His eyes glowed, his great hands opened and shut nervously. He stammered and stumbled over his few words: “You think I haven’t steered a straight course with Emily, eh? You actually believe, if I take a new tack, eh?—if I tell her how I—how,—well, how things are with me—that she’ll come around to the helm—I mean—” and then suddenly his face fell and, shaking his fist in impotent rage at his helpless limbs, he cried: “Oh, she can’t, she can’t! Look at the miserable ‘old hulk,’ just rottin’ slowly away between the tides of Time and Eternity, and talk of a woman lovin’ it—a-a-h!”
I saw Emily’s troubled face at the door and swiftly waved her away. Then I said, as brightly as I could: “Well, all ‘hulks’ are not despised! I saw a real one a few weeks ago!” He looked up quickly. “Where?” he asked.
“By the sea,” I answered. “What kind of a hulk was it—some unfinished failure of a ‘tub,’ I suppose?”
“No, a wreck! A great, gaunt-ribbed thing; stately even in its ruin. The waves—” He caught my dress as I rose to my feet. “Tell me about the ‘hulk,’ lass, tell me!” He pleaded just as a child pleads for a story.
“Very well,” I said, “I’ll tell you, but you must let me go to the spare room to lay off my hat. I’m going to stay all night, if your wife will let me!” I laughed at his request “for me to hurry,” and said: “Mr. Brockwell, before I go, I want to say just one more word about your wife. You may doubt, but I am certain, certain, that should you have your cruel wish and die to-morrow, and should Emily be spared for many, many years to come, at the very end she will lie at your side, and will carry your name to her grave”; and as I passed Emily I whispered eagerly: “Don’t be angry with me; I’ll explain later, but, for God’s sake, go straight to your husband and kiss him!” The tears rushed into her eyes—she nodded her head and passed into the room where he sat.
I loitered long over the removal of my hat and wrap; I even waited to bathe my reddened eyes, and then, as I slowly descended the tiny staircase, Emily’s voice, mildly indignant, came up to me, crying, “Oh, father, how could you, how could you?” and from the deep, bass rumble that followed there escaped these words: “A mighty fine figure of a woman, Emily!”
Then I sneezed loudly and entered the room to find them discussing the rival merits of “beaten” and “raised” biscuit, one of which we were to have for “tea.” Mrs. Brockwell, being of a slow and peaceful nature, naturally preferred “raised” biscuit, but Mr. Brockwell, being more aggressive, took a great interest in the “beating” process. Once he asked, indeed, if he might not beat the dough, and Emily delightedly assented, putting a big, white apron about him and bringing everything close to his chair. But the poor, old giant’s second blow had split the bread-board, and that had been the end of biscuit-beating for him. While Emily was pounding vigorously, if somewhat slowly, at her dough, I told my old friend of that other hulk, bleached white as chalk by the blazing sun, lying high upon the beach, listing over so that it made a sort of shelter for people to sit under, with the fine, pale sand slowly filling it—slowly piling up about it; how, when I saw it, the ocean which had cast it there was stretched out waveless beneath the sun, with only a slow, deep, regular heave, that was like the breathing of some mighty monster at rest. I told him of that awful night when the signals of distress were sent up into the pitiless sky, and were seen and heard by helpless, distracted men and women on shore; and how, in the gray morning, they were astounded to see the big ship high upon the beach, and dumbfounded when they saw she was a coffin, for there was the body of a woman there. Slight and young and small of foot and hand, and a Catholic, since a “scapula” was about her neck—and that was all. How the young stranger had been buried on the high land overlooking the sea and the wreck, and how, down below and up above, both were waiting, one for utter destruction, the other, for a glorious resurrection; and meantime the old hulk had become not only a landmark, but a thing beloved. Oh, yes; he need not shake his head, for that old hulk was the loyal friend of all true lovers. The great, gray, maimed thing sheltered many a shrinking pair from prying eyes. Brown, young rustics, who were fairly stricken dumb in the “sittin’-rooms” of their sweethearts, here, in the velvety, black shadow of the friendly, old hulk, found their tongues, and told swiftly and well the one old story that is ever new; while, as to summer nights—why, the old hulk was the trysting-place of lovers from half the countryside. It was so public, and yet so sheltered—so protecting. And it was so wise, the gray, old, sand-filled thing—it knew so much of Love, and Love’s dear brother, Death!—so much—good God, so much! and yet was silent—ever silent!
Half the young married women of the little town had received their engagement rings within the sheltering arms of the old hulk, and some of them had carried their little children there, later on, that they might take their first, uncertain steps upon the soft, pale sands that were drifting ever higher about the bleaching wreck, just as one might take the first spring blossoms to some spot that was sacred to us.
That noble ship that on even keel, with mighty spread of snowy canvas, had sat the water a living thing of strength and beauty, had had a commercial value only, but wrecked, it had become a precious thing to them all, garlanded with the tenderest sentiments of both men and women, draped with the radiant hopes of youth, and each day gilded anew with ever-living love. As it sank deeper in the sand, so it sank deeper in their memories—their beloved “old hulk”!
The old man had listened so closely to my story that I was somewhat puzzled when he remarked on my last word: “If I was sure and certain that Emily was telling the truth about that patch-work, I don’t know but what I might get to be more that sort of hulk myself, lass! If I could just be of a little use—ever so little, but real!—I could get along, but I don’t want to be fooled, like a child, into doing useless things. The Lord says: ‘A man should rejoice in his work!’ but a man can’t rejoice if it’s only make-believe work!”