The Cruise of the Shining Light. Duncan Norman
a-ha!” thinks I, “she’s bound for the Shining Light!”
It was blowing: on the edge of the cliff, where the path was lifted high above the sea, winding through sunlit space, the shameless old wind, turned skyward by the gray cliff, made bold, in the way the wind knows and will practise, wherever it blows. The wind cared nothing for the tragic possibility of a lad on the path: Judith was but a fluttering rag in the gust. At once–’twas a miracle of activity–her face reappeared in a cloud of calico and tawny hair. She looked fearfully to the path and yellow hills; and her eyes (it must be) were wide with the distress of this adventure, and there were blushes (I know) upon her cheeks, and a flash of white between her moist red lips. Without hint of the thing (in her way)–as though recklessly yielding to delight despite her fears–she lifted her hands and abandoned the pinafore to the will of the wind with a frightened little chuckle. ’Twas her way: thus in a flash to pass from nay to yea without mistrust or lingering. Presently, tired of the space and breeze, she dawdled on in the sunshine, idling with the berries and scrawny flowers by the way, and with the gulls, winging above the sea, until, as with settled intention, she vanished over the cliff by the goat-path to Old Wives’ Cove, where rode the Shining Light, sound asleep under a blanket of sunshine in the lee of the Lost Soul.
I followed.
In the cabin of the Shining Light, cross-legged on the table, in the midst of the order she had accomplished, her hands neatly folded in her lap, Judith sat serene. She had heard my clatter on the gang-plank, my shuffle and heavy tread on the deck. ’Twas I, she knew: there was no mistaking, God help me! the fall of my feet on road or deck. It may be that her heart for a moment fluttered to know that the lad that was I came at last. She has not told me: I do not know. But faith! my own was troublesome enough with a new and irritating uneasiness, for which was no accounting.
I feigned astonishment. “Hello!” quoth I; “what you doin’ here?”
She turned away–the eager expectation all fled from her face: I saw it vanish.
“Eh?” says I.
She sniffed: ’twas a frank sniff of contempt–pain, like a half-heard sob, mixed with the scorn of it.
“What you doin’ here?”
I stood reproached; she had achieved it in a glance–a little shaft of light, darting upon me, departing, having dealt its wound.
“Well, maid,” cries I, the smart of her glance and silence enraging me, “is you got no tongue?”
She puckered her brows, pursed her lips; she sighed–and concerned herself with her hair-ribbon, quite placid once more. ’Twas a trick well known to me. ’Twas a trick aggravating to the temper. ’Twas a maid’s trick–an ensnaring, deadly trick. ’Twas a trick ominous of my imminent confusion.
“Eh?” I demanded.
“Dannie, child,” she admonished, gently, “God hates a liar!”
I might have known.
“T’ make believe,” cries she, “that I’d not be here! How could you!”
“’Tis not a lie.”
“’Tis a white lie, child,” she chided. “You’ve come, Dannie, poor lad! t’ be a white liar. ’Tis a woful state–an’ a parlous thing. For, child, if you keeps on–”
She had paused. ’Twas a trick to fetch the question. I asked it.
“You’ll be a blue one,” says she. “An’ then–”
“What then?”
“Blue-black, child. An’ then–”
I waited.
“Oh, Dannie, lad!” cries she, her little hands clasped, a pitiful quaver in her voice, so that I felt consigned to woe, indeed, for this misdoing, “you’ll be a liar as black as–”
There was no more of it.
“You dare not say it!” I taunted.
I did not wish that she should: not I! but still, being a lad, would have her come close enough to sauce the devil. But I would not have her say that word. Indeed, I need not have troubled. ’Twas not in her mind to be so unmaidenly, with a lad at hand to serve her purpose.
“No,” says she, “I dare not; but you, Dannie, bein’ a lad–”
Her voice trailed off expectantly.
“Black as hell?”
She nodded.
“Come, maid,” says I, “you’ve called me a liar.”
“I wasn’t wantin’ to.”
“No odds,” says I. “An’ if I’m a liar,” says I, “I ’low I’m a fool for it?”
“You is.”
“Then, my maid,” cries I, in triumph, “you’ll be keepin’ me company in hell! You’ve called me a fool. ‘An’ whoso calleth his brother a fool–’”
“Oh no,” says she, quite undisturbed. “’Tis not so.”
“Not so?”
“Why, no, child! Didn’t you know?”
“But it says so!”
“Dannie, child,” says she, with unruffled superiority, “I come down from heaven one year an’ five months after God sent you. An’ God told me, Dannie, just afore I left Un at the Gate, that He’d changed His mind about that.”
The particular color of this stupendous prevarication I am still unable to determine…
Here in the cabin of the Shining Light was my workshop. On the bench, stout-hulled and bravely masted, was a bark to be rigged. My fingers itched to be dealing with the delicate labor. ’Twas no time now, thought I, all at once, to dally with the child. The maid was a sweet maid, an amiably irritating maid, well enough, in her way, to idle with; but the building of the ship was a substantial delight, subject to the mastery of a man with hands and a will, the end a sure achievement–no vague, elusive thing, sought in madness, vanishing in the grasp. I would be about this man’s-work. Never was such a ship as this ship should be! And to the work went Judith and I. But presently, as never happened before, I was in some strange way conscious of Judith’s nearness. ’Twas a soft, companionable presence, indeed! I bungled the knots, and could no longer work my will upon the perverse spars, but had rather dwell upon her slender hands, swiftly, capably busy, her tawny hair, her sun-browned cheeks and the creamy curve of her brow, the blue and flash and fathomless depths of her eyes. I remembered the sunlight and freshening breeze upon the hills, the chirp and gentle stirring of the day, the azure sea and far-off, tender mist, the playful breakers, flinging spray high into the yellow sunshine. ’Twas no time now, thought I, to be busied with craft in the gloomy cabin of the Shining Light, which was all well enough in its way; ’twas a time to be abroad in the sunlit wind. And I sighed: not knowing what ailed me, but yet uneasy and most melancholy. The world was an ill place for a lad to be (thinks I), and all the labor of it a vanity…
Now the afternoon was near spent. My hands were idle–my eyes and heart far astray from the labor of the time. It was very still and dreamful in the cabin. The chinks were red with the outer glow, and a stream of mote-laden sunlight, aslant, came in at the companionway.
It fell upon Judith.
“Judy,” I whispered, bending close, “I ’low I might as well–might as well have–”
She looked up in affright.
“Have a kiss,” said I.
“Oh no!” she gasped.
“Why not? Sure I’m able for it!”
“Ay,” she answered, in her wisdom yielding this; “but, Dannie, child, ’tisn’t ’lowed.”
“Why not?”
Her eyes turned round with religious awe. “God,” said she, with a solemn wag, “wouldn’t