Windover

“ So we went to Campo Bello the year after. But we always come to Windover.”
“For instance, how many seasons constitute ‘always’?”
[164]
“Three. This will be four. Father likes it above everything. So did mother before the mouse epoch. She got to feeling hornets in her shoes whenever she put them on. I wonder father never told you we always come to Windover.”
“The Professor had other things in his mind when he talked to me,—second probation, and the dangers of modern German exegesis.”
“Yes, I know. Dear papa! Windover isn’t a doctrine.” ”

“ The Windover Light, a revolving lantern of the second power, is red and strong. It flashed rapidly, now blood-red and now lamp-black. Bayard thought of the pillar of fire and cloud that led the ancient people. There should have been by rights a moon; and breaks in battalions of clouds, at rare intervals, let through a shimmer paler than darkness, though darker than light. Such a reduction of the black tone of the night had mercifully befallen, when the staggering wagons clattered and stopped upon the large, oval pebbles of the beach. ”

“ The bellow of [297] the whistling-buoy nine miles out, off the coast, was audible at firesides. The wind sped straight from Cape Cod, and was as icy as death.
It was one of the nights when the women of Windover grow silent, and stand at the window with the shade raised, looking out between their hands, with anxious, seaward eyes. “God pity the men at sea!” they say who have no men at sea. But those who have say nothing. They pray. As the night wears on, and the gale increases, they weep. They do not sleep. The red light on the Point goes out, and dawn is gray. The buoy shrieks on malignantly. ”

“ There is nothing like a brave deed to command the respect of seafaring men. Emanuel Bayard, when he plunged into the undertow after Job Slip’s drunken, drowning body, swam straight into the heart of Windover. A rough heart that is, but a warm one, none warmer on the freezing coast, and sea-going Windover had turned the sunny side of its nature, and taken the minister in. The standards by which ignorant men judge the superior classes—their superb indifference to any scale of values but their own—deserve more study than they receive. ”

“ Eavesdropping is an impossible crime on Windover Point, where the cliffs are common trysting-ground; still, Helen experienced a slight discomfort, and was about to exchange her rock for some less public position, when she caught a word which struck the blood to her heart, and back again, like a smart, stinging blow. ”

“ The completion of the chapel, still delayed after the fashion of contractors, was approaching the belated dedication day of which all Windover talked, and for which a growing portion of Windover [372] interested itself. Bayard was over-busy for a newly betrothed man. His hours with Helen were shortened; his brief snatches of delight marked spaces between days of care. Erected upon the site of the burned building, the new chapel rose sturdily in the thick and black of Angel Alley. The old, illuminated, swinging sign remained,—“for luck,” the fishermen said. ”

“ The Clara Em—one of the famous fishermen of which Windover was too proud to be vain; the Clara Em, newly-built and nobly furnished, none of your old-time schooners, clumsy of hulk and rotten of timbers, but the fastest runner on the coast, the stanchest keel that cleft the harbor, fine in her lines as a yacht, and firm in her beams as an ocean steamer—the Clara Em, fearing neither gods nor men nor weather, and bound for Georges’ on a three weeks’ fresh-fishing trip, had deliberately weighed anchor in the teeth of a March southeaster, and had flung all her clean, green-white sails to the gale. ”

“ Bayard worked the harder.
And it was summer in Windover. The scanty green carpet of the downs had unrolled to its full, making as much as possible of its meagre proportions, atoning in depth of color for what it lacked in breadth and length: if the cliffs and boulders were grayer for the green, the grass looked greener for the gray. The saxifrage had faded, but among the red-cupped moss the checkerberry shot up tender, reddish leaves, the white violets scented the swamps, and the famous wild roses of the Cape dashed the bayberry thickets with pink. ”

“ Manners are like English gold, current in all countries: morals, on the other hand, are like French pennies, they must not be circulated in any but the country of their origin."
"Yes; but is this the age of manners or of morals?" asked Dare. "That's what we want to get at."
"Of neither, I regret to say," responded Windover. "We have too many morals at home, and too few manners abroad."
"Excuse me, sir," broke in Bindle, "but wot do you exactly mean by morals an' manners?"
"You are right, Bindle, you invariably are," replied Windover. "Definition should always precede disquisition." ”

“ Helen’s happy nature was easily queen of her. She had begun to feel that her anxiety for Bayard’s sake was overstrained. Tragic Windover slipped from her consciousness, almost from her memory. She felt the sacred right of human joy to conquer fate, and trusted it as royally as she had trusted him. In spite of himself, he absorbed something of her warm and brilliant hopefulness. When she gave herself, she gave her ease of heart. And so the worn and worried man came to his Eden. ”

“ It made me feel ashamed to be alive—in such a world—why, Mr. Bayard!” Helen unclasped her hands from the back of her head, and thrust them out towards him, as if they were an argument.
“Why, I thought this earth was a pleasant place! I thought life was a delightful thing!... If the rest of it is like this town—Windover is a world of woe, and you are one of the sons of God to these unhappy people!” ”

“ From that time Bindle and Windover became the best of friends.
When, on the death of his elder brother, killed in a bombing-raid, Windover had succeeded to the title, we were all at a loss how to express our sympathy. He is not a man with whom it is easy to condole. ”

“ He has sufficient manners to impress a half-dipped author, and not enough morals to pay him what is his due."
"My dear Dare," it was Windover who spoke, "are you not inverting the values? Our friend Bindle here, for instance, might reasonably conceive that you place morals on a higher plane than manners. Bindle is young and unsophisticated, you must remember he has arrived at an impressionable age." ”

“ He sometimes talked to the sea; nothing else in Windover could understand him; he was acquiring some of the [158] habits of lonely people who live apart from their own class. How impossible it would have been in Cambridge, in Boston, or in Cesarea to be caught talking aloud! His pale face flushed, and he drew his hat over it, thanking Heaven that rocks were deaf and the downs were dumb, that the sun would never tell, and the harbor was too busy to listen. He had lain there in the sand for some time, as motionless as a mollusk at low water.
“All a man needs is a little common rest,” he thought. ”

“ Bindle, however, seems to possess a genius for solving difficult problems. As he shook hands with Windover he said, "I won't call yer m'lord jest yet, sir, it'll only sort o' remind yer."
I saw Bindle wince at the grip Windover gave him. Later in the evening Windover remarked to Carruthers, "J.B. always makes me feel exotic," and we knew he was referring to Bindle's way of expressing sympathy at his bereavement.
Curiously enough, to the end of the chapter Bindle continued to address Windover as "sir", possibly as a protest against Angell Herald's inveterate "my lordliness." ”

“ In the harbor the anchored fleets flung out their headlights above a tossing sea. There was no rowing. The floats were deserted.
The guests, few now, and elect, of the sort that know and love the September Windover, clustered around the fireplace in the big parlor of the Mainsail. On the piazza of the Flying Jib the trunks stood strapped for the late evening porter and the early morning train. Bayard heard Helen’s voice in the rooms overhead, while he sat, with whirling brain, making such adieus as he could master to Professor and Mrs. Carruth. ”

“ She had no traditions to enlighten her, and her own joyous nature vaguely filled in the darker outlines of her lover’s life. How should the summer girl understand the winter Windover? She thought of Bayard’s real situation with little more vividness than if he had been a missionary in Darkest Africa. Pleasant sketches of Job Slip and Joey, little reminiscences of Captain Hap, and Lena, pretty, womanly plans for replacing the burned furniture and decorations flitted across the leisurely continental tour by which she escorted her mother homewards. ”

“ Mrs. Hilary and Grandmama came to Windover. Mrs. Hilary would rather have come without Grandmama, but Grandmama enjoyed the jaunt, as she called it. For eighty-four, Grandmama was wonderfully sporting. They arrived on Saturday afternoon, and rested after the journey, as is usually done by people of Grandmama's age, and often by people of Mrs. Hilary's. Sunday was full of such delicate clashings as occur when new people have joined a party. Grandmama was for morning church, and Neville drove her to it in the pony carriage. ”

“ But the wind was south; and the saxifrage was in bud upon the downs in the clefts of the broken rocks between the boulders.
Bayard was a weak and weary man that day,—the events of the previous evening had told upon him more than he would have supposed possible,—and he gave himself a luxury. He put the world and the evil of it from his heart and brain, and went out on Windover Point, to sun himself, alone; crawling along, poor fellow, at a sad pace, stopping often to rest, and panting as he pushed on. He had been an athletic lad, a vigorous, hearty man ”

“ Mrs. Granite thought if Jane could go to her Aunt Annie’s second cousin Jenny in South Carolina, for a spell, she would be cured; but Mrs. Granite said climate was only meant for rich folks; she said you lived and died here in Windover, if your lungs was anyways delicate, like frozen herring packed into a box. She was almost epigrammatic—for Mrs. Granite.
Bayard had been sitting in his study-chair, writing steadily, while his mind, with his too sensitive sympathy, followed the fortunes of these poor women who made him all the home he knew. ”

“ He wondered how her fastidiousness stood the grimy house in Magpie Alley and its ramshackle habit of life, after the distinctions and beauty of Windover, but he thought it was probably very good for her, part of the experience which should mould the citizen. Gerda shrank from no experience. At the corner of Bouverie Street they met a painted girl out for hire, strayed for some reason into this unpropitious locality. For the moment Gerda had fallen behind and Barry seemed alone. The girl stopped in his path, looked up in his face enquiringly, and he pushed his way, not urgently, past her. ”

“ Gerda's soul sang and whistled down the whistling wind. It wasn't over, then: it was only beginning. The W.E.A. was splendid; work was splendid; Barry Briscoe was splendid; life was splendid. She was sorry for Kay at Cambridge, Kay who was just off on a reading party, not helping in the world's work but merely getting education. Education was inspiring in connection with Democracy, but when applied to oneself it was dull.
The rain was lessening. It fell on their heads more lightly; the wind was like soft wet kisses on their backs, as they tramped through Merrow, and up the lane to Windover. ”

“ He claims that the Public School benefits a man not by what it bestows; but rather by what it destroys.
"It clips the ragged edges of a man's ego," he would remark, "and teaches him that as an entity he has no place in the universe." Windover will talk for hours on this subject. Simplicity of nature and the faculty of adapting himself to any environment are, according to him, the ideal results the Public Schools achieve.
In all probability Bindle never had any ragged edges to his ego. ”

“ Windover has as delicate a taste in tobacco as in women; in other words he is extremely fastidious. I watched him as he turned the problem over in his mind. I could follow his train of thought. It was obviously impossible to sit inhaling the fumes of Bindle's cigar. It was unthinkable again to tell the dear chap it was nothing short of a pollution. In all probability it was a threepenny cigar, the extra penny being in honour of the occasion. Therefore some other way out of the difficulty must be devised. I, had every confidence in Windover and his sense of delicacy. ”

“ We all made ostentatious search for the source of the smell. It was Windover who traced it to Bindle's cigar. Taking it from his hand he had smelt it gingerly and then returned it to its owner.
"I think," he remarked quite casually, "I should change the brand, J.B. We cannot allow you to imperil your valuable life. Your tobacconist has grossly deceived you. That is not a cigar, it's an offence against the constitution."
"Is it really, sir," said Bindle anxiously as he regarded the offending weed. ”

“ Then, "I should be so glad of a little bread and butter, if you can let me have it."
"Are you out on a picnic?" asked the woman. "Where are the rest of you?"
"No, I'm by myself," answered Honor. "I'm walking across the moors to Westhaven."
"To Westhaven? You're on the wrong road, then. That path will lead you out at Windover, if you follow it."
Poor Honor was almost dumbfounded at such unexpected bad news.
"Have I gone very far wrong?" she faltered. "I must get on to Westhaven as fast as I can. Perhaps you can tell me the right way?" ”

“ The hall which the new people had leased for their services and entertainments had long borne the grim name of Seraph’s Rest; having been, in fact, for years, a sailors’ dance-hall of the darkest dye.
“Give us,” Bayard had said, “the worst spot in the worst street of this town. We will make it the best, or we will own ourselves defeated in our work.”
In such streets, and in such places, news has wings. There is no spot in Windover where rumor is run down so soon as in Angel Alley. ”