A Singer from the Sea - Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (books for students to read .TXT) 📗

way, and, most likely of all, with one of its dirty white squalls. Then I tell you, John, it is all hands to reef! Quick! and if a single breadth of canvas be showing, it is a rip and a roar and the death of the yacht and of every man in her."

"And what of the yacht herself, Tris? Be she good-tempered and good-mannered?"

"She do behave herself beautiful. The seas may fly over her cross-trees, but if you make her trig she comes to her bearings like a shot to its mark; shakes herself as if she was ready for a race, and then away she do go--just like a sea-gull for a fish."

So they talked the evening away, and Denas listened and watched the handsome yachtsman, kindling and laughing to the tales he told. And when he went away she felt, as others did, the sudden fall in the mental temperature and the chill and silence that follow any unnatural excitement. But Denas, as well as John and Joan, were too simple for such considerations. They only felt the change, and were sure that it was Tris who brought the sunshine, and so, when he went, took it away with him.

But after this night there was a different atmosphere in John Penelles' cottage. John's unhappiness had been mainly caused by the sight of his wife's anxiety and sorrow; and if Joan was her old self, John was not the man to let the loss of his boat and his position make him miserable. For in this little cottage the wife held the same mighty power that the wife holds in all finer homes--the power to either make her husband weak and sorrowful or to strengthen his heart for anything. When Joan smiled, then John could not only enjoy the present, but he could also bravely face the future. For when a man can trust in his wife, then he can hope in his God and all things are possible to him.

Denas also caught the trick of hoping and of being happy. She opened her school with thirty scholars and found out her vocation. No one could doubt the voice which had called her to this work; she went to it as naturally as a bird goes to build its nest. She loved the children and they loved her. At the end of the first week she found herself compelled to make her number forty. The sweet authority pleased her. The children's affection won her. Her natural power to impart what knowledge she had gave her the sense of a benefaction. Such loving allegiance! Such bigoted little adherents! Such blind disciples as Denas had! In a couple of weeks she was the idol of every child in St. Penfer by the Sea, and as mothers see through their children, she was equally popular with the children of larger growth.

One very singular incident of this popularity was the fact that every child, without special intent, without the slightest thought of offence, called their beloved teacher Denas Penelles. For a time she corrected the mistake, but the name Tresham was strange and unfamiliar. They looked at her with wide-open eyes and then went back to the old word. Denas perceived that they heard her called Penelles in their homes, and that it was useless to take offence where none was intended. Yet the inferred wrong to her dead husband wounded her and rekindled in her heart the fire of old affection.

"They want me to forget his very name," she thought angrily, and the natural result was a determination to nurse with greater fondness the memory which time and circumstances were daily doing their best to efface.

In the mean time all had been going on satisfactorily about the new fishing-smack. Tris had taken Mr. Arundel into his confidence. He wished to have his permission to make a careful selection and to attend to all matters connected with its proper transfer. And though that gentleman's own feelings did not lie upon the surface of his nature or explain themselves in childlike secrets and surprises, he could understand and almost envy the wealth of emotions and illusions that demanded such primitive expressions.

So he permitted Tris to absent himself frequently for such a laudable purpose. Indeed, Mr. Arundel had seen the death of John's boat, and this point of interest enabled him to feel something of the pleasure and importance which centred around the boat now building to take its place. For Tris had found in a yard ten miles north just the very kind of smack John had always longed for--a boat not built by mathematical measurements, but a wonderful, weatherly, flattish smack; that with a jump would burst through a sea any size you like, and keep right side up when the waves were fit to make a mouthful of her.

She was building for the pilchard season and was to be ready for the middle of June. And at length she was finished and waiting to be brought to her own harbour. If she had been a living, loving human creature, her advent could not have been more eagerly longed for. Yet there had been a short period of coolness between Tris and Denas, for Tris in some moment of enthusiasm had gone beyond the line Denas had marked out for him. And then she had been cold and silent and Tris had been miserable. Joan, also, had taken the young man rather scornfully to task.

"Tris," she said, "you be as knowing about a woman as Peter Mullet was, and he was hanged for a fool. Be you looking to sow and reap in the same month?"

"Not as I know by, but--but----"

"But you be so blind in love you could not see a hole in a ladder or tell the signs on a woman's face. Denas be 'fraid of her own self. Let her be. Let her be. If you do say a word now about your love she will run back and hide herself in an old love--that be a woman's way. See, now! As the old love quails the new love will fetch up--but time given for quailing, Tris, for all that. Denas had a sight of trouble, Tris; she may well be feared to try matrimony again."

"I would try and make her happy. I would be a good husband."

"Husbands! husbands! Tris, they be like pilchards--the bad ones are very bad and the best ones be but middling."

Then the loving fellow said with a big sigh that he would wait--but tired of waiting and going away again, and back only when God and Mr. Arundel said so.

"Aw, then," answered Joan, "a good thing. Women have to miss a man before they know they love him. Give Denas time to miss you, Tris, and when the boat is home be a bit careless like. If she do wonder and worry a little--a good thing for her. Women they be made up of contraries, but sweet as blossoms and as good as gold for all that, Tris."

On the twenty-fourth all was ready to bring home the boat. The boat had been sold to Denas Tresham, the money paid, and the deed of transfer to John Penelles ready made out. There had also been prepared a paper for the St. Penfer News, which was to appear that day, and which Lawyer Tremaine said would supply a ten-days' holiday gossip for the citizens. And no day specially made for so happy an event could have been lovelier. The sea was dimpling all over in the sunshine; there was just the right wind, and just enough of it, to let Tris reach harbour in the afternoon. John wondered at the air of excitement in his cottage. Joan was singing, Denas had her best dress on, and both had been busy making clotted cream, and junket, and pies of all kinds.

In fact, John was a little depressed by this extravagance of light hearts. He did not think the money Denas got from her school warranted it, and he was heart-sick with the terrible fear that the busy season was at hand and that he had found nothing to do. Adam Oliver's two nephews from Cardiff had come to help him, and that shut one place; and neither Trenager nor Penlow had said a word to him, and his brave old soul sank within him.

"And what be in the wind with you women I know nothing of," he said fretfully, "but you do have some unlikely old ways."

"What way be the wind, John, dear?"

"A little nor'ard, what there be of it--only a capful, though."

"Aw, then, John, look to the nor'ard, for good luck do come the way the wind blows."

"Good luck do come the way God sends it, Joan."

"And many a time and oft it do be coming and us not thinking of it."

John nodded gravely. There was little hope in his heart, but he went as usual to the pier and stood there watching the boats. Most of them were now ready for the fishing. When the men on the lookout saw the shadow of a dark cloud coming on and on over the sea, when they waved the signal-bush right and left over their heads and sweeping their feet, then they would out of harbour and shoot the seine. John was very anxious. His lips were moving, though he was silent. His body was mindful of the situation, his soul was praying.

"That be a strange boat," said Penlow after a long gossip; "well managed, though. The man at her wheel, whoever he be, knows the set of the tide round here as well as he knows his cabin. I wonder what boat that be?"

John had no heart to echo the wonder. Another strange boat, doubtless, bringing more fishers. He said it was getting tea-time, he would go along. He knew that if the fish were found and there was a seat in a boat it would be offered him. He would not give his mates the pain of refusing or of apologising. The next day he would go to St. Ives.

When he reached his cottage he saw Joan and Denas on the door-step watching the coming boat. Their smiles and interest hurt him. He walked to the hearth and began to fill his pipe. Then Denas, with a large paper in her hand, came to his side. She slipped on to his knee--she laid her cheek against his cheek--she said softly, and oh, so lovingly:

"Father! father! The boat coming--did you see her?"

"To be sure, Denas. I saw her, my dear."

"She is your boat, father--yours from masthead to keel! All yours!"

He looked at her a moment and then said:

"Speak them words again, Denas."

She spoke them again, smiling with frank delight and love into his face.

"Thank God! Now tell me about it! Joan, my old dear, come and tell me about it."

Then they sat down together and told him all, and showed him the St. Penfer News containing Lawyer Tremaine's statement regarding the property which had come of right to Denas. And John listened until the burden he had been carrying rolled quite away from his heart, and with a great sigh he stood up and said loudly, over and over again, "Thank God! Thank God! Thank God!" Then, as if a sudden hurry pressed him, he cried--"Come, Joan! Come, Denas! Let us go to the pier and welcome her home."

She was just tacking to reach harbour when they mingled with the crowd of men and women already there. And Ann Trewillow was