Norman Duncan - The Cruise of the Shining Light

“An’ there she’ll lie,” he was used to saying, with a grave and mysteriously significant wink, “until I’ve sore need o’ she.”

“Ay,” said they, “or till she rots, plank an’ strand.”

“An she rots,” says my uncle, “she may rot: for she’ll sail these here waters, sound or rotten, by the Lord! an I just put her to it.”

Unhappy, then, perhaps, Twin Islands, in situation and prospect; but the folk of that harbor, who deal barehanded with wind and sea to catch fish, have this wisdom: that a barren, a waste of selfish water, a low, soggy sky have nothing to do with the hearts of men, which are independent, in love and hope and present content, of these unfeeling things. We were seafaring men, every jack of the place, with no knowledge of a world apart from green water, which forever confronted us, fashioning our lives; but we played the old comedy as heartily, with feeling as true and deep, the same fine art, as you, my gentlefolk! and made a spectacle as grateful to the gods for whom the stage (it seems) is set.

And there is a road from the Tickle to the sea–to an outer cove, high-cliffed, frothy, sombre, with many melancholy echoes of wind and breakers and listless human voices, where is a cluster of hopeless, impoverished homes. ’Tis a wilful-minded path, lingering indolently among the hills, artful, intimate, wise with age, and most indulgently secretive of its soft discoveries. It is used to the lagging feet of lovers. There are valleys in its length, and winding, wooded stretches, kindly places; and there are arching alders along the way to provide a seclusion yet more tender. In the moonlight ’tis a path of enchantment–a way (as I know) of pain and high delight: of a wandering hope that tantalizes but must in faith, as we are men, be followed to its catastrophe. I have suffered much of ecstasy and despair upon that path. ’Tis the road to Whisper Cove.

Judith dwelt at Whisper Cove…

Fourteen, then, and something more: a footloose lad of Twist Tickle–free to sail and wander, to do and dream, to read the riddles of my years, blithe and unalarmed. ’Tis beyond the will and wish of me to forget the day I lay upon the Knob o’ Lookout, from afar keeping watch on the path to Whisper Cove–the taste of it, salty and cool, the touch of it upon my cheek and in my hair, the sunlight and scampering wind: the simple haps and accidents, the perception, awakening within me, and the portent. ’Twas blowing high and merrily from the west–a yellow wind from the warm west and from the golden mist and low blue line of coast at the other side of the bay. It rippled the azure floor between, and flung the spray of the breakers into the sunshine, and heartily clapped the gray cliff, and pulled the ears of the spruce, and went swinging on, in joyous mood, to the gray spaces of the great sea beyond Twin Islands. I shall not forget: for faith! the fates were met in conspiracy with the day to plot the mischief of my life. There was no warning, no question to ease the issue in my case: ’twas all ordained in secret; and the lever of destiny was touched, and the labor of the unfeeling loom went forward to weave the pattern of my days.

Judith (as I know) washed her mother’s face and hands with conscientious care: ’twas her way. Doubtless, in the way she had, she chattered, the while, a torrent of affectionate reproof and direction, which gave no moment for promise or complaint, and at last, with a raised finger and a masterful little flash of the eye, bade the flighty woman keep out of mischief for the time. What then, ’tis easy to guess: she exhausted the resources of soap and water in her own adornment (for she smelled of suds in the cabin of the Shining Light ), and set out by the path from Whisper Cove to Twist Tickle, with never a glance behind, but a prim, sharp outlook, from shyly downcast eyes, upon all the world ahead. A staid, slim little maid, with softly fashioned shoulders, carried sedately, her small head drooping with shy grace, like a flower upon its slender stalk, seeming as she went her dainty way to perceive neither scene nor incident of the passage, but yet observing all in swift, sly little flashes.

“An’ 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–”