CHAPTER VI

THE FIGURE-HEAD GAINS AN ADMIRER

The field where old David put the cows to pasture lay a comparatively short distance from the house, in the direction of the bay. But Rachel, leading a large white cow by a rope, had elected to go round by "the barn."

"Come along, Betty," she cried, as she turned into the main road dragging the surprised animal after her.

A dense fog obscured every landmark. Looking backward, she could just discern the placid light of the cow's eyes below the sickle of its horns; looking downward, she could make out her own feet and the stalks of grass and flowers beside the road. Moisture clung to the grass in pendant beads, and there was a fugitive flash of colour here and there close to the ground. All else was sheeted in the white pall. Groups of firs looked like spectres, the bushes covered with fluffs of mist looked like phantoms; Rachel herself appeared like a ghost.

The sea hurled itself against the cliffs. Now and again when it suspended its roar, the moaning of the fog bell could be heard. In these intervals of comparative quiet the surging fury in the girl's heart gave way to waves of melancholy. She had quarrelled with Nora Gage that morning and the colour was still high in her cheeks. Presently she came to a pause, stamping on the ground; the next moment, however, she was moved to laughter. In a sty beside the road a group of pigs was nozzling in a trough. One sat up and looked at her with Nora's eyes.

Somewhat improved in humour, she went on up the road. When she came opposite the barn, she clambered around the ruined cellar foundation, and after tying the cow, entered the little shop. A fire had been lighted in the battered stove and sent forth a cheerful flicker. Early as it was, André was already at work; he was decorating a smooth egg-shaped stone from which he had first removed its wrapping of seaweed. He glanced up and a light leaped to his eyes. He looked at Rachel with smiling intentness as if to satisfy himself that she had not changed in any way over night. Finally he spoke:

"If you'd come a little sooner, Rachel, you'd have seen something."

She spread her fingers above the stove and turned her neck from side to side with a slow and graceful movement as the heat rushed into her face.

"What would I have seen?"

Jumping from his stool, André poured some coffee from a pot into a cup; then he offered the cup to her.

"You look cold," he said, gazing directly into her eyes; "are you cold?" And taking her shawl, he shook the moisture from it. There was always in his attitude toward her a kind of awe.

"What would I have seen?" she repeated without glancing at him.

"Why, a stranger was here. He'd been making a sketch of the figure-head; he showed it to me."

"I don't see what right he had to draw it without my permission," she murmured jealously. "Was it a good picture, André?"

The lad looked doubtful. "It was all little scratchy lines," he said.

Rachel brooded for some minutes over the stove; then she rose. "There won't be anyone here this morning," she announced, "so I sha'n't come back. I've got to take Betty to pasture. Buttercup--all the others--got hold of some sorrel; they're sick."

She went to the door. The fog was so thick that it looked like cotton. The wild roses that bloomed here and there made delicate pink patterns on this white. From the barn the sea no longer could be heard, the complaint of the fog bell could be caught only faintly. Overhead, through the mysterious whiteness, could just be discerned the pale disc of the sun. The girl made her way through the mist as through a tangible substance. She took the path to the beach and the cow followed her placidly, the tall wet grass striking against its sides and its udder swinging like a pendulum. Rachel slipped along the wet path and climbed stealthily to the top of the first rock.

There, sitting on the wreck near the figure-head, was the stranger; but he was not sketching. Instead, his head, from which the cap had fallen, was bent forward and he was carefully burying in the sand what appeared to be the scraps of a letter. When he had finished this operation a kind of humorous relief was manifest all over him. A passenger boat steamed down the bay; a line of smoke followed it. The vessel was invisible, but the smoke lay in the fog a trail of black. The young man turned his head to observe it, and at that instant Rachel started and the cow behind her made a movement.

He looked up.

Poised on the summit of the rock, with the horns of the cow up-curving about her feet, with the fog clinging to her dress of faded blue and undulating about her in clouds, she resembled a figure of the Virgin in a crescent moon.

The pupils of the stranger's eyes, which were of a living, magnetic black dashed with fiery sparks, dilated; and two perpendicular lines, which started from the root of his nose, deepened to grooves on his forehead. He got to his feet, his massive head with its hair thrown back upraised toward her. Touched all over with a subjugating power, a grace more penetrating than beauty, he stared, a sort of animal.

As for Rachel, something of his excitement was communicated to her. For another instant she paused, held there by the mere force of his gaze. Then she turned and descending from the rock, led the cow round into the open space. A close observer might have seen that she wavered slightly, like one who tastes of wine for the first time.

The spell, however, was broken for the stranger. Unconsciously, with his lightning glance, he saw that there was a scratch on the back of one of her hands, that their flesh was rough and that there were freckles across her nose. She was just a strong, healthy, handsome lass; and, with the fickleness of a child, he abruptly turned his attention elsewhere. With excessive care he moved a small box, to which a telephone was attached, to a position of greater safety.

Rachel watched him warily. Growing within her was an odd sense of defiance, and this feeling triumphed finally over her natural shyness.

"Did you sketch the figure-head?" she asked all in a breath. Then a wave of colour rose in her cheeks. She stood before him in a trance of noble embarrassment.

"Why yes, I did," he returned. He took a book from his pocket, opened it to a certain page and presented it to her. The book was filled, all but that page, with drawings of little instruments.

She slowly approached leading the cow. He turned to her his face, framed in its curling beard. "I'm a pretty poor excuse for an artist," he began.

"That figure-head belongs to me," she interrupted, handing the book back.

A second time he fixed his attention upon her and two tiny stars of laughter shot into his eyes. "Does it, indeed?" he remarked; there was almost a caress in the words.

"Yes, my grandfather saved it and set it up here," she affirmed. She breathed quickly and every moment her shyness and her anger deepened.

"It appears to be an interesting bit of carving." Stealing over this great giant as he frankly studied her was something of the air of a lazy lion. "I should say someone carved it who loved to carve," he added. Then, with an idea of giving her a chance to recover countenance, he considerately turned his gaze in the direction of the bay.

"What--what are you doing now?" she asked quickly; for her spirit was roused and it behooved her to recover dignity.

"Well, I hoped to be able to get some of those fishermen to take me out in a boat for a certain purpose, but they can't see my signal and the fog doesn't lift."

He seated himself on the wreck and began to touch up his drawing of the figure-head, then he fell to making a tentative sketch of the indistinct figures in the dories out on the water.

Had he made the slightest effort to detain her in conversation, Rachel certainly would have turned on her heel; as it was, drawn on by her curiosity, she moored the cow with a stone on the rope, and came nearer.

"All this is out of my line," he explained, "but I like to try my hand at it once in a way." And, indeed, he looked hugely pleased with his effort, as he held the paper at arm's length to study the effect.

Rachel watched him and now and then her eyes travelled to his face with the clear dispassionate gaze of a child. His cap lay on the sand at his feet and his dishevelled locks moved in the wind above a face that was simple and bold. His finger-tips were stained with acid, his clothing was a bit careless; a spray of Prince's Feather, freshly picked, trailed from the button-hole of his coat. About them was complete silence except for the plashing of the waves and an occasional muffled cry from the almost invisible lobstermen. The fog wrapped them round.

Presently he reached a point beyond which he was unable to carry his sketch, and, abandoning it, he began turning the pages of the book at first slowly, then with increased attention. At last he paused. His eyes narrowed and the perpendicular wrinkle on his forehead deepened. He read over some notes. He struck out a word here, inserted another there; then commenced to write rapidly on the margin of the page and for several minutes the scratching of his pencil continued. It was apparent that like a hunter he was running down his quarry, and leaping over many a ditch and rock in his excitement; it was apparent, too, that he had entered a world in which woman was unknown.

Finally, Rachel's interest expressed itself in an involuntary sigh, and he raised his head with a dawning consciousness of her presence. Tiny drops of moisture, like diamond dust, glittered in her hair. He studied them; then met the brightness of her oval-shaped eye.

In his turn embarrassed, he hitched his shoulders and laughed.

"I forgot that you were here," he said.

Until that moment she had not resented his indifference, but now, when he voiced it, she felt a hot sense of chagrin. He had, she considered, been pointedly lacking in courtesy. Moving away, she took up the rope of the cow.

He got to his feet. "By Jove, I don't see how it happened," he said simply.

It was the touch required. She halted and stood playing with the rope.

"I got to thinking of this," he continued, and he laid his hand on the box to which the telephone receiver was attached. "It's something I've been working out. I want to test it. It's a fine coast for the purpose. Plenty of submerged rocks, I should say," and he gazed about him.

She also swept the rolling leagues of misty emptiness, but with the glance of one who is familiar with them, then her eyes, wistful and unutterably intense, went to his. There was something about the life and mentality of this man that startled and stirred her, something in his appearance that seemed to speak of a nature unshackled, gigantic.

"I asked that boy at the old barn up the road where I could get hold of a boat and someone to row," he continued, "but he didn't tell me."

She turned from him. "I'll take you," she volunteered, "this afternoon."

At this the stranger showed a row of brilliant teeth. "Why that--that's fine," he said. Once more his manner was gentle, almost caressing.

To demonstrate his gratitude he tore from the book the sketch of the figure-head and presented it to her.

She took it without exhibiting any emotion. Then, leading the cow, she disappeared around a boulder. A moment later, however, she appeared on its summit, and the cow pushed up behind her so that his first miraculous impression was repeated.

"What time," she asked, "do you want to go?"

He moved his lips without speaking; a magical light had dawned on his world.

"Why, about three o'clock," he answered,--pausing between the words.

And the next moment she was no longer there. The fog had closed over the spot of the vision.