A Singer from the Sea, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr [best story books to read TXT] 📗

but he'll get up again."

There was nothing else she could think of, and she knit her brows and turned in to her house duties. Joan did not want any meeting between her husband and Roland Tresham. She did not want anything to occur which would interfere with Denas visiting Miss Tresham, for these visits were a source of great pleasure to Denas and great pride to herself. And Joan could not believe that there was any danger to be feared from Roland; Denas had known him for two years and nothing evil had yet happened. If Roland had said one wrong word to Denas, Joan was sure her child would have told her.

While she was thinking of these things, John Penelles went slowly up the winding path that led to the top of the cliff. It was sweet and bright on either hand with the fragile, delicate flowers of early spring. He stopped frequently to look at them, and he longed to touch them, to hold them in his palm, to put them against his lips. But he looked at his big, hard hands, and then at the flowers, and so, shaking his head, walked on. The blackbird was piping and the missel-thrush singing in one or two of her seven languages, and John felt the spring joy stirring in his own heart to melody. He sat in the singing-pew at St. Penfer Chapel, and he had a noble voice, so he shook the ashes out of his pipe, and clasping his hands behind his back was just going to give the blackbirds and thrushes his evening song, when he heard the rippling laugh of Denas a little ahead of him.

He told himself in a moment that it was not her usual laugh. He could not for his life have defined the difference, but there it was. Before he saw her he knew that Roland Tresham was with her, and in a moment or two they came suddenly within his vision. Denas was walking a little straighter than usual, and Roland was bending toward her. He was gay, laughing, finely dressed; he was doing his best to attract the girl who walked so proudly, so apart, and yet so happily beside him. Penelles went forward to meet them. As they approached Denas smiled, and the young man called out:

"Hello, Penelles! How do you do? And what's the news? And how is the fishing? I was just bringing Denas home--and hoping to see you."

"Aw, then, sir, you can see for yourself how I be, and the news be none, and the fishing be plenty."

"St. Penfer harbour is not much of a place, Penelles. I was just telling Denas about London."

"St. Penfer be a hard little place, but it do give us a living, sir; a honest living, thank God! Come, Denas, my dear."

As he spoke he gently took the girl's hand, and with a perfectly civil "Good-evening, sir," turned with her homeward.

"Too fast, Penelles; I am going with you."

"Much obliged; not to-night, sir. It be getting late. Say good-evening, Denas."

There was something so final about the man's manner that Roland was compelled to accept the dismissal, but it deeply offended him, and the unreasonable anger opened the door for evil thoughts; and evil thoughts--having a cursed and powerful vitality--immediately began to take form and to make plans for their active gratification. Denas walked silently down the narrow path before her father. He could see by the way she carried herself and by the swing of the little basket in her hand that she was vexed, and he had a sense of injustice in her attitude which he could not define, but which wounded his great loving heart deeply. At last they reached the shingle, and he strode to her side.

"You be in a great hurry now, Denas," he said.

"I want to speak to my mother."

"What is it, dear? Father will do as well."

"No, he won't. Father is cruel cross to-night, and thinking wrong of his girl and wrong of others who meant no wrong."

"Then I be sorry enough, Denas. Come, my dear, we won't quarrel for a bad man like Roland Tresham."

"He isn't bad, father."

"He is cruel bad--worse than an innocent girl can know. Aw, my dear, you must take father's word for it. How was he walking with you to-night? 'Twas some devil's miracle, I'll warrant."

"No, then, it was not. He came from London on the afternoon train, and Miss Tresham had a bad headache and could not set me home as she always does."

"You should have come home alone. There was nothing to fear you."

"'Tis the first time."

"And, my dear, 'tis the last time. Mind that! 'Twill be a bad hour for Roland Tresham if I see him making love to my girl again."

"He didn't say a word of love to me, father."

"Aw, then, he was looking it--more shame to him, not to give looks words."

"Cannot a man look at a pretty girl? I call that nonsense, father."

"Roland Tresham can't look at you, Denas, any more as I saw him looking at you to-night--bold and free, and sure and laughing to his own heart for the clever he was, and the devil in his eyes and on his tongue. 'Twas all wrong, my dear, or I wouldn't be feeling so hot and angry about it. I wouldn't be feeling as if my heart was cut loose from its moorings and sinking down and down as deep as fear can send it."

"You might trust me, father."

"Aw, my sweet girl, there's times an angel can't be trusted, or so many wouldn't have lost themselves. It takes a man to know men and all the wickedness mixed up in their flesh and blood. There's your mother, Denas--God bless her!"

Joan came strolling forward to meet them, her large, handsome face beaming and shining with love and pride. But she was immediately sensitive to the troubled, angry atmosphere in which her husband and child walked, and she looked into John's face with the inquiry in her eyes.

"Denas is vexed about Roland Tresham, mother."

"There then, I thought Denas had more sense than to trouble herself or you, father, with the like of him. Your new frock is home, Denas, and pretty enough, my dear. Go and look at it before it be too dim to see."

Denas was glad to escape to her room, and Penelles turned suddenly silent and said no more until he had smoked another pipe on his own door-step.

Then he went into the cottage and sat down. Joan was by the fire with her knitting in her hand, and softly humming to herself her favourite hymn:


"When quiet in my house I sit."


Penelles let her finish, and then he told her all that he saw and all that he thought and every word he and Denas had spoken. "And I said what was right, didn't I, Joan?" he asked.

"No words at all are sometimes better than good words, John. When the wicked was before him, even David didn't dare to say good and right words."

"David wasn't a St. Penfer fisherman, Joan, and the wicked men of his day were a different kind of wicked men--they just thought of a bad thing and went and did it. They didn't plot and plan how to make others wicked for them and with them."

"What do you know wrong of Roland Tresham, John?"

"What do I know wrong of Trelawny's little Jersey bull? Nothing. It never hurt me yet. But I see the devil in his eyes and in the lift of his feet and the toss of his horns and the switch of his tail, and I know right well he'd rip me to pieces if I'd only give him the chance. That's the way I know Roland Tresham is a bad one. I see the devil in the glinting of his eyes and the mock of his smile, and I wouldn't have been more sick frightened to-night if I'd seen a tiger purring around Denas than I was when I got the first glimpse of Tresham bending down, coaxing and flattering our little girl. He's a bad man, sent with sorrow and shame wherever he goes, and I know it just as I know the long dead roll of the waves and the white creeping mist--like a dirty thief--which makes me cry out at sea 'All hands to reef! Quick! All hands to reef!'"

"There then, John, if wrong and danger there be, what must be done?"

"Keep the little maid out of it. Don't let her go to Mr. Tresham's. I wouldn't hear tell of it. If Denas would only listen a bit to Tris Penrose, he'd be the man for her--a good man, a good sailor, and he do love the very stones Denas steps on, he do for sure."

"She used to like Tris, but these few months her love has all quailed away."

"'Tis dreadful! dreadful! Why did God Almighty make women so? Here be good love going a-begging to them and getting nothing but a frown and a hard word, while devil's love is fretted for and heart-nursed. Whatever is a woman's love made of, I do wonder?"

As he asked the question he knocked his pipe against the jamb to clean it out, and then quickly turned his head, for an inner door opened and Denas peeped out and then came forward and put her arm around his neck and said:

"Woman's love or man's love, who knows how God makes it, father? And the fisherman's poet--a far wiser man than most men--asks and answers the same troublesome question in his way. What is love? How does it come?

"'Is it sucked with your milk? is it mixed with your flesh?
Does it float about everywhere like a mesh,
So fine you can't see it? Is it blast? Is it blight?
Is it fire? Is it fever? Is it wrong? Is it right?
Where is it? What is it? The Lord above,
He only knows the strength of love;
He only knows, and He only can,
The root of love that is in a man.'[1]

For a woman; that's harder still, isn't it, father? But never fret yourself, father, for Denas loves you and mother first of all and best of all." And she slipped on to his knee and stretched out her hand to her mother, and so, kissing the tears off her father's face and the smiles off her mother's lips, she went happily to her sleep.

And a great trust came into the father's and mother's hearts; they spoke long of their hopes and plans for her happiness, and then, stepping softly to her bedside, they blessed her in her sleep. And she was dreaming of Roland Tresham. So mighty is love, and yet so ignorant; so strong, and yet so weak; so wise, and yet so easily deceived.


CHAPTER II.


OH, THE PITY OF IT!

"One love is false, one love is true:
Ah, if a maiden only knew!"

"It is dear honey that is licked off a thorn."

The thing Elizabeth Tresham had done her best to prevent had really happened, but she was not much to blame. Circumstances quite unexpectedly had disarranged her plans and made her physically unable