sighed Jacky, wistfully, as a screaming little gust heeled the punt over; “an’—an’—I wisht we was there!”
Skipper Tommy laughed at his son.
“I does!” Jacky declared.
“I—I—I’m not so sure,” I stammered, taking a tighter grip on the gunwale, “but I wisht we was—there—too.”
“You’ll be wishin’ that often,” said Skipper Tommy, pointedly, “if you lives t’ be so old as me.”
We wished it often, indeed, that day—while the wind blustered yet more wildly out of the north and the waves tumbled aboard our staggering little craft and the night came apace over the sea—and we have wished it often since that old time, have Jacky and I, God knows! I had the curious sensation of fear, I fancy—though I am loath to call it that—for the first time in my life; and I was very much relieved when, at dusk, we rounded the looming Watchman, ran through the white waters and thunderous confusion of the Gate, with the breakers leaping high on either hand, sharply turned Frothy Point and came at last into the ripples of Trader’s Cove. Glad I was, you may be sure, to find my mother waiting on my father’s wharf, and to be taken by the hand, and to be led up the path to the house, where there was spread a grand supper of fish and bread, which my sister had long kept waiting; and, after all, to be rocked in the broad window, safe in the haven of my mother’s arms, while the last of the sullen light of day fled into the wilderness and all the world turned black.
“You’ll be singin’ for me, mum, will you not?” I whispered.
“And what shall I sing, lad?” said she.
“You knows, mum.”
“I’m not so sure,” said she. “Come, tell me!”
What should she sing? I knew well, at that moment, the assurance my heart wanted: we are a God-fearing people, and I was a child of that coast; and I had then first come in from a stormy sea. There is a song——
“ ’Tis, ‘Jesus Saviour Pilot Me,’ ” I answered.
“I knew it all the time,” said she; and,
“ ‘Jesus, Saviour, pilot me,
Over life’s tempestuous sea,’ ”
she sang, very softly—and for me alone—like a sweet whisper in my ear.
“ ‘Unknown waves before me roll,
Hiding rock and treacherous shoal;
Chart and compass came from Thee:
Jesus, Saviour, pilot me!’ ”
“I was thinkin’ o’ that, mum, when we come through the Gate,” said I. “Sure, I thought Skipper Tommy might miss the Way, an’ get t’other side o’ the Tooth, an’ get in the Trap, an’ go t’ wreck on the Murderers, an’——”
“Hush, dear!” she whispered. “Sure, you’ve no cause to fear when the pilot knows the way.”
The feeling of harbour—of escape and of shelter and brooding peace—was strong upon me while we sat rocking in the failing light. I have never since made harbour—never since come of a sudden from the toil and the frothy rage of the sea by night or day, but my heart has felt again the peace of that quiet hour—never once but blessed memory has given me once again the vision of myself, a little child, lying on my mother’s dear breast, gathered close in her arms, while she rocked and softly sang of the tempestuous sea and a Pilot for the sons of men, still rocking, rocking, in the broad window of my father’s house. I protest that I love my land, and have from that hour, barren as it is and as bitter the sea that breaks upon it; for I then learned—and still know—that it is as though the dear God Himself made harbours with wise, kind hands for such as have business in the wild waters of that coast. And I love my life—and go glad to the day’s work—for I have learned, in the course of it and by the life of the man who came to us, that whatever the stress and fear of the work to be done there is yet for us all a refuge, which, by way of the heart, they find who seek.
And I fell asleep in my mother’s arms, and by and by my big father came in and laughed tenderly to find me lying there; and then, as I have been told, laughing softly still they carried me up and flung me on my bed, flushed and wet and limp with sound slumber, where I lay like a small sack of flour, while together they pulled off my shoes and stockings and jacket and trousers and little shirt, and bundled me into my night-dress, and rolled me under the blanket, and tucked me in, and kissed me good-night.
When my mother’s lips touched my cheek I awoke. “Is it you, mama?” I asked.
“Ay,” said she; “ ’tis your mother, lad.”
Her hand went swiftly to my brow, and smoothed back the tousled, wet hair.
“Is you kissed me yet?”
“Oh, ay!” said she.
“Kiss me again, please, mum,” said I, “for I wants—t’ make sure—you done it.”
She kissed me again, very tenderly; and I sighed and fell asleep, content.
IV
THE SHADOW
When the mail-boat left our coast to the long isolation of that winter my mother was even more tender with the scrawny plants in the five red pots on the window-shelf. On gray days, when our house and all the world lay in the soggy shadow of the fog, she fretted sadly for their health; and she kept feverish watch for a rift in the low, sad sky, and sighed and wished for sunlight. It mystified me to perceive the wistful regard she bestowed upon the stalks and leaves that thrived the illest—the soft touches for the yellowing leaves, and, at last, the tear that fell, when, withered beyond hope, they were plucked and cast away—and I asked her why she loved the sick leaves so; and she answered that she knew but would not tell me why. Many a time, too, at twilight, I surprised her sitting downcast by the window, staring out—and far—not upon the rock and sea of our harbour, but as though through the thickening shadows into some other place.
“What you lookin’ at, mum?” I asked her, once.
“A glory,” she answered.
“Glory!” said I. “They’s no glory out there. The night falls. ’Tis all black an’ cold on the hills. Sure, I sees no glory.”
“ ’Tis not a glory, but a shadow,” she whispered, “for you!”
Nor was I now ever permitted to see her in disarray, but always, as it seemed to me, fresh from my sister’s clever hands, her hair laid smooth and shining, her simple gown starched crisp and sweetly smelling of the ironing board; and when I asked her why she was never but thus lovely, she answered, with a smile, that surely it pleased her son to find her always so: which, indeed, it did. I felt, hence,
