Vesty of the Basins Part 9

She did, a little, and she grievously disapproved of him.

"Kiss me, dearest," he pleaded. "You kissed me once, when I first came home."

"All the m-more reason why you ought not to ask me now. I w-wish you'd get your m-mind on something besides me."

Notely walked away, pulled up the anchor, and set sail again. Vesty composed herself at the end of the boat.

"Sweet-tempered child!" said he, regarding her from the helm.

She dipped her hand in the water and smoothed her stray locks; they curled up again. She was distressed, and Notely's mirthful eyes gave her no rest.

"My mind is still on you, Vesty--and will be for ever and aye, sweetheart."

With that he turned kindly and looked away, and Vesty bound up her hair.

Presently: "The tapestries are beautiful to-day, Note," she said.

They were sailing through the shallows near Reef Island, and they looked down through the green water. Gold, bronze and yellow, and dark velvet green, the tracings of broad sea-leaf and trailing vine on that floor.

"There isn't another house in any land tapestried like ours, Vesty.

Say, wouldn't that be a charming place, after all, to rest, when----"

"You're getting aground, Note!"

"Thank you! How fortunate that you are aboard! I know how to steer a boat a little, of course, but nothing like----"

Vesty laughed, dazzled by this sarcasm. "But you didn't think of the bread or the salt or the pork for the chowder," said she triumphantly.

"Ah, I see you have them. You always think of those things. You were always my little woman, you know. You are my home."

As the boat touched the ledge she sprang out before him. By the time he had fastened his boat and clambered over the ledges with the kettle which he had brought from the crane in his shanty, Vesty had a fire of drift-wood burning.

She prepared the chowder, while he whittled out some forks of wood and gathered firm pieces of kelp for dishes.

They ate, with only the voice of the gulls, screaming, flying in disturbed, beautiful flight over the wide, lone island.

"Now for the gulls' eggs," said Vesty, rising, no dishes to put away.

"What a carnivorous little wild-cat it is--for one so necessary to the sick and afflicted!"

"Didn't you come to hunt gulls' eggs, Note?"

"You know that that is my sole aim and ambition in life. Come!"

Over ledges and salt marshes, at the feet of the thin, storm-broken trees, they found them, nestled there, three, four, eight in a nest, the birds flying, circling overhead. Vesty gathered them in her ap.r.o.n, eager, searching from tree to tree. Her hair came down. She looked up at Note, apologetic, humble, so eager she hardly minded.

"Hold my ap.r.o.n, Note."

This he did obediently.

With downcast eyes and a blush on her cheeks that would have exonerated Eve, she wound up her hair again, and restored her own hold on her ap.r.o.n.

"I did not kiss you then, Vesty."

"Well, of course."

"I'm good, but my mind is still on you."

Over ledges and salt marshes, and the thin, storm-broken trees, and out there on the water there 's a strange color growing. Even the Basins seldom fail to _start_, at least, for home by sunset.

So a little white sail puts out on the crimson sea. The breeze is dying out, the waters lap, subside. Notely takes down the sail and rows.

The sea fades to softer colors, hushed, wondrous, near the dim sh.o.r.e.

"It isn't ever known, in any place in all the world, that angels--no, I know--but look, Note!--they almost might."

"Only here at the Basin, Vesty; when that very last light fades. I saw two flying up--flying back again--just now. How many did you see?"

She turned her happy, awesome eyes on him, but his keen face, in that light, was as simple and pathetic as her own.

"But my mind is on _you_, Vesty. Now, before we touch the sh.o.r.e, when will you marry me?"

"I've been thinking. O Note, perhaps it isn't my place to marry you; perhaps I wouldn't do you any good to marry you, Note. They say you were first in your cla.s.s, off there, and there are so many things for you, and your mother, and friends, will help you so much more--if I don't."

"I may as well tell you the truth, Vesty. I'm not that strong person that I look"--the angels that he saw, flying up, will forgive that sly smile on the boy's mouth--"I couldn't go away and leave you, and go into that false, feverish struggle out there, and live anything more than the wreck of a life, at least. I'm affected."

"Where is it that you have such trouble, Note?"

"It 's my heart, Vesty Kirtland. I must have a Basin for my wife, calm, strong, sweet; one who can see the 'angels' now and then--just you, in fact."

He handed her out of the boat and walked home with her. At the edge of the alders they stood. They could see the light in her father's house.

"When, Vesty?" he repeated.

"O Note, I love you!" she sobbed; "but I must have a little time to think. Every girl has that."

"Very well. You must _keep your mind on me_, however."

"Hark! hear the poplars tremble. You know what always makes them sigh and s.h.i.+ver that way, Note?"

"I've forgotten."

"They made the cross for Christ out of the poplars; they never got over it--see them s.h.i.+ver!--hus.h.!.+"

"O my beautiful one!" He took her hands. "What was it you 'told them'

back there this morning, Vesty, before we started?"

"You are cruel! O Note!"