Say and Seal Volume I Part 8

"Miss Faith--I am Reuben Taylor. Mr. Linden told me to come to you and make myself useful. Is there any thing I can do?--would you like some round clams?--Father's out there in the boat."

The earnest eyes said how gladly he would do 'any thing.'

"Who is your father?" said Faith, a little surprised.

"My father's a fisherman."

"The very thing!" said Faith--"if you'll help me roast 'em, Reuben. I guess n.o.body else'll want to do it, but I'd just as lieve. Can you have 'em here quickly? and I'll see and have the stove ready."

"O I'll fetch 'em--and roast 'em too, Miss Faith. I'm used to it," he added, with a half bashful half admiring glance at her face.

Faith had the fire ready by the time Reuben returned with the clams.

The kettle was on to boil, and nothing else was wanted of the fire, as it happened, by anybody; least of all to roast clams, that necessarily making a kitchen prisoner of the roaster; so Faith and her new coadjutor had the field--i.e. the cooking house--all to themselves.

Miss Danforth was to leave Pattaqua.s.set in a day or two, and was busy talking to everybody. Readily the clams opened their sh.e.l.ls on the hot stove-top; savourily the odour of steaming clam juice spread itself abroad; but Faith and Reuben were 'in' for it, and n.o.body else cared to be in.

So when Miss Cecilia Deacon had finished her toilet, which was somewhat of the longest, as it had been one of the latest, she found n.o.body but her brother to apply to on the score of her hostess duties.

"Sam!" said the young lady pinching her brother's arm,--"I haven't been introduced to Mr. Linden."

"He'll keep," was the encouraging reply.

"Yes, but supper won't. See, Sam!--I haven't been introduced to him, and I _must_."

The Squire nodded his head politely, and began to whistle.

"Come!--you Sam--you've got to, and in a hurry. I can't find Faith, or I'd make her."

"Well--I can't find him," said the Squire pettishly. "I haven't got neither of 'em in my pocket--nor the crown of my hat," he added, taking off that useful article of dress for the express purpose of looking into it. "My deliberate judgment is to have supper."

"Don't be a goose, Sam! What's the use of asking him, if you didn't mean to conduct yourself?"

"Didn't ask him."

"Who did?"

"_I_ didn't hear anybody," was the Squire's reply.

"_Don't_ you mean to introduce me, Sam Deacon?" said his sister in a tone which was rather over the verge of patience.

"Jem Williams!" said the Squire, calling up a spruce embodiment of blue cloth, bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and pink cravat,--"I say! here's Cilly off the hooks to get hold of the new teacher. Whereabouts do you s'pose he is?"

"Really Squire!" said Jem Williams, with a silly little laugh, "I couldn't testify! Reckon he knows Miss Cilly 'd keep hold on him _ef_ she got a chance!"

"Sha'n't speak to you in a month, Jem!" said the lady with a toss of her head and some heightening of the really pretty colour in her cheeks. "You may fix it as you've a mind to, among you, and let anybody that likes bring him in to supper! _I'm_ going in, out of the way, myself."

Whither she went, on the spur, as good as her word; nor shewed her pretty face again outside.

Meanwhile Reuben and Faith had worked on through their basket of clams, and now the last were sputtering on the stove. The work had been done almost in silence, for though the excitement now and then made Reuben break into a low whistle of some tune or other, he always checked himself the next moment with a very apologetic look. For the rest, if he had not done all the work himself, it certainly was not his fault.

Now, watching quietly the opening sh.e.l.ls of that last dozen of clams, Reuben remarked,

"I _hope_ Mr. Linden won't forget about supper!"

"Why what about it?" said Faith. "Why should he forget? or what if he does?"

The last sentence seemed to puzzle Reuben.

"I don't know, ma'am," he said,--"it's better before everybody eats it up."

"Who's going to eat it up?" said Faith. "Where is he?"

"He went down on the sands with me," said Reuben, "but he didn't come up again. Maybe he has now. He liked it down there, real well."

Faith went to the shutter window and flung it open, and looked to see whether or no the missing gentleman had returned to the sh.o.r.e. It was a fair view that lay spread before her. The low beams of the sun gave a cool afternoon look to everything; the sloop sails shone and gleamed in the distance; down by the muscle rocks one little boat lay rocking on the advancing tide, which was fast covering the sand banks and connecting the strips of water; and the freshening breeze curled the little waves as they came dancing in, and brought a low sweet murmur to the sh.o.r.e. One or two gulls sailed floatingly about, and a brown mink--perceiving that the company had retreated to higher ground--came out and aired himself on one of the rocks.

But Faith saw none of these things,--for in swinging open her shutter (which the wind caught and clapped up against the house) she so nearly swung it against Mr. Linden that her first look was a startled one.

"Miss Faith!" he said, turning round, "what can you possibly be about!"

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Linden!"--said Faith.

"Is that all you are about?"

"You were anxious about your supper, Mr. Linden--Are you ready for it?"

"Much more ready than anxious, Miss Faith."

"How do you like the sh.o.r.e to-day?" said Faith, dropping her voice, and giving a glance of her eye to the fair, cool sunlight colours on the water and sh.o.r.e and s.h.i.+pping--fresh as the very sea-breeze itself, and glittering as the water's thousand mirrors could make them.

He turned and looked again, drawing in the breeze with a deep breath that more than answered her question.

"How do you like this?" he said, handing her through the window a little miniature tree of red sea-weed. Then, while she examined it, he repeated,--

"'When descends on the Atlantic The gigantic Storm-wind of the equinox, Landward in his wrath he scourges The toiling surges, Laden with sea-weed from the rocks;

"'From Bermuda's reefs; from edges Of sunken ledges, In some far-off, bright Azore; From Bahama, and the das.h.i.+ng, Silver-flas.h.i.+ng Surges of San Salvador;

"'From the tumbling surf that buries The Orkneyan skerries, Answering the hoa.r.s.e Hebrides; And from wrecks of s.h.i.+ps, and drifting Spars, uplifting On the desolate, rainy seas;--

"'Ever drifting, drifting, drifting On the s.h.i.+fting Currents of the restless main; Till in shelter d coves, and reaches Of sandy beaches, All have found repose again.'"

Faith's eye was upon the sprig of sea-weed while these verses were repeating,--then she looked up at the speaker with an intenseness in which oddly mingled some strong feeling of sorrow or regret.

"It's beautiful!"--she said,--"beautiful!--both the one and the other.

But there are a great many things there I don't understand,"--she added once more with a smile. "If there was time--but there isn't.--Mr.

Linden, Reuben and I have been roasting clams."

"Yes, Miss Faith," he said answering the smile and stepping nearer the window. "So one of my senses informed me. Do you know what that is in your hand?"