The Bird in the Box

by Mary M. Mears

On the night in question, Rachel, after much worrying of her grandfather and Lizzie, obtained their consent to go on watch with André. She mounted with him to the lantern.

The immense corrugated lenses flashed diamond tints of inconceivable brilliancy. There, in rims of living colour, in circles of crystal, that white gush of light that flooded the rocks below, was born. There was the glitter and clash of its nightly cradle. The tower creaked and the sea thundered like cannon, ghostly finger-tips tapped now and then on the glass; a night bird, allured by the radiance, beat out its brains on the costal.

Presently André descended to the whitewashed room just below the lantern and Rachel stumbled after him.

"The plunger won't need windin' again till morning," he told her; "we can rest now."

But Rachel, squeezing her hands together, sat bolt upright, given over to a mighty, new, inspiring sensation. She was intoxicated with a sense of the power of man. Finally she laughed aloud; then she glanced at André. But, forgetful of all responsibility, the lad sat with his head against the wall, while the breath passed peacefully between his lips. Instantly Rachel was on her feet. She trembled all over. How about the ships at sea now! He could just talk big about the lighthouse, but he couldn't keep it,—not he! Then on a sudden she craned toward him, and from the vital, virile, little face the gleam of anger disappeared, for on the lad's forehead, beneath his mat of hair, and on the chin where it jutted in below the mouth, she saw that look of helplessness with which a relentless Fate sometimes brands her children.

Actuated by an almost maternal impulse, Rachel divested herself of her bit of shawl and laid it over the shoulders of the sleeping boy. Then she resumed the watch, and with every hour ticked forth by the clock on the wall, her sense of responsibility increased till the flame in the lantern was duplicated by another flame alight in a little human heart.

It was toward daylight when she stepped out on the balcony which encircled the tower just below the lantern. But the world she looked out upon was no longer the world with which she was familiar. At that hour a mysterious, quiet influence was abroad. Far below to the northward she descried her grandfather's house, grey, closed, silent; and she saw the silver loop of the bay. Inland the pine trees were arranged in dark, meditative groups, and the rocks, no longer formidable, in that wan half-light appeared like cattle that had trooped down to the water to drink. Here and there, perched on the loftiest crags, were the sentinel crows. These, solitary, motionless, accentuated the universal air of waiting.

All at once she held her breath. Across the clear blue of the sky lay, like lines of smoke, two or three filmy clouds. From a light pink these were turning to rose. Gradually the stars, one by one, paled—went out. Then an abrupt happening. A curve of crimson appeared above the horizon; this widened until it resembled an eye; then a full glowing countenance swung clear of the ocean and rays sprang from it. The whole sky began to blush. The ocean, a moment before a dull grey, flushed, and tiny ripples covered its surface; ships, hitherto invisible, appeared on its gently agitated bosom. And this infusion of vitality reached inland, quivering to gold in the tree-tops, trembling to crimson in the coarse grass, invading with radiance the most secret recess of the tiniest shell on the sand. The whole shore was illumined with the lavender and gold of the dawn; and simultaneously, from every quarter, rose the crows with their raucous caw caw in greeting to the oncoming day.

Suddenly through the weary frame of the child surged tides of exultation; it was as if, after the dreary watch, the sun rose in her. She stretched out her arms, and, for an instant, the sun and the child stared at each other. Then its fierce glow overpowered her, its fiery shafts blinded her; and covering her eyes, she stumbled below, whimpering, conscious of a dull ache, a shame, a sullen fear which she could not comprehend. Something hitherto unconquered was vanquished in her heart, so that never afterwards did she move with quite the same feeling of supremacy.