Mrs. Bentley was a plump, rosy-cheeked woman with a motherly smile. Agnes was a fair, slim schoolgirl, as tall as her mother, with a sweet face and a promise of peach blossom prettiness in the years to come. The arrival of a summer boarder was a great event in her quiet life.
"Ain't she pretty?" whispered Mrs. Bentley admiringly, as the girl came slowly up the green slope before the house. "I do hope she's nice. You can generally calculate on men boarders, but girls are doubtful. Preserve me from a cranky boarder! I've had enough of them. I kinder like her looks, though."
Ethel Lennox had paused at the front door as Mrs. Bentley and Agnes came into the hall. Agnes gazed at the stranger with shy, unenvious ; the latter stood on the stone step just where the big by the door cast gleams and shadows over her dress and shining hair.
She was tall, and gowned in some simple white material that fell about her in folds. She wore a cluster of pale pink roses at her belt, and a big, white hat shaded her face and the , clinging masses of her red hair—hair that was neither auburn nor chestnut but simply red. Nor would anyone have wished it otherwise, having once seen that glorious mass, with all its wonderful possibilities of luxuriance.
Her was of that perfect, waxen whiteness that goes with red hair and the darkest of violet eyes. Her delicately features wore what might have been a somewhat too impress of spirit and independence, had it not been for the sweet mouth, red and dimpled and curving, that parted in a slow, charming smile as Mrs. Bentley came forward with her welcome.
"You must be real tired, Miss Lennox. It's a long drive from the train down here. Agnes, show Miss Lennox up to her room, and tea will be ready when you come down."
Agnes came forward with the shy grace that always won friends for her, and the two girls went slowly up the broad, old-fashioned staircase, while Mrs. Bentley away to bring in the tea and put a of damask roses on the table.
"She looks like a picture, doesn't she, John?" she said to her husband. "I never saw such a face—and that hair too. Would you have believed red hair could be so handsome? She seems real friendly—none of your stuck-up fine ladies! I've had all I want of them, I can tell you!"
"Sh—sh—sh!" said Mr. Bentley warningly, as Ethel Lennox came in with her arm about Agnes.
She looked even more lovely without her hat, with the soft red tendrils of hair lying on her forehead. Mrs. Bentley sent a telegraphic message of admiration across the table to her husband, who was the cold tongue and feeling his way to a conversation.
"You'll find it pretty quiet here, Miss Lennox. We're plain folks and there ain't much going and coming. Maybe you don't mind that, though?"
"I like it. When one has been teaching school all the year in a noisy city, quiet seems the one thing to be desired. Besides, I like to fancy myself something of an artist. I paint and a little when I have time, and Miss Courtland, who was here last summer, said I could not find a more suitable spot. So I came because I knew that mackerel fishing was carried on along the shore, and I would have a chance to study character among the fishermen."
"Well, the shore ain't far away, and it's pretty—though maybe us folks here don't appreciate it rightly, being as we're so used to it. Strangers are always going crazy over its 'picturesqueness,' as they call it. As for 'character,' I reckon you'll find all you want of that among the Pointers; anyway, I never seed such critters as they be. When you get tired of painting, maybe you can amuse yourself trying to get to the bottom of our mystery."
"Oh, have you a mystery? How interesting!"
"Yes, a mystery—a mystery," repeated Mr. Bentley solemnly, "that nobody hain't been able to solve so far. I've give it up—so has everyone else. Maybe you'll have better luck."
"But what is it?"
"The mystery," said Mr. Bentley dramatically, "is—Young Si. He's the mystery. Last spring, just when the herring struck in, a young chap suddenly appeared at the Point. He appeared—from what corner of the globe nobody hain't ever been able to make out. He bought a boat and a down at my shore and went into a sort of mackerel with Snuffy Curtis—Snuffy supplying the experience and this young fellow the cash, I reckon. Snuffy's as poor as Job's turkey; it was a windfall for him. And there he's fished all summer."
"But his name—Young Si?"
"Well, of course, that isn't it. He did give himself out as Brown, but nobody believes that's his handle—sounds unnatteral here. He bought his establishment from 'old Si,' who used to fish down there and was a mysterious old critter in a way too. So when this young fellow stepped in from goodness knows where, some of the Pointers christened him Young Si for a joke, and he never gets anything else. Doesn't seem to mind it. He's a , keep-to-himself sort of chap. Yet he ain't unpopular along shore, I believe. Snuffy was telling me they like him real well, considering his unsociableness. Anyways, he's as handsome a chap as I ever seed, and well eddicated too. He ain't none of your ordinary fishermen. Some of us kind of think he's a runaway—got into some scrape or another, maybe, and is around here to keep out of jail. But wife here won't give in to that."
"No, I never will," said Mrs. Bentley firmly. "Young Si comes here often for milk and butter, and he's a perfect gentleman. Nobody'll ever convince me that he has done anything to be ashamed of, whatever's his reason for wasting his life down there at that shore."
"He ain't wasting his life," Mr. Bentley. "He's making money, Young Si is, though he don't seem to care about that a . This has been a big year for mackerel, and he's smart. If he didn't know much when he begun, he's ahead of Snuffy now. And as for work, I never saw his beat. He seems . Up afore sunrise every blessed morning and never in bed till midnight, and just slaving away all between time. I said to him t'other day, says I: 'Young Si, you'll have to let up on this sort of thing and take a rest. You can't stand it. You're not a Pointer. Pointers can stand anything, but it'll kill you.'
"He give one of them bitter laughs of his. Says he: 'It's no difference if it does. Nobody'll care,' and off he walks, sulky like. There's something about Young Si I can't understand," concluded Mr. Bentley.
Ethel Lennox was interested. A , mysterious hero in a setting of silver-rimmed sand hills and wide blue sweeps of ocean was something that ought to lend to her vacation.
"I should like to see this prince in disguise," she said. "It all sounds very romantic."
"I'll take you to the shore after tea if you'd like," said Agnes eagerly. "Si's just splendid," she continued in a aside as they rose from the table. "Pa doesn't half like him because he thinks there's something queer about him. But I do. He's a gentleman, as Ma says. I don't believe he's done anything wrong."
Ethel Lennox sauntered out into the to wait for Agnes. She sat down under an apple tree and began to read, but soon the book slipped from her hands and the beautiful head leaned back against the grey, trunk of the old tree. The sweet mouth wistfully. There was a sad, far-away look in the violet eyes. The face was not that of a happy girl, so thought Agnes as she came down the apple tree avenue.
But how pretty she is! she thought. Won't the folks around here stare at her! They always do at our boarders, but we've never had one like her.
Ethel sprang up. "I had no idea you would be here so soon," she said brightly. "Just wait till I get my hat."
When she came out they started off, and presently found themselves walking down a , deep-rutted lane that ran through mown hay fields, green with their rich aftergrowth, and sheets of pale oats and golden-green wheat, until it lost itself in the rolling sand hills at the foot of the slope.
Beyond the sand hills stretched the shining expanse of the ocean, of the faint, blue of hot August seas, and reaching out into a horizon laced with long trails of pinkish cloud. Numberless fishing boats dotted the reaches.
"That furthest-off boat is Young Si's," said Agnes. "He always goes to that particular spot."
"Is he really all your father says?" asked Miss Lennox .
"Indeed, he is. He isn't any more like the rest of the shore men than you are. He's queer, of course. I don't believe he's happy. It seems to me he's worrying over something, but I'm sure it is nothing wrong. Here we are," she added, as they passed the sand hills and came out on the long, level beach.
To their left the shore curved around in a semi-circle of dazzling whiteness; at their right stood a small grey fish-house.
"That's Young Si's place," said Agnes. "He lives there night and day. Wouldn't it make anyone melancholy? No wonder he's mysterious. I'm going to get his spyglass. He told me I might always use it."
She pushed open the door and entered, followed by Ethel. The interior was rough but clean. It was a small room, lighted by one tiny window looking out on the water. In one corner a rough ladder led up to the above. The bare walls were hung with fishing jackets, nets, mackerel lines and other shore appurtenances. A little stove bore a kettle and a frying pan. A low board table was strewn with dishes and the cold remnants of a hasty repast; benches were placed along the walls. A fat, bewhiskered kitten, looking as if it were cut out of black , was on the window sill.
"This is Young Si's cat," explained Agnes, patting the creature, which purred and opened its sleepy green eyes. "It's the only thing he cares for, I believe. Witch! Witch! How are you, Witch? Well, here's the spyglass. Let's go out and have a look. Si's mackerel," announced Agnes a few minutes later, after she had each boat in turn, "and he won't be in for an hour yet. If you like, we have time for a walk up the shore."
The sun slipped lower and lower in the creamy sky, leaving a trail of sparkles that ran across the water and lost itself in the west. Sea soared and dipped, and tiny "sand peeps" flitted along the beach. Just as the red of the sun dipped in the purpling sea, the boats began to come in.
"Most of them will go around to the Point," explained Agnes, with a contemptuous sweep of her hand towards a long headland running out before them. "They belong there and they're a rough crowd. You don't catch Young Si associating with the Pointers. There, he's getting up sail. We'll just have time to get back before he comes in."
They hurried back across the dampening sand as the sun disappeared, leaving a spot behind him. The shore was no longer quiet and . The little spot where the fishing house stood had suddenly started into life. Roughly clad boys were running hither and , carrying fish or water. The boats were hauled up on the . A couple of shaggy old , who had strolled over from the Point to hear about Young Si's catch, were smoking their pipes at the corner of his shanty. A afterlight was shining over sea and shore. The whole scene delighted Ethel's artist eyes.
Agnes nudged her companion.
"There! If you want to see Young Si," she whispered, pointing to the skids, where a busy figure was discernible in a large boat, "that's him, with his back to us, in the cream-coloured boat. He's counting out mackerel. If you go over to that platform behind him, you'll get a good look when he turns around. I'm going to a mackerel out of that stingy old Snuffy, if I can."
She tripped off, and Ethel walked slowly over to the boats. The men stared at her in open-mouthed admiration as she passed them and walked out on the platform behind Young Si. There was no one near the two. The others were all assembled around Snuffy's boat. Young Si was throwing out the mackerel with marvellous rapidity, but at the sound of a footstep behind him he turned and straightened up his tall form. They stood face to face.
"Miles!"
"Ethel!"
Young Si staggered back against the mast, letting two silvery bloaters slip through his hands overboard. His handsome, sunburned face was very white.
Ethel Lennox turned and silently and walked swiftly across the sand. Agnes felt her arm touched, and turned to see Ethel , pale and , beside her.
"Let us go home," said the latter unsteadily. "It is very damp here—I feel chilled."
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Agnes . "I ought to have told you to bring a shawl. It is always damp on the shore after sunset. Here, Snuffy, give me my mackerel. Thank you. I'm ready now, Miss Lennox."
They reached the lane before Agnes remembered to ask the question Ethel .
"Oh, did you see Young Si? And what do you think of him?"
Ethel turned her face away and answered with studied carelessness. "He seems to be quite a superior fisherman so far as I could see in the dim light. It was very dusky there, you know. Let us walk a little faster. My shoes are quite wet."
When they reached home, Miss Lennox excused herself on the plea of weariness and went straight to her room.
Back at the shore Young Si had recovered himself and stooped again to his work. His face was set and expressionless. A dull red burned in each bronzed cheek. He threw out the mackerel mechanically, but his hands trembled.
Snuffy strolled over to the boat. "See that handsome girl, Si?" he asked lazily. "One of the Bentleys' boarders, I hear. Looks as if she might have stepped out of a picture frame, don't she?"
"We've no time to waste, Curtis," said Young Si harshly, "with all these fish to clean before bedtime. Stop talking and get to work."
Snuffy his shoulders and obeyed in silence. Young Si was not a person to be trifled with. The catch was large and it was late before they finished. Snuffy surveyed the full barrels .
"Good day's work," he muttered, "but hard—I'm dead beat out. 'Low I'll go to bed. In the name o' goodness, Si, whar be you a-goin' to?"
Young Si had got into a dory and it. He made no answer, but rowed out from the shore. Snuffy stared at the dory blankly until it was lost in the gloom.
"Ef that don't beat all!" he ejaculated. "I wonder if Si is in his right senses? He's been actin' quar right along, and now to start off, Lord knows whar, at this hour o' night! I really don't believe it's safe to stay here alone with him."
Snuffy shook his unkempt head .
Young Si rowed out over the dark waves. An eastern breeze was bringing in a damp sea fog that darkly over the outlines of horizon and shore. The young fisherman found himself alone in a world of water and grey mist. He stopped rowing and leaned forward on his
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