A VISITOR FROM THE LONG AGO
As the captain sat there expectantly on the piazza, telescope across
his knees, dog by his side, a step sounded in the hallway of Snug
Haven, and out issued Ezra, blinking in the sunshine, screwing up his
leathery, shrewd, humorous face, and from under a thin palm squinting
across the harbor.
“Ain’t sighted him yit, cap’n?” demanded he, in a cracked voice. “It’s
past six bells o’ the aft’noon watch. You’d oughta be sightin’ him
pretty soon, now, seems like.”
“I think so, too,” the captain answered. “He wrote they’d leave Boston
this morning early. Seems as if they should have made Endicutt Harbor
by now.”
“Right, cap’n. But don’t you worry none. They can’t of fell foul o’
nothin’. Master Hall, he’s an A1 man. He’ll make port afore night,
cap’n, never you fear. He’s _gotta_! Ain’t I got a leg o’ lamb on to
roast, an’ ain’t I made his favorite plum-cake with butter-an’-sugar
sauce? Aye, he’ll tie up at Snug Haven afore sundown, never you fear!”
The captain only grunted; and old Trefethen, after careful but
fruitless examination of the harbor, went back into the house again,
very much like those figures on toy barometers that come out in good
weather and retire in bad.
Left alone once more, the captain drew deeply at his pipe and glanced
with satisfaction at his cozy domain. A pleasant place it was,
indeed, and trimly eloquent of the hand of an old seafaring man. The
precision wherewith the hedge was cut, the whitewashed spotlessness
of the front gate—a gate on the “port” post of which was fastened a
red ship’s-lantern, with a green one on the “starboard”—and even the
sanded walks, edged with conch-shells, all spelled “shipshape.”
Trailing woodbine covered the fences to right and left, and along these
fences grew thrifty berry bushes. Apple-trees, whereon green buttons of
fruit had already set, shaded the lawn, interspersed with flower-beds
edged with whitewashed rocks—flower-beds bright with hollyhocks,
peonies and poppies.
Back of the house a vegetable-garden gave promise of great increase;
and in the hen-yard White Leghorns and Buff Orpingtons pursued the
vocations of all well-disposed poultry. A Holstein cow, knee-deep in
daisies on the gentle hill-slope behind Snug Haven, formed part of the
household; and last of all came the bees, denizens of six hives not far
from the elm-shaded well.
But the captain’s special pride centered in the gleaming white
flagpole, planted midway of the front lawn—a pole from which flew
the Stars and Stripes, together with a big blue house-flag bearing a
huge “B” of spotless white. This flag and a little cannon of gleaming
brass, from which on every holiday the captain fired a salute, formed
his chief treasures; by which token you shall read the heart of the old
man, and see that, for all his faring up and down the world, a certain
curious simplicity had at the end developed itself in him.
Thus that June afternoon, sitting in state amid his possessions, the
captain waited. Waited, dressed in his very best, for the homecoming
of the boy on whom was concentrated all the affection of a nature now
powerful to love, as in the old and evil days it had been violent to
hate. His face, as he sat there, was virile, patriarchal, dignified
with that calm nobility of days when old age is “frosty but kindly.”
With placid interest he watched a robin on the lawn, and listened to
the chickadees’ piping monotone in the huge maple by the gate. Those
notes seemed to blend with the metallic music of hammer and anvil
somewhere down the village street. _Tunk-tunk! Clink-clank-clink!_ sang
the hammer from the shop of Peter Trumett, as Peter forged new links
for the anchor-chain of the _Lucy Bell_, now in port for repairs. Then
a voice, greeting the captain from the rock-nubbled roadway, drew the
old man’s gaze.
“How do, cap’n?” called a man from the top of a slow-moving load of
kelp. “I’m goin’ up-along. Anythin’ I kin do fer you?”
“Nothing, Jacob,” answered Briggs. “Thank you, just the same. Oh,
Jacob! Wait a minute!”
“Hoa, _s-h-h-h-h_!” commanded the kelp-gatherer. “What is it, cap’n?”
The old man arose, placed his telescope carefully in the rocking-chair,
and slowly walked down toward the gate. The Airedale followed close.
The dog’s rusty-brown muzzle touched the captain’s hand. Briggs fondled
the animal and smiling said:
“I’m not going to leave you, Ruddy. None of us can go anywhere to-day.
Hal’s coming home. Know that? We mustn’t be away when he comes!” The
captain advanced once more. Half-way down the walk he paused, picked
up a snail that had crawled out upon the distressful sand. He dropped
the snail into the sheltering grass and went forward again. At the gate
he stopped, leaned his crossed arms on the clean top-board, and for a
moment peered at Jacob perched on the load of kelp that overflowed the
time-worn, two-wheeled cart.
“What is it, cap’n?” Jacob queried. “Somethin’ I kin do fer you?”
“No, nothing you can do for me, but something you can do for Uncle
Everett and for yourself, if you will.”
At sound of that name the kelp-gatherer stiffened with sudden
resentment.
“Nothin’ fer him, cap’n!” he ejaculated. “He’s been accommodatin’ as
a hog on ice to me, an’ the case is goin’ through. Nothin’ at all fer
that damned—”
“Wait! Hold on, Jacob!” the old man pleaded, raising his hand. “You
can’t gain anything by violence and hate. I know you think he’s injured
you grievously. He thinks the same of you. In his heart I know he’s
sorry. You and he were friends for thirty years till this petty little
quarrel came up. Jacob, is the whole boat worth cutting the cables of
good understanding and letting yourselves drift on the reefs of hate?
Is it, now?”
“You been talkin’ with him ’bout me?” demanded Jacob irefully.
“Well, maybe I have said a few words to Uncle Everett,” admitted the
captain. “Uncle’s willing to go half-way to meet you.”
“He’ll meet me nowheres ’cept in the court-room down to ’Sconset!”
retorted Jacob with heat. “He done me a smart trick that time. I’ll
rimrack _him_!”
“We’ve all done smart tricks one time or another,” soothed the old
captain. The sun through the arching elms flecked his white hair with
moving bits of light; it narrowed the keen, earnest eyes of blue.
“That’s human. It’s better than human to be sorry and to make peace
with your neighbor. Uncle Everett’s not a bad man at heart, any more
than you are. Half a dozen words from you would caulk up the leaking
hull of your friendship. You’re not going to go on hating uncle, are
you, when you _could_ shake hands with him and be friends?”
“Oh, ain’t I, huh?” demanded Jacob. “Why ain’t I?”
“Because you’re a man and can think!” the captain smiled. “Harkness and
Bill Dodge were bitter as gall six months ago, and Giles was ready to
cut Burnett’s heart out, but I found they were human, after all.”
“Yes, but they ain’t _me_!”
“Are you less a man than they were?”
“H-m! H-m!” grunted Jacob, floored. “I—I reckon not. Why?”
“I’ve got nothing more to say for now,” the captain answered. “Good-by,
Jacob!”
The kelp-gatherer pushed back his straw hat, scratched his head, spat,
and then broke out:
“Mebbe it’d be cheaper, after all, to settle out o’ court rather ’n’ to
law uncle. But shakin’ hands, an’ bein’ neighbors with that—that—”
“Good day, Jacob!” the captain repeated. “One thing at a time. And if
you come up-along to-morrow, lay alongside, and have another gam with
me, will you?”
To this Jacob made no answer, but slapped his reins on the lean withers
of his horse. Creakingly the load of seaweed moved away, with Jacob
atop, rather dazed. The captain remained there at the gate, peering
after him with a smile, kindly yet shrewd.
“Just like the others,” he murmured. “Can’t make port all on one tack.
Got to watch the wind, and wear about and make it when you can. But if
I know human nature, a month from to-day Jacob Plummer will be smoking
his pipe down at Uncle Everett’s sail-loft.”
The sound of piping voices, beyond the blacksmith-shop, drew the old
captain’s attention thither. He assumed a certain expectancy. Into the
pocket of his square-cut blue jacket he slid a hand. Along the street
he peered—the narrow, rambling street sheltered by great elms through
which, here and there, a glint of sunlit harbor shimmered blue.
He had not long to wait. Round the bend by the smithy two or three
children appeared; and after these came others, with a bright-haired
girl of twenty or thereabout. The children had school-bags or bundles
of books tightly strapped. Keeping pace with the teacher a little girl
on either side held her hands. You could not fail to see the teacher’s
smile, as wholesome, fresh and winning as that June day itself.
At sight of the captain the boys in the group set up a joyful shout and
some broke into a run.
“Hey, lookit! There’s cap’n!” rose exultant cries. “There’s Cap’n
Briggs!”
Then the little girls came running, too; and all the children captured
him by storm. Excited, the Airedale set up a clamorous barking.
The riot ended only when the captain had been despoiled of the
peppermints he had provided for such contingencies. Meanwhile the
teacher, as trimly pretty a figure as you could meet in many a day’s
journeying, was standing by the gate, and with a little heightened
flush of color was casting a look or two, as of expectancy, up at Snug
Haven.
The old captain, smiling, shook his head.
“Not yet, Laura,” he whispered. “He’ll be here before night, though.
You’re going to let me keep him a few minutes, aren’t you, before
taking him away from me?”
She found no answer. Something about the captain’s smile seemed to
disconcert her. A warm flush crept from her throat to her thickly
coiled, lustrous hair. Then she passed on, down the shaded street; and
as the captain peered after her, still surrounded by the children, a
little moisture blurred his eyes.
“God has been very good to me in spite of all!” he murmured. “Very,
very good, and ‘the best is yet to be’!”
He turned and was about to start back toward the house when the
_cloppa-cloppa-clop_ of hoofs along the street arrested his
attention. Coming into view, past Laura and her group of scholars, an
old-fashioned buggy, drawn by a horse of ripe years, was bearing down
toward Snug Haven.
In the buggy sat an old, old man, wizen and bent. With an effort he
reined in the aged horse. The captain heard his cracked tones on the
still afternoon air:
“Pardon me, but can you tell me where Captain Briggs lives—Captain
Alpheus Briggs?”
A babel of childish voices and the pointing of numerous fingers
obliterated any information Laura tried to give. The old man, with
thanks, clucked to his horse, and so the buggy came along once more to
the front gate of Snug Haven. There it stopped.
Out of it bent a feeble, shrunken figure, with flaccid skin on
deep-lined face, with blinking eyes behind big spectacles.
“Is that you, captain?” asked a shaking voice that pierced to
the captain’s heart with a stab of poignant recollection. “Oh,
Captain—Captain Briggs—is that you?”
The captain, turning pale, steadied himself by gripping at the
whitewashed gate. For a moment his staring eyes met the eyes of the
old, withered man in the buggy. Then, in strange, husky tones he cried:
“God above! It—it can’t be you, doctor? It can’t be—Dr. Filhiol?”