said. ”If a French machinist goes--only about eight or nine years older than Pukkie--and can stir me all up with the idea of it--why--”

She did not finish, so I did not know what she would have asked. But I could guess.

”War is wicked,” I said. ”There is no novelty in that idea. But if a wicked war is started, it may be more wicked to keep out of it than to go in, and there may be more misery involved in keeping out than in going in. I don't know about this one, and I don't believe that anybody knows. One thing I do know, and that is that wars will continue to occur at intervals as long as human nature is what it is. Man is a fighting animal. When he ceases to be, the time of his fall will have arrived. I have spoken.”

Eve laughed merrily. ”But you have not finished. Go on, oracle.”

”No more from the oracle. Only a purely personal observation. I could go into the fighting with a sort of a t.i.tillation--an unholy joy in fighting for its own sake, quite apart from any feeling for any cause. I believe that that is the feeling which animates most men who volunteer to fight. Of course they choose their side from conviction. At least, it is to be hoped that they do. But as for the actual combat, there is a joy in the fight--why, that alone accounts for all our games, at bottom.”

Eve was looking at me doubtfully. ”But, Adam,” she said slowly, ”you don't mean to--you aren't going to--”

I shook my head. ”I have no such intention. Make your mind easy. I have a dependent family. I don't know what you would do without my efforts to support you. It would be a terrible misfortune if you were cast upon your father's shoulders. You might starve.”

Eve seemed to be amused. But Pukkie had been getting uneasy, and he began to squirm. Then he seized my arm.

”Look, daddy. See that big schooner. I never saw her before. What is it?”

I looked. A great white schooner was headed in, and she was almost at the entrance of the harbor. The wind had fallen light with the approach of the sun to his setting; the schooner had all her light sails set and came on fast. Suddenly the light sails began to come off, slacking down, wrinkling, and gathered in, and stowed, as a man would take off his coat. Before one was well in another would start slacking down, wrinkling, gathered in, and stowed, almost as fast as I tell it. That meant a big crew well trained. All her kites were stowed, and she began rounding into the wind, letting her jibs go as she came around. She shot a long way, but stopped at last, and her chain rattled out, and she began to drift astern. Then her foresail came down steadily, and before it was down, sailors swarmed out upon the footropes of the mainboom, and the great mainsail began to come down, slowly and steadily, gathered in as it came by the men upon the footropes. By the time all her chain was paid out, and she was finally at rest, all her sails were furled, and they were getting out the covers.

A s.h.i.+ning mahogany launch was dropped into the water, run back to the gangway, and a girl ran lightly down the steps.

”Elizabeth Radnor,” said Eve, wondering. ”What can she be doing there?”

”Perhaps the owners take lessons in dancing,” I suggested.

Eve smiled. ”She gives lessons in swimming too,” she said.

A man followed Miss Radnor. He seemed strangely familiar.

”Bobby!” cried Eve. ”I think it's funny. I'm sure it's Bobby.”

I was sure it was Bobby. It might be funny, but it was not strange. The launch made for Old Goodwin's landing at forty miles an hour.

IV.

I lay against the bank above my clam beds, with my hands clasped behind my head, and I gazed up at the whitish blue of the sky, and at the little floating clouds flecking the blue, and at an occasional herring gull flying across my field of vision with moderate wing-beats and with no apparent object, and at the procession of screaming terns busy at their fis.h.i.+ng. For the terns have come, which always marks the change of season for me, but the winter gulls have not all gone. And I looked at the tree over my head, and I cast back over the years. I could see the tree merely by raising my eyes, without raising my head.

That tree has a.s.sociations and a history: for under that tree Eve stood the fifth time that I saw her,--I remember each time,--and it was raining, a hard drizzle from the southeast, and the water dripped from her wide felt hat, and shone upon her long coat, and she was smiling. So that tree has a.s.sociations for me--and for Eve as well, I believe. And sundry pairs of rubber boots have been hung in a crotch of it, both Eve's, and at a somewhat later time, Old Goodwin's; wherefore it has a history. And here, too, just where my head was pillowed, Eve had sat but a scant two hours after I had found her out,--I had thought she was a governess in Old Goodwin's house,--and she had set us both right for ever. And now there were many happy years behind us, and more happy years ahead of us, and there were Pukkie and Tidda; but most of all there was Eve.

So I lay and drank in the suns.h.i.+ne, and basked in its warmth, and my mind was a blank save for these pleasant musings. My poor little son! All of the Sunday that he was here--two days ago--it rained hard. He did not seem to mind it, but dragged me out in it--he had not such hard work to get me out. I like the wet well enough, but we have had a long stretch of cold and wet. But he got me out, and wandered the sh.o.r.e, clad in his rubber coat, and his rubber boots, and his little sou'wester, and he watched the white schooner; but on the schooner there was no sign of life save some sailors standing like statues in their dripping oilskins, and a man in a pea-jacket and faded old blue cap, who paced back and forth at the stern, or stood still by the rail for long periods, and then took up his pacing again. And Pukkie looked up at me and asked whether I thought he was the captain or the mate, and would have gone out there in one of Old Goodwin's boats, with me to help him row. But I refused. It is wet and uncomfortable rowing in a pouring rain; better standing.

And he would go up to his grandfather's in the hope of finding Bobby Leverett. So we went, and we found Bobby sitting on the piazza with the telescope and Miss Radnor; and Pukkie bearded Bobby in his chair, and asked him point-blank what he had been doing in that schooner. We had told Pukkie about the Rattlesnake, and Jimmy Wales and Ogilvie.

And Bobby grinned at my son, and answered him, if you call it an answer.

”Sorry not to be able to tell you, Puk, old chap,” he said, ”but you know we are enjoined not to publish information of the movements of vessels, and the plans of the navy are a dead secret. It might give information to the enemy.” And he pointed at me.

”Do you know the plans of the navy?” asked Pukkie.

Bobby laughed, and so did Miss Radnor. ”I refuse to answer,” said Bobby, ”on the ground that it would incriminate me. We may have been out baiting our traps. Ask your father about it.”

”I don't believe the navy has any plans,” I said, ”so far as you are concerned. They just want to make you think that you are busy.”

”Treason!” Bobby cried loudly. ”Treason! I'm afraid it's my duty to lay charges against you, Adam.”

”And I,” I retorted, ”will expel you from members.h.i.+p in the Clam Beds Protective Company--if you persist.”

”There!” said Miss Radnor. ”How will you like that, Mr. Leverett?”

”I'll have to give in,” Bobby replied. ”It's a cruel and unusual punishment, and therefore unconst.i.tutional, but Adam wouldn't mind a little thing like that. I am moved by the thought of Eve's grief, although you wouldn't think that a good sport like Eve would object to a traitor's taking off. I surrender, Adam. Be merciful.”

Our noise had attracted Old Goodwin, and he joined us. And, thinking that Bobby might as well be left to the society of the telescope and Miss Radnor, we left him, we three, and betook ourselves to the sh.o.r.e. On the white schooner the man in the pea-jacket and old faded blue cap was still pacing back and forth by the rail, and Pukkie turned to his grandfather and asked him the question which I could not answer.

At that moment the man caught sight of Old Goodwin, and waved his arm, and Old Goodwin answered the wave.

”That is Captain Fergus, Pukkie. He's the captain. Some years ago he was captain of vessels that sailed the deep oceans.”

My son was astonished. Captains who sail the deep oceans command his unbounded respect. I inferred from his reply that skippers of yachts, even of great white schooner yachts, do not.

”Was he?” he said. ”How does it happen that he is skippering a yacht then?”

Old Goodwin laughed his pleasant, quiet laugh.

”He owns the yacht--or he did. I think it likely that he gave up going to sea on account of his wife. He was married four or five years ago.”

”Oh, his wife!” my son replied in accents of deep scorn. It was evidently incomprehensible to him that a man should give up such a delightful occupation for a mere wife.

Old Goodwin laughed again. ”I'd take you out there if it weren't so wet. But never mind. She'll be in here again some time when you're at home.”

Then we wandered the sh.o.r.es until the rain stopped and the sky was a ma.s.s of heavy gray clouds, but the sun did not come out; and Pukkie had to go in.