A gray day! soft gray sky, like the breast of a dove; sheeny gray
sea, with gleams of steel running across; trailing skirts of mist
shutting off the mainland, leaving Light Island alone with the ocean;
the white tower gleaming spectral among the folding mists; the dark
pine-tree pointing a sombre finger to heaven; the wet, black rocks,
from which the tide had gone down, huddling together in fantastic
groups as if to hide their nakedness.
On the little beach two men were slowly pacing up and down, up and
down, one silent, the other talking earnestly. Old men, both, with
white, reverend hair: one slender and small, the other a son of Anak,
big and brawny,--Captain January and the minister.
It was the minister who had been speaking. But now he had done, and
they took a few turns in silence before the Captain spoke in reply.
“Minister,” he said,--and his voice was strangely altered from the
gruff, hearty tone which had greeted his guest fifteen minutes before.
“Minister, I ain't a man that's used to hearin' much talk, and it
confuses my mind a bit. There's things inside my head that seems to
go round and round, sometimes, and put me out. Now, if it isn't askin'
too much, I'll git you to go over them p'ints again. Slow, like! slow,
Minister, bearin' in mind that I'm a slow man, and not used to it.
This--this lady, she come to your house yisterday, as ever was?”
“Yesterday,” assented the minister; and his voice had a tender, almost
compassionate tone, as if he were speaking to a child.
“And a fine day it were!” said Captain January. “Wind steady, sou'west
by sou'. Fog in the mornin', and Bob Peet run the _Huntress_ aground
on the bank. I never liked fog, Minister! 'Give me a gale,' I'd say,
'or anythin' short of a cyclone,' I'd say, 'but don't give me fog!'
and see now, how it's come about! But it lifted, soon as the harm
were done. It lifted, and as fine a day as ever you see.”
The minister looked at him in some alarm, but the old man's keen blue
eyes were clear and intelligent, and met his gaze openly.
“You're thinkin' I'm crazy, minister, or maybe drunk,” he said,
quietly; “but I ain't neither one. I'm on'y takin' it by and large.
When a man has been fifteen year on a desert island, ye see, he learns
to take things by and large. But I never see good come of a fog yet.
Amen! so be it! And so Cap'n Nazro brought the lady to your house,
Minister?”
“Captain Nazro came with her,” said the minister, “and also her
husband, Mr. Morton, and Robert Peet, the pilot. Mrs. Morton had seen
little Star in Peet's boat, and was greatly and painfully struck by
the child's likeness to a beloved sister of hers, who had, it was
supposed, perished at sea, with her husband and infant child, some
ten years ago.”
“Ten year ago,” repeated Captain January, passing his hand across
his weather-beaten face, which looked older, somehow, than it was
wont to do. “Ten year ago this September. 'He holdeth the waters in
the hollow of His hand.' Go on, Minister. The lady thought my little
Star, as the Lord dropped out of the hollow of His hand into my arms
ten year ago, had a look of her sister.”
“She was so strongly impressed by it,” the minister continued,
quietly, “that, failing to attract Peet's attention as he rowed away,
she sent for the captain, and begged him to give her all the
information he could about the child. What she heard moved her so
deeply that she became convinced of the child's identity with her
sister's lost infant. As soon as Peet returned after putting Star
ashore, she questioned him even more closely. He, good fellow, refused
to commit himself to anything which he fancied you might not like,
but he told her of my having performed the last rites over the mortal
remains of the child's parents, and Mr. Morton wisely counselled her
to go at once to me, instead of coming here, as she at first wished
to do. After my interview with her, I am bound to say--”
“Easy now, Minister!” interrupted Captain January. “I'm an old man,
though I never knowed it till this day. Easy with this part!”
“I am bound to say,” continued the minister, laying his hand kindly
on his companion's arm, “that I think there is little doubt of Star's
being Mrs. Morton's niece.”
“And what if she be?” exclaimed the old sailor, turning with a sudden
violence which made the gentle minister start back in alarm. “What
if she be? what have the lady done for her niece? Did she take her
out o' the sea, as raged like all the devils let loose, and death
itself a-hangin' round and fairly howlin' for that child? did she
stand on that rock, blind and deef and e'ena'most mazed with the
beatin' and roarin' and onearthly screechin' all round, and take that
child from its dead mother's breast, and vow to the Lord, as helped
in savin' it, to do as should be done by it? Has she prayed, and
worked, and sweat, and laid awake nights, for fear that child's
fingers should ache, this ten years past? Has she--” the old man's
voice, which had been ringing out like a trumpet, broke off suddenly.
The angry fire died out of his blue eyes, and he bowed his head
humbly. “I ask yer pardon, Minister!” he said, quietly, after a pause.
“I humbly ask yer pardon. I had forgotten the Lord, ye see, for all
I was talkin' about Him so glib. I was takin' my view, and forgettin'
that the Lord had His. _He_ takes things by and large, and nat'rally
He takes 'em larger than mortal man kin do. Amen! so be it!” He took
off his battered hat, and stood motionless for a few moments, with
bent head: nor was his the only silent prayer that went up from the
little gray beach to the gray heaven above.
“Well, Minister,” he said, presently, in a calm and even cheerful
voice, “and so that bein' all clear to your mind, the lady have sent
you to take my--to take her niece--the little lady (and a lady she
were from her cradle) back to her. Is that the way it stands?”
“Oh, no! no indeed!” cried the kind old minister. “Mrs. Morton would
do nothing so cruel as that, Captain January. She is very
kind-hearted, and fully appreciates all that you have done for the
little girl. But she naturally wants to see the child, and to do
whatever is for her best advantage.”
“For the child's advantage. That's it!” repeated Captain January.
“That's somethin' to hold on by. Go on, Minister!”
“So she begged me to come over alone,” continued the minister, “to--to
prepare your mind, and give you time to think the matter well over.
And she and Mr. Morton were to follow in the course of an hour, in
Robert Peet's boat. He is a very singular fellow, that Peet!” added
the good man, shaking his head. “Do you think he is quite in his right
mind? He has taken the most inveterate dislike to Mr. and Mrs. Morton,
and positively refuses to speak to either of them. I could hardly
prevail upon him to bring them over here, and yet he fell into a
strange fury when I spoke of getting some one else to bring them.
He--he is quite safe, I suppose?”
“Wal, yes!” replied Captain January, with a half smile. “Bob's safe,
if anyone is. Old Bob! so he doosn't like them, eh?”
At that moment his eye caught something, and he said, in an altered
voice, “Here's Bob's boat coming now, Minister, and the lady and
gentleman in her.”
“They must have come much more rapidly than I did,” said the minister,
“and yet my boy rows well enough. Compose yourself, January! this
is a heavy blow for you, my good friend. Compose yourself! Things
are strangely ordered in this world. 'We see through a glass darkly'!”
“Not meanin' to set my betters right, Minister,” said Captain January,
“I never seed as it made any difference whether a man seed or not,
darkly or howsumdever, so long as the Lord made _His_ views clear.
And He's makin' 'em!” he added. “He's makin' 'em, Minister! Amen!
so be it!” And quietly and courteously, ten minutes later, he was
bidding his visitors welcome to Light Island, as if it were a kingdom,
and he the crownless monarch of it. “It's a poor place, Lady!” he
said, with a certain stately humility, as he helped Mrs. Morton out
of the boat. “Good anchorage for a shipwrecked mariner like me, but
no place for ladies or--or them as belongs to ladies.”
“O Captain January!” cried Mrs. Morton, who was a tall, fair woman,
with eyes like Star's own. “What shall I say to you? I must seem to
you so cruel, so heartless, to come and ask for the child whom you
have loved and cared for so long. For that is what I have come for!
I must speak frankly, now that I see your kind, honest face. I have
come to take my sister's child, for it is my duty to do so.” She laid
both hands on the old man's arm, and looked up in his face with
pleading, tearful eyes.
But Captain January's face did not move as he answered, quietly, “It
is your duty, Lady. No question o' that, to my mind or any. But,”
he added, with a wistful look, “I'll ask ye to do it easy, Lady. It'll
be sudden like for the--for the young lady. And--she ain't used to
bein' took sudden, my ways bein' in a manner slow. You'll happen find
her a little quick, Lady, in her ways, she bein' used to a person
as was in a manner slow, and havin' to be quick for two, so to say.
But it's the sparkle o' gold, Lady, and a glint o' diamonds.”
But the lady was weeping, and could not answer; so Captain January
turned to her husband, who met him with a warm grasp of the hand,
and a few hearty and kindly words.
“And now I'll leave ye with the minister for a minute, Lady and
Gentleman,” the Captain said; “for Bob Peet is a-signallin' me as
if he'd sprung a leak below the water line, and all hands goin' to
the bottom.”
Bob, who had withdrawn a few paces after beaching his boat, was indeed
making frantic demonstrations to attract the Captain's attention,
dancing and snapping his fingers, and contorting his features in
strange and hideous fashion.
“Well, Bob,” said the old man, walking up to him, “what's up with
you, and why are ye h'istin' and lowerin' your jib in that onarthly
fashion?”
Bob Peet seized him by the arm, and led him away up the beach.
“Cap'n,” he said, looking round to make sure that they were out of
hearing of the others, “I can't touch a lady--not seamanly! But 'f
you say the word--knock gen'l'm'n feller--middle o' next week. Say
the word, Cap'n! Good's a meal o' vittles t' me--h'ist him over
cliff!”