THE children, as has been said, were all devoted to Malbone, and this
was, in a certain degree, to his credit. But it is a mistake to call
children good judges of character, except in one direction, namely,
their own. They understand it, up to the level of their own stature;
they know who loves them, but not who loves virtue. Many a sinner has a
great affection for children, and no child will ever detect the sins of
such a friend; because, toward them, the sins do not exist.
The children, therefore, all loved Philip, and yet they turned with
delight, when out-door pleasures were in hand, to the strong and adroit
Harry. Philip inclined to the daintier exercises, fencing, billiards,
riding; but Harry’s vigorous physique enjoyed hard work. He taught
all the household to swim, for instance. Jenny, aged five, a sturdy,
deep-chested little thing, seemed as amphibious as himself. She could
already swim alone, but she liked to keep close to him, as all young
animals do to their elders in the water, not seeming to need actual
support, but stronger for the contact. Her favorite position,
however, was on his back, where she triumphantly clung, grasping his
bathing-dress with one hand, swinging herself to and fro, dipping
her head beneath the water, singing and shouting, easily shifting her
position when he wished to vary his, and floating by him like a little
fish, when he was tired of supporting her. It was pretty to see the
child in her one little crimson garment, her face flushed with delight,
her fair hair glistening from the water, and the waves rippling and
dancing round her buoyant form. As Harry swam farther and farther out,
his head was hidden from view by her small person, and she might have
passed for a red seabird rocking on the gentle waves. It was one of the
regular delights of the household to see them bathe.
Kate came in to Aunt Jane’s room, one August morning, to say that they
were going to the water-side. How differently people may enter a room!
Hope always came in as the summer breeze comes, quiet, strong, soft,
fragrant, resistless. Emilia never seemed to come in at all; you looked
up, and she had somehow drifted where she stood, pleading, evasive,
lovely. This was especially the case where one person was awaiting her
alone; with two she was more fearless, with a dozen she was buoyant,
and with a hundred she forgot herself utterly and was a spirit of
irresistible delight.
But Kate entered any room, whether nursery or kitchen, as if it were the
private boudoir of a princess and she the favorite maid of honor. Thus
it was she came that morning to Aunt Jane.
“We are going down to see the bathers, dear,” said Kate. “Shall you miss
me?”
“I miss you every minute,” said her aunt, decisively. “But I shall do
very well. I have delightful times here by myself. What a ridiculous man
it was who said that it was impossible to imagine a woman’s laughing at
her own comic fancies. I sit and laugh at my own nonsense very often.”
“It is a shame to waste it,” said Kate.
“It is a blessing that any of it is disposed of while you are not here,”
said Aunt Jane. “You have quite enough of it.”
“We never have enough,” said Kate. “And we never can make you repeat any
of yesterday’s.”
“Of course not,” said Aunt Jane. “Nonsense must have the dew on it, or
it is good for nothing.”
“So you are really happiest alone?”
“Not so happy as when you are with me,--you or Hope. I like to have Hope
with me now; she does me good. Really, I do not care for anybody else.
Sometimes I think if I could always have four or five young kittens
by me, in a champagne-basket, with a nurse to watch them, I should be
happier. But perhaps not; they would grow up so fast!”
“Then I will leave you alone without compunction,” said Kate.
“I am not alone,” said Aunt Jane; “I have my man in the boat to watch
through the window. What a singular being he is! I think he spends hours
in that boat, and what he does I can’t conceive. There it is, quietly
anchored, and there is he in it. I never saw anybody but myself who
could get up so much industry out of nothing. He has all his housework
there, a broom and a duster, and I dare say he has a cooking-stove and
a gridiron. He sits a little while, then he stoops down, then he goes to
the other end. Sometimes he goes ashore in that absurd little tub, with
a stick that he twirls at one end.”
“That is called sculling,” interrupted Kate.
“Sculling! I suppose he runs for a baked potato. Then he goes back. He
is Robinson Crusoe on an island that never keeps still a single instant.
It is all he has, and he never looks away, and never wants anything
more. So I have him to watch. Think of living so near a beaver or a
water-rat with clothes on! Good-by. Leave the door ajar, it is so warm.”
And Kate went down to the landing. It was near the “baptismal shore,”
where every Sunday the young people used to watch the immersions; they
liked to see the crowd of spectators, the eager friends, the dripping
convert, the serene young minister, the old men and girls who burst
forth in song as the new disciple rose from the waves. It was the
weekly festival in that region, and the sunshine and the ripples made it
gladdening, not gloomy. Every other day in the week the children of the
fishermen waded waist-deep in the water, and played at baptism.
Near this shore stood the family bathing-house; and the girls came down
to sit in its shadow and watch the swimming. It was late in August, and
on the first of September Emilia was to be married.
Nothing looked cool, that day, but the bay and those who were going into
it. Out came Hope from the bathing-house, in a new bathing-dress of dark
blue, which was evidently what the others had come forth to behold.
“Hope, what an imposter you are!” cried Kate instantly. “You declined
all my proffers of aid in cutting that dress, and now see how it fits
you! You never looked so beautifully in your life. There is not such
another bathing-dress in Oldport, nor such a figure to wear it.”
And she put both her arms round that supple, stately waist, that might
have belonged to a Greek goddess, or to some queen in the Nibelungen
Lied.
The party watched the swimmers as they struck out over the clear
expanse. It was high noon; the fishing-boats were all off, but a few
pleasure-boats swung different ways at their moorings, in the perfect
calm. The white light-house stood reflected opposite, at the end of its
long pier; a few vessels lay at anchor, with their sails up to dry, but
with that deserted look which coasters in port are wont to wear. A few
fishes dimpled the still surface, and as the three swam out farther and
farther, their merry voices still sounded close at hand. Suddenly
they all clapped their hands and called; then pointed forward to the
light-house, across the narrow harbor.
“They are going to swim across,” said Kate. “What creatures they are!
Hope and little Jenny have always begged for it, and now Harry thinks it
is so still a day they can safely venture. It is more than half a mile.
See! he has called that boy in a boat, and he will keep near them. They
have swum farther than that along the shore.”
So the others went away with no fears.
Hope said afterwards that she never swam with such delight as on that
day. The water seemed to be peculiarly thin and clear, she said, as well
as tranquil, and to retain its usual buoyancy without its density. It
gave a delicious sense of freedom; she seemed to swim in air, and felt
singularly secure. For the first time she felt what she had always
wished to experience,--that swimming was as natural as walking, and
might be indefinitely prolonged. Her strength seemed limitless, she
struck out more and more strongly; she splashed and played with
little Jenny, when the child began to grow weary of the long motion. A
fisherman’s boy in a boat rowed slowly along by their side.
Nine tenths of the distance had been accomplished, when the little girl
grew quite impatient, and Hope bade Harry swim on before her, and land
his charge. Light and buoyant as the child was, her tightened clasp had
begun to tell on him.
“It tires you, Hal, to bear that weight so long, and you know I have
nothing to carry. You must see that I am not in the least tired, only a
little dazzled by the sun. Here, Charley, give me your hat, and then
row on with Mr. Harry.” She put on the boy’s torn straw hat, and they
yielded to her wish. People almost always yielded to Hope’s wishes when
she expressed them,--it was so very seldom.
Somehow the remaining distance seemed very great, as Hope saw them glide
away, leaving her in the water alone, her feet unsupported by any firm
element, the bright and pitiless sky arching far above her, and her head
burning with more heat than she had liked to own. She was conscious of
her full strength, and swam more vigorously than ever; but her head was
hot and her ears rang, and she felt chilly vibrations passing up and
down her sides, that were like, she fancied, the innumerable fringing
oars of the little jelly-fishes she had so often watched. Her body felt
almost unnaturally strong, and she took powerful strokes; but it seemed
as if her heart went out into them and left a vacant cavity within. More
and more her life seemed boiling up into her head; queer fancies came
to her, as, for instance, that she was an inverted thermometer with the
mercury all ascending into a bulb at the top. She shook her head and the
fancy cleared away, and then others came.
She began to grow seriously anxious, but the distance was diminishing;
Harry was almost at the steps with the child, and the boy had rowed his
skiff round the breakwater out of sight; a young fisherman leaned over
the railing with his back to her, watching the lobster-catchers on the
other side. She was almost in; it was only a slight dizziness, yet she
could not see the light-house. Concentrating all her efforts, she shut
her eyes and swam on, her arms still unaccountably vigorous, though the
rest of her body seemed losing itself in languor. The sound in her ear
had grown to a roar, as of many mill-wheels. It seemed a long distance
that she thus swam with her eyes closed. Then she half opened her eyes,
and the breakwater seemed all in motion, with tier above tier of eager
faces looking down on her. In an instant there was a sharp splash close
beside her, and she felt herself grasped and drawn downwards, with a
whirl of something just above her, and then all consciousness went out
as suddenly as when ether brings at last to a patient, after the roaring
and the tumult in his brain, its blessed foretaste of the deliciousness
of death.
When Hope came again to consciousness, she found herself approaching her
own pier in a sail-boat, with several very wet gentlemen around her, and
little Jenny nestled close to her, crying as profusely as if her pretty
scarlet bathing-dress were being wrung out through her eyes. Hope asked
no questions, and hardly felt the impulse to inquire what had happened.
The truth was, that in the temporary dizziness produced by her prolonged
swim, she had found herself in the track of a steamboat that was passing
the pier, unobserved by her brother. A young man, leaping from the
dock, had caught her in his arms, and had dived with her below the
paddle-wheels, just as they came upon her. It was a daring act, but
nothing else could have saved her. When they came to the surface, they
had been picked up by Aunt Jane’s Robinson Crusoe, who had at last
unmoored his pilot-boat and was rounding the light-house for the outer
harbor.
She and the child were soon landed, and given over to the ladies. Due
attention was paid to her young rescuer, whose dripping garments seemed
for the moment as glorious as a blood-stained flag. He seemed a simple,
frank young fellow of French or German origin, but speaking English
remarkably well; he was not high-bred, by any means, but had apparently
the culture of an average German of the middle class. Harry fancied that
he had seen him before, and at last traced back the impression of his
features to the ball for the French officers. It turned out, on inquiry,
that he had a brother in the service, and on board the corvette; but he
himself was a commercial agent, now in America with a view to business,
though he had made several voyages as mate of a vessel, and would not
object to some such berth as that. He promised to return and receive
the thanks of the family, read with interest the name on Harry’s card,
seemed about to ask a question, but forbore, and took his leave amid
the general confusion, without even giving his address. When sought next
day, he was not to be found, and to the children he at once became as
much a creature of romance as the sea-serpent or the Flying Dutchman.
Even Hope’s strong constitution felt the shock of this adventure. She
was confined to her room for a week or two, but begged that there might
be no postponement of the wedding, which, therefore, took place without
her. Her illness gave excuse for a privacy that was welcome to all but
the bridesmaids, and suited Malbone best of all.