"What," said he, gravely, "did you dream of me?"
'Twas hard to frame a reply. "I been thinkin', since," I faltered,
floundering in search of a simile, "that you're like a--like a----"
"Like what?" he demanded.
I did not know. My eye sought everywhere, but found no happy suggestion.
Then, through an opening in the hills, I caught sight of the melancholy
wreck on the Reef of the Thirty Black Devils.
"I fear t' tell," said I.
He stopped. "But I wish to know," he persisted. "You'll tell me, Davy,
will you not? It means so much."
"Like a wrecked ship," said I.
"Good God!" he exclaimed, starting from me.
At once he sent me home; nor would he have me walk with him that
afternoon, because, as he said, my sister would not allow me to bear him
company, did she know as much as I had in some strange way divined.
* * * * *
Next day, armed with my sister's express permission, I overcame his
scruples; and off we went to Red Indian Cave. Everywhere, indeed, we
went together, while the wrecked folk waited the mail-boat to
come--Doctor Luke and I--hand in hand--happy (for the agony of my loss
came most in the night, when I lay wakeful and alone in my little bed)
as the long, blue days. We roamed the hills, climbed the cliffs,
clambered along shore; and once, to my unbounded astonishment and alarm,
he stripped to the skin and went head first into the sea from the base
of the Good Promise cliffs. Then nothing would content him but that I,
too, should strip and plunge in: which I did (though you may think it
extraordinary), lest he think me afraid to trust his power to save me.
Thus the invigourating air, the yellow sunlight, the smiling sea beyond
the rocks, the blue sky overhead, were separate delights in which our
friendship ripened: so that at times I wondered what loneliness would
overtake me when he had gone. I told him I wished he would not go away
on the mail-boat, but would stay and live with us, that, being a
doctor, as he had said, he might heal our folk when they fell sick, and
no one would die, any more. He laughed at that--but not because of
merriment--and gripped my hand tighter, and I began to hope that,
perhaps, he would not go away; but he did not tell me whether he would
or not.
* * * * *
When the mail-boat was near due, my sister said that I must have the
doctor to tea; for it would never do, said she, to accept his kindnesses
and show no hospitality in return. In reply to this Doctor Luke said
that I must present his compliments to my sister (which I thought a
curious way of putting it), and say that he accepted the invitation with
great pleasure; and, as though it were a matter of grave moment, he had
me repeat the form until I knew it perfectly. That evening my sister
wore a long skirt, fashioned in haste from one of my mother's gowns, and
this, with my mother's keys, which she kept hanging from her girdle, as
my mother used to do, made her very sweetly staid. The doctor came
speckless, wearing his only shirt, which (as Tom Tot's wife made known
to all the harbour) he had paid one dollar to have washed and ironed in
three hours for the occasion, spending the interval (it was averred) in
his room. While we waited for the maids to lay the table, my sister
moved in and out, directing them; and the doctor gazed at her in a way
so marked that I made sure she had forgotten a hook or a button, and
followed her to the kitchen to discover the omission.
"Sure, Bessie, dear," I began, very gingerly, "I'm fair dreadin' that
you're--you're----"
She was humming, in happy unconsciousness of her state; and I was
chagrined by the necessity of disclosing it: but resolutely continued,
for it must be done.
"Loose," I concluded.
She gave a little jump--a full inch, it may be--from the floor.
"Davy!" she cried, in mixed horror and distress. "Oh, dear!
Whereabouts?"
"Do you turn around," said I, "an' I'll soon find out."
She whirled like a top. But I could find nothing awry. She was shipshape
from head to toe.
"'Tis very queer," said I. "Sure, I thought you'd missed a button, for
the doctor is lookin' at you all the time."
"At _me_!" she cried.
"Ay, at you."
She was then convinced with me that there was something amiss, and
called the maids to our help, for, as she said, I was only a boy
(though a dear one), and ill schooled in such matters. But it turned out
that their eyes were no sharper than mine. They pronounced her hooked
and buttoned and pinned to the Queen's taste.
"'Tis queer, then," I persisted, when the maids had gone, "that he looks
at you so hard."
"Is you sure he does?" she asked, much puzzled, "for," she added, with a
little frown, "I'm not knowin' why he should."
"Nor I," said I.
At table we were very quiet, but none the less happy for that; for it
seemed to me that my mother's gentle spirit hovered near, content with
what we did. And after tea my father sat with the doctor on our
platform, talking of disease and healing, until, in obedience to my
sister's glance, I took our guest away to the harbour, to see (as I
said) the greatest glories of the sunset: for, as I knew, my sister
wished to take my father within, and change the current of his thought.
Then I rowed the doctor to North Tickle, and let the punt lie in the
swell of the open sea, where it was very solemn and quiet. The sky was
heavy with drifting masses of cloud, aflare with red and gold and all
the sunset colours, from the black line of coast, lying in the west, far
into the east, where sea and sky were turning gray. Indeed, it was very
still, very solemn, lying in the long, crimson swell of the great deep,
while the dusk came creeping over the sea.
"I do not wonder," the doctor muttered, with a shudder, "that the people
who dwell here fear God."
There was something familiar to me in that feeling; but for the moment I
could not make it out.
"Zur?" I said.
His eyes ranged timidly over the sombre waste--the vasty, splendid
heavens, the coast, dark and unfeeling, the infinite, sullen sea, which
ominously darkened as he looked--and he covered his face with his hands.
"No," he whispered, looking up, "I do not wonder that you believe in
God--and fear Him!"
Then I knew that roundabout he felt the presence of an offended God.
"And fear Him!" he repeated.
I levelled my finger at him. "You been wicked!" I said, knowing that my
accusation was true.
"Yes," he answered, "I have been wicked."
"Is you goin' t' be good?"
"I am going to try to be good--now."
"You isn't goin' away, is you?" I wailed.
"I am going to stay here," he said, gravely, "and treat the people, who
need me, and try, in that way, to be good."
"I'd die t' see it!" cried I.
He laughed--and the tension vanished--and we went happily back to
harbour. I had no thought that the resolution to which he had come was
in any way extraordinary.
* * * * *
I ran to the Rat Hole, that night, to give the great news to Skipper
Tommy Lovejoy and the twins. "Ecod!" the old man cried, vastly
astounded. "Is he t' stay, now? Well, well! Then they's no need goin' on
with the book. Ecod! now think o' that! An' 'tis all because your mother
died, says you, when he might have saved her! Ah, Davy, the ways o' God
is strange. He manages somehow t' work a blessin' with death an' wreck.
'I'm awful sorry for they poor children,' says He, 'an' for the owners
o' that there fine ship; but I got t' have My way,' says He, 'or the
world would never come t' much; so down goes the ship,' says He, 'an' up
comes that dear mother t' my bosom. 'Tis no use tellin' them why,' says
He, 'for they wouldn't understand. An', ecod!' says He, 'while I'm about
it I'll just put it in the mind o' that doctor-man t' stay right there
an' do a day's work or two for Me.' I'm sure He meant it--I'm sure He
meant t' do just that--I'm sure 'twas all done o' purpose. We thinks
He's hard an' a bit free an' careless. Ecod! they's times when we
thinks He fair bungles His job. He kills us, an' He cripples us, an' He
starves us, an' He hurts our hearts; an' then, Davy, we says He's a
dunderhead at runnin' a world, which, says we, we could run a sight
better, if we was able t' make one. But the Lard, Davy, does His day's
work in a seamanlike way, usin' no more crooked backs an' empty stomachs
an' children's tears an' broken hearts than He can help. 'Tis little we
knows about what _He's_ up to. An' 'tis wise, I'm thinkin', not t'
bother about tryin' t' find out. 'Tis better t' let Him steer His own
course an' ask no questions. I just _knowed_ He was up t' something
grand. I said so, Davy! 'Tis just like the hymn, lad, about His hidin' a
smilin' face behind a frownin' providence. Ah, Davy, _He'll_ take care
o' _we_!"
All of which, as you know, was quite characteristic of Skipper Tommy
Lovejoy.