CHAPTER 7
THE SCHOOLMASTER'S BRIDE
"Who was the first bride who came to this house,
Captain Jim?" Anne asked, as they sat around the
fireplace after supper.
"Was she a part of the story I've heard was connected
with this house?" asked Gilbert. "Somebody told me
you could tell it, Captain Jim."
"Well, yes, I know it. I reckon I'm the only person
living in Four Winds now that can remember the
schoolmaster's bride as she was when she come to the
Island. She's been dead this thirty year, but she was
one of them women you never forget."
"Tell us the story," pleaded Anne. "I want to find
out all about the women who have lived in this house
before me."
"Well, there's jest been three--Elizabeth Russell, and
Mrs. Ned Russell, and the schoolmaster's bride.
Elizabeth Russell was a nice, clever little critter,
and Mrs. Ned was a nice woman, too. But they weren't
ever like the schoolmaster's bride.
"The schoolmaster's name was John Selwyn. He came out
from the Old Country to teach school at the Glen when I
was a boy of sixteen. He wasn't much like the usual
run of derelicts who used to come out to P.E.I. to
teach school in them days. Most of them were clever,
drunken critters who taught the children the three R's
when they were sober, and lambasted them when they
wasn't. But John Selwyn was a fine, handsome young
fellow. He boarded at my father's, and he and me were
cronies, though he was ten years older'n me. We read
and walked and talked a heap together. He knew about
all the poetry that was ever written, I reckon, and he
used to quote it to me along shore in the evenings.
Dad thought it an awful waste of time, but he sorter
endured it, hoping it'd put me off the notion of going
to sea. Well, nothing could do THAT--mother come of a
race of sea-going folk and it was born in me. But I
loved to hear John read and recite. It's almost sixty
years ago, but I could repeat yards of poetry I learned
from him. Nearly sixty years!"
Captain Jim was silent for a space, gazing into the
glowing fire in a quest of the bygones. Then, with a
sigh, he resumed his story.
"I remember one spring evening I met him on the
sand-hills. He looked sorter uplifted--jest like you
did, Dr. Blythe, when you brought Mistress Blythe in
tonight. I thought of him the minute I seen you. And
he told me that he had a sweetheart back home and that
she was coming out to him. I wasn't more'n half
pleased, ornery young lump of selfishness that I was; I
thought he wouldn't be as much my friend after she
came. But I'd enough decency not to let him see it.
He told me all about her. Her name was Persis Leigh,
and she would have come out with him if it hadn't been
for her old uncle. He was sick, and he'd looked after
her when her parents died and she wouldn't leave him.
And now he was dead and she was coming out to marry
John Selwyn. 'Twasn't no easy journey for a woman in
them days. There weren't no steamers, you must
ricollect.
"`When do you expect her?' says I.
"`She sails on the Royal William, the 20th of June,'
says he, `and so she should be here by mid-July. I
must set Carpenter Johnson to building me a home for
her. Her letter come today. I know before I opened it
that it had good news for me. I saw her a few nights
ago.'
"I didn't understand him, and then he
explained--though I didn't understand THAT much better.
He said he had a gift--or a curse. Them was his words,
Mistress Blythe--a gift or a curse. He didn't know
which it was. He said a great-great-grandmother of his
had had it, and they burned her for a witch on account
of it. He said queer spells--trances, I think was the
name he give 'em--come over him now and again. Are
there such things, Doctor?"
"There are people who are certainly subject to
trances," answered Gilbert. "The matter is more in
the line of psychical research than medical. What were
the trances of this John Selwyn like?"
"Like dreams," said the old Doctor skeptically.
"He said he could see things in them," said Captain
Jim slowly.
"Mind you, I'm telling you jest what HE said--things
that were happening--things that were GOING to happen.
He said they were sometimes a comfort to him and
sometimes a horror. Four nights before this he'd been
in one--went into it while he was sitting looking at
the fire. And he saw an old room he knew well in
England, and Persis Leigh in it, holding out her hands
to him and looking glad and happy. So he knew he was
going to hear good news of her."
"A dream--a dream," scoffed the old Doctor.
"Likely--likely," conceded Captain Jim. "That's what
_I_ said to him at the time. It was a vast more
comfortable to think so. I didn't like the idea of him
seeing things like that--it was real uncanny.
"`No,' says he, `I didn't dream it. But we won't talk
of this again. You won't be so much my friend if you
think much about it.'
"I told him nothing could make me any less his friend.
But he jest shook his head and says, says he:
"`Lad, I know. I've lost friends before because of
this. I don't blame them. There are times when I feel
hardly friendly to myself because of it. Such a power
has a bit of divinity in it--whether of a good or an
evil divinity who shall say? And we mortals all shrink
from too close contact with God or devil.'
"Them was his words. I remember them as if 'twas
yesterday, though I didn't know jest what he meant.
What do you s'pose he DID mean, doctor?"
"I doubt if he knew what he meant himself," said
Doctor Dave testily.
"I think I understand," whispered Anne. She was
listening in her old attitude of clasped lips and
shining eyes. Captain Jim treated himself to an
admiring smile before he went on with his story.
"Well, purty soon all the Glen and Four Winds people
knew the schoolmaster's bride was coming, and they were
all glad because they thought so much of him. And
everybody took an interest in his new house--THIS
house. He picked this site for it, because you could
see the harbor and hear the sea from it. He made the
garden out there for his bride, but he didn't plant the
Lombardies. Mrs. Ned Russell planted THEM. But
there's a double row of rose-bushes in the garden that
the little girls who went to the Glen school set out
there for the schoolmaster's bride. He said they were
pink for her cheeks and white for her brow and red for
her lips. He'd quoted poetry so much that he sorter
got into the habit of talking it, too, I reckon.
"Almost everybody sent him some little present to help
out the furnishing of the house. When the Russells
came into it they were well-to-do and furnished it real
handsome, as you can see; but the first furniture that
went into it was plain enough. This little house was
rich in love, though. The women sent in quilts and
tablecloths and towels, and one man made a chest for
her, and another a table and so on. Even blind old
Aunt Margaret Boyd wove a little basket for her out of
the sweet-scented sand-hill grass. The schoolmaster's
wife used it for years to keep her handkerchiefs in.
"Well, at last everything was ready--even to the logs
in the big fireplace ready for lighting. 'Twasn't
exactly THIS fireplace, though 'twas in the same place.
Miss Elizabeth had this put in when she made the house
over fifteen years ago. It was a big, old-fashioned
fireplace where you could have roasted an ox. Many's
the time I've sat here and spun yarns, same's I'm doing
tonight."
Again there was a silence, while Captain Jim kept a
passing tryst with visitants Anne and Gilbert could not
see--the folks who had sat with him around that
fireplace in the vanished years, with mirth and bridal
joy shining in eyes long since closed forever under
churchyard sod or heaving leagues of sea. Here on
olden nights children had tossed laughter lightly to
and fro. Here on winter evenings friends had
gathered. Dance and music and jest had been here.
Here youths and maidens had dreamed. For Captain Jim
the little house was tenanted with shapes entreating
remembrance.
"It was the first of July when the house was finished.
The schoolmaster began to count the days then. We used
to see him walking along the shore, and we'd say to
each other, `She'll soon be with him now.'
"She was expected the middle of July, but she didn't
come then. Nobody felt anxious. Vessels were often
delayed for days and mebbe weeks. The Royal William
was a week overdue--and then two--and then three. And
at last we began to be frightened, and it got worse and
worse. Fin'lly I couldn't bear to look into John
Selwyn's eyes. D'ye know, Mistress Blythe"--Captain
Jim lowered his voice--"I used to think that they
looked just like what his old great-great-grandmother's
must have been when they were burning her to death. He
never said much but he taught school like a man in a
dream and then hurried to the shore. Many a night he
walked there from dark to dawn. People said he was
losing his mind. Everybody had given up hope--the
Royal William was eight weeks overdue. It was the
middle of September and the schoolmaster's bride hadn't
come-- never would come, we thought.
"There was a big storm then that lasted three days, and
on the evening after it died away I went to the shore.
I found the schoolmaster there, leaning with his arms
folded against a big rock, gazing out to sea.
"I spoke to him but he didn't answer. His eyes seemed
to be looking at something I couldn't see. His face
was set, like a dead man's.
"`John--John,' I called out--jest like that--jest like
a frightened child, `wake up--wake up.'
"That strange, awful look seemed to sorter fade out of
his eyes.
He turned his head and looked at me. I've never forgot
his face-- never will forget it till I ships for my
last voyage.
"`All is well, lad,' he says. `I've seen the Royal
William coming around East Point. She will be here by
dawn. Tomorrow night I shall sit with my bride by my
own hearth-fire.'
"Do you think he did see it?" demanded Captain Jim
abruptly.
"God knows," said Gilbert softly. "Great love and
great pain might compass we know not what marvels."
"I am sure he did see it," said Anne earnestly.
"Fol-de-rol," said Doctor Dave, but he spoke with less
conviction than usual.
"Because, you know," said Captain Jim solemnly, "the
Royal William came into Four Winds Harbor at daylight
the next morning.
Every soul in the Glen and along the shore was at the
old wharf to meet her. The schoolmaster had been
watching there all night. How we cheered as she sailed
up the channel."
Captain Jim's eyes were shining. They were looking at
the Four Winds Harbor of sixty years agone, with a
battered old ship sailing through the sunrise splendor.
"And Persis Leigh was on board?" asked Anne.
"Yes--her and the captain's wife. They'd had an awful
passage-- storm after storm--and their provisions give
out, too. But there they were at last. When Persis
Leigh stepped onto the old wharf John Selwyn took her
in his arms--and folks stopped cheering and begun to
cry. I cried myself, though 'twas years, mind you,
afore I'd admit it. Ain't it funny how ashamed boys
are of tears?"
"Was Persis Leigh beautiful?" asked Anne.
"Well, I don't know that you'd call her beautiful
exactly--I-- don't--know," said Captain Jim slowly.
"Somehow, you never got so far along as to wonder if
she was handsome or not. It jest didn't matter. There
was something so sweet and winsome about her that you
had to love her, that was all. But she was pleasant to
look at--big, clear, hazel eyes and heaps of glossy
brown hair, and an English skin. John and her were
married at our house that night at early
candle-lighting; everybody from far and near was there
to see it and we all brought them down here afterwards.
Mistress Selwyn lighted the fire, and we went away and
left them sitting here, jest as John had seen in that
vision of his. A strange thing--a strange thing! But
I've seen a turrible lot of strange things in my
time."
Captain Jim shook his head sagely.
"It's a dear story," said Anne, feeling that for once
she had got enough romance to satisfy her. "How long
did they live here?"
"Fifteen years. I ran off to sea soon after they were
married, like the young scalawag I was. But every time
I come back from a voyage I'd head for here, even
before I went home, and tell Mistress Selwyn all about
it. Fifteen happy years! They had a sort of talent
for happiness, them two. Some folks are like that, if
you've noticed. They COULDN'T be unhappy for long, no
matter what happened. They quarrelled once or twice,
for they was both high-sperrited. But Mistress Selwyn
says to me once, says she, laughing in that pretty way
of hers, `I felt dreadful when John and I quarrelled,
but underneath it all I was very happy because I had
such a nice husband to quarrel with and make it up
with.' Then they moved to Charlottetown, and Ned
Russell bought this house and brought his bride here.
They were a gay young pair, as I remember them. Miss
Elizabeth Russell was Alec's sister. She came to live
with them a year or so later, and she was a creature of
mirth, too. The walls of this house must be sorter
SOAKED with laughing and good times. You're the third
bride I've seen come here, Mistress Blythe--and the
handsomest."
Captain Jim contrived to give his sunflower compliment
the delicacy of a violet, and Anne wore it proudly.
She was looking her best that night, with the bridal
rose on her cheeks and the love-light in her eyes; even
gruff old Doctor Dave gave her an approving glance, and
told his wife, as they drove home together, that that
red-headed wife of the boy's was something of a beauty.
"I must be getting back to the light," announced
Captain Jim. "I've enj'yed this evening something
tremenjus."
" You must come often to see us," said Anne.
"I wonder if you'd give that invitation if you knew how
likely I'll be to accept it," Captain Jim remarked
whimsically.
"Which is another way of saying you wonder if I mean
it," smiled Anne. "I do, `cross my heart,' as we used
to say at school."
"Then I'll come. You're likely to be pestered with me
at any hour. And I'll be proud to have you drop down
and visit me now and then, too. Gin'rally I haven't
anyone to talk to but the First Mate, bless his
sociable heart. He's a mighty good listener, and has
forgot more'n any MacAllister of them all ever knew,
but he isn't much of a conversationalist. You're young
and I'm old, but our souls are about the same age, I
reckon. We both belong to the race that knows Joseph,
as Cornelia Bryant would say."
"The race that knows Joseph?" puzzled Anne.
"Yes. Cornelia divides all the folks in the world into
two kinds-- the race that knows Joseph and the race
that don't. If a person sorter sees eye to eye with
you, and has pretty much the same ideas about things,
and the same taste in jokes--why, then he belongs to
the race that knows Joseph."
"Oh, I understand," exclaimed Anne, light breaking in
upon her.
"It's what I used to call--and still call in quotation
marks `kindred spirits.'"
"Jest so--jest so," agreed Captain Jim. "We're it,
whatever IT is. When you come in tonight, Mistress
Blythe, I says to myself, says I, `Yes, she's of the
race that knows Joseph.' And mighty glad I was, for
if it wasn't so we couldn't have had any real
satisfaction in each other's company. The race that
knows Joseph is the salt of the airth, I reckon."
The moon had just risen when Anne and Gilbert went to
the door with their guests. Four Winds Harbor was
beginning to be a thing of dream and glamour and
enchantment--a spellbound haven where no tempest might
ever ravin. The Lombardies down the lane, tall and
sombre as the priestly forms of some mystic band, were
tipped with silver.
"Always liked Lombardies," said Captain Jim, waving a
long arm at them. "They're the trees of princesses.
They're out of fashion now. Folks complain that they
die at the top and get ragged-looking. So they do--so
they do, if you don't risk your neck every spring
climbing up a light ladder to trim them out. I always
did it for Miss Elizabeth, so her Lombardies never got
out-at-elbows. She was especially fond of them. She
liked their dignity and stand-offishness. THEY don't
hobnob with every Tom, Dick and Harry. If it's maples
for company, Mistress Blythe, it's Lombardies for
society."
"What a beautiful night," said Mrs. Doctor Dave, as
she climbed into the Doctor's buggy.
"Most nights are beautiful," said Captain Jim. "But I
'low that moonlight over Four Winds makes me sorter
wonder what's left for heaven. The moon's a great
friend of mine, Mistress Blythe. I've loved her ever
since I can remember. When I was a little chap of
eight I fell asleep in the garden one evening and
wasn't missed. I woke up along in the night and I was
most scared to death. What shadows and queer noises
there was! I dursn't move. Jest crouched there
quaking, poor small mite. Seemed 'sif there weren't
anyone in the world but meself and it was mighty big.
Then all at once I saw the moon looking down at me
through the apple boughs, jest like an old friend. I
was comforted right off. Got up and walked to the
house as brave as a lion, looking at her. Many's the
night I've watched her from the deck of my vessel, on
seas far away from here. Why don't you folks tell me
to take in the slack of my jaw and go home?"
The laughter of the goodnights died away. Anne and
Gilbert walked hand in hand around their garden. The
brook that ran across the corner dimpled pellucidly in
the shadows of the birches. The poppies along its
banks were like shallow cups of moonlight. Flowers
that had been planted by the hands of the
schoolmaster's bride flung their sweetness on the
shadowy air, like the beauty and blessing of sacred
yesterdays. Anne paused in the gloom to gather a
spray.
"I love to smell flowers in the dark," she said. "You
get hold of their soul then. Oh, Gilbert, this little
house is all I've dreamed it. And I'm so glad that we
are not the first who have kept bridal tryst here!"
