The Cruise of the Shining Light

Norman Duncan

The Cruise of the Shining Light

I

NICHOLAS TOP

My uncle, Nicholas Top, of Twist Tickle, was of a cut so grotesque that folk forgot their manners when he stumped abroad. Bowling through the streets of St. John’s, which twice a year he tapped with staff and wooden leg, myself in leading–bowling cheerily, with his last rag spread, as he said, and be damned to the chart–he left a swirling wake of amazement: craning necks, open mouths, round eyes, grins so frank, the beholders being taken unaware, that ’twas simple to distinguish hearts of pity from savage ones.

Small wonder they stared; my uncle was a broad, long-bodied, scowling, grim-lipped runt, with the arms and chest of an ape, a leg lacking, three fingers of the left hand gone at the knuckles, an ankle botched in the mending (the surgery his own), a jaw out of place, a round head set low between gigantic shoulders upon a thick neck: the whole forever clad in a fantastic miscellany of water-side slops, wrinkled above, where he was large, flapping below, where he was lean, and chosen with a nautical contempt for fit and fashion, but with a mysteriously perverse regard for the value of a penny.

“An’ how much, lad,” says he, in the water-side slop-shops, “is a penny saved?”

’Twas strange that of all men he should teach me this old-fashioned maxim as though ’twere meant for my own practice. ’Twas well enough for him, it seemed; but ’twas an incumbrance of wisdom in the singular case of the lad that was I.

“A penny made, sir,” says I.

“Co’–rect!” says he, with satisfaction.

There was more to be wondered at: beginning at my uncle’s left ear, which was itself sadly puckered and patched, a wide, rough scar, of changing color, as his temper went, cut a great swath in his wiry hair, curving clear over the crown of his head. A second scar, of lesser dimension and ghastly look, lay upon his forehead, over the right eyebrow, to which though by nature drooping to a glower, it gave a sharp upward twist, so that in a way to surprise the stranger he was in good humor or bad, cynical or sullen, according to the point of approach.

There were two rolls of flabby flesh under his chin, and a puff of fat under each of his quick little eyes; and from the puffs to the lower chin, which was half submerged in the folds of a black cravat, the broad, mottled expanse was grown wild with short gray beard, save where, on the left cheek, a ragged scar (the third) kept it bare and livid. ’Twas plain the man had blundered into some quarrel of wind and sea, whence he had been indifferently ejected, in the way of the sea, to live or die, as might chance: whereof–doubtless to account for his possession of me–he would tell that my father had been lost in the adventure.

“Swep’ away by the third big sea,” says he, his face wan with the terror of that time, his body shrunk in the chair and so uneasy that I was moved against my will to doubt the tale. “May God A’mighty forgive un the deed he done!”

“Was it a sore, wicked thing my father did?”

“God forgive un–an’ me!”

“Is you sure, Uncle Nick?”

“God forgive un!”

“You’re not likin’ my poor father,” I complained, “for the sinful thing he done.”

“’Tis a sinful wicked world us dwells in,” says he. “An’ I ’low, b’y,” says he, in anxious warning, “that afore you goes t’ bed the night… Pass the bottle. Thank ’e, lad … that afore you goes t’ bed the night you’d best get a new grip on that there little anchor I’ve give ye t’ hang to.”

“An’ what’s that?” says I.

“The twenty-third psa’m,” says he, his bottle tipped, “for safety!”

My uncle would have (as he said) no dealings with a glass. There was none in the places familiar to his eyes; and when by chance, in the tap-rooms of the city, he came face to face with himself, he would start away with a fervent malediction upon the rogue in the mirror, consigning him to perdition without hope of passage into some easier state.

’Twas anathema most feeling and complete.

“Hist!” cries I. “You’re never so bad as that, Uncle Nick!”

“None worse,” says he, “than that there ol’ lost rascal!”

I did not believe it.

“I isn’t took a steady look at my ol’ figger-’ead,” he was used to saying, with his little eyes widened to excite wonder, “this five year! In p’int o’ looks,” says he, smirking, vain as you please, “I’m t’ windward o’ most o’ the bullies when I trims my beard. Ah, lad, they’s a raft o’ bar-maids an’ water-side widows would wed ol’ Nicholas Top. An’ why? ’Tain’t money, God knows! for Nicholas Top haves none. Nar a dollar that a lone water-side widow could nose out! An’ if ’tisn’t money,” says he, “why, Lord love us! ’tis looks. It can’t be nothin’ else. ’Tis looks or money with the widows; they cares not which. Come, now, lad,” says he, “would you ’low it could be otherwise than looks?”

I must wag my head.

“Lord love us, Dannie!” says he, so vain–so innocently vain of the face he would not see–that my lips twitch with laughter to think of it. “You an’ them water-side widows is got a wonderful judgment for looks!”

By this I was flattered.

“Now, look you!” says he, being now in his cups and darkly confidential with me, “I’m havin’, as I says, no dealin’ with a glass. An’ why? Accordin’ t’ the water-side widows ’tis not ill-favor o’ face. Then why? I’m tellin’ you: ’Tis just because,” says he, tapping the table with his forefinger, “Nick Top isn’t able t’ look hisself in the eye… Pass the bottle. Thank ’e, lad… There you haves it!” says he, with a pitiful little catch of the breath. “Nicholas Top haves a wonderful bad eye!”

I must nod my assent and commiseration.

“In p’int o’ beauty,” says my uncle, “Nicholas Top is perfeckly content with the judgment o’ water-side widows, which can’t be beat; but for these five year, Lord help un! he’ve had no love for the eye in his very own head.”

’Twas said in such chagrin and depth of sadness that I was moved to melancholy.

“His own eye, lad,” he would repeat, “in his very own head!”

My uncle, I confess, had indeed a hint too much of the cunning and furtive about both gait and glance to escape remark in strange places. ’Twas a pity–and a mystery. That he should hang his head who might have held it high! At Twist Tickle, to be sure, he would hop hither and yon in a fashion surprisingly light (and right cheerful); but abroad ’twas either swagger or slink. Upon occasions ’twas manifest to all the world that following evil he walked in shame and terror. These times were periodic, as shall be told: wherein, because of his simplicity, which was unspoiled–whatever the rascality he was in the way of practising–he would betray the features of hang-dog villany, conceiving all the while that he had cleverly masked himself with virtue.

“Child,” says he, in that high gentleness by which he was distinguished, “take the old man’s hand. Never fear t’ clasp it, lad! Ye’re abroad in respectable company.”

I would clasp it in childish faith.

“Abroad,” says he, defiantly, “in highly respectable company!”

Ah, well! whether rogue or gentleman, upon whom rascality was writ, the years were to tell. These, at any rate, were the sinister aspects of Nicholas Top, of Twist Tickle, whose foster-child I was, growing in such mystery as never was before, I fancy, and thriving in love not of the blood but rich and anxious as love may be: and who shall say that the love which is of the blood–a dull thing, foreordained–is more discerning, more solicitous, more deep and abiding than that which chances, however strangely, in the turmoil and changes of the life we live? To restore confidence, the old dog was furnished with an ample, genial belly; and albeit at times he drank to excess, and despite the five years’ suspicion of the eye in his very own head, his eyes were blue and clear and clean-edged, with little lights of fun and tenderness and truth twinkling in their depths. I would have you know that as a child I loved the scarred and broken old ape: this with a child’s devotion, the beauty of which (for ’tis the way of the heart) is not to be matched in later years, whatever may be told. Nor in these days, when I am full-grown and understand, will I have a word spoken in his dishonor.

Not I, by Heaven!

I came to Twist Tickle, as I am informed, on the wings of a southeasterly gale: which winds are of mean spirit and sullenly tenacious–a great rush of ill weather, overflowing the world, blowing gray and high and cold. At sea ’twas breaking in a geyser of white water on the Resurrection Rock; and ashore, in the meagre shelter of Meeting House Hill, the church-bell clanged fearsomely in a swirl of descending wind: the gloaming of a wild day, indeed! The Shining Light came lurching through the frothy sea with the wind astern: a flash of white in the mist, vanishing among the careering waves, doughtily reappearing–growing the while into the stature of a small craft of parts, making harbor under a black, tumultuous sky. Beyond the Toads, where there is a turmoil of breaking water, she made a sad mess of it, so that the folk of the Tickle, watching the strange appearance from the heads, made sure she had gone down; but she struggled out of the spray and tumble, in the end, and came to harbor unscathed in the place where Nicholas Top, himself the skipper and crew, was born and fished as a lad.

They boarded him, and (as they tell) he was brisk and grim and dripping upon the deck–with the lights dancing in his eyes: those which are lit by the mastery of a ship at sea.

“Ay, mates,” says he, “I’m come back. An’,” says he, “I’d thank ye t’ tread lightly, for I’ve a wee passenger below, which I’ve no wish t’ have woke. He’s by way o’ bein’ a bit of a gentleman,” says he, “an’ I’d not have ye take a liberty.”

This made them stare.

“An’ I’d not,” my uncle repeated, steadily, glancing from eye to eye, “have ye take a liberty.”

They wondered the more.

“A bit of a gentleman!” says my uncle, in savage challenge. “A bit of a gentleman!”

He would tell them no more, nor ever did; but in imperturbable serenity and certainty of purpose builded a tight little house in a nook of Old Wives’ Cove, within the harbor, where the Shining Light might lie snug; and there he dwelt with the child he had, placidly fishing the grounds with hook and line, save at such times as he set out upon some ill-seeming business to the city, whence he returned at ease, it seemed, with himself and his errand, but something grayer, they say, than before. The child he reared was in the beginning conscious of no incongruity, but clothed the old man with every grace and goodly quality, in faith and understanding, as children will: for these knowing ones, with clearer sight than we, perceive neither guile nor weakness nor any lack of beauty in those who foster them–God be thanked!–whatever the nature and outward show may be. There is a beauty common to us all, neither greater nor less in any of us, which these childish hearts discover. Looking upon us, they are blind or of transcendent vision, as you will: the same in issue–so what matter?–since they find no ugliness anywhere. ’Tis the way, it may be, that God looks upon His world: either in the blindness of love forgiving us or in His greater wisdom knowing that the sins of men do serve His purpose and are like virtue in His plan.

But this is a mystery…

II

AT THE SIGN OF THE ANCHOR AND CHAIN

The Anchor and Chain is a warm, pleasantly noisy place by the water-side at St. John’s, with a not ungrateful reek of rum and tobacco for such outport folk as we; forever filled, too, with big, twinkling, trumpeting men, of our simple kind, which is the sort the sea rears. There for many a mellow hour of the night was I perched upon a chair at my uncle’s side, delighting in the cheer which enclosed me–in the pop of the cork, the inspiriting passage of the black bottle, the boisterous talk and salty tales, the free laughter–but in which I might not yet, being then but seven years old, actively partake.

When in the first of it my uncle called for his dram, he would never fail to catch the bar-maid’s hand, squeeze it under the table, with his left eyelid falling and his displaced jaw solemnly ajar, informing her the while, behind his thumb and forefinger, the rest of that hand being gone, that I was a devil of a teetotaler: by which (as I thought, and, I’ll be bound, he knew well I would think) my years were excused and I was admitted to the company of whiskered skippers upon a footing of equality. ’Tis every man’s privilege, to be sure, to drink rum or not, as he will, without loss of dignity.

If his mates would have me drink a glass with them my uncle would not hinder.

“A nip o’ ginger-ale,” says I, brash as a sealing-captain.

’Twas the despair of my uncle. “Lord love us!” says he, looking with horror upon the bottle.

“T’ you, sir,” says I, with my glass aloft, “an’ t’ the whole bally crew o’ ye!”

“Belly-wash!” groans my uncle.

And so, brave and jolly as the rest of them, forgetting the doses of jalap in store for me when I was got back to the Tickle, I would now have my ninny (as they called it). Had the bar-maids left off kissing me–but they would not; no, they would kiss me upon every coming, and if I had nothing to order ’twas a kiss for my virtue, and if I drank ’twas a smack for my engaging manliness; and my only satisfaction was to damn them heartily–under my breath, mark you! lest I be soundly thrashed on the spot for this profanity, my uncle, though you may now misconceive his character, being in those days quick to punish me. But such are women: in a childless place, being themselves childless, they cannot resist a child, but would kiss queer lips, and be glad o’ the chance, because a child is lovely to women, intruding where no children are.

As a child of seven I hated the bar-maids of the Anchor and Chain, because they would kiss me against my will when the whiskered skippers went untouched. But that was long ago…

I must tell that at the Anchor and Chain my uncle blundered in with Tom Bull, of the Green Billow, the owner and skipper thereof, trading the ports of the West Coast, then coast-wise, but (I fancy) not averse to a smuggling opportunity, both ways, with the French Islands to the south of us; at any rate, ’twas plain, before the talk was over, that he needed no lights to make the harbor of St. – Pierre, Miquelon, of a dark time. ’Twas a red-whiskered, flaring, bulbous-nosed giant, with infantile eyes, containing more of wonder and patience than men need. He was clad in yellow oil-skins, a-drip, glistening in the light of the lamps, for he was newly come in from the rain: a bitter night, the wind in the northeast, with a black fog abroad (I remember it well)–a wet, black night, the rain driving past the red-curtained windows of the Anchor and Chain, the streets swept clean of men, ourselves light-hearted and warm, indifferent, being ashore from the wind, the cloudy night, the vicious, crested waves of the open, where men must never laugh nor touch a glass.

They must have a dram together in a stall removed from the congregation of steaming men at the long bar. And when the maid had fetched the bottle, Tom Bull raised it, regarded it doubtfully, cocked his head, looked my shamefaced uncle in the eye.

“An’ what might this be?” says he.

“’Tis knowed hereabouts, in the langwitch o’ waterside widows,” replies my uncle, mildly, “as a bottle o’ Cheap an’ Nasty.”

Tom Bull put the bottle aside.

“Tis cheap, I’ll be bound,” says my uncle; “but ’tis not so wonderful nasty, Tom,” he grieved, “when ’tis the best t’ be had.”

“Skipper Nicholas,” says Tom, in wonder, “wasn’t you give aforetime t’ the use o’ Long Tom?”

My uncle nodded.

“Dear man!” Tom Bull sighed.

My uncle looked away. Tom Bull seemed now first to observe his impoverished appearance, and attacked it with frankly curious eyes, which roamed without shame over my uncle’s shrinking person; and my uncle winced under this inquisition.

“Pour your liquor,” growls he, “an’ be content!”

Tom Bull grasped the bottle, unafraid of the contents, unabashed by the rebuke. “An’ Skipper Nicholas,” asks he, “where did you manage t’ pick up the young feller?”

My uncle would not attend.

“Eh?” Tom Bull persisted. “Where did you come across o’ he?”

“This,” says my uncle, with a gentle tug at my ear, “is Dannie.”

“Ay; but whose young one?”

“Tom Callaway’s son.”

“Tom Callaway’s son!” cries Tom Bull.

There was that about me to stir surprise; with those generous days so long gone by, I will not gainsay it. Nor will I hold Tom Bull in fault for doubting, though he stared me, up and down, until I blushed and turned uneasy while his astonished eyes were upon me.

“Tom Callaway’s son!” cries he again.

That I was.

“The same,” says my uncle.

Forthwith was I once more inspected, without reserve–for a child has no complaint to make in such cases–and with rising wonder, which, in the end, caused Tom Bull to gape and gasp; but I was now less concerned with the scrutiny, being, after all, long used to the impertinence of the curious, than with the phenomena it occasioned. My uncle’s friend had tipped the bottle, and was now become so deeply engaged with my appearance that the yellow whiskey tumbled into his glass by fits and starts, until the allowance was far beyond that which, upon information supplied me by my uncle, I deemed proper (or polite) for any man to have at one time. The measurement of drams was in those bibulous days important to me–of much more agreeable interest, indeed, than the impression I was designed to make upon the ’longshore world.

“No such nonsense!” exclaims Tom Bull. “Tom Callaway died ’ithout a copper t’ bury un.”

“Tom Callaway,” says my uncle, evasively, “didn’t have no call t’ be buried; he was drown-ded.”

My uncle’s old shipmate sipped his whiskey with absent, but grateful, relish, his eyes continuing to wander over so much of me as grew above the table, which was little enough. Presently my uncle was subjected to the same severe appraisement, and wriggled under it in guilty way–an appraisement of the waterside slops: the limp and shabby cast-off apparel which scantily enveloped his great chest, insufficient for the bitter rain then sweeping the streets. Thence the glance of this Tom Bull went blankly over the foggy room, pausing nowhere upon the faces of the folk at the bar, but coming to rest, at last, upon the fly-blown rafters (where was no interest), whence, suddenly, it dropped to my hand, which lay idle and sparkling upon the sticky table.

“Tom Callaway’s son!” he mused.

My hand was taken, spread down upon the calloused palm of Tom Bull, in disregard of my frown, and for a long time the man stared in puzzled silence at what there he saw. ’Twas very still, indeed, in the little stall where we three sat; the boisterous laughter, the shuffling and tramp of heavy boots, the clink of glasses, the beating of the rain upon the windows seemed far away.

“I’d not be s’prised,” says Tom Bull, in the low, hoarse voice of awe, “if them there was di’monds!”

“They is,” says my uncle, with satisfaction.

“Di’monds!” sighs Tom Bull. “My God!”

’Twas boredom–the intimate inspection, the question, the start of surprise. ’Twas all inevitable, so familiar–so distastefully intrusive, too. ’Twas a boredom hard to suffer, and never would have been borne had not the occasion of it been my uncle’s delight. ’Twas always the same: Diamonds? ay, diamonds! and then the gasped “My God!” They would pry into this, by the Lord! and never be stopped by my scowl and the shrinking of my flesh. It may be that the parade my misguided guardian made of me invited the intimacy, and, if so, I have no cry to raise against the memory of it; but, whatever, they made free with the child that was I, and boldly, though ’twas most boresome and ungrateful to me. As a child my hand was fingered and eyed by every ’longshore jack, coast-wise skipper, and foreign captain from the Turkey Cock to the sign of The King George. And wherever I went upon the streets of St. John’s in those days there was no escape: the glitter of me stopped folk in their tracks–to turn and stare and wonder and pass muttering on.

“Three in that one, Tom,” adds my uncle.

’Twas a moment before Tom Bull had mastered his amazement. “Well, well!” cries he. “Di’monds! Three in that one! Lord, Lord, think o’ that! This wee feller with all them di’monds! An’ Skipper Nicholas,” says he, drawing closer to my beaming uncle, “this here red stone,” says he, touching the ring on my third finger, “would be a jool? A ruby, like as not?”

“’Tis that,” says my uncle.

“An’ this here?” Tom Bull continues, selecting my little finger.

“Well, now, Tom,” says my uncle, with gusto, for he delighted in these discussions, “I ’low I better tell you ’bout that. Ye see, lad,” says he, “that’s a seal-ring, Tom. I’m told that gentlemen wears un t’ stamp the wax o’ their corr-ee-spondence. ’Twas Sir Harry that give me the trick o’ that. It haves a D for Daniel, an’ a C for Callaway; an’ it haves a T in the middle, Tom, for Top. I ’lowed I’d get the Top in somewheres, so I put it in atween the D an’ the C t’ have it lie snug: for I’m not wantin’ this here little Dannie t’ forget that Top was t’ the wheel in his younger days.” He turned to me, and in a voice quite broken with affection, and sadly hopeless, somehow, as I recall, “Dannie, lad,” says he, “ye’ll never forget, will ye, that Top was t’ the wheel? God bless ye, child! Well, Tom,” turning now to his shipmate, “ye’re a man much sailed t’ foreign parts, an’ ye wouldn’t think it ungenteel, would ye, for a lad like Dannie t’ wear a seal-ring? No? I’m wonderful glad o’ that. For, Tom,” says he, most earnestly, “I’m wantin’ Dannie t’ be a gentleman. He’s just got t’ be a gentleman!”

“A gentleman, Nick?”

“He’ve got t’ be a gentleman!”

“You’ll never manage that, Nick Top,” says Tom Bull.

“Not manage it!” my uncle indignantly complained. “Why, look, Tom Bull–jus’ look– at them there jools! An’ that’s on’y a poor beginnin’!”

Tom Bull laid my hand very gingerly upon the table, as though ’twere a thing not lightly to be handled lest it fall to pieces in his grasp. He drew my left hand from my pocket and got it under the light.

“Two pearls,” says my uncle, “’longside a emerald. Aft o’ that you’ll be like t’ find two more di’monds. Them’s first-water Brazil, Tom.”

Tom Bull inquiringly touched my watch-guard.

“Eighteen karat,” says my uncle.

Tom Bull drew the watch from its pocket and let it lie glittering in his hand; the jewels, set shyly in the midst of the chasing, glowed in the twilight of the stall.

“Solid,” says my uncle.

Tom Bull touched my velvet jacket with the tip of his finger.

“Imported direck,” says my uncle, “from Lon’on. Direck, Tom–is you hearin’ me?–direck from Lon’on. Not,” says he, with quick consideration, “that we’ve no respeck for home talent. My, my, no! Dannie haves a matter o’ thirteen outfits done right here in St. John’s. You beat about Water Street for a week, Tom, an’ you’ll sight un. Fill your glass, Tom! We’re well met this night. Leave me talk t’ you, lad. Leave me talk t’ ye about Dannie. Fill up, an’ may the Lord prosper your smugglin’! ’Tis a wild night without. I’m glad enough t’ be in harbor. ’Tis a dirty night; but ’tis not blowin’ here, Tom–an’ that’s the bottle; pour your dram, lad, an’ take it like a man! God save us! but a bottle’s the b’y t’ make a fair wind of a head wind. Tom,” says he, laying a hand on my head–which was the ultimate expression of his affection–“you jus’ ought t’ clap eyes on this here little ol’ Dannie when he’ve donned his Highland kilts. He’s a little divil of a dandy then, I’m tellin’ you. Never a lad o’ the city can match un, by the Lord! Not match my little Dannie! Clap eyes,” says he, “on good ol’ little Dannie! Lord save ye, but of all the young fellers you’ve knowed he’s the finest figger of a lad–”

“Uncle Nick!” I cried, in pain–in pain to be excused (as shall be told).

“Hush, lad!” croons he. “Never mind!”

I could not help it.

“An’ talkin’ about outfits, Tom,” says my uncle, “this here damn little ol’ Dannie, bein’ a gentleman, haves his best– from Lon’on. Ye can’t blame un, Tom; they all doos it.”