Can't you hear him? Listen - listen - the little,
lonely cry! Yes, yes, my precious, mother is coming.
Wait for me. Mother is coming to her pretty boy!"
I caught her hand and let her lead me where she would.
Hand in hand we followed the dream-child down the
harbor shore in that ghostly, clouded moonlight. Ever,
she said, the little cry sounded before her. She
entreated the dream-child to wait for her; she cried
and implored and uttered tender mother-talk. But, at
last, she ceased to hear the cry; and then, weeping,
wearied, she let me lead her home again.
What a horror brooded over that spring - that so
beautiful spring! It was a time of wonder and marvel;
of the soft touch of silver rain on greening fields; of
the incredible delicacy of young leaves; of blossom on
the land and blossom in the sunset. The whole world
bloomed in a flush and tremor of maiden loveliness,
instinct with all the evasive, fleeting charm of spring
and girlhood and young morning. And almost every night
of this wonderful time the dream-child called his
mother, and we roved the gray shore in quest of him.
In the day she was herself; but, when the night fell,
she was restless and uneasy until she heard the call.
Then follow it she would, even through storm and
darkness. It was then, she said, that the cry sounded
loudest and nearest, as if her pretty boy were
frightened by the tempest. What wild, terrible rovings
we had, she straining forward, eager to overtake the
dream-child; I, sick at heart, following, guiding,
protecting, as best I could; then afterwards leading
her gently home, heart-broken because she could not
reach the child.
I bore my burden in secret, determining that gossip
should not busy itself with my wife's condition so long
as I could keep it from becoming known. We had no near
relatives - none with any right to share any trouble -
and whoso accepteth human love must bind it to his soul
with pain.
I thought, however, that I should have medical advice,
and I took our old doctor into my confidence. He looked
grave when he heard my story. I did not like his
expression nor his few guarded remarks. He said he
thought human aid would avail little; she might come
all right in time; humor her, as far as possible, watch
over her, protect her. He needed not to tell me that.
The spring went out and summer came in - and the horror
deepened and darkened. I knew that suspicions were
being whispered from lip to lip. We had been seen on
our nightly quests. Men and women began to look at us
pityingly when we went abroad.
One day, on a dull, drowsy afternoon, the dream-child
called. I knew then that the end was near; the end had
been near in the old grandmother's case sixty years
before when the dream-child called in the day. The
doctor looked graver than ever when I told him, and
said that the time had come when I must have help in my
task. I could not watch by day and night. Unless I had
assistance I would break down.
I did not think that I should. Love is stronger than
that. And on one thing I was determined - they should
never take my wife from me. No restraint sterner than a
husband's loving hand should ever be put upon her, my
pretty, piteous darling.
I never spoke of the dream-child to her. The doctor
advised against it. It would, he said, only serve to
deepen the delusion. When he hinted at an asylum I gave
him a look that would have been a fierce word for
another man. He never spoke of it again.
One night in August there was a dull, murky sunset
after a dead, breathless day of heat, with not a wind
stirring. The sea was not blue as a sea should be, but
pink - all pink - a ghastly, staring, painted pink. I
lingered on the harbor shore below the house until
dark. The evening bells were ringing faintly and
mournfully in a church across the harbor. Behind me, in
the kitchen, I heard my wife singing. Sometimes now her
spirits were fitfully high, and then she would sing the
old songs of her girlhood. But even in her singing was
something strange, as if a wailing, unearthly cry rang
through it. Nothing about her was sadder than that
strange singing.
When I went back to the house the rain was beginning to
fall; but there was no wind or sound in the air - only
that dismal stillness, as if the world were holding its
breath in expectation of a calamity.
Josie was standing by the window, looking out and
listening. I tried to induce her to go to bed, but she
only shook her head.
"I might fall asleep and not hear him when he called,"
she said. "I am always afraid to sleep now, for fear he
should call and his mother fail to hear him."
Knowing it was of no use to entreat, I sat down by the
table and tried to read. Three hours passed on. When
the clock struck midnight she started up, with the wild
light in her sunken blue eyes.
"He is calling," she cried, "calling out there in the
storm. Yes, yes, sweet, I am coming!"
She opened the door and fled down the path to the
shore. I snatched a lantern from the wall, lighted it,
and followed. It was the blackest night I was ever out
in, dark with the very darkness of death. The rain fell
thickly and heavily. I overtook Josie, caught her hand,
and stumbled along in her wake, for she went with the
speed and recklessness of a distraught woman. We moved
in the little flitting circle of light shed by the
lantern. All around us and above us was a horrible,
voiceless darkness, held, as it were, at bay by the
friendly light.
"If I could only overtake him once," moaned Josie. "If
I could just kiss him once, and hold him close against
my aching heart. This pain, that never leaves me, would
leave me than. Oh, my pretty boy, wait for mother! I am
coming to you. Listen, David; he cries - he cries so
pitifully; listen! Can't you hear it?"
I did hear it! Clear and distinct, out of the deadly
still darkness before us, came a faint, wailing cry.
What was it? Was I, too, going mad, or was there
something out there - something that cried and moaned -
longing for human love, yet ever retreating from human
footsteps? I am not a superstitious man; but my nerve
had been shaken by my long trial, and I was weaker than
I thought. Terror took possession of me - terror
unnameable. I trembled in every limb; clammy
perspiration oozed from my forehead; I was possessed by
a wild impulse to turn and flee - anywhere, away from
that unearthly cry. But Josephine's cold hand gripped
mine firmly, and led me on. That strange cry still rang
in my ears. But it did not recede
; it sounded clearer
and stronger; it was a wail; but a loud, insistent
wail; it was nearer - nearer; it was in the darkness
just beyond us.
Then we came to it; a little dory had been beached on
the pebbles and left there by the receding tide. There
was a child in it - a boy, of perhaps two years old,
who crouched in the bottom of the dory in water to his
waist, his big, blue eyes wild and wide with terror,
his face white and tear-stained. He wailed again when
he saw us, and held out his little hands.
My horror fell away from me like a discarded garment.
This child was living. How he had come there, whence
and why, I did not know and, in my state of mind, did
not question. It was no cry of parted spirit I had
heard - that was enough for me.
"Oh, the poor darling!" cried my wife.
She stooped over the dory and lifted the baby in her
arms. His long, fair curls fell on her shoulder; she
laid her face against his and wrapped her shawl around
him.
"Let me carry him, dear," I said. "He is very wet, and
too heavy for you."
"No, no, I must carry him. My arms have been so empty -
they are full now. Oh, David, the pain at my heart has
gone. He has come to me to take the place of my own.
God has sent him to me out of the sea. He is wet and
cold and tired. Hush, sweet one, we will go home."
Silently I followed her home. The wind was rising,
coming in sudden, angry gusts; the storm was at hand,
but we reached shelter before it broke. Just as I shut
our door behind us it smote the house with the roar of
a baffled beast. I thanked God that we were not out in
it, following the dream-child.
"You are very wet, Josie," I said. "Go and put on dry
clothes at once."
"The child must be looked to first," she said firmly.
"See how chilled and exhausted he is, the pretty dear.
Light a fire quickly, David, while I get dry things for
him."
I let her have her way. She brought out the clothes our
own child had worn and dressed the waif in them,
rubbing his chilled limbs, brushing his wet hair,
laughing over him, mothering him. She seemed like her
old self.
For my own part, I was bewildered. All the questions I
had not asked before came crowding to my mind how.
Whose child was this? Whence had he come? What was the
meaning of it all?
He was a pretty baby, fair and plump and rosy. When he
was dried and fed, he fell asleep in Josie's arms. She
hung over him in a passion of delight. It was with
difficulty I persuaded her to leave him long enough to
change her wet clothes. She never asked whose he might
be or from where he might have come. He had been sent
to her from the sea; the dream-child had led her to
him; that was what she believed, and I dared not throw
any doubt on that belief. She slept that night with the
baby on her arm, and in her sleep her face was the face
of a girl in her youth, untroubled and unworn.
I expected that the morrow would bring some one seeking
the baby. I had come to the conclusion that he must
belong to the "Cove" across the harbor, where the
fishing hamlet was; and all day, while Josie laughed
and played with him, I waited and listened for the
footsteps of those who would come seeking him. But they
did not come. Day after day passed, and still they did
not come.
I was in a maze of perplexity. What should I do? I
shrank from the thought of the boy being taken away
from us. Since we had found him the dream-child had
never called. My wife seemed to have turned back from
the dark borderland, where her feet had strayed to walk
again with me in our own homely paths. Day and night
she was her old, bright self, happy and serene in the
new motherhood that had come to her. The only thing
strange in her was her calm acceptance of the event.
She never wondered who or whose the child might be -
never seemed to fear that he would be taken from her;
and she gave him our dream-child's name.
At last, when a full week had passed, I went, in my
bewilderment, to our old doctor.
"A most extraordinary thing," he said thoughtfully.
"The child, as you say, must belong to the Spruce Cove
people. Yet it is an almost unbelievable thing that
there has been no search or inquiry after him. Probably
there is some simple explanation of the mystery,
however. I advise you to go over to the Cove and
inquire. When you find the parents or guardians of the
child, ask them to allow you to keep it for a time. It
may prove your wife's salvation. I have known such
cases. Evidently on that night the crisis of her mental
disorder was reached. A little thing might have sufficed
to turn her feet either way - back to reason
and sanity, or into deeper darkness. It is my belief
that the former has occurred, and that, if she is left
in undisturbed possession of this child for a time, she
will recover completely."
I drove around the harbor that day with a lighter heart
than I had hoped ever to possess again. When I reached
Spruce Cove the first person I met was old Abel Blair.
I asked him if any child were missing from the Cove or
along shore. He looked at me in surprise, shook his
head, and said he had not heard of any. I told him as
much of the tale as was necessary, leaving him to think
that my wife and I had found the dory and its small
passenger during an ordinary walk along the shore.
"A green dory!" he exclaimed. "Ben Forbes' old green
dory has been missing for a week, but it was so rotten
and leaky he didn't bother looking for it. But this
child, sir - it beats me. What might he be like?"
I described the child as closely as possible.
"That fits little Harry Martin to a hair," said old
Abel, perplexedly, "but, sir, it can't be. Or, if it
is, there's been foul work somewhere. James Martin's
wife died last winter, sir, and he died the next month.
They left a baby and not much else. There weren't
nobody to take the child but Jim's half-sister, Maggie
Fleming. She lived here at the Cove, and, I'm sorry to
say, sir, she hadn't too good a name. She didn't want
to be bothered with the baby, and folks say she
neglected him scandalous. Well, last spring she begun
talking of going away to the States. She said a friend
of hers had got her a good place in Boston, and she was
going to go and take little Harry. We supposed it was
all right. Last Saturday she went, sir. She was going
to walk to the station, and the last seen of her she
was trudging along the road, carrying the baby. It
hasn't been thought of since. But, sir, d'ye suppose
she set that innocent ch
ild adrift in that old leaky
dory to send him to his death? I knew Maggie was no
better than she should be, but I can't believe she was
as bad as that."
"You must come over with me and see if you can identify
the child," I said. "If he is Harry Martin I shall keep
him. My wife has been very lonely since our baby died,
and she has taken a fancy to this little chap."
When we reached my home old Abel recognized the child
as Harry Martin.
He is with us still. His baby hands led my dear wife
back to health and happiness. Other children have come
to us, she loves them all dearly; but the boy who bears
her dead son's name is to her - aye, and to me - as
dear as if she had given him birth. He came from the
sea, and at his coming the ghostly dream-child fled,
nevermore to lure my wife away from me with its
exciting cry. Therefore I look upon him and love him as
my first-born.
Chapter VI
The Brother Who Failed
THE Monroe family were holding a Christmas reunion at
the old Prince Edward Island homestead at White Sands.
It was the first time they had all been together under
one roof since the death of their mother, thirty years
before. The idea of this Christmas reunion had
originated with Edith Monroe the preceding spring,
during her tedious convalescence from a bad attack of
pneumonia among strangers in an American city, where
she had not been able to fill her concert engagements,
and had more spare time in which to feel the tug of old
ties and the homesick longing for her own people than
she had had for years. As a result, when she recovered,
she wrote to her second brother, James Monroe, who
lived on the homestead; and the consequence was this
gathering of the Monroes under the old roof-tree. Ralph
Monroe for once laid aside the cares of his railroads,
and the deceitfulness of his millions, in Toronto and
took the long-promised, long-deferred trip to the
homeland. Malcolm Monroe journeyed from the far western
university of which he was president. Edith came,
flushed with the triumph of her latest and most
successful concert tour. Mrs. Woodburn, who had been
Margaret Monroe, came from the Nova Scotia town where
she lived a busy, happy life as the wife of a rising
young lawyer. James, prosperous and hearty, greeted
them warmly at the old homestead whose fertile acres
had well repaid his skillful management.
They were a merry party, casting aside their cares and
years, and harking back to joyous boyhood and girlhood
once more. James had a family of rosy lads and lasses;
Margaret brought her two blue-eyed little girls;
Ralph's dark, clever-looking son accompanied him, and
Malcolm brought his, a young man with a resolute face,
in which there was less of boyishness than in his
father's, and the eyes of a keen, perhaps a hard
bargainer. The two cousins were the same age to a day,
and it was a family joke among the Monroes that the
stork must have mixed the babies, since Ralph's son was
like Malcolm in face and brain, while Malcolm's boy was
a second edition of his uncle Ralph.
To crown all, Aunt Isabel came, too - a talkative,
clever, shrewd old lady, as young at eighty-five as she
had been at thirty, thinking the Monroe stock the best
in the world, and beamingly proud of her nephews and
nieces, who had gone out from this humble, little farm
to destinies of such brilliance and influence in the
world beyond.
I have forgotten Robert. Robert Monroe was apt to be
forgotten. Although he was the oldest of the family,
White Sands people, in naming over the various members
of the Monroe family, would add, "and Robert," in a
tone of surprise over the remembrance of his existence.
He lived on a poor, sandy little farm down by the
shore, but he had come up to James' place on the
evening when the guests arrived; they had all greeted
him warmly and joyously, and then did not think about
him again in their laughter and conversation. Robert
sat back in a corner and listened with a smile, but he
never spoke. Afterwards he had slipped noiselessly away
and gone home, and nobody noticed his going. They were