XV.

_THE STORM GATHERING._

There was a tongue of land not far from the lighthouse known as "Pudding

Point." How long the water-trip to it might be depended upon the state

of the tide. In the immediate vicinity of the lighthouse there was, in

the direction of this Pudding Point, such an accumulation of sandy

ridges that at low-water the voyage was only a quarter of a mile. At

high tide all the yellow flats were covered, and an oarsman must pull

his boat across half-a-mile of water to go from the light to the point.

Sometimes Dave had occasion to visit Pudding Point. A few houses were

there, and they might be able to supply an article needed at the light,

and that would save a trip to Shipton. One sunny morning Dave had rowed

over from the light, and was drawing his boat up the sands, when he

noticed a familiar figure striding along a ridge beyond the beach. It

was a person of handsome carriage, and one well aware of it.

"I should know that form anywhere," said Dave. "Hollo, Dick!" he

shouted.

Dick Pray came running down a sandy slope and gave Dave his hand.

"I am trying to hunt up Thomas Trafton," said Dave. "I believe he has a

fish-house around here, hasn't he?"

"You'll find him on that ledge a little way back."

Dave hunted up the fish-house--a black, weather-beaten box. Thomas

Trafton was spreading fish on the long fish-flakes in the rear of his

humble quarters.

"That you, Dave?" asked the fisherman. "I thought I saw you down on the

shore a half-hour ago."

"I was over at the light half-an-hour ago."

"Then it was Timothy Waters."

"How so?"

"Don't you know that if one takes a back view of you and Timothy,

although he is really older than you by half-a-dozen years, it wouldn't

be easy to tell you apart? Let me see. You are twenty-one?"

"So they say at home."

"Timothy is twenty-seven at least.'

"And I look like Timothy?"

"Rear view only, and I can only tell it is him if in walking he throws

his arms out. You never do that."

"I am not anxious to resemble Timothy Waters. I thought he was at sea."

"Off and on. He is now, I suppose, in that craft off in the stream."

"The _Relentless_?"

"That's the one. I know I am glad to be out of her. My health improved

steadily after quitting her. I am going to be at home, fishing, this

season."

"How do they all do at home?"

"Oh, comfortable."

"Bart is getting to be a big boy, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is. He thinks a good deal of you. Now, you know that habit he

got into once--"

"What was that?"

"Of taking my spy-glass and going out to look at the lighthouse at

night--"

"To see if I had hung out a lantern because we were disabled--by

sickness, you know, or something of the kind?"

"That is it. Well, his granny says he hasn't wholly dropped it now.

She will see him go out, and when he comes back she will say,

'Anything?' 'Nothing,' he will say."

"Oh, I guess there never will be any need of his looking."

"No, I s'pose not; but it shows his interest."

"Yes; I am thankful for that.--Well, let us have a fish to broil; have

come out for that."

Dave received his fish, paid for it, and very soon turned away, striding

off energetically in the direction of his boat.

When Dave returned to the lighthouse, the tide, gradually dropping, had

uncovered the rocky foundations, and the water was playing with the

fringes of seaweed all about the rocks.

"How gracefully that seaweed rises and falls! Those curves of its

motion are very delicate.--Hollo! what is that?" he asked.

Looking at the foundations, he saw in a crevice a little object that was

not a lump of rock-weed or a rock, and what was it?

"A pocket-book!" said Dave, leaning out of his boat and picking up this

relic tightly wedged between the stones. "I'll look at that when I get

up into the kitchen."

Reaching the kitchen, he hastily opened the pocket-book, noticed that it

was empty, and then placed it to dry on a shelf. It was very peaceful

in the kitchen, and the stove purred and the clock ticked contentedly

and quietly as ever. But where was the light-keeper? his assistant

wondered.

"Upstairs probably," was the thought in reply; and yet this

consideration, reasonable as it might seem at the moment, did not

dispose of the question wholly. True, in a lighthouse, where one might

say if a man were not downstairs he must be upstairs, that he could not

be "out in the yard" or "in the cellar," Dave's conclusion seemed to be

correct. He felt, however, a peculiar sense of loneliness. If Dave

were a person given to moods, if he were likely to be sombre, he might

have said it was only a fancy; but for one of his temperament that was

unusual. Dave with reason had been somewhat worried about his

principal. Toby Tolman was growing old. It had been in certain

quarters openly said that he was too old for his position. He had been

such an efficient keeper, and he had as his assistant a man so valuable,

that no one cared to make an effort to remove him from his position.

The person who would probably be benefited by any change, and would be

invited to take charge of the light, was David Fletcher, and he would

not move, for that reason, against his kind old friend. Dave had worked

all the harder to fill up any deficiencies on the part of his principal,

and the principal would doubtless have been invited to step out if his

assistant had not worked so hard to keep him in. Often Dave noticed an

indisposition in the light-keeper to attend to that fraction of the

duties of the place falling to him, and Dave rightly attributed the

indisposition to inability. During the watch-hours belonging to the

keeper his assistant had sometimes found him asleep, and when the

rest-hours belonging to the keeper arrived, he would unduly prolong his

sleep in the morning, and neglect duties to which he had hitherto given

prompt attention. Dave also noticed that Mr. Tolman lingered at an

unusual length over his Bible. It would be an exceedingly good sign if

it could be said of many people that they spent twice as much time as

previously with their Bibles; but when a man usually giving to this

habit an hour and a half may take three hours, neglecting other daily

duties, there may be occasion for inquiry into the change. The

light-keeper did not himself notice this peculiarity about to be

mentioned, and yet any one seeing the passages read would have

appreciated it. The keeper now found unusual comfort in the psalms that

spoke of God as a hiding-place, a refuge, a high tower. Was he like the

mariner who sees the storm pressing him closely and hastens to find the

harbour where he can let fall each straining sail, like the tired bird

that drops its wings because it has found its nest?

Dave had other reason for worry. There were in circulation mysterious

stories that everything in the administration of the lighthouse at Black

Rocks was not satisfactory. There were sly whisperings that goods

belonging to Government were given out to others by the keepers, but

when, where, and why, nobody said. There was only the repeated story of

a mysterious disappearance of Government property. Several friends of

Dave tried to catch and hold these rumours. Catch them they did, but

hold them they could not. They were like birds that you may think are

yours, but when you turn them into a room, lo, they fly out of an open

window in the opposite direction.

Thomas Trafton was very indignant.

"Look here!" he said with a reddened face to a fisherman repeating some

of these charges, "who told you that?"

"Almost everybody."

"Name one."

"Well, Timothy Waters was one."

"Timothy Waters, a man that had trouble at the light! You wait before

you believe the story."

"But others have said the same thing."

"Well, wait; I am going to track these stories to their start."

Thomas Trafton imagined that he was a hunter, and like one following up

the trail of an animal, he endeavoured to track these slanders back to

their den. Sometimes he would follow the accusations back to Timothy

Waters, and then somebody else would be found to assert them, and so the

trail would start away again. Amid the multitude of tracks, but without

evidence of their origin, this hunter from the Trafton family was

bewildered. He mentioned the affair to Dave, feeling that here was an

innocent person whom others were attacking, and yet he might be entirely

ignorant of the assault.

"I--I--don't want to make you uneasy, but I feel friendly more than you

can imagine," said Thomas, "and I thought you ought to know about the

stories that are going round."

"Oh, I suppose people are always talking. Life would be dreadful dull

if there wasn't something to talk about; and if I save the world from

dulness I may flatter myself that I am doing some good."

"Oh, but it isn't just gossip."

"Isn't?" replied Dave, taking a hint from Thomas

Trafton's significant look more than from any language. "What is it

then?"

"Now, I don't believe it, mind ye. I try to stop it, but it is like

trying to stop a sand-piper on the beach without a gun. Running after

it don't bring it."

"Well, what is it? I know you wouldn't believe anything unfair, but I

am bothered to know what it is."

"Why--and I thought you had better know it--they say things belonging to

Government are given out from the lighthouse: 'misappropriated'--I

believe that is the word."

"Long word! Well, who says it?" asked Dave sternly.

"Oh, I'm sorry to say I've heard a good many tell it who ought to know

better."

"It is all a lie! Misappropriation! That good man Toby Tolman--as if

he would do such a thing! Why, any one with a head might know better.

Toby never would do it!"

"Of course he wouldn't, nor you neither. That is not the p'int, but how

to stop 'em?"