DRIVEN FROM HIS LAST DEFENCE.
Susie was Mrs. Todd before I recovered from the effects of my involuntary soap-bath.
"Smart trick!" cried my father when he fished me out of the barrel.
I thought it was smart, sure enough, by the sensation in my eyes. But I have drawn a veil over that bit of my history. I know my eyesight was injured for all that summer. I could not tell a piece of silk from a piece of calico, except by the feeling; so I was excused from clerking in the store, and sat round the house with green goggles on, and wished I were different from what I was. By fall my eyesight got better. One day father came in the parlor where I was sitting moping, having just seen Tom Todd drive by in a new buggy with his bride, and said to me:
"John, I am disappointed in you."
"I know it," I answered him meekly.
"You look well enough, and you have talent enough," he went on; "but you are too ridiculously bashful for an ostrich."
"I know it," I again replied. "Oh, father, father, why did they take that caul from my face?"
"That—what?" inquired my puzzled sire.
"That caul—wasn't I born with a caul, father?"
"Now that I recall it, I believe you were," responded father, while his stern face relaxed into a smile, "and I wish to goodness they had left it on you, John; but they didn't, and that's an end of it. What I was going to say was this. Convinced that you will never succeed as my successor—that your unconquerable diffidence unfits you for the dry-goods trade—I have been looking around for some such situation as I have often heard you sigh for. The old light-house keeper on Buncombe Island is dead, and I have caused you to be appointed his successor. You will not see a human being except when supplies are brought to you, which, in the winter, will be only once in two months. Even then your peace will not be disturbed by any sight of one of the other sex. You will not need a caul there! Go, my son, and remain until you can outgrow your absurd infirmity."
I felt dismayed at the prospect, now that it was so near at hand. I had often—in the distance—yearned for the security of a light-house. Yet I now looked about on our comfortable parlor with a longing eye. I recalled the pleasant tea-hour when there were no visitors; I thought of the fun the boys and girls would have this coming winter, and I wished father had not been so precipitate in securing that vacant place.
Just then Miss Gabble came up our steps, and shortly after entered the parlor. She was one of those dreaded beings, who always filled me with the direst confusion. She sat right down by my side and squeezed my hand.
"My poor, dear fellow-mortal!" said she, getting her sharp face so close to mine I thought she was going to kiss me, "how do you do? Wearing them goggles yet? It is too bad. And yet, after all, they are sort of becoming to you. In fact, you're so good-looking you can wear anything. And how your mustache does grow, to be sure!"
I saw father was getting up to leave the room, and I flung her hand away, saying quickly to him: "I'll get the glass of water, father."
And so I beat him that time, and got out of the room, quite willing to live in the desert of Sahara, if by it I could get rid of such females.
Well, I went to Buncombe Island. I retired from the world to a light-house in the first bloom of my youth. I did not want to be a monk—I could not be a man—and so I did what fate and my father laid out for me to do. Through the fine autumn weather I enjoyed my retirement. I had taken plenty of books and magazines with me to while away the time; there was a lovely promenade along the sea-wall on which the tall tower stood, and I could walk there for hours without my pulse being disturbed by visions of parasols, loves of bonnets, and pretty faces under them. I communed with the sea. I told it my rations were too salt; that I didn't like the odor of the oil in filling the lamps; that my legs got tired going up to the lantern, and that my arms gave out polishing the lenses. I also confided to it that I would not mind these little trifles if I only had one being to share my solitude—a modest, shy little creature that I wouldn't be afraid to ask to be my wife.
"Oh, had we some bright little isle of our own,
In a blue summer ocean far off and alone."
I'd forget the curse of my life and be happy in spite of it.
When winter shut down, however, I didn't talk quite so much to the sea; it was ugly and boisterous, and the windy promenade was dangerous, and I shut myself up and pined like the "Prisoner of Chillon." I have lots of spunk and pride, if I am bashful; and so I never let on to those at home—when I sent them a letter once in two months by the little tug that brought my oil and provisions—that I was homesick. I said the ocean was glorious; that there was a Byronic sublimity in lighting up the lantern; that standing behind a counter and showing dry-goods to silly, giggling girls couldn't be compared with it; that I hadn't blushed in six months, and that I didn't think I should ever be willing to come back to a world full of grinning snobs and confusing women.
And now, what do you think happened to me? My fate was too strong even for Buncombe Island. It was the second of January. The tug had not left the island, after leaving a nine-weeks' supply, more than twelve hours before a fearful gale began to blow; it rose higher and higher through the night, and in the morning I found that a small sailing-vessel had been wrecked about half a mile from the light-house, where the beach ran out for some distance into the water, and the land was not so high as on the rock. I ran down there, the wind still roaring enough to blow me away, and the spray dashing into my eyes, and I found the vessel had gone to pieces and every man was drowned.
But what was this that lay at my feet? A woman, lashed to a spar, and apparently dead. When I picked her up, though, she opened her eyes and shut them again. Enough! this was no time to think of peculiar difficulties. I lugged her to the warm room in the light-house where I sat and lived. I put her before the fire; I heated some brandy and poured it between her lips; in short, when I sat down to my little tea-table late that afternoon, somebody sat on the opposite side—a woman—a girl, rather, not more than eighteen or nineteen. Here she was, and here she must remain for two long months.
She did not seem half so much put out as I. In fact, she was quite calm, after she had explained to me that she was one of three passengers on board the sailing-vessel, and that all the others were drowned.
"You will have to remain here for two months," I ventured to explain to her, coloring like a lobster dabbed into hot water.
"Oh, then, I may as well begin pouring the tea at once," she observed coolly; "that's a feminine duty, you know, sir."
"I'm glad you're not afraid of me," I ventured to say.
"Afraid of you!" she replied, tittering. "No, indeed. It is you who are afraid of me. But I sha'n't hurt you, sir. You mind your affairs, and I'll mind mine, and neither of us will come to grief. Why, what a lot of books you've got! And such an easy-chair! It's just splendid here, and so romantic, like the stories we read."
I repressed a groan, and allowed her, after supper, and she had done as she said—washed the dishes—to take possession of my favorite book and my favorite seat. She was tired with her adventures of the night before, and soon asked where she was to sleep.
"In there," I answered, pointing to the door of a small bedroom which opened out of the living-room.
She went in, and locked the door; and I went up to the lantern to see that all was right, and to swear and tear around a little. Here was a two-months'-long embarrassment! Here was all my old trouble back in a new shape! What would my folks—what would the world say? Would they believe the story about the wreck? Must my character suffer? Even at the best, I must face this girl of the period from morning until night. She had already discovered that I was bashful; she would take advantage of it to torment me. What would the rude men say when they came again with supplies?
Better measure tape in my father's store for a lot of teasing young ladies whom I know, than dwell alone in a light-house with this inconsiderate young woman!
"If ever I get out of this scrape, I will know when I am well off!" I moaned, tearing my hair, and gazing wildly at the pitiless lights.
Suddenly a thought struck me. I had seen a small boat beached near the scene of the wreck; it probably had belonged to the ship. I remained in the lantern until it began to grow daybreak; then I crept down and out, and ran to examine that boat. It was water-proof, and one of its oars still remained. The waves were by this time comparatively calm. I pushed the boat into the water, jumped in, rowed around to the other side of the island, and that day I made thirty miles, with only one oar, landing at the city dock at sunset. I was pretty well used-up I tell you. But I had got away from that solitary female, who must have spent a pensive day at Buncombe, in wondering what had become of me. I reported at headquarters that night, resigned, and started for home. I'm afraid the light-house lamps were not properly tended that night; still, they may have been, and that girl was equal to anything.
Such is life! Such has been my experience. Do you wonder that I am still a bachelor? I will not go on, relating circumstances in my life which have too much resemblance to each other. It would only be a repetition of my miserable blunders. But I will make a proposition to young ladies in general. I am well-to-do; the store is in a most flourishing condition; I have but one serious fault, and you all know what that is. Now, will not some of you take pity on me? I might be waylaid, blindfolded, lifted into a carriage, and abducted. I might be brought before a minister and frightened into marrying any nice, handsome, well-bred girl that had courage enough for such an emergency. Once safely wedded, I have a faint idea that my bashfulness will wear off. Come! who is ready to try the experiment?