Norman Duncan - The Cruise of the Shining Light

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 like it.”

“I’d never stop for that.”

“May be,” she chided; “but I ’low, lad, we ought t’ ’blige Un once in a while. ’Tis no more than kind. An’ what’s a kiss t’ lack? Pooh!”

I was huffed.

“Ah, well, then!” said she, “an your heart’s set on it, Dannie, I’ve no mind t’ stop you. But–”

I moved forward, abashed, but determined.

“But,” she continued, with an emphasis that brought me to a stop, “I ’low I better ask God, t’ make sure.”

’Twas the way she had in emergencies.

“Do,” said I, dolefully.

The God of the lad that was I–the God of his childish vision, when, in the darkness of night, he lifted his eyes in prayer, seeking the leading of a Shepherd–was a forbidding God: white, gigantic, in the shape of an old, old man, the Ancient of Days, in a flowing robe, seated scowling upon a throne, aloft on a rolling cloud, with an awful mist of darkness all roundabout. But Judith, as I knew, visualized in a more felicitous way. The God to whom she appealed was a rotund, florid old gentleman, with the briefest, most wiry of sandy whiskers upon his chops, a jolly double chin, a sunburned nose, kindly blue eyes forever opened in mild wonder (and a bit bleared by the wind), the fat figure clad in broadly checked tweed knickerbockers and a rakish cap to match, like the mad tourists who sometimes strayed our way. ’Twas this complacent, benevolent Deity that she made haste to interrogate in my behalf, unabashed by the spats and binocular, the corpulent plaid stockings and cigar, which completed his attire. She spread her feet, in the way she had at such times; and she shut her eyes, and she set her teeth, and she clinched her hands, and thus silently began to wrestle for the answer, her face all screwed, as by a taste of lemon. 4 4 I am informed that there are strange folk who do not visualize after the manner of Judith and me. ’Tis a wonder how they conceive, at all!

Presently my patience was worn.

“What news?” I inquired.

“Hist!” she whispered. “He’s lookin’ at me through His glasses.”

I waited an interval.

“What now, Judy?”

“Hist!” says she. “He’s wonderful busy makin’ up His mind. Leave Un be, Dannie!”

’Twas trying, indeed! I craved the kiss. Nor by watching the child’s puckered face could I win a hint to ease the suspense that rode me. Upon the will of Judith’s Lord God Almighty in tweed knickerbockers surely depended the disposition of the maid. I wished He would make haste to answer.

“Judy, maid,” I implored, “will He never have done?”

“You’ll be makin’ Un mad, Dannie,” she warned.

“I can wait no longer.”

“He’s scowlin’.”

I wished I had not interrupted.

“I ’low,” she reported, “He’ll shake His head in a minute.”

’Twas a tender way to break ill news.

“Ay,” she sighed, opening her eyes. “He’ve gone an’ done it. I knowed it. He’ve said I hadn’t better not. I’m wonderful sorry you’ve t’ lack the kiss, Dannie. I’m wonderful sorry, Dannie,” she repeated, in a little quiver of pity, “for you !”

She was pitiful: there’s no forgetting that compassion, its tearful concern and wistfulness. I was bewildered. More wishful beseeching must surely have softened a Deity with a sunburned nose and a double chin! Indeed, I was bewildered by this fantasy of weeping and nonsense. For the little break in her voice and the veil of tears upon her eyes I cannot account. ’Twas the way she had as a maid: and concerning this I have found it folly to speculate. Of the boundaries of sincerity and pretence within her heart I have no knowledge. There was no pretence (I think); ’twas all reality–the feigning and the feeling–for Judith walked in a confusion of the truths of life with visions. There came a time–a moment in our lives–when there was no feigning. ’Twas a kiss besought; and ’twas kiss or not, as between a man and a maid, with no Almighty in tweed knickerbockers conveniently at hand to shoulder the blame. Ah, well, Judith! the golden, mote-laden shaft which transfigured your childish loveliness into angelic glory, the encompassing shadows, the stirring of the day without, the winds of blue weather blowing upon the hills, are beauties faded long ago, the young denial a pain almost forgot. The path we trod thereafter, Judith, is a memory, too: the days and nights of all the years since in the streaming sunlight of that afternoon the lad that was I looked upon you to find the shadowy chambers of your eyes all misty with compassion.