to rustle; only bare earth and sodden air. After a long time Will
raised his head and threw it back, looking up at the dull stars, while
his outstretched hands lay clasped before him; he began to breathe
more deeply. Not many minutes later he rose and walked homeward across
the dim, wide waste.
It was afternoon of the next day when he stood at Mrs. Stutt's door
again. Mrs. Stutt looked at him with the embarrassment of conscious
pity as she admitted him. People had been looking at him all day, on
the street and in the office, with the same embarrassment and pity.
Miss Northrop was packing, the good woman said; and, in an answer to
her call, Winifred came out from her room into the little
sitting-room. She, too, was evidently under agitation and
embarrassment. Will had no doubt, from his first sight of her face,
that she had seen and understood his haggard flight the evening
before. He was himself entirely calm, as he held out his hand with a
grave smile in silence.
Winifred tried to speak naturally.
"I had just sent a note to you, Will," she said, as they sat down.
"About the school, I suppose," he answered, quietly. "You are going
away at once?"
"Yes." There she stopped, with her eyes downcast. She looked up to his
face and caught her breath to speak, stopped, and began again.
"You have been very good to me all this year--" there she hesitated.
Her difficulty was to choose her words so as to ignore his secret, and
yet not part from him in a cold or inadequate way.
He rose, and crossed over to her.
"Winifred," he said gently, "you are distressed on my account; and so
it is better that I should speak of what otherwise it would be better
to ignore. I want you to know that you have not harmed me."
She rose quickly at that, and they stood near together, with their
eyes fixed on each other's; the fulness of expression in her face
seemed to take the place of answer. He went on steadily, speaking low:
"I have thought it all over, and I find these two things stronger than
any pain that may have come to me. Winifred, I cannot do you this
wrong, to make you the instrument of evil to me. That is one of the
two things. And the other is that there is nothing to reproach any one
with; no one has done wrong; there is no cause for shame, or
resentment, or bitterness--only for clean pain. Pain is no great evil,
Winifred, when it is clean, no matter how sharp."
He smiled at her tranquilly enough as he spoke. In truth, he was not
unhappy at the moment. It is not during but after the parting
interview that the pinch comes. She answered him only with her deeply
attentive look, and he went on:
"I did not come to those convictions; they came to me; or rather, they
were in me, and bore down all the other feelings. All the noisy
passions dropped away before them, and left just those clear voices in
my soul. They made all my love and loyalty work together, instead of
tearing me in opposite directions. For, see, Winifred, hasn't it been
our moral faith for years that to do spiritual harm to another is the
greatest evil that can befall one, and to do him spiritual benefit,
the greatest good? All these years since we were in school together,
I have been proud to think that it could be only a good to you to have
me think of you as I have thought, because it was only a good to me.
And I will not be so disloyal now as to let my life be spoiled because
of you."
Winifred looked at him aghast. "All these years!" It was a revelation
intolerable at first shock to a woman that was no coquette.
"I think it was all the time dimly in my mind what _your_ last year
had been; at last I went out of my life and into yours. I want you to
understand that I do not think of it with bitterness, because I
entered so little into it; I realize, Winifred"--his voice broke from
its steadiness--"that you have been good, _good_ in it all. If you had
not been--if you had trifled with me--I think I should be at the
bottom of the river to-day. But since no one has wronged me," he went
on more quietly, "since nothing monstrous or unnatural has befallen
me, everything I believed in has the same claim on me as ever.
"And I want you to know that you need not _mind_ my love, Winifred."
She dropped her eyes and stood mute. "It is something you may be
willing and glad to have without troubling yourself because you cannot
return it. For any pain that has happened, do not trouble yourself
about that either--if I don't mind it, you needn't," he said, smiling
a little, with a certain manly sweetness quite new to him. "I find one
gains something in having no longer to struggle with pain and try to
keep her at arm's length."
She looked up then, and cried out passionately. "O Will, Will, if only
there was anything in all this world I could do to make it up to you!"
"There is nothing to make up," he said. "I would rather have pain from
you than pleasure from any one else. But there _is_ something that you
can do; this: not to feel my love a burden laid upon you, an annoyance
or trespass, an anxiety or self-reproach--or anything that will make
you want to get rid of it," he finished, smiling again; "and to let me
give you all I wish, on the condition that I ask no return. And if, in
a few years, I should ask to come and live near you, and be good
friends--may I? It would be hard," he urged, less quietly, "that I
should have to lose your friendship, when I ask nothing more. Would
you take away the crumbs from me, just because I have lost the loaf?"
"Is that best, Will?" she began, anxious and hesitating. "Oh, I mean
for you. It isn't _possible_ that you can always--think of me--so.
There is no reason. If you do not see me--somebody else--"
"Have I been seeing you these dozen years?" he said, very gently. "You
may trust me to know what is best for me. Why think--think a moment,
dear friend, and you will understand. You, of all people, _can_
understand the plane I want you to take me on."
Winifred's eyes kindled and her face flushed. "I see. I _do_
understand. I can meet you on your own plane, and I can trust your
friendship and you. I am not afraid to have you come--after a year or
two."
"Thank you," he said, shaken as he had not been.
"It is because you are very noble that any good can come out of this
harm," she went on, with an eloquent tremor in her voice. "I can see
that before very long I shall be, as you said, willing--glad--for so
great a gift--only always sorry for your sake. I am very grateful
_now_--I cannot tell you how great a thing I think it is--from such a
man as you."
They had both become embarrassed and shy now, and both stood silent to
recover their ease. "You leave by this evening's train?" he asked in a
minute.
"Yes."
"Then this is good-by."
"For a while."
They moved together to the door. As they reached it, Will turned and
held out his hand, with an attempt at a smile. They stood a few
moments with hands clasped. Winifred's downcast eyes were filling.
"Good-by, Winifred," he said.
"Good-by," she answered, faintly. A minute later she had thrown
herself sobbing on her bed, and he was walking down the street.
He met Winifred's lover, coming from the ticket-office--a gentleman
high-bred and handsome in every line, a scholar by his appearance, a
good man by his eyes, a good companion by his smile. There were all
those differences between him and Will that the young man had talked
of and Winifred in all sincerity had called nothing; and, moreover,
she would never in the world have loved him if there had not been. The
girl was an aristocrat after all, when it came to a question not of
friendship but love. And Will knew it; love is penetrating enough to
divine that much from scanty data. He looked at the stranger with a
sort of transferred reverence--what a king of men must he be whom
Winifred could crown! And if he did not look at him without a blinding
pang, it was, nevertheless, a test of the thoroughness of the night's
work that there was neither bitterness nor aversion in it. Something,
that sense of having disarmed pain--not dodged nor outwitted it, but
disarmed it forever--must have been in Winkelried's consciousness as
the spears pressed in.
But, after all, it is _taking_ the second place that costs--not being
there after it has been once sincerely and thoroughly accepted. Bunyan
knew long ago that it was easy walking in the Valley of Humiliation,
once you had come safely down.
On the street an acquaintance met Strong and turned to walk beside
him. It was the man who would not trust Judge Garvey out of sight with
his baby's silver mug.
"I was just going to your office," he said. "It's something very
important." He spoke with a marked friendliness, and a transparently
covert sympathy. "You see," he went on, confidentially, "we fellows
that have been against Garvey begin to think our minority's about
over. The whole affair of Miss Northrop has hurt him. He was shabby
when first she came, about that Coakley business, and he's been ugly
about her ever since in a sneaking sort of way. Such a lady, too! And
there's a thing come out to-day--if you'll excuse my speaking of it."
He showed a certain embarrassment. "Uncle Billy Green gave it away
first--he knew, being postmaster--but Garvey's been boasting of it
himself, too, in the bar-room. You know you used to write to a fellow
in the States, and haven't written to him so much lately."
"Yes, I know," said Strong. The man caught a hint of what he did not
say in what he did.
"Uncle Billy gives away any interesting point he gets in the
post-office," he said, apologetically. "You knew that before, Strong.
Well, Garvey got out of him, too, that Miss Northrop didn't have nor
write any letters; and he got it into his head she was hiding. Anybody
could see she wasn't used to working for a living--"
"Look here--"
"Bless you, Strong, I sha'n't say a word disrespectful to her. This is
something you'd ought to know. He just did up a 'Clarion' with some
notice about the school in it, and her name marked, and sent it to
that fellow you used to write to; and he wrote on the margin: 'Please
forward to Miss N.'s friends.' He said in the bar-room, to-day, that
he didn't know just what would come of it, but it stood to reason if
she was on the hide, it would damage her or you, somehow."
"It hasn't, however," said Strong. "But if _I_ stayed round the
bar-room--"
"Oh, we choked him off. I tell you, Strong, everybody thinks it was a
pretty dirty trick. The people don't care so much about his big
tricks, but they won't stand any such small ones. No money in it,
either--only spite! Well, the long and the short is--it's only a few
weeks till convention; and if you'll take hold now while they're mad,
you can name your own man for Senate, and we'll send you to Assembly."
"I don't want to go to Assembly," said Will, standing on his
office-step. "I'll gladly do my best to defeat Garvey for Senate."
"Well, you just decide on your man, and bring him out in your next
paper and we'll elect him. The people are strong for you just now. And
I should think you would look on going to Assembly as a sort of
duty--purify politics, you know."
"Well--I'll think about it." And young Strong walked into his shabby
office, stopped to give Jim directions, then went in behind his
screen, and sat down to write a proper editorial for beginning the
reform campaign.
HOW OLD WIGGINS WORE SHIP.
AN OLD SAILOR'S YARN.
BY CAPTAIN ROLAND T. COFFIN.
_The World, N. Y., November, 1878._
"Well, sir," said the old sailor, "here we are ag'in. I ain't been
round here much lately, and atwixt you and me, she's put the 'kybosh'
onto it, holdin' that comin' round here and hystin' are promotin' of
rheumatics, which, as are well known, they come of long and various
exposures in all climates, to say nothin' of watchin' onto a damp dock
night arter night continual. But what's the use? Everybody knows as a
quiet home are better than silver and fine gold, which it stands to
reason are to be obtained in two ways. Wimmin are like sailors in some
respects; whoever has anythin' to do with 'em must either be saddled
and bridled, leastwise, or else booted and spurred. You've got to ride
'em, or else they'll ride you. Bein' a sailorman myself, it ain't
likely as I'd say anythin' ag'in 'em; but if the truth must be told,
I'll say this--that while it'll never do, not at no price, for to let
sailors git the upper hand, there's many a man as has giv' the helm
into the hands of his old woman and made a better v'yage thereby; and
I don't mind sayin', sir, that havin' while follerin' the water got
into the habit of allowin' her for to be skipper in the house durin'
my short stoppin's on shore, it got for to be so much the custom, that
since comin' home for a full due I ain't never tried for to break away
from it; and though human natur' is falliable, and she does make
mistakes, especially about the hystin', on the whole, and by and
large, I judges I've been a gainer by it, as I believes at least eight
men out of ten would be if they took the hint accordin' and went and
done likewise.
"I don't go for to say as she ever goes to go to say I ain't a-goin'
for to let you go there; but it are terrible aggrivokin' when the
rheumatics twinges awful, and as it might be that this saw-mill don't
want no more splinters laid onto it, to have her feelin'ly remark,
'Well, if you will go round a-guzzlin' ale with your swell friends and
a-leavin' your lawful wife to home alone you must expect to pay for
it,' whereas I know it are the dock and other causes long gone by; but
that knowledge don't ease the pain a morsel, and the last time I were
that way tantalized I swore I wouldn't come here no more. But whatever
are the use? Man resolves and reresolves and then takes another
snifter, and so here I are, and bein' as its cold, as so she sha'n't
have no basis for her unfeelin' remark about guzzlin' ale, we'll let
him make it hot rum, and arter the old receipt, neither economizin' in
the rum or the sugar, but givin' a fair drink for honest money.
"Well, well (just mix another afore the glass cools off), to think how
the time goes. Here it are autumn ag'in, and in a few weeks 'twill be
winter. It reminds me (I'll take one more, if you please, with one
lump less of sugar and the space in rum) that I'm gittin' old, and I
feels it. My eyes ain't so good and my legs ain't so good, and I ain't
so good all over. When I goes down to the dock my lantern are heavier
than it used to were, and the distance ain't so short as it used to
seem from the dock to the house. Afore many years I'll be put quietly
away, and though I'd prefer bein' beautifully sewed up and launched
shipshape in blue water, with a hundred pound weight for to keep me
down, I s'poses it won't make much difference, nohow. Anyhow, if I
lives as long as old Wiggins, I hopes I may go as well at the end. I
don't think I ever told you about him, and if you'll let him fill 'em
up ag'in--for it's one of the vartues of hot rum that the more you
drinks the thirstier you gits--I'll reel you the yarn right off.
"Old Wiggins had been all his life into the Liverpool trade and had
got well fixed, so far as cash were consarned; and so when he came for
to be seventy or seventy-two years old he were persuaded for to knock
off for a full due and spend the balance of his life ashore. Goin' up
to some place in Connecticut, he buys hisself a place there and
settles down. Well, for a time he were all right, a-fixin' up his
house, a-buildin' new barns and hen-coops and fences and the like, and
I've heerd tell that the house where he kep' his pigs were better than
any dwellin'-house in that region, and the whole place were the wonder
of the country roundabout; but arter he had fixed his house all up
like a ship, with little staterooms all through the upper part of it,
and had got everythin' inside and out in shipshape order, and there
weren't nothin' else he could think of for to do, he gits terribly
homesick and discontented, and times when he'd come to the city for to
collect his sheer of the profits of ships as he had a interest in,
he'd sit for hours on the wharf a-watchin' the vessels on the river,
and it were like drawin' teeth for to git him to leave and go up to
his home. His eyes had giv' out sometime afore he quit the sea, and
his legs was shaky, so as he had to walk with a settin' pole, and his
hand were tremblin' and unsteady; but aloft he were still all right,
and his head were as clear as a bell.
"Arter bein' ashore a matter of seven year, he comes to town one day
to see a ship off what he had been in afore he quit, and in which he
had a half interest. The skipper of that ship, which her name were the
Vesuvius, he bein' called Perkins, in comin' from the Custom House
arter clearin', got athwart-hawse of a dray and were knocked down, the
wheels passin' over his legs and breakin' of 'em, and whatever do old
Wiggins do--the home-sickness bein' strong onto him--but says to the
agents, 'It are a pity for to lose a day's fair wind; I'll go aboard
and take her out myself;' and, sure enough, he done it, never lettin'
on to the folks at home, but leavin' the agents to tell 'em arter he
were gone.
"Into that ship I were shipped, she bein' 830 tons or thereabout, with
three royal yards across, and loaded with flour and grain, there bein'
sixteen of us afore the mast, with two mates, carpenter and cook, and
steward, leavin' on the 16th of November, and, unless I'm mistakened,
in the year 1843.
"We towed down to the Hook and out over the bar, and then put the
muslin on to her with a fine breeze from sou'west, and I supposes
there weren't a happier man in the world than old Wiggins when he
discharged the pilot and steamer and took charge.
"'I've giv' 'em the slip,' says he to the mate. 'I've giv' 'em the
slip; they thought I were too old for to go to sea, but I'll show 'em
thar's plenty of life into me yet; git out all the starboard stunsails
and see to it that she's kep' a-movin' night and day, for in sixteen
days I expects to walk the pierhead in Liverpool.' Well, sure enough,
a-movin' she were kep', and I never seen harder carryin's on than I
seen that passage; but we never lost a stitch of canvas, 'cause the
old man not only knowed how to carry it, but he knowed how to take it
off of her when it be to come off, and in a gale of wind he'd 'liven
up wonderful, whereas in light weather he'd show his age. It were
funny for to see him takin' the sun and tryin' to read her off, which
he weren't able for to do, not by no means.
"'What d'ye stand on?' he'd say to the mate arter screwin' his eye to
the glass and tryin' to make it out; and when the mate would tell him,
he'd say, 'I believe that agrees with me; just take a squint at my
instrument; my eyesight ain't just as good as it used for to be, and I
don't quite make it out.' Then the mate would read him off his
instrument, and arter he'd made it eight bells he'd go down and work
it up and prick her off. The fourteenth day out we made the light on
Fastnet Rock, off Cape Clear, and went bowlin' along the coast,
passin' Tuskar next day, and swingin' her off up channel and round
Hollyhead past the Skerries and takin' a pilot off P'int Lynas. It
were a sight worth seein' for to watch the old man handle her in
takin' a pilot. The wind were fresh from west-nor'west, and we passed
the Skerries with all three royals set and lower topmast and
to'gallan' stunsails on the port side. As soon as ever we passed the
rocks we kep' off for Lynas, and as soon as the stunsails got by the
lee they was hauled in. Then with the wind about two p'ints on the
starboard quarter we went bilin' along for the boat which we seen
standin' off shore just to the east'ard of the P'int. There were a
pretty bubble of a sea on, and afore we gits to him he goes about
standin' in to the bay and givin' sheet. We follers along arter him,
goin' two feet to his one, still carryin' all three royals, with hands
at halliards and clewlines. Just afore we gits to him the old man
sings out, 'Clew up the royals, haul down the flyin' jib, haul up the
crochick and mainsail.' By this time we was well under the land and in
smooth water. Keepin' his eye onto the pilot-boat, which were a couple
of p'ints onto our weather bow, the old man no sooner seen her come to
than he sings out, 'Hard up the helm!' And as we swung off afore the
wind we runned up the foresail and laid the head-yards square; then
mannin' the port main braces we let the to'gallan' yards run down on
the caps and let her come to ag'in, and so nicely had the old man
calculated the distance that as she come to the wind she shot up
alongside of the pilot-boat, stoppin' just abreast of her and not over
twenty foot away.
"'That was well done, Mr. Mate,' said the pilot, as he come over the
side; 'some of these galoots makes us chase 'em half a day afore we
can board 'em. Fill away the head-yards, put your helm up, run up the
flyin' jib, brail up the spanker check in the arter yards,' and as she
swung off he comes aft to the wheel where I was a-steerin', and says,
'Keep her east-sou'east, my man; giv' us a chew of terbacker.' We
soon had the muslin piled onto her ag'in, and sure enough, as old
Wiggins had said, the sixteenth day out he walked the pierhead in
Liverpool.
"I understood as old Wiggins was made a good deal on in Liverpool as
bein' the oldest skipper that had ever come there, and the Board of
Trade and what not giv' him dinners, and so on--which, considerin' his
age, he oughtn't to have took--and by other skippers at the hotel he
were much honored, bein' giv' the head of the table and treated with
great deference--and all this dinin' and winin' and feastin' weren't
no good to him--and, arter a stay of three weeks, when we ag'in went
down the river with full complement of passengers and a good freight,
he weren't not by no means as well as when we went in. We had, too, a
tough time down channel, a stiff sou'wester, with rain and thick
weather, and it told onto the old man, so that when arter bein' out a
week we at last got clear of Tuskar and had the ocean open, the relief
from the strain fetched him, and he were took down sick.
"Whether it were to punish him for comin' to sea at his time of life
or not I don't know; but from this on we did have the devil's own
weather. Gale after gale from the west'ard, shiftin' constant from
sou'west to nor'west, and tryin' constant to see from which quarter it
could blow the hardest.
"The mate were a plucky and a able young feller, by the name of
Graham, and he kep' her a-dancin' as well as the old man would have
done. Constant she had everythin' put to her that she'd bear, and
always were she kep' on the tack where she'd make the most westin',
and so she struggled along till we was as far as thirty degrees west,
we bein' thirty days out and not yet half way. Every day we asked the
steward how old Wiggins were a-gittin' on, and every day he'd shake
his head and say 'no better;' and it come to be understood, fore and
aft, that it were as much as a toss-up if the old man ever smelled
grass ag'in. We had a little let-up arter gittin' into the thirties,
and for a day or so had fine weather and a chance to dry our dunnage.
Fine days, however, is scarce in January on that herrin' pond--I'll
take just another; mentionin' herrin's makes me dry--and when you gits
'em they are most always weather-breeders. I went up on to the main
royal yard when our side come up at 8 o'clock one mornin' for to sew
on the leather on the parral, and it were like a day in May. Afore I
got the leather sewed on I be to look out for myself, 'cause they was
goin' to clew up the sail, and from that time on it breezed on from
the sou'ard, keepin' us constantly takin' the sail off of her, till at
four bells we was under double-reefed topsails and reefed courses,
with jib, crochick, and spanker stowed. We hammered away under this,
carryin' on very heavy, 'cause she were headin' west-nor'west, which
were a good course, till eight bells in the arternoon watch, when the
sea gittin' up so tremendiously we had to furl the reefed mainsail
and mizzen topsail and close reef the fore and main topsails.