Beached Keels/Captain Christy/Chapter 5
V
On calm April days,—when the buff fields, restored to sunlight, began to be furred with a faint green; when the last forgotten snow-drifts were sparsely inlaid in the dark north banks of nook-shotten isles, mountains, or headlands, and over the black bay cakes of river-ice floated seaward; when the lee of every gray house sheltered a patch of reviving turf spangled with the broad goldpieces of dandelions, and every flaw of wind brought smells of wet earth and brushwood smoke,—a visitor might have thought that the past also had been reborn. For alongside the wharf, in the Rapscallion's bed, lay a vessel, from the deck of which, on warm noons, rose the hum of voices. The men were as before, and above them, as before, reared the massive head and shoulders of Captain Christy. But time had not been cheated: things were not the same. Slanting yards crossed the vessel's foremast; her lines were bolder, more dashing, than those of the beloved schooner; and on board, instead of holiday chat in the sunshine, there sounded busy hammering, pounding, overhauling.
Up from the black yawn of the main hatch swarmed Zwinglius Turner, grinning and active, like a Chinese pirate in blue dungaree daubed with filth. A thin gray cloud of dust rose after him.
"Whee-e-e! Stinks down there!" he cried joyfully. His voice, movement, and whole aspect were those of a man intoxicated with delight.
So had they been ever since that famous winter day when, like a bomb in the main street, burst the news that Captain Christy had bought the damaged hulk of the Amirald, formally abandoned on an outer ledge of the Little Wolverines. All that fortnight the village had tossed in a delirium of happenings. Strangers had walked the streets. Every day brought more events than talk could keep pace with. Even cynical Mr. Laurel agreed that such a winter had not been known since the Lord Ashburton went ashore in The Gale; even now mysteries remained, enough for years of argument; and factions still discussed whether the Amirald had been wrecked for the insurance. The company—not without suspicion—had paid it, and had sold at auction, on the underwriters' account, both the brigantine and her cargo of phosphate. Bids had been few and low. An old man and his money, the village agreed, were soon parted; but Captain Christy thought otherwise.
"Joyce," he had declared solemnly, "it's a godsend. It's a godsend, girl. D' ye mind, I told ye I had wha'd-ye-call-ems—prognosticates—in my bones, ye know—that somehow I'd git another ship." He chuckled, then laughed as heartily as a boy. "When I see 'em keep lights out so, I knowed what their game was! Pack o' rascals!— Well, Joyce, the' won't be no more such sea-lawyer work aboard o' her now!"
His ready laughter, the free flow of his talk, his buoyant stride and shining countenance, seemed to the girl another marvel of the returning spring. It was as when a frozen brook, at some final touch of the thaw, moves downward, crashes, leaps into full-bodied torrent. Happiness mounted within him like sap in a giant maple.
Often at breakfast he put down his cup untouched, to explain in a tone of wondering delight:—
"Ye know, to be real downright honest, I suspicioned 't was all over, and—and here 't is jes' beginnin', eh, Joyce?"
Or, as she prepared their supper in the little savory kitchen, he came in, humming, from the workshop, his eyes alight, his fingers tarred, a curly shaving of clean pine caught in his beard.
"Well, here goes to wash up!" he announced, as though that were an ecstasy. And later, sitting by the stove, he might break out with: "Yes, sir! I'm good for ten more years' hard work easily—easily!"
Meantime the crumbling wharf and the deck of the Amirald became a littered meeting-place, where the captain, Zwinglius, and Bunty directed all their able-bodied friends in a labor of love. At first a joke, the repairs engrossed the village. Even Mrs. Gildersleeve's summer boarder, a mouse-like little man, said to be a musician somewhere in the world of cities, came to lounge in sunny corners. With meek and sensible questions, he slowly won friendship of the captain, and so of the captain's Joyce. And friendships had been rare with this tired stranger.
The Northern summer had sped away, before Captain Christy pronounced the Amirald fit for sea. He had changed her rig to fore-and-aft: "for," he said, "I can't carry no crew to be squarin' yards all day long." On her trial sail as a schooner she behaved handsomely in the bay. Her foresail, it is true, provoked smiles; for—as the captain had stubbornly kept both spar and shroud—the baby square of white canvas reached only to the original foretop. The gap surprised one, as though the vessel had lost a front tooth.
"Diaper on a broomstick!" jeered Master Kibben, at a safe range. "Jigger on a yawl!"
"Ketches wind, anyway," observed the captain, ignoring. "Big enough to keep me and Zing busy. She's took nigh all my money as 't is. O' course," he added regretfully, "she ain't up to my own—the old schooner. Else I'd swap back with Follansbee."
Having dispatched his letter to Wood and Guthrie, he hardly ate or slept for impatience.
"You and Zwinglius Turner," Joyce chided him, "are bad as children before Christmas. Now finish breakfast. Letters can wait."
At last the answer came, and the captain was singing as he brought it home. A cargo ready in ten days, promised the firm; they wrote kindly, offered their old friend terms better than he had hoped. Laughing, planning like a boy for his first voyage, the captain packed his old canvas bag. His deep chant filled the house:—
"'As they was walkin' on the green,
Bow down, bow down,
As they was walkin' on the green,
The bow is bent to me.
As they was walkin' on the green
To see their father's ships come in.' …
"Joyce, there's mittens you wanted to mend— By gorry, don't seem real, does it? No, sir, like a dream:—
"‘Oho, prove true, prove true,
My love, prove true to me.’"
The squealing wheel of Zwinglius Turner's barrow, piercing the town as he trundled the last supplies to the wharf, made music to the captain. And then, suddenly, an unexpected hand rent the whole fabric of his joy.
He stood one morning beneath a naked balm-o'-gilead on a knoll, overlooking the ruddy, sun-bright sands, the stilted wharves, the patched but shapely body of the Amirald. On the brown-spattered leaves a footstep crackled, and beside him halted the trim, prosperous little figure of the Gildersleeves' lodger.
"Good-morning, captain," he saluted. "Mr.—ah—Bunty—tells me that he's going with you this voyage."
"That's right," replied Captain Christy. "Along for comp'ny. Talks real clever. Help, too—fust-class seaman, Bunty is."
They chatted of indifferent matters.
"You know, captain," began the stranger at last, rather shyly, "I 'll be going back to town myself soon, worse luck. You two have been kind to me. Yes, you have," he insisted quickly: "most people find me too crotchety to bother with. You 've both—been strongly in my thoughts of late. I 've grown very fond of that child." He gave a quiet laugh. "Yes, captain, if I were young and a bachelor, it's probable I'd have tried to rob you of her by now. At least," he added soberly, "I think I desire her happiness almost as much as you. Almost, captain.— Do you know, she's a rarity."
Captain Christy appeared doubtful of this term.
"She's a good nice girl," he amended heartily.
"By Jove she is!" agreed the other. "But I meant—another aspect." He twisted the point of his gray beard, then fluttered the dead leaves with his cane, as though they hid the right words for his purpose. "She's that, and more— We 've all three talked together a good bit this summer, and you remember I gave her a few lessons— No, no! a pleasure, I can tell you!— It's made me think about her future. Now this town: I'm very fond of it, but"—he glanced up quizzically—"how about opportunities?"
The vista of gray, pointed gables, the street, vacant but for the rusty Newfoundland perennially asleep on the pink sand, stretched away dead and silent toward the taut skyline of the bay.
"Opportoonities ain't blockin' traffic there, are they?" drawled the captain.
"I should n't say all this," continued the musician, "to a man of your—your active service in real life—except that I know a very little about one subject. That girl, as they say, has music in her. You knew that?"
"She plays real lively, my opinion," ventured Captain Christy.
"More than that," the other assented. "When you think of that old chest of whistles"—With his ferule he transfixed a leaf, twirled it, studied it, then looked the captain in the eye. "She's a wonder!" he declared fervently. "Mind, I don't say she 'll be a great player, and that nonsense,—but a good one. She has—the gift. I'm not an enthusiastic man, you know—less than ever. There are so many thousand fools, masculine, feminine, but mostly neuter, all busy learning the cant, the mechanics, the wise chatter—faugh! when they can't do a useful hand's turn in life, or even read and write the English language, or think beyond their Selves— To get away down here, it's like emptying my pockets, airing the room, brushing my clothes of 'em!— But Joyce is real, and has that rare thing, a Mind. It will take patience, hard work, study, breaking in— You see, she's in the rough, like—like"—
"A barnyard colt," suggested the captain, all serious attention.
"Ye-es," laughed the musician. "Something not quite so shaggy. I 'll try to be plainer. She has the 'heart that watches and receives,' that's certain: lacks only the chance. I 've said nothing to her, don't know what means may be at her disposal. But if she could have one year in the city, there's start enough. With her quickness, we'd go far. I 've stopped taking pupils: all the more time for her. Of course, my reward would be the fun itself, the pride, seeing the girl forge ahead, shoot up—by Jove!"—he speared the ground recklessly,—"shoot up into a constellation!"
"Thank ye, sir," mumbled the captain. His uncertain fingers combed at the white beard; his eyes contracted, musing, among the kindly wrinkles that told of distant things long watched. "You 're master gen'rous."
"After the first year,—well, for example, I'm trustee and Musical Grandpa to a school; teaching kiddies there, she could turn a handsome penny. What do you think?" Forgetting his mouse-like ways, eager with his project, the little man unfolded it as they walked homeward.
In the workshop, now almost bare, Zwinglius stooped about, despoiling another barrow-load.
"Zing!" the captain, entering, exploded wrathfully. "Come here! Hit me a handsome kick, will ye? H'ist me one good and solid! Lambaste my jacket!" The mate stared. "I'm a selfish old—old—old—customer! Always thinkin' o' Jack Christy fust and foremost. Nothin' else, by James Rice!" He stood regarding Zwinglius, like an aged schoolboy, disgraced, dogged, angry; then swung muttering into the kitchen.
"Hello, Joyce," he said gently. The girl, kneeling before her oven, turned with a smile. His scrutiny was strange, as though he saw in her face some quality never seen there before.
He was silent at dinner; through the afternoon paced the floor, sat figuring on a slate, with the air of a gloomy, patient dunce; but in the yellow glow of the supper table blossomed out so cheerfully with chuckles, laughter, far-fetched jokes, that Joyce's brown eyes were wide and puzzled.
The mingled emotions of that evening she was not soon to forget. As she sat alone by the lamp, the captain—whose heavy steps had creaked across the room above—came slowly downstairs, and paused in the doorway, smiling, with a book in his hand. His voice rang oddly.
"Joyce, I 've got something to give ye, and somethin' I want to say."
To the apprehension in her look he answered quickly.
"It's good noos. I ben a thoughtless old coot, Joyce; but after this I 'll do better by ye. Ye know, before buyin' the Amirald, I laid the future all out, as I thought. I did n't, not half; but I figgered I had. Well, I wrote Her, Up the Line, and says, 'bout like this: 'If you cal'late to come back some time, as I hope, write me, and I won't buy this brigantine.' 'Bout like that. Well, she never answered."
The tall clock, ticking heavily, marked the stillness of the room.
"She never answered. That—kind o'—set me loose to buy, 'cause ye see, I felt I had n't a fam'ly no more. But"—he halted anxiously.
"But you have!" cried the girl, springing up. She clasped the big, bent shoulders, hugged him. "You have, have n't you? You have. Father Captain!"
His free hand clumsily patted her. "All right, then," he growled, in great relief. His old, familiar manner returned. "Now we can set down and talk."
The girl perched on his elbow-chair, the white head and the brown tousled together.
"So I want ye to hev this. I'd saved it for her, waitin' for her to grow up,—like you."
The proffered book, a little black Bible, opened at the fly-leaf. Above a date forty years old, they read, in the captain's crabbed antique hand:—
For Eunice Christy
from her loving father.
"Man cannot live
by bread alone." Matt, iv, 4.
"I would have you wise
unto that which is good, and
simple concerning evil.' ' Ro-
mans xvi, 19.
"Oh, Father Captain," faltered the girl, between long silences. She stroked the hard old hands, corded with veins, tattooed with the blue quincunx. "I 'll feel better about your going away, now you 've left me this."
"No, girl," he said gravely. "Ye don't understand. This goes with ye, to steer by when you 're famous, and a great lady, and all."
Laboriously he revealed the musician's plan. After the first shock, the leap of her unbreathed ambition, she listened motionless, pale, large-eyed, as in a dream.
"So, ye see, the cargo's Nova Scoshy coal for Noobryport. You 'll sail that fur with me, and take the cars from there." He touched the book in her lap. "Now we 've adopted each other, I can pay the fust year or so."
Joyce started again.
"How?" she asked, with vague misgiving.
"Oh, I 'll git the money, dear," he answered, gay and elusive.
"But how?" she insisted.
"Why, I can sell the vessel handy, up in those parts, at a profit, too."
Easy, tremendous, untimely, the sacrifice overbore her: as when a friend, laughing, flushed, his cheer cut short, falls beside his friend in the moment of victory. Here, like a broken trifle, her old hero cast away his final dream and happiness.
"Oh, captain," she cried, choking, between tears and feeble laughter. "Oh, you—I could n't! I could n't! Don't you see—you never asked— I have plenty for the first year myself—more than four hundred dollars that I 've saved. You old angel! No, I won't listen; it's wrong, wicked."
"No, Joyce," objected the captain sturdily; "the world's for the young, ye know."
"It is n't, either!" she protested, shaking him. "It's for all kinds, and you 're the best in it! Now listen, you dear old goose." …
It was a long combat; but happy, resolute youth, guided by woman's wit, at last conquered. "So," she concluded, "we can both be independent. And whether I fail or go ahead, I 'll come home when you—when you 've had voyages enough. So we can each have our wish, father."
"Why—I guess—you 're right!" declared the captain. "So we can!" Transfigured, he swung her in his arms, high to the crossbeams of the ceiling. "Both of us! Hooray!"
And Zwinglius, to whom this world was never clear, entered upon a mad scene of double jigs and capers before the fire.
On a clear September evening the Amirald put out to sea, before a dying wind that veered among the black fir islands. Bunty and Zwinglius stood amidships, watching the infant endeavors of the new foresail. By the taffrail sat Joyce, bareheaded, her hair darkly ruddy in the level glow of sunset waves, against which the captain, a giant silhouette, revolved a quick pattern of radiating spokes. Down the vastness of the sky astern thin arcs of cloud, white overhead, pearl, rose, and saffron toward the west, curved from the zenith like frail ribs of an infinite vaulted aisle spanning sea and land.
"Wind to-morrer, likely." The captain turned his head, and looked down the enormous nave toward the sinking glory. "Might be his arch,—your sailor man's. 'All experience,' eh, Joyce? Well, we 're goin' through it together."
And to them, as to Ulysses, the deep called round with many voices of the past and the future.