Hills of the Shatemuc Part 131

"He has to do with everything, just now," said Clam. "I wish the now'd last for ever!"

"How can we go to-night? -- the boats and the stages and all don't set off so late."

"Boats don't stop near Wutsey Qutsey," said Clam.

Mrs. Nettley went off to make her own preparations.

When Mr. Landholm came again, after an interval of some length, he came with a carriage.

"Are you ready, Mrs. Nettley?" he said looking into that lady's quarters.

"In a little bit, Mr. Landholm! --"

Whereupon he went up-stairs.

"If you wish to go to Wut-a-qut-o, Miss Elizabeth," he said, "my friend Mrs. Nettley will go with you and stay with you, till you have made other arrangements. I can answer for her kindness of heart, and un.o.btrusive manners, and good sense.

Would you like her for a companion?"

"I would like anybody -- that you can recommend."

"My friend Cowslip's little sloop sets sail for the neighbourhood of Wut-a-qut-o this evening."

"Oh thank you! --Will she take us?"

"If you wish it."

"Oh thank you! --"

"Would you not be better to wait till to-morrow? -- I can make the sloop wait."

"Oh no, let us go," said Elizabeth rising. "But your friend is very good -- your friend who is going with me, I mean."

"Mrs. Nettley. But you need not move yet -- rest while you can."

"Rest!" -- said Elizabeth. And tears said what words did not.

"There is only one rest," said Winthrop gravely; "and it is in Christ's hand. 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST.'" --

Elizabeth's sobs were bitter. Her counsellor added no more however; he left the room after a little while, and soon returned to tell her that all was ready. She was ready too by that time.

"But Mr. Winthrop," she said looking at him earnestly, "is everything here so that you can leave it?"

She dared not put the whole of her meaning into words. But Winthrop understood, and answered a quiet "yes;" and Elizabeth lowered her veil and her head together and let him lead her to the carriage.

A few minutes brought them to the pier at the end of which the Julia Ann lay.

"You're sharp upon the time, Mr. Landholm," said her master; -- "we're just goin' to cast off. But we shouldn't have done it, nother, till you come. All right!"

"Is all right in the cabin?" said Winthrop as they came on board.

"Well, it's slicked up all it could be on such short notice,"

said the skipper. "I guess you wont have to live in it long; the wind's coming up pretty smart ahind us. Haul away there! -- "

It was past six o'clock, and the August sun had much lessened of its heat, when, as once before with Mr. Landholm for a pa.s.senger, the Julia Ann stood out into the middle of the river with her head set for the North.

Mrs. Nettley and Clam hid themselves straightway in the precincts of the cabin. Elizabeth stood still where she had first placed herself on the deck, in a cold abstracted sort of carelessness, conscious only that her protector was standing by her side, and that she was not willing to lose sight of him. The vessel, and her crew, and their work before her very eyes, she could hardly be said to see. The sloop got clear of the wharf and edged out into the mid-channel, where she stood bravely along before the fair wind. Slowly the trees and houses along sh.o.r.e were dropped behind, and fresher the wind and fairer the green river-side seemed to become. Elizabeth's senses hardly knew it, or only in a kind of underhand way; not recognized.

"Will you go into the cabin? or will you have a seat here?"

she heard Winthrop say.

Mechanically she looked about for one. He brought a chair and placed her in it, and she sat down; choosing rather the open air and free sky than any shut-up place, and his neighbourhood rather than where he was not; but with a dulled and impa.s.sive state of feeling that refused to take up anything, past, present or future. It was not rest, it was not relief, though there was a seeming of rest about it. She knew then it would not last. It was only a little lull between storms; the enforced quiet of wearied and worn-out powers. She sat mazily taking in the sunlight, and the view of the sunlighted earth and water, the breath of the sweeping fresh air, the creaking of the sloop's cordage, in the one consciousness that Winthrop kept his place at her side all this time. How she thanked him for that! though she could not ask him to sit down, nor make any sort of a speech about it.

Down went the sun, and the shadows and the sunlight were swept away together; and yet fresher came the sweet wind. It was a sort of consolation to Elizabeth, that her distress gave Winthrop a right and a reason to attend upon her; she had had all along a vague feeling of it, and the feeling was very present now. It was all of comfort she could lay hold of; and she clutched at it with even then a foreboding sense of the desolation there would be when that comfort was gone. She had it now; she had it, and she held it; and she sat there in her chair on the deck in a curious half stupor, half quiet, her mind clinging to that one single point where it could lean.

There came a break-up however. Supper was declared to be ready; and though n.o.body but Winthrop attended the skipper's table, Elizabeth was obliged to take some refreshments of her own, along with a cup of the sloop's tea, which most certainly she would have taken from no hand but the one that presented it to her. And after it, Elizabeth was so strongly advised to go to the cabin and take some rest, that she could not help going; resting, she had no thought of. Her companions were of easier mind; for they soon addressed themselves to such sleeping conveniencies as the little cabin could boast. Miss Haye watched them begin and end their preparations and bestow themselves in resting positions to sleep; and then drawing a breath of comparative rest herself, she placed herself just within the cabin threshold, on the floor, where she could look out and have a good view of the deck through the partly open door.

It was this night as on the former occasion, a brilliant moonlight; and the vessel had no lamps up to hinder its power.

The mast and sails and lines stood out in sharp light and shadow. The man at the helm Elizabeth could not see; the moonlight poured down upon Winthrop, walking slowly back and forth on the deck, his face and figure at every turn given fully and clearly to view. Elizabeth herself was in shadow; he could not look within the cabin door and see her; she could look out and see him right well, and she did. He was pacing slowly up and down, with a thoughtful face, but so calm in its thoughtfulness that it was a grievous contrast to Elizabeth's own troubled and tossed nature. It was all the more fascinating to her gaze; while it was bitter to her admiration. The firm quiet tread, -- the manly grave repose of the face, -- spoke of somewhat in the character and life so unlike what she knew in her own, and so beautiful to her sense of just and right, that she looked in a maze of admiration and self-condemning; rating herself lower and lower and Winthrop higher and higher, at every fair view the moonlight gave, at every turn that brought him near or took him further from her.

And tears -- curious tears -- that came from some very deep wells of her nature, blinded her eyes, and rolled hot down her cheeks, and were wiped away that she might look. "What shall I do when he gets tired of that walk and goes somewhere else?" -- she thought; and with the thought, as instantly, Elizabeth gathered herself up from off the floor, wiped her cheeks from the tears, and stepped out into the moonlight. "I can't say anything, but I suppose he will," was her meditation. "n.o.body knows when I shall have another chance." --

"They could not make it comfortable for you in there?" said Winthrop coming up to her.

"I don't know -- yes, -- I have not tried."

"Are you very much fatigued?"

"I suppose so. -- I don't feel it."

"Can I do anything for you?"

The real answer nearly burst Elizabeth's bounds of self- control, but nevertheless her words were quietly given.

"Yes, -- if you will only let me stay out here a little while."

He put a chair for her instantly, and himself remained standing near, as he had done before.

"Walk on, if you wish," said Elizabeth. "Don't mind me."

But instead of that he drew up another chair, and sat down.

There was silence then that might be felt. The moonlight poured down noiselessly on the water, and over the low dusky distant sh.o.r.e; the ripples murmured under the sloop's prow; the wind breathed gently through the sails. Now and then the creak of the rudder sounded, but the very stars were not more calmly peaceful than everything else.

"There is quiet and soothing in the speech of such a scene as this," Winthrop said after a time.

"Quiet!" said Elizabeth. Her voice choked, and it was a little while before she could go on. -- "Nothing is quiet to a mind in utter confusion."

"Is yours so?"