The Opened Shutters Part 14

Cap'n Lem sat halfway around in his seat in order to converse on farm matters, and Sylvia enjoyed the spring beauty about her as they drove out of the little town and took the country road.

"How's the jedge?" asked the captain at last.

"He's well. Told me to tell you he'd be after you for lobsters before long."

The old man gave a toothless smile. "Miss Lacey smaht?" he inquired.

"I suppose so. I didn't see her this time."

Sylvia's eyes began to look startled and questioning. Old Lem met her gaze. "Ye've got the same name," he remarked curiously, as the fact occurred to him, "same as Miss Marthy. Miss Marthy ain't no kin to you, is she, Thinkright?"

"No, except through this child. This little girl is a link."

"The missin' link, eh?" returned Cap'n Lem. "Well, all I kin say is she don't look it," and his shoulders twitched with delight. "The missin'

link," he repeated from time to time, the utterance being always followed by a fresh convulsion of mirth as his sea-blue eyes roved to the visitor's grave face.

"Do they come here, Cousin Jacob?" asked Sylvia uneasily, under cover of the rattle of the wagon, "Uncle Calvin and Aunt Martha?"

"Yes, sometimes."

"Will they be likely to, soon?" asked the girl, her face hardening.

Her cousin shook his head, and she saw compa.s.sion in his shining gaze.

"Don't fret about that," he said quietly. "Hot weather in the towns is a long way off yet."

"What'd the jedge say in the matter o' the new shed?" asked Lem, when he had somewhat recovered from the enjoyment of his joke.

"He said he thought we'd better have the old one shingled."

"Turrible short-sighted, that's what I say," grumbled the old man; "but he ain't ever fer branchin' out, the jedge ain't. Why didn't ye talk him over to it, Thinkright?"

"I didn't feel strongly about it. He'd do it if I urged him; but it's just as you say, he doesn't want to branch out. The place serves his purpose as it is, and while he owns it he'll keep it just as compact as it is now."

"What judge are you talking about?" asked Sylvia.

"Jedge Trent, of course," replied Cap'n Lem. "There hain't never ben a time when he wa'n't as sot as the everlastin' hills."

"Judge Trent is this child's uncle," said Jacob Johnson.

"No offense, no offense," remarked Cap'n Lem equably. "Seems if she's related to a lot o' folks," he added, and at this moment a team of colts came prancing around a curve in the road, trying their best with every nervous spring to escape their driver's control. Cap'n Lem's heavy horses shrank and shied, then as the others clattered by they resumed their steady gait. The old man turned and saw the white, fixed look in Sylvia's face.

"They wouldn't do nawthin'," he declared consolingly. "They're both powerful mawdrate hosses. Besides,"--the speaker stole a half-mischievous, half-shy look at her companion,--"Thinkright'll tell ye it's one o' the seven deadly sins to be skeered of anythin' that's in heaven above, or the earth beneath, or the sea that in them is."

The curving road was leading up a hill. The gray horses soon began to draw their burden at a walk, and when they reached the summit they stopped, for it was a time-honored observance for them to catch their breath at this point, as it was for the pa.s.sengers, if strangers, to hold theirs.

The grandeur hitherto concealed by earth and forest suddenly broke into view. A limitless expanse of sea lay revealed, pierced by points of fir-crowned land that drove rock ledges into the liquid blue. Sylvia gazed fascinated at the snowy froth tossing itself against every gray point. Islands of varied shapes rose here and there, some tree-covered, some bare mounds of green, studding the rolling sapphire distances, and the girl's breast rose involuntarily to meet the untold miles of sparkling motion and the free, fresh, sunlit air. Her hands clasped together, and Jacob Johnson watched her white face with its wide eyes and mute lips.

The exceptional beauty of the May day caused even Cap'n Lem to expend silent approval on the familiar scene. He waited for a longer period than usual before he clucked to the horses, and they began a cautious descent of the winding road, their heavy hind-quarters braced almost against the wagon in their experience of sundry rolling stones.

"Hahnsome weather, surely," he remarked.

"I've never, never dreamed of anything like it," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sylvia, and relapsed into dumbness.

Her host smiled, well pleased.

As the road descended to a level it approached the water of a small bay whose sheltered reaches watered a luxuriant evergreen growth among which appeared an occasional birch. These adorned the sloping bank, interspersed with rock, and turned the blue depths to green as they leaned toward the water as if in the effort to catch their own lovely reflections.

"We'll get out here and walk up to the house, Cap'n," said Thinkright.

"Tell Mrs. Lem we'll be there by supper time. We had our luncheon on the road."

Sylvia took the hand her host offered in silence, and jumped out of the wagon. Cap'n Lem clucked to the horses again, and they rattled away.

"Why does he call you Thinkright?" the girl asked abruptly, as her companion paused on a clearing in the gra.s.sy bank to let her view the picture before them.

Jacob Johnson smiled. "They rather like nicknames in this part of the world," he answered. "I didn't realize how much I used the expression until all the neighbors began to label me. I knew I was always trying to be on the mental watch, and what is much in the mind will out, I suppose. How do you like this basin? We think it very pretty."

Apparently it was an inland lake that lay at their feet, sparkling and rippling in the triumphant fullness of the tide. At the point where the curving sh.o.r.e ran out to sea stood a large deserted tide mill on posts, midway in the water. Its shuttered windows looked like eyes closed against the surrounding beauty, and seemed protesting against the witnesses of its failure. Twice every day, like a tumultuous rushing river the tide poured water into the s.p.a.cious basin, until its ripples clambered ten feet toward the eagerly bending trees, and later the capricious flood rushed back to the bosom of the sea. There had been enormous power at work under the old mill. What was lacking that it had fallen into disuse and closed its eyes upon an unappreciative world?

"It's a picturesque place, eh, Sylvia?" Thinkright repeated his question as she gazed and kept silence.

"Yes," she replied, "but the view above was--there aren't words."

"True;" her companion nodded. "You see a farm wouldn't do well at such a height, so we have to come down to shorter views and shorter distances; but it's a great thing to know that all the grandeur is there. We've seen it, and we know we've seen it, and we can't forget it; it's an inspiration to us. It takes a lot of wisdom to sail out on that ocean you saw up there, to avoid the ledges and to manage wisely in the winds; but to sail or row about on this basin is within the power of most landlubbers. Nature's always reading us life lessons, Sylvia, always."

"I'm not one of the afraid kind," returned the girl, with a toss of her head. "I only wish I had a chance to go out on that ocean."

"Yes, I know. On the stage, for instance," returned her companion. "The ledges and the squalls have no terrors for you."

"I hope I have some brains and some common sense," she answered.

Thinkright laid a kind hand on her shoulder. "It's perfectly true that neither ledge nor wind could harm you if you knew why. Daniel was safe in the lions' den, but it was because he knew why."

At the touch of his hand the girl shrunk away, and he instantly dropped it. Her blue eyes met his now, dark and cold. "I have found that you don't always think right," she said. "Why did you deceive me?"

Her companion looked at his watch.

"We'd better be walking along," he remarked, and they entered a well-worn path just wide enough for two that led through the woods, but kept close to the small salt lake, whose shining blue shimmered between the branches.

"I haven't deceived you, little one," he answered.

"You knew that nothing would have induced me to be a guest at Judge Trent's farm," declared the girl hotly.

"What's the difference?" asked her companion mildly. "You were eating his bread in Boston."

Sylvia's cheeks flushed. "I--I"--she hesitated, "I wasn't going to do it long."

"You shan't do it here a day longer than you wish to," returned Thinkright. "Now, child, suppose a case. Suppose your Uncle Calvin and your Aunt Martha had shown you perfect love instead of indifference, how would you have felt toward them?"