The ecstasy that came to Robert Morton with his new-found happiness swept before it the clouds that had overcast his sky, until his horizon was almost as radiant as it had been on the day of his arrival at Wilton. Janoah Eldridge came no more to the Spence cottage; Snelling had vanished; the Galbraiths were occupied with their own affairs; and the barrier between Bob and Willie began slowly to wear away. The little old man was of far too believing and charitable a nature to hold out long against his own optimism; moreover, he detested strife and was much more willing to endure a wrong than to harbor ill feeling; hence he was only too ready to reconstruct Janoah's venomous story into terms of his native blind faith. He did not, to be sure, understand, and for days and nights he puzzled ceaselessly over the problem events presented; but as no light was forthcoming, his zest in the enigma cooled until the mystery took on the unfathomable quality of various other mysteries he had wrestled with and finally shelved as unanswerable. There was the invention to finish, and so eager was he to see it completed that to this interest every other thought was subordinated. Therefore, although misgivings assailed him, they gradually receded into his subconsciousness, leaving behind them much of the good will he had formerly cherished toward Robert Morton.
The olive branch Willie tacitly extended Bob seized with avidity. Had not the world suddenly become too perfect to be marred by discord? Why, in the exuberance of his joy he would have forgiven anybody anything! He did own to bruised feelings, but time is a great healer of both mental and of physical pain, and the hurts he had received soon dimmed into scars that carried with them no acute sensation. His mind was too much occupied with Delight Hathaway and the wonder of their love for him to think to any great extent of himself. The romance still remained a secret between them, for so vehement had been the turmoil into which Zenas Henry had been thrown by the tidings of the girl's past history that it seemed unwise to follow blow with blow and acquaint him just at present with the news of the lovers' engagement. Moreover, there was Cynthia Galbraith to consider. Robert Morton was too chivalrous to be brutal to any woman, much less an old friend like Cynthia.
Hence he and Delight moved in a dream, the full beauty of which they alone sensed. Their secret was all the more delicious for being a secret, and with all life before them they agreed they could afford to wait. Nevertheless concealment was at variance with the character of either, and although they derived a certain exhilaration from their clandestine happiness they longed for the time when their path should lie entirely in the open, when Zenas Henry's consent should be obtained, and their betrothal acknowledged before all the world. Until such a moment came an irksome deception colored their love and left them in constant danger of discovery. Indeed, had the observer been keen enough to interpret psychic phenomena, there was betrayal in the soft light of Delight's eyes and in the grave tenderness of her face; and as for Bob, he felt his great good-fortune must be emblazoned on every feature of his countenance.
In point of fact, no such condition prevailed. The girl returned to her home and took her place there, bringing with her her customary buoyancy of spirit; and if her light-heartedness was more exaggerated than was her wont, those who loved her attributed it to her joy at being once more beneath her own roof-tree. Zenas Henry and the three captains fluttered about her as if her absence had been one of years rather than of days; and even Abbie, less demonstrative than the others, showed by a quiet satisfaction her deep contentment at having the girl back again.
Of course Robert Morton let no great length of time elapse before he climbed the hill and invaded the Brewster home. As Celestina's nephew and Willie's guest he had credentials enough to assure him of a welcome, and for an interval these sufficed to give him an enviable entrée; but after a few calls, his winning personality secured for him a place of his own. He inspected Captain Phineas Taylor's broken compass and set it right; he discussed rheumatism and its woes with Captain Benjamin Todd; he lent an attentive ear to the nautical adventures of Captain Jonas Baker. Abbie, who was a systematic housekeeper, approved of his habit of wiping his feet before he entered the door and the careful fashion he had of replacing any chair he moved; most men, she averred, were so thoughtless and untidy. But it was with Zenas Henry that the young man won his greatest triumph, the two immediately coming into harmony on the common ground of motor-boating. Most of the male visitors who dropped in at the white cottage came only to see Delight, but here was one who came to call on the entire family. How charming it was! They liked him one and all; how could they help it? And soon, so eagerly did they anticipate his coming, any lapse in his visits caused keen disappointment.
"I kinder thought that Morton feller might be round this evenin'," Captain Phineas would yawn in a dispirited tone, when twilight had deepened and the familiar figure failed to make its appearance above the crest of the hill. "Ain't it Tuesday? He most always comes Tuesdays."
"Tuesdays, Thursdays, an' Saturdays you can pretty mortal sure bank on him," Captain Benjamin would reply. "If he's comin' to-night, he better be heavin' into sight, for it's damp an' I'll have to be turnin' in soon."
"Mebbe he was delayed by somethin'," suggested Captain Jonas. "We'll not give him up fur a spell longer. He told me he'd fetch me some tobacco, an' he always does as he promises."
Zenas Henry smoked in silence.
"I sorter wish he would appear," he presently put in, between puffs at his pipe. "There was somethin' I wanted to ask him about that durn motor-boat."
"You don't mean to say that boat's out of order again, do you, Zenas Henry?" questioned Abbie.
"No, oh, no! 'Tain't out of order exactly. But the pesky propeller is kickin' up worse'n ordinary. It's awful taxin' on the patience. I'd give a man everything I possess if he'd think up some plan to rid me of that eel grass."
"Why don't you set Willie on the job?" asked Captain Benjamin.
"Ain't I told Willie over an' over again about it?" Zenas Henry replied, turning with exasperation on the speaker. "Ain't I hinted to him plain as day—thrown the bait to him times without number? An' ain't he just swum round the hook an' gone off without so much as nibblin' it? The thing don't interest him, it's easy enough to see that. He don't like motor-boats an' ain't got no sympathy with 'em, an' he don't give a hang if they do come to grief. In fact, I think he rather relishes hearin' they're snagged. I gave up expectin' any help from him long ago."
With a frown he resumed his smoking.
"Where's Delight?" Captain Phineas asked, scenting his friend's mood and veering tactfully to a less irritating topic.
"That's so! Where is the child?" rejoined Captain Jonas. "She was round here fussin' with them roses a minute ago."
"That ain't her over toward the pine grove, is it?" queried Captain Benjamin. "I thought I saw somethin' pink a-movin' among the trees."
"Yes, that's her an' Bob Morton with her, sure's you're alive!" Captain Phineas ejaculated with pleasure. "You'll get your tobacco now, Jonas, an' Zenas Henry can ask him about the boat."
"Can you see has he got a bundle?" piped the short-sighted Captain Jonas anxiously.
"Yep!"
"Then he ain't forgot the tobacco," was the contented comment. "He don't generally forget. He's a mighty likely youngster, that boy!"
"An' friendly too, ain't he?" put in Captain Benjamin. "There's nothin' he wouldn't do for you."
"He's the nicest chap ever I see!" Captain Phineas echoed. "Don't you think so, Zenas Henry?"
The answer was some time in coming, and when it did it was deliberate and was weighted with telling impressiveness:
"There's few young fry can boast Bob Morton's common sense," he said. "His headpiece is on frontside-to, an' the brains inside it are tickin' strong an' steady."
Abbie failed to join in the laugh that followed this announcement. Either she did not catch the remark, or she was too deeply engrossed with her own thoughts to heed it. Her eyes were fixed wistfully on the two figures that were approaching,—the girl exquisite with youth and happiness and the man who leaned protectingly over her. Yet whatever the reveries that clouded her pensive face, she kept them to herself, and if a shadow of dread mingled with her scrutiny no one noticed it.
Perhaps it was only Willie Spence who actually guessed the great secret,—Willie, who having been starved for romance of his own, was all the quicker to hear the heart-throbs of others. It chanced that just now he was deeply involved in several amorous affairs and because of them was experiencing no small degree of worry. The tangle between Bob, Delight, and Cynthia Galbraith kept him in a state of constant speculation and disquietude; then Bart Coffin and Minnie were perilously near a rupture because of another rejuvenation of the time-honored black satin; and although weeks had passed, Jack Nickerson had not yet mustered up nerve enough to offer his heart and hand to Sarah Libbie Lewis.
"Next you know, both you an' Sarah Libbie will be under the sod," Willie had tauntingly called after the lagging swain, as he passed the house one afternoon on his way from the village. "What on earth you're waitin' for is mor'n I can see."
The discomfited coast guard hung his head sheepishly.
"It's all right for you to talk, Willie Spence," he replied over his shoulder. "You ain't got the speakin' to do. It's I that's got to ask her."
Then as he sped out of sight, he added as an afterthought:
"By the way, Bart an' Minnie Coffin have come to a split at last over that 'ere dress. After gettin' it fixed, an' promisin' him 'twas fur the last time, she's ripped it all up again 'cause she's seen some picter in a book she liked better. Bart's that mad he's took his sea chest in the wheelbarrow an' set out for his mother's. I met him goin' just now."
"Bless my soul!" gasped Willie in consternation. "How far had he got?"
"He was about quarter way to the Junction," was the response. "He sung out he was headed where he'd be sure of gettin' three meals a day, an' where somebody'd pay some attention to him."
"H—m!" Willie reflected, scratching his thin locks. "Sorter looks as if it was time I took a hand, don't it?"
"I figger if anybody's goin' to interfere, now's the minute. Bart's got his sails set an' is clearin' port fur good an' all this time, no mistake. 'Twas sure to come sooner or later."
Their roads parted and Willie turned toward the town, while Jack Nickerson, with rolling gait, pursued his way to the beach where at the tip of a slender bar of sand jutting out into the ocean the low roofs of the life-saving station lay outlined against a somber sky. Great banks of leaden clouds sagging over the horizon had dulled the water to blackness, and a stiff gale was whistling inshore. Already the billows were mounting angrily into caps of snarling foam and dashing themselves on the sands with threatening echo. It promised to be a nasty night, and Jack remembered as he looked that he was on patrol duty. Yet although the muscles of his jaw tightened into grimness, it was not the prospective tramp along a lonely beach in the darkness and wind that caused the stern tensity of his countenance. Storms and their perils were all in the day's work, and he faced their possible catastrophes without a tremor. It would have been hard to find anywhere along the Massachusetts coast a braver man than Jack Nickerson. Not only was he ready to lead a crew of rescuers to succor the perishing, fearlessly directing the surfboat in its plunge through a seething tide, but many a time he had dashed bodily into the breakers, despite the hazard of a powerful undertow, and dragged some drowning creature to a place of safety. The fame of his many deeds of heroism had spread from one end of the Cape to the other, and as he was native-born the community never tired of relating his feats to any sojourner who strayed into the locality.
Yet courageous as was Jack Nickerson, there was one thing he was afraid of and that was a woman. Not that he trembled in the presence of all women—no, indeed! He had brought far too many of them to land for that. Women as a class did not appall him in the least. He had seen them in the agony of terror, in the throes of despair, and undismayed had offered them sympathy and cheer. It was one woman only who disconcerted him, the woman who for years had routed him out of his habitual poise and left him as discomfited as a guilty schoolboy caught in raiding the jam-pot.
Yes, he who inspired his associates with both respect and admiration was forced to acknowledge to himself that when face to face with Sarah Libbie Lewis he was nothing better than a faltering ten-year-old whose collar is too tight for him, and whose hands and feet are sizes too large. The paradox was too humiliating to be endured! Nevertheless, he had endured the ignominy of it for five-and-twenty years, and there seemed to be every prospect that he would continue to endure it. Periodically, it is true, he would rise in his wrath, resolving that another sun should not go down on his vacillation and timidity; nay, more, he would even stride forth to Sarah Libbie's home, vowing as he went that before he slept he would speak the decisive words that had for so long trembled on his tongue.
Confronted by the lady of his choice, however, his courage, like that of the immortal Bob Acres, would ooze away, and after basking for a wretched interval in the glory of her smile, he would retrace his steps with the declaration still unuttered. As far back as Jack could remember, this woman had tyrannized over him and humbled his self-esteem. In childhood she had leveled with a blow the sand castles he built on the beach for her delight, and ever since she had contrived to raze to the ground his less tangible castles,—dream-castles where he saw her the mistress of his lonely fireside. Yet despite her exasperating capriciousness, Jack had never wavered in his allegiance, not a whit. Long ago he had made up his mind that Sarah Libbie was the one woman in the world for him, and he had never seen cause to alter that verdict. Nor did he entertain any doubt that Sarah Libbie's sentiments coincided with his own, even though she did cloak her preference beneath so many intricate and misleading devices of femininity. It was not fear of the thunderingNothat hindered Jack from proclaiming his affection; it was merely the physical impossibility of putting his heart into intelligible and coherent phraseology when Sarah Libbie's bewitching gaze was upon him. He could meet all comers in a political argument, could hold his own against the banter of the village gossips; he could even defy Willie and his counsel; but to address Sarah Libbie on a matter so tender and of such vital import was an ordeal so overwhelming that it caused his tongue to cleave to the roof of his mouth, and his pulse almost to cease to beat. Unlucky Jack!
Many were the evenings he tramped the dunes, rehearsing in the darkness the momentous declaration that was to work a miracle in his solitary life. Like an actor committing his lines, he would repeat the words, hurling them upon the blackness of the night where, to the accompaniment of the booming surf, they echoed with a majesty and dignity astonishingly impressive. But in the light of day and Sarah Libbie's presence, his sonorous philippic would dwindle away into a jargon of garbled phrases too disjointed and meaningless to carry weight with any woman, let alone the peerless Sarah Libbie Lewis.
Thus for more than a quarter of a century Jack Nickerson had silently worshiped at the shrine of his divinity, and in the meantime the roses in Sarah Libbie's cheeks had grown fainter, and tendrils of silver had found their way into the soft curls that shadowed her brow. Still Jack could not speak the words that were on his lips. Of course the little woman could not do it for him, although she did venture by many a subtle device to aid him in his dilemma. She baked for him pies, cookies, and doughnuts of a delicious russet tint and sent them to the station, that their aroma might gently prod into action her lover's faintness of heart; these visible tokens of her devotion would disappear, however, leaving behind them only a tranquil sense of enjoyment; and as this lessened the fervor of her admirer's determination would evaporate. Then Sarah Libbie would resort to less ephemeral offerings,—scarves, wristers, mittens, patiently knitted from blue wool and representing such an endless number of stitches that Jack never viewed them without elation.
And as if these proofs of her regard were not sufficient, every evening just at sundown she would light a lantern and flash a good-night to him across the waters that estranged them. It was a pretty custom that had had its beginning when the boy and girl had lived as neighbors on the deserted highway that followed the horseshoe curve of the Belleport shore. They had evolved a code whereby, with much labor it must be admitted, they were able to spell out messages that flickered their way through the night with the beauty of a firefly's revel; but when Jack had taken up work with the coast guard, this old-time substitute for speech had been abandoned, giving place to the briefer method of three nightly flashes. Neither toil nor illness, rain, snow or tempest had in all the years prevented Sarah Libbie from being at her post at twilight, there to watch for the gleam of Jack's lantern, whose rays she answered with the light from her own. Even when fogs obscured the Bar so that the distant headland was cut off from view, Sarah Libbie would go through the little ceremony and after it was over return to her knitting with a quiet gladness, although the presence of the other factor in the drama was a mere matter of conjecture.
Thus the romance had drifted on, and Jack Nickerson now faced his fiftieth year and was no nearer bringing the love story to a culmination than he had been when as a boy in his teens he had gazed into Sarah Libbie's blue eyes and registered the vows he had never yet dared utter. Nevertheless lonely and disappointed as was Sarah Libbie, Jack was a thousand times more miserable. To-night, especially, as he tramped the coast in the teeth of the gale, he thought of Willie Spence's ridicule and one of his periodic moods of self-abasement came upon him. What a wretched cur he was! How lacking in nerve! Any woman, he muttered to himself, was better off without such a feeble-willed, spineless husband!
The fierce winds and whirling sands that stung his cheeks and buffeted him seemed a merited castigation, a castigation that amounted to a penance. He welcomed their punishment. As he stumbled on through the pitch black of the night, he asked himself what he was going to do. Was he always to go on loving Sarah Libbie and letting her love him and never in manly fashion bring the affair to a climax? If he did not mean to make her his wife, had he the right to stand in the way and prevent her from marrying some one else? The baldness of the question brought him up with a turn, and as he paused breathlessly awaiting his own verdict, his eye was caught by the lantern dangling from his hand. He regarded it with slow wonder as if he had never seen it before. Why had he never thought until now of this method of communication? Not only was it simple and direct, but it also obviated the difficulty that had always been the stumbling-block in his path,—the necessity of confronting Sarah Libbie in the flesh. He grasped the inspiration with zeal. Fate was with him. His watch was up, and he was free to make his way back to the station, if he so willed, and put his remarkable scheme into execution.
Away he sped through the howling tempest.
As he flew up the steps of the lookout tower, he could detect the twinkling lights from his lady's home gemmed against the background of velvet darkness. Perhaps her fluttering little heart was uneasy about her lover, and she was peering out into the gale. However that may be, he had no difficulty in summoning her to the window when he raised his lantern. Then, with the talisman held high, he paused. What should he say? Of course he could send no lengthy message. Even a few words meant a laborious amount of spelling. PerhapsWill You Marry Me?was as simple and direct a way as he could put it. Firmly he gripped the lantern. Then, instead of the customary three flashes, he began the involved liftings, dippings, and circlings which in luminous waves were to spell out his destiny.
Will You Marry—
Ah, there was no need for him to go on! Sarah Libbie had waited too long for those magic words to doubt their purport. Nor did she hesitate for an answer. In an instant she caught up the unique avowal, and across the turbulent waters signalled to her beloved the three mystic letters that should make her his forever. With the faint, blinking flashes, the weight of years fell away from Jack Nickerson. No longer was he a trembling, tongue-tied captive, scorning himself for his want of will. He was a free man, the affianced husband of the most wonderful creature in the world. In his exultation he raised his lantern aloft and swung it round and round with the abandon of a boy who tosses his cap in the air. Then he bounded down the iron staircase like a child let out of school, dashing round their spiral windings with reckless velocity.
The deed was done! Sarah Libbie was his!
It might have been half an hour later, as he sat smoking in blissful meditation in the living room of the station, that the door was wrenched open and Willie Spence burst into the room. Every hair on the old inventor's head was upright with anxiety, and he puffed breathlessly:
"What's ashore? I saw your signal an' knew straight off somethin' terrible was up, for you've never called for help from the town before. I've raised all the folks I could get a-holt of an' Bob Morton's gone to get more. They'll be here on the double quick!"
The boast was no idle one. Even as he spoke there was a tramping, a rush of feet, and a babel of confused, frightened voices, and into the room flocked the dwellers of the hamlet,—men, women, and children, all with wind-tossed hair and strained, terrified faces.
"What is it?"
"What's the matter?"
"Where's the wreck?"
As they stood there tragic in the dim light, there was a stir near the door and Sarah Libbie Lewis pushed her way through the crowd.
She had stopped only to toss a black shawl over her head and in contrast to its sable folds her cheeks and lips were ashen.
"They told me there was a wreck," she cried, rushing to Jack's side and seizing his arm wildly. "Oh, you won't go—you won't go and leave me now, Jack—not so soon—not after to-night!"
Already sobs were choking the words and her hands were clinging to his.
With the supreme defiance of a man prepared to defend his dearest possession against the universe, Jack Nickerson circled her in his embrace and faced the throng. No longer was he the shrinking, timorous supplicant. Victorious love had set her crown upon his brows, bestowing dignity upon his years and glory upon his manhood. His explanation came fearlessly to his lips.
"There ain't no wreck," he said quietly. "All the same I'm glad you saw my lantern an' came, 'cause I've got somethin' to tell you all. Me an' Sarah Libbie are goin' to get married."
For a moment there was an incredulous hush. Then Willie Spence came to the rescue.
"Well, I will say, Jack," he drawled, "you had a pretty good nerve to get us out on a night like this to tell us that! You might at least have waited 'til mornin'. Still, I reckon if I'd been nigh on to a quarter of a century gettin' my spunk together to ask a woman to marry me an' had finally done it, I'd a-wanted somebody to know it."
The words were not unkindly spoken and Jack joined in the general laugh. Nothing mattered to him now. Oblivious to the spectators, he was bending down over the woman he loved and murmuring:
"I love you, Sarah Libbie. I've always loved you."
The little old inventor watched the radiant pair a moment then motioned to the villagers to slip away. But Bartley Coffin could not be restrained from lagging behind and whispering confidentially in Jack's ear:
"If you want to be truly happy, mate, an' live clear of a life of pesterin', don't you never buy Sarah Libbie a satin dress! Minnie an' I have made it up, thanks to Willie Spence, but 'twas a tussle. I'd come to the jumpin'-off place."
The statement was but too true. Willie had indeed intervened and averted a tragedy, but the feat had demanded ruthless measures, and he had trudged home from the Coffins with the bone of contention clutched rigidly beneath his arm.
That night Celestina heard muffled sounds in the workshop.
"Oh, my land!" she murmured. "If Willie ain't hitched again! I did hope nothin' new would come to him 'til he got rested up from this other idee."
But Willie's inspiration was not of the inventive type. Instead the little old man was standing before the stove, kindling a fire, and into its crackling blaze he was bundling the last remnants of Minnie Coffin's far-famed black satin. The light played on his face which was set in grim earnestness.
"It seems a wicked shame," he observed in a whisper, as he viewed the funeral pyre, "but it's the only way. Long's that dress remained on earth there'd be no peace for Bart nor his wife either. It had to go."
The flames danced higher, flashing in and out of the trimmings of jet and charring the beads to dullness. In the morning only a heap of gray ashes marked the flight of Minnie Coffin's social ambitions.
"Requiescat in pace!" murmured Willie as with lips firm with Puritan stoicism he passed by the stove. There he added gently: "Poor Minnie! Poor foolish Minnie!"
The invention was finished! The last rivet was in place, the last screw secure, and before the fulfilment of his dream the little old man stood with glowing face. It was a gentle, happy face with misty blue eyes that carried at the moment a serene contentment.
"I couldn't 'a' done it but for you, Bob," he was saying. "The idea was all well enough, but 'twould 'a' been of no use without other brains to carry it out. So you must remember a big slice of the credit is yours."
Robert Morton shook his head.
"Oh, the thing is yours, Willie—every bit yours," protested he. "I only did some of the mechanical part, and that any fool could do."
"The mechanical part, as you call it, is full as important as the notion," Willie persisted. "I shall tell Zenas Henry it's our invention when I turn it over to him."
The pronoun thrilled Bob with pleasure. It meant the sweeping aside of the last film of distrust and the restoration of the old man's former confidence and friendship. For days Willie had slowly been reaching the conviction that if fraud had been practised Tiny's nephew had been only an innocent party to it—the tool of more designing hands. How was the lad to know he was being so artfully made use of? And anyway, perhaps there may have been no conspiracy at all. Might not Janoah have been mistaken about Snelling raiding the workshop? Why, a score of reasons might have brought him there! He might have left behind him something he needed; or there might have been something he wanted to do. It was absurd to accuse him of a secret and deliberately planned visit.
Willie was a simple, single-minded soul and now that Janoah and his malicious influence had been removed, he dropped comfortably back into a tranquillity from which, when viewed in perspective, his former suspicions seemed both unjust and ridiculous. Suppose Mr. Galbraith did happen to be a boat-builder? Was he not Bob's friend and Delight's uncle, a gentleman of honor who had money enough without stooping to secure more by treachery? And did it not follow that since Mr. Snelling was in his employ he must be a person of reputable character? A fig for Janoah Spence's accusations!
Willie blew a contemptuous whiff of smoke into the air. How had he ever dropped to being so base as to credit them for an instant? He was ashamed for having done so.
Therefore whole-heartedly he gave his hand to Robert Morton, and if the act were a mute petition for forgiveness it was none the less sincere in its intent and was met with an equal spirit of good will.
"I suppose now that everything is complete, there is no reason why we can't present the thing to Zenas Henry right away, is there?" questioned Bob, who with hands thrust deep in his trousers' pockets contemplated with satisfaction the product of their joint toil.
"Not the least in the world," Willie answered. "If we was to keep it here a week there ain't nothin' more we could do to it, an' since you've tried it out over at Galbraith's we know it works."
"Oh, it works all right!" laughed Bob.
The eyes of the little inventor softened and into them crept a glint of pensiveness.
"Yes," he repeated, "we can deliver it up to Zenas Henry 'most anytime now." He paused. "Queer, ain't it, how kinder attached you get to anything you've fussed over so long? It gets to be 'most a part of you. You'll think it funny, I guess, but do you know I'll be sorter sorry to see this thing goin'."
It was the regret of the parent compelled to part from his child and with an effort at comfort Robert Morton said cheerfully:
"Oh, you'll be having a new scheme before long."
"Mebbe I will," Willie answered, brightening. "I never can tell when the sun rises in the mornin' what idee will kitch me before night. Still, I somehow feel there'll be no idee like this one. You know they say every artist creates one masterpiece," he smiled shyly. "This, I reckon, is my masterpiece."
"It is a bully one, anyhow!" ejaculated Bob. "Aren't you curious to hear what Zenas Henry will say when he sees it?"
"I am sorter itchin' to," admitted Willie in less meditative tone. "Only last night I was thinkin' after I got to bed how would be the best way of givin' it to him. I've sorter set my heart on springin' it on him as a surprise. What's your notion?"
"I think that would be a fine plan," replied Bob, eager to humor the gentle dreamer. "If we could get him and the captains out of the way, it would be good sport simply to fasten the attachment to the boat and wait and see what happened."
"Wouldn't that be the beateree!" chimed in Willie excitedly. His face glowed and he rubbed his hands with honest pleasure. "Wouldn't it, though? We could manage it, too, for Delight could arrange to get Zenas Henry an' the three captains out of the way. She's an almighty good one at keepin' a secret, as I reckon you've found out already."
He stole a sly glance at the young man at his elbow who flushed uncomfortably.
"Yes," he rambled on, "Delight can shut her mouth on occasions like as if it was a scallop shell. The only trouble is she'd oughter close her eyes too, for they talk 'most as well as her tongue does. Likely you've noticed that," he added innocently.
"I—eh—"
"Fur's that goes, your own eyes do somethin' in the speakin' line," affirmed Willie, bending to fleck a bit of dust from the appliance before them.
"What!" Robert Morton exclaimed with alarm.
The old inventor nodded gravely.
"Yes," continued he, "now I come to think of it, you've got among the most speakin' eyes I ever see. They kinder bawl things right out."
"What—what—have they—" stammered Bob, crumpling weakly down upon the rickety chair before the stove.
"Bawled? Oh, a lot of things," was the provokingly ambiguous retort.
His companion eyed him narrowly.
"I'm—I'm—in a horrible mess, Willie," he suddenly blurted out quite irrelevently.
"I know it."
Robert Morton gasped, then lapsed into stunned silence.
"Without goin' into any details or discussin' any ladies we know, my advice would be to make a clean breast of the whole thing," the little old man announced, avoiding Robert Morton's eyes and blowing a ring of smoke from his pipe impersonally toward the low ceiling. "Have it out with Zenas Henry an' set yourself right with the Belleport folks. You don't want to do nothin' under cover."
"No, I don't," rejoined the younger man quickly. "The reason I didn't do so in the first place was because Zenas Henry was so upset when he heard about Madam Lee that we—I thought—"
"He's calmed down now, ain't he?"
"Yes, he seems to have accepted the facts, especially as the Galbraiths have not been near him and have let the whole matter drop. Of course that is only a temporary condition, however. Mr. Galbraith has been in New York attending to important matters ever since Madam Lee's death. What will be done when he returns I do not know; but he will do something—you may be sure of that."
"That ain't no special business of yours or mine, is it?" Willie remarked. "All that concerns you is to let both those men know where you stand—Zenas Henry first, 'cause he's been like a father to Delight; an' Mr. Galbraith afterwards, 'cause—" he hesitated for the fraction of a second, "'cause the Galbraiths are the girl's nearest of kin an' legally, I s'pose, have a right—"
"Yes," interrupted Robert Morton hastily.
"When you get things all squared up, we'll talk more about it," continued Willie. "But 'til you do the affair ain't open an' above board, an' I don't want nothin' to do with it. The top of the ocean is good enough for me; I never was much on swimmin' under water."
He broke off abruptly to refill his pipe.
"Now about this motor-boat," he went on crisply, veering to a less delicate subject. "S'pose you fix it up with Delight to keep Zenas Henry an' the three captains away from the beach for a couple of days so'st to give us time to get our invention securely rigged to theSea Gull. She could find somethin' for 'em to do up at the house for that long, couldn't she?"
"I guess so."
"If she can't, Abbie can," chuckled Willie, with a grin. "Abbie Brewster's the most famous woman in the world for settin' folks to work. She's made Zenas Henry clean over since his marriage. Why, I remember the time when you could no more have got him to do a day's work than you could have lined up the fish of the sea in a Sunday-school. But with trainin', Zenas Henry now does his plowin', plantin' an' harvestin' in somethin' approachin' alarm-clock fashion. Of course, he backslides if he ain't constantly held to it; but knowin' his past it's a miracle what Abbie's made of him. She ain't never wholly reformed his temper, though. There's plenty of cayenne in that still. I reckon if you was to amputate Zenas Henry's temper you'd find you had took away the most interestin' part of him."
His listener smiled.
"Now you go ahead an' arrange things with Delight, Bob," continued Willie. "An interview with her won't be no great hardship for you, will it? I thought not. An' any fillin' in I can do, I'll do—any fillin' in," he repeated significantly. "You can count on me to plug any gaps that come anywheres—remember that."
"It's bully of you, Willie!" cried Bob, seizing his hand.
"Not a mite," protested the little man, with a deprecating gesture. "Now that I've got Bart Coffin an' Minnie livin' like turtle doves, an' Jack Nickerson as good as married to Sarah Libbie Lewis, two of my ships seem to have dropped anchor safe an' sound. I reckon I shan't need to do no more pilotin' there."
The little old inventor stopped a moment, then added:
"Sometimes I figger what I was put in the world for was to do pilot duty. You know there's folks that never own a ship of their own but just spend their days towin' other people's ships into port. They ain't so bad off neither," he went on in a merrier tone, "'cause there's a heap of joy in helpin' some other vessel to make a landin'."
More moved by the words than he would have confessed, Robert Morton watched the bent figure move through the door and out into the sunshine; and afterward, banishing the seriousness of his mood, he climbed the hill to the white cottage, there to evolve with Delight a plot that should hold the men of the Brewster household captive long enough for Willie and himself to attach to Zenas Henry's motor-boat the new invention.
Three feverish days passed, days of constant hard work and myriad trivial annoyances. A train of misadventures had attended the transference of Willie's "idee" to Zenas Henry's boat. Parts had failed to fit, and much wearisome toil had been demanded before the device was actually in place. At last, however, all was ready, and Abbie Brewster, a party to the conspiracy, had on a sunny morning urged her reluctant spouse and the three captains to make a trip out to the Bar for clams. They were none too keen about the proposed expedition, for the weather was warm and their course lay through shallow waters which after the recent storm were turbid with seaweed. Nevertheless, ignoring their unwillingness, Abbie declared she must have the clams, and was not her word law?
Therefore, without enthusiasm, the four fishermen had set forth with their buckets and their clam forks, and it was now a full three hours since the motor-boat that carried them had disappeared around the point of sand jutting into the sparkling waters of the bay.
Bob and Willie, secreted in the workshop, had breathlessly watched theSea Gullthread her way through the channel and make the curving shelter of the dunes, and ever since the old inventor had sat alert on an overturned nail keg, his binoculars in one hand and his great silver watch in the other, counting the moments until the little craft should return from its momentous cruise. The vigil had been long and tedious, with only the ticking of the mammoth timepiece and the far-off rumble of the surf to break the stillness.
Presently Celestina came from the kitchen into the shop.
"I'm bringin' you a dish of hot doughnuts," she said, a kindly sympathy in her face. "Oughtn't them men to be comin' pretty soon now?"
For the hundredth time Willie raised the glasses and scanned the shimmering golden waters.
"We should sight 'em before long," he nodded.
"You don't see nothin' of 'em?"
"Not yet."
There was an anxious frown on his forehead.
"Why don't you eat somethin'?" suggested she. "It might take your mind off worryin'."
"I ain't worryin', Tiny," was the confident reply. "The boat's all right."
"S'pose it should be snagged or somethin' outside the bay?" she ventured. "I wish to goodness they'd come back. Look, here's Delight an' Abbie comin' through the grove. Likely they've been gettin' uneasy, too."
Sure enough, moving among the low pines that shaded the slope between the Spence and Brewster houses they saw the two women.
Abbie was stouter now than when she had come as a bride to Zenas Henry's white cottage, but there was a serenity in her mien that softened her expression into charming womanliness. As she neared the shed she glanced at Willie with an uneasiness she could not wholly conceal.
"Don't it seem to you, Willie, that it's gettin' most time for 'em to be gettin' home?"
"You ain't nervous, Abbie," smiled the little old man.
"N—o, not really. Of course, I know they're all right. Still, they ain't never stayed clammin' so long before."
"I wouldn't worry, Auntie," Delight put in, taking her hand reassuringly. "A thousand things may have delayed them. I am sure—"
"They're comin'!" broke in Willie with sudden excitement. "The boat's comin'. Ain't that her makin' the point, Bob? She's clippin' along like a race horse, too. Lord! Watch her go."
"That's theSea Gull!" cried Abbie. "I don't need no glasses to make her out. That's her! How foolish I was to go fussin'. Still, I always have a kind of dread—"
"I know, I know," interrupted the inventor gently. "But there warn't no call for worry this time. I felt mortal certain they'd be heavin' into sight pretty soon."
"I guess likely now we know they're on the way, we'd better slip home again," Abbie smiled. "I'd feel silly enough to have 'em find us here."
"Nonsense, Abbie!" said Celestina. "They needn't know you was worried. Ain't it possible you might have come down here on an errand? Wait 'til they pass and walk back with 'em. What difference does it make if your dinner is late?"
Abbie hesitated. Her dinner never was late; yet, for that matter, she never was out visiting her neighbors in the middle of the day, either. Perhaps, as she had followed one demoralizing impulse and transgressed all her domestic traditions, the breaking of another did not matter.
"I—s'pose I might wait," she answered. "I'd love dearly to hear what they'll have to say."
"Oh, do wait, Auntie!" Delight begged. "It won't be long now before they get here."
"Better stay, Abbie," put in Willie. "Bob an' I won't be inventin' every day."
"Well," was the half unwilling answer.
"Don't you wonder how it worked?" cried Delight, addressing Bob, her cheeks scarlet with excitement. "See, here they come! Did you ever hear such a chatter! Zenas Henry is swinging that clam bucket as if there wasn't a thing in it. He will spill them all out if he isn't careful."
On strode the four men. With a bound they cleared the bank before the Spence cottage and crowded in at the narrow gate.
"Whar is he? Whar's Willie?" demanded Zenas Henry. Then, catching sight of the old inventor half concealed behind his workbench, he shouted:
"Here, Willie, you rascal, out with you! Don't go hidin' there behind that table. Man alive, why didn't you tell us what you was up to?"
"Did it work, Zenas Henry?" queried the little fellow eagerly.
"Did it work!" mimicked Zenas Henry with a guffaw. "Say, Phineas, did it?"
The fishermen gave an exuberant roar of laughter.
"Did it work?" repeated Zenas Henry so out of breath that he could scarcely articulate the words. "Good Lord, don't it just! Why, we clipped along through that seaweed as if it warn't there."
"You didn't get snagged then?"
"Snagged? Not much! Ain't we been ridin' in an' out every little eel grass cove along the shore just for the sheer deviltry of seein' if we could get snagged?" piped Captain Benjamin. "There'll be no more rockin' in the channel for us. My eye! Think of that!"
"How ever did you manage it, Willie?" Zenas Henry questioned.
"What makes you so sure it was me?"
"Oh, Lord! Who else would it be?"
"Well, it warn't all me," protested the little inventor modestly. "Most of it was Bob. I got the idee an' he did the rest—him an' Mr. Galbraith's friend, Mr. Snellin'."
"Well, I'm clean beat—that's all I can say," observed Zenas Henry, mopping his brow. "I tell you what, it's made a new thing of that motor-boat. There's no thankin' you. All is, Willie, if you want anything of mine it's yours for the askin'. Just speak up an' you can have it."
A radiant smile spread over the face of the spinner of cobwebs.
"You ain't got nothin' I covet, Zenas Henry," he answered slowly, "but you've got somethin' Bob Morton wants powerful bad."
He saw a mystified expression steal into Zenas Henry's face.
"Happiness didn't come to you early in life, Zenas Henry," went on Willie, his voice taking on a note of gentle persuasion, "an' often I've heard you lament you was cheated out of spendin' your youth with Abbie. Of course, marryin' late is better than not marryin' at all, though. Some of the rest of us—" he motioned toward the three captains and Celestina, "have got passed by altogether. But Delight an' Bob have found love early, while the bloom is still on it. You wouldn't wish to keep 'em from their birthright, would you, Zenas Henry?"
In the hush that followed the plea, Abbie crept up to her husband and slipped her hand into his.
"The child loves him, dear," she said, looking up into the man's stern face. "I read it in her eyes long ago. You want her to be happy, don't you?"
Her voice trembled. Only the mother instinct, supreme in its selflessness, gave her the strength to continue: "We must not think of ourselves. Real love is heaven-sent. It is ours neither to give nor to deny."
How still the room was. Suddenly it had been transformed into a battle ground on which a soul waged mortal combat. There was no question in the minds of those who viewed the struggle that the issue presented had come as a shock, and that to meet it taxed every ounce of forbearance and control that the man possessed. He looked as one stricken, his face a turmoil of jealousy, grief, despair, and disappointment. But gradually a gentler light shone in his eyes,—a light radiant, and triumphant; love was conqueror and raising his head he murmured:
"Where is the child?"
She sped to his side.
"So you love him, do you, little girl?" he asked, smiling faintly down at her as he encircled her with his great arm.
"Yes, Zenas Henry," she whispered.
For a moment he held her close as if he could never let her go.
"Well, Tiny," he said, "I don't know as we have anything to say against it. He's your nephew an' she's my daughter—yes, my daughter," he added fiercely, "in spite of the Lees and the Galbraiths." With a swift gesture he turned toward Robert Morton. "Young man, I am payin' you a heavy fee for that motor-boat. I'm handin' over to you the most precious thing I have in the world. See you value it as you should or, by God, your life won't be worth a straw to Willie, the three captains, or me."
They saw him wheel abruptly and stride alone into the shadow of the low pines. Silently the others drifted from the room and Delight was left alone with her lover.
As Bob caught the girl in his arms, a great wave of passion surged through his body, causing its every fiber to vibrate in tune with the mad beating of his heart. He kissed her hair, her cheeks, the white curve of her exquisite throat; he buried his face in her hair and let his hands wander over its silky ripples.
"I love you," he panted,—"I love you with all my heart. Tell me you love me, Delight."
"You know I do," was the shy answer.
Again he kissed her soft lips.
"I mustn't stay, Bob," she said at last, trying to draw herself from his embrace. "Zenas Henry is alone somewhere, almost broken-hearted; I must find and comfort him."
But the arms that held her did not loosen their hold.
"Please let me go, Bob dear," she coaxed. "We mustn't be selfish."
Her request struck the right note and instantly she was free.
Robert Morton followed her to the door and stood watching as she hurried along the copper-matted path of the woods sunflecked and mottled with shadow.
What a sweet miracle it was, he mused! She was his now before all the world, thanks to Willie's skilful pilotage. Where was the little old man—that dreamer of dreams, who with Midas-like touch left upon everything with which he came in contact the golden impress of his heart? He must seek him out and thank him for his aid.
Perhaps the thought carried with it a potent charm of magic, for no sooner had Robert Morton framed it than the inventor himself appeared on the threshold.
"Well, another of my ships has made port!" cried he triumphantly.
His delicate face was illumined with a joy so transcendent that one might easily have believed that it was to him love's touchstone had been given.
"I never can thank you, Willie!" burst out the young man.
"Be good to Delight, my boy, an' make her happy; that's all the thanks I want," was the grave response.
A pause fell between them. Perhaps Willie was thinking of the days that must inevitably come when the girl he had loved since childhood would be far away. How dull the gray house would be when she no longer flitted in and out its doors! Try as he would to banish the selfish reflection, it returned persistently. Then suddenly something quite outside himself put the reverie to rout.
It was the querulous voice of Janoah Eldridge.
"I was right about them Galbraiths," he cried exultantly, standing in the doorway and hurling the words into the room where the two men lingered. "'Twas exactly as I said. Lyman Bearse's boy went up on the Boston train one afternoon in front of Snelling an' that other feller who was here, an' he heard every word they uttered. He said they talked the whole way about gettin' a patent out on your invention. Now, Willie Spence, was I right or warn't I? Mebbe you'll believe me the next time I warn you against folks."