Uncle William/Chapter 4

HE artist stood on the beach, his hands in his pockets. Near by, seated on a bit of driftwood, a man was cleaning fish. For a few minutes the artist watched the swift motion of the knife, flashing monotonously. Then he glanced at the harbor and at the two sailboats bobbing and pulling their ropes. He was tired with a long strain of work. The summer was almost done. For weeks—since the night of the big storm—he had worked incessantly. A new light had come over things,—“The light that never was on sea or land,” he called it,—and he had worked feverishly. He saw the water and the rugged land as Uncle William saw them. Through his eyes, he painted them. They took on color and bigness—simplicity. “They will call it my third style,” said the artist, smiling, as he worked. “They ought to call it the Uncle William style. I did n’t do it—I shall never do it again,” and he worked fast.

But now the sketches were done. They were safely packed and corded. To-morrow he was going. To-day he would rest himself and do the things he would like to remember.

He looked again at the man cleaning fish. “Pretty steady work,” he said, nodding toward the red pile.

The man looked up with a grunt. “Everything ’s steady—that pays,” he said indifferently.

The artist’s eyebrows lifted a little. “So?”

“Yep.” The man tossed aside another fish. “Ye can’t earn money stan’in’ with your hands in your pockets.”

“I guess that ’s so,” said the artist, cheerfully. He did not remove the hands. The fingers found a few pennies in the depths and jingled them merrily.

“There ’s Willum,” said the man, aggressively, sweeping his red knife toward the cliff. “He ’s poor—poor as poverty—an’ he al’ays will be.”

“What do you think is the reason?” asked the artist. The tone held respectful interest.

The man looked at him more tolerantly. “Too fond of settin’.”

The artist nodded. “I ’m afraid he is.”

“An’ then he ’s al’ays a-givin’—a little here and a little there. Why, what Willum Benslow ’s give away would ’a’ made a rich man of him.”

“Yes?”

“Yep. I don’t s’pose I know half he’s give. But it’s a heap, Lord knows! And then he’s foolish—plumb foolish.” He rested his arms on his legs, leaning forward. “How much d’ you s’pose he give me for that land—from here to my house?” He pointed up the coast.

The artist turned and squinted toward it with half-closed lids. It glowed—a riot of color, green and red, cool against the mounting sky. “I have n’t the least idea,” he said slowly.

“Well, you won’t believe it when I tell you;—nobody ’d believe it. He paid me five hunderd dollars for it—five hunderd! It ain’t wuth fifty.”

The artist smiled at him genially. “Well—he ’s satisfied.”

“But it ain’t right,” said the man, gloomily. He had returned to his fish. “It ain’t right. I can’t bear to have Willum such a fool.”

“I think I ’ll go for a sail,” said the artist.

The other glanced at the horizon. “It ’s going to storm,” he said indifferently.

“I ’ll keep an eye out.”

“Ye better not go.”

“Think not?” He looked again at the harbor. “It ’s my last chance for a sail—I ’ll watch out.”

“All right. ’T ain’t my business,” said the man. He went on slitting fish.

harbor held a still light—ominously—grey with a tinge of yellow in its depths. Uncle William hurried down the face of the cliff, a telescope in his hand. Now and then he paused on the zigzag path and swept the bay with it. The grey stillness deepened.

On the beach below, the man paused in his work to look up. As Uncle William approached he grunted stiffly. “She ’s off the island,” he said. He jerked a fishy thumb toward the water.

Uncle William’s telescope fixed the boat and held it. His throat hummed, holding a kind of conversation with itself.

The man had returned to his fish, slitting in rough haste and tossing to one side. “Fool to go out—I told him it was coming.”

The telescope descended. Uncle William regarded him mildly. “I o’t to ’a’ kept an eye on him,” he said humbly. “I did n’t jest sense he was goin’. I guess mebbe he did mention it. But I was mixin’ a batch of biscuit and kind o’ thinkin’ to myself. When I looked up he wa’n’t there.” He slid the telescope together and slipped it into his pocket. “I ’ll hev to go after him,” he said.

The other looked up quickly. “How ’ll you go?”

Uncle William nodded toward the boat that dipped securely at anchor. “I ’ll take her,” he said.

The man laughed shortly. “The Andrew Halloran? I guess not!” He shut his knife with a decisive snap and stood up. “I don’t trust her—not in such a storm as that ’s going to be.” He waved his arm toward the harbor. The greyness was shifting rapidly. It moved in swift green touches, heavy and clear—a kind of luminous dread. In its sallow light the man’s face stood out tragically. “I won’t resk her,” he cried.

“You ’ll hev to, Andrew.” Uncle William bent to the bow of the dory that was beached near by. “Jump in,” he said.

The man drew back a step. The hand with the clasped knife fell to his side. “Don’t you make me go, William,” he said pacifically. “You can take the boat in welcome, but don’t take me. It’s too much resk!”

“It’s al’ays a resk to do your duty,” said Uncle William. “Jump in. I can’t stand talkin’.” An edge of impatience grazed the words.

The man stepped in and seized the oars. “I ’ll help get her off,” he said, “but I won’t go.”

In the green light of the harbor a smile played over Uncle William’s face grotesquely. He gave a shove to the boat and sprang in. “I guess you ’ll go, Andrew,” he said; “you would n’t want a man drowned right at your door-yard.”

“You can’t live in it,” said Andrew. He lifted his face to the light. Far to the east a boat crawled against it. “It ’ll strike in five minutes,” he said.

“Like enough,” said Uncle William—“like enough. Easy there!” He seized the stern of the Andrew Halloran and sprang on board. They worked in swift silence, hoisting the anchor, letting out the sail,—a single reef,—making it fast. “All she ’ll stan’,” said Uncle William. He turned to the helm.

Andrew, seated on the tiller bench, glared at him defiantly. “If she ’s going out, I take her,” he said.

“You get right over there and tend the sheet, Andy,” said Uncle William.

In silence the other obeyed. He undid the rope, letting it out with cautious hand. The low sail caught the breeze and stiffened to it. The boat came round to the wind, dipping lightly.

She moved through the murky light as if drawn by unseen hands.

The light thickened and grew black—clouded and dense and swift. Then, with a wrench, heaven parted about them. The water descended in sheets, gray-black planes that shut them in—blinded them, crushed them. Andrew, crouching to the blows, drew in the sheet, closer, closer—hugging the wind with tense grasp. About them, the water flattened like a plate beneath the flood. When the rain shifted a second they saw it, a gray-white floor, stretching as far as the eye could reach. Uncle William bent to it, scanning the east. “Hold her tight, Andy,” he yelled. His leg was braced against the tiller, and his back strained to it. His hat was gone. The tufts of hair, lashed flat to the big skull, were mere lines. “Hold her tight! Make fast!” he yelled again.

Through the dark they drove, stunned and grim. The minutes lengthened to ages and beat them, eternally, in torment. Water and clouds were all about them—underneath them, and over. The boat, towering on each wave, dropped from its crest like a ball. Andy, crouching on the bottom of the boat, held on like grim death. Then, in a breath the storm was gone. With a sucking sound it had swept beyond them, its black skirts hurtling behind it as it ran, kicking a wake of foam.

Andrew from beneath the bench lifted his sopped head, like a turtle, breathless. Uncle William, bent far to the right, gazed to the east. Slowly his face lightened. He drew his big hand down its length, mopping off the wet. “There she is!” he said in a deep voice. “Let her out, Andy.”

With stiff fingers, Andrew reached to the sail, untying a second reef and loosing it to the wind.

The water still tossed in tumbling waves and the fitful rain blew past. But the force of the storm was gone. Away to the north it towered, monstrous and black.

With his eyes strained to the east, Uncle William held the tiller. “We ’ll make it, Andy,” he said quietly. “We ’ll make it yet if the Jennie holds out—” Suddenly he stood upright, his hand on the tiller, his eyes glued fast.

“Luff her,” he cried. “She ’s gone—Luff her, I tell you!” He sprang back, jamming the tiller from him. “Let her out, Andy, every inch!”

The canvas flew wide to the wind. The great boat responded to its touch. She rose like a bird and dipped, in sweeping sidewise flight, to the race.

Across the water something bobbed—black, uncertain.

“Look sharp, Andy,” said Uncle William.

Andrew peered with blinking eyes across the waste. The spirit of the chase was on him. His indifference had washed from him, like a husk, in that center of terror. His eyes leaped to the mass and glowed on it. “Yep,” he said solemnly, “he ’s held on—he ’s there!”

“Keep your eye on her, Andy. Don’t lose her.” Uncle William’s big arms strained to the wind, forcing the great bird in her course. Nearer she came and nearer, circling with white wings that opened and closed silently, softly. Close to the bobbing boat she grazed, hung poised a moment, and swept away with swift stroke.

The artist had swung through the air at the end of a huge arm. As he looked up from the bottom of the boat where he lay, the old man’s head, round and smooth, like a boulder, stood out against the black above him. It grew and expanded and filled the horizon—thick and nebulous and dizzy.

“Roll him over, Andy,” said Uncle William, “roll him over. He ’s shipped too much.”