"I bes rich now," he said thickly.
Mary Kavanagh lost color at that and turned her face away from them both, toward the fire in the wide chimney. Flora Lockhart looked up at the speaker, puzzled, but still smiling faintly. Her face was very beautiful and kind--but with an elfin kindness that seemed not all womanly, scarcely all human. Her beauty was almost too delicate, striking and unusual to bear the impress of a common-day kindness. She laughed gently but clearly.
"I am glad you are rich," she said. "You are rich in virtues, I know--all three of you."
"I bes rich in gold an" gear," said the skipper. "Rich as any marchant."
"I am glad," returned the girl. "It will be pleasant for me, in the future, to always picture my preservers in comfort. I hope you may continue to prosper, skipper--you and all your people. But here is the letter. How will you get it to New York, do you think?"
The skipper advanced to the bed, and took the letter. His fingers touched hers.
"I"ll be takin" it to Witless Bay meself," he stammered. "Sure, that would be safest. It bes a longish trip; but I"ll do it." He paused and stared down at the letter in his hand. "But "twould take me t"ree days an" more, there an" back--an" what would the men be doing wid me away?
The divil himself only knows! Maybe they"d get to t"inkin" agin as ye bes a witch. I"ll be sendin" Bill Brennen wid it, afore sun-up to-morrow."
"And who will take it from Witless Bay to St. John"s?" asked Flora.
"Foxey Garge Hudson, the Queen"s own mail-carrier. There bes a post-office in Witless Bay," returned the skipper. "He makes the trip to St. John"s once every week in winter-time, bar flurries an" fog, an"
maybe twice every week in the summer-time. If it be"d summer-time now I"d sail the letter right round to St. John"s in me fore-an"-aft schooner."
"What a terrible place! It seems to be thousands of miles out of the world," murmured the singer. "Don"t any ships ever come to this harbor--except wrecks?"
The skipper shook his head. "Me own fore-an"-aft, the _Polly_, bes the only vessel trades wid this harbor," he said. He stowed the letter away in his pocket, turned and strode from the room and out of the house. He looked calm enough now, but the battle was still raging within him.
The skipper was out of bed next morning at the first peep of dawn. He dressed for a long journey, stuffed his pockets with food, and then wakened his grandmother.
"I bes goin" meself wid this letter," he said. "The men won"t be tryin"
any o" their tricks, I bes t"inkin". d.i.c.k Lynch bain"t fit for any divilment yet awhile an" "tothers be busy gettin" timber for the church. Send Cormy to tell Bill Brennen an" Nick Leary to keep "em to it."
"Why bes ye goin" yerself, Denny?" inquired the old woman.
"Sure, it bes safest for me to carry the letter, Granny," returned the skipper.
He ate his breakfast, drank three mugs of strong tea, and set out. A little dry snow had fallen during the night. The air was bitterly cold and motionless, and the only sound was the sharp crackling of the tide fingering the ice along the frozen land-wash. The sky was clear. With the rising of the sun above the rim of the sea a faint breath of icy wind came out of the west. By this time the skipper was up on the edge of the barrens, a mile and more away from the little harbor. He was walking at a good pace, smoking his pipe and thinking hard. A thing was in his mind that he could not bring himself to face fairly, as yet. It had been with him several hours of yesterday, and all night, and had caused him to change his plan of sending Bill Brennen with the letter--and still it lurked like a shadow in the back of his mind, unilluminated and unproven. But he knew, deep in his heart, that he would presently consider and act upon this lurking, sinister half-thought. Otherwise, he was a fool to be heading for Witless Bay.
Bill Brennen, or any other man in the harbor, could have carried the letter as well--except for the idea that had been blindly at work all night in the back of his brain.
He had made four miles of his journey when he halted, turned and looked back along the desolate barrens and the irregular edge of the cliffs.
Misgivings a.s.sailed him. Was Flora safe? What if something should happen--had already happened, perhaps--to stir his treacherous fellows to mutiny again? Any little accident might do it if they knew that he was on his way to Witless Bay. If one of them should cut his foot with an axe, or drop a tree on one of his comrades, it would be enough (with the skipper out of the way) to raise the suspicion of witchcraft and curses in their silly, mad souls again. And then what would happen? What would happen to Flora, the helpless, wonderful, most beautiful creature in the world. He stared back along his path, but the many curves and breaks in the cliff hid from him every sign of Chance Along. Not a roof, chimney, or streamer of smoke broke the desolation. In all the frozen scene he could find no mark of man or man"s handiwork. South and north, east and west, lay the frosted barrens, the gray sea, the edge of the cliff twisting away to nothingness around innumerable lifeless bays and coves, and the far horizons fencing all in a desolate circle. But what mattered to the skipper, what weighed on his heart like despair was the fact that he was out of sight of Chance Along--of the roof that sheltered the girl he had saved from the wreck. He felt the loneliness of that dreary season and coast--for the first time in his life, I think. Anxiety was his teacher.
And now he knew that he must go on to Witless Bay, and so prove himself a fool for not having sent one of the men, or else face and act upon the thought lurking in the back of his mind. He drew the letter from his pocket and looked at it for a long time, turning it over and over between his fur-clad hands.
"She"ll soon be forgettin"," he said. "Come summer-time, she"ll be forgettin". I bes rich--an" when she sees the grand house I kin build for her she"ll marry me, sure, an" be happy as a queen. An" why not?
Bain"t I rich as any marchant? She"ll be wearin" gold an" silk every day, an" eatin" like any queen--an" bain"t that better for a grand lady nor singin" songs for a livin"?--nor singin" songs for her bread an"
baccy like old Pat Kavanagh wid the wooden leg?"
He tore the letter to fragments and scattered it upon the snow. He had faced the lurking thought at last and acted upon it.
"Praise be to the saints!" exclaimed the skipper with intense relief.
"That bes done--an" a good job, too. That letter"ll never be gettin" to up-along, anyhow, an" when she larns how rich I be, an" begins to love me, she"ll be praisin" the saints the same as me. Why for would she want to be goin" up-along to New York, anyhow? Now I"ll jist shape me course "round beyant the harbor an" see if they squid be up to any divilment or no."
He made his way inland for about half a mile and then headed southward.
As he drew near the line of Chance Along he edged farther away from the coast, deeper into the wilderness of hummocks, frozen bogs and narrow belts of spruce and fir. When at last he heard the axes thumping between himself and the harbor he sat down in a sheltered place and filled and lit his pipe. The men were at work. The letter that would have torn Flora Lockhart from him was not on its way to New York. All was well with the skipper and the world! He remained there for an hour, smoking, listening, congratulating himself. By the thumping of the axes and the slow crashings of falling trees he knew that Bill Brennen had put a big crew at the chopping. This knowledge stilled his anxiety for the girl"s safety. He knocked out his pipe and stowed it away and moved farther westward until he found a suitable camping-place behind a wooded hill.
Here he made a fire, built a little shelter of poles and spruce branches, and rested at his ease. He thought of Flora Lockhart. Her sea-eyes and red lips were as clear and bright as a picture in his brain. Her wonderful, bell-like voice rang in his ears like fairy music.
The spell of her was like a ravishing fire in his heart.
Suddenly the skipper sprang to his feet and slapped a hand on his thigh.
He had remembered the necklace for the first time for many days, and with the memory had flashed the thought that with it to offer he would have no difficulty in proving his wealth to the lady and winning her heart. Those white diamonds and red rubies were surely just the things a great lady from up-along would appreciate. Could a king on his throne make her a finer gift? He doubted it. The sight of that necklace would open her eyes and melt her heart to the real worth and greatness of the skipper of Chance Along. Poor Skipper Nolan! But after all, he was little more than a savage. Of the hearts of women--even of the women of Chance Along--he was as ignorant as a spotted harbor-seal. He knew no more of Mary Kavanagh"s heart than of Flora Lockhart"s, but even a savage may win a heart in ignorance, and even a savage may learn!
With a great oath the skipper vowed that he would find that necklace; but not to sell for gold, as his old intention had been, but to sell for the possession of the girl from up-along. It seemed an easy thing to do.
Foxey Jack Quinn could not have gone very far away from the harbor in that "flurry." Perhaps he had turned back and inland, searching blindly for shelter, and lay even now somewhere near this fire? It struck the skipper as a great idea. He would have three clear days to give to the quest of the body of Jack Quinn without arousing the curiosity of the harbor. Three days, as nearly as he could reckon, was the shortest time in which a man could make the journey to Witless Bay and back. As he could not show himself in Chance Along within that time without raising doubts as to the safe delivery of the letter, he was free to devote the time to the recovery of the necklace. It was a grand arrangement altogether. Of course he would keep covertly in touch with the harbor, in case of another panic of superst.i.tion; and of course he would find the corpse of Jack Quinn with the precious necklace in its pocket.
CHAPTER XII
d.i.c.k LYNCH GOES ON THE WAR-PATH
Black Dennis Nolan"s explorations in the wilderness in search of the corpse of Foxey Jack Quinn served no purpose save that of occupying his three days of exile from Chance Along. Of course he acquired a deal of exact information of the country lying beyond the little harbor and north and south of it for several miles; but this knowledge of the minute details of the landscape did not seem of much value to him, at the time. He searched high and low, far and wide, returning at intervals of from three to five hours to within sound of the axes of his men. He dug the dry snow from clefts between granite boulders and ransacked the tangled hearts of thickets of spruce-tuck and alder. He investigated frozen swamps, wooded slopes, rocky knolls and hummocks, and gazed down through black ice at the brown waters of frozen ponds. He carried on his search scientifically, taking his camp as a point of departure and moving away from it in ever widening and lengthening curves. He found the shed antlers of a stag, the barrel of an old, long-lost sealing gun, the skeleton of a caribou, and the bones of a fox with one shank still gripped in the jaws of a rusty trap. He found a large dry cave in the side of a knoll. He found the charred b.u.t.ts of an old camp-fire and near it that which had once been a plug of tobacco--a brown, rotten ma.s.s, smelling of dead leaves and wet rags. He found a rusted fish-hook, so thorough was his search--aye, and a horn b.u.t.ton. In such signs he read the fleeting history of the pa.s.sing of generations of men that way--of men from Chance Along who had sought in this wilderness for flesh for their pots and timber for their huts, boats and stages. He found everything but what he was looking for--the frozen body of Foxey Jack Quinn with the necklace of diamonds and rubies in its pocket. Then a haunting fear came to him that the thief had escaped--had won out to the big world in spite of the storm and by some other course than Witless Bay.
With this fear in him, he carried on terribly for a few minutes, raging around his fire, cursing the name and the soul of Foxey Jack Quinn, calling upon the saints for justice, confounding his luck and his enemies. He stopped it suddenly, for he had a way of regaining command of his threshing pa.s.sions all at once. He did not have to let them thresh themselves out, as is the case with weaker men; but he gripped them, full-blooded, to quiet, by sheer will power and a turn of thought.
The force of mastery was strong in Black Dennis Nolan"s wild nature.
When he wished it he could master himself as well as others. Now he sat down quietly beside his fire and lit his pipe. The evening was near at hand--the evening of the third and last day of his exile. The sun, like a small round window of red gla.s.s, hung low above the black hills to the north and west. He got to his feet, threw snow on the breaking fire and scattered the steaming coals with his foot. Then he pulled down his shelter and threw the poles and spruce branches into a thicket, so that no marks of his encampment were left except the wet coals and smudged ashes of the fire.
The crimson sun slid down out of sight behind the black hills to the west and north, and the gray twilight thickened over the wilderness. The last red tint had faded from the west and the windows of the cabins were glowing when the skipper reached the top of the path leading down to Chance Along. A dog barked--Pat Kavanagh"s black crackie--and the whisper of the tide fumbling at edges of ice came up from the land-wash below the fish-house and drying-stages. He saw the spars of his little schooner etched black against the slate-gray of the eastern sky. He stood at the edge of the broken slope, looking and listening. Presently he heard a mutter of voices and saw two dark figures ascending the path.
"Good evenin", men," he said.
The two halted. "Glory be!" exclaimed the voice of Bill Brennen. "The skipper himself, sure, praise the saints! Bes it yerself, skipper, an"
no mistake?"
"Aye, Bill, an" why for not?" returned Nolan. "Didn"t ye t"ink as I could make the trip to Witless Bay an" back in t"ree days? Bes that yerself, Nick Leary?"
"Aye, skipper, aye," replied Nick. The two were now at the top of the path, staring anxiously at the skipper through the gloom. Leary"s head was still in a bandage.
"We was jist a-settin" out to look for ye, skipper," said Bill.
Black Dennis Nolan laughed at that. "Was ye t"inkin" I couldn"t find me way back to me own harbor, in fair weather?" he asked.
"Aye, skipper, sure ye could," said Bill Brennen; "but it bes like this wid us. d.i.c.k Lynch give us the slip this very day, wid a bottle o" rum in his belly an" the smoke of it in his head, an" a gun in his hand.
Aye, skipper, an" we didn"t larn it till only a minute ago from little Patsy Burke."
"Aye, that bes the right o" it," broke in Nick Leary. "We heard tell o"
d.i.c.k Lynch a-slippin" away to the south"ard jist this minute from little Patsy Burke. Drunk as a bo"s"un he was, wid his old swilin"-gun on his shoulder an" the divil"s own flare in the eyes o" him. So we hauled out too, skipper, intendin" to catch him afore he come up wid yerself if the saints would give us the luck."
"Sure, then, I didn"t catch a sight o" the treacherous squid," said the skipper. "Ye see, b"ys, I took a swing off to the westward to-day to spy out some timber. But what would d.i.c.k Lynch be huntin" me wid his swilin"-gun for? Why for d"ye say he was huntin" me? Didn"t I put the comather on to him last time? The divil"s own courage must be in him if he bes out huntin" for me."
"He was tryin" all he knowed how to raise trouble yesterday," said Bill; "but the b"ys wasn"t wid him. This very mornin", when I called in to see how he was feelin" for work, there he laid in his bed wid the covers drug up over his ugly face, a-moanin" an" groanin" as how he wasn"t fit to hit a clip. Then we all o" us goes off to the choppin", to cut timber for his riverence"s blessed little church, an" mugs-up in the woods widout comin" home, an" when we gets back to the harbor, maybe a few minutes afore sun-down, little Patsy Burke gives us the word as how d.i.c.k Lynch went off wid a gun, swearin" by the whole a.s.sembly of heaven as how he"d be blowin" yer heart out o" ye the minute he clapped eye on ye.