Noughts and Crosses Part 8

The pair gave a start, and there was some whispering before the answer came up to me.

"Is that you, sir?"

"To be sure," said I. "What are you two about on board _The Gleaner?_"

Some more whispering followed, and then Tubal Cain spoke again--

"It doesn't matter now, sir. We've lived aboard here for a week, and to-night's the end of our honeymooning. If 'tis no liberty sir, Annie's wishful that you should join us."

Somehow, the invitation, coming through this mysterious atmosphere, seemed at once natural and happy. The fiddle began again as I stepped away from the fence and went down to get my boat out.

In three minutes I was afloat, and a stroke or two brought me to the s.h.i.+p's ladder. Annie and Tubal Cain stood at the top to welcome me.

But if I had felt no incongruity in paying this respectful visit to my ex-cook and her lover, I own that her appearance made me stare.

For, if you please, she was dressed out like a lady, in a gown of pale blue satin trimmed with swansdown--a low-necked gown, too, though she had flung a white shawl over her shoulders. Imagine this and the flood of blue light around us, and you will hardly wonder that, half-way up the ladder, I paused to take breath. Tubal Cain was dressed as usual, and tucking his fiddle under his arm, led me up to shake hands with his bride as if she were a queen. I cannot say if she blushed. Certainly she received me with dignity: and then, inverting a bucket that lay on the deck, seated herself; while Tubal Cain and I sat down on the deck facing her, with our backs against the bulwarks.

"It's just this, sir," explained the bridegroom, laying his fiddle across his lap, and speaking as if in answer to a question: "it's just this:--by trade you know me for a watchmaker, and for a Plymouth Brother by conviction. All the week I'm bending over a counter, and every Sabbath-day I speak in prayer-meeting what I hold, that life's a dull pilgrimage to a better world. If you ask me, sir, to-night, I ought to say the same. But a man may break out for once; and when so well as on his honeymoon? For a week I've been a free heathen: for a week I've been hiding here, living with the woman I love in the open air; and night after night for a week Annie here has clothed herself like a woman of fas.h.i.+on. Oh, my G.o.d! it has been a beautiful time--a happy beautiful time that ends to-night!"

He set down the fiddle, crooked up a knee and clasped his hands round it, looking at Annie.

"Annie, girl, what is it that we believe till to-morrow morning?

You believe--eh?--that 'tis a rare world, full of delights, and with no ugliness in it?"

Annie nodded.

"And you love every soul--the painted woman in the streets no less than your own mother?"

Annie nodded again. "I'd nurse 'em both if they were sick," she said.

"One like the other?"

"And there's nothing shames you?" Here he rose and took her hand.

"You wouldn't blush to kiss me before master here?"

"Why should I?" She gave him a sober kiss, and let her hand rest in his.

I looked at her. She was just as quiet as in the old days when she used to lay my table. It was like gazing at a play.

I should be ashamed to repeat the nonsense that Tubal Cain thereupon began to talk; for it was mere midsummer madness. But I smoked four pipes contentedly while the sound of his voice continued, and am convinced that he never performed so well at prayer-meeting. Down at the town I heard the church-clock striking midnight, and then one o'clock; and was only aroused when the youth started up and grasped his fiddle.

"And now, sir, if you would consent to one thing, 'twould make us very happy. You can't play the violin, worse luck; but you might take a step or two round the deck with Annie, if I strike up a waltz-tune for you to move to."

It was ridiculous, but as he began to play I moved up to Annie, put my arm around her, and we began to glide round and round on the deck.

Her face was turned away from mine, and looked over my shoulder; if our eyes had met, I am convinced I must have laughed or wept. It was half farce, half deadly earnest, and for me as near to hysterics as a sane man can go. Tubal Cain, that inspired young Plymouth Brother, was solemn as a judge. As for Annie, I would give a considerable amount, at this moment, to know what she thought of it. But she stepped very lightly and easily, and I am not sure I ever enjoyed a waltz so much. The blue light--that bewitching, intoxicating blue light--paled on us as we danced. The grey conquered it, and I felt that when we looked at each other the whole absurdity would strike us, and I should never be able to face these lovers again without a furious blush. As the day crept on, I stole a glance at Tubal Cain.

He was sc.r.a.ping away desperately--_with his eyes shut_. For us the dance had become weariness, but we went on and on. We were afraid to halt.

Suddenly a string of the violin snapped. We stopped, and I saw Tubal Cain's hand pointing eastward. A golden ripple came dancing down the creek, and, at the head of the combe beyond, the sun's edge was mounting.

"Morning!" said the bridegroom.

"It's all done," said Annie, holding out a hand to me, without looking up. "And thank you, sir."

"We danced through the grey," I answered; and that was all I could find to say, as I stepped towards the ladder.

Half an hour later as I looked out of the window before getting into bed I saw in the sunlight a boat moving down the creek towards the town.

Tubal Cain was rowing, and Annie sat in the stern. She had changed her gown.

They have been just an ordinary couple ever since, and attend their chapel regularly. Sometimes Annie comes over to make me an omelet; and, as a matter of fact, she is now in the kitchen. But not a word has ever been spoken between us about her honeymoon.

II.--THESE-AN'-THAT'S WIFE.

In the matter of These-an'-That himself, public opinion in Troy is divided. To the great majority he appears scandalously careless of his honour; while there are just six or seven who fight with a suspicion that there dwells something divine in the man.

To reach the town from my cottage I have to cross the Pa.s.sage Ferry, either in the smaller boat which Eli pulls single-handed, or (if a market-cart or donkey, or drove of cattle be waiting on the slip) I must hang about till Eli summons his boy to help him with the horse-boat. Then the gangway is lowered, the beasts are driven on board, the pa.s.sengers follow at a convenient distance, and the long sweeps take us slowly across the tide. It was on such a voyage, a few weeks after I settled in the neighbourhood, that I first met These-an'-That.

I was leaning back against the chain, with my cap tilted forward to keep off the dazzle of the June suns.h.i.+ne on the water, and lazily watching Eli as he pushed his sweep. Suddenly I grew aware that by frequent winks and jerks of the head he wished to direct my attention to a pa.s.senger on my right--a short, round man in black, with a basket of eggs on his arm.

There was quite a remarkable dearth of feature on this pa.s.senger's face, which was large, soft, and unhealthy in colour: but what surprised me was to see, as he blinked in the sunlight, a couple of big tears trickle down his cheeks and splash among the eggs in his basket.

"There's trouble agen, up at Kit's," remarked Eli, finis.h.i.+ng his stroke with a jerk, and speaking for the general benefit, though the words were particularly addressed to a drover opposite.

"Ho?" said the drover: "that woman agen?"

The pa.s.sengers, one and all, bent their eyes on the man in black, who smeared his face with his cuff, and began weeping afresh, silently.

"Beat en blue las' night, an' turned en to doors--the dirty trollop."

"Eli, don't 'ee--" put in the poor man, in a low, deprecating voice.

"Iss, an' no need to tell what for," exclaimed a red-faced woman who stood by the drover, with two baskets of poultry at her feet.

"She's a low lot; a low trapesin' baggage. If These-an'-That, there, wasn' but a poor, ha'f-baked shammick, he'd ha' killed that wife o'

his afore this."

"Naybours, I'd as lief you didn't mention it," appealed These-an'-That, huskily.

"I'm afeard you'm o' no account, These-an'-That: but sam-sodden, if I may say so," the drover observed.

"Put in wi' the bread, an' took out wi' the cakes," suggested Eli.

"Wife!--a pretty loitch, she an' the whole kit, up there!" went on the market-woman. "If you durstn't lay finger 'pon your wedded wife, These-an'-That, but let her an' that long-legged gamekeeper turn'ee to doors, you must be no better'n a worm,--that's all I say."

I saw the man's face twitch as she spoke of the gamekeeper. But he only answered in the same dull way.

"I'd as lief you didn' mention it, friends,--if 'tis all the same."