IV
I lay against the bank above my clam beds, with my hands clasped behind my head, and I gazed up at the whitish blue of the sky, and at the little floating clouds flecking the blue, and at an occasional herring gull flying across my field of vision with moderate wing-beats and with no apparent object, and at the procession of screaming terns busy at their fishing. For the terns have come, which always marks the change of season for me, but the winter gulls have not all gone. And I looked at the tree over my head, and I cast back over the years. I could see the tree merely by raising my eyes, without raising my head.
That tree has associations and a history: for under that tree Eve stood the fifth time that I saw her,—I remember each time,—and it was raining, a hard drizzle from the southeast, and the water dripped from her wide felt hat, and shone upon her long coat, and she was smiling. So that tree has associations for me—and for Eve as well, I believe. And sundry pairs of rubber boots have been hung in a crotch of it, both Eve's, and at a somewhat later time, Old Goodwin's; wherefore it has a history. And here, too, just where my head was pillowed, Eve had sat but a scant two hours after I had found her out,—I had thought she was a governess in Old Goodwin's house,—and she had set us both right for ever. And now there were many happy years behind us, and more happy years ahead of us, and there were Pukkie and Tidda; but most of all there was Eve.
So I lay and drank in the sunshine, and basked in its warmth, and my mind was a blank save for these pleasant musings. My poor little son! All of the Sunday that he was here—two days ago—it rained hard. He did not seem to mind it, but dragged me out in it—he had not such hard work to get me out. I like the wet well enough, but we have had a long stretch of cold and wet. But he got me out, and wandered the shore, clad in his rubber coat, and his rubber boots, and his little sou'wester, and he watched the white schooner; but on the schooner there was no sign of life save some sailors standing like statues in their dripping oilskins, and a man in a pea-jacket and faded old blue cap, who paced back and forth at the stern, or stood still by the rail for long periods, and then took up his pacing again. And Pukkie looked up at me and asked whether I thought he was the captain or the mate, and would have gone out there in one of Old Goodwin's boats, with me to help him row. But I refused. It is wet and uncomfortable rowing in a pouring rain; better standing.
And he would go up to his grandfather's in the hope of finding Bobby Leverett. So we went, and we found Bobby sitting on the piazza with the telescope and Miss Radnor; and Pukkie bearded Bobby in his chair, and asked him point-blank what he had been doing in that schooner. We had told Pukkie about the Rattlesnake, and Jimmy Wales and Ogilvie.
And Bobby grinned at my son, and answered him, if you call it an answer.
"Sorry not to be able to tell you, Puk, old chap," he said, "but you know we are enjoined not to publish information of the movements of vessels, and the plans of the navy are a dead secret. It might give information to the enemy." And he pointed at me.
"Do you know the plans of the navy?" asked Pukkie.
Bobby laughed, and so did Miss Radnor. "I refuse to answer," said Bobby, "on the ground that it would incriminate me. We may have been out baiting our traps. Ask your father about it."