I
From outside the house looked desolate enough. It stood alone where the
grass of the marshes met the sand of the shore. On one side a view of
marsh and cattle, dykes and gates, on the other the waters of the North
Sea.
Inside, in the cosy sitting-room, the Captain sat and fumed. The fire
was burning low and he had mislaid his pipe, while his wife, to whom he
usually looked to adjust these matters, was upstairs with the sick girl
from London, who had come home in search of rest and health.
“The women are all alike,” grumbled the Captain, as he rose and felt
cautiously along the mantelshelf for the missing pipe, “gossiping as
usual.”
His fumbling hands struck against a china shepherdess and wrecked her
on the fender, for blindness had come upon him late in life and his
huge gnarled fists lacked the touch usually associated with those who
have lost their sight. With a rueful grumble he sank back into his
chair again as his wife entered the room.
“Jenny, I’ve smashed something,” said the offender humbly. “I was
looking for my pipe.”
“Here’s your pipe, Jem,” she replied, as she thrust it into his hands.
“I must leave you a little while longer. Edith is not quite so well.”
“I’ll come up and talk to her,” said the Captain, with the air of one
who possessed a sovereign remedy.
“No, you mustn’t,” said his wife, pushing his great form back into the
chair, “she’s not well enough to talk much. I’ll be back soon.”
[Illustration: “NO, YOU MUSTN’T,” SAID HIS WIFE, PUSHING HIS GREAT FORM
BACK INTO THE CHAIR.]
The Captain, impelled by that small but resolute arm, stayed where he
had fallen, and lighting his pipe fell to smoking with much enjoyment,
listening to the beating of the surf and the wind, which was blowing
almost a gale. The combination was so soothing that he fell asleep at
length with the pipe between his teeth.
He awoke with a start and a vague confused idea that somebody had
called him. Certainly a cry of some sort still rang in his ears, and
placing his pipe on the table, he rose and stood with one hand on the
back of his chair listening. At first only the wind and the surf, then
mixed with it the faint wailing of a child. The Captain felt his way to
the door and called excitedly to his wife.
“Jenny! Jenny!”
“All right, go back,” called his wife quickly, from the top of the
stairs. “I’m coming down now.”
“I heard a cry outside,” said the Captain. “The cry of a child.”
“Nonsense, you’ve been dreaming.”
“I tell you I heard it,” repeated the Captain, as he threw open the
house door. “Listen!”
“There!” said the Captain, holding up a warning finger. “I heard it
again.”
“So did I,” said his wife. “It’s outside.”
“Get a shawl and come after me, my lass,” said the Captain, taking down
a coil of line made fast to the staple of the door, which he used for
short wanderings. “Hallo, there! Hallo!”
He walked slowly in the darkness, listening eagerly while his wife
turned her white face upwards and in broken accents thanked Heaven for
her husband’s blindness. Then she came downstairs, and with the agility
of a girl ran by her husband.
The Captain paying out his line, and treading softly, heard her stop
and cry out suddenly, and then, with an indistinct cry to him, speed
back to the house.
“I’ve got it,” she cried. “I’ve got it.”
He turned and followed rapidly. Inside he closed the door and stood in
the hall listening to the crying of a child, which now sounded through
the house, and the hurried footsteps of his wife as she moved about in
the room above.
“It’s a baby, Jim,” said his wife, coming half-way down the stairs and
closely watching her husband’s face as it showed in the light from the
sitting-room. “Just a little child, wrapped in an old shawl and left to
die. Only a few days old, by the look of it.”
“Ay, ay,” said the Captain, very slowly. “Go upstairs, my dear. Go
upstairs.”
He turned and, closing the door after him, groped his way back to his
chair, leaving his wife, after a moment’s irresolution, to do his
bidding. The fire was out and the room chill before she came down
again, and the tears sprang to her tired eyes as she saw the strong,
helpless man patiently awaiting her return.
“How’s Edith?” he asked, without turning his head.
“She’s not very well, I think,” said his wife, in a low, frightened
voice, “but she has just fallen asleep. I don’t think I’d disturb her
to-night, Jim, if I were you.”
“I won’t,” said the Captain quietly. “I’ll get to bed, too, I think.
Good-night.”
He went slowly up the stairs and into his room, his wife following him
noiselessly, and not until the door had closed behind him did she relax
her watchfulness; then, in a dazed condition, she made her way to her
daughter and fell half-fainting across her bed.
In the morning, in the cool salt air and the sunshine, her flagging
spirits revived and she greeted her husband in almost her usual cheery
fashion as he came in from his tethered walk along the shore to
breakfast.
“Edith not coming down?” he inquired, as he took his seat at the table.
“Not to breakfast,” she replied, watching him.
“Best not, if she doesn’t feel strong,” said the Captain briskly. “I’ve
been thinking about that child.”
“Ah,” said his wife, and the cup she was passing him rattled in the
saucer.
“If nobody claims it,” continued the Captain, “take it up to London
and let old Sparling’s widow have it. She’ll take it if we pay her. I
suppose we can’t send it to the workhouse?”
“We can’t keep it?” suggested his wife timidly.
“No,” said the Captain, with a mirthless laugh, “we’re too old to be
plagued with children.”
His wife said no more, but later in the morning informed him that she
had written to London to make arrangements, and that Edith would not be
up that day, but would come down the next.
More than a week, however, elapsed before she put in an appearance,
and then very pale and trembling she came down and took her accustomed
seat. To her father’s great relief she came alone, yet she was but
indifferent company, her thoughts being with her mother and the child
who had just started on their journey to London.
After this the time passed slowly and uneventfully to the dwellers in
the cottage. Edith, quiet and patient, felt her life bounded by the
sea and marsh, and never looked beyond. Only her mother fretted as she
thought of her beautiful daughter and her wasted life. For his part the
Captain seemed not to think at all, except that once when his daughter
threw out a feeble suggestion of seeking employment, he drew her to his
knee, and encircled her with an arm of iron.
The child was never alluded to, though many and various were the
plans mother and daughter considered for its future. The child itself
solved the problem; it died, and its mother, weeping bitterly over the
ill-written scrawl which conveyed the news to her, prayed for death too.
If anything, she became quieter than before, despite the efforts of
her father to arouse her. Sometimes it was a long walk with the blind
man along the shore, at another they would put to sea in the Captain’s
small skiff and stay for hours on the lonely waste of waters.
Then suddenly things changed. One day, after a longer walk than usual,
they were astonished as they neared the house by the unwonted sounds
of a man’s voice. It was a full, hearty voice, and it was evident from
the animated conversation within that the stranger was feeling very
much at home.
“Jem,” said his wife, as he entered, “you remember George Merrick, but
he’s grown from a boy to a man since we saw him.”
“And from apprentice to master,” said the stranger, as he rose and
gripped the other’s hand. “All your teaching, Cap’n, all your teaching.”
“You’ve got a ship, my lad?” inquired the Captain, as he returned the
shake.
“A brand new one,” replied the other. “But I’ve got to wait a couple
of months for her and I thought I’d spend the holiday looking up my
friends. I got your address from your old owners, and here I am.”
“And here you’ll stay till your ship’s ready,” said the Captain
cordially. “That is if you can put up with an old blind man and his
household. Lord, it’s good to hear the voice of a friend in this
desolate place.”
“Sure I shan’t be a nuisance?” asked Merrick. “You know of old how
noisy I am.”
“Not a bit of it, you’ll liven us all up,” replied the other. “It’ll be
a boon to me to have somebody to talk over old times with.”
“Well, when you are tired of me tell me to go,” laughed Merrick, and so
the matter was settled.