Every Man for Himself

The maid sat upright and stiff in bed. “Oh, my!” she demanded, in alarm; “he isn’t, is he?”

“No!” said “By-an’-by” Brown.

“Sure?”

“Isn’t I jus’ tol’ ye so?” he answered, beaming.

Long Bill Tweak followed the night into the shades of forgotten time…

Came Wednesday upon “By-an’-by” Brown in a way to make the heart jump. Midnight of Saturday was now fairly over the horizon of his adventurous sea. Wednesday! Came Thursday – prompt to the minute. Days of bewildered inaction! And now the cottage was ship-shape to the darkest corners of its closets. Ship-shape as a wise and knowing maid of seven, used to housewifely occupations, could make it: which was as ship-shape as ship-shape could be, though you may not believe it. There was no more for the maid to do but sit with folded hands and confidently expectant gaze to await the advent of her happiness. Thursday morning: and “By-an’-by” Brown had not mastered his bearings. Three days more: Thursday, Friday, Saturday. It occurred, then, to “By-an’-by” Brown – at precisely ten o’clock of Friday morning – that his hope lay in Jim Turley of Candlestick Cove, an obliging man. They jus’ had t’ be a father, didn’t they? But they wasn’t no father no more. Well, then, ecod! make one. Had t’ be a father, somehow, didn’t they? And – well – there was Jim Turley o’ Candlestick Cove. He’d answer. Why not Jim Turley o’ Candlestick Cove, an obligin’ man, known t’ be such from Mother Burke t’ the Cape Norman Light? He’d ’blige a shipmate in a mess like this, ecod! You see if he didn’t!

Brown made ready for Candlestick Cove.

“But,” the maid objected, “what is I t’ do if father comes afore night?”

“Ah!” drawled “By-an’-by,” blankly.

“Eh?” she repeated.

“Why, o’ course,” he answered, with a large and immediate access of interest, drawing the arm-chair near the stove, “you jus’ set un there t’ warm his feet.”

“An’ if he doesn’t know me?” she protested.

“Oh, sure,” “By-an’-by” affirmed, “the ol’ man’ll know you, never fear. You jus’ give un a cup o’ tea an’ say I’ll be back afore dark.”

“Well,” the maid agreed, dubiously.

“I’ll be off,” said Brown, in a flush of embarrassment, “when I fetches the wood t’ keep your father cosey. He’ll be thirsty an’ cold when he comes. Ye’ll take good care of un, won’t ye?”

“Ye bet ye!”

“Mind ye get them there ol’ feet warm. An’ jus’ you fair pour the tea into un. He’s used t’ his share o’ tea, ye bet! I knows un.”

And so “By-an’-by” Brown, travelling over the hills, came hopefully to Jim Turley of Candlestick Cove, an obliging man, whilst the maid kept watch at the window of the Blunder Cove cottage. And Jim Turley was a most obligin’ man. ’Blige? Why, sure! I’ll ’blige ye! There was no service difficult or obnoxious to the selfish sons of men that Jim Turley would not perform for other folk – if only he might ’blige. Ye jus’ go ast Jim Turley; he’ll ’blige ye. And Jim Turley would with delight: for Jim had a passion for ’bligin’ – assiduously seeking opportunities, even to the point of intrusion. Beaming Jim Turley o’ Candlestick Cove: poor, shiftless, optimistic, serene, well-beloved Jim Turley, forever cheerfully sprawling in the meshes of his own difficulties! Lean Jim Turley – forgetful of his interests in a fairly divine satisfaction with compassing the joy and welfare of his fellows! I shall never forget him: his round, flaring smile, rippling under his bushy whiskers, a perpetual delight, come any fortune; his mild, unself-conscious, sympathetic blue eyes, looking out upon the world in amazement, perhaps, but yet in kind and eager inquiry concerning the affairs of other folk; his blithe “Yo-ho!” at labor, and “Easy does it!” Jim Turley o’ Candlestick Cove – an’ obligin’ man!

“In trouble?” he asked of “By-an’-by” Brown, instantly concerned.

“Not ’xactly trouble,” answered “By-an’-by.”

“Sort o’ bothered?”

“Well, no,” drawled “By-an’-by” Brown; “but I got t’ have a father by Satu’day night.”

“For yerself?” Jim mildly inquired.

“For the maid,” said “By-an’-by” Brown; “an’ I was ’lowin’,” he added, frankly, “that you might ’blige her.”

“Well, now,” Jim Turley exclaimed, “I’d like t’ wonderful well! But, ye see,” he objected, faintly, “bein’ a ol’ bachelor I isn’t s’posed t’ – ”

“Anyhow,” “By-an’-by” Brown broke in, “I jus’ got t’ have a father by Satu’day night.”

“An’ I’m a religious man, an’ – ”

“No objection t’ religion,” Brown protested. “I’m strong on religion m’self. Jus’ as soon have a religious father as not. Sooner. Now,” he pleaded, “they isn’t nobody else in the world t’ ’blige me.”

“No,” Jim Turley agreed, in distress; “no – I ’low not.”

“An’ I jus’ got,” declared Brown, “t’ have a father by Satu’day night.”

“Course you is!” cried Jim Turley, instantly siding with the woebegone. “Jus’ got t’!”

“Well?”

“Oh, well, pshaw!” said Jim Turley, “I’ll ’blige ye!”

The which he did, but with misgiving: arriving at Blunder Cove after dark of Saturday, unobserved by the maid, whose white little nose was stuck to the frosty window-pane, whose eyes searched the gloom gathered over the Tickle rocks, whose ears were engaged with the tick-tock of the impassive clock. No; he was not observed, however keen the lookout: for he came sneaking in by Tumble Gully, ’cordin’ t’ sailin’ orders, to join “By-an’-by” Brown in the lee of the meeting-house under Anxiety Hill, where the conspiracy was to be perfected, in the light of recent developments, and whence the sally was to be made. He was in a shiver of nervousness; so, too, “By-an’-by” Brown. It was the moment of inaction when conspirators must forever be the prey of doubt and dread. They were determined, grim; they were most grave – but they were still afraid. And Jim Turley’s conscience would not leave him be. A religious man, Jim Turley! On the way from Candlestick Cove he had whipped the perverse thing into subjection, like a sinner; but here, in the lee of the meeting-house by Anxiety Hill, with a winter’s night fallen like a cold cloud from perdition, conscience was risen again to prod him.

An obligin’ man, Jim Turley: but still a religious man – knowing his master.

“I got qualms,” said he.

“Stummick?” Brown demanded, in alarm.

“This here thing,” Jim Turley protested, “isn’t a religious thing to do.”

“Maybe not,” replied “By-an’-by” Brown, doggedly; “but I promised the maid a father by Satu’day night, an’ I got t’ have un.”

“’Twould ease my mind a lot,” Jim Turley pleaded, “t’ ask the parson. Come, now!”

“By-an’-by,” said “By-an’-by” Brown.

“No,” Jim Turley insisted; “now.”

The parson laughed; then laughed again, with his head thrown back and his mouth fallen open very wide. Presently, though, he turned grave, and eyed “By-an’-by” Brown in a questioning, anxious way, as though seeking to discover in how far the big man’s happiness might be chanced: whereupon he laughed once more, quite reassured. He was a pompous bit of a parson, this, used to commanding the conduct of Blunder Cove; to controlling its affairs; to shaping the destinies of its folk with a free, bold hand: being in this both wise and most generously concerned, so that the folk profited more than they knew. And now, with “By-an’-by” Brown and the maid on his hands, to say nothing of poor Jim Turley, he did not hesitate; there was nothing for it, thinks he, but to get “By-an’-by” Brown out of the mess, whatever came of it, and to arrange a future from which all by-an’-bying must be eliminated. A new start, thinks he; and the by-an’-by habit would work no further injury. So he sat “By-an’-by” Brown and Jim Turley by the kitchen stove, without a word of explanation, and, still condescending no hint of his purpose, but bidding them both sit tight to their chairs, went out upon his business, which, as may easily be surmised, was with the maid.

“Bein’ a religious man,” said Jim Turley, solemnly, “he’ll mend it.”

When the parson came back there was nothing within her comprehension, which was quite sufficient to her need. “By-an’-by” Brown was sent home, with a kindly God-bless-ye! and an injunction of the most severe description to have done with by-an’-bying. He stumbled into his own kitchen in a shamefaced way, prepared, like a mischievous lad, to be scolded until his big ears burned and his scalp tingled; and he was a long, long time about hanging up his cap and coat and taking off his shoes, never once glancing toward the maid, who sat silent beyond the kitchen stove. And then, when by no further subterfuge could he prolong his immunity, he turned boldly in her direction, patiently and humbly to accept the inevitable correction, a promise to do better already fashioned upon his tongue. And there she sat, beyond the glowing stove, grinning in a way to show her white little teeth. Tears? Maybe: but only traces – where-left, indeed, for the maid to learn, or, at least, by her eyes shone all the brighter. And “By-an’-by” Brown, reproaching himself bitterly, sat down, with never a word, and began to trace strange pictures on the floor with the big toe of his gray-socked foot, while the kettle and the clock and the fire sang the old chorus of comfort and cheer.

The big man’s big toe got all at once furiously interested in its artistic occupation.

“Ah-ha!” says “By-an’-by’s” baby, “I found you out!”

“Uh-huh!” she repeated, threateningly, “I found you out.”

“Did ye?” “By-an’-by” softly asked.

The maid came on tiptoe from behind the stove, and made an arrangement of “By-an’-by” Brown’s long legs convenient for straddling; and having then settled herself on his knees, she tipped up his face and fetched her own so close that he could not dodge her eyes, but must look in, whatever came of it; and then – to the reviving delight of “By-an’-by” Brown – she tapped his nose with a long little forefinger, emphasizing every word with a stouter tap, saying:

“Yes – I – did!”

“Uh-huh!” he chuckled.

“An’,” said she, “I don’t want no father.”

“Ye don’t?” he cried, incredulous.

“Because,” she declared, “I’m ’lowin’ t’ take care o’ you– an’ marry you.”

“Ye is?” he gasped.

“Ye bet ye, b’y,” said “By-an’-by’s” baby – “by-an’-by!”

Then they hugged each other hard.

VIII – THEY WHO LOSE AT LOVE

And old Khalil Khayyat, simulating courage, went out, that the reconciliation of Yusef Khouri with the amazing marriage might surely be accomplished. And returning in dread and bewildered haste, he came again to the pastry-shop of Nageeb Fiani, where young Salim Awad, the light of his eyes, still lay limp over the round table in the little back room, grieving that Haleema, Khouri’s daughter, of the tresses of night, the star-eyed, his well-beloved, had of a sudden wed Jimmie Brady, the jolly truckman. The smoke hung dead and foul in the room; the coffee was turned cold in the cups, stagnant and greasy; the coal on the narghile was grown gray as death: the magic of great despair had in a twinkling worked the change of cheer to age and shabbiness and frigid gloom. But the laughter and soft voices in the outer room were all unchanged, still light, lifted indifferently above the rattle of dice and the aimless strumming of a canoun; and beyond was the familiar evening hum and clatter of New York’s Washington Street, children’s cries and the patter of feet, drifting in at the open door; and from far off, as before, came the low, receding roar of the Elevated train rounding the curve to South Ferry.

Khayyat smiled in compassion: being old, used to the healing of years, he smiled; and he laid a timid hand on the head of young Salim Awad.

“Salim, poet, the child of a poet,” he whispered, “grieve no more!”

“My heart is a gray coal, O Khalil!” sighed Salim Awad, who had lost at love. “For a moment it glowed in the breath of love. It is turned cold and gray; it lies forsaken in a vast night.”

“For a moment,” mused Khalil Khayyat, sighing, but yet smiling, “it glowed in the breath of love. Ah, Salim,” said he, “there is yet the memory of that ecstasy!”

“My heart is a brown leaf: it flutters down the wind of despair; it is caught in the tempest of great woe.”

“It has known the sunlight and the tender breeze.”

Salim looked up; his face was wet and white; his black hair, fallen in disarray over his forehead, was damp with the sweat of grief; his eyes, soulful, glowing in deep shadows, he turned to some place high and distant. “My heart,” he cried, passionately, clasping his hands, “is a thing that for a moment lived, but is forever dead! It is in a grave of night and heaviness, O Khalil, my friend!”

“It is like a seed sown,” said Khalil Khayyat.

“To fail of harvest!”

“Nay; to bloom in compassionate deeds. The flower of sorrow is the joy of the world. In the broken heart is the hope of the hopeless; in the agony of poets is their sure help. Hear me, O Salim Awad!” the old man continued, rising, lifting his lean brown hand, his voice clear, vibrant, possessing the quality of prophecy. “The broken heart is a seed sown by the hand of the Beneficent and Wise. Into the soil of life He casts it that there may be a garden in the world. With a free, glad hand He sows, that the perfume and color of high compassion may glorify the harvest of ambitious strife; and progress is the fruit of strife and love the flower of compassion. Yea, O Salim, poet, the child of a poet, taught of a poet, which am I, the broken heart is a seed sown gladly, to flower in this beauty. Blessed,” Khalil Khayyat concluded, smiling, “oh, blessed be the Breaker of Hearts!”

“Blessed,” asked Salim Awad, wondering, “be the Breaker of Hearts?”

“Yea, O Salim,” answered Khalil Khayyat, speaking out of age and ancient pain; “even blessed be the Breaker of Hearts!”

Salim Awad turned again to the place that was high and distant – beyond the gaudy, dirty ceiling of the little back room – where, it may be, the form of Haleema, the star-eyed, of the slender, yielding shape of the tamarisk, floated in a radiant cloud, compassionate and glorious.

“What is my love?” he whispered. “Is it a consuming fire? Nay,” he answered, his voice rising, warm, tremulous; “rather is it a little blaze, kindled brightly in the night, that it may comfort my beloved. What is my love, O Haleema, daughter of Khouri, the star-eyed? Is it an arrow, shot from my bow, that it may tear the heart of my beloved? Nay; rather is it a shield against the arrows of sorrow – my shield, the strength of my right arm: a refuge from the cruel shafts of life. What are my arms? Are they bars of iron to imprison my beloved? Nay,” cried Salim Awad, striking his breast; “they are but a resting-place. A resting-place,” he repeated, throwing wide his arms, “to which she will not come! Oh, Haleema!” he moaned, flinging himself upon the little round table, “Haleema! Jewel of all riches! Star of the night! Flower of the world! Haleema … Haleema…”

“Poet!” Khalil Khayyat gasped, clutching the little round table, his eyes flashing. “The child of a poet, taught of a poet, which am I!”

They were singing in the street – a riot of Irish lads, tenement-born; tramping noisily past the door of Nageeb Fiani’s pastry-shop to Battery Park. And Khalil Khayyat sat musing deeply, his ears closed to the alien song, while distance mellowed the voices, changed them to a vagrant harmony, made them one with the mutter of Washington Street; for there had come to him a great thought – a vision, high, glowing, such as only poets may know – concerning love and the infinite pain; and he sought to fashion the thought: which must be done with tender care in the classic language, lest it suffer in beauty or effect being uttered in haste or in the common speech of the people. Thus he sat: low in his chair, his head hanging loose, his eyes jumping, his brown, wrinkled face fearfully working, until every hair of his unshaven beard stood restlessly on end. And Salim Awad, looking up, perceived these throes: and thereby knew that some prophetic word was immediately to be spoken.

“They who lose at love,” Khayyat muttered, “must… They who lose at love…”

“Khalil!”

The Language Beautiful was for once perverse. The words would not come to Khalil Khayyat. He gasped, tapped the table with impatient fingers – and bent again to the task.

“They who lose at love…”

“Khalil!” Salim Awad’s voice was plaintive. “What must they do, O Khalil,” he implored, “who lose at love? Tell me, Khalil! What must they do?”

“They who lose at love… They who lose at love must… They who lose at love must … seek…”

“Speak, O Khalil, concerning those wretched ones! And they must seek?”

Khayyat laughed softly. He sat back in the chair – proudly squared his shoulders. “And now I know!” he cried, in triumph. He cleared his throat. “They who lose at love,” he declaimed, “must seek…” He paused abruptly. There had been a warning in the young lover’s eyes: after all, in exceptional cases, poetry might not wisely be practised.

“Come, Khalil!” Salim Awad purred. “They who lose at love? What is left for them to do?”

“Nay,” answered Khalil Khayyat, looking away, much embarrassed, “I will not tell you.”

Salim caught the old man’s wrist. “What is the quest?” he cried, hoarsely, bending close.

“I may not tell.”

Salim’s fingers tightened; his teeth came together with a snap; his face flushed – a quick flood of red, hot blood.

“What is the quest?” he demanded.

“I dare not tell.”

“The quest?”

“I will not tell!”

Nor would Khalil Khayyat tell Salim Awad what must be sought by such as lose at love; but he called to Nageeb Fiani, the greatest player in all the world, to bring the violin, that Salim might hear the music of love and be comforted. And in the little back room of the pastry-shop near the Battery, while the trucks rattled over the cobblestones and the songs of the Irish troubled the soft spring night, Nageeb Fiani played the Song of Love to Lali, which the blind prince had made, long, long ago, before he died of love; and in the sigh and wail and passionate complaint of that dead woe the despair of Salim Awad found voice and spent itself; and he looked up, and gazing deep into the dull old eyes of Khalil Khayyat, new light in his own, he smiled.

“Yet, O Khalil,” he whispered, “will I go upon that quest!”

Now, Salim Awad went north to the bitter coasts – to the shore of rock and gray sea – there to carry a pack from harbor to harbor of a barren land, ever seeking in trade to ease the sorrows of love. Neither sea nor land – neither naked headland nor the unfeeling white expanse – neither sunlit wind nor the sleety gale in the night – helped him to forgetfulness. But, as all the miserable know, the love of children is a vast delight: and the children of that place are blue-eyed and hungry; and it is permitted the stranger to love them… On he went, from Lobster Tickle to Snook’s Arm, from Dead Man’s Cove to Righteous Harbor, trading laces and trinkets for salt fish; and on he went, sanguine, light of heart, blindly seeking that which the losers at love must seek; for Khalil Khayyat had told him that the mysterious Thing was to be found in that place.

With a jolly wind abeam – a snoring breeze from the southwest – the tight little Bully Boy, fore-and-after, thirty tons, Skipper Josiah Top, was footing it through the moonlight from Tutt’s Tickle to the Labrador: bound down north for the first fishing of that year. She was tearing through the sea – eagerly nosing the slow, black waves; and they heartily slapped her bows, broke, ran hissing down the rail, lay boiling in the broad, white wake, stretching far into the luminous mist astern. Salim Awad, the peddler, picked up at Bread-and-Water Harbor, leaned upon the rail – staring into the mist: wherein, for him, were melancholy visions of the star-eyed maid of Washington Street… At midnight the wind veered to the east – a swift, ominous change – and rose to the pitch of half a gale, blowing cold and capriciously. It brought fog from the distant open; the night turned clammy and thick; the Bully Boy found herself in a mess of dirty weather. Near dawn, being then close inshore, off the Seven Dogs, which growled to leeward, she ran into the ice – the first of the spring floes: a field of pans, slowly drifting up the land. And when the air was gray she struck on the Devil’s Finger, ripped her keel out, and filled like a sieve; and she sank in sixty seconds, as men say – every strand and splinter of her.

But first she spilled her crew upon the ice.

The men had leaped to port and starboard, fore and aft, in unthinking terror, each desperately concerned with his own life; they were now distributed upon the four pans which had been within leaping distance when the Bully Boy settled: white rafts, floating on a black, slow-heaving sea; lying in a circle of murky fog; creeping shoreward with the wind. If the wind held – and it was a true, freshening wind, – they would be blown upon the coast rocks, within a measurable time, and might walk ashore; if it veered, the ice would drift to sea, where, ultimately, in the uttermost agony of cold and hunger, every man would yield his life. The plight was manifest, familiar to them, every one; but they were wise in weather lore: they had faith in the consistency of the wind that blew; and, in the reaction from bestial terror, they bandied primitive jokes from pan to pan – save the skipper, who had lost all that he had, and was helplessly downcast: caring not a whit whether he lived or died; for he had loved his schooner, the work of his hands, his heart’s child, better than his life.

It chanced that Salim Awad, who loved the star-eyed daughter of Khouri, and in this land sought to ease the sorrow of his passion – it chanced that this Salim was alone with Tommy Hand, the cook’s young son – a tender lad, now upon his first voyage to the Labrador. And the boy began to whimper.

“Dad,” he called to his father, disconsolate, “I wisht – I wisht – I was along o’ you – on your pan.”

The cook came to the edge of the ice. “Does you, lad?” he asked, softly. “Does you wisht you was along o’ me, Tommy? Ah, but,” he said, scratching his beard, bewildered, “you isn’t.”

The space of black water between was short, but infinitely capacious; it was sullen and cold – intent upon its own wretchedness: indifferent to the human pain on either side. The child stared at the water, nostrils lifting, hands clinched, body quivering: thus as if at bay in the presence of an implacable terror. He turned to the open sea, vast, gray, heartless: a bitter waste – might and immensity appalling. Wistfully then to the land, upon which the scattered pack was advancing, moving in disorder, gathering as it went: bold, black coast, naked, uninhabited – but yet sure refuge: being greater than the sea, which it held confined; solid ground, unmoved by the wind, which it flung contemptuously to the sky. And from the land to his father’s large, kind face.

“No, b’y,” the cook repeated, “you isn’t. You sees, Tommy lad,” he added, brightening, as with a new idea, “you isn’t along o’ me.”

Tommy rubbed his eyes, which were now wet. “I wisht,” he sobbed, his under lip writhing, “I was– along o’ you!”

“I isn’t able t’ swim t’ you, Tommy,” said the cook; “an’, ah, Tommy!” he went on, reproachfully, wagging his head, “you isn’t able t’ swim t’ me. I tol’ you, Tommy – when I went down the Labrador las’ year – I tol’ you t’ l’arn t’ swim. I tol’ you, Tommy – don’t you mind the time? – when you was goin’ over the side o’ th’ ol’ Gabriel’s Trumpet, an’ I had my head out o’ the galley, an’ ’twas a fair wind from the sou’east, an’ they was weighin’ anchor up for’ard – don’t you mind the day, lad? – I tol’ you, Tommy, you must l’arn t’ swim afore another season. Now, see what’s come t’ you!” still reproachfully, but with deepening tenderness. “An’ all along o’ not mindin’ your dad! ‘Now,’ says you, ‘I wisht I’d been a good lad an’ minded my dad.’ Ah, Tommy – shame! I’m thinkin’ you’ll mind your dad after this.”

Tommy began to bawl.

“Never you care, Tommy,” said the cook. “The wind’s blowin’ we ashore. You an’ me’ll be saved.”

“I wants t’ be along o’ you!” the boy sobbed.

“Ah, Tommy! You isn’t alone. You got the Jew.”

“But I wants you!”

“You’ll take care o’ Tommy, won’t you, Joe?”