LIX
The days slipped past, and each day he watched her quietly for slightest sign of compunction, or retraction. And if such had come to her, sore though he might have felt, and bereaved of the perfect unfolding of the fair flower of their love, he would have choked the feeling down, trampled on it, buried it so that she would have seen no sign of it in him. For he recognised to the fullest what a mighty thing this was that he was asking of her.
But she understood him perfectly, fathomed his fears, was on the look-out for his quietly-questioning looks, and met them with clear full-eyed serenity and a face rosy at times with anticipation.
"You need not fear for me," she laughed softly, one night as she lay in his arm before the fire. "I shall not change."
He clasped her closer. "I could not blame you if you did. From every worldly point of view you would be right——"
"What have we to do with worldly points of view? We are out of it all. We are here alone, and like to be. And we are doing right in our own eyes."
"I would risk my soul on what seems right to these pure eyes," and he bent and kissed them warmly.
"Ten more days!" she murmured, and nestled closer, with her head on his breast so that she could feel the strong beating of his heart.
"It says 'Avice!—Avice!—Avice!'" he said quietly. "It is full of Avice," and she pressed still closer.
So the great day came, the greatest day either of their lives had known.
Wulf had found sleep impossible. His heart, full-charged, felt like to burst its mortal bounds. He rose quietly in the dark and went out into the soft twilight of the dawn—to greet the coming of the perfect day. And she, as impossible of sleep as he, heard him in spite of all his caution, and laughed softly to herself for very happiness in him and in herself. And when he had gone, she thanked God for this great gift of a true man's love, and for that in herself which responded to it so fully.
She had not a doubt nor a fear. The smallest of either would have barred her from him. But there was not the smallest shadow between them. Their hearts were one. It was meet and good that their lives should be one also. Wulfrey paced the beach out there and found the silent darkness soothing to his bounding senses.
It was late April. The air was sweet and fresh. The sea just breathed in its sleep and no more. The water rippled silently up the hard sand with scarce a murmur. The darkness of the eastern sky thinned as he paced and watched. There came a soft suffusion of light there. It throbbed and grew. A faint touch of carmine outlined a cloud above it. The darkness seemed to fade and melt out of the sky. All the tiny clouds above him turned their faces to the east and flushed rose-red with the joy of the new day.
He climbed a hill and caught the first golden gleam of the rising sun. His eyes shone, and his face. In his eyes two suns were reflected. But there was only one sun. And they were two and now were to become one. The Perfect Day had dawned.
And just as she, lying in her bed with her face in her hands, had thanked God for His goodness, so he. He flung his right hand up towards the sun in the brightening sky and said deeply, "My God, I thank Thee for this day and most of all for her!"
And, down below, he saw her coming out of the house towards him.
He sprang down to meet her, caught her hands, and looked right down through her eyes into her heart, and was satisfied.
LX
Arm in arm they paced the beach till the sun was well up, and their bank of sand shone in the flood of golden light as it had never shone before,—fresh and sweet as if but new-created.
A light wind had come with the sun. The small waves came hurrying in as though they were invited guests. At sight of the wedding-party they broke into crisp white laughter, curled themselves over in league-long sickles of tenderest lucent green, and raced up the sands to their feet in long soft swirls of liquid amber, laced with bubbles and edged with creamy foam.
"They haste to the wedding, to pay their tribute to the only bride they have ever set eyes on," said Wulf, as they stopped to watch them. "And each one is glad to give his life for a single peep at her."
"Foolish little waves," laughed she. "I am going to make their very close acquaintance presently. How beautiful the sea is this morning!"—as her eyes travelled out to the wide blue sweep beyond, with its dapple of purple shadows.
"The most beautiful sea and the most wonderful morning that ever was," he asserted heartily. "But it is only a beginning. There will be many more like it. And still better."
"I am so glad it is so sweet a day. A dull one would have troubled me."
"But it could not possibly have been anything else."
"Oh, but it could."
"In mere outward accident perhaps. But I've got the sun inside me. I wonder it doesn't show through."
"It does," she laughed joyously. "You are all aglow."
"And never man had better reason. I would not change places with all the kings of all the earth rolled into one."
"Nor I with all the queens. We are happier here by far with nothing but ourselves."
"Ourselves, and our Love, and infinite Hope. Now let us go and eat. My bride must not starve. That would be a bad beginning. Did you sleep?"
"Not a wink. I heard you go out."
"And I was pluming myself on not having made a sound."
While she was making cakes he busied himself making a pen out of a quill he had picked up on the beach, and she smiled when she saw what he was at.
"And the ink?" she asked.
"I've got it all ready. I always carry some with me in case of need," at which she knitted her brows prettily and looked puzzled.
After breakfast she said, "Now you must leave me for a couple of hours. I am going to thank the waves for their good wishes and then I shall go to the fresh-water pool."
"You will be very careful.. You won't get yourself drowned."
"I will be very careful. And you!"
"I will go across to the spit. But when we are wed——"
"Yes—then!" she nodded rosily, and he kissed her and went off past the fresh-water pools, and splashed through the narrows that joined their lake to the smaller one, and so to the shore and into the sea, for the last time alone.
He waited till he was sure she had done with their bathing-pool, and then ran across and plunged into it, for the salt water braces, but sticks and never makes one feel so clean as fresh.
She was still busy with the princely brush and comb when he came on her, and his heart leaped again at her fresh and radiant beauty.
She had clothed herself all in spotless linen, swathed about her in that marvellous fashion of which she held the secret to perfection. To his rejoicing eyes she appeared half angel, half Vestal Virgin, yet all bewitching human girl, and, best of all, his bride.
"Be thankful you're a man, and delivered from this," she said, her eyes shining through the glorious veil at his visible joy in her.
"I'm thankful I'm a man, but I wouldn't have you relieved of that for half the world. I glory in it," and he bent and kissed it. "For a moment I thought you were an angel."
"Perhaps I am."
"I know you are. But, thank God, you're human too! Men don't wed with angels.... I must go and dress myself also," and he disappeared into the house.
When, in due course, he came out, gallantly clad in a long blue coat with flap-pockets, and figured vest, and white silk knee-breeches, and stockings to suit, she first stared and then laughed.
"My faith, but we are fine!" said she. "But, in truth, I like you best as I have known you best. Do you marry in a dead man's clothes?"
"Not if I know it. Sooner in my rags. But, to the best of my belief, these belonged to your friend the Duke of Kent. Macro would have them, but little he dreamed of the high use to which they would be put. I borrow them for the occasion. His Highness would make no objection I am sure."
"I am sure he would not, and they become you well. But still I like you best as I have known you best."
"I will doff them presently. But you are so like a queen that I did not like to come to you like a beggar."
In his hand he had brought the Prayer-book, with the quill in a certain place.
He stepped up to her and lifted her hand to his lips.
"You do not repent you of this we are about to do?"
"I shall never repent it," she said, with dancing eyes.
"Please God, and as far as in me lies, you shall never have cause to repent it.... We are here, our two selves, with none to witness this that we do but God.... We are doing what we believe to be right for our own great happiness and well-being.... It would suffice, I believe, for a Scots wedding, simply to declare ourselves man and wife. But I have thought it would please us both to do something more. We are not entering upon this new estate lightly or without due thought.... It will, I know, be to both our minds and comforting to both our hearts, to think that in our loneliness here we have done all we could to supply the deficiencies for which we are not to blame."
He spoke with very great emotion. She rejoiced in this fresh evidence of the heights and depths of his nature and his essential goodness of heart, though indeed she had not needed it.
Her great dark eyes, fixed on his, were abrim with happy tears.
"So," he continued, "We will read together the Form for the Solemnization of Matrimony in this Prayer-book, and then we will inscribe on the front leaf of it the fact that this day we have become man and wife. We will sign our names to it, and we can do no more to comply with man's law.... Is that your will, my dear?"
"Yes."
"Then here we will kneel and wed," and down they knelt in the sand, with a clear sky and bright sun above, and the blue sea that held them captive dancing and laughing in front; and holding the book between them he read the Service aloud in a deep and reverent voice.
Parts of it were of course somewhat incongruous to their situation, but he would not slur or miss a word. The statement that they were gathered together in the face of this congregation almost provoked her to an explosion. For out of the corner of her eye, as she followed his reading, a slight movement on the side of an adjacent sandhill showed her a rabbit, sitting up and watching them with critical attention, and it looked to her just like the frowsy old female in black she had seen hovering about the skirts of a wedding in a London church.
And there were parts that brought the colour to her face, though she was familiar with them. Applied to oneself they seemed to hold new point and meaning.
However, he read bravely on. No one interfered to show any just cause why they should not lawfully be joined together, nor had either of them any confession of impediment to make.
At the "Wilt thou——?" he answered heartily, "I will." And waited for her to do the same when her turn came.
When it came to—"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?"—he answered boldly,—"God."
Then they took hands and plighted their troth, reciting the words in the book.
But when it came to the putting on of the ring there came an interlude not provided for in the Marriage Service.
He had duly provided a plain gold wedding ring.
"Where did you get it?" she asked with a look of surprise.
"I found it among Macro's treasures."
"It must be some dead woman's, then. I would sooner not. Can we not leave that out? Will it make any difference?"
"No, dear. It will make no difference to our being truly wed."
"Then please go on without it."
So they left the ring out and read on to the end together.
He closed the book and drew her to him as they knelt, and kissed her as his wife.
"Now," he said, lifting her up. "We will put on record the most wonderful thing that has ever happened on this island, and then we will go home and prepare the marriage-feast.... I wonder now if James Elwes, M.A., late of Brasenose College, Oxford, is aware of the high use to which his Prayer-book is being put,"—as he pointed to the name inscribed on the fly-leaf, and turned over to the blank on the other side.
"Do you think they know?"
"I do not see why not. But as we never knew him, nor he us, it is possible he is not present."
And suddenly those words at the beginning of the Marriage Service assumed a new and mighty significance for her. "In the face of this congregation" might mean more than she had ever dreamed of. Perhaps her mother had been there—— If she had, if she should be here now—it, was somewhat startling to think of—she would be glad, for she would know how good and true a man this was.
But he was busily writing, and at the sight she cried, "Oh!"—for the writing was red and the ink was drawn from a little jag he had made in his arm.
"In blood," she said, with a touch of dismay.
"It could not be put to better use," he laughed. "It is all at your service ... to the very last drop.... How begin better than by setting down here that we are one till death?"
"What you said made me think that perhaps my mother had been with us——"
"I am sure she was, and mine too.... They will both approve, you may be sure.... Here is what I have written—
"'I, Wulfrey Dale, do hereby declare that I have this day taken Avice Drummond to be my lawful wedded wife.' And for you, 'I, Avice Drummond, do hereby declare that I have this day taken Wulfrey Dale to be my lawful wedded husband.' Now I will sign.... And you will sign there ... and I will add the date as far as we know it ... and our present place of abode—Sable Island."
He held the book till the writing was dry, then kissed her signature. "It is the first time I have set eyes on your handwriting," he said. "It is like yourself—clear and strong and true ... Mistress Dale,"—with a smiling bow, as he handed her the book,—"your marriage-lines! You will like to keep them."
"And the pen, please," she said, holding out her hand for it, and wrapping it and the book in a fold of her white robe. "These will be more to me than all the treasures of the world."
He put his arm round her and they went slowly home—man and wife.
BOOK V
GARDEN OF EDEN
LXI
Happy? If all newly-married folk could find such happiness as was theirs, what a wonderful world it would be!
From every worldly point of view they had nothing. They were outcasts, paupers, dependent for the food they ate and the clothes they wore, on Nature and the caprice of the sea. Yet, having nothing, they had everything, since they had one another.
If he had rejoiced in her before, and loved her with a love akin to pain in the repression he subjected it to, he loved her now a thousand times more, and she filled him with a joy that knew no bounds. Time, he said to himself, would not suffice for all their love, it would fill eternity.
The days were never long enough for them. In this new joy of life and perfected fellowship they forgot their years at times, and were like a pair of children, endowed with the freedom of time and space and hearts attuned to the most perfect enjoyment of these new attributes.
They made long journeys and explored every inch of their territory—sleeping out at times in the side of a sandhill under the soft summer night. And those were wondrous times.
—To lie there flat on their blanket, side by side, chin in hand like children, his arm about her, and watch the red sun sink into the water at the end of his fiery trail, while all the sky above burned crimson right into the east behind them.—To watch, with bated breath, the rabbits creeping out to feed and frolic about them, all unconscious of their presence.—To lie and watch the colours fade slowly in the darkening sky, and the stars come out till the whole dark dome was a never-failing marvel of delight.—Or, on the other shore, to lie and watch the moonbeams dancing on the sleeping bosom of the sea.—To feel oneself oneself in the midst of it all—a part of it all—the height and the width and the immensity and wonder of it all.—To feel his arm enfolding her, and all that that meant to them both.—To feel the warmth of life, and all the mighty joy of it, throbbing in her slender body as he drew her closer.—To know, as he knew, that God lived and had given her to him, and that she loved him with every fibre of her being, as he loved her....
Happy? At times, so full was her heart that she wondered if such happiness was right for mortals to enjoy, and so, if it could last.
And when she shared that with him, as they shared everything in common, he reasoned her back to comfort.
"Happiness and health are life's proper conditions," he asserted, with such hearty conviction that her doubts hid their heads. "Sorrow and sickness come of trespass, somehow, somewhere, somewhen, though it is not always easy to trace them back to first causes. But, without doubt, people were meant to be as healthy and happy as it is possible for them to be."
"But I have known people suffer who, I am sure, never did any wrong—none, that is, deserving of suffering such as they had. In fact," she mused, "it seems to me that the good people suffer most and the wicked prosper."
"That is as we judge. But we see only the outsides of things and we are purblind at best. Nature has certain laws, and God has certain laws—though a parson could tell you more about these than I can. And if those laws are broken the results have to be borne, and sometimes they run on and on and fall on innocent people."
"It doesn't seem very fair."
"The laws cannot be altered for individuals or exceptional cases. Fathers sin and the children suffer. But the blame is the fathers'."
"Yes," she nodded, and perhaps she was thinking of her own case.
"So you've no need to fear being as happy as you can," he added quickly. "God meant you for happiness, and truly, I think we have more certainty of it here than we might have had elsewhere."
"I am sure of it and I am happy," and she nestled still closer under his folding arm.
But they had their strenuous working times as well, and enjoyed them equally. He developed his new-found capacity for carpentering. Made her more chairs and a table, added to the comfort of their house in many ways. And she kept it all in perfect order, and attended to the cooking, and proved herself a most admirable housewife and helpmate.
They were down almost to fundamentals. Their life—partaking as it did of the development of the ages, and so of the wider freedom of thought and feeling, was the life of the ancients and not far from idyllic.
The hunter went forth to the chase—though it was only rabbits—and the fisherman to the lake, and brought home his spoils to his waiting mate, and they ate of them and were content.
They enjoyed the most perfect health, and for society they had one another and desired no more—at all events, no outsiders.
They had storms and mists and spells of dull weather, but their house was proof against all assault from without, and warm and bright with their abounding love. They had fire and light and books and themselves, and always in time the sun shone out again, and they enjoyed it the more perhaps for its frequent defaults.
They had their trying times too. Stores had to be replenished from the pile, and, after that dreadful experience before they were married, she would not be left behind.
"I do not care what happens if we are together," she said. "The worst that could happen would be nothing compared with that other time," and he could not gainsay her.
So whenever he had to go she went also, and they chose their day with care and made a picnic of it, and came home laden with spoils.
Only once they got caught by one of those swift-travelling mists which seemed to spring from nowhere. It swept over them just as they were preparing to leave, and in the twinkling of an eye they were prisoners, bound clammily to the pile till it should pass. For in that close-clinging bank, as thick as wet cotton-wool, all sense of direction was gone in a moment. They could not see a foot before them, the pile was pitted with death-traps, a step might be fatal.
They had both come lightly clad, for the day had been warm and the wreckage claimed unhampered limbs.
Fortunately they had come upon a case of blankets during their operations.
"Sit you down here," he said, as he felt her shivering under his arm, "And I'll get you some blankets."
"You won't get yourself lost?" she asked anxiously.
"Not if you will keep calling to me," and he crawled away in search of the case, while she sat calling, "Wulf ... Wulf ... Wulf," and he answered her, "Avice ... Avice ... Avice," and at last a shout, "I've got it."
And presently his muffled "Avice ... Avice ... Avice," drew near again, and he loomed through the fog like a creeping ghost, and taking her arm they crept together from blanket to blanket, which he had spread as a guide, till they came to the case itself. He hauled out more of its contents till there was room inside for both of them, and they crawled into their nest and in time got warm and comfortable.
The fog showed no sign of lifting, so before it got quite dark he crawled out again, she calling to him as before, and found a cask of rum, of which there was always plenty about, and one of pork, and on these they supped as best they could.
The writhing and creaking of the pile, as the tide rose and fell, caused her some alarm. But he explained it all to her, and after a time she fell asleep with his arm about her, and they were wakened to a clear bright morning by the shrieking and squabbling of the birds over the barrel of pork, which he had left standing open.
The barrel itself and all the pile adjacent seemed suddenly to have sprouted feathers. It was alive with fiercely-beating wings and jerking feathered necks and squirming feathered bodies, and cold hard little glassy eyes, and cruel rending beaks, and shrill angry cries.
"How hideous they are!" she said, shrinking back into the case.
"It is the great fight for life. They seem always hungry."
The barrel stood on end. The fortunate ones among the feathered pirates wormed themselves in, and tore and rent at the food, regardless of the shrill expostulations of their fellows and the beaks and claws that tore and rent at them in turn, till the barrel itself was lost under a seething mass of shrieking, fiercely-struggling birds. They pecked at one another's glassy eyes, they struck wildly with their wings, they clawed with somewhat futile feet, and all the time screamed at the tops of their voices as though they were trying who could scream the loudest.
"I wish they'd empty it and go," said she, and he wrenched down a slat of wood and leaned out with a blanket over his head and arm, and succeeded at last in tipping the barrel over, and pork and pirates rolled out together.
It was all cleaned up in five minutes and the cloud drifted away after other prey. The disappointed ones swooped round the empty barrel for a time, and some of the bolder, or more hungry, or least intelligent, came fluttering at the opening in the blanket-box as though set on fresh meat at any cost, and he had to beat them back with his slat. It was only when a score or more were flopping brokenly about the pile in front of the box that the rest grew tired of so losing a game and sped away to join the main body. As soon as the way was clear, he helped her out of her nest and they got to their raft, and eventually safely home.
But that was only an incident, though it confirmed her dislike and dread of the pile. She still always insisted on going with him when he had to go, and at such times they laboured long and hard, and got in supplies enough for many weeks, and so went out there as seldom as possible.
LXII
So, working, wandering, bathing, reading, hunting, fishing, eating, sleeping, with hearts and minds stripped bare to one another and every thought in common, they lived that first golden year of their married life, and grew into still closer fellowship and communion, into still clearer understanding of one another, into still greater love,—although, at the beginning, all this would have seemed to them impossible. But there are always heights and depths beyond, and will be, until the final heights are scaled—and doubtless even then also.
And now, to one such depth and height they were drawing near, with a touch of not unnatural fear on her part, as to an experience unknown and invested with all the possibilities of life and death, and new life.
He cheered her with his own great confidence; and her reliance on his professional knowledge, and the love he bore her, comforted her mightily. But they both knew full well that, given all the knowledge and love in the world, the certain issue of this great matter still lay beyond the utmost power of man; and it sent them to their knees and brought them nigher heaven than ever in their lives before.
It also set her very busily to work on tiny garments, which she had to contrive as best she could from her very scant materials. And it set him to the making of a cradle out of a very carefully-cleaned and sand-scrubbed pork-barrel, which turned out an immense success and filled him with great pride of accomplishment.
She was in the very best of health, without a trouble on her mind, and rejoicing more than ever in his joy and pride in her. And these and the free open-air life they led all made for good. He would not permit her a despondent thought, though as the time drew near she not seldom, for his sake, assumed a braver and more cheerful aspect than her heart actually warranted.
But all went well, and within a day or two of the anniversary of their wedding-day, their son, Wulfrey, was born and proved himself at once a true Islander, lusty both of lung and limb.
Prouder and happier father and mother, and more wonderful baby, it is safe to say that island never saw. And if their days had been full of delight before, the coming of Little Wulf filled them quite three times as full. For there was Little Wulf's own happiness, which was patent to all,—and his mother's rapture in him, and his father's,—and his father's mighty joy in them both,—and her joy in his joy,—and so on all round the compass;—and deep below and high above and all through it all, their unbounded thankfulness for safe deliverance from peril.
If he had admired and loved her as a maid, and loved and rejoiced in her as a wife,—as mother of his child he found himself at times dumb with excess of delight. He could only sit and watch, with worshipful eyes, and newer and deeper thoughts of that other Mother, and of The Child whose coming had transformed the world.
She got out the treasured old Prayer-book, and they read over him as much as seemed applicable to his case of the Ministration of Private Baptism of Infants, and then inscribed on the fly-leaf, under the record of their marriage, his name, Wulfrey Drummond Dale, and the date of his birth as nearly as they knew it—with the same pen as before, in the same red ink, and from the same glad source.
And now indeed their days were full, and their nights, for Master Wulfrey had an appetite that brooked no waiting, and he ruled that household with a lusty pair of lungs against which even equinoctial gales strove in vain.
But it was all part of the price of their joy in him, and they paid it joyfully; and he repaid them tenfold by simply being alive and permitting them to watch his vigorous kickings as he lay naked on a blanket at their feet in the sunshine.
Avice was speedily herself again, herself and so very much more. In his rejoicing eyes all her beauty was clarified, dignified, emphasised manifold, in a way that he would not have believed possible.
It was his turn now, in spite of all his philosophy,—and at times hers again also—to marvel at all that had been vouchsafed them, and to wonder, with a fleeting touch of fear, if happiness so great could possibly last.
The sense of the mighty responsibility their love entailed was upon them. Suppose, by any dire misfortune, he were to be taken away,—what would happen to them? He believed her capable of rising to the occasion for the boy's sake and doing man's work in his place, but it would be a desperately hard fight for her. Suppose they should be taken from him—either, both. God!—he could spare the boy best, but it would be terrible to lose either.
And suppose, thought she in turn, either of themselves should be taken! Suppose they should both be taken!—Well, in that case the poor little fellow would linger behind but a very short time. They would soon all be together again.
But such black thoughts, natural as they were, inevitable almost, still partook, to both their minds, of basest ingratitude and lack of trust. And yet they did high service, for, when they came upon them their souls went down on their knees, and there they found strength and joyousness again.
Little Wulf—but they very early began to call him Cubbie, it seemed so appropriate—fulfilled all the promise of his advent. He was a marvellous child. He crawled vigorously at nine months, and headed straight across the soft yellow sand for the water, like a true Islander, born of freedom and the open air and the sunshine, the moment he discovered this new power. And they followed him, foot by foot, with beaming faces, as he wallowed along like a well-developed white frog, digging his little snub nose into the sand at times, but gurgling and laughing all the same, and struggling on without a look to right or left, intent only on the water in front.
At the lip of the tide, where it came creaming up the beach in long soft swirls of amber, laced with bubbles and edged with filmy foam, she was for snatching him up. But Wulf stayed her. He wanted to see what the boy would do.
He was no stranger to cold water, but he had so far met it only in a tub, never in such quantity as this. He crawled on along the wet sand and the soft swirl came rushing up to welcome him. It was quite two inches deep. It filled him with astonishment and took away his breath. Everything under him seemed on the move. He stiffened for a second on his front paws, gave a huge bellow of amazement, tried to grab the back-streaming water with both hands as a cat pounces on a mouse, and then set off after it at top speed, and was swung up into the air by his delighted father, and held there, kicking and crowing, and striving still after the enchanted water below.
"He'll do," laughed Wulf. "He'll swim as soon as he can walk. The first native! And a credit to the Island!"
Golden days! If the first year of their married life was all pure gold, this second was gold overlaid with jewels of rare delight. Every moment of it was happiness unalloyed. The boy throve mightily. Avice was in the best of health and spirits, and to the eyes of her lover grew more beautiful with every day that passed.
What more could the soul of man desire?
LXIII
Their Wulf Cub was fifteen months old, and could swim like a fish, and run like a free-born savage, and talk in a jargon of his own which was yet quite understandable to his parents, when his sister Avice came on the scene. She took after her mother, and her father vowed there never had been such a lovely child born into this world before.
Their patriarchal life flowed on, deepening and widening, as it went, and so far without any break in its smooth-swelling current. The great gales, to which they had grown accustomed, piled up ever-increasing supplies for them. Within certain narrow bounds they knew no lack, nor would they though they lived there for a hundred years. On great occasions the wreckage even yielded them luxuries of the commonplace which in the former life they had looked upon as ordinary adjuncts to a meal and accepted perfunctorily, without a thought of special thankfulness. But here they were rarities, priceless delicacies to be held in esteem and made the most of. Apples for example. Once their western point was strewn thick with what seemed a whole ship-load of delicious red apples. They had probably been packed in frail barrels or cases which the waves made short work of, and the birds were fortunately away. They spent days carrying them up above tide-level and then transporting them home, and revelled in apples for weeks till their stock went bad. Another time it was potatoes, which they had not tasted for over three years. Wulf declared it was almost worth while to have been denied them so long, to find such new relish in them now. Avice regretted, for the children's sakes, that they could not have them all the time.
And that set him to planting a quantity in some of the damp bottoms by the water-pools. They came up all right, but the rabbits cleared the green shoots as fast as they appeared. Upon that he fenced off a patch with some of his superfluous raft timber and planted more, and succeeded in raising a small crop, but they were a degenerate race, lacking the good soil which had gone to the making of their ancestors.
Curiously enough, that fact started into expression trains of thought that had been latent in both their minds.
He had come in exultantly with his first fruits of the potato-patch, Cubbie at his heels proudly bearing one in each hand, and Avice cooked them rejoicingly and pronounced them excellent.
"It will be so delightful to have potatoes again," said she.
But he was critical of his own production, as the author of a work—even though it be but a potato—may be allowed to be. "They have neither the texture nor the flavour of the original stock," he said. "I suppose they need better soil than our old sandbank can afford them,"—and his eyes happened to fall on Cubbie munching away at a potato, and hers lighted on the dark little head in her arm. The same thought pricked both their hearts and their eyes met with understanding.
As with potatoes—so with children. He and she, growths of the larger world, had found unlooked-for happiness through the accident of their transplantation to this outer isle. But they brought with them the strength of heart and mind that had come to them through contact with that other world. In many respects it was a vain and hollow world. The change had made entirely for their good and happiness.
But—these little ones! ... Were they to be condemned for ever to the sweet narrow groove of this island life, which to their father and mother, by reason of the wonder of their love, had been like Paradise?
To the children no such transformation, no such veritable transfiguration of life as had been theirs would be possible.
They could, indeed, teach them all they knew themselves—all the essentials at all events. They could train their hearts and brains to highest things. But in time the children would feel what the island life entailed and denied them—what their lives were missing. The higher their development the keener would be their regrets.
"Dear," he said, clasping her closer, as she lay in the hollow of his arm before the fire that night, "I know what you are thinking. It came on me, and it came to you, when I was criticising those degenerate potatoes."
"I suppose it must have been lurking somewhere in my heart," she said quietly. "But it all came on me with a rush as you spoke. You and I desire no better. It has been wonderful ... perfect happiness. But for them...."
"Yes," he said soberly. "For them it would be different. For them we desire the very best. And here they cannot get it."
And so they were face to face with the mighty problem which thenceforth must of necessity be constantly in their minds and hearts.
For themselves, all that the outside world could give them could add no whit to their perfect content and happiness.
But for the children's sakes ... how to cross that treacherous hundred miles of sea which barred the way to the wider—in some respects wider,—to the larger—in some respects larger,—to the questionably happier life, which yet these newcomers must prove for themselves, as was their right?
They discussed it quietly and at great length that night, but could see no way out, and for the moment he could find no further comfort for her than this—and yet it was much,—"Providence, which has done so much for us," said he, "may in time do this also. Meanwhile the Island life is all to the good for them. They are splendid little specimens, and if they run wild and free for some years they will reap the benefit all their lives. We will hope and pray, and puzzle our brains for them."
Hope they did. And pray they did. But no amount of brain-puzzling afforded them any solution of their difficulty.
Nothing in the shape of a boat had ever come ashore, and he had neither the tools nor the skill to build one. And if he had done he would not have dared to risk his wife and children in it for so doubtful a voyage.
Wild ideas came upon him of constructing a raft stout enough for such a journey and venturing on it himself, leaving Avice and the children, fully provided for, to await his return with succour. But he knew she would never hear of such madness, so sent it to limbo with the rest.
He took to lighting huge fires of timber from the pile, as he had done more than once before, but the wood burned brightly, with splendid crackings and spittings which set Master Cubbie dancing with delight, and the volume of smoke was trifling. It occurred to Wulf also that no matter how dense a smoke he could raise it would, if seen at all, be probably taken only for the cloud of sea-birds which were doubtless known to mariners and avoided like death itself—when avoidance was possible to them.
That every ship that could do so kept well away from their notorious bank was evident, for they had never set eyes on a single sail since they landed. Of course their ordinary range from the level could not be more than four or five miles, he supposed; and even from their highest hill, which he reckoned to be sixty to eighty feet, they would see but twice as far;—and nothing came so close to Sable Island as that if it could help it.
Still wilder ideas he had,—of tying messages to some of the birds' legs—but they were such a vicious set that he knew they would get rid of them at once,—of nailing messages to boards, to empty casks, to anything that would float—but he knew they might float for a score of years and never be found, even if the seas did not strip them within a week.
He was reduced at last to that certainty of knowledge which it is always of highest benefit to man to attain,—that in this matter he was as helpless as a child in arms. He could do absolutely nothing that was of the slightest avail. And so he was thrown back upon, and led and lifted up to, that complete and perfect trust in a Higher Power which is the measure of a man's understanding of the great lesson of life.
LXIV
They had been five years on the Island. Little Wulf was three, Avice two,—as healthy and handsome youngsters as the world could show.
Life had been all joyous to them. All the year round, except just now and again when unusual drift of ice came rustling and grinding about their island, they trotted about with almost nothing on. They swam before they could walk, and now were in and out of the water a dozen times a day, and so they regarded clothing of any kind as a hindrance to pure enjoyment and freedom of action, and their mother judged it well to insist on no more than the most reasonable minimum.
They never lacked friends or company, though truly the friendship was mostly on their side and provokingly lacking in mutuality. Rabbits and seals, especially baby-rabbits and baby-seals, were the chiefest objects of their young affections, and they were sorely disappointed at the small response their proffered friendship evoked. On crabs this could be enforced by capture and imprisonment, but they found them cold-blooded, impassive playfellows, of altogether too-retiring dispositions, and only to be stirred into display of their natural abilities by provocation. Sea-birds were just as bad in a different way, and fishes were altogether too elusive until you wanted to eat them, when a baited hook did the trick in a moment.
That wonderful father of theirs, however, managed to capture a pair of baby-rabbits, whose mother he had unfortunately knocked on the head for dinner before he perceived the mischief he was doing. The babies were welcomed with shrieks of delight and were like to be killed with the expression of it. The youngsters spent hours flat on their stomachs watching them in their boarded enclosure alongside the house, and more hours foraging for them the sweetest and tenderest herbs the hollows could yield. And presently the captives became friends, and were so comfortable in their narrow estate that they had no desire for a wider, but galloped about after their owners wherever they went, and sat anxiously twisting their noses on the beach when the irrepressibles found it necessary to wallow and frolic in the water.
At times, for a change, they lived aboard the 'Jane and Mary' for a week or two, but Mistress Avice always had a very reasonable fear of one or other or both of the children tumbling overboard, and so the greater part of their life was passed ashore, with the sand-house as headquarters and all the rest of the island as playground.
That a life so circumscribed should never have grown monotonous tells its own pleasant story. But the youngsters had known no other life with which to compare it, and their elders, who had, found it fuller and sweeter in its pastoral simplicity than any the great world had ever offered them.
Every moment of their day was occupied, if not with work, then with enjoyments. The elders had to provide for the youngsters, and these again for theirs; and when every single thing must be drawn from Nature or from an accommodating but distant wreck-pile, such provision takes time and forethought.
When the day's work was completed they all bathed and rambled far and wide, and it was on one such ramble, when they had gone as far along towards the eastern end of the Island as small legs could carry, that the end came—as suddenly as had come the beginning.
They were sitting on the sunny side of a great sand-hill, eating and resting after their journey,—resting, that is, so far as the elders were concerned. The youngsters, who had found walking tiring, or perhaps tiresome, found no fatigue in scrambling to the tops of sandhills and sliding down the smooth soft sides with shouts and shrieks of laughter.
A cessation in the sport drew their father's and mother's eyes to them. They were both standing on the hill-top gazing eagerly out to sea and chattering to one another.
"Seals probably," said their mother. From where they sat they could not see the shore for an intervening ridge. And seals were always a mighty attraction to the children.
But when they began dancing excitedly on their hill-top their father called, "What is it you see, Cubbie?"
"Somefing, dad! Somefing funny."
"Somefing funny!" repeated little Avice eagerly, and the elders got up lazily and slowly climbed the hillside to see what it was.
"My God!" said Wulfrey, as his eyes cleared the top first, and he turned and kissed his wife joyously.
"Thank God!" she breathed deeply, as her eyes also lighted on that which was coming.
For there, not half a mile away, was a white boat manned by blue sailors, leaping towards the shore as fast as eight lusty oars could drive her, and out beyond her, probably three miles away, was a white-sailed ship of size.
Wulfrey shouted and waved his arms. The children immediately did the same, and the regular rise and fall of the oars stopped suddenly as every eye in the boat turned on them. There were men in the stern with gilt on their hats. Then the oars fell-to again and the boat came bounding on. Wulfrey and Avice picked up each their namesakes, and plunged down the hill and ran round the ridge to the shore.
With a final lunge the boat came up the beach, and a tall man rose in the stern and asked, "Who, in heaven's name, are you, and what are you doing here?"—while nine pairs of eager eyes raked over the little party.
"I am Dr Wulfrey Dale, of Hazelford in Cheshire. This is my wife—and our children. We have been here five years."
"Good God! Five years!"—he was ashore by this time, and the rest tumbled hastily out and stood about them, the burly sailors listening with one ear and trying to make up to the children, who gazed with wondering awe at the only men they had ever seen except their father. "How on earth have you lived? ... Five years! ... Not all of you," he said with a smile.
"Not all of us. The children were born here. We were afraid we would all have to live and die here. I thank God you are come. What brought you?"
"We've been sent to prospect with a view to a lighthouse here. There has been an outcry about the number of wrecks——"
"Ay, there are hundreds over yonder," said Wulfrey, pointing westward. "They have kept us alive, but the cost to others has been heavy."
"And where do you live?"
"Come and I'll show you—or will you take us along in the boat? It's good four miles over that way."
"Boat'll be easiest. Sand's heavy walking. How long can we count on this weather?"
"Oh, for a week at least. It's our best time of year."
"You will take us home?" asked Avice eagerly, when they had climbed into the boat and were swinging along parallel to the shore, the children staring in a vast silence and with rounded eyes at the bearded sailor-men and their amazing ways.
"As far as our service permits, madame, we will do anything and everything you wish. We return to Halifax in Nova Scotia, but once there you will have no difficulties."
"That is where we want to go," said Wulfrey.... "Better keep out a bit here. There are ridges below there.... Now if you will turn in."
"What's that? A ship?" asked the tall man, and all eyes shot round to the bare poles of the 'Jane and Mary' snowing over the sandhills.
"A schooner, land-locked in a lagoon. That was our first home. Now we live ashore."
"And you've been all alone all that time?"
"We had one companion, the mate of the ship.... He died four years ago. Since then none have come but the dead.... We can get in here, I think."
The boat ran softly up the beach again, the sailors carried out Avice and the children, and they all struck up through the sandhills to the house.