Not another word than this could I get from him. That evening--the
wind now coming easy from the south, and the swell gone down in a
wonderful way--as I was boiling water for the tea, we saw a dozen
fishing-boats standing out from the Islands. They ran down to within
two miles of us and then hove-to. The nets went out, and the sails
came down, and by and by through the glass I could spy the smoke
coming up from their cuddy-stoves.
"They might have brought news," I cried out, "even if 'tis sorrow!"
"Maybe there was no news to bring."
"'Twould have been neighbourly, then, to run down and say so."
"And run into the current here, I suppose? With a chance of the wind
falling light at any moment?"
I don't know if this satisfied my father: but I know that he meant it
to satisfy me, which it was pretty far from doing. Before daylight
the boats hoisted sail again, and were well under the Islands and out
of sight by breakfast-time.
After this, for a whole long week I reckon I did little more than
pace the ship to and fro; a fisherman's walk, as they say--three
steps and overboard. I took the three steps and wished I was
overboard. My father watched me queerly all the while; but we said
no word to each other, not even at meals.
It was the eighth day after the fishing-boats left us, and about four
in the afternoon, that we saw a brown sail standing towards us from
the Islands, and my father set down the glass, resting it on the
gunwale, and said:
"That's Old John's boat."
I took the glass from him, and was putting it to my eye; but had to
set it down and turn my back. I couldn't wait there with my eye on
the boat; so I crossed to the other side of the ship and stood
staring at the Lighthouse away on the sky-line, and whispered:
"Come quickly!" But the wind had moved a couple of points to the
east and then fallen very light, and the boat must creep towards us
close-hauled. After a long while my father spoke again:
"That will be Old John steerin' her. I reckoned so: he've got her
jib shakin'--that's it: sail her close till she strikes the
tide-race, and that'll fetch her down, wind or no wind. Halloa!--
Lad, lad! 'tis all right! See there, that bit o' red ensign run up
to the gaff!"
"Why should that mean aught?" asked I.
"Would he trouble to hoist bunting if he had no news? Would it be
there, close under the peak, if the news was bad?--and she his own
daughter, his only flesh!"
It may have been twenty minutes later that Old John felt the Gunnel
current, and, staying the cutter round, came down fast on us with the
wind behind his beam. My father hailed to him once and twice, and
the second time he must have heard. But, without answering, he ran
forward and took in his foresail. And then I saw an arm and a little
hand reached up to take hold of the tiller; and my heart gave a great
jump.
It was she, my wife Bathsheba, laid there by the stern-sheets on a
spare-sail, with a bundle of oilskins to cushion her. With one hand
she steered the boat up into the wind as Old John lowered sail and
they fell alongside: and with the other she held a small bundle close
against her breast.
"Such a whackin' boy I never see in my life!"--These were Old John's
first words, and he shouted them. "Born only yestiddy week, an' she
ought to be abed: an' so I've been tellin' her ever since she dragged
me out 'pon this wildy-go errand!"
But Bathsheba, as I lifted her over the lightship's side, said no
more than "Oh, Tom!"--and let me hold her, with her forehead pressed
close against me. And the others kept very quiet, and everything was
quiet about us, until she jumped back on a sudden and found all her
speech in a flood.
"Tom," she said, "you're crushin' him, you great, awkward man!" And
she turned back the shawl and snatched the handkerchief off the
baby's face--a queer-looking face it was, too. "Be all babies as
queer as that?" thought I. Lucky I didn't say it, though.
"There, my blessed, my handsome! Look, my tender! Eh, Tom, but he
kicks my side all to bruises; my merryun, my giant! Look up at your
father, and you his very image!" That was pretty stiff. "I
declare," she says, "he's lookin' about an' takin' stock of
everything"--and that was pretty stiff, too. "So like a man; all for
the sea and the boats! Tom, dear, father will tell you that all the
way on the water he was as good as gold; and, on shore before that,
kicking and fisting--all for the sea and the boats; the man of him!
Hold him, dear, but be careful! A Sunday's child, too--
'Sunday's child is full of grace . . .'
And--the awkward you are! Here, give him back to me: but feel how
far down in his clothes the feet of him reach. Extraordinar'!
Aun' Hessy mounted a chair and climbed 'pon the chest o' drawers with
him, before takin' him downstairs; so that he'll go up in the world,
an' not down."
"If he wants to try both," said I, "he'd best follow his father and
grandfathers, and live 'pon a lightship."
"So this is how you live, Tom; and you, father; and you,
father-in-law!" She moved about examining everything--the lantern,
the fog-signals and life-buoys, the cooking-stove, bunks and
store-cupboards. "To think that here you live, all the menkind
belongin' to me, and I never to have seen it! All the menkind did I
say, my rogue! And was I forgettin' you--you--you?" Kisses here, of
course: and then she held the youngster up to look at his face in the
light. "Ah, heart of me, will you grow up too to live in a lightship
and leave a poor woman at home to weary for you in her trouble?
Rogue, rogue, what poor woman have I done this to, bringing you into
the world to be her torture and her joy?"
"Dear," says I, "you're weak yet. Sit down by me and rest awhile
before the time comes to go back."
"But I'm not going back yet awhile. Your son, sir, and I are goin'
to spend the night aboard."
"Halloa!" I said, and looked towards Old John, who had made fast
astern of us and run a line out to one of the anchor-buoys.
"'Tisn't allowed, o' course," he muttered, looking in turn and rather
sheepishly towards my father. "But once in a way--'tis all
Bathsheba's notion, and you mustn' ask _me_," he wound up.
"'Once in a way'!" cried Bathsheba. "And is it twice in a way that a
woman comes to a man and lays his first child in his arms?"
My father had been studying the sunset and the sky to windward; and
now he answered Old John:
"'Tis once in a way, sure enough, that a boat can lay alongside the
Gunnel. But the wind's falling, and the night'll be warm. I reckon
if you stay in the boat, Old John, she'll ride pretty comfortable;
and I'll give the word to cast off at the leastest sign."
"Once in a way"--ah, sirs, it isn't twice in a way there comes such a
night as that was! We lit the light at sunset, and hoisted it, and
made tea, talking like children all the while; and my father the
biggest child of all. Old John had his share passed out to him, and
ate it alone out there in the boat; and, there being a lack of cups,
Bathsheba and I drank out of the same, and scalded our lips, and must
kiss to make them well. Foolishness? Dear, dear, I suppose so.
And the jokes we had, calling out to Old John as the darkness fell,
and wishing him "Good night!" "Ou, aye; I hear 'ee," was all he
answered. After we'd eaten our tea and washed up, I showed Bathsheba
how to crawl into her bunk, and passed in the baby and laid it in her
arms, and so left her, telling her to rest and sleep. But by and by,
as I was keeping watch, she came out, declaring the place stifled
her. So I pulled out a mattress and blankets and strewed a bed for
her out under the sky, and sat down beside her, watching while she
suckled the child. She had him wrapped up so that the two dark eyes
of him only could be seen, staring up from the breast to the great
bright lantern above him. The moon was in her last quarter, and
would not rise till close upon dawn; and the night pitchy dark around
us, with a very few stars. In less than a minute Bathsheba gave a
start and laid a hand on my arm.
"Oh, Tom, what was that?"
"Look up," said I. "'Tis the birds flying about the light."
For, of course, our light always drew the sea-birds, especially on
dull nights, and 'twas long since we had grown used to the sound of
their beating and flapping, and took no notice of it. A moment after
I spoke one came dashing against the rigging, and we heard him tumble
into the sea; and then one broke his neck against the cage overhead
and tumbled dead at our feet. Bathsheba shivered as I tossed him
overboard.
"Is it always like this?" she whispered. "I thought 'twas only at
the cost of a silly woman's fears that you saved men's lives out
here."
"Well," said I, "this is something more than usual, to be sure."
For, looking up into the circle of light, we could see now at least a
hundred birds flying round and round, and in half an hour's time
there must have been many hundreds. Their white breasts were like a
snowstorm; and soon they began to fall thick upon deck. They were
not all sea-birds, either.
"Halloa!" said I, "what's the day of the month?"
"The nineteenth of March."
"Here's a wheatear, then," I said. "In a couple of weeks we shall
have the swallows; and, a couple of weeks after, a cuckoo, maybe.
So you see that even out here by the Gunnel we know when spring comes
along."
And I began to hum the old song that children sang in the Islands:
The cuckoo is a pretty bird,
He sings as he flies:
He brings us good tidings.
He tells us no lies:
He sucks the sweet flow-ers
For to make his voice clear,
And when he says "Cuckoo!"
The summer is near.
Bathsheba's eyes were wet for the poor birds, but she took up the
song, crooning it soft-like, and persuading the child to sleep:
O, meeting is a pleasure,
But parting is grief,
An inconstant lover
Is worse than a thief;
For a thief at the worst
Will take all that I have;
But an inconstant lover
Sends me to my grave.
Her hand stole into mine as the boy's eyes closed, and clasped my
fingers, entreating me in silence to look and admire him. Our own
eyes met over him, and I saw by the lantern-light the happy blush
rise and spread over neck and chin and forehead. The flapping of the
birds overhead had almost died away, and we lay still, watching the
lighthouse flash, far down in the empty darkness.
By and by the clasp of her hand slackened. A star shot down the sky,
and I turned. Her eyelids, too, had drooped, and her breath came and
went as softly and regularly as the Atlantic swell around us. And my
child slept in her arms.
Day was breaking before the first cry awoke her. My father had the
breakfast ready, and Old John sang out to hurry. A fair wind went
with them to the Islands--a light south-wester. As the boat dropped
out of sight, I turned and drew a deep breath of it. It was full of
the taste of flowers, and I knew that spring was already at hand, and
coming up that way.