CHAPTER VII.
When Tom realized that he had the child safely in his arms and was climbing up the rocks upon the East River his heart beat with delight. He felt that his freedom was given him that he might save the little maiden from a death which she did not merit.
He was repeating over to himself the name of the widow, Biddy, whom we have met before.
The woman had given the card to Jim, not knowing that it would fall into the hands of another convict.
She was sitting, just getting ready for bed, and muttering to herself: “It does seem strange that the poor mother has to die in the prison. I suppose, as she ain’t got no friends, there ain’t no use sending her into the world. But that’s a pretty baby.
“She ought to be a queen,” Biddy added as she turned out the light and jumped into bed.
This woman kept a small boathouse, with some half-dozen boats to rent, and took in small washings from the sailors upon the tugs in the river, and from this she made a good living and had managed to put by a little. She had but one friend, and that was the venerable Mrs. Higgins, and it was through the woman on the Island that these two women had met.
This night Biddy had come late from the prison, leaving poor Annie Standish nearer the grave than the good woman thought it possible to be.
“I will go in the morning again,” said she, “and I hope the bairn will be in better spirits.”
Then she tumbled over in the bed. Suddenly she raised her head. She heard a light tapping upon the window pane, and it seemed almost like the ticking of a clock.
Biddy listened again. It certainly was a signal of distress. She went cautiously to the window and looked out.
There was the shadow of a very tall man, and he was tapping upon her window.
“What do you want?” cried she loudly, knowing that no one could hear but the man.
“I want help for a poor wet child,” was the answer, and Biddy Roan’s door was thrown open, despite the fact that she stood in her night gown.
Tom Cooper staggered into the room under the weight of the heavily-breathing child.
“Where did you get it?” asked Biddy suspiciously, looking at the prison stripes.
“I will tell you the truth,” and Tom began at the beginning and told the story from the time he had had a part in it.
“You see, if I had not saved her, the child would have been drowned.”
“And Jim Farren was the boy who started to do this trick. Let me see him again, and I’ll pull his claws for him.”
“You won’t be bothered with him, I have a notion,” said Tom, “for he wouldn’t dare to stay about here.”
Biddy was undressing the wet child.
“And I was but telling her dying mother this day that I would care for her and see that her cousin did not harm her.”
“Yes, I have an idea,” said Tom, as he was shivering with the cold, “that it was this same cousin who found out about the child and wanted her out of the way.”
“That’s it, and now, lad,” and here Biddy looked at the sailor with pity in her eyes, “what are you going to do, go back to the Island?”
“Not if I can help it. I was put in on a false charge, for a crime I never committed. Now then, what can you do for me?”
“I can fix you up so that you won’t be known by your own mother if you had one a-living, but now you get into this old dress of mine and climb to the loft and sleep as long as you want to, and I will see to the child. I’ll throw these old clothes of yours into the river and let the stripes sink in the presence of the stars.”
Biddy laughed and Tom re-echoed it, for indeed he had found a friend. He did as he was bidden, and the warm feathers felt sweet to thecold body, and the sun had been shining a long time before Tom Cooper opened his eyes to the light of day.
When he did come down in the morning he found a large-eyed child looking into his face.
She was fingering a little locket which Tom had seen Jim trying to wrench from the baby’s neck when he went after him, and he picked it up in his fingers and read:
“To my darling Annie, from her father.”
Then Tom Cooper knew that he stood in the presence of his benefactor’s grandchild. He took a solemn oath that he would watch over and care for her until some one had a better right.
Biddy went to the city that day, leaving the boathouse closed, and purchased a suit, hat, shoes and other things needed by a man, and with the outfit she bought a wig and a set of whiskers.
“You’ll wear these for a long time,” said she slowly, “for then you won’t give away your identity, for if you should do that you would be taken back to the Island.”
So they lived on and on for many a year. The little Standish child was no more than a baby when she was first brought to the boathouse, but upon this beautiful summer morning when this story again opens she is sitting upon a porch swinging in the hammock.
Biddy had arranged the house so that now it comfortably held three, and Tom had a good position and came home every night. Often after the child went to bed the man and woman would gravely talk over the future of the little girl, whom they had both grown to love.
She was humming softly to herself, when Biddy came out and spoke to her.
“I suppose you are thinking about to-morrow, ain’t you, little one?” began she. “Just think, you are twenty years old—quite a young lady, I vow.”
“Of course, I’m a young lady, auntie,” said the girl, “but I want Cousin Tom to treat me just the same. You know if he thought I was too big he might not take me on his lap.”
Biddy laughed softly.
“Oh, arrah,” said she with a sigh, “if the girl ain’t in love with that Tom, false whiskers and all. I wish she could see the beauty of his face without them, and she would fall in love with him all over again. Biddy Roan, if you weren’t everything that’s homely in the world you might take a turn at love yourself.”
She ironed vigorously, and then went to the porch again in answer to Helen’s call.
“I say, auntie,” said the girl, “how is Tom my cousin, on my mother’s side or my father’s?”
“Your mother’s,” said the woman shortly.
“And what——”
“Now don’t you try to pump any secrets out of me, you sly little fox; you wait until your cousin comes home; then you ask him. He’s more able to tell you about yourself than I am.”
“Then I’ll wait, Aunt Biddy,” said the girl. “Then, if you are my aunt, and Tom is my cousin, you must be the same relation to him as you are to me.”
The Irishwoman stared with a love-light shining in her eyes.
“I told you not to worry your little head,” said she, “for when Tom comes home you can ask him everything you want to.”
So the girl had to be silent. She swayed softly to and fro, and after a while she sank into a sleep.
It might be well while the girl is sleeping and the quiet summer sun is shining upon a peaceful river, to go back a while to that night fifteen years ago when Tom Cooper had saved the child in the river.
Jim Farren sailed down the stormy river toward Hell Gate. He was no sailor, but he steered his boat as best he could. Then for a long time after he was in the sea, he knew not what to do. He had not dared to go toward the city, for fear of being tracked, although he knew that Biddy would take him in.
But Biddy’s welcome must wait until there was a better chance of not being detected.
He watched every light, fearing that one might be a boat to pick up the escaped convicts, who had long ago been missed.
It was the puffing of a great steamer that made him rise high in his boat and give screams that rang over the water. Soon he saw the great searchlight turn in his direction and then drop. He hastily skinned off his clothes and dropped them into the sea. He knew that his head looked badly, for it had been only so lately shaved. But this had been his day for a hair cut, so that there was a little growth upon his head.
Soon he saw a boat lowered, and before time had elapsed long enough to tell the story, the convict was in the steamer and nestling in a warm sailor’s bed, and steaming out for a foreign country.
There was nothing that could have suited Jim better. When he arose after a few days’ illness there was no sign of New York and not a shadow of the walls that had covered him so long.
He did not try to come back to his native city for fifteen years, and then one day Jim Farren,not much changed in appearance, turned his face homeward and landed in New York, just one day before the twentieth birthday of sweet Helen Standish.
“I’m going to see Biddy Roan to-morrow,” said he to himself as he went along and picked out the familiar landmarks. “She will be glad to see me for my mother’s sake. Poor mother, you never knew that your boy would make his way about the world like that. I wonder whatever became of the kid and the cove that saved her. That was a plucky piece of business on his part. I’d like to shake hands again just for the sake of old times.”
Saying this, the man entered some of the Bowery saloons which he had long ago visited and sat for some hours pouring the whiskey into his stomach.
Now Tom Cooper had come home. His heart was singing in his breast, for had he not a great deal to live for? He was sure that his little wardloved him in a way. Of course she could not care for him in the way he did for her, but then, it was something to feel her smooth white hands upon his face, and feel her innocent kisses showered there. He did not find the girl in when he reached the boathouse. Biddy was making biscuits and singing.
“You are as happy as I am, Biddy,” said the man as he put down his oars upon the dock, and came into the house.
“Of course I’m happy,” replied the woman, “and why should I not be? Why, Tom, have any two people any more reason to be happier than we are? Think of it, Nellie loves us both, and we are saving money by the quart, and our darling is a lady.”
“I don’t want her too much of a lady,” said the man gravely.
“Well, you can’t help her being a lady,” stormed Biddy, “for she is born and bred in the bone a lady, and that’s all there is to it.”
“Ah, yes, Biddy, that way, I know, but don’tget into her head notions that she must marry a rich man, will you?”
Then the woman laughed.
“Why don’t you come out with it, man?” said she, “and tell me all about it? I know that you love this girl, and it’s all right.”
Tom’s dark head dropped down upon his hands. He loved this good Irishwoman, and also the little girl, just as Biddy had said.
But he was years older than Nellie, and there were so many finer-looking fellows in the city. Then, too, there was that stain upon his name which he could not erase unless he could find the man who stole the jewels and placed them in his bundle, and that was so long ago that there was no possible chance.
Just as they were talking they heard a girlish laugh.Nellie had gone out in her own little boat,which Biddy had given her, and was returning for supper.
NELLIE
NELLIE
NELLIE
Her happy laughter could always be heard before the girl came in sight.
“Now you tell her, Tom, all about herself,”argued Biddy, “for if you don’t there is no way for you to ask her to marry you.”
Again the man shuddered.
“I cannot tell her I found her in prison,” said he, with a very white face, “for then she would ask me how I came there.”
“Tell her anything, but to-night, if you want her, is your chance. She has more lovers stringing here after boats than you can count upon your fingers and toes.”
Tom stood up with a great resolution.
“I’ll tell her now,” said he slowly.
He went out of the house and stood in the sunlit porch. Just behind the great hill beyond he could see the last of the sun sinking to rest. His heart beat with foolish excitement, for he feared this girl could not love him as he did her.
“Halloa, Tom,” shouted she. “Oh, I’m so glad you are home. What makes you look so grave? Oh,” and the girl did not wait for the man’s answer, “I have had such a daring time. Where do you think I’ve been, way down to Hell Gate, and almost went into the rapids.”
By this time she had placed her oars into the boat and clasped the chain firmly in its staple.
The man’s face grew white as he heard these words.
“My heavens, Nellie, you must not go to such dangerous parts of the river. You might have been killed.”
“Would you have cared very much, Tom?” said Nellie, stopping and holding her hands out; “I want my dear ones to care very much.”
The man’s answer for an instant was to crush the white hands in his and draw the girl close to him.
“Would I care, Helen Standish?” cried he, leading her into the house. “More than I can tell you. Let’s have our supper, and then I’ve got a story to tell you.”
“One of your fairy stories, Tom?” laughed the girl. “I always liked them when I was a little girl, and what a wilful child I was, wasn’t I?”
“You were a sweet child, Nellie,” said Tom, “and now Biddy is calling saying that her biscuits will be cold if we don’t go to supper.”
The meal was hardly over before Nellie broke out: “What makes you people so awfully quiet to-night? Is it your fairy story, Cousin Tom?”
“Yes, it’s the story he’s got to tell you, Nellie,” commented Biddy.
“Tom is one of those chaps who wants to think a long time before he leaps.”
“But I’m ready to leap now, Biddy,” replied Tom appealingly, “and I cannot have more than——”
“Oh, all right, I’ll go,” replied Biddy, with her head up very high, “but I’m coming in when you takes the leap. It’ll take you an hour to get ready.”
But Tom was not listening to Biddy’s chatter. He was looking deep into Nellie’s eyes, and the girl felt in her heart that something was coming, that there would be a change in her life after to-day.
She bowed her head upon Tom’s hands as she saw the color creep into his face and mount high to his forehead.