Silver Shoal Light/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
PAN-PIPES
THE Fourth of July had come and gone. Jim, after remarking that he wished the Light could burn red, white, and blue in thirteen flashes, had gazed regretfully at it and sounded a formal salute on the fog-bell. The rest of the family had striven to show their spirit by adding bows and neckties of scarlet to the blue and white of their usual costume. They had all taken a sail outside,—the Ailouros very festive, with her ensign and pennant flying,—and in the evening Garth had set off a package of "sparklers" on the landing. A few feeble rockets had wriggled up from the dooryard of some patriotic soul in Quimpaug, and Garth stayed up until long past his bedtime, watching them and listening to his elders' reminiscences of sensational fireworks on bygone Fourths.
Of the modest celebration nothing remained next day, except the little flag in Jim's button-hole. He lay basking on the rock in idle contentment. Garth, who was sprawled across his father's knees, sat up suddenly.
"Look at the motorboat coming here!" said he. Jim sat up, too.
"Glory!" he said. "It's Fishashki, coming to take us to his party! I'd forgotten it was Friday; I always did believe it was an unlucky day. Br-r-r-r! Shall we have to dress up, Elspeth?"
"I don't intend to," said his wife.
"One blessing!" sighed Jim. "If he doesn't like our clothes, he'll have to put up with them. Perhaps he'll think they're a tangible expression of our souls, or something. Get off me, dear old thing, so that I can rise up and seize his 'putt-putt' before it runs down all that's left of the landing."
"You'd better stop calling him 'Fishashki,' you and Garth," warned Elspeth; "you'll forget and call him that to his face some time."
The Count, when he had landed safely, was "enchanted." Such a perfect day! Such delightful company! He helped the ladies into his boat and started the engine very airily.
"I am becoming quite a mechanic at these boat," he informed them. "I get great fun from it,—always can go, do not have to depend on sails and wind. I would imagine you would find such a boat better at your lighthouse."
"We love sailing," Elspeth replied. "I don't think that we could bear to give up the Ailouros. My husband doesn't quite approve of power-boats."
"So?" said Stysalski. "But they are so uniform, so dependable, so—" At that moment his engine gurgled, sputtered a few times, and gasped itself into silence and inactivity. The Count grew rather red, though he smiled very gaily.
"Nothing at all!" he assured his passengers. "We shall be off again in a moment!"
He spun the fly-wheel. The engine wheezed, turned over, and relapsed into immovability. He blew into the carburetor; he unscrewed the spark-plugs and examined them; he did everything he could think of, but the motor refused to start. The Count's neatly-brushed hair hung over his eyes; there was a large spot of machine-oil on his white trousers. He growled something at the engine, then bit his lip and was silent.
Jim glanced up quickly, and said:
"Any gasoline?"
Yes, the tank was almost full—the Count had replenished it before leaving Quimpaug. Jim took his arm from about Garth's shoulders and went slowly to the bow of the boat. He ran his eye over the engine, then over the tank. He took out his knife and opened that useful part usually known as a "thing-to-take-stones-out-of-horses'-hoofs-with."
"When the little air-hole in the top of the tank is stopped up," he remarked, "no more gas can go into the carburetor; and when what's in there is exhausted, your engine stops." He poked a bit of dirt from the hole and shut his knife. "Now try her," he said, returning to his seat.
The Count's profuse thanks did not hide his angry humiliation when the engine started up smoothly, and the boat, which had been drifting in a circle, proceeded evenly on its way.
"That's a thing every good mechanic should remember," said Jim mildly, holding out his cigarette case.
The Russian made his boat fast at a pier in Quimpaug and, conversing gaily with the ladies, set off up the hill at a brisk pace.
"Let's slow up just a bit," Jim suggested; "all of us can't walk quite so fast as that."
Stysalski wheeled around with a scowl of irritation that he did not instantly conceal. Garth flushed slowly and slid his hand into his father's.
"Ex-cuse me," said the Count stiffly, with a needlessly elaborate bow. He turned sharply and went on, walking between Joan and Elspeth at a very slightly moderated pace; their attempts to go more slowly did not affect him at all. It was quite a steep hill, and the other two dropped behind. Jim helped Garth, and they talked about all sorts of things.
Presently they caught up with the rest, who were standing in front of Schmidt's butcher-shop.
"The Count has gone up to his rooms to get the tea-things and his flute," Joan explained.
Garth leaned against his father.
"Is the place where we're going many miles away, Fogger?" he asked, with the faintest of sighs.
"I'm going to carry you now," Jim replied. "I dare say it's halfway to Tewksville."
The Russian reappeared, bearing two large baskets very tidily covered with white napkins; and also his flute, in a case, under one arm.
"May I trobble you with one of these?" he inquired, holding a basket toward Jim, who had lifted Garth into his arms.
"I'm sorry," Jim said, "but I'm carrying my son just now."
"Certainly; ex-cuse me—again," muttered the Count. Joan took the flute, and Stysalski strode off with her and Elspeth. Elspeth looked back over her shoulder and blew a kiss to Garth.
"I like you to say 'my son,'" said Garth, as Jim fell behind again. "It makes me feel so sort of honorable."
"Honorable!" laughed Jim. "Well, aren't you my son? Why shouldn't I? Should you like to be his? Hi! don't hug me to death! Forgive me, I prithee!" They rubbed each other's cheeks together, and Jim settled Garth more firmly against his shoulder.
The hill where Stysalski had staged his picnic was between Quimpaug and the sea, the very point which cut off the village from a view of the open ocean and the lighthouse from a sight of the town. Silver Shoal Light could be very plainly seen, with the Ailouros moored before it and even the tiny, distant figure of Caleb moving toward the landing.
The Count apologized deeply for the cups and saucers which he was setting out upon the grass on a white cloth. He had none of his own things; he deplored the absence of a samovar. He found some difficulty in keeping alight the alcohol lamp under his tea-kettle, until Jim suggested moving the apparatus into the lee of a big rock on the crest of the hill. There it burned merrily, and the water boiled very soon. The Count spread out any number of thin sandwiches—caviar and pimento, and all sorts of exotic varieties which surely had not been made from any materials Quimpaug could furnish.
Jim, who had been silent for some time, looked up quickly and said:
"Eta prevaskodny chai."
"Oh, er—vyerny," murmured the Count. "How delightful that you speak my language, Monsieur; but I shall be so much happier to speak Anglish with you. I can never have too much time to perfect my Anglish!" He turned hastily to Jean and went on with a broken-off conversation about Rimsky Korsakow and Russian music.
After tea, at the urgent request of two of his guests, he took out his flute.
"I shall play that delicious suite," he said, "'Pan and the Shepherds,' 'Pan and the Birds,'—those others."
He put the instrument to his lips; then magic happened. For it took little fancy to see the windy hilltop peopled with prancing fauns and flitting nymphs; clean-limbed, simple shepherds with eaten pipes; and brown, crook-legged satyrs, dancing to the eerie trilling of Stysalski's flute. And, at the end, came Pan all alone, crooning into his mournful reeds until no sound was left but the wind in the grass. Garth, who was curled up beside his father, opened his eyes and whispered raptly:
"I didn't know anything could be so wonderful. It made me see fairies, and druids, and all kinds of things."
"I don't think you mean druids, old dear," whispered Jim, "but I know how you feel," and he joined in the sincere compliments of the others.
The Count played on,—Tschaikowsky, and Beethoven, and Rimsky Korsakow,—till the shadows began to lengthen, and Jim, who had been charmed almost into forgetfulness of his duty, sprang up, thinking of the Light.
Carrying empty baskets downhill is a much easier task than dragging full ones up, and Stysalski's good humor was undimmed during the return to Quimpaug. He cast a stealthy glance at the air-hole in the gasoline tank as he started his motor, however. The engine behaved irreprochably, and he made quite a neat landing at the lighthouse pier.
"You have given us true pleasure," Jim said, shaking the Russian's hand. "You should express yourself always in music."
Garth looked up at his father, and then at the Count. Then he put out his hand a little hesitantly.
"Thank you," he said, "for the music."
Stysalski stared rather apprehensively at the brown hand which was offered him; then he turned away, with a sidelong glance. Garth's arm dropped to his side; his hand closed mechanically upon his crutch; but his eyes, very grave and troubled, were fixed on the Count's back.
Joan sat holding the yarn which Elspeth was winding that evening after supper. Jim came down from upstairs, where he had stopped, in passing, to tell Garth a "four-minute story."
"Another sort of yarn was being unwound up there," he said, as he turned up the studentlamp and sat down. "He's far from being asleep."
"Too much Slavic music, perhaps," said Elspeth; "it seems to have made a profound impression."
"How do you like our friend on further acquaintance?" Joan inquired. Jim filled his pipe and reached for the matches.
"Much more, for the sake of his heavenly music," he replied, "and much less, for his behaviour to Garth. That bow was an insult. I could have knocked him down."
"He does play divinely," Joan mused.
"Yes," Jim agreed, "but even Germans do that. What did he talk to you about all the time he was marathoning up that hill?"
"Oh, very interesting things; about his home in Russia," Joan answered. "It appears that he has a great, old, gaunt, ancestral place, and in the winter he and a few faithful servitors go wolf-hunting on the steppe. They do squat- dances around the camp-fire in the evening and play the balalaika."
"What an idyllic scene!" said Jim. "If we did but know it, he probably lived in a back apartment in Petrograd. By the way, it's curious that Russian nobility should stumble over its own language."
"I meant to ask. What did you say to him?" Elspeth questioned, rolling up the ball of yarn.
"Said it was excellent tea," Jim responded; "a simple remark, comprising almost all the Russian I know, except Eti sleefki skeeslees, meaning 'this cream is sour,' which was impolite and untrue. I think he said 'Certain,' which isn't particularly good grammar, and he boggled over that"
"Perhaps he was so surprised at hearing his own language from a lightkeeper that he was rattled," Elspeth suggested.
"Perhaps," Jim agreed, rather dubiously. He smoked in silence for some time, and then said:
"It was beastly of him to refuse Garth's hand. It was absolutely clean and perfectly dry; even if it hadn't been, it was up to him to take it."
"I didn't see that!" Elspeth frowned. "When was that?"
"When he'd brought us in," Jim told her. "Garth went up like a gentleman and put out his hand, which was decent, considering the way Fishashki had behaved to him. The Count stared at him and turned away, and Pem stood there, looking hurt and puzzled. He's not used to people treating him that way. The man was enraged all afternoon, I think, at having him along; he wanted a strictly grown-up party, and he's not grown up enough himself to hide his feelings."
"I didn't know he did that," Elspeth said. "Perhaps you're right, Jim."