Part 58 (1/2)

And now indeed their days were full, and their nights, for Master Wulfrey had an appet.i.te that brooked no waiting, and he ruled that household with a l.u.s.ty pair of lungs against which even equinoctial gales strove in vain.

But it was all part of the price of their joy in him, and they paid it joyfully; and he repaid them tenfold by simply being alive and permitting them to watch his vigorous kickings as he lay naked on a blanket at their feet in the suns.h.i.+ne.

Avice was speedily herself again, herself and so very much more. In his rejoicing eyes all her beauty was clarified, dignified, emphasised manifold, in a way that he would not have believed possible.

It was his turn now, in spite of all his philosophy,--and at times hers again also--to marvel at all that had been vouchsafed them, and to wonder, with a fleeting touch of fear, if happiness so great could possibly last.

The sense of the mighty responsibility their love entailed was upon them. Suppose, by any dire misfortune, he were to be taken away,--what would happen to them? He believed her capable of rising to the occasion for the boy's sake and doing man's work in his place, but it would be a desperately hard fight for her. Suppose they should be taken from him--either, both. G.o.d!--he could spare the boy best, but it would be terrible to lose either.

And suppose, thought she in turn, either of themselves should be taken!

Suppose they should both be taken!--Well, in that case the poor little fellow would linger behind but a very short time. They would soon all be together again.

But such black thoughts, natural as they were, inevitable almost, still partook, to both their minds, of basest ingrat.i.tude and lack of trust.

And yet they did high service, for, when they came upon them their souls went down on their knees, and there they found strength and joyousness again.

Little Wulf--but they very early began to call him Cubbie, it seemed so appropriate--fulfilled all the promise of his advent. He was a marvellous child. He crawled vigorously at nine months, and headed straight across the soft yellow sand for the water, like a true Islander, born of freedom and the open air and the suns.h.i.+ne, the moment he discovered this new power. And they followed him, foot by foot, with beaming faces, as he wallowed along like a well-developed white frog, digging his little snub nose into the sand at times, but gurgling and laughing all the same, and struggling on without a look to right or left, intent only on the water in front.

At the lip of the tide, where it came creaming up the beach in long soft swirls of amber, laced with bubbles and edged with filmy foam, she was for s.n.a.t.c.hing him up. But Wulf stayed her. He wanted to see what the boy would do.

He was no stranger to cold water, but he had so far met it only in a tub, never in such quant.i.ty as this. He crawled on along the wet sand and the soft swirl came rus.h.i.+ng up to welcome him. It was quite two inches deep. It filled him with astonishment and took away his breath.

Everything under him seemed on the move. He stiffened for a second on his front paws, gave a huge bellow of amazement, tried to grab the back-streaming water with both hands as a cat pounces on a mouse, and then set off after it at top speed, and was swung up into the air by his delighted father, and held there, kicking and crowing, and striving still after the enchanted water below.

”He'll do,” laughed Wulf. ”He'll swim as soon as he can walk. The first native! And a credit to the Island!”

Golden days! If the first year of their married life was all pure gold, this second was gold overlaid with jewels of rare delight. Every moment of it was happiness unalloyed. The boy throve mightily. Avice was in the best of health and spirits, and to the eyes of her lover grew more beautiful with every day that pa.s.sed.

What more could the soul of man desire?

LXIII

Their Wulf Cub was fifteen months old, and could swim like a fish, and run like a free-born savage, and talk in a jargon of his own which was yet quite understandable to his parents, when his sister Avice came on the scene. She took after her mother, and her father vowed there never had been such a lovely child born into this world before.

Their patriarchal life flowed on, deepening and widening, as it went, and so far without any break in its smooth-swelling current. The great gales, to which they had grown accustomed, piled up ever-increasing supplies for them. Within certain narrow bounds they knew no lack, nor would they though they lived there for a hundred years. On great occasions the wreckage even yielded them luxuries of the commonplace which in the former life they had looked upon as ordinary adjuncts to a meal and accepted perfunctorily, without a thought of special thankfulness. But here they were rarities, priceless delicacies to be held in esteem and made the most of. Apples for example. Once their western point was strewn thick with what seemed a whole s.h.i.+p-load of delicious red apples. They had probably been packed in frail barrels or cases which the waves made short work of, and the birds were fortunately away. They spent days carrying them up above tide-level and then transporting them home, and revelled in apples for weeks till their stock went bad. Another time it was potatoes, which they had not tasted for over three years. Wulf declared it was almost worth while to have been denied them so long, to find such new relish in them now.

Avice regretted, for the children's sakes, that they could not have them all the time.

And that set him to planting a quant.i.ty in some of the damp bottoms by the water-pools. They came up all right, but the rabbits cleared the green shoots as fast as they appeared. Upon that he fenced off a patch with some of his superfluous raft timber and planted more, and succeeded in raising a small crop, but they were a degenerate race, lacking the good soil which had gone to the making of their ancestors.

Curiously enough, that fact started into expression trains of thought that had been latent in both their minds.

He had come in exultantly with his first fruits of the potato-patch, Cubbie at his heels proudly bearing one in each hand, and Avice cooked them rejoicingly and p.r.o.nounced them excellent.

”It will be so delightful to have potatoes again,” said she.

But he was critical of his own production, as the author of a work--even though it be but a potato--may be allowed to be. ”They have neither the texture nor the flavour of the original stock,” he said.

”I suppose they need better soil than our old sandbank can afford them,”--and his eyes happened to fall on Cubbie munching away at a potato, and hers lighted on the dark little head in her arm. The same thought p.r.i.c.ked both their hearts and their eyes met with understanding.