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never says a harsh word about another woman, and if she likes to card us poor scalawags of men down I reckon our tough old hides can stand it.ā€

ā€œShe always speaks well of you, Captain Jim,ā€ said Mrs. Doctor.

ā€œYes, Iā€™m afraid so. I donā€™t half like it. It makes me feel as if there must be something sorter unnateral about me.ā€

CHAPTER 7 THE SCHOOLMASTERā€™S BRIDE

ā€œWho was the first bride who came to this house, Captain Jim?ā€ Anne asked, as they sat around the fireplace after supper.

ā€œWas she a part of the story Iā€™ve heard was connected with this house?ā€ asked Gilbert. ā€œSomebody told me you could tell it, Captain Jim.ā€

ā€œWell, yes, I know it. I reckon Iā€™m the only person living in Four Winds now that can remember the schoolmasterā€™s bride as she was when she come to the Island. Sheā€™s been dead this thirty year, but she was one of them women you never forget.ā€

ā€œTell us the story,ā€ pleaded Anne. ā€œI want to find out all about the women who have lived in this house before me.ā€

ā€œWell, thereā€™s jest been threeā€”Elizabeth Russell, and Mrs. Ned Russell, and the schoolmasterā€™s bride. Elizabeth Russell was a nice, clever little critter, and Mrs. Ned was a nice woman, too. But they werenā€™t ever like the schoolmasterā€™s bride.

ā€œThe schoolmasterā€™s name was John Selwyn. He came out from the Old Country to teach school at the Glen when I was a boy of sixteen. He wasnā€™t much like the usual run of derelicts who used to come out to P.E.I. to teach school in them days. Most of them were clever, drunken critters who taught the children the three Rā€™s when they were sober, and lambasted them when they wasnā€™t. But John Selwyn was a fine, handsome young fellow. He boarded at my fatherā€™s, and he and me were cronies, though he was ten years olderā€™n me. We read and walked and talked a heap together. He knew about all the poetry that was ever written, I reckon, and he used to quote it to me along shore in the evenings. Dad thought it an awful waste of time, but he sorter endured it, hoping itā€™d put me off the notion of going to sea. Well, nothing could do THATā€”mother come of a race of sea-going folk and it was born in me. But I loved to hear John read and recite. Itā€™s almost sixty years ago, but I could repeat yards of poetry I learned from him. Nearly sixty years!ā€

Captain Jim was silent for a space, gazing into the glowing fire in a quest of the bygones. Then, with a sigh, he resumed his story.

ā€œI remember one spring evening I met him on the sandhills. He looked sorter upliftedā€”jest like you did, Dr. Blythe, when you brought Mistress Blythe in tonight. I thought of him the minute I seen you. And he told me that he had a sweetheart back home and that she was coming out to him. I wasnā€™t moreā€™n half pleased, ornery young lump of selfishness that I was; I thought he wouldnā€™t be as much my friend after she came. But Iā€™d enough decency not to let him see it. He told me all about her. Her name was Persis Leigh, and she would have come out with him if it hadnā€™t been for her old uncle. He was sick, and heā€™d looked after her when her parents died and she wouldnā€™t leave him. And now he was dead and she was coming out to marry John Selwyn. ā€˜Twasnā€™t no easy journey for a woman in them days. There werenā€™t no steamers, you must ricollect.

ā€œ`When do you expect her?ā€™ says I.

ā€œ`She sails on the Royal William, the 20th of June,ā€™ says he, `and so she should be here by mid-July. I must set Carpenter Johnson to building me a home for her. Her letter come today. I know before I opened it that it had good news for me. I saw her a few nights ago.ā€™

ā€œI didnā€™t understand him, and then he explainedā€”though I didnā€™t understand THAT much better. He said he had a giftā€”or a curse. Them was his words, Mistress Blytheā€”a gift or a curse. He didnā€™t know which it was. He said a great-great-grandmother of his had had it, and they burned her for a witch on account of it. He said queer spellsā€”trances, I think was the name he give ā€˜emā€”come over him now and again. Are there such things, Doctor?ā€

ā€œThere are people who are certainly subject to trances,ā€ answered Gilbert. ā€œThe matter is more in the line of psychical research than medical. What were the trances of this John Selwyn like?ā€

ā€œLike dreams,ā€ said the old Doctor skeptically.

ā€œHe said he could see things in them,ā€ said Captain Jim slowly.

ā€œMind you, Iā€™m telling you jest what HE saidā€”things that were happeningā€”things that were GOING to happen. He said they were sometimes a comfort to him and sometimes a horror. Four nights before this heā€™d been in oneā€”went into it while he was sitting looking at the fire. And he saw an old room he knew well in England, and Persis Leigh in it, holding out her hands to him and looking glad and happy. So he knew he was going to hear good news of her.ā€

ā€œA dreamā€”a dream,ā€ scoffed the old Doctor.

ā€œLikelyā€”likely,ā€ conceded Captain Jim. ā€œThatā€™s what I said to him at the time. It was a vast more comfortable to think so. I didnā€™t like the idea of him seeing things like thatā€”it was real uncanny.

ā€œ`No,ā€™ says he, `I didnā€™t dream it. But we wonā€™t talk of this again. You wonā€™t be so much my friend if you think much about it.ā€™

ā€œI told him nothing could make me any less his friend. But he jest shook his head and says, says he:

ā€œ`Lad, I know. Iā€™ve lost friends before because of this. I donā€™t blame them. There are times when I feel hardly friendly to myself because of it. Such a power has a bit of divinity in itā€”whether of a good or an evil divinity who shall say? And we mortals all shrink from too close contact with God or devil.ā€™

ā€œThem was his words. I remember them as if ā€˜twas yesterday, though I didnā€™t know jest what he meant. What do you sā€™pose he DID mean, doctor?ā€

ā€œI doubt if he knew what he meant himself,ā€ said Doctor Dave testily.

ā€œI think I understand,ā€ whispered Anne. She was listening in her old attitude of clasped lips and shining eyes. Captain Jim treated himself to an admiring smile before he went on with his story.

ā€œWell, purty soon all the Glen and Four Winds people knew the schoolmasterā€™s bride was coming, and they were all glad because they thought so much of him. And everybody took an interest in his new houseā€”THIS house. He picked this site for it, because you could see the harbor and hear the sea from it. He made the garden out there for his bride, but he didnā€™t plant the Lombardies. Mrs. Ned Russell planted THEM. But thereā€™s a double row of rose-bushes in the garden that the little girls who went to the Glen school set out there for the schoolmasterā€™s bride. He said they were pink for her cheeks and white for her brow and red for her lips. Heā€™d quoted poetry so much that he sorter got into the habit of talking it, too, I reckon.

ā€œAlmost everybody sent him some little present to help out the furnishing of the house. When the Russells came into it they were well-to-do and furnished it real handsome, as you can see; but the first furniture that went into it was plain enough. This little house was rich in love, though. The women sent in quilts and tablecloths and towels, and one man made a chest for her, and another a table and so on. Even blind old Aunt Margaret Boyd wove a little basket for her out of the sweet-scented sandhill grass. The schoolmasterā€™s wife used it for years to keep her handkerchiefs in.

ā€œWell, at last everything was readyā€”even to the logs in the big fireplace ready for lighting. ā€˜Twasnā€™t exactly THIS fireplace, though ā€˜twas in the same place. Miss Elizabeth had this put in when she made the house over fifteen years ago. It was a big, old-fashioned fireplace where you could have roasted an ox. Manyā€™s the time Iā€™ve sat here and spun yarns, sameā€™s Iā€™m doing tonight.ā€

Again there was a silence, while Captain Jim kept a passing tryst with visitants Anne and Gilbert could not seeā€”the folks who had sat with him around that fireplace in the vanished years, with mirth and bridal joy shining in eyes long since closed forever under churchyard sod or heaving leagues of sea. Here on olden nights children had tossed laughter lightly to and fro. Here on winter evenings friends had gathered. Dance and music and jest had been here. Here youths and maidens had dreamed. For Captain Jim the little house was tenanted with shapes entreating remembrance.

ā€œIt was the first of July when the house was finished. The schoolmaster began to count the days then. We used to see him walking along the shore, and weā€™d say to each other, `Sheā€™ll soon be with him now.ā€™

ā€œShe was expected the middle of July, but she didnā€™t come then. Nobody felt anxious. Vessels were often delayed for days and mebbe weeks. The Royal William was a week overdueā€”and then twoā€”and then three. And at last we began to be frightened, and it got worse and worse. Finā€™lly I couldnā€™t bear to look into John Selwynā€™s eyes. Dā€™ye know, Mistress Blytheā€ā€”Captain Jim lowered his voiceā€”ā€œI used to think that they looked just like what his old great-great-grandmotherā€™s must have been when they were burning her to death. He never said much but he taught school like a man in a dream and then hurried to the shore. Many a night he walked there from dark to dawn. People said he was losing his mind. Everybody had given up hopeā€”the Royal William was eight weeks overdue. It was the middle of September and the schoolmasterā€™s bride hadnā€™t comeā€” never would come, we thought.

ā€œThere was a big storm then that lasted three days, and on the evening after it died away I went to the shore. I found the schoolmaster there, leaning with his arms folded against a big rock, gazing out to sea.

ā€œI spoke to him but he didnā€™t answer. His eyes seemed to be looking at something I couldnā€™t see. His face was set, like a dead manā€™s.

ā€œ`Johnā€”John,ā€™ I called outā€”jest like thatā€”jest like a frightened child, `wake upā€”wake up.ā€™

ā€œThat strange, awful look seemed to sorter fade out of his eyes.

He turned his head and looked at me. Iā€™ve never forgot his faceā€” never will forget it till I ships for my last voyage.

ā€œ`All is well, lad,ā€™ he says. `Iā€™ve seen the Royal William coming around East Point. She will be here by dawn. Tomorrow night I shall sit with my bride by my own hearth-fire.ā€™

ā€œDo you think he did see it?ā€ demanded Captain Jim abruptly.

ā€œGod knows,ā€ said Gilbert softly. ā€œGreat love and great pain might compass we know not what marvels.ā€

ā€œI am sure he did see it,ā€ said Anne earnestly.

ā€œFol-de-rol,ā€ said Doctor Dave, but he spoke with less conviction than usual.

ā€œBecause, you know,ā€ said Captain Jim solemnly, ā€œthe Royal William came into Four Winds Harbor at daylight the next morning.

Every soul in the Glen and along the shore was at the old wharf to meet her. The schoolmaster had been watching there all night. How we cheered as she sailed up the channel.ā€

Captain Jimā€™s eyes were shining. They were looking at the Four Winds Harbor of sixty

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