For the first time they seemed to realize what was about to happen.
The young girls and the brides wept, but those with children at their skirts looked stonily to the vessel that bore their loved ones; for they were hardened in the fear of death and bereavement, and had become fatalists.
The old women shook their heads, and if tears rolled down their faces they were the tears of dotage, and were shed perhaps for the swift and fleeting beauty of brides under the strain of their first long separation.
Of these last one stood apart, a shawl over her gray hair and her hands folded as though obedient to a will greater than her own. In all the color and pageant of departure May Schofield wondered where her son might be, the son whom she felt had run away from his just responsibilities. Two nights ago he had gone, and since that time the little cottage had seemed worse than deserted.
Somehow the story of the solicitor and his visit went swiftly around the village, and since that time Code"s mother had been the shrinking object of a host of polite but evidently pointed inquiries.
To most of these there was really no adequate reply, and the good woman had grown more hurt and more shrinking with every hour of the day. Now, with little orphan Josie at her side, she came out to see the departure of the fleet.
Suddenly there came the squeaking of blocks and the rattle and sc.r.a.pe of rings as foresails were rushed up at peak and throat. Headsails raced into position, and, with the anchors cat-headed; the vessels, with their captains at the wheels or tillers, swung into the wind and began to crawl ahead.
Behind them, as they forged toward the pa.s.sage, lay the gray scimitar of stony beach half a mile long. Beyond it were the white, contented-looking cottages built along the road, and back of all rose the vivid green mountains, covered with pine, tamarack, and silver birch, above whose tops at the line of the summit there appeared three terrific, puffy thunder-heads.
As they moved toward Flag Point the gaily colored crowds moved with them past the post-office, the stores, the burned wharfs, and the fish stands.
Captain Bijonah Tanner, by right of seniority, led the way in the _Rosan_ as commodore of the fleet. He stood to his tiller like a graven image, looking neither to right nor left, but gripping his pipe with all the strength of his remaining teeth.
He hoped that his triumph would not be lost upon his wife. Nor was it, for it was a month afterward before the neighbors ceased to hear how her Bige was the best captain that ever sailed out of Freekirk Head.
At Swallowtail Bijonah rounded the point, gave one majestic wave of his hat in farewell, and put the _Rosan_ over on the starboard tack, for the course was southeast, and followed practically the wake of Code Schofield.
One after another the schooners and sloops, closely bunched, came about as smartly as their crews could bring them--and the smartest of them all was Nat Burns"s _Nettie B._
Nellie Tanner, jealous for her father"s prestige, could not but admire the splendid discipline and tactics that whipped the _Nettie_ about on the tack and sent her flying ahead of the _Rosan_ like a great seabird. Once Swallowtail was pa.s.sed the voyage had begun, and the lead belonged to any one who could take it.
At last the knifelike edge of Long Island shut them out completely, and seemed at the same instant to cut the last bonds and ties that had stretched from one to another as long as vision lasted. The men felt as released from a spell. One idea rushed into their minds suddenly and became an obsession.
Fish!
CHAPTER XIII
NAT BURNS SHOWS HIS HAND
OFF Cape Sable the fleet was overhauled by a half-dozen schooners bound the same way, which displayed American flags at their main trucks as they came up.
"Gloucestermen!" said Nat Burns at the wheel of the _Nettie B._ "Set balloon jib and stays"l and we"ll give "em a try-out."
The men jumped to the orders, and the _Nettie_ gathered headway as the American schooners came up. But the Gloucester craft crept up, pa.s.sed, and with an ironical dip of their little flags raced on to the Banks.
Cape Sable was not yet out of sight when a topmast on the _Rosan_ broke off short in a sudden squall. Bijonah Tanner immediately laid her to and set all hands to work stepping his spare spar, as he would not think of returning to a shipyard. Nat Burns, when he noticed the accident, laid to in turn and announced his intention of standing by the _Rosan_ until she was ready to go on.
As these were among the fastest vessels in the fleet, the others proceeded on their way, and Nat seized the opportunity of the repairs to pay his _fiancee_ a visit and remain to supper on the _Rosan_.
He found Nellie radiant and more beautiful than he had ever seen her.
Protected from the cool breeze by a frieze overcoat, she stood bareheaded by the forerigging, her cheeks red, her brown eyes bright like stars, and her soft brown hair blowing about her face in alluring wisps.
He took her in a strong embrace. She struggled free after a moment, her cheeks flooded with color.
"Don"t, Nat!" she cried. "Before all the men, too! Please behave yourself!"
This last a little nervously as she saw the gleam in his eyes.
Suddenly (for her) all the day seemed to have lost its exhilaration.
She was always glad to see Nat, but his insistent use of his _fiance_ rights under all circ.u.mstances grated on the natural delicacy that was hers.
His ardor dampened by this rebuke, the gleam in Nat"s eye became one of ugliness at his humiliation before the crew of the _Rosan_. He scowled furiously and stood by her side without saying a word. It was in this unfortunate moment that Nellie seized on the general topic of the day.
"Guess you"ll have to get off and push the _Nettie B._ before you can beat those Gloucestermen, Nat," she said, teasing him.
"Say, I"ve heard about all I want to hear about that!" he snarled, suddenly losing control of himself as they walked back to the little cabin. The girl looked at him in hurt amazement. Never in all her life had a man spoken to her in such a tone. It was inconceivable that the man she was going to marry could address her so, if he even pretended to love her.
"Possibly you have," she returned, not without a touch of asperity; "but you know as well as I do that you will have to deal with a Gloucester-built schooner before you are through with this voyage."
In her efforts to placate him she had touched upon his sorest spot.
His defeat by the American fishermen had been hard for his pride.
"I suppose you mean that crooked Schofield"s boat?" he flashed back, his face darkening.
"What do you mean by that?"
They were below now in her father"s little cabin, and she turned upon him with flashing eyes.
"Just what I said," he returned sullenly.
"You say things then that have no foundation in fact," she retorted vigorously. "You have no right to say a thing like that about Code Schofield."
"I haven"t, eh?" he sneered, furious. "Since when have you been takin"
his side against me? No facts, eh? I"ll show him an" you an" everybody else whether there"s any foundation in fact! What do you suppose the insurance company is after him for if he isn"t a crook?"
Like all the people in Freekirk Head, Nellie had heard some of the rumors concerning Code"s possible part in the sinking of the _May Schofield_. Nat, for reasons of his own, had carefully refrained from enlarging on these to her, and in the absorption of her wooing by him she had let them go by unnoticed. Now, for the first time, the consequences they might have in Code"s life were made clear to her.
"I--I don"t know," she faltered, unable to reply to his direct question. "But I know this, that all his life Code has been an honest man and one of my best friends. I grew up with him just as I did with you, and I resent such talk about him as much as I would if it were about you."
"Yes," he sneered, "he has been entirely too much of a good friend.
What was he always over to your place for, I"d like to know? And, even after he knew we were engaged, what was he doin" down at Ma Sprague"s that night I called? An" what did you go to his place for after the fire when I tried to get you to come to mine?"
The last question he roared out at the top of his voice, and the girl, now afraid of him, shrank back against the wall of the cabin.
She knew it was useless to say that she and Code had been like brother and sister all their lives, and that May Schofield was a second mother to her. All reason was hopeless in the face of this unreasoning jealousy. After a moment she found her speech.
"I guess, Nat," she said, "you had better go back to your schooner until you are in a different mood."
"Afraid to answer, ain"t you?" he cried. "When I face you down you"re afraid to answer an" tell me I"d better go away. Well, now let me tell _you_ something. You"re entirely too friendly with that crook, an" I won"t have it! You"re engaged to me, and what I say goes. An" let me tell you something else.