I lay against the bank above my clam beds, with my hands clasped behind
my head, and I gazed up at the whitish blue of the sky, and at the
little floating clouds flecking the blue, and at an occasional herring
gull flying across my field of vision with moderate wing-beats and with
no apparent object, and at the procession of screaming terns busy at
their fishing. For the terns have come, which always marks the change of
season for me, but the winter gulls have not all gone. And I looked at
the tree over my head, and I cast back over the years. I could see the
tree merely by raising my eyes, without raising my head.
That tree has associations and a history: for under that tree Eve stood
the fifth time that I saw her,--I remember each time,--and it was
raining, a hard drizzle from the southeast, and the water dripped from
her wide felt hat, and shone upon her long coat, and she was smiling. So
that tree has associations for me--and for Eve as well, I believe. And
sundry pairs of rubber boots have been hung in a crotch of it, both
Eve's, and at a somewhat later time, Old Goodwin's; wherefore it has a
history. And here, too, just where my head was pillowed, Eve had sat but
a scant two hours after I had found her out,--I had thought she was a
governess in Old Goodwin's house,--and she had set us both right for
ever. And now there were many happy years behind us, and more happy
years ahead of us, and there were Pukkie and Tidda; but most of all
there was Eve.
So I lay and drank in the sunshine, and basked in its warmth, and my
mind was a blank save for these pleasant musings. My poor little son!
All of the Sunday that he was here--two days ago--it rained hard. He did
not seem to mind it, but dragged me out in it--he had not such hard work
to get me out. I like the wet well enough, but we have had a long
stretch of cold and wet. But he got me out, and wandered the shore, clad
in his rubber coat, and his rubber boots, and his little sou'wester, and
he watched the white schooner; but on the schooner there was no sign of
life save some sailors standing like statues in their dripping
oilskins, and a man in a pea-jacket and faded old blue cap, who paced
back and forth at the stern, or stood still by the rail for long
periods, and then took up his pacing again. And Pukkie looked up at me
and asked whether I thought he was the captain or the mate, and would
have gone out there in one of Old Goodwin's boats, with me to help him
row. But I refused. It is wet and uncomfortable rowing in a pouring
rain; better standing.
And he would go up to his grandfather's in the hope of finding Bobby
Leverett. So we went, and we found Bobby sitting on the piazza with the
telescope and Miss Radnor; and Pukkie bearded Bobby in his chair, and
asked him point-blank what he had been doing in that schooner. We had
told Pukkie about the Rattlesnake, and Jimmy Wales and Ogilvie.
And Bobby grinned at my son, and answered him, if you call it an answer.
"Sorry not to be able to tell you, Puk, old chap," he said, "but you
know we are enjoined not to publish information of the movements of
vessels, and the plans of the navy are a dead secret. It might give
information to the enemy." And he pointed at me.
"Do you know the plans of the navy?" asked Pukkie.
Bobby laughed, and so did Miss Radnor. "I refuse to answer," said Bobby,
"on the ground that it would incriminate me. We may have been out
baiting our traps. Ask your father about it."
"I don't believe the navy has any plans," I said, "so far as you are
concerned. They just want to make you think that you are busy."
"Treason!" Bobby cried loudly. "Treason! I'm afraid it's my duty to lay
charges against you, Adam."
"And I," I retorted, "will expel you from membership in the Clam Beds
Protective Company--if you persist."
"There!" said Miss Radnor. "How will you like that, Mr. Leverett?"
"I'll have to give in," Bobby replied. "It's a cruel and unusual
punishment, and therefore unconstitutional, but Adam wouldn't mind a
little thing like that. I am moved by the thought of Eve's grief,
although you wouldn't think that a good sport like Eve would object to a
traitor's taking off. I surrender, Adam. Be merciful."
Our noise had attracted Old Goodwin, and he joined us. And, thinking
that Bobby might as well be left to the society of the telescope and
Miss Radnor, we left him, we three, and betook ourselves to the shore.
On the white schooner the man in the pea-jacket and old faded blue cap
was still pacing back and forth by the rail, and Pukkie turned to his
grandfather and asked him the question which I could not answer.
At that moment the man caught sight of Old Goodwin, and waved his arm,
and Old Goodwin answered the wave.
"That is Captain Fergus, Pukkie. He's the captain. Some years ago he was
captain of vessels that sailed the deep oceans."
My son was astonished. Captains who sail the deep oceans command his
unbounded respect. I inferred from his reply that skippers of yachts,
even of great white schooner yachts, do not.
"Was he?" he said. "How does it happen that he is skippering a yacht
then?"
Old Goodwin laughed his pleasant, quiet laugh.
"He owns the yacht--or he did. I think it likely that he gave up going
to sea on account of his wife. He was married four or five years ago."
"Oh, his wife!" my son replied in accents of deep scorn. It was
evidently incomprehensible to him that a man should give up such a
delightful occupation for a mere wife.
Old Goodwin laughed again. "I'd take you out there if it weren't so
wet. But never mind. She'll be in here again some time when you're at
home."
Then we wandered the shores until the rain stopped and the sky was a
mass of heavy gray clouds, but the sun did not come out; and Pukkie had
to go in.
The next morning Pukkie found that the yacht had gone, and Old Goodwin
took him back to school, alone with him in the great car. Pukkie did not
mind going back. He has become acclimated at school, and he likes to
ride with his grandfather, sitting in the front seat with all the clocks
and meters and switches and the little lamps like eyes and the levers
and pedals spread out before him. There is reason to suppose that Old
Goodwin gets some pleasure out of it. That is why neither Eve nor I
went. There is more pleasure for him when they two are alone. Old
Goodwin and his grandson are great chums.
When I had got to this point in my ruminations, I realized that the
great pebbles under me, although partly cushioned by sand and by the
dried seaweed which had washed up among them, had been getting harder
and harder. I moved, and groaned involuntarily, and sat up--and rubbed
my eyes. There was the white schooner lying quietly at anchor, her sails
all furled and covered, and no movement on her decks. She lay so still
that she seemed immovable; as firmly fixed as the breakwater itself, or
as the Long Stone, or as one of the distant islands, which swam high in
a bluish haze and flickered in mirage.
I got up slowly, and heard a noise of a rolling pebble; and I turned,
and there was Eve coming along the shore. I went to meet her, and we
came back and sat upon the bank. And Eve looked up at me and smiled, and
her hand went out slowly, and mine met it, and we put our clasped hands
down between us.
"_Now_ they can't see," said Eve. "Can they?"