Theodore Goodridge Roberts

“ If she ever married, it would be for wealth and position, as the world counted such things, but never a man—lord or commoner—who did not come to her with the light of pure witchery in his eyes. She remembered, smiling down at the half-written letter to her New York agent, how that light had shone in the honest eyes of a young officer of the ship in which she had sailed from America to Europe. Her reflections, which had passed through her brain with a swiftness beyond that of any spoken or written words, were interrupted by the skipper. ”

“ Men had to jump to save themselves from being crushed. The white chips flew in the gray twilight; and Bill Brennen wondered what imp's claw had marked the skipper under the eyes and crisscrossed his temper.
The weather continued cold, cloudless and windless throughout the next three days. During that time the skipper made no effort to see Flora, but was abroad from sun-up to sun-down with the men, cutting out timber for the little church as if his life depended on it. No sight or sound of Dick Lynch came back to the harbor. ”

“ A grim harvest! Grim fields to garner from, wherein he who sows peradventure shall not reap, and wherein Death is the farmer! Aye, and grim gleaners those who stand under the broken cliff of Nolan's Cove, waiting and listening in the dark!
A dull, crashing, grinding sound set the black fog vibrating. Then a brief clamor of panic-stricken voices rang in to the shore. Silence followed that—a silence that was suddenly broken by the thumping report of a cannon. The light flared dimly in the fog.
"Quiet, lads!" commanded the skipper. "Let the wood be till I gives ye the word. ”

“ 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. ”

“ His teeth flashed between his snarling lips like a timber-wolf's fangs. He shook his fist at them, picked up a birch billet, which was a part of the wrecking-gear, and swung it threateningly. About eight of the men and boys, including young Cormick Nolan, Nick Leary and Bill Brennen, stood away from the others, out of line of the skipper's frantic gestures and bruising words. Some of them were loyal, some simply more afraid of Black Dennis Nolan than of anything else in the world. But fear, after all, is an important element in a certain quality of devotion. ”

“ Bad luck had struck the harbor this day, beyond a doubt, and brought death and mutiny. But death had not come to the skipper. Not so much as a scratch had come to the skipper. If a witch was in the harbor he trusted to Black Dennis Nolan to deal with her without bringing harm upon himself or his friends. If the devil himself visited Chance Along he would look to the skipper to outwit, outcurse and out-devil him. ”

“ The man must be an absolute fool to set out along a dangerous coast, in a bad time of year, single-handed and without grub or gear, reflected the skipper. The thought that such a bungler as this stranger should be preferred to himself, intensified his pangs of humiliation. No girl who understood such things—no girl of that coast—would treat him so, he reflected, bitterly. He pulled the dripping painter aboard the skiff, made it fast around a thwart and towed the bully ashore. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A number of men with sore heads and dry mouths made their way to the top of the cliff, across the barrens and into a thin belt of spruces. There they worked as well as they could at cutting timber for Father McQueen's church. They were a dolorous company. The daring spirit of mutiny had passed away, leaving behind it the fear of the skipper. The courage, uplift and inspiring glow of the brandy had ebbed and evaporated, leaving the quaking stomach, the swimming brain, the misty eye. ”

“ The skipper felt like a fool, then like a whipped dog. It was this last sensation that sent a wave of choking anger through him. He was not accustomed to it. Had any other woman taken him to task so he would have laughed and forgotten the incident in a minute. Had any man shown such ingratitude he would have smashed his head; but now his dark face flushed and he muttered a few words thickly which passed unheard and unheeded even by himself.
"I am writing now," continued Flora, "and must ask you to send it out to some place from which it can reach civilization, and be mailed to New York. ”

“ After the storm from the northwest had blown itself out, a spell of soft weather set in along the coast. East and southeast winds brought fog and mild rains, the ice rotted along the land-wash and the snow dwindled from the barrens and left dripping hummocks and patches of black bog exposed. The wreck in Nolan's Cove had gone to pieces during the blizzard, sunk its cargo of pianos, manufactured cotton and hardware in six fathoms of water and flung a liberal proportion of its spars and timbers ashore. ”

“ Darling returned the scrutiny unabashed.
"Ye be from up-along?" she queried. "Ye be a friend o' Flora's?"
"Yes," replied Darling. "I have heard that she is in this harbor—and that no word of her being here, or even of her being alive, has been sent out. Her friends believe her to be dead. And I heard that the man you call skipper is—is keeping her against her will. Of course, against her will! I have come to take her away—back to the world in which she belongs."
"Be ye alone, sir?" asked Pat Kavanagh, combing his beard with his long, lean fingers. ”

“ He was skipper—or just Denny Nolan. He was skipper of Chance Along—not a preacher and not the mate of a foreign-going ship.
"Sure, it bain't no great trip to Witless Bay an' back agin," he mumbled, staring at the girl in the big chair. The light that entered the room from the gray afternoon, by way of the small window, was more of a shadow than an illumination. The red fire in the wide chimney warmed a little of it, painted the low ceiling and touched the girl's eyes with a sunset tint. The skipper shuffled his feet on a rag mat and crumpled his cap between his big hands. ”

“ Then, stooping forward quickly, he plucked the pendants from those bloodless ears, and set the body rolling into the starboard scuppers and overboard to the frothing surf and slobbering rocks. From the cliff a cry as of mingled relief and dismay rang down to him. He moved forward and swarmed the foremast to the cross-trees. There he paused for a few moments to glance across. He saw that Bill Brennen, Nick Leary, his brother Cormick and several of the men whom he had rescued from the flooded cabin had clustered around the shore-end of the hawser. He saw that they feared treachery. ”

“ The stranger opened her eyes and looked at the old woman. Her wonderful eyes seemed to bewitch Mother Nolan, even as they had bewitched the skipper. The old dame stared, trembled and babbled. Turning to the gaping men, including Denny, she cried to them to get out where they belonged and shut the door after them. They obeyed, treading on each other's heels. Even the skipper departed, though reluctantly.
"May every hair o' yer head turn into a wax candle to light ye to glory," babbled the old woman, as she unwound the coarse blankets from about the girl's unresisting body. ”

“ Father McQueen did not hurry away from Chance Along. Six months had passed since his last visit and so he felt that this section of his flock demanded both time and attention. His way of knowing his people was by learning their outward as well as their inner lives, their physical and also their spiritual being. He was not slow to see and understand the skipper's ambitions and something of his methods. He read Black Dennis Nolan for a strong, active, masterful and relentless nature. He heard of Foxey Jack Quinn's departure and of the fight at the edge of the cliff that had preceded it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Some carried coils of rope, others oars and boat-hooks. Several of them hauled empty sledges at their heels. The back of the last man vanished in the fog; but Mr. Darling remained in the shelter of the rock until the faintest whisper of their voices had died away before moving hand or foot.
"Organized wreckers," he muttered. "And that big pirate with the lantern was the skipper—the brute who is keeping Flora in this place! By God—I wonder just how much of a man, and how much of a beast he is! But now is my time, while they're all off waiting for another wreck to come ashore to them—damn them! ”

“ His young brother was safe on the cliff; so his fine efforts were not inspired by any grander emotion than that felt by the shopkeeper who fights fire in the protection of his uninsured stock-in-trade. There were men below whom he needed, but none whom he loved even with the ordinary affection of man for humanity. The skipper yanked the men to the steps as fast as he could get hold of them, dragged them up to the level of the deck, and left them sprawled. All were breathless; some were cut and bruised; Nick Leary's left cheek had been laid open from eye to jaw in some way. ”

“ We are told, as were our fathers before us, that one man's poison may be another man's meat, and that it is an ill wind indeed that does not blow an advantage to somebody. The fundamental truths of these ancient saws were fully realized by the people of Chance Along. Ships went down in battered fragments to their clashing sea-graves, which was bad, Heaven knows, for the crews and the owners—but ashore, stalwart and gratified folk who had noted the storms and the tides ate well and drank deep and went warmly clad, who might otherwise have felt the gnawing of hunger and the nip of the wind. ”

“ The big ship was hopelessly astray in the fog and in the grip of a black, unseen current that dragged at her keel and bulging beam, pulling her inexorably landward towards the hidden rocks. Her commander felt danger lurking in the fog, but was at a loss to know on which side to look for it, at what point to guard against it. He was a brave man and a master of seamanship in all the minute knacks and tricks of seamanship of that day ”

“ The room was lighted by the glow from the fire and by a guttering candle on a chair beside the bed. She saw that the room was empty, save for the sleeping girl. Closing the door softly and locking it again, she turned and groped her way across to the kitchen door, beneath which a narrow line of light was visible. Scarcely breathing, she raised the latch, drew the door inward a distance of half an inch and set one of her bright old eyes to the crack. She saw the skipper kneeling in a corner of the kitchen, with his back to her and a candle on the floor beside him. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ Mary thanked her, kissed her in return, and said gently that she did not want to be rewarded for her nursing, except by love. She added that it was Black Dennis Nolan, the skipper, who had saved Flora's life.
"I remember him vaguely," said the other. "He took me away from that terrible place where I was swaying and tossing between the waves and the sky. The queer things I saw in my fever dreams have dimmed the memory of the wreck, thank God—and now they themselves are growing dim. He is a big man, is he not, and young and very strong? ”

“ At low tide a narrow strip of black shingle shows between the nearer of these titanic fragments and the face of the cliff. The force has been at work at other points of the coast as well. A mile or so to the north it has broken down and scattered seaward a great section of the cliff, scarring the water with a hundred jagged menaces to navigation, and leaving behind it a torn sea front and a wide, uneven beach. ”

“ He confessed that he had never seen a great diamond and ruby necklace, but that he had seen a whole casket full of jewels and was willing to swear by all the saints aloft that the casket was still in Chance Along. He did not notice that Mr. Darling was spending all his time over one small glass of whiskey toddy. Finding the young officer a good listener and an agreeable companion, he went on to tell of the wreck of the Royal William, of the panic in the flooded cabin, and at last of the beautiful young woman with the voice like fairy bells and eyes like a mermaid's eyes. ”

“ You are the big, cussing pirate the savages gave the name of skipper to, along on that devilish coast to the south where we lost the Durham Castle. You are a sly fellow, and a daring one; but it will not help you a mite to sit there and talk about your happy home in Harbor Grace to me."
"The skipper!" exclaimed Dick Lynch, in genuine anger and dismay. "Saints presarve ye, I'd as soon be took for the divil himself as for Black Dennis Nolan o' Chance Along. No, sir, I bain't that tyrant, though some folks do say as how I bes about his size and color." ”