CHAPTER 24

THE LIFE-BOOK OF CAPTAIN JIM

“I have a little brown cocoon¹ of an idea that may possibly expand into a magnificent moth² of fulfilment,” Anne told Gilbert when she reached home. He had returned earlier than she had expected, and was enjoying Susan’s cherry pie. Susan herself hovered³ in the background, like a rather grim but beneficent guardian⁴ spirit, and found as much pleasure in watching Gilbert eat pie as he did in eating it.

“What is your idea?” he asked.

“I sha’n’t tell you just yet—not till I see if I can bring the thing about.”

“What sort of a chap is Ford⁵?”

“Oh, very nice, and quite good-looking.”

“Such beautiful ears, doctor, dear,” interjected Susan with a relish⁶.

“He is about thirty or thirty-five, I think, and he meditates⁷ writing a novel. His voice is pleasant and his smile delightful⁸, and he knows how to dress. He looks as if life hadn’t been altogether easy for him, somehow.”

Owen Ford came over the next evening with a note to Anne from Leslie; they spent the sunset time in the garden and then went for a moonlit sail on the harbor, in the little boat Gilbert had set up for summer outings. They liked Owen immensely and had that feeling of having known him for many years which distinguishes the freemasonry of the house of Joseph. “He is as nice as his ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said Susan, when he had gone. He had told Susan that he had never tasted anything like her strawberry shortcake and Susan’s susceptible⁹ heart was his forever.

“He has got a way with him,” she reflected, as she cleared up the relics¹⁰ of the supper. “It is real queer he is not married, for a man like that could have anybody for the asking. Well, maybe he is like me, and has not met the right one yet.”

Susan really grew quite romantic in her musings as she washed the supper dishes.

Two nights later Anne took Owen Ford down to Four Winds Point to introduce him to Captain Jim. The clover fields along the harbor shore were whitening in the western wind, and Captain Jim had one of his finest sunsets on exhibition. He himself had just returned from a trip over the harbor.

“I had to go over and tell Henry Pollack he was dying. Everybody else was afraid to tell him. They expected he’d take on turrible, for he’s been dreadful determined¹¹ to live, and been making no end of plans for the fall. His wife thought he oughter be told and that I’d be the best one to break it to him that he couldn’t get better. Henry and me are old cronies—we sailed in the Gray Gull¹² for years together. Well, I went over and sat down by Henry’s bed and I says to him, says I, jest right out plain and simple, for if a thing’s got to be told it may as well be told first as last, says I, 'Mate, I reckon you’ve got your sailing orders this time,’ I was sorter quaking inside, for it’s an awful thing to have to tell a man who hain’t any idea he’s dying that he is. But lo and behold¹³, Mistress Blythe, Henry looks up at me, with those bright old black eyes of his in his wizened¹⁴ face and says, says he, 'Tell me something I don’t know, Jim Boyd, if you want to give me information. I’ve known THAT for a week.’ I was too astonished to speak, and Henry, he chuckled¹⁵. 'To see you coming in here,’ says he, 'with your face as solemn as a tombstone and sitting down there with your hands clasped over your stomach, and passing me out a blue-mouldy old item of news like that! It’d make a cat laugh, Jim Boyd,’ says he. 'Who told you?’ says I, stupid like. 'Nobody,’ says he. 'A week ago Tuesday night I was lying here awake—and I jest knew. I’d suspicioned it before, but then I KNEW. I’ve been keeping up for the wife’s sake. And I’d LIKE to have got that barn built, for Eben’ll never get it right. But anyhow, now that you’ve eased your mind, Jim, put on a smile and tell me something interesting,’ Well, there it was. They’d been so scared to tell him and he knew it all the time. Strange how nature looks out for us, ain’t it, and lets us know what we should know when the time comes? Did I never tell you the yarn¹⁶ about Henry getting the fish hook in his nose, Mistress Blythe?”

“No.”

“Well, him and me had a laugh over it today. It happened nigh unto thirty years ago. Him and me and several more was out mackerel fishing one day. It was a great day—never saw such a school of mackerel in the gulf¹⁷—and in the general excitement Henry got quite wild and contrived¹⁸ to stick a fish hook clean through one side of his nose. Well, there he was; there was barb¹⁹ on one end and a big piece of lead on the other, so it couldn’t be pulled out. We wanted to take him ashore²⁰ at once, but Henry was game; he said he’d be jiggered if he’d leave a school like that for anything short of lockjaw; then he kept fishing away, hauling in hand over fist and groaning²¹ between times. Fin’lly the school passed and we come in with a load; I got a file and begun to try to file through that hook. I tried to be as easy as I could, but you should have heard Henry—no, you shouldn’t either. It was well no ladies were around. Henry wasn’t a swearing man, but he’d heard some few matters of that sort along shore in his time, and he fished ’em all out of his recollection and hurled²² ’em at me. Fin’lly he declared he couldn’t stand it and I had no bowels²³ of compassion²⁴. So we hitched²⁵ up and I drove him to a doctor in Charlottetown, thirty-five miles—there weren’t none nearer in them days—with that blessed hook still hanging from his nose. When we got there old Dr. Crabb jest took a file and filed that hook jest the same as I’d tried to do, only he weren’t a mite²⁶ particular about doing it easy!”

Captain Jim’s visit to his old friend had revived many recollections and he was now in the full tide of reminiscences.

“Henry was asking me today if I remembered the time old Father Chiniquy blessed Alexander MacAllister’s boat. Another odd yarn—and true as gospel. I was in the boat myself. We went out, him and me, in Alexander MacAllister’s boat one morning at sunrise. Besides, there was a French boy in the boat—Catholic of course. You know old Father Chiniquy had turned Protestant, so the Catholics hadn’t much use for him. Well, we sat out in the gulf in the broiling²⁷ sun till noon, and not a bite did we get. When we went ashore old Father Chiniquy had to go, so he said in that polite way of his, 'I’m very sorry I cannot go out with you dis afternoon, Mr. MacAllister, but I leave you my blessing²⁸. You will catch a t’ousand dis afternoon. 'Well, we did not catch a thousand, but we caught exactly nine hundred and ninety-nine—the biggest catch for a small boat on the whole north shore that summer. Curious, wasn’t it? Alexander MacAllister, he says to Andrew Peters, 'Well, and what do you think of Father Chiniquy now?’ 'Vell,’ growled²⁹ Andrew, 'I t’ink de old devil has got a blessing left yet.’ Laws, how Henry did laugh over that today!”

“Do you know who Mr. Ford is, Captain Jim?” asked Anne, seeing that Captain Jim’s fountain of reminiscence had run out for the present. “I want you to guess.”

Captain Jim shook his head.

“I never was any hand at guessing, Mistress Blythe, and yet somehow when I come in I thought, 'Where have I seen them eyes before?’—for I HAVE seen ’em.”

“Think of a September morning many years ago,” said Anne, softly. “Think of a ship sailing up the harbor—a ship long waited for and despaired of. Think of the day the Royal William came in and the first look you had at the schoolmaster’s bride.”

Captain Jim sprang up.

“They’re Persis Selwyn’s eyes,” he almost shouted. “You can’t be her son—you must be her—”

“Grandson; yes, I am Alice Selwyn’s son.”

Captain Jim swooped³⁰ down on Owen Ford and shook his hand over again.

“Alice Selwyn’s son! Lord, but you’re welcome! Many’s the time I’ve wondered where the descendants of the schoolmaster were living. I knew there was none on the Island. Alice—Alice—the first baby ever born in that little house. No baby ever brought more joy! I’ve dandled her a hundred times. It was from my knee she took her first steps alone. Can’t I see her mother’s face watching her—and it was near sixty years ago. Is she living yet?”

“No, she died when I was only a boy.”

“Oh, it doesn’t seem right that I should be living to hear that,” sighed Captain Jim. “But I’m heart-glad to see you. It’s brought back my youth for a little while. You don’t know yet what a boon³¹ THAT is. Mistress Blythe here has the trick—she does it quite often for me.”

Captain Jim was still more excited when he discovered that Owen Ford was what he called a “real writing man.” He gazed at him as at a superior being. Captain Jim knew that Anne wrote, but he had never taken that fact very seriously. Captain Jim thought women were delightful creatures, who ought to have the vote, and everything else they wanted, bless their hearts; but he did not believe they could write.

“Jest look at A Mad Love,” he would protest. “A woman wrote that and jest look at it—one hundred and three chapters when it could all have been told in ten. A writing woman never knows when to stop; that’s the trouble. The p’int of good writing is to know when to stop.”

“Mr. Ford wants to hear some of your stories, Captain Jim” said Anne. “Tell him the one about the captain who went crazy and imagined he was the Flying Dutchman.”

This was Captain Jim’s best story. It was a compound of horror and humor, and though Anne had heard it several times she laughed as heartily³² and shivered as fearsomely over it as Mr. Ford did. Other tales followed, for Captain Jim had an audience after his own heart. He told how his vessel³³ had been run down by a steamer; how he had been boarded by Malay pirates; how his ship had caught fire; how he helped a political prisoner escape from a South African republic; how he had been wrecked³⁴ one fall on the Magdalens and stranded³⁵ there for the winter; how a tiger had broken loose on board ship; how his crew had mutinied and marooned³⁶ him on a barren island—these and many other tales, tragic³⁷ or humorous or grotesque³⁸, did Captain Jim relate. The mystery of the sea, the fascination³⁹ of far lands, the lure⁴⁰ of adventure, the laughter of the world—his hearers felt and realised them all. Owen Ford listened, with his head on his hand, and the First Mate purring on his knee, his brilliant eyes fastened on Captain Jim’s rugged⁴¹, eloquent⁴² face.

“Won’t you let Mr. Ford see your life-book, Captain Jim?” asked Anne, when Captain Jim finally declared that yarn-spinning must end for the time.

“Oh, he don’t want to be bothered with THAT,” protested Captain Jim, who was secretly dying to show it.

“I should like nothing better than to see it, Captain Boyd,” said Owen. “If it is half as wonderful as your tales it will be worth seeing.”

With pretended reluctance⁴³ Captain Jim dug his life-book out of his old chest and handed it to Owen.

“I reckon you won’t care to wrastle long with my old hand o’ write. I never had much schooling,” he observed carelessly. “Just wrote that there to amuse my nephew Joe. He’s always wanting stories. Comes here yesterday and says to me, reproachful-like, as I was lifting a twenty-pound codfish out of my boat, 'Uncle Jim, ain’t a codfish a dumb animal?’ I’d been a-telling him, you see, that he must be real kind to dumb animals, and never hurt ’em in any way. I got out of the scrape by saying a codfish was dumb enough but it wasn’t an animal, but Joe didn’t look satisfied, and I wasn’t satisfied myself. You’ve got to be mighty⁴⁴ careful what you tell them little critters. THEY can see through you.”

While talking, Captain Jim watched Owen Ford from the corner of his eye as the latter examined the life-book; and presently observing that his guest was lost in its pages, he turned smilingly to his cupboard and proceeded to make a pot of tea. Owen Ford separated himself from the life-book, with as much reluctance as a miser⁴⁵ wrenches⁴⁶ himself from his gold, long enough to drink his tea, and then returned to it hungrily.

“Oh, you can take that thing home with you if you want to,” said Captain Jim, as if the “thing” were not his most treasured possession. “I must go down and pull my boat up a bit on the skids⁴⁷. There’s a wind coming. Did you notice the sky tonight?

Mackerel skies and mares’ tails

Make tall ships carry short sails.”

Owen Ford accepted the offer of the life-book gladly. On their way home Anne told him the story of lost Margaret.

“That old captain is a wonderful old fellow,” he said. “What a life he has led! Why, the man had more adventures in one week of his life than most of us have in a lifetime. Do you really think his tales are all true?”

“I certainly do. I am sure Captain Jim could not tell a lie; and besides, all the people about here say that everything happened as he relates it. There used to be plenty of his old shipmates alive to corroborate⁴⁸ him. He’s one of the last of the old type of P.E. Island sea-captains. They are almost extinct now.”