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Updated: May 29, 2025
I answered, laughingly refusing the delicate talisman. "I should blast its good intentions. I should stifle it with my cold unbelief." The Cradlebow tenderly replaced his treasure, and laughed with me good-naturedly. "It isn't your fault, teacher," said he, "that you weren't better brought up. If you'd always lived with our people, down here, you'd be more believing."
The Cradlebow continued calling to me cheerily, and would not give me time to consider the terrors of the situation then, nor afterwards, when I strove, in my half-stunned condition of mind, to weigh and appreciate the peril from which I had been rescued. The children had wandered a mile or more along the beach and had gone home by another road. It was not yet dark.
Afterwards, the choir of voices in the room formed an effectual shield for confidential conversation. "You don't know what a good boy he's always been to me, teacher," Mrs. Cradlebow continued, with a manner unusual to her, I thought, as of one seeking for sympathy; "so that I've learned to depend so much on him, more, I think, than on anybody else.
With a singular readiness to be diverted, I found that the picture was, somehow, not conducive to further worldliness of meditation; and when in the evening, Mrs. Cradlebow came in to call, in her mantilla, the impression thus made on my mind was inexpressibly deepened. Mrs. Cradlebow was not a frequent caller.
She stood among the others, very still, the old faded mantilla folded decently over her shoulders, the great dark eyes, his eyes, shining out even kindly from the worn face on those who came to speak to her. Godfrey Cradlebow stood at the outer door, and addressed the people as they entered. Some said, afterwards, that he had been drinking; others declared he had not touched a drop for days.
At first, especially while the fisherman was in Wallencamp, her demeanor towards me had been marked by a decided touch of coldness and mistrust. She suspected me, I thought, of trifling with the Cradlebow; now, she invariably deferred to me as a person worthy of all honor and consideration of congratulation even, in an eminent degree.
The crimson glow had not quite faded in the sky when I took my last walk across the fields to where the new grave had been made on the hillside. This is the new burying-ground of the Wallencampers; the old one lies a mile farther up the river, near the Indian encampment. Here I saw more than one simple slab, bearing the name of Cradlebow. Here little Bess lies, too.
Godfrey Cradlebow shook his head rapturously, tears rolled down his cheeks, and all the while he went on rapidly with his netting. He had the natural tact and grace of a gentleman, and was especially courteous to his wife.
"Wait for me, teacher!" exclaimed the Cradlebow, opening his eyes with a solemn, wide surprise; "why, of course!" "Why, of course?" I questioned faintly, not knowing whether to smile at being thus abruptly disarmed, or to feel the least little bit piqued at the youth's unconscious audacity. "What else should two people do who love each other?"
Grandma then took up the tangled thread of the old Captain's discourse, with calm disdain, and proceeded to disclose an appalling array of statistics, not only in regard to the Cradlebow family, but including generations of men hitherto unknown and remote. When I signified a desire to retire for the night, Madeline informed me, with a brisk and hopeful air, that my room was "all ready now."
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