in the morning mr. waddy awaked, and, looking feebly around, discovered mrs. dempster.
“where is the other?” he asked, half rising and falling back disappointed.
mrs. dempster called her daughter.
miranda came, splendidly fresh from her morning’s duties in full air, and her tawny locks shaken about in dishevelled luxuriance.
“not you,” said mr. waddy, shrinking a little from her lioness aspect. “i want the other. she had a tarpaulin and yellow canvas clothes the first time, and then i saw her again here—i am sure it was here. here! where am i?”
he stopped and looked about him wildly.
“why, you’re in my house,” responded mrs. dempster soothingly, “an’ i hope you’ll make yerself to hum. you’ve been drownded an’ that was miss sullivan that found you. ef she hadn’t been kind er cur’us about goin’ out to see how a storm feels, massy knows where you’d be now.”
[51]“miss sullivan?” repeated mr. waddy. “there is no one of that name who would take any trouble for me.”
“she did take a sight er trouble, though,” said the old lady, “an’ some folks’d be more thankful for ’t than you seem to be. ’tain’t every city lady that’ll go wadin’ ’round an’ resk drownin’ herself to haul out a man. some of them other gals would ’a’ sat down an’ screamed.”
“madam,” said mr. waddy, with weak testiness, “i am not acquainted with miss sullivan and did not ask her to save me.”
“wal, now!” said mrs. dempster to herself. “sakes alive! what an ongrateful critter! i can’t stan’ it; but i s’pose he’s sick and onreasonible.”
so saying she marched out, and clattering pans soon banged a warlike accompaniment to her murmured wrath.
miranda remained, and mr. waddy turned to her in a despairing search for information.
“you are sure that person in the tarpaulin was miss sullivan?” he questioned. “sullivan, i think you said?”
miranda nodded.
“quite certain,” she assured him.
“then,” murmured waddy, “i’ve seen a ghost. i’m insane. i always wished to know what the feeling was. now i have it. bring a strait-jacket, quick! i’m dangerous! hold me!”
[52]and he sank back, looking excessively feeble and quite manageable.
presently he seemed to revive a little.
“miss miranda,” he continued, “how do you suppose i know your name?”
“perhaps you heard mother call me,” she suggested.
“no,” said he, “i heard it in a dream, an exquisite dream, such as may come to us insane men to compensate us for losing our wakeful wits. my dream was this: i thought that i was lying powerless in the dominion of a wonderful delight—a delight not strange, but seemingly familiar as a fulfilled prophecy, whose fulfilment had been forever a lingering certainty. i was lying, trammelled by a willing motionlessness, in the loveliest glade of a wood fresh as paradise. and then my trance, so content with its own happiness, was visited with happiness inexpressibly greater. it seemed that a face, well known, as to dreams of infancy a mother’s sweet watchfulness may be,—that such a face, perhaps my own life-long dream of pureness personified, bent over me and seemed searching through my closed eyes, into my very soul, for the imperishable legends of my better life, written there beneath my earliest and holiest vows. i heard a voice, such as i may have dreamed the voice of an angel, and it said, ‘beautiful world of god! why are we not happy?’ then all the vision faded into dimness[53] and someone like you, you in fact, came between me and the angel, and the voice called you by your name, ‘miranda.’”
“it is a very pretty dream,” said miranda, as he stopped, visibly exhausted, “and truer than most dreams. when we were bringing you up from the beach, we rested several times in the wood, and miss sullivan, who seems to me like an angel, stooped over you to see whether you were reviving at all. i remember, too, that she said something like what you heard.”
“miss sullivan,” repeated mr. waddy, rather crossly; “a very respectable young woman, i’ve no doubt. but i don’t know her—well, i must have been in a trance and seen old visions.”
he remained silent for some time, buried in thought—not pleasant thought, to judge by his countenance.
“princess miranda,” he resumed, at last, “what may be the name of your realm? where am i? is duke prospero without?”
“you’re in father’s house on the island in maine,” answered miranda simply. “there’s father, now, just come back from taking miss sullivan to loggerly.”
“so she’s gone without stopping to see whether i lived or died!” muttered mr. waddy. “i’m glad of it. infernal bore! to have to thank her and pay compliments to some namby-pamby plough-girl.[54] let’s see what i can give her—a six-inch cameo—a copy of tennyson’s poems—an annuity of ten bushels of tracts? she won’t like money—i know these yankee girls. this miranda is another style. by curry!” asseverated he rapturously, “she is as grand as a lioness. singularly like hawkins’s partner in the schooner. ah, those poor fellows! not one of them left, i’m afraid.”
his reverie was interrupted by the entry of old dempster, accompanied by his wife and dan’l.
“wal, sir,” began the former, with brisk heartiness, “i’m glad to see you doin’ better. here’s some money we found in your belt—three hundred an’ fifty dollars. count it, if you please.”
“never mind the money,” said waddy. “i would give that and much more to have news of the vessel i was wrecked in. have you heard anything about her? she was a down east schooner named the billy blue nose.”
“what might the name of her owner be?” asked mr. dempster. “one of my boys has been buyin’ a schooner up to halifax.”
“hawkins was the name; but he had a partner, a very fine young fellow, who told me he lived on this coast. he lashed me to the spar and stayed by me till she struck. his name was dempster—william dempster.”
“mother,” said the old man, very solemnly, after a moment, “it’s our boy willum. he is lost.”
[55]for another moment they were silent, as men are when fatal words have been spoken; then the women’s sobs burst forth.
“there’s no time to cry—not fer us men, at least,” added the father. “i’ve said my prayers, mother, an’ you kin pray while we’re gone. dan’l, you go down to brother jake’s an’ tell him it was willum’s schooner that this man was in. he’d better take the boys an’ go along the rocks west o’ the beach. you come after me down to our p’int—no—you go with brother jake—i want t’ be alone.”
he walked away heavily, as one carrying a great burden. he could have no hope, but that worst assurance of death—the sight of death, of his son lying crushed and drowned on the rocks.
mrs. dempster went to the bed and, stooping over, kissed mr. waddy softly. the poor fellow, weakened by his hurts, struck to the heart by the sorrow he had brought to this family, burst into tears. and to mother and sister, also, came the agonising relief of bitter tears.
mr. waddy was left alone and, overwearied, he slept. and while he slept, life was busy with his frame, renewing it again, rebuilding all its shrines of saintly images, and all its cells where lonely thoughts dwelt sadly. when he awakes, his manfulness will avail that he may again take up the old burdens, which he had, in his dream, laid down.
[56]all that day the father searched along the shore, seeking what he feared to find. he did not speak, but all the while his heart was calling upon one name; and there was no reply. he wandered along the jagged rocks of the harsh, iron coast, little coves and clefts interrupting his progress. into every one of these he must peer shrinkingly, seeing in each, in a hasty vision of the mind, a form he knew, caught in the sheltered shallows and swaying heavily as the tide poured in over dyke of rock or strip of shining sand. he swung himself from crag to dangerous crag, recklessly—yet not recklessly, even in spots of desperate peril, but saving strength and untremulous vigour of hand and limb; for at any moment there might be for him a burden to bear, tenderly, lovingly, bitterly.
at times he would pause and look long and earnestly out upon the sea. the glitter of summer sunshine overspread its surface. multitudes of brilliant sails, crowded by distance, came and went, and as they passed, he might imagine the cheery hail of whence and whither, and the wish from each to each of fortunate voyage. but his look did not rest on them; he was studying each hither surge, as it mounted and sank away—looking for something that was never heaved up by any sunlit billow, and that to see among the quick swoopings of seagulls would have been to him a horror and a shuddering despair.
[57]father and brother and kinsmen sought the lost in vain; while in vain the mother and the sister prayed as they waited tearfully. but there was no answer to their prayers, save that universal cruel one, “be patient! yes, be patient!”
