IXA WRECK on The THIRTY DEVILS
Fog—thick, stifling, clammy! A vast bank of it lay stranded on the rocks of our coast: muffling voices, making men gasp. In a murky cloud it pressed against my mother’s windows. Wharves, cottages, harbour water, great hills beyond—the whole world—had vanished. There was nothing left but a patch of smoking rock beneath. It had come—a grey cloud, drifting low and languidly—with a lazy draught of wind from the east, which had dragged it upon the coast, spread it broadcast and expired of the effort to carry it into the wilderness.
“Wonderful thick, b’y!” was the salutation for the day.
“’S mud,” was the response.
Down went the barometer—down, down, slowly, uncompromisingly down! ’Twas shocking to the nerves to consult it.
“An’ I’m tellin’ you this, lads,” said a man on my father’s wharf, tugging uneasily at his sou’wester, “that afore midnight you’ll be needin’ t’ glue your hair on!”
This feeling of apprehension was everywhere—on the roads, in the stages, in the very air. No man of our harbour put to sea. With the big wind coming, ’twas no place for punt, schooner or steamer. The waters off shore were set with traps for the unwary and the unknowing—the bluffs veiled by mist, the drift ice hidden, the reefs covered up. In a gale of wind from the east there would be no escape.
Through the dragging day my mother had been restless and in pain. In the evening she turned to us.
“I’m tired,” she whispered.
Tired? Oh, ay! She was tired—very, very tired! It was near time for her to rest. She was sadly needing that.
“An’ will you try t’ sleep, now?” my sister asked.
“Ay,” she answered, wanly, “I’ll sleep a bit, now, if I can. Where’s Davy?”
“Sure, mama,” said I, in surprise, “I’m sittin’ right by the bed!”
“Ah, Davy!” she whispered, happily, stretching out a hand to touch me. “My little son!”
“An’ I been sittin’ here all the time!” said I.
“All the time?” she said. “But I’ve been so sick, dear, I haven’t noticed much. And ’tis so dark.”
“No, mum; ’tis not so very. ’Tis thick, but ’tis not so very dark. ’Tis not lamp-lightin’ time yet.”
“How strange!” she muttered. “It seems so very dark. Ah, well! Do you go out for a run in the air, dear, while your mother sleeps. I’m thinking I’ll be better—when I’ve had a little sleep.”
My sister busied herself with the pillows and coverlet; and she made all soft and neat, that my mother might rest the better for it.
“You’re so tender with me, dear,” said my mother “Every day I bless God for my dear daughter.”
My sister kissed my mother. “Hush!” she said. “Do you go t’ sleep, now, little mother. Twill do you good.”
“Yes,” my mother sighed, “for I’m—so very—tired.”
When she had fallen asleep, I slung my lantern over my arm and scampered off to the Rat Hole to yarn with the twins, making what speed I could in the fog and untimely dusk, and happy, for the moment, to be free of the brooding shadow in our house. The day was not yet fled; but the light abroad—a sullen greyness, splashed with angry red in the west, where the mist was thinning—was fading fast and fearfully. And there was an ominous stirring of wind in the east: at intervals, storm puffs came swirling over the hills from the sea; and they ran off inland like mad, leaving the air of a sudden oncemore stagnant. Fresh and cool they were—grateful enough, indeed, blowing through the thick, dead dusk—but sure warning, too, of great gusts to come. We were to have weather—a gale from the northeast, by all the lore of the coast—and it would be a wild night, with the breakers of Raven Rock and the Thirty Black Devils leaping high and merrily in the morning. As I ran down the last hill, with an eye on the light glowing in the kitchen window of Skipper Tommy Lovejoy’s cottage, I made shift to hope that the old man had made harbour from Wolf Cove, but thought it most unlikely.
He had.
“You got home, Skipper Tommy,” I cried, shouldering the door shut against a gust of wind, “an’ I’m glad o’ that! ’Tis goin’ t’ blow most awful, I’m thinkin’.”
My welcome was of the gloomiest description. I observed that the twins, who lay feet to feet on the corner-seat, did not spring to meet me, but were cast down; and that Skipper Tommy, himself, sitting over the fire with a cup of tea on the table at his elbow, was glum as a deacon.
“Oh,” said he, looking up with the ghost of a laugh, “I got in. You wasn’t frettin’ aboutme, was you, Davy? Oh, don’t you ever go frettin’ about me, lad, when—ah, well!—when they’s nothin’ butfog t’ fear. Sure, ’twasn’t no trouble formet’ find North Tickle in the fog. Ah, me! If ’twas only that! Sure, I bumped her nose agin the point o’ God’s Warning, an’ rattled her bones a bit, but, lad, me an’ the punt is used t’ little things like that. Oh, ay,” he repeated, dismally, “I gotin.”
Evidently the worst had happened. “Did you?” said I, blankly. “An’ was you—was you—cotched?”
“Is you thinkin’ o’she, Davy?” he answered. “Well,” in a melancholy drawl, smoothing his stubble of grey beard, his forehead deeply furrowed, “I’m not admittin’ I is. But, Davy,” he added, “she cast a hook, an’—well, I—I nibbled. Yes, I did, lad! I went an’ nibbled!”
One of the twins started up in alarm. “Hark!” he whispered.
We listened—but heard nothing. A gust of wind rattled the window, and, crying hoarsely, swept under the house. There was nothing more than that.
“Hist!” said the twin.
We heard only the ominous mutter and sigh of the gust departing.
“Jacky,” said the skipper, anxiously, “what was you thinkin’ you heared, b’y?”
Jacky fidgetted in his seat. “’Twas like the mail-boat’s whistle, zur,” he answered, “but ’twas sort o’ hoarser.”
“Why, lad,” said the skipper, “the mail-boat’s not handy by two hundred miles! ’Twas but the wind.”
But he scratched his head in a puzzled way.
“Ay, maybe, zur,” Jacky replied, still alert for a sound from the sea, “but ’twas notlikethe wind.”
Skipper Tommy held up his hand. “Ay,” said he, when we had listened a long time, “’twas but the wind.”
“Ay,” said we all, “’twas but the wind.”
“Ah, well, Davy,” the skipper resumed, “she cast a hook, as I was sayin’, an’ I nibbled.”
The twins groaned in concert.
“But the good Lard, Davy,” the skipper went on, “had sent a switch o’ wind from the sou’west. So they was a bit o’ lop on the sea, an’ ’twas t’ that I turned, when the case got desperate. An’ desperate it soon got, lad. Ah, indeed! ’long about Herring Head it got fair desperate. ‘Skipper Thomas,’ says she, ‘we’re gettin’ old, you an’ me,’ says she. ‘Sure, mum,’ says I, ‘notyou, mum! I’ll never give in t’ that,’ says I.”
Our faces fell.
“’Twas what I done,” the skipper persisted, with an air of guilt and remorse. “I just, felt like doin’ it, an’ so I done it. ‘I’ll never give in to it, mum,’ says I, ‘thatyou’regettin’ old.’”
I groaned with the twins—and Skipper Tommy made a dismal quartette of it—and the wind, rising sharply at that moment, contributed a chorus of heartrending noises.
“Ay,” the skipper continued, “’twas a sad mistake. ’Twas floutin’ Providence t’ say a word like that to a woman like she. But I just felt like it. Then, ‘Oh, dear,’ says she, ‘’tis barb’rous lonely t’ Wolf Cove,’ says she. ‘’Tis too bad, mum,’ says I. An’ I throwed the bow o’ the punt plump into a wave, Davy, lad, an’ shipped a bucket o’ water. ‘An’,’ says she, ‘it must be lonely for you, Skipper Thomas,’ says she, ‘livin’ there at the Rat Hole.’”
Skipper Tommy paused to sigh and tweak his nose; and he tweaked so often and sighed so long that I lost patience.
“An’ what did you do then?” I demanded.
“Took in more water, Davy,” he groaned, “for they wasn’t nothin’ else I could think of. ‘An’,’ says she, ‘is it not lonely, Skipper Thomas,’ says she, ‘at the Rat Hole?’ ‘No, mum,’ says I, takin’ aboard another bucket or two, ‘for I’ve the twins,’ says I. With that she put her kerchief to her eyes, Davy, an’ begun t’ sniffle. An’ t’ relieve me feelin’s, lad, for I was drove desperate, I justhadt’ let the top of a wave fall over the bow: which I done, Davy,an’ may the Lard forgive me! An’ I’m not denyin’ that ’twas a sizable wave she took.”
He stared despondently at the floor.
“She gathered up her skirts,” he went on. “An’, ‘Ah, Skipper Thomas,’ says she, ‘twins,’ says she, ‘is nothin’. ‘Sure,’ says she, ‘twins is no good on a cold winter’s night.’ I’m not denyin’, Davy,” said the skipper, solemnly, looking me straight in the eye, “that she scared me with that. I’m not denyin’ that me hand slipped. I’m not denyin’ that I put the tiller over awee bittoo far—maybe a foot—maybe a foot an’ a half, in the excitement o’ the moment—I isn’t quite sure. No, no! I’m far, lad, from denyin’ that I near swamped the boat. ‘’Tis gettin’ rough,’ says she. ‘Ay,’ says I, ‘an’ we’ll be gettin’ along a deal better, mum,’ says I, ‘if you bail.’ So I kep’ her bailin’, Davy,” the skipper concluded, with a long sigh and a sad wag of the head, “from Herring Head t’ Wolf Cove. An’, well, lad, she didn’t quite cotch me, for she hadn’t no time t’ waste, but, as I was sayin’, she cast a hook.”
“You’re well rid o’ she,” said I.
Timmie rose to look out of the window. “Hear the wind!” said he, turning in awe, while the cottage trembled under the rush of a gust. “My! but ’twill blow, the night!”
“Ah, Timmie,” sighed the skipper, “what’s a gale o’ wind t’ the snares o’ women!”
“Women!” cried I. “Sure, she’ll trouble you no more. You’re well rid o’ she.”
“But Iisn’trid o’ she, Davy,” he groaned, “an’ that’s what’s troublin’ the twins an’ me. I isn’t rid o’ she, for I’ve heared tell she’ve some l’arnin’ an’ can write a letter.”
“Write!” cried I. “She won’t write.”
“Ah, Davy,” sighed the skipper, his head falling over his breast, “you’ve no knowledge o’ women. They never gives in, lad, that they’re beat. They neverknowsthey’re beat. An’ that one, lad, wouldn’t know it if she was told!”
“Leave her write so much as she wants,” said I. “’Twill do you no harm.”
“No harm?” said he, looking up. “No harm in writin’?”
“No,” said I. “Sure, you can’t read!”
The twins leaped from the corner-seat and emitted a shrill and joyful whoop. Skipper Tommy threw back his head, opened his great mouth in silent laughter, and slapped his thigh with such violence that the noise was like a pistol shot.
“No more I can,” he roared, “an’ I’m too old t’ l’arn!”
Laughter—a fit of it—seized him. It explodedlike a thunder-clap, and continued, uproariously, interrupted by gasps, when he lost his breath, and by groans, when a stitch made him wince. There was no resisting it. The twins doubled up in the corner-seat, miserably screaming, their heels waving in the air; and Davy Roth collapsed on the floor, gripping his sides, his eyes staring, his mouth wide open, venting his mirth, the while, in painful shrieks. Skipper Tommy was himself again—freed o’ the nets o’ women—restored to us and to his own good humour—once again boon comrade of the twins and me! He jumped from his chair; and with a “Tra-la-la!” and a merry “Hi-tum-ti-iddle-dee-um!” he fell into a fantastic dance, thumping the boards with his stockinged feet, advancing and retreating with a flourish, bowing and balancing to an imaginary partner, all in a fashion so excruciatingly exaggerated that the twins screamed, “Don’t, father!” and Davy Roth moaned, “Oh, stop, zur, please, zur!” while the crimson, perspiring, light-footed, ridiculously bow-legged old fellow still went cavorting over the kitchen floor.
But I was a child—only a child—living in the shadow of some great sorrow, which, though I did not know it, had pressed close upon us. There flashed before me a vision of my mother lying wanand white on the pillows. And I turned on my face and began to cry.
“Davy, lad!” said the skipper, tenderly, seeking to lift my head. “Hush, lad! Don’t cry!”
But I sobbed the harder.
“Ah, Davy,” the twins pleaded, “stop cryin’! Do, now!”
Skipper Tommy took me on his knee; and I hid my face on his breast, and lay sobbing hopelessly, while he sought to sooth me with many a pat and “Hush!” and “Never mind!”
“I’m wantin’ t’ go home,” I moaned.
He gathered me closer in his arms. “Do you stay your grief, Davy,” he whispered, “afore you goes.”
“I’m wantin’ t’ go home,” I sobbed, “t’ my mother!”
Timmie and Jacky came near, and the one patted my hand, and the other put an arm around me.
“Sure, the twins ’ll take you home, Davy,” said the skipper, softly, “when you stops cryin’. Hush, lad! Hush, now!”
They were tender with me, and I was comforted; my sobs soon ceased, but still I kept my head against the skipper’s breast. And while there I lay, there came from the sea—from the southwest in a lull of the wind—breaking into the tender silence—the blast of a steam whistle, deep, full-throated, prolonged.
“Hist!” whispered Jacky. “Does you not hear?”
Skipper Tommy stood me on my feet, and himself slowly rose, listening intently.
“Lads,” he asked, his voice shaking, “was it the mail-boat?”
“No, zur!” the twins gasped.
“Is you sure?”
“’Tis not the way she blows, zur!”
“’Tis surely not she,” the skipper mused. “In the sou’west she’d be out of her course. Hark!”
Once more the long, hoarse roar broke the silence, but now rising again and again, agonized, like a cry for help.
“Dear Lard!” skipper Tommy cried, putting his hands to his face. “’Tis a big steamer on the Thirty Black Devils!”
“A wreck!” shouted Jacky, leaping for his jacket. “A wreck! A wreck!”
Distraction seized the skipper. “’Tis a wreck!” he roared. “My boots, lads! Wreck! Wreck!”
We lads went mad. No steamer had been wrecked on the coast in our time. There were deeds to do! There was salvage to win!
“Wreck!” we screamed. “Wreck! Wreck! Wreck!”
Then out we four ran. It was after dark. The vault was black. But the wind had turned the fog tothin mist. The surrounding hills stood disclosed—solid shadows in the night. Half a gale was blowing from the sea: it broke over the hills; it swooped from the inky sky; it swept past in long, clinging gusts. We breasted it heads down. The twins raised the alarm. Wreck! Wreck! Folk joined us as we ran. They were in anxious haste to save life. They were gleeful with the hope of salvage. What the sea casts up the Lord provides! Wreck! Wreck! Far-off cries answered us. The cottage windows were aglow. Lanterns danced over the flakes. Lights moved over the harbour water. Wreck! Wreck! On we stumbled. Our feet struck the road with thud and scrape. Our lanterns clattered and buzzed and fluttered. Wreck! Wreck! We plunged down the last hill and came gasping to my father’s wharf.
Most of our folk were already vigorously underway towards South Tickle.
“Lives afore salvage, lads!” my father shouted from his punt.
My sister caught my arm.
“’Tis a big steamer, Bessie!” I cried, turning.
“Ay,” she said, hurriedly. “But do you go stay with mother, Davy. She’ve sent me t’ Tom Turr’s by the path. They’re t’ fetch the wrecked folk there. Make haste, lad! She’ve been left alone.”
I ran up the path to our house.
XTHE FLIGHT
It was late in the night. My mother and I sat alone in her dim-lit room. We were waiting—both waiting. And I was waiting for the lights of the returning punts.
“Davy!” my mother called. “You are still there?”
“Ay, mother,” I answered. “I’m still sittin’ by the window, lookin’ out.”
“I am glad, dear,” she sighed, “that you are here—with me—to-night.”
She craved love, my love; and my heart responded, as the knowing hearts of children will.
“Ah, mother,” I said, “’tis lovely t’ be sittin’ here—all alone with you!”
“Don’t, Davy!” she cried, catching her breath. “I’m not able to bear the joy of it. My heart——”
“’Tis so,” I persisted, “’cause I loves you so!”
“But, oh, I’m glad, Davy!” she whispered. “I’m glad you love your mother. And I’m glad,” she added, softly, “that you’ve told me so—to-night.”
By and by I grew drowsy. My eyes would notstay open. And I fell asleep with my head on the window-sill. I do not know how long I slept.
“Davy!” my mother called.
“Ay?” I answered, waking. “Sure, I been asleep!”
“But you’re not wanting to go to bed?” she asked, anxiously. “You’ll not leave your mother all alone, will you?”
“No, no, mama!”
“No,” she said. “Do not leave your mother, now.”
Again I fell asleep. It may be that I wasted a long, long time in sleep.
“Davy!” she called.
I answered. And, “I cannot stay awake,” I said. “Sure, ’tis quite past me t’ do it, for I’m so wonderful sleepy.”
“Come closer,” she said. “Tired lad!” she went on, when she had my hand in hers. “Sleepy head! Lie down beside me, dear, and go to sleep. I’m not afraid—not afraid, at all—to be left alone. Oh, you’re so tired, little lad! Lie down and sleep. For your mother is very brave—to-night. And tell your father, Davy—when he comes and wakes you—and tell your sister, too—that your mother was happy, oh, very happy and brave, when....”
“When you fell asleep?” I asked.
“Yes,” she answered, in a voice so low I could but hear it. “That I was happy when—I fell asleep.”
I pulled off my jacket.
“I’m wanting to hear you say your prayers, Davy,” she said, “before you go to sleep. I’m wanting once again—just once again—to hear you say your prayers.”
I knelt beside the bed.
“My little son!” my mother said. “My—little—son!”
“My mother!” I responded, looking up.
She lifted my right hand. “Dear Jesus, lover of children,” she prayed, “take, oh, take this little hand!”
And I began to say my prayers, while my mother’s fingers wandered tenderly through my curls, but I was a tired child, and fell asleep as I prayed. And when I awoke, my mother’s hand lay still and strangely heavy on my head.
Then the child that was I knew that his mother was dead. He leaped from his knees with a broken cry, and stood expectant, but yet in awe, searching the dim, breathless room for a beatified figure, white-robed, winged, radiant, like the angel of the picture by his bed, for he believed that souls thus took their flight; but he saw only shadows.
“Mama,” he whispered, “where is you?”
There was no answer to the child’s question. The risen wind blew wildly in the black night without. But it was still dim and breathless in the room.
“Mama,” said the child, “is your soul hidin’ from me?”
Still the child was left unanswered. He waited, listening—but was not answered.
“Don’t hide,” he pleaded. “Oh, don’t hide, for I’m not wantin’ to play! Oh, mother, I’m wantin’ you sore!”
And, now, he knew that she would come, for, “I’m wantin’ you, mother!” he had been used to crying in the night, and she had never failed to answer, but had come swiftly and with comfort. He waited for a voice and for a vision, surely expecting them in answer to his cry; but he saw only shadows, heard only the scream of the wind, and a sudden, angry patter of rain on the roof. Then the child that was I fancied that his mother’s soul had fled while yet he slept, and, being persuaded that its course was heavenward, ran out, seeking it. And he forgets what then he did, save that he climbed the broken cliff behind the house, crying, “Wait, oh, wait!” and that he came, at last, to the summit of the Watchman, where there was a tumult of wind and rain.
“Mama!” he screamed, lifting his hands in appealto the wide, black sky. “You forgot t’ kiss me good-bye! Oh, come back!”
He flung himself prone on the naked rock, for the soul of his mother did not come, though patiently he had watched for the glory of its returning flight.
“She’ve forgot me!” he moaned. “Oh, she’ve forgot me!”
When, trembling and bedraggled, I came again to the room where my mother’s body lay, my sister was kneeling by the bed, and my father was in converse with a stranger, who was not like the men of our coast. “Not necessarily mortal,” this man was saying. “An operation—just a simple operation—easily performed with what you have at hand—would have saved the woman.”
“Saved her, Doctor?” said my father passionately. “Is you sayin’that?”
“I have said so. It would have saved her. Had we been wrecked five days ago she would have been alive.”
A torrent of rain beat on the house.
“Alive?” my father muttered, staring at the floor. “She would have been alive!”
The stranger looked upon my father in pity. “I’m sorry for you, my man,” he said.
“’Tis strange,” my father muttered, still staring at the floor. “’Tis strange—how things—comes about. Five days—just five....”
He muttered on.
“Yes,” the stranger broke in, stirring nervously. “Had I come but five days ago.”
A sudden rising of the gale—the breaking of its fury—filled the room with a dreadful confusion.
“Indeed—I’m—sorry—very sorry,” the stranger stammered; his lips were drawn; in his eyes was the flare of some tragedy of feeling.
My father did not move—but continued vacantly to stare at the floor.
“Really—you know—I am!”
“Is you?” then my father asked, looking up. “Is you sorry for me an’ Davy an’ the lass?” The stranger dared not meet my father’s eyes. “An’ you could have saved her,” my father went on. “Youcould have saved her! She didn’t have t’ go. She died—for want o’ you! God Almighty,” he cried, raising his clenched hand, “this man come too late God Almighty—does you hear me, God Almighty?—the man you sent come too late! An’ you,” he flashed, turning on the stranger, “could have saved her? Oh, my dear lass! An’ she would have been here the night? Here like she used t’ be? Here in her dear body? Here?” he cried, strikinghis breast. “She would have lain here the night had you come afore? Oh, why didn’t you come?” he moaned. “You hold life an’ death in your hands, zur, t’ give or withhold. Why didn’t you come—t’ give the gift o’ life t’ she?”
The stranger shrank away. “Stop!” he cried, in agony. “How was I to know?”
“Hush, father!” my sister pleaded.
In a flash of passion my father advanced upon the man. “How was you t’ know?” he burst out. “Where you been? What you been doin’? Does you hear me?” he demanded, his voice rising with the noise of wind and rain. “What you been doin’?”
“Stop it, man! You touch me to the quick! You don’t know—you don’t know—”
“What you been doin’? We’re dyin’ here for want o’ such as you. What you been doin’?”
There was no answer. The stranger had covered his face with his hands.
“O God,” my father cried, again appealing to Heaven, “judge this man!”
“Stop!”
It was a bitter cry—the agony sounding clear and poignant above the manifold voices of the storm—but it won no heed.
“O God, judge this man!”
“Will no one stop him?” the stranger moaned. “For God’s sake—stop him—some one!”
“O God, judge this man!”
The stranger fled....
“Oh, my dear wife!” my father sobbed, at last, sinking into the great armchair, wherein the mail-boat doctor had not sat. “Oh, my dear wife!”
“Father!” my dear sister whispered, flinging her soft arms about his neck and pressing her cheek against his brow. “Dear father!”
And while the great gale raged, she sought to comfort my father and me, but could not.
XIThe WOMEN at The GATE
By and by my sister put me in dry clothes, and bidding me be a good lad, sat me in the best room below, where the maids had laid a fire. And Skipper Tommy Lovejoy, finding me there disconsolate, took me to the seaward hills to watch the break of day: for the rain had ceased, the wind fallen away; and the gray light of dawn was in the eastern sky.
“I’m wantin’ t’ tell you, Davy,” he said, in a confidential way, as we trudged along, “about the gate o’ heaven.”
I took his hand.
“An’ Ibeenwantin’ t’ tell you,” he added, giving his nose a little tweak, “for a long, long time.”
“Is you?”
“Ay, lad; an’ about the women at the gate.”
“Women, Skipper Tommy?” said I, puzzled. “An’, pray, who is they?”
“Mothers,” he answered. “Just mothers.”
“What they doin’ at the gate? No, no! They’re notthere. Sure, they’re playin’ harps at the foot o’ the throne.”
“No,” said he, positively; “they’re at the gate.”
“What they doin’ there?”
“Waitin’.”
We were now come to the crest of a hill; and the sea was spread before us—breaking angrily under the low, black sky.
“What’s they waitin’ for?” I asked.
“Davy, lad,” he answered, impressively, “they’re waitin’ for them they bore.That’swhat they’re waitin’ for.”
“For their sons?”
“Ay; an’ for their daughters, too.”
While I watched the big seas break on the rocks below—and the clouds drift up from the edge of the world—I pondered upon this strange teaching. My mother had never told me of the women waiting at the gate.
“Ah, but,” I said, at last, “I’m thinkin’ God would never allow it t’ go on. He’d want un all t’ sing His praises. Sure, they’d just be wastin’ His time—waitin’ there at the gate.”
Skipper Tommy shook his head—and smiled, and softly patted my shoulder.
“An’ He’d gather un there, at the foot o’ the throne,” I went on, “an’ tell un t’ waste no more, but strike up their golden harps.”
“No, no!”
“Why not?”
“They wouldn’t go.”
“But He’dmakeun go.”
“He couldn’t.”
“Notmakeun!” I cried, amazed.
“Look you, lad,” he explained, in a sage whisper, “they’re all mothers, an’ they’d bewantin’ t’ stay where they was, an’, ecod! they’d find a way.”
“Ah, well,” I sighed, “’tis wearisome work—this waitin’.”
“I’m thinkin’ not,” he answered, soberly, speaking rather to himself than to me. “’Tis not wearisome for such as know the good Lard’s plan.”
“’Tis wonderful hard,” said I, “on the mothers o’ wicked sons.”
The old man smiled. “Who knows,” he asked, “that ’tis wonderful hard on they?”
“But then,” I mused, “the Lord would find a way t’ comfort the mother o’ such.”
“Oh, ay!”
“I’m thinkin’, maybe,” I went on, “that He’d send an angel t’ tell her they wasn’t worth the waitin’ for. ‘Mind un not,’ He’d say. ‘They’re nothin’ but bad, wicked boys. Leave un go t’ hell an’ burn.’”
“An’, now, what, lad,” he inquired with deep interest, “is you thinkin’ the mother would do?”
“She’d take the angel’s hand,” I sighed.
“Ay?”
“An’ go up t’ the throne—forgettin’ them she’d left.”
“An’ then?”
“She’d praise the Lard,” I sobbed.
“Never!” the skipper cried.
I looked hopefully in his face.
“Never!” he repeated. “‘Lard,’ she’d say, ‘I loves un all the more for their sins. Leave me wait—oh, leave me wait—here at the gate. Maybe—sometime—they’ll come!’”
“But some,” said I, in awe, “would wait forever—an’ ever—an’ ever——”
“Not one!”
“Not one?”
“Not one! ’Twould break the dear Lard’s heart t’ see un waitin’ there.”
I looked away to the furthest clouds, fast changing, now, from gray to silver; and for a long time I watched them thin and brighten.
“Skipper Tommy,” I asked, at last, “ismymother at the gate?”
“Ay,” said he confidently.
“Waitin’?”
“Ay.”
“An’ for me?”
He gave me an odd look—searching my very soul with his mild old eyes. “Doesn’t you think she is?” he asked.
“I knows it!” I cried.
Far off, at the horizon, the sky broke—and the rift broadened—and the clouds lifted—and the east flamed with colour—and all at once the rosy, hopeful light of dawn flushed the frowning sea.
“Look!” the skipper whispered.
“Ay,” said I, “the day is broke.”
“A new day!” said he.
XIIDOCTOR AND I
How theSt. Lawrencecame to stray from her course down the Strait I do not remember. As concerns such trivial things, the days that followed my mother’s death are all misty in my mind; but I do recall (for when Skipper Tommy had made my mother’s coffin he took me to the heads of Good Promise to see the sight) that the big seas of that day pounded the vessel to a shapeless wreck on the jagged rocks of the Reef of the Thirty Black Devils: where she lay desolate for many a day thereafter. But the sea was not quick enough to balk our folk of their salvage: all day long—even while the ship was going to pieces—they swarmed upon her; and they loaded their punts again and again, fearlessly boarding, and with infinite patience and courage managed to get their heavensent plunder ashore. ’Twas diverting to watch them; and when the twins, who had been among the most active at the wreck, came at last to their father, I laughed to know that, as Timmie said, theyhad food enough ashore to keep the wrinkles out of their stomachs all winter.
Our harbour was for many days crowded with wrecked folk—strange of speech, of dress, of manners—who went about in flocks, prying into our innermost concerns, so that we were soon wearied of their perverse and insatiable curiosity, though we did not let them know it. They were sorry for my father and sister and me, I know, for, one and all, when they came to see my mother lying dead, theysaidthey were. And they stood soberly by her shallow grave, when we laid her dear body away, and they wept when old Tom Tot spoke of the dust and ashes, which we are, and the stony earth rattled hopelessly on the coffin. Doubtless they were well-intentioned towards us all, and towards me, a motherless lad, more than any other, and doubtless they should be forgiven much, for they were but ignorant folk, from strange parts of the world; but I took it hard that they should laugh on the roads, as though no great thing had happened, and when, at last, the women folk took to praising my hair and eyes, as my mother used to do, and, moreover, to kissing me in public places, which had been my mother’s privilege, I was speedilyscandalized and fled their proximity with great cunning and agility.
My father, however, sought them out, at all times and places, that he might tell them the tragic circumstances of my mother’s death, and seemed not to remember that he had told them all before.
“But five days!” he would whisper, excitedly, when he had buttonholed a stranger in the shop. “Eh, man? Have you heared tell o’ my poor wife?”
“Five days?”
“Ay; had you folk been wrecked five days afore—just five, mark you—she would have been alive, the day.”
“How sad!”
“Five days!” my father would suddenly cry, wringing his hands. “My God!Only five days!”
A new expression of sympathy—and a glance of the sharpest suspicion—would escape the stranger.
“Five days!” my father would repeat, as though communicating some fact which made him peculiarly important to all the world. “That, now,” with a knowing glance, “is what I calls wonderful queer.”
My father was not the same as he had been. He was like a man become a child again—interested in little things, dreaming much, wondering more: conceiving himself, like a child, an object of deepestinterest to us all. No longer, now, did he command us, but, rather, sought to know from my sister (to whom he constantly turned) what he should do from hour to hour; and I thought it strange that he should do our bidding as though he had never been used to bidding us. But so it was; and, moreover (which I thought a great pity), he forgot that he was to kill the mail-boat doctor when the steamer put into our harbour on the southward trip—a purpose from which, a week before, Skipper Tommy Lovejoy could not dissuade him, though he tried for hours together. Ay, with his bare hands, my father was to have killed that man—to have wrung his neck and flung him overboard—but now there was no word of the deed: my father but puttered about, mildly muttering that the great ship had been wrecked five days too late.
I have said that my father loved my mother; it may be that he loved her overmuch—and, perhaps, that accounts for what came upon him when he lost her. I have since thought it sad that our hearts may contain a love so great that all the world seems empty when chance plucks it out; but the thought, no doubt, is not a wise one.
The doctor whom I had found with my father in my mother’s room was not among the folk who babbledon the roads and came prying into the stages with tiresome exclamations of “Really!” and “How in-tres-ting!” He kept aloof from them and from us all. All day long he wandered on the heads and hills of our harbour—a melancholy figure, conspicuous against the blue sky of those days: far off, solitary, bowed. Sometimes he sat for hours on the Watchman, staring out to sea, so still that it would have been small blame to the gulls had they mistaken him for a new boulder, mysteriously come to the hill; sometimes he lay sprawling on the high point of Skull Island, staring at the sky, lost to knowledge of the world around; sometimes he clambered down the cliffs of Good Promise to the water’s edge, and stood staring, forever staring, at the breakers (which no man should do). Often I was not content with watching him from afar, but softly followed close, and peered at him from the shelter of a boulder or peeped over the shoulder of a hill; and so sad did he seem—so full of sighs and melancholy attitudes—that invariably I went home pitying: for at that time my heart was tender, and the sight of sorrow hurt it.
Once I crept closer and closer, and, at last, taking courage (though his clean-shaven face and soft gray hat abashed me), ran to him and slipped my hand in his.
He started; then, perceiving who it was, he withdrewhis hand with a wrench, and turned away: which hurt me.
“You are the son,” said he, “of the woman who died, are you not?”
I was more abashed than ever—and wished I had not been so bold.
“I’m Davy Roth, zur,” I whispered, for I was much afraid. “My mother’s dead an’ buried, zur.”
“I saw you,” said he, “in the room—that night.”
There was a long pause. Then, “What’syourname, zur?” I asked him.
“Mine?”
“Ay.”
“Mine,” said he, “is Luke—”
He stopped—and thoughtfully frowned. I waited; but he said no more.
“Doctor Luke?” I ventured.
“Well,” he drawled, “that will serve.”
Then I thought I must tell him what was in my heart to say. Why not? The wish was good, and his soft, melancholy voice irresistibly appealed to my raw and childish sympathies.
“I wisht, zur,” I whispered, looking down at my boots, through sheer embarrassment, “that you——”
My tongue failed me. I was left in a sad lurch. He was not like our folk—not like our folk, at all—and I could not freely speak my mind.
“Yes?” he said, to encourage me.
“That you wasn’t so sad,” I blurted, with a rush, looking swift and deep into his gray eyes.
“Why not?” said he, taking my hand.
“I’m not wantin’ you t’ be.”
He put his arm over my shoulder. “Why not?” he asked. “Tell me why not, won’t you?”
The corners of my mouth fell. It may have been in sympathetic response to the tremolo of feeling in his voice. I was in peril of unmanly tears (as often chanced in those days)—and only women, as I knew, should see lads weep. I hid my face against him.
“Because, zur,” I said, “it makes me sad, too!”
He sat down and drew me to his knee. “This is very strange,” he said, “and very kind. You would not have me sad?” I shook my head. “I do not understand,” he muttered. “It is very strange.” (But it was not strange on our coast, where all men are neighbours, and each may without shame or offense seek to comfort the other.) Then he had me tell him tales of our folk, to which he listened with interest so eager that I quickly warmed to the diversion and chattered as fast as my tongue would wag. He laughed at me for saying “nar” for not (and the like) and I at him for saying “cawm” for calm; and soon we were very merry, and not only merry, but as intimate as friends of a lifetime. By and by I tookhim to see the Soldier’s Ear, which is an odd rock near the Rat Hole, and, after that, to listen to the sea coughing and gurgling at the bottom of Satan’s Well. And in all this he forgot that he was sad—and I that my mother was dead.
“Will you walk with me to-morrow, Davy?” he asked, when I said that I must be off home.
“That I will, zur,” said I.
“After breakfast.”
“Ay, zur; a quarter of five.”
“Well, no,” he drawled. “Half after nine.”
“’Tis a sheer waste o’ time,” I protested. “But ’twill suit me, zur, an it pleases you. My sister will tellmethe hour.”
“Your sister?” he asked, quickly.
“Bessie,” said I.
“Ah,” he exclaimed, “she was your sister. I saw her there—that night. And she is your sister?”
“You got it right,” cried I, proudly. “That’smy sister!”
He slapped me on the back (which shocked me, for our folk are not that playful); and, laughing heartily as he went, he took the road to Tom Tot’s, where he had found food and housing for a time. I watched him from the turn in the road, as he went lightly down the slope towards South Tickle—his trim-clad, straight, graceful figure, broad-shouldered,clean-cut, lithe in action, as compared with our lumbering gait; inefficient, ’tis true, but potentially strong. As I walked home, I straightened my own shoulders, held my head high, lifted my feet from the ground, flung bold glances to right and left, as I had seen him do: for, even then, I loved him very much. All the while I was exultantly conscious that a new duty and a new delight had come to me: some great thing, given of God—a work to do, a happiness to cherish. And that night he came and went in my dreams—but glorified: his smile not mirthless, his grave, gray eyes not overcast, his face not flabby and flushed, his voice not slow and sad, but vibrant with fine, live purpose. My waking thought was the wish that the man of the hills might be the man of my vision; and in my simple morning petition it became a prayer.
“Dear mama,” I prayed, “there’s something wrong along o’ the man who come the night you died. He’ve managed somehow t’ get wonderful sick. I’m not knowin’ what ails un, or where he cotched it; but I sees it plain in his face: an’ ’tis a woeful sickness. Do you make haste t’ the throne o’ God, please, mum, an’ tell Un I been askin’ you t’ have un cured. You’d want un well, too, an you was here; an’ the Lard ’ll surely listen t’ you, an’ take your word for ’t. Oh, do you pray the Lard, withall your might an’ main, dear mama, t’ heal that man!”
In our land the works of the Lord are not obscured by what the hands of men have made. The twofold vision ranges free and far. Here are no brick walls, no unnatural need or circumstance, no confusing inventions, no gasping haste, no specious distractions, no clamour of wheel and heartless voices, to blind the soul, to pervert its pure desires, to deaden its fears, to deafen its ears to the sweeter calls—to shut it in, to shrivel it: to sicken it in every part. Rock and waste of sea and the high sweep of the sky—winds and rain and sunlight and flying clouds—great hills, mysterious distances, flaming sunsets, the still, vast darkness of night! These are the mighty works of the Lord, and of none other—unspoiled and unobscured. In them He proclaims Himself. They who have not known before that the heavens and the earth are the handiwork of God, here discover it: and perceive the Presence and the Power, and are ashamed and overawed. Thus our land works its marvel in the sensitive soul. I have sometimes thought that in the waste is sounded the great keynote of life—with which true hearts ever seek to vibrate in tune.