At the Black Rocks Part 29

"Well, Timothy Waters was one."

"Timothy Waters, a man that had trouble at the light! You wait before you believe the story."

"But others have said the same thing."

"Well, wait; I am going to track these stories to their start."

Thomas Trafton imagined that he was a hunter, and like one following up the trail of an animal, he endeavoured to track these slanders back to their den. Sometimes he would follow the accusations back to Timothy Waters, and then somebody else would be found to a.s.sert them, and so the trail would start away again. Amid the mult.i.tude of tracks, but without evidence of their origin, this hunter from the Trafton family was bewildered. He mentioned the affair to Dave, feeling that here was an innocent person whom others were attacking, and yet he might be entirely ignorant of the a.s.sault.

"I--I--don't want to make you uneasy, but I feel friendly more than you can imagine," said Thomas, "and I thought you ought to know about the stories that are going round."

"Oh, I suppose people are always talking. Life would be dreadful dull if there wasn't something to talk about; and if I save the world from dulness I may flatter myself that I am doing some good."

"Oh, but it isn't just gossip."

"Isn't?" replied Dave, taking a hint from Thomas

Trafton's significant look more than from any language. "What is it then?"

"Now, I don't believe it, mind ye. I try to stop it, but it is like trying to stop a sand-piper on the beach without a gun. Running after it don't bring it."

"Well, what is it? I know you wouldn't believe anything unfair, but I am bothered to know what it is."

"Why--and I thought you had better know it--they say things belonging to Government are given out from the lighthouse: 'misappropriated'--I believe that is the word."

"Long word! Well, who says it?" asked Dave sternly.

"Oh, I'm sorry to say I've heard a good many tell it who ought to know better."

"It is all a lie! Misappropriation! That good man Toby Tolman--as if he would do such a thing! Why, any one with a head might know better.

Toby never would do it!"

"Of course he wouldn't, nor you neither. That is not the p'int, but how to stop 'em?"

Dave was silent. Then he broke out,--

"Who has mentioned it?"

Thomas mentioned the fisherman he had recently confronted and rebuked.

Then he added,--

"I have tried to run the story down to its hole. It don't seem to start with him, for he says somebody told him, and--"

"Who is that?"

"Timothy Waters."

"Indeed!"

"Now, I want to know how to stop the story."

"You let me think it over, Thomas. I am much obliged to you."

"I am real sorry to tell you," replied Thomas, "but I thought you ought to know of it, and I'll stand by you and Toby to--the last."

This conversation was only three days before Dave's visit to Pudding Point. Thomas had said if anything new turned up he would report to Dave. "Nothing," he had said to Dave during that call at the fish-house, looking significantly at him.

"I understand," replied Dave, "and I have nothing. All I can do is to grin and bear it."

To suit the act to the sentiment, he gave a smile with compressed lips.

It was a rather grim smile.

Dave was thinking of the unpleasant subject continually. What added to his burden was the conviction that he did not think it would be wise to tell his princ.i.p.al, for he suspected--and he judged rightly--that it would do no good, that it would only grieve the light-keeper, and that this burden of grief he was not just then in a condition to easily carry.

"I am acting for two," he said to himself, "and that makes it all the harder. If it were just one, just myself, I could seem to tell what to do; but I think it would do an injury to the old man to tell him now; and what shall I do? I guess I must take the advice of that psalm to myself."

He had in mind the close of the twenty-seventh psalm, read the night before: "Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord." And this was Dave's comment on the verse: "I can rest on that promise. I was not aware when a man didn't know what to do, which way to turn, that this psalm could help and rest one like that."

So Dave, like many pilgrims perplexed and tired, came to the shadow of the mountain-promises of G.o.d. and there comforted his soul in the a.s.surance that G.o.d thought of him, loved him, and would strengthen him.

He needed this comfort when he returned to the lighthouse, after his visit to Thomas Trafton's fish-house, and missed the keeper.

"I will go upstairs to find him," he said.

How hard and heavy was the sound of his footsteps as he ascended the first flight of stairs leading from the kitchen! Dave went up as if he were carrying a burden. He pushed open the door at the head of the stairway and looked into the keeper's room, anxiously and yet timidly, as if desirous to find him and yet afraid.

"Ah, there he is," thought Dave.

He was lying on his bed, his eyes closed.

"Is he asleep?" wondered Dave. He stepped to the bed.

"Yes, he must be asleep. Shall I speak to him?"

He hesitated. He wanted to wake him and make sure that an ugly suspicion was without foundation.

He watched the old man's breast, and saw a movement there as of a pulsation of the heart. He held his hand before the keeper's mouth.

"Yes, I feel his warm breath. It must be sleep, and yet--"

He paused. He did not like to express in language what he could not help in thought.

"I will not disturb him," he finally said, "for it may be only just sleep. I will wait, any way, till after dinner."

Deferring and still suspecting, he went downstairs. The kitchen had not changed, and yet it seemed a different place. The clock and the fire now made discordant noises. The suns.h.i.+ne that fell through the window and rested on the floor seemed not so much to bring the light as to show how empty and comfortless the place was. He felt lonelier than ever, this man that people outside suspected of theft, who was cut off from the sympathy of the man suspected with him. He was like one of the ledges in the sea, so isolated, so much by itself, upon which the waves beat without mercy, without rest. In that hour what society, sympathy, strength, he found in the psalms!--a face to smile upon him, a voice to cheer, and a hand to uplift.

XVI.