Further Chronicles of Avonlea Page 8

Can't you hear him? Listen - listen - the little,

  lonely cry! Yes, yes, my precious, mother is coming.

  Wait for me. Mother is coming to her pretty boy!"

  I caught her hand and let her lead me where she would.

  Hand in hand we followed the dream-child down the

  harbor shore in that ghostly, clouded moonlight. Ever,

  she said, the little cry sounded before her. She

  entreated the dream-child to wait for her; she cried

  and implored and uttered tender mother-talk. But, at

  last, she ceased to hear the cry; and then, weeping,

  wearied, she let me lead her home again.

  What a horror brooded over that spring - that so

  beautiful spring! It was a time of wonder and marvel;

  of the soft touch of silver rain on greening fields; of

  the incredible delicacy of young leaves; of blossom on

  the land and blossom in the sunset. The whole world

  bloomed in a flush and tremor of maiden loveliness,

  instinct with all the evasive, fleeting charm of spring

  and girlhood and young morning. And almost every night

  of this wonderful time the dream-child called his

  mother, and we roved the gray shore in quest of him.

  In the day she was herself; but, when the night fell,

  she was restless and uneasy until she heard the call.

  Then follow it she would, even through storm and

  darkness. It was then, she said, that the cry sounded

  loudest and nearest, as if her pretty boy were

  frightened by the tempest. What wild, terrible rovings

  we had, she straining forward, eager to overtake the

  dream-child; I, sick at heart, following, guiding,

  protecting, as best I could; then afterwards leading

  her gently home, heart-broken because she could not

  reach the child.

  I bore my burden in secret, determining that gossip

  should not busy itself with my wife's condition so long

  as I could keep it from becoming known. We had no near

  relatives - none with any right to share any trouble -

  and whoso accepteth human love must bind it to his soul

  with pain.

  I thought, however, that I should have medical advice,

  and I took our old doctor into my confidence. He looked

  grave when he heard my story. I did not like his

  expression nor his few guarded remarks. He said he

  thought human aid would avail little; she might come

  all right in time; humor her, as far as possible, watch

  over her, protect her. He needed not to tell me that.

  The spring went out and summer came in - and the horror

  deepened and darkened. I knew that suspicions were

  being whispered from lip to lip. We had been seen on

  our nightly quests. Men and women began to look at us

  pityingly when we went abroad.

  One day, on a dull, drowsy afternoon, the dream-child

  called. I knew then that the end was near; the end had

  been near in the old grandmother's case sixty years

  before when the dream-child called in the day. The

  doctor looked graver than ever when I told him, and

  said that the time had come when I must have help in my

  task. I could not watch by day and night. Unless I had

  assistance I would break down.

  I did not think that I should. Love is stronger than

  that. And on one thing I was determined - they should

  never take my wife from me. No restraint sterner than a

  husband's loving hand should ever be put upon her, my

  pretty, piteous darling.

  I never spoke of the dream-child to her. The doctor

  advised against it. It would, he said, only serve to

  deepen the delusion. When he hinted at an asylum I gave

  him a look that would have been a fierce word for

  another man. He never spoke of it again.

  One night in August there was a dull, murky sunset

  after a dead, breathless day of heat, with not a wind

  stirring. The sea was not blue as a sea should be, but

  pink - all pink - a ghastly, staring, painted pink. I

  lingered on the harbor shore below the house until

  dark. The evening bells were ringing faintly and

  mournfully in a church across the harbor. Behind me, in

  the kitchen, I heard my wife singing. Sometimes now her

  spirits were fitfully high, and then she would sing the

  old songs of her girlhood. But even in her singing was

  something strange, as if a wailing, unearthly cry rang

  through it. Nothing about her was sadder than that

  strange singing.

  When I went back to the house the rain was beginning to

  fall; but there was no wind or sound in the air - only

  that dismal stillness, as if the world were holding its

  breath in expectation of a calamity.

  Josie was standing by the window, looking out and

  listening. I tried to induce her to go to bed, but she

  only shook her head.

  "I might fall asleep and not hear him when he called,"

  she said. "I am always afraid to sleep now, for fear he

  should call and his mother fail to hear him."

  Knowing it was of no use to entreat, I sat down by the

  table and tried to read. Three hours passed on. When

  the clock struck midnight she started up, with the wild

  light in her sunken blue eyes.

  "He is calling," she cried, "calling out there in the

  storm. Yes, yes, sweet, I am coming!"

  She opened the door and fled down the path to the

  shore. I snatched a lantern from the wall, lighted it,

  and followed. It was the blackest night I was ever out

  in, dark with the very darkness of death. The rain fell

  thickly and heavily. I overtook Josie, caught her hand,

  and stumbled along in her wake, for she went with the

  speed and recklessness of a distraught woman. We moved

  in the little flitting circle of light shed by the

  lantern. All around us and above us was a horrible,

  voiceless darkness, held, as it were, at bay by the

  friendly light.

  "If I could only overtake him once," moaned Josie. "If

  I could just kiss him once, and hold him close against

  my aching heart. This pain, that never leaves me, would

  leave me than. Oh, my pretty boy, wait for mother! I am

  coming to you. Listen, David; he cries - he cries so

  pitifully; listen! Can't you hear it?"

  I did hear it! Clear and distinct, out of the deadly

  still darkness before us, came a faint, wailing cry.

  What was it? Was I, too, going mad, or was there

  something out there - something that cried and moaned -

  longing for human love, yet ever retreating from human

  footsteps? I am not a superstitious man; but my nerve

  had been shaken by my long trial, and I was weaker than

  I thought. Terror took possession of me - terror

  unnameable. I trembled in every limb; clammy

  perspiration oozed from my forehead; I was possessed by

  a wild impulse to turn and flee - anywhere, away from

  that unearthly cry. But Josephine's cold hand gripped

  mine firmly, and led me on. That strange cry still rang

  in my ears. But it did not recede
; it sounded clearer

  and stronger; it was a wail; but a loud, insistent

  wail; it was nearer - nearer; it was in the darkness

  just beyond us.

  Then we came to it; a little dory had been beached on

  the pebbles and left there by the receding tide. There

  was a child in it - a boy, of perhaps two years old,

  who crouched in the bottom of the dory in water to his

  waist, his big, blue eyes wild and wide with terror,

  his face white and tear-stained. He wailed again when

  he saw us, and held out his little hands.

  My horror fell away from me like a discarded garment.

  This child was living. How he had come there, whence

  and why, I did not know and, in my state of mind, did

  not question. It was no cry of parted spirit I had

  heard - that was enough for me.

  "Oh, the poor darling!" cried my wife.

  She stooped over the dory and lifted the baby in her

  arms. His long, fair curls fell on her shoulder; she

  laid her face against his and wrapped her shawl around

  him.

  "Let me carry him, dear," I said. "He is very wet, and

  too heavy for you."

  "No, no, I must carry him. My arms have been so empty -

  they are full now. Oh, David, the pain at my heart has

  gone. He has come to me to take the place of my own.

  God has sent him to me out of the sea. He is wet and

  cold and tired. Hush, sweet one, we will go home."

  Silently I followed her home. The wind was rising,

  coming in sudden, angry gusts; the storm was at hand,

  but we reached shelter before it broke. Just as I shut

  our door behind us it smote the house with the roar of

  a baffled beast. I thanked God that we were not out in

  it, following the dream-child.

  "You are very wet, Josie," I said. "Go and put on dry

  clothes at once."

  "The child must be looked to first," she said firmly.

  "See how chilled and exhausted he is, the pretty dear.

  Light a fire quickly, David, while I get dry things for

  him."

  I let her have her way. She brought out the clothes our

  own child had worn and dressed the waif in them,

  rubbing his chilled limbs, brushing his wet hair,

  laughing over him, mothering him. She seemed like her

  old self.

  For my own part, I was bewildered. All the questions I

  had not asked before came crowding to my mind how.

  Whose child was this? Whence had he come? What was the

  meaning of it all?

  He was a pretty baby, fair and plump and rosy. When he

  was dried and fed, he fell asleep in Josie's arms. She

  hung over him in a passion of delight. It was with

  difficulty I persuaded her to leave him long enough to

  change her wet clothes. She never asked whose he might

  be or from where he might have come. He had been sent

  to her from the sea; the dream-child had led her to

  him; that was what she believed, and I dared not throw

  any doubt on that belief. She slept that night with the

  baby on her arm, and in her sleep her face was the face

  of a girl in her youth, untroubled and unworn.

  I expected that the morrow would bring some one seeking

  the baby. I had come to the conclusion that he must

  belong to the "Cove" across the harbor, where the

  fishing hamlet was; and all day, while Josie laughed

  and played with him, I waited and listened for the

  footsteps of those who would come seeking him. But they

  did not come. Day after day passed, and still they did

  not come.

  I was in a maze of perplexity. What should I do? I

  shrank from the thought of the boy being taken away

  from us. Since we had found him the dream-child had

  never called. My wife seemed to have turned back from

  the dark borderland, where her feet had strayed to walk

  again with me in our own homely paths. Day and night

  she was her old, bright self, happy and serene in the

  new motherhood that had come to her. The only thing

  strange in her was her calm acceptance of the event.

  She never wondered who or whose the child might be -

  never seemed to fear that he would be taken from her;

  and she gave him our dream-child's name.

  At last, when a full week had passed, I went, in my

  bewilderment, to our old doctor.

  "A most extraordinary thing," he said thoughtfully.

  "The child, as you say, must belong to the Spruce Cove

  people. Yet it is an almost unbelievable thing that

  there has been no search or inquiry after him. Probably

  there is some simple explanation of the mystery,

  however. I advise you to go over to the Cove and

  inquire. When you find the parents or guardians of the

  child, ask them to allow you to keep it for a time. It

  may prove your wife's salvation. I have known such

  cases. Evidently on that night the crisis of her mental

  disorder was reached. A little thing might have sufficed

  to turn her feet either way - back to reason

  and sanity, or into deeper darkness. It is my belief

  that the former has occurred, and that, if she is left

  in undisturbed possession of this child for a time, she

  will recover completely."

  I drove around the harbor that day with a lighter heart

  than I had hoped ever to possess again. When I reached

  Spruce Cove the first person I met was old Abel Blair.

  I asked him if any child were missing from the Cove or

  along shore. He looked at me in surprise, shook his

  head, and said he had not heard of any. I told him as

  much of the tale as was necessary, leaving him to think

  that my wife and I had found the dory and its small

  passenger during an ordinary walk along the shore.

  "A green dory!" he exclaimed. "Ben Forbes' old green

  dory has been missing for a week, but it was so rotten

  and leaky he didn't bother looking for it. But this

  child, sir - it beats me. What might he be like?"

  I described the child as closely as possible.

  "That fits little Harry Martin to a hair," said old

  Abel, perplexedly, "but, sir, it can't be. Or, if it

  is, there's been foul work somewhere. James Martin's

  wife died last winter, sir, and he died the next month.

  They left a baby and not much else. There weren't

  nobody to take the child but Jim's half-sister, Maggie

  Fleming. She lived here at the Cove, and, I'm sorry to

  say, sir, she hadn't too good a name. She didn't want

  to be bothered with the baby, and folks say she

  neglected him scandalous. Well, last spring she begun

  talking of going away to the States. She said a friend

  of hers had got her a good place in Boston, and she was

  going to go and take little Harry. We supposed it was

  all right. Last Saturday she went, sir. She was going

  to walk to the station, and the last seen of her she

  was trudging along the road, carrying the baby. It

  hasn't been thought of since. But, sir, d'ye suppose

  she set that innocent ch
ild adrift in that old leaky

  dory to send him to his death? I knew Maggie was no

  better than she should be, but I can't believe she was

  as bad as that."

  "You must come over with me and see if you can identify

  the child," I said. "If he is Harry Martin I shall keep

  him. My wife has been very lonely since our baby died,

  and she has taken a fancy to this little chap."

  When we reached my home old Abel recognized the child

  as Harry Martin.

  He is with us still. His baby hands led my dear wife

  back to health and happiness. Other children have come

  to us, she loves them all dearly; but the boy who bears

  her dead son's name is to her - aye, and to me - as

  dear as if she had given him birth. He came from the

  sea, and at his coming the ghostly dream-child fled,

  nevermore to lure my wife away from me with its

  exciting cry. Therefore I look upon him and love him as

  my first-born.

  Chapter VI

  The Brother Who Failed

  THE Monroe family were holding a Christmas reunion at

  the old Prince Edward Island homestead at White Sands.

  It was the first time they had all been together under

  one roof since the death of their mother, thirty years

  before. The idea of this Christmas reunion had

  originated with Edith Monroe the preceding spring,

  during her tedious convalescence from a bad attack of

  pneumonia among strangers in an American city, where

  she had not been able to fill her concert engagements,

  and had more spare time in which to feel the tug of old

  ties and the homesick longing for her own people than

  she had had for years. As a result, when she recovered,

  she wrote to her second brother, James Monroe, who

  lived on the homestead; and the consequence was this

  gathering of the Monroes under the old roof-tree. Ralph

  Monroe for once laid aside the cares of his railroads,

  and the deceitfulness of his millions, in Toronto and

  took the long-promised, long-deferred trip to the

  homeland. Malcolm Monroe journeyed from the far western

  university of which he was president. Edith came,

  flushed with the triumph of her latest and most

  successful concert tour. Mrs. Woodburn, who had been

  Margaret Monroe, came from the Nova Scotia town where

  she lived a busy, happy life as the wife of a rising

  young lawyer. James, prosperous and hearty, greeted

  them warmly at the old homestead whose fertile acres

  had well repaid his skillful management.

  They were a merry party, casting aside their cares and

  years, and harking back to joyous boyhood and girlhood

  once more. James had a family of rosy lads and lasses;

  Margaret brought her two blue-eyed little girls;

  Ralph's dark, clever-looking son accompanied him, and

  Malcolm brought his, a young man with a resolute face,

  in which there was less of boyishness than in his

  father's, and the eyes of a keen, perhaps a hard

  bargainer. The two cousins were the same age to a day,

  and it was a family joke among the Monroes that the

  stork must have mixed the babies, since Ralph's son was

  like Malcolm in face and brain, while Malcolm's boy was

  a second edition of his uncle Ralph.

  To crown all, Aunt Isabel came, too - a talkative,

  clever, shrewd old lady, as young at eighty-five as she

  had been at thirty, thinking the Monroe stock the best

  in the world, and beamingly proud of her nephews and

  nieces, who had gone out from this humble, little farm

  to destinies of such brilliance and influence in the

  world beyond.

  I have forgotten Robert. Robert Monroe was apt to be

  forgotten. Although he was the oldest of the family,

  White Sands people, in naming over the various members

  of the Monroe family, would add, "and Robert," in a

  tone of surprise over the remembrance of his existence.

  He lived on a poor, sandy little farm down by the

  shore, but he had come up to James' place on the

  evening when the guests arrived; they had all greeted

  him warmly and joyously, and then did not think about

  him again in their laughter and conversation. Robert

  sat back in a corner and listened with a smile, but he

  never spoke. Afterwards he had slipped noiselessly away

  and gone home, and nobody noticed his going. They were