Chapter 3

"No-o; guess not, Coffin," said Captain Pharo, with gloomy observance of formalities; "guess I ca-arnt; goin' up to the Point to git a nail put in my hoss's shu-u."

But Uncle Coffin was already leading the horse and carriage on to the barn floor.

"Dodrabbit ye!" he exclaimed, "git out, or I'll _shute_ ye out."

At this invitation we began to descend with cheerful alacrity.

As the horse walked into an evidently familiar stall, Uncle Coffin seized Captain Pharo and whirled him about with admiring affection.

"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" he cried, struck with the new jacket; "ye've been to Boston!"

"I hain't; hain't been nigh her for forty year," said Captain Pharo, but he was unconscionably pleased.

"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo! ye've been a-junketin' around to Bar Harbor; that 's whar' ye been."

"I hain't, Coffin; honest I hain't been nigh her," chuckled Captain Pharo.

"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said Uncle Coffin, seizing the hat from his head and regarding its bespattered surface with delight; "ye've been a-whitewashin'!"

This Captain Pharo proudly did not deny. "Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said our fond host, giving him another whirl, "yer hair 's pretty plumb 'fore, but she 's raked devilish well aft. Ye can't make no stand fer yerself! Ye're hungry, Pharo; ye're wastin'; come along!"

Uncle Coffin seized me on the way, but in voiceless appreciation of my physical meanness he supported me with one hand, while he affectionately mauled and whirled me with the other.

"Dodrabbit ye! you young spark, you! whar' ye been all this time?" he cried--though I had never gazed upon his face before!

His rough touch was a galvanic battery of human kindness. It thrilled and electrified me. No; he had not even seen my pitiful presence. I do not know where the people of the world get their manners; but these Artichokes got theirs, rough-coated though they were, straight from the blue above.

"Say! whar' ye been all this time? That 's what I want to know," sending a thrill of close human fellowship down my back. "Didn't ye reckon as Salomy and me 'ud miss ye, dodrabbit ye! you young lawn-tennis shu's, you!"

I glanced down at my feet. They were covered with a thick crust of buttermilk and meal. I remembered now to have experienced a pleasant sensation of coolness at my feet at one time, being too closely wedged in with Mrs. Lester and the meal, however, to investigate.

We found, on searching the carriage, that the jug had capsized, and one of the lobsters had extracted the cork, which he still grasped tightly in his claw.

"Look at that, Coffin," said Captain Pharo sadly; "even our lobsters is dry!"

"Wal, I'm cert'nly glad now," said Mrs. Lester, surveying the bottom of her gown, "'t I didn't wear my dead-lustre silk."

"Why so, Mis' Lester; why so?" said Uncle Coffin, performing a waltz with the small remaining contents of the buttermilk jug. "Ef it's a beauty in her to have her lustre dead, why wouldn't she be still harnsomer to have her lustre dedder!"

He drew me aside at this, and for some moments we stood helplessly doubled over with laughter. For the climate serves one the same in regard to jokes as in food. One is never satiated with them, and there are no morbid, worn distinctions of taste--an old one, an exceedingly mild one, have all the convulsive power of the keenest flash from less healthy and rubicund intellects.

When we had recovered ourselves sufficiently to walk, we went into the house, arm in arm. There Uncle Coffin seized Captain Pharo again and threw him delightedly several feet off into a chair.

"Ye're weary, Pharo, dodrabbit ye! Set thar'. Repose. Repose. Wait 'tell the flapjacks is ready. They're fryin'. Smell 'em?"

We perceived their odor, and that of the wild strawberries and coffee which Mrs. Lester had taken from her circle-basket.

"Why, father," said Aunt Salomy, as we sat at table, giving me a glance indicative of a beaming conversance with elegant conventionalities; "ye _shouldn't_ set the surrup cup right atop o' the loaf o' bread.'

"Never mind whar' she sets, mother," said Uncle Coffin gayly, "so long as she 's squar' amidships."

He would pour out the treacle for us all--for that it was sweeter, sweeter than any refined juices I ever tasted. No denials, no protestations would avail to stay the utter generosity of his hand.

The griddle-cakes were of the apparent size of the moon when she is full in the heavens.

"Come, Pharo, brace up. Eat somethin', dodrabbit ye! Ye're poorin' away every minute ye're settin' there; ye hain't hauled yerself over but two yit."

"By clam! Coffin, sure as I'm a livin' man, I've hauled myself over fourteen," said Captain Pharo seriously.

"Come, come, major; ye're fadin' away to a shadder. Ye hain't hauled yerself over nothin' yet."

"Oh, I have," I rejoined, with urgent truth and unction. "I can't, honestly I can't, haul myself over anything more."

In spite of some suggestive winks directed on my behalf, not then understood, I remained innocently with Mrs. Lester and Aunt Salomy while they were doing the dishes. But presently through the open window where I sat I felt a bean take me sharply in the nape of the neck, and, turning, I discovered Captain Pharo outside. He winked at me. I naïvely winked back again. He coughed low and meaningly; I smiled and nodded.

He disappeared, and ere long I felt one of my ears tingling from the blow of another bean. It was Uncle Coffin this time; his wink was almost savage with excess of meaning. I returned it amiably. He coughed low and hopelessly, and disappeared.

But soon after he came walking nonchalantly into the room.

"Dodrabbit ye, major!" said he, punching me with a vigorous hand, "don't ye take no interest in a man's stock? Come along out and look at the stock."

At that I rose and followed him. Captain Pharo was waiting for us. They did not speak, but they led the way straight as the flight of an arrow to the barn, walked undeviatingly across the floor, lifted me solemnly ahead of them up the ladder to the hay-mow, stumbled across it to the farthest and darkest corner, dived down into it and brought up an ancient pea-jacket, unrolled it, and produced from the pocket a bottle, labelled with what I at once knew to be Uncle Coffin's own design:

"RAT PISON TO TOUCH HER IS DETH."

"Drink!" said Uncle Coffin.

All his former levity was gone. He had the look of bestowing, and Captain Pharo of witnessing bestowed, upon another, a boon inestimable, priceless, rare.

A temperate familiarity with the use of the cup informed me at once of the nature of this liquid. It was whiskey of a very vile quality.

But even had it contained something akin to the dark sequel on its label, I could not have refused it from Uncle Coffin's hand.

Slightly I drank. Captain Pharo drank. Uncle Coffin drank.

The bottle was replaced, and we as solemnly descended.

I had never been unwarily affected, even by a much larger quantity of the pure article; perhaps by way of compensation an electric spark from Uncle Coffin's own personality had entered into this compound. More likely still, it was the radiant atmosphere.

But I remembered standing out leaning against the pig-pen, with Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin, of nudging and being nudged by them into frequent excess of laughter over some fondly rambling anecdote or confiding witticism, until Captain Pharo, "taking the sun," decided to put off until some other day going to the Point to get a nail put in the horse's shoe.

I remembered--well might I, for they were in my own too--the honest tears in the eyes of Uncle Coffin and Aunt Salomy as we parted; of being tucked in again under the Star, with new accessions to our store, of dried smelts and summer savory, and three newly born kittens in a bag, which I was instructed to hold so as to give them air without allowing them to escape. Yes, and of the dying splendor of the sun, the ineffable colors painting sea and sky; and of knowing that if I had not already become a Basin, I should inevitably have joined the Artichokes.

IV

LOVE, LOVE

At Garrison's Neck was the old Garrison "shanty"--Notely's ideal; well preserved; built onto it a spacious dwelling, with stables attached, after Mrs. Garrison's idea.

Notely's shanty was a mixture of elegant easy-chairs and drying oil-skin raiment, black tobacco pipes, books, musical instruments, fishing-tackle, mirth and evening firelight; all the gravitation of the premises was toward it--the Garrison guests yearned for it.

His mother was with him now.

"You will drive down to the boat with me and meet them, Notely?"

Notely whistled with respectful concern, but his eyes were as happy as the dawn.

"Oh, well, ah--h--I'll have to ask you to let Tom drive you down to-day, mother. I've an engagement to sail over to Reef Island."

Mrs. Garrison did not condescend to look annoyed. She smiled, sweet and high.

"Considering the social position of Mrs. Langham and her daughter, and their wealth, Notely, you might postpone even that engagement. Possibly you could arrange to play with the fisher girl some other day."

When Notely was puzzled or provoked he felt for the pipe in his pocket, just like old Captain Pharo, laughed, and came straight again.

"Why, mother! you were a Basin girl yourself--the 'Beauty of the Basins,'" he said, with soft pride--he knew no better--and smiled as though he saw another face.

"Are you foolish?" said his mother, giving way sharply.

When one has come from such degree, has sought above all earthly good, and earned, a social eminence such as Mrs. Garrison had attained, it will leave some unbending lines on lip and brow; the eyes will not melt easily, although it wrings one's heart to find that one's only child is, after all, an ingrained Basin; yet their features were the same, only Notely's were simple, expressive Basin eyes--hers had become elevated.

"You! who have _in_ you such success, if you only would!" she cried.

"'Success,' I'm afraid, mother," said Notely, with one of those sighs that was like a wayward note on his violin; "it 's a diviner thing, however, you know, to have in you the capacity for failure."

"You are as remarkable a mixture of barbarism and sentiment as your shanty," sneered Mrs. Garrison, looking about. "Do you speak in the Basin 'meetings'?"

"No," said Notely. "I ought to. Think of what I have had, and their deprivations. But there 's always something comes up so d--d funny!"

Mrs. Garrison smiled sympathetically now. "O Notely, think of the Langhams, and Grace even willing to show her preference for you, decorously, of course, but we all know."

Notely grabbed his pipe hard and shook his head.

"Why?" said his mother again, sharply. "I am sure Miss Langham is nearly as boisterous and in as rude health as the fisher girl. I have even known her to make important endearing lapses in grammar."

Notely was silent.

"Do you think, after a life-struggle to earn a place in society, it is filial and generous on your part, for the sake of a fisher sweetheart, to be willing to sink your family back again into skins and Gothicism?"

"Yes," said the young man, a hurricane in his blue eyes, which his strong hands gripped back.

"Very well; if you so elect, go back then, and be a common fisherman; but you shall have no countenance of mine."

"Shouldn't wonder if it would be a good thing. With the health I have, give me leisure and plenty of money, and I'm always certain to break the traces and make a run. Common fisherman it is." But he stood out bravely at the same time in an extravagant new yachting costume, for he was going by appointment to meet his sweetheart.

"You might help her up, mother--socially, that is; she needs no other help."

"Never!"

Notely lifted his cap to his mother--the reproach in his eyes was as dog-like as if he had not just graduated from the schools--and walked away.

She looked after him, a scornful sweet smile curving her lips. As the apple of her eye she loved him; it is necessary but hard to be elevated.

Notely put up sail and skirted the shore with his boat till he came to the waters of the Basin. Then he looked out eagerly, but Vesty was not on the banks waiting.

"Was there ever a Basin known to be on time?" he muttered, smiling and flushing too. He was always jealous of her.

He made fast his boat and sprang with light steps over the sea-wall.

Here was a good sign; so the Basins held. No sign so propitious to a love affair as meeting with one of God's innocent ones--a "natural." And here was Dr. Spearmint (Uncle Benny) leading the children to school--the very little ones. They clung to him, and one he carried.

And he was singing, in a sweet, high voice:

"We all have our trials here below, Sail away to Galilee! * * * * There's a tree I see in Paradise, Sail away to Galilee! * * * * Sail away to Galilee, Sail away to Galilee, Put on your long white robe of peace, And sail away to Galilee!"

"Hello! Uncle Benny--'Dr. Spearmint'"--he liked that best. "Well, how are you? how are you? and have you seen Vesty this morning?"

"Fluke and Gurd 's keepin' company with her this mornin'," said Dr. Spearmint, in a voice softer than a woman's. "I jest stopped to sing a little with 'em on the way. I _look_ dreadful," he added, rather ostentatiously fingering a light blue necktie.

"Oh, no, doctor; fine as usual," exclaimed Notely, anger in his soul, but with heart-broken eyes.

"I suppose," said the soft, sweet voice, "there 's a great deal o' passin' in New York, ain't there?"

"What, doctor?"

"A great deal o' passin' there, ain't there?"

"Oh, sights of it! Oh, my, yes! passing along the streets all the time."

"Some there 's worth four or five thousand dollars, ain't they?" said the sweet, incredulous voice.

"God bless you! yes, doctor! the more 's the pity," said Notely, with strange earnestness. "And how 's fruiting?"

"Dangleberries are quite plenty, thank you," the voice replied. When he had left the little ones at school he would go off and gather berries; but he would call for them without fail and lead them home. The little, tired, restless souls always found him out there in the sweet air and sunshine, waiting. Notely remembered; so he and Vesty had been led.

He passed, singing, out of sight with the children:

"Sail away to Galilee, Sail away to Galilee, Put on your long white robe of peace, And sail away to Galilee!"

Notely felt a homesick pang. Vesty was his home; he walked on toward her threshold. Vesty's father had taken a new wife, and Vesty was almost always seen now with a baby in her arms.

So she was sitting as Notely drew near; and Fluke and Gurdon were there, with a pretence of fingering their violins. They looked up, as if expecting him.

"Why did you not come, Vesty?" said her lover. "You promised me."

"I've got something to say about that," said Fluke. "I sot Vesty down on that doorhold, and I threatened to shute her ef she moved off'n it. When she was tellin' Gurd' that you was 'round again wantin' to keep company with her jest the same, says I, 'We'll see about that.' Vesty hain't got no brothers, nor no mother, to look after her, and so Gurd' and me, which is twin brothers to each other, is also goin' to be brothers to her, and see that there ain't no harm done to Vesty."

"Well, then, Fluke, you are the best friends that either of us have," said Notely calmly.

"Why didn't ye let her alone in peace?" blurted out Fluke. "She was keepin' company contented enough along o' Gurd', ef you'd only left her alone. What'd ye come back a-makin' love to her for?"

"Because she is going to be my wife," said Notely. "We always kept company together; since we were that high! Belle Birds'll was Gurdon's company. Vesty was my company." His voice trembled. This was simple Basin parlance and unanswerable.

"Ye mean it?"

"If you want to fight, Fluke, come out and fight." Notely's eyes cut him.

"All the same," said he, "ef you sh'd happen to change your mind by 'n' by, as fash'nable fellers in women's light-colored clo's does sometimes, there 's a-goin' to be shutin'."

Notely grabbed his pipe, and his laugh rang out.

"Come," he said, "you know me! you know me! Confound the pretty clothes! I only put them on so as to try and have Vesty like me!"

"Wal' now, Vesty, make your choice. You'd ruther keep company along o' Note than Gurd', had ye?" But he could not restrain the severe contempt in his voice in making the comparison.

Vesty had been soothing her face in the baby's frowzled hair.

"_I told you_," she said. But she glanced up at Gurdon, and her face was piteous, his had turned so white.

"Come, Gurd'! What d'ye care? Go on, Vesty, ef ye want to. Gurd 'n' me'll tote the baby till Elvine gits back." He took the infant and began to toss it, to compensate it for Vesty's withdrawal. His thick black hair fell over his forehead, his nose was fine and straight. Gurdon came forward obediently to assist him. He had the same great bulk, and even handsomer features, only that his hair was smooth and parted.

Vesty and her lover passed on together. Her heart was leaping with joy and pride of him; still, she saw Gurdon's look.

"You have been so long at that great college, Notely."

"Yes."

"Why must some one always be hurt?"

"We go to school, but the schools can't teach us anything, Vesty.

"'Oh, sail away to Galilee, Sail away to Galilee!'"

he hummed airily, gayly. "What was it you 'told them' back there, Vesty?"

Where now was Vesty's Sunday face? You would look far to find it.

"I told them you were a dude," said she.

"Did you, indeed! Girls who lead the singing in Sunday-school are not telling many very particular fibs this morning, are they? But you shall own up before night."

O Vesty!--the call of the "whistlers" down in the meadow by the sea-wall--"love! love! love!" No other note; it is that, too, breathing in the swift Bails and bounding the sea!

"You sail your boat as well as ever, Captain Notely."

"And why not--wife?"

These were the appellations of the old days, taken from their elders--"cap'n" and "wife."

Vesty did not think he would have dared _that_. Her dark eye chastised him. But he was not looking impudent; he was resolute and pale.

Vesty shivered. With all her earnest, sad experience of life, with her true love for Notely, she was yet in no haste to be bound. Wild, too, at heart; or else somehow the sea wind and the swift sails had freed her.

"Don't say that again. Come, catch the fish for our dinner, Note."

"I'm only a humble Basin, Miss Kirtland. I didn't think to fetch no bait."

Vesty took a parcel of six small herrings from her pocket, laughing.

"Yes, our women are smart," sighed Notely.

"Shall you catch, or will I?"

"You," said Notely, tossing out the anchor.

He watched her, strong and beautiful, her lips pursed with the feline pursuit of prey, as she baited her hook and threw out the line, quite oblivious now, apparently, of him.

He saw her thrill with excitement as the line stiffened and she began to haul in, hand over hand; it was a big cod too. Vesty always had the luck. There was glory in her cheeks when she brought the struggling, flopping fish over into the boat.

"Vesty," said Note mischievously, drawing near, "how would _you_ feel to be caught like that on the end of somebody's line--struggling, flopping?"

His sentimental tone gave way in spite of himself. She turned and gave him a smart box on the ear.

"Very well, Miss Vesty Kirtland, very well. But there 's a marriage ceremony and a binding to 'love, honor and obey,' after which young women don't box their husbands' ears--aha!--at least, mine won't."

"Notely Garrison," said Vesty, with Basinly and womanly indignation, "I never fished for you in all my life--never!"

"Instinctive, darling; not your fault. Unconscious cerebration; do you understand?"

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 apron, eager, searching from tree to tree. Her hair came down. She looked up at Note, apologetic, humble, so eager she hardly minded.

"Hold my apron, 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 apron.

"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 shore.

"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 shore, when will you marry me?"