The Cruise of the Shining Light Part 35

"I don't know," I answered, frowning. "I don't know at all."

"Dannie," says he, significantly, "'tisn't time yet for John Cather t'

go t' St. John's. You got t' take your chance."

"What chance?" I demanded.

"I don't know," says he.

I scowled.

"But," says he, "an I was you I wouldn't fear on no account whatever.

No," he repeated, "_I_ wouldn't fear--an I was you."

So John Cather was left with Judy and the watchful maid-servant who loved her, having no child of her own, when my uncle and I fared out of the tickle upon the outside boat. I was troubled in the dark and wash and heave of that night, but could not for the life of me tell why. John Cather had bade me good-bye with a heartening laugh and clap on the shoulder. 'Twas with grat.i.tude--and sure persuasion of unworthiness--that I remembered his affection. And Judy had given me a sisterly kiss of farewell which yet lingered upon my lips so warmly that in my perplexity I was conscious of it lying there and must like a thirsty man feel the place her moist mouth had touched.

'Twas grief, thinks I, because of parting with my friend John Cather; and I puzzled no longer, but devoted myself to the accomplishment of manners, as I had been taught, and now attended with interest, having grown old and wise. 'Twas rainy weather, windy, with the sea in an ugly pother off the rocks of our hard coast. 'Twas wet, bl.u.s.tering weather, indeed, all the hapless time we were gone from Twist Tickle: the tap-rooms of St. John's, I recall, disagreeably steamed and reeked. My uncle put me to bed that night with a motherly injunction to recite the twenty-third psalm for safety against the perils of the sea and the machinations of wicked men, and to regard the precepts of the n.o.ble Lord Chesterfield for guidance in more difficult waters: the man being quite sober for the first time in all my life upon these occasions of departure.

"Dannie, lad," says he, "you cling t' that there little anchor I'm give ye t' hold to."

I asked him mechanically what that was.

"The twenty-third psa'm," says he.

To this I promised.

"An', Dannie," says he, drawing the great bandanna handkerchief from his trousers-pocket to blow his nose, "don't ye be gettin' lonely: for Dannie--"

I must sharply attend.

"I'm for'ard," he declared, "standin' by!"

He could not perceive, poor man! that I was no longer to be dealt with as a child.

There befell me in the city a singular encounter. 'Twas of a soggy, dismal day: there was a searching wind abroad, I recall, to chill the marrow of impoverished folk, a gray light upon all the slimy world, a dispiriting fog flowing endlessly in scowling clouds over the hills to thicken and eddy and drip upon the streets and harbor. It being now at the crisis of my uncle's intoxication, I was come from my hotel alone, wandering without aim, to speed the anxious hours. Abreast of the familiar door of the Anchor and Chain, where long ago I had gratefully drunk with Cap'n Jack Large, I paused; and I wondered, as I stared at the worn bra.s.s k.n.o.b, now broken into beads of cold sweat with the weather, whether or not I might venture some persuasion upon my perverse uncle, but was all at once plucked by the tail of my coat, and turned in a rage to resent the impudence. 'Twas but a scrawny, bra.s.s-b.u.t.toned boy, however, with an errand for the lad with the rings, as they called me. I followed, to be sure, and was by this ill-nourished messenger led to the crossing of King Street with Water, where my uncle was used to tap-tapping the pavement. Thence in a moment we ascended to a group of office-rooms, on the opposite side of the street, wherein, having been ceremoniously ushered, I found the gray stranger who had called me a club-footed, ill-begotten young whelp, on that windy night at Twist Tickle, and had with meaning complacency threatened my uncle's a.s.sa.s.sination.

I had not expected it.

"Ha!" snaps he. "Here you are, eh?"

To my amazement.

"You know me?" he demanded.

I did not know his quality, which seemed, however, by the state he dwelt in, by the deference he commanded from the scrawny, bra.s.s-b.u.t.toned, ill-nourished, tragically obsequious child who had fetched me, to be of distinction.

"Sit down," he bade me.

I would not.

"Well, well!" cries he. "You've manners as brief as your memory."

'Twas a vivid recollection that had shorn my manner to the bare. My uncle had not been quick enough to sweep the lamp from the table: I remembered this man. 'Twas he who had of that windy night most cruelly d.a.m.ned me; 'twas he who had struck my uncle.

"I've not forgot you, sir," says I.

He was gray: he was indeed most incredibly gray--gray of hair and eye and brow and flesh, gray of mood and outlook upon the world, forever dwelling, as it seemed, in a gray fog of suspicion and irascibility. I was gone over, from pate to shrinking club-foot, with more intimate and intelligently curious observation than ever a 'longsh.o.r.e jack or coast-wise skipper had achieved in the years when I wore rings. Never before had I suffered a stare more keen and unabashed: 'twas an a.s.surance stripped of insolence by some tragical need and right. He sat beyond a broad, littered table, leaning forward upon it, his back to the riley light, his drawn face nestled within the lean, white hands of him; and 'twas now a brooding inspection I must bear--an unself-conscious thing, remote from my feeling, proceeding from eyes as gray as winter through narrow slits that rapidly snapped shut and flashed open in spasmodic winking. He was a man of fas.h.i.+on, of authority, of large affairs, it seemed--a gentleman, according to my uncle's code and fas.h.i.+on-plates. But he was now by my presence so wretchedly detached from the great world he moved in that for a moment I was stirred to pity him. What had this masterful little man, thinks I, to fear from Dannie Callaway of Twist Tickle?

Enough, as it turned out; but 'twas all an unhappy mystery to me on that drear, clammy day.

"Come, sir!" says I, in anger. "You've fetched me here?"

He seemed not to hear.

"What you wantin' of me?" I brusquely asked.

"Yes," says he, sighing; "you are here, aren't you?" He fingered the papers on his table in a way so desultory and weak that once more I was moved to pity him. Then, with blank eyes, and hopelessly hanging lip, a lean finger still continuing to rustle the forgotten doc.u.ments, he looked out of the window, where 'twas all murky and dismal, harbor and rocky hill beyond obliterated by the dispiriting fog. "I wish to warn you," he continued. "You think, perhaps," he demanded, looking sharply into my eyes, "that you are kin of mine?"

I had no such dreadful fear, and, being an unkind lad, frankly told him.

"You dream," he pursued, "that you were born to some station?"

I would not have him know.

"Daniel," says he, with a faint twinkle of amus.e.m.e.nt and pity, "tell me of that wretched dream."

'Twas a romantic hope that had lingered with me despite my wish to have it begone: but I would not tell this man. I had fancied, as what lad would not? but with no actual longing, because of love for Judith, that the ultimate revelation would lift me high in the world. But now, in the presence of this gray personage, under his twinkle and pitying grin, the fancy forever vanished from me. 'Twas comforting to know, at any rate, that I might wed Judith without outrage. There would be small difficulty, then, thinks I, in winning the maid; and 'twas most gratifying to know it.

"Daniel," says he, in distress, "has that rascally Top misled you to this ridiculously romantic conclusion?"

"No, sir," I answered.

"You are the son," he declared, with thin-lipped deliberation, by which I was persuaded and sorely chagrined, "of Tom Callaway, who was lost, with all hands but the chiefest rascal it has been my lot to encounter, in the wreck of the _Will-o'-the-Wisp_. Tom Callaway, master: he was your father. Your mother," he continued, "was a St.

John's water-side maid--a sweet and lovely wife, who died when you were born. I was myself not indifferent to her most pure and tender charms. There is your pedigree," says he, his voice fallen kind. "No mystery, you see--no romance. Tom Callaway, master: he was your father. This man Top," he snapped, "this vulgar, drunken, villanous fellow, into whose hands you have unhappily fallen and by whose mad fancies you will inevitably be ruined, is the sole survivor of the _Will-o'-the-Wisp_, with which your father very properly went down. He is nothing to you--nothing--neither kith nor kin! He is an intruder upon you: he has no natural right to your affection; nor have you a natural obligation to regard him. He has most viciously corrupted you into the fantastic notion that you are of gentle and fortunate birth.

With what heart, in G.o.d's name!" the gray man cried, clapping his lean hands in a pa.s.sion, "he will face you when he must disclose the truth, I cannot conceive. Mad! The man is stark mad: for tell you he must, though he has in every way since your childhood fostered within you a sense of honor that will break in contempt upon him! Your att.i.tude, I warn you, will work wretchedness to you both; you will accuse and flout him. Daniel," the man solemnly asked, "do you believe me?"

I was glad to know that my mother had been both sweet and lovely.

'Twas a conception I had long cherished. 'Twas what Judith was--both sweet and lovely.

"You will accuse him, I warn you!" he repeated.

Still gray weather, I observed through the grimy panes: fog sweeping by with a northeast wind. For a moment I watched the dripping pa.s.sengers on the opposite pavement.

"Well," says the gray stranger, with a harsh little laugh, "G.o.d help Top when the tale is told!"

I should never, of course, treat my uncle with unkindness.

"My boy," he most earnestly besought me, "will you not heed me?"