CHAPTER X.
Full souls are double mirrors, making still An endless vista of fair things before, Repeating things behind.
GEORGE ELIOT'S _Poems._
There is a want of primness in the manners and customs of my characterswhich a reviewer might take exception to. To be sure he might witheffect criticise their making up a pool on Sunday. But the fact was thatnobody remembered it to be Sunday until Jack wanted to collect hiswinnings after dinner. At this, Mrs. Dusenall held up her hands in highdisapproval. While out in the lake, in the worst part of the sea, shehad commenced to read her Bible, and had felt thankful to arrive inshelter. Consequently she remembered the day.
"Surely, Charley, you have not been gambling on Sunday?" said shereprovingly.
The girls looked guilty, with an expression of "Oh, haven't we beenbad?" on their faces.
Rankin endeavored to relieve the situation by explaining in many wordsthat the whole thing was a mere matter of form, and no more than anexpression of opinion as to the time the boat would reach the harbor,because no money was put up--in fact, as the arrangement was made onSunday, the whole thing was illegal, and no money ever would be put up,etc.
Jack kicked him under the table for arguing away his winnings, andMargaret quoted at him:
"His tongue Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, to perplex and dash Maturest counsels."
"Good," said Geoffrey. "Give him the rest of it, Miss Margaret. Rub itin well."
Margaret continued, and with mirthful eyes declaimed at Maurice:
"For his thoughts were low; To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds Timorous and slothful: and yet he pleas'd the ear, And with persuasive accent thus began."
This amused Margaret, because Maurice was such a decent little man. ButGeoffrey's enjoyment of it was different. Rankin felt that there wasgrowing in him an antagonism to Hampstead. He was afraid of him for hersake--afraid she would learn to like him too much. At any other timechaff would have found him invulnerable, but Geoffrey's amusement madehim redden.
"You seem to be well acquainted with the characteristics of Belial,Hampstead," he said. "Margaret, your memory is excellent. Could youfavor us with the lines just preceding what you first quoted?"
Why should Margaret have blushed as she did so? She quoted:
"On th' other side up rose Belial, in act more graceful and humane; A fairer person lost not heaven; he seem'd For dignity compos'd and high exploit: But all was false and hollow; though his tongue Dropp'd manna," etc.
"Thank you," said Maurice. "You see the lines are intended to describe aperson far different from me in appearance. Hampstead, you observe, hadstudied the passage. A coincidence, is it not?"
Soon they were all composing themselves for sleep. Margaret waslistening peacefully to the shrieking of the wind in the rigging as shethought how every moment on board the yacht had been one of uncloudedenjoyment. An unconscious smile went over her face that would have beenpleasant to see. Then she thought of Geoffrey and smiled again. Thistime she caught herself, and asked herself why? All day, since she hadwatched Geoffrey steering the yacht beside the schooner in the lake, hermind had been chanting two lines of poetry. When asked in the evening torepeat the lines aloud she had blushed because it seemed like confessingherself.
A fairer person lost not heaven; he seemed For dignity composed and high exploit.
In her mind Geoffrey had become identified with these two lines. Butwhat had friend Maurice meant by saddling the context on him in thatmalevolent way? Could he really have thought that Belial's characterwas also Geoffrey's? She put away this idea as untenable. She was one ofthose born in homes where the struggle for existence has not forgenerations taught the household to be suspicious; with the innatenobility that tends, whether rightly or wrongly, to think the best ofothers; she was one of those whom men turn to with relief after thecunning and suspicion of the business world, each feeling the assistanceit is to meet some one who is ready to take him at the valuation hewould like to be able justly to put upon himself.
When morning broke, there were eight or ten schooners to be seen ondifferent sides that had run in for shelter during the night. About sixo'clock Margaret crept out to satisfy her curiosity as to what kind ofplace they were in. With only her head above the hatchway at the top ofthe stairs leading up from the ladies' cabin she gazed about for sometime before she spied Maurice sitting on the counter with his back toher, his feet dangling over the water while he watched the vessels.
She crept toward him and gave a cry close to his ear, to startle him.
"Don't make so much noise," said he, quite unstartled. "I don't like youto call out like that in my ear." He added, perforce, as he looked ather, "At least I don't like it when I can't see you."
"Don't tell stories, Morry. You know you would like me to do it at anytime."
"I would not, indeed," he asserted. "Come and sit down and keep quitesilent. Just when I was having such a happy, peaceful time you come andspoil it all."
Margaret sat down on the rail and turned herself about so that she couldsit in the same position beside him. His helping hand still held hers asthey sat together. He was almost afraid to turn toward her, for fear hewould look too tenderly. She might go away if he did. His _role_ was tobully her, and then she would never know how exquisite it was for himto have her sit beside him.
"There, now! Sit perfectly quiet and don't say another word. Just lookaround and enjoy yourself in a reasonable manner. I'm not going to havemy morning disarranged and my valuable reveries disturbed."
The wind had shifted to the northwest in the morning and had blownitself out and down to a moderate breeze with a clearing sky, withpatches of blue and broken clouds overhead.
"Now listen to the chorus of the sailors as they get up their anchor.Does it not seem a sweet and fitting overture to the whole oratorio ofthe voyage before them? I have been watching the vessels go out, one byone, for over an hour. I must say there are some uncommonly rude menamong the sweet singers we are listening to, and--and--" He stopped andforgot to go on.
"And what?" cried Margaret peremptorily.
Maurice had lost himself in the contemplation of some locks of sunnyhair, that were flying in the breeze from Margaret's forehead, and thegraceful curve of her full neck as she looked away at the ships.
"Oh, yes. And that's Timber Island over there, covered with trees andstamped out round like a breakfast bun, and that's the False DuckIsland, where we came in last night. The schooner sailing yonder isgoing to take the channel between that white line of breakers and SouthBay Point running out there, and those huts you see nestling in thetrees far away on the main-land are fishermen's houses--"
He was not looking at any of these things, but was following out twotrains of thought in his active head while he talked against time. Whatreally absorbed him was Margaret's ear, and a sort of invisible down onthe back part of her cheek. He was thinking to himself that if fivedollars would purchase a kiss on that spot he would be content to see anotice in the Gazette: "Maurice Rankin, failed: liabilities, $5.00."
Margaret was listening, gravely unconscious of being so much admired,enjoying all he said, and feasting her eyes upon the distances, thebrilliant colors, and the fleeting shadows of the broken clouds upon thewater.
"Why, what a nice old chappie you are!" she exclaimed, giving his hand apat and taking hers away. "How did you manage to find out all about thesurroundings?"
"Been around boarding the different schooners lying at anchor. Examiningtheir papers, you know," said he grandly. "Went around in the canoe tothe first fellow--a coal vessel. A man appeared near the bow and lookeddown at me as if I were a kind of fish swimming about. 'Heave-to, orI'll sink you,' I said in the true old nautical style. He did not say aword, but stooped down and did heave two, in fact three, pieces of coalat me. I passed on, satisfied
that his vessel needed no furtherinspection. I was then attracted by the name of another schooner, onwhose stern was painted the legend 'Bark Swaller.'"
"What a strange name," said Margaret, as Maurice spelled it out.
"Well, it puzzled me a good deal, as I examined it closely, being indoubt whether Barque Swallow was intended, or perhaps the name of someGerman owner. At all events a sailor spied me paddling about under thestern of the boat and regarded me with evident suspicion. I thought Iwould deal more gently with this man than with the other fellow. 'Canyou tell me,' I asked, 'the name of that round island over there?' Theonly answer I got was unsatisfactory. 'Sheer off,' said he, 'wid yourdirty dug-out.' This seemed rather rude, but I did not retaliate. Ithought I might go further and fare worse, so I endeavored to mollifyhim. Perhaps, I thought, being up all night in hard weather had madethese sailors irritable.
"'Can you drink whisky?' I said--" Margaret was looking at Maurice witha soft expression of interest and mirth. He was talking on in order thathe might continue to bask in the beauty of the face that looked straightat him. But the strain for a moment was too great. For an instant heslacked up his check-rein, and while he narrated his story he continuedin the same tone with: "(Believe me, my dear Margaret, you are lookingperfectly heavenly this morning) and the effect on this poor toiler ofthe sea was, I assure you, quite wonderful." Rankin's tongue wentstraight on, as if the parenthesis were part of the narrative. Margaretsaw that it was useless to speak, and resigned herself to listen again."Quite wonderful," he continued. "The fellow motioned to me to come tothe bow of the vessel, and when I got there he came over the bulwarksand dropped like a monkey from one steel rope to another till he stoodon the bobstay chains."
"'Whist!' said he. 'Divil a word! Have you got it there?'
"'There is some on the yacht,' I said, 'and I want to ask you somequestions about this place. What island is that over there?'
"'Mother of Pathrick,' said he, 'an' did ye come down all the way inyour yacht and not know Timber Island when you'd see it?'
"He looked at me as if I was some strange being.
"'And where was ye last night, might I axe?'
"'Where we axe now,' I said.
"'Faith, it was a big head that brought you into the nursery herebefore last night came on! More be-token, I have'nt had a dhry rag on mefor tin hours, and divil a sail we've got widout a shplit in it the sizeof a shteam-tug. Bring it in a sody-bottle, darlint, and the Lord'lllove ye if ye don't spoil it. Whisht, love! You drink my health in thesody and don't lave any in the bottle.'
"I came back and got him a soda-bottle of the genuine article, and whilehe drank it the rapidity of his tongue was peculiar. 'So you have beenhere before?' I asked.
"'Whisht, darlint! till the captain won't hear you. Been here before?Begorra, this place has been a mine of goold to me many a time. Forsiventeen days at a slap I've laid here in Dicimber at four dollars aday, with nothin' to do but play checkers and sphlit wood for the shtoveand pray for a gale o' wind down the lake till shpring-time.'
"This eloquence continued until I thought he would certainly fall offthe bobstay.
"'Tell me, now,' he said, after I had got all the information I wanted,'have ye a berth for an old salty aboard that craft?'
"I said we had not.
"'Faith, perhaps you're right. I kin see by the stow on yer mainsail andby the nate way yer heads'ls is drag-gen' in the wather that you're bornand bled up to the sea and don't require no assistance.'
"With these sarcastic words he gave me his blessing, threw away thebottle, and disappeared again over the bow."
"I gather from your remarks that your friend was of Hibernian origin,"said Margaret. "Perhaps a good dynamiter spoiled. But we will speak ofhim again. What I have been wanting for some time has been a trip in thecanoe to the beach over there. I want to walk over the sand bar and getclose to those great breakers rolling in on the shingle. Unhitch yourcanoe-string and bring the canoe alongside."
"Unhitch your canoe-string!" repeated Rankin contemptuously. "You mustspeak more nautically or I won't understand you."
"Well, what ought I to say?"
"Dunno. 'Cast adrift your towline' sounds well."
"It does, indeed," said Margaret, as Morry swung the light cockleshellinto position and she descended into it with care. "'Cast adrift yourtowline' has a full, able-bodied seaman sort of sound; but it has notthe charm of mystery about it that some expressions have. Now 'athwartyour hawse' seems portentous in its meaning. I don't want to know whatit means. I would rather go on thinking of it as of the arm that handedforth the sword Excalibur,' clothed in white samite--mystic, wonderful.'Do you know I read all Clark Russell's sea stories, and drive throughall his sea-going technicalities with the greatest interest, although Iunderstand nothing about them. When he goes aloft on the main-boom andbrails up his foregaff-bobstay I go with him. Sometimes he describes howsmall the deck below looks from the dizzy height when, poised upon thecapstan-bars, he furls the signal halyards that flap and fill away andthunder in the gale; and then I see it all--"
"So do I, so do I!" cried Morry, as he paddled dexterously to the shore."You've got Clark Russell to a T. He goes on like that by the hourtogether. I read every word, and the beauty of it is I always think Iunderstand. Why do we like his stories so much, I wonder?"
"One reason is because his heroes are manly men and have brave hearts,"said Margaret confidently. "I think that is why they appeal to women; healways arouses a sentiment of pity for the hero's misfortunes. Few womencan resist that." And Margaret, somewhat stirred, looked away over thebroad sea. Almost unconsciously there flashed before her the image of aGreek god winning a foot-race under circumstances that aroused hersympathy. Again she saw him steering a yacht, keen, strong, active,determined, and calm amid excitement. A flush suffused her countenance,and her eyes became soft and thoughtful as she gazed far away. Ah, theserushes of blood to the head! How they kindle an unacknowledged idea intoactivity! A moment and, like a flash, a latent, undeveloped instinctbecomes a living potent force to develop us. The admirer becomes alover, the plotter a criminal, and the religious man a fanatic.
When the canoe pushed its way through the rushes and beached itself uponthe soft sand the two jumped out and crossed over to the lake side,where the heavy ground swells of the last night's gale were stillmounting high upon the shingle. The bar leading toward them from FalseDuck Island was a seething expanse of white breakers, and over the laketo the south and west, as far as the eye could reach in the now rarefiedatmosphere a tumbling mass of bright-green waters could be seen, whichgrew blue in color at the sharply cut horizon. Not far off the "BarkSwaller" was buffeting her way to the southward, toward Oswego, andaround the wooded island with the lighthouse on it, the mail steamer,twelve hours detained, was getting a first taste of the open water.
It was a morning that made the two feel as if it were impossible to keepstill. The flat shingle, washed smooth by the high waves of the previousnight, was firm under foot as they walked and trotted along between thewreckage and driftwood on one side and the highest wash of the hissingwater on the other. An occasional flight of small plover suggested thewildness of the spot, and something of the spirit of these birds intheir curving and wheeling flight seemed to possess the two youngpeople--making them run and caper on the sands.
"You ought to be able to run a pretty good race," said Maurice,glancing at the shapely figure of his companion.
"So I am," said Margaret, as she sprang up on a large piece ofdriftwood. "I'll run you a race to that bush on the far point around thelittle bay. Do you see it?"
"I see it," said Maurice. "Are you ready? Go!"
Margaret sprang down from the stump and was off like an arrow. Morrythought it was only a sham and a pretense of hers, as he bounded offbeside her. He soon found his mistake, however, as his unaccustomedmuscles did their utmost to keep him abreast of the gliding figure inthe dark-blue skirt and jersey. They rounded the curve of the bay,Maurice on the inside tr
ack. But this advantage did not give him a lead.The distance to the winning point seemed fatal to his chances, but hehung on, hoping his opponent would tire. Again he was mistaken.
"Come on, Morry! Don't be beaten by a woman."
Her voice, as she said this, seemed aggressively fresh, and the tauntbrought Rankin even with her again. He had no breath left to sayanything in reply as they came to a small indentation filled with waterwhere the shore curved in, making another little bay. Margaret ranaround it, but Maurice, as a last chance, splashed through it,regardless of water up to his ankles. He gained about ten feet by thissubterfuge. A few gliding bounds, impossible to describe, and Margaretwas beside him again.
"That was a shabby advantage to take," she said as she passed hispanting form. "Now I'll show you how fast I _can_ run."
She left him then as he labored on. She floated away from him like athistle-blossom on the breeze. He forgot his defeat in his admiration ofthat fleeting figure which he would have believed to move in the air hadhe not seen marks in the sand made by toes of small shoes. He couldhardly comprehend how she could run away from him in this way. Yet therewas no wings attached to the lithe form before him. No wings, but a bitof silk ankle which seemed far preferable.
Margaret stopped at the bush which was to be the winning post. Morrythen staggered in exhausted and threw himself sideways into the yieldingmass of the willow bush and fell out on the other side.
"Oh," he said, as he rolled over on his back with his head resting inhis hands, "wasn't that beautiful?"
"The race--yes, indeed, it was splendid."
"No, I don't mean the race. That was horrible. I mean to see you run."(Gasp.)
Margaret's face was sparkling with excitement and color, while her bosomrose and fell after her exertion.
"I can run fast, can I not?" Her arms were hanging demurely at her sideagain. She could run, but she never seemed to be at all masculine.
"I never ran a race with a man before," she said, laughing.
"And never will run another with this individual," said Rankin. "Nothinggoes so fast as a train you have missed, just as it leaves the station,and yet I have caught it sometimes. You can go faster than anything Iever saw." (A breath.) "It is a good thing to know when one is beaten.You will always be an uncatchable distance before me." (A sigh.)
"My shoes are full of sand," said Margaret ruefully, looking down atthem.
"Mine are full of water," said Maurice. He did not seem to care. He wasquite content to lie there and gaze at her without reservation. And,with his heightened color and excitement, he actually appeared rathergood looking.
"I think the least you could do would be to offer to take the sand outof my shoes," said Margaret.
"If I don't have to get up I could do it. I won't be able to get up forabout twenty minutes. But if you sit on that stump--so--I think I couldmanage it."
Resting on one elbow, he unlaced the shoes, knocked the sand out ofthem, and spent a long time over the operation. Then he wondered attheir small size, and measured them, sole to sole, with his own bootswhile he chattered on, as usual, about nothing. Hers were not by anymeans microscopic shoes, but they seemed so to him, and he regarded themwith some of the curiosity of the miners of Blue Dog Gulch, Nevada, whena woman's boot appeared among them after their two years' isolation fromthe interesting sex. There was something in the way he handled them thatspoke of exile--something that stirred the compassion one might feel onseeing the monks of Man Saba tend their canaries.
The left shoe was put on with great care, and then he sat looking overthe lake for a while in silence before beginning with the second. It wasa long, well-chiseled foot, with high instep, and none of those knobswhich sometimes necessitate long dresses, and in men's boots take such abeautiful polish. He pretended to brush some sand away, and then,banding over, kissed the silk-covered instep, and received an admonitorytap for his boldness.
"Fie, Morry! to kiss an unprotected lady's foot," said Margaret archly,as she took the shoe from him and put it on herself. "You have insultedme."
"Nay, Margaret, 'twas but the sign of my allegiance and fealty," saidhe, looking up with what tried to be an off-hand manner. "It is the oldstory," he said lightly; "the worship of the unattainable--the remnant,perhaps, of our old nature worship. If you were not better acquaintedwith the subject than I am, I could give you a discourse which would be,I assure you, very instructive as to how we have always striven afterwhat we think to be good in the unattainable. We have been forbidden toworship the sun or to appease the thunders and lightnings, and, one byone, nearly all the objects of worship have been swept away, leaving aworld that now does not seem to know what to do with its acquiredinstincts. One object is left, though, and I am inclined to think thatmen are never more thoroughly admirable than when influenced by theworship of the women who seem to them the best, that many thus come toknow the pricelessness of good and the despair of evil, with quite assatisfactory practical results as any other creed could bring about."
"What, then, becomes of the search for the unattainable after marriage?"asked Margaret practically.
"I imagine that the search would continue, that the greatest peace ofmarriage is the consciousness of approaching good in being assisted tolive up to a woman's higher ideals. It seems as if the condition ofMilton's idyllic pair--'he for God only, she for God _in him_'--has butlittle counterpart in real life, and that, in a thousand cases to one,the morality of the wife is the main chance of the husband."
"I understand, then, that we are to be worshiped as a means toward theimprovement of our husbands. I was hoping," said Margaret smiling, "thatyou were going to prove us to be real goddesses, worthy of devotion forourselves--without more."
"You are raising a well-worn question--as to what men worship when theybow before a shrine. If you were the shrine, I should say generally theshrine. At other times they worship that which the shrine suggests. WhatI mean is, that it is a good thing for one to have a power with himcapable of improving all the good that is in him. For myself, the pointis somewhat wanting in interest, as I never expect to be able to put itto a practical test."
"Not get married, Maurice? Why will you never get married?"
"I intended to have casually mentioned the reason a minute ago, only youinterrupted me just as I was coming to the interesting part."
"Then tell me now, and I won't interrupt."
"Well, you know I am like the small boys who want pie, and won't eatanything if they don't get it," said he, striving to be prosaic. "I loveyou far too well to make it possible for me to marry anybody else."
In spite of the assistance that pulling his hair gave him, as his headlay back in his hands, his voice shook and his form stiffened out alongthe sand in a way that told of struggle. Margaret was surprised, but shehardly yet understood the matter enough to feel pained. She had not beenled to expect that men would first express their love while lying ontheir backs.
"I thought I would tell you of it, as you would then know howparticularly well you could trust me--as your friend--a very faithfulone. You know, even in my present state, I would be full of hope, ifthings were different, because the money is bound to come sooner orlater; but you, Margaret, I know, without your words, will never beattainable--that the moon would be more easy for me to grasp."
Margaret was not often at a loss for a word, but now she knew not whatto say. It did not seem as if anything could be said. She essayed tospeak; but he stopped her.
"I know what you would say," he said. "They would be kind words in theirtone, full of sympathy, words that I love to hear--that I hear likemusic in my ears when you are out of sight? You must, and I know youwill, forgive me for all these confessions," said he, smiling, "youhave made such a change come over my life. You have given me so muchhappiness."
"I don't see how," said Margaret, not knowing what to say.
"No--you could hardly know why. If you knew what a different life I haveled from that of others you would understand better the real happi
nessyou have given me. My life of late years has been unlovely. I have nothad the soft influences of a home as it should be, but I have alwaysyearned for them."
The pretense of being off-hand in his manner had left him. He talkeddisjointedly, and with effort. "You can not know what it is to feelcontinually the want of affection. You have never hungered for theluxury of being in some way cared for. But these weaknesses of mine willnot bore you, because you are kind. It will make my case plainer when Itell you that for years--as long as I can remember--there never has beena night that a longing for the presence of my parents has not come overme. Until I saw you. Now you have come to fill the gap. Now I think ofyou, and listen to your voice, and look at your face, and care for you.You fill more places in my heart than you know of. You are father andmother and all beside to me, and I shall go back to my dreary lifegladder for this experience, this love for you which will remain with mealways. Still, it is dreadful to look into a future of loneliness! Oh,Margaret, it is dreadful to be always alone--always alone."
Margaret was watching the part of his face not covered with his cap ashis words were ground out haltingly, and she could see his lips twitchas old memories mingled with his present emotions. As he proceeded shesaw from his simple words how deep-seated were his affections, and shewondered at the way he had concealed his love for her. A greatcompassion for him was welling up in her heart. As she listened to hiswords, it came upon her what it might be to love deeply and then tofind that it only led to disappointment. She felt glad that she hadgiven him some happiness--glad when he said he could look forward morecheerfully to going back to his hopeless existence. It was brave tospeak of it thus--asking nothing. But when he said it was dreadful to bealone--always alone--his voice conveyed the idea of horror to her, and,in a moment, without knowing exactly why, the tears were in her eyes,and she was kneeling beside him on the sand asking what could be done,and blaming herself for giving him trouble. Her touch upon his handthrilled him. He dared not remove his cap. He dared not look at her forvery fear of his happiness; but then he heard a half sob in her voice,and that cured him. It would never do for her to be weeping. He had saidtoo much, he thought. He partly sat up, leaning upon his hand, and washimself again. Margaret was looking at him (so beautiful with her dewyeyes), with but one thought in her mind, which was how to be kind tohim, how to make up to him some of the care that his life had been shornof. It was all done in a moment. Margaret said tearfully, "Oh, what canI do?" and Rankin's native quickness was present with him. He leanedforward, inspired by a new thought, and said, "Kiss me," and Margaret,knowing nothing but a great compassion for him, in which self wasentirely forgotten, said: "Indeed, I will, if you would care for that."