CHAPTER 6

CAPTAIN JIM

“Old Doctor Dave” and “Mrs. Doctor Dave” had come down to the little house to greet the bride and groom¹. Doctor Dave was a big, jolly, white-whiskered old fellow, and Mrs. Doctor was a trim rosy-cheeked, silver-haired little lady who took Anne at once to her heart, literally² and figuratively.

“I’m so glad to see you, dear. You must be real tired. We’ve got a bite of supper ready, and Captain Jim brought up some trout³ for you. Captain Jim—where are you? Oh, he’s slipped out to see to the horse, I suppose. Come upstairs and take your things off.”

Anne looked about her with bright, appreciative⁴ eyes as she followed Mrs. Doctor Dave upstairs. She liked the appearance of her new home very much. It seemed to have the atmosphere of Green Gables and the flavor of her old traditions.

“I think I would have found Miss Elizabeth Russell a 'kindred spirit,’” she murmured when she was alone in her room. There were two windows in it; the dormer one looked out on the lower harbor and the sand-bar and the Four Winds light.

“A magic casement⁵ opening on the foam⁶

Of perilous⁷ seas in fairy lands forlorn,”

quoted Anne softly. The gable window gave a view of a little harvest-hued valley through which a brook⁸ ran. Half a mile up the brook was the only house in sight—an old, rambling⁹, gray one surrounded by huge willows¹⁰ through which its windows peered, like shy, seeking eyes, into the dusk. Anne wondered who lived there; they would be her nearest neighbors and she hoped they would be nice. She suddenly found herself thinking of the beautiful girl with the white geese.

“Gilbert thought she didn’t belong here,” mused¹¹ Anne, “but I feel sure she does. There was something about her that made her part of the sea and the sky and the harbor. Four Winds is in her blood.”

When Anne went downstairs Gilbert was standing¹² before the fireplace talking to a stranger. Both turned as Anne entered.

“Anne, this is Captain Boyd. Captain Boyd, my wife.”

It was the first time Gilbert had said “my wife” to anybody but Anne, and he narrowly escaped bursting with the pride of it. The old captain held out a sinewy¹³ hand to Anne; they smiled at each other and were friends from that moment. Kindred spirit flashed recognition to kindred spirit.

“I’m right down pleased to meet you, Mistress Blythe; and I hope you’ll be as happy as the first bride was who came here. I can’t wish you no better than THAT. But your husband doesn’t introduce me jest exactly right. 'Captain Jim’ is my week-a-day name and you might as well begin as you’re sartain to end up—calling me that. You sartainly are a nice little bride, Mistress Blythe. Looking at you sorter makes me feel that I’ve jest been married myself.”

Amid the laughter that followed Mrs. Doctor Dave urged Captain Jim to stay and have supper with them.

“Thank you kindly¹⁴. ’Twill be a real treat, Mistress Doctor. I mostly has to eat my meals alone, with the reflection of my ugly old phiz in a looking-glass opposite for company. ’Tisn’t often I have a chance to sit down with two such sweet, purty ladies.”

Captain Jim’s compliments may look very bald on paper, but he paid them with such a gracious, gentle deference¹⁵ of tone and look that the woman upon whom they were bestowed¹⁶ felt that she was being offered a queen’s tribute in a kingly fashion.

Captain Jim was a high-souled, simple-minded old man, with eternal youth in his eyes and heart. He had a tall, rather ungainly figure, somewhat stooped, yet suggestive of great strength and endurance; a clean-shaven face deeply lined and bronzed; a thick mane of iron-gray hair falling quite to his shoulders, and a pair of remarkably¹⁷ blue, deep-set eyes, which sometimes twinkled and sometimes dreamed, and sometimes looked out seaward with a wistful quest in them, as of one seeking something precious and lost. Anne was to learn one day what it was for which Captain Jim looked.

It could not be denied that Captain Jim was a homely¹⁸ man. His spare jaws¹⁹, rugged²⁰ mouth, and square brow were not fashioned on the lines of beauty; and he had passed through many hardships and sorrows which had marked his body as well as his soul; but though at first sight Anne thought him plain she never thought anything more about it—the spirit shining through that rugged tenement²¹ beautified it so wholly.

They gathered gaily²² around the supper table. The hearth²³ fire banished²⁴ the chill of the September evening, but the window of the dining room was open and sea breezes entered at their own sweet will. The view was magnificent, taking in the harbor and the sweep of low, purple hills beyond. The table was heaped with Mrs. Doctor’s delicacies²⁵ but the piece de resistance was undoubtedly²⁶ the big platter of sea trout.

“Thought they’d be sorter tasty after travelling,” said Captain Jim. “They’re fresh as trout can be, Mistress Blythe. Two hours ago they were swimming in the Glen Pond.”

“Who is attending to the light tonight, Captain Jim?” asked Doctor Dave.

“Nephew Alec. He understands it as well as I do. Well, now, I’m real glad you asked me to stay to supper. I’m proper hungry—didn’t have much of a dinner today.”

“I believe you half starve yourself most of the time down at that light,” said Mrs. Doctor Dave severely²⁷. “You won’t take the trouble to get up a decent meal.”

“Oh, I do, Mistress Doctor, I do,” protested Captain Jim. “Why, I live like a king gen’rally. Last night I was up to the Glen and took home two pounds of steak. I meant to have a spanking²⁸ good dinner today.”

“And what happened to the steak?” asked Mrs. Doctor Dave. “Did you lose it on the way home?”

“No.” Captain Jim looked sheepish. “Just at bedtime a poor, ornery sort of dog came along and asked for a night’s lodging²⁹. Guess he belonged to some of the fishermen ’long shore. I couldn’t turn the poor cur out—he had a sore foot. So I shut him in the porch, with an old bag to lie on, and went to bed. But somehow I couldn’t sleep. Come to think it over, I sorter remembered that the dog looked hungry.”

“And you got up and gave him that steak—ALL that steak,” said Mrs. Doctor Dave, with a kind of triumphant³⁰ reproof³¹.

“Well, there wasn’t anything else TO give him,” said Captain Jim deprecatingly. “Nothing a dog’d care for, that is. I reckon he WAS hungry, for he made about two bites of it. I had a fine sleep the rest of the night but my dinner had to be sorter scanty—potatoes and point, as you might say. The dog, he lit out for home this morning. I reckon HE weren’t a vegetarian³².”

“The idea of starving yourself for a worthless dog!” sniffed³³ Mrs. Doctor.

“You don’t know but he may be worth a lot to somebody,” protested Captain Jim. “He didn’t LOOK of much account, but you can’t go by looks in jedging a dog. Like meself, he might be a real beauty inside. The First Mate didn’t approve of him, I’ll allow. His language was right down forcible. But the First Mate is prejudiced. No use in taking a cat’s opinion of a dog. 'Tennyrate, I lost my dinner, so this nice spread in this dee-lightful company is real pleasant. It’s a great thing to have good neighbors.”

“Who lives in the house among the willows up the brook?” asked Anne.

“Mrs. Dick Moore,” said Captain Jim—“and her husband,” he added, as if by way of an afterthought.

Anne smiled, and deduced a mental picture of Mrs. Dick Moore from Captain Jim’s way of putting it; evidently a second Mrs. Rachel Lynde.

“You haven’t many neighbors, Mistress Blythe,” Captain Jim went on. “This side of the harbor is mighty³⁴ thinly settled. Most of the land belongs to Mr. Howard up yander past the Glen, and he rents it out for pasture. The other side of the harbor, now, is thick with folks—’specially MacAllisters. There’s a whole colony of MacAllisters you can’t throw a stone but you hit one. I was talking to old Leon Blacquiere the other day. He’s been working on the harbor all summer. 'Dey’re nearly all MacAllisters over thar,’ he told me. 'Dare’s Neil MacAllister and Sandy MacAllister and William MacAllister and Alec MacAllister and Angus MacAllister—and I believe dare’s de Devil MacAllister.’”

“There are nearly as many Elliotts and Crawfords,” said Doctor Dave, after the laughter had subsided³⁵. “You know, Gilbert, we folk on this side of Four Winds have an old saying—'From the conceit³⁶ of the Elliotts, the pride of the MacAllisters, and the vainglory of the Crawfords, good Lord deliver us.’”

“There’s a plenty of fine people among them, though,” said Captain Jim. “I sailed with William Crawford for many a year, and for courage and endurance and truth that man hadn’t an equal. They’ve got brains over on that side of Four Winds. Mebbe that’s why this side is sorter inclined to pick on ’em. Strange, ain’t it, how folks seem to resent anyone being born a mite³⁷ cleverer than they be.”

Doctor Dave, who had a forty years’ feud³⁸ with the over-harbor people, laughed and subsided.

“Who lives in that brilliant emerald house about half a mile up the road?” asked Gilbert.

Captain Jim smiled delightedly.

“Miss Cornelia Bryant. She’ll likely be over to see you soon, seeing you’re Presbyterians. If you were Methodists she wouldn’t come at all. Cornelia has a holy horror of Methodists.”

“She’s quite a character,” chuckled³⁹ Doctor Dave. “A most inveterate⁴⁰ man-hater!”

“Sour grapes?” queried⁴¹ Gilbert, laughing.

“No, ’tisn’t sour grapes,” answered Captain Jim seriously. “Cornelia could have had her pick when she was young. Even yet she’s only to say the word to see the old widowers⁴² jump. She jest seems to have been born with a sort of chronic⁴³ spite agin men and Methodists. She’s got the bitterest tongue and the kindest heart in Four Winds. Wherever there’s any trouble, that woman is there, doing everything to help in the tenderest way. She never says a harsh word about another woman, and if she likes to card us poor scalawags of men down I reckon our tough old hides can stand it.”

“She always speaks well of you, Captain Jim,” said Mrs. Doctor.

“Yes, I’m afraid so. I don’t half like it. It makes me feel as if there must be something sorter unnateral about me.”