Chapter 12

"Is you forgettin'," I demanded, "that I'm your brother?"

"No," she faltered.

"Then," said I, roughly, "I'll have the doctor cure you whether you will or not!"

She took my hand, and for a moment softly stroked it, looking away. "You're much changed, dear," she said, "since our mother died."

"Oh, Bessie!"

"Ay," she sighed.

I hung my head. 'Twas a familiar bitterness. I was, indeed, not the same as I had been. And it seems to me, now--even at this distant day--that this great loss works sad changes in us every one. Whether we be child or man, we are none of us the same, afterwards.

"Davy," my sister pleaded, "were your poor sister now t' ask you t' say no word----"

"I would not say one word!" I broke in. "Oh, I would not!"

That was the end of it.

* * * * *

Next day the doctor bade me walk with him on the Watchman, so that, as he said, he might without interruption speak a word with me: which I was loath to do; for he had pulled a long face of late, and had sighed and stared more than was good for our spirits, nor smiled at all, save in a way of the wryest, and was now so grave--nay, sunk deep in blear-eyed melancholy--that 'twas plain no happiness lay in prospect. 'Twas sad weather, too--cold fog in the air, the light drear, the land all wet and black, the sea swishing petulantly in the mist. I had no mind to climb the Watchman, but did, cheerily as I could, because he wished it, as was my habit.

When we got to Beacon Rock, there was no flush of red in the doctor's cheeks, as ever there had been, no life in his voice, which not long since had been buoyant; and his hand, while for a moment it rested affectionately on my shoulder, shook in a way that frightened me.

"Leave us go back!" I begged. "I'm not wantin' t' talk."

I wished I had not come: for there was in all this some foreboding of wretchedness. I was very much afraid.

"I have brought you here, Davy," he began, with grim deliberation, "to tell you something about myself. I do not find it," with a shrug and a wry mouth, "a pleasant----"

"Come, zur," I broke in, this not at all to my liking, "leave us go t' the Soldier's Ear!"

"Not an agreeable duty," he pursued, fixing me with dull eyes, "for me to speak; nor will it be, I fancy, for you to hear. But----"

This exceeded even my utmost fears. "I dare you, zur," said I, desperate for a way of escape, "t' dive from Nestin' Ledge this cold day!"

He smiled--but 'twas half a sad frown; for at once he puckered his forehead.

"You're scared!" I taunted.

He shook his head.

"Oh, do come, zur!"

"No, Davy," said he.

I sighed.

"For," he added, sighing, too, "I have something to tell you, which must now be told."

Whatever it was--however much he wished it said and over with--he was in no haste to begin. While, for a long time, I kicked at the rock, in anxious expectation, he sat with his hands clasped over his knee, staring deep into the drear mist at sea--beyond the breakers, past the stretch of black and restless water, far, far into the gray spaces, which held God knows what changing visions for him! I stole glances at him--not many, for then I dared not, lest I cry; and I fancied that his disconsolate musings must be of London, a great city, which, as he had told me many times, lay infinitely far away in that direction.

"Well, Davy, old man," he said, at last, with a quick little laugh, "hit or miss, here goes!"

"You been thinkin' o' London," I ventured, hoping, if might be, for a moment longer to distract him.

"But not with longing," he answered, quickly. "I left no one to wish me back. Not one heart to want me--not one to wait for me! And I do not wish myself back. I was a dissipated fellow there, and when I turned my back on that old life, when I set out to find a place where I might atone for those old sins, 'twas without regret, and 'twas for good and all. This," he said, rising, "is my land. This," he repeated, glancing north and south over the dripping coast, the while stretching wide his arms, "is now my land! I love it for the opportunity it gave me. I love it for the new man it has made me. I have forgotten the city. I love _this_ life! And I love you, Davy," he cried, clapping his arm around me, "and I love----"

He stopped.

"I knows, zur," said I, in an awed whisper, "whom you love."

"Bessie," said he.

"Ay, Bessie."

There was now no turning away. My recent fears had been realized. I must tell him what was in my heart.

"Mary Tot says, zur," I gasped, "that love leads t' hell."

He started from me.

"I would not have my sister," I continued, "go t' hell. For, zur," said I, "she'd be wonderful lonesome there."

"To hell?" he asked, hoarsely.

"Oh, ay!" I groaned. "T' the flames o' hell!"

"'Tis not true!" he burst out, with a radiant smile. "I know it! Love--my love for her--has led me nearer heaven than ever I hoped to be!"

I troubled no more. Here was a holy passion. Child that I was--ignorant of love and knowing little enough of evil--I still perceived that this love was surely of the good God Himself. I feared no more for my dear sister. She would be safe with him.

"You may love my sister," said I, "an you want to. You may have her."

He frowned in a troubled way.

"Ay," I repeated, convinced, "you may have my dear sister. I'm not afraid."

"Davy," he said, now so grave that my heart jumped, "you give her to the man I am."

"I'm not carin'," I replied, "what you was."

"You do not know."

Apprehension grappled with me. "I'm not wantin' t' know," I protested. "Come, zur," I pleaded, "leave us go home."

"Once, Davy," he said, "I told you that I had been wicked."

"You're not wicked now."

"I was."

"I'm not carin' what you was. Oh, zur," I cried, tugging at his hand, "leave us go home!"

"And," said he, "a moment ago I told you that I had been a dissipated fellow. Do you know what that means?"

"I'm not _wantin_' t' know!"

"You must know."

I saw the peril of it all. "Oh, tell me not!" I begged. "Leave us go home!"

"But I _must_ tell you, Davy," said he, beginning, now in an agony of distress, to pace the hilltop. "It is not a matter of to-day. You are only a lad, now; but you will grow up--and learn--and know. Oh, God," he whispered, looking up to the frowning sky, laying, the while, his hand upon my head, "if only we could continue like this child! If only we _need_ not know! I want you, Davy," he continued, once more addressing me, "when you grow up, to know, to recall, whatever happens, that I was fair, fair to you and fair to her, whom you love. You are not like other lads. It is your _place_, I think, in this little community, that makes you different. _You_ can understand. I _must_ tell you."

"I'm scared t' know," I gasped. "Take my sister, zur, an' say no more."

"Scared to know? And I to tell. But for your sister's sake--for the sake of her happiness--I'll tell you, Davy--let me put my arm around you--ay, I'll tell you, lad, God help me! what it means to be a dissipated fellow. O Christ," he sighed, "I pay for all I did! Merciful God, at this moment I pay the utmost price! Davy, lad," drawing me closer, "you will not judge me harshly?"

"I'll hearken," I answered, hardening.

Then, frankly, he told me as much, I fancy, as a man may tell a lad of such things....

* * * * *

In horror--in shame--ay, in shame so deep I flushed and dared not look at him--I flung off his arms. And I sprang away--desperately fingering my collar: for it seemed I must choke, so was my throat filled with indignation. "You wicked man!" I cried. "You kissed my sister. You--_you_--kissed my sister!"

"Davy!"

"You wicked, wicked man!"

"Don't, Davy!"

"Go 'way!" I screamed.

Rather, he came towards me, opening his arms, beseeching me. But I was hot-headed and willful, being only a lad, without knowledge of sin gained by sinning, and, therefore, having no compassion; and, still, I fell away from him, but he followed, continuing to beseech me, until, at last, I struck him on the breast: whereupon, he winced, and turned away. Then, in a flash--in the still, illuminating instant that follows a blow struck in blind rage--I was appalled by what I had done; and I stood stiff, my hands yet clinched, a storm of sobs on the point of breaking: hating him and myself and all the world, because of the wrong he had done us, and the wrong I had done him, and the wrong that life had worked us all.

I took to my heels.

"Davy!" he called.

The more he cried after me, the more beseechingly his voice rang in my ears, the more my heart urged me to return--the harder I ran.

* * * * *

I wish I had not struck him ... I wish, I say, I had not struck him ... I wish that when he came towards me, with his arms wide open, his grave, gray eyes pleading--wretched soul that he was--I wish that then I had let him enfold me. What poor cleverness, what a poor sacrifice, it would have been! 'Twas I--strange it may have been--but still 'twas I, Davy Roth, a child, Labrador born and bred, to whom he stretched out his hand. I should have blessed God that to this remote place a needful man had come. 'Twas my great moment of opportunity. I might--I might--have helped him. How rare the chance! And to a child! I might have taken his hand. I might have led him immediately into placid waters. But I was I--unfeeling, like all lads: blind, too, reprehensible, deserving of blame. In all my life--and, as it happens (of no merit of my own, but of his), it has thus far been spent seeking to give help and comfort to such as need it--never, never, in the diligent course of it, has an opportunity so momentous occurred. I wish--oh, I wish--he might once again need me! To lads--and to men--and to frivolous maids--and to beggars and babies and cripples and evil persons--and to all sorts and conditions of human kind! Who knows to whom the stricken soul--downcast whether of sin or sorrow--may appeal? Herein is justification--the very key to heaven, with which one may unlock the door and enter, claiming bliss by right, defiant of God Himself, if need were: "I have sinned, in common with all men, O God, but I have sought to help such as were in sorrow, whether of sin or the misfortunes incident to life in the pit below, which is the world. You dare not cast me out!" Oh, men and women, lads and maids, I speak because of the wretchedness of my dear folk, out of their sorrow, which is common to us all, but here, in this barren place, is unrelieved, not hidden. Take the hand stretched out! And watch: lest in the great confusion this hand appear--and disappear. If there be sin, here it is: that the hand wavered, beseeching, within reach of such as were on solid ground, and was not grasped.

* * * * *

Ah, well! to my sister I ran; and I found her placidly sewing in the broad window of our house, which now looked out upon a melancholy prospect of fog and black water and vague gray hills. Perceiving my distress, she took me in her lap, big boy though I was, and rocked me, hushing me, the while, until I should command my grief and disclose the cause of it.

"He's a sinful man," I sobbed, at last. "Oh, dear Bessie, care no more for him!"

She stopped rocking--and pressed me closer to her soft, sweet bosom--so close that she hurt me, as my loving mother used to do. And when I looked up--when, taking courage, I looked into her face--I found it fearsomely white and hopeless; and when, overcome by this, I took her hand, I found it very cold.

"Not sinful," she whispered, drawing my cheek close to hers. "Oh, not that!"

"A sinful, wicked person," I repeated, "not fit t' speak t' such as you."

"What have he done, Davy?"

"I'd shame t' tell you."

"Oh, what?"

"I may not tell. Hug me closer, Bessie, dear. I'm in woeful want o' love."

She rocked me, then--smoothing my cheek--kissing me--hoping thus to still my grief. A long, long time she coddled me, as my mother might have done.

"Not sinful," she said.

"Ay, a wicked fellow. We must turn un out o' here, Bessie. He've no place here, no more. He've sinned."

She kissed me on the lips. Her arms tightened about me. And there we sat--I in my sister's arms--hopeless in the drear light of that day.

"I love him," she said.

"Love him no more! Bessie, dear, he've sinned past all forgiving."

Again--and now abruptly--she stopped rocking. She sat me back in her lap. I could not evade her glance--sweet-souled, confident, content, reflecting the bright light of heaven itself.

"There's no sin, Davy," she solemnly said, "that a woman can't forgive."

* * * * *

I passed that afternoon alone on the hills--the fog thickening, the wind blowing wet and cold, the whole world cast down--myself seeking, all the while, some reasonable way of return to the doctor's dear friendship. I did not know--but now I know--that reason, sour and implacable, is sadly inadequate to our need when the case is sore, and, indeed, a wretched staff, at best: but that fine impulse, the sure, inner feeling, which is faith, is ever the more trustworthy, if good is to be achieved, for it is forever sanguine, nor, in all the course of life, relentless. But, happily, Skipper Tommy Lovejoy, who, in my childhood, came often opportunely to guide me with his wiser, strangely accurate philosophy, now sought me on the hill, being informed, as it appeared, of my distress--and because, God be thanked! he loved me.

"Go 'way!" I complained.

"Go 'way?" cried he, indignantly. "I'll not go 'way. For shame! To send me from you!"

"I'm wantin' t' be alone."

"Ay; but 'tis unhealthy for you."

"I'm thrivin' well enough."

"Hut!" said he. "What's this atween the doctor an' you? You'd cast un off because he've sinned? Ecod! I've seldom heard the like. Who is you? Even the Lard God A'mighty wouldn't do that. Sure, _He_ loves only such as have sinned. Lad," he went on, now, with a smile, with a touch of his rough old hand, compelling my confidence and affection, "what's past is done with. Isn't you l'arned that yet? Old sins are as if they never had been. Else what hope is there for us poor sons of men? The weight o' sin would sink us. 'Tis not the dear Lard's way t' deal so with men. To-day is not yesterday. What was, has been; it is not. A man is not what he was--he is what he is. But yet, lad--an' 'tis wonderful queer--to-day _is_ yesterday. 'Tis _made_ by yesterday. The mistake--the sin--o' yesterday is the straight course--the righteous deed--o' to-day. 'Tis only out o' sin that sweetness is born. That's just what sin is for! The righteous, Davy, dear," he said, in all sincerity, "are not lovable, not trustworthy. The devil nets un by the hundred quintal, for _'tis_ such easy fishin'; but sinners--such as sin agin their will--the Lard loves an' gathers in. They who sin must suffer, Davy, an' only such as suffer can _know_ the dear Lard's love. God be thanked for sin," he said, looking up, inspired. "Let the righteous be damned--they deserve it. Give _me_ the company o' sinners!"

"Is you sure?" I asked, confounded by this strange doctrine.

"I thank God," he answered, composedly, "that _I_ have sinned--and suffered."

"Sure," said I, "_you_ ought t' know, for you've lived so awful long."

"They's nothin' like sin," said he, with a sure smack of the lips, "t' make good men. I knows it."

"An' Bessie?"

"Oh, Davy, lad, _she'll_ be safe with him!"

Then I, too, knew it--knew that sin had been beneficently decreed by God, whose wisdom seems so all-wise, once our perverse hearts are opened to perceive--knew that my dear sister would, indeed, be safe with this sinner, who sorrowed, also. And I was ashamed that I had ever doubted it.

"Look!" Skipper Tommy whispered.

Far off--across the harbour--near lost in the mist--I saw my sister and the doctor walking together.

* * * * *

My sister was waiting for me. "Davy," she asked, anxiously, "where have you been?"

"On the hills," I answered.

For a moment she was silent, fingering her apron; and then, looking fearlessly into my eyes--"I love him," she said.

"I'm glad."

"I cannot help it," she continued, clasping her hands, her breast heaving. "I love him--so _hard_--I cannot tell it."

"I'm glad."

"An' he loves me. He loves me! I'm not doubtin' that. He _loves_ me," she whispered, that holy light once more breaking about her, in which she seemed transfigured. "Oh," she sighed, beyond expression, "he loves me!"

"I'm glad."

"An' I'm content t' know it--just t' know that he loves me--just t' know that I love him. His hands and eyes and arms! I ask no more--but just t' know it. Just once to have--to have had him--kiss me. Just once to have lain in his arms, where, forever, I would lie. Oh, I'm glad," she cried, joyously, "that the good Lord made me! I'm glad--just for that. Just because he kissed me--just because I love him, who loves me. I'm glad I was made for him to love. 'Tis quite enough for me. I want--only this I want--that he may have me--that, body and soul, I may satisfy his love--so much I love him. Davy," she faltered, putting her hands to her eyes, "I love--I _love_--I love him!"

Ecod! 'Twas too much for me. Half scandalized, I ran away, leaving her weeping in my dear mother's rocking-chair.

* * * * *

My sister and I were alone at table that evening. The doctor was gone in the punt to Jolly Harbour, the maids said; but why, they did not know, for he had not told them--nor could we guess: for 'twas a vexatious distance, wind and tide what they were, nor would a wise man undertake it, save in case of dire need, which did not then exist, the folk of Jolly Harbour, as everybody knows, being incorruptibly healthy. But I would not go to sleep that night until my peace was made; and though, to deceive my sister, I went to bed, I kept my eyes wide open, waiting for the doctor's step on the walk and on the stair: a slow, hopeless footfall, when, late in the night, I heard it.

I followed him to his room--with much contrite pleading on the tip of my tongue. And I knocked timidly on the door.

"Come in, Davy," said he.

My heart was swelling so--my tongue so sadly unmanageable--that I could do nothing but whimper. But----

"I'm wonderful sad, zur," I began, after a time, "t' think that I----"

"Hush!" said he.

'Twas all I said--not for lack of will or words, but for lack of breath and opportunity; because all at once (and 'twas amazingly sudden) I found myself caught off my feet, and so closely, so carelessly, embraced, that I thought I should then and there be smothered: a death which, as I had been led to believe, my dear sister might have envied me, but was not at all to my liking. And when I got my breath 'twas but to waste it in bawling. But never had I bawled to such good purpose: for every muffled howl and gasp brought me nearer to that state of serenity from which I had that day cast myself by harsh and willful conduct.

Then--and 'twas not hard to do--I offered my supreme propitiation: which was now no more a sacrifice, but, rather, a high delight.

"You may have my sister, zur," I sobbed.

He laughed a little--laughed an odd little laugh, the like of which I had never heard.

"You may have her," I repeated, somewhat impatiently. "Isn't you hearin' me? I _give_ her to you."

"This is very kind," he said. "But----"

"You're _wantin'_ her, isn't you?" I demanded, fearing for the moment that he had meantime changed his mind.

"Yes," he drawled; "but----"

"But what?"

"She'll not have me."

"Not have you!" I cried.

"No," said he.

At that moment I learned much wisdom concerning the mysterious ways of women.

XXIV

The BEGINNING of The END

From this sad tangle we were next morning extricated by news from the south ports of our coast--news so ill that sentimental tears and wishes were of a sudden forgot; being this: that the smallpox had come to Poor Luck Harbour and was there virulently raging. By noon of that day the doctor's sloop was underway with a fair wind, bound south in desperate haste: a man's heart beating glad aboard, that there might come a tragic solution of his life's entanglement. My sister and I, sitting together on the heads of Good Promise, high in the sunlight, with the sea spread blue and rippling below--we two, alone, with hands clasped--watched the little patch of sail flutter on its way--silently watched until it vanished in the mist.

"I'm not knowin'," my sister sighed, still staring out to sea, "what's beyond the mist."

"Nor I."

'Twas like a curtain, veiling some dread mystery, as an ancient tragedy--but new to us, who sat waiting: and far past our guessing.

"I wonder what we'll see, dear," she whispered, "when the mist lifts."

"'Tis some woeful thing."

She leaned forward, staring, breathing deep, seeking with the strange gift of women to foresee the event; but she sighed, at last, and gave it up.

"I'm not knowin'," she said.

We turned homeward; and thereafter--through the months of that summer--we were diligent in business: but with small success, for Jagger of Wayfarer's Tickle, seizing the poor advantage with great glee, now foully slandered and oppressed us.

* * * * *

Near midsummer our coast was mightily outraged by the sailings of the _Sink or Swim_, Jim Tall, master--Jagger's new schooner, trading our ports and the harbours of the Newfoundland French Shore, with a case of smallpox in the forecastle. We were all agog over it, bitterly angered, every one of us; and by day we kept watch from the heads to warn her off, and by night we saw to our guns, that we might instantly deal with her, should she so much as poke her prow into the waters of our harbour. Once, being on the Watchman with my father's glass, I fancied I sighted her, far off shore, beating up to Wayfarer's Tickle in the dusk: but could not make sure, for there was a haze abroad, and her cut was not yet well known to us. Then we heard no more of her, until, by and by, the skipper of the _Huskie Dog_, bound north, left news that she was still at large to the south, and sang us a rousing song, which, he said, had been made by young Dannie Crew of Ragged Harbour, and was then vastly popular with the folk of the places below.

"Oh, _have_ you seed the skipper o' the schooner _Sink or Swim_? We'll use a rope what's long an' strong, when we cotches him. He've a case o' smallpox for'ard, An' we'll hang un, by the Lord! For he've traded every fishin' port from Conch t' Harbour Rim.

"T' save the folk that dreads it, We'll hang the man that spreads it, They's lakes o' fire in hell t' sail for such as Skipper Jim!"

My sister, sweet maid! being then in failing health and spirits, I secretly took ship with the skipper of the _Bonnie Betsy Buttercup_, bound south with the first load of that season: this that I might surely fetch the doctor to my sister's help, who sorely needed cheer and healing, lest she die like a thirsty flower, as my heart told me. And I found the doctor busy with the plague at Bay Saint Billy, himself quartered aboard the _Greased Lightning_, a fore-and-after which he had chartered for the season: to whom I lied diligently and without shame concerning my sister's condition, and with such happy effect that we put to sea in the brewing of the great gale of that year, with our topsail and tommy-dancer spread to a sousing breeze. But so evil a turn did the weather take--so thick and wild--that we were thrice near driven on a lee shore, and, in the end, were glad enough to take chance shelter behind Saul's Island, which lies close to the mainland near the Harbourless Shore. There we lay three days, with all anchors over the side, waiting in comfortable security for the gale to blow out; and 'twas at dusk of the third day that we were hailed from the coast rocks by that ill-starred young castaway of the name of Docks whose tale precipitated the final catastrophe in the life of Jagger of Wayfarer's Tickle.