Anne's House of Dreams - L. M. Montgomery [13]
‘Anne, this is Captain Boyd. Captain Boyd, my wife.’
It was the first time Gilbert had said ‘my wife’ to anybody but Anne, and he narrowly escaped bursting with the pride of it. The old captain held out a sinewy hand to Anne; they smiled at each other and were friends from that moment. Kindred spirit flashed recognition to kindred spirit.
‘I’m right down pleased to meet you, Mistress Blythe; and I hope you’ll be as happy as the first bride was who came here. I can’t wish you no better than that. But your husband doesn’t introduce me jest exactly right. “Captain Jim” is my week-a-day name and you might as well begin as you’re sartain to end up – calling me that. You sartainly are a nice little bride, Mistress Blythe. Looking at you sorter makes me feel that I’ve jest been married myself.’
Amid the laughter that followed Mrs Doctor Dave urged Captain Jim to stay and have supper with them.
‘Thank you kindly. ’Twill be a real treat, Mistress Doctor. I mostly has to eat my meals alone, with the reflection of my ugly old phiz in a looking-glass opposite for company. ’Tisn’t often I have a chance to sit down with two such sweet, purty ladies.’
Captain Jim’s compliments may look very bald on paper, but he paid them with such a gracious, gentle deference of tone and look that the woman upon whom they were bestowed felt that she was being offered a queen’s tribute in a kingly fashion.
Captain Jim was a high-souled, simple-minded old man, with eternal youth in his eyes and heart. He had a tall, rather ungainly figure, somewhat stooped, yet suggestive of great strength and endurance; a clean-shaven face deeply lined and bronzed; a thick mane of iron-grey hair falling quite to his shoulders, and a pair of remarkably blue, deep-set eyes, which sometimes twinkled and sometimes dreamed, and sometimes looked out seaward with a wistful quest in them, as of one seeking something precious and lost. Anne was to learn one day what it was for which Captain Jim looked.
It could not be denied that Captain Jim was a homely man. His spare jaws, rugged mouth, and square brow were not fashioned on the lines of beauty; and he had passed through many hardships and sorrows which had marked his body as well as his soul; but though at first sight Anne thought him plain, she never thought anything more about it – the spirit shining through that rugged tenement beautified it so wholly.
They gathered gaily around the supper table. The hearth-fire banished the chill of the September evening, but the window of the dining-room was open and sea breezes entered at their own sweet will. The view was magnificent, taking in the harbour and the sweep of low purple hills beyond. The table was heaped with Mrs Doctor’s delicacies, but the pièce de résistance was undoubtedly the big platter of sea-trout.
‘Thought they’d be sorter tasty after travelling,’ said Captain Jim. ‘They’re fresh as trout can be, Mistress Blythe. Two hours ago they were swimming in the Glen Pond.’
‘Who is attending to the light tonight, Captain Jim?’ asked Doctor Dave.
‘Nephew Alec. He understands it as well as I do. Well, now, I’m real glad you asked me to stay to supper. I’m proper hungry – didn’t have much of a dinner today.’
‘I believe you half-starve yourself most of the time down at that light,’ said Mrs Doctor Dave severely. ‘You won’t take the trouble to get up a decent meal.’
‘Oh, I do, Mistress Doctor, I do,’ protested Captain Jim. ‘Why, I live like a king gen’rally. Last night I was up to the Glen and took home two pounds of steak. I meant to have a spanking good dinner today.’
‘And what happened to the steak?’ asked Mrs Doctor Dave. ‘Did you lose it on the way home?’
‘No.’ Captain Jim looked sheepish. ‘Just at bedtime a poor, ornery sort of dog came along and asked for a night’s lodging. Guess he belonged to some of the fishermen ’long shore. I couldn’t turn the poor cur out – he had a sore foot. So I shut him in the porch, with an old bag to lie on, and went to bed. But somehow I couldn’t sleep. Come to think it over, I sorter remembered that the dog looked