XV.
_THE STORM GATHERING._
There was a tongue of land not far from the lighthouse known as "PuddingPoint." How long the water-trip to it might be depended upon the stateof the tide. In the immediate vicinity of the lighthouse there was, inthe direction of this Pudding Point, such an accumulation of sandyridges that at low-water the voyage was only a quarter of a mile. Athigh tide all the yellow flats were covered, and an oarsman must pullhis boat across half-a-mile of water to go from the light to the point.Sometimes Dave had occasion to visit Pudding Point. A few houses werethere, and they might be able to supply an article needed at the light,and that would save a trip to Shipton. One sunny morning Dave had rowedover from the light, and was drawing his boat up the sands, when henoticed a familiar figure striding along a ridge beyond the beach. Itwas a person of handsome carriage, and one well aware of it.
"I should know that form anywhere," said Dave. "Hollo, Dick!" heshouted.
Dick Pray came running down a sandy slope and gave Dave his hand.
"I am trying to hunt up Thomas Trafton," said Dave. "I believe he has afish-house around here, hasn't he?"
"You'll find him on that ledge a little way back."
Dave hunted up the fish-house--a black, weather-beaten box. ThomasTrafton was spreading fish on the long fish-flakes in the rear of hishumble quarters.
"That you, Dave?" asked the fisherman. "I thought I saw you down on theshore a half-hour ago."
"I was over at the light half-an-hour ago."
"Then it was Timothy Waters."
"How so?"
"Don't you know that if one takes a back view of you and Timothy,although he is really older than you by half-a-dozen years, it wouldn'tbe easy to tell you apart? Let me see. You are twenty-one?"
"So they say at home."
"Timothy is twenty-seven at least.'
"And I look like Timothy?"
"Rear view only, and I can only tell it is him if in walking he throwshis arms out. You never do that."
"I am not anxious to resemble Timothy Waters. I thought he was at sea."
"Off and on. He is now, I suppose, in that craft off in the stream."
"The _Relentless_?"
"That's the one. I know I am glad to be out of her. My health improvedsteadily after quitting her. I am going to be at home, fishing, thisseason."
"How do they all do at home?"
"Oh, comfortable."
"Bart is getting to be a big boy, isn't he?"
"Yes, he is. He thinks a good deal of you. Now, you know that habit hegot into once--"
"What was that?"
"Of taking my spy-glass and going out to look at the lighthouse atnight--"
"To see if I had hung out a lantern because we were disabled--bysickness, you know, or something of the kind?"
"That is it. Well, his granny says he hasn't wholly dropped it now.She will see him go out, and when he comes back she will say,'Anything?' 'Nothing,' he will say."
"Oh, I guess there never will be any need of his looking."
"No, I s'pose not; but it shows his interest."
"Yes; I am thankful for that.--Well, let us have a fish to broil; havecome out for that."
Dave received his fish, paid for it, and very soon turned away, stridingoff energetically in the direction of his boat.
When Dave returned to the lighthouse, the tide, gradually dropping, haduncovered the rocky foundations, and the water was playing with thefringes of seaweed all about the rocks.
"How gracefully that seaweed rises and falls! Those curves of itsmotion are very delicate.--Hollo! what is that?" he asked.
Looking at the foundations, he saw in a crevice a little object that wasnot a lump of rock-weed or a rock, and what was it?
"A pocket-book!" said Dave, leaning out of his boat and picking up thisrelic tightly wedged between the stones. "I'll look at that when I getup into the kitchen."
Reaching the kitchen, he hastily opened the pocket-book, noticed that itwas empty, and then placed it to dry on a shelf. It was very peacefulin the kitchen, and the stove purred and the clock ticked contentedlyand quietly as ever. But where was the light-keeper? his assistantwondered.
"Upstairs probably," was the thought in reply; and yet thisconsideration, reasonable as it might seem at the moment, did notdispose of the question wholly. True, in a lighthouse, where one mightsay if a man were not downstairs he must be upstairs, that he could notbe "out in the yard" or "in the cellar," Dave's conclusion seemed to becorrect. He felt, however, a peculiar sense of loneliness. If Davewere a person given to moods, if he were likely to be sombre, he mighthave said it was only a fancy; but for one of his temperament that wasunusual. Dave with reason had been somewhat worried about hisprincipal. Toby Tolman was growing old. It had been in certainquarters openly said that he was too old for his position. He had beensuch an efficient keeper, and he had as his assistant a man so valuable,that no one cared to make an effort to remove him from his position.The person who would probably be benefited by any change, and would beinvited to take charge of the light, was David Fletcher, and he wouldnot move, for that reason, against his kind old friend. Dave had workedall the harder to fill up any deficiencies on the part of his principal,and the principal would doubtless have been invited to step out if hisassistant had not worked so hard to keep him in. Often Dave noticed anindisposition in the light-keeper to attend to that fraction of theduties of the place falling to him, and Dave rightly attributed theindisposition to inability. During the watch-hours belonging to thekeeper his assistant had sometimes found him asleep, and when therest-hours belonging to the keeper arrived, he would unduly prolong hissleep in the morning, and neglect duties to which he had hitherto givenprompt attention. Dave also noticed that Mr. Tolman lingered at anunusual length over his Bible. It would be an exceedingly good sign ifit could be said of many people that they spent twice as much time aspreviously with their Bibles; but when a man usually giving to thishabit an hour and a half may take three hours, neglecting other dailyduties, there may be occasion for inquiry into the change. Thelight-keeper did not himself notice this peculiarity about to bementioned, and yet any one seeing the passages read would haveappreciated it. The keeper now found unusual comfort in the psalms thatspoke of God as a hiding-place, a refuge, a high tower. Was he like themariner who sees the storm pressing him closely and hastens to find theharbour where he can let fall each straining sail, like the tired birdthat drops its wings because it has found its nest?
Dave had other reason for worry. There were in circulation mysteriousstories that everything in the administration of the lighthouse at BlackRocks was not satisfactory. There were sly whisperings that goodsbelonging to Government were given out to others by the keepers, butwhen, where, and why, nobody said. There was only the repeated story ofa mysterious disappearance of Government property. Several friends ofDave tried to catch and hold these rumours. Catch them they did, buthold them they could not. They were like birds that you may think areyours, but when you turn them into a room, lo, they fly out of an openwindow in the opposite direction.
Thomas Trafton was very indignant.
"Look here!" he said with a reddened face to a fisherman repeating someof these charges, "who told you that?"
"Almost everybody."
"Name one."
"Well, Timothy Waters was one."
"Timothy Waters, a man that had trouble at the light! You wait beforeyou believe the story."
"But others have said the same thing."
"Well, wait; I am going to track these stories to their start."
Thomas Trafton imagined that he was a hunter, and like one following upthe trail of an animal, he endeavoured to track these slanders back totheir den. Sometimes he would follow the accusations back to TimothyWaters, and then somebody else would be found to assert them, and so thetrail would start away again. Amid the multitude of tracks, but withoutev
idence of their origin, this hunter from the Trafton family wasbewildered. He mentioned the affair to Dave, feeling that here was aninnocent person whom others were attacking, and yet he might be entirelyignorant of the assault.
"I--I--don't want to make you uneasy, but I feel friendly more than youcan imagine," said Thomas, "and I thought you ought to know about thestories that are going round."
"Oh, I suppose people are always talking. Life would be dreadful dullif there wasn't something to talk about; and if I save the world fromdulness I may flatter myself that I am doing some good."
"Oh, but it isn't just gossip."
"Isn't?" replied Dave, taking a hint from Thomas
Trafton's significant look more than from any language. "What is itthen?"
"Now, I don't believe it, mind ye. I try to stop it, but it is liketrying to stop a sand-piper on the beach without a gun. Running afterit don't bring it."
"Well, what is it? I know you wouldn't believe anything unfair, but Iam bothered to know what it is."
"Why--and I thought you had better know it--they say things belonging toGovernment are given out from the lighthouse: 'misappropriated'--Ibelieve that is the word."
"Long word! Well, who says it?" asked Dave sternly.
"Oh, I'm sorry to say I've heard a good many tell it who ought to knowbetter."
"It is all a lie! Misappropriation! That good man Toby Tolman--as ifhe would do such a thing! Why, any one with a head might know better.Toby never would do it!"
"Of course he wouldn't, nor you neither. That is not the p'int, but howto stop 'em?"
Dave was silent. Then he broke out,--
"Who has mentioned it?"
Thomas mentioned the fisherman he had recently confronted and rebuked.Then he added,--
"I have tried to run the story down to its hole. It don't seem to startwith him, for he says somebody told him, and--"
"Who is that?"
"Timothy Waters."
"Indeed!"
"Now, I want to know how to stop the story."
"You let me think it over, Thomas. I am much obliged to you."
"I am real sorry to tell you," replied Thomas, "but I thought you oughtto know of it, and I'll stand by you and Toby to--the last."
This conversation was only three days before Dave's visit to PuddingPoint. Thomas had said if anything new turned up he would report toDave. "Nothing," he had said to Dave during that call at thefish-house, looking significantly at him.
"I understand," replied Dave, "and I have nothing. All I can do is togrin and bear it."
To suit the act to the sentiment, he gave a smile with compressed lips.It was a rather grim smile.
Dave was thinking of the unpleasant subject continually. What added tohis burden was the conviction that he did not think it would be wise totell his principal, for he suspected--and he judged rightly--that itwould do no good, that it would only grieve the light-keeper, and thatthis burden of grief he was not just then in a condition to easilycarry.
"I am acting for two," he said to himself, "and that makes it all theharder. If it were just one, just myself, I could seem to tell what todo; but I think it would do an injury to the old man to tell him now;and what shall I do? I guess I must take the advice of that psalm tomyself."
He had in mind the close of the twenty-seventh psalm, read the nightbefore: "Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthenthine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord." And this was Dave's comment onthe verse: "I can rest on that promise. I was not aware when a mandidn't know what to do, which way to turn, that this psalm could helpand rest one like that."
So Dave, like many pilgrims perplexed and tired, came to the shadow ofthe mountain-promises of God. and there comforted his soul in theassurance that God thought of him, loved him, and would strengthen him.He needed this comfort when he returned to the lighthouse, after hisvisit to Thomas Trafton's fish-house, and missed the keeper.
"I will go upstairs to find him," he said.
How hard and heavy was the sound of his footsteps as he ascended thefirst flight of stairs leading from the kitchen! Dave went up as if hewere carrying a burden. He pushed open the door at the head of thestairway and looked into the keeper's room, anxiously and yet timidly,as if desirous to find him and yet afraid.
"Ah, there he is," thought Dave.
He was lying on his bed, his eyes closed.
"Is he asleep?" wondered Dave. He stepped to the bed.
"Yes, he must be asleep. Shall I speak to him?"
He hesitated. He wanted to wake him and make sure that an uglysuspicion was without foundation.
He watched the old man's breast, and saw a movement there as of apulsation of the heart. He held his hand before the keeper's mouth.
"Yes, I feel his warm breath. It must be sleep, and yet--"
He paused. He did not like to express in language what he could nothelp in thought.
"I will not disturb him," he finally said, "for it may be only justsleep. I will wait, any way, till after dinner."
Deferring and still suspecting, he went downstairs. The kitchen had notchanged, and yet it seemed a different place. The clock and the firenow made discordant noises. The sunshine that fell through the windowand rested on the floor seemed not so much to bring the light as to showhow empty and comfortless the place was. He felt lonelier than ever,this man that people outside suspected of theft, who was cut off fromthe sympathy of the man suspected with him. He was like one of theledges in the sea, so isolated, so much by itself, upon which the wavesbeat without mercy, without rest. In that hour what society, sympathy,strength, he found in the psalms!--a face to smile upon him, a voice tocheer, and a hand to uplift.