The Lady of the Aroostook Part 20

The time lagged along toward the moment appointed by the captain, and the preparations for the ship's departure were well advanced, when a boat was seen putting out from sh.o.r.e with two rowers, and rapidly approaching the Aroostook. In the stern, as it drew nearer, the familiar figure of Hicks discovered itself in the act of waving a handkerchief He scrambled up the side of the ship in excellent spirits, and gave Dunham a detailed account of his adventures since they had parted. As always happens with such scapegraces, he seemed to have had a good time, however he had spoiled the pleasure of the others. At tea, when Lydia had gone away, he clapped down a sovereign near Dunham's plate.

"Your five dollars," he said.

"Why, how--" Dunham began.

"How did I get on without it? My dear boy, I sold my watch! A ship's time is worth no more than a setting hen's,--eh, captain?--and why take note of it? Besides, I always like to pay my debts promptly: there's nothing mean about me. I'm not going ash.o.r.e again without my pocket-book, I can tell you." He winked shamelessly at Captain Jenness.

"If you hadn't been along, Dunham, I couldn't have made a raise, I suppose. _You_ wouldn't have lent me five dollars, Captain Jenness."

"No, I wouldn't," said the captain, bluntly.

"And I believe you'd have sailed without me, if I hadn't got back on time."

"I would," said the captain, as before.

Hicks threw back his head, and laughed. Probably no human being had ever before made so free with Captain Jenness at his own table; but the captain must have felt that this contumacy was part of the general risk which he had taken in taking Hicks, and he contented himself with maintaining a silence that would have appalled a less audacious spirit.

Hicks's gayety, however, was not to be quelled in that way.

"Gibraltar wouldn't be a bad place to put up at for a while," he said.

"Lots of good fellows among the officers, they say, and fun going all the while. First-cla.s.s gunning in the Cork Woods at St. Roque. If it hadn't been for the _res angusta domi_,--you know what I mean, captain,--I should have let you get along with your old dug-out, as the gentleman in the water said to Noah." His hilarity had something alarmingly knowing in it; there was a wildness in the pleasure with which he bearded the captain, like that of a man in his first cups; yet he had not been drinking. He played round the captain's knowledge of the sanative dest.i.tution in which he was making the voyage with mocking recurrence; but he took himself off to bed early, and the captain came through his trials with unimpaired temper. Dunham disappeared not long afterwards; and Staniford's vague hope that Lydia might be going on deck to watch the lights of the town die out behind the ship as they sailed away was disappointed. The second mate made a point of lounging near him where he sat alone in their wonted place.

"Well," he said, "he did come back sober."

"Yes," said Staniford.

"Next to not comin' back at all," the mate continued, "I suppose it was the best thing he could do." He lounged away. Neither his voice nor his manner had that quality of disappointment which characterizes those who have mistakenly prophesied evil. Staniford had a mind to call him back, and ask him what he meant; but he refrained, and he went to bed at last resolved to unburden himself of the whole Hicks business once for all.

He felt that he had had quite enough of it, both in the abstract and in its relation to Lydia.

XVI.

Hicks did not join the others at breakfast. They talked of what Lydia had seen at Gibraltar, where Staniford had been on a former voyage.

Dunham had made it a matter of conscience to know all about it beforehand from his guide-books, and had risen early that morning to correct his science by his experience in a long entry in the diary which he was keeping for Miss Hibbard. The captain had the true sea-farer's ignorance, and was amused at the things reported by his pa.s.sengers of a place where he had been ash.o.r.e so often; Hicks's absence doubtless relieved him, but he did not comment on the cabin-boy's announcement that he was still asleep, except to order him let alone.

They were seated at their one o'clock dinner before the recluse made any sign. Then he gave note of his continued existence by b.u.mping and thumping sounds within his state-room, as if some one were dressing there in a heavy sea.

"Mr. Hicks seems to be taking his rough weather retrospectively," said Staniford, with rather tremulous humor.

The door was flung open, and Hicks reeled out, staying himself by the door-k.n.o.b. Even before he appeared, a reek of strong waters had preceded him. He must have been drinking all night. His face was flushed, and his eyes were bloodshot. He had no collar on; but he wove a cravat and otherwise he was accurately and even fastidiously dressed. He balanced himself by the door-k.n.o.b, and measured the distance he had to make before reaching his place at the table, smiling, and waving a delicate handkerchief, which he held in his hand: "Spilt c'logne, tryin' to scent my hic--handkerchief. Makes deuced bad smell--too much c'logne; smells--alcoholic. Thom's, bear a hand, 's good f'low. No? All right, go on with your waitin'. B-ic--business b'fore pleasure, 's feller says.

Play it alone, I guess."

The boy had shrunk back in dismay, and Hicks contrived to reach his place by one of those precipitate dashes with which drunken men attain a point, when the luck is with them. He looked smilingly round the circle of faces. Staniford and the captain exchanged threatening looks of intelligence, while Mr. Watterson and Dunham subordinately waited their motion. But the advantage, as in such cases, was on the side of Hicks.

He knew it, with a drunkard's subtlety, and was at his ease.

"No app't.i.te, friends; but thought I'd come out, keep you from feeling lonesome." He laughed and hiccuped, and smiled upon them all. "Well, cap'n," he continued, "'covered from 'tigues day, sterday? You look blooming's usual. Thom's, pa.s.s the--pa.s.s the--victuals lively, my son, and fetch along coffee soon. Some the friends up late, and want their coffee. Nothing like coffee, carry off'fee's." He winked to the men, all round; and then added, to Lydia: "Sorry see you in this state--I mean, sorry see me--Can't make it that way either; up stump on both routes.

What I mean is, sorry hadn't coffee first. But _you're_ all right--all right! Like see anybody offer you disrespec', 'n I'm around. Tha's all."

Till he addressed her, Lydia had remained motionless, first with bewilderment, and then with open abhorrence. She could hardly have seen in South Bradfield a man who had been drinking. Even in haying, or other sharpest stress of farmwork, our farmer and his men stay themselves with nothing stronger than mola.s.ses-water, or, in extreme cases, cider with a little corn soaked in it; and the Mill Village, where she had taught school, was under the iron rule of a local vote for prohibition. She stared in stupefaction at Hicks's heated, foolish face; she started at his wild movements, and listened with dawning intelligence to his hiccup-broken speech, with its thickened sibilants and its wandering emphasis. When he turned to her, and accompanied his words with a rea.s.suring gesture, she recoiled, and as if breaking an ugly fascination she gave a low, shuddering cry, and looked at Staniford.

"Thomas," he said, "Miss Blood was going to take her dessert on deck to-day. Dunham?"

Dunham sprang to his feet, and led her out of the cabin.

The movement met Hicks's approval. "Tha's right; 'sert on deck, 'joy landscape and pudding together,--Rhine steamer style. All right. Be up there m'self soon's I get my coffee." He winked again with drunken sharpness. "I know wha's what. Be up there m'self, 'n a minute."

"If you offer to go up," said Staniford, in a low voice, as soon as Lydia was out of the way, "I'll knock you down!"

"Captain," said Mr. Watterson, venturing, perhaps for the first time in his whole maritime history, upon a suggestion to his superior officer, "shall I clap him in irons?"

"Clap him in irons!" roared Captain Jenness. "Clap him in bed! Look here, you!" He turned to Hicks, but the latter, who had been bristling at Staniford's threat, now relaxed in a crowing laugh:--

"Tha's right, captain. Irons no go, 'cept in case mutiny; bed perfectly legal 't all times. Bed is good. But trouble is t' enforce it."

"Where's your bottle?" demanded the captain, rising from the seat in which a paralysis of fury had kept him hitherto. "I want your bottle."

"Oh, bottle's all right! Bottle's under pillow. Empty,--empty's Jonah's gourd; 'nother sea-faring party,--Jonah. S'cure the shadow ere the substance fade. Drunk all the brandy, old boy. Bottle's a canteen; 'vantage of military port to houseless stranger. Brought the brandy on board under my coat; n.o.body noticed,--so glad get me back. Prodigal son's return,--fatted calf under his coat."

The reprobate ended his boastful confession with another burst of hiccuping, and Staniford helplessly laughed.

"Do me proud," said Hicks. "Proud, I 'sure you. Gentleman, every time, Stanny. Know good thing when you see it--hear it, I mean."

"Look here, Hicks," said Staniford, choosing to make friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, if any good end might be gained by it. "You know you're drunk, and you're not fit to be about. Go back to bed, that's a good fellow; and come out again, when you're all right. You don't want to do anything you'll be sorry for."

"No, no! No, you don't, Stanny. Coffee'll make me all right. Coffee always does. Coffee--Heaven's lash besh gift to man. 'Scovered subse-subs'quently to grape. See? Comes after claret in course of nature. Captain doesn't understand the 'lusion. All right, captain.

Little learning dangerous thing." He turned sharply on Mr. Watterson, who had remained inertly in his place. "Put me in irons, heh! _You_ put me in irons, you old Triton. Put _me_ in irons, will you?" His amiable mood was pa.s.sing; before one could say so, it was past. He was meditating means of active offense. He gathered up the carving-knife and fork, and held them close under Mr. Watterson's nose. "Smell that!" he said, and frowned as darkly as a man of so little eyebrow could.

At this senseless defiance Staniford, in spite of himself, broke into another laugh, and even Captain Jenness grinned. Mr. Watterson sat with his head drawn as far back as possible, and with his nose wrinkled at the affront offered it. "Captain," he screamed, appealing even in this extremity to his superior, "shall I fetch him _one?_"

"No, no!" cried Staniford, springing from his chair; "don't hit him! He isn't responsible. Let's get him into his room."

"Fetch me _one_, heh?" said Hicks, rising, with dignity, and beginning to turn up his cuffs. "_One_! It'll take more than one, fetch _me_.

Stan' up, 'f you're man enough." He was squaring at Mr. Watterson, when he detected signs of strategic approach in Staniford and Captain Jenness. He gave a wild laugh, and shrank into a corner. "No! No, you don't, boys," he said.

They continued their advance, one on either side, and reinforced by Mr.

Watterson hemmed him in. The drunken man has the advantage of his sober brother in never seeming to be on the alert. Hicks apparently entered into the humor of the affair. "Sur-hic-surrender!" he said, with a smile in his heavy eyes. He darted under the extended arms of Captain Jenness, who was leading the centre of the advance, and before either wing could touch him he was up the gangway and on the deck.

Captain Jenness indulged one of those expressions, very rare with him, which are supposed to be forgiven to good men in moments of extreme perplexity, and Mr. Watterson profited by the precedent to unburden his heart in a paraphrase of the captain's language. Staniford's laugh had as much cursing in it as their profanity.

He mechanically followed Hicks to the deck, prepared to renew the attempt for his capture there. But Hicks had not stopped near Dunham and Lydia. He had gone forward on the other side of the ship, and was leaning quietly on the rail, and looking into the sea. Staniford paused irresolute for a moment, and then sat down beside Lydia, and they all tried to feign that nothing unpleasant had happened, or was still impending. But their talk had the wandering inconclusiveness which was inevitable, and the eyes of each from time to time furtively turned toward Hicks.

For half an hour he hardly changed his position. At the end of that time, they found him looking intently at them; and presently he began to work slowly back to the waist of the ship, but kept to his own side. He was met on the way by the second mate, when nearly opposite where they sat.

"Ain't you pretty comfortable where you are?" they heard the mate asking. "Guess I wouldn't go aft any further just yet."

"_You're_ all right, Mason," Hicks answered. "Going below--down cellar, 's feller says; go to bed."