FullReads

Reuben touched his cap, and, taking the book from Seth without a word, led us to the cottage, where his mother stood scouring a deal table: a little woman with dark eyes like beads, and thin grey hair tucked within a grey muslin cap. She had kilted her gown high and tucked up her sleeves, and looked to me, for all the world, like a doll on a penwiper. But her hands were busy continually; the small room shone and gleamed with her tireless cleansing and polishing; and in the midst of it her eyes sparkled with expectation of news from the outer world.

Seth understood her, and rattled at once into a recital of all the happenings on the islands: births, marriages, and deaths, sickness, courtship, and boat-building, the price of market-stuff, and the names of vessels newly arrived in the roads. But after a minute she turned from him to my father.

“‘Tis all so narrow, sir–Seth’s news. I want to know what’s happenin’ in the world.”

Now, much was happening in those May weeks–much all over Europe, but much indeed in France, where Paris was passing through the sharp agonies of the Commune. The latest my father had to tell was almost a week old; but two days before we set sail for the islands the Versaillais troops had swept the boulevards, and every steamer had brought newspapers from the mainland. Mrs. Hicks’ eyes grew bigger and rounder as she listened; but she had listened a very short while before she cried–

“Father must hear this! He’s up polishin’ the lantern, sir. Begging your pardon, but he must hear you tell it; he must indeed.” With immense pride she added, “He was over to France, one time.”

She marched us off to the lantern, up the winding stairway, up the ladder, and into the great glass cage, where stood an old man busily polishing the brass reflector.

“Father, here’s a gentleman come, with news from France!”

As the old man came forward with a fumbling step, my father drew a thick bundle from his coat pocket. “I’ve brought you some newspapers,” said he; “they will tell you more than I can.”

He held them out, but the wife interposed hurriedly. “Not to him, sir. Give them to Reuben, if you please, and thank you. But he, sir–he’s blind.”

I looked, as my father looked. A film covered both pupils of the old man’s eyes.

“He’ve been blind these seven years,” Reuben explained in a low voice. “Me and Sam are the regular keepers now; but the Board lets him live on here, and he’s terrible clever at polishing.”

“He knows the lamp so well as ever he did,” broke in the old woman; “the leastest little scratch, he don’t miss it. How he doesn’ break his poor neck is more’n I can tell; but he don’t–though ’tis a sore trial.”

While they explained, the old man’s hand went out to caress the lamp, but stopped within an inch of the sparkling lenses.

“Iss,” said he musingly, “with this here cataract I misses a brave lot. There’s a lot to be seen up here, for a man with eyesight. Will ‘ee tell me, please sir, what’s the news from France? I was over there, one time.”

It turned out he had once paid a visit to one of the small Breton ports: Roscoff I think it was, and have a suspicion that smuggling lay at the bottom of the business there.

“Well now,” he commented as my father told something of his tale, “I wouldn’ have thought it of the Johnnies. They treated me very pleasant, and I speak of a man as I find en.” He turned his sightless eyes on the family he had brought up to think well of Frenchmen.

“They are different folk in Paris.”

“Iss, that’s a big place. Cherbourg’s a big place, too, they tell me. I came near going there, one time; but my travellin’s over. It do give a man something to think over, though. I wish my son here could have travelled a bit before settlin’ down.”

But Reuben, on the far side of the lantern, was turning the pages of the tattered almanack.

“Well-a-well!” said the old woman. “A body must be thankful for good sons, and mine be that. But I’d love to end my days settin’ in a window and watchin’ folks go by to church.”

It was past seven o’clock when we hoisted sail again, and as we drew near the greater islands a crimson flash shot out over the sea in our wake. On a dim beach ahead stood a girl waiting.