"How comes it that he has escaped marriage?" she enquired. "They marry
young down here, and he seems to be a fine sort of a man. He must be
around thirty-five now."
"He's thirty-three, I believe," answered Donald. "From what he has
mentioned at odd times, I gather that he was engaged to a girl once
and she jilted him. That's all I know."
Murmuring "Too bad, poor man!" Helena changed the subject and they
talked for a space on other topics, until Mrs. Nickerson called them
in for supper.
After the meal, the young people went into the parlor, and Donald and
Helena played and sang. This did not suit Ruth, who got rather tired
of seeing Mr. McKenzie monopolized by her friend, and as Mrs. Asa was
unable to come over and play for them that evening, she suggested a
walk in lieu of dancing.
"Let us stroll out by the Eastville Cape," she said. "It's a glorious
night and there's a full moon."
"That's a good idea," exclaimed Donald eagerly. "I've almost forgotten
how to walk after two months on shipboard." The skipper, clean-shaven,
and looking bronzed and handsome in his shore clothes, murmured
approval and stood awkwardly to one side as the girls passed out.
Donald and Helena went on to the gallery, and Ruth turned to her
brother. "Go on, now, you big calf," she said quickly. "Go and take
Helena. Don't be hanging back like a country bumpkin."
Judson grinned sheepishly. "Haow do I know she wants to go with me?
Maybe she prefers Donald."
His sister made an impatient gesture. "Don't you like Helena?" she
snapped.
The skipper, reddening under his tan, stood irresolute. "Sure I do,"
he replied, "but I don't want to force my company on her!"
"'Faint heart never won fair lady,'" quoted Ruth sharply. "Go and ask
her to walk with you, and when you talk with her, try and say
something interesting!" And she pushed him out on the gallery towards
the others. Feeling considerably more nervous than he ever felt during
a strenuous watch at sea, Judson took the easier course and addressed
Donald. "Will you walk with Ruth, Don? She's tired of me an' I'm
afraid of her! She's got an awful tongue!" Donald was only too pleased
to make the exchange, and they sauntered down the road towards the
headland.
It was a most entrancing night--a night of dark azure sky brilliant
with moonlight and myriad stars--and the waters of the bay glittered
like silver in the glow from the moon. The warm southerly wind was
perfumed with the scent of budding and flowering herbage and the
balmy, resinous odors of spruce and balsam. The frogs in the field
ponds were crooning their nightly lullabys, and their continuous
croaks served as an orchestral accompaniment to the sweet warbling of
the robins and other songsters of the twilight hours. Somewhere in a
spruce thicket a whip-poor-will was calling, and over on the rocks of
the passage, the gulls sounded weird cries, as if in plaintive
greeting to a coasting schooner standing out to sea with the ebb tide.
She sailed across the moon-path on the water, and for a moment her
hull and sails stood up in silhouette against the silvery background,
then she slipped out of the glare and faded into the darkness, with
but the red glow of her port light to mark her presence.
"Isn't this lovely?" exclaimed Ruth softly, as they sat down in a
hollow of the Cape and looked over the harbor and passage. "This is a
favorite spot of mine, and I love to come here in summer and look at
the sea."
Donald sat on the grass beside her with his arms around his knees. The
spring air was inoculating him with its exhilaration, and a strange
sensation of pleasant enjoyment of life was taking possession of him.
He breathed deep of the warm-scented breeze, and stared at his
partner's pretty features illuminated by the moon-glare. Her face was
turned away from him, and her profile, crowned with a luxuriance of
dark tresses, looked almost Madonna-like in the silvery glow, and
Donald was thinking how delightful it would be to slip his arms around
those rounded shoulders and, holding her closely to him, kiss her upon
that rosy mouth. "In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to
thoughts of love!" Donald recalled the famous phrase and sighed. Ruth
turned. "What are you thinking of, Mr. McKenzie?" she asked, smiling.
For a moment he could not answer, but the "Mr. McKenzie" jarred him.
It did not fit in with the night, and he replied boldly, "I was
thinking how much nicer it would be--for me, at least--if you would
not be so formal. I would like you to call me Don, instead of 'Mister
McKenzie,' and I would also like to call you Ruth. Ruth is such a
pretty name, and should not be masked under the conventional 'Miss'."
He paused and looked at her with wide dark eyes faintly smiling.
The girl bent her head and picked at the grass. "If you would like me
to call you 'Don,' I certainly will--Don," she said with a flash of
her eyes.
He gave a little laugh. "And I hope you will permit me to call you
'Ruth'--Ruth!" With this primary barrier to intimate acquaintanceship
broken down, they sat and talked as only young men and women of "sweet
seventeen" know how, and they voiced the thoughts which came to mind
inspired by the beauty of the night, but Donald dare not give
expression to all the ambitions and desires inspired in him by the
charming young woman at his side. She was very lovable, he thought,
and he knew that his boyish heart was already captivated by her fresh
young beauty and the glory of her clear and deep blue eyes. He always
adored blue eyes, and Ruth's reminded him of the sea and sky in the
track of the Trades--the fine weather, azure when the sun would be
shining, and the flying-fish leaping from the murmuring wave-crests of
the tropical sea--the deep, unfathomed blue.
"I wonder where Juddy and Helena went to?" suddenly exclaimed Ruth.
Donald laughed and his teeth gleamed white in the moonlight. "Nice
teeth!" mentally remarked Ruth.
"I think I can hear him talking on top of the Cape," he answered.
"Listen!" In the quiet of the evening, Judson's voice floated down to
them. He was giving Helena a lesson on the stars, and they could
imagine him pointing them out.
"There's Ursa Majoris! There's Polaris! Arcturus! Sirius! Andromeda!
Cassiopeia!" and so on. Ruth chuckled. "Juddy evidently has scared up
something interesting for Helena. She adores that sort of thing. I was
afraid he would find nothing to talk about but royal sails and gallant
topsails and that sea stuff."
"You misjudge your brother, Ruth," said Donald. "He is a well-read man
and can converse on many subjects not connected with the sea and
ships."
"He ought to be. He was at school long enough. He had a good
education, though, by the way he talks sometimes, you'd think he never
saw the inside of a school-room. But I'm very fond of Juddy. I like
him the best of all, and I would like to see him married and settled.
Don't you think Helena and he would make a good match?" She watched
him curiously when she asked the question.
"I most certainly do," replied Donald heartily. He thought he detected
a faint expression of relief on her face at his answer, and the
thought pleased him mightily.
"We'd better skip along, folks! There's a fog rolling in." It was
Judson calling from the hill path. Regretfully, Donald rose and
assisted Ruth to her feet, and taking her arm, helped her up the
slope. When upon the path again, he evidently labored under the
delusion that his partner was short-sighted or unable to walk without
assistance, as he failed to withdraw the aiding arm. To his secret
delight, the girl made no protest or attempt to withdraw. Upon such
trivial actions do we record another knot ahead on the log slate of
love!
Back on the verandah of the house, they separated into two groups, and
the intimate hour passed all too quick for Donald. The skipper struck
a match and looked at his watch. He would have liked to have sat the
whole night out with Helena, but he had the old-fashioned notion that
half-past ten was a pretty late hour ashore. "I suppose you girls'll
be making for bed naow?" he observed regretfully.
"I guess we must," said Helena, smiling to herself. Helena was city
bred. "What time do you sail, Judson?"
"We'll go out on the first of the ebb-tide at six, I expect."
"I'll be up at five to give you a cup of coffee," said Ruth. Her
brother protested. "No use of your getting up to do that, Sis. Don and
I will go right down aboard th' vessel. McGlashan will have breakfast
all ready--"
"And I suppose you prefer your old cook's coffee to mine!" interrupted
Ruth tartly. McKenzie unconsciously voiced her protest. He wanted to
see all he could of her.
Judson slipped his arm around his sister's shoulders. "There, there,
naow, Petsy!" he soothed. "She shall get up an' make her brother an'
Don a cup of coffee. It shall never be said we refused yours for any
old cook's brew of water bewitched. We'll see you in the morning." He
turned and extended his hand to Helena.
"I guess I'd better bid you good-bye--"
"In the morning," she answered. "I'll be up with Ruth. Good-night!"
Donald retired that night feeling indescribably happy. He felt that he
was on the high road to winning Ruth Nickerson's heart and hand. He
was in love with her, he admitted. He wanted her for his own, and he
felt that she was favorably disposed towards him. This being his first
love, he had no precedents to disillusion him or conjure up obstacles.
It would take time, he knew. He had to make a home for his mother
first and a position for himself. He would work hard and study for
master, and when he skippered his own vessel, he would be all right.
Then he would build a house in the hollow near the Cape--the place
they had visited that evening--and he would ask Ruth to marry him. As
he planned, so he dreamed, and everything was plain sailing and fine
weather.
"Skin up you an' loose y'r mizzen r'yal!" came a snarling voice in his
ear. Old habit made Donald leap up, rubbing his eyes and wondering if
he had committed the crime of sleeping on watch. Judson, lighting the
lamp, laughed. "By gum, Don, that fetched you! I'll bet you thought
you were aboard th' _Kelvinhaugh_ and that I was singin' aout?"
They went downstairs smiling, and found Ruth scurrying around laying
cups on the table. She was in a kimono, and looked, in Donald's eyes,
a picture of feminine loveliness. "Some day," he mused, "she would be
making a snack specially for him when he was going out on an early
morning tide." Alas! his shore hours were too short. He would not see
her again until the fall.
Helena came down, and they all drank the coffee as in a mystic
farewell rite--a valedictory communion. It is wine and the wafer for
the soldier going into battle, but it is coffee and biscuits for the
sailor going to sea!
Seamen hate farewells. Make a brave welcome if you must, but let us
slip away to sea unobtrusively--between sunset and dawn--with the last
ringing laugh in our ears, but do not let us go regretfully, with the
memory of a long hand-clasp and hint of tears in an upturned face.
These are the usual seamen's desires--merely to depart with a
nonchalant "So long!", but Donald had no notion of such a curt
parting. He wanted to spin the bitter-sweetness of it out, as lovers
are fain to do. He gave Ruth's hand a warm squeeze and held it for a
moment. She was looking at him with wide-open blue eyes, with a hint
of fear in them. "Good-bye, Ruth," he said quietly, "I hope to see you
when we come back. Good-bye!" She murmured something, and abruptly he
swung away.