University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.

Mara was so wearied with her night walk and the agitation
she had been through, that once asleep she slept long
after the early breakfast hour of the family. She was surprised
on awaking to hear the slow old clock down-stairs
striking eight.

She hastily jumped up and looked around with a confused
wonder, and then slowly the events of the past night came
back upon her like a remembered dream. She dressed
herself quickly, and went down to find the breakfast things
all washed and put away, and Mrs. Pennel spinning.

“Why, dear heart,” said the old lady, “how came you to
sleep so? — I spoke to you twice, but I could not make you
hear.”

“Has Moses been down, grandma?” said Mara, intent on
the sole thought in her heart.

“Why, yes, dear, long ago, — and cross enough he was;
that boy does get to be a trial, — but come, dear, I 've
saved some hot cakes for you, — sit down now and eat
your breakfast.”

Mara made a feint of eating what her grandmother with
fond officiousness would put before her, and then rising up
she put on her sun-bonnet and started down toward the cove
to find her old friend.

The queer, dry, lean old Captain had been to her all her
life like a faithful kobold or brownie, an unquestioning servant

of all her gentle biddings. She dared tell him anything
without diffidence or shamefacedness; and she felt that
in this trial of her life he might have in his sea-receptacle
some odd old amulet or spell that should be of power to help
her. Instinctively she avoided the house, lest Sally should
see and fly out and seize her. She took a narrow path
through the cedars down to the little boat cove where the
old Captain worked so merrily ten years ago, in the beginning
of our story, and where she found him now with his
coat off busily planing a board.

“Wal', now, — if this 'ere don't beat all!” he said, looking
up and seeing her; “why, you 're looking after Sally, I
s'pose? She 's up to the house.”

“No, Captain Kittridge, I 'm come to see you.”

“You be?” said the Captain, “I swow! if I a'n't a lucky
feller. But what 's the matter?” he said, suddenly observing
her pale face, and the tears in her eyes. “Ha' n't
nothin' bad happened, — hes there?”

“Oh! Captain Kittridge, something dreadful; and nobody
but you can help me.”

“Want to know now?” said the Captain, with a grave
face. “Well, come here now and sit down, and tell me all
about it. Don't you cry, there 's a good girl! Don't now.”

Mara began her story, and went through with it in a
rapid and agitated manner; and the good Captain listened
in a fidgety state of interest, occasionally relieving his mind
by interjecting “Do tell now!” “I swan, — if that ar
a'n't too bad.”

“That ar 's rediculous conduct in Atkinson. He ought to
be talked to,” said the Captain when she had finished, and
then he whistled and put a shaving in his mouth, which he
chewed reflectively.

“Don't you be a mite worried, Mara,” he said. “You
did a great deal better to come to me than to go to Mr.
Sewell or your grand'ther either; 'cause you see these 'ere
wild chaps they 'll take things from me they would n't from
a church-member or a minister. Folks must n't pull 'em up
with too short a rein, — they must kind o' flatter 'em off.
But that ar Atkinson 's too rediculous for anything; and if
he don't mind, I 'll serve him out. I know a thing or two
about him that I shall shake over his head if he don't behave.
Now I don't think so much of smugglin' as some
folks,” said the Captain, lowering his voice to a confidential
tone. “I reely don't, now; but come to goin' off piratin',
— and tryin' to put a young boy up to robbin' his best
friends, — why, there a'n't no kind o' sense in that. It 's
p'ison mean of Atkinson. I shall tell him so, and I shall
talk to Moses.”

“Oh! I 'm afraid to have you,” said Mara, apprehensively.

“Why, chickabiddy,” said the old Captain, “you don't
understand me. I a'n't goin' at him with no sermons, — I
shall jest talk to him this way: Look here now, Moses, I
shall say, there 's Badger's ship goin' to sail in a fortnight
for China, and they want likely fellers aboard, and I 've got
a hundred dollars that I 'd like to send on a venture; if
you 'll take it and go, why, we 'll share the profits. I shall
talk like that, you know. Mebbe I sha' n't let him know
what I know, and mebbe I shall; jest tip him a wink, you
know; it depends on circumstances. But bless you, child,
these 'ere fellers a'n't none of 'em 'fraid o' me, you see,
'cause they know I know the ropes.”

“And can you make that horrid man let him alone?”
said Mara, fearfully.

“Calculate I can. 'Spect if I 's to tell Atkinson a few

things I know, he 'd be for bein' scase in our parts. Now,
you see, I ha' n't minded doin' a small bit o' trade now and
then with them ar fellers myself; but this 'ere,” said the
Captain, stopping and looking extremely disgusted, “why,
it 's contemptible, it 's rediculous!”

“Do you think I 'd better tell grandpapa?” said Mara.

“Don't worry your little head. I 'll step up and have a
talk with Pennel this evening. He knows as well as I that
there is times when chaps must be seen to, and no remarks
made. Pennel knows that ar. Why, now, Mis' Kittridge
thinks our boys turned out so well all along of her bringin'
up, and I let her think so; keeps her sort o' in spirits, you
see. But Lord bless ye, child, there 's been times with
Job, and Sam, and Pass, and Dass, and Dile, and all on 'em
finally, when, if I had n't jest pulled a rope here and turned
a screw there, and said nothin' to nobody, they 'd a-been all
gone to smash. I never told Mis' Kittridge none o' their
didos; bless you, 't would n't been o' no use. I never told
them, neither; but I jest kind o' worked 'em off, you know;
and they 's all putty 'spectable men now, as men go, you
know; not like Parson Sewell, but good, honest mates and
ship-masters, — kind o' middlin' people, you know. It takes
a good many o' sich to make up a world, d' ye see.”

“But oh, Captain Kittridge, did any of them use to
swear?” said Mara, in a faltering voice.

“Wal', they did consid'able,” said the Captain; — then
seeing the trembling of Mara's lip, he added, —

“Ef you could a-found this 'ere out any other way, it 's
most a pity you 'd a-heard him; 'cause he would n't never
have let out afore you. It don't do for gals to hear the
fellers talk when they 's alone, 'cause fellers, — wal', you
see, fellers will be fellers, partic'larly when they 'r' young.

Some on 'em, they never gits over it all their lives
finally.”

“But oh! Captain Kittridge, that talk last night was so
dreadfully wicked! and Moses! — oh, it was dreadful to
hear him!”

“Wal', yes, it was,” said the Captain, consolingly; “but
don't you cry and don't you break your little heart. I expect
he 'll come all right, and jine the church one of these
days; 'cause there 's old Pennel, he prays, — fact now, I
think there 's consid'able in some people's prayers, and he 's
one of the sort. And you pray, too; and I 'm quite sure
the good Lord must hear you. I declare sometimes I wish
you 'd jest say a good word to Him for me; I should like
to get the hang o' things a little better than I do somehow,
I reely should. I 've gi'n up swearing years ago. Mis'
Kittridge, she broke me o' that, and now I don't never go
further than `I vum' or `I swow,' or somethin' o' that sort;
but you see I 'm old; — Moses is young; but then he 's got
eddication and friends, and he 'll come all right. Now you
jest see ef he don't!”

This miscellaneous budget of personal experiences and
friendly consolation which the good Captain conveyed to
Mara may possibly make you laugh, my reader, but the
good, ropy brown man was doing his best to console his
little friend; and as Mara looked at him he was almost
glorified in her eyes — he had power to save Moses, and
he would do it.

She went home to dinner that day with her heart considerably
lightened. She refrained, in a guilty way, from
even looking at Moses, who was gloomy and moody.

Mara had from nature a good endowment of that kind of
innocent hypocrisy which is needed as a staple in the lives

of women who bridge a thousand awful chasms with smiling,
unconscious looks, and walk, singing and scattering flowers,
over abysses of fear, while their hearts are dying within
them.

She talked more volubly than was her wont with Mrs.
Pennel, and with her old grandfather; she laughed and
seemed in more than usual spirits, and only once did she
look up and catch the gloomy eye of Moses. It had that
murky, troubled look that one may see in the eye of a boy
when those evil waters which cast up mire and dirt have
once been stirred in his soul. They fell under her clear
glance, and he made a rapid, impatient movement, as if
it hurt him to be looked at. The evil spirit in boy or man
cannot bear the “touch of celestial temper;” and the sensitiveness
to eyebeams is one of the earliest signs of conscious,
inward guilt.

Mara was relieved, as he flung out of the house after dinner,
to see the long, dry figure of Captain Kittridge coming
up and seizing Moses by the button.

From the window she saw the Captain assuming a confidential
air with him; and when they had talked together
a few moments, she saw Moses going with great readiness
after him down the road to his house.

In less than a fortnight, it was settled Moses was to sail
for China, and Mara was deep in the preparations for his
outfit. Once she would have felt this departure as the most
dreadful trial of her life. Now it seemed to her a deliverance
for him, and she worked with a cheerful alacrity, which
seemed to Moses was more than was proper, considering he
was going away.

For Moses, like many others of his sex, boy or man, had
quietly settled in his own mind that the whole love of

Mara's heart was to be his, to have and to hold, to use and
to draw on, when and as he liked. He reckoned on it as a
sort of inexhaustible, uncounted treasure that was his own
peculiar right and property, and therefore he felt abused at
what he supposed was a disclosure of some deficiency on her
part.

“You seem to be very glad to be rid of me,” he said to
her in a bitter tone one day, as she was earnestly busy in
her preparations.

Now the fact was, that Moses had been assiduously making
himself disagreeable to Mara for the fortnight past, by
all sorts of unkind sayings and doings; and he knew it too;
yet he felt a right to feel very much abused at the thought
that she could possibly want him to be going.

If she had been utterly desolate about it, and torn her
hair and sobbed and wailed, he would have asked what she
could be crying about, and begged not to be bored with
scenes; but as it was, this cheerful composure was quite
unfeeling.

Now pray don't suppose Moses to be a monster of an uncommon
species. We take him to be an average specimen
of a boy of a certain kind of temperament in the transition
period of life. Everything is chaos within — the flesh
lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh,
and “light and darkness, and mind and dust, and passion
and pure thoughts, mingle and contend,” without end or
order.

He wondered at himself sometimes that he could say
such cruel things as he did to his faithful little friend —
to one whom, after all, he did love and trust before all other
human beings.

There is no saying why it is that a man or a boy, not

radically destitute of generous comprehensions, will often
cruelly torture and tyrannize over a woman whom he
both loves and reveres — who stands in his soul in his
best hours as the very impersonation of all that is good
and beautiful.

It is as if some evil spirit at times possessed him, and
compelled him to utter words which were felt at the moment
to be mean and hateful.

Moses often wondered at himself, as he lay awake nights,
how he could have said and done the things he had, and felt
miserably resolved to make it up somehow before he went
away — but he did not.

He could not say, “Mara, I have done wrong,” though he
every day meant to do it, and sometimes sat an hour in her
presence, feeling murky and stony, as if possessed by a
dumb spirit — then he would get up and fling stormily
out of the house.

Poor Mara wondered if he really would go without one
kind word. She thought of all the years they had been together,
and how he had been her only thought and love.

What had become of her brother? — the Moses that once
she used to know — frank, careless, not ill tempered, and
who sometimes seemed to love her and think she was the
best little girl in the world? Where was he gone to — this
friend and brother of her childhood, and would he never
come back?

At last came the evening before his parting; the sea-chest
was all made up and packed; and Mara's fingers had been
busy with everything, from more substantial garments down
to all those little comforts and nameless conveniences that
only a woman knows how to improvise. Mara thought certainly
she should get a few kind words as Moses looked it

over. But he only said, “All right;” and then added that
“there was a button off one of the shirts.” Mara's busy
fingers quickly replaced it, and Moses was annoyed at the
tear that fell on the button. What was she crying for now?
He knew very well, but he felt stubborn and cruel. Afterwards
he lay awake many a night in his berth, and acted
this last scene over differently. He took Mara in his arms
and kissed her; he told her she was his best friend, his good
angel, and that he was not worthy to kiss the hem of her
garment; but the next day, when he thought of writing a
letter to her, he did n't, and the good mood passed away.

Boys do not acquire an ease of expression in letter-writing
as early as girls, and a voyage to China furnished opportunities
few and far between of sending letters.

Now and then, through some sailing ship, came missives
which seemed to Mara altogether colder and more unsatisfactory
than they would have done could she have appreciated
the difference between a boy and a girl in power of
epistolary expression; for the power of really representing
one's heart on paper, which is one of the first spring flowers
of early womanhood, is the latest blossom on the slow growing
tree of manhood. To do Moses justice, these seeming
cold letters were often written with a choking lump in his
throat, caused by thinking over his many sins against his
little good angel; but then that past account was so long,
and had so much that it pained him to think of, that he
dashed it all off in the shortest fashion, and said to himself,
“One of these days when I see her I 'll make it all up.”

No man — especially one that is living a rough, busy, out-of-doors
life — can form the slightest conception of that
veiled and secluded life which exists in the heart of a sensitive
woman, whose sphere is narrow, whose external diversions

are few, and whose mind, therefore, acts by a continual
introversion upon itself. They know nothing how their
careless words and actions are pondered and turned again in
weary, quiet hours of fruitless questioning. What did he
mean by this? and what did he intend by that? — while he,
the careless buffalo, meant nothing, or has forgotten what it
was, if he did.

Man's utter ignorance of woman's nature is a cause of a
great deal of unsuspected cruelty which he practises toward
her.

Mara found one or two opportunities of writing to Moses;
but her letters were timid and constrained by a sort of frosty,
discouraged sense of loneliness; and Moses, though he knew
he had no earthly right to expect this to be otherwise, took
upon him to feel as an abused individual, whom nobody
loved — whose way in the world was destined to be lonely
and desolate. So when, at the end of three years, he arrived
suddenly at Brunswick in the beginning of winter, and came
all burning with impatience to the home at Orr's Island, and
found that Mara had gone to Boston on a visit, he resented
it as a personal slight.

He might have inquired why she should expect him, and
whether her whole life was to be spent in looking out of the
window to watch for him. He might have remembered that
he had warned her of his approach by no letter. But no.
“Mara did n't care for him — she had forgotten all about
him — she was having a good time in Boston, just as likely
as not with some train of admirers, and he had been tossing
on the stormy ocean, and she had thought nothing of it.”

How many things he had meant to say! He had never
felt so good and so affectionate. He would have confessed
all the sins of his life to her, and asked her pardon — and
she was n't there!

Mrs. Pennel suggested that he might go to Boston after
her.

No, he was not going to do that. He would not intrude
on her pleasures with the memory of a rough, hard-working
sailor. He was alone in the world, and had his own way to
make, and so best go at once up among lumbermen, and cut
the timber for the ship that was to carry Cæsar and his
fortunes.

When Mara was informed by a letter from Mrs. Pennel,
expressed in the few brief words in which that good woman
generally embodied her epistolary communications, that Moses
had been at home, and gone to Umbagog without seeing
her, she felt at her heart only a little closer stricture of a
cold quiet pain, which had become a habit of her inner life.

“He did not love her — he was cold and selfish,” said
the inner voice. And faintly she pleaded, in answer, “He
is a man — he has seen the world — and has so much to do
and think of, no wonder.”

In fact, during the last three years that had parted them,
the great change of life had been consummated in both.
They had parted boy and girl; they would meet man and
woman. The time of this meeting had been announced.

And all this is the history of that sigh — so very quiet
that Sally Kittridge never checked the rattling flow of her
conversation to observe it.