RESCUED BY THE CRADLEBOW.
The ship in which the Cradlebow expected to take flight was to sail from New Bedford on the twentieth of June. Meantime, having abjured my friendly relations with Rebecca, and missing the quiet sustenance hitherto supplied my vanity in the girl's thoughtful devotion, I found a measure of relief for my wounded spirit in the companionship of this other—my boyish and ardent ex-pupil.
Many times, after my last interview with Rebecca, had I regretted that I did not leave Wallencamp at the close of the first term. The school grew continually more irksome to me. I was not so strong as when I had first undertaken it, and no longer overlooked the discomforts of my situation in the delight I had then experienced in its novelty. Often I longed to get away from it all, to rid myself abruptly of the perplexities and distasteful duties which bound me; and yet, all the while, there was a truer impulse, a deeper longing within me, to stay. Had I not been, all my life so far, forsaking my unfinished tasks, quitting an object as soon as it seemed any the less attractive. I willed to stay, and labored, still blindly, under the conviction that my regenerating work among the Wallencampers (not theirs in me; ah, no!) was not yet accomplished.
Toward Rebecca I had not softened. I was bitterly disappointed in her. She had been the formless, pliable clay, on which I purposed to prove my pet theories for development and culture. I had taken her as a perfectly fresh and untainted being, naïvely unconscious even, of the elements, either good or bad, of which her own nature was composed, waiting only for the hand of a wise and skillful modeller, like myself, to bring her up to the highest condition of manners and morals.
This elegant superstructure, a purely mental product of my own, had fallen away, revealing the erring, passionate nature beneath. But, deeply as I mourned the fall of my idol, I felt still more keenly a sense of personal injury, because the inner structure on which I had been building, had not spoken out and said, "I shall contaminate you. I am not fit for the touch, of your fine hands."
Clearly there could no longer be any sympathy between Rebecca and me. I avoided any occasion for private interview with the girl. Meeting her casually in the lane, or at the neighbors' houses, I acknowledged her presence with a nod or a smile, colder, I knew, than as if I had ignored her utterly.
She understood; she was quiet and unobtrusive. She made no attempt to break down the wall thus established between us. And I was determined, on the whole, to be more than just with Rebecca. I would be kind to her in her disgrace. I would palliate her weakness as far as I could consistently with a pure and high standard of action. I even congratulated myself on the magnanimity of my intentions, except when I met the clear, sad gaze of those dispassionate eyes. Then I experienced an unaccountable sensation, as though I had received a blow inwardly, that staggered me, for an instant, in my fine conceptions of honor, and set my conclusions out of order.
The Wallencampers were quick to note the estrangement between us, and affirmed that "Beck was mad, and wouldn't speak to teacher, along o' teacher's goin' with Beck's beau."
This gratuitous solution of the mystery was not evolved in my presence. Still I knew, that all through those lonely, suffering days, it was often repeated to Rebecca; that those who had borne the girl any grudge, or deemed that she was taking airs above them, took pains, now, that the taunt should reach her ears; and even the children, who had always loved her, uttered it before her with childish thoughtlessness.
But, for the Cradlebow; his bright dream of seeking his fortune over wide seas and in distant lands, his dreadless enthusiasm in the belief that he should find so much waiting for him in that unsounded world, his determination, above all, to acquit himself truthfully and bravely—all these made him, to my mind, ever an object of more inspiring and romantic interest.
He seemed, somehow, to have divested himself entirely of the old, heedless irresolution. His speech expressed little of doubt or hesitancy. It was full of a bold, bright affirmation; and his step, in these days, had none of the ordinary slow, smiling, philosophical Wallencamp shuffle. He brought to my weariness and dejection such an atmosphere of vigorous, tireless life; he was so confident, helpful, unselfish; I was so faithless and disheartened a burden-bearer; that I grew almost unconsciously to find for myself a certain rest in his strength, which, whatever high and heroic qualities it may have lacked, developed, at least, rare resources of patience, constancy, and forbearance.
He did not say: "You have changed your mind, you will wait for me, teacher, till I come back from over the seas?" but his eyes were eloquent. What if I was moved, I had grown so weak, to answer their question, at last, with a half-involuntary admission in my own.
Ah, no! I assured myself that my attitude towards the Cradlebow was sisterly—sisterly, merely—although I might have reflected that the yearnings of that amiable affection had never, hitherto, in the ordinary walks of life, constrained me to hem so many as a dozen pocket-handkerchiefs for my brothers, which irksome task I cheerfully performed as a surprise for the sailor boy, not to speak of a pair of scarlet hose which I had already begun to knit, under Grandma's tuition.
And now the life in Wallencamp seemed never like real life to me, even in the broadest daylight. It was like a dream—the sweet, warm, brightening of the landscape; the vines growing over the low, brown houses; the lazy, summer voices in the air; the skies, too, were a dream—and Luther, with his ideally beautiful face and his quaintness and ardor and unworldliness, was a part of the dream. I knew that when he went away, I should follow him long in my thoughts, and wonder much concerning him; that at home again with my own people, in gayer, different scenes, I should never hear the wind blowing up strong at night, or see the winter settling down gloomily, or watch the opening of another spring-time, without following him afar and wondering, with a vague, sorrowful, tender regret, what chance was befalling him in the world.
Then an incident occurred which changed, not me, perhaps, but the complexion of my dream.
One afternoon, at low tide, I wandered down to the beach and ensconced myself comfortably, with book and shawl, on the roof of Steeple Rock. The rock was an old acquaintance of mine by this time.
There was a group of children playing, a little farther down the beach. My eyes turned ever to them from the written page, following them with a languid pleasure, as they revelled in the sand at the water's edge with their bare brown feet and legs. I had a sense of safety, too, in their proximity. I knew that they generally returned home passing by the place where I was.
It was warm on the rock. I was very tired. As I lay there, I became only conscious, at length, that my book was slipping out of my hand, and down the shelving side of the rock, and I was too listless to attempt to reclaim it. I heard a little, dull thud on the ground below, and a faint flutter of leaves—and the long, white beach, the ragged cliffs, the laughing children, had faded from my sight.
Then I dreamed, indeed, in the ordinary sense of the word; I was back again in Newtown, in my own home, in my own white bed, and I was very glad, looking at the pictures on the wall, and out on the familiar hills. I was glad to hear my sister playing for me down stairs, only it was the same tune always, and I wished that she would play more softly.
And the pillow was hard, but I did not mind that so much, for my mother stood over me, looking very sweet and grave, and she said: "Why didn't you tell us that the pillow was hard!"
My father was there, too, and repeated the same question, and my brothers,—they all kept saying: "Why didn't you tell us that the pillow was hard?" and seemed to be pitying me and admiring me at the same time, until John Cable came in, friend of the old Newtown days, and his face was hard and stern.
"Why didn't you tell me the pillow was hard?" he said. "Now, I can't wake you! Don't you see, I can't wake you, now?" and he shook his head and would not look at me. So they took him out of the room, and went on pitying and admiring me, but my sister kept playing louder and louder, and it troubled me so that I could not rest. Then I heard a voice, that was not in my dream, calling to me in a sharp, clear, cheering tone, "Teacher! Teacher!" and I looked up to see Luther coming towards me in a boat, his face aglow with excitement.
This first—before I realized that I had fallen asleep on the rock, and that what I had dreamed was my sister playing, was the sound of the tide coming in, and that I was already sprinkled from head to foot with the spray. The Cradlebow continued calling to me cheerily, and would not give me time to consider the terrors of the situation then, nor afterwards, when I strove, in my half-stunned condition of mind, to weigh and appreciate the peril from which I had been rescued.
The children had wandered a mile or more along the beach and had gone home by another road. It was not yet dark. No alarm had been occasioned in Wallencamp as to my absence, but the Cradlebow, knowing that I had gone in the direction of the beach, had been moved to search for me, and had discovered me on the rock, where, in a few moments more, I should have waked to find myself at the mercy of the waves.
My deliverer laughed reassuringly, sending the boat leaping upon the shore, holding out his hand to me, as though this were merely an everyday occurrence, the close of some ordinary excursion, but, to me, life had suddenly grown significant.
The strong warm hand which clasped mine, weak and trembling, as I stepped from the boat, I must recognize henceforth, I knew, as the link between me and the living world.
For several days afterwards I considered the matter of my relation to the Cradlebow in a new and serious light, especially in the light of present gratitude, with a sense of life-long obligation; but the Cradlebow was too generous and noble to recognize the obligation, or take advantage of the gratitude. He loved me, I knew. He had watched for me. He had saved my life. He should know, I resolved, that if he wished it still I would wait for him.
And the idea was not foreign to my heart, but it grew, at last, too light of wing, and disposed to take up permanent abode in the realm of fancy. A poor, handsome young lover, seeking his fortune at the ends of the earth, and the future—ah, it did send a little stab to my conscience, to think that the uncertainty of that lover's future should so have heightened, to my mind, the romance of the picture. However, meeting him in the lane one evening, as I was returning from one of my parochial calls—it was just at dusk, I remember, and we stood under the balm-of-Gilead tree, in front of Emily's gate—I said very gravely and with none of that embarrassment which the occasion might seem to have warranted:—
"Luther, although I seem to myself much older than you, we are really, I suppose, of about the same age. I have known very happy attachments where inconsistencies of birth, habit, education were far greater, perhaps, than with us. I have made up my mind that, if you still desire it, I will wait for you."
"Wait for me, teacher!" exclaimed the Cradlebow, opening his eyes with a solemn, wide surprise; "why, of course!"
"Why, of course?" I questioned faintly, not knowing whether to smile at being thus abruptly disarmed, or to feel the least little bit piqued at the youth's unconscious audacity.
"What else should two people do who love each other?" There was nothing either of doubt or arraignment in the Cradlebow's serious eyes. "Besides," he continued; "I've known it all along. See here, teacher!" and he took from his pocket, and carefully unfolded, a sheet of paper against the background of which there lay revealed a dainty star fish, most curiously twisted about with some rare and beautiful sea vine.
"You won't find that vine washed up on this beach every day," he said eagerly. "When I showed it to Granny—'If Heaven itself had spoken, boy,' says she, 'I should be no surer it was a fair voyage waiting you than I be now;' though I was thinking of something besides the voyage, teacher, but it's all the same, it means good luck; and wouldn't you like to keep it for us?"
"Oh, no!" I answered, laughingly refusing the delicate talisman. "I should blast its good intentions. I should stifle it with my cold unbelief."
The Cradlebow tenderly replaced his treasure, and laughed with me good-naturedly.
"It isn't your fault, teacher," said he, "that you weren't better brought up. If you'd always lived with our people, down here, you'd be more believing."
At all events, my severe and protracted mental exertions had proved quite unnecessary, I thought, although after this there was, in some respects, a tacitly admitted change in our converse with each other. A sort of vague, venturesome house-building for the future, in which the Cradlebow seemed to wish that I would oftener show an interest in the feminine details within doors, while I had a grand and absorbing predilection for constructing imaginary grades and turrets and mediæval door-posts, receiving any thoughtful suggestions as to tin-kettles and pantry-shelves with gracious and smiling forbearance.
The Cradlebow seemed particularly pleased, when he came into the Ark of an evening, if I chanced to be knitting on the scarlet stockings. I did have a new and not unpleasant sense of housewifely dignity while engaged at this task, and undoubtedly assumed an air calculated to serve as an impressive exponent to my emotion. The poor scarlet stockings lengthened, meanwhile, but it was a disheartening and almost imperceptible growth. Where the article should have been most voluminous, at the calf of the leg, it grew, in spite of me, more alarmingly narrow at every round. This was after I had graduated from under Grandma Keeler's tuition, and assumed my own responsibility in the matter; so that I disdained to appeal to her for assistance in the dilemma, but thoughtfully devised means of my own for widening the stocking.
"I'll tell ye what it is, teacher," said Grandpa, who had been regarding me with that wild look which sometimes visited the old man's face when a problem seemed well nigh insoluble; "I'm afeerd, teacher, I'm afeerd that that ere stockin' ain't a goin' to fit nobody! I'll tell ye what it makes me think on. It makes me think o' one o' these 'ere accordions that ye open and shet. I'm afeerd, teacher, that it ain't a goin' to fit!"
"Thar! 'sh! 'sh! pa," said Grandma, with all the unction of holy disapproval; but, for once, my ever dear friend and champion was compelled to turn her back upon the scene.
In this position, she exclaimed in a low, broken tone of voice, "There may be legs, pa, as we don't know on!"
Grandpa was curiously aroused.
"I tell ye, I've travelled to the four quarters of the 'arth, ma," said he; "and set eyes on the tarnalest critters under God's canopy, but I never see anybody yit that 'ud fit into that 'ere. Besides," he added, knowingly, in a milder tone; "I reckin that 'ere stockin's meant for somebody nearer hum, and a pretty straight-legged fellow, too."
I was enabled to judge something still further of the speculations waking in the Wallencamp brain, when, having to keep Henry G. after school, one night, as a means of discipline, he bawled out:—
"Ye don't keep Simmy B. after school no more! And why not?" continued the aggrieved infant, at the same time framing for himself an answer of malicious significance: "Oh, 'cause he's Lute Cradlebow's brother!"
Social converse was at its high tide, now, in Wallencamp among the birds in the trees and the fowls in the door-yards, and quite as naturally and harmlessly so, for the most part, I think, among the beings of a superior order. They had little other recreation.
The bonfire had marked the close of the gay epoch in Wallencamp. It was too warm now for the livelier recreations of the winter. Religious interest, especially, was at a low ebb. At the evening prayer-meetings, the number of worshippers appeared but as a handful compared with the number of the unconcerned who lingered outside in the pleasant moonlight. Conspicuous among these latter, replacing the fervid debates of the winter with a calm philosophy befitting a warmer season, were Captain Sartell and Bachelor Lot.
The old songs held the same charm for them all, however. They sang them ever with pathos in their voices and tears in their eyes.
The little unpremeditated chats by gate and roadside, the neighborly "droppings-in," grew more and more frequent.
But when poor Rebecca was taken up on the tide of social wonder and debate, and I heard whisperings concerning her, and knew that an evil suspicion had taken hold of the mind of the little community, and when finally Emily said to me; "I guess you done about right shirking off Beck, teacher. I guess she ain't no better than she ought to be:" in spite of what I felt to be my own unblemished conscience in the matter and the justice of the retribution which was overtaking Rebecca, I went often to my little room and cried bitterly for her, as well as for myself.