Ah, what pleasant visions haunt meAs I gaze upon the sea!All the old romantic legends,All my dreams, come back to me.Sails of silk and ropes of sendal,Such as gleam in ancient lore;And the singing of the sailors,And the answer from the shore.Till my soul is full of longingFor the secret of the sea,And the heart of the great oceanSends a thrilling pulse through me.Longfellow.
Ah, what pleasant visions haunt meAs I gaze upon the sea!All the old romantic legends,All my dreams, come back to me.
Sails of silk and ropes of sendal,Such as gleam in ancient lore;And the singing of the sailors,And the answer from the shore.
Till my soul is full of longingFor the secret of the sea,And the heart of the great oceanSends a thrilling pulse through me.
Longfellow.
Nothing tends to convince us of the element of chance in our lives more than noticing the consequences of whims. We act and react upon each other, after joining in a movement, till its origin is forgotten and lost. A politician conceives a whim to dazzle a fighting people with a war, and the circumstances of thousands are unexpectedly and irretrievably altered. We map out our lives for ourselves, and propose to adhere to the chart, but on considering the effects of chance, one's life often seems like an island upheaved from the sea, on which the soil, according to its character, fructifies or refuses the seeds that birds and breezes accidentally bring.
Our yachting cruise seemed to be like this. One evening when Nina was dining at the Dusenalls', Charley had proposed the trip in an idle sort of way. Nina fastened on the idea, and during little talks with Mrs. Dusenall, induced her to see that it might be advantageous for her daughters to make a reality of the vague proposal.
In thus providing opportunity for sweet temptation, Nina was not deceiving herself so much as formerly, and she knew that her feeling for Geoffrey was deep and strong. But she would morally bind herself to the rigging and sail on without trouble while she listened to the song as well. Would not Jack be with her always to serve as a safeguard? Dear Jack! So fond of Jack! Of course it would be all right. And then, to be with Geoffrey all the time for two or three weeks! or, if not with him, near enough to hear his voice! After all, she could not be anymorein love with him than she was then. Where was the harm?
Margaret's presence on the yacht, if at times rather trying, would certainly make an opening for excitement, and, on the whole, it would be more comfortable to have both Geoffrey and Margaret on the yacht than to leave them in Toronto together. This friendship between them—what did it amount to? She had a desire to know all about it—as we painfully pull the cot off a hurt finger, just to see how it looks.
For Geoffrey the trip promised to be interesting, and, having in the early days examined Cupid's armory with some curiosity, he tried to persuade himself that the archer's shafts were for him neither very keen nor very formidable. As Davidge used to say, "too much familiarity breeds despisery," and up to this time of his life it had not seemed possible for him to care for any one very devotedly—not even himself. Yet Margaret Mackintosh, he thought, was the one woman who could be permanently trusted with his precious future. No one less valuable could be the making of him. He agreed with the Frenchman in saying that "of all heavy bodies, the heaviest is the woman we have ceased to love," and he hoped when married to be able to feel some of that respect and trust which make things different from the ordinary French experience. But when he thought of Margaret as his wife the thought was vague, and not so full of purpose as some of his other schemes. The mental picture of Margaret sitting near him by the fireside keeping up a bright chatter, or else playing Beethoven to him, the music sounding at its best through the puff-puff of a contemplative pipe, had not altogether dulled his appreciation of those pleasures of the chase, as he called them, over which he had wasted so much of his time. Moreover, he felt that it was altogether a toss-up whether she would accept him or not, and that he did not appeal to her quite in the same way that he did to other women. This threw his hand out. If he wished her to marry him at any time, he thought he would have to put his best foot foremost, and tread lightly where the way seemed so precarious. He knew that she liked him very much as she would a work of art. It was a good thing to have a tall figure and clean-cut limbs, but it seemed almost pathetic to be ranked, as it were, with old china, no matter how full of soul the willow-pattern might be.
Now that Nina had fairly commenced the yachting cruise, she could be pleasant and jolly with Jack on board the boat, but when it came to leaving the ball-room at the Arlington for a little promenade with him on the verandas, the idea seemed slow and uninviting. After a dance, Jack moved away with her, intending to saunter out through one of the low windows.
"Don't you think it is pleasanter in here?" she said.
"Well, I find it a little warm here, don't you? Besides the moon is shining outside, and we can get a fine view of the lake from the end of the walk."
"But, my dear Jack, have we not been enjoying a fine view of the lake all day? You see I don't want every person to think that we can not be content unless we are mooning off together in some dark corner. It does not look well; now, does it?"
Jack raised his eyebrows. "I did not think you were so very careful of Mrs. Grundy. When did you turn over the new leaf? I suppose the idea did not occur to you that being out with Geoffrey for two or three dances might also excite comment."
Nina had already surveyed the lake to some extent during the evening under pleasing auspices, but she did not like being reminded of it, and answered hotly:
"How then, do you expect me to enjoy going to look at the lake again? I have seen the lake three times already this evening, and no person has made me feel that there was any great romance in the surroundings. Surely you don't think that you would conjure up the romance, do you?"
"Evidently I would not be able to do that for you," said Jack slowly, while he thought how different her feelings were from his own. It galled him to have it placed before him how stale he had become to her. He conquered his rising anger, and said:
"I am afraid that our engagement had become very prosaic to you."
"Horribly so," said Nina. "It all seems just as if we were married. Not quite so bad, though, because I suppose I would then have to be civil. What a bore! Fancy having to be civil continually!"
"I believe that a fair amount of civility is considered—"
"Oh, you need not tell me what our married life will be. I know all about it. Mutual resignation and endearing nothings. Church on Sundays; wash on Mondays. It will be respectable and meritorious and virtuous and generally unbearable—"
"Hush, hush, Nina! Why do you talk in this strain? Why do you go out of your way to say unkind things? I know you do not mean a quarter of what you say. If I thought you did I—"
"Was I saying unkind things?" interrupted Nina. "I did not think of their being unkind. It seems natural enough to look at things in this way."
She was endeavoring now to neutralize her hasty words by softer tones, and she only made matters worse. It is difficult to climb clear of the consciousness of our own necessities when it envelops us like a fog, obscuring the path. In some way a good deal of what she said to Jack now seemed tinged with the wrong color, and out of the effort to be pleasant had begun to grow a distaste for his presence. Much as she still liked him, she always tried during this cruise to get into the boat or into the party where Jack was not.
It had been his own proposal that she should see a good deal of Hampstead, and so it never occurred to him to be jealous; and afterward she became more crafty in blinding his eyes to the real cause of the dissatisfaction she now expressed. While in Jack's presence her manner toward Geoffrey was studiously off-hand and friendly. Whatever her manner might be when they strolled off together, it was certain that an understanding existed between the two to conceal from Jack whatever interest they might have in one another. She was forced to think continuously of Geoffrey so that every other train of thought sank into insignificance, and was crowded out. A colder person, with temptation infinitely less, would have done what was right and would have captured the world's approbation. It would do harm to examine too closely the natures of many saints of pious memory and to be obliged to paint out their accustomed halo. If the convicted are ever more richly endowed than the social arbiters, they are different and not understood, and therefore judged. No sin is so great as that which we ourselves are not tempted to commit. Ignorance either deifies or spits upon what can not be understood. But, after all, we must have some standard, some social tribunal; and social wrong, no matter how it is looked at, must be prevented, no matter how well we understand that some are, as regards social law, made crooked.
But let us hasten more slowly.
Sunday morning, strangely enough, followed the Saturday night which had been spent at the Arlington. The daylight of Sunday followed about two hours after the last man coaxed himself to his berth from the yacht's deck and the tempting night. When all the others were fairly off in a solid sleep, as if wound up for twenty-four hours, one individual arrived at partial consciousness and wondered where he was. A sensation of pleasure pervaded him. Something new and enjoyable lay before him, but he could not make up his mind what it was. That he was not in 173 Tremaine Buildings seemed certain. If not there, where was he? To fully consider the matter he sat up in his berth and gave his head a thump on a beam overhead, which conveyed some intelligence to him. Then, lying back on the pillow, he laughed and rubbed his poll. "A lubber's mistake," quoth he; and then, after a little, "I wonder what it's like outside?" A lanky figure in a long white garment was presently to be seen stumbling up the companion-way, and a head appeared above the deck with hair disheveled looking like a sleepy bird of prey. All around it was so still that nothing could be heard but some one snoring down below. The yacht lay with her anchor-chain nowhere—a thread would have held her in position. The boats behind were lying motionless with their bows under the yacht's counter, drawn up there by the weight of their own painters lying in the water. Maurice gazed about the little wharf-surrounded harbor with curiosity and artistic pleasure. It could only have been this and the feeling of gladness in him that made him interested in the lumber-piles and railway-derricks about him, but it was all so new and strange to him. "Gad! to be off like this, on a yacht, and to live on board, you know!" said he, talking to himself, as he hoisted himself up by his arms and sat on the top of the sliding hatchway. He moved away soon after sitting down, because of about half an inch of cold dew on the hatch. This awakened him completely. He walked gingerly toward the stern and looked at the blaze of red and gold in the eastern sky where the sun was making a triumphal entry. Then he walked to the bow and watched the light gild the masts of the lumber-schooners and the fog-bank over the lake, and the carcass of a drowned dog floating close at hand. He saw bits of the shore beyond the town and wanted to go there. He wanted to inspect the little squat lighthouse that shone in its reflected glory better than it ever shone at night. Yes, he must see all these things. It was all fairyland to him. The gig was carefully pulled alongside when, happy thought! a smoke would be just the thing. The weird figure dived down for pipe, matches, and "'baccy," and soon came up smiling. "Never knew anything so quiet as this," he said, as he filled the pipe. The snore below seemed to be the only note typical of the scene—not very musical, perhaps, but eloquent and artistically correct.
He had not gone far in the gig when he came across the picturesque drowned dog. Really it would be too bad to allow this to remain where it was, even though gilded. The sun would get up higher, and then there would be no poetry about it, but only plain dog. So he went back to the deck and saw a boat-hook. That would do well enough to remove the eyesore with, but how could he row and hold the boat-hook at the same time? If he only had a bit of string, now, or a piece of rope! But these articles are not to be found on a well-kept deck, and it would not be right to wake up anybody. Happy thought! He took the pike-pole and rowed rapidly toward the dog, and, as he passed it, dropped the oars and grabbed the dog with the end of the pike-pole. His idea was that the momentum of the boat would, by repeated efforts, remove the dog. But the deceased was not to be coaxed in this way from the little harbor where he had so peacefully floated for four weeks. So Maurice, after suffering in the contest, went on board again. Still the snore below went on, and still nobody got up to help him. He searched the deck for any part of the rigging that would suit him, determined to cut away as much as he wanted of whatever came first. Ah! the signal halyards! He soon had about two hundred feet unrove, little recking of the man who had to "shin up" to the topmast-head to reeve the line again. The dog must go. That Margaret's eyes should not be insulted was so settled in his chivalrous little head that—well, in fact, the dog would have to go, and, if not by hook or by crook, he finally went lassoed a good two hundred feet behind, Rankin rowing lustily.
After this object had been committed to the deep, a seagull came and lighted on a floating plank to consider the situation, and gave a cry that could be heard a vast distance. Maurice rowed out about half a mile into the lake, and then could be seen a lithe figure diving in over the side of the boat and disporting itself, which uttered cries like a peacock when it came to the surface, and interested the lethargic seagulls.
While he was doing this the fog bank slowly moved in from the lake and enveloped him, so that he began to wonder where the shore was. He got into the boat, without taking the trouble to don his garment, and rowed toward the place where he thought the shore was. Half an hour's rowing brought him back to some driftwood which he had noticed before, so he gave up rowing in circles, put on the garment, settled himself in the stern-sheets, and lit a pipe. The air was warm, and a gentle motion in the lake rocked him comfortably, until a voice aroused him that might have been a hundred yards or two miles off.
"Ahoy!" came over the water.
"Ahoy yourself," called Rankin.
Jack had got up, and, having missed the gig, had come to the end of the wharf in his basswood canoe, which the Ideal also carried in this cruise.
"By Jove," thought Jack, "I believe that's Morry out there in the fog; he will never get back as long as he can not see the shore."
"Ahoy there," he called again.
"Ahoy yourself," came back in a tone of indifference.
"Where are you?"
"Never you mind."
"Who is out there with you?"
"The gulls," answered Maurice, as he smiled to himself.
Jack did not quite hear him. "The Gull?" thought he. "Surely not! Why, he must be at least three miles off."
"Do you mean the Gull Light?" he called.
"Ya-as. What's the matter with you, any way?"
They were so far apart that their voices sounded to each other as if they came through a telephone.
At this time the fog had lifted from Maurice, and he lay basking in the sun, perfectly content with everything, while Jack, still enveloped in fog, was feeling quite anxious about him. He paddled quickly back to the yacht and got a pocket compass, and with this in the bottom of the canoe steered sou'-sou'west until he got out of the fog, and discovered the gig floating high up at the bow and low down aft, puffing smoke and drifting up the lake before an easterly breeze and looking, in the distance, rather like a steam-barge.
"Is that the costume you go cruising in?" asked Jack, as he drew near.
"This is the latest fashion, Mother Hubbard gown, don't you know!" said Maurice, as he viewed his spindle calves with satisfaction. "Look at that for a leg," he cried, as he waved a pipe-stem in the air. "No discount on that leg."
"Nor anything else," growled Jack. "What do you mean by going off this way with the ship's boats?"
"Not piracy, is it?" asked Morry.
"Don't know," said Jack, "but I am going to arrest you for being a dissolute, naked vagrant, without visible means of support, and I shall take you to the place whence you came and—"
"Bet you half a dollar you don't. I'm on the high seas, so 'get out of me nar-east coorse,' or by the holy poker I'll sink you."
Jack came along to tie the gig's painter to his canoe and thus take it into custody. Then a splashing match followed, during which Jack got hold of the rope and began to paddle away. This was but a temporary advantage. A wild figure leaped from the gig and lit on the gunwale of the canoe, causing confusion in the enemy's fleet. Jack had just time to grab his compass when he was shot out into the "drink," as if from a catapult, and when he came to the surface he had to pick up his paddle, while Morry swam back to the gig, proceeding to row about triumphantly, having the enemy swamped and at his mercy. The overturned canoe would barely float Jack, so Rankin made him beg for mercy and promise to make him an eggnog when they reached the yacht. When on board again they slept three hours before anybody thought of getting up.
As eight o'clock was striking in the town, these two children thought it was time for everybody to be up. They were spoiling for some kind of devilment. Geoffrey and Charley and others were already awake, and had slipped into shirt and trousers to go away for a morning swim in the lake.
Jack visited the sleepers with a yell. Mr. Lemons, another proposed victim of the Dusenalls, still slept peacefully.
"Now, then, do get up!" cried Jack, in a tone of reproach.
"Wha's matter?"
"Get up," yelled Jack.
"Wha' for?"
"To wash yourself, man."
Suppressed laughter was heard from the ladies' cabins.
"Gor any washstands on board?" still half asleep, but sliding into an old pair of sailing trousers.
"Washstands? Well, I never! Wouldn't a Turkish bath satisfy you? No, sir! You'll dive off the end of the pier with the others."
"Not much. Gimme bucket an' piece soap."
"What! you won't wash yourself?" cried Jack, at the top of his voice. "Oh, this is horrible! I say there, aft! you, fellows, come here! Lemons says he won't wash himself."
At this four or five men ran in and pulled him on deck, where Charley stood with a towel in his hand. No one would give Lemons a chance to explain. They said, "See here, skipper, Lemons won't wash himself."
Charley's countenance assumed an expression of disgust. "Oh, the dirty swab! Heave him overboard!"
Lemons broke away then and tried to climb the rigging, but he was caught and carried back, two men at each limb, who showered reproach upon him. The victim was as helpless as a babe in their hands, and was conscious that the ladies had heard everything.
Charlie rapped on the admiralty skylight and asked for instructions. He declared Lemons would not wash himself, and he asked what should be done with him? In vain the victim cried that the whole thing was a plot. A prompt answer came, with the sound of laughter, from the admiralty that he was to go overboard. This was received with savage satisfaction, and, after three swings backward and forward, Lemon's body was launched into the air and disappeared under the water.
But Lemons did not come up again. In two or three seconds it occurred to some one to ask whether Lemons could swim. They had taken it for granted that he could. The thought came over them that perhaps by this time he was gone forever. Without waiting further, Geoffrey dived off the wall-sided yacht to grope along the bottom, which was only twelve feet from the surface. He entered the water like a knife, and from the bubbles that rose to the surface it could be seen that a thorough search was being made. Each one took slightly different directions, and went over the side, one after another, like mud-turtles off a log. Between them all, the chance of his remaining drowned upon the bottom was small. Several came up for air, and dived again in another place and met each other below. There was no gamboling now. They were horrified, and looked upon it as a matter of life or death. They dived again and again, until one man came up bleeding at the nose and sick with exhaustion. Geoffrey swam to help him to reach the yacht, when an explosion of laughter was heard on the deck, and there was Lemons, with the laugh entirely on his side. As soon as he had got underneath the surface he had dived deep, and by swimming under water had come up under the counter, where he waited till all were in the water, and then he came on deck.
Revenge was never more complete. Lemons was the hero of the hour. The girls thought him splendid, and afterward the sight of eight pairs of trousers and eight shirts drying on the main-boom seemed to do him good.
Charlie said they ought not to make a laundry clothes-horse of the yacht on Sunday, and proposed to leave Cobourg. Mrs. Dusenall made a slight demur to leaving on Sunday. Jack explained that if it blew hard from the south they could not get out at all without a steam-tug from Port Hope. This seemed a bore—to be locked up, willy-nilly, in harbor—so the yacht was warped to the head of the east pier, where, catching the breeze, she cleared the west pier and headed out into the lake. Outside they found the wind pretty well ahead and increasing, but, with sails flattened in, the Ideal lay down to it, and clawed up to windward in a way that did their hearts good.
Some topsails were soon descried far away to windward, showing where two other vessels were also beating down the lake. This gave them something to try for, and when the topmast was housed and all made snug not a great while elapsed before the hulls of the schooners became occasionally visible. The sea was much higher and the motion greater than on the previous day, but the breeze, being ahead, was more refreshing, and nobody felt in danger of being ill after the first hour out. They "came to" under the wooded rocks of Nicholas Island, put in a couple of reefs, for comfort's sake, and "hove to" in calm water to take lunch quietly.
After lunch, as the yacht paid off on a tack to the southward to weather the Scotch Bonnet Lighthouse, they found, on leaving the shelter of the island, a sea rolling outside large enough to satisfy any of them. One hardly realizes from looking at a small atlas what a nice little jump of a sea Ontario can produce in these parts. The hour lost in mollycoddling for lunch under the island made a difference in the work the yacht had to do. The two schooners, having received another long start, were making good weather of it well to windward of the light, and, when on the tops of waves, their hulls could be seen launching ahead in fine style through the white crests. The yacht's rigging, as she soared to the top of the wave, supplied a musical instrument for the wind to play barbaric tunes upon, which to Jack and some others were inspiring. As she swept down the breezy side of a conquered wave, her rigging sounded a savage challenge to the next bottle-green-and-white mountain to come on and be cut down.
Mrs. Dusenall went below and fell asleep in her berth, and some of the others were lying about the after-cabin dozing over books. Nina and the Dusenall girls lay on the sloping deck, propped against the companion-hatch, where they could command the attention of several other people who were sprawled about in the neighborhood of the wheel. Margaret and Rankin persisted in climbing about the slanting decks, changing their positions as new notions about the sailing of the vessel came to them. They seemed so pleased with each other and with everything—exchanging their private little jokes and relishing the odd scraps culled from favorite authors that each brought out in the talk, as old friends can. Maurice made love to her in the openest way—every glance straight into her deep-sea eyes. Not possessing a muscle or a figure, he wooed her with his wits and a certain virtuous boldness that asserted his unmixed admiration and his quaint ideas with some force. And she to him was partly motherly, chiefly sisterly, and partly coquettish, like one who accepts the admiration of half a score before her girlish fancies are gathered into the great egotism of the one who shall reign thrice-crowned. Just look at Geoffrey now, as he nears this schooner, steering the yacht as she comes up behind and to leeward of the big vessel that majestically spurns the waves into half an acre of foam. They tell him he can't weather her, that he'll have to bear away. Now look at his muscular full neck and thick crisp curls. See his jaw grow rigid and his eye flash as he calculates the weight of the wind and the shape of the sea, the set of the sails, and the distances. Obviously, a man to have his way. Objections do not affect him. See how Margaret's eyes sweep quickly from the schooner back to Geoffrey, to watch what he is doing. Why is it when they say he can't do it that it never occurs to her that he won't? She looks at him open-eyed and thoughtful, and thinks it is fine to carry the courage of one's opinions to success, and she smiles as the yacht skillfully evades the main-boom of the schooner and saws up on her windward side.
The sunrise that Maurice saw early in the morning was too sweet to be wholesome. As the day wore on, the barometer grew unsteady. A leaden scud came flying overhead, and the fellows began to wonder whether they would have to thrash around Long Point all night. A good many opinions were passed on the weather, which certainly did not look promising. Margaret suggested that it would be more comfortable to go into port, but was just as well pleased to hear that they had either to go about forty miles further for a shelter or else run back to Cobourg. Presque Isle was not spoken of, since it was too shallow and intricate to enter safely at night. Lemons suggested that they should go back and anchor under Nicholas Island, where they had lunched.
"Might as well look for needle in a hay-stack," said Charley. "It's going to be as black as a pocket when daylight is gone. And if you did get there it is no place to anchor on a night like this."
Jack did not say anything. He knew that Charley would go on to South Bay, and he looked forward to another night of it round Long Point. The only person who cared much what was done was Mr. Lemons. Towards evening he began to think about the next meal.
"My dear skipper, how can you ever get a dinner cooked in such a sea as this? The cook will never be able to prepare anything in such a commotion," said he regretfully.
"Won't he!" exclaimed Charley decisively. "Just wait and see. My men understand that they have to cook if the vessel never gets up off her beam ends."
"What, you do not mean to say it will be all—" Mr. Lemons came and laid his head on Charley's shoulder—"that it will be all just as it was yesterday? Oh, say that it will. 'Stay me with flagons; comfort me with apples.'"
"Get up—off me, you fat lump," cried Charley, pushing him away vehemently. "I say that we will do better to-day, or we'll put the cook in irons. I hate a measly fellow who gives in just when you want him. I have sacked four stewards and six cooks about this very thing, and it is a sore subject with me."
"De-lightful man," said Lemons, gazing rapturously at Charley.
"Rankin will tell you," said Jack. "He drew the papers. The whole thing is down in black and white."
"True enough," said Maurice. "But I don't see how signing papers will teach a man to cook on the side of a stove, when the ship is lying over and pitching like this."
"No more do I," said Lemons anxiously.
"Why, man alive!" said Charley, "the whole stove works something like a compass, don't-you-know. He has got it all swinging—slung in irons."
"That is far better than having the cook in irons," suggested Margaret.
"Oh!" said Mr. Lemons, as he gazed at the sky, "that remark appeals to me. The lady is correct."
Then he arose and grasped Charley in a vice-like grip, for though fat he was powerful. He pinned the skipper to the deck and sat upon him.
"Say, dearest," he cooed into his ear, "at about what hour will this heavenly-repast be ready?"
"Pull him off—somebody!" groaned Charley. "I hate a man that has to be thrown in the water to—" a thump on the back silenced him.
"May I convey your commands to the Minister of the Interior," asked his tormentor.
"Oh, my ribs! Yes. Tell him to begin at it at once."
"I don't mind if I do," said Mr. Lemons sagaciously; and he disappeared down the companion-way to interview the cook.
"Ain't he a brick?" said Charley, after Lemons had gone forward. "He's a regular one-er, that chap! Give him his meals on time and he's the gamest old sardine. By the way, let us have a sweepstake on the time we drop anchor in South Bay."
"We haven't any money in these togs," said Geoffrey.
"Well, you'll all have to owe it, then. We'll imagine there's a quarter apiece in the pool."
Margaret wanted to know what was to be done. It was explained that each person had to write his name on a folded paper with the time he thought anchor would be dropped in South Bay. The names were read out afterward. They all, with two exceptions, ranged between one o'clock at night and seven the next morning. The sea was running tremendously high and the wind dead ahead. It was now seven o'clock in the evening and with some thirty-five miles yet to beat to windward. What surprised them all was that Jack had chosen ten o'clock and Charley half-past ten of the same evening. They explained that they had based their ideas on the clouds.
"If you look carefully," said Jack, "you'll see that close to this lower scud coming from the east, there is a lighter cloud flying out the south and west."
"I wish, Jack, you had not come on this trip," said Charley. "I could make lots of money if you were not on board."
Sure enough, the yacht began to point up nearer and nearer to her course, soon after they spoke. Presently she lay her course, with the sheet lightly started, mounting over the head seas like a race-horse, and roaring straight into the oncoming walls of water till it seemed as if her bowsprit would be whipped out. The wind kept veering till at last they had a quarterly breeze driving them forcibly into the seas that had been rising all day. Ordinarily they would have shortened sail to ease the boat, but now that dinner was ordered for half-past nine o'clock, they drove her through it in order that they might dine in calm water.
They raced past the revolving light on Long Point faster than they had expected to pass it that night. The twenty-five miles run from here was made in darkness and gloom. The boom was topped up to keep it out of the water, and the peak of the reefed mainsail was dropped, as the increasing gale threatened to bury the bows too much in the head seas. Although early enough in the evening, everything around was, as Charley had predicted, as black as a pocket. Now and then some rain drove over them. Maurice and Margaret sat out together on deck, wrapped in heavy coats, and watched what little they could see. The howling of the wind and roaring of the black surges beneath them were new experiences. Close to them was Jack, standing at the wheel, tooling her through. By the binnacle-light his face, which was about all that could be seen, seemed to be filled with a grave contentment that broke into a grim smile when the boat surged into a wall of water that would have stopped a bluff-bowed craft. Soon after dropping Long Point, he leaned over the hatchway and called down to Charley, who was lying on his back on gay cushions, smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper. "Got the Duck Light, skip."
"All right, old boy. Wire in."
Dusenall turned over his newspaper, but did not take the trouble to come on deck to investigate.
"Say!" he called.
"Hello."
"Won't she take the peak again? I've got a terrible twist on me for dinner."
"No. Bare poles is more what she wants just now," said Jack.
"The deuce! Who's forrud?"
"Billy and Joe."
"All right. Must be damp for 'em up there."
"Can't see. Guess it's blue water to the knees, most of the time."
"Shouldn't wonder. Do 'em good."
After this jargon was finished, it did not take long to run down to the False Duck Light. Here the double-reefed mainsail was "squatted" and the fourth reef-pennant hauled down. The reefed staysail was taken in and stowed; and under the peak of the mainsail they jibed over. Steering by the compass, they then rounded to leeward of Timber Island and hauled their wind into South Bay.
To put the Ideal over so far with so little canvas showing, it must have been blowing a gale. They sped up into the bay close hauled, and "came to" in about four fathoms. Down went the big anchor through the hissing ripples to that best of holding-grounds, and the vessel, drifting back as if for another wild run, suddenly fetched up with a grind on her iron cable. The mad thing knew that unyielding grip, and swung around submissively.
Full souls are double mirrors, making stillAn endless vista of fair things before,Repeating things behind.George Eliot'sPoems.
Full souls are double mirrors, making stillAn endless vista of fair things before,Repeating things behind.
George Eliot'sPoems.
There is a want of primness in the manners and customs of my characters which a reviewer might take exception to. To be sure he might with effect criticise their making up a pool on Sunday. But the fact was that nobody remembered it to be Sunday until Jack wanted to collect his winnings after dinner. At this, Mrs. Dusenall held up her hands in high disapproval. While out in the lake, in the worst part of the sea, she had commenced to read her Bible, and had felt thankful to arrive in shelter. Consequently she remembered the day.
"Surely, Charley, you have not been gambling on Sunday?" said she reprovingly.
The girls looked guilty, with an expression of "Oh, haven't we been bad?" on their faces.
Rankin endeavored to relieve the situation by explaining in many words that the whole thing was a mere matter of form, and no more than an expression of opinion as to the time the boat would reach the harbor, because no money was put up—in fact, as the arrangement was made on Sunday, the whole thing was illegal, and no money ever would be put up, etc.
Jack kicked him under the table for arguing away his winnings, and Margaret quoted at him:
"His tongueDropped manna, and could make the worse appearThe better reason, to perplex and dashMaturest counsels."
"His tongueDropped manna, and could make the worse appearThe better reason, to perplex and dashMaturest counsels."
"Good," said Geoffrey. "Give him the rest of it, Miss Margaret. Rub it in well."
Margaret continued, and with mirthful eyes declaimed at Maurice:
"For his thoughts were low;To vice industrious, but to nobler deedsTimorous and slothful: and yet he pleas'd the ear,And with persuasive accent thus began."
"For his thoughts were low;To vice industrious, but to nobler deedsTimorous and slothful: and yet he pleas'd the ear,And with persuasive accent thus began."
This amused Margaret, because Maurice was such a decent little man. But Geoffrey's enjoyment of it was different. Rankin felt that there was growing in him an antagonism to Hampstead. He was afraid of him for her sake—afraid she would learn to like him too much. At any other time chaff would have found him invulnerable, but Geoffrey's amusement made him redden.
"You seem to be well acquainted with the characteristics of Belial, Hampstead," he said. "Margaret, your memory is excellent. Could you favor us with the lines just preceding what you first quoted?"
Why should Margaret have blushed as she did so? She quoted:
"On th' other side up roseBelial, in act more graceful and humane;A fairer person lost not heaven; he seem'dFor dignity compos'd and high exploit:But all was false and hollow; though his tongueDropp'd manna," etc.
"On th' other side up roseBelial, in act more graceful and humane;A fairer person lost not heaven; he seem'dFor dignity compos'd and high exploit:But all was false and hollow; though his tongueDropp'd manna," etc.
"Thank you," said Maurice. "You see the lines are intended to describe a person far different from me in appearance. Hampstead, you observe, had studied the passage. A coincidence, is it not?"
Soon they were all composing themselves for sleep. Margaret was listening peacefully to the shrieking of the wind in the rigging as she thought how every moment on board the yacht had been one of unclouded enjoyment. An unconscious smile went over her face that would have been pleasant to see. Then she thought of Geoffrey and smiled again. This time she caught herself, and asked herself why? All day, since she had watched Geoffrey steering the yacht beside the schooner in the lake, her mind had been chanting two lines of poetry. When asked in the evening to repeat the lines aloud she had blushed because it seemed like confessing herself.
A fairer person lost not heaven; he seemedFor dignity composed and high exploit.
A fairer person lost not heaven; he seemedFor dignity composed and high exploit.
In her mind Geoffrey had become identified with these two lines. But what had friend Maurice meant by saddling the context on him in that malevolent way? Could he really have thought that Belial's character was also Geoffrey's? She put away this idea as untenable. She was one of those born in homes where the struggle for existence has not for generations taught the household to be suspicious; with the innate nobility that tends, whether rightly or wrongly, to think the best of others; she was one of those whom men turn to with relief after the cunning and suspicion of the business world, each feeling the assistance it is to meet some one who is ready to take him at the valuation he would like to be able justly to put upon himself.
When morning broke, there were eight or ten schooners to be seen on different sides that had run in for shelter during the night. About six o'clock Margaret crept out to satisfy her curiosity as to what kind of place they were in. With only her head above the hatchway at the top of the stairs leading up from the ladies' cabin she gazed about for some time before she spied Maurice sitting on the counter with his back to her, his feet dangling over the water while he watched the vessels.
She crept toward him and gave a cry close to his ear, to startle him.
"Don't make so much noise," said he, quite unstartled. "I don't like you to call out like that in my ear." He added, perforce, as he looked at her, "At least I don't like it when I can't see you."
"Don't tell stories, Morry. You know you would like me to do it at any time."
"I would not, indeed," he asserted. "Come and sit down and keep quite silent. Just when I was having such a happy, peaceful time you come and spoil it all."
Margaret sat down on the rail and turned herself about so that she could sit in the same position beside him. His helping hand still held hers as they sat together. He was almost afraid to turn toward her, for fear he would look too tenderly. She might go away if he did. Hisrôlewas to bully her, and then she would never know how exquisite it was for him to have her sit beside him.
"There, now! Sit perfectly quiet and don't say another word. Just look around and enjoy yourself in a reasonable manner. I'm not going to have my morning disarranged and my valuable reveries disturbed."
The wind had shifted to the northwest in the morning and had blown itself out and down to a moderate breeze with a clearing sky, with patches of blue and broken clouds overhead.
"Now listen to the chorus of the sailors as they get up their anchor. Does it not seem a sweet and fitting overture to the whole oratorio of the voyage before them? I have been watching the vessels go out, one by one, for over an hour. I must say there are some uncommonly rude men among the sweet singers we are listening to, and—and—" He stopped and forgot to go on.
"And what?" cried Margaret peremptorily.
Maurice had lost himself in the contemplation of some locks of sunny hair, that were flying in the breeze from Margaret's forehead, and the graceful curve of her full neck as she looked away at the ships.
"Oh, yes. And that's Timber Island over there, covered with trees and stamped out round like a breakfast bun, and that's the False Duck Island, where we came in last night. The schooner sailing yonder is going to take the channel between that white line of breakers and South Bay Point running out there, and those huts you see nestling in the trees far away on the main-land are fishermen's houses—"
He was not looking at any of these things, but was following out two trains of thought in his active head while he talked against time. What really absorbed him was Margaret's ear, and a sort of invisible down on the back part of her cheek. He was thinking to himself that if five dollars would purchase a kiss on that spot he would be content to see a notice in the Gazette: "Maurice Rankin, failed: liabilities, $5.00."
Margaret was listening, gravely unconscious of being so much admired, enjoying all he said, and feasting her eyes upon the distances, the brilliant colors, and the fleeting shadows of the broken clouds upon the water.
"Why, what a nice old chappie you are!" she exclaimed, giving his hand a pat and taking hers away. "How did you manage to find out all about the surroundings?"
"Been around boarding the different schooners lying at anchor. Examining their papers, you know," said he grandly. "Went around in the canoe to the first fellow—a coal vessel. A man appeared near the bow and looked down at me as if I were a kind of fish swimming about. 'Heave-to, or I'll sink you,' I said in the true old nautical style. He did not say a word, but stooped down and did heave two, in fact three, pieces of coal at me. I passed on, satisfied that his vessel needed no further inspection. I was then attracted by the name of another schooner, on whose stern was painted the legend 'Bark Swaller.'"
"What a strange name," said Margaret, as Maurice spelled it out.
"Well, it puzzled me a good deal, as I examined it closely, being in doubt whether Barque Swallow was intended, or perhaps the name of some German owner. At all events a sailor spied me paddling about under the stern of the boat and regarded me with evident suspicion. I thought I would deal more gently with this man than with the other fellow. 'Can you tell me,' I asked, 'the name of that round island over there?' The only answer I got was unsatisfactory. 'Sheer off,' said he, 'wid your dirty dug-out.' This seemed rather rude, but I did not retaliate. I thought I might go further and fare worse, so I endeavored to mollify him. Perhaps, I thought, being up all night in hard weather had made these sailors irritable.
"'Can you drink whisky?' I said—" Margaret was looking at Maurice with a soft expression of interest and mirth. He was talking on in order that he might continue to bask in the beauty of the face that looked straight at him. But the strain for a moment was too great. For an instant he slacked up his check-rein, and while he narrated his story he continued in the same tone with: "(Believe me, my dear Margaret, you are looking perfectly heavenly this morning) and the effect on this poor toiler of the sea was, I assure you, quite wonderful." Rankin's tongue went straight on, as if the parenthesis were part of the narrative. Margaret saw that it was useless to speak, and resigned herself to listen again. "Quite wonderful," he continued. "The fellow motioned to me to come to the bow of the vessel, and when I got there he came over the bulwarks and dropped like a monkey from one steel rope to another till he stood on the bobstay chains."
"'Whist!' said he. 'Divil a word! Have you got it there?'
"'There is some on the yacht,' I said, 'and I want to ask you some questions about this place. What island is that over there?'
"'Mother of Pathrick,' said he, 'an' did ye come down all the way in your yacht and not know Timber Island when you'd see it?'
"He looked at me as if I was some strange being.
"'And where was ye last night, might I axe?'
"'Where we axe now,' I said.
"'Faith, it was a big head that brought you into the nursery here before last night came on! More be-token, I have'nt had a dhry rag on me for tin hours, and divil a sail we've got widout a shplit in it the size of a shteam-tug. Bring it in a sody-bottle, darlint, and the Lord'll love ye if ye don't spoil it. Whisht, love! You drink my health in the sody and don't lave any in the bottle.'
"I came back and got him a soda-bottle of the genuine article, and while he drank it the rapidity of his tongue was peculiar. 'So you have been here before?' I asked.
"'Whisht, darlint! till the captain won't hear you. Been here before? Begorra, this place has been a mine of goold to me many a time. For siventeen days at a slap I've laid here in Dicimber at four dollars a day, with nothin' to do but play checkers and sphlit wood for the shtove and pray for a gale o' wind down the lake till shpring-time.'
"This eloquence continued until I thought he would certainly fall off the bobstay.
"'Tell me, now,' he said, after I had got all the information I wanted, 'have ye a berth for an old salty aboard that craft?'
"I said we had not.
"'Faith, perhaps you're right. I kin see by the stow on yer mainsail and by the nate way yer heads'ls is drag-gen' in the wather that you're born and bled up to the sea and don't require no assistance.'
"With these sarcastic words he gave me his blessing, threw away the bottle, and disappeared again over the bow."
"I gather from your remarks that your friend was of Hibernian origin," said Margaret. "Perhaps a good dynamiter spoiled. But we will speak of him again. What I have been wanting for some time has been a trip in the canoe to the beach over there. I want to walk over the sand bar and get close to those great breakers rolling in on the shingle. Unhitch your canoe-string and bring the canoe alongside."
"Unhitch your canoe-string!" repeated Rankin contemptuously. "You must speak more nautically or I won't understand you."
"Well, what ought I to say?"
"Dunno. 'Cast adrift your towline' sounds well."
"It does, indeed," said Margaret, as Morry swung the light cockleshell into position and she descended into it with care. "'Cast adrift your towline' has a full, able-bodied seaman sort of sound; but it has not the charm of mystery about it that some expressions have. Now 'athwart your hawse' seems portentous in its meaning. I don't want to know what it means. I would rather go on thinking of it as of the arm that handed forth the sword Excalibur,' clothed in white samite—mystic, wonderful.' Do you know I read all Clark Russell's sea stories, and drive through all his sea-going technicalities with the greatest interest, although I understand nothing about them. When he goes aloft on the main-boom and brails up his foregaff-bobstay I go with him. Sometimes he describes how small the deck below looks from the dizzy height when, poised upon the capstan-bars, he furls the signal halyards that flap and fill away and thunder in the gale; and then I see it all—"
"So do I, so do I!" cried Morry, as he paddled dexterously to the shore. "You've got Clark Russell to a T. He goes on like that by the hour together. I read every word, and the beauty of it is I always think I understand. Why do we like his stories so much, I wonder?"
"One reason is because his heroes are manly men and have brave hearts," said Margaret confidently. "I think that is why they appeal to women; he always arouses a sentiment of pity for the hero's misfortunes. Few women can resist that." And Margaret, somewhat stirred, looked away over the broad sea. Almost unconsciously there flashed before her the image of a Greek god winning a foot-race under circumstances that aroused her sympathy. Again she saw him steering a yacht, keen, strong, active, determined, and calm amid excitement. A flush suffused her countenance, and her eyes became soft and thoughtful as she gazed far away. Ah, these rushes of blood to the head! How they kindle an unacknowledged idea into activity! A moment and, like a flash, a latent, undeveloped instinct becomes a living potent force to develop us. The admirer becomes a lover, the plotter a criminal, and the religious man a fanatic.
When the canoe pushed its way through the rushes and beached itself upon the soft sand the two jumped out and crossed over to the lake side, where the heavy ground swells of the last night's gale were still mounting high upon the shingle. The bar leading toward them from False Duck Island was a seething expanse of white breakers, and over the lake to the south and west, as far as the eye could reach in the now rarefied atmosphere a tumbling mass of bright-green waters could be seen, which grew blue in color at the sharply cut horizon. Not far off the "Bark Swaller" was buffeting her way to the southward, toward Oswego, and around the wooded island with the lighthouse on it, the mail steamer, twelve hours detained, was getting a first taste of the open water.
It was a morning that made the two feel as if it were impossible to keep still. The flat shingle, washed smooth by the high waves of the previous night, was firm under foot as they walked and trotted along between the wreckage and driftwood on one side and the highest wash of the hissing water on the other. An occasional flight of small plover suggested the wildness of the spot, and something of the spirit of these birds in their curving and wheeling flight seemed to possess the two young people—making them run and caper on the sands.
"You ought to be able to run a pretty good race," said Maurice, glancing at the shapely figure of his companion.
"So I am," said Margaret, as she sprang up on a large piece of driftwood. "I'll run you a race to that bush on the far point around the little bay. Do you see it?"
"I see it," said Maurice. "Are you ready? Go!"
Margaret sprang down from the stump and was off like an arrow. Morry thought it was only a sham and a pretense of hers, as he bounded off beside her. He soon found his mistake, however, as his unaccustomed muscles did their utmost to keep him abreast of the gliding figure in the dark-blue skirt and jersey. They rounded the curve of the bay, Maurice on the inside track. But this advantage did not give him a lead. The distance to the winning point seemed fatal to his chances, but he hung on, hoping his opponent would tire. Again he was mistaken.
"Come on, Morry! Don't be beaten by a woman."
Her voice, as she said this, seemed aggressively fresh, and the taunt brought Rankin even with her again. He had no breath left to say anything in reply as they came to a small indentation filled with water where the shore curved in, making another little bay. Margaret ran around it, but Maurice, as a last chance, splashed through it, regardless of water up to his ankles. He gained about ten feet by this subterfuge. A few gliding bounds, impossible to describe, and Margaret was beside him again.
"That was a shabby advantage to take," she said as she passed his panting form. "Now I'll show you how fast Icanrun."
She left him then as he labored on. She floated away from him like a thistle-blossom on the breeze. He forgot his defeat in his admiration of that fleeting figure which he would have believed to move in the air had he not seen marks in the sand made by toes of small shoes. He could hardly comprehend how she could run away from him in this way. Yet there was no wings attached to the lithe form before him. No wings, but a bit of silk ankle which seemed far preferable.
Margaret stopped at the bush which was to be the winning post. Morry then staggered in exhausted and threw himself sideways into the yielding mass of the willow bush and fell out on the other side.
"Oh," he said, as he rolled over on his back with his head resting in his hands, "wasn't that beautiful?"
"The race—yes, indeed, it was splendid."
"No, I don't mean the race. That was horrible. I mean to see you run." (Gasp.)
Margaret's face was sparkling with excitement and color, while her bosom rose and fell after her exertion.
"I can run fast, can I not?" Her arms were hanging demurely at her side again. She could run, but she never seemed to be at all masculine.
"I never ran a race with a man before," she said, laughing.
"And never will run another with this individual," said Rankin. "Nothing goes so fast as a train you have missed, just as it leaves the station, and yet I have caught it sometimes. You can go faster than anything I ever saw." (A breath.) "It is a good thing to know when one is beaten. You will always be an uncatchable distance before me." (A sigh.)
"My shoes are full of sand," said Margaret ruefully, looking down at them.
"Mine are full of water," said Maurice. He did not seem to care. He was quite content to lie there and gaze at her without reservation. And, with his heightened color and excitement, he actually appeared rather good looking.
"I think the least you could do would be to offer to take the sand out of my shoes," said Margaret.
"If I don't have to get up I could do it. I won't be able to get up for about twenty minutes. But if you sit on that stump—so—I think I could manage it."
Resting on one elbow, he unlaced the shoes, knocked the sand out of them, and spent a long time over the operation. Then he wondered at their small size, and measured them, sole to sole, with his own boots while he chattered on, as usual, about nothing. Hers were not by any means microscopic shoes, but they seemed so to him, and he regarded them with some of the curiosity of the miners of Blue Dog Gulch, Nevada, when a woman's boot appeared among them after their two years' isolation from the interesting sex. There was something in the way he handled them that spoke of exile—something that stirred the compassion one might feel on seeing the monks of Man Saba tend their canaries.
The left shoe was put on with great care, and then he sat looking over the lake for a while in silence before beginning with the second. It was a long, well-chiseled foot, with high instep, and none of those knobs which sometimes necessitate long dresses, and in men's boots take such a beautiful polish. He pretended to brush some sand away, and then, banding over, kissed the silk-covered instep, and received an admonitory tap for his boldness.
"Fie, Morry! to kiss an unprotected lady's foot," said Margaret archly, as she took the shoe from him and put it on herself. "You have insulted me."
"Nay, Margaret, 'twas but the sign of my allegiance and fealty," said he, looking up with what tried to be an off-hand manner. "It is the old story," he said lightly; "the worship of the unattainable—the remnant, perhaps, of our old nature worship. If you were not better acquainted with the subject than I am, I could give you a discourse which would be, I assure you, very instructive as to how we have always striven after what we think to be good in the unattainable. We have been forbidden to worship the sun or to appease the thunders and lightnings, and, one by one, nearly all the objects of worship have been swept away, leaving a world that now does not seem to know what to do with its acquired instincts. One object is left, though, and I am inclined to think that men are never more thoroughly admirable than when influenced by the worship of the women who seem to them the best, that many thus come to know the pricelessness of good and the despair of evil, with quite as satisfactory practical results as any other creed could bring about."
"What, then, becomes of the search for the unattainable after marriage?" asked Margaret practically.
"I imagine that the search would continue, that the greatest peace of marriage is the consciousness of approaching good in being assisted to live up to a woman's higher ideals. It seems as if the condition of Milton's idyllic pair—'he for God only, she for Godin him'—has but little counterpart in real life, and that, in a thousand cases to one, the morality of the wife is the main chance of the husband."
"I understand, then, that we are to be worshiped as a means toward the improvement of our husbands. I was hoping," said Margaret smiling, "that you were going to prove us to be real goddesses, worthy of devotion for ourselves—without more."
"You are raising a well-worn question—as to what men worship when they bow before a shrine. If you were the shrine, I should say generally the shrine. At other times they worship that which the shrine suggests. What I mean is, that it is a good thing for one to have a power with him capable of improving all the good that is in him. For myself, the point is somewhat wanting in interest, as I never expect to be able to put it to a practical test."
"Not get married, Maurice? Why will you never get married?"
"I intended to have casually mentioned the reason a minute ago, only you interrupted me just as I was coming to the interesting part."
"Then tell me now, and I won't interrupt."
"Well, you know I am like the small boys who want pie, and won't eat anything if they don't get it," said he, striving to be prosaic. "I love you far too well to make it possible for me to marry anybody else."
In spite of the assistance that pulling his hair gave him, as his head lay back in his hands, his voice shook and his form stiffened out along the sand in a way that told of struggle. Margaret was surprised, but she hardly yet understood the matter enough to feel pained. She had not been led to expect that men would first express their love while lying on their backs.
"I thought I would tell you of it, as you would then know how particularly well you could trust me—as your friend—a very faithful one. You know, even in my present state, I would be full of hope, if things were different, because the money is bound to come sooner or later; but you, Margaret, I know, without your words, will never be attainable—that the moon would be more easy for me to grasp."
Margaret was not often at a loss for a word, but now she knew not what to say. It did not seem as if anything could be said. She essayed to speak; but he stopped her.
"I know what you would say," he said. "They would be kind words in their tone, full of sympathy, words that I love to hear—that I hear like music in my ears when you are out of sight? You must, and I know you will, forgive me for all these confessions," said he, smiling, "you have made such a change come over my life. You have given me so much happiness."
"I don't see how," said Margaret, not knowing what to say.
"No—you could hardly know why. If you knew what a different life I have led from that of others you would understand better the real happiness you have given me. My life of late years has been unlovely. I have not had the soft influences of a home as it should be, but I have always yearned for them."
The pretense of being off-hand in his manner had left him. He talked disjointedly, and with effort. "You can not know what it is to feel continually the want of affection. You have never hungered for the luxury of being in some way cared for. But these weaknesses of mine will not bore you, because you are kind. It will make my case plainer when I tell you that for years—as long as I can remember—there never has been a night that a longing for the presence of my parents has not come over me. Until I saw you. Now you have come to fill the gap. Now I think of you, and listen to your voice, and look at your face, and care for you. You fill more places in my heart than you know of. You are father and mother and all beside to me, and I shall go back to my dreary life gladder for this experience, this love for you which will remain with me always. Still, it is dreadful to look into a future of loneliness! Oh, Margaret, it is dreadful to be always alone—always alone."
Margaret was watching the part of his face not covered with his cap as his words were ground out haltingly, and she could see his lips twitch as old memories mingled with his present emotions. As he proceeded she saw from his simple words how deep-seated were his affections, and she wondered at the way he had concealed his love for her. A great compassion for him was welling up in her heart. As she listened to his words, it came upon her what it might be to love deeply and then to find that it only led to disappointment. She felt glad that she had given him some happiness—glad when he said he could look forward more cheerfully to going back to his hopeless existence. It was brave to speak of it thus—asking nothing. But when he said it was dreadful to be alone—always alone—his voice conveyed the idea of horror to her, and, in a moment, without knowing exactly why, the tears were in her eyes, and she was kneeling beside him on the sand asking what could be done, and blaming herself for giving him trouble. Her touch upon his hand thrilled him. He dared not remove his cap. He dared not look at her for very fear of his happiness; but then he heard a half sob in her voice, and that cured him. It would never do for her to be weeping. He had said too much, he thought. He partly sat up, leaning upon his hand, and was himself again. Margaret was looking at him (so beautiful with her dewy eyes), with but one thought in her mind, which was how to be kind to him, how to make up to him some of the care that his life had been shorn of. It was all done in a moment. Margaret said tearfully, "Oh, what can I do?" and Rankin's native quickness was present with him. He leaned forward, inspired by a new thought, and said, "Kiss me," and Margaret, knowing nothing but a great compassion for him, in which self was entirely forgotten, said: "Indeed, I will, if you would care for that."