My uncle's errand, speedily made known, for Judith's restoration, was
this: to require my presence betimes at tea that evening, since (as he
said) there was one coming by the mail-boat whom he would have me
favorably impress with my appearance and state of gentility--a thing I
was by no means loath to do, having now grown used to the small
delights of display. But I was belated, as it chanced, after all: for
having walked with Judith, by my uncle's hint, to the cairn at the
crest of Tom Tulk's Head, upon the return I fell in with Moses Shoos,
the fool of Twist Tickle, who would have me bear him company to Eli
Flack's cottage, in a nook beyond the Finger, and lend him comfort
thereafter, in good or evil fortune, as might befall. To this I gave a
glad assent, surmising from the significant conjunction of smartened
attire and doleful countenance that an affair of the heart was
forward. And 'twas true; 'twas safely to be predicted, indeed, in
season and out, of the fool of our harbor: for what with his own
witless conjectures and the reports of his mates, made in unkind
banter, his leisure was forever employed in the unhappy business: so
that never a strange maid came near but he would go shyly forth upon
his quest, persuaded of a grateful issue. 'Twas heroic, I thought, and
by this, no less than by his attachment, he was endeared to me.
* * * * *
I sniffed a change of wind as we fell in together. 'Twould presently
switch to the south (I fancied); and 'twould blow high from the
sou'east before the night was done. The shadows were already long; and
in the west--above the hills which shut the sea from sight--the blue
of mellow weather and of the day was fading. And by the lengthened
shadows I was reminded that 'twas an untimely errand the fool was
upon. "'Tis a queer time," said I, "t' be goin' t' Eli's. Sure, Moses,
they'll be at the board!"
"Dear man! but I'm wonderful crafty, Dannie," he explained, with a sly
twitch of the eye. "An they're at table, lad, with fish an' brewis sot
out, I'm sure t' cotch the maid within."
"The maid?" I inquired.
"Ay, lad; 'tis a maid. I'm told they's a new baggage come t' Skipper
Eli's for a bit of a cruise."
I caught a bashful flush mounting to his ears and the rumble of a
chuckle in his throat.
"She've come from Tall Pine Harbor," said he, "with a cask o' liver;
an' I'm told she've her heart dead sot on matrimony."
"Larry Hull's maid?"
"No, lad; 'tis not she. She've declined. Las' fall, Dannie, bein'
wind-bound in a easterly gale, I cotched she at Skipper Jonathan
Stark's. No; she've declined."
"'Tis Maria Long, then," said I.
"No, lad; she've declined, too."
"Elizabeth Wutt?"
"She've declined."
"'Tis not the Widow Tootle!"
"No; _she've_ declined," he answered, dismally. "But," he added, with
a sudden access of cheerfulness, "she come wonderful _near_ it. 'Twas
a close call for she! She 'lowed, Dannie, that an my beard had been
red she might ha' went an' done it, takin' chances with my wits. She
might, says she, put up with a lack o' wit; but a beard o' proper
color she must have for peace o' mind. You sees, Dannie, Sam Tootle
had a red beard, an' the widow 'lowed she'd feel strange with a yellow
one, bein' accustomed t' the other for twenty year. She've declined,
'tis true; but she come wonderful _near_ t' sayin the word. 'Twas
quite encouragin'," he added, then sighed.
"You keep on, Moses," said I, to hearten him, "an' you'll manage it
yet."
"Mother," he sighed, "used t' 'low so."
We were now come to a rise in the road, whence, looking back, I found
the sky fast clouding up. 'Twas a wide view, falling between the
black, jagged masses of Pretty Willie and the Lost Soul, cast in
shadow--a reach of blood-red sea, with mounting clouds at the edge of
the world, into which the swollen sun had dropped, to set the
wind-blown tatters in a flare of red and gold. 'Twas all a sullen
black below, tinged with purple and inky blue; but high above the
flame and glow of the rags of cloud there hung a mottled sky, each
fleecy puff a touch of warmer color upon the pale green beyond. The
last of our folk were bound in from the grounds, with the brown sails
spread to a rising breeze, the fleet of tiny craft converging upon the
lower-harbor tickle; presently the men would be out of the roughening
sea, pulling up the harbor to the stage-heads, there to land and split
the catch. Ay, a change of wind, a switch to the sou'east, with the
threat of a gale with rain; 'twould blow before dark, no doubt, and
'twas now all dusky in the east, where the sky was cold and gray. Soon
the lamps would be alight in the kitchens of our harbor, where the men
folk, cleansed of the sweat of the sea, would sit warm and dry with
their wives and rosy lads and maids, caring not a whit for the wind
and rain without, since they had what they had within.
"I'm knowin' no other maid at Tall Pine Harbor," said I, "that's fit
t' wed."
"'Tis a maid o' the name o' Pearl," he confided; "an' I'm told she's
fair on looks."
"Pearl what, Moses?"
"I disremember, Dannie," he answered, a bit put out. "The lads told
me, out there on the grounds the day, when I got wind of her bein'
here, but I've clean forgot. It won't matter, anyhow, will it, lad?
for, sure, I'm able t' _ask_."
"An' you've hopes?"
He trudged on, staring straight ahead, now silent and downcast. "Well,
no, Dannie," he answered, at last, "not what you might call _hopes_.
So many, Dannie, haves declined, that I'd be s'prised t' cotch one
that wouldn't slip the hook. But not havin' cast for this one, lad,
I've not give up. I'm told they's no wonderful demand for the maid on
accounts of temper and cross-eyes; an' so I was sort of allowin' she
_might_ have a mind t' try a fool, him bein' the on'y skipper t' hand.
Mother used t' say if I kep' on she 'lowed I'd haul one out in the
end: an' I 'low mother knowed. She never 'lowed I'd cotch a perfeck
specimen, in p'int o' looks, for them, says she, mates accordin' t'
folly; but she did say, Dannie, that the maid I wed would come t' know
me jus' the way mother knowed me, an t' love me jus' the way mother
loved me, for my goodness. 'Twas kind o' mother t' think it: nobody
else, Dannie, was ever so kind t' me. I wonder why _she_ was! Would
you say, Dannie," he asked, turning anxiously, "that a cross-eyed maid
_could_ be fair on looks? Not," he added, quickly, "that I'd care a
wonderful sight: for mother used t' say that looks wiped off in the
first washin', anyhow."