MURIEL VISITS WINDY ISLAND.
Uncle Barney had done a good deal of thinking since he had returned to
his cabin in the sand dunes. He was recalling a visit he had received
from Captain Ezra Bassett a short time before he set sail for Ireland. It
was then that Muriel's grand-dad had told him all that he knew of the
girl's own father, and at the end of the story he had said: "If anything
happens to me, Barney, like as not Rilla's own dad would be the right one
for her to go to. You can allays reach him by writin' to the address
that's in the little iron box whar the tools 'r' kept for fixin' the
light."
How well Barney remembered that little iron box. It had been on many a
sea voyage when Ezra had been in command of the two-masted schooner The
Stormy Petrel, and the faithful Irishman had been first mate.
Then, when the older man had settled on Windy Island, Barney had often
seen the box in the small closet at the top of the tower where the oil
can, tools and cleaning rags were kept.
What ought he to do about it? he ruminated as he sat near his glowing
stove on the day following Muriel's visit and smoked pipe after pipe in
thoughtful silence.
Ought he to tell the girl, and yet, now that the tower was but a fallen
heap of stones, would it be possible for them to find the little iron
box?
"It's colleen herself as shall do the decidin'," he at last determined.
Rising, he put on his heavy coat, cap and the scarlet muffler that Molly
had knitted for him and telling his good wife that he might not be back
until late, he started walking toward the home of Doctor Winslow.
Muriel was out on the veranda sweeping away the light snow that had
fallen in the night. "Top o' the morning to you, Uncle Barney," she
called as she waved the broom. "Have you come to invite me to take a
cruise with you?"
The old man smiled up at her as he ascended the steps, and yet, so well
did the girl know him, that she at once sensed that something was
troubling him. However, it was in his usual cheerful manner that he
replied:
"It's a mind reader that you are, Rilly gal, for 'twas that very thing I
was after thinkin'. I cal'lated I'd cruise over to Windy Island, this
mornin' and I was hopin' as how you'd like to go along as crew."
There were sudden tears in the hazel eyes of the girl as she held the old
man's warmly mittened hand in a firm clasp.
"Uncle Barney," she said with a suspicion of a sob in her voice, "I'd
rather be goin' there for the first time with you than with anyone else
in all the world, perhaps because my grand-dad loved you just as he would
had you been his brother."
"I know, I know," the kind-hearted Irishman assured her. Then to hide his
own emotion he hurried on to say: "Bundle up warm, Rilly gal, for though
'tis sunny, the air is powerful nippin'. I reckon you'd better be tellin'
your folks as how you may be late comin' back to sort o' get 'em out of
the notion o' worryin'. Tell 'em yer ol' Uncle Barney'll land you in the
home port safe an' sound along about sunset."
Although Muriel was surprised to hear that they might remain so long on
Windy Island, she made no comment but skipped into the house to put on
her wraps and tell Miss Gordon of the planned voyage. Uncle Barney had
not said that he wished only Muriel to accompany him, but the girl was
sure that the captain had something that he wished to say to her alone.
Perhaps her grand-dad had asked him to sometime tell her about the
marriage of her girl-mother. How she hoped this might be so. But of her
thoughts Muriel said nothing as they tramped together out on the
snow-covered wharf near which the captain's dory was anchored.
It was not until they were sailing in the smoother waters on the
sheltered side of the island that Ezra Bassett's old friend told the girl
he had so loved why he had brought her that day to visit the ruined
lighthouse.
"Uncle Barney," the girl looked across at him hopefully, eagerly, "won't
you be telling me all that you know about my girl-mother and my father."
"Well, colleen dearie, thar ain't much to tell. Your pa, it 'peared like
to us as saw him, was a poor artist fellow as came one summer to this
here coast to make pictures. Yer ma, darlin', was jest like yo' are now;
the two of yo' couldn't be told apart. That artist fellow met up wi' her
in the store, Mrs. Sol tol' me, an' nothin' would do arter that but he
must make a paintin' of that other Rilla a-settin' up on the rocks. He
was mighty takin' in his ways, I'll say that for him, an' upstandin',
too. I'd a-sworn from the little I saw of him that he'd be a square
dealer, but like be I was wrong, for when your grand-dad got wind of him
courtin' his gal, fer that's what it had come to by the end of the
summer, ol' Ezra tol' him to clear out. Yo're ma pleaded pitiful-like,
but yo' know that look yer grand-dad used to get when he was sot, an' sot
hard. That's the way he looked then. Wall, the next day that artist
fellow was gone, but so, too, was the gal ol' Ezra Bassett had set sech a
store by." The kindly Irishman dreaded telling the rest of the story as
it reflected no credit to the honor of the lighthouse-keeper and he was
glad indeed to find that the dock had been reached. Nor did the girl
question him.
Even Captain Barney did not know how hard it was for Muriel to climb the
snow-covered flight of steps that led to the only home her girlhood had
ever known, and then, when the top was reached, to see that home lying
one rock heaped upon another, the whole jagged mass covered with a
sparkling white blanket.
"The little iron box that you were telling me about, Uncle Barney," Rilla
began as she smiled bravely up at her companion, "since it was kept near
the lamp, don't you think that in falling they would lie near each
other?"
The old man nodded. "I reckon so," he replied, "an' yet thar's no
tellin'. A reg'lar tornado 'twas a-racin' along the coast that day, and
what with the lightnin' hitting the tower and the wind twistin' it,
things that fell might o' got purty much scattered about, seems like."
Going to the old shed at the foot of the steps, the captain procured
shovels and a broom and together they began to remove the snow from the
rocks that were nearest.
"It's like looking for a needle in a haystack," the girl declared when
they had worked for an hour and had not discovered the great lamp which
for so many years had swung its circling light over the darkened sea.
"Seems powerful quare to me whar that big lantern can be," the old man
said at last, as he leaned on the handle of his shovel to rest. "'Pears
like it ought've fallen on top o' the heap, bein' as it was the highest
up; but 'tisn't here, sure sartin."
Muriel, standing on the uncovered rocks, looked down at him. "Uncle
Barney," she said, "do you suppose that someone has carried the lamp away
to sell for old iron?"
The captain shook his head. "No, Rilly gal, I reckon not. It's government
property and no one'd be likely to cart it away."
At noon they went down to the little beach shed. The Irishman made a fire
in the rusty old stove and they sat near, appreciating its warmth while
they ate the good lunch that Molly had prepared.
"Oh, Uncle Barney," the girl exclaimed half an hour later, "it's me as is
goin' to take the crumbs and left-over bits to the top of the cliff and
see if I can coax the seagulls from the caves; that is, if they are
there."
It was well that Brazilla Mullet had insisted that the girl wear her
thick woolen leggins, for she had to wade through deep, unbroken drifts
of snow to reach the spot where so often she had stood to feed her bird
friends; but though she called and called, the gulls that in former
winters had appeared from the warm caves in the rocks did not respond;
not even the lone pelican which she had hoped would come.
Almost sadly the girl was turning away when she chanced to look over the
steep cliff and there, half way down, firmly wedged between an outjutting
ledge and a small twisted pine, she saw something that sent her leaping
back toward the fallen tower.
"Uncle Barney," she called excitedly. "Come quick! I've found it! I've
found the lamp!"
The old Irishman was soon at her side. Rilla looked up with tears in her
eyes as she said: "Poor thing, how forlorn it looks with the glass broken
and the sides crushed in." The old man held fast to the girl, for she was
perilously near the snow-hidden edge of the cliff.
"I reckon we'd better not try to go down to it," he said, after a moment
of silent observation. "Thar's nothin' to hold on to till ye get to that
ledge an' it's plain to see that the box isn't alongside o' the lamp.
Howsome-ever, it bears out my notion that things was hurled hither and
yon when the tower fell so thar's no tellin' whar the little box landed."
Then, drawing the girl back to a place of greater safety, he continued,
as he glanced at the sky: "It's gettin' toward midafternoon, colleen, an'
those blizzardy lookin' clouds over on the horizon ar' spreadin' fast. I
reckon as how we'd better put off huntin' for the box till arter thar's
been a thaw; then, likie's not, we'll find it easy when the snow's gone."
"All right, Uncle Barney," the girl replied. "We will do just as you
think best, but how I do wish that, just for a moment, I might visit my
dear old Treasure Cave. Don't you suppose that if we went along the beach
I might be able to climb up to it? I've been there many a time in winter
and I know just where my steps are even under the snow."
The girl's eyes were so glowingly eager that the old man could not
refuse. "Wall, wall, Rilly gal," he said, "I reckon we'd have time to
poke around a while longer if 'twould be pleasin' to you. The storm's
likely to hold off till nigh dark."
"Oh, thank you, Uncle Barney." Muriel caught the old man's mittened hand
and led him along at a merry pace, breaking a path in the snow just ahead
of him. At last they reached the very spot where many months before
Muriel had stood when she had beheld a city lad for the first time.
"D'ye ever hear from Gene Beavers nowadays?" the captain asked when Rilla
recalled to him the incident of which she had been thinking.
"Indeed I do, and, oh, Uncle Barney, such wonderful times as Gene is
having. He has a new friend in England whom he calls Viscount of
Wainwater."
The old man gazed at his companion in uncomprehending amazement.
"The Viscount of Wainwater is it? Rilly, can I be hearin' right? Why,
gal, he's as big a man as thar is in all England barrin' the king
himself. He's what folks call a philanthropist, though thar's them as
calls him an Irish sympathizer; but 'tisn't the Irish only that he's
benefactin', but all as are down-trodden. Why, Rilly, he 'twas that
bought a whole township over in Connaught and tore down the mud huts and
had decent little cabins built for the old folks to be livin' in. Many's
the time he's ridden by on that han'some brown horse of his an' stopped
at me mither's door for a bit of refreshment an' it was me ol' mither
that couldn't talk of anything for days but of how foine a gintleman was
the Viscount of Wainwater. It's curious now, ain't it, that Gene Beavers
is arter knowin' him. It sartin is an honor to be a friend of the
viscount."
As the captain talked, Muriel, surefooted on the rocky paths that she had
followed since childhood, led him down to the beach, where the sand had
been swept clear of snow by the prevailing winds. They walked around the
island and stood just beneath the cave to which Muriel had carried every
little treasure that had been given her by her few friends or that had
been tossed high on the beach by the sea. The trail looked very steep and
slippery to the old man. "Rilla gal," he said, "I reckon I'll stay here a
bit and he waitin' for ye while ye do yer explorin'."
The girl, her cheeks rosy, her eyes glowing, laughed back at him over her
shoulder, for she was already half way up the trail.
When Muriel reached the shelving rock in front of her cave she turned and
waved to the old man, who stood watching far below, then stooping, she
disappeared.
To her amazement, she found that the place was flooded with light. The
reason she quickly discerned. Great rocks, hurled from the falling tower,
had crashed through the roof of the cave and were piled high on its
floor. Eagerly the girl began to search among them for the box.
When fifteen minutes had passed and she did not reappear, the old captain
became anxious and climbed to the opening.
"Wall, I'll be gigger-switched!" he exclaimed, "if here ain't the door to
the closet whar the tools for the big lamp was kept."
Muriel, with a delighted cry, sprang toward him, but stumbled over some
small hard object which had been almost imbedded in crumbled sandstone.
It was the long-sought little iron box, but it was locked.
The old man was as excited as the girl. He took the small box which
Muriel lifted toward him and examined it. "The lock don't matter," he
replied. "Thar's tools in the cabin that'll open it soon enough. Come
now, 'twon't do to be delayin' any longer. Can't ye hear the threatenin'
sound the wind is makin'? It's moanin' into the cave here like a
graveyard full of ghosts let loose."
When they were again on the beach the girl saw that the captain was
indeed a weather prophet, for the leaden-grey clouds were being hurled
toward them by a wind that was momentarily increasing in velocity.
Luckily it came from over the sea and the water between the island and
Tunkett would still be sheltered.
They were soon in the dory scudding toward the home port, but barely had
they landed when the snow began to fall so thick and fast that they could
scarcely see each other.
The wind from the sea fairly blew them up the street toward the home of
Doctor Winslow. For a moment the old Irishman drew the girl under the
shelter of an evergreen tree while he said hurriedly:
"Rilla gal, I reckon 'twould be best if I sent the letter, bein' as that
was yer grand-dad's wish, an', like's not, ye'd better not be mentionin'
it to anyone yet fer a spell, not knowin'----" The old man paused. He did
not want to hurt the girl's feelings by saying that after all these years
her own father might not care to claim his daughter.
"You are right, Uncle Barney," was the reply. "I'll not say a word, but,
oh, how I do, do hope that my own father will love me."
That evening the little iron box was opened, the address found and Molly,
who at one time had been a school mistress in Connaught, penned the
letter that was sent speeding to its destination on the midnight train.