"On the day of the draft," I said, "I was in the village, and I saw all
the inhabitants assembled, and they scanned each batch of numbers as the
news came, but not a third of them knew what their own numbers were.
Some did, and I saw two that were drafted. One of the two went out from
that assembly with eyes that saw nothing, looking as if he went to his
execution. The other laughed, and said that that settled it, and he was
glad. And tell me if you can the answer to my riddle--which has nothing
to do with the assembly in the village--and say what there is that I can
do, but no one else."
She laughed. "Is that the matter? And must the thing be useful? I know
several things that no one else can do, but they are not useful. If it
must be useful,--well,--I cannot think of it at this moment, but I have
no doubt I shall." She leaned forward, and tried to look into my eyes;
and failing that, she shook me. "What is the nature of this thing that
you must do? Look at me, and tell me."
I was afraid to look at her lest she guess, and I was not ready to tell
her. I might never be ready.
"It is nothing, Eve," I said: "nothing of importance. It is not worth a
minute's worry." And that was true too.
"Foist it upon somebody else then," she answered quickly. "There are
persons to decide those things."
I looked at her then. "I cannot believe that I get your meaning. You
could not know. Truly there are persons to decide those things, but
Heaven knows whether they are competent to decide anything. No doubt
they would cheerfully and light-heartedly consign me to--what I should
not do."
I stopped abruptly. I had almost told her that which I had determined
not to tell her--yet. I looked into her eyes, and there I saw laughter
and joy and hope and great love; and I saw the same tender wistfulness
that I had seen so many times in the past weeks. But joy and laughter
conquered.
"I hear Elizabeth coming," she said, "and I hope you may read your
riddle. Now we must be most proper. Are you proper, Adam?"
And Elizabeth came while I was yet straightening my hair, and getting it
into a comfortable condition. It feels most uncomfortable when it is
rumpled and each separate hair taking a different direction, like the
brush that is used to black the stove. It feels as that brush looks.
Elizabeth laughed at me unfeelingly. And she turned to Eve. But people
always turn to Eve. "I'm going to take Pukkie, Eve, if you don't mind.
Captain Fergus did not ask him, but I'm going to take him anyway. I've
told him."
And Eve smiled and said nothing, and we started, and Pukkie came
running, his face expressing his delight. And when we were in the launch
and starting from the landing, Eve wished me once more the proper
reading of my riddle, and she threw a kiss to us, and stood there until
we were aboard the Arcadia; then we saw her wending up the slope toward
the great house.
The sails were already hoisted and the anchor hove short. Elizabeth and
Captain Fergus and Pukkie and I were settled in chairs along the rail,
and the crew went about their business so quickly and so quietly that
the first I knew of our being under way was the gentle canting of the
deck beneath my feet. We had slipped out.
The wind was very light, but it was making rapidly, and there was a
long, heaving swell from the Atlantic--perhaps two hundred feet from
crest to crest--which made the big Arcadia pitch gently and bury her bow
to the eyes. At last one of these seas, higher than most of those which
made up the great procession, crept up higher yet and slopped over upon
the deck. And her bows rose, and there was a rush of water along the
deck, and there came the noise of falling water from hawse pipes and
scuppers.
Pukkie laughed with delight, and Captain Fergus looked up.
"Crack on," he said; and they set more sail.
Presently there came another of those mighty rollers. She took it over
her bows, a flood of green water, and it came roaring aft. Again there
was the sound of many waters, more mighty yet, as hawse pipes and
scuppers spouted forth their loads.
Captain Fergus looked up at the masts. "Crack on," he said again. And he
got up and wandered to and fro across the deck, gazing up at the masts
and at the men setting the light sails.
"She'd do better," he said, stopping for an instant by my chair, "if I
hadn't had to put that confounded engine in her. You wouldn't believe
what a drag a screw is, even when it is feathering."
She was doing well enough. All her light sails were set, and she was
furnished forth with all her frills and furbelows, so that there was no
place where she could carry another stitch. She bent to her business and
sailed. And Captain Fergus smiled a smile of satisfaction--in spite of
that dragging screw.
Pukkie had left his comfortable chair, and was leaning against my knee,
saying nothing, but looking back at me now and then, his face a study.
It was a pleasure just to watch him. Captain Fergus seemed to find it
so, and Elizabeth had been watching him for some time.
"Come, young man," Captain Fergus said suddenly. "Don't you want to walk
a while with me--to pace the deck with measured tread, while
what-you-may-call-it on the dead? Eh?"
And Pukkie smiled more than ever--if that were possible--and jumped and
joined him; and they walked--paced the deck with measured tread for some
time in solemn silence. Captain Fergus would glance aloft, and Pukkie
would glance aloft; and at last I smiled and Elizabeth laughed.
"Don't you feel like pacing the deck with measured tread?" I asked.
And she got up as if she had been sitting on a spring, and we paced the
deck in solemn silence behind those other two.
Captain Fergus turned suddenly. "This young man ought to have a
uniform," he said. "I've got one that he could wear. Steward!"
And the steward, having come instantly and received his instructions,
vanished below, and immediately reappeared, bearing an ensign's coat and
cap. These were fitted upon my son. They were too large, but he could
wear them.
"But, Captain Fergus," said Elizabeth, laughing, "the regulations!"
"Jigger the regulations!" remarked Captain Fergus, smiling. "I pay
mighty little attention to regulations when I'm on my own vessel.
Pukkie's my first officer."
My little son beamed at this, and turned to show me his uniform.
"When you command that yacht of Mr. Goodwin's," said Elizabeth, "you'll
have to pay some attention to the regulations."
"Have to sleep in my uniform, like as not," Captain Fergus growled.
"According to the order we are not to unbutton a button of the coat on
any occasion. If that doesn't mean sleep in your uniform, what does it
mean?"
"You can't have Pukkie for your first officer then," Elizabeth pursued.
"Can you?"
"I suppose not. Probably some yachting chaps who have been prominent
socially and got their pictures in the papers. I hope not, though. There
are some good men in the Reserve. I only hope they may give me men who
have had experience in steamers. I don't want any of these pets who have
commissions merely because they had influence, or because they were rich
enough to give a boat."
I said nothing. I had the light that I was looking for, although it did
not illumine my problem, but was what I had supposed it would be. After
all, if a man do but use the sense that God gave him and stand by his
judgments, he will do well enough. I would have none of Old Goodwin's
steamer. What was I, to be officer on a great steamer? I might command a
rowboat, or a yacht like Pukkie's if need were.
"You do not have a very high opinion," I said, "of the navy?"
"What?" he said. "High opinion? Oh, yes, I have. Good men and fine
vessels, many of them. It's a sailor's right to growl at the service
he's in. You mustn't take what he says too seriously."
"Would you advise a man to enroll in the navy?"
"Depends on the man. If he has a taste for the sea, he'd be more
contented in the navy than in the army, but many men have a strong
distaste for it. I'd advise your man to get the best rank he can, and to
have no modesty about it. If he doesn't get it some other fellow will
who is not troubled by modesty."
And Captain Fergus took up his pacing the deck again, and Pukkie walked
beside him, taking as long a stride as he could. Elizabeth watched them,
a smile of affection in her eyes.
"Isn't he fine in his uniform?" she whispered. "But he would be happier
if he could wear his old blue coat and his old blue cap."
He was fine, and he looked the sailor and the fighter. But I knew that
old blue coat and that old blue cap, hanging in his cabin. The sun had
shone caressingly upon them many times, and seemed to like them almost
as well as he liked them; and they had changed their colors, as
everything does under the caresses of the sun, until they were blue no
longer, but of a purplish cast, shot with red.
The wind grew, as winds will, until two or three in the afternoon, and
the sea grew with it, but always there were those great rollers coming
in from the Atlantic. And the Arcadia was doing her twelve knots, bowing
majestically and buffeting the great seas, tearing the tops from them
and sending sheets of spray, which rattled upon her deck or upon the
surface of the water like hail; and the water hissed past the rail, and
there was the gentle cluck of blocks, deep in their throats, with the
heave of the sea, and there was the sound of wind in the rigging and of
ropes beating on taut sails. Altogether it made glad my heart; and
Elizabeth seemed to like it, and Pukkie's heart was swollen almost to
bursting. And the captain paced to and fro, saying nothing, or he stood
by the rail looking out over the waters, his cap pulled down low, an
unquenchable light in his deep blue eyes and a happy smile on his lips.
We had passed the colored cliffs of Gay Head shining in the sun, and we
were passing Nomansland, and the great rollers were greater yet. There
was fog out beyond, lying in wait. Captain Fergus nodded to Elizabeth.
"Better see if we can pick them up," he said.
She turned to go below, and stopped at the companionway.
"Look," she said.
We looked where she pointed. There, on the surface of the sea, about two
miles away, was some great thing glistening in the sun, the water
washing over it. A thick haze, or the advance guard of the fog, made it
hard to see anything clearly except the glisten of the sun.
"Oh," cried Pukkie, "I see it. Is it a submarine?" And he looked up at
the captain.
"More likely a whale," the captain answered, smiling; "but we will see."
And the course of the Arcadia was changed a little so that she was
heading straight for it. She kept on for it, and now and then the
sunlight caught it and made it to shine like the windows of a house at
sunset, and again it was a dark body with the water washing over it, and
we could scarcely make it out, lying there in the sea. As we approached
my breath came quicker and my eyes glistened, and I smiled. I know it,
for Elizabeth glanced at me and laughed. It was a mysterious thing,
lying there in that thick haze. It seemed as if it might be a submarine,
although reason told me it was not.
"What do you mean to do?" I asked.
"Ram him," answered the captain promptly, "if it is a submarine and we
can get there in time. A fast sailing vessel is better, for he could
hear our screw. But it is no submarine. It looks more like a vessel's
bilge. There! Ha!"
The glistening body moved, and great flukes suddenly reared on high, and
the body disappeared.
"A sleeping whale," Captain Fergus observed. "Another submarine report
gone wrong."
"Are there any over here?"
"Not now, I am reasonably sure. Don't believe there will be, although I
may be mistaken. They can use them to better advantage on the other
side. But there may be, in time, unless Germany blows up first. We don't
know what is happening in Germany. They may blow up at any minute, and
they may not. Shouldn't be surprised--and I shouldn't be surprised if
they kept going for a year or two longer. Look at the Russian army,
just got well going and they have mutiny and lose it all. Too bad! I'd
like to see any crew of mine try it!"
Elizabeth laughed and went below, and Captain Fergus began again his
walking to and fro. Presently Elizabeth came up and spoke to him, and
the course was changed, and in an hour we had sighted a steamer making
for us.
It was the Rattlesnake; and the two vessels lay quiet on that rolling
sea while our tender went over with a package of papers, and came back
with Bobby. And the Rattlesnake turned about and we soon lost her in the
haze, and we turned about and headed for home.
Bobby was not talkative on the way back. Indeed, Bobby has not been
himself for some weeks; not the Bobby that I knew of old. I cannot fix
the date at which the change occurred, but it was some date that had to
do with Elizabeth. Every date has to do with Elizabeth, so far as he is
concerned. And though he spoke to her when he came over the side--spoke
gravely, I suppose he thought--it seemed more like petulance to me--he
said no word more to her, but sat in his chair and gazed moodily out
over the water. And Elizabeth sat in her chair, and she gazed at Bobby
under lowered lids, and she smiled her smile of suppressed amusement.
And presently, her thoughts being unguarded, she raised her lids a
little, so that I saw all the lights of the sea playing in her eyes,
that were yet regarding Bobby, and there came into them a tender light
that was more than all the light on sea and sky. And she glanced at me,
and she saw that I had seen, and she flushed slowly, and got up and went
below.
"Bobby," I said, "are you not ashamed of yourself?"
He started. "Ashamed of myself?" he answered, looking at the
companionway down which Elizabeth had disappeared. "No doubt I should
be. I do things enough to be ashamed of. But why?"
"You have not seemed to notice the honor that has befallen my family. My
son is made ensign or lieutenant commander or something, and you have
not remarked the event. I am afraid that you have hurt his feelings."
Bobby laughed as though he was relieved.
"So he is--ensign or something, as you say. And I did not observe it. I
ask his pardon, Adam, and yours." And he called to Pukkie, who was
following Captain Fergus about like a pet dog; and Pukkie came, and
Bobby felicitated him upon his promotion. And Pukkie smiled until I
feared lest his face crack.
"It is a trifle large," Bobby remarked, referring to the uniform, "but
he will grow to it."
"It is not so much too large as it was," I said. "You should have seen
him swell--like a toad-grunter."
"Daddy," protested the aggrieved Pukkie, "I'm not like a toad-grunter."
The toad-grunter is a much despised fish.
"No, Puk," said Bobby, "you're not. I think your father should
apologize."
"I apologize, Pukkie," I said hastily, for I would not wound my son.
"You are not. And, Bobby, can't you find any? Is that why you are out of
sorts?"
"Find any what?" asked Bobby, puzzled. "Any toad-grunters? I hope not.
Who wants to find 'em? You speak in riddles, Adam."
"It was submarines I meant."
Bobby smiled seraphically. "Your traps, Adam, are no good. But I'm going
to find some submarines pretty soon. Pret--ty soon, you mark my words."
"Words marked. But what do you mean?"
"What I say. Now, Puk, what do you say to a walk about the deck? Or
would you rather follow your captain?"
And Bobby strolled off with Pukkie. They went up forward, where the
Arcadia was shouldering aside the great seas. We had the wind on the
quarter, and there was no longer the sound of spray like rolling
musketry. And presently Elizabeth looked out of the companionway, and
seeing me alone, she came and sat in the chair next to mine, and she put
out her hand.
"Adam," she said with a pretty flush.
"Elizabeth," I answered, with no flush, but I watched hers flaming.
"Adam, don't you tell," she said, looking shyly at me. Elizabeth is not
given to shy looks, but to honest ones, eye to eye. "Promise me that
you will never tell. Give me your hand on it."
I took her hand. It was a pretty hand and soft enough, with tapering
fingers, but it was not such a pretty hand as Eve's.
"Elizabeth," I said to her, "I do not know anything to tell--anything
that would be of interest. But--but you do not mind if I tell Eve, do
you? And," I finished lamely enough, "I hope it--it will."
She laughed and sighed, and gave my hand a squeeze.
"Thank you," she said. "But Eve knows, I think."
Captain Fergus was standing by the rail, sniffing the wind and gazing
out at the waters, and at the little swirls of foam that raced by, and
at the bank of fog that chased us in. He was happy. I almost envied
him. He had done his part, and he was doing it.
"Will you walk?" I asked Elizabeth. And we got up and walked, saying
nothing.
The afternoon passed, and the wind died. As we drew near to the
lighthouse that stands like a sentinel on its rock just within the
entrance to the bay, the sun was far down in the west, the breeze was
but the gentlest breath, and the surface of the water moved in slow,
oily undulations. I stood with Elizabeth close beside the rail, and we
gazed at the water that was red and gold.
The shadow of the tall lighthouse was thrown high on the sails, and
passed slowly aft. The red sun was sitting on a distant hill bearded
with cedars. The little oily waves were splotched with vermilion and
blue and purple and gold, and the gold dazzled our eyes.
Not a ripple marked our passage. I gazed at the red sun, and he gazed
back at me; and his red disc was half down behind the hill, and I could
see it sink. And the sun sank behind the hill and had winked his last,
and a broad smooch of red lay upon the western horizon. We watched the
red fade to orange, then to saffron and to green, while two little
saffron clouds with edges of flame floated high above, and the fog crept
in stealthily below. And I heard Elizabeth sigh, and I looked down and
she looked up.
"If you find this sad," I said, "and as if it were the end of all
things, turn about. The sight will fill your soul with peace."
So we turned about. And the sky toward the east was of a lovely soft,
warm pearl-gray, and the water the same pearl-gray with tints of rose
and of a light blue here and there. The distance was veiled in an
impalpable haze, and water and sky merged into a soft grayish blur
toward the horizon, as if smeared with a dry brush. The water, gray with
its rose tints and its blue, seemed to dimple softly, like a baby
smiling as it sank to sleep. It soothed my soul; it was the very breath
of peace.