FullReads

“I don’t know how it happened, sir, but of a sudden a well o’ warmth ran through me and all over me, just like a spring burstin’. ‘Waters o’ Comfort?’ Ay, maybe . . . maybe. Funny things happen on Christmas Eve, they say. My old mother believed to her last day that every Christmas Eve at midnight the cattle in their challs went down on their knees, throughout the land . . .

“But the feelin’, if you understand me, wasn’t Christmas-like at all. It had started with green pastures: and green pastures ran in my head, with brooks, and birds singin’ away up aloft and bees hummin’ all ’round, and the sunshine o’ the Lord warmin’ everything and warmin’ my heart . . . I felt the walls of the cuddy chokin’ me of a sudden, an’ went on deck.

“A fine night it was, up there. Very clear with a hint o’ frost–no moon. As I remember, she was in her first quarter and had gone down some while. The tide had turned and was makin’ in steady. I could hear it clap-clappin’ past the Maid in Two Minds–she lay a little outside of us, to seaward, and we had swung so that her ridin’ light come over our starboard how. Out beyond her the lighthouse on the breakwater kept flashin’–it’s red over the anchorage–an’ away beyond that the ‘Stone. Astern was all the half-circle o’ Plymouth lights–like the front of a crown o’ glory. And the stars overhead, sir!–not so much as a wisp o’ cloud to hide ’em.

“‘Where is He that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen His star in the east . . .’I’d always been curious about that star, sir,–whether ’twas an ordinary one or one sent by miracle: and, years before, I’d argued it out that the Lord wouldn’t send one like a flash in the pan, but–bein’ thoughtful in all things–would leave it to come back constant every year and bring assurance, if ye looked for it. After that, I began to look regularly, studying the sky from the first week of December on to Christmas: and ’twasn’t long before I felt certain. ‘Tis a star–they call it Regulus in the books, for I’ve looked it out–that gets up in the south-east in December month: pretty low, and yet full high enough to stand over a cottage; one o’ the brightest too, and easily known, for it carries five other stars set like a reap-hook just above it.

“Well, I looked to the south-east, and there my star stood blazin’, just over the dark o’ the land, with its reap-hook over its forehead. ‘The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light . . .’

“While I stood staring at it, thinkin’ my thoughts, there came a noise all of a sudden from the other lugger, as if someone had kicked over a table down below, and upset half a dozen pots and pans. Then, almost before I had time to wonder, I heard Dog Mitchell scramble forth on deck, find his feet in a scrufflin’ way, and start travisin’ forth and back, forth and back, talkin’ to himself all the while and cursin’. He was fairly chewin’ curses. I guessed what was the matter. He had been down below toppin’ things up with a last soak of neat whisky, and now he had the shakes on him, or the beginnings of ’em.

“You know the sayin’, ‘A fisherman’s walk–two steps, an’ overboard’? . . . I tell you I was in misery for the man. Any moment he might lurch overboard, or else throw himself over–one as likely as another with a poor chap in that state. Yet how could I help–cut off, without boat or any means to get to him?