The Mermaid

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By an effort of will he turned his thought from this desire, or from
considering what the mysterious something could be that it was
all-important for him not to see, or who it was that in this desolate
place would spy upon him if he broke his vow.

When his activity had set the blood again coursing warmly in his veins,
all that was paltry and depressing passed from his mind and heart, as a
mist is rolled away by the wind. The sweet, wild air, that in those
regions is an elixir of life to the stranger, making him young if he be
old, and if he be young making him feel as demigods felt in days of
yore, for a day and a night had been doing its work upon him. Mere life
and motion became to him a delight such as he had never felt before; and
when the moon came out again from the other side of the cloud, the sight
of her beams upon surf and sand was like a rare wild joy. He was glad
that no one interfered with his pleasure, that he was, as far as he
knew, alone with the clouds that were winging their way among moonbeams
in the violet sky, and with the waves and the wind with which he held
companionship.

He had gone a mile, it might be more; he heard a step behind him. In
vain he tried to convince himself that some noise natural to the lonely
beach deceived him. In the high tide of life that the bracing air had
brought him, his senses were acute and true. He knew that he heard this
step: it was light, like a child's; it was nimble, like a fawn's;
sometimes it was very near him. He was not in the least afraid; but do
what he would, his mind could form no idea of what creature it might be
who thus attended him. No dark or fearful picture crossed his mind just
then; all its images were good.

The fleet of white clouds that were sailing in the sky rang glad changes
upon the beauty of the moonlit scene. Half a mile or more Caius walked
listening to the footstep; then he came on a wrecked boat buried in the
sand, its rim laid bare by the tide. Caius struck his foot and fell upon
it.

Striking his head, stunned for a moment, then springing up again, in the
motion of falling or rising, he knew not how, he saw the beach behind
him--the waves that were now nearing the foot of the dune, the track
between with his footsteps upon it, and, standing in this track, alert
to fly if need be, the figure of a girl. Her dress was all blown by the
wind, her curling hair was like a twining garland round her face, and
her face--ah! that face: he knew it as well as, far better than he knew
his own; its oval curves, its dimpled sweetness, its laughing eyes. Just
for such brief seconds of time as were necessary for perfect recognition
he saw it; and then, impelled by his former purpose--no time now for a
new volition--he got himself up and walked on, with his eyes in front as
before.

He thought the sea-maid did not know that he had seen her, for her
footsteps came on after his own. Or, if she knew, she trusted him not to
turn. That was well; she might trust him. Never in his life had Caius
felt less temptation to do the thing that he held to be false. He knew
now, for he had seen the whole line of the beach, that there was
nothing there for him to fear, nothing that could give any adequate
reason to any man to compel him to walk as he now walked. That did not
matter; he had given his word. In the physical exaltation of the hour
the best of him was uppermost. Like the angels, who walk in heavenly
paths, he had no desire to be a thing that could stoop from moral
rectitude. The knowledge that his old love of the sea was his companion
only enhanced the strength of his vow, only made all that the strength
of vows mean more dear to him; and the moonlit shore was more beautiful,
and life, each moment that he was then living, more absolutely good.

So they went on, and he did not try to think where the sea-maid had come
from, or whether the gray flapping dress and the girlish step were but
the phantom guise that she could don for the hour, or whether, if he
should turn and pursue her, she would drop from her upright height into
the scaly folds that he had once seen, and plunge into the waves, or
whether _that_ had been the masquerade, and she a true woman of the
land. He did not know or care. Come what come might, his spirit walked
the beach that night with the beautiful spirit that the face of the
sea-maid interpreted to him.

CHAPTER VII.

THE GRAVE LADY.

The hills of Cloud Island were a fair sight to see in the moonlight.
When the traveller came close to them, the beach ended obviously in a
sandy road which led up on the island. There was a small white wooden
house near the beach; there was candlelight within, but Caius took no
notice of it. The next building was a lighthouse, which stood three
hundred yards farther on. The light looking seaward was not visible. He
passed the distance swiftly, and no sooner were his feet level with the
wall of the square wooden tower, than he turned about on the soft sandy
road and faced the wind that had been racing with him, and looked. The
scene was all as he might have expected to see it; but there was no
living creature in sight. He stood in the gale, bare-headed, looking,
looking; he had no desire to enter the house. The sea-maid was not in
sight, truly; but as long as he stood alone in the moonlight scene, he
felt that her presence was with him. Then he remembered the dying man of
whom he had been told, who lay in such need of his ministrations. The
thought came with no binding sense of duty such as he had felt
concerning the keeping of his vow. He would have scorned to do a
dishonourable thing in the face of the uplifting charm of the nature
around him, and, more especially, in the presence of his love; but what
had nature and this, her beautiful child, to do with the tending of
disease and death? Better let the man die; better remain himself in the
wholesome outside. He felt that he would put himself at variance with
the companions of the last glorious hour if he attended to the dictates
of this dolorous duty. Yet, because of a dull habit of duty he had, he
turned in a minute, and went into the house where he had been told he
would receive guidance for the rest of his journey.

He had no sooner knocked at the substantial door on the ground-floor of
the lighthouse than it was opened by a sallow-faced, kindly-looking old
woman. She admitted him, as if he were an expected comer, into a large
square room, in which a lamp and a fire were burning. The room was
exquisitely neat and clean, as if the inspector of lighthouses might be
looked for at any moment. The woman, who was French, spoke a little
English, and her French was of a sort which Caius could understand and
answer. She placed a chair for him by the heated stove, asked where Mr.
O'Shea and the cart had tarried, listened with great interest to a brief
account of the accident in the quicksand, and, without more delay,
poured out hot strong coffee, which Caius drank out of a large bowl.

"Are you alone in the house?" asked Caius. The impression was strong
upon him that he was in a place where the people bore a dangerous or
mysterious character. A woman to be alone, with open doors, must either
be in league with those from whom danger might be feared, or must
possess mysterious powers of self-defence.

The woman assured him that she was alone, and perfectly safe. She gave a
kindly and careful glance at the traveller's boots, which had been wet,
and brought him another pair. It was evident she knew who Caius was, and
wherefore he had come to the island, and that her careful entertainment
of him was prearranged. It was arranged, too, that she should pass him
on to the patient for whom his skill was chiefly desired that night as
quickly as possible. She gave him only reasonable time to be warmed and
fed, telling him the while what a good man this was who had lately been
taken so very ill, what an excellent husband and father, how important
his life was to the welfare of the community.

"For," said she, "he is truly rather rich and very intelligent; so much
so that some would even say that he was the friend of Madame Le Maitre."
Her voice had a crescendo of vehemence up to this last name.

Caius had his marching orders once more. His hostess went out with him
to the moonlit road to point his way. She showed him where the road
divided, and which path to take, and said that he must then pass three
houses and enter the fourth. She begged him, with courteous authority,
to hasten.

The houses were a good way apart. After half an hour's fast walking,
Caius came to the appointed place. The house was large, of
light-coloured wood, shingled all over roof and sides, and the light and
shades in the lapping of the shingles gave the soft effect almost as of
feathers in the lesser light of night. It stood in a large compound of
undulating grassy ground.

The whole lower floor of this house was one room. In the middle of it,
on a small pallet bedstead, lay the sick man. Beside him was a woman
dressed in gray homespun, apparently his wife, and another woman who
wore a dress not unlike that of a nun, a white cap being bandaged
closely round her forehead, cheeks and chin. The nun-like dress gave her
great dignity. She seemed to Caius a strong-featured woman of large
stature, apparently in early middle age. He was a good deal surprised
when he found that this was Madame Le Maitre. He had had no definite
notion of her, but this certainly did not fulfil his idea.

It was but the work of a short time to do all that could be done that
night for the sick man, to leave the remedies that were to be used. It
was now midnight. The hot stove in the room, causing reaction from the
strongly-stimulating air, made him again feel heavy with sleep. The
nun-like lady, who had as yet said almost nothing to him, now touched
him on the shoulder and beckoned him to follow her. She led him out into
the night again, round the house and into a barn, in either side of
which were tremendous bins of hay.

"Your house," she said, "is a long way from here, and you are very
tired. In the house here there is the infection." Here she pointed him
to the hay, and, giving him a warm blanket, bade him good-night.

Caius shut the door, and found that the place was lit by dusky rays of
moonlight that came through chinks in its walls. He climbed the ladder
that reached to the top of the hay, and rolled himself and his blanket
warmly in it. The barn was not cold. The airiness of the walls was a
relief to him after the infected room. Never had couch felt more
luxurious.

CHAPTER VIII.

HOW THEY LIVED ON THE CLOUD.

When the chinks of moonlight had been replaced by brighter chinks of
sunlight, the new doctor who had come so gallantly to the aid of the
sufferers on Cloud Island opened his eyes upon his first day there.

He heard some slight sounds, and looked over the edge of his bed to see
a little table set forth in the broad passage between the two stores of
hay. A slip of a girl, of about fourteen years of age, was arranging
dishes upon it. When Caius scrambled down, she informed him, with
childish timidity of mien, that Madame Le Maitre had said that he was to
have his breakfast there before he went in to see "father." The child
spoke French, but Caius spoke English because it relieved his mind to do
so.

"Upon my word!" he said, "Madame Le Maitre keeps everything running in
very good order, and takes prodigious care of us all."

"Oh, oui, monsieur," replied the child sagely, judging from his look of
amusement and the name he had repeated that this was the proper answer.

The breakfast, which was already there, consisted of fish, delicately
baked, and coffee. The young doctor felt exceedingly odd, sitting in the
cart-track of a barn and devouring these viands from a breakfast-table
that was tolerably well set out with the usual number of dishes and
condiments. The big double door was closed to keep out the cold wind,
but plenty of air and numerous sunbeams managed to come in. The sunbeams
were golden bars of dust, crossing and interlacing in the twilight of
the windowless walls. The slip of a girl in her short frock remained,
perhaps from curiosity, perhaps because she had been bidden to do so,
but she made herself as little obvious as possible, standing up against
one corner near the door and shyly twisting some bits of hay in her
hands. Caius, who was enjoying himself, discovered a new source of
amusement in pretending to forget her presence and then looking at her
quickly, for he always found the glance of her big gray eyes was being
withdrawn from his own face, and child-like confusion ensued.

When he had eaten enough, he set to his proper work with haste and
diligence. He made the girl tell him how many children there were, and
find them all for him, so that in a trice he had them standing in a row
in the sunlight outside the barn, with their little tongues all out,
that the state of their health might be properly inspected. Then he went
in to his patient of the night before.

The disease was diphtheria. It was a severe case; but the man had been
healthy, and Caius approved the arrangements that Madame Le Maitre had
made to give him plenty of air and nourishment.

The wife was alone with her husband this morning, and when Caius had
done all that was necessary, and given her directions for the proper
protection of herself and the children, she told him that her eldest
girl would go with him to the house of Madame Le Maitre. That lady,
said she simply, would tell him where he was to go next, and all he was
to do upon the island.

"Upon my word!" said Caius again to himself, "it seems I am to be taken
care of and instructed, truly."

He had a sense of being patronized; but his spirits were high--nothing
depressed him; and, remembering the alarming incident of the night
before, he felt that the lady's protection might not be unnecessary.

When he got to the front of the house, for the first time in the morning
light, he saw that the establishment was of ample size, but kept with no
care for a tasteful appearance. There was no path of any sort leading
from the gate in the light paling to the door; all was a thick carpet of
grass, covering the unlevelled ground. The grass was waving madly in the
wind, which coursed freely over undulating fields that here displayed no
shrubs or trees of any sort. Caius wondered if the wind always blew on
these islands; it was blowing now with the same zest as the day before;
the sun poured down with brilliancy upon everything, and the sea, seen
in glimpses, was blue and tempestuous. Truly, it seemed a land which the
sun and the moon and the wind had elected to bless with lavish
self-giving.

When Caius opened the gate of the whitewashed paling, the girl who was
to be his guide came round from the back of the house after him, and on
her track came a sudden rush of all the other children, who, with curls
and garments flying in the wind and delightful bursts of sudden
laughter, came to stand in a row again with their tongues outstretched
at Caius' retreating form.

The girl could only talk French, and she talked very little of that,
giving him "yes" or "no" demurely, as they went up the road which ran
inland through the island hills, keeping about midway between sea and
sea. Caius saw that the houses and small farms on either side resembled
those which he had seen on the other island. Small and rough many of
them were; but their whitewashed walls, the strong sunshine, and the
large space of grass or pine shrubs that was about each, gave them an
appearance of cleanliness. There was no sign of the want or squalor that
he had expected; indeed, so prosperous did many of the houses look, that
he himself began to have an injured feeling, thinking that he had been
brought to befriend people who might very well have befriended
themselves.

It was when they came out at a dip in the hills near the outer sea again
that the girl stopped, and pointing Caius to a house within sight, went
back. This house in the main resembled the other larger houses of the
island; but pine and birch trees were beginning to grow high about it,
and on entering its enclosure Caius trod upon a gravel path, and noticed
banks of earth that in the summer time had held flowers. In front of the
white veranda two powerful mastiffs were lying in the sun. These lions
were not chained; they were looking for him before he appeared, but did
not take the trouble to rise at the sight of him; only a low and ominous
rumble, as of thunder beneath the earth, greeted his approach, and gave
Caius the strong impression that, if need was, they would arise to some
purpose.

A young girl opened the door. She was fresh and pretty-looking, but of
plebeian figure and countenance. Her dress was again gray homespun,
hanging full and short about her ankles. Her manner was different from
that of those people he had been lately meeting, for it had that gentle
reserve and formality that bespeaks training. She ushered him into a
good-sized room, where three other girls like herself were engaged in
sewing. Sitting at a table with a book, from which she had apparently
been reading to them, was the woman in the nun-like dress whom he had
met before. The walls of the room were of unpainted pinewood, planed to
a satin finish, and adorned with festoons of gray moss such as hangs
from forest boughs. This was tied with knots of red bittersweet berries;
the feathers of sea-birds were also displayed on the walls, and chains
of their delicate-coloured eggs were hanging there. Caius had not
stepped across the threshold before he began to suspect that he had
passed from the region of the real into the ideal.

"She is a romantic-minded woman," he said to himself. "I wonder if she
has much sense, after all?"

Then the woman whom he was thus inwardly criticising rose and came
across the room to meet him. Her perfect gravity, her dignity of
bearing, and her gracious greeting, impressed him in spite of himself.
Pictures that one finds in history and fiction of lady abbesses rose
before his mind; it was thus that he classified her. His opinion as to
the conscious romance of her life altered, for the woman before him was
very real, and he knew in a moment that she had seen and suffered much.
Her eyes were full of suffering and of solicitude; but it did not seem
to him that the suffering and solicitude were in any way connected with
a personal need, for there was also peace upon her face.

The room did not contain much furniture. When Caius sat down, and the
lady had resumed her seat, he found, as is apt to be the way in empty
rooms, that the chairs were near the wall, and that he, sitting facing
her, had left nearly the room's width between them. The sewing maidens
looked at them with large eyes, and listened to everything that was
said; and although they were silent, except for the sound of their
stitching, it was so evident that their thoughts must form a running
commentary that it gave Caius an odd feeling of acting in company with a
dramatic chorus. The lady in front of him had no such feeling; there was
nothing more evident about her than that she did not think of how she
appeared or how she was observed.

"You are very good to have come." She spoke with a slight French accent,
whether natural or acquired he could not tell. Then she left that
subject, and began at once to tell the story of the plague upon the
island--when it began, what efforts she and a few others had made to
arrest it, the carelessness and obstinacy with which the greater part of
the people had fostered it, its progress. This was the substance of what
she said; but she did not speak of the best efforts as being her own,
nor did she call the people stupid and obstinate. She only said:

"They would not have their houses properly cleaned out; they would not
wash or burn garments that were infected; they would not use
disinfectants, even when we could procure them; they will not yet. You
may say that in this wind-swept country there can be nothing in nature
to foster such a disease, nothing in the way the houses are built; but
the disease came here on a ship, and it is in the houses of the people
that it lingers. They will not isolate the sick; they will not----"

She stopped as if at a loss for a word. She had been speaking in a
voice whose music was the strain of compassion.

"In fact," said Caius, with some impatience, "they are a set of fools,
and worse, for they won't take a telling. Your duty is surely done. They
do not deserve that you should risk your life nursing them; they simply
deserve to be left to suffer."

She looked at him for a minute, as if earnestly trying to master a view
of the case new to her.

"Yes," speaking slowly. He saw that her hands, which were clasped in her
lap, pressed themselves more closely together--"yes, that is what they
deserve; but, you see, they are very ignorant. They do not see the
importance of these precautions; they have not believed me; they will
not believe you. They think quite honestly and truly that they will get
on well enough in doing their own way."

"Pig-headed!" commented Caius. Then, perceiving that he had not quite
carried her judgment along with his: "You yourself, madam, have admitted
that they do not deserve that either you or I should sacrifice our lives
to them."

"Ah, no," she replied, trouble of thought again in her eyes; "they do
not deserve that. But what do we deserve--you and I?"

There was no studied effect in the question. She was like one trying to
think more clearly by expressing her thought aloud.

"Madam," replied he, the smile of gallantry upon his lips, "I have no
doubt that you deserve the richest blessings of earth and heaven. For
myself----" He shrugged his shoulders, just about to say conventionally,
flippantly, that he was a sad, worthless fellow, but in some way her
sincerity made him sincere, and he finished: "I do not know that I have
done anything to forfeit them."

He supposed, as soon as he had said the words, that she would have a
theological objection to this view, and oppose it by rote; but there was
nothing of disapproval in her mien; there was even a gleam of greater
kindliness for him in her eye, and she said, not in answer, but as
making a remark by the way:

"That is just as I supposed when I asked you to come. You are like the
young ruler, who could not have been conceited because our Lord felt
greatly attracted to him."

Before this Caius had had a pleasing consciousness, regarding himself as
an interesting stranger talking to a handsome and interested woman. Now
he had wit enough to perceive that her interest in him never dipped to
the level of ordinary social relationships. He felt a sense of
remoteness, and did not even blush, though knowing certainly that
satire, although it was not in her mind, was sneering at him from behind
the circumstance.

The lady went right on, almost without pause, taking up the thread of
her argument: "But when the angels whisper to us that the best blessings
of earth and heaven are humility and faith and the sort of love that
does not seek its own, do we get up at once and spend our time learning
these things? or do we just go on as before, and think our own way good
enough? 'We are fools and worse, and will not take a telling.'" A smile
broke upon her lip now for the first time as she looked at him.
"'Pig-headed!'" she said.

Caius had seen that smile before. It passed instantly, and she sat
before him with grave, unruffled demeanour; but all his thoughts and
feelings seemed a-whirl. He could not collect his mind; he could not
remember what she had said exactly; he could not think what to answer;
indeed, he could not think at all. There had been a likeness to his
phantastic lady-love of the sea; then it was gone again; but it left him
with all his thoughts confounded. At length--because he felt that he
must look like a fool indeed--he spoke, stammering the first thing that
occurred to him:

"The patient that I have seen did not appear to be in a house that was
ill-ventilated or--or--that is, he was isolated from the rest of the
family."

He perceived that the lady had not the slightest knowledge of what it
was that had really confused him. He knew that in her eyes, in the eyes
of the maidens, it must appear that her home-thrust had gone to his
heart, that he had changed the subject because too weak to be able to
answer her. He was mortified at this, but he could not retrace his steps
in the conversation, for she had already answered him.

The household he had already visited, she said, with a few others, had
helped her by following sanitary rules; and then she went on talking
about what those rules were, what could and could not be done in the
circumstances of the families affected.

As she talked on, Caius knew that the thing he had thought must be false
and foolish. This woman and that other maiden were not the same in
thought, or character, or deed, or aspect. Furthermore, what experience
he had made him feel certain that the woman who had known him in that
relationship could not be so indifferent to his recognition, so
indifferent to all that was in him to which her beauty appealed, as
this woman was, and of this woman's indifference he felt convinced.

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