Theodore Goodridge Roberts - The Harbor Master

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"He bes hidin' something'," she reflected. "Shiftin' some o' his wracked
gold, maybe? But why bes he so sly about it to-night, a-spyin' in on his
old grandmother to see if she bes sound asleep or no?"

Presently, she closed the door and crept back to her bed. Next morning,
as soon as the skipper and young Cormick had left the house, she
examined the corner of the floor where the skipper had been at work. She
had to pull aside a wood-box to get at the spot. One of the narrow,
dusty planks showed that it had been tampered with. She pried it up with
a chisel, dug into the loose earth beneath and at last found a small box
covered with red leather. She opened it and gazed at the diamonds and
rubies in frightened fascination. Ignorant as she was of such things,
she knew that the value of these stones must be immense. At last she
closed the casket, returned it to the bottom of the hole and replaced
the earth, the plank and the wood-box. Where, when and how had the
skipper come by that treasure? she wondered. She hobbled over to Pat
Kavanagh's house and told Mary all about it.

CHAPTER XIX

MARY AT WORK AGAIN

Pierre Benoist, the survivor of the French brig, arrived at Mother
McKay's shebeen in good order, with the borrowed blanket draped over his
broad shoulders and the borrowed sealing-gun under his arm. All birds of
Pierre's variety of feather seemed to arrive naturally at Mother
McKay's, sooner or later. The French sailor found Dick Lynch; a Canadian
trapper with Micmac blood in his veins, who had come out of the woods
too soon for his own good; three men from Conception Bay and half a
dozen natives of the city, all talking and swearing and drinking Mother
McKay's questionable rum and still more questionable whiskey. Pierre
laid aside his blanket and musket, shouted for liquor and then studied
the assembled company. It did not take him long to decide that they were
exactly the material he required. He took a seat at Dick Lynch's elbow
and in such English as he was master of, remarked that any man who
worked for his living was no better than a fool.

"Sure," said Lynch, "by the looks o' yerself ye should know."

Monsieur Benoist pulled his sinister mouth into as pleasant a grin as he
could manage, and veiled the dangerous light in his eyes. Then he
replied, in a loud voice that caught the attention of all the men in the
room, that he was certainly in a position to know, having come straight
from a little harbor to the southward where a handful of fishermen had
just salvaged two chests of good French gold from a wreck. He told the
whole story of the wreck and of the subsequent fight in which his
companion had been killed. To add reality to his tale he described
several of the fishermen minutely.

"That bes the skipper himself!" cried Dick Lynch. "That bes Black Dennis
Nolan, ye kin lay to that--aye, an' Bill Brennen an' Nick Leary! Sure,
then, ye've come from Chance Along, b'y--the very place I comes from
meself. Two chests o' gold, d'ye say? Then I tells ye, b'ys, there bes
as much more there besides. Chance Along bes fair stinkin' wid gold an'
wracked stuff."

He went on excitedly and gave a brief and startling outline of the
recent history of Black Dennis Nolan and Chance Along, not forgetting
his own heroic stand against the tyrant.

"B'ys, all we has to be doin' bes to go an' take it--an' then to
scatter. This here captain wid the rings in his ears has the right idee,
sure! Wid all the gold an' jewels in Chance Along shared amongst us sure
we'd never be needin' to hit another clip o' work so long as we live.
Aye, 'twould be easy wid guns in our hands; but we must be quick about
it, lads, or the law'll be gittin' there ahead o' us," he concluded.

The others clustered about Lynch and the French sailor, a few of them
reeling, but all intent upon coming to some arrangement for laying hands
upon the treasure of Chance Along. Big fists pounded the sloppy table,
husky voices bellowed questions, and stools and benches were overturned.

"There bes twelve o' us here," said Tom Brent, of Harbor Grace, "twelve
able lads, every mother's son o' us ready for to make the trip. Now the
first thing bes for every man to tell his name an' swear as how he'll do
his best at gettin' the stuff an' never say naught about it to any
livin' soul after he's got safe away wid his share."

All agreed to these suggestions, and oaths were taken and hopes of
everlasting salvation pledged that were not worth the breath that
sounded them. It was next ascertained by Monsieur Benoist, who naturally
took a leading part in the organization, that every man of the twelve
possessed a fire-arm of one kind or another. Then Bill McKay, Mother
McKay's son, and two others departed in quest of horses and sleds. The
roads were fairly good now, though unpacked. Mother McKay set to work at
the packing of provisions for the expedition. She was heart and soul in
the enterprise, and would have her interests represented by her son
Bill, the worst rascal, hardest fighter and most devoted son in St.
John's. She had a hold on some of the small farmers around--in fact, she
owned several of the farms--so it was not long before Bill and his
companions returned, each in possession of a horse and sled. The
expedition set out at two o'clock of a windless, frosty, star-lit
morning. They travelled the roads which John Darling had followed,
several days before; but now the mud-holes and quaking bogs were frozen
and covered with snow. Bill McKay drove the sled that led the way at a
pace that gave the following teamsters all they could do to keep in
touch; but willing hands manned the whips and hammering sled-stakes.
Now and again one or another of the raiders would fall off a sled and
necessitate a halt; and so the poor horses were given a chance, now and
again, to recover something of their lost wind.

Back in Chance Along things were going briskly. Mary Kavanagh learned
from John Darling something of the history of the diamond and ruby
necklace and made up her mind to return it to the sailor. She wanted to
clean the harbor of everything of the kind--of everything that came up
from the sea in shattered ships, except food. She saw the hands of the
saints in salvaged provisions, but the hand of the devil himself in
wrecked gold and jewels--and wrecked women. She decided to arrange the
recovery of the necklace and the bully, and the escape of the strangers
for that very night; and her decision was sealed, a few hours later, by
the skipper's behavior. It was this way with the skipper. He felt shame
for having kept the girl in the harbor against her prayers, and for the
lies he had told her and the destruction of the letters; but he was
neither humble nor contrite. Shame was a bitter and maddening emotion
for one of his nature. He brooded over this shame, and over that
aroused by the girl's scorn, until his finer feelings toward her were
burned out and blown abroad like ashes. His infatuation lost its fine,
ennobling element of worship, and fell to a red glow of desire of
possession. He forced his way to Flora's room, despite the protests of
Mother Nolan.

"To-morrow ye'll be mine or ye'll be his," he said, staring fixedly at
the frightened girl. "To-morrow mornin' him an' me bes a-goin' to fight
for ye--an' the man what lives will have ye! Ye put the name o' coward
on to me--but I bain't no coward! I fights fair--an' the best man wins.
I could kill him now, if I was a coward."

Flora's face was as white as the pallid figure on the cross above the
chimney.

"You _are_ a coward!--and a beast!" she cried from dry lips. "If you
kill him my curse shall be with you until your dying day--and
afterwards--forever."

"Then ye can tell him to go away, an' I won't be killin' him," said the
man.

"Tell him--to go--away?"

"Aye--that ye've no need o' him. Send him away. Tell him ye means to
marry wid me."

"No," whispered the girl. And then, "Do you mean to--give him a
chance?--to fight him fair?"

"Aye, man to man--an' as sure as the divil fetched him to Chance Along
I'll kill him wid these hands! An' then--an' then ye'll be mine--an'
when Father McQueen comes in June 'twill be time for the weddin'--for
that part o' it. Ye've put the names o' coward an' beast on to me--an'
by Saint Peter, ye'll live to change them names or to know them!"

Some color came back to Flora's cheeks and her clear eyes shone to their
depths.

"If you fight fair," she said, faintly but steadily, "he will give you
what you deserve. I am not afraid. God will be with him--and he is the
better man!"

The skipper laughed, then stooped suddenly, caught her in his arms and
kissed her on the lips. Next moment he flung her aside and dashed from
the room, almost overturning Mother Nolan in his flight. At the door of
the kitchen he came face to face with Mary Kavanagh. He tried to pass
her without pausing, but she stood firm on the threshold and held him
for a moment or two with her strong arms. Her gray eyes were blazing.

"I sees the Black One a-ridin' on yer back!" she cried, in a voice of
horror and disgust. "I sees his face over yer shoulder--aye, an' his arm
around yer neck like a rope!"

He looked at her for a moment, and then quickly away as he forced her
violently aside.

"An' the hell-fire in yer eyes!" she cried.

The skipper was free of her by then and out of the house; but he turned
and stared at her with a haggard face and swiftly dulling eyes.

"The curse bes on me!" he whispered. "It bes in me vitals now--like I
had kilt him already."

The expression of the girl's face changed in a flash and she sprang out
and caught one of his hands in both of hers.

"Kill him? Ye bain't meanin' to kill him, Denny Nolan?" she whispered.

"Aye, but I bes, curse or no curse," he said, dully. "To-morrow mornin'
I bes a-goin' to kill him--man to man, in fair fight."

"But for why, Denny?"

"For the girl."

"Bes ye lovin' her so desperate, Denny?"

"Nay, nay, lass, not now. But I wants her! An' she puts the name o'
beast on to me an' the nature o' beast into me, like a curse!"

"To-morrow? An' ye'll fight him fair, Denny?"

"Aye, to-morrow--man to man--wid empty hands!"

The girl turned and entered the house, and the skipper went up the path
at the back of the harbor and wandered over the snowy barrens for hours.
It was dusk when Bill Brennen found him.

"Skipper," said Bill, "the lads bes at it again. They wants to know when
ye'll make a trip to St. John's wid the jewels?--an' where the jewels
bes gone to, anyhow?"

"Jewels!" cried the skipper--"an' the entire crew o' 'em fair rotten wid
gold! I'll dig up the jewels from where we hid 'em an' t'row 'em into
their dirty faces--an' they kin carry 'em to St. John's an' sell 'em to
suit themselves, the squid!"

So he and Bill Brennen tramped off to the northward; and Mary Kavanagh
was aware of their going.

Mary was busy during their absence. She unearthed the necklace, and with
it and the key from behind the skipper's clock, made her way to the
store. It was dark by now, with stars in the sky and a breath of wind
from the south and south-by-west. The folks were all in their cabins,
save the skipper and Bill Brennen, who were digging the harbor's _cache_
of jewelry from the head of a thicket of spruce-tuck. She let herself
into the store and freed John Darling without striking a light. She
placed the casket in his hand.

"The skipper has yer pistols in his own pocket, so I couldn't git 'em
for ye," she whispered. "Now sneak up to the back, quick. Ye'll find yer
lass there, a-waitin' for ye wid old Mother Nolan. Git north to the
drook where yer man bes, an' lay down there, the three o' ye, till I
fetches yer bully. Then git out, an' keep out, for the love o' mercy!
Step lively, captain! The skipper bes out o' the harbor this minute, but
he bes a-comin' home soon. Get along wid ye quick, to the top o' the
cliff."

She left him before he had an opportunity to even try to thank her. He
followed her to the door, walking stiffly, paused outside for long
enough to get his bearings, then closed the door noiselessly, turned the
key in the lock, withdrew it and dropped it in the snow. Then he made
his way cautiously to the back of the harbor and up the twisting path
as fast as he could scramble. At the top, crouched behind a boulder,
beside old Mother Nolan, he found Flora.

Neither the girl nor the man heard the old woman's words of farewell.
They moved northward along the snowy path, hand in hand, running with no
more sound than slipping star-shadows. So for a hundred yards; and then
the speed began to slacken, and at last they walked. They reached the
black crest where the brushwood of the drook showed above the level of
the barrens. Here they halted, and Darling whistled guardedly. An
answering note came up to them from the blackness below and to seaward.
Darling stepped down, parted the young birches and twisted alders with
one arm and drew Flora into the cover. She stumbled, saved herself from
falling by encountering his broad chest--and then she put up both arms
and slipped them about his neck.

"My God! Do you mean it, Flora?" he whispered.

For answer, her arms tightened about his neck. He lowered his head
slowly, staring at the pale oval of her face--and so their lips met.

Another cautious whistle from below brought them to a realization of
their surroundings. They continued their downward journey and presently
found George Wick. George was in a bad humor. He was cold, and he
grumbled in cautious growls.

"So ye come for a girl, did ye? Well, there bes another girl in this
harbor I'd like to be fetchin' away wid me! Aye, here she bes now, wid
the bully."

Mary sprang ashore.

"Here ye be. Git yer gear aboard quick, an' away wid ye," she whispered,
"an' don't forget yer promise."

"I'll be comin' back for ye, one o' these days," said George Wick.

"Then ye needn't, for ye bain't wanted," replied Mary.

John and Flora scarcely heard her; but George gave ear until the last
swish and rustle of her ascent through the brush died away. Then he fell
to loading the bully. Five minutes later they took their places aboard,
pushed out of the little cove, stepped the mast and spread the red sail.

Flora sat in the stern-sheets. John managed the tiller with his left
hand. The light breeze wafted them northward. At last George Wick broke
the silence.

"Hark! What bes that?" he exclaimed.

"It sounded like gun-shots," said John, indifferently.

"I suppose that mad skipper is fighting with his men," said Flora--and
the breath of her words touched the sailor's cheek.

CHAPTER XX

FATHER MCQUEEN'S RETURN

Black Dennis Nolan and Bill Brennen brought the loose jewels from their
hiding-place to the harbor. The skipper carried the dispatch-box, and in
his pockets he had John Darling's neat little pistols, each good for two
shots--the latest thing in pistols at that time. They went straight to
Cornelius Lynch's cabin, where the leading grumblers were assembled. The
skipper was about to kick open the door and stuff the jewels into their
insatiable maws when a guarded, anxious voice at his elbow arrested him
with one foot drawn back. The voice was that of Mary Kavanagh.

"Whist!" said Mary. "Bes that yerself, Denny Nolan?"

"Aye, sure it be," returned the skipper.

"I heard a sound on the cliff, to the north," said Mary. "The sound o' a
horse nickerin' an' men cursin' it for the same."

"A horse?" queried the skipper. And then, "On the cliff to the north?
Where the divil has ye been to, Mary Kavanagh?"

"Whist! Hark to that!" exclaimed the girl.

"Sure, skipper, 'twas somethin' up back yonder," whispered Bill Brennen.
"It sounded to meself like a gun slammin' agin a rock."

"Would it be that stranger lad?" queried Dennis, anxiously.

"Nay, he bes safe enough," said Mary. "But hark to that, now! There bes
a whole crew up yonder."

The skipper opened Cornelius Lynch's door, but not with his foot as he
had formerly intended.

"Turn out an' git yer guns, men. There bes trouble a-foot," he said,
quietly. Then, laying a hand on Mary's shoulder, he whispered, "Git Pat
an' yerself to my house an' fasten up the doors. It bes a strong house,
lass, an' if there bes any gunnin' ye'll be safe there."

"Ye needn't be worryin' for Flora Lockhart," said Mary. "She bes safe
enough--herself an' the captain--a-sailing away in the bully this
half-hour back."

The skipper's hand tightened on her shoulder; but she did not flinch. In
the light from the open door he stared at her--and she stared back at
him, glance for glance. There was astonishment in his eyes rather than
anger, and a question rather than condemnation. He was about to speak
when the smashing report of a musket rang out from the slope and a slug
splintered the edge of the open door. The skipper pushed Mary away from
him.

"Run! Run to the house!" he cried.

Mary vanished into the darkness. Men clustered around the skipper,
sealing-guns, pistols, cutlasses and clubs in their hands, their
grumblings forgotten in the prospect of a fight. The open door was shut
with a bang.

"Follow me!" shouted the skipper, dropping the dispatch-box of loose
jewels to the trampled snow and pulling his pistols from his pocket.

The men of Chance Along and Pierre Benoist's ruffians met at the foot of
the steep slope, among the upper rank of cabins. All doubts as to the
intentions of the visitors were dispelled from the skipper's mind by a
voice shouting, "Git inside the houses, lads, an' pull up the floors.
There bes where ye'll find the stuff. Git into the big house. _It_ be
fair full o' gold an' jewels."

The voice was that of Dick Lynch. The skipper knew it, and his pistols
flashed and banged in his hands.

The light of the stars, dimmed by a high, thin veil of mist, was not
good enough to fight scientifically by. After the first clash it was
almost impossible to know friend from foe at the length of an arm.
Single combats, and cursing knots of threes and fours, staggered and
swatted among the little dwellings. The work was entirely too close for
gun-work, and so the weapons were clubbed and the affair hammered out
like hot irons on an anvil.

After ten minutes of it the skipper found himself in front of his own
door, with a four-foot stick of green birch in his hands, and something
wet and warm trickling from his forehead into his left eye. Three men
were at him. Bill McKay was one of them and Pierre Benoist another.
McKay fought with a clubbed musket, and the French sailor held a dirk in
one hand and an empty pistol in the other. The third prodded about in
the background with a cutlass. He seemed to be of a retiring
disposition.

The skipper defended his position heroically; but after two minutes of
it the musket proved heavier than the club of birch, and he received a
crack on his left shoulder that put one arm out of action. The
Frenchman ducked and slipped in; but the skipper's boot on his
collar-bone set him back for a moment and sent the knife tinkling to the
ground. But the same movement, thanks to the little wad of snow on the
heel of his boot, brought the skipper to the flat of his back with a
bone-shaking slam. The clubbed musket swung up--and then the door flew
open above his upturned face, candle-light flooded over him and a
sealing-gun flashed and bellowed. Then the threatening musket fell of
its own weight, from dead hands--and the skipper went to sleep with more
stars twirling white and green fire across his inner vision than he had
ever seen in the sky.

It was daylight when Black Dennis Nolan next opened his eyes. He was in
his own bed. He felt very sick in the stomach, very light in the head,
very dry in the mouth. Old Mother Nolan sat beside the bed, smoking her
pipe.

"Was it ye let off the old gun out the door?" he asked.

"Nay, 'twas Mary done it," replied Mother Nolan, blinking her black eyes
at him.

"An' where bes Mary now?" he asked.

"In me own bed. Sure, when she was draggin' ye into the house, didn't
some divil jab her in the neck wid a great knife."

The skipper sat up, though the effort spun a purple haze across his
eyes, and set a lump of red-hot iron knocking about inside his skull.

"Bes she--dead?" he whispered.

"Nay, lad, nay, she bain't what ye'd call dead," replied the old woman.

The skipper rolled to the floor, scrambled to his feet, reeled across
the kitchen and into the next room, and sank at the side of Mary's bed.
He was done. He could not lift himself an inch higher; but a hand came
down to him, over the side of the bed, and touched his battered brow.

A week later, Mary Kavanagh was able to sit up in Mother Nolan's bed;
and the skipper was himself again, at least as far as the cut over his
eye and the bump on top of his head were concerned.

The skipper and Mother Nolan sat by Mary's bed. The skipper looked
older, wiser and less sure of himself than in the brisk days before the
raid.

"I bes a poor man now," he said. "Sure, them robbers broke t'rough this
harbor somethin' desperate! Didn't the back o' the chimley look like
the divil had been a-clawin' it out?"

"Quick come and quick go! Ye bes lucky, lad, they didn't sail away wid
yer fore-an'-after," said Mother Nolan.

"Aye, Granny; but it do beat me how ever they come to dig up the
kitchen-floor."

"Sure, an' they didn't," said Mary. "'Twas meself done that--an' sent
the red an' white diamonds away wid Flora's man. 'Twas himself ye took
'em from, Denny Nolan."

"An' a good thing, too," said Mother Nolan. "Sure, ye sent all the
curses o' Chance Along away together, Mary dear! There bain't no luck in
wracked gold, nor wracked diamonds--nor wracked women! Grub an' gear bes
our right; but not gold an' humans."

The skipper gazed at the girl until her eyes met his.

"Was ye workin' agin me all the time?" he asked, quietly.

"Nay, Denny, but I was workin' _for_ ye--all the time," she whispered.

"Sure she was," said Mother Nolan, puffing at her pipe. "Aye--an' many's
the time 'twas on me tongue to call her a fool for her trouble, ye was
that bewitched an' bemazed, lad."

The skipper stared at the floor for a long time, in silence. At last he
said, "Wid the way ye was workin', Mary, the wonder bes to me what for
ye risked the knife in yer neck to save me life from the Frenchman."

"Denny, ye bes still a fool!" exclaimed Mother Nolan. "When you bain't
one manner o' fool ye bes another! What for? d'ye ask! Well, what for?"

"Sure, I was only wonderin'," said the man, glancing shyly and hopefully
at the girl in the bed.

* * * * *

Father McQueen reached Chance Along early in June. He found plenty of
work awaiting him, including six masses for the newly-dead, and the
building of the church. The general tone of the harbor impressed him as
being strangely subdued. Even Black Dennis Nolan seemed less vivid and
dominant in his bearing; but in spite of this change in him, he refused
to put off his wedding even for the glory of being married in the new
church.

In spite of a scar on her round, white neck, Mary Nolan was the
grandest-looking, sweetest bride that had ever been seen in Chance
Along. Denny thought so, and old Barney Keen said it, and Mother Nolan
proved it by admitting that even she herself had not cut such a figure,
under similar circumstances, fifty years ago. And on the morning after
the wedding, the skipper and Mary set out on their honeymoon to St.
John's, aboard the fore-and-after, with a freight of salvaged cargo
under the hatch instead of thiefed jewels and gold. Back in the harbor
the men unmoored their skiffs for the fishing, even as their fathers had
done since the first Nolan and the first Leary spied that coast. They
grumbled a little, as was their nature; but there was no talk of mutiny
or treason. The red tide of greed had ebbed away with the passing of the
sense of possession, and the fear of bewitchment had faded away with the
departure of the innocent witch.

THE END.

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