AN EVENING AT FOUR WINDS POINT
It was late September when Anne and Gilbert were able to pay Four Winds
light their promised visit. They had often planned to go, but
something always occurred to prevent them. Captain Jim had “dropped
in” several times at the little house.
“I don’t stand on ceremony, Mistress Blythe,” he told Anne. “It’s a
real pleasure to me to come here, and I’m not going to deny myself jest
because you haven’t got down to see me. There oughtn’t to be no
bargaining like that among the race that knows Joseph. I’ll come when
I can, and you come when you can, and so long’s we have our pleasant
little chat it don’t matter a mite what roof’s over us.”
Captain Jim took a great fancy to Gog and Magog, who were presiding
over the destinies of the hearth in the little house with as much
dignity and aplomb as they had done at Patty’s Place.
“Aren’t they the cutest little cusses?” he would say delightedly; and
he bade them greeting and farewell as gravely and invariably as he did
his host and hostess. Captain Jim was not going to offend household
deities by any lack of reverence and ceremony.
“You’ve made this little house just about perfect,” he told Anne. “It
never was so nice before. Mistress Selwyn had your taste and she did
wonders; but folks in those days didn’t have the pretty little curtains
and pictures and nicknacks you have. As for Elizabeth, she lived in
the past. You’ve kinder brought the future into it, so to speak. I’d
be real happy even if we couldn’t talk at all, when I come here--jest
to sit and look at you and your pictures and your flowers would be
enough of a treat. It’s beautiful--beautiful.”
Captain Jim was a passionate worshipper of beauty. Every lovely thing
heard or seen gave him a deep, subtle, inner joy that irradiated his
life. He was quite keenly aware of his own lack of outward comeliness
and lamented it.
“Folks say I’m good,” he remarked whimsically upon one occasion, “but I
sometimes wish the Lord had made me only half as good and put the rest
of it into looks. But there, I reckon He knew what He was about, as a
good Captain should. Some of us have to be homely, or the purty
ones--like Mistress Blythe here--wouldn’t show up so well.”
One evening Anne and Gilbert finally walked down to the Four Winds
light. The day had begun sombrely in gray cloud and mist, but it had
ended in a pomp of scarlet and gold. Over the western hills beyond the
harbor were amber deeps and crystalline shallows, with the fire of
sunset below. The north was a mackerel sky of little, fiery golden
clouds. The red light flamed on the white sails of a vessel gliding
down the channel, bound to a southern port in a land of palms. Beyond
her, it smote upon and incarnadined the shining, white, grassless faces
of the sand dunes. To the right, it fell on the old house among the
willows up the brook, and gave it for a fleeting space casements more
splendid than those of an old cathedral. They glowed out of its quiet
and grayness like the throbbing, blood-red thoughts of a vivid soul
imprisoned in a dull husk of environment.
“That old house up the brook always seems so lonely,” said Anne. “I
never see visitors there. Of course, its lane opens on the upper
road--but I don’t think there’s much coming and going. It seems odd
we’ve never met the Moores yet, when they live within fifteen minutes’
walk of us. I may have seen them in church, of course, but if so I
didn’t know them. I’m sorry they are so unsociable, when they are our
only near neighbors.”
“Evidently they don’t belong to the race that knows Joseph,” laughed
Gilbert. “Have you ever found out who that girl was whom you thought
so beautiful?”
“No. Somehow I have never remembered to ask about her. But I’ve never
seen her anywhere, so I suppose she must have been a stranger. Oh, the
sun has just vanished--and there’s the light.”
As the dusk deepened, the great beacon cut swathes of light through it,
sweeping in a circle over the fields and the harbor, the sandbar and
the gulf.
“I feel as if it might catch me and whisk me leagues out to sea,” said
Anne, as one drenched them with radiance; and she felt rather relieved
when they got so near the Point that they were inside the range of
those dazzling, recurrent flashes.
As they turned into the little lane that led across the fields to the
Point they met a man coming out of it--a man of such extraordinary
appearance that for a moment they both frankly stared. He was a
decidedly fine-looking person-tall, broad-shouldered, well-featured,
with a Roman nose and frank gray eyes; he was dressed in a prosperous
farmer’s Sunday best; in so far he might have been any inhabitant of
Four Winds or the Glen. But, flowing over his breast nearly to his
knees, was a river of crinkly brown beard; and adown his back, beneath
his commonplace felt hat, was a corresponding cascade of thick, wavy,
brown hair.
“Anne,” murmured Gilbert, when they were out of earshot, “you didn’t
put what Uncle Dave calls ‘a little of the Scott Act’ in that lemonade
you gave me just before we left home, did you?”
“No, I didn’t,” said Anne, stifling her laughter, lest the retreating
enigma should hear here. “Who in the world can he be?”
“I don’t know; but if Captain Jim keeps apparitions like that down at
this Point I’m going to carry cold iron in my pocket when I come here.
He wasn’t a sailor, or one might pardon his eccentricity of appearance;
he must belong to the over-harbor clans. Uncle Dave says they have
several freaks over there.”
“Uncle Dave is a little prejudiced, I think. You know all the
over-harbor people who come to the Glen Church seem very nice. Oh,
Gilbert, isn’t this beautiful?”
The Four Winds light was built on a spur of red sand-stone cliff
jutting out into the gulf. On one side, across the channel, stretched
the silvery sand shore of the bar; on the other, extended a long,
curving beach of red cliffs, rising steeply from the pebbled coves. It
was a shore that knew the magic and mystery of storm and star. There
is a great solitude about such a shore. The woods are never
solitary--they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life. But
the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable
sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity. We can never
pierce its infinite mystery--we may only wander, awed and spellbound,
on the outer fringe of it. The woods call to us with a hundred voices,
but the sea has one only--a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its
majestic music. The woods are human, but the sea is of the company of
the archangels.
Anne and Gilbert found Uncle Jim sitting on a bench outside the
lighthouse, putting the finishing touches to a wonderful, full-rigged,
toy schooner. He rose and welcomed them to his abode with the gentle,
unconscious courtesy that became him so well.
“This has been a purty nice day all through, Mistress Blythe, and now,
right at the last, it’s brought its best. Would you like to sit down
here outside a bit, while the light lasts? I’ve just finished this bit
of a plaything for my little grand nephew, Joe, up at the Glen. After
I promised to make it for him I was kinder sorry, for his mother was
vexed. She’s afraid he’ll be wanting to go to sea later on and she
doesn’t want the notion encouraged in him. But what could I do,
Mistress Blythe? I’d PROMISED him, and I think it’s sorter real
dastardly to break a promise you make to a child. Come, sit down. It
won’t take long to stay an hour.”
The wind was off shore, and only broke the sea’s surface into long,
silvery ripples, and sent sheeny shadows flying out across it, from
every point and headland, like transparent wings. The dusk was hanging
a curtain of violet gloom over the sand dunes and the headlands where
gulls were huddling. The sky was faintly filmed over with scarfs of
silken vapor. Cloud fleets rode at anchor along the horizons. An
evening star was watching over the bar.
“Isn’t that a view worth looking at?” said Captain Jim, with a loving,
proprietary pride. “Nice and far from the market-place, ain’t it? No
buying and selling and getting gain. You don’t have to pay
anything--all that sea and sky free--‘without money and without price.’
There’s going to be a moonrise purty soon, too--I’m never tired of
finding out what a moonrise can be over them rocks and sea and harbor.
There’s a surprise in it every time.”
They had their moonrise, and watched its marvel and magic in a silence
that asked nothing of the world or each other. Then they went up into
the tower, and Captain Jim showed and explained the mechanism of the
great light. Finally they found themselves in the dining room, where a
fire of driftwood was weaving flames of wavering, elusive, sea-born
hues in the open fireplace.
“I put this fireplace in myself,” remarked Captain Jim. “The
Government don’t give lighthouse keepers such luxuries. Look at the
colors that wood makes. If you’d like some driftwood for your fire,
Mistress Blythe, I’ll bring you up a load some day. Sit down. I’m
going to make you a cup of tea.”
Captain Jim placed a chair for Anne, having first removed therefrom a
huge, orange-colored cat and a newspaper.
“Get down, Matey. The sofa is your place. I must put this paper away
safe till I can find time to finish the story in it. It’s called A Mad
Love. ’Tisn’t my favorite brand of fiction, but I’m reading it jest to
see how long she can spin it out. It’s at the sixty-second chapter
now, and the wedding ain’t any nearer than when it begun, far’s I can
see. When little Joe comes I have to read him pirate yarns. Ain’t it
strange how innocent little creatures like children like the
blood-thirstiest stories?”
“Like my lad Davy at home,” said Anne. “He wants tales that reek with
gore.”
Captain Jim’s tea proved to be nectar. He was pleased as a child with
Anne’s compliments, but he affected a fine indifference.
“The secret is I don’t skimp the cream,” he remarked airily. Captain
Jim had never heard of Oliver Wendell Holmes, but he evidently agreed
with that writer’s dictum that “big heart never liked little cream pot.”
“We met an odd-looking personage coming out of your lane,” said Gilbert
as they sipped. “Who was he?”
Captain Jim grinned.
“That’s Marshall Elliott--a mighty fine man with jest one streak of
foolishness in him. I s’pose you wondered what his object was in
turning himself into a sort of dime museum freak.”
“Is he a modern Nazarite or a Hebrew prophet left over from olden
times?” asked Anne.
“Neither of them. It’s politics that’s at the bottom of his freak.
All those Elliotts and Crawfords and MacAllisters are dyed-in-the-wool
politicians. They’re born Grit or Tory, as the case may be, and they
live Grit or Tory, and they die Grit or Tory; and what they’re going to
do in heaven, where there’s probably no politics, is more than I can
fathom. This Marshall Elliott was born a Grit. I’m a Grit myself in
moderation, but there’s no moderation about Marshall. Fifteen years
ago there was a specially bitter general election. Marshall fought for
his party tooth and nail. He was dead sure the Liberals would win--so
sure that he got up at a public meeting and vowed that he wouldn’t
shave his face or cut his hair until the Grits were in power. Well,
they didn’t go in--and they’ve never got in yet--and you saw the result
today for yourselves. Marshall stuck to his word.”
“What does his wife think of it?” asked Anne.
“He’s a bachelor. But if he had a wife I reckon she couldn’t make him
break that vow. That family of Elliotts has always been more stubborn
than natteral. Marshall’s brother Alexander had a dog he set great
store by, and when it died the man actilly wanted to have it buried in
the graveyard, ‘along with the other Christians,’ he said. Course, he
wasn’t allowed to; so he buried it just outside the graveyard fence,
and never darkened the church door again. But Sundays he’d drive his
family to church and sit by that dog’s grave and read his Bible all the
time service was going on. They say when he was dying he asked his
wife to bury him beside the dog; she was a meek little soul but she
fired up at THAT. She said SHE wasn’t going to be buried beside no
dog, and if he’d rather have his last resting place beside the dog than
beside her, jest to say so. Alexander Elliott was a stubborn mule, but
he was fond of his wife, so he give in and said, ‘Well, durn it, bury
me where you please. But when Gabriel’s trump blows I expect my dog to
rise with the rest of us, for he had as much soul as any durned Elliott
or Crawford or MacAllister that ever strutted.’ Them was HIS parting
words. As for Marshall, we’re all used to him, but he must strike
strangers as right down peculiar-looking. I’ve known him ever since he
was ten--he’s about fifty now--and I like him. Him and me was out
cod-fishing today. That’s about all I’m good for now--catching trout
and cod occasional. But ’tweren’t always so--not by no manner of
means. I used to do other things, as you’d admit if you saw my
life-book.”
Anne was just going to ask what his life-book was when the First Mate
created a diversion by springing upon Captain Jim’s knee. He was a
gorgeous beastie, with a face as round as a full moon, vivid green
eyes, and immense, white, double paws. Captain Jim stroked his velvet
back gently.
“I never fancied cats much till I found the First Mate,” he remarked,
to the accompaniment of the Mate’s tremendous purrs. “I saved his
life, and when you’ve saved a creature’s life you’re bound to love it.
It’s next thing to giving life. There’s some turrible thoughtless
people in the world, Mistress Blythe. Some of them city folks who have
summer homes over the harbor are so thoughtless that they’re cruel.
It’s the worst kind of cruelty--the thoughtless kind. You can’t cope
with it. They keep cats there in the summer, and feed and pet ’em, and
doll ’em up with ribbons and collars. And then in the fall they go off
and leave ’em to starve or freeze. It makes my blood boil, Mistress
Blythe. One day last winter I found a poor old mother cat dead on the
shore, lying against the skin-and-bone bodies of her three little
kittens. She’d died trying to shelter ’em. She had her poor stiff
paws around ’em. Master, I cried. Then I swore. Then I carried them
poor little kittens home and fed ’em up and found good homes for ’em.
I knew the woman who left the cat and when she come back this summer I
jest went over the harbor and told her my opinion of her. It was rank
meddling, but I do love meddling in a good cause.”
“How did she take it?” asked Gilbert.
“Cried and said she ‘didn’t think.’ I says to her, says I, ‘Do you
s’pose that’ll be held for a good excuse in the day of Jedgment, when
you’ll have to account for that poor old mother’s life? The Lord’ll
ask you what He give you your brains for if it wasn’t to think, I
reckon.’ I don’t fancy she’ll leave cats to starve another time.”
“Was the First Mate one of the forsaken?” asked Anne, making advances
to him which were responded to graciously, if condescendingly.
“Yes. I found HIM one bitter cold day in winter, caught in the
branches of a tree by his durn-fool ribbon collar. He was almost
starving. If you could have seen his eyes, Mistress Blythe! He was
nothing but a kitten, and he’d got his living somehow since he’d been
left until he got hung up. When I loosed him he gave my hand a pitiful
swipe with his little red tongue. He wasn’t the able seaman you see
now. He was meek as Moses. That was nine years ago. His life has
been long in the land for a cat. He’s a good old pal, the First Mate
is.”
“I should have expected you to have a dog,” said Gilbert.
Captain Jim shook his head.
“I had a dog once. I thought so much of him that when he died I
couldn’t bear the thought of getting another in his place. He was a
FRIEND--you understand, Mistress Blythe? Matey’s only a pal. I’m fond
of Matey--all the fonder on account of the spice of devilment that’s in
him--like there is in all cats. But I LOVED my dog. I always had a
sneaking sympathy for Alexander Elliott about HIS dog. There isn’t any
devil in a good dog. That’s why they’re more lovable than cats, I
reckon. But I’m darned if they’re as interesting. Here I am, talking
too much. Why don’t you check me? When I do get a chance to talk to
anyone I run on turrible. If you’ve done your tea I’ve a few little
things you might like to look at--picked ’em up in the queer corners I
used to be poking my nose into.”
Captain Jim’s “few little things” turned out to be a most interesting
collection of curios, hideous, quaint and beautiful. And almost every
one had some striking story attached to it.
Anne never forgot the delight with which she listened to those old
tales that moonlit evening by that enchanted driftwood fire, while the
silver sea called to them through the open window and sobbed against
the rocks below them.
Captain Jim never said a boastful word, but it was impossible to help
seeing what a hero the man had been--brave, true, resourceful,
unselfish. He sat there in his little room and made those things live
again for his hearers. By a lift of the eyebrow, a twist of the lip, a
gesture, a word, he painted a whole scene or character so that they saw
it as it was.
Some of Captain Jim’s adventures had such a marvellous edge that Anne
and Gilbert secretly wondered if he were not drawing a rather long bow
at their credulous expense. But in this, as they found later, they did
him injustice. His tales were all literally true. Captain Jim had the
gift of the born storyteller, whereby “unhappy, far-off things” can be
brought vividly before the hearer in all their pristine poignancy.
Anne and Gilbert laughed and shivered over his tales, and once Anne
found herself crying. Captain Jim surveyed her tears with pleasure
shining from his face.
“I like to see folks cry that way,” he remarked. “It’s a compliment.
But I can’t do justice to the things I’ve seen or helped to do. I’ve
’em all jotted down in my life-book, but I haven’t got the knack of
writing them out properly. If I could hit on jest the right words and
string ’em together proper on paper I could make a great book. It
would beat A Mad Love holler, and I believe Joe’d like it as well as
the pirate yarns. Yes, I’ve had some adventures in my time; and, do
you know, Mistress Blythe, I still lust after ’em. Yes, old and
useless as I be, there’s an awful longing sweeps over me at times to
sail out--out--out there--forever and ever.”
“Like Ulysses, you would
‘Sail beyond the sunset and the baths
Of all the western stars until you die,’”
said Anne dreamily.
“Ulysses? I’ve read of him. Yes, that’s just how I feel--jest how all
us old sailors feel, I reckon. I’ll die on land after all, I s’pose.
Well, what is to be will be. There was old William Ford at the Glen
who never went on the water in his life, ’cause he was afraid of being
drowned. A fortune-teller had predicted he would be. And one day he
fainted and fell with his face in the barn trough and was drowned.
Must you go? Well, come soon and come often. The doctor is to do the
talking next time. He knows a heap of things I want to find out. I’m
sorter lonesome here by times. It’s been worse since Elizabeth Russell
died. Her and me was such cronies.”
Captain Jim spoke with the pathos of the aged, who see their old
friends slipping from them one by one--friends whose place can never be
quite filled by those of a younger generation, even of the race that
knows Joseph. Anne and Gilbert promised to come soon and often.
“He’s a rare old fellow, isn’t he?” said Gilbert, as they walked home.
“Somehow, I can’t reconcile his simple, kindly personality with the
wild, adventurous life he has lived,” mused Anne.
“You wouldn’t find it so hard if you had seen him the other day down at
the fishing village. One of the men of Peter Gautier’s boat made a
nasty remark about some girl along the shore. Captain Jim fairly
scorched the wretched fellow with the lightning of his eyes. He seemed
a man transformed. He didn’t say much--but the way he said it! You’d
have thought it would strip the flesh from the fellow’s bones. I
understand that Captain Jim will never allow a word against any woman
to be said in his presence.”
“I wonder why he never married,” said Anne. “He should have sons with
their ships at sea now, and grandchildren climbing over him to hear his
stories--he’s that kind of a man. Instead, he has nothing but a
magnificent cat.”
But Anne was mistaken. Captain Jim had more than that. He had a
memory.