And having said so much, and understood it while you said it, you will never lean on me again, the which I accept because it is right. Reuben shied another pebble beyond the running line of the water's edge, aiming for a circle of hurrying foam, hitting it with a neat plop in the center. Good exercise for a steady hand. What he had said to Ben concerning storm and calm was banal, he reflected, but truth has a way of hiding in the blur of the commonplace and must be hunted there from time to time: no good rushing upstairs or outdoors in search of a paper that lies on the table under your nose. We do pass continually from storm to calm—every one of us, even Madam Prudence Jenks. So meet them both, in the atmosphere of doubt where honesty is—whether in fog over quicksand, or on firm-appearing ground like this under a sunny sky of June. Reuben tossed another pebble, seeing Charity smile at him ruminatively, a gust of the sea breeze lifting a lock of soft hair from her broad forehead; then her homely, snub-nosed, square-jawed face turned back to Ben and was beautiful.
"I was thinking too, I wish I might have been with you both when Mr. Kenny died. You've told me little of that, indeed nothing much about your homecoming."
"He came on foot, Charity, and no word arrived ahead of him. We are not such important people now, you know. I was upstairs in Uncle John's room, and Mr. Welland with me. It was late, Mr. Hibbs gone to bed, and we had almost persuaded Kate to go and rest too, but Mr. Welland had told me he half expected Uncle John to go out that night, so we sat up with him. There had been another stroke, as you know, a light one, but he was failing rapidly and most of the time seemed hardly to know us. Kate went downstairs for something, a pitcher of water I think, and I heard the front door, and she cried out something, presently weeping and laughing and calling up gibberish to us. I knew it was Ben, but I—you know, Snotnose, you really should have sent a messenger to warn us you was an inch taller and fifteen pounds heavier, in fact you'll be obliged to work now to some purpose, or at thirty you'll have a gut, I swear it. Mind it, Charity—he was ever too fond of cracklin's." Quiet, Ru Cory! This is how it was, and you can't tell it: Ben Cory appeared in the candlelight, and Ru Cory stood like a cold image and could not move, and Amadeus Welland came to him—to Reuben because he was the one in need—and then Ben came to him also—but you can't tell it, seeing that for all your and-so-forth intellect you cannot bring love into the compass of a few well-chosen words, so be quiet and live a while. "Well, Charity, Uncle John knew him at once, even before he knelt by the bed and said, 'I've come back.' His right hand came up and touched the scar, and he said very plainly—we all heard it: Kate, and Mr. Hibbs who'd come in rubbing his eyes and doubting, it may be, that anything so good as Ben's return could actually happen at the borders of philosophy—Uncle John said very plainly: 'Thou art my son.'"
"And he died then?"
"No, love, somehow nature seldom accommodates our itch for the appropriate, I don't know why. That was later in the night. Ben was exhausted, and I made him go to bed and save the story of his life for the following morning. Uncle John didn't die then, but seemed to have fallen into a heavy sleep. We stayed with him of course. I was watching his hand, Charity"—and Amadeus' arm over my shoulder, and his voice speaking to me now and then—"and at some time toward morning there was a kind of disturbance in his sleep, his hand closing as if it would hold fast to certain things for a while yet. Then it opened and gave it all away."
He needs no help except what Mr. Welland can give, still I'll do what I may. Ben could see also the next voyage of the ketch Artemis. He would not be aboard—as Sam Tench had made clear, there was much to do, and Ben Cory the one to do it. A possible partnership with Riggs of Salem, for instance—it must be considered at least. Captain Heath would take Artemis to New York, and some good man must be found to take Heath's place on the sloop Hebe. But next year, Ben thought, maybe he could go again on Artemis—maybe to Norfolk—maybe.... Then at some time, much later, maybe three or four good vessels fit for the passage around the Horn, even a charter from the Queen—not at all impossible, some years from now, if done in the right way. In the meanwhile——
"Now you are dreaming, Ben. I used to know that look, in Deerfield. But now when your mind's under sail I suppose it goes into places you've seen with your true eyes. And when you'd hear the sea you needn't bury an ear in the pillow and cover the other with the flat of your paw—well, Charity, what a fool he used to look that way! And how often was I tempted to shove the paw aside and blow in his ear—give him a real storm—you know? Never did, and can't now because he's grown big enough to give me a hiding, or he thinks he has."
"It's true I was thinking a little of the seaways, but how a devil's name did you know it?"
"He's much too wise a fox, Ben—it's those little pointed ears."
"Charity, I meant to ask before now: Faith—is she—content?"