"AND THE WINDS OF THE OCEAN STIRRED ABOUT THEM AND FILLED THE SAILS."
"AND THE WINDS OF THE OCEAN STIRRED ABOUT THEM AND FILLED THE SAILS."
"AND THE WINDS OF THE OCEAN STIRRED ABOUT THEM AND FILLED THE SAILS."
The warehouse of Rufus Stevens' Sons stood on the waterfront, huge, square, and with many windows. There was no rutted road here, with its scum of foul, black mud; stones were set in smoothly and solidly. The row of brick arches opening into the warehouse were high enough to admit a laden dray. Anthony stood in the mouth of one and looked in. The place was like a dim vast cavern packed with riches and filled with aromatic smells; porters, draymen, and clerks moved about in the half-light like gnomes; never before had Anthony been so impressed by the complete meaning of order, routine, spaciousness, wealth.
The wharves of the firm were heaped with cargo; three square-riggers were tied there; windlasses turned; seamen chanted as they threw their weight against the bars and swung the merchandise up from the holds. Anthony looked from the ships, with their abundance and ordered labor, to the warehouse and its repletion and thought of that day one half-year before—the day theRufus Stevens, under her makeshift mast and ill-fitting sail, rounded the bend in the river, amazing all who beheld her.
And that wonderful cargo! That shipful of riches! What Charles had dreamed of it came true; for there was the house of Rufus Stevens' Sons once more set squarely upon its foundations; there it stood, fixed, settled, strong, with no man to speak a word against it.
For that part of its past, foul with villainy, was canceled. And its future was bright and long. And there was peace, and there was honor, and there was prosperity.
Anthony went to see Charles at his house on Ninth Street on a snowy Sunday evening. And he found him wrapped comfortably in a rug before the library fire, reading a play-book. Charles smiled and shook the young man's hand.
"It is pleasant to sit here," he said, "and read and look at the fire and think how safe things are in your hands."
"How are you?" Anthony asked.
"I am better. Oh, I am a deal better. You need not be afraid," and he smiled and patted the young, strong arm. "I am back from the darkness for good and all. But here I'll sit, Anthony, in the company of my books, while the house of Stevens moves under your hand. Here I'll sit quietly and with nothing to disturb me. I'll lead a rich life in this room, by this fire; a rich, full life, with companions like this to amuse me," and he riffled the leaves of the play-book.
"Your books," said Anthony, gratefully and wistfully, "thank God for them!"
Charles smiled, and again he patted the young man's arm.
"Your grandfather never concerned himself with books; and you are a deal like him. But they would store your mind and make it rich," he said. "You would do well to encourage them. Those rakehells of the Restoration, now, would amuse you, if your taste runs to their kind. You'll find them there on the second shelf, next to the fireplace. Or, if you'd rather take a step back, the Elizabethans are just below, and they are a crew that'll shake your soul or your ribs, just as you'd have them. And those Italian tale-tellers were shrewd workmen—there, in the pigskin, right under your hand. But, if you think you'd care for romance nearer to this present day, there is Defoe's narrative of the shipwrecked sailor, and also Fielding's amusing chronicle of life as he's seen it in his own England."
There was an array of pudgy little books with stout leather backs upon a shelf quite low in the case. Anthony stooped and took one out and opened it. The eyes of Charles sparkled.
"Voyages!" said he. "That one, I'll wager, is Bartholomew Diaz. How often I've sailed with him, as a boy, to the mouth of the Great Fish River! And there is fine old Vasco da Gama! Many a summer afternoon, and I at school, he and I have doubled the cape, put the complaining pilots in irons, and thrown their quadrants into the sea. And Columbus, and Cabot, and the Merchant Adventurers' Company! There's a rank and file for you, if you want actual deeds and fine accomplishment: Hawkins and Drake, Davis and Sir Humphrey Gilbert; and that never-beaten Yorkshireman, Martin Frobisher.
"Yes, here I'll sit in this excellent company," said Charles, and he smiled and patted Anthony's arm. "I'll have nothing to disturb me. I'll lead a rich, full life in this room, Anthony, God bless you; rich and full, and with not a regret in all the world to throw either myself or my friends out of humor."
Christopher Dent sat in his back room, his spectacles on his nose, and a big book in Latin text upon his knee. A cheery fire crackled in the stove; two candles burned upon the table; and a number of other books, each as big as the one Christopher held, lay beside them. Outside the yellow flare lurked the retorts, the rows of bottles, and jars full of pent-up possibilities. Tom Horn sat upon a bench near the stove; he rubbed his knees in the warmth as the little apothecary looked at him over the edge of his spectacles.
"In none of the elder tongues," said Christopher, "is there much to do with the sea. As you say, the ancients were wise; they had a knowledge of many strange things, but they seldom ventured far from land, and the sea, as we know it, was a darkened thing to them. So, knowing nothing of its secrets, they could scarcely agree with what you say. Bear in mind," said Christopher earnestly, "I am not denying; I only announce a lack of authority in the ancients."
"The sea," said Tom Horn in his hushed voice, "has a meaning. It is more than a mass of water, washing around in the hollows of the world."
"I grant you that," said Christopher readily. "I grant you that much active principle is in the sea; it holds many vital elements crystallized and in solution. Soda, for example, is the cinder of sea-plants; and without this friendly alkali we'd many times be brought to a stand. The ocean gives rare and agreeable substances to materia medica, and in time, as we plumb its depth, it will give more."
But Tom Horn shook his head.
"I have watched the sea with the sun on it," he said, "and I've watched it running through the night. Hurricanes blow over it and make it leap and rave; but hurricanes die down, and the sea goes on. It is always muttering," said Tom Horn. "I've listened to it, hour after hour; it's always muttering over something it's hidden. But it never tells; it keeps its secrets well." He looked at Christopher for a long time, and then said, "Captain Weir was buried in the sea."
"Poor man," said the little apothecary. "Poor man, to rest away in the silence of the ocean's depths!"
"The sea is always muttering," said Tom Horn. "I've listened to it hour after hour; it's always muttering over something it's hidden. But it never tells; it keeps its secrets well."
The graveyard was beside the quaint brick church; a low wall inclosed it, and in June-time rose-vines climbed it and shook their wonders in the wind. It was a well-kept churchyard, orderly and unfrequented; in the cold months the snow covered the quiet graves gently; in summer-time the grass was very green.
In a far corner of the wall was set the stone shaft to Captain Weir. Though his body had been buried at sea, here sober thoughts of him would be kept by his fellow-citizens. Cut deep into the base of the monument were the words:
To the memory of Isaac Weir, once master in the Merchant Marine. He was a Steady Friend, and a Faithful Servant, and Died at last in Defense of Justice and the Law.
To the memory of Isaac Weir, once master in the Merchant Marine. He was a Steady Friend, and a Faithful Servant, and Died at last in Defense of Justice and the Law.
"A true word," said Anthony, as the last thing had been spoken, dedicating the stone to future generations. "A true, fair word."
"As honest a man as day ever lit a path for," said Mr. Stroude, solemn of face and beaver hat in hand. "He could ill be spared."
Mademoiselle said no word, but put a great bunch of blossoms at the foot of the stone; and there were tears in her eyes.
"His was a strong hand," said Christopher Dent. "And a brave spirit. I mind well how he insisted that I give him the facts that sent him away to sea and to his death. A friend was in peril, and he must go to him. A splendid, high resolve for any man."
Tom Horn stood silent and said nothing at all; and Mr. Sparhawk, dapper, with more the look of a wise old bird than ever before, took a careful pinch of snuff. And neither did he have any words in the matter, but put the snuff-box into his waistcoat pocket and listened considerately to the sayings of his neighbors.
There had never before been such a ship as theRufus Stevens. The Siddons yard, in that springtime, had hummed with her making; such a hammering and sawing as there had been, such a chipping and shaving, and boring and fitting, the clever old place never saw before. The keel was of solid, seasoned, toughened oak, as surely fitted, as strongly braced as old Rufus' spine had been. And to this grew the ribs, powerful, graceful, bent cunningly, to waste the impact of the sea, and to give space to her cargo. Then the beams went in to brace the frame; mighty, weighty, strong beams of live-oak that was like iron; beams that had been nursed and molded and cut to fit by shrewd joiners. Live-oak had been Charles's highest demand; live-oak that had been felled in proper time and seasoned in the sun and rain and wind. The stem was made of it—a great cutting stem that would throw the seas lightly apart; the stern-post was of it, and also the transoms, aprons, knight-heads, hawse-timbers, and keelson; and it was all clean and without defects. And, when she had been launched, how the workmen swarmed in her; how her masts reared when set in place; how wide and smooth and clean her deck was! What enormous yards and sails!
Anthony thought of all these things as he watched her, once more headed south and east, with the Delaware capes on either side, and the ocean under her foot. And madame stood by his side. Oh, no, no longer mademoiselle. She was his wife now; and she stood by his side, tall, beautiful, with fine brave eyes; and her hand was upon his arm; and she, too, watched the ship.
"She sails like a hawk," said Anthony. "And Corkery is a master that'll take advantage of it. With wind and weather, she'll dock in Calcutta in ninety days."
And they watched her head away for the Far East, sail over sail, her bow cutting the water and piling it white about her; and they were still watching as she winged away into the depths beyond the ocean's curve.
"God send her safe!" said madame softly. "And God send her back again."
And Anthony patted the hand that rested upon his arm; and there was the deep friendship of one comrade for another in the look he gave her; and there was in it, too, the love of a man for the dear woman he had greatly desired.
"She will return," said Anthony. "She will return many, many times."
"Why are you so sure?" she said; and she smiled.
"When you are with me, my senses seem keyed to unusual things," he said. "I see joy and peace coming down the wind, and there's a wonderful singing from far-off places."
And madame laughed and held tighter to his arm, and looked up at him, and loved him.
THE END