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Maps, plates, charts, etc.. mey be filmed at different reduction retios. Thoss too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upp^r left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartss. planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent Atre fiimis A des taux de reduction diffirents. Lorsque ie document est trop grsnd pour Atre reproduit en un ssul clichA. il est filmi i partir de I'angle supirisur gsuche, de gauche i droite, et de heut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'imeges nicessaire. Les disgremmes suivants illustrent le mithode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 THE MERMAID ■Pi ■ IV " Lady, I fain would tell how evermore Tiiy soul I know not from thy body, nor Thee from myself, neither our love from God." THE MERMAID A LOVE TALE BY L. DOUGALL AUTHOR OF BEGGARS AL WHAT NECESSITY KNOWS, ETC. NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1895 *» COI'TRUJIIT, 1895, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. I r CONTENTS. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. — TiTE BENT TWm . II. — The sau-eyed chim) . III.— Lost in the sea. IV. — A quiet life V. — Seen through blear eyes VI. — " From hour to hour we ripe VII. — ''A SEA rilAMJE*' VIII.— Belief in the impossible IX.— The sea-maid's music. X. — Towed by the beard XI.— Years of discretion . PA (IK 1 4 11 10 24 34 41 49 no 05 71 BOOK II. I.— The hand that beckoned II. — The isles of St. Maodalen III. — Between the surf .and the sand IV. — Where the devil lived . V. — Devilry VI. — The sea-maid .... VII.— The orave lady. VIII. — How they lived on The Cloud IX. — The sick and the dead . X. — A LIGKT-OIVING WORD V 7.) 85 90 101 109 118 122 120 180 141 fit- l< ' ! M VI CONTKNTS. cnAPTKR XI. — The lady's HUsnANi) XII.— The maiden inventeo , . . . . XIII. — White birds; white snow; white THoudHTs. X1V^— The marriace scene PAOK 14i) 155 \m 173 BOOK III. r. — TTow we hunted the seals TI. — Once more the vision III. — "Love, I speak to thy face". IV. — Hope born ok sprin(j V. — To the HiCtllER COl'RT VI. — "The NKiHT is dark" VII. — The wild waves whist . VIII.— "God 's in his heaven" . IX. — "(iod's pippets, best and worst" X. — "Death shrive thy soul!" . XI. — The riddle of life . XII. — To call a spirit from the vasty deep XUI. — The evening and the morning 183 IHH 1!)3 201 •208 210 007 230 249 254 203 2:1 283 THE M E R M AID. BOOK /. CHAPTER I. THK UK NT TWIG. Caits Simpson was the only son of a farmer who lived on tiie nortli-west coast of Prince Edward's Island. The farmer was verv well-to-do, for he was a hard-work- ing man, and his land produced richly. Tiie father was a man of good understanding, and the son had been born with brains; there were traditions of education in the family, hence the name Caius; it was no plan of the elder man that his son should also be a farmer. The boy was first sent to learn in what was called an "Academy," a school in tiie largest town of the island. Caius loved his books, and became a youthful scholar. In the sum- mer he did light work on the farm ; the work was of a quiet, monotonous sort, for his parents were no friends to frivolity or excitement. Caius was strictly brought up. The method of his training was that which relies for strength of character chiefly upon the absence of temptation. The father was under the impression that he could, without an^ labori- ous effort and consideration, draw a line between good TIIK MERMAID. ii IM 'I I ,'* und evil, niul kcoi) liis son on one Hide of it. He was not mistcre — but his view of rigiiteoiisness was derived from puritan tradition. A boy, if i\iiully treated, usually begins early to ap- prove the only teaching of which he has experience. As a youth, Caius heartily endorsed his father's views, and felt suj)erior to all who were more lax. lie had been born into that religious school which teaches that a man should think for himself on every question, provided that he arrives at a foregone conclusion. Caius, at the age of eighteen, had already done much reasoning on certain subjects, and proved his work by observing that his conclusions tallied with set models. As a result, he was, if not a reasonable being, a reasoning and a moral one. We have ceased to draw a distinction between Nature and the forces of education. It is a great problem why Nature sets so many young people in the world who are apparently unfitted for the battle of life, and certainly have no power to excel in any direction. The subjective religion which Caius had been taught had nourished within him great store of noble sentiment and high de- sire, but it had dei)rived him of that rounded knowledge of actual life which alone, it would appear, teaches how to guide these forces into the more useful channels. Then as to capacity, he had the fine sensibilities of a poet, the facile introspection of the philosoi)hical cast of mind, without the mental power to write good verse or to be a philosopher. He had, at least in ycuth, the con- science of a saint without the courage and endurance which appear necessary to heroism. In mockery the quality of ambition was bestowed upon him but not the requisites for success. Nature has been working for THE HKNT TWIG. 8 millions of years to j)ro(liico just sucli cliuructers as Caius Simpson, and, chanicU'r l)f'in<( mtluT too costly a production to throw away, no doubt she has a precise use for every on(! of tlieni. It is not the province of art to solve problems, but to depict them. It is enough for the purpose of telling his story that a man has been endowed with capacity to suffer and rejoice. J f \ CHAPTER II. THE SAD-EYED CHILD. One evcnins^ in early summer Cuius went a-fishing. He started to wallc several miles to an inlet where at hif^h tide the sea-trout came within reach of the line. The country road was of red clay, and, turning from the more tliickly-settled district, Cains followed it through a wide wood of hudding trees and out where it skirted the top of low red cliffs, against which the sea was lap- ping. Then his way led him across a farm. So far he had heen walking indolently, happy enough, hut here the shadow of the pain of the world fell upon him. This farm was a lonesome place close to the sea; there was no appearance of prosperity about it. Ctiiiis knew that the farmer, Day by name, was a churl, and was said to keep his family on short rations of happi- ness. As Cains turned off the public road he was not thinki ag specially of the bleak appeai'ance of the par- ticular piece of farmland he was crossing, or of the reputation of the family who lived upon the increase of its acres; but his attention was soon drawn to three children swinging on a gate which hung loosely in the log fence not far from the house. The eldest was an awkward-looking girl about twelve years of age ; the second was a little boy; the youngest was a round- ! I THE SAD-EYED CHILD. limbed, blond baby of two or three summers. The three stood upon the lowest bar of the gate, clinging to the upper s})ars. The eldest leaned her elbows on the top and looked over; the baby embraced the mid- dle bar and looked through. They had set the rickety gate swinging petulantly, and it latched and unlatched itself with the sort of sound that the swaying of some dreary wind would give it. The children seemed to swing there, not because they were happy, but because they were miserable. As Caius came with light step up the lane, fish- ing gear over his shoulder, the children looked at him disconsolately, and when he approached the gate the eldest stepped down and pulled it open for him. "Anything the matter?" he asked, stopping his quick tread, and turning when he- had passed throusfh. The big girl did not answer, but she let go the gate, and when it jerked forward the baby fell. She did not fall far, nor was she hurt ; but as Caius picked her up and patted her cotton clothes to sliake the dust out of them, it seemed to him that he had never seen so sad a look in a baby's eyes. Large, dark, dewy eyes they wTre, circled around with curly lashes, and tiiey looked up at him out of a wistful little face that was framed by a wreath of vellow hair. Cuius lifted the child, kissed her, put her down, and went on his way. lie only gave his action half a thought at the time, but all his life afterwards he was sorry that he had let the baby go out of his arms again, and thankful that ho had given her that one kiss. t 6 THE MERMAID. fil I ) ill His path now lay close by the house and on to the sea-cliff behind. The house stood in front of him — four bare wooden walls, brown painted, and without veranda or ornament; its barns, large and ugly, were close beside it. Beyond, some stunted firs grew in a dip of the cliff, but on the level ground the farmer had felled every tree. The homestead itself was ugly ; but the land was green, and the sea lay broad and blue, its breast swelling to the evening sun. The air blew sweet over field and cliff, and the music of the incoming tide was heard below tlie pine-fringed bank. Caius, however, was not in the receptive mind which appreciates outward things. His attention was not thoroughly aroused from himself till the sound of harsh voices struck his ear. Between the farmhouse and the barns, on a place worn bare by the feet of men and animals, the farmer and his wife stood in hot dispute. The woman, tall, gaunt, and ill-dressed, spoke fast, passion and misery in all her attitude and in every tone and gesture. The man, chunky in figure and churlish in demeanour, held a horsewhip in his hand, answering his wife back word for word in language both profane and violent. It did not occur to Caius that the whip was in his hand otherwise than by accident. The men in that part of the world were not in the habit of beating their wives, but no sooner did he see the quarrel than his wrath rose hot against the man. The woman being the weaker, he took for granted that she was entirely in the right. He faltered in his walk, and, hesitating, stood to look. His path was too far off for him to hear the words that were poured forth in THE SAD-EYED CHILD. I to the i him— without ;ly, were •ew in a e farmer ras ugly; road and The air ic of the red bank, nd which was not 1 of harsh )n a phice i\\e farmer jman, tall, ud misery d gesture, emeanour, his wife jofane and such torrents of passion. The boy's strong sentiment prompted him to run and coUar the man ; his judg- ment made him doubt whether it was a good thing to interfere between man and wife ; a certain latent cow- ardice in his heart made him afraid to venture nearer. The sum of his emotions caused him to stop, go on a few paces, and stop to look and listen again, his heart full of concern. In this way he was drawing further away, when he saw the farmer step nearer his wife and menace her with tlie whip; in an instant more he had struck her, and Caius had run about twenty feet forward to interfere, and halted again, because he was afraid to approach so angry and powerful a man. Caius saw the woman clearly now, and how she received this attack. She stood quite still at her full stature, ceasing to speak or to gesticulate, folded her arms and looked 'at her husband. The look in her hard, dark face, the pose of her gaunt figure, said more clearly than any passionate words, " Hold, if you value your life ! you have gone too far ; you have heaped up punishment enough for yourself already." The husband understood this language, vaguely, it might be, but still he understood enough to make him I draw back, still growling and menacing with the whip. Caius was too young to understand what the woman expressed ; he only knew strength and hveakness as physical things ; his mind was surg- ing with pity for the woman and revenge against [the man ; yet even he gathered the knowledge that [for the time the quarrel was over, that interference was now needless. He walked on, looking back as he went to see the farmer go away to his stables and id THE MERMAID. !l ■ I tlie wife stalk past him up toward the byre that was lieare St th e sea. As Caius moved on, the onlv relief his mind could find at first was to ati pieti exercise nis una*, how he could avenge the poor woman. In fancy he saw himself holding Day by the throat, throwing him down, belabouring him with words and blows, meting out punishment more than adecjuate. All that he actually did, however, was to hold on his way to the place of his fishing. The path had led him to the edge of the cliff. Here he paused, looking over the bank to see if he could get down and continue his w'alk along the shore, but the soft sandy bluff here jutted so that he could not even see at what level the tide lay. After spending some minutes in scrambling half-way down and return- ing because he could descend no further, he struck backwards some paces behind the farm buildings, sup- posing the descent to be easier where bushes grew in the shallow chine. In the top of the cliff there was a little dip, which formed an excellent place for an out- side cellar or root-house for such farm stores as must be buried deep beneath the snow against the frost of win- ter. The rough door of such a cellar appeared in the side of this small declivitv, and as Caius came round the back of the byre in sight of it, he was surprised to see the farmer's wife holding the latch of its door in her hand and looking vacantly into the dark interior. She looked up and answered the young man's greetintj with apathetic manner, apparently quite indifferent to the scene she ha*^ just passed through. Caius, his m^nd still in the rush of indignation on her behalf, stopped at the sight of her, wondering THE tord. ^f iibby the one this . hud any low taste wn him- lem," said ilong," ^le Ithe ishind, and tied across the wliero ho had seen the child cast away, lie f()r!' !i I Hit He 18 THE MERMAID. his brain for minutes before he could find utterance. The smell of an abundant supper his mother had set out for him choked him. When he had at last spoken — told of the blow Farmer Day had struck, of his wife's deed, and com- manded that all the men that could be collected should turn out to seek for the child — he was astonished at finding sobs in the tones of his words. Ke became oblivious for the moment of his parents, and leaned his face against the wooden wall of the room in a con- vulsion of nervous feeling that was weeping without tears. It did not in the least surprise his parents that he should cry — he was only a child in their eyes. While the father bestirred himself to get a cart and lanterns and men, the mother soothed her son, or, rather, she addressed to him such kindly attentions as she supposed were soothing to him. She did not know that her at- tention to his physical comfort hardly entered his con- sciousness. Caius went out again that night with those who went to examine the spot, and test the current, and search the dark shores. He went again, with a party of neighbours, to the same place, in the first faint pink flush of dawn, to seek up and down the sands and rocks left bare by the tide. They did not find the body of the child. u !' 3 blow 1 coin- sboul^i shed ut became [ leaned 1 a con- witbout 5 tbat be 5. Wbile ^ lanterns [itber, sbe > supposed t ber at- bis con- bose wbo rrent, and a party of faint pinli and rocks ■lie body of '5 CHAPTER IV. A QIIET Lri'i:. Ix the nis^ht, wliile the men were seokin^^ tlie mur- (lorod ehihl, there were kindlv women wlio w(>nt to the liouso of tlie farmer Day to tend his wifo. The elder oliildren liad been found asleep in a field, where, after wanderiufj: a little while, thev had succumbed to the in- fluence of some drug, which had evidently been given them by the mother to facilitate her evil desii^ni. She herself, poor w^oman, had grown calm again, her frenzy leaving her to a duller phase of madness. That she was mad no one doubted. IIow long she might have been walking in the misleading paths of wild fancy, whether lior insane vasfaries had been the cause or the result of her husband's churlishness, no one knew. The husband was a taciturn man, and appeared to sulk under the scrutiny of the neighbourhood. Tho more charitable ascribed his demeanour to sorrow. The punishment his wife had meted out for the blow he struck her had, without doubt, been severe. As for Cains Simpson, his mind was sore concerning the little girl. It ":as as if his ntiture, in one part of it, had received a brui&'^ that did not heal. The child had pleased his fancy. All the sentiment in him centred round the memory of the little girl, and idealized her 19 .,5aS8*??s'- ■(■■■I '1! 20 THE MERMAID. ' III 8 I r i II 1 1 ■ - 1 1 '' f i i ll J loveliness. The first warm weather of the vear, the ex- quisite but fugitive beauties of the spring, lent emphasis to his mood, and because his home was not a soil eon- genial to the ^^''owth of any but the more ordinary sen- timents, he began at this time to seek in natural soli- tudes a more fitting environment for his musings. More than once, in the days that immediately followed, he sought by daylight the spot where, in the darkness, he had seen the child thrown into the sea. It soon oc- curred to him to make an epitaph for her, and carve it in the cliff over which she was thrown. In the noon- dav hours in which his father rested, he worked at this task, and grew to feel at home in the pluce and its surroundings. The earth in this place, as in others, showed red, the colour of red jasper, wherever its fjice was not covered by green grass or blue water. Just here, where the mother had songht out a precipice under Avhich the tide lay deep, there was a natural water- wall of red sandstone, rubbed and corrugated by the waves. This Avail of rock extended but a little way, and ended in a sharp jutting point. The little island that stood out toward the open sea had sands of red gold ; level it was and covered with green bushes, its sandy beach surrounding it like a ring. On the other side of the jutting point a bluff of red clay and crumbling rock continued round i\ wide bay. Where the rim of the blue water lay thin on this beach there showed a purple band, shading upward into the dark jasper red of damp earth in the lower cliff. The upper part of the cliff was very dry, and the earth was pink, a bright earthen pink. This ribbon of shaded A QUIET LIFE. 21 ic ex- phasis [ con- •y sen- til soli- usings. llowed, irkness, oon oc- carve it iC Tioon- d at this ; and its \ red, the t covered ivhere the h the tide uidstone, all of rock ,vp jutting open sea |)vered with it like a luff of red ,, wide hay. this heach rd into the i cliff. The e earth wa^ n of shaded reds lay all along the shore. The land above it was level and green. At the other horn of the bav a small town stood ; its white houses, seen through tlie trembling lens of evap- orating water, glistened with almost pearly brightness between the blue spaces of sky and water. All the scene was drenched in sunlight in those spring days. The town, Montrose by name, was fifteen miles away, counting miles by the shore. The place where Caius was busy was unfrequented, for the land near was not fertile, Jind a woocled tract intervened between it and the better farms of the neighbourhood. The home of the lost child and one other poor dwelling were the nearest houses, but they were not very near. Caius did not attempt to carve his inscription on the mutable sandstone. It was quite possible to obtain a slab of hard building-stone and material for cement, and after carting them himself rather secretly to the place, he gradually hewed a deep recess for the tablet and ce- mented it there, its face slanting upward to the blue sky for greater safety. He knew even then that the soft rock would not hold it many years, but it gave him a poetic pleasure to contemplate the ravages of time as he worked, and to think that the dimpled child with the sunny hair and the sad, beautiful eyes had only gone before, that his tablet would some time be washed away by the same devouring sea, and that in the sea of time ho, too, would sink before many years and be forgotten. The short elegy he wrote was a bad mixture of an- icient and modern thought as to substance, figures, and literary form, for the boy had just been dipping into Iclassics at school, while he was bv habit of mind a Puri- Itan. His composition was one at which pagan god and "■^•"11 ■'lltillrill 22 THE MERMAID. m I. - Christian angel must have smiled had they viewed it ; but perhaps they would have wept too, for it was the outcome of a heart very young and very earnest, wholly untaught in that wisdom which counsels to evade the pains and suck the pleasures of circumstance. There were only two people who discovered what Caius was about, and came to look on while his work was yet unfinished. One was an old man who lived in the one poor cot- tage not far away and did light work for Day the farmer. His name was Morrison — Neddy Morrison he was called. He came more than once, creeping carefully near the edge of the cliff with infirm step, and talking about the lost child, whom he also had loved, about the fearful visitation of the mother's madness, and, with Caius, con- demning unsparingly the brutality, known and supposed, of the now bereaved father. It was a consolation to them both that Morrison could state that this youngest child was the only member of his family for whom Day had ever shown affection. The other visitor Caius had was Jim Hogan. He was a rough youth ; he had a very high, rounded fore- head, so high that he would have aim )st seemed bald if the hair, when it did at last begin, had not been ex- ceedingly thick, standing in a short red brush round his head. With the exception of this peculiar forehead, Jim was an ordinary freckled, healthy young man. He saw no sense at all in what Caius was doing. When hej came he sat himself down on the edge of the cliff, swung] his heels, and jeered unfeignedly. When the work was finished it became noised thutl the tablet was to be seen. The neighbours wondered notj a little, and flocked to gaze and admire. Caius himself A QUIET LIFE. 23 ■ed it; ,as the • ^ wholly iide the jd what tiis work poor cot- e farmer. ras called. near the ahout the he fearful Caius,coB- i supposed, , isolation to is youngest -v^'hom X^'-^y [logati. He ainded fore- .med bald \i jiot been ex- [brush round ]iar forehead, nian. He| Wlien he! 'e cliff, swung ie noised that| wondered not ICaius himsell had never told of its existence ; he would have rather no one had seen it; still, he was not insensible to the local fame thus acquired. His father, it was true, had not much opinion of his feat, but his mother, as mothers will, treasured all the admiring renuirks of the neigh- bours. All the women loved Caius from that day forth, as ijeing wondrouslv warm-hearted. Such sort of liter- ary folk as the community could boast dubbed him " The C.'anadian 15urns," chiefly, it seemed, because he had been seen to help his father at the })loughing. In due course the wife of the farmer Day was tried for murder, and pronounced insane. She had before been removed to an asvlum : she now remained there. I :;, 1, ' ! I ; 11 1 ■ i . w • ! i »i' [' ! 1 i| ■ 1 1 1 iJ ^Bi ■III iiiit (.CHAPTER V. SEEN THROUGH BLEAR EYES. It was foreseen by the elder Simpson that his son would be a great man. lie looked forth over the world and decided on the kind of greatness. Tlic wide, busy world would not have known itself as seen in the mind of this gray-haired countryman. The elder Simpson had never set foot off the edge of his native island. His father before him had tilled the same fertile acres, looked out upon the same level landscape — red and green, when it was not white with snow. Neither of them had felt any desire to see beyond the brink of that horizon; but ambition, quiet and sturdy, had been in their hearts. The result of it was the bit of money in the bank, the prosperous farm, and the firm intention of the present fariuer that his son should cut a figure in the world. This stern man, as he trudged about at his labour, looked upon the activities of city life with that same in- ward eye with which the maiden looks forth upon Ik r future ; and as she, with nicety of preference, selects the sort of lover she will have, so he selected the sort of| greatness which should befall his son. The stuff of this vision was, as must always be, of such sort as had enterctll his mind in the course of his limited experience. Hi:! grandfather had been an Englishman, and it was knovvr 24 SEEN THROUGH BLEAR EYES. 25 that lus son ver tbe world .^,c wide, busy J, in the mind elder Simpson ve island. H^s le acres, looked nd green, when them had felt at horizon •, hut in their hearts, the hank, tlie of the present n the world. ,t at his labour, ith that same m- forth nponlun- •rence, selects the ,cted the sort oil The stuff of thu aortas had entern^ experience, il^j atiditwasknowi^ 1 that one of the sons had been a notable plivt^ic'ian in the city of London : Caius must become a notable physician. His newspaper told him of honours taken at the L^niver- sity of Montreal by young men of the medical school ; therefore, Cains was to stndv and take honours. It was nothing to him that his neighbours did not send their sons so far afield ; he came of educated stock himself. The future of Cains was prearranged, and Cains did not (^ainsav the arran icemen t. That autumn the lad w^ent awav from home to a citv which is, withont doubt, a very beautiful city, and joined the ranks of students in a medical school which for size and thorough work is not to be despised. He was not slow to drink in the new ideas which a first introduction to modern science, and a new view of the relations of most things, brought to his mind. In the first vears Cains came home for his summer vacations, and helped his father upon the farm. The old man had money, but he had no habit of spending it, and expenditure, like economy, is a practice to be ac- quired. When Cains came the third time for the long summer holiday, something happened. He did not now often walk in the direction of the Day farm ; there was no necessity to take him there, only sentiment. He was by this time ashamed of the emblazonment of his poetic effort npon tlie clilf. He was not ashamed of the sentiment which had prompted it, but he was ashamed of its exhibition. He still thought ttonderly of the little child that was lost, and once in a [long while he visited the place where his tablet was, as he ivould have visited a grave. One summer evening he sauntered through the wood nd down the road by the sea on this errand. Before mam Mi ► ! iilii t ;:[! I . 26 THE MERMAID. going to the shore, he stopped at the cottage wliere the old hibourer, Morrison, lived. Tli'3re was something to gossip about, for Day^s wife had been sent from the asylum as cured, and her hus- band had been permitted to take her home again on condition tliat no young or weak i:)erson sliould renuiin in the house with her. He had sent liis two remaining children to be brought up by a relative in the West. People said he could get more work out of his wife than out of the children, and, furthermore, it saved his having to pay for her board elsewhere. The woman had been at home almost a twelvemonth, and Cains had some natural interest in questioning Morrison as to her welfare and general demeanour. The strange gaunt creature had for his imagination very much the fascination that a ghost would have had. We care to hear all about a ghost, however trivial the details may be, but we desire no personal contact. Caius had no wish to meet this woman, for whom he felt rei)ulsion, but he would have been interested to hear Neddy Morrison describe her least action, for Neddy was almost the only person who had constant access to her house. Morrison, however, had very little to tell about Mrs. Day. She had come home, and was living very much as she had lived before. The absence of her children did not appear to make great dilTerence in her dreary life. The old labourer could not say that her husband treated her kindly or unkindly. He was not willing to aflirni that she was glad to be out of the asylum, or that she was sorry. To the old man's imagination Mrs. Day was not an interesting object; his interest had always been centred upon the children. It was of them he talked chiefly now, telling of letters that their father had *. SEEN THROUGH BLEAR EYES. jre y's wife er bus- iT'ciiu on [ remain uvcviuing be ^Vest. ^vife than is having had been had some lei* welfare t crcatnrc uition that tU about a twc dcsii-e ) meet this ,voidd have leseribe iiev person who I about Mrs. very much children did • dreary life, iband treated big to amnu or that she Mrs. Day was always been em he talked r father had received from them, and of the art by which he, ^Forrison, liad sometimes contrived to make the taciturn Day show him tlieir contents. The interest of passive benevolence which the young medical student gave to Morrison's account of these cliildren, wlio liad grown quite beyond tiie age when cliildren are pretty and interesting, would soon have been exhausted luid the account been long ; but it happened that the old man had a more startling communication to make, which cut short his go.ssip about his master's family. He liad been standing so far at the door of liis little wooden house. His old wife was moving at lier house- hold work within. Cains stood outside. The house was a little back from the road in an open space ; near it was a pile of firewood, a saw-horse and chopping-block, with their accompanying carpet of chips, and such pots, kettles, and household utensils as Mrs. Morrison pre- ferred to keep out of doors. When old Morrison came to the more exciting part of his gossip, he looked Oaius in the breast, and indicated by a backward movement of his elbow that the old wife's [presence hampered his talk. Then he came out with an artfully simulated interest in the weather, and, nudg- [ing Cuius at intervals, apparently to enforce silence on to})ic concerning which the young man as yet knew lothing, he wended his way with him along a path tlirough thicket of young fir-trees which bordered the road. The two men were going towards tliat part of the Ihore to which Caius was bound. They reached the ilace where the child had been drowned before the com- uuication was made, and stood together, like a picture the personification of age and youth, upon the top of le grassy cliff. 3 M <{ I :!iP!i:. :iil : I hi I I i::'- ' » ' I 111 28 THE MERMAID. " You'll not believe me," said the oh] man, with ex- citement obviously growing within him, " but I tell you, young sir, I've sat jist here behind those near bushes like, and watched the creatur for an hour at a time." " What was it you watched ? " asked Caius, superior to the other's excitement. " I tell you, it was a girl in the sea ; and more than that^— she was half a fish." The mind of Caius was now entirely scornful. " You don't believe me," said tlie old man, nudging him again. But Caius was polite. "Well, now" — good-humouredly — "what did you see?" " I'll tell you jist what I saw." (The old man's ex- citement was growing.) " You understand that from the top here you can see across the bay, and across to the island and out to sea ; but you can't see the shore under the rocky point where it turns round the farm there into the bay, and you can't see the other shore of the island for the bushes on it." " In other words, you can see everything that's before your eyes, but you can't see round a corner." The old man had some perception that Caius was humorous. " Y'^ou believe me that far," he said, with ti weak, excited cackle of a laugh. " Well, don't go for to repeat what I'm going to tell you further, for I'll not have my old woman frightened, and I'll not have Jim Hogan and the fellows he gets round him belabouring the thing with stones." " Heaven forbid ! " A gleam of amusement flitted through the mind of Caius at the thought of the side- ^ SEEN THROUGH BLEAR EYES. 29 \\ cx- 1 you, at a re tbau 1. nuelgi"g did yo^^ man's ex- that from jross to the lore uu^^i^' arm there ore of the kat's before It Cains was isaid, with a In't go for to for VW r^^'t lot have Ji"^ belabouring .ment flitt^"^^ of the side- litrht tliirf threw on Jim's character. For Jim was not incapable of casting stones at even so rare a curiosity as a mermaid. "Now," said the old man, and he huighed again his weak, wheezy laugh, "if i/oi( told mr, iVl not believe it ; but I saw it as sure as 1 stand here, and if this was my dying hour, sir, I'd say tiie same. The first time it was one morning that I got up very early — I don't jist remember the reason, but it was before sun- up, and I was walking along here, and the tide was out, and between me and the island I saw what I thought ; was a person swimming in the water, and I thought to myself, ' It's queer, for there's no one about these parts that has a liking for the water.' But when I was younger, at Pictou once, I saw the fine folks ducking themselves in flannel sarks, at what they called a 'bath- ■ ing-place,' so the first thing I thought of was that it (^ was something like that. And then I stood here, jist I about where you are now, and the woman in the water I she saw me " " Now, how do you know it was a woman?" asked fCaius. " Well, I didn't know for certain that day anything, Ifor she was a good way off, near the island, and she no ii^fiooner saw me than she turned and made tracks for the back of the island where I couldn't see her. But I tell ^ou this, young sir, no woman or man either ever swam as she swam. Have you seen a trout in a qniet pool Wag its tail and go right ahead — how, you didn't know; you only knew that 'twasn't in the one place and 'twas in t'other?" Caius nodded. " Well," asked the old man with triumph in his 80 THE MERMAID. VVi 4i voice, as one who capped an argument, "did you ever see man or woman swim like thatV" "Ko," Caius admitted,"! never did — especially as to the wagging of the tail." " But she huihi't a tail ! " put in the old man eagerly, "for I saw her the second dav — that I'm comini' sparkling gaslight, and to curl his fair moustache between his now white fingers as he talked to them, and yet to moderate the extent of the attention that he paid to each, not wishing that it should be in excess of tiiat which was due. lie learned. to value himself as he was valued — as a rising man, one 84 "FROM HOUR TO HOUR WE RIPE- 35 who would do well not to throw himself away in niar- riasre. He had a moustache first, and at last he had a board. He was a sober vouns^ man : as his father's teaching had been strict, so he was now strict in his rule over himself, lie frequented reli.irious services, going about listening to popular preachers of all sorts, and critically commenting upon their sermons to his friends. He was really a very religious and well-inten- tioned man, all of which stood in his favour with the more sober portion of society whose favour he courted. As his talents and industry gained him grace in the eyes of the dons of his college, so his good life and good understand'- 'r made him friends among the more worthy r ■" / companions. lie was conceited and self- risrhteous, but not obviouslv so. When his college had conferred upon him the de- gree of doctor of medicine, he felt that he had climbed only on the lower rungs of the ladder of knowledge. It was his father, not himself, who had chosen his pro- fession, and now that he had received the right to prac- tise medicine he experienced no desire to practise it ; learning he loved truly, but not that he might turn it into golden fees, and -i;: t that by it he might assuage the sorrows of others ; .0 loved it partly for its own sake, perhaps chiefly so: sv ♦ .ere was in his heart a long- enduring ambition, whit'- ''" )rmed itself definitely into a desire for higher culture, and hoped more indefinitely for future fame. Caius resolved to go abroad and study at the medical schools of the Old World. His professors Jipplauded his resolve ; his friends e^icouraged him in it. It was to explain to his fj.iier the necessity for this course of action, and wheedlu i..;; uld man into approval and cou- w 36 THE MERMAID. N. ;i|J sent, that the young doctor went home in the spring of the same year which gave him liis degree. Caius had other sentiments in going home besides those which iinderkiy tlie motive which we have as- signed. If as he travelled he at all regarded the finery of all that he had acquired, it was that he might by it delight the parents who loved him with such pride. Though not a fop, his hand trembled on the last morn- ing of his journey when he fastened a necktie of the colour his mother loved best. He took an earlier train than he could have been expected to take, and drove at furious rate between the station and ; ? hoiie, in order that he might creep in by the side doo. d greet his parents before they had thought of coming to meet him. He had also taken no breakfast, that he might eat the more of the manifold dainties which his mother had in readiness. For three or four days he feasted hilariously upon these dainties until he was ill. lie also practised all the airs and graces of dandyism that he could think of, because he knew that the old folks, with ill-judging taste, admired them. When he had explained to them how great a man he should be when he had been abroad, and how economical his life would be in a for- eign city, they had no greater desire than that he should go abroad, and there wax as great as might be possible. One thing that consoled the mother in the heroism of her ambition was that it was his plan first to spend the long tranquil summer by her side. Another was that, because her son had set his whole affection upon learning, it appeared he had no immediate intention ot fixing his love upon any more materhil maid. In her FROM HOUR TO HOUR WE RIPE- 37 timid jealousy she loved to come across this topic with him, not worldly-wise enough to know that the answers which reassured her did not display the noblest side of his heart. " And there wasn't a girl among them all that you fancied, my lad '? " With spotless apron round her portly form she was serving the morning rasher while Caius and his father sat at meat. " I wouldn't say that, mother : I fancied them all." Caius spoke witli generous condescension towards the fair. " Ay," said the father shrewdly, " there's safety in numbers." " But there wasn't one was particular, Caius ? " con- tinued the dame with gleeful insinuation, because she was assured that the answer was to be negative. " A likely lad like you should marry ; it's part of his duty." Caius was dense enough not to see her true sentiment. The particular smile that, in the classification of his facial expressions, belonged to the subject of love and marriage, played upon his lips while he explained that when a man got up in the world he could make a better marriage than he could when comparatively poor and unknown. Her woman's itistinct assured her that the expression and the words arose from a heart ignorant of the quality of love, and she regarded notliing else. The breakfast-room in wliich tliey sat had no feature that could render it attractive to Caius. Although it was warm weather, the windows were closelv shut and never opened; such was the habit of the family, and even his influence had not strength to break through a regulation which to his parents appeared so wise and na 38 THE MERMAID. 11 safe. The meadows outside were brimful of flowers, but no flower found its way into this orderly room. The furniture hrd that desolate sort of gaudiuess which one sees in the wares of cheap shops. Cleanliness and god- liness were the most cons]iicuous virtues exhibited, for the room was spotless, and the map of Palestine and a large Bible were prominent objects. The father and mother were in the habit of eating in the kitchen when alone, and to the son's taste that room, decorated with shining utensils, with its door open to earth and sky, was infinitely more picturesque and cheery ; but the mother had a stronger will than her son, and she had ordained that his rise in the world should be marked by his eating in the dining-room, where meals were served whenever they had company. Caius observed also, with a pain to which his heart was sensitive, that at these meals she treated him to her com- pany manners also, asking him in a clear, firm voice if he " chose bread " or if he would " choose a little meat," an expression common in the country as an elegant manner of pressing food upon visitors. It was not that he felt himself unworthy of this mark of esteem, but that the rid taste and the bad English grated upon his nerves. She was a strong, comely woman, this housemother, portly in person and large of face, with plentiful gray hair brushed smooth ; from the face the colour had faded, but the look of health and strong purpose re- mained. The father, on the other hand, tended to lean- nes;?; his large frame was beginning to be obviously bowed by toil ; his hair and beard were somewhat long, and had a way of twisting themselves as though blown by the wind. When the light of the summer morning "FROM HOUR TO IIOCR WE RIPK- 80 his ler, re- lan- [ing shone through tlie panes of clean ghiss upon this family at breakfast, it was obvious that the son was physically somewhat degenerate. Athletics had not then come into fashion ; Caius was less in stature than might have been expected from such parents ; and now, after his years of town life, he had an appearance of being limp in sinew, nor was there the same strong will and alert shrewdness written upon his features, lie was a handsome fellow, clear-eyed and intelligent, finer far, in the estimation of his parents, than themselves ; but that which rounded out the lines of his figure was rather a tendency to plumpness ciian the development of muscle, and the in- telligence of his face suggested rather the power to think than the power to utilize his thought. After the first glad days of the home-coming, the lack of education and taste, and the habits that this lack engendered, jarred more and more upon Caius. Uq loved his parents too well to betray his just distress at the narrow round of thought and feeling in which their minds revolved — the dogmatism of ignorance on all points, whether of social custom or of the sublime reaches of theology; but this distress became magnified into irritation, partly because of this secrecy, partly be- cause his mind, wearied by study, had not its most wholesome balance. Jim Ilogan at this time made overtures of renewed friendship to Caius. Jim was the same as of old — ath- letic, quick-witted, large and strong, with his freckled face still innocent of hair ; the red Iwush stood up over his unnaturally high forehead in such fashion as to sug- gest to the imaginative eye that wreath of flame that in some old pictures is displayed round the heads of vil- lains in the infernal regions. Jim was now the acknowl- bhbB 40 THE MERMAID. edged leader of tlie young men of that part who were not above certain low and mischievous nractices to which Caius did not dream of condescending. Caius repulsed the offer of friendship extended to him. The households with which his parents were friendly made great merrymakings over his return. Dancing was forbidden, but games in which maidens might be caught and kissed were not. Caius was not diverted ; he had not the good-nature to be in sympathy with the sort of hilarity which was exacted fn^n him. CHAPTER VII. (( A SEA CHANGE. .■> " In" the procession of the swift-winged hours there is for every man one and another which is big with fate, in that they bring him peculiar opportunity to lose his life, and bv that means find it. Such an hour came now to Caius. The losing and finding of life is accomplished in many ways : the first proffer of this kind which Time makes to us is commonly a draught of the wine of joy, and happy is he who loses the remembrance of self therein. The hour which was so fateful for Caius came flying with the light winds of x\ugust, which breathed over the sunny harvest fields and under the deep dark shade of woods of fir and beech, waving the gray moss that hung from trunk and branch, tossing the emerald ferns that grew in the moss at the roots, and out again into light to catch the silver down of thistles that grew by the red roadside and rustle their purple bloom ; then on the cliff, just touching the blue sea with the slightest rip- ple, and losing themselves where sky and ocean met in indistinguishable azure fold. Through the woods walked Caius, and onward to the shore. Neddy Morrison was dead. The little child who was lost in the sea was almost forgotten. Caius, • 41 42 THE MERMAID. I* IP' thinking upon those things, tliought also upon the tran- sient nature of all things, but he did not think profoundly or long. In his earlier youth he had been a good deal given to meditation, a habit which is frecpiently a mere sign of mental fallowness ; now that his mind was wearied with the accumulation of a little learning, it knew what work meant, and did not work except when compelled. Cains walked upon the red road bordered by fir hedges and weeds, amongst which blue and yel- low asters were beginning to blow, and the ashen seeds of the llame-flower were seen, for its flame was blown out. Caius was walking for the sake of walking and in pure idleness, but when he came near Farmer Day's land he had no thought of passing it without pausing to rest his eyes for a time upon the familiar details of that part of the shore. lie scrambled down the face of the clifT, fov it was as yet some hours before the tide would be full. A glance showed him that the stone of baby Day's tablet yet held firm, cemented in the uiche of the soft rock. A glance was enough for an >bject for which he had little respect, and he sat down with his back to it on one of the smaller rocks of the beach. This was the only place on the shore where the sandstone was hard enough to retain the form of rock, and the rock ended in the small, sharp headland \ Mch, when he was down at the water's level, hid the neighbouring bay entirely from his sight. The incoming tide had no swift, unexpected current as the outgoing water had. There was not much move- ment in the little channel upon which Caius was keep- ing watch. The summer afternoon was all aglow upon shore and sea. He had sat quite still for a good while, "A SKA CHANGE." 43 wlicn, near tlie sunny ishuid, just at tlie point where he hud been pulled asliore on the adventurous night when he risked his life for the child, he suddenly observed what appeared to be a curious animal in the water. There was a glistening as of a scaly, brownish body, which lay near the surface of the waves. Was it a por- poise that had ventured so near? Was it a dog swim- ming? No, he knew well that neither the one nor the other had any such habit as this lazy basking in sunny shallows. Then the head that was lying backwards on the water turned towards him, and he saw a human face — surely, surely it was human! — and a snow-white arm was lifted out of the water as if to play awhile in the warm air. The eyes of the wonderful thing were turned towaid him, and it seemed to chance to see him now for the first time, for there was a sudden movement, no jerk or splash, but a fish-like dart toward the open sea. Then came another turn of the head, as if to make sure that he was indeed the man that he seemed, and then the sea-maid went under the surface, and the ripples that she left behind subsided slowdy, expanding and fading, as ripples in calm waters do. Cains stood up, watching the empty surface of the sea. If some compelling fate had said to him, " There shalt thou stand and gaze," he could not have stood more absolutely still, nor gazed more intently. The spell lasted long : some three or four minutes he stood, watching the place with almost unwinking eyes, like one turned to stone, and within him his mind was searching, searching, to find out, if he might, what thing this could possibly be. He did not suppose that she would come back. 4 .; I. "1 > "I ■I' A ' m r" 44 THE MERMAID. Ih: Neddy Morrison had impliod that the condition of her appearing was that slie sliouhl not know tliat she was seen. It was three years since the old man had seen the siime apparition ; liow mucli might three years stand for in tlie life of a mermaid ? Then, when such ques- tioning seemed most futile, and the spell that held Caius was loosing its hold, there was a rippling of the calm surface that gave him a wild, half-fearful hope. As gently as it had disapi)eared the head rose again, not lying backward now, but, with pretty turn of the white neck, holding itself erect. An instant she was still, and then the perfect arm which he had seen before was again raised in the air, and this time it beckoned to him. Once, twice, thrice he saw the imperative beck of the little hand ; then it rested again upon the rippled surface, and the sea-maid waited, as though secure of his obedience. The man's startled ideas began to right themselves. Was it possible that any woman could be bathing from the island, and have the audacity to ask him to share her sport ? He tarried so long that the nymph, or whatever it might be, came nearer. Some twelve feet or so of the water she swiftly glided through, as it seemed, without twist or turn of he?* body or effort ; then paused ; then came forward again, until she had rounded the island at its nearest point, and half-way between it and his shore she stopped, and looked at him steadily with a face that seemed to Caius singularly womanly and sweet. Again she lifted a white hand and beckoned him to come across the space of water that remained. Caius stood doubtful upon his rock. After a minute he set his feet more firmly upon it, and crossed his arms "A SEA CHANGE." 45 it the )Ut len ite Inis to indicate that he Imd no intention of swimmiiif]^ the narrow sea in answer to the beckoning hand. Yet his whole mind was tluown into confnsion witli the strange- ness of it. He thonglit he h(;ard a wonum's laughter come across to him with the lapping waves, and his face flushed with the indignity this olTered. The mermaid left her distance, and by a series of short darts came nearer still, till she stopj)ed again about the width of a broad higliroad from the discomforted man. lie knew now that it must be truly a mernuiid, for no creature but a fsh could thus glide along the surface of the water, and certainly the sleek, damp little head that lay so comfortably on the ripple was the head of a laughing child or playful girl. A crown of green seaweed was on the dripping curls ; the arms playing idly upon the surface were round, dimpled, and exqui- sitely wh'^e. The dark brownish body he could hardly now see was foreshortened to his sight, down slant- ing deep under the disturbed surface. If it had not been for the indisputable evidence of his senses that this lovely sea thing swam, not with arms or feet, but with some snake-like motion, he might still have tried to persuade himself that some playful girl, strange to the ways of the neighbourhood, was disporting herself at her bath. It was of no avail that his reason told him that he did not, could not, believe that such a creature as a mermaid could exist. The big dark eyes of the girlish face opened wide and looked at him, the dimpled mouth smiled, and the little white hand came out from the water and beckoned to him again. He was suffering from no delirium ; he had not lost his wits. He stamped his foot to make sure that the 40 THE xMERMAID. Ill jt W '' ' rock was beneath him ; lie tunic 1 ^boiit on it to rest his eyes from the water sparlvles, and to recall all sober, serious thought by gazing at the stable shore. His eye stayed on the epitaph of the lost child. He remembered soberly all that he knew about this dead child, and then a sudden flash of perception seemed to come to him. This sweet water-nymph, on whom for the moment he had turned his back, must be the baby's soul grown to a woman in the water. He turned again, eager not to lose a moment of the maiden's presence, half fearful that she had vanisiied, but she was there yet, lying still as before. Of course, it was impossible that she should be tlie sea-wraith of the lost child; but, then, it was wholly impossible that she should be, and there she was, smil- ing at him, and Caius saw in the dark eyes a likeness to th^ lons^-remembered eves of the child, and thoun^ht he pall read there human wistfulness and sadness, in spite of the wet dimples and light laughter that bespoke the soulless life of the sea-creature. Caius stooped on the rock, ])utting his hand near the water as he might ^^ave done had he been calling to a kitten or a baby. " Come, my pretty one, come," he called softly in soothing tones. The eyes of the water-nymph blinked at him through wet-friiiffed lids. "Come near; I will not hurt you," urged Caius, helpless to do auglit but offer blandishment. He patted the rock gently, as if to make it by that means more inviting. " Come, love, come," he coaxed. He was used to speak in the sama terms of endearment to a colt of "A SEA CHANGE." 47 a in Us, at to of which he was fond ; but when a look of undoubted de- rision came over the face of the sea-maiden, he felt sud- denly guilty at having spoken thus to a woman. He stood erect again, and his face burned. The sea- girl's face had dimpled all over with fun. Colts and other animals cannot laugh at us, else wo might not be so peaceful in onr assumption that they never criticise. Cains before this had always supposed himself happy in his little Liforts to please children and animals; now he knew himself to be a blundering idiot, and so far from feeling vexed with the laughing face in the water, he wondered that any other creature had ever permitted hi3 clumsv caresses. Having failed once, he now knew not what to do, but stood uncertain, devouring the beauty of the sprite in the water as greedily as he might with eyes that were not audacious, for in trnth he had begun to feel very shy. " What is your name? " he asked, throwing his voice across the water. The pretty creature raised a hand and pointed at some object behind him. Caius, turning, knew it to be the epitaph. Yes, that was what his own intelligence had told him was the only explanation. Explanation ? His reason revolted at the word. There was no ex])lanation of an impossibility. Yet that the mermaid was the lost cliild he had now little doubt, except that he wholly doubted the evidence of his senses, and that there was a mermaid. He nodded to her that he understood her meaning about the name, a id she gave him a little wave of her hand as if to say jood-bye, and began to recede slowly, gliding backward, only her head seen above the dis- turbed water. n iM 48 THE MERMAID. " Don't go," called Caius, much urgency in his words. But the slow receding motion continued, and no an- swer came but another gentle wave of the hand. The hand of Caius stole involuntarily to liis lips, and he wafted a kiss across the water. Then suddenlv it seemed to him that the cliff had eyes, and that it might be told of him at home and abroad that he was making love to a phantom, and had lost his wits. The sea-child only tossed her head a little higher out of the water, and again he saw, or fancied he saw, mirth dancing in her eyes. She beckoned to him and turned, moving away ; then looked back and beckoned, and darted forward again ; and, doing this again and again, she made straight for the open sea. Caius cursed himself that he had not the courage to jump in and swim after her at any cost. But then he could not swim so fast — certainly not in his clothes. " There was something so wonderfully human about her face," he mused to himself. His mind suggested, as was its wont, too many reasonable objections to the prompt, headlong course which alone would have availed anything. While he stood in breathless uncertainty, the beck- oning hand became lost in the blur of sparkling ripples ; the head, lower now, looked i the water at a distance as like the muzzle of a seal or dog as like a human head. By chance, as it seemed, a point of the island came be- tween him and the receding creature, and Caius found himself alone. CHAPTER VIII. BELIEF IN THE IMPOSSIBLE. *^? Caius clambered up the cliff and over the fence to the highroad. A man with a cartload of corn was com- ing past. Caius looked at him and his horse, and at the familiar stretch of road. It was a relief so to look. On a small green hillock by the roadside thistles grew thick- ly -J they were in flower and seed at once, and in the sun- shine the white down, purple flowers, and silver-green leaves glistened — a little picture, perfect in itself, of graceful lines and exquisite colour, having for its back- ground the hedge of stunted fir that bordered the other side of the road. Caius feasted his eves for a minn^^ and then turned homeward, walking for awhile besiue the cart and talking to the carter, just to be sure that there was nothing wild or strange about himself to at- tract the man's attention. The cart raised no dust in the red clay of the road ; the monotonous creak of its wheels and the dull conversation of its owner were de- lightful to Caius because they were so real and common- place. Caius felt very guilty. He could not excuse himself to himself for the fact that he had not only seen so wild a vision but now felt the greatest reluctance to make known his strange adventure to anyone. He could not 49 50 THE MERMAID. 1 1! I m M precisely determine why this reluctance was guilty on his part, but he had a feeling that, although a sensible man could not be much blamed for seeing a mermaid if he did see one, such a man would rouse the neighbour- hood, and take no rest till the phenomenon was investi- gated ; or, if that proved impossible, till the subject was at least thoroughly ventilated. The ideal man who acted thus would no doubt be jeered at, but, secure in his own integrity, he could easily support the jeers. Caius would willingly have changed places with this model hero, but he could not bring himself to act the part. Even the reason of this unwillingness he could not at once lay his hand upon, but he felt about his mind for it, and knew that it circled round and round the memory of the sea-maid's face. That fresh oval face, surrounded with wet curls, crowned with its fantastic wreath of glistening weed — it was not alone because of its fresh girlish prettiness that he could not endure to make it the talk of the country, but because, strange as it seemed to him to admit it, the face was to him like the window of a lovely soul. It was true that she had Juughed and played ; it was true that she was, or pretended to be, half a fish ; but, for all that, he would as soon have held up to derision his mother, he would as soon have derided all that he held to be most worthy in woman and all that he held to be beau- tiful and sacred in ideal, as have done despite to the face that looked at him out of the waves that afternoon. His memory held this face before him, held it lovingly, reverently, and his lips shut firmly over the tale of won- der he might have told. At the gate of one of the fields a girl stood waiting for him. It was his cousin Mabel, and when he saw her Koslt x n Am T ; : BELIEF IN THE IMPOSSIBLE. 51 he knew that she must have come to pay them a visit, and he knew too that she must have come because he was at home. He was not attached to his cousin, who was an ordinary young person, but hitherto he had always rather enjoyed her society, because he knew that it was her private ambition to marry him. He did not attribute affection to Mabel, only ambition ; but that had pleased his vanity. To-day he felt exceedingly sorry that she had come. Mabel held the gate shut so that he could not pass. " Where have you been ? " asked she, pretending sternness. " Just along by the shore." He noticed as he said it that Mabel's frock had a dragged look about the waist, and that the seams were noticeable because of its tightness. He remembered that her frocks had this appearance frequently, and he wished they were not so ill- made. " I shan't let you in," cried Mabel sportively, " till you tell me exactly what you've been doing for this age." " I have not been serving my age much," he said, with some weariness in his tone. "What?" said Mabel. " You asked me what I had been doing for this age," said he. It was miserably stu})id to explain. When Cains and !Mabel had sauntered up through the warm fields to the house, his mother met them in the front parlour with a fresh cap on. Her cap, and her presence in that room, denoted that Mabel was com- pany. She immediately began to make sly remarks con- cerning Mabel's coming to them while Caius was at home, about her going to meet him, and their home- ward walk together. Ml ■'i. m -I 52 THE MERMAID. The mother was comparatively at ease about Mabel ; she had little idea that Caius would ever make love to her, so she could enjoy her good-natured slyness to the full. What hurt Caius was that she did enjoy it, that it was just her natural way never to see two young people of opposite sex together without immediately thinking of the subject of marriage, and sooner or later betraying her thought. Heretofore he had been so accustomed to this cast of mind that, when it had tickled neither his sense of humour nor his vanitv, he had been indifferent to it. To-night he knew it was vulgar ; but he had no contempt for it, because it was his mother who was be- traying vulgarity. He felt sorry that she should be like that — that all the men and women with whom she was associated were like that. He felt sorry for Mabel, because she enjoyed it, and consequently more tenderhearted towards her than he had ever felt be- fore. He had not,- however, a great many thoughts to give to this sorrow, for he was thinking continually of the bright apparition of the afternoon. When he went to his room to get ready for tea he fell into a muse, looking over the field.^ and woods to the distant glimpse of blue water he could see from his window. Wlien he came down to the evenin-^ meal, he found himself wondering foolishly upon what food the child lost in the sea had fed while she grew so rapidly to a woman's stature. The present meal was such as fell to the daily lot of that household. In homely blue delft cups a dozen or more eggs were ranged beside high stacks of buttered toast, rich and yellow. The butter, the jugs of yellow cream, the huge platter heaped with wild raspberries — as each of these met his eye he was BELIEF IN THE IMPOSSIBLE. 53 wondering if the sea-maid ever ate such food, or if her diet was more delicate. " Am I going mad ? " he thought to himself. The suspicion was depressing. Three hours after, Cuius sough his father as the old man was making his nightly tour of the barns and stables. By way of easing his own sense of responsibil- ity he had decided to tell his father what he had seen, and his telling was much like such confession of sins as many people make, soothing their consciences by an effort that does not adequately reveal the guilt to the listener. Caius came up just as his father was locking the stable door. " Look here, father ; wait a minute. I have some- thing to say. I saw a very curious thing down at the shore to-day, but I don't want you to tell mother, or Mabel, or the men." The old man stood gravely expectant. The summer twilight just revealed the outline of his thin figure and ragged hair and beard. " It was in the water swimming about, making darts here and there like a big trout. Its body was brown, and it looked as if it had horny balls round its neck : and its head, you know, was like a human being's." " I never heard tell of a fish like that, Caius. Was it a porpoise ? " " Well, I suppose I know what a porpoise is like." " About how large was it ? " said the elder man, aban- doning the porpoise theory. " I should think about five or six feet long." " As long as that ? Did it look as if it could do any harm?" M; Mi if- 54 THE MERMAID. ^ ,j " No ; I should think it was harmless ; but, father, I tell you its head looked like a person's head." " Was it a shark with a man stuck in its throat?" " N — n — no." Not liking to deny this ingenious suggestion too promptly, he feigned to consider it. "It wasn't a dead man's head; it was like a live woman's head." "I never heard of sharks coming near shore here, any way," added the old man. " What distance was it off— half a mile ? " " It came between me and the little island off which we lost baby Day. It lay half-way between the island and the shore." The old man was not one to waste words. He did not remark that in that case Caius must have seen the creature clearly, for it went without saying. " Pity you hadn't my gun," he said. Caius inwardly shuddered, but because he wished to confide as far as he might, he said outwardly : " I shouldn't have liked to shoot at it ; its face looked so awfully human, you know." " Yes," assented the elder, who had a merciful heart " it's wonderful what a look an animal has in its eyes sometimes." He was slowly shuffling round to the next door with his keys. " Well, I'm sure, my lad, I don't know what it could ha' been, unless 'twas some sort of a porpoise." " We should be quite certain to know if there was any woman paying a visit hereabout, shouldn't we? A woman couldn't possibly swim across the bay." " Woman ! " The old man turned upon him sternly. " I thought you said it was a fish." " I said she sivam like a fish. She might have been BELIEF IN THE IMPOSSIBLE. 66 a woman dressed in a fish-skin, perhaps; hut tliere isn't any woman liere that could possibly he actinf]^ like that — and old Morrison told me the same thing was about the shore the summer before he died." His father still looked at him sharply. " Well, the question is, whetlier the thing you saw was a woman or a fish, for you must have seen it pretty clear, and they aren't alike, as far as I know." Caius receded from the glow of confidence. " It lay pretty much under the water, and wasn't still long at a time." The old man looked relieved, and in his relief began to joke. " I was thinking you must have lost your wits, and thought you'd seen a mermaid," he chuckled. " I'd think it was a mermaid in a minute " — boldly — " if there were such things." Caius felt relieved when he had said this, but the old man had no very distinct idea in his mind attached to the mythical word, so he let go the thought easily. " Was it a dog swimming ? " " No," said Caius, " it wasn't a dog." " Well, I give it up. Next time you see it, you'd better come and fetch the gun, and then you can take it to the musee up at your college, and have it stutfed and put in a case, with a ticket to say you presented it. That's all the use strange fish are that I know of." When Caius reflected on this conversation, he knew that he had been a hypocrite. CHAPTER IX. THE sea-maid's music. At dawn Cains was upon the shore again, but he saw nothing but a red sunrise and a gray sea, merging into the bhie and green and gold of tlie ordinary day. lie got back to breakfast without the fact of his matutinal walk being known to the family. He managed also in the afternoon to loiter for half an hour on the same bit of shore at tJe same hour as the day before without anyone being the wiser, but he saw no mermaid. lie fully intended to spend to-morrow by the sea, but he had made this effort to appear to skiji to-day to avoid awaking curiosity. He had a horse and buggy ; that afternoon he was friendly, and made many calls. Wherever he went he directed the conversation into such channels as would make it certain that he would hear if anyone else had seen the mermaid, or had seen the face of a strange woman by sea or land. Of one or two female visitors to the neighbourhood within a radius of twenty miles he did hear, but when he came to investigate each case, he found that the visit was known to everyone, and the status, lineage and habits of the visitors all of the same humdrum sort. He decided in his own mind that ten miles was the 66 .1 Hwnn t ^u -* THE SEA-MAID'S MUSIC. 57 >"ti utmost length that a woman oould possibly swim, but he talked boldly of great swimming feats he had seen in his college life, and opined that a good swimmer might even cross the bay from Montrose or from the little port of Stanhojx) in the other direction ; and when he saw the incredulity of his listeners, he knew that no one had accomplished either journey, for the water was overlooked by a hundred houses at either place, and many a small vessel ploughed the waves. When he went to sleep that niglit Cains was sure that the vision of the mermaid was all his own, shared only by old Morrison, who lay in his grave. It was per- haps this partnership with the dead that gave the matter its most incredible and unreal aspect. Three years before this lady of the sea had frequented this spot ; none but the dea(' man and himself had been permitted to see her. " Well, when all's said and done," said Cains to him- self, rolling upon a sleepless bed, " it's a very extraordi- nary thing." Next morning he hired a boat, the nearest that was to be had ; he got it a mile and a half further up the shore. It was a clumsy thing, but he rowed it past the mouth of the creek where he used to fish, all along the water front of Day's farm, past the little point that was the beginninff of the rocky part of the shore, and then he drew the boat up upon the little island. lie hid it perfectly among the grass and weeds. Over all the lim- ited surface, among the pine shrubs and flowering weeds, he searched to see if hiding-place for the nymph could be found. Two colts were pastured on the isle. He found no cave or hut. When he had finished his search, he sat and waited and watched till the sun set over the a. 11 J > ': ■ 58 THE MEIIMAID. ill 1^ sea; but to-djiy there was no smiling face rearing itself from the blue water, no little hand beckoning him away. " What a fool I was not to go where she beckoned ! " mused Caius. "Where? Anywhere into the heart of the ocean, out of this dull, sordid life into the land of dreams." For it must all have been a dream — a sweet, fantastic dream, imposed upon his senses by some inlluence, outward or inward ; but it seemed to him tiiat at the hour when he seemed to see the maid it might have been given liim to enter the world of dreams, and go on in some existence which was a truer I'eality than the one in which he now was. In a deliljerate way he thought that perhaps, if the truth were known, he, Dr. Caius Simpson, was going a little mad ; but as he sat by the softly lapping sea he did not regret this madness: what he did regret was that he must go home and — talk to Mabel. He rowed his boat back with feelings of blank disap- pointment, lie could not give another day to idleness upon the shore. It was impossible that such an impor- tant person as himself could spend long afternoons and evenings thus without everyone's knowledge. He had a feeling, too, born, as many calculations are, of pure surmise, that he would have seen the mermaid again that afternoon, when he had made such elaborate arrangements to meet her, if Fate had destined them to meet again at all. No ; he must give her up. He must forget the hallucination that had worked so madly on his brain. Nevertheless, he did not deny himself the pleasure of walking very frequently to the spot, and this often, THE SFA-MAID'S Ml'SIC. 51) i\ iu tiie early hours befuro brcakfiist, Ji time which he could dispose of as he would without ooniiuent. As ho walked the beach in the beauty of the earlv day, ho realized that some new re<^ion of life had been o])ened to him, that he was feeling his way into new mysteries of beatified thoiight and feeling. A week passed ; he was jigain upon the shore .oppo- site the island at the sunrise hour. lie sat on the roek which seemed like a home to his restless sj)irit, so associated it was with the first thoughts of those new visions of beauty which were becoming dear to liim. lie lieard a soft splashing sound in the water, and, looking about ium, suddenly saw the sea-child's face lifted out of the water not more than four cr five yarda from him. All around her was a golden cloud of sand ; it seemed to have been stirred up by her startled move- ment on seeing hiui. For a moment she was still, resting thus close, and he could see distinctly that around her white shoulders mere was a coil of what seemed like glistening rounder scales. He could not decide whether the brightness in her eye was that of laughing ease or of startled excitement. Then she turned and darted away from him, and having put about forty feet between them, she turned and looked back with easy defiance. His eyes, fascinated by what was to him an awful thing, were trying to penetrate the sparkling water and see the outlines of the form whose clumsy skin seemed to hang in horrid folds, stretching its monstrous bulk under the waves. His vision was broken by the sparkling splash which the maiden deliberately made with her hands, as if divining his curiosity and defying it. He felt the more sure that his senses did not play him false because the arrangement of the human and 5 > 11 60 THE MERMAID. Ui ; fishy substance of tlie apparition did not tally with any preconceived ideas he had of mermaids. Caius felt no loathing of the horrid form that seemed to be part of her. He knew, as he had never known before, how much of coarseness there was in him«eli. His hands and feet, as he looked down at them, seemed clumsy, his ideas clumsy and gross to correspond. He knew enough to know that he might, by the practice of exercises, have made his muscles and brain the expression of his will, instead of the inert mass of flesh that they now seemed to him to be. He might — yes, he might, if he had his years to live over again, have made himself noble and strong ; as it w'as, he was mutely conscious of being a thing to be justly derided by the laughing eyes that looked up at him from the water, a man to be justly shunned and avoided by the being of the white arms and dimpled face. And he sat ui)on the rock looking, looking. It seemed useless to rise or speak or smile ; he remembered the mirth that his former efforts had caused, and he was dumb and still. Perhaps the sea-child found this treatment more un- interestinof tlian that attention he had lavished on her on the former occasion ; perhaps she had not so long to tarry. As he still watched her she turned again, and made her way swift and straight toward the rocky point. Gains ran, following, upon the sho'T, bul after a minute h perceived that she could disajipear round the })oint before, either by swimming or wading, he 'ould He could not make his way around the shore ; his best means of keeping her in climb the cliff, from which the whole bay side would be visible. get near her. THE SEA-MAID'S MUSIC. 01 Like a, man running a race for life, he leaped back to a place where it was possible to climb, and, once on the top, made his way by main force through a growth of low bushes until he could overlook the bay. But, lo ! when he came there no creature was visible in the sunny sea beneatli or on the shelving red bank which lay all plain to his view. Far and wide he scanned the ocean, and long he stood and watched, lie walked, searching for anyone upon tlie bank, till he came to Day's barns, and by that time he was convinced that tiie sea-maid had either vanished into thin air or sunk down and re- mained beneath t!iG surface of the sea. Tiie farm to which he had come was certainly the last place in which he would have thought to look for news of the sportive sea-creature ; and yet, because it stood uione there in that part of the earth, he tarried now to put some question to the owner, just us we look mechanically for a lost object in drawers or cupboards in which we feel sure it cannot be. Caius founa Day in a small paddock behind one of the barns, tending a mare and her baby foal. Day had of late turned his attention to horses, and the farm had a bleaker look in conscquei^ce, because many of its acres were left un- tilled. Caius leaned iiis elbows on the fence of the paddock. "lluUo!" Day turned round, asking without words what he wanted, in a very surly way. At the distance at which he stood, and without re- ceiving any encouragement, Caius found a difiiculty in forming his question. " You haven't seen anything odd in the sea about here, have you ? " K 62 THE MERMAID. 1 mi, p: fob "What sort of a thing?" " I thought I saw a queer thing swimming in the water — did you? " " Ko, I didn't." It was evident that no spark of interest had been roused in the farmer by the question. From that, more than anything else, Caius judged that his words were true ; but, because he ^vas anxious to make assurance doubly sure, he blundered into another form of the same inquiry : " There isn't a young girl about this place, is there? " Day's face grew indescribably dark. In an instant Caius remembered that, if the man had any feeling about him, the question was the sorest he could have asked — the child, who would now have been a girl, drowned, her sister and brother exiled, and Day bound over by legal authority to see to it that no defenceless person came in the way of the wife who had killed her child ! A moment more, and Day had merely turned his back, going on with his work. Caius did not blame him ; he respected the man the more for the feeling he displayed. Vexed with himself, and not finding how to end the interview, Caius waited a minute, and then turned sud- denly from the fence, without knowing why he turned until he saw that the constraining force was the presence of Day's wife, who stood at the end of the barn, out of sight of her husband, but looking eagerly at Caius. She made a sign to him to come. No doubt she had heard what had been said. Caius went to her, drawn by tho eagerness of her bright black eyes. Her large form was slightly clad in a cotton gown ; her abundant black hair was fastened THE SEA-M AID'S MUSIC. 63 rather loosely about her head. Her liigh-boiied cheeks were thinner than of old, and her face wore a more ex- cited expression ; otherwise, there was little difference in her. 8he had been sent from the asylum as cured. Caius gave her a civil " (iood-day." " She has come back to me ! " said the woman. "Who?" " j\Iy baby as you've put up the stone to. I've allers wanted to tell yon I liked that stone; but she isn't dead — she has come back to me I " Xow, although the return of the drowned child had been an idea often in his mind of late, that he had merely toyed with it as a beautiful fancy was proved by the fact that no sooner did the mother express the same thought than Caius recognised that she was mad. " She has come back to me ! " The poor mother spoke in tones of exquisite happiness. " She is grown a big girl ; she has curls on her head, and she wears a marriage-ring. Who is she married to?" Caius could not answer. The mother looked at him with curious steadfast- ness. " I thought perhaps she was married to you," she said. Surely the woman had seen what he had seen in the sea ; bnt, question her as he would, Caius could gain nothing more from her — no hint of time or place, or any fact that at all added to his enlightenment. She only grew frightened at his questions, and begged him in moving terms not to tell Day that she had spoken to him — not to toll the people in the village that her daugh- ter had come back, or they would put her again in the asylum. Truly, this last appeared to Caius a not nn- ^i n m il u 64 THE MERMAID. likely consequence, but it was not liis business to bring it about. It was not for him, who shared her delusion, to condemn her. After that, Caius knew that either he was mad or wliat he had seen he had seen, let the explanation be what it might — and he ceased to care much about the explanation. He remembered the look of heart-satis- faction with which Day's wife had told him that her child liad returned. The beautiful face looking from out the waves had no doubt wrought liappiness in her ; and in him also it had wrought happiness, and tliat which was better. He ceased to wrestle with the differ- ence that the adventure had made in his life, or to try to ignore it ; he had learned to love someone far better than himself, and that someone seemed so whollv at one witli the nature in which she ranged, and also with the best he could think concerning nature, human or inani- mate, that his love extended to all the world for her sake. Ill m CHAPTER X. TOWED BY THE BEARD. Every morning Cains still took his early way along the shore, bnt on all these walks he found himself alone in possession of the strand and the vast bine of sea and sky. It was disappointing, yet the place itself exercised a greater and greater charm over him. lie abstained from foolino: away his davs bv the sea. After his one morning walk he refused himself the lux- ury of bein^ there again, filling his time with work. He felt that the lady of the lovely face would desi)ise him if he spent his time absurdly. Thus some days passed; and then there came a night when he left a bed on which he had tossed wakefully, aiul went in the hot Auo^nst ni2:ht to the side of the sea when no one knew that he went or came. The air was exceedingly warm. The harvest moon in the zenith was Hooding the world with unclouded light. The tide was ebbing, and therefore there was in the channel that swift, dangerous current sweeping out to sea of which he had once experienced the strength. Cains, who associated his sea-visitant only with the sun- light and an incoming tide, did not expect to see her now ; frequent disappointment had bred the absence of hope. He stood on the shore, looking at the current in 05 H h 4 i i \-h ee THE MERMAID. \h ;i rl 111! ! which he had so nearly perished as a boy. It was glit- tering with white moon-rays, lie thought of himself, of tlie check and twisting which his motives and ideas had lately received, and as he thouglit how slight a thing had done it, how mysterious and impossible a tlung it was, his mind became stunned, and he faced the breeze, and sim])ly lived in the sweetness of the hour, like an animal, conscious, not of itself, but only of what is ex- ternal, without past or future. And now he heard a little crooniiii? sons: from the waters — no words, no tune that could be called a tune. It reminded him more of a baby's toneless cooing of joy, and yet it had a rhythm to it, too, and both joy and pa- thos in its cadence. Across the bright path of the moon's reflection he saw her come. Her head and neck were crowned and garlanded with shining weed, as if for a festival, and she stretched out her white arms to him and beckoned to him and laughed. He heard her soft, infant-like laughter. To-night her beckoning was like a breeze to a leaf that is ready to fall. Caius ceased to think ; he only acted. lie threw his cap and coat and boots on the shore. The sea-child, gazing in surprise, began to re- cede quickly. Caius ran into the water ; he projected himself toward the mermaid, and swam with all the speed of which he was capable. The salt in his eyes at first obscured his vision. When he could look about, the sea-child had gone out of the track of the moonlight, and, taking advantage of the current, was moving ra})idly out to sea. He, too, swam with the current. He saw her curly head dark as a dog's in the water ; her face was turned from him, and there was evident movement in her body. M#HMM*«MMiWHIHn TOWED BY T[1E BEAUD. 07 For tlie first time he thouglit lie perceived tluit slie was swimmiiiij with arms and feet as a woman must swim. As for Cains, he made all the effort that in him hiy, and as slie receded past the hne of the island riglit out into the moonlit sea, he swam madly after, reckless of the fact that his swimming power gave him no assur- ance of being able to return, reckless of everything ex- cept the one welcome fact that he was gaining on the sea-child. A fear oppressed him that perhaps this ap- parent effort of hers and her slow motion were only a ruse to lead him on, that at any moment she might dart from him or sink into her familiar depths. But this fear he did not heed as long as she remained in sight, and — yes, across the surfjice of the warm moonlit water he was slowly but surely gaining upon her. On he swam, making strenuous effort at speed. lie was growing exhausted with the unaccustomed exercise; he knew that his strength would not hold out much longer. He hardly knew what he hoped or dreamed would come to pass when he overtook the sea-maiden, and vet he swam for dear love, which was more to him than dear life, and, panting, he came close to her. The sea-maid turned about, and her face flashed sud- denly upon him, bright in the moonlight. Slie put out a glistening arm, perhaps in human feebleness to ward him off, perhaps, in the strength of some unknown means of defence, to warn him that at his peril he ap- proached her. Cains, reckless of everything, grasped the white wrist, and, stopping his motion, knowing he could not lie mer- maid-fashion with head reared in the water, he turned on his back to float, still holding the small hand in his. He held it, and retained his consciousness long enough It 1 i 68 THE MERMAID. to know from tliut time forth that the hand had actually been in his — a living, struggling hand, not cold, but warm. He felt, too, in that wonderful power which we have in extreme moments of noting detail, that the hand had Ji ring upon it — it was the left hand — and he thought it was a phiin gold ring, but it did not occur to him to think of a wedding-ring. Then he knew that this dear hand that he had captured was working him woe, for by it he was drawn beneath the water. Even then he did not let go, but, still holding the hand, struck out to regain the surface in one of those wild struggles to which inexpert swimmers resort when they feel the deep receiving them into itself. It would have been better for him if he had let go, for in that vehement struggle he felt the evidence of the sea-maid's power. He remembered — his last thought as he lost consciousness — that with the fishy nature is some- times given the power to stun an enemy by an electric shock. Some shock came npon him with force, as if some cold metal had struck him on the head. As his brain grew dull he heard the water gurgling over him. How long he remained stunned he did not know. He felt the water rushing about his head again ; he felt that he had been drowned, and he knew, too — in that foolish way in which the half-awakened brain knows the sup- posed certainties of dreams — that the white hand he had essayed to hold had grasped his beard firmly under his chin, and that thus holding his head above the surface of the water, she was towing him away to unknown regions. Then he seemed to know nothing again ; and again he opened his eyes, to find himself lying on a beach in the moonlight, and the sea-maid's face was bending over TOWED BY THE BEARD. 69 liis. lie saw it distinctly, all tender human solicitude written on the moonlit lineaments. As his eyes opened more her face receded. She was gone, anil he gjized vacantly at the sky ; then, realizing his consciousness more clearly, lie sat up suddenly to see where she had gone. It seemed to him that, like a kind enclumtress, she had transformed herself to break his pa>>lon. Yes, he saw her, as he had so often curiously longed to see her, moving over the dry shore — she was going back to her sea. But it was a strange, monstrous thing he sav/. From her gleaming neck down to the ground was dank, shape- less form. So a walrus or liuge seal might ai)pear, could it totter about erect upon low, tin like feet. There was no grace of shape, no tapering tail, no shiny scales, only an appearance of horrid quivering on the skin, that here and there seemed glossy in the moonlight. He saw her make her way toilsomely, awkwardly over the shingle of the beach ; and when she reached the shining water, it was jit first so shallow that she seemed to wade in it like a land-animal, then, when the water was deep enough to rise up well around her, she turned to him once more a quick glance over her shoulder. Such relief came with the sight of her face, after this mon- strous vision, that he saw the face Hash on him as a sword might flash out of darkness when light catches its blade. Then she was gone, and he saw the form of her head in the water while she swam swiftly across the silver track of the moonbeams and out into the darkness bevond. Caius looked around him with senses still drowsy and head aching sorely. He was in no fairy region that might be the home of mermaids, but on the bit of beach from which he had launched himself into the water. His m m m if; 7(> THE MERMAID. coat and liat lay near him, and just above the spot where he lay was the rude epitaph of baby Day, carved by his own boyish hand so lon<^ ago. Caius put his liand to his head, and found it badly bruised on one side. His heart was bruised, too, partly by the sight of the monstrous body of the lovely sea-child, partly by the fresh exi)eriencc of his own weakness and incapacity. It was long before he dragged himself home. It seemed to him to be davs before he recovered from the weariness of that secret adventure, and he bore the mark of the bruise on his head for many a day. The mermaid he never saw airain. CriAPl FAl XL YEARS OF DISi'UKTIOX. Caius Simpson took ship fiiul crossed tlio sea. Tlie influence of the beautiful face renuiined with him. That which liad come to liim was tlie new birth of mind (not spirit), wliicli by the grace of God comes to many an in- dividual, but is more clearly recocrnised and recorded when it comes in the life of nations — the opening of tho inward eye to the meaning and joy of all things that the outward senses have heretofore perceived as not per- ceivinif them. The art of the Old World claimed him as her own, as beauty on land and sea had already done. The enjoyment of music and pictures became all-impor- tant to him, at first because he searched in them for tho soul he had seen in the sea-maid's eves. Caius was of noble birth, because by inheritance and training he was the slave of righteousness. For this reason he could not neglect his work, although it had not a first place in his heart. As he was industrious, he did not fail in it; because it was not the thing he loved best, he did not markedly succeed. It was too late to change his profession, and he found in himself no such decided aptitude for anything else as should make him know that this or that would have been preferable ; but he knew now that the genius of the physician was not 72 TIIK MKIiMAII). \m liis, Unit to do his work Ijecuiiso it was duty, and to at- tain tlic rospt'ctablc sucooss wliich circumstance, rather tiian mental pre-eminence, gives, was all that he could hope. This saddened him ; all his ambition revived uiKkn* the smartinj^ consciousness of inferiority to hia more talented comi)anions. 'i'lie [)leasures of his life cjime to him througli his receptive faculties, and in the consciousness of havin<^ seen the wider vision, and being in consequence a iu)bler man. J5ut all this, which was so much to him for a year or two, grew to be a less strong sensation than that of disappointment in the fact that he could only so meagrely fullil his father's ideal and his own. There came a sense of dishonesty, too, in having used the old man's money chiefly in accpiiring those mental graces which his father could neither com- prehend nor value. Three years passed. Gradually the memory of his love for the sea-maid had grown indistinct; and, more or less unconscious that this love had been the door to the more wealtiiy gardens of his mind, he inclined to despise it now as he despised the elegy he had written for the child who was drowned. It was his own passion he was inclined to forget and despise ; the sea-maid her- self was remembered, and respected, and wondered at, and disbelieved in, and believed in, as of old, but that w^hich remains in the mind, never spoken of, never used as a cause of activity of either thought or action, re- cedes into the latent rather than the active portion of the memory. Once, just once, in the first year of his foreign life, he had told to a friend the history of that, his one and only love-story. The result had not been satisfactory. His companion was quite sure that Cains had been the VKAUS OF DLSCUETIUN. 78 subject of nil artful trick, and lio did not fail to sug^gest tliat tiie woman had wanted modesty. Notliing, he ob- served, was more common than for men who were in love to attribute mental and piiysical charms to women who were in reality vulgar and blatant. Cains, feeling that he could advance no argument, refused to discuss the subject ; it was months before he had the same lik- ing for this friend, and it was a sign that what the other called " the sea-myth " was losing its power over him when he returned to this friendship. Caius did not make manv friends. It was not his nature to do so, and though constant to the few that he had, he did not keep up any very lively intercourse. It was partly because of this notable failure in social duty that, when he at last decided that the work of })repara- tion must be considered at an end, and the active work of life begun, no opening immediately revealed itself to his inquiring gaze. Two vacant positions in his native country he heard of and coveted, and before he returned he gathered such testimonials as lie could, and sent them in advance, offering himself as a candidate. When ho landed in Canada he went at once to his first college to beg in person that the influence of his former teachers might be used on his behalf. The three years that had passed without correspondence had made a difference in the attitude of those who could help him ; many of his friends also were dispersed, gone from the place, lie waited in Montreal until he heard that he was not the accepted candidate for the better of the two positions, and that the other post would not be filled till the early spring. Caius went home again. He observed that his parents looked older. The leaves were gone from the trees, the m r 74 THE .MEKMAID. days were short, and the earth was cold. The sea be- tween the little island and the red sandstone clilf was tterly lonely. Cuius walked by its side sometimes, but tlierr- WHS no mermaid there. I * . I Pi 1 WrtlWIil ilMHWliI BOOK IT. CHAPTER I. THE HAND THAT BECKOXED. It was evening. Cains was watering his father's horses. Between tlie barns and the honse the space was grass; a log fence divided it, and against this stood a hnge wooden pump and a heavy log hollowed out for a trough. House and barns were white ; the house was large, but the barns were man-y times larger. If it had not been that their sloping roofs of various heights and sizes formed a progression of angles not unpleasant to the eye, the buildings would i.ave been very ugly ; but they had also a generous and cleanly aspect which was attractive. Caius brought the horses to the trough in pairs, each with a hempen halter. They were lightly-built, well-conditioned beasts, but their days of labour had wrought in them more of gentleness than of lire. As they drank now, the breeze played with their manes and forelocks, brushing them about their drooping necks and meek faces. Caius pumped the water for them, and watched them meditatively the while. There was a fire low down in the western sky ; over the purple of the leafless woods and the bleak acres of bare red 6 75 hi 76 THE MERMAID. i: ^.. earth its light ghmced, not warming them, but showing forth their eoldness, as fireliglit ghancing tlirough a window-pane glows cold upon the garden snows. The l)ig butter-nut-tree that stood up high and strong over the pump rattled its twigs in the air, as bare bones might rattle. It was while he was still at the watering that the elder Simpson drove up to the house door in his gig. He had been to the post-ofhce. 'Jliis was not an event that happened every day, so that the letter which he now handed Caius might as well as not have been re- tarded a day or two in its delivery. Caius took it, lead- ing the horses to their stalls, and he exan lined it by the light of the stable lantern. The writing, the appearance of tlie envelope and post-mark, were all quite unfamiliar. The writing was the fine Italian hand common to ladies of a former gen- eration, and was, in Caius' mind, connected only with the idea of elderly women. He opened the letter, there- fore, with the less curiosity. Inside lie found several pages of tlie same fine writing, and he read it with his arm round the neck of one of the horses. The lantern, which lie had hung on a nail in the stall, sent down dim candlelight upon tho pair. When Caius had read the letter, he turned it over and over curiously, and began to read it again, more out of sheer surprise than from any relish for its con- tents. It was written by one ]\Iadame Josephine Le Maitre, and came froui a place which, although not very far from his own home, was almost as unknown to him as the most remote foreign part. It came from one of the Magdalen Islands, that lie some eighty miles' jour- ney by sea to the north of his native shore. The writer THE HAND THAT BECKONED. t i vn er re n- ll mi of r- ler stated tliiit she knew few men upon the mainland — in which she seemed to inchide the hirger island of Prince Edward — that Caius Simpson was the only medical man of whom she had any personal knowledge who was at that time unemployed. She stated, also, that upon the island where she lived there were some hundreds of fisher-folk, and that a very deadly disease, that she sup- posed to be diphtheria, was among them. The only doctor in the whole group refused to come to them, be- cause he feared to take back the infection to the other islands. Indeed, so great was the dread of tliis infec- tion, that no helpful person would come to their aid except an English priest, and he was able only to make a short weekly visit. It was some months now since the disease had first appeared, and it was increasing rather than diminishing. " Come," said the letter, " and do what you can to save the lives of these poor people — their need of you is very great ; but do not come if you are not willing to risk vour life, for vou will risk it. Do not come if vou are not willing to be cut off from the world all the months the ice lies in the gulf, for at that time we have no communication with the world. You are a good man ; you go to church, and believe in the Divine Christ, who was also a physician. It is because of this that I dare to ask you. There is a schooner that will be lying in the harbour of Souris for two or three weeks after the time that you receive this letter. Then she will come here upon her last winter trip. I have ar- ranged with the captain to bring you to us if you can come. 91 After that the name of the schooner and its captain was given, a list also of some of the thing? that he T8 THE MERMAID. would need to bring with him. It was stated that upon the isUmd he would receive lodging and food, and that there were a few women, not unskilled in nursing, who would carry out his instructions with regard to the sick. Caius folded the letter after the second reading, finished his work with the horses, and walked with his lantern througli the now darkening air to the house. Just for a few seconds he stopped in the cold air, and looked about him at the dark land and the starry sky. " I have now neither the belief nor the enthusiasm she attributes to me," said Caius. When he got into the bright room he blinked for a moment at the light by which his father was reading. The elder man took the letter in his hard, knotted hand, and read it because he was desired to do so. When finished, he cast it upon the table, returning to his newspaper. " Hoots ! " said he ; " the woman's mad ! " And then meditatively, after he had finished his newspaper para- graph : " What dealings have you ever had with her?" " 1 never had any dealings with her." " When you get a letter from a strange woman " — the father spoke with some heat—" the best thing that you can do with it is to put it in the fire." Now, Caius knew that his father had, as a usual thing, that kindly and simple way of looking at the actions of his fellow-men which is refinement, so that it was evident that the contents of the letter were hate- ful. That was to be expected. The point that aroused the son's curiosity was to know how far the father rec- ognised an obligation imposed by the letter. The letter would be hateful just in so far as it was considered worthy of attention. THE HAND THAT BECKONED. 79 " I suppose," said the young man dubiously, " that we can easily find ou.t at Souris whether the statements iu the letter are true or not ? " The father continued to read his paper. The lamp upon the unpolished walnut table had no shade or globe upon it, and it glared with all the bril- liancy of clean glass, and much wick and oil. The dining-room was orderly as ever. The map of Pales- tine, the old Bible, and some newly-acquired commen- taries, obtruded themselves painfully as ornaments. There was no nook or corner in which anything could hide in shadow ; there were no shutters on the windows, for there was no one to pass by, unless it niiglit be some good or evil spirit that floated upon the dark air. Mr. Simpson continued to read his paper without heeding his son. The mother's voice chiding the maid in the next room was the only sound that broke the silence. " I'll write to that merchant you used to know at Souris, father," Cains spoke in a business-like voice. " He will be able to find out from all the vessels that come in to what extent there is disease on the Mag- dalens." Tlie exciting cause in Cains of this remark was his father's indifference and 0})position, and the desire to probe it. " You'll do nothing of the sort." Simpson's answer was very testy. " What call have yon to interfere with the Magdalens? '' Ilis anger rose from a cause perhaps more explicable to an onlooker than to himself. 0^ oars there had grown in the mind In the CO'"' of Caius m . prejudice against the form and measure of his parents' religion. He would have throttled an- it'i i V'] I = i ii w^ 80 THE MERMAID. I'' 'is I other who dared to criticise them, vet he himself took a certain pleasure in an opportunity that made criticism pertinent rather than impertinent. Jt was not that he prided himself on knowing or doing better, he was not naturally a theorist, nor didactic ; but education had awakened his mind, not only to difficulties in the path of faith, but to a higher standard of altruism than was exacted by old-fashioned orthodoxy. " I think I'd better write to Souris, sir ; the letter is to me, you see, and I should not feel quite justified in taking no steps to investigate the matter." How easy the hackneyed phrase "taking steps" sounded to Caius ! but experience breeds strong in- stincts. The elder man felt the importance of this first decision, and struck out against it as an omen of ill. " In my opinion you'll do well to let the matter lie where it is. How will you look making inquiries about sick folk as if you had a great fortune to spend upon philanthropy, when it turns out that you have none? If you'd not spent all my money on your own schooling, perhaps you'd have some to play the fine gentleman with now, and send a hospital and its staff on this same schooner." (This was the first reproach of his son's extravagance which had ever passed his lips ; it beto- kened passion indeed.) " If you write you can't do less than send a case of medicines, and who is to pay for them, I'd like to know? I'm pretty well cleared out. They're a hardened lot of wreckers on those islands — I've heard that told of them many a time. Xo doubt their own filth and bad living has brought disease upon th-^m, if there's truth in the tale ; and as to this strange woman, giving no testimony or certificate of her re- THE HAND THAT BECKONED. 81 spec tabilitv, it's a J' quee r thin^ °> > % % V' '/ /A Photographic Sciences Corporation # L1>^ fV \\ ^ "% .V ^_^'^' ^ 33 WEST MAIN f T'SsT WEBSTER, N.Y. MS80 (716) 873-4503 /A I/a 83 THE MERMAID. rv The favourable force was still pushing them onward to- ward the invisible north star. It was on the evening of that day that they saw the islands ; live or six hilly isles lay in a half-circle. The schooner entered this bay from the east. Before they came near the purple hills they had sighted a fleet of island tishing boats, and now, as night approached, all these made also for the same harbour. The wind bore them all in, they cutting the water before them, gliding round the point of the sand-bar, making their way up the channel of the biiy in the lessening light, a chain of gigantic sea-birds with white or ruddy wings. All around tlie bay the islands lay, their hills a soft red purple in the light of a clear November evening. In the blue sky above there were layers of vapour like thin gray gossamers, on which the rosy light shone. The waters of the bay were caluKM' than the sea outside, yet they were still broken by foam ; across the foam the boats went sweeping, until in the shadow of the isles and the fast-descending night they each furled their sails and stopped their journey. It was in the western side of the bay that the vessels lay, for the gale was from the west, and here they found shelter ; but night had descended suddenly, and Caius could only see the black form of the nearest island, and the twinkling lights that showed where houses were collected on its shore. They waited there till the moon rose large and white, touch- ing the island hills again into visible existence. It was over one snuill rockv island that she rose; this was the one that stood sentry at the entrance of the bay, and on either side of it there were moon-lit paths that stretched far out into the gulf. On the nearer island could be seen long sand reaches, and dark rounded hills, and in a •I '. . THE ISLES OF ST. MAGDALEN. 87 n d le a hollow of the hills the clustered lights. When the moon- \\ir\\t was brif^it the master of the schooner lowered a boat and set Caius and his traps ashore, telling him that some day when the gale was over he could make his way to the island of Cloud. The skipper said that the gale might blow one day, or two, or three, or more, but it could not blow ulwavs, and in the meantime there was entertainment to be had for those who could pay for it on the nearer isle. When Caius stood upon the beach with his port- manteaus beside him, some half a dozen men clustered round; in their thick garments and mufflers they looked outlandish enough. They spoke Plnglish, and after much talking they bore his things to a small house on the hillside. He heard the wind clamour against the wooden walls of this domicile as he stood in its porch before the door was opened. The wind shouted and laughed and shook the house, and whistled and sighed as it rushed away. Below him, nearer the shore, lay the village, its white house-walls lit by the moonlight, and beyond he could see the ships in the glittering bay. When the door opened such a feast of warmth and comfort appeared to his eyes that he did not soon for- get it, for he had expected nothing but the necessaries of life. Bright decoration of home-made rugs and or- naments was on all sides, and a table was laid. They were four spinsters of Irish descent who kept this small inn, and all that goovl housewifery could do to make it comfortable was done. The table was heaped with such dainties as could be concocted from the home- ly products of the island ; large red cranberries cooked in syrup gave colour to the repast. Soon a broiled il 88 THE MERMAID. ii I !i# I i Ul h^r cliicken was set before Cains, and steaming coffee rich witii cream. 'J'o tliese old maids Caius was obliged to relate wberefore he liad come and whither he n-as bound, lie told his story with a feeling of self-conscious awkward- ness, because, put it in as cursory a manner as he would, he felt the heroism of his errand must appear; nor was he with this present audience mistaken. The wrinkled maidens, with their warm Irish hearts, were overcome with the thought that so much youth and beauty and masculine charm, in the person of the young man be- fore them, should be sacrificed, aiul, as it seemed to them, foolishly. The inhabitants of Cloud Island, said these ladies, were a worthless set ; and in proof of it they related to him how the girls of The Cloud were not too nice in their notions to marry with the shipwrecked sailors from foreign boats, a thing they assured him that was never done on their own island. Italian, or German, or Nor- wegian, or whoever the man might be, if he had good looks, a girl at The Cloud would take him ! And would not they themselves, Caius asked, in BU'ih a case, take pity on a stranger who had need of a wife ? Whereat they assured him that it was safer to marry a native islander, and that no self-respecting woman could marry with a man who was not English, or Irish, or Scotch, or French. It was of these four latter nationalities that the native population of the islands was composed. But the ladies told him worse tales than these, for they said the devil was a frequent visitor at Cloud Island, and at times he went out with the fishers in THE ISLES OF ST. MAGDALEN. 89 *r their boats, choosing now one, now another, for a com- panion ; and whenever he went, there was a wonch-rful catch of fish; but tlie devil must have his full share, whicli lie ate raw juid without cleaning — a thing which no Christian could do. lie lived in the round valleys of the sand ilune that led to The Cloud. It was a con- venient hiding-place, because when you were in one valley you could n . see into the next, and the devil always leaped into the one that you were not in. As to the pestilence, it was sent as a judgment because the people had these impious dealings with the Evil One; but the devil could put an end to it if he would. It was strange to see the four gray-haired sisters as they ;at in a row against the wall and told him in chiming sentences these tales with full belief. "And what sort of a disease is it?" asked Caius, curious to hear more. " It's the sore throat and the choke, sir," said the eldest sister, "and a very bad disease it is, for if it doesn't stop at the throat, it flies direct to the stomach, sir, and then vou can't breathe." Caius pondered this description for a few moments, and then he formed a question which was to the point. " And where," said he, " is the stomach ? " At which she tapped her chest, and told him it was there. lie had eaten somewhat greedily, and when he found that the linen of his bed was snow-white and the bed itself of the softest feathers, he lay down with great contentment. Not even the jar and rush of the wind as it constantly assaulted the house, nor the bright moonlight against the curtainless window, kept him awake for a moment. He siept a dreamless sleep. M 11 •It in I;. ! CHAPTER III. BETWEEN THE SURF AND THE SAND. Next day the wind had grown stronger ; the same clear skies prevailed, with the keen western gale, for the west wind in these quarters is seldom humid, and at that season it was frosty and very dry, coming as it did over the already snow-covered plains of Gaspe and Quebec. It seemed strange to Caius to look out at the glorious sunshine and be told that not a boat would stir abroad that day, and that it would be impossible for even a cart to drive to the Cloud Island. He knew so little of the place to which he had come that when the spinsters spoke of driving to another island it seemed to him that they spoke as wildly as when they told of the pranks of the Evil One. He learned soon that these islands were connected by long Band ridges, and that when the tide was down it was possible to drive upon the damp beach from one to another ; but this was not possible, they told him, in a western gale, for the wind beat up the tide so that one could not tell how far it would descend or how soon it would return. There was risk of being caught by the waves under the hills of the dune, which a horse could not climb, and, they added, he had already been told who it was who lived in the sand hollows. 90 BETWEEN THE SURF AND THE SAND. 91 In the face of the sunny morning, Cains conul not forbear expressing liis incredulity of tlie dialxilical legend, and his hostesses did not take tlie trouble to argue the point, for it is to be noted that people seldom argue on behalf of the items of faith thev hold most lirmly. The spinsters merely remarked that there were a strange number of wrecks on the sand-bar tliat led to The Cloud, and that, go where he would in the village, he would get no sand-i)ilot to take him Jicross while the tide was beaten up by the wind, and a pilot he must have, or he would sink in the quicksands and never be seen again. Cuius walked, with the merry wind for a playfellow, dowi through long rows of fish-sheds, and heard wliat the ni n had to say with regard to his journey, lie heard exactly what the women had told him, for no one would venture upon the dune that day. Then, still in company with the madcap wind, he walked up on the nearer hills, and saw that this island was narrow, lying between blue fields of sea, both bay and ocean filled with wave crests, ever moving. The outer sea beat uj)on the sandy beach with a roar and volume of surf such as he had never seen before, for under the water the sand-bank stretched out a mile but a little below the sea's level, and the breakers, rolling in, retarded by it and labouring to make their accus- tomed course, came on like wild beasts that were chafed into greater anger at each bound, so that with over- increjising fury they roared and plunged until they touched the verge. From the hills he saw that the fish sheds which stood along the village street could only be a cam})ing place for the fishers at the season of work, for all along 7 92 THE MKRMAID. %\ i4 }'r n the inner sides of the liills tliore were small farm-houses, large enough and fine enougli to make good dwellings. The island was less savage than ho had su])poried. In- dignation rose within him that people apparently so well-to-do should let their neighbours die without ex- tending a helping hand. lie would have heen glad to go and bully some owner of a horse and eart into taking him the last stage of his journey without further delay ; but he did not do this, he only roamed upon the hills enjoying the fair prospect of the sea and the sister isles, and went back to his inn about two o'clock. There he feasted again upon the luxurious provision that the spinsters had been making for the appetite that the new ai/ had given him. He ate roast duck, stu ITed with a paste of large island mushrooms, preserved since their season, and tarts of bake-apple berries, and cran])erries, and the snvdW dark mokok berrv — three kinds of tart he ate, with fresh cream upon them, and the spinster inn-keepers applauded his feat. They stood around and rejoiced at his eating, and again they told him in chorus that he must not go to the other island wliere the people Avere sick. It was just then that a great knock came at the frontdoor; the loudness of the wind had silenced the approaching footsteps. A square-built, smooth-faced man, well wrapped in a coat of ox fur, came into the house, asking for Cains 8imi)son by name. Ilis face was one which it was impossible to see without remark- ing the lines of subtle intelligence displayed in its leath- ery wrinkles. The eyes were light blue, very quick, almost merry — and yet not quite, for if there was hu- mour in them, it was of the kind that takes its pleasures quietly ; there was no proueness to laughter in the hard- set face. BETWEEN THE SUKF AND THE SAND. 1>3 When Cuius heard his own name .s})okcn, lie know thiit sometliing unexpected h.d happened, fur no one upon the ishmd liad askeil his lumie, and he had not «^iven it. Tile stran(jfer, who, from his aeccnt, appeared to be a Canadian of Irisli parentage, said, in a few eurt words, that he had a cart outside, and was going to drive at once to Cloud Island, that he wished to take the young doctor with him ; for death, he observed, was not sitting idle eating liis dinner at The Cloud, and if anyone was coming to do battle with him it would be as well to come quickly. The sarcasm nettled Caius, first, because he felt him- self to be caught napping; secondly, because he knew he wjis innocent. The elder of the spinsters had got behind the strange^, and she intimated by signs and movements of the lips that the stranger was unknown, and therefore mysterious, and not to be trusted ; and so quickly was this pantomime performed that it was done before Caius had time to speak, although he was under the impres- sion that he rose with alacrity to explain to the new- comer that he would go with him at once. The warning that the old maid gave resulted at least in some cautious questioning. Caius asked the stranger who he was, and if he had come from The Cloud that day. As to who he was, the man replied that his name was John O'Sliea, and he was the man who worked the land of Madame Le Maitre. '" One does not go and come from Cloud Island in one day at this season," said he. " 'Tis three days ago since I came. I've been waiting up at the parson's for the schooner. To-day we're going back together, ye and me." t if:'!' il 94 THE MEKMAID. lie was spiiring of lan<;iiai]^e. IIo shut his mouth over tlic short scntuuees hu liacl said, and that inlhienco wiiich always makes it more or less ditlicult for one nuin to oj)|)()se tiie will of another caused Caius to make his (juestioMS as few as })ossible. Was it safe, he asked, to drive to Cloud Island that dav ? The otlier h)oked at him from head to foot. " Not safe," he said, " for women and rhilder; but for men " — the word was lingered upon for a moment — " yes, safe enough." The innkeepers were too mindful of tlu'ir manners as yet to disturb the eollofpiy with o])en interrupti(m ; but with every otlier sort of interruption they did dis- turb it, explaining by despairing gestures and direful shakings of the head that, should Caius go with this genthrrmn, he would be driving into the very jaws of deat) jSevertheless, after O'Shea's last words Caius had assented to the expedition, although he was uncertain whether the assent was wise or not. He had the dissat- isfaction of feeling that he had been ruled, dared, like a vain schoolboy, into the hasty consent. " Now, if you are servant to Madame Le Maitre at The Cloud, how is it that you've never been seen on this island ? " It was the liveliest of the sisters who could no longer keep silence. While Caius was packing his traps he was under the impression that O'Shea had replied that, in the first place, he had not lived long at The Cloud, and, in the second, visitors from The Cloud had not been so par- ticularly welcome at the other islands. His remarks on the last subject were delivered with brief sarcasm. After BETVVKKX THE SUUF AND THE SAND. 95 :e ho lijul started on tlie jounioy Cains wondcrod tliat lie had not rcnionibcM'od iiion* particularly tlu' gist of an answer which it concerned him to hear. At the time, however, he hastened to strap toeks as he hi\'. Jle saw the hoy brace himself, the lithe, stronir iwuscles of his hack, ap- parent only hy the result of their action, swayed bal- ancing against the jolting, while, with thickly-gloved hands, he grasped the wooden ledgt; on which lie sat. In front O'Shea was like an image carved of the same wood as the cart, so tirndy he held to it. Well, such hours pass. After a while they ciime out upon the soft, dry sand heyoiul the scrubby ilat, and the horse, with impeded footsteps, trudged slowly. The sand was so drv, driven bv the wind, that the horse and cart sank in it as in driven snow, 'i'he mo- tion, though slow, was luxurious compared to what had been. O'Shea and the boy h;id s})rung otT the cart, and were marching beside it. Cains cland)ered out, too, to walk beside them. " Ye moight have stayed in, Mr. Doctor," said O'Shea. " The pony is more than equal to carrying ye 5? Again Caius felt that O'Shea derided lii m. He hardly knew why the man's words always gave him this impression, for his was no particular manner was civil enough, and there reason for derision apparent ; for, al- til 98 THE MERMAID. though O'Shoa's figure had broadened out under the weiglit of years, lie was not a taller man than Caius, and the latter was probably the stronger of the two. When Caius glanced later at the other's face, it appeared to him that he derived his impression from the deep, ray- like wrinkles that were like star-fish round the man's eyes ; but if so, it must have been that something in the quality of the voice reflected the expression of the face, for they were not in such jjlight as would enable them to observe one another's faces much. The icy wind bore with it a burden of sparkling sand, so that they were often forced to muffle their faces, walking with heads bowe. O'Siiea's voi(;e came out of the darkness; liis form was hardly to be seen. " Sit yourself down, Mr. Doctor, and have some bread and cheese — that is, if ye've sulliciently forgotten tlie poies of tlie old nuiids. The things that grow here are good enough to sit on, and that's all we want of them, not being ponies." The answer was once more an insult in its allusion to the })ies (Caius was again liungry), and in its refusal of simple information ; but the tone was more cheerful, and O'Shea had relaxed from his extreme brevity. Caius sat down, and felt almost convivial wlien he found that a parcel of bread and cheese and a huge bottle of cold tea were to be shared between them. Either the food was j)erfect of its kind or his appetite good sauce, for never had anything tasted sweeter than the meal. They all three squatted in the darkness round the contents of the ample parcel, and if they said little it was because they ate much. Caius found by the light of a match that his watch told it was the hour of seven ; they had been at hard travel for more than four hours, and had come to a bit of the beach which could not be traversed without more light. In another hour the moon would be up and the horse rested. When the meal was finished, each rested in his own way. O'Shea laid himself fiat upon his back, with a blanket over his feet. The boy slipped away, and was not seen until the waving grass on the tops of the highest dunes became a fringe of silver. lentil then Caius paced the valley, coming occasionally in contact lOG THE MERMAID. 1; >;•'. M' with tlie browsing pony; but neitlier his walk nor nic'diliition was interrupted by more formidable pres- ence. '' Ay — ee — )io — ee — ho ! " It was a rallying call, a shrill cry, from O'Siiea. It broke the silence the instant that the nu)on's first ray had touched the dune. The man must have been lying looking at the highest head, for when Caius heard the uiu'xpected sound he looked round more than once before he discovered its cause, and then knew that while he had been walking the whole heaven and earth had become lighter by im- perceptible degrees. As he watched now, the momen- tary brightening was very perceptible. The lieights and shadows of the sand-hills stood out to sight ; he could see the line where the low herbage stopped and the waving bent began. In the sky the stars faded in a pallid 2^ulf of violet light. The mystery of the place was less, its beauty a thousandfold greater : and the beauty was still of the dream-exciting kind that made him long to climb all its hills and seek in all its hollows, for there are some scenes that, by their very contour, suggest more than they display, and in which the human mind cannot rid itself of the notion that the physical aspect is not all that there is to be seen. But whatever the charm of the place, now that light had revealed it Caius must leave it. The party put themselves in line of march once more. The boy had gone on up where the wall of the dell was lowest, and Caius tramped beside O'Shea, who led the pony. Once up from the hollow, their eyes wero dazzled at first with the flash of the moonlight upon the water. From the top of the sand ridge they could see the sea II WHERE THE DEVIL LIVED. 107 out beyond tlie surf — a measureless pur})le waste on which far breakers rose and blossomed for a moment like a hed<:fe of whitethorn in May, and sank aizain with a glint of black in the shadow of the next uprisin, Lo iMaitre. lie had had no definite notion of her, but this certainly did not fullil his idea. It was hut the work of a short time to do all that could be ilone that night for the sick man, to lejive the remedies that were to be used. It was now midnight. The liot stove in the room, causing reaction from the strou'dv-stimuhitinf? air, made liim aijain feel heav with sleep. The nun-like lady, who had as yet said alnu)st nothing to him, now touched him on the shoulder and beckoned him to follow her. She led him out into the night again, round the house and into a barn, in either side of which were tremendous bins of hay. " Your house," she said, " is a long way from here, and you are very tired. In the house here there is the infection." Here she pointed him to the hay, and, giv- ing him a warm blanket, bade him good-night. Caius shut the door, aiul found that the i)lace was lit by dusky rays of moonlight that came through chinks in its walls. He climbed the ladder that reached to the top of the hay, and rolled himself and his blaulvec warm- ly in it. The barn was not cold. The airiness of the walls was a relief to him after the infected room. Never had couch felt more luxurious. )om. the [ray CHAPTER VIII. HOW THEY LIVED OX THE CLOUD. PI 'I Uli-' Wr I When the chinks of moonlight had been rephiced by brigliter chinks of sunlight, the new doctor who had come so gallantly to the aid of the sufferers on Cloud Inland opened his eyes upon his first day there. He heard some slight sounds, and looked over the edge of his bed to see a little table set forth in the broad passage between the two stores of hay. A slip of a girl, of about fourteen years of age, was jirranging dishes upon it. When Caius scrambled down, she in- formed him, with childish timidity of mien, that Mad- ame Le ^laitre had said that he was to have his break- fast there before he went in to see " father." The child spoke French, but Caius spoke English because it re- lieved his mind to do so. " Upon my word ! " he said, " Madame Le Maitre keeps everything running in very good order, and takes prodigious care of us all." " Oh, oui, monsieur," replied the child sagely, judg- ing from his look of amusement and the name he had repeated that this was the i)roper answer. The breakfast, which was already there, consisted of fish, delicately baked, and coffee. The young doctor felt exceedingly odd, sitting in the cart-track of a barn 12G HOW THEY LIVED ON THE CLOUD. 127 re- of ;tor kirn and devouring these viands from a breakfast-table that was toh.M'ablv well set out with tlie usual number of dishes and condiments. The big double door was closed to keep out the cold wind, but plenty of air and numer- ous sunbeams managed to come in. The sunbeams were g(Jden bars of dust, crossing and interlacing in the twi- light of the wiiulowless walls. The slip of a girl in her short frock remained, perhaps from curiosity, perhaps because she had been bidden to do so, but she made her- self as little obvious as })ossil)le, standing up against one corner near the door and shyly twisting some bits of hay in her hands. Caius, wdio was enjoying himself, discov- ered a new source of amusement in pretending to forget her presence and then looking at her quickly, for he al- ways found the glance of her big gray eyes was being withdrawn from his own face, and child-like confusion ensued. When he had eaten enough, he set to his proper work with haste and diligence. He made the girl tell him how many children there w^re, and find them all for him, so that in a trice he had them standing in a row in the sunlight outside the barn, with their little tongues all out, that the state of their health might be properly inspected. Then lie went in to his patient of the night before. The disease was diphtheria. It was a severe case ; but the man had been healthy, and Caius approved the arrangements that Madame Tvg Maitre had made to give him plenty of air and nourishment. The wife was alone with her husband this morning, and when Caius had done all that was necessary, and given her directions for the proper protection of herself and the children, she told him that her eldest girl wo. Id 128 THE MERMAID. Mi h go with him to the lioiise of Madame Le Maitre. That lady, said she simply, would tell him where he was to go next, and all he was to do upon the island. " Upon my word ! " said Cains again to himself, " it seems I am to be taken care of and instructed, truly." lie had a sense of being patronized ; but his spirits were high — nothing depressed him ; and, remembering the alarming incident of the night before, he felt that the lady's protection might not be unnecessary. When he got to the front of the house, for the first time in the morning light, he saw that the establish- ment was of ample size, but kept with no care for a tasteful appearance. There was no path of any sort leading from the gate in the light paling to the door ^ all was a thick carpet of grass, covering the unlevelled ground. The grass was waving madly in the wind, which coursed freely over undulating fields that here displayed no shrubs or trees of any sort. Caius won- dered if the wind alwavs blew on these islands ; it was blowing now with the same zest as the day before ; the sun poured down with brilliancy upon everything, and the sea, seen in glimpses, was blue and tempestuous. Truly, it seemed a land which the sun and the moon and the wind had elected to bless with lavish self-giving. When Cains opened the gate of the whitewashed paling, the girl who was to be his guide cam«' round from the back of the house after him, and on her track came a sudden rush of all the other children, who, with curls and garments flying in the wind and delightful bursts of sudden laughter, came to stand in a row again with their tongues outstretched at Caius' retreating form. The girl could only talk French, and she talked very now TIIEY LIVED ON THE CLOUD. 129 »"> '^^ little of that, giving liim "yes" or " no" demurely, as they went up tlie road whicli ran in hind throngli the island hills, keei)ing about midway between sea and sea. Caius saw that tlie houses and small farms on either side resembled those which he had seen on the other island. Small and rough many of them were ; but their white- washed walls, the strong sunshine, and the large space of grass or pine shrubs that was about each, gave them an appearance of cleanliness. There was no sign of the want or squalor that he had expected ; indeed, so pros- perous did many of the houses look, that he himself began to have an injured feeling, thinking that he had been brought to befriend people who might very well have befriended themselves. It was when they came out at a dip in the hills near the outer sea again that the girl stopped, and pointing Caius to a house within sight, went back. This house in the main resembled the other larger houses of the island ; but pine and birch trees were beginning to grow high about it, and on eniering its enclosure Caius trod upon a gravel path, and noticed banks of earth that in the summer time had held flowers. In front of the white veranda two powerful mastiffs were lying in the sun. These lions were not chained ; they were looking for him before ho appeared, but did not take the trouble to rise at the sight of him; only a low and ominous rumble, as of thunder beneath the earth, greeted his jip- proacli, and gave Caius the strong impression that, if need was, they would arise to some purpose. A young girl opened the door. She was fresh and pretty-looking, but of plebeian figure and countenance. Her dress was again gray homespun, hanging full and short about her ankles. Iler manner was different from 130 TIJE MERMAID. that of those people lie hud been lately meeting, for it had that gentle reserve and formality that bespeaks training. She ushered him into a good-sized room, where three other girls like herself were engaged in sew- ing. Sitting at a table with a book, from which she had apparently been reading to them, was the woman in the nun-like dress whom he had met before. The walls of the room were of un})ainted pinewood, planed to a satin finish, and adorned with festoons of gray moss such as hangs from forest boughs. This was tied with knots of red bittersweet berries ; the feathers of sea-birds were also displayv( the walls, and chains of their delicate- coloured eggs ere hanging there. Caius had not stepped across the threshold before he began to suspect that he had passed from the region of the real into the ideal. " She is a romantic-minded woman," he said to him- self. " I wonder if she has much sense, after all ? " Then the woman whom he was thus inwardly criti- cising rose and came across the room to meet him. Her perfect gravity, her dignity of bearing, and her gracious greeting, impressed him in spite of himself. Pictures that one finds in history and fiction of lady abbesses rose before his mind ; it was thus that he clas- sified her. His opinion as to the conscious romance of her life altered, for the woman before him was very real, and he knew in a moment that she had seen and suf- fered much. Her eyes w^ere full of suffering and of solicitude ; but it did not seem to him that the suffering and solicitude were in any way connected with a per- sonal need, for there was also peace upon her face. The room did not contain much furniture. When Caius sat down, and the lady had resumed her seat, he now TIIEY LIVED ON THE CLOUD. 131 found, as is apt to be the way in empty rooms, that the chairs were near the wall, and that he, sitting facing her, had left nearly the room's widtli between them. The sewing maidens looked at them with large eyes, and listened to everything that was said ; and although they were silent, except for the sonnd of their stitching, it was so evident that their thonghts must form a running commentary that it gave Cains an odd feeling of acting in company with a drannitic chorus. The lady in front of him had no such feeling ; there was nothing more evident about her than that she did not think of how she appeared or how she was observed. " You are very good to have come." She spoke with a slight French accent, whether natural or acquired ho could not tell. Then she left that subject, and began at once to tell the story of the plague upon tiie island — when it began, what efforts she and a few others had made to arrest it, the carelessness and obstinacy with which the greater part of the people had fostered it, its progress. This was the substance of what she said ; but she did not speak of the best efforts as being her own, nor did she call the people stupid and obstinate. She only said : " They would not have tlieir houses properly cleaned out; they would not wash or burn garments that were infected ; they would not use disinfectants, even when we could procure them ; they will not yet. You may say that in this wind-swept country there can be noth- ing in nature to foster such a disease, nothing in the way the houses are built ; but the disease came here on a ship, and it is in the houses of the people that it lingers. They will not isolate the sick ; they Avill not- 5? t !ii 4 m i She stopped as if at a loss for a word. She liad 132 THE MERMAID. I been speaking in a voice whose music was the strain of compassion. " In fact," said Cains, with some impatience, " they are a set ^ fools, and worse, for they won't take a telling. Your duty is surely done. They do not deserve that you should risk your life nursing them ; they simply deserve to be left to suffer." She looked at him for a minute, as if earnestly trying to master a view of the case new to her. " Yes," speaking slowly. lie saw that her hands, "which were clasped in her lap, jiressed themselves more closely together — " yes, that is what they deserve ; but, you see, they are very ignorant. They do not see the importjince of these precautions ; they have not believed me ; they will not believe you. They think quite hon- estly and truly that they will get on well enough in doing their own way." " Pig-headed !" commented Caius. Then, perceiving that he had not quite carried her judgment along with his: "You yourself, madam, have admitted that they do not deserve that either you or I should sacrifice our lives to them." "Ah, no," she replied, trouble of thought again in her eyes ; " they do not deserve that. But what do we deserve — you and I ? " There was no studied effect in the question. She was like one trying to think more clearly by expressing her thought aloud. " Madam," replied he, the smile of gallantry upon his lips, " I have no doubt that you deserve the richest blessinsfs of earth and heaven. For mvself " lie shrugged his shoulders, just about to say conventionally, flippantly, that he was a sad, worthless fellow, but in I I HOW TREY LIVED OX THE CLOUD. 133 lis some way her sincerity made liim sincere, and lie fmislied : " 1 do not know tluit I have raitre to liers, but he saw lier stand Ijcside it as if too absent in mind to spriui,' to its back; her face was iookiui; up into the blue aixne. " You are i iiii '. ts K < W' other island of the group; but Cains did not believe this, because he felt convinced she must be under the protection of his friends ; and also, since he had arrived the weather had been such tliat it would have been an event known to all the fishermen if anotlicr party had made a journey along the sands. When the snow came the sands were impassable. As soon as the ice on the bay would bear, there would be coming and going, no doubt; but until then Caius had the restful security tliat she was near him, and that it could not be many days before he saw iier. The only flaw in his conclu- sion was that the fact did not bear it out ; he did not see her. At length it became clear that the maiden was hid- ing herself. Caius ceased to hope that he would meet her by chance, because ho knew he would ali-eady have done so if it were not willed otherwise. Then his mind grew restless again, and impatient; he could not even imagine where she could lie hidden, or wliat possible reason there could be for a life of uncomfortable con- cealment. Caius had not allowed either O'Shea or Madame Le Maitre to suspect that in his stumble he had involunta- rily seen his companion on the midnight journey. He did not think that the sea-maid herself knew tiiat he had seen her there. He might have been tempted now to believe that the vision was some bright illusion, if its reality had not been proved by the fact that ^ladnme Le Maitre k.u'w that he had a companion, and that O'Shea had staked much that he should not take that long moonlight walk by her side. Since the day on whicli he had become sure that the sea-maid had such close and real connection with human THE MAIDEN INVENTED. 157 II ta- He lie Inow its pLe Iphea long the Iman beinffs that lie met cverv day, he had ceased to have tliose strange and uncomfortable ideas Jibont her, which, in half his moods, relegated her into the region of freaks practised u})on mortals by the denizens of the unseen, or, still farther, into the region of dreams that have no reality. However, now that she had retired again into hiding, this assurance of his was small comfort. He would have resolutely inquired of Madame Le ]\Iaitre who it was who had been sent to warn him of danger if need be upon the beach, but that the lady was not one to allow herself willingly to be questioned, and in exciting her displeasure he might lose the only chance of gaining what he sought. Then, too, with the thought of accosting the lady upon this subject there always arose in his mind the remembrance of the brief minute in which, to his own confounding, he had seen the face of the sea-maid in the lady's own face, and a phantom doubt came to him as to whether she were not herself the sea-maid, disfigured and made aged by the wrap- pings she wore. He did not, however, believe this. He had every reason to refuse the belief ; and if he had had no other, this woman's character was enough, it ap- peared to him, to give the lie to the thought. A more intelligent view concerning that fleeting likeness was that the two women were nearly related to one another, the younger in charge of the elder ; and that the younger, who had for some purjiose or prank played about in the waters near his home, must have lived in some house there, must have means of communiciition with the place, and must have acquainted Madame Le Maitre with his position when the need of a physician arose. What was so dissatisfying to him was that all i' Jl'l .i ^^|M' I ^IM V I'll' i1 ¥• 158 THE .MKKMAID. tliis was tlio merest conjecture, that the lady whom he loved was u person whom he had been obliged to invent in order to explain the appearances that had so charmed him. He had not a shadow of proof of lier existence. The ice became strong, and bridged over the bay tliat lay within the crescent of islands. All the islands, with their dunes, were covered with snow ; the gales which had beaten up the surf lessened in force ; and on the long snow-covered beaches there was only a fringe of white breakers upon the edge of a sea that was almost calm. The first visitor of any importance who came across the bay was the English clergyman. Kearly all the people on Cloud Island were Protestants, in so far as they had any religion. They were not a pious people, but it seemed that this priest had been exceedingly faithful to them in their trouble, and when he had been obliged to close the church for fear of the contagion, had visited them regularly, excei)t in those few weeks between the seasons when the road by the beach had been almost impassable. Caius was first aware of the advent of this welcome visitor by a great thum])ing at his door one morning before he had started on his daily round. On opening it, he saw a hardy little man in a fur coat, who held out his hand to him in enthusiastic greeting. " Well, now, this is what I call Ijeing a good boy — a very good boy — to come here to look after these poor folk." Caius disclaimed the virtue which he did not feel. " ^Motives ! I doivt care anything about motives. The point is to do the right thing. I'm a good boy to come and visit them ; you're a good boy to come and I THE MAIDEN INVENTED. 150 uid iiig out — II ves. Iv to and euro tliom. Tlioy are not a very grateful lot, Tni sorry to say, but wo have nothing to do with that; we're })ut here to look after them, {iiul what we feel about it, or what they feel about it, is not the question." He had come into Cains' room, stamping the snow off his big boots. lie was a spare, elderly num, with gray hair and bright eyes. His horse and sleigh stood without the door, and the horse jingled its bells continnallv. Here was a friend ! Caius decided at once to (jues- tiou this man concerning Madame Le Maitre, and — that other ladv in whose existence he believed. " The main thing that you want on these islai ds is nerve," said the clergyman. " It would be no good at all now" — argumentatively — " for the Bishop to send a man here who hadn't nerve. You never know where you'll meet a quicksand, or a hole in the ice. (Iinbby and I nearly went under this morning and never were seen again. Some of these fellows had been cutting a hole, and — well, we just saw it in time. It wonld have been the end of us, I can tell you; but then, you see, if you are being a good boy and doing what you're told, that does not matter so much." It appeared that Chubby was the clergyman's pony. In a short time Cains had heard of various other adven- tures which she aiul her master had shared together. He was interested to know if any of them would throw any light upon the remarkable conduct of O'Shea and his friends ; but they did not. " The men about here," he said — " I can't make any- thing out of them — are they lawless?" "You see" — in explaiiatory tone — "if you take a man and expose him to the sea and the wind for half % llil 11 li Limmiimmmmmmmmimm i. .': ) '' 160 THE MERMAID. his life, you'll find that he is pretty much asleep the other half, lie may walk about witli his eyes open, but his brain's pretty much asleep ; he's just equal to loung- ing and smoking. There are just two things these men can do — fish, and gather the stuff from wrecks. They'll make from eight dollars a day at the fishing, and from sixteen to twenty when a wreck's in. They can afford to be idle the rest of the time, and thev are gloriously idle." " Do they ever gather in bands to rob wrecked ships, or for other unlawful purposes?" " Oh no, not in the least ! Oh no, nothing of the kind ! They'll steal from a wreck, of course, if they get the chance ; but on the sly, not by violence. Their worst sin is independence and self-righteousness. You can't teach the children anything in the schools, for instance, for the parents won't have them punished ; they are quite sure that their children never do anything wrong. That comes of living so far out of the world, and getting their living so easily. I can tell you, Utopia has a bad effect on character." Cains let the matter go for that time ; he had the prospect of seeing the clergyman often. Another week, when the clergyman had come to the island and Cains met him by chance, they had the ojipor- tunity of walking up a long snowy hill together, leading their horses. Cains asked him tlien about Madame Le Maitre and O'Shea, and heard a plain consecutive tale of their lives and of their coming to the island, which de- nuded the subject of all unknown elements and appeared to rob it of special interest. Captain Le Maitre, it appeared, had a life-long lease of the property on Cloud Island, and also some property THE MAIDEN INVENTED. KU i.cr he icr of i-ed lase rty on the niaiiilaiid soutli of (Ijispe Jiasiii ; but the hind was woi'tli little except by tillage, and, being a seaman, he neglected it. His father had had the land before him. Pembroke, the clergyman, had seen his father. He had never happened to see the son, who would now ])e between forty and fifty years of age ; but when Madame Le Maitre had come to look after the farm on Cloud Island, she had made herself known to him as in charge of her husband's affairs. She found that she could not get the land worked by the islanders, and had induced O'Shea, who it seemed was an old farm hand of her own father's, to settle upon this farm, which was a richer one than the one he had had upon the mainland. The soil of the islands, Pembroke said, was in reality exceedingly rich, but in no case had it ever been properly worked, and he was in hopes that now Madame Le ^Nlaitre might produce a model farm, which would be of vast good in showing the islanders how much they lost by their in- different manner of treating thei'' land. " Why did she come to the islands?" " Conscientiousness, I think. The land here was neglected ; the people here certainly present a field white to harvest to anyone who has the missionary spirit." " Is she — is she very devout?" asked Caius. *' Well, yes, in her own way she is — mind, I say in her own way. I couldn't tell you, now, whether she is Protestant or Papist ; I don't believe she knows her- self." " He that sitteth between two stools " suggested Caius, chiefly for want of something to say. " Well, no, I wouldn't say that. Bless you ! the truest hearts on God's earth don't trouble about religious 1 1 V' ' 1 ■*^r 1 ^'^ 1 || IM f E f* 102 THE MEKMAII). opinions ; they have got the cssontiiil oil expressed out of them, und that's all tlioy want.'" To Cains this subject of the lady's reli^^non appeared a matter in which he had no need to take interest, but the other went on : " .She was brouglit up in a convent, you know — a country convent somewhere on the (iaspe coast, and, from what she tells me, the nuns had the good jjolicy to make her ha[)py. She tells me that where the convent gardens abutted on the sea, she and her fellows used to be allowed to fish and row about. You see, her mother had been a Catholic, and the father, being an old miser, had money, so I su})pose the sisters thought they could make a nun of her ; and very likely they would have done, for she is just that sort, but the father stopped that little game by making her marry before he died." " I always had an idea that the people on the coast up there were all poor and quite uneducated." " Well, yes, for the most part they are j)retty much what you would see on these islands ; but our Bishop tells me that, here and there, there are excellent private houses, and the priests' houses and the convents are tol- erably well off. But, to tell you the truth, I think this lady's father had some education, and his going to that part of the country may be accounted for by what she told me once about her mother. Her mother was a dancer, a ballet-dance, a very estimable and pious woman, her daughter says, and I have no doubt it is true ; but an educated man who makes that sort of marriage, you know, may prefer to live out of the world." Cains was becoming interested. " If she has inherited her mother's strength and lightness, that explains how she gets on her horse. By THE MAIDEN INVENTED. 1<)3 Jovo! I never siiw a woiiian jump on a horse without help us she does." "J list so; slie lias iiiarvellons stren_£!:th and endur- ance, and the host proof of that, is tlio work she is doiuii nowaday; W ly, witli tlu^ exeeptioii <)! three f th days that she came to see my wife, and would have died if she hadn't, she has worked night and day )le for the last six months. She umo n tell nu' who she is. I have an important reason for askin*^." " My dear boy, I would tell you with all the pleasure in the world if I knew." " I have seen her." Cains spoke in a solemn voice. The priest looked at iiini with evident interest and curiosity. " Well, where was she, and who was she?" " You must know : you are in Madame Le .Maitre's conlidenee; you travel froui door to door, day in and day out ; you know everybody and everything upon these islands." " I assure you," said the priest, " that I never heard of such a i)erson." n CIIAPTKIJ XIII. wiiTTi: niHDs; wiiitk sxow ; wiiitT': TiroroiiTS. !' If; 1?Y degrees Cuius was oblii^ed to pflvo up his last linm'riiif' belief in tiie existence of the ladv he loved. It was a curious position to be in, for he loved her none the less. Two mouths of work and thouu-ht for the dis- eased people had slij^ped away, aud by the mere lajjse of time, as well as by every other proof, he had coiue to know tiiat there was no maiden in auy way connected with Madame Le Maitre who answered to tiie visions ho had seen, or who misjiit be wooed bv the man wlio had ceased to care for all other women for her sweet sake. After Caius had arrived the epidemic had become worse, as it had been prophesied it would, when the people began to exclude the winter air froui their houses. In almost every family upon the little isle there was a victim, iind Caius, under the compelling force of the orders which Madame Le ]\Iaitre never mive and the wishes she never expressed, became nurse as well as doc- tor, using what skill he had in every possible office for the sick, working early and late, and many a time the night through. It was not a time to prattle of the sea- maid to either ]\[adame Le ]\[aitre or O'Sliea, who both of them worked at his' side in the battle against death, ICG VVIHTM niKDS: WIIITK SNOW; WIIITK TIIorcillTS. ir,7 a e e ir e niul won*, CaiuM verily Ix'l'u'vod, more liorDic tmd siiccos.'^- fiil combatants than liiin.^clt'. Some solution conci'i-nini,' liis huly-lovc tlu'i'c must be, and Cains lU'itlicr l*(»rL,'<»t nor ^ave up bis intention of probing- tbe lives of these two to discover what he wished; but the forebodini,^ that the diseoverv would work him no weal made it the easier to lay the matter asi(h' and wait. Tiicy were all bound in the same iey prison ; he eould all'ord jia- tien(!e. The question of the hospital had been solved in this "way. Madame liO Maitre had taken O'Shea and his \vif(! and (diildren to live with her, and sueh patients as could bo persuaded or foreeil into liospital were taken lo l)is hous(! and luirsed there, 'j'hen, also, as tbe disease became more prevalent, people, who hail thus far refused all sanitary measures, in dire fear oj)ened their doors, and allowed Chains and ()\Shea to enter with white- wash brushes and other means of (iisinfeetinL,^ Cains was successful in this, that, in })roj)ortion to the number of people who were taken ill, the death-rate was only oni^ third of what it had been befere he eame. lie and his fellow-workers wen^ successful aiso in a more radical way, for about the end of Janiuiry it was sud- deidy observed atnoufj them that there wei'e no new eases of illness. The ill and the weak nrnidually j-eeovered. In a few more weeks the Anu-els of Death and Disease retired from the held, and the island was not depopu- lated. Whether another outbreak might or might not occur they could not tell ; but knowing the thorougli- ness of the work whicli they had done, they were ready to hope that the victory was complete Gradually their work ceased, for there was no one in all the happy island who needed nursing or medical attendance. Caius found I ' i w i\ .1 ■•:.( n\ !*i0»m I I m m 108 THE MERMAID. then bow wonderfully free the pliiee was from all those ailments which ordiniiriiv beset bumiinitv. This was in the middle of Februnrv, when the davs V -' ft. were growing long, and even the evening was bright and light upon the islands of snow and tlie sen of ice. It api)eared to Cains thjit .Madame Le ]\Iaitre hud gTOY\'n years okler during the pestilence. Deep lines of weariness luid come in her face, and her eyes werj heavy with wjint of sleep and sympathetic tears. Again and again he had feared that tlie disease would attack iier, and, indeed, he knew that it had only been the constant riding about the island hills in the wonderful air that had kept tlie little band of workers in health. As it was, O'Sliea had lost a child, and three of the girls in the house of .Madame Le Maitre had been ill. Now that the strain was over, Caius feared prostration that would be worse than the disease itself for the lady who had kept np so bravely through it all ; but, ever feeling an impossibility in her presence of sjieaking freely of any- thing that concerned herself, he had hardly been able to express the solicitude he felt before it was relieved by the welcome news that she had travelled across the bay to pay a visit to I'embroke's wife. She had gone witliOut either telling Caius of her in- tention or biddijig him good-ijye, and, glad as he was, he felt that he had not deserved this discourtesv at her hands. Indeed, looking back now, he felt disposed to resent the indifference with which she had treated him from first to last. Not as the people's doctoi*. Jn that capacity she had l)oen eager for his services, and grateful to him with a speecidess, reverent gratitude that he felt to be muLh more than his due ; but as a man, as a com- panion, as a friend, she had been simply unconscious of WHITE BIRDS; WHITE SNOW; WHITE TlIOLdllTS. K^O to to 111 at ul lit ri- )f his existence. When she had said to liini at the begin- ninir, " You will be lonely ; there is no one on the island to whom you ean speak as a friend," he })ereeived now that she had exeluded herself as well as the absent world from his companionship. It seemed to him that it had never once occurred to her that it was in her power to alter this. Truly, if it had not been for Pembroke, the clergy- man, Cains would never have had a eoin})ani()nal)le word ; and he had fouiid that there were limits to tlie interest he could take in Pembroke, tluit the stock of likings and dislikings that thev had in couimon was not great. Then, too, since the day on which he had (pies- tioned him so vehemently about the relatives of Madame Le Maitre, he fancied that the clergvman had treated him with apprehensive reserve. At the time when he had little or nothing to do, and when Madame Le Maitre had left ("loud Island, Cains would have been glad enough to go and explore the other islands, or to luxuriate again in the cookery of the old maids at the inn at whicdi he had iirst been housed. Two considerations kept him from this holiday-taking. In the first })lace, in fear of a case of illness he did nd like to leave the island while its benefactress was awav ; and, secondly, it was reported that all visitors from The Cloud were ruthlessly shut out from the houses u[)()n the otlier islands, because of the unreasoning terror which had grown concerning the disease. Whether he, who carried money in his pocket, would be shnt out from these neighbouring islands also, he did not care to infjuire. lie felt too angry with the way the inhabitants behaved to have any dealings with them. The only means of amusement that remained to In •UNNH ITu THE .MKUMAID. Cuius in these dsiys were liis liorsc and a u^nn tliat O'Shca k'lit him. With his luncli in liis ])ockL't, lie I'ode upon the ice as far as he might go and relui-n tlie same diiy. lie followed the roads tliat led hy the shores of the other islands ; or, where the wiiul had swept all de})t.h of snow from the ice, he took a path according to his own fancy on the untrodden whiteness. Colonies of Arctic gulls harboured on the islaml,and the herring gidls remained througli the winter; these, where lie coukl get near their rocks upon the ice, he at iirst took lU'light in shooting ; but he soon lost tlie zest for this s])ort, for the birds gave themselves to his gun too easily. Jle was capable of d<'riving pleasure from them other tlian in their slaughter, and often he rode uiuh'r their rockv homes, notiii;r how chirk their white plumage looked jigainst their white resting-})laces. where groui)S of them huddled together upon the icy ijattle- ments aiul snowdrift towers of the castles that the frost had built them, Jle would ride hv slowlv, ami sh(K)t liin gun in the air to see them rise ami wheel upward, ap- pe^aring snow-white against tlie Idue lirmament ; and watched them sink again, growing dark as they alighted among the snow and ice. liis warning that he himself must be nearing home was to see the return of such members of the bird-colony as had been out for the deep-sea fishing. When he saw them come from afar, living high, often with their Aviiius dved pink in the sunset rays, he knew that his horse must gallop home- ward, or darkness might come and hide such cracks and fissures in the ice as were dangerous. o^ The haunts of the birds which lie chieiiy loved were on the side of the islands turned to the open sea, foi- at this time ice had formed on all sides, and stretched )- ■If le id re WFIITE BIRDS; WHITE SNOW; WHITE TIIorCIITS. 171 witlioiit a ])reiik for u iiiilo or so into tlie open. There was a joy in riding upon this tliat made riding upon the bav tame and uninterestino; ; for not oidv was tlio seaward shore of ishirid and dune wilder, l)ut tlie ice liere miulit at anv time break from the shore or divide itself up into large islands, and when the wind blew he faneied he heard the waves heaving beneath it, and the excitement which comes with daiiger, which, by some law of mysterious nature, is one of tlie keenest forms of pleasure, would animate his horse and himself as they flew over it. Ilis horse was not one of the native ponies ; it was a well-bred, delicately-shaped beast, accustomed to be nnide a friend of by its rider, and giving sympathetic response to all his moods. The horse belongertion of the rock after another where he saw, or fancied he saw, sketches of this and that wiiich ravished iiis sense of beauty both in colour and form. in his excitement to see what would come next, he did not check the stepping of Ids horse, but oidy kept it to a gentle pace. Thus he came where the road turned round witii the rounding clilT, and here for a bit he saw no picture upon the rock ; but still he looked intently, hoping that the panorama was not ended, and only Just noticed that there was another horse beside his own within the lonely scene. In some places here the snow was drifted high near the track ; in otiiers, both the road and the adjoining tracts of ice were swept by the wind almost bare of snow. He soon became aware that the horse he liad espied was not upon the road. Then, aroused to curiosity, he turned out of his path and rode through shallow snow till he came close to it. The horse was standing quite still, and its rider was standing beside it, one arm embracing its neck, and with head leaning back against the creature's glossy shoulder. The person thus standing was Madame Le JMaitre, and she was looking up steadfastly at the clids, of which this point in the road displayed a new ex- panse. So silently had the horse of Cains moved in the muffling snow that, coming up on the other side, he was able to look at the lady for one full moment before she saw him, and in that moment and the next he saw that the sight of him robbed her face of the peace which hud been written there. She was wrajiped as usual in i. M .11 riki 1 If- ■If 170 THE MERMAID. her fur-lined eloak and hood. She looked to him in- quiringly, with perluips just a touch of indignant displeasure in her expression, wailing for him to cxi)lain, as if he had come on purpose to interrupt lier. " I am sorry. I had no idea you were here, or I would not have come." The next moment he marvelled at himself as to how lie had known that this was the right thing to say ; for it did not sound polite. Her displeasure was a])peased. " You have found my pictures, then," she said simj^ly. " Oidy this hour, and by chance." By this time he was wondering by what road she luid got there. If she had ridden alone across the bay from Harbour Island, where the Pembrokcs lived, she had dore a bold thing for a woman, and one, moreover, which, in the state of health in which he had seen her last, would have been im- possible to her. Madame Le Maitre had begun to move slowly, as one wdio wakes from a happy dream. He perceived that she was making preparations to mount. " I cannot understand it," he cried ; " how can these pictures come just by chance? I have heard of the Picture Hocks on Lake Superior, for instance, but I never conceived of anything so distinct, so lovely, as these that I have seen." " The angels make them," said Madame Le ]\Iaitre. She paused again (though her bridle had been gathered in her hand ready for the mount), and looked up again at the rock. If I THE .MARRIAGE SCENE. 177 Cuius wjis not uiiheedful of the force of that soft but absohite assertion, but he must needs speak, if he spoke at all, from his own poii^t of view, not hers. " I suppose," he said, "■ that the truth is there is something uj)on tlie roek that strikes us as a resem- blanee, and our inui,i,d nation furnishes the detail that perfects the picture." " In that ease would you not see one thing and I another?" Now for the first time his eves followed hers, and on the gray rock immediately opposite he suddenly per- ceived a picture, without definite edge it is true, but in composition more com})lete than anything he had seen before. AVhat had formerly delighted him had been, as it were, mere sketches of one thing or another scjittered in ditferent places, but here there was a large grouj) of figures, painted for the most part in varied tints of gray, and blue, and pink. Jn the foreground of this picture a young man and young woman, radiant both in face and apparel, stood before a figure draped in priestly garments of sober gray. Ikdiind them, in a vista, which seemed to be filled with an atmosphere of light and joy, a band of figures were dancing in gay procession, every line of the limbs and of the light draperies suggesting motion and glee. How did he know that some of these were men, and some were women ? He had never seen such dresses as they wore, which seemed to be composed of tunics and o-ossamer veils of blue and red. Yet he did know quite distinctly which were men and which were women, and he knew that it was a marriage scene. The bride wore a wreath of fiowers ; the bridegroom carried a sheaf or garland of fruit or grain, which seemed to be a part h. w •I ^i h I! ii ill 4: ■ill' Ml n • ITS THE .MKUMAII). of the ceremony. Cuius tliouglit he was about to offer it to tlie priest. For some minutes the two hjoked up at the roek quite sik'ntly. Now tlie hidy answered his hist remark : " Wiuit is it you see?" " Vou know it best; tell me wliat it is." "It is a weddin<;. Don't vou see the weddinij dance?" He had not got down from his horse; he had a feel- ing that if lie had alighted sh(} would have mounted. lie tried now, leaning forward, to tell her how clearly he had seen the meaning, if so it might he called, of the natural fresco, and to lind some words ade(puitely to ex- press his appreciation of its beauty, lie knew that he had not expressed himself well, but she did not seem dissatisfied at the tribute he paid to a thing which she evidently regarded with personal love. " Do you think," she said, " that it will alter soon, or become defaced ? It has been iust the same for a year. It might, you know, become defaced any day, and then no one would have seen it but ourselves. The islanders, you know, do not notice it." " Ah, yes," said Cains; "beauty is made up of two parts — the objects seen and the understanding eye. AVe only know how much we are indebted to training and education when we find out to what extent the natural eye is blind." This remark did not seem to interest her. He felt that it jarred somehow, and that she was wishing him away. " But why," he asked, " should angels paint a mar- riage? They neither marry- 15 He stopped, feeling that she might think him flippant if he quoted the text. TIIK MARRIA(JK SCENK. 1TI> " Boeaiiso it is the ])e.st thing to paint," she suid. '' How the best?" " Well, just the best hnniun thinir; everyone knows that." " lias her marria<::e been so gloriously happy V saiil Cuius to hinisi'lf as the soft assurancf of her tones reached his ears, and for some reason or other he felt desolate, as a soul might upon wiiom the (l» ■^ o 4^ ISO THE MEKxMAID. ■I 4' I was at school in a convent T liatl a friend. T was per- fectly luipiw when I was witii her and she with me; it was a marriage. When we went in tl»e garden or on the sea, we were only hai)i)y wiien we were with each other. Thiit is how I learned early that it is only per- fect to be two. Ah, when one knows what it is to be lonely, one learns that that is true ; but many people are not given grace to be lonely — they are sufficient to themselves. They say it is enough to worship (.Jod; it is a lie. He cannot be pleased ; it is sellish even to be content to worship (Jod alone." " Tlie kind of marriage you think of, that perhaps may be made in heaven." Caius was feeling again that she was remote from him, and yet the hint of passionate loneliness in tone and words remained a new revelation of her life. " Is not religion enough ? " lie asked this only out of curiosity. " It is not true religion if we are content to be alone with God; it is not the religion of the holy Christ; it is a fancy, a delusion, a mistake. Have you not read about St. John? Ah, I do not say tliat it is not often right to live alone, just as it may be right to be ill or starving. That is because the world has gone wrong ; and to be content, it is to blas})hcme; it is like say- ing that what is wrong is God's ideal for us, and will last for ever." Caius was realizing that as she talked she was think- ing only of the theme, not at all of him ; he had enough refinement in him to perceive this (piite clearly. It was the first time that she had spoken of her religion to him, and her little sermon, which he felt to be too wholly unreasonable to appeal to his mind, was yet too wholly womanly to repel his heart. 4^' nn THE MARRIAGE SCENE. 181 (: i I IS o Some dreamy consciousness seemed to come to her now that she had tarrie«rm. Caius was affronted. The horse was not his, truly, but he believed he knew how to take care of it, yet, as it belonged to a woman, he could not risk disobeying this uncivil prohibition. Although he was accustomed to the rude authority which O'Shea assumed whenever he wished to be disagreeable, Caius had only learned to take it with an outward appearance of indilTerence — his mind within him always chafed; this time the affront to his vanity was worse because he believed that Madame Le Maitre had prompted, or certainly permitted, the insult. It did not soothe him to think that, with a woman's nervousness, she might have more regard for his safety than that of the horse. The brightness died out of the beautiful day, and in a lofty mood of ill-used indifference he assured himself that a gentleman could take little interest in such barbarous sport as seal-hunt- ing. At any rate, it would go on for many a day. He certainly had not the slightest intention of dismounting at O'Shea's command in order to go to the hunt. Caius held his horse as quiet as he could for some ten minutes, feigning an immense interest in the occu- pation of the women; then leisurely curvetted about, now II K mXTKI) TIIK SF.ALS. IS' |e |e ami sot liis horse at a li^'lit tR)t along the ice close by the shore. lie rode hastily l>ast the only place where he coulil have ascended the hank, and after that he had no means of going home until ho had rounded the island and returned by the lagoon. The distance up to the end was seven miles. Caius rode on under the lonely clilfs where the gulls wintered, and threading his way upon smooth places on the ice, came, in the course of not much more than an hour, up to the end of the clitTs, crossed the neck of the sand-l)ar, and followed the in- ward shore till he got back to the first road. Now, on this end of the ishmd very few families lived. Caius had only been ui)on the road he was about to traverse once or twice. The reason it was so little built upon was that the land here belonged entirely to the farm of Madame Le Maitre, which stretched in a narrow strip for a couple of miles from O'Shea's dwell- ing to the end of the island. The only point of interest which this district had for Caius was a cottage which had been built in a verv sheltered nook for the accom- modation of two women, whose business it was to care for the poultry which was kept here. Caius had been told that he might always stop at this lodge for a drink of milk or beer or such a lunch as it could afford, and being thirsty by reason of hard riding and ill-temper, he now tried to find the path that led to it. i 13 CIIAPTKU II. ONCE MOKE THE VISION. 1 1, lit ^?*" When Cains turncHl up the farm road, which was eutirely sheltered between gentle slo})cs, the bright March sun felt almost hot U})on his clieek. The snow road under bis horse's hoofs was full of moisture, and the snowy slopes glistened with a coating of wet. lie felt for the first time that the S2)ring of the year had come. He was not qui ortain where lay the cottage of which he was in qutot; and, by turning up a wrong path, he came to the back of its hen-houses. At first ho only saw the blank wall of a cowshed and two wooden structures like old-fashioned dovecotes, connected by a high fence in which there was no gate. Up to this fence he rode to look over it, hoping to speak to the people he heard within ; but it was too high for him to see over. Passing on, he brought his head level with a small window that was let into the wall of one of the hen-houses. The window had glass in it which was not at all clean, but a fragment of it was broken, and through this Caius looked, intending to see if there was any gate into the yard which he could reach from the path he was on. Through the small room of deserted hen-roosts, 188 ONTK MOKK TllK VISION. ISD a liis the to a the lot lite I he sts, tlii'ou;.,']! tlu* door wliich wii8 wiilo o|h'Ii on the other side, he saw tiie 8imiiv space of t!ie vard hcvoiid. All tlie fowls were gathered in an open j>lai't' that had l)een shovelled hetween heaps of liard-paeked snow. 'J'hero were the bright tufts of eoeks' tails and the glossy backs of heirs brown and yellow ; there were white ducks, jimi ducks that were green and black, and great gray geese of slender make that were evidently descended from tlie wild goose of the region. On the snow-heaj)S pigeons were standing — Hitting and constantly alighting — witli all tlie soft dove-colours in their dress. In front of the hirge feathered party was a young woman who stood, basin in hand, scattering corn, now on one side, now on another, with fitful caprice. She made game of tho work of feeding them, co(piettishly pretending to throw the boon where she did not throw it, laughing the while and talking to the birds, as if she and they led tlie same life and talked the same language. Chains could not hear what she said, but he felt assured that the birds could understand. For some few minutes Caius looked at this scene; he did not know how long he looked; his heart within him was face to face with a pain that was quite new iu his life, and was so great that he could not at first un- derstand it, but only felt that in comparison all smaller issues of life faded and became as nothing. Beyond the youthful ligure of the corn-giver Caius saw another woman. It was the wife of O'Shea, and in a moment her steadfast, quiet face looked up into his, and he knew that she saw him and did not tell of his presence ; but, as her eyes looked lon^ and mutely into his, it seemed to him that this silent woman understood something of the pain he felt. Then, very quietly, he 100 TIIK MKIIMAID. I-, tiirniMl liis horse and rode back ))}' the })atli tluit he liad come. 'V\\Q woman he had seen was the wife of the seii- eaptain Le Maitre. lie said it to liirnself as if to be assured tliat the self witliin liim had not in sonic way died, but eonUl still s])eak and understand, lie knew that lie liad seen the wife of this man, beeause the old eloak and hood, which he knew so well, had only been cast oiT, and were still hanj^ing to the .skirts below the girlish waist, and the white cap, too, had been thrown aside upon tlie snow — he had seen it. As for the girl herself, he liad loved her so long that it seemed strange to him that he had never known until now how mucli he loved lier. Her face liad been his one thought, his one standard of womanly beauty, for so many years that he was amazed to find that he had never known before how beautiful she was. A moment since and he had seen the March sunshine upon all the light, soft ringa of curling hair that covered her head, and he had seen her laughter, and the oval tarn of the dimpled chin, and within the face he had seen what he knew now he had always seen, but never before so clearly — the soul that was strong to suffer as well as strong to enjoy. By the narrow farm-path which his horse wa3 tread- ing Caius came to the road he had left, and, turning homeward, could not help coming in front of the little cottage whose back Avail he had so lately visited. He had no thought but of passing as quickly as might be, but he saw O'Shea's wife standing before the door, look- ing for him with her quiet, eager eyes. She came out a few steps, and Caius, hardly stopping, stooped his head to hear what she had to say. " I won't tell her," said the woman ; then she pleaded : ONCK MOUK TIIK VISION. itn " lict lier be, poor tiling ! Let her bo Imppy while she id: can. »i She liad slipped buck into the house; Cains had gone on ; and then he knew that he had this new word to pnzzle over. For why shonld he be snpposed to ma- lest the happy honrs of tlu^ woman lie loved, and what conld be the sorrow that dogged her life, if her happy hours were supi)osed to be rare and precious? O'Shea's wife he had observed before this to be a faithful and trusted friend of lier mistress ; no doubt slie . ] ke then with the authority of knowledge and love. Caius went home, and put away his horse, and en- tered his small house. Kverything was elwuiged to hini ; a knowledge that he had vaguely dreaded had 'ome, but with a gfrief that he had never dreamed of. For he had fancied that if it should turn out that his lady-love and Madame Le Maitre were one, his would only be the dis- appointment of having loved a shadow, a character of his own creating, and that the woman herself he would not love; but now that was not what had befallen him. All the place was deserted ; not a house had shown a sign of life as he passed. All the world had gone after the seals. This, no doubt, was the reason why the two women who had not cared for the hunting had taken that day for a holiday. Caius stood at his window and looked out on the sea of ice for a little while. He was alone in the whole locality, but he would not be less alone when the people returned. They had their inter- ests, their hopes and fears; he had nothing in common with any of them ; he was alone with his pain, and his pain was just this, that he was alone. Then he looked out further and further into the world from which he had come, into the world to which he must go back, and ! , I wmmmm n\ 192 THE MERMAID. m\ i'm- there also he saw liimself to b( alone. lie eoiild not en- dure the thought of sharing the motions of his heart and brain with anvone but the one woman from whom he was wholly separated. Time might make a differ- ence ; he was forced to remember that it is commonly saiil that time and absence abate all such attachments. He did not judge that time would make much differ- ence to him, but in this he might be mistaken. A man who has depth in him seldom broods over real trouble — not at first, at least. By this test may often be knowji the real from the fanciful woe. Caius knew, or his instincts knew, that his only chance of breasting the current was, not to think of its strength, but to keep on swimming. He took his horse's bits and the harness that had been given him for his little sleigh, cleaning and burnishing everything with the utmost care, and at the same time with despatch. He had some chemical work that had been lying aside for weeks waiting to be done, and this afternoon he did it. He had it on his mind to utilize some of his leisure by writ- ing long letters that he might post when it was possible for him to go home ; to-night he wrote two of them. While he was writing he heard the people coming in twos and threes along the road back to their houses for the night. He supposed that O'Shea had got home with the girls he had been escorting, and that his wife had come home, and that Madame Le Maitre had come back to her house and taken up again her regular rou- tine of life. u- (( CHAPTER III. LOVE, I SPEAK TO THY FACE. »» Caius thought a good deal about the words that O'Shea's wife had said to him. He did not know ex- actly what she meant, nor could he guess at all from what point of view concerning himself she had spoken ; but the general drift of her meaning appeared to be that he ought not to let Madame Le Maitre know where and how he had seen her the day before. In spite of this, he knew that he could neither be true to himself, nor to the woman he was forced to meet dailv, if he made anv disguise of the recognition which had occurred. He was in no hurry to meet her ; he hoped little or nothing from the interview, but dreaded it. Next day he wont without his horse out to where the men were killing the seals upon the edge of the ice. The warm March sun, and the March winds chat agi- tated the open sea, were doing their work. To-day there was water appearing in places upon the ice where it joined the shore, and when Caius was out with a large band of men upon the extreme edge of the solid ice, a large fragment broke loose. There were some hundred seals upon this bit of ice, which were being butchered one by one in barbarous fashion, and so busy were the men with their work that they merely looked at the 193 5 m 1 h 4 T 4 'i % I f 104 THE MERMAID. it' ' 1" t! 1 ■ I ■i- ' «s 11 widening passage of gray water and continued to kill the beasts that they had hedged round in a murderous ring. It was the duty of those on the shore to bring boats if they were needed. The fragment on which they were could not float far because the sea outside was full of loose ice, and, as it hapjiencd, when the dusk fell the chasm of water between them and the shore was not too broad to be jumped easily, for the ice, hav- ing first moved seaward, now moved landward with the tide. For two or three days Caius lent a hand at killing and skinning the gentle-eyed animals. It was not that he did not feel some disgust at the work ; but it meant bread to the men he was with, and he might as well help them. It was an experience, and, above all, it was dis- traction. When the women had seen him at work they welcomed him with demonstrative joy to the hot meals which they prepared twice a day for the hunters. Caius was not quite sure what composed the soups and stews of which he partook, but they tasted good enough. ■ When he had had enough of the seal-hunt it took him all the next day to cleanse the clothes he had worn from the smell of the fat, and he felt himself to be elfeminate in the fastidiousness that made him do it. During all these days the houses and roads of the island were almost completely deserted, except that Caius supposed that, after the first holiday, the maids who lived with Madame Le Maitre were kept to their usual household tasks, and that their mistress worked with them. At last, one day when Caius was coming from a house on one of the hills which he had visited because there was in it a little mortal very new to this world, he saw LOVE, I SPEAK TO THY FACE." 195 Madame Le Mai Ire riding up the snowy road that he was descending. He felt ghid, at the tirst sight of lier, that he was no longer a vouth hut had fullv come to man's estate, and luid attained to that command of nerve and con({uest over a heating heart that is the normal heritage of manliood. This thought came to him because he was so vividly reminded of the hour in which he had once before sought an interview with this lady — even holding her hand in his — and of his ignominious repulse. In spite of the sadness of his heart, a smile crossed his face, but it was gone before he met her. He had quite given up wondering now about that seafaring episode, and accepted it oidy as a fact. It did not matter to him why or how she had played her part ; it was enough that she had done it, and all that she did was right in his eyes. The lady's horse was walking slowly up the heavy hill ; the reins she hardly held, letting them loose upon its neck. It was evident that with her there was no difference since the time slic had last seen Caius ; it appeared that she did not even purpose stopping her horse. Catus stopped it gently, laying his hand upon its neck. " What is it?" she asked, with evident curiosity, for the face that he turned to her made her aware that there was something new in her quiet life. It was not easy to lind his words ; he did not care much to do so quickly. "1 could not go on," he said, " without letting you know " He stopped. She did not answer him with any quick impatient question. She looked at the snowy hill in front of her. "Well? "she said. i'i-! 'i ii i ir a The other day, you know," he said, " I rode by the II i 19G THE MERMAID. back of your poultry farm, and — I saw you when you were feedincj the birds." "Yes?" she said; slie was still looking gravely enough at the snow. The communication so far did not affect her much. " Then, when I saw you, I knew that I had seen you before — in the sea — at home." A red flush had mantled her face. There was perhaps an air of offence, for he saw that she held her head liigher, and knew what the turn of the neck would be in spite of the clumsy hood ; but what surprised him most was that she did not express any surprise or dismay. " I did not suppose," she said, in her own gentle, distant way, " that if you had a good memory for tluit — foolish i>lay, you would not know me again." Her manner added : " I have attempted no concealment." "I did rot know you in that dress you wear" — there was hatred for the dress in his tone as he men- tioned it — " so I supposed that you did not expect me to know who you were." She did not reply, leaving the burden of finding the next words upon lum. It would seem that she did not think there was more to say ; and this, her supreme indifference to his recognition or non-recognition, half maddened him. He suddenly saw his case in a new aspect — she was a cruel woman, and he had much with which to reproach her. " ' That foolish play,' as you call it "he had begun angrily, but a certain sympathy for her, new-born out of his own trouble, stopped him, and he went on, only reproach in his tone . "• It was a sad play for me, because art has never be( my my find out who you were then, or where you hid yourself "LOVE, 1 :5PEAK Tv; THY FACE.' 19' I do not know now, but "' lie stopped ; he did not wish to oticnd her; he looked iit the glossy neck of the horse he was holding. " 1 was young and very fool- ish, but I loved you." The sound of his own low sad tones was still in his ears when he also heard the low music of irrepressible laughter, and, looking up, he saw that the recollection which a few minutes before had made him smile had now entirely overcome the lady's gravity. She was blushing, she was trying not to laugh; but in spite of herself she did laugh more and more heartily, and although her merriment was inopportune, he could not help joining in it to some extent. It was so cheerful to see the laughter-loving self appear within the grave face, to be beside her, and to have partnership in her mirth. So they looked in each other's eyes, and they both laughed, and after tliat they felt better. " And yet," said he, " it was a frolic that has worked sorrow for me." " Come," said she, lifting her reins, " you will regret if you go on talking this way." She would have gone on quite lightly and content- edly, and left him there as if he had said nothing of love, as if their words had been the mere reminiscence of a past that had no result in the present, as if his heart was noi: breaking ; but a fierce sense of this injustice made him keep his hold of her bridle. She could weep over the pains of the poor and the death of their chil- dren. She should not go unmindful that his happiness was wrecked. " Do you still take me for the young muff that I used to be, that you pay no heed to what I say ? I would scorn to meet you every day while I must remain here I r 198 THE MERMAID, and conceal from you the fact which, such is my weak- ness, is the only fact in life for me just now. My heart is breaking because I have found that the woman I love is wholly out of my reacli. Can you not give that a pass- ing thought of pity ? I have told you now ; when we meet, you will know that it is not as indifferent acquaint- ances, but as — enemies if you will, for you, a happy married woman — will count me your enemy ! Yet I have not harmed you, and the truth is better at all costs." She was giving him her full attention now, her lips a little parted as if with surprise, question plainly writ- ten upon her face. He could not understand how the cap and hood had ever concealed her from him. Her chief beauty lay, perhaps, in the brow, in the shape of the face, and in its wreath of hair — or at least in the charm that these gave to the strong character of the features ; but now that he knew her, he knew her face wholly, and his mind filled in what was lacking ; he could perceive no lack. He looked at her, his eyes full of admiration, puzzled the while at her evident sur- prise. " But surely," she said, " you cannot be so foolish — you, a man now — to think that the fancy you took to a pretty face, for it could have been nothing more, was of any importance." " Such fancies make or mar the lives of men." " Of unprincipled fools, yes — of men who care for appearance more than sympathy. But you are not such a man ! It is not as if we had been friends ; it is not as if we had ever spoken. It is wicked to call such a foolish fancy by the name of love ; it is dese- cration." "LOVE, I SPEAK TO THY FACE." 100 While she was speaking, lier words revealod to Cuius, with swift aniilysis, 51 (lisiiiK'tiou tliat ho luid not made before. He knew now that before lie came to this island, before he had gone through the three months of toil and suffering with Josephine Le Maitre, it would truly have been foolisii to think of his sentiment concerning her as more than a tender ideal. Now, that which had sur- prised him into a strength of love almost too great to be in keeping with his character, was the unity of two be- ings whom he had believed to be distinct — the playmate and the saint. " Whether the liking we take to a beautiful face be base or noble depends, madame, upon the face ; and no man could see yours without being a better man for the sight. But think : when I saw the face that had been enshrined for years in my memory yesterday, Avas it the face of a woman whom I did not know — with whom I had never spoken ? " lie was not looking at her as he spoke. He added, and his heart was revea\'d in the tone : " Voii do not know what it is to be shut out from all that is good on earth." There came no answer ; in a moment he lifted his eyes to see what response she gave, and he was aston- ished to detect a look upon her face that would have be- come an angel who had received some fresh beatitude. It was plain that now she saw and believed the truth of his love ; it appeared, too, that she felt it to be a bless- ing. He could not understand this, but she wasted no words in explanation. When her eyes met his, the joy in her face passed into pity for a minute ; she looked at him quietly and frankly ; then she said : " Love is good in itself, and suffering is good, and God is good. I think," she added very simply, as a child •r' If a 200 THE MERMAID. might have done, " that you are good, too. Do not fear or bo discouraged." Then, witli lier own hand, she gently disengaged his from the bridle and rode up the hill on her errand of mercy. mil til ciiaptp:r IV. HOPE BOKN or SPRING. " Love is good ; sufTering is good ; God is good " — that was wluit she luid answered him wlieii he liad said that for her sake lie was shut out from all that was good on earth. His heart did not rebel so bitterly against this answer as it Avould have done if he had not felt assured that she spoke of what she had experienced, and that his present experience was in some sort a > om- radeship with her. Then, again, there was the inex- plicable fact that the knowledge of the way in which ho regarded her had given her pleasure ; that was a great consolation to him, although he did not gather from it any hope for the future. Her whole manner indicated that she was, as he supposed her to be, entirely out of his reach, not only by the barrier of circumstance, but by her own deliberate preference ; and yet he was cer- tain that she was glad that he loved her. What did that mean ? He had so seen her life that he knew she was incapable of vanity or selfish satisfaction ; when she was glad it was because it was right to be glad. Caius could not unravel this, and yet, deep within him, he knew that there was consistency in it. Had she not said that love in itself was good ? it must be good, then, both to the giver and receiver. He felt a certain awe 801 jw», m\ m\ i-i 202 THE MERMAID. M- ill at finding liis own poor love embmcod in such u doc- trine ; lie felt for the first time how gross und sellish, how unworthy, it wiis. It was now the end of Mju'ch ; the snow was melt- ing ; the ice was breaking ; it might be three or four weeks before ships could sail in the gulf, but it would not be longer. There was no sign of further outbreak of diphtheria ui)on the island. Caius felt the time of liis going home to be near ; he was not glad to think of leaving his prison of ice. Two distinct elTorts were made at this time to entertain him. O'Shea made an expedition to the island of the pic- ture rocks, and, in rough kindliness, insisted upon tak- ing Caius with him, not to see the rocks — 0\Shea thought little of them. They had an exciting journey, rowing between the ice-lloes in the bay, carrying their boat over one ice fragment and then another, launch- ing it each time into a sea of dangers. They spent a couple of days entertained by the chief num of this island, and came back again at the same delightful jeopardy of their lives. After this Mr. Pembroke took Caius home with him, driving again over the sand-dune, upon which, now that the drifts had almost melted, a road could be made. All winter the dunes had been absolutely deserted, im- passable by reason of the depth of snow. It would seem that even the devil himself must have left their valleys at this time, or have hibernated. The chief interest to Caius in this expedition was to seek the hollow where he had seen, or thowght he had seen, the band of mys- terious men to which O'Shea introduced him ; but so changed was the appearance of the sand by reason of the streams and rivulets of melting snow, and so mo- ill HOPE BORN OF SPKINU. 2U3 Ito [re is- ISO of lo- notonous was the dime, that lie grew confused, luid could not in tlie least tell where the place had been. IIo paid a visit to Pembroke's house, and to the inn kept by the old maids, and then went back to his own little wooden doniicile with renewed contentment in its quaint appointments, in its solitude, but above all in its nearness to tluit other house in which the five women lived Lnuirded by the nuistiffs. Caius knew well enough that these jdaiis for his amusement had been instigated by Madame Le Maitre. She was keeping out of liis way, except that now and then he met her upon the roads and exchanged with her a friendly greeting. The only satisfaction that Chains sought for himself at this time was an occasional visit to O'Shea's house. All winter tliere had been growing upon him a liking for the man's wife, although the words that he ex- changed with her were at all times few. Now the feel- ing that he and she were friends had received a distinct increase. It was a long time since Caius had put to anyone the questions which his mind was constantly asking concerning Madame Le Maitre. Aj^art from any thought of talking about the object of their mutual regard, it was a comfort to him to be in the presence of O'Shea's wife. He felt sure that she understood her mis- tress better than anyone else did, and he also suspected her of a lively sympathy with himself, although it was not probable that she knew more concerning his rela- tion to Josephine Le Maitre than merely the fact that it would be hard for anj man to see so much grace and beauty and remain insensible. Caius sat by this wom- an's hearth, and whittled tops and boats for her chil- dren on the sunny doorstep when the days grew warm U f 'A ■ 't ^■If ill tls i! 204 THK MERMAID. ;!i:' at noon, and did not expect uny guerdon for doing it excej)t the rest that he found in tlie j)roxin»ity and oc- cupation. Heward came to liini, however. Tlie woman eyed liim with more and more liindliness, and at length slie spoke. It was one dav towards the end of the montli, wlien the last film of snow liad evaporated from many a field and slope, and the vivid green of grass a])peared for the first time to gladden the eyes, although many an ice- wreath and snowy hollow still lay between. On such a day the sight of a folded head of saxifrage from which the pearls are just breaking makes the heart of man bound with a pleasure tliat has certainly no rational cause which is adequate. Cains came up from the western shore, where he had been watching a distant ship that passed on tlie other side of the nearer ice-floes, and which said, by no other signal than that of her white sails, that winter was gone. The sea, whose rivers and lakes among the ice had of late looked so turbid by reason of frozen par- ticles in tlie water, was clear now to reflect once more the blue above it, and the ice-cakes were very white in the sunshine. Cains turned his back ujmn this, and came up a stony path where large patches of the hill were green ; and by chance he came upon O'Shea's wife, who was laying out linen to bleach at some distance from her own house. Close to her Cains saw the ledge of rock on which the first flowers of the year were budding, and straightway fell in love with them. Knowing that their plants would flourish indoors as well as out, he stooped to lift the large cakes of moss in which their roots were set. The woman, who wore a small pink shawl tied over her head and shoulders, came near to llUi'K UUKN OF Sl'ULNU. 2U5 i! wliere he was stoo|)in«j, and made no i)refa('e, but said : " He's} dead, sir; or if he isn't, and if he shoidd come haek, O'Shea will kill him!" Cains did not need to ask of whom she spoke. " Why V " he asked. " Why should O'Shea want to kill him?" " It would kill her, sir, if he eame back to her. She couldn't abidediim no ways, and O'Shea says it's as ^'ood one murder should be done as another, and if he was hung for it he wouldn't mind. U'Shea's the sort of man that would keep his word. He'd just feel it was a kind of interesting thing to do, and he worships her to that extent. But 1 feel sure, sir, that Le Maitre is dead, (lod would not be so unkind as to have me and the children bereft in that way." Her simple belief in her husband's power to settle the matter was shocking to Cains, because he felt that she ])robably knew her husband perfectly. " But why," said he again, " would it kill her if he came back?" " Well, what sort of a decent man is it that would have stayed away from her all these years, poor lamb ? Why, sir, she wasn't but a child at the convent when her father had them married, and she back to school, and he away to his ship, and never come to see her since." Cains turned as he knelt upon the grass, and, hold- ing the emerald moss and saxifrage plants in liis hand, looked up at her. " He went away two years ago," he said, repeating defiantly what he believed he had heard. " He went away six years ago," corrected she ; " but it's two years now since aught was heard of him, and his ship went down, sir, coming back from Afriky — that k ill 2Ut) THE MERMAID. 1 »■ I 9m t^ •1 "we know ; but word cume tliiit tlie crew were saved, but never a word from liini, nor u word of him, since." "Did slio " — liis throiit would liardly fninie tlie words — 11 nervous spasm impt dcd tlieni ; yet he could not but ask — " did she care for liim V " " Oh well, sir, as to that, he was a beautiful-looking man, and she but a child ; but when she came to lier- self she wrote aiul asked him never to come back ; she told nie so ; and he never did." " Well, that at least was civil of him." Caius spoke in full earnest. " No, sir ; he's not civil ; he's a beast of a man. There's no sort of low tnck that he hasn't done, onlv it can't be proved against him ; for he's the sort of beast that is a snake ; he only married madame for the money he'll get with her. It was when .she learned that that she wrote to him not to come back ; but he never sent an hon- est word to say whether he'd stay away or not. She knows what he is, sir, for folks that he'd clieated and lied to come to her to complain. Young as she is, tliere's white threads in her hair, just to think that he might come back at any time. It's making an old v/oman of her since she's come of an age to think ; and she the merri- est, blithest creature that ever was. When she first came out of the convent, to see her dance and sing was a sight to make old eves voung." " Yes," said Caius eagerly, " I know it was — I am sure it was." " Oh, but you never saw her, sir, till the shadow had come on her." '' Do you know when it was I first saw her ? " said Caius, looking down at the grass. " She told me 'twas when she went to Prince Ed- ril nP «^ d, but (' the L'OUUI ookiiig to Ikt- k; she nOPE BORN OF SPRING. 5 spoke a man. , only it A beast ?, money that she ; an hon- e knows o come white t come of her merri- le first ng was 3—1 am low had ?" said 207 ward's Land, the time slie went to see the wife of lier father's brother. 'Twas the one time that 0\Shoa let her out of his sight ; but no one knew where she was, so if the Captain had come at that time he couldn't have found her without comiiiii: to O'Shoa first. And tlio other time that O'Shea let her go was the first winter she came here, for he knew no one could come at the islands for tlu^ snow, aiul we followed by the first ship (T. ly in sprin^. " Couldn't she get a separation ? " " O'Shea says the law is that way made that she couldn't." " If she changed her name and went away some- where " Caius spoke thoughtfully. " And that's what O'Shea has been at her to do, for at least it would give her peace ; but she says, no, she'll do what's open and honest, and God will take care of her. And I'm sure I hope lie will. But it's hard, sir, to see a young thing, so happy by nature as her, taking comfort in nothing but prayers and hymns and good works, so young as she is; it's enough to make the angels themselves ha\e tears in their eyes to see it." At this the woman was wiping her own eyes ; and, making soft sniffing sounds of uncultivated grirf, siie went back to her work of strewing wet garments upon the grass. Caius felt that O'Shea's wife had read the mind of the angels aright. ?i *■ -i i ice Ed- r^ II! 11 I- iff! I m' CHAPTER V. TO THE niGHEU COURT. If Cains, as he went his way carrying the moss and budding flowers, could have felt convinced with O'Shea's wife that Le Maitre was dead, he would have been a much happier man. He could not admit the woman's logic. Still, he was far happier than he had been an hour before. Le Maitre might be dead. Josephine did not love Le Maitre. He felt that now, at least, he understood her life. Having the flowers, the very first darlings of the spring, in his hand, he went, in the impulse of the new sympathy, and knocked at her house door. He carried his burden of moss, earth, moisture, and little gray scaly insects that, having been disturbed, crawled in and out of it, boldly into the room, whose walls were still decorated with the faded garlands of the previous autumn. " Let me talk to you," said Caius. The lady and the one young girl who happened to be with her had bestirred themselves to receive his gift. Making a platter serve as the rock-ledge from which the living things had been disturbed, they set them in the window to grow and unfold the more quickly. They had brought him a bowl also in which to wash 208 ^^ ^I'y TO THE HIGHER COURT. 209 his hands, and then it was that he looked at the lady of the house and made his request. He hardly thought she would grant it ; he felt almost breathless with his own hardiiiood when he saw her dismiss the girl and sit before him to hear what he might bave to say. He knew then that had he asked her to talk to him he would have translated the desire of his heart far better. " O'Shea's wife has been talking to me," he said. "About mc?" " I hope you will forgive us. I think she could not help speaking, and I could not help listening." "What did she say V" It was the absolutely childlike directness of her thoughts and words that always seemed to Caius to be the thing that put the greatest distance between them. " I could not tell you what she said ; I would not dare to repeat it to you, and perhaps she would not , wish you to know ; but you know she is loyal to you, and what I can tell you is, that I understand better now what your life is — what it has been." Then he held out his hands with an impulsive gesture towards her. The large table was between them ; it was only a gesture, and he let his hands lie on the table. " Let me be your friend ; you may trust me," he said. " I am only a very ordinary man ; but still, the best friendship I have I offer. You need not be afraid of me." " I am not afraid of you." She said it with perfect tranquillity. He did not like her answer. " Are we friends, then ? " he asked, and tried to If 210 THE MERMAID. 1 i m smile, though he felt that some unruly nerve was painting the heaviness of his heart in his face. "How do you mean it? 0'8hea and his wife are my friends, each of them in a very different way " She was going on, hut he interrupted : " They are your friends because they would die to serve you ; but liave you never had friends who were your equals in education and intelligence?" He was speaking hastily, using random words to suggest that more could be had out of such a relation than faithful service. " Are you my equal in intelligence and education?" she asked appositely, laughter in her eyes. He had time just for a momentary flash of self- wonder that he should so love a woman who, when she did not keep him at some far distance, laughed at him openly. He stammered a moment, then smiled, for he could not help it. " I would not care to claim that for myself," he said. '* Rather," she suggested, " let us frankly admit that you are the superior in both." He was sitting at the table, his elb( ws upon it, and now he covered his face with his heads, half in real, half in mock, despair : " What can I do or sav ? " he groaned. " What have I done that vou will not answer the honest meaning you can understand in spite of my clumsy words ? " Then he had to look at her because she did not answer, and when he saw that she was still ready to laugh, he laughed, too. " Have you never ceased to despise me because 1 TO TRE niGIlER COURT. 211 kit >st sy ot to I could not swim? I can swim now, I assure von. I have studied the art. I couhl even show you a prize that I took in a race, if that wonkl win your respect." " I am ghid you took the prize." " I liave not yet learned the magic with which mer- maids move." " Xo, and you have not heard any excuse for the boldness of that play yet. And I was almost the cause of your deatli. Ah ! how frightened I was that night — of you and for you ! And again when I went to see Mr. Pembroke before the snow came, and the storm came on and I was obliged to travel with you in O'Shea's great-coat — tliat again cannot seem nice to you when you tliink of it. Why do you like what apjiears so strange? You came here to do a noble work, and you have done it nobly. Why not go home now, and be rid of such a suspicious character as I have shown myself to be? Wherever you go, our pravers and our blessinofs will follow von." Caius looked down at the common deal board. There were dents and marks upon it that spoke of con- stant household work. At length he said : " There is one reason for going that would seem to meenous^h: if vou will tell me that vou neither want nor need my companionship or help in any way; but if you cannot tell me that " " Want," she said very sadly. " Ah, do you think I have no heart, no mind that likes to talk its thoughts, no sympathies? I think that if aufjoae — man, woman, or child — were to come to me from out the big world, where people have such thoughts and feelings jis I have, and offer to talk to me, I could not do anything else than desire their companionship. Do you think that I /!!;' 'Ill 212 THE MERMAID. am hard-heartcfl ? I am so lonely that the affection even of a dog or a bird would be a temptation to me, if it was a thing tliat 1 dared not accept, because it would make me weaker to live the life that is right. That is the way we must tell what is right or wrong." In spite of himself, he gathered comfort from the fj'ct that, pausi:''g here, without adequate reason that was apparent, she took for granted that the friend- ship he offered would be a source of weakness to her. She never stooped to try to apjiear reasonable. As she had been speaking, a new look had been coming out of the habitual calmness of her face, and now, in the pause, the calm went suddenly, and there was a flash of fire in her eves that he had never seen there before : "If I were starving, would you come and offer me bread that you knew I ought not to eat? It would be cruel." She rose up suddenlv, and he stood before her. " It is cruel of you to tantalize me with thoughts of happiness because you know I must want it so much. I could not live and not want it. Go ! you are doing a cowardly thing. You are doing what the devil did when our Lord was in the wilderness. But He did not need the bread He was asked to take, and I do not need your friendship. Go ! " She held out the hand — the hand that had so often beckoned to him in play — and pointed hira to the door. He knew that he was standing before a woman who had been irritated by inward pain into a sudden gust of anger, and now, for the first time, he was not afraid of ■ler. In losing her self-control she had lost her control of him. "Josephine," he cried, "tell me about this man, Lo Maitre ! He has no right over you. Why do you tion e, if ould at is the that lend- er. As or out o n the ish of I • / a er me lid be e her. nts of nucli. ling a I did d not need often door. 10 had ist of lid of )ntrol m, Le TO THE niGHER COURT. 213 you think he is not dead? At least, tell me what you know." It seemed that, in the confusion of conflicting emo- tions, she hardly wondered why he liad not ol)eyed lier. "Oh, he is not dead I " Slie spoke witli bitterness. "I have no reason to suppose so. lie only leavci5 me in suspense that he may make me the more miserable.'" And then, as if realizing what she had said, she lifted her head again proudly. " But remember it is nothing to you whether he is alive or dead." " Nothing to me to know that you would be freed from this horrible slavery ! It is not of my own gain, but of yours, I am thinking." He knew that what he had said was not wholly true, yet, in the heat of the moment, he knew that to embody in words the best that might be was to give himself the best chance of realizing it; and he did not believe now that her fierce assertion of indifference for him was true either, but his best self applauded her for it. For a minute he could not tell what Josephine would do next. She stood looking at him helplessly; it seemed as though her subsiding anger had left a fear of iierself in its place. But what he dreaded most was that her composure should return. " Do not be angry with me," he said ; " I ask be- cause it is right that I should know. Can you not get rid of this bond of marriage ? " " Do you think," she asked, " that the good God and the Holy Virgin would desire me to put myself — my life — all that is sacred — into courts and newspapers? Do you think the holy Mother oi God — looking down upon me, her child — wants me to get out of trouble in that way?" Josephine had asked the question first in ;'^ 1 llR! I; illl 214 THE MERMAID. distress ; then, with a face of peerless scorn, she seemed to put some horrid scene from before her with her hand. " The dear God woidd rather I wouhl drown myself," she said ; " it would at least be " — she hesitated for a word, as if at a loss in her English — " at least be cleaner." She had no sooner finished that speech than the scorn died out of her face : " Ah, no," she cried repentant ; " the men and women who are driven to seek such redress — I — I truly pity them — but for me — it would not be any use even if it were right. O'Shea says it would be no use, and he knows. 1 don't think I would do it if I could ; but I could not if I would." "Surely he is dead," pleaded Caius. "How can you live if you do not believe that?" She came a little nearer to him, making the ex- planation with child-like earnestness : " You see, I have talked to God and to the holy Mother about this. I know they have heard my prayers and seen my tears, and will do what is good for me. I ask God alwavs that Le Maitre mav not come back to me, so now I know that if" (a gasping sigh retarded for a moment the breath that came and went in her gentle bosom) " if he does come back it will be God's will. Who am I that I should know best? Shall I choose to be what you call a ' missionary ' to the poor and sick — and refuse God's will ? God can put an end to my marriage if He will ; until He does, I will do my duty to my husband : I will till the land that he left idle ; I will honour the name he gave me. I dare not do anything except what is very, very right, because I have appealed to the Court of Heaven. You asked me TO THE HIGHER COURT. 215 just now if I did not wuiit and need friendship ; it does not matter lit all what 1 want, and whatever God does not give me you may be sure 1 do not need." lie knew tliat the peaee he dreaded had conio bael: to her. She had gone baek to tlie memory of her strength. Xow he obeyed the command she had given before, and went out. 's I (or lid ?ft lot Hh i U^ ■ '' -< 1* III ; « ■ !| || he ciiAPTEij vr. "TIIK NIGHT IS DARK." Caius went home to his house. Inconsistency is tlie luill-mark of real in distinction from unreal life. A note of happy music was sounding in his heart. The brii^ht spring evening seemed all full of joy. He saw a flock of gannets stringing out in long line against the red evening sky, and knew that all the feathered population of the rocks was returning to its summer home. Something more than the mere joy of the season was making him glad ; he hardly knew what it was, for it appeared to him that circumstances were untoward. It was in vain that he reasoned that there was no cause for joy in the belief that Josephine took delight in his society; that delight would only make her lot the harder, and make for him the greater grievance. He mi2:ht as well have reasoned with himself that there was no cause for joy in the fact of the spring ; he was so created that such things made up the bliss of life to him. Caius did not himself think that Josephine owed any duty to La Maitre ; he could only hope, and try to believe, that the man was dead. Reason, common- sense, appeared to him to do away with what slight 216 "THE NIUIIT IS DAKK." 217 ];es lot le. ire I'as I to eel In- ht moral or religious obligation was involved in such a marriage; yet he was quite sure of one thing — tliat this young wife, left without friend or protector, would have been upon a very mueh lower level if she had thought in the manner as he did. lie knew now tliat from the first dav he had seen her the charm of her face had been that he read in it a character that was not onlv whollv diiferent to, but nobler than, his own. lie reflected now that he should not love her at all if she took a stand less high in its sweet unreasonable- ness, and his reason for this was simply that, had she done otherwise, she would not have been Josephine. The thought that Josephine was what she was intoxicated him ; all the next day time and eternity seemed glorious to him. The islands were still ringed with the pearly ring of ice-floes, and for one brief spring day, for this lover, it was enough to be yet im- prisoned in the same bit of green earth with his lady, to think of all tlie noble things she had said and done, and, by her influence, to see new vistas opening into eternity in which they two walked together. There was even some self-gratulation that he had attained to faith in Heaven. He was one of those people who always suppose that they would be glad to have faith if they could. It was not faith, however, that had come to him, only a refining and quickening of his imagination. Quick upon the heels of these high dreams came their test, for life is not a dream. Between the Magdalen Islands and the mainland, besides the many stray schooners that came and went, there were two lines of regular communication — one was by a sailing vessel which carried freight regularly to 1 i i i'l !i '2lS THE MERMAID. > ili iH and from the i)ort of Guspo ; tliu otlicr was by u .small j»afk('t stiamtT that oiicu a wt-uk came from Nova Scotia and Prince Kd ward's Island, and returned by the same route. It was bv this steamer, on her lirst a}»pearance, that Caius oui^ht reasonably to return to his home. She would come as soon as the ice di- minished ; she would brin;^^ him news, withheld for four months, of how his parents had fared in his absence. Caius had not yet decided that he would go liome by the first trip ; the thought of leaving, when it forced itself upon him, was very })ainful. This steamer was the first arrival ex})ected, and the islanders, eager for variety and nuiils, looked excitedly to see the ice melt or be drifted away. Caius looked at the ice ring with more intense longing, but his longing was that it should renuiin. J lis wishes, like prayers, be- sought the cold winds and frosty lughts to conserve it for him. It so happened that the (Jaspe schooner arrived before the southern packet, and lay outside of the ice, waiting until she could nud\e her way through. So welcome was the sight that the islanders gathered upon the shores of the bay just for the pleasure of looking at her as she lay without the harbour. Caius looked at her, too, and with comparative indLlTerence, for he re- joiced tliat he was still in prison. Upon tliat day the night fell jnst as it falls upon all days; but at midniglit Caius had a visitor. O'Shea came to him in the darkness. Caius was awakened from sound sleep by a muffled thumping at his door that was calculated to disturb him without carrying sharp sound into the surrounding air. His first idea was that some drunken fellow had "THE NIGHT IS DARK." 211) ved ice, So ipon gat at re; nail )hea led Lurb ling Iliad bluiulercd against his wall by inistakc. As the sounds continued, and the full strangciu'ss of tlie event, in tluit lonely plaee, entered his waking brain, he arose with a certain trepidation akin to tluit which one feels at the thouglit of supernatural visitors, a feeliug tliat was per- haps the result of some influence from the spirit of the nnin outside the door; for when he opened it, and held his candle to O'Sliea's face, he saw a look there that made him know certainly tluit something was wrong. O'Shea came in and shut the door behind him, and went into the inner room aiul sat down on the foot of the bed. Caius followed, holding the candle, and in- S2)ected him again. "Sit down, man." O'Shea made an impatient ges- ture at the light, "(ret into bed, if yc will ; there's no hurry that I know of." Caius stood still, looking at the farmer, and such nervousness had come npon him that he was almost trembling with fear, witbout the slightest notion as yet of what he feared. " In the name of Heaven " he began. " Yes, Heaven !" O'Shea spoke with hard, medita- tive inquiry. " It's Heaven she trnsts in. What's Heaven going to do for her, I'd loike to know V " " What is it ? " The question now was hoarse and breathless. " Well, I'll tell yon what it is if ye'll give me time " — the tone was sarcastic — " and you needn't spoil yer beauty by catching yer death of cold. 'Tain't nicessary, that I know of. There's things that are nicessary ; , there's things that will be nicessary in the next few days ; but that ain't." For the first time Caius did not resent the caustic 15 il)i m ^ I I 'ii ' !* 220 THE MERMAID. manner. Its sharpness was turned now towards an im- pending fate, and to Cains 0\Shea liad conie as to a friend in need. Meclianieally lie sat in the middle of the small bed, and huddled its blankets about him. The burly farmer, in fur co it and cap, sat in wooden- like stillness ; but Caius was like a man in a fever, rest- less ii\ his suspense. The candle, which he had put upon the floor, cast up a yellow light on all the scant furniture, on the two men as they thus talked to each other, with pale, tense faces, and threw distorted shad- ows high up on the wooden walls. Perhaps it was a relief to O'Shea to torture Caius some time with this suspense. At last he said : "lie's in the schooner." " Le Maitre? How do you know ?" " Well, I'll tell ye how I know. I told ye there was no hurrv." If he was long now in speaking. Chains did not know it. Upon his brain crowded thoughts and imagina- tions : wild plans for saving the woman he loved ; wild, unholy desires of revenge ; and a wild vision of misery in the background as yet — a foreboding that the end might be submission to the worst pains of impotent de- spair. O'Shea had taken out a piece of paper, but did not open it. '"Tain't an hour back I got this. The ski{)per of the schooner and me know each other. He's been boiind over by me to let me know if that man ever set fcot in his ship to come to this place, and he's managed to get a lad off his ship in the noight, and across the ice, and he brought me this. Le Maitre, he's drunk, lyin' in his bunk ; that's the way he's preparing to n "TIIK NKfllT IS DARK." 221 now ina- ild, ;ery end de- )cen set igcd the Milk, to come ashore. It niav be one dav, it niav be two, afore the schooner can get in. J^e Maitre he won't get off it till it's in tir liarbour. I gi;ess tiiat's about all there is to tell." O'Shea added this with grim abstinence from fiercer comment. " Does she know ? " Caius' throat hardly gave voice to the words. " Xo, she don't ; and I don't know who is to tell her. I can't. 1 can do most thii;gs." lie looked up round the walls and ceiling, as if hunting in his mind for other thini:rs he could not do. '' I'll not do that. 'Tain't in my line. My wife is adown on her knees, mixing up pr.vyers and crying at a great rate; and says I to her, ' You've been a-praying about this sonje years back ; I'd loike to know what gootl it's done. Get up and tell madame the news ; ' and says she that she couldn't, and she says that in the morning you're to tell her." 0\Shea set his face in grim deliauce of any sentiment of pity for Caius that might liave sug- gested itself. Caius said nothing; but in a minute, grasping at the one straw of hope which he saw, " What are you going to do ? " he asked. O'Shea smoothed out the letter he held. " Well, you needn't speak so quick ; it's just that there I tliouiifht we miij^ht have our considerations upon. I'm not above asking advoice of a gintleman of the world like yerself ; I'm not above giving advoice, neither." He sat looking vacantly before him with a grim smile upon his face. Caius saw that his mind was made up. " What are you going to do?" he asked again. u i 222 'HE MERMAID. it 11 w I At the same moment came the sharp consciousness upon him that he himself was a murderer, tliat lie wanted to have Le Maitre murdered, that his question meant that he was eager to be made privy to the plot, willing to abet it. Yet he did not feel wicked at all ; before his eyes was the face of Josephine lying asleep, unconscious and peaceful. He felt that he fought in a cause in which a saint might fight. " What I may or may not do," said O'Shea, " is neither here nor there just now. The first thing is, what you're going to do. The schooner's out there to the north-east ; the boat that's been used for the sealing is over here to the south-west ; now, there ain't no sinse, that I know of, in being uncomfortable when it can be helped, or in putting ourselves about for a brute of a man who ain't worth it. It's plain enough what's the easy thing to do. To-morrow morning ye'll make out that ye can't abide no longer staying in this dull hole, and offer the skipper of one of them sealing-boats fifty dollars to have the boat across the ice and take you to Souris. Then ye will go up and talk plain common-sinse to madame, and tell her to put on her man's top-coat she's worn before, and skip out of this dirty fellow's clutches. There ain't nothing like being scared out of their wits for making women reasonable — it's about the only time they have their sinses, so far as I know." " If she won't come, what then ? " Caius demanded hastily. " My woife says that if ye're not more of a fool than we take ye for, she'll go." There was something in the mechanical repetition of what his wife had said that made Caius suspect. " You don't think she'll go?" "THE NIGHT IS DARK." 223 * . , Pa fty to of the Uan of O'Shea did not answer. " That is what you'll do, any way," he said ; " and ye'll do it the best way ye know how." He sat upon the bed some time longer, wrapped in grim reserve. The candle guttered, flared, burned itself out. The two men were together in the dark. Caius believed that if the tirst expedient failed, and he felt it could not but fail, murder was their only resource against what seemed to them intolerable evil. O'Shea got up. " Perhaps ye think the gintleman that is coming has redeeming features about him ? " A fine edge of sar- casm was in his tone. " Well, he hain't. Before we lost sight of him, I got word concarning him from one part of the world and another. If I haven't got the law of him, it's because he's too much of a sneak. lie wasn't anything but a handsome sort of beast to begin w^ith ; and, what with drinking and the life he's led, he's grown into a sort of thing that had better go on all fours like Xebuchadnezzar tlum come nigh decent people on his hind-legs. Why has he let her alone all these years ? " The speech was grimly dramatic. " Why, just l>eof;nse, first place, I believe another woman had thPi , "i hand of him; second place, when he married madam ;■ was the land and money her father had to leave her that made him make that bargain, lie hadn't that in him tliat would make liim care for a white slip of a girl as she was then, and, any way, he knew that the girl and the money would keep till he was sick of roving. It's as nasty a trick as could be that he's served her, playing dead dog all these years, and coming to 1 ca{« h< r unawares. I tell ve the main thing: he has on his mind is revenge for the letters she wrote him when 11 I la Til ^'1 -I : 11. tl! : .'i\ m i 224 THE MERMAID. :'tJ I M she first got word of iiis tricks, and then, too, he's coming back to carouse on her money and the money she's made on his father's land, that he niver looked to himself." O'Shea stalked through the small dark rooms and went out, closing the outer door gently behind him. Caius sat still, wrapped in his blankets. He bowed his head upon his knees. The darkness was only the physical part of the blackness tluit closed over his spirit. There was only one light in this blackness — that was Josephine's face. Calm ] ^ saw it, touched with the look of devotion or mercy; hing and dimpled he saw it, a thing at one with the ounshine and all the joy of earth ; and then he saw it change, and grow pale with fear, and repulsion, and disgust. Around this one face, that carried light with it, there were horrid shapes and sounds in the blackness of his mind. He had been a good man ; he had preferred good to evil : had it all been a farce? Was the thing that he was being driven to do now a thing of satanic prompting, and he himself cor- rupt — all the goodness which he had thought tobe him- self only an organism, fair outside, that rotted inwardly? Or was this fear the result of false teaching, the prompt- ing of an artificial conscience, and was the thing he wished to do the wholesome and natural course to take — right in the sight of such Deity as might be beyond the curtain of the unknown, the Force who had set the natural laws of being in motion? Caius did not know. While his judgment was in suspense he was beset by horrible fears — the fear that he mio^ht be driven to do a villainous deed, the greater fear that he should not ac- complish it, the awful fear, rising above all else in his mind, of seeing Josephine overtaken by the horrible I. U "THE NIGHT IS DARK." 225 le iv. V la is e fate which menaced her, and he liimself still alive to feel her misery and his own. Xo, rather than that he would himself kill the man. It was not the part that had been assigned to him, but if she would not save herself it would be the noblest thing to do. Was he to allow O'Shea, with a wife and children, to involve himself in such dire trouble, wlien he, who had no one dependent upon him, could do the deed, and take what consequences might be? He felt a glow of moral worth like that which he had felt when he decided upon his mission to the island — greater, for in that his motives had been mixed and sordid, and in this his only object was to save lives that were of more worth than his own. Should he kill the man, he would hardly escape death, and even if he did, he could never look Josephine in the face again. Why not? Why, if this deed were so good, could he not, after the doing of it, go back to her and read grati- tude in her eyes? Because Josephine's standard of right and wrong was dilferent from his. What was her standard ? His mind cried out an impatient answer. " She believes it is better to suffer than to be happy." lie did not believe that; he would settle this matter by his own light, and, by freeing her and saving her faith- ful friends, be cut off from her for ever. It would be an easy tiling to do, to go up to the man and put a knife in his heart, or shoot him like a dog! His whole being revolted from the thought ; when the deed came before his eyes, it seemed to him that only in some dark feverish imagination could he have dreamed of acting it out, that of course in plain common-sense, that daylight of the mind, he could not will to do this. Then he thought again of the misery of the suffering a tf a 226 THE iMERMAID. wife, and he believed that, foreign as it was to his whole habit of life, he could do this, even this, to save her. Tlien again came over him the sickening dread that the old rules of right and wrong that lie had been taught were the right guides after all, and that Joseph- ine was right, and that he must submit. The very thought of subniission made his soul rise up in a mad tempest of anger against such a moral law, against all who taught it, against the God who was sup- posed to ordain it ; and so strong was the tempest of this wrath, and so weak was he, perplexed, wretched, that he would have been glad even at the same moment to have appealed to the God of his fathers, with whom he was quarrelling, for counsel and help, llis quarrel was too tierce for that. His quarrel with God made trust, made mere belief even, impossible, and he was aware that it was not new, that this was only the cul- minating hour of a long rebellion. I i CHAPTER VII. THE WILD WAVES WIII.ST. I i • Next morning, wlien Cains walked forth into the glory of the April snnshine, he felt himself to be a poor, wretched man. There was not a fisherman npon the island, lazy, selfish as they were, and despised in liis eyes, that did not appear to him to be a better man than he. All the force of training and habit made the thing that he was going to do appear despicable ; bnt all the force of training and habit was not strong enongh to make his judgment clear or dii'ect his will. The muddy road was beginning to steam in the snn- sliine; the tliin shining ice of night that coated its pud- dles was melting away. In the green strip by the road- side he saw the yellow-tufted head of a dandelion just level with the grass. The thicket of stunted firs on either side smelt sweet, and bevond them he saw the ice-field that dazzled his eyes, and the blue sea that sparkled. From this side he could not see the bay and the ship of fate lying at anchor, but he noticed with relief that the ice was not much less. There was no use in thinking or feeling; he must go on and do what was to be done. So he told himself. He shut his heart against the influence of the happy earth ; he felt like a guest bidden by fate, who knew 887 I r i> At' 228 THE MERMAID. not whether the feast were to he for hrichil or funeral. That lie was not a stron^^ man was shown in this — that having hoped and feared, dreamed and sulTercd, striij]^- gling to see a plain path where no path was, for half the night, he now felt that his power of thoiiglit and feeling had burned out, that he eould only act his part, without caring much what its results might be. It was eight o'clock, lie had groomed his horse, and tidied his house, and bathed, and breakfasted. He did not think it seemly to intrude upon the lady before this hour, and now he ascended her steps and knocked at her door. The dogs thumped their tails on the wooden veranda ; it was only of late they had learned this welcome for him. Would they give it now, he wondered, if they could see his heart? As he stood there waiting for a minute, he felt that it would be good, if possible, to have laid his dilemma fairly before the canine sense and heart, and to have let the dogs rise and tear him or let him pass, as they judged best. It was a foolish fancy. It was O'Shea's wife who opened the door; her face was disfigured by crying. " You have told her ? " demanded Caius, with relief. The woman shook her head. " It was the fine morning that tempted her out, sir," she said. " She sent down to me, saying how she had taken a cup of milk and gone to ride on the beach, and I was to come up and look after the girls. But look here, sir" — eagerly — "it's a good thing, I'm thinking, for her spirits are high when she rides in fine weather, and she's more ready for games and plnys, and thinking of pleasure. She's gone on the west shore, round by the light, for O'Shea he looked at the tracks. Do you get THE WILD WAVES WIITST. 220 I" d (1 Ik ^» >« ; 1 your horse and ride after, where you see her tracks in the sand." Caius went. He mounted hi8 horse and rode down upon the western sliore. He found tlie truck, and <^al- loped upon it. Tlie tide was low ; the ice was far from shore; tlie highway, smootlied hy tlie waves, was tirm and good. Caius galloped to the end of the island where the light was, where the sealing vessels lay round the base of the lighthouse, and out upon the dune, and still the print of her horse's feet went on in front of him. It was not the first time that he and she had been upon the dune together. A mile, two miles, three ; he rode at an easy pace, for now he knew that he could not miss the rider before him. He watched the surf break gently on the broad shallow reach of sand-ridges that lay between him and the floating ice. And when he had ridden so far he was not the same man as when ho mounted his horse, or at least, his own soul, of which man has hardly pernument possession, had returned to him. He could now see, over the low mists of his own moods, all the issues of Josephine's case — all, at least, that were revealed to him ; for souls are of different stature, and it is as the head is high or low that the battlefield is truly discerned. Long before he met her he saw Josephine. She had apparently gone as far as she thought wise, and was amusing herself by making her horse set his feet in the cold surf. It was a game with the horse and tiio wave- lets that she was playing. Each time he danced back and sunned himself he had to go in again; and when he stood, his hind-feet on the sand and his fore-feet reared over the foam, by way of goitig where she wislied and keeping himself dry, Caius could see her gestures so 230 THE MERMAID. well tliat it seemed to him he heard the tones of phiyful remonstrance with whicli slie argued the case. When she perceived that Cains intended to come up to her, slie rode to meet him. Her white cap had been taivcn oir and stiiiTud into tlie breast of her dress ; tiie liood surrounded her face loosely, but did not hide it ; her eyes were sparkling with pleasure — the pure animal pleasure of life and motion, the sensuous pleasure in the beauty and tiie music of the waves ; other pleasures there might be, but these were certain, and predomi- nated. " Why did vou come?" She asked the question as a happy child might ask of its })laymate — no hint of danger. To Caius it was a physical impossibility to answer this question with the truth jr.st then. "Is not springrime an answer?" he asked, then added : " I am going iiway to-day. I came for one last ride." She looked at him for a few moments, evidently supposing that he intended to go to Harbour Island to wait there for his ship. If that were so, it seemed that she felt no further responsibility about her conduct to him. His heart sank to see that her joy in the spring and the mori/ .g was such that the thought of parting did not apparently grieve her much. In a moment more her eyes flashed at him with the laughter at his expense which he knew so well ; she tried not to laugh as she spoke, but could not help it. " I have been visiting the band of men who were going to murder you the night you came. Would you like to see them ? " " If you will take care of me." THE WILD WAVES WIIIST. 2;u last ting ithe lied rere As she turned and rode before liim he heard her laughing. " There," she said, stopping and pointing to the ground — " there is the ])lace wiiere tiie quicksatid was. I have not gone over it this morning. Sometimes they last from one season to another; sometimes they change tiiemselves in a few days. I was dreadfully frigiitened when we began to sink, but it was you wlio saved tlie pony." " Don't," said Caius — " don't attempt to make the best of me. I would ratlier be laughed at." He spoke lightly, without feeling, and that seemed to please her. "I think," she said candidly, "we behaved very badly ; but it was O'Shea's fault — I only enjoyed it. And I don't see what else we could have done, because those two French sailors had to watch if anyone came to steal from the wreck, and they were going to help us so far as to go to the sheds on the cliff for boards to get up the cart ; but O'Shea could not have stayed all night with the bags unless I had left him my coat as well as his own." "You might have trusted me," said Ciiius. Still he spoke with no sensibility ; she grew more at her ease. " O'Shea wouldn't ; and I couldn't control O'Shea. And then we had to meet so often, that I could not bear that you should know I had worn a man's oat. I had to do it, for I couldn't drive home any other way." Here a pause, and her mind wandered to another recollection. " Those men we met brought us word that one of my friends was so ill ; I had to hurry to him. In my heart I thought you would not respect me be- cause I had worn a man's coat ; and because Yes, Ml "■< :l 111 TIIK MKRMAII). 1 m-. it was very naucjlity of me indeed to ))e]uive as I did in tlie water tliat surniiier. Kven tiieii I did try to get O'Slieji to let me walk with von, but he wouldn't." She had been slowly riding through a deep, soft sand- drift that was hea[)e(l at the mouth of the hollow, and when they had got through the opening, Cains saw the ribs of one side of an enormous wreck protruding from the sand, about six feet in height. A small hardy weed luid grown upon their heads in tufts ; withered and sear with the winter, it still hung there. The ribs bent over a little, as the men he had seen had bent. '' The cloud-shadows and the moonlight were very confusing," remarked Josephine ; " and then O'Shea made the two sailors stand in the same way, and they were real. I never knew a man like O'Shea /or think- ing of things that are half serious and lialf funny. I never knew him yet fail to find a way to do the thing lie wanted to do ; and it's always a way that makes mo laugh." If Josephine would not come away with him, would O'Shea find a way of killing Le Maitre ? and would it be a way to make her laugh ? With the awful weight of the tidings he brought upon his heart, all that he said or did before he told them seemed artificial. " I thought " — half mechanically — " that I saw them all hold up their hands." "Did you?" she asked. "The first two did; O'Shea told them to hold up their hands." " There is something you said a minute ago that I want to answer," he said. She thought he had left the subject of his illusion because it mortified him. " You said " — he besran now to feel emotion as he TIIK WILD WAVES WHIST. 21VS d it m le spoke — " that you thouglit I should not ivspoet you. I want to tell you that I rcspocU'd you as I ivspccL my niotiior, ovt'ii wlion vou were only a nuTinaiti. I saw you whon 1 tVli that night as wo walked on this lieach. If you had worn a boy's coat, or a tisliskin, always, I hail sense enough to see that it was a saint at play. JIavo vou read all the odd stories about the saints and the \'ir- gin— how they a]>})ear and vanish, and wear odd clothes, and i)lay benetieent tricks with people ? It was like that to me. I don't know how to sav it, but 1 think when good people play, they have to be very, very gootl, or they don't really enjoy it. I don't know how to ex})lain it, but the moderate sort of goodness sj)()ils everything." Caius, when he had said this, felt that it was some- thing he had never thought before ; ind, whatever it might mean, he felt instinctively that it meant a great deal more than lie knew, lie felt a little shabby at hav- ing expressed it from her religious point of view, in which he had no part; but his excuse was that there was in his mind at least the doubt that she might be right, and, whether or not, his mission just then was to gain her confidence, lie brushed scruples aside for the end in view. " I am glad you said that," she said. " I am not good, but I should like to be. It wasn't becoming to play a mermaid, but I didn't think of that then. I didn't know many things then that I know now. You see, my uncle's wife drowned her little child ; and after- wards, when she was ill, I went to take care of her, and we could not let anyone know, because the police would hr.ve interfered for fear she would drown me. But she is quite harmless, poor thing ! It is only that time stopped for her when the child was drowned, and she I! * tl ■5 I ft i 234 THE MERMAID. y ' r 5.J ^ tliiuks its little body is in the water yet, if we could ouly find it. I found she had made that dress you call a tish- skin with floats on it for herself, and she used to get into tlie sea, from the o})ening of an old cellar, at night, and push herself about with a pole. It was the beautiful wild tiling that only a mad persoix with nice thoughts could do. But when she was ill, I played with it, for 1 had nothing else to do ; it was desecration." " 1 thought you were like the child that was lost. I think you are like her." " She thought so, too ; she used to think sometimes that I was her little daughter grown up. It was very strange, living with her ; I almost think I might have gone mad, too, if 1 hadn't played with you." It was very strange, Caius thought, that on this day of all days she should be willing to talk to him about herself, should be willing to laugh and chat and be hap- py with him. The one day that he dare not listen lung, that he must disturb her peace, was the only time that she had seemed to wish to make a friend of him. " Whe , you lived so near us," he asked, " did you ever come across the woods and see my father's house ? Did vou see mv father and moth or? I think you would like them if you did." " Oh, no," she said lightly ; " I only knew who you were because my aunt talked about you ; she never for- got what you had done for the child." " Do not turn your horse yet." lie allowed himself to be urgent now. " I have something to say to you which must be said. I am going home ; I do not want to wait for the steamer ; I want to bribe one of those sealing vessels to start with me to-day. I have come to ask you if you will not come with me to see my mother. ! If. [ si. THE WILD WAVES WHIST. 235 1 You do not know wliat it is to hav<^ a mother. ^lothors are very good ; mine is. You would like to be with he", I know ; you would have the calm of feeling taken eai"'- of, instead of standing alone in tiie world." He said all this without lettiiiir his tone betrav that that double-thou^hted mind of his was telling him that this was doubtful, that his mother might be slow to be- lieve in Josephine, and that he was not sure whether Josephine would be attracted by her. Josephine looked at him with round-eyed surprise ; then, apparently conjecturing that the invitation was purely kind, purely stupid, she thanked him, and de- clined it graciously. " Is there no folly with which you would not easily credit me?" He smiled faintly in his reproach. "Do you think 1 do not know what I am saying? I have been awake all night think ?i awaive all nignt tniuKing what I could do for you For a moment he looked at her helplessly, hoping that some hint of the truth would come of itself: then, turn- ing away his face, he said hoarsely: " Le Maitre is on the Gasjie schooner. O'Shea has had the news. He is lying drunk in his berth." He did not turn until he heard a slight sound. Then he saw that she had slipped down from her horse, perhaps because she was afraid of falling from it. Her face was quite white; there was a drawn look c'.' abject terror upon it; but she oidy put her horse's ''cin in his hand, and pointed to the mouth of the little valley. " jct me be alone a little while," she whispered. S( Caius rode out upon the beach, leading her horse; and there he held both restive animals as still as might be, and waited. 10 \n il /^..:i. it. • t u -J ' p. H CHAPTER VIII. "GOD 'S IX HIS IIEAVEX." Caius wondered how long he ought to wait if she did not come out to him. lie wondered if she would die of misery there alone in the sand-dune, or if she w^ould go mad, and meet him in some fantastic liumour, all the intelligence scorched out of her poor brain by the cruel words he had said. He had a notion that she had wanted to say her prayers, and, although he did not believe in an answering Heaven, he did believe that prayers would comfort her, and he hoped that that was why she asked to be left. When he thought of the terror in her eyes, he felt san2:uine that she would come Aviih him. Now that he had seen her distress, it seemed to him worse than any notion he had preconceived of it. It was riglit that she should go with hi' '. AVhen she had once done that, he would stand between her and this man always. I'hat would be enough ; if she should never care for him, if he had nothing more than that, he would be satisfied, and the world might think what it would. If she would, not go with him — well, then he would kill Le ]\Iaitre. His mind was made up; there Avas notliing left of liesi- tation or scruple. He looked at the broad sea and the sunlight and the sky, and made his vow with clenched 230 "GOD 'S IN HIS HEAVEN." 237 felt It he any she he 'hat i, if lied, iild Itre. .'si- Ithe led teeth. He laughed at the words wliich liad scared him the night before — the names of the crimes wliicli were his alternatives ; they were made righteousness to him by the sight of fear in a woman's face. It is one form of weakness to lay too much stress npon the emotion of another, just as it is weak to take too much heed of our own emotions ; but Caius thought the sympathy that carried all before it was strength. After awhile, waiting became intolerable. Leading both horses, he walked cautiously back to a point where he could see Josei^hine. 8he was sitting ui)on the sandy bank near where he had left her. lie took his cap in liis hand, and went with the horses, standing reverently before her. lie felt sure now that she had been saying her prayers, because, although her face was still very pallid, she was composed and able to speak. He wished now she had not prayed. "You are very kind to me." Iler vo' 'o trembled, but she gave him a little smile. "I caunot pretend that I am not distressed ; it would be false, and false- hood is not right. You are very, very kind, and I thank vou " She broke off, as if she had been going to say some- thing more but had wearily forgotten wliat it was. " Oh, do not say that I " His voice was like one pleading to be spared a blow. " I love you. Tliere is no greater joy to me on earth than to serve you." "Hush," she said; "don't say that. I am very sorry for you, but sorrow must come to us all in some way." "Don't, don't!" he cried— "don't toll me that suifering is good. It is not good ; it is an evil. It is ii .iSl 3 238 THE MERMAID. V I II I ii ' I! 1 : j right to shim evil ; it is the only right. The other is a horrid fable — ti lie concoeted by priests iind devils ! " " Suppose you loved sonieoiie — me, for iiistunce — and I was dead, and you knew quite certainly that by dying you would come to where I was — would you call death good or evil ? " He demurred. lie did not want to admit belief in anything connected with the doctrine of submission. "I said 'suppose,'" she said. " I would go through far more than death to come near you." " Suffering is just a gate, like death. We go through it to get the things we really want most." " I don't believe in a religion that calls suffering better than happiness ; but I know you do." "Xo, I don't," she said, "and God does not; and peojole who talk as if lie did not want us to seek happi- ness — even our own happiness — are making to them- selves a graven image. I will tell you how I think about it, bccau-o I have been alone a great deal and been always very much afraid, and that has made me think a great deal, and you have been very kiiid, for you risked your life for my poor people, and now you would risk something more than that to help me. Will you listen while I try to tell you?" Cains signified his assent. He was L^^ing all his hope. He was thinking that when she had done talk- ing he would go and get ready to do murder ; but he listened. " You see," she began, " the greatest happiness is love. Love is greedy to get as well as to give. It is all nonsense talking about love that gives and asks ''or no return. We only put up with that when we cannot GOD 'S IX Ills IIEAVEX." 289 111 his klk- he is is for Inot get the other, and why? Why should wc think it tlio gniiidest thing to give wliiit we would scorn to take ? You, for instance — you would rather have a person you loved do nothing for you, yet enjoy you, always demand- ing your affection and presence, than that he or slie sliould be endlessly generous, and indifferent to what you give in return." " Yes." He blushed as he said it. " Well then, it is cant to speak as if the love that asks for no return is the noblest. Xow listen. I have something very solemn to say, because it is only by tlie greatest things that we learn what the little ought to be. When God came to earth to live for awliile, it was for the sake of His hajipiness and ours ; He loved us in the way that I have been saying ; Ho Avas not content only to bless us. He wanted us to enjoy Him. Ho wanted that happiness from us ; and Ho wanted us to expect it from Him and from each otlier ; and if we had answered, all would have been like the first marriage feast, where they had the very best wine, and such lots But, vou see. we couldn't answer ; we had no of it. souls. We were just like the men on Cloud Island who laughed at you when you wanted them to build a hos- pital. The little self or soul that we had was of that sort that we couldn't even love each other verv much with it, and not Iliin at all. So there was only one way, and that was for us to grow out of these stupid little souls, and get good big ones, that can enjoy God, and enjoy each other, and enjoy everything perfectly." She looked up over the yellow sand-hills into the deep sunny sky, and drew a long breath of the April air involun- tarily. " Oh," she said, " a good, big, perfect soul could enjoy so much." Mm I:: I ;. 240 THE MERMAID. i ■*; It seemed as if she thought slic hud said it all and finished the subject. " Well," said Caius, interested in spite of himseK", " if God wanted to make us happy, He could have given us that kind of soul." " Ah, no ! We don't know why things have to grow, but they must ; everything grows — yo^i know that. For some reason, that is the best way ; so thero was just one way for those souls to grow in us, and He showed us how. It is by doing what is quite perfectly right, and bearing all the suffering that comes because of it, and doing all the giving side of love, because hero we can't get much. Pain is not good in itself ; it is a gate. Our souls are growing all through the gate of the suffering, and when we get to the other side of it, we shall find we have won them. God wants us to bo greedy for happiness ; but we must find it by going through the gate He went through to show us the way." Caius stood before her holding the horses ; even they had been still while she was speaking, as if listen- ing to the music of her voice. Caius felt the misery of a wavering will and confiicting ihoughts. " If I thought," he said, " that God cared about happiness — just simple happiness — it would make reli- gion seem so much more sensible ; but I'm afraid I don't believe in living after death, or that He cares " What she said was wholly unreasonable. She put out her hand and took his, as if the hand-clasp were a compact. " Trust God and see," she said. There was in her white face such a look of glorious hope, that Caius, half carried away by its inspiration, '« GOD 'S IN niS IlEAVEX." 2il )Ollt :eli- m't )Ut tere )US still quailed before her. After he hud wrung her hand, he found himself brushinf]^ his sleeve across his eves. As he thought that he had lost her, thought of all that she would have to endure, of the murder he still longed to commit, and felt all the agony of indecision again, and suspected that after this he would scruple to c.' uiMit it — when all this came upon him, he turned and leaned against one of the horses, sobbing, conscious in a vague way that he did not wish to stop himself, but only craved her pity. Josephine comforted him. She did not apparently try to, she did not do or say anything to the purpose ; but she evinced such consternation at the siorht of his tears, that stronger th( lights came. lie put aside his trouble, and helped her to mount her horse. They rode along the beach slowly together. She was content to go slowly. She looked physically too exhausted to ride fast. Even yet probably, wdthin her heart, the conflict was going forward that had only been well begun in her brief solitude of the sand valley. Cains looked at her from time to time with feelings of fierce indignation and dejection. The indignation was against Le Maitre, the dejection was wholly upon his own account ; for he felt that his plan of help had failed, and that where he had hoped to give strength and comfort, he had only, in ntter weakness, exacted pity. Caius had one virtue in these days : he did not admire anything that he did, and he did not even think much about the self he scorned. With regard to Joseph- ine, he felt that if her philosophy of life were true it was not for him to presume to pity her. So vividly had she brought her conception of the use of life before him that it was stamped upon his mind in a brief series of i1 m f' :R 'X J : 242 THE MERMAID. IP pictures, clear, iiulelible ; and the last picture was one of which he could not think clearly, but it produced in him an idea of the after-life which he liad not before. Then he thought again of the cloud under which Josephine was entering, ller decision would in all probability cut down her bright, useful life tc a few short years of struggle and shame and sorrow. At last he spoke : " But why do you think it right to sacrifice your- self to this man ? It does not seem to me right." He knew then what clearness of thought she had, for she looked with almost horror in her face. " Sacrifice myself for Le Maitre ! Oh no ! I should have no right to do that ; but to the ideal right, to God — yes. If I withheld anything from God, how could I win my soul ? " " But how do you know God requires this ? " " Ah ! I told you before. Why will you not under- stand? I have prayed. I know God has taken this thing in his own hand." Caius said no more. Josephine's way of looking at this thing might not be true ; that was not what he was considering just then, lie knew that it was in- tensely true for her, would remain true for her until the event of death proved it true or false. This was the factor in the present problem that was the enemy to his scheme. Then, furthermore, whether it were true or false, he knew that there was in his mind the doubt, and that doubt would remain with him, and it would prevent him from killing Le Maitre ; it would even prevent him from abetting O'Sliea, and he supposed that that abetting would be necessary. Here was cause enough for dejection — that the whole "GOD 'S IN niS HEAVEN." 243 n- M Id It miserable progress of events wliicli he feared most Blioiild take pla(3e. And why ? IJocuuse a woman hehl a glorious faitli Avhich might turn out to bo delusion, and because he, a man, had not strength to believe for certain that it was a delusion. It raised no flicker of renewed hope in Caius to meet O'Shea at the turn of the shore where the boats of the seal fishery were drawn up. O'Shea liad a brisk look of energy that made it evident that he was still bent upon accomplishing his design. He stopped in front of the lady's horse, and said something to her which Caius did not hear. " Have ye arranged that little picnic over to Prince Edward's," he called to Caius. Caius looked at Josephine. O'Shea's mere presence had put much of the spiritual aspect of the case to flight, and he suddenly smarted under the realization that he had never put the question to her since she had known her danger — never put the request to her strongly at all. " Come," said Josephine ; " 1 am going home. I am going to send all my girls to tlieir own homes and get the house ready for my husband." O'Sliea, with imperturbable countenance, pushed off his hat and scratched his head. " I was thinking," he remarked casually, " that I'd jist send Mammy along with ye to Prince Edward." (Mammy was what he always called his wife.) " I am tliinking he'll be real glad to see her, for she's a real respectable woman." " Who ? " asked Josephine, puzzled. " Prince Edward, that owns the island," said O'Shea. " And she's that down in the mouth, it's no comfort kT i ^^ 2U TnE MERMATD. for mo to have lior ; and she can take the baby and Avc'lcome. It's a fair sea." He looked to the soutli as ho spoke. " I'd risk both her and tlie brat on it ; and Skipper Pierre is getting ready to take the boat aeross the iei*/' Cains saw that resolntion had fled from Josephine. She too looked at the calm bine southern sea, and agonized longing came into her eyes. It seemed to Cains too cruel, too horribly cruel, that she should be tortured by this temptation. Because he knew that to her it could be nothing but temptation, he sat silent when O'Shea, seeing that the lady's gaze was afar, signed to him for aid ; and because he hoped that she might yield he was silent, and did not come to rescue her from the tormentor. O'Sliea gave him a look of undisguised scorn ; but since he would not woo, it appeared that this man was able to do some wooing for him. " Of course," remarked O'Shea, " I see difficulties. If the doctor here was a young man of parts, I'd easier put ye and Mammy in his care ; but old Skipper Pierre is no milksop." Josephine looked, first alert, as if suspecting an ill-bred joke, and then, as O'Shea appeared to be speak- ing to her quite seriously, forgetting that Cains might overhear, there came upon her face a look of gentle severity. " That is not what I think of the doctor ; I would trust him more quickly than anyone else, except you, O'Shea." The words brought to Cains a pang, but he hardly noticed it in watching the other two, for the lady, when she had spoken, looked off again with longing at -■**■ :f«i "GOD 'S IN HIS HEAVEN." 245 the sea, and O'Slioa, whose rough heart melted under the trustful atrection of the excoi)tiou she nuidc, for a moment turned away his head. Caius saw in hitn the man whom he had only once seen bcfori', and that was when his child had died. It was but a 1\'W moments ; the easy quizzical manner sat upon him ■i again. at " Oh, well, he hasn't got much to him one way or the other, but " tins in low, confidential tones. Caius could not hear her reply ; he saw that she interrupted, earnestly vindicating him. He drew his horse back a pace or two ; he would not overhear her argument on his behalf, nor wonld he trust 0\Shea so far as to leave them alone together. The cleverness with which O'Shea drove her into a glow of enthusiasm for Caius was a revelation of power which the latter at the moment could onlv remird curiously, so torn was his heart in respect to the issue of the trial. He was so near that their looks told him what he could not hear, and he saw Josephine's face glow with the warmth of regard which grew under the other's sneers. Then he saw O'Shea visibly cast that subject away as if it was of no importance ; he went near to her, speaking low, but with the look of one who brought the worst news, and Caius knew, without question, that he was pouring into her ears all tiie evil he had ever heard of Le Maitre, all the detail of his present drunken condition. Caius did not move ; he did not know whether the scene before him represented Satan with powerful grasji upon a soul that would otherwise have passed into some more heavenly region, or whether it was a wise and good man trying to save a woman from her own fanatical ? ■■ ;* t' 240 THE MERMAID. folly. The latter seemed to bo the case when he looked about him at the beach, at the boats, at the lij^^lit- house on the cliff above, with a clotlies-line near it, spread with flapping garments. When he looked, not outward, but inward, aiul saw Josephine's vision of life, he believed ho ought to go forward and beat off the serpent from the dove. The colloquy was not very long. Then O'Shea led Josephine's horse nearer to Cains. " Madame and my wife will go with ye," he said. "I've told the men to get the boat out." " I did not say that," moaned Josephine. Her face was buried in her hands, and Cains re- membered how those pretty white hands had at one time beckoned to him, and at another had angrily waved him away. Now they were held helplessly before a white face that was convulsed with fear and shame and self-abandonment. " There ain't no particular hurry," remarked O'Shea soothingly ; " but Mammy has packed up all in the houses that needs to go, and she'll bring warm clothes and all by the time the boat's out, so there's no call for madame to go back. It would be awful unkind to the girls to set them crying ; and " — this to Cains — " ye jist go and put up yer things as quick as ye can." His words were accompanied by the sound of the fishermen putting rollers under the small schooner that had been selected. The old skipper, Pierre, had begun to call out his orders. Josephine took her hands from her face suddenly, and looked towards the busy men with such eager hungry desire for the free- dom they were preparing for her that it seemed to Caius that at that moment his own heart broke, for he saw "GOD 'S IN HIS HEAVEN." 247 that Joscpliinc was not convinced but that she hud yieUled. He knew that Mammy's presence on the jour- ney made no real dillerenue in its guilt from Jose- l)hine's standpoint; her duty to her Cod was to remain at her post. Siio liad tlineiied from it out of mere cowardice — it was a fad. Caius knew that he liad no (ilioice but to help her back to her better self, that ho would be a dastard if he did not do it. Three times he essayed to speak ; he had not tho right words; then, even witiiout them, he broke tho silence hurriedly : " I think you are justified in coming with me ; but if you do what you believe to be wrong — you will regret it. What does your heart say? Think ! " It was a feeble, stammered protest ; he felt no dig- nity in it ; he almost felt it to be the craven insult seen in it by O'Sliea, who swore under his breath and glared at him. Josephine gave only a long sobbing sigh, as one awakening from a dream. She looked at the boat again, and the men preparing it, and then at Caius — straight in his eyes she looked, as if searching his face for something more. " Follow your own conscience, Josephine ; it is truer than ours. I was wrong to let you be tempted," he said. " Forgive me ! " She looked again at the boat and at the sea, and then, in the staved subdued manner that had become too habitual to her, she said to O'Shea : " I will go home now. Dr. Simpson is right. I cannot go." O'Shea was too clever a man to make an effort to hold what he knew to be lost; he let go her rein, and J 1 m I r i^ S. f i i 248 THE 31ERMAID. n- H she rodo np the patli that led to the ishind road. When she was gone O'Shca turned upon Cains with a look of mingled scorn and loatliing. " Ye're afraid of Le .Maitre coming after ye," he hissed ; " or ye have a girl at home, and would foind it awkward to brim? her and madam face to lace: so ve give her up, the most angel woman that ever trod tiiis earth, to be done to death by a beast, because ye're afraid for yer own skin. Bah ! I had come to think better of ye." With that he cut at the horse with a stick he had in his hand, and the creature, wholly unaccustomed to such pain and indignity, dashed along the shore, by chance turning homeward. Caius, carried perforce as upon the wings of the wind for half a mile, was thrown olf upon the sand. He picked himself up, and with wet clothes and sore limbs walked to his little house, which he felt he could no longer look upon as a home. He could hardly understand what he had done: he began to regret it. A man cannot see tlie forces at work upon his inmost self, lie did not know that Jocephine's soul had taken his by the hand and lifted it up — that his love for her had risen from earth to heaven when he feared the slightest wrong-doing for her more than all other misfortune. CHAPTER IX. "god's puppets, best and worst." All tliiit long day a hot sun beat down npon the sea and upon the ice in the bay ; and tlie tide, with its gentle motion of How and ebb, made visibly more stir among the cakes of floating ice, by which it was seen that tliey were smaller and lighter than before. The sun-rays were doing their work, not so much by direct touch upon the ice itself as by raising the temperature of all the flowing sea, and thus, v hen the sun went down and the night of frost set in, the melting of the ice did not cease. Morning came, and revealed a long blue channel across the bay from its entrance to JIarbour Island. The steamer from Souris had made this channel by kno.^-king aside the light ice with her prow. She was built to travel in ice. She lav now, with funnel still smoking, in the harbour, a quarter of a mile from tlie small quay. The Gaspe schooner still lay without the bav, but there was a movement of unfurl in ;? sails anions: her masts, by whicli it was evident that her skip})er hope(] by the faint but favour:,blc breeze that was blow- ing to bring her down the same blue highway. It \7as upon tills scene tliat Caius, wretched and sleepless, looked at early dawn, lie had come out of t\% 250 THE xMEKMAID. I his house and climbed tlie nearest knoll from which the bay could be seen, for his house and those near it looked on the open western sea. When he reached this knoll he found that O'Slica was there before him, examining the movements of the ship with his glass in the gray cold of tlie shivering morning. The two men stood together and held no communication. Pretty soon 0\Shea went hastily home again. Caius stood still to see the sun rise clear and golden. There were no clouds, no vapours, to catch its reflections and make a wondrous spectacle of its appearing. 'I'lie blue horizon slowly dipped until the whole yellow disc beamed above it ; ice and water glistened pleasantly ; on the hills of all the sister isles there was sunshine and shade ; and round about him, in the hilly field, each rock and bush cast a long shadow. Between them the sun struck the grass with such level rays that the very blades and clumps of blades cast their shadows also. Caius had remained to watch if the breeze would strengthen with the sun's uprising, and he prayed the forces of heat and cold, aiul all things that preside over the currents of air, that it might not strengthen but languish and die. What dilference did it make, a few hours more or less? Ko difference, he knew, and yet all the fresh energy the new day brought him went forth in this desire that Josephine might have a few hours longer respite before she began the long weary course of life that stretched before liei. Caius had packed up all his belongings, There was nothing for him to do but drive along the dune with his luggMgo, as ho had driven four months before, iind /f '•GOD'S PUPPETS, BEST AND WORST." 251 10 WtlS with ', iind take tlie steamer that nis^lit to Souris. The cart that took him woiihl no doubt bring back Lc Maitre. Cains had not yet hired a cart ; he had not tlie least idea whether O'Shea intended to drive liim and brins^ back his enemy or not. That wonh], no doubt, be Josephine's desire. Cuius had not seen Josephine or spoken to O'Shea; it mattered notliing to him what arrangement they would or would not make for him. As he still stood watchinii; to see if the breeze would round and fill the sails which the Gaspe schooner had set, 0'8hea came back and called from the foot of the knoll. Caius turned; he bore the man no ill will. Josephine's horse had not been injured by the accident of yesterday, and his own fall was a matter of complete indifference. " I'm thinking, as ye packed yer bags, ye'U bo going for the steamer." O'.Shea spoke with that indefinalde insult in his tone which had always characterized it in the days of their first intercourse, but, apart from that, his numner was crisp and cool as the morning air ; not a shade of dis- couragement was visible. " I am going for tlie steamer," said Caius, and waited to hear what oll'er of conveyance was to be made him. "Well, Fm thinking," said O'Shca, "that Til just take the boat across the bay, and bring back the captain from Harbour Island ; but as his honour might prefer the cart, I'll send the cart round by the dune. There's no saying but, liaving been in tropical i)arts, he may be a bit scared of the ice. llowsomever, knowing that he's in that haste to meet his bride, and would, no doubt, grudge so much as a day spent between here and there 17 « I I ■ 252 THE MERMAID. 1 1 on the s The men on the schooner shouted this to O'Shea. " Put the rope round youi 'I H ■I i; i aist ! " This last was ! i' i: 2r,o THE MERMAID. yt'lk'(l by the nklppor, perceiving that O'Shea himself was by no uieuns safe. A rope tliat had been thrown had a noose, through whicli O'Shea dashed his arms ; tlien, seizing the poU', lie struck the butt-end between tlie blocks of ice where Le iMaitre Inul fallen. It seemed to Cains that the pole swayed in his han(U', as if lie were wrencliing it from a hand that had gripped it strongly below ; but it iniglit have been only the grind- ing of the ice. O'Shea thrust the pole Avith sudden vehemence fur- ther down, as if in a frantic effort to bring it better within reach of Le Maitre if he were there ; or, as Caius thought, it might have been tliat, feeling where the man was, he stunned him with the blow. Standing in a boat that was tipping and grinding among the ice, O'Siiea appeared to be exercising mar- vellous force and dexterity in thus using the pole at all. The wind was now propelling the schooner forward, and her pressure on the ice ceased. O'Shea threw oil the noose of the rope wildly, and looked to the men on the vessel, as if quite uncertain what to do next. It was a difficult matter for anyone to decide. To leave him there was manifestly impossible ; but if the schooner again veered round, the jamming of the ice over the head of La ]\Iaitre would again occur. The men on the schooner, not under good discipline, were all shouting and talking. " lie's dead by now, wherever he is." The skijiper made this quiet parenthesis either to himself or to Caius. Then he shouted aloud : " Work your boat through to us ! " O'Shea began poling vigorously. The ice was again ■■ I* "DEATH SIIKIVr: THY sorL!" '2i'd imsclf I rough 3 poU', where lunula, gripped ! griiid- icc fuv- i better IS Cuius he man ^rindhig ng mtir- iit nil. wurd, ew ol? men on or lir de. To if the the ice ir. The ne, were skipper If or to Hir boat JUS again floating loosely, and it was but the work of a few minutog to piKsli his lieavy boat into tlie open water that was in the wake of tiie sciiooner. Tiiere was a pause, like a pause in a funeral service, when O'Shea, standing ankle- deep in the water whicii liis boat held, and the men hud- dled together upon the schooner's deck, turned to look at all the places in whi(!h it seemed possihle that the body of Le Maitre might again be seen. 'I'iiey looked and looked nntil they were tired with looking. The body had, no doubt, floated up under some cake of ice, and from thence would speedily sink to a bier of saiul at the bottom of the bav. " By ! I never saw anything like that." It was the remar^c which began and ended the episode with the skipper. Then he raised his voice, and shouted to OShea : "It's no sort of use your staying here ! Make the rope fast to your boat, and come up on deck ! " But this O'Sliea would not do. lie rcjdicd that he would remain and look about among the ice a bit longer, and that, any way, it would be twice as far to take his boat home from Harbour Island as from the place where he now was. The schooner towed his boat until he had baled the water out and got hold of his ojirs. The ice had floated so far apart that it seemed easy for the boat to ffo back throns^h it. During this time excited pithy gossip had been going on concerning the accident. " You did all a man could do," shouted the ca])tain to O'Shea consolingly, and remarked to those about him: "There wasn't no love lost between them, but O'Shea did all he could. O'Shea mifdit as easv as not have gone over himself, holding the pole under water that time." i.i I r I 1 t !■{ h '(■! 1 ! k 'i ■"'\i 202 THE MERMAID. Tlie fussy little captain, as far as Cains could judge, was not acting a part. 'V\\e sailors were French ; they could talk some English ; and they spoke in both lan- guages a great deal. " His lady Avon't be much troubled, i dare say, from all I hear." Tlie captain was becoming easy and good- luitured again, lie said to Caius : " You are acquainted with her?" " She will be shocked," said Caius. He felt as he spoke that he himself was sufTering from shock — so much so that he was hardly able to think consecutively about what had occurred. " They won't have an 'nquest without the body," shouted the captain to O'Shea. Tlien to those about him he renuirked : " He was as decent and good-natured a fellow as Fd want to see." Tlie pronoun referred to Le Maitre. The remark was perhaps prompted by natural pity, but it was so in- stantly agreed to by all on the vessel that the chorus had the air of propitiating the spirit of the dead. ?& X' CHAPTER XI. THE RIDDLI-: OF LIFE. The schooner slowly moved along, and lay not far from the steamship. The steamship did not start for Soiiris until the afternoon. Cains was put on shore there to a\;ait the hour of embarking. In his own mind he v,as questioning whether he woula embark with the steamer or return to Cloud Island ; but lie naturally did not make this problem known to those around him. The skipper and several men of the schooner came ashore with Caius. Tliere was a great bustle as soon as thev reached tlie small wharf because of what thev had to tell. It was apparent from all that was told, and all the replies that wero made, that no shadow of suspi- cion was to fall upon O'Shea. Why should it? He had, as it seemed, no personal grudge against \jq Maitre, whose death had been evidently an accident. A man who bore an otfice akin to that of nuigistrate for the islands came down from a nouse near the har- bour, and the story was repeated to him. When Caius luid listened to the evidence given before this oflicial personage, hearing the tale again that he had already heard many times in a few minutes, and told what he himself hr.d seen, he began to wonder how he could if ■4 (if •' 1; H i\p || I ' 2r4 THE MERMAID. still hiirbour in his mind the belief in O'Shca's guilt. lie found, too, that none of these people knew enough about Josephine to see any special interest attaching to the story, exce])t the fact that her husband, returning from a long voyage, had been drowned almost within sight of her house. " Ah, poor lady ! poor lady ! " they said ; and thus saying, and shaking their heads, they dispersed to eat their dinners. Caius procured the bundle of letters which had come for him by this first mail of the year. He saun- tered along the beach, soon getting out of sight and hearing of th<' little community, who w^ere not given to walking upon a beach that w^as not in this cause a high- road to any place. He was on the shingle n{ the bay, and he soon found a nook under a high black clilf where the sun beat down right w.4rmly. He had not opened his letters ; his mind did not yet admit of old interests. Tli*' days were not long passed in which men who continued to be good husbands and fathers and staunch friends killed their enemies, when necessary, with a good conscience. Had O'Shea a good conscience now? Would he continue to be in all respects the man he had been, and the staunch friend of Josephine? In his heart Caius believed that Le Maitre was murdered ; but he had no evidence to prove it — nothing whatever but what O'Shea's wife had said to him that day she was hanging out her linen, and such talk occurs in many a household, and nothing comes of it. Now Josephine was free. " What a blessing ! " He used the common idiom to himself, and then wondered at it. Could one man's crime be another man's bless- ing? He found himself, out of love for Josephine, Sk-l TIJK RIDDLE OF LIFE. 205 III ough iig to nthiii ' they they 1 had saun- it and tven to I high- le bay, jk cliif I ad not of old en who itaunch with a e now ? nan he In dered ; hatever hiy she curs in le? ?) lie ondered 'a bless- »sephine, wondering concerning tlie matter from the point of view of the religious theory of life. Perhaps this was Heaven's way of answering Josepliine's appeal, and sav- ing her; or perhaps human souls are so knit together that O'Shea, by the sin, had not blessed, but hindered her from blessing. It was a weary round of questi(;ns, which Caius was not wise enough to answer. Another more jiractical question pressed. Did he dare to return now to Cloud Lsland, and watch over Josephine in the shock which she must sus- tain, aud find out if she would discover the truth con- cerning O'Shea? After a good while he answered the questioii : No ; he did not dare to return, knowing what he did and his own cowardly share in it. lie coidd not face Josephine, and, lonely as slie was, she did not need him • she iiad her prayers, her angels, her heaven. Perhaps Time, the proverbial healer of all wounds, would wash the sense of guilt from his soul, and then he could come back and speak to Josephine concerning this new freedom of hers. Then he remembered that some say that for the wound of guilt Time has no heal- ing art. Could he fintl, then, other shrift? lie did not know, lie longed for it sorely, because he longed to feel fit to return to Josephin< Hut, after all, what had he done of whi(di he was ashamed ? What was his guilt? Had he felt any emotion that it was not natu- ral to feelV Had he done anvthinu; wrong: Aijain he did not know. He sat with head bowed, and felt in dull misery that O'Shea was a better man than he — more useful and brave, and not more guilty. He opened his letters, and found that in his absence no worse mishap had occurred at home than that his father had been laid up some time with a bad leg, and . ■'' ^m i m m' 1 ' ml [ J^M '\ I ml is/ \ M ^^ hi' 'H > il :li 2GG THE MERMAID. that both father and mother had allowed themselves to "vvorrv and i'rot lest ill should have befallen their son. Cains embarked on the little steamship that after- noon, and the next noon found him at home. The person who met him on the threshold of his father's house was Jim Ilogan. Jim grinned. " Since you've taken to charities abroad," he said, " I thought rd begin at home." Jim's method of beginning at home was not in the literal sense of the proverb. It turned out that he had been neighbouring to some purpose. Old Simpson could not move himself about indoors or attend to his work without, and Jim, who had not before this at- tached himself ])y regular em})loyment, had by some freak of good-nature given his services day by day until Caius should return, and had become un indispensable member of the household. " He's not a very respectable young man," said the mother apologetically to her son, while she was still wiping her tears of joy ; " bnt it's just wonderful what patience he's had in his own larky way with your father, when, though 1 say it who shouldn't, your father's been as difficult to manage as a crying baby, and Jim, he just makes his jokes when anyone else would have been atfronted, and there's father laughing in spite of himself wsometimes. So I don't know how it is, but we've just had him to stop on, for he's took to the farm wonder- ful." An hour after, when alone with his father, Simpson said to him : " Your mother, you know, was timorous at night when I conldn't help myself ; and then she'c b^^gin cry- ing, as women will, saying as she knew you were dead, THE RIDDLE OF LIFE. 2f;7 vcs to JU. iifter- of lui5 e said, in the he had iinpson 1 to his this at- >v some ay until lensable t^aid the ,vas still ul what r father, n''s been Jim, he ve been liimself ''ve just wonder- ISimpson lat night pgin cry- ^re dead, and t]iat, any way, it was lonesome without you. So when I saw that it comforted her a bit to liave someone to cook for, I encouraged the fellow, 1 told iiim he'd nothing to look for from me, for his father is richer than I am nowadays ; but he's just the sort to like vagary i> Jim went home, and Caius began a simple round of home duties. His father needed much attendance ; the farm servants needed direction. Caius soon found out, without being told, that neither in one capacity nor the other did he fulfil the old man's pleasure nearly so well as the rough-and-ready Jim. Even his motlier hardly let a day pass without innocently aHuding to some prank of Jim's that had amused her. She would have been verv anijrv if anvone had told her that she did not find her son as good a companion. Caius did not tell her so, but ho was perfectly aware of it. Caius had not been loni( at home when his cousin Mabel came to visit them. This time his mother made no slv remarks concernini]^ Mabel's reason for timinsT: her visit, because it seemed that Mabel had paid a long and comforting visit while he had been at the Magdalen Islands. Mabel did not treat Caius now with the un- conscious flattery of blind admiration, neither did she talk to him about Jim ; but her silence whenever Jim's name was mentioned was eloquent. Caius •ummed all this up in his own mind, lie iiiul Jim had commenced life as lads together. The one had trodder t)- ^ path of virtue and laudable a?nbition ; tlu! ot^'. liad just amused himself, and that in many rep- reiiensible ways; and now, when the ri[)e age of man- hood wa.' attained in that state of life to which — as the Cateciiism would have it — it had pleased (Jod to call 18 208 THE MERMAID. I them, it was Jim who was tlie nseful and lionoiired man, not Cuius. It was clear tliat all the months and years of his absence had enabled his parents to do very well with- out their son. They did not know it, but in all the smaller things that make u}) the most of life, his in- terests had ceased to be their interests. Caius had the courage to realize that even at home he was not much wanted. If, when Jim married ^label, he would settle down with the old folks, they would be perfectly happy. On his return, Caius had lejirned that the ])ost for which he had ai)plied in the autumn had not been awai'ded to him. lie knew that he must 2:0 as soon as possible to find out a good place in which to begin his professional life, but at present the state of liis father's bad IciT was so critical, and the medical skill of the neighbourhood so poor, that he was forced to wait. All this time there was one main thought in his mi'id, to which all others were subordinate. He saw liis situation (|uite clearly ; lie had no doubts about it, If Jose])hino would come to him and be Ips wife, he would be ha[)py and prosperous. Josephine had the power to make him twice the man he was without her. It was not only that his happiness was bound u]) in her; it was not only that Josephine had money and could manage it well, although he was not at all above think- ing of that ; it was not even that she would help and entourage and console iiim as no one else would. There was that subtle something, more often the fruit of what is called friendship than of love, by which Jo- sejdiine's presence increased all his strong faculties and subdued his faults. Caius knew this with the unerring knowledge of instinct, lie tried to reason ab(»ut it, too : man, A liis with- Jl the lis in- ad tlie much I settle happy- lost for )t been soon as HTiu his lather's I of tlie lit. t in his He saw ibout it- wife, he lliatl the loiit her. her : V m [ul could : th inli- ne IP aiu 1 wou 1(1. Ithe fruit ihich Jo- Ities and iiiierrin i\l it, too ft T[IE RIDDLE OF LIFE. 201) even a dull kini]^ rci^^ns well if he have but the wit to choose good ministers; aiul amon. 073 tiie kitclien and bare lobl)y througli wliieh lie was con- ducted, and he discovered, to his surprise, that he was to be entertained in a small ])arl()ur, which had a round polished centre table, on wliich lay the usual store of such things as are seen in such })arlours all the woi-ld over — a liible, a couple of albums, a woollen nuit, and an ornament under a glass case. Caius sat down, holding his hat in his hand, with an odd feeling that he was acting a part in bcha\ing as if the circumstan(;es were at all ordinary. The woman also sat down, but not as if for ease. She drew one of the big cheap albums towards her, a'nd began vigorously searching in it from the beginning, as if it were a book of strano-e characters in which she CD wished to find a particular passage. She tixcd her eyes ui)on each small cheaj) photograph in turn, as if trying hard to remember who it represented, and whether it was, or was not, the one she wanted, ('aius looked on amazed. At length, about the middle of the book, she came to a portrait at which she stop])ed, and with a look of cunning took out another which was hidden under it, and thrust it at (;aius. " It's for you," she said; " it's mine, and I'm going to die, and it's vou I'll give it to." She looked and spoke as if the proffered gift was a thing more precious than the rarest gem. Caius took it, and saw that it was a picture of a baby girl, about three years old. lie had not the slightest doubt who the child was ; he stood by the window and exaiained it long- and eagcrlv. The sun, unaided by ihe deceptive shading of the more skilled photographer, had imprinted the little face clearly. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) ,V4 1.0 I.I UiUB |2.S |50 ■^" ■■■ •^ 1^ 12.2 2.0 1.8 1.25 II 1.4 ^ ^ 6" — ► Hiotographic Sdences Corporation 33 WfST MAIN STREiET WEBSTEt.N.Y. MStO (716) 873-4S03 f £ 274 THE MERMAID. i I : < Cuius saw tlie curls, iind the big sad eyes with their long hishes, and all the babv features and limbs, liis memory niding to make the portrait perfect. His eager look was for the purpose of discovering whether or not his imagination had i)layed him false ; but it was true what he had thought — the little one was like Josephine. " I shall be glad to have it," he said — " very glad." " I had it taken at Montrose," said the poor motlier; and, strange to say, she said it in a commonplace way, just as any woman might speak of procuring her child's likeness. " Day, he Avas angry ; he said it was waste of money; that's why I give it to you." A tierce cunning look flitted again across her face for a moment. " Don't let him see it," she whispered. " Day, he is a bad father; he don't care for the children or me. That's why I've put her in the water." She made tliis last statement concerning her hus- band and child with a nonchalant air, like one too much accustomed to the facts to be distressed at them. For a few minutes it seemed that she relapsed into a state of dulness, neither thought nor feeling stirring within her. Caius, sujiposing that she had nothing more to sav, still watched her intently, because the evidences of disease were interesting to him. AVhen he least ex})ected it, she awoke again into eagerness; she put her elbows on the table and leaned towards him. " There's something I want you to do," she whis- pered. " I can't do it any more. I'm dying. Since I began dying, I can't get into the water to look for her. My baby is in the water, you know ; I put her in. She isn't dead, but she's there, only I can't find her. Day TO CALL A SPIRIT PROM THE VASTV DEEP. 075 told nic that once you got into the water to look for her too, but you gave it up too easy, and :io one else has ever so much as got in to help nie tind her." The last part of the speech was spoken in a dreary monotone. She stopped with a heart-broken sigh that expressed hopeless loneliness in this mad quest. " The baby is dead," he said gently. She answered him with eager, excited voice : " No, she isn't; that's where you are wrong. You put it on the stone that she was dead. When I came out of th' asvlum I went to look at the stone, and 1 laughed. But 1 liked you to make the stone; that's why 1 like vou, because nobodv else put up a stone for her." Caius laid a cool hand on the feverish one she was now brandisliing at him. " Vou are dying, you say " — pityingly. " It is bet- ter for you to think that vour babv is dead, for when you die you will go to her." The woman laughed, not harshly, but happily. " She isn't dead. She came buck to me once. She was grown a big girl, and had a wedding-ring on her hand. Who do you think she was married to? I thought perhaps it was you." The repetition of this old question came from her lips so suddenly that Caius dropped her hand and stepped back a pace, lie felt his heart beating. A\'as it a good omen ? There have been cases where a half- crazed brain has been known, by chance or otherwise, to foretell the future. The question that was now for the second time repeated to him seemed to hi^ iiope like an instance of this second sight, only half understood by the eye that saw it. ' J p I'- ' I' * 270 tup: mermaid. *' It was not your liult; daughter that came back, Mrs. Day. It was her cousin, wlio is very like lier, and she came to help you when you were ill, and to be a daughter to you." h'he looked at him darkly, as if the saner powers of her mind were struggling to understand ; but in a minute the monomania had again possession of her. " She had beautiful hair," she said ; " I stroked it with my hand ; it curled just as it used to do. })o you think I don't knov; my own child? liut she had grown quite big, and her ring was made of gold. I would like to see her again now before 1 die." Very wistfully she spoke of the beauty and kindness of the girl whose visit had cheered her. The poor crazed heart was full of longing for the one presence that could give her any comfort this side of death. " 1 thought I'd never see her again." She fixed her dark eyes on Cains as she spoke. '' I was going to ask you, after I was dead and couldn't look for her any more, if you'd keep on looking for her in the sea till you found her. But I wish you'd go now and see if you couldn't fetch her before I die." " Yes, 1 will go," answered Caius suddenly. The strong determination of his (piick assent seemed to surprise even her in whose mind there could be no rational cause for surprise. " Do you mean it ? " " Yes, I mean it. I will go, Mrs. Day." A moment more she paused, as if for time for full belief in his promise to dawn upon her, and then, instead of letting him go, she rose up quickly with mysterious looks and gestures. Her words were whis- pered : TO CALL A SPIRIT FROM THE VASTY DKEP. back, ', and be a ers of . in a jr. )ked it [)o vou grown lUl like iudness r crazed at could ixed her g to ask ler any sea till see if seemed Id be no for full lid tUen, klv with ere whis- *' Come, then, and Til show you the way. Come ; you mustn't tell Day. Day doesn't know anything about it." She had led liiin back to the door of the house and gone out before him. " Come, I'll show you the way. Hush! don't taiK, or someone might hear us. Walk close to the barn, and no one will see. I never showed anyone before but her »vhen she came to mo wearing tlie gold ring. What are you so slow for? Come, I'll show you the way to look for her." Ii ins: her Lmpeiieu by curiosity ana tne lear or increasii excitement if he refused, Caius followed her down the side of the open yard in which he had once seen her stand in fierce quarrel with her husbantl. It had seemed a dreary place then, when the three children swung on the gate and neither the shadow of death nor madness hung over it ; it seemed far more desolate now, in spite of the bright summer sunliglit. The barns and stable, as they swiftly j)assed them, looked much neglected, and there was not about the whole farmsteael another n».in or woman to be st^en. As the mad woman went swiftly in front of him, Caius remembered, perhaps for the first time in al' these years, that after her husband had struck her upon that night, she had gone up to the cowshed thftt w{is nearest the sea, and that afterwards he had met her at the door of the root-house that was in the bank of the chine. It was thither she went now, opening the door of the cowshed and leading him through it to a door at the other end, and down a path to this cellar cut in the bank. The cellar had apparently been very little used. The path to it was well beaten, but Caius observed that it ran past the cellar down the chine to a landing where Day now kept a flat-bottomed boat. They stood on this ih I' \ ^1 ■ I ;1t ■ it 1\ ^ Itl! 278 THE MERMAID. path before the heavy door of tlie collar. Rust had eaten into the iron latch and the padlock that secured it, but the woman produced a key and ojiened the ring of the lock and took him into a chamber about twelve feet square, in which props of decaying beams held up the earth of the walls and roof. The i)lace was cold, smelling strongly of damp earth and decaying roots; but, so far, there was nothing remarkable to be seen ; just such a cellar was used on his father's farm to keep stores of potatoes and turnips in wlien the fiost of winter made its way through all the wooden barns. In three corners remains of such root stores were lying ; in the fourth, the corner behind the door, nearest the sea, some boards were laid on the floor, and on them flower-pots containing stalks of withered plants and bulbs that had never sprouted. " They're mine," she said. " Day dursn't touch them ;" and saying this, she fell to work wuth eager feverish- ness, removing the pots and boards. When she had done so, it was revealed that the earth under the boards had broken through into another cellar or cave, in which some light could be seen. " I always heard the sea when I was in this place, and one day 1 broke through this hole. The man that first had the farm made it, I s'pose, to pitch his seaweed into from the sliore." She let her long figure down through the hole easily enough, for there were places to set the feet on, and landed on a heap of earth and dried weed. When Caius had dropped down into this second chamber, he saw that it had evidently been used for just the purpose she had mentioned. The seaweed gathered from the beach after storms was in common use for enriching the fields, and 5t had L'cured le ring twelve eld up 8 cold, roots ; ) seen ; arm to lc fibst barns. est the I them its and them;" ?verish- ;he had boards •ave, in place, m that seaweed easily )n, and Cains aw that she had :h after Ids, and TO CALL A SPIRIT FROM TllH VASTY DEKP. 079 someone in a past generation had apparently dug this cave in the soft rock and clav of tiie clitT; it was at a height above the sea-line at which the seaweed could be conveniently pitched into it from a cart on the shore below. Some three or four feet of dry rotten seaweed formed its carpet. The aperture towards the sea was almost ej\tirely overgrown with such grass and weeds as grew on the blulT. It was evident that in the original cutting there had been an opening also sideways into the chine, which had caved in and been grown over. The cellar above had, no doubt, been made by someone who was not aware of th existence of this former })lace. To Caius the seci t chamber was enchanted ground. lie stepped to its window, framed in waving grasses, and saw the high tide lapping just a little way below. It was into this place of safety that Josephine had crej)t when she had disappeared from his view before he could mount the cliff to see whither she went. She had often stood where lie now stood, half afraid, half audacious, in that curious dress of hers, before she summoned up courage to slip into the sea for daylight or moonlight wanderings. He turned round to hear tlie gaunt woman beside him again talking excitedly. Upon a bit of rusty iron that still held its place on the wall hung what he had taken to be a heap of sacking. She took this down now and displayed it with a cunning look. "I made it myself," she said, " it holds one up won- derful in the water; but now I've been a-dying so long the buoys have burst." Caius pityingly took the garment from her. Her mad grief, and another woman's madcap pleasure, made it a sacred thing. His extreme curiosity found ', ji 'I r I I. 1: I i . ?! i] ^ ■ lj 280 THE MEKMAID. satisfaction in discovering that the coarse foundation was covered with a curious broiderv of such small floats as might, with uiitiring industry, be collected in a farmhouse :. corks and small pieces of wood with holes bored through them were fastened at regular intervals, not without some attempt at pattern, and between them the bladders of smaller animals, pre})ared as fishermen prepare them lor their nets. Larger specimens of the saine kind were concealed inside the neck of the huge sack, but on the outside everything was comparatively small, and it seemed as if the hands that had worked it so elaborately had been directed by a brain in which familiarity with patchwork, and other homely forms of the sewing-woman's art, had been confused with an adequate idea of the rough use for which the garment was needed. Some knowledge of the skill with which fishermen prepare their floats had also evidently been hers, for the whole outside of the garment was smeared or painted with a brownish substance that had preserved it to a wonderful extent from the ravages of moisture and salt. It was torn now, or, rather, it seemed that it had been cut from top to bottom ; but, besides this one great rent, it was in a rotten condition, ready to fall to pieces, and, as the dying woman had said, many of the air-blown floats had burst. Caius was wondering whether the occasion on which this curious bathing-dress had been torn was that in which he, by pursuing Josephine, had forced her to cease pushing herself about in shallow water and take to more ordinary swimming. He looked around and saAV the one other implement which had been necessary to complete the strange outfit ; it, too, was a thing of ordinary appearance and use : a long pole or poker, with TO CALL A SI»IRIT FROM THK VASTY DEEP. OS I elation Bmull 3(1 in a I holes tervals, ti them iiermen of the luige rutively )rked it II which orms of with an crarmcnt ii whicli \\y been smeared reserved iioisture that it til is one fall to y of the [)n which that in her to Ind take Inid and jiecessary ^hing of Lcr, with a handle at one end and a small flat bar at the other, a thing nsed for arranging the tire in the deep brick ovena that were still in use at the older farmsteads. It was about six feet long. The woman, seeing his attention directed to it, took it eagerly and showed how it miglit be used, drawing him with her to tlie aj)erture over the shore ^md pointing out eagerly tlie landmarks by whicli she knew how far the sliallow water extended at certain times of the tide. Her topographical knowledge of all the sea's bed within jibout a mile of the high-water mark was extraordinarilv minute, and Caius listeiu'd to the in- formation she poured upon him, only now beginning to realize that she expected him to wear the dress, and take the iron pole, and slip from the old cellar into the tide when it ruse high enough, and from thence bring back tlie gii'l witli the soft curls and the golden ring. It was one of those moments in which laughter and tears meet, but there was a glamour of such strange fantasy over the scene that Caius felt, not so much its humour or its pathos, as its fairy-like unreality, and that which gave him the sense of unreality was that to his comi)anion it was intensely real. " You said you would go." Some perception of his hesitation must have come to her; her words were strong with insistence and wistful with rei)roach. " You said you would go and fetch her in to me be- fore I die." Then Cains put back the dress she held on the rusty peg where it had hung for so long. " I am a man," he said. " I can swim without life- preservers. I will go and try to bring the girl back to you. But not now, not from here ; it will take me a week to go and come, for I know that she lives far I! I ! 282 TIIK MEUMAII). Hi I 1^ )U (Ii away in the middle of tlio deep gu\L Conic back to tlie liouse and take care of yoursi-lf, so that you may live until she comes. You may trust me. 1 will cer- tainly brinj? her to you if she's alive and if she can come." With these promises and protestations he ])revailed upon the poor woman to return with him to lier lonely home. Caius had not got far on his road home, when ho met Day coming from the village. Caius wa*^ full of his determination to go for Jose|)hine by the next trip of the small steamer. His excuse was valid ; he could paint the interview from which he had just come so that Josephine would be moved by it, would welcome his in- terference, and come again to nurse her uncle's wife. ^J'hus thinking, he had hurried along, but when he met Dav his knij^ht-erran eceived a check. " Your wife ougl . . i to be alone," he said to Day. "No; that's true!" the farmer rejjlicd drearily; " but it isn't everybody she'll have in the house with her." " Your son and daughter are too far away to be scut for?" " Y'es" — briefly — "thev are in the west." Caius paused a moment, thinking next to introduce the subject which had set all his pulses bounding, lie- cause it was momentous to him, he hesitated, and while he hesitated the other spoke. " There is one relation I've got, the daughter of a brother of mine who died up by (Jaspe Basin. She's on the Magdalens now. I understood that you had had dealings with her." " Yes ; I was just about to suggest — I was going to say- 7J " I wrote to her. She is coming," said Day. I 8 :-k to may I cer- onio." vailed lonoly len ho of his :rip of coiiUl 8() that his iii- s wife, he met 1 Dav. I ^ •L'iirily ; h her." to be rod lice \v Be- hile ' of a She'8 lad had loin gto CHAPTER XIII. THE EVENING AND THE MORNING. Josephine had come. All night and all the next day she had been by her aunt's bedside ; for Day's wife lay helpless now, and death was very near. This much Caius knew, having kept himself informed by commu- nication with the village doctor, and twenty-four hours after Josephine's arrival he walked over to the Day farm, hoping that, as the cool of the evening might relax the strain in the sick-room, she would be able to speak to him for a few minutes. When he got to the dreary house he met its owner, who had just finished his evening work. The two men sat on wooden chairs outside the door and watched the dusk gathering on sea and land, and although they did not talk much, each felt glad of the other's com- panionship. It was nine years since Caius had first made up his mind that Day was a monster of brutality and wicked- ness ; now he could not think himself back into the state of mind that could have formed such p judgment. When Caius had condemned Dav, he had been a re- ligious youth who thought well of himself ; now his old religious habits and beliefs had dropped off, but he did not think well of himself or harshly of his neighbour. 19 «88 2S4 THE MKKMAID. ;! I hm In tliosc diiys lie had felt suflicieiit for life ; now all his feeling' was sunimctl up in the desire that was scareely a ho])e, tiiat some heavenly power, holy and strong, would come to his aid. It is when the whole good of life hangs in a trem- bling balance that people become like children, and feel the need of the motherly powers of Ilea, en. Cains sat with Day for two hours, and Josephine did not come down to speak to him. lie was glad to know that Day's evening passed the more easily because he sat there with him ; he was glad of that when he was glad of nothing that concerned himself. Day aiui Caius did not talk about death or sorrow, or anything like that. All the remarks that they inter- changed turned upon the horses Day was rearing and their pastures. Day told that he had found the grass on tlie little island rich. " I remember finding two of your colts there one day when I explored it. It was four years ago," said Caius dreamily. Day took no interest in this lapse of time. "It's an untidy bit of land," he said, "and I can't clear it. ' Tisn't mine ; but no one heeds the colts grazing." " Do vou swim them across?" asked Caius, half in polite interest, half because his memory was wandering upon the water. " They got so sharp at swimming, I had to raise the fence on the top of the cliff," said Day. The evening wore away. In the morning Caius, smitten with the fever of hope and fear, rose up at dawn, and, as in a former time he had been wont to do, ran to the seashore by the all bis irccly a , would a trem- and ftjel .'aius sat .ot come lat l)uy':s wYv. with : uotbing )r sorrow, ley inter- aring and the graso there one ago," said nd I can't the colts IS, half in wandering THE EVENING AND THE MORNING. 285 io raise the 1 fever of a former lore by the nearest path and walked beside tlie edge of the waves. He turned, as lie had always done, towards the litllo island and the Day Farm. How well he knew every outward curve aful indenta- tion of the soft red shelving bank ! how well he kiu'W the colouring of the cool scene in the rising day, the iridescent light upon the lapping waves, the glistening of the jasper red of the damp beach, and the earthen pinks of the upper cliils! The sea birds with low pathetic note called out to him concerning their nuMn- ories of the first dawn in which he had walked Uiere searching for the body of the dead baby. Then the cool tints of dawn ] u.ised into the golden sunrise, and the birds went on calling to him concerning the numy times in which he had trodden this path as a lover whose mistress had seemed so strange a denizen of this same wide sea. Caiusdid not think with scorn now of this old puzzle and bewilderment, but remembered it fondly, and went and sat beneath baby Day's epitaph, on the very rock from which he had first seen Josephine. It was very early in the morning ; the sun had risen bright and warm. At that season even this desolate bit of shore was garlanded above with the most lovely green ; the little island was green as an emerald. Oaius did not intend to keep his present place long. The rocky point where the rod cliff ended hid any por- tion of the Day farm from his view, and as soon as the morning was far enough advanced he intended to go and see how the owner and his household had fared during the night. In the meantime he waited, and while he waited Fate came to him smiling. 286 THE MERMAID. Ill ;4 t Once or twice as he sat he heard the sound of horse's feet passing on the cliff above him. He knew that Day's horses were there, for they were pastured alternately upon the cliff and upon the richer herbage of the little island. He supposed by the sounds that they were catching one of them for use on the farm. The sounds went further away, for he did not hear the tread of hoofs again. He had forgotten them ; his face had dropped upon his hands ; he was looking at noth- ing, except tiiat, beneath the screen of his fingers, he could see the red pebbles at his feet. Something very like a prayer was in his heart ; it had no form ; it was not a thing of which his intellect could take cognizance. Just then he heard a cry of fear and a sound as if of something dashing into the water. The sounds came from behind the rocky point. Caius knew the voice that cried and he rose up wildly, but staggered, baffled by his old difficulty, that the path thither lay only through deep water or round above the cliff. Then he saw a horse swimming round the red rocks, and on its back a woman sat, not at ease — evidently dis- tressed and frightened by the course the animal was taking. To Caius the situation became clear. Joseph- ine had thought to refresh herself after her night's vigil by taking an early ride, and the young half-broken horse, finding himself at large, was making for the deli- cacies which he knew were to be found on the island pasture. Josephine did not know why her steed had put out to sea, or whither he was going. She turned round, and, seeing Caius, held out her hand, imploring his aid. Caius thanked Heaven at that moment. It was true that Josephine kept her seat upon the horse perfectly, THE EVENING AND THE MORNING. 287 and it was true that, unless the animal intended to lie down and roll when he got into the deep grass of the island, he had probably no malicious intention in going there. That did not matter. Josephine was terrified by finding herself in the sea and she had cried to him for aid. A quick run, a sliort swim, and Caius waded up on the island sands. The colt had a much longer distance to swim, and Caius waited to lay his hand on the bridle. For a minute or two there was a chase among the shallow, rippling waves, but a horse sinking in heavy sand is not hard to catch. Josephine sat passive, hav- ing enough to do, p. "haps, merely to keep her seat. When at length Caius stood on the island grass with the bridle in his hand, she slipped down without a word and stood beside him. Caius let the dripping animal go, and he went, plunging with delight among the flowering weeds and bushes. Caius himself was dripping also, but, then, he could answer for his own movements that he would not come too near the lady. Josephine no longer wore her loose black working dress; this morning she was clad in an old h >it of green cloth. It was faded with weather, and too long in the skirt for the fashion then in vogue, but Caius did not know that ; he only saw that the lower part of the skirt was wet, and that, as she stood at her own graceful height upon the grass, the wet cloth twisted about her feet and lay beside them in a rounded fold, so that she looked just now more like the pictures of the fabled sea-maids than she had ever done when she had floated in the water. The first thing Josephine did was to look up in his 288 THE MERMAID. face and langh ; it was her own merry peal of low laughter that reminded him always of a child laugh- ing, not more for fun than for mere happiness. It bridged for him all the sad anxieties and weary hours that had passed since he had heard her laugh before ; and, furthermore, he knew, without another moment's doubt, that Josephine, knowing him as she did, would never have looked up to him like that unless she loved him. It was not that she was thinking of love just then — that was not what was in her face ; but it was clear tliat she was conscious of no shadow of difference between them such as would have been there if his love had been doomed to disappointment. She looked to him to join in her laughter with perfect comradesliip. " Why did the horse come here? " asked Josephine. Caius explained the motives of the colt as far as he understood them ; and she told how she had per- suaded her uncle to let her ride it, and all that she had thought and felt when it had run away with her down the chine and into the water. It was not at all what he could have believed beforehand, that when he met Josephine they would talk with perfect con- tentment of the affairs of tlie passing hour ; and yet so it was. With graver faces they talked of the dying woman, with whom Josephine had passed the night. It was not a case in which death was sad ; it was life, not death, that was sad for the wandering brain. But Josephine could tell how in tliose last nights the poor mother had found peace in the presence of her sup- posed child. " She curls my hair round her thin fingers and seems so happy," said Josephine. THE EVENING AND THE MORNING. 289 She did not say that the thin hands had fingered her wedding-ring ; but Cuius thought of it, and that brought him back the remembrance of something that had to be said that must be said then, or every mo- ment would become a sin of weak dehiy. " I want to tell you," he began — " I know I must tell you — I don't know exactly why, but 1 must — I am sorry to say anything to remind you — to distress you — but I hated Le Maitre ! Looking back, it seems to mo that the only reason I did not kill him was that I was too much of a coward." Josephine looked off upon the sea. The wearied pained look that she used to wear when the people were ill about her, or that she had worn when she heard Le Maitre was returning, came back to her face, so that she seemed not at all the girl who had been laughing with him a minute before, but a saint, whose image he could have worshipped. And yet he saw then, more clearly than he had ever seen, that the charm, the perfect consistency of her character, lay in the fact that the childlike joy was never far off from the woman's strength and patience, and that a wom- anly heart always underlay the merriest laughter. They stood silent for a long time. It is in silence that God's creation grows. At length Josephine spoke slowly : " Yes, we are often very, very wicked ; but I think when we are so much ashamed that we have to tell about it — I think it means that we will never do it again." " I am not good enough to love you," said Caius brokenly. " Ah ! do not say that " — she turned her face away 290 THE MERMAID. If m m i I from him — " remember the last time you spoke to me upon the end of the dune." Caius went back to the shore to get the boat that lay at the foot of the chine. The colt was allowed to enjoy his paradise of island flowers in peace. THE END. APPLETONS' TOWN AND COUNTRY LIBRARY. PUBLISHED SEMIMONTHLY. 1. The Steel Hammer. By Louw Ulbach. 2. Eve. A Novel. By S. Baihno-Gould. 8. F(yr Fifteen Years. A Sequel to The Steel Hammer. By Locis Ulbach. 4. A Cauftsel of Perfection. A Novel. By Lucas Malbt. 6. The Deetn.>. 103. 104. 105. 10(5. 107. 108. 109. 110. IIOJ 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 110. 117. 118. 119. 120. Ihnitri. A Romance of Old Riineia. By F. W. Bain, M. A. Part of the Property. By Bkatiiick Wiiitby. Jilmnarck in Prirate Life. By a Ft-l low -Student. In Low Relief. By Moui.KY HouEnTn. The Catiadiaiut of Old. A lliHtorical Komancc. By Piiilippe Gxarfi. A Sgidre of Imiv Degree. By Lily A. Loncj. A Flut'(?'eil Dorecote. By (.Jkouoe Manvii.lk Fenn. The uSuaents of Varricoiiua. An IrlHli Story. By Tiuiie Hopkins. A Sensitive Plant. By E. and 1). Cjekaiu). l>ona Liti. By Juan Valeka. TiaiiHlatt'd by Mrs. Mauy J. Seiikano. Pepita Kiimnez. By Jitan N'ai.eha. Translated by Mih. Mauy .). Seiirano. The Primes and thi'ir Neigldtors. By liiciiAim Malcolm Joiinhton. The Iron Game. By Henuy F. 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By Molly Elliot Sbawell. A Little Minr. By Ada Cambridge. CapVn Davy's Honcynwon. By Hall Caine. The Voice of a Flower. By E. Gerard. Singularly Deluded. By Sarah Grand. Susiyected. By Louipa Stratenus. Lucia, Hugh, and Another. By Mre. J. H. Nbedbll. The Tutors Secret. By Victor CHXRBin.i£z. APPLKTONS' TOWN AND COUNTRY UBTl/iRY.-i Continued.) 121. 123. 123. 124. 12.5. 12(J. 127. 128. 129. ISO. 131. 132. i:i3. 134. 135. ISfi. 137. i:w. 13«J. 140. 141. 142. 14:5. 141. 145. 140. 147. 148. 149. l.W. 1.51. 1.52. 153. 1.54. 155. 1.5«. 1.57. 1.58. 159. ICO. 1(51. 1(12. From the Fire Hirers. By Mrs. F. A. Sti;el. An Innocent Itn/Hwfor, rinl Other Storits. by Maxwell (iUay. Itlealu. By Sauau (iiiANO. A Coimily oj Miiftks. Bv Krnkst Dowson and Abtiiuk Moobb. lielics. Bv FiiANC'ES MacNab. Dwlo: A Ihtall nf the Day. By K. F. Benson. A Woman of Forty. By K!*mI! Stiaut. Muna Tniipmt. Bv Maiiy C'hoi.mondelky. The liecipf for IHuiiwikIh. By C. J. ("IT( i.ipfe IItnk. (Jhriftina ("'hard. Bj" .Mrs. Campbell-Puaei). A Gray Eye or So. By Frank Fhankkout Mooke. Earlsamrt. By Alexander Allahdyce. A Marriufje Ceremony. By Ada Camkkidcg. .4 Ward in Chancery. By .Mrn. Alexander. Lot IS. By BOROTUEA (iEHARD. Our Manifold Xafure. By Sarah (Jrand. A Confly Fnak. By Maxwell (Jray. .1 Ihninner. By liitoDA Broimhton. .4 Y'eUow Atiter. By Mrs. Manninuton Caffyn ("Iota"). Tfie liufncon. By K. F. Benson. The Trespasser. By (.Jilbert Parker. The Rich Min^ Hiddell. By Dorothea CiEitAun. Mary Fenivick's Dauqhter. By Beatrice Whitby. Red Dianumds. By Justin McCarthy. A Dauqhler of Music. By G. Coi.more. Outlaiv aniPEROR. Translated' by Clara Bell. 2 volumes. The Burgomaster's Wife. Translated by Mary J. Safford. 1 volume. A W^oRD, ONLY A WoRD. Translated by Mary J. Safford. 1 volume. Serapis. Translated by Clara Bell. ' 1 volume. The Bride of the Nile. Translated by Clara Bell. 2 volumes, Margery, (Gred.) Translated by Clara Bell. 2 volumes. Joshua. Translated by Mary J. Safford. 1 volume. The Elixir, and Other Tales. Translated by Mrs. Edward H. Bell. 1 vol. Each of the above, 16mo, pap'.T cover, 40 cents per volume ; cloth, 75 cents. Set of 22 volumes, cloth, in box, $16.50, Also, 12mo edition of the above (except " A Question," "The Elixir," "Cleo- patra," and " A Thorny Path "), in 8 volumes, cloth, fl.OO each. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 72 Fifth Avenue. D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. NOVELS BY HALL CAINE. T HE MANXMAN. Cloth, $1.50. By Hall Caine. i2mo. force " A story of marvelous drdtiiatic intensity, and in its ethical meaning has a comparable only to Hawthorne's ' Scarlet Letter.' " — lioston Beacon. " A work of power wliich is another stone added to the foundation of enduring fame to which Mr. Caine is yearly adding."— I^uiiic Opinion. " A wonderfully strong study of character; a powerful analysis of those elements which go to make up the strength and weakness of a man, which are at tierce warfare within the same breast : contending against each other, as it were, the one to raise him to fame and power, the other to drag him down to degradation and shame. Never in the whole range of literature have we seen the struggle between these forces for supremacy over the man more powerfully, more realistically delineated, than Mr. Caine pictures it." — Boston Home Journal. " ' The Manxman ' is one of the most notable novels of the year, and is unquestion- ably d'x'tined to perpetuate the fame of Hall Caine for many a year to come."— Fhilo' deiphut. Teltgraih. " The author exhibits a mastery of the elemental passions of life that places him high among the foremost of present writers of ficUon."—PAiiMie/pAia Jnquirtr. T HE DEEMSTER. A Romance of the Isle of Man. By Hall Caine. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 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"Maarten Maartens has secured a firm footing In the eddies of current literature. . . . Pathos deepens into tragedy in the thrilling story of ' God's Fool.'" — PhiladeU phia Ledger. " Its preface alone stamps the author as one of the leading English novelists of to-day." — Boston Daily Advertiser. "The story is wonderfully brilliant. . . . The interest never lags; the style is realistic and intense ; and there is a constantly underlying current of subtle humor. ... It is, in short, a book which no student of modem literature should fail to read." — Boston Times, " A story of remarkable interest and point." — New York Observer, 7 VOST AVELINGH. By Maarten Maartens. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. "So unmist.ikably good as to induce the ho^e that an acquaintance with the Dutch literature of fiction may soon become more general among us." — London Morning Post. " In scarcely any of the sensational novels of the day will the reader find more nature or more human nature."— London Standard. "A novel of a very high type. At once strongly realistic and powerfully ideal- istic." — London Literary World. " Full of local color and rich in quaint phraseology and suggestion." — London Telegraph. " Maarten Maartens is a capital story-teller." — Pall Mall Gazette. "Our English writers of fiction will have to look to their laurels." — Birmingham Daily Pott, New .York : D. APPLETON & CO.. 72 Fifth Avenue. D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 1 R OUND THE RED LAMP. By A. Con an Doyle, author of " The Wliite Company," " The Adventures of Sher- . lock Holmes," "The Refugees," etc. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. The " Red Lamp," the trade-mark, as it were, of the English country practitioner's ofTiri-, is the central |K)int of these dramatic stories o( professional life. '1 iiere are no set rets for the siir^;eon, and, n snrKeoii himself as well as a novelist, the author has made a most artistic use of the motives and springs of action revealed to him in a field of which he is the master. 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"What they see and what they do aie described in a vivacious style which renders the book most valuable to those who wish an interesting Mexican travel-book unencumbered with details, while the story as a story sustains the high reputation of this talented author. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. Hooks uy Mrs. Evekard Cotes (Sara Jf.annktte Duncan). l/ERNON'S AUNT. With many Illustrations. ^ i2mo. Cloth, $1.25. " Her characters, even when broailly ab^iird, arc always consistctit with them* selves, and the stream of fun flows naturally on, hardly ever flaj;i;iiig or forced."- Loh- A DAUGHTER OF TO-DAY. A Novel. Cloth, $1.50. i2nio. " The book is well worth the attention it demnnds, and if the conviction at last slowly dawns upon the reader tlint it ( ontains a purpose, it is one which has bren pro- duced by the inevitable law of rvaclioii, and is cleverly manipulated."- London Atheiiaum. 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" A story which will, from first to last, enlist the sympathies nf the render by its simplicity of style and fresh, genuine feeling. . . . I'hc author is au/ait at the delinea- tion of cnaracter."~/'<'j/<»« Transcript. " The lUnoAment is all that the most ardent romance-reader could desire."— CAi- cago Evening yournal. 7 ^HE THREE MISS KINGS. cents ; cloth, $1.00. i2mo. Paper, 50 " An exceedingly strong novel. It is an Australian story, teeming with a certain calmness of emotional power that finds expression in a continual outflow of living thought and feeling." -Biiston limes. " The story is told with great brilliancy, the charac'er and society sketching is very charming, while delightful inciilents and happy surprises abound. It is a triple love« story, pure in tone, and of very high literary merit." — Chicago Herald. N OT ALL IN VAIN. cloth, $1.00. i2mo. Paper, 50 cents; " A worthy companion to the best of the author's former efforts, and in some re- spects superior to any of them." — Detroit Free Press. " Its surprises areas unexpected as Frank Stockton's, but they are the surprises that are met with so oonstintly in h iman experience. ... A better story has not been published in many moons." — Philadelphia Inquirer. MARRIAGE CEREMONY. cents ; cloth, $1.00. i2mo. Paper, 50 A A '"A Marriage Ceremony' is highly ori^nal in conception, its action graceful though rapid, and its characters sparkling with that life and sprightUness that have made their author rank as a peer of delineators." — Baltimore American. "This story by Ada Cambridge is one of her best, and to say that is to at once award it high ^tMS^fi." -^Boston Advertiser. "It is a pleasure to read this nQvA."—Lontion Athenaum. LITTLE MINX. 12010. Paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $1.00. " A thoroughly charming new novel, which is just the finest bit of work its author has yet accomplished " — Baltimore American. "The character of the ver.<«atile, resilient heroine is especially cleverly drawn."— New York Commercial Advertiser. The English Press on Ada Cambridge's Books. " Many of the types of character introduced would not have disgraced George ItXxoX.:'— Vanity Fair. " Ada Cambridge's book, is rendered attractive by the kindly spirit and fine feeling which it evinces, by the wide and generous sympathies of its author, and no less by her remarkable literary ability."— 7"A* Speaker. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. \ \A ; cloth, ;ader by its the delinea- nn."-CAi. iper, 50 h a certain w of living hingis very triple luve- cents ; n some re- e surpnses IS not been per, 50 n graceful that have to at once ; cloth, its author drawn."— d George ine feeling 10 iess by ;