Maid of the Mist Part 58

And now indeed their days were full, and their nights, for Master Wulfrey had an appet.i.te that brooked no waiting, and he ruled that household with a l.u.s.ty pair of lungs against which even equinoctial gales strove in vain.

But it was all part of the price of their joy in him, and they paid it joyfully; and he repaid them tenfold by simply being alive and permitting them to watch his vigorous kickings as he lay naked on a blanket at their feet in the sunshine.

Avice was speedily herself again, herself and so very much more. In his rejoicing eyes all her beauty was clarified, dignified, emphasised manifold, in a way that he would not have believed possible.

It was his turn now, in spite of all his philosophy,--and at times hers again also--to marvel at all that had been vouchsafed them, and to wonder, with a fleeting touch of fear, if happiness so great could possibly last.

The sense of the mighty responsibility their love entailed was upon them. Suppose, by any dire misfortune, he were to be taken away,--what would happen to them? He believed her capable of rising to the occasion for the boy's sake and doing man's work in his place, but it would be a desperately hard fight for her. Suppose they should be taken from him--either, both. G.o.d!--he could spare the boy best, but it would be terrible to lose either.

And suppose, thought she in turn, either of themselves should be taken!

Suppose they should both be taken!--Well, in that case the poor little fellow would linger behind but a very short time. They would soon all be together again.

But such black thoughts, natural as they were, inevitable almost, still partook, to both their minds, of basest ingrat.i.tude and lack of trust.

And yet they did high service, for, when they came upon them their souls went down on their knees, and there they found strength and joyousness again.

Little Wulf--but they very early began to call him Cubbie, it seemed so appropriate--fulfilled all the promise of his advent. He was a marvellous child. He crawled vigorously at nine months, and headed straight across the soft yellow sand for the water, like a true Islander, born of freedom and the open air and the sunshine, the moment he discovered this new power. And they followed him, foot by foot, with beaming faces, as he wallowed along like a well-developed white frog, digging his little snub nose into the sand at times, but gurgling and laughing all the same, and struggling on without a look to right or left, intent only on the water in front.

At the lip of the tide, where it came creaming up the beach in long soft swirls of amber, laced with bubbles and edged with filmy foam, she was for s.n.a.t.c.hing him up. But Wulf stayed her. He wanted to see what the boy would do.

He was no stranger to cold water, but he had so far met it only in a tub, never in such quant.i.ty as this. He crawled on along the wet sand and the soft swirl came rushing up to welcome him. It was quite two inches deep. It filled him with astonishment and took away his breath.

Everything under him seemed on the move. He stiffened for a second on his front paws, gave a huge bellow of amazement, tried to grab the back-streaming water with both hands as a cat pounces on a mouse, and then set off after it at top speed, and was swung up into the air by his delighted father, and held there, kicking and crowing, and striving still after the enchanted water below.

"He'll do," laughed Wulf. "He'll swim as soon as he can walk. The first native! And a credit to the Island!"

Golden days! If the first year of their married life was all pure gold, this second was gold overlaid with jewels of rare delight. Every moment of it was happiness unalloyed. The boy throve mightily. Avice was in the best of health and spirits, and to the eyes of her lover grew more beautiful with every day that pa.s.sed.

What more could the soul of man desire?

LXIII

Their Wulf Cub was fifteen months old, and could swim like a fish, and run like a free-born savage, and talk in a jargon of his own which was yet quite understandable to his parents, when his sister Avice came on the scene. She took after her mother, and her father vowed there never had been such a lovely child born into this world before.

Their patriarchal life flowed on, deepening and widening, as it went, and so far without any break in its smooth-swelling current. The great gales, to which they had grown accustomed, piled up ever-increasing supplies for them. Within certain narrow bounds they knew no lack, nor would they though they lived there for a hundred years. On great occasions the wreckage even yielded them luxuries of the commonplace which in the former life they had looked upon as ordinary adjuncts to a meal and accepted perfunctorily, without a thought of special thankfulness. But here they were rarities, priceless delicacies to be held in esteem and made the most of. Apples for example. Once their western point was strewn thick with what seemed a whole ship-load of delicious red apples. They had probably been packed in frail barrels or cases which the waves made short work of, and the birds were fortunately away. They spent days carrying them up above tide-level and then transporting them home, and revelled in apples for weeks till their stock went bad. Another time it was potatoes, which they had not tasted for over three years. Wulf declared it was almost worth while to have been denied them so long, to find such new relish in them now.

Avice regretted, for the children's sakes, that they could not have them all the time.

And that set him to planting a quant.i.ty in some of the damp bottoms by the water-pools. They came up all right, but the rabbits cleared the green shoots as fast as they appeared. Upon that he fenced off a patch with some of his superfluous raft timber and planted more, and succeeded in raising a small crop, but they were a degenerate race, lacking the good soil which had gone to the making of their ancestors.

Curiously enough, that fact started into expression trains of thought that had been latent in both their minds.

He had come in exultantly with his first fruits of the potato-patch, Cubbie at his heels proudly bearing one in each hand, and Avice cooked them rejoicingly and p.r.o.nounced them excellent.

"It will be so delightful to have potatoes again," said she.

But he was critical of his own production, as the author of a work--even though it be but a potato--may be allowed to be. "They have neither the texture nor the flavour of the original stock," he said.

"I suppose they need better soil than our old sandbank can afford them,"--and his eyes happened to fall on Cubbie munching away at a potato, and hers lighted on the dark little head in her arm. The same thought p.r.i.c.ked both their hearts and their eyes met with understanding.

As with potatoes--so with children. He and she, growths of the larger world, had found unlooked-for happiness through the accident of their transplantation to this outer isle. But they brought with them the strength of heart and mind that had come to them through contact with that other world. In many respects it was a vain and hollow world.

The change had made entirely for their good and happiness.

But--these little ones! ... Were they to be condemned for ever to the sweet narrow groove of this island life, which to their father and mother, by reason of the wonder of their love, had been like Paradise?

To the children no such transformation, no such veritable transfiguration of life as had been theirs would be possible.

They could, indeed, teach them all they knew themselves--all the essentials at all events. They could train their hearts and brains to highest things. But in time the children would feel what the island life entailed and denied them--what their lives were missing. The higher their development the keener would be their regrets.

"Dear," he said, clasping her closer, as she lay in the hollow of his arm before the fire that night, "I know what you are thinking. It came on me, and it came to you, when I was criticising those degenerate potatoes."

"I suppose it must have been lurking somewhere in my heart," she said quietly. "But it all came on me with a rush as you spoke. You and I desire no better. It has been wonderful ... perfect happiness. But for them...."

"Yes," he said soberly. "For them it would be different. For them we desire the very best. And here they cannot get it."

And so they were face to face with the mighty problem which thenceforth must of necessity be constantly in their minds and hearts.

For themselves, all that the outside world could give them could add no whit to their perfect content and happiness.

But for the children's sakes ... how to cross that treacherous hundred miles of sea which barred the way to the wider--in some respects wider,--to the larger--in some respects larger,--to the questionably happier life, which yet these newcomers must prove for themselves, as was their right?

They discussed it quietly and at great length that night, but could see no way out, and for the moment he could find no further comfort for her than this--and yet it was much,--"Providence, which has done so much for us," said he, "may in time do this also. Meanwhile the Island life is all to the good for them. They are splendid little specimens, and if they run wild and free for some years they will reap the benefit all their lives. We will hope and pray, and puzzle our brains for them."

Hope they did. And pray they did. But no amount of brain-puzzling afforded them any solution of their difficulty.

Nothing in the shape of a boat had ever come ash.o.r.e, and he had neither the tools nor the skill to build one. And if he had done he would not have dared to risk his wife and children in it for so doubtful a voyage.

Wild ideas came upon him of constructing a raft stout enough for such a journey and venturing on it himself, leaving Avice and the children, fully provided for, to await his return with succour. But he knew she would never hear of such madness, so sent it to limbo with the rest.

He took to lighting huge fires of timber from the pile, as he had done more than once before, but the wood burned brightly, with splendid crackings and spittings which set Master Cubbie dancing with delight, and the volume of smoke was trifling. It occurred to Wulf also that no matter how dense a smoke he could raise it would, if seen at all, be probably taken only for the cloud of sea-birds which were doubtless known to mariners and avoided like death itself--when avoidance was possible to them.

That every ship that could do so kept well away from their notorious bank was evident, for they had never set eyes on a single sail since they landed. Of course their ordinary range from the level could not be more than four or five miles, he supposed; and even from their highest hill, which he reckoned to be sixty to eighty feet, they would see but twice as far;--and nothing came so close to Sable Island as that if it could help it.

Still wilder ideas he had,--of tying messages to some of the birds'

legs--but they were such a vicious set that he knew they would get rid of them at once,--of nailing messages to boards, to empty casks, to anything that would float--but he knew they might float for a score of years and never be found, even if the seas did not strip them within a week.

He was reduced at last to that certainty of knowledge which it is always of highest benefit to man to attain,--that in this matter he was as helpless as a child in arms. He could do absolutely nothing that was of the slightest avail. And so he was thrown back upon, and led and lifted up to, that complete and perfect trust in a Higher Power which is the measure of a man's understanding of the great lesson of life.

LXIV

They had been five years on the Island. Little Wulf was three, Avice two,--as healthy and handsome youngsters as the world could show.

Life had been all joyous to them. All the year round, except just now and again when unusual drift of ice came rustling and grinding about their island, they trotted about with almost nothing on. They swam before they could walk, and now were in and out of the water a dozen times a day, and so they regarded clothing of any kind as a hindrance to pure enjoyment and freedom of action, and their mother judged it well to insist on no more than the most reasonable minimum.

They never lacked friends or company, though truly the friendship was mostly on their side and provokingly lacking in mutuality. Rabbits and seals, especially baby-rabbits and baby-seals, were the chiefest objects of their young affections, and they were sorely disappointed at the small response their proffered friendship evoked. On crabs this could be enforced by capture and imprisonment, but they found them cold-blooded, impa.s.sive playfellows, of altogether too-retiring dispositions, and only to be stirred into display of their natural abilities by provocation. Sea-birds were just as bad in a different way, and fishes were altogether too elusive until you wanted to eat them, when a baited hook did the trick in a moment.