It was on a Saturday morning about the middle of July, and it had been
foggy; and I had watched the fog retreating stealthily, withdrawing one
long vaporous arm and then another, slinking back like a wraith before
the sun, as if trying to get away unperceived. There was no writhing and
twisting in the anguish of defeat and dissolution, no jets and shreds
vanishing into the hot air above. But the ways of the fog over the sea
are a mystery, and I am not yet at the end of them.
I had gone over to Old Goodwin's to take my daughter, and I had left her
with one of the army of starched and stiff imitations of men in buttons
who haunt the house. They guard every door, so that a man cannot so much
as turn a handle for himself; and one is to be found in each passage,
and at every turn. They might be wooden images from a Noah's Ark,
endowed with movement, but not with life. There are not so many of them
as there were some years ago. They are none of Old Goodwin's doing, and
Mrs. Goodwin has somewhat lost her fancy for them; and some of them, Old
Goodwin told me, have enlisted. Fancy! Those men in buff uniform and
many buttons enlisting! But they will be well used to wearing a uniform,
and they will be well used to doing without question what they are told
to do, and to keeping their faces like masks. They will make good
soldiers I have no doubt, and they may be in France at this moment.
The buttons who admitted us was not so very starched and stiff, and he
seemed to have been endowed with life as well as movement, and to have
become actually a human being. For he smiled when he saw my daughter,
and spoke pleasantly to her, so that I was persuaded that he was even
glad to see her. And she, having thrown him some pleasantry, and a smile
with it, dashed past him through the great hall and vanished. And he,
still smiling, closed the door upon me, and I went in search of Old
Goodwin, who deals not in uniforms and buttons.
I found him on that part of his piazza where stands the great telescope
on its massive tripod. Before him there lay his ocean steamer at
anchor, and he gazed at her steadily--but not through the telescope.
He turned his head as I came, and gave me his quiet smile of peace.
"Good-morning, Adam," he said. "I was just wishing that you would come."
Old Goodwin with his quiet smile--even in his clammer's clothes and his
old stained rubber boots--is yet Goodwin the Rich. It is a marvel.
"Good-morning," I said. "And here I am to do with what you will--for the
space of some hours."
"It may take some hours," he returned, "and it may be done in less."
I did not in the least know what he was talking about, but I was to find
out. He was silent for some while.
"Any news lately?" he asked then.
"War news, I suppose you mean," I said, "and submarines. Nothing that
you have not seen; a submarine in Hampton Roads about a week ago. But
that report was in all the papers. No doubt Jimmy has given you later
news."
"I believe that all boats were sent out from Newport in a hurry last
Sunday. I have heard nothing since. I wonder," he continued, smiling,
"if whales have not something to do with these reports--or sharks. I
hear that there has been a great slaughter of whales in the North Sea in
the last three years."
"Whales have no periscopes."
"They may yet develop them in self-defence if this keeps on long enough.
But I would not cast doubt. You see my boat out there. What do you
think of the color?"
She was all gray, and has been so for some time.
"Why, it is a good color if you like it. She looks like a lump of lead.
I cannot see why the navy does not paint its ships some lighter shade,
with streaks of greens and blues and purples and some white here and
there. Those are the colors that the water shows, although the water is
of a different color in every different light. But I would be willing to
guarantee that I could do better than that--much better."
He looked at me thoughtfully. "That is worth thinking of, Adam. I am
sure you could do better. You couldn't do much worse if the idea is
concealment." He chuckled. "You know the water and its colors. How
would you like to do it?"
"Why, I don't know," I said slowly. "I have never thought of it. The
fact is," I blurted out, and choked upon my words. Why should I confess
to Old Goodwin what I had been unwilling to confess to myself? But the
impulse was too strong. "The fact is," I began again more quietly, "I am
not satisfied. I cannot be content to till the ground--which any Western
Islander could do as well or better--and to moon upon my bluff when
every one I know is doing more. Could you?"
He smiled and shook his head. "I could not in your place. But come out
to my boat with me. I want to show you the changes I have made."
So we went in his tender which was lying at his landing with her men in
her, that had been waiting for us. And on the way out he asked me
casually and seemingly without interest, how I liked steamers; and he
had his gaze fixed upon his great vessel as though he had an affection
for her.
"They are good for getting somewhere quickly," I answered him, "if you
mean such as yours. For the rest, one might as well be in some great
modern hotel on an island in the midst of the sea. There is no more
pleasure in them. Now tell me, is there?"
He laughed a hearty laugh. "I can well imagine, Adam, the pleasure you
would have in being in a great hotel, whether it was in the midst of the
sea or in the midst of the city, but I have had some pleasure in that
boat. I have some regard for her."
"Then I ask your pardon," I said, "for the answer that I gave. I should
have said other. But what I meant was clear enough. A sailing vessel is
a living thing, and each has ways of her own. You feel her response to
each movement of the wheel or each change of sail or trim of sheet, and
that response is sometimes willing and sometimes unwilling. She is like
a woman, responding instantly and gladly to a man who persuades her with
sympathy and understanding, and doing her best; while to a man without
true understanding of her she is reluctant and contrary and stubborn. I
have no experience in vessels of size, but you can ask Captain Fergus."
He laughed again. "Fergus is of the same opinion," he said. "But what I
meant to ask was whether you have experience of steamers."