Now, of course, that I know what Bellwattle has told her husband about
me, I view Cruikshank in a different light. Now, moreover, that he
imagines he knows my little secret, he does the same with me. I catch
his eyes looking at me with a cunning expression that is humorous, too,
as though he found a hidden meaning in every word I said.
"This place suits your appetite," he remarked the other morning, at
breakfast, when I put away my empty porridge-dish and fell to work upon
the fresh mackerel which had been caught at sunrise. "You don't eat
like this in London."
Upon my soul, I believe he expects to see me waste away to nothing now
that he imagines I am in love. Thank Heaven, a bitter experience has
made me too prosaic for that. I may not be a philosopher, but at least
I manage to live alone, which cannot be done with such romantic fancies
as lead to starvation or any such tricks as that. Indeed, I learn much
from Dandy, whose deepest passion never diminishes his excitement when
it comes to the moment for Moxon to throw his two biscuits on to the
tesselated pavement in the hall. It is he who likes them thrown. At
first I had disapproved.
"Can't you put those biscuits on a plate?" I once said to Moxon,
"instead of flinging the food at him."
Moxon took my reproach most excellently, and replied he had begun in
that fashion, but that Dandy had shown signs of disliking the plate.
It appears he picked up the biscuits himself and threw them across the
hall.
"As if to make out, sir," said Moxon, "that they was alive. So I
thought it would add to the illusion if I did it for him. I fancy
myself, sir, that they must taste nicer to him that way."
Of course, Moxon is a sentimentalist, which I am not; neither, for the
matter of that, is Dandy. But Moxon--well, I rather fancy myself that
Moxon would go down in weight a bit were he in love. He is built that
way. Now, I am neither built that way, nor am I at the present moment
martyr to any passion at all, wherefore I would eat a breakfast with
any one and be glad of it.
I do not think I have ever felt so keen an appetite in all my life as
during these three days while I am waiting for Friday to arrive. One
thing only concerns me. Our meeting is to be at twelve o'clock--midday.
In all my thoughts of her coming, I have imagined it would be at night,
when she might have found excuse to escape from the Miss Fennells and
contrive to see me alone. But, no, it is to be in broad daylight. Even
that heavy veil--which, indeed, it is quite likely she will not wear,
since I have said I know her eyes are well--but even that at such an
hour will not dim the quickness of her perception. She will see me as
Bellwattle sees me, as every woman has seen me since the first moment
when an absurd and morbid sensitiveness induced me to notice such
things. And then--will she listen to me? I leave it on the knees of the
implacable gods.
Something tells me that I have not set out upon the wild errand of my
journey for nothing. For so far do I believe in Destiny, that what we
do, having within us some definite purpose to accomplish, is ordained
to a certain end. Some end, it may be, so foreign to our thoughts, as
is impossible of conception; but a definite purpose will always be a
weapon in the hand of Fate to achieve a definite victory. I only pray
that mine may be what I have hoped of it. I only pray that the result
of my adventure may be the return of that little spirit in prison to
her home in the burning heart of the sun.
I was up early this morning, for it is Friday, the day I have been
waiting for. The sun beat down upon my face and woke me before it was
six o'clock. It was then as I lay there, with my eyes half closed, that
the sound of a far voice shouting on the cliffs came dimly to my ears.
It was arresting, insistent, but not enough to stir me. I neither moved
my head nor opened my eyes; but I listened, sleepily wondering what it
was.
Presently a voice from below in the garden rose compellingly to my open
window.
"Bellairs! Come down! There are sprats in the bay--they've got the nets
out."
I jumped up from my bed and looked down. There was Cruikshank, dressed
in such garments as served to make him decent and no more.
"Shove some things on," said he, "and come along with me as quick as
you can. I'll show you the sight of your life."
I was with him in a moment, and we were hurrying along to the cliffs.
"Where's Bellwattle?" I asked.
"In the garden. She won't come and look at these things. I tell her
fish have no nerve centres, that they feel nothing; but it's no good.
She sees them wriggle and that's enough for her. Ever seen a haul of
sprats?"
I shook my head.
"My Lord!" said he, and in that exclamation he spoke more for the sight
of it than if he had talked for hours. The silence that followed filled
my imagination, till suddenly he broke it.
"Bellwattle says you're going to take the cottage in the hollow," he
declared.
I opened my eyes wide and laughed.
"She told you that as a fact?" said I.
"Yes."
"When do I take possession?"
"Next year."
I laughed again.
"Well--what do you think about it?" said I. "Do you approve?"
"I shall be delighted. You must let me help you to make the garden.
Only suggest--here and there. I know just what can be done with it."
"But do you really believe that I am going to take it?" I exclaimed.
"She says so. I suppose she knows what she's talking about."
"She said so--seriously?"
"Yes--quite."
Now what in the name of Heaven does she mean? She is not one of those
women who talk for the sake of talking. I have been out with her on
the cliffs when, for long stretches, she has been silent, and that,
not for want of things to say, but because there have not been words
good enough to say them with. Then what does she mean when she tells
Cruikshank that next year I am going to take the cottage in the hollow?
"Don't say anything about that," he added. "I've just remembered that
she told me I was not to breathe a word of it to you."
Then it is really true, so far as she is concerned. She really thinks
of it as of some definite event that will ultimately take place. Upon
my soul, the wiles and ways of women exceed the steepest flights of my
imagination. I had told her it was out of the question; she declares to
Cruikshank it is a certain fact.
However, there was no time to wonder about it then. We had come up the
cliff road, past the fishermen's cottages and there, beyond the pier,
by the steep purple rocks of sandstone, of which all this coast-line
is composed, there was the boat putting out with the nets, racing
through the water, the great sweeps bending from their wooden rowlocks
with the sudden power of every stroke. It is this, this moment of
casting the net at the stentorian command of him who stands high upon
the cliff above, it is this moment which is the most critical of all.
For hours they may have waited, knowing that fish are in the bay. For
hours--I have seen them since, with the boat lying idly on the tranquil
waters, the men dozing lazily at their oars, while high above them is
that watchman the one man alone in all the village whose keen eye can
follow the passage of the school--for hours they will wait in easy
idleness as he sits there on guard about them, his chin resting rigidly
upon his knees, his sombrero hat pulled heavily down above his eyes,
motionless and silent as a piece of statuary which the rough hand of
Nature has carved out of such living marble as is only hers to mould.
I have sat by his side and spoken to him, but he never answers. I have
tried to see with his eyes the intangible tone upon the water which
these myriad creatures make in their frightened passage to escape from
the thousand enemies pursuing them, but never a sign have I seen. The
eyes of God are set in the hollows of his head, for so it seems to me
must the Omnipotent Power sit silently upon the great cliffs of Time
noting the struggles and the passages of all the countless little
creatures that fill the vast sea of this world.
But he is not silent, this watchman, for long. A moment in his vigil
comes when the muscles of his face begin to twitch and tremble. Another
instant and he is upon his feet, shouting in guttural Gaelic to the
men in the boat below. With his hat, now crushed within his hands, he
waves, gesticulates and cries his orders from the cliffs above the sea,
and in swift obedience to his voice that echoes and re-echoes from the
giant walls of rock, the men put out from the shore. In a moment the
mighty sweeps are straining back to the long, deep stroke, the little
wave of water rises at the nose of the boat and swells and swells as
she makes her speed, while in the stern there stands one of those
swarthy fishermen, heaving overboard the coils and coils of dusky nets
that sink down and away into the green water, leaving behind their
little studs of floating cork to mark the circle they have bound.
That is a moment then! A moment when it seems the business of the whole
world might cease to let this thing be done. And then the net is thrown
at last. Without delay they set themselves to haul it in.
Cruikshank was not far wrong. It was a sight I shall ever remember, the
casting and the drawing of those nets on that still May morning after
sunrise, when even the sea was scarce awake. By the time we reached
the rocks, that great circle of floating corks had narrowed down to so
confined a space that the fish were leaping from the water in their
efforts to be free. Every man there had the bright light of excitement
in his eyes and, as he lashed the water with his oar, driving the
fish far back into the relentless prison of the net, one of the
fishermen sang the lilt of a strange, barbaric song below his breath.
Splash--splash went the oar like a giant metronome, beating the pulse
to his song.
And then the last phase of it, the boats surrounding that great basin
of the net, men ladling out the fish from the hissing water, filling
the boats until they stood knee-deep in molten, running silver, and
the gunwales sunk lower down and lower into the sea. How exhaustless
it seemed, that mine of glittering metal! Again and again they plunged
their great ladles into the bright green water; again and again they
brought them forth heavy with the burden of such glory of riches as I
have never seen. My eyes were filled with silver and emerald--emerald
and silver, they seemed the only colors in the world.
It is over and done with all too soon. All too soon the nets are shaken
out and the boats go toiling back--barges of silver bullion--to their
little market-place by the pier. And then those white-winged scavengers
of the sea, the shrieking, hungry gulls are all that are left to mark
the spot where God has given one mighty handful of His treasure for the
needs of men.
I stood there for a moment watching them as they flung themselves
upon the water for the crumbs of silver which had fallen from the
rich man's coffers. Again I turned my head for the last sight of the
heavy-laden boats as they swung out of view around the corner of the
pier. The next moment they were gone. The whole place was quiet once
more. I looked about me. It was hard to believe that what I had just
beheld was anything other than a waking dream. Then Cruikshank stooped
down, and from a pool of water collected in the hollow of a rock, he
picked up one of the little fish that had escaped. With a gentle hand
he flung it back into the sea, and we both watched it as it floundered
for a moment helplessly upon the surface.
"That gull's getting it!" said I, as I saw the great wings swoop down,
but with an effort the fish turned and dived. We saw it shooting down,
a little glittering arrow of light, into the unfathomable depths of
green. Deeper and deeper it went until it was but a twinkling silver
point, then the shadows swayed over it and it was gone.
"I have acquitted myself," said Cruikshank.
I looked at him for explanation.
"Bellwattle will ask me if I saved any of the sprats. I shall be able
to tell her the truth for a change."