Hermit Island

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Moonlight Path 7

II. The Islanders 29

Chapter I. The Moonlight Path

When first the moon frae the saut sea peeped,

And the sleepy waves washed o’er her brow,

And bell’d her cheek with the briny faem.

But the yellow leme spread up the lift.

And the stars grew dim before her e’e.

And up arose the Queen of Night In all her solemn majesty.

— James Hogg.

I T was a tranquil summer evening, and the long waves of the Atlantic broke gently, even caressingly, on the sandy shores of Hermit Island. The moon, almost at the full, slowly climbed the sky, which still flushed with the last faint colors of sunset. Over the broad expanse of water drooped large drifts of cloud, soft and tender-colored, their delicate lines of pink and

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rose reflected in broken lights from the restless surface of the ocean. Occasionally an idle flash of lightning, leaping from a dark-blue belt of gloom far off to the eastward, quivered across the waves. North of the island could be dimly discerned the low, curving line of the Maine coast, the red gleam of a revolving light flashing every alternate minute into view. A few film-like sails glimmered on the horizon, and between the island and the mainland a dory was in sight, but so far away that it seemed to lie motionless on the water. Every now and then a seal bobbed up his brown head to take the air. The tide was coming in, and each successive wave, rearing itself erect for one brief instant, displayed a green wall glinting with diamond radiance, suddenly toppling and falling with a musical splash in a cascade of curling, crisping, white-glistening foam.

At the eastern point of the island, watching the play of the surf, stood a solitary figure, a man, evidently a gentleman, dressed in rusty black. His head, the thick brown hair besprinkled with gray, was bare. His shoulders were rounded, one leg was thrown slightly forward, resting against the keel of a discarded dory, and his hands were clasped behind him.

‘*A wasted life!” he murmured to himself; ‘<a wasted life I Is mine a wasted life ? Who has a

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right to call it so } What is waste, and what is failure ? The waves break on the beach, one after another, one after another, one after another, and for some there is glory of daylight, and for some beauty of moonlight, and for some dimness of fog and mist or blackness of clouded midnight. Yet even the darkest share in the great tide-movements, leap and fall and are lost to view, and others press after. * Shall the sunlit wave condemn the wave of the shadow.? The wave-life is not in *the sparkk that flashes from it, nor in the nature of the shore it washes — populous strand or undiscovere'd wild, but in obedience to the tidal law. A wasted life ! The friends of my youth shake their heads, when they talk of me. My place in the world has long closed over. A wasted life ! Ah, God, is it you who call it so ”

The speaker was roused from his reverie by the ring of a clear young voice crying joyfully, “ Oh, Uncle Maurice ! Uncle Maurice ! ”

Turning with a start and looking back, Maurice Yorke waved his hand cheerfully to two slight girlish figures that were scrambling down the sandy bluff to join him. Above could be seen sparse knots of grasses and coarse green weeds, dotted with yellow patches of wild mustard. Between the foot of the bluff and the water lay

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a narrow strip of dry, soft-sanded beach, in which even the light steps of the girls made deep footprints.

Of what station in life these island maidens might be, it was at first sight hard to surmise. There was nothing rustic in their features, but nothing conventional in their dress ; they were brown and agile as young gypsies, and a subtle likeness, even in the face of marked and obvious unlikeness, suggested that they were sisters. For age, they might have been in their early teens, but it was difficult to determine which was the elder. The one in advance was noticeable for a wealth of wavy auburn hair, which floated back upon the light sea-wind as she ran, and for a singularly rosy, laugh-loving, kiss-inviting little mouth. Her companion was smaller, darker, less attractive, with peculiarly black eyebrows, from beneath which the black eyes looked out strangely enough, suspiciously, defiantly, and yet with a certain hunger in their gaze. The foremost sped as fast as the clinging sands would permit to the benignant-faced, dreamy-eyed loiterer whom she had hailed as Uncle Maurice, clasping one of his extended hands in both her own and drawing-

O

him down with her into a sitting posture upon the beach. The other stood aloof, biting the end of her long black braid and watching, now the roll-

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ing waters and now the mounting moon, which had diffused about itself a misty yellow halo.

“Come and sit down with us, Dolo,” called Uncle Maurice, kindly. “Del and I will feel lazy, if you persist in standing.”

“Yes, do, Dolo, and we’ll play we’re King Canute. Keep your distance, old ocean. Don’t you dare cross this mark,” cried Del, gaily, grooving a line in the sand with the heel of her bare brown foot, for both girls were guiltless of shoes and stockings.

“I’m not King Anybody — I’m myself,” replied Dolo, speaking with a curious abruptness, each short, swift sentence breathless at the end.

“Oh, come, Dolo; come, and I’ll give you my evening primroses to wear,” teased Del, snatching a posy of the yellow blossoms from the sash of frayed and faded satin ribbon, once pink, tied incongruously enough about the waist of her flannel frock, coarse in texture, gray in color and severely plain in make. Her sister wore a dress precisely similar, but relieved by neither sash nor flowers.

Dolo wrinkled her nose disdainfully.

“You may keep your old primroses,” she said; “I don’t wear wilted flowers.”

“But these ar’n’t wilted,” protested Del.

Dolo shrugged her shoulder.

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“Does the flower-soul die when the flower is picked, Uncle Maurice ? ” asked Del, tickling her friend’s cheek with the nosegay to wake him from his dream.

“God forbid!” murmured Uncle Maurice, without turning his tranquil gaze from the sea, which was already touched with gold by the beams of the rising moon.

“Sure enough!” exclaimed Del, catching up his suggestion with the lightness peculiar to her nature ; “ ’twas only the primrose bodies that died when I picked them, and now their souls shall go to heaven,” and aiming at the golden reflection, Del flung the flowers upon the tide, which presently washed them up again at Dole’s feet. Dolo surveyed them in silence for a moment, then stooped suddenly and caught them back from the reach of the following wave. Something in the look of the wet, rejected blossoms seemed to soften her mood, for she carried them toward the bluff and laid them down, with a tender, consoling stroke, in one of the patches of wild mustard.

“That’s not heaven-gold. That’s only earthgold,” called Del’s blithesome tones.

Dolo shrugged her shoulder, this time almost angrily. “Don’t talk nonsense. They’re nothing but flowers,” she said, in her short, curt fashion.

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“That’s just like Dolo,” pouted Del. “She never will play anything, Uncle Maurice. We were over at the pine-tree this afternoon, and I wanted her to make believe it was a forest, and I was Sleeping Beauty, and she was the Prince who scratched his hands for seven days pushing through the thickets, to find me there at last ; but Dolo said it wasn’t a forest ; it was only an ugly little scrub-pine.”

Uncle Maurice smiled involuntarily, as there arose before his mental vision the forlorn image of the one tree on the island — graceless, stunted, the bare trunk diverging half way up into two gaunt branches, also bare, save^ for the green tuft of needles crowning each. It was a pine in which the smallest and meanest of all the crows would have disdained to build a nest. No wonder that Dolo found it too great a strain upon her imagination to transform it into a forest.

“But what’s the good of having a tree on the island,” asked Del, “if you can’t make believe it’s a forest or a castle or a tower, or whatever you want ? Dolo might as well have a yardstick. She can’t do anything with the tree.”

“ I can climb it,” said Dolo, shortly.

“What’s the good of climbing it,” persisted Del, “ unless you make believe it’s the mast of a wrecked ship and you’re looking out for rescue.

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or a lighthouse and you must trim the lamps, or something else.? What’s the good of climbing it.?”

“To show I can,” retorted Dolo, flinging a scornful glance of the black eyes over her shoulder. “You can’t. You always slip back.”

“Tut, tut!” said Uncle Maurice, gently, pulling a soft felt hat from one of his pockets and drawing it down significantly over his ears.

Del laughed and sifted a handful of sand into the hat-rim, saying lightly —

“You don’t love to hear us quarrel, do you. Uncle Maurice.? I’m sorry, for we shall have to do it, all the same. We never agreed yet on anything in this world, except being fond of you. But we agree on that, don’t we, Dolo .? ”

Uncle Maurice, his wistful, irresolute mouth breaking into a smile, drew Del closer to his side and held out his disengaged hand to Dolo. But Dolo, unresponsive, bit the crispy end of her black braid in silence. Del continued to chatter.

“I remember the first present you ever gave us. It was when we were little girls, just after father had brought us to the island, and everything seemed so strange and lonesome. It was a board of marbles — a solitaire you called it — something you had found in the notion shop over on the coast. There was a way to jump the mar-

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bles off. so as to leave just one in the middle. Dolo worked and worked till she could do it, and then she never played with the board again. But I used to spend hours at a time talking with the marbles, and I know them all to-day as well as I know the people on the island.”

‘‘Tell me about them,” coaxed Uncle Maurice, stroking the wavy hair ; “ I want to enlarge my circle of acquaintance.”

“There are six families of them,” explained Del, lowering her voice confidentially — “the royal family, the wise family, the warlike family, the comrnonplace family, the sinful-holy family and the poetic family. The father of the royal family is king of all the marbles. He’s the most beautiful amber, with sparkling gold spots in him. And his sons are all striped in different colors, like rainbows. The eldest, the crown prince, is big and splendid. His' colors are the richest. The next is quiet-colored — sober and thoughtful in disposition. The next is my particular anxiety. His colors are too bold and they don’t blend well. He’s inclined to be wild and is always heading insurrections. The youngest is a promising boy — bright-colored, with white stripes here and there. The crown prince is especially proud and fond of him. The fathers of all the other families sit in council with the king, but the father of the

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I6 wise family is prime minister. You would like him ever so much. He is such a kind, pleasant blue, and all the other blue marbles are his sons. Most of them are good. The oldest is a lovely character — all heaven-colored. The next oldest is a. dark blue, with flashes in him. We think

that he is capable of great things, if he isn’t led

astray by pride and ambition. The wild prince

has a bad influence over him, but Heaven-Blue

is his good angel. It’s delightful to see brothers so devoted to each other. But the third son has a vicious, yellow-brown spot in him, which makes him incline to all sorts of badness. He giv^s his poor father no end of trouble. The others are nothing remarkable — just fine, high-spirited boys, all except the youngest, who is an unhappy little invalid, rough and scarred all over. His big brothers are very patient with him. The warlike family is the largest. They are all green. The father is — oh, so brilliant! — a dazzling hero! He always leads the battle charges, shouting, ‘For King and Honor!’ But his eldest sons are big, stupid bullies, dull and blotchy, and his next to the youngest — such a horrid color! — is just depraved. There are only three that are respected by the other marbles, and one of those is more liked than respected. He is light green, with a curly gray band. He is lazy, but good-natured.

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But one is brave and noble, and the smallest one is plucky, though not noble. You would see the difference in a minute, if I had them here. There are only four in the commonplace family — all brown. The father is the best. His color is soft and deep. But the twins are just hardheaded, uninteresting boys. The little one has a flash of yellow in him, though, and is sometimes really quite witty. The sinful-holy family is the family I’m sorrowfulest about. It ought to be white, but the father is a cloudy old ruffian, with a horrible red streak right through his heart, and the eldest son takes after him. The next son is my comfort. He is the saintliest of all my marbles and the most intimate friend of Heaven- Blue. He has an excellent influence over his two younger brothers. One of them is sweet-tempered and honorable, but not very — what is it you call it. Uncle Maurice, spiritual f — and the white of the other is part clear and part dim, so he’s always wavering between good and evil. The poetic family are transparent, with little bright flowers inside. They are all unworldly, but I think only one of them is a genius. He has stars inside, not flowers. Oh, I wish I had my marbles here, and then you would understand better. Though I am such a big girl. Uncle Maurice, I like to play with my families yet.

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I8

You don’t know what exciting times we all have, with wars and plots and rebellions and things.”

Dolo gave her impatient shrug of the left shoulder. Uncle Maurice laughed a low, indulgent, lingering laugh, pleasant to hear.

“But you haven’t any mothers or any daughters in your families,” he said.

“Why, no,” responded Del, in a surprised tone; “of course not. How funny! It wouldn’t be — it wouldn’t be appropriate with marbles. Besides, there ar’n’t any. Don’t you see.? I can’t make the marbles what I choose. They are what they are, and I see it ; that’s all. But there are plenty of mothers and daughters, brides and sweethearts, too, among my shells. The little, white, slender lady-shells go out driving with the big, bright-colored hero-shells in the dearest shell-carriages you ever saw. The next time you come over to our house. I’ll show you my shells, and tell you all about them. When I was small and could play v/ith them all I liked, without being laughed at, there used to be a wedding, or a duel, or an elopement, or a funeral, every single day. But see! the boys are almost in.”

“I could have told you that long ago,” said Dolo. For while they had been chatting, sturdy strokes had brought the dory nearer and nearer, until now it had reached the edge of the surf. It

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was never an easy matter to bring a boat in safely over the breakers, and the little group on the beach became silent, watching with interest, but without anxiety, the maneuvers of the young oarsmen. Robert Yorke and his brothers were expert boatmen, but in spite of their skill and caution, a great foaming wave, following too closely in the rear of one they had just surmounted, broke over the stern of the dory and drenched the nearest boy, Nathan, from head to foot. A shout of laughter broke from Robert and Eric, with which Del’s silvery treble gaily blended, and even Nathan’s father smiled at the disconsolate aspect of his son, who was trying in vain to find a dry place on his jacket-sleeve, with which to wipe his face. Dolo alone did not join in the merriment, her dark eyes keenly noting every element of the ridiculous in the picture, but her strange little face impassive. A moment more and the boat was dexterously beached, Mr. Yorke and the girls walking on to the landing point for the purpose of joining the youthful sailors and Seeing what they had brought over from the coast. Robert, dark-haired and red-cheeked, a manly young fellow with the dusky promise of a mustache on his upper lip, turned to greet them, handing his father a packet of newspapers and magazines.

“Anything for us ” asked Del.

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Dolo shrugged her left shoulder. She was angry with Del for asking. As if there was ever anything for them !

“Not this time. Del/’ replied Robert, with the friendly, smiling look that was so much at home on his tanned face ; “father is the only one of us in luck to-day. Here, Eric, shoulder these groceries for Cap’n Noll, like a good fellow, and if Nat will take Mr. Rexford’s, I can manage ours.”

Eric, a mischievous-faced laddie, who looked, with his frank, blue eyes and curly, chestnut hair, as if he might be the son of an old Norse Viking, scrambled back into the boat after the provision bags, which were snugly wrapped about with a piece of canvas and an old water-proof coat.

“ Good enough ! I thought the books had got wet, for sure, when Nat caught his ducking,” called the boy; “but they’re dry as — as” —

“Yes, go ahead, now — as what.?” growled Nat, closely occupied in wringing water out of such handfuls of his apparel as he could conveniently seize.

But Eric was not quick at similes, and Dolo broke in eagerly, yet with a perceptible shyness and restraint even in her eagerness —

“More books, Rob .? What are they .? ”

“I don’t know, Dolo,” replied Robert, kindly;

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for there was always a peculiar gentleness in the big fellow’s manner toward this wild, reticent little neighbor of his, with the bright, unsatisfied eyes; can’t tell you. Father put his list in an envelope for safe keeping, as he always does, and the clerk made up the package while I was fumbling around at the dry goods counter, trying to match the unmatchable for Grandma Brimblecomh. I suspect Baby Merry is to have a new pinafore or some other furbelow that will make Nick more her slave than ever — not to mention the cap’n. So you must ask father about the books.”

Dolo faced silently about upon Mr. Yorkb.

“All in good time, my child,” he said, in answer to her look and attitude; “but a pleasure is twice a pleasure when it is a surprise. Here, Robert, haven’t you something for me to take.!*”

“No, sir,” replied Robert, cheerily, trudging along the south beach with the lion’s share of the cargo upon his back and in his capacious pockets, while the rest of the party followed in a flock. “I’m even trimmed. Couldn’t spare a pound from either side without losing my balance. And we couldn’t overload that drowned rat there, while as for Eric, I’ll risk his ever dying of hard work. He’s lazy on principle, to keep Old Susannah in countenance.”

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“Hear that!” exclaimed Eric, “when I am weighted down like a camel. I wish I was Nat. I believe he got wet on purpose.”

Their father, indifferent to this boyish banter, had already stayed his steps, evidently not expecting that his offer of assistance would be accepted, and had turned to look out once more over the wide waters.

“Wait, children,” he said, authoritatively; “the moonlight has a message for us. Shall we be deaf when Nature speaks in such accents as these ? ”

Dole’s black eyes flashed three swift glances at the burdens under which the three boys were bending, but Del fell back to Mr. Yorke’s side, clinging affectionately to his arm, and the lads halted good-naturedly, though with more of patience than enthusiasm in their manner, for in addition to the weight of the loads, they were supperless and tired with the long pull from the mainland. But the scene was well worth the gaze. The sunset colors had faded, so that now the soft amethyst of the sky melted imperceptibly into the soft amethyst of the ocean. One faithful star shone in the wake of the moon, which no longer glinted palely on the water, but cast across the waves a broad path of amber light, widening with distance and twinkling with innumerable flakes of gold.

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They looked in silence for a few moments, and then Mr. Yorke’s voice was heard saying in the monotonous, far-away tone of one talking in a reverie —

“You are glad waves to-night, because the moon, whose sway you own, is no chill, distant monitress, but a present joy and glory, shedding upon you the very mantle of her splendor. And yet, when she withdraws again, as soon she will, into mysterious gloom, lending not a ray to light you in your tasks, not the faintest gleam to signify her acceptance or even knowledge of your service, still with ebb and flow you will answer her high bidding no less loyally than now — no less loyally, though we who listen shall hear you sobbing in the dark.”

Dolo, protected by the dusk, shrugged her left shoulder, but not as emphatically as usual, and silence fell again upon the little company, broken by Eric, who spoke in an undertone —

“What do you think it looks like, Rob — that moonshine on the sea.? It makes me think of Jacob’s ladder.”

Robert laughed softly. “I’m not much of a fellow for fancies,” he answered, shifting his heavy provision-bag from one shoulder to the other ; “ I was only thinking it would be mighty convenient if the moon would play pilot once in

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a while, and guide a ship through the rocks by a path like that. It seems rather thrown away on such open sailing as ours here.”

^‘Life is not open sailing — even ours here,” suggested his father, still dreamily ; “ I could wish for a lighted path before me to mark the way.”

“It looks to me,” said Del, “as if a procession of little yellow-slippered moon-fairies had been dancing across the sea and their feet had left twinkles wherever they touched the water.”

“Thetis’ tinsel-slipper’d feet,” murmured Mr. Yorke, but nobody except Eric, and perhaps the ghost of Milton, with the dimmer ghost of old Homer behind him, caught the words, and certainly Eric, growing more and more conscious of an aching void where his supper should have been, failed to make the connection of ideas.

Mr. Yorke presently continued, baring his head as he spoke — “This moonlight path is so like my thought of the golden streets of the New Jerusalem, I could almost expect to see the spirits of the blest come gliding down it toward us.”

Del clasped her little brown hands tightly on the rusty coat-sleeve.

“Oh, if mamma could only come!” she said, the tears brimming her uplifted eyes.

Dolo turned abruptly and walked away. All her movements were swift and supple. Robert

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cast a hesitating glance after the deserter, then another toward his father, still lost in musing, and finally spoke with a certain respectful firmness in his tone —

“It’s getting late, sir. Miss Lucas will be wondering where the girls are, and mother will be wanting to clear the table and go to bed; besides, here’s Nat shivering in his wet clothes. So, if 3^ou’ll excuse us, I think we must be going on.”

Mr. Yorke waved his hand abstractedly, and the young people, leaving him standing on the edge of the beach, with his face uplifted to the great, golden orb of the moon, moved away up shore, Del keeping close to the water-line, only starting back a step or two with a merry outcry, whenever some especially enterprising wave succeeded in splashing her bare ankles. Eric trudged on beside her, fretting a little, as a hungry and tired boy will, under his burden, but laughing more, while Robert, three times as heavily laden, swung along a few paces in advance, smiling but silent.

Nat had pushed on ahead to overtake Dolo, who cast one black-eyed glance at the wet, awkward young fellow, the only ill-favored scion of the house of Yorke, and then kept her gaze steadfastly fixed upon the moonlight path.

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"‘What made you go away so all at once.?” asked Nat, stammering a little in his utterance.

Dolo shrugged her left shoulder.

“You know,” she said.

“Because Del was talking about” —

Dolo nodded.

“But you can’t remember,” said Nat.

“Can’t I.?” returned Dolo, scornfully. They were of laconic speech, this dark-visaged little girl and the tall, sandy-haired, gray-eyed boy beside her. After a few minutes of rapid walking, Dolo stepping lightly and surely and Nat stumbling over every tangle of seaweed and splashing into every hole and gully, Dolo spoke again.

“Did Uncle Maurice suppose you boys wanted nothing but moonshine for your supper.?”

“Don’t you pitch into my father,” replied Nat, almost fiercely.

“Then don’t you drip water on me,” retorted Dolo, with seeming irrelevance.

“ Father was all right,” insisted Nat; “we fellows weren’t so terrible hungry that we couldn’t spare five minutes for a picture like that. There are suppers enough, first and last, but full moon comes only once a month.”

“And the bags weren’t heavy, I suppose?” said Dolo.

“Not so very,” replied Nat, loyally.

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Dolo laughed a short little laugh, with a blending of amusement and kindliness in it. like you, Nat,” she remarked.

Nat stumbled over a hillock of sand and had a curious sensation as if he were all legs and awkwardness.

After they had walked on in silence a while longer, Nat asked, “What does that moonlight look like to you } ”

“Like moonlight,” said Dolo, curtly. “What does it lo5k like to you ? ”

“Like nothing — not even like moonlight,” rejoined Nat, with something of his father’s dreamy manner upon him ; but he presently said with more energy, as he put down his bag for an instant and swung his long arms together to get them warm, chilled as they were by the clinging sleeves of the wet jacket —

“The thing I thought, while all the rest were talking, was only that it would be good if something to help us could come sailing over that yellow track to the island — something to change all our lives, yours and mine and father’s and everybody’s.”

“Let’s pretend it will,” exclaimed Dolo, with a sudden change of tone; “we know it won’t, but just for once let’s pretend.”

“Well; there’s nothing coming now,” said Nat.

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‘‘To-morrow night, then,” said Dolo ; “to-morrow night we shall see a boat with our good fortune in it sailing to us over that shining path.”

Nat stared at her strangely in the moonlight.

“’Twould be queer if we should,” he said, slowly; “but most things are queer.”

Chapter II

Not a blade of grass but has a story to tell, not a heart but has its romance, not a life which does not hide a secret that is either its thorn or its spur. Everywhere grief, hope, comedy, tragedy.

— Henri-Frederic Amiel.

AKE up, Dolo,” murmured Del, sleepily.

V V turning her head on her hard, flat pillow; “Miss Lucas has called us twice.”

Dolo, standing already dressed by the open window, deigned no response, and drowsy Del, feeling that she had done her duty by her sister, dropped off into another nap.

It was a fair, fresh morning. The sky, pale blue at the horizon, but deepening into brightest azure toward the zenith, was cloudless. The wide expanse of ocean, sapphire-shaded, dimpled, lit by a million ripples of sunshine, extended as far as eye could reach. The billows broke songfully on the shore, the instantaneous wave-wall now revealing hints of emerald and umber and

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now flashing with belts and patches of dazzling, silvery light. The tide was just beginning to ebb, and the surf, shattered into coquettish wavelets, curled and crisped and bubbled and shimmered on the glittering wet sand.

“Breakfast is ready,” said a voice from below stairs. It was a singular voice, dull and even, with almost no play of intonations. Del started at the sound.

“ Oh, Dolo, why didn’t you wake me ? I shall be late.”

“I sha’n’t,” coolly responded Dolo, and walked out of the small, rough-boarded chamber with an exasperatingly indifferent air.

Del, a shade of vexation showing for an instant, but no longer, upon her winsome face, tossed back her mass of auburn tresses which, as she stood a moment by the window, the sunshine with a Midas touch transformed to waving gold, and hummed a light tune while hurrying her toilet.