"Sick at heart," I said, "looking for what is not. We might
request--through the proper diplomatic channels--that Germany send some
over, one for each district."
He laughed again. "It would relieve the monotony, and put spirit into
our men. Imagine Fergus if there were any. He is a war-horse."
And he led the way, waving some officer aside, and took me through the
boat and showed me everything. He had made changes. I should not have
known it for the same boat. The staterooms, that had been palatial, had
been divided, but were large in their new state; and new quarters had
been provided for the crew, who would be twice as many men as he had
ever carried; and she had been strengthened for the mountings of the
guns. Many other changes had been made, but it was these that he
lingered over. They had been some months in making the changes, and he
had carried a small army of mechanics about with him.
He had been showing me the officers' quarters for the third time, and at
last he turned away.
"I am given to understand," he observed, "that any recommendations I
may make will receive due consideration. Fergus is made a commander, but
there are vacancies."
He meant me, of course. The finger of destiny always points at me. It
was as much as an offer, but I should have been ashamed to accept it. A
man should enroll, and then let the navy do what they will with him. Of
course he should; but that is ascribing all wisdom to the men who have
all power. They are but men, and have not all wisdom; they are but men
as we are, and some of them a little less.
I smiled. "I am sorry," I said, "that I know nothing of steamers and the
running of them, or I should be tempted to try for one of the
vacancies. I do not suppose I could qualify for anything; a
coal-passer, or even a third-class quartermaster perhaps, no better. And
I should not like to have fingers of scorn pointed at me as being the
admiral's pet or something of the kind. It would smack of politics and
influence."
Old Goodwin laughed. "It is not an improper use of influence to point
out a man's virtues," he answered, "but quite proper. The authorities do
not know you, but I do, and I consider you well qualified. The knowledge
of your duties you could pick up soon enough. You could pass the
examination for a lieutenant's commission in two weeks. I would not be
afraid to promise it. You can navigate, Adam."
I nodded. "I wish it could be done. But you forget that I am
forty-three. They don't want men of forty-three."
"It might be done," he said. "Fergus is forty-four, but many years a
master. It might be done, but if you don't want--"
I interrupted him. "You forget Eve. She is a pacifist--as bad as
Cecily."
He smiled. "Eve is not so much a pacifist--nor Cecily. I would not worry
about Eve."
That was news to me--if he was right. And I did want to do something, if
only to restore my self-respect, that was well-nigh gone from me. It was
but to find that something that I could do better than another, if such
there was.
"I will think about it," I said.
"Do," he returned, "and so will I. It may be that this vessel is not
the place for you. I should like it better if there was something that
would keep you here or hereabouts--and so would Eve. It should be
something that no one else can do."
I laughed and said nothing. What was there for me to say? But my laugh
had no merriment in it. It was simple: I had but to find that which I
could do and no one else; but stay--it must be useful in the present
case. And I laughed again savagely, and I looked up, and there was the
Rattlesnake anchored beside the Arcadia.
"They are well in time for the clambake," I remarked, "although they
have digged no clams."
For this was the day of Ogilvie's farewell. He had written Eve, and she
had got the note the day before; and all the afternoon I had been busy
with getting my supplies, and in the early morning of this day we had
digged the clams. It was but a remnant of my company that gathered
there, only Old Goodwin and Eve and Elizabeth and Cecily and me--and
Captain Fergus. I almost forgot Captain Fergus, but he dug few clams.
The burden of the day fell upon Old Goodwin and me. Jimmy and Bobby and
Ogilvie and Tom and Mrs. Fergus and Olivia were absent. And now there
was naught to do but to start the bake. Old Goodwin and I went in
silence to the tender, and ashore.
"Think hard," said Old Goodwin as I was leaving him. "There must be
something."
"If only we can find it," I returned. "I have little hope."
He smiled his old smile of peace. "I have much," he said. "I can take
you over to Newport on any day you wish. I will be over to help you with
the bake."
Our clambake was a good clambake, and the clams were good, being
fresh-digged and well baked, and the lobsters tender, being
small--indeed, I was glad that no inspectors from the police boat were
there to measure them. I did not measure them, being well enough content
to take the word of the fishermen. And the chickens were good and all
things else; but there was something lacking, something wrong, and that
something was in the spirits of the guests. Old Goodwin was cheerful,
and Elizabeth seemed cheerful enough, and Jimmy; but upon the spirits of
the rest of us there sat an incubus. Ogilvie said but little, and Bobby
was restless and discontented. He had hard work to sit still long enough
to eat; and thereafter he wandered to and fro like a lost soul, standing
at the edge of the bluff and looking out moodily, then wandering over to
my garden and regarding it critically, then back to the pine, taking his
knife from out his pocket and tapping it upon the table, then wandering
aimlessly to the clump of trees, then to the bluff again.
My garden is not on exhibition. It is not weedless, as Judson's used to
be, but is for use; and it is not to be regarded critically. And the
tapping of knives on the smooth pine planks of the table is not to be
commended. I came very near speaking to him about it, and then I saw Eve
watching Bobby with an anxious look, and I caught for an instant a
glimpse of Elizabeth's eyes. They hurt me. It was but for an instant,
then she veiled them, and the lights played upon them. She was watching
Bobby too.
So we got through an uncomfortable afternoon, and it came time for them
to go. Eve had Jack Ogilvie by himself at the edge of the bluff, and
they talked earnestly, and he took her hand and smiled his pleasant
smile, and they came back to us. Bobby was tapping his knife upon the
smooth pine boards.
"I envy you, Jack," he said, heaving a tremendous sigh. "I'll be there
too, if there is any way." He turned suddenly to Old Goodwin. "Can't you
say a word for me? What is the use of influential relatives, anyway?"
And Old Goodwin laughed. "They are of little use, Bobby. And I am
surprised that you are willing to use influence in such a matter."
And he looked at me and winked.
"Use influence!" Bobby cried under his breath. "I'd use anything--a
crowbar, if that would get me there."
Then they said their farewells, and Bobby shook hands with Eve and me,
but not with Elizabeth. She stood there, her hands hanging at her sides,
and a smile upon her lips,--not in her eyes,--while Bobby turned away.
But he turned back again as if it were against his will and some great
force turned him.
"Good-bye, Elizabeth," he said low, and he half held out his hand.
She went forward quickly. "Good-bye, Bobby," she said.
And Bobby gripped her hand so that it must have hurt, and held it long
and hard. Then he flung it from him as I had seen him do once before,
and strode away abruptly, and ran down the steep path after the others.
Elizabeth came back to us smiling--with her lips and eyes and heart; and
Eve kissed her suddenly, and she laughed and cast down her eyes, and
they went in together.
I stood upon the edge of my bluff when the sun was low in the west, and
I watched the colors that the Great Painter spread upon the still
waters. And I saw again that little strip of marsh below me, each grass
stem standing straight and motionless and dark in the still water, but
each stem was edged with greenish gold. Little waves rippled in--from
some boat out in the harbor--and the grass stems rippled gently with
it, and the bars of gold upon the waves and the waving lines of gold
upon the grass stems advanced with it until the wave broke upon the
store. I looked out to see what boat it was, and it was Ogilvie's, and
he stood and gazed and waved to me, and I waved back, and then I
bethought me of my signalling. So I waved my arms like a semaphore gone
mad, and I sent him a message in farewell; and he understood, and
thanked me and sent a farewell to Eve. Then he was gone out into the
pearl-gray of the coming twilight, and his gray boat was lost in the
gray of sky and sea.
I looked down at the little marsh. The grass was still again, and two
blackbirds flew across it. I saw the red shoulders of one as he guided
his waving flight, and the grass stems standing up darkly above the
bright water, as if they were set in glass. It seemed infinitely
beautiful and sweet, and infinitely sad.
I was wakened in the night by a noise outside our window; a little
noise, as if somebody were trying not to make it. A greater noise, one
made as if by right, would not have awakened me. And I took a stick that
I have--a straight hickory handle for a sledge fits the hand well, and
makes an admirable weapon--and I went out, thinking of German spies.
There was no moon, but I saw him. My spy was doing nothing but gazing up
at the window, and I came upon him from behind and caught him by the
collar. That collar was stiff with braid.
He turned quickly and wrenched himself free.
"What do you mean, Adam," he asked, "by your murderous assault upon a
peaceful relative?"
It was Bobby. "You're no relative of mine," I said. "What are you doing,
anyway? Don't you know that the window you are gazing at is mine--Eve's
and mine?"
"All the windows in the house are yours, aren't they?" he growled. "And
I'm not looking at any window. But why can't I if I want to? Answer me
that."
There was no answer to that. "It is lucky," I observed, "that I keep no
dog--a dog like Burdon's. I think of getting one."
Bobby laughed at that. Burdon had a great dog, a vicious beast, which
amused himself one day by chasing Burdon into the hencoop, growling and
snarling savagely. He kept him there for hours until there came along a
boy who had owned the dog until his father decided that the dog was too
vicious and gave him to Burdon. The boy seized the dog by the collar,
and dragged him away and chained him, and told Burdon that he could come
out.
"Don't you do it, Adam," Bobby said. "Think how you would feel if you
came out and found only my mangled remains. And I am doing no harm--only
wandering about."
So he was but wandering about. He should have been in bed. And we stood
there and talked for a few minutes, and Bobby wandered off to my steep
path and down to the shore, and I heard the sound of great pebbles
rolling, and I heard him whistling softly some mournful air. I went in
and to bed. Elizabeth sleeps in the room down the hall, and her windows
are around the corner. I heard a little noise from her room as I turned
into mine.
X
One morning--it was the first of August, the middle of that hot week--I
was sitting on the seat under my great pine, and Eve sat beside me. I
was waiting for Elizabeth, for the time had come again for the Arcadia
to be about her mysterious business on the sea, and this time I was to
go. It was what Elizabeth called "transferring" something or somebody.
What it was and where it was I was to find out. I wished that Eve was
going--and Pukkie. I said as much.
"Elizabeth has not asked us," she replied. "I could not go if I were
asked, for I promised to go to mother's. She has one of her bad turns.
But Pukkie would love it."
I murmured my regret at Mrs. Goodwin's illness. Her illnesses are not
serious and do not last long, and the cause of them is not far to seek.
She eats most heartily and takes no exercise, and that practice ever
bred illness. I would have her mowing for remedy.
Eve slipped her hand within my arm and clasped the other over it.
"Adam," she said, giving my arm a gentle squeeze, "what is it that is
troubling you? Something does. It has for a long time."
Now that was what I did not expect, that Eve should think me troubled,
for I thought that I had been most careful. But I should have known
better. Eve always knows. And the thing that had been troubling me more
than any other was that I had not thought of that no one else could do
but I.
I looked down into her eyes, and I saw there many things; but love and
longing most of all, the longing to comfort me if she could but lay her
finger on the hurt.