oor, fallen into some
hopeless muse. I turned away; and in a moment, when I looked again, I
found his eyes bent upon me, as if in anxious appraisement of my
quality.

"Ye _will_ stand by," he cried, "will ye not?"

"I will!" I swore, in instant response.

"Whatever comes t' your knowledge?"

"Whatever comes!"

He held his glass aloft--laughed in delighted defiance--tossed off the
liquor. "Ecod!" cries he, most heartily; "'tis you an' me, ol'
shipmate, ag'in the world! Twelve year ago," says he, "since you an'
me got under way on this here little cruise in the _Shining Light_.
'Twas you an' me then. 'Tis you an' me now. 'Twill be you an' me t'
the end o' the v'y'ge. Here's t' fair winds or foul! Here's t' the
ship an' the crew! Here's t' you an' here's t' me! Here's t' harbor
for our souls!"

'Twas inspiring. I had never known the like to come from my uncle.
'Twas a thrilling toast. I wished I had a glass.

"For it may be, lad," says my uncle, "that we'll have t' put t' sea!"

But for many a month thereafter the _Shining Light_ lay at anchor
where then she swung. No brass buttons came ashore from the mail-boat:
no gray stranger intruded upon our peace. Life flowed quietly in new
courses: in new courses, to be sure, with Judith and John Cather come
into our house, but still serenely, as of old. The _Shining Light_
rose and fell, day by day, with the tides of that summer, kept ready
for our flight. In the end, she put to sea; but 'twas not in the way
my uncle had foreseen. 'Twas not in flight; 'twas in pursuit. 'Twas a
thing infinitely more anxious and momentous. 'Twas a thing that meant
much more than life or death. In these distant days--from my chair,
here, in our old house--by the window of my room--I look out upon the
water of Old Wives' Cove, whence the _Shining Light_ has for many
years been missing; and I remember the time she slipped her anchor and
ran to sea with the night coming down and a gale of wind blowing
lustily up from the gray northeast.

XVI

GREEN PASTURES: AN INTERLUDE

In all this time Judith dwelt with us by the Lost Soul. When my
uncle fetched her from Whisper Cove, he gravely gave her into the care
of our maid-servant, long ago widowed by the sea, who had gone
childless all her life, and was now come to the desolate years, when
she would sit alone and wistful at twilight, staring out into the
empty world, where only hopelessly deepening shadows were, until
'twas long past t