Maid of the Mist Part 57

If he had rejoiced in her before, and loved her with a love akin to pain in the repression he subjected it to, he loved her now a thousand times more, and she filled him with a joy that knew no bounds. Time, he said to himself, would not suffice for all their love, it would fill eternity.

The days were never long enough for them. In this new joy of life and perfected fellowship they forgot their years at times, and were like a pair of children, endowed with the freedom of time and s.p.a.ce and hearts attuned to the most perfect enjoyment of these new attributes.

They made long journeys and explored every inch of their territory--sleeping out at times in the side of a sandhill under the soft summer night. And those were wondrous times.

--To lie there flat on their blanket, side by side, chin in hand like children, his arm about her, and watch the red sun sink into the water at the end of his fiery trail, while all the sky above burned crimson right into the east behind them.--To watch, with bated breath, the rabbits creeping out to feed and frolic about them, all unconscious of their presence.--To lie and watch the colours fade slowly in the darkening sky, and the stars come out till the whole dark dome was a never-failing marvel of delight.--Or, on the other sh.o.r.e, to lie and watch the moonbeams dancing on the sleeping bosom of the sea.--To feel oneself oneself in the midst of it all--a part of it all--the height and the width and the immensity and wonder of it all.--To feel his arm enfolding her, and all that that meant to them both.--To feel the warmth of life, and all the mighty joy of it, throbbing in her slender body as he drew her closer.--To know, as he knew, that G.o.d lived and had given her to him, and that she loved him with every fibre of her being, as he loved her....

Happy? At times, so full was her heart that she wondered if such happiness was right for mortals to enjoy, and so, if it could last.

And when she shared that with him, as they shared everything in common, he reasoned her back to comfort.

"Happiness and health are life's proper conditions," he a.s.serted, with such hearty conviction that her doubts hid their heads. "Sorrow and sickness come of trespa.s.s, somehow, somewhere, somewhen, though it is not always easy to trace them back to first causes. But, without doubt, people were meant to be as healthy and happy as it is possible for them to be."

"But I have known people suffer who, I am sure, never did any wrong--none, that is, deserving of suffering such as they had. In fact," she mused, "it seems to me that the good people suffer most and the wicked prosper."

"That is as we judge. But we see only the outsides of things and we are purblind at best. Nature has certain laws, and G.o.d has certain laws--though a parson could tell you more about these than I can. And if those laws are broken the results have to be borne, and sometimes they run on and on and fall on innocent people."

"It doesn't seem very fair."

"The laws cannot be altered for individuals or exceptional cases.

Fathers sin and the children suffer. But the blame is the fathers'."

"Yes," she nodded, and perhaps she was thinking of her own case.

"So you've no need to fear being as happy as you can," he added quickly. "G.o.d meant you for happiness, and truly, I think we have more certainty of it here than we might have had elsewhere."

"I am sure of it and I am happy," and she nestled still closer under his folding arm.

But they had their strenuous working times as well, and enjoyed them equally. He developed his new-found capacity for carpentering. Made her more chairs and a table, added to the comfort of their house in many ways. And she kept it all in perfect order, and attended to the cooking, and proved herself a most admirable housewife and helpmate.

They were down almost to fundamentals. Their life--partaking as it did of the development of the ages, and so of the wider freedom of thought and feeling, was the life of the ancients and not far from idyllic.

The hunter went forth to the chase--though it was only rabbits--and the fisherman to the lake, and brought home his spoils to his waiting mate, and they ate of them and were content.

They enjoyed the most perfect health, and for society they had one another and desired no more--at all events, no outsiders.

They had storms and mists and spells of dull weather, but their house was proof against all a.s.sault from without, and warm and bright with their abounding love. They had fire and light and books and themselves, and always in time the sun shone out again, and they enjoyed it the more perhaps for its frequent defaults.

They had their trying times too. Stores had to be replenished from the pile, and, after that dreadful experience before they were married, she would not be left behind.

"I do not care what happens if we are together," she said. "The worst that could happen would be nothing compared with that other time," and he could not gainsay her.

So whenever he had to go she went also, and they chose their day with care and made a picnic of it, and came home laden with spoils.

Only once they got caught by one of those swift-travelling mists which seemed to spring from nowhere. It swept over them just as they were preparing to leave, and in the twinkling of an eye they were prisoners, bound clammily to the pile till it should pa.s.s. For in that close-clinging bank, as thick as wet cotton-wool, all sense of direction was gone in a moment. They could not see a foot before them, the pile was pitted with death-traps, a step might be fatal.

They had both come lightly clad, for the day had been warm and the wreckage claimed unhampered limbs.

Fortunately they had come upon a case of blankets during their operations.

"Sit you down here," he said, as he felt her shivering under his arm, "And I'll get you some blankets."

"You won't get yourself lost?" she asked anxiously.

"Not if you will keep calling to me," and he crawled away in search of the case, while she sat calling, "Wulf ... Wulf ... Wulf," and he answered her, "Avice ... Avice ... Avice," and at last a shout, "I've got it."

And presently his m.u.f.fled "Avice ... Avice ... Avice," drew near again, and he loomed through the fog like a creeping ghost, and taking her arm they crept together from blanket to blanket, which he had spread as a guide, till they came to the case itself. He hauled out more of its contents till there was room inside for both of them, and they crawled into their nest and in time got warm and comfortable.

The fog showed no sign of lifting, so before it got quite dark he crawled out again, she calling to him as before, and found a cask of rum, of which there was always plenty about, and one of pork, and on these they supped as best they could.

The writhing and creaking of the pile, as the tide rose and fell, caused her some alarm. But he explained it all to her, and after a time she fell asleep with his arm about her, and they were wakened to a clear bright morning by the shrieking and squabbling of the birds over the barrel of pork, which he had left standing open.

The barrel itself and all the pile adjacent seemed suddenly to have sprouted feathers. It was alive with fiercely-beating wings and jerking feathered necks and squirming feathered bodies, and cold hard little gla.s.sy eyes, and cruel rending beaks, and shrill angry cries.

"How hideous they are!" she said, shrinking back into the case.

"It is the great fight for life. They seem always hungry."

The barrel stood on end. The fortunate ones among the feathered pirates wormed themselves in, and tore and rent at the food, regardless of the shrill expostulations of their fellows and the beaks and claws that tore and rent at them in turn, till the barrel itself was lost under a seething ma.s.s of shrieking, fiercely-struggling birds. They pecked at one another's gla.s.sy eyes, they struck wildly with their wings, they clawed with somewhat futile feet, and all the time screamed at the tops of their voices as though they were trying who could scream the loudest.

"I wish they'd empty it and go," said she, and he wrenched down a slat of wood and leaned out with a blanket over his head and arm, and succeeded at last in tipping the barrel over, and pork and pirates rolled out together.

It was all cleaned up in five minutes and the cloud drifted away after other prey. The disappointed ones swooped round the empty barrel for a time, and some of the bolder, or more hungry, or least intelligent, came fluttering at the opening in the blanket-box as though set on fresh meat at any cost, and he had to beat them back with his slat. It was only when a score or more were flopping brokenly about the pile in front of the box that the rest grew tired of so losing a game and sped away to join the main body. As soon as the way was clear, he helped her out of her nest and they got to their raft, and eventually safely home.

But that was only an incident, though it confirmed her dislike and dread of the pile. She still always insisted on going with him when he had to go, and at such times they laboured long and hard, and got in supplies enough for many weeks, and so went out there as seldom as possible.

LXII

So, working, wandering, bathing, reading, hunting, fishing, eating, sleeping, with hearts and minds stripped bare to one another and every thought in common, they lived that first golden year of their married life, and grew into still closer fellowship and communion, into still clearer understanding of one another, into still greater love,--although, at the beginning, all this would have seemed to them impossible. But there are always heights and depths beyond, and will be, until the final heights are scaled--and doubtless even then also.

And now, to one such depth and height they were drawing near, with a touch of not unnatural fear on her part, as to an experience unknown and invested with all the possibilities of life and death, and new life.

He cheered her with his own great confidence; and her reliance on his professional knowledge, and the love he bore her, comforted her mightily. But they both knew full well that, given all the knowledge and love in the world, the certain issue of this great matter still lay beyond the utmost power of man; and it sent them to their knees and brought them nigher heaven than ever in their lives before.

It also set her very busily to work on tiny garments, which she had to contrive as best she could from her very scant materials. And it set him to the making of a cradle out of a very carefully-cleaned and sand-scrubbed pork-barrel, which turned out an immense success and filled him with great pride of accomplishment.

She was in the very best of health, without a trouble on her mind, and rejoicing more than ever in his joy and pride in her. And these and the free open-air life they led all made for good. He would not permit her a despondent thought, though as the time drew near she not seldom, for his sake, a.s.sumed a braver and more cheerful aspect than her heart actually warranted.

But all went well, and within a day or two of the anniversary of their wedding-day, their son, Wulfrey, was born and proved himself at once a true Islander, l.u.s.ty both of lung and limb.

Prouder and happier father and mother, and more wonderful baby, it is safe to say that island never saw. And if their days had been full of delight before, the coming of Little Wulf filled them quite three times as full. For there was Little Wulf's own happiness, which was patent to all,--and his mother's rapture in him, and his father's,--and his father's mighty joy in them both,--and her joy in his joy,--and so on all round the compa.s.s;--and deep below and high above and all through it all, their unbounded thankfulness for safe deliverance from peril.

If he had admired and loved her as a maid, and loved and rejoiced in her as a wife,--as mother of his child he found himself at times dumb with excess of delight. He could only sit and watch, with worshipful eyes, and newer and deeper thoughts of that other Mother, and of The Child whose coming had transformed the world.

She got out the treasured old Prayer-book, and they read over him as much as seemed applicable to his case of the Ministration of Private Baptism of Infants, and then inscribed on the fly-leaf, under the record of their marriage, his name, Wulfrey Drummond Dale, and the date of his birth as nearly as they knew it--with the same pen as before, in the same red ink, and from the same glad source.