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The Cruise of the Shining Light: A Novel, a novel by Norman Duncan |
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Chapter 18. A Legacy Of Love |
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_ CHAPTER XVIII. A LEGACY OF LOVE Moses Shoos, I recall, carried the mail that winter. 'Twas a thankless task: a matter of thirty miles to Jimmie Tick's Cove and thirty back again. Miles hard with peril and brutal effort--a way of sleet and slush, of toilsome paths, of a swirling mist of snow, of stinging, perverse winds or frosty calm, of lowering days and the haunted dark o' night--to be accomplished, once a week, afoot and alone, by way of barren and wilderness and treacherous ice. 'Twas a thankless task, indeed; but 'twas a task to which the fool of Twist Tickle addressed himself with peculiar reverence. "Mother," says he, "always 'lowed that a man ought t' serve his Queen: an' mother knowed. 'Moses,' says she, afore she died, 'a good man haves just got t' serve the Queen: for an good men don't,' says she, 'the poor Lady is bound t' come t' grief along o' rascals. Poor, poor Lady!' says she. 'She've a wonderful lot t' put up with along o' stupid folk an' rascals. I'm not knowin' how she bears it an' lives. 'Tis a mean, poor dunderhead, with heart an' brains in his gullet,' says she, 'that wouldn't serve the Queen. God save the Queen!' says mother. 'What's a man worth,' says she, 'that on'y serves hisself?'" Not much, thinks I! "An' mother knowed," says Moses, softly. "Ay, Dannie," he declared, with a proud little grin, "I bet you mother knowed!" 'Twas this exalted ideal of public service, fashioned in the wisdom of the simple by the amazing mother who bore him, that led the fool, as by the hand, from a wilderness of snow and night and bewildered visions, wherein no aspiration of his own shaped itself, to the warm hearth of Twist Tickle and the sleep of a child by night. * * * * * Once I watched him stagger, white and bent with weather and labor, from the ice of Ship's Run, his bag on his back, to the smoking roofs of Twist Tickle, which winter had spread with a snowy blanket and tucked in with anxious hands. 'Twas a bitter day, cold, windy, aswirl with the dust of snow, blinding as a mist. I sat with Judith in the wide, deeply cushioned window-seat of my lib'ry, as my uncle called the comfortable, book-shelved room he had, by advice o' Sir Harry, provided for my youth. John Cather was not about; and I caressed, I recall, the long, slender fingers of her hand, which unfailingly and without hesitation gave themselves to my touch. She would never deny me that, this maid; 'twas only kisses she would hold me from. She would snuggle close and warmly, when John Cather was not about, but would call her God to witness that kisses were prohibited where happiness would continue. "'Tis not 'lowed, child," says she. Her cheek was so close, so round and soft and delicately tinted, that I touched my lips to it, quite unable to resist. "I don't mind that," says she. 'Twas vastly encouraging. "'Twas so brotherly," she added. "Judy," I implored, "I'm in need of another o' that same kind." "No, no!" she cried. "You'd never find the spot!" 'Twas with the maid, then, I sat in the window-seat of my warm room, content with the finger-tips I might touch and kiss as I would, lifted into a mood most holy and aspiring by the weight of her small head upon my shoulder, the bewildering light and mystery of her great, blue eyes, the touch and sweet excitement of her tawny hair, which brushed my cheek, as she well knew, this perverse maid! John Cather was not about, and the maid was yielding, as always in his absence; and I was very happy. 'Twas Moses we observed, all this time, doggedly staggering, upon patriotic duty, from the white, swirling weather of that unkind day, in the Queen's service, his bag on his back. "He've his mother t' guide un," says she. "An' his father?" "'Tis said that he was lost," she answered, "in the Year o' the Big Shore Catch; but I'm knowin' nothin' about that." I remembered the secret Elizabeth would impart to my uncle Nicholas. "My father," says Judith, in challenge, "was a very good man." I was not disposed to deny it. "A very good man," she repeated, eying me sharply for any sign of incredulity. 'Twas her fancy: I might indulge it. "I 'low, Dannie," says she, "that he was a wonderful handsome man, though I never seed un. God's sake!" cries she, defiantly, "he'd be hard t' beat for looks in this here harbor." She was positive; there was no uncertainty--'twas as though she had known him as fathers are known. And 'twas by no wish of mine, now, that our hands came close together, that her eyes were bent without reserve upon my own, that she snuggled up to my great, boyish body: 'twas wholly a wish of the maid. "'Twas blue eyes he had," says she, "an' yellow hair an' big shoulders. He was a parson, Dannie," she proceeded. "I 'low he must have been. He--he--was!" she declared; "he was a great, big parson with blue eyes." I would not be a parson, thinks I, whatever the maid might wish. "An' he 'lowed," she continued, pursuing her wilful fancy, "that he'd come back, some day, an' love my mother as she knowed he could." We watched Moses Shoos come across the harbor ice and break open the door of the postmaster's cottage. "But he was wrecked an' drowned," says Judith, "an' 'twas an end of my mother's hope. 'Twas on'y that," says she, "that she would tell Skipper Nicholas on the night she died. 'Twas just the wish that he would bring me up, as he've fetched up you, Dannie," she added: "jus' that--an' the name o' my father. I'm not sorry," says she, with her head on my shoulder, "that she never told the name." Elizabeth carried her secret into the greater mystery to which she passed; 'twas never known to us, nor to any one.... * * * * * "Moses," says I, in delight, when the news got abroad, "I hears you got the contract for the mail?" "I is," says he. "An' how in the name o' Heaven," I demanded, "did you manage so great a thing?" There had been competition, I knew: there had been consideration and consultation--there had been the philosophy of the aged concerning the carrying of mail in past years, the saucy anarchy of the young with regard to the gruelling service, the chatter of wishful women upon the spending value of the return, the speculatively saccharine brooding of children--there had been much sage prophecy and infinitely knowing advice--there had been misleading and secrecy and sly devising--there had been envy, bickering, disruption of friendship--there had been a lavish waste and disregard of character--there had been all this, as I knew, and more pitiable still, in competition for the weekly four dollars of government money. 'Twas a most marvellous achievement, thinks I, that the fool of Twist Tickle had from this still weather of reason and tempest of feeling emerged with the laurel of wisdom (as my tutor said) to crown him. 'Twas fair hard to credit! I must know the device--the clever political trick--by which the wags and wiseacres of Twist Tickle had been discomfited. 'Twas with this hungry curiosity that I demanded of the fool of Twist Tickle how he had managed so great a thing. "Eh, Moses," says I; "how was it?" "Dannie," he gravely explained, "'tis very simple. My bid," says he, impressively, "was the lowest." "An' how much was that, Moses?" "Mother," he observed, "didn't hold a wonderful lot with half measures." 'Twas no answer to my question. "She always 'lowed," says he, with a mystifyingly elaborate wave and accent, "that doin' was better than gettin'." I still must wait. "'Moses,' says she," he pursued, "'don't you mind the price o' fish; you cotch un. Fish,' says she, 'is fish; but prices goes up an' down, accordin' t' the folly o' men. You do,' says she; 'an' you leave what you gets t' take care of itself.' An' I 'low," says Moses, gently, a smile transfiguring his vacant face, "that mother knowed." 'Twas all, it seemed to me, a defensive argument. "An' mother 'lowed, afore she died," he added, looking up to a gray sky, wherein a menace of snow dwelt, "that a good man would save his Queen from rascals." "Ay," I complained; "but what was the bid that won from Eli Flack?" "The bid?" "Ay; the bid." "Not expensive," says he. "But how much, Moses?" "Well, Dannie," he answered, with a sigh and a rub of his curly, yellow beard, "I 'lowed mother wouldn't charge much for servin' the Queen: for," says he, enlivened, "'twould be too much like common labor t' carry Her Majesty's mail at a price. An' I bid," he added, eying me vaguely, "accordin' t' what I 'lowed mother would have me do in the Queen's service. Fac' is, Dannie," says he, in a squall of confidence, "I 'lowed I'd carry it free!" * * * * * 'Twas this contact with the world of Jimmie Tick's Cove that embarked the fool upon an adventurous enterprise. When, in the spring of that year, the sea being open, the Quick as Wink made our harbor, the first of all the traders, Tumm, the clerk, was short-handed for a cook, having lost young Billy Rudd overboard, in a great sea, beating up in stress of weather to the impoverished settlement at Diamond Run. 'Twas Moses, the choice of necessity, he shipped in the berth of that merry, tow-headed lad of tender voice, whose songs, poor boy! would never again be lifted, o' black nights in harbor, in the forecastle of the Quick as Wink. "Ay, Dannie," says Moses, "you'd never think it, maybe, but I'm shipped along o' Tumm for the French shore an' the Labrador ports. I've heared tell a wonderful lot about Mother Burke, but I've never seed the ol' rock; an' I've heared tell a wonderful lot about Coachman's Cove an' Conch an' Lancy Loop an' the harbors o' the straits shores, but I've never seed un with my own eyes, an' I'm sort o' wantin' t' know how they shapes up alongside o' Twist Tickle. I 'low," says he, "you don't find many harbors in the world like Twist Tickle. Since I been travellin' t' Jimmie Tick's Cove with the mail," he continued, with a stammer and flush, like a man misled from an austere path by the flesh-pots of earth, "I've cotched a sinful hankerin' t' see the world." I wished he had not. "But mother," he added, quickly, in self-defence, "always 'lowed a man ought t' see the world. So," says he, "I'm shipped along o' Tumm, for better or for worse, an' I'm bound down north in the Quick as Wink with the spring supplies." 'Twas a far journey for that sensitive soul. "Dannie," he asked, in quick alarm, a fear so sudden and unexpected that I was persuaded of the propriety of my premonition, "what you thinkin' about? Eh, Dannie?" he cried. "What you lookin' that way for?" I would not tell him that I knew the skipper of the Quick as Wink, whose butt the fool must be. "You isn't 'lowin'," Moses began, "that mother--" "Not at all, Moses!" says I. 'Twas instant and complete relief he got from this denial. "We sails," says he, with all a traveller's importance, "at dawn o' to-morrow. I'll be gone from Twist Tickle by break o' day. I'll be gone t' new places--t' harbors I've heared tell of but never seed with my own eyes. I'm not quite knowin'," says he, doubtfully, "how I'll get along with the cookin'. Mother always 'lowed," he continued, with a greater measure of hope, "that I was more'n fair on cookin' a cup o' tea. 'Moses,' says she, 'you can brew a cup o' tea so well as any fool I ever knowed.' But that was on'y mother," he added, in modest self-deprecation. "Jus' mother." I wished again that the fool had not fallen into the mercilessly facetious company of Skipper Saucy Bill North of the schooner Quick as Wink. "An', Dannie," says Moses, "I'm scared I'll fail with all but the tea." 'Twas come near the evening of that mellow Sunday. On the Whisper Cove road and the greening hills of Twin Islands, where Moses and I had walked in simple companionship, the birds had been mating and nesting in the thick sunshine of the afternoon. Chirp and flutter and shrill song! 'Twas a time for the mating of birds. The haste and noise and pomposity of this busy love-making! The loud triumph and soft complaint of it! All the world of spruce and alder and sunlit spaces had been a-flutter. But the weather was now fallen gloomy, the sky overcast, the wind blowing in from the black, uneasy sea, where floes and gigantic bergs of ice drifted, like frozen ghosts, cold and dead and aimlessly driven; and the hopeful sunshine had left the hills, and the piping and chirping were stilled, and I heard no more fluttering wings or tender love-songs. The fool of Twist Tickle paused in the road to stare vacantly northward. 'Twas there dark with menacing clouds--thick, sombre clouds, tinged with a warning blue, rising implacably above the roughening black of the sea. He wondered, it may be, in his dull, weakling way, concerning the coasts beyond the grave curtain, which he must discover--new coasts, dealing with us variously, as we disclose them to our hearts. I watched him with misgiving. To be sure, the skipper of the Quick as Wink was an unkind man, cynical and quick to seek selfish laughter, whatever the wound he dealt; but Tumm, our friend and the genial friend of all the world, thinks I, more hopefully, would not have the poor fool wronged. "Dannie," says Moses, turning, "I'm scared my cookin' won't quite fit the stomachs o' the crew o' the Quick as Wink." "Ay, Moses," says I, to hearten him; "but never a good man was that didn't fear a new task." He eyed me doubtfully. "An'," I began, "your mother, Moses--" "But," he interrupted, "mother wasn't quite t' be trusted in all things." "Not trusted!" I cried. "You'll not misunderstand me, Dannie?" he besought me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "You'll not misunderstand, will you? But mother wasn't quite t' be trusted," says he, "when it come t' the discussion," says he, pausing to permit a proper appreciation of the learned word, which he had appropriated from my tutor's vocabulary, "o' my accomplishments." It had never occurred before. "For mother," he explained, "was somehow wonderful fond o' me." The church-bell called him. "Hear her voice, Dannie?" said he. "Hear her voice in that there bell? 'Come--dear!' says she. 'Come--dear! Come--dear!' Hear it ring out? 'Come--dear! Come--dear! Come--dear!'" I bade him God-speed with a heart that misgave me. "I'll answer," said he, his face lifted to the sky, "to that voice!" * * * * * The clouds in the west broke, and through the rift a shaft of sunlight shot, glad to be free, and touched our world of sea and rock with loving finger-tips, but failed, as I turned homeward, hearing no voice of my unknown mother in the wandering call of the bell; and all the world went gray and sullenly mute, as it had been.... _ |
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