"A long afternoon!" he said finally, laying down his book. "I am glad it is tea-time."

How lonely the kitchen began to seem! The rattle of his knife and fork, the clink of his spoon, the occasional clatter of dishes, usually such pleasant sounds to a hungry man, now sounded lonely and harsh.

"Don't like eating by myself," declared Dave. "Glad tea is over. Wonder when Mr. Tolman will be here?" He looked at the clock and said, "I believe he thought he should be back by half-past eight. I wonder how May Tolman is getting along. Poor girl!"

The sun seemed that night a longer time than usual in setting, as if it were an invalid, and there must be a very deliberate and lengthy bundling up in yellow blankets.

"At last the sun is about going down," said Dave. He was now up in the lantern, match in hand. He looked off through the broad windows of gla.s.s upon the surface of the sea, growing calmer and more shining in the west; but in the east its l.u.s.tre had faded out, and there was a great expanse of dull, heavy, lead-like shades. Two fishing-boats were creeping into harbour. The surf on the bar rolled lazily, as if it would like to go to sleep, even as the sun. A schooner was creeping along the channel, its sails hanging in loose, flapping folds.

"There goes the sun!" thought Dave, watching the disappearance of the last embers of its fires below a blue hill. He turned with relief to the lamp, removed its chimney, kindled its wick, replaced the chimney, and then carefully adjusted the flame.

"There--that is done! Now do your duty, and burn all right," was Dave's direction. Rising, he looked away, and saw that in other lighthouses their keepers had kindled guiding tapers, burning slender and silvery in the still lingering daylight.

"Everything here is all right, I believe," said Dave, looking about the lantern. "Holloa! what is that up there in the corner? A cobweb?

Guess I must take it down. Don't want the window to have that thing up there. Can't reach it. I will get a little box down in the watch-room.

That will elevate me."

When he had brought the box, standing on it he saw that the web was on the outside of the lantern, and he went without to remove the film from the gla.s.s.

"There!" he said, reaching up to the corner of the window as he stood on the box. "Come down here. Don't have cobwebs on the windows of this lantern."

He now turned about, and chanced to face the tall red pipes projecting from the roof of the signal-tower with their trumpet-shaped mouths.

"Is one of those pipes damaged?" wondered Dave. "Afraid so. I must take a sharper look at that."

At the foot of the railing of the parapet he placed the box, and from that elevation, leaning his arms on the railing, inspected as closely as he could the fog-signal. This parapet for timorous people was an ugly spot. When the wind blew hard it was not easy to maintain one's footing outside the lantern. One could cling to the railing, which was firm, but it consisted only of an iron bar resting on upright iron rods three feet apart. There was no danger of a fence-break, but the gaps between the iron rods were wide and ugly, and if one should chance to drop on the smooth stone floor and just tip a little--over--toward--the--edge--ugh!

One did not like to think of that fall down--down--into the sea--perhaps upon the Black Rocks when the tide was out. Toby Tolman had told Dave that for a long time he did not care to go near the rail about the lantern and stand there a while, as it made him "nervous;' but he had ceased to be a "land-lubber," and could now face, sailor-like in confidence, any quarter of the sea and sky, just clinging to that little rail. Dave had felt pleased with his steadiness of nerve when he found he could look over that rail and then down upon the whirling sea without very much trepidation.

"Shouldn't like to have a dizzy fit when I was looking over," he said.

"No danger, though."

He repeated this as he now stood on the box planted at the foot of one of the iron supports of the rail, and continuing to rest his arms on the rail, inspected closely, as already said, the fog-signal. Suddenly his arms slipped, and over the horrible edge of that narrow little railing he found himself going. Sometimes we compress years into moments apparently. We go back, we go forward, we gather it all up into the thought of a very brief now. But oh, how vivid!--like all the electric force in a great ma.s.s of cloud concentrated in one dazzling, blinding lightning-stroke. As Dave felt that his body was sliding over that rail, he seemed to realize where he had been in the past. He thought of his parents--his home--Uncle Ferguson at Shipton--how it was that he came to the lighthouse, and then he seemed to realize vividly his situation there in the lighthouse: that he was there as the responsible keeper just then; that the safety of many vessels at sea all relied on the thoroughness of his watch; and yet he was sliding over that rail, going down toward the waves, the rocks--he dared not look toward them! He could see only this one thing between him and death: beneath his hands was an iron support of the railing. There was no other object he could grasp for three feet on each side of him. It is true there was the granite rim of this lantern-deck, so called sometimes, but he could not grasp it. His hands would slide over it. Just that iron stanchion was his hope, and as he was sinking down he convulsively clutched at it, caught it, clung to it--shutting his eyes as if blinded. He dared not look anywhere until he felt that his grasp was sure, and then he somehow worked himself back, up, over the railing, and the whole of his body was on the lantern-deck again. He crawled into the lantern, shut the door, and threw himself on the floor weak as a baby.

"Horrible!" was his one word. There he lay thinking. What if he had gone down into that yawning pit of the sea! When would they have found his body? Horrible! horrible! When he was steady enough he slowly crept down the stairs. He entered the kitchen. It had seemed as if everything threatened to fall when he was in danger of going down into the sea--lantern, watch-room, lighthouse--all into the merciless sea.

But here was the kitchen. No change here. It was so quiet, so restful.

A lamp burned on the table. The fire murmured in the stove. The clock sang its cheerful little tune of a single note. And there was the old light-keeper's Bible. It still lay open, its pages shining in the lamp-light, and there were the promises of the psalm Dave had already noticed. What did it say? "They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone."

Dave started. Up on the high lantern-deck had any mighty angel stepped between him and death, lifting him back on the floor of stone? Who could say it was not so? Dave sat down in a chair, and then bowed his head and rested it on the table. Here was G.o.d, the kindest, dearest being in the universe, Dave's great Father, from whose arms he had been turning away, trying to avoid them; and now, up on the lofty parapet, they had been held out, restraining him, saving him.

"Oh, I can't go on this way any longer," thought Dave. "And I _won't_, either! If G.o.d will only have me--will only--"

He fell on his knees. What he whispered to G.o.d he never could recall.

He only knew that he felt very sorry that he had been neglecting G.o.d--pushing away the arms reached out to him and feeling after him. He murmured something about grat.i.tude, something about forgiveness. Then he was conscious of a surrender, of sliding down--not into a horrible pit from the lighthouse parapet, but into arms tender yet strong, that went about him, that bore him up, that held him. How long he stayed there he knew not. Some time he arose, and went upstairs to see if the lantern were all right. Its light burned steadily, vividly, hopefully.

He looked out on the lantern-deck. There was the box still on the floor.

With a shudder he took it in and went downstairs again. Then he prayed once more, and said aloud the words, "They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." He was so thankful for this night's deliverance, so sorry for his forgetfulness of G.o.d in the long past! He rose to read again. He heard a step at last in the pa.s.sage-way between the fog-signal tower and the lighthouse,--a heavy, echoing step, now in the tank-room, then on the stairway to the kitchen.

Dave sprang up to meet the keeper, and he held the lamp in the shadowy stairway.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Tolman."

"Same to you. Here I am, all right, you see. Glad I went."

"How is May?"

"Better. Yes, thank G.o.d, she is better. There was a sudden change, and the doctor has hope. She has been in a pretty hard place, but I think she is out of it."

"Good! That's the way I feel myself."

"What!" The light-keeper looked at Dave for an explanation, but Dave was silent. He could not tell everything at once, or even a little to-night. The keeper went to the table, saying to himself, "He meant May when he said that. Ah!" he thought, "my book is turned round.

Guess Dave has been reading this. Good! I thought he would get to it some time."

That was a very peaceful night whose hush was on the great sea, on the surf gently rolling along the bar, and in the lighthouse tower. The deepest peace was in Dave Fletcher's soul.

Dave's stay at the lighthouse was exceedingly brief after this event in his life.

"I am really sorry to have you go," said Toby Tolman the day that Dave left. "I shall miss you. I will take you up to town, as Timothy has come back."

Dave received his pay from Timothy, for whom he had acted as subst.i.tute, and then with the keeper left the lighthouse.

The journey to Shipton over, Dave quickly walked to Uncle Ferguson's, and was welcomed warmly.

X.

_THE CHRISTMAS GIFT._

Christmas was approaching--Christmas with its white fields, and its skies that seem to part like the opening of doors in a big blue wall, and from it issue the sweet songs of the Bethlehem angels. Still more acceptable is it when our souls seem to open like doors that fly apart, and out to our neighbour and all souls everywhere go a.s.surances of peace and good-will.

To Dave Fletcher and d.i.c.k Pray Christmas meant an end of school-days and a return home.

"You will come and see us 'fore you go," was Bart Trafton's meek request to d.i.c.k and Dave when he met them in the street. d.i.c.k made the first call, just three days before Christmas. Things did not have a festival appearance in the Trafton home that day. Gran'sir was lying on a lounge not far from the fire, and his cough was shaking him harder than ever.

Bart, just before d.i.c.k's call, had been down on the sh.o.r.e of the river to see if the last tide had remembered the poor, and deposited any more drift on the beach. He brought back only a puny armful, and this armful he divided between the oven and the fire, the first half to dry and be ready to start up the flames which the other half would be quite sure to put down and almost put out. Granny had been calling at a neighbour's, to borrow timidly a little tea, and met d.i.c.k just outside the door of the Trafton home. Such a difference as there was between youth with its ruddy cheeks and bright eyes, between plenty with its cheerful and contented spirit, and poor old Granny Trafton!

"Bartie wanted me to call," said d.i.c.k.

"Come in, come in," said granny, hospitably. "We're poor folks, but we're glad to see people."

When d.i.c.k went away he said to himself, "'Poor folks,'--they're all that. I wish something could be done for them."

Dave made his call, and he left the house saying, "Something must be done."

The two callers met in the street the day of Dave's call, and the same thought was in their minds.

"d.i.c.k, see here. Those Traftons are real poor," said Dave. "I wonder if we couldn't get them a little something for Christmas."

"Dave, that very thought was in my mind, and I wanted to speak of it.