Part 9

He meant me, of course. The finger of destiny always points at me. It was as much as an offer, but I should have been ashamed to accept it. A man should enroll, and then let the navy do what they will with him. Of course he should; but that is ascribing all wisdom to the men who have all power. They are but men, and have not all wisdom; they are but men as we are, and some of them a little less.

I smiled. "I am sorry," I said, "that I know nothing of steamers and the running of them, or I should be tempted to try for one of the vacancies. I do not suppose I could qualify for anything; a coal-passer, or even a third-class quartermaster perhaps, no better. And I should not like to have fingers of scorn pointed at me as being the admiral's pet or something of the kind. It would smack of politics and influence."

Old Goodwin laughed. "It is not an improper use of influence to point out a man's virtues," he answered, "but quite proper. The authorities do not know you, but I do, and I consider you well qualified. The knowledge of your duties you could pick up soon enough. You could pass the examination for a lieutenant's commission in two weeks. I would not be afraid to promise it. You can navigate, Adam."

I nodded. "I wish it could be done. But you forget that I am forty-three. They don't want men of forty-three."

"It might be done," he said. "Fergus is forty-four, but many years a master. It might be done, but if you don't want--"

I interrupted him. "You forget Eve. She is a pacifist--as bad as Cecily."

He smiled. "Eve is not so much a pacifist--nor Cecily. I would not worry about Eve."

That was news to me--if he was right. And I did want to do something, if only to restore my self-respect, that was well-nigh gone from me. It was but to find that something that I could do better than another, if such there was.

"I will think about it," I said.

"Do," he returned, "and so will I. It may be that this vessel is not the place for you. I should like it better if there was something that would keep you here or hereabouts--and so would Eve. It should be something that no one else can do."

I laughed and said nothing. What was there for me to say? But my laugh had no merriment in it. It was simple: I had but to find that which I could do and no one else; but stay--it must be useful in the present case. And I laughed again savagely, and I looked up, and there was the Rattlesnake anchored beside the Arcadia.

"They are well in time for the clambake," I remarked, "although they have digged no clams."

For this was the day of Ogilvie's farewell. He had written Eve, and she had got the note the day before; and all the afternoon I had been busy with getting my supplies, and in the early morning of this day we had digged the clams. It was but a remnant of my company that gathered there, only Old Goodwin and Eve and Elizabeth and Cecily and me--and Captain Fergus. I almost forgot Captain Fergus, but he dug few clams. The burden of the day fell upon Old Goodwin and me. Jimmy and Bobby and Ogilvie and Tom and Mrs. Fergus and Olivia were absent. And now there was naught to do but to start the bake. Old Goodwin and I went in silence to the tender, and ashore.

"Think hard," said Old Goodwin as I was leaving him. "There must be something."

"If only we can find it," I returned. "I have little hope."

He smiled his old smile of peace. "I have much," he said. "I can take you over to Newport on any day you wish. I will be over to help you with the bake."

Our clambake was a good clambake, and the clams were good, being fresh-digged and well baked, and the lobsters tender, being small--indeed, I was glad that no inspectors from the police boat were there to measure them. I did not measure them, being well enough content to take the word of the fishermen. And the chickens were good and all things else; but there was something lacking, something wrong, and that something was in the spirits of the guests. Old Goodwin was cheerful, and Elizabeth seemed cheerful enough, and Jimmy; but upon the spirits of the rest of us there sat an incubus. Ogilvie said but little, and Bobby was restless and discontented. He had hard work to sit still long enough to eat; and thereafter he wandered to and fro like a lost soul, standing at the edge of the bluff and looking out moodily, then wandering over to my garden and regarding it critically, then back to the pine, taking his knife from out his pocket and tapping it upon the table, then wandering aimlessly to the clump of trees, then to the bluff again.

My garden is not on exhibition. It is not weedless, as Judson's used to be, but is for use; and it is not to be regarded critically. And the tapping of knives on the smooth pine planks of the table is not to be commended. I came very near speaking to him about it, and then I saw Eve watching Bobby with an anxious look, and I caught for an instant a glimpse of Elizabeth's eyes. They hurt me. It was but for an instant, then she veiled them, and the lights played upon them. She was watching Bobby too.

So we got through an uncomfortable afternoon, and it came time for them to go. Eve had Jack Ogilvie by himself at the edge of the bluff, and they talked earnestly, and he took her hand and smiled his pleasant smile, and they came back to us. Bobby was tapping his knife upon the smooth pine boards.

"I envy you, Jack," he said, heaving a tremendous sigh. "I'll be there too, if there is any way." He turned suddenly to Old Goodwin. "Can't you say a word for me? What is the use of influential relatives, anyway?"

And Old Goodwin laughed. "They are of little use, Bobby. And I am surprised that you are willing to use influence in such a matter."

And he looked at me and winked.

"Use influence!" Bobby cried under his breath. "I'd use anything--a crowbar, if that would get me there."

Then they said their farewells, and Bobby shook hands with Eve and me, but not with Elizabeth. She stood there, her hands hanging at her sides, and a smile upon her lips,--not in her eyes,--while Bobby turned away.

But he turned back again as if it were against his will and some great force turned him.

"Good-bye, Elizabeth," he said low, and he half held out his hand.

She went forward quickly. "Good-bye, Bobby," she said.

And Bobby gripped her hand so that it must have hurt, and held it long and hard. Then he flung it from him as I had seen him do once before, and strode away abruptly, and ran down the steep path after the others. Elizabeth came back to us smiling--with her lips and eyes and heart; and Eve kissed her suddenly, and she laughed and cast down her eyes, and they went in together.

I stood upon the edge of my bluff when the sun was low in the west, and I watched the colors that the Great Painter spread upon the still waters. And I saw again that little strip of marsh below me, each grass stem standing straight and motionless and dark in the still water, but each stem was edged with greenish gold. Little waves rippled in--from some boat out in the harbor--and the grass stems rippled gently with it, and the bars of gold upon the waves and the waving lines of gold upon the grass stems advanced with it until the wave broke upon the store. I looked out to see what boat it was, and it was Ogilvie's, and he stood and gazed and waved to me, and I waved back, and then I bethought me of my signalling. So I waved my arms like a semaphore gone mad, and I sent him a message in farewell; and he understood, and thanked me and sent a farewell to Eve. Then he was gone out into the pearl-gray of the coming twilight, and his gray boat was lost in the gray of sky and sea.

I looked down at the little marsh. The grass was still again, and two blackbirds flew across it. I saw the red shoulders of one as he guided his waving flight, and the grass stems standing up darkly above the bright water, as if they were set in glass. It seemed infinitely beautiful and sweet, and infinitely sad.

I was wakened in the night by a noise outside our window; a little noise, as if somebody were trying not to make it. A greater noise, one made as if by right, would not have awakened me. And I took a stick that I have--a straight hickory handle for a sledge fits the hand well, and makes an admirable weapon--and I went out, thinking of German spies. There was no moon, but I saw him. My spy was doing nothing but gazing up at the window, and I came upon him from behind and caught him by the collar. That collar was stiff with braid.

He turned quickly and wrenched himself free.

"What do you mean, Adam," he asked, "by your murderous assault upon a peaceful relative?"

It was Bobby. "You're no relative of mine," I said. "What are you doing, anyway? Don't you know that the window you are gazing at is mine--Eve's and mine?"

"All the windows in the house are yours, aren't they?" he growled. "And I'm not looking at any window. But why can't I if I want to? Answer me that."

There was no answer to that. "It is lucky," I observed, "that I keep no dog--a dog like Burdon's. I think of getting one."

Bobby laughed at that. Burdon had a great dog, a vicious beast, which amused himself one day by chasing Burdon into the hencoop, growling and snarling savagely. He kept him there for hours until there came along a boy who had owned the dog until his father decided that the dog was too vicious and gave him to Burdon. The boy seized the dog by the collar, and dragged him away and chained him, and told Burdon that he could come out.

"Don't you do it, Adam," Bobby said. "Think how you would feel if you came out and found only my mangled remains. And I am doing no harm--only wandering about."

So he was but wandering about. He should have been in bed. And we stood there and talked for a few minutes, and Bobby wandered off to my steep path and down to the shore, and I heard the sound of great pebbles rolling, and I heard him whistling softly some mournful air. I went in and to bed. Elizabeth sleeps in the room down the hall, and her windows are around the corner. I heard a little noise from her room as I turned into mine.

X

One morning--it was the first of August, the middle of that hot week--I was sitting on the seat under my great pine, and Eve sat beside me. I was waiting for Elizabeth, for the time had come again for the Arcadia to be about her mysterious business on the sea, and this time I was to go. It was what Elizabeth called "transferring" something or somebody. What it was and where it was I was to find out. I wished that Eve was going--and Pukkie. I said as much.

"Elizabeth has not asked us," she replied. "I could not go if I were asked, for I promised to go to mother's. She has one of her bad turns. But Pukkie would love it."

I murmured my regret at Mrs. Goodwin's illness. Her illnesses are not serious and do not last long, and the cause of them is not far to seek. She eats most heartily and takes no exercise, and that practice ever bred illness. I would have her mowing for remedy.

Eve slipped her hand within my arm and clasped the other over it.

"Adam," she said, giving my arm a gentle squeeze, "what is it that is troubling you? Something does. It has for a long time."

Now that was what I did not expect, that Eve should think me troubled, for I thought that I had been most careful. But I should have known better. Eve always knows. And the thing that had been troubling me more than any other was that I had not thought of that no one else could do but I.

I looked down into her eyes, and I saw there many things; but love and longing most of all, the longing to comfort me if she could but lay her finger on the hurt.

I smiled. "It is not so bad as that," I said.

"Well, kiss me, Adam," she said, "and tell me."

I obeyed orders--or part of them.

"On the day of the draft," I said, "I was in the village, and I saw all the inhabitants assembled, and they scanned each batch of numbers as the news came, but not a third of them knew what their own numbers were. Some did, and I saw two that were drafted. One of the two went out from that assembly with eyes that saw nothing, looking as if he went to his execution. The other laughed, and said that that settled it, and he was glad. And tell me if you can the answer to my riddle--which has nothing to do with the assembly in the village--and say what there is that I can do, but no one else."

She laughed. "Is that the matter? And must the thing be useful? I know several things that no one else can do, but they are not useful. If it must be useful,--well,--I cannot think of it at this moment, but I have no doubt I shall." She leaned forward, and tried to look into my eyes; and failing that, she shook me. "What is the nature of this thing that you must do? Look at me, and tell me."

I was afraid to look at her lest she guess, and I was not ready to tell her. I might never be ready.

"It is nothing, Eve," I said: "nothing of importance. It is not worth a minute's worry." And that was true too.

"Foist it upon somebody else then," she answered quickly. "There are persons to decide those things."

I looked at her then. "I cannot believe that I get your meaning. You could not know. Truly there are persons to decide those things, but Heaven knows whether they are competent to decide anything. No doubt they would cheerfully and light-heartedly consign me to--what I should not do."

I stopped abruptly. I had almost told her that which I had determined not to tell her--yet. I looked into her eyes, and there I saw laughter and joy and hope and great love; and I saw the same tender wistfulness that I had seen so many times in the past weeks. But joy and laughter conquered.

"I hear Elizabeth coming," she said, "and I hope you may read your riddle. Now we must be most proper. Are you proper, Adam?"

And Elizabeth came while I was yet straightening my hair, and getting it into a comfortable condition. It feels most uncomfortable when it is rumpled and each separate hair taking a different direction, like the brush that is used to black the stove. It feels as that brush looks.

Elizabeth laughed at me unfeelingly. And she turned to Eve. But people always turn to Eve. "I'm going to take Pukkie, Eve, if you don't mind. Captain Fergus did not ask him, but I'm going to take him anyway. I've told him."

And Eve smiled and said nothing, and we started, and Pukkie came running, his face expressing his delight. And when we were in the launch and starting from the landing, Eve wished me once more the proper reading of my riddle, and she threw a kiss to us, and stood there until we were aboard the Arcadia; then we saw her wending up the slope toward the great house.

The sails were already hoisted and the anchor hove short. Elizabeth and Captain Fergus and Pukkie and I were settled in chairs along the rail, and the crew went about their business so quickly and so quietly that the first I knew of our being under way was the gentle canting of the deck beneath my feet. We had slipped out.

The wind was very light, but it was making rapidly, and there was a long, heaving swell from the Atlantic--perhaps two hundred feet from crest to crest--which made the big Arcadia pitch gently and bury her bow to the eyes. At last one of these seas, higher than most of those which made up the great procession, crept up higher yet and slopped over upon the deck. And her bows rose, and there was a rush of water along the deck, and there came the noise of falling water from hawse pipes and scuppers.

Pukkie laughed with delight, and Captain Fergus looked up.

"Crack on," he said; and they set more sail.

Presently there came another of those mighty rollers. She took it over her bows, a flood of green water, and it came roaring aft. Again there was the sound of many waters, more mighty yet, as hawse pipes and scuppers spouted forth their loads.

Captain Fergus looked up at the masts. "Crack on," he said again. And he got up and wandered to and fro across the deck, gazing up at the masts and at the men setting the light sails.

"She'd do better," he said, stopping for an instant by my chair, "if I hadn't had to put that confounded engine in her. You wouldn't believe what a drag a screw is, even when it is feathering."

She was doing well enough. All her light sails were set, and she was furnished forth with all her frills and furbelows, so that there was no place where she could carry another stitch. She bent to her business and sailed. And Captain Fergus smiled a smile of satisfaction--in spite of that dragging screw.

Pukkie had left his comfortable chair, and was leaning against my knee, saying nothing, but looking back at me now and then, his face a study. It was a pleasure just to watch him. Captain Fergus seemed to find it so, and Elizabeth had been watching him for some time.

"Come, young man," Captain Fergus said suddenly. "Don't you want to walk a while with me--to pace the deck with measured tread, while what-you-may-call-it on the dead? Eh?"

And Pukkie smiled more than ever--if that were possible--and jumped and joined him; and they walked--paced the deck with measured tread for some time in solemn silence. Captain Fergus would glance aloft, and Pukkie would glance aloft; and at last I smiled and Elizabeth laughed.

"Don't you feel like pacing the deck with measured tread?" I asked.

And she got up as if she had been sitting on a spring, and we paced the deck in solemn silence behind those other two.

Captain Fergus turned suddenly. "This young man ought to have a uniform," he said. "I've got one that he could wear. Steward!"

And the steward, having come instantly and received his instructions, vanished below, and immediately reappeared, bearing an ensign's coat and cap. These were fitted upon my son. They were too large, but he could wear them.

"But, Captain Fergus," said Elizabeth, laughing, "the regulations!"

"Jigger the regulations!" remarked Captain Fergus, smiling. "I pay mighty little attention to regulations when I'm on my own vessel. Pukkie's my first officer."

My little son beamed at this, and turned to show me his uniform.

"When you command that yacht of Mr. Goodwin's," said Elizabeth, "you'll have to pay some attention to the regulations."

"Have to sleep in my uniform, like as not," Captain Fergus growled. "According to the order we are not to unbutton a button of the coat on any occasion. If that doesn't mean sleep in your uniform, what does it mean?"

"You can't have Pukkie for your first officer then," Elizabeth pursued. "Can you?"

"I suppose not. Probably some yachting chaps who have been prominent socially and got their pictures in the papers. I hope not, though. There are some good men in the Reserve. I only hope they may give me men who have had experience in steamers. I don't want any of these pets who have commissions merely because they had influence, or because they were rich enough to give a boat."

I said nothing. I had the light that I was looking for, although it did not illumine my problem, but was what I had supposed it would be. After all, if a man do but use the sense that God gave him and stand by his judgments, he will do well enough. I would have none of Old Goodwin's steamer. What was I, to be officer on a great steamer? I might command a rowboat, or a yacht like Pukkie's if need were.

"You do not have a very high opinion," I said, "of the navy?"

"What?" he said. "High opinion? Oh, yes, I have. Good men and fine vessels, many of them. It's a sailor's right to growl at the service he's in. You mustn't take what he says too seriously."

"Would you advise a man to enroll in the navy?"

"Depends on the man. If he has a taste for the sea, he'd be more contented in the navy than in the army, but many men have a strong distaste for it. I'd advise your man to get the best rank he can, and to have no modesty about it. If he doesn't get it some other fellow will who is not troubled by modesty."

And Captain Fergus took up his pacing the deck again, and Pukkie walked beside him, taking as long a stride as he could. Elizabeth watched them, a smile of affection in her eyes.

"Isn't he fine in his uniform?" she whispered. "But he would be happier if he could wear his old blue coat and his old blue cap."

He was fine, and he looked the sailor and the fighter. But I knew that old blue coat and that old blue cap, hanging in his cabin. The sun had shone caressingly upon them many times, and seemed to like them almost as well as he liked them; and they had changed their colors, as everything does under the caresses of the sun, until they were blue no longer, but of a purplish cast, shot with red.

The wind grew, as winds will, until two or three in the afternoon, and the sea grew with it, but always there were those great rollers coming in from the Atlantic. And the Arcadia was doing her twelve knots, bowing majestically and buffeting the great seas, tearing the tops from them and sending sheets of spray, which rattled upon her deck or upon the surface of the water like hail; and the water hissed past the rail, and there was the gentle cluck of blocks, deep in their throats, with the heave of the sea, and there was the sound of wind in the rigging and of ropes beating on taut sails. Altogether it made glad my heart; and Elizabeth seemed to like it, and Pukkie's heart was swollen almost to bursting. And the captain paced to and fro, saying nothing, or he stood by the rail looking out over the waters, his cap pulled down low, an unquenchable light in his deep blue eyes and a happy smile on his lips.

We had passed the colored cliffs of Gay Head shining in the sun, and we were passing Nomansland, and the great rollers were greater yet. There was fog out beyond, lying in wait. Captain Fergus nodded to Elizabeth.

"Better see if we can pick them up," he said.

She turned to go below, and stopped at the companionway.

"Look," she said.

We looked where she pointed. There, on the surface of the sea, about two miles away, was some great thing glistening in the sun, the water washing over it. A thick haze, or the advance guard of the fog, made it hard to see anything clearly except the glisten of the sun.

"Oh," cried Pukkie, "I see it. Is it a submarine?" And he looked up at the captain.

"More likely a whale," the captain answered, smiling; "but we will see."

And the course of the Arcadia was changed a little so that she was heading straight for it. She kept on for it, and now and then the sunlight caught it and made it to shine like the windows of a house at sunset, and again it was a dark body with the water washing over it, and we could scarcely make it out, lying there in the sea. As we approached my breath came quicker and my eyes glistened, and I smiled. I know it, for Elizabeth glanced at me and laughed. It was a mysterious thing, lying there in that thick haze. It seemed as if it might be a submarine, although reason told me it was not.

"What do you mean to do?" I asked.

"Ram him," answered the captain promptly, "if it is a submarine and we can get there in time. A fast sailing vessel is better, for he could hear our screw. But it is no submarine. It looks more like a vessel's bilge. There! Ha!"

The glistening body moved, and great flukes suddenly reared on high, and the body disappeared.

"A sleeping whale," Captain Fergus observed. "Another submarine report gone wrong."

"Are there any over here?"

"Not now, I am reasonably sure. Don't believe there will be, although I may be mistaken. They can use them to better advantage on the other side. But there may be, in time, unless Germany blows up first. We don't know what is happening in Germany. They may blow up at any minute, and they may not. Shouldn't be surprised--and I shouldn't be surprised if they kept going for a year or two longer. Look at the Russian army, just got well going and they have mutiny and lose it all. Too bad! I'd like to see any crew of mine try it!"