The Cruise of the Shining Light

“Look up!” I besought her. “I do not care,” I declared again, seeking in this way to ease her pity of me. “I do not care!”

’Twas a strange thing that happened then: first she kissed the cuff of my coat, in the extravagant way of a maid, and then all at once clapped her hands over her eyes, as though to conceal some guilt from a righteous person. I perceived this: I felt the shame she wished to hide, and for a moment wondered what that shame might be, but forgot, since the eyes were mine neither to have read nor to admire, but John Cather’s. And what righteousness had I? None at all that she should stand ashamed before me. But there she stood, with her blue eyes hid–a maid in shame. I put my finger under her chin and tried to raise her face, but could not; nor could I with any gentleness withdraw her hands. She was crying: I wondered why. I stooped to peer between her fingers, but could see only tears and the hot color of her flushes. I could not fathom why she cried, except in excess of happiness or in adorable pity of me. The wind rose, I recall, as I puzzled; ’twas blowing through the gloaming in a soothing breeze from the west, as though to put the fears of us to sleep. A gentle gust, descending to our sheltered place, rustled the leaves and played with the maid’s tawny hair; and upon this she looked up–and stepped into the open path, where, while her tears dried and her drooping helplessness vanished, she looked about the sky, and felt of the wind, to discover its direction and promise of strength. ’Twas a thing of tragical significance, as it seems to me now, looking back from the quiet mood in which I dwell; but then, having concern only to mitigate the maid’s hysteria, following upon the stress of emotion I conceived she had undergone, this anxious survey of the weather had no meaning. I watched her: I lingered upon her beauty, softened, perfected, enhanced in spiritual quality by the brush of the dusk; and I could no longer wish John Cather joy, but knew that I must persist in the knightly endeavor.

“The wind’s from the west,” says she. “A free wind.”

“For Topmast Harbor,” says I; “but a mean breeze for folk bound elsewhere.”

“A free wind for Topmast Harbor,” she repeated.

“No matter,” says I.

“’Tis a great thing,” she replied, “for them that are bound to Topmast Harbor.”

’Twas reproachfully spoken.

“You’ll be going home now, maid,” I entreated. “You’ll leave me walk with you, will you not?”

She looked down in a troubled muse.

“You’ll leave me follow, then,” says I, “to see that you’ve no fear of the dark. ’Twill be dark soon, Judith, and I’m not wanting you to be afraid.”

“Come!” cries she. “I will walk with you–home!”

She took my hand, and entwined her long fingers with mine, in the intimate, confiding way she was used to doing when we were a lad and a maid on the dark roads. Many a time, when we were lad and maid, had Judith walked forward, and I backward, to provide against surprise by the shapes of night; and many a dark time had she clutched my hand, nearing the lights of Twist Tickle, to make sure that no harm would befall her. And now, in this childish way, she held me; and she walked with me twenty paces on the path to Twist Tickle, whereupon she stopped, and led me back to that same nook of the road, and doggedly released me, and put an opposing hand on my breast.

“Do you bide here,” says she; “and when I call, do you go home.”

“An you wish it,” I answered.

’Twas not more than twenty paces she walked towards the impoverished cottages of Whisper Cove: then turned, and came again to me. I wondered why she stood in this agony of indecision: but could not tell, nor can be blamed for the mystification, relentlessly as I blame myself.

“Dannie,” she moaned, looking up, “I can go nowhere!”

“You may go home, maid,” says I. “’Tis a queer thing if you may not go home.”

“’Tis an unkind thing.”

“Come!” I pleaded. “’Twill so very soon be dark on the road; and I’m not wantin’ you t’ wander in the dark.”

“I cannot,” says she. “I just cannot!”

“Judith,” I chided, “you may. ’Tis an unseemly thing in you to say.”

“But I cannot bear it, Dannie!”

“I would cry shame upon you, Judith,” I scolded, “were I not so careful of your feelings.”

She seemed now to command herself with a resolution of which tender maids like Judith should not be capable: ’tis too lusty and harsh a thing. I stood in awe of it. “Dannie,” says she, “do you go home. I’ll follow an I can. And if I do not come afore long, do you tell un to think that I spend the night with the wife of Moses Shoos. You may kiss me, Dannie, lad,” says she, “an you cares t’ do it.”

I did care: but dared not.

“I’m wishin’ for it,” says she.

“But,” I protested, “is you sure ’tis right?”

“’Tis quite right,” she answered. “God understands.”

“I’d be glad,” says I.

“You may kiss me, then.”

I kissed her. ’Tis a thing I regret: ’twas a kiss so lacking in earnest protraction–so without warmth and vigor. ’Twas the merest brushing of her cheek. I wish I had kissed her, like a man, in the fulness of desire I felt; but I was bound, in the last light of that day, to John Cather, in knightly honor.

“’Twas very nice,” says she. “I wisht you’d do it again.”

I did.

“Thank you, Dannie,” she whispered.

“Judith!” I cried. “Judith! For shame, to thank me!”

“And now,” says she, “you’ll be off on the road. You’ll make haste, will you not? And you’ll think, will you not, that I spend the night with Mrs. Shoos? You’ll not fret, Dannie: I’d grieve to think that you fretted. I’d not have you, for all the world, trouble about me. Not you,” she repeated, her voice falling. “Not you, Dannie–dear. You’ll be off, now,” she urged, “for ’tis long past time for tea. And you’ll tell un all, will you not, that I talked o’ spendin’ the night with Mrs. Moses Shoos at Whisper Cove?”

“An you wish it, Judith.”

“Good-night!”

I pressed away…

When I came to our house on the neck of land by the Lost Soul, I turned at the threshold to survey the weather. I might have saved myself the pains and puzzle of that regard. The print of sea and sky was foreign: I could make nothing of it. ’Twas a quiet sea, breaking, in crooning lullaby, upon the rocks below my bedroom window. It portended no disturbance: I might sleep, thinks I, with the soft whispering to lull me, being willing for the magic shoes of sleep to take me far away from this agony as never man was before. The wind was blowing from the west: but not in gusts–a sailing breeze for the timid. I was glad that there was no venomous intention in the wind: ’twas a mild and dependable wind, grateful to such as fared easterly in the night. I wished that all men might fare that way, in the favoring breeze, but knew well enough that the purposes of men are contrary, the one to the other, making fair winds of foul, and foul of fair, so that there was no telling, of any event, whatever the apparent nature of it, whether sinister or benign, the preponderance of woe or happiness issuing from it. Over all a tender sky, spread with soft stretches of cloud, and set, in its uttermost depths, with stars. ’Twas dark enough now for the stars to shine, making the most of the moon’s absence, which soon would rise. Star upon star: a multitude of serenely companionable lights, so twinkling and knowing, so slyly sure of the ultimate resolution of all the doubts and pains and perplexities of the sons of men! But still there was abroad an oppression: a forewarning, in untimely heat and strain, of disastrous weather. ’Twas that I felt when I turned from the contemplation of the stars to go within, that I might without improper delay inform our maid-servant of Judith’s intention.

Then I joined my uncle…

XXIV

JOHN CATHER’S FATE

’Twas with a start that I realized the lateness of the hour. Time for liquor! ’Twas hard to believe. My uncle sat with his bottle and glass and little brown jug. The glass was empty and innocent of dregs; the stopper was still tight in the bottle, the jug brimming with clear water from our spring. He had himself fetched them from the pantry, it seemed, and was now awaiting, with genial patience, the arrival of company to give an air of conviviality to the evening’s indulgence. I caught him in a smiling muse, his eye on the tip of his wooden leg; he was sailed, it seemed, to a clime of feeling far off from the stress out of which I had come. There was no question: I was not interrogated upon the lapse of the crew, as he called John Cather and Judy and me, from the politeness of attendance at dinner, which, indeed, he seemed to have forgotten in a train of agreeable recollections. He was in a humor as serene and cheerfully voluble as ever I met with in my life; and when he had bade me join him at the table to pour his first dram, he fell to on the narrative of some adventure, humorously occurring, off the Funks, long, long ago, in the days of his boyhood. I did not attend, nor did I pour the dram: being for the time deeply occupied with reflections upon the square, black bottle on the table before me–the cure of moods my uncle had ever maintained it would work.

I got up resolved.

“Where you goin’, Dannie?” says my uncle, his voice all at once vacant of cheerfulness.

“To the pantry, sir,” I answered.

“Ah!” says he. “Is it ginger-ale, Dannie?”

“No, sir.”