The Cruise of the Shining Light by Norman Duncan (best free e reader .txt) 📖

my dear."

"I _will_ not go!"

"Judith!" Elizabeth called.

The parson caught the child's arm.

"You leave me be!" Judith flashed, her white little teeth all bare.

"Do you go," said the parson, coldly, "to the kitchen."

"He'd better mind what he's about!" Aunt Esther complained.

Elizabeth was now on her elbow, staring in alarm. Her breast was significantly heaving, and the great vein of her throat had begun to beat. "Don't send she away, parson!" she pleaded. "She's wantin' her mother. Leave she be!"

The parson led Judith away.

"For God's sake, parson," Elizabeth gasped, "leave she come! What you goin' t' do with she?" She made as though to throw off the coverlet and follow; but she was unable, and fell back in exhaustion. "Judith!" she called. "Judith!"

The kitchen door was closed upon Judith; the obstacle had been removed.

"Don't hurt she, parson," Elizabeth entreated, seeming, now, to be possessed of a delusion concerning the parson's purpose. "She've done no harm, sir. She've been a good child all her life."

"Elizabeth," said the parson, firmly, "repent!"

"What you done with my Judith?"

"Repent!"

Elizabeth's heart began to work beyond its strength. "For God's sake, parson!" she gasped; "you'll not hurt she, will you?"

"Repent, I say!"

"I'll repent, parson. What you goin' t' do with Judy? Don't hurt she, parson. I'll repent. Oh, bring she back, parson! I'll repent. For God's sake, parson!" It may be that despair gave her cunning--I do not know. The deception was not beyond her: she had been converted twice--she was used to the forms as practised in those days at Twist Tickle. She wanted her child, poor woman! and her mind was clouded with fear: she is not to be called evil for the trick. Nor is Parson Lute to be blamed for following earnestly all that she said--praying, all the while, that the issue might be her salvation. She had a calculating eye on the face of Parson Lute. "I believe!" she cried, watching him closely for some sign of relenting. "Help thou my unbelief." The parson's face softened. "Save me!" she whispered, exhausted. "Save my soul! I repent. Save my soul!" She seemed now to summon all her strength, for the parson had not yet called back the child. "Praise God!" she screamed, seeking now beyond doubt to persuade him of her salvation. "I repent! I'm saved! I'm saved!"

"Praise God!" Parson Lute shouted.

Elizabeth swayed--threw up her hands--fell back dead.

"I tol' you so," said Aunt Esther, grimly.


XIV

THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM

Faith, but 'twas a bitter night! Men were drowning on our coast--going to death in the wreck of schooners. The sea broke in unmasked assault upon the great rocks of Whisper Cove; the gale worried the cottage on the cliff. But 'twas warm in the kitchen: the women had kept the fire for the cup o' tea to follow the event; 'twas warm, and the lamp made light and shadow, and the kettle bubbled and puffed, the wood crackled, the fire snored and glowed, all serenely, in disregard of death, as though no mystery had come to appal the souls of us.

My uncle had Judith on his knee.

"I'm not able," she sobbed.

"An' ye'll not try?" he besought. "Ye'll not even try?"

We were alone: the women were employed in the other room; the parson paced the floor, unheeding, his yellow teeth fretting his finger-nails, his lean lips moving in some thankful communication with the God he served.

"Ah, but!" says my uncle, "ye'll _surely_ come t' live along o' me!"

"No, no! I'll be livin' where I've always lived--with mother."

"Ye cannot live alone."

"Ay; but I'm able t' live alone--an' fish alone--like mother done."

"'Twas not her wish, child," says my uncle. "She'd have ye live along o' me. 'Why, Judy,' she'd have ye know, 'do ye live along o' he. Do ye trust, little maid,' she'd have ye t' know, 'that there ol' Nick Top. He've a powerful bad look t' the eye in his head,' she'd say, 'an' he've the name o' the devil; but Lord love ye!' she'd say, 'he've a heart with room t' contain ye, an' a warm welcome t' dwell within. He've took good care o' little ol' Dannie,' she'd say, 'an' he'll take good care o' _you_. He'll never see ye hurt or wronged or misguided so long as he lives. Not,' she'd say, 'that there damned ol' rascal!' An' if ye come, Judy, dear," my uncle entreated, "I won't see ye wronged--I won't!" My uncle's little eyes were overrunning now--the little eyes he would not look into. The parson still paced the floor, still unheeding, still muttering fervent prayer of some strange sort; but my uncle, aged in sinful ways, was frankly crying. "Ye'll come, Judy, will ye not?" he begged. "Along o' ol' Nick Top, who would not see ye wronged? Ah, little girl!" he implored--and then her head fell against him--"ye'll surely never doubt Nick Top. An' ye'll come t' he, an' ye'll sort o' look after un, will ye not?--that poor ol' feller!"

Judith was sobbing on his breast.

"That poor, poor ol' feller!"

She wept the more bitterly.

"Poor little girl!" he crooned, patting her shoulder. "Ah, the poor little girl!"

"I'll go!" cried Judith, in a passion of woe and gratitude. "I'll go--an' trust an' love an' care for you!"

My uncle clasped her close. "'_The Lard is my shepherd,_'" says he, looking up, God knows to what! his eyes streaming, "'_I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters._'" By the wind, by the breaking of the troubled sea, the old man's voice was obscured. "'_Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me: thy rod and thy staff they comfort me._'" Judith still sobbed, uncomforted; my uncle stroked her hair--and again she broke into passionate weeping. "'_Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over._'" Returned, again, in a lull of the gale, my fancy that I caught the lamentation of a multitude. "'_Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever._'"

"Bless God!" cried the parson. "Bless God, brother!"

"Ay," said my uncle, feelingly, "bless God!"

The parson wrung my uncle's hand.

"That there psa'm don't seem true, parson, b'y," says my uncle, "on a night like this here dirty night, with schooners in trouble at sea. Ever been t' sea in a gale o' wind, parson? Ah, well! it don't seem true--not in a gale o' wind, with this here poor, lonely little maid's mother lyin' there dead in the nex' room. It jus' don't seem true!"

Parson Lute, poor man! started--stared, pained, anxious; in doubt, it may be, of the Christian congeniality of this man.

"It don't seem true," says my uncle, "in the face of a easterly gale an' the death o' mothers. An', look you, parson," he declared, "I'll be--well, parson, I'll jus' be _jiggered_--if it do! There you haves it!"

"Brother," the parson answered, accusingly, "it is in the Bible; it must be true."

"'Tis _where_?" my uncle demanded, confounded.

"In the Bible, sir."

"An' it--it--must be--"

"True, sir."

My uncle sighed; and--for I know his loving-kindness--'twas a sigh that spoke a pain at heart.

"It must be true," reiterated the wretched parson, now, it seemed, beset by doubt. "It _must_ be true!"

"Why, by the dear God ye serve, parson!" roared my uncle, with healthy spirit, superior in faith, "I _knows_ 'tis true, Bible or St. John's noospaper!"

Aunt Esther put her gray head in at the door. "Is the kettle b'ilin'?" says she.

The kettle was boiling.

"Ah!" says she--and disappeared.

"'_Though I walk,_'" the parson repeated, his thin, freckled hands clasped, "'_through the valley of the shadow of death!_'"

There was no doctor at Twist Tickle: so the parson lay dead--poor man!--of the exposure of that night, within three days, in the house of Parson Stump....


XV

A MEASURE OF PRECAUTION

With the threats of the gray stranger in mind, my uncle now began without delay to refit the _Shining Light_: this for all the world as though 'twere a timely and reasonable thing to do. But 'twas neither timely, for the fish were running beyond expectation off Twist Tickle, nor reasonable, for the _Shining Light_ had been left to rot and foul in the water of Old Wives' Cove since my infancy. Whatever the pretence he made, the labor was planned and undertaken in anxious haste: there was, indeed, too much pretence--too suave an explanation, a hand too aimless and unsteady, an eye too blank, too large a flow of liquor--for a man who suffered no secret perturbation.

"In case o' accident, Dannie," he explained, as though 'twere a thing of no importance. "Jus' in case o' accident. I wouldn't be upset," says he, "an I was you."

"Never you fear," says I.

"No," says he; "you'll stand by, Dannie!"

"That I will," I boasted.

"Ye can't delude _me_," says he. "I knows _you_. I bet ye _you'll_ stand by, whatever comes of it."

'Tis quite beyond me to express my gratification. 'Twas a mysterious business altogether--this whim to make the _Shining Light_ ready for sea. I could make nothing of it at all. And why, thinks I, should the old craft all at once be troubled by all this pother of block and tackle and hammer and saw? 'Twas beyond me to fathom; but I was glad to discover, whatever the puzzle, that my uncle's faith in the lad he had nourished was got real and large. 'Twas not for that he bred me; but 'twas the only reward--and that a mean, poor one--he might have. And he was now come near, it seemed, to dependence upon me; there was that in his voice to show it--a little trembling, a little hopelessness, a little wistfulness: a little weakening of its quality of wrathful courage.

"_You'll_ stand by," he had said; and, ay, but it fair saddened me to feel the appeal of his aging spirit to my growing years! There comes a time, no doubt, in the relationship of old and young, when the guardian is all at once changed into the cherished one. 'Tis a tragical thing--a thing to be resolved, to be made merciful and benign, only by the acquiescence of the failing spirit. There is then no interruption--no ripple upon the flowing river of our lives. As for my uncle, I fancy that he kept watch upon me, in those days, to read his future, to discover his achievement, in my disposition. Stand by? Ay, that I would! And being young I sought a deed to do: I wished the accident might befall to prove me.

"Accident?" cries I. "Never you fear!"

"I'll not fear," says he, "that ye'll not stand by."

"Ay," I complained; "but never you fear at all!"

"I'll not fear," he repeated, with a little twinkle of amusement, "that ye'll not stand by, as best ye're able."

I felt now my strength--the greatness of my body and the soaring courage of my soul. This in the innocent way of a lad; and by grace of your recollection I shall not be blamed for it. Fourteen and something more? 'Twas a mighty age!