Part 2 (1/2)
”You will find they are a success, to surprise yourself,” he called out: ”her most bosom friends will writhe and scream with envy.”
The winding line of the long New England coast faces the sea, in its sweeping curves, in every direction. From the Callender place, the ocean lay to the south. Though elsewhere east winds might be blowing harsh upon the coast, here, almost every day, and all day long, in summer, the southwest wind came pouring in from the expanse of waters, fresh and cool, boisterous often, but never chill; and even winds from the east lost edge in crossing miles of pitch-pine woods, of planted fields, of sandy ponds, of pastures, and came in softened down and friendly.
A gentle breeze was drifting in from sea. All day long it had been blowing, salt and strong and riotous, tossing the pine-tops, bending the corn, swaying the trees in the orchards, but now it was preparing to die away, as was its wont, at sundown, to give to the woods, the cornfields and the orchards a little s.p.a.ce of rest and peace before it should rise again in the early evening to toss them all night long. The blue of the sky was blue in the water. Every object stood out sharp and clear. Down the low, curving sh.o.r.e-line, curls of smoke rose from distant roofs, and on the headland, up the coast, the fairy forest in the air was outlined with precision. Distant s.h.i.+ps were moving, like still pictures, on the horizon, as if that spell were laid on them which hushed the enchanted palace. There was just sea enough to roll the bell-buoy gently, and now and then was rung an idle note of warning. Three fis.h.i.+ng-boats lay anch.o.r.ed off the Spindle, rising and falling, and every now and then a sea broke on the rock. On the white sand beach, waves were rolling in, dying softly away along the sh.o.r.e, or heavily breaking, with a long, flying line of foam.
The sun was fast descending. Delia Prince went out to the corner of the house and shaded her eyes to look at the sunset. The white clouds turned to a flaming red, and the reflection dyed to crimson the surface of the creeks; the sun descended toward the wooded bluff that flanked the bay, sent a thousand shattered, dazzling rays through the trees, and disappeared.
The red of the clouds and the red of the water gave place to gray. The wind died down. The silence was intense,--all the more marked because of the few sharp sounds that broke it now and then. Across the bay, near sh.o.r.e, a man was raking oysters; he stood in the stern of his skiff, and the bow was up in the air. Near by a girl was driving sluggish cows along the beach, and her shrill cries came over the water; by a cottage on the bank a boy was chopping brush upon a block, and Delia watched the silent blows, and heard the sound come after. He smiled as she looked; for every night she saw the boy's mother stand at the door to call him, and saw him come reluctant to his task.
There was a sense of friendly companions.h.i.+p in all these homely sights and sounds. It was different from the old house, shut in close by a second growth of birch and oak.
The table was standing ready for a late supper. The children had gone for berries to the Island, and they would soon come home, and David was due, too, with his money.
She smiled as he appeared. The ascent to the brow of the hill was so sharp that first you saw a hat in movement, then a head, then shoulders, body, legs, and feet. She ran quickly down the road to meet him, and took his arm.
”You couldn't catch the noon train?” she said. ”Captain Wells stopped at the door a little while ago to see what time we should be down to get the deed, and luckily I told him that we might not be down until into the evening. He said he 'd stay at home and wait till we came.”
”Delia,” said David, when he had seated himself in the house, ”I 've got bad news to tell you, and I may as well out with it first as last.”
”You have n't s.h.i.+pped for another whaling voyage?”
”No; that would be nothing,” he said.
Delia stood and looked at him.
”Well,” she said, ”didn't you get as much as you counted on?”
”Yes,--twenty more.”
”It isn't anything about the children? I expect them home every minute.”
”No.”
”Delia,” he said, ”you was a great fool ever to have me. You ought to have taken advice.”
”What is the matter?” she said. ”Why don't you tell me?”
”I 've lost the money,” he said. ”The Captain warned me how apt a seafaring man is to lose money; but I did n't take any heed, and I went off with Calvin Green--”
”With Calvin Green! What did I tell you!” she said.
”Wait a minute--and I stopped into a jewelry store and bought you a pair of ear-rings, and I came off and left my wallet on the counter, the way that fool Joe Ba.s.sett did, to Gloucester. When I went back, the rascal claimed he never saw me before--said he didn't know me from the Prophet Samuel, as if I was born that minute. And now they'll all say--and it's true--that I'm a chip of the old block, and that I 'm bound to come out at the little end. There!” he said, as he opened a little parcel and took out the earrings. ”There 's what 's left of five hundred and twenty dollars, and you must make the most of 'em. Hold 'em up to the light and see how handsome they are. I don't know, after all, but they are worth while for a man to pitch overboard off Cape Horn and harpoon whales two years for. All is, just tell folks they cost five hundred dollars, and they 'll be just as good as hen's-egg diamonds.
”In fact, I don't know but I sort o' like the situation,” he went on, in a moment. ”It seems sort of natural and home-like. I should have felt homesick if I 'd really succeeded in getting this place paid for.
'T would have seemed like getting proud, and going back on my own relations. And then it 'll please everybody to say, 'I told you so.'
There 'll be high sport round town, when it gets out, and we back water down to the old place.
”Come, say something, Delia!” he said, in a moment. ”Why don't you say something about it? Don't you care that the money's lost, that you stand there and don't say a word, and look at nothing?”