II

Up to old man Shepperd's the dance was on, and Bess Lowe was there; and

not long before the American captain blew through the door; and no

dreary passage of time before he spied Bess.

"Why, Bess, God bless you, how are you? And you ain't forgot? And do I

get a dance this evenin' or no? Tell me, do I, now? Ay, that's

you--hard-hearted as ever. Eyes to light a vessel to port, but never a

soft look in 'em."

"My eyes, Captain Leary?"

"Ay, your eyes, Bess. Eyes, Bess, that the likes of never looked across

the bay before--eyes that flash out from the dark like twin shore-lights

when a man's been weeks to sea."

"Oh, Captain Leary!" breathed Bess; and presently took to sighing, and

from sighing to smiling, and all at once burst out into such laughter

that the whole company took notice; whereat a huge, surly man in a

corner went into the back room.

"Gi' me one drink and I'll smash him into bits," the big man said to

Lackford, the trader, who was standing guard in the back room over the

little jug which Shepperd kept handy for his guests.

"What, now? No. Not now, please, not now. There'll be plenty of chances

for fighting in the morning. The crowd is only waiting for daylight to

make a move. They want you. Come on now, do, and get a good night's

sleep so's to be feeling good in the morning. Come on now. And you'll

have two hundred men at your back in the morning, remember; and

remember, too, that after you've put the American out of the way all the

girls in the bay'll fall to your hand."

The big man was diverted, and passed out with Lackford, meantime that

Leary, with an arm half around the girl's waist, was pleading: "The next

dance for me, hah, Bess?"

"Ay, captain--who could deny you?" and they went at it.

'Twas a shuffling across the floor, a whirling of buxom partners by

husky men, who never omitted to mark the measure with the thump of

boot-heels that jumped the dust from cellar to roof. Shouting, stamping,

joking, smiling, with quick breathing--such joy entirely it was, with

Tim Lacy, oilskinned and jack-booted, leading the swing across the

floor. Yes, and back again, although on him, even as on Leary, old

Shepperd looked with disapproving eye.

"A wonder, Tim Lacy, you wouldn't leave your gear on your vessel," he

snorted.

"Sure, an' I'm on my way to the vessel now, an' she'll be leavin' the

bay for the States in the mornin'."

"You think she will," amended Shepperd, from behind the musician, who

was his own strong-lunged daughter Sue.

On a chair atop of a fish-box in one corner was balanced Sue, a native

genius, who puffed most industriously into a musical instrument made of

a sheet of tissue-paper wrapped around a fine-tooth comb.

Tim Lacy, though he never let on, caught the sly remark. Less guileless

than he looked was Lacy, a little man, forever lighting his pipe. He

struck another match now, and between puffs delivered a belated message.

So many years senior was Lacy to his skipper that he used to talk to him

like a father.

"You know, as you said yourself, we was to hurry, Sammie--and do come

now, Sammie"--_puff_--"and hurry on"--_puff_--"to Half-Tide

Beach"--_puff_--"and there we'll take the dory for the vessel. Ah-h,

there she's goin'. No, drat her, she's out again! Hurry on, boy. We

oughtn't be standin' here all night. The crew'll be waitin' for us wi'

the vessel at Caplin Cove. A special word they left for you, Sammie.

They says if you was here"--here Tim stepped close and whispered--"as

how I was to tell you they're feared for trouble."

He peered over the flame of the last-lit match at his skipper.

"'Tell him, Tim,' they says to me, 'that if we're to get the last o' the

herrin' aboard that they're afeard it'll have to be an early start.' I

misdoubt"--_puff_--"they have a notion of how there was goin' to be

trouble. So come on; do, boy."

"One more, Tim; one more dance before we break up. A crime to go out on

a cold night like this and not have a farewell dance. Come on, Bess;

what d'y' say? There's the girl!"

Tim was gone, but back and forth Sam and Bess sidled and stamped, and

many another minute passed with Sam still whirling his able-bodied

partner, pacing her across and back again, lifting her off her feet, and

swinging her--one, two, three full circles off the floor. And Sam was

the boy could do it, a hundred and seventy pounds though she weighed,

and continued to whirl her after the last dance till they were out of

the room and into the shadows of the porch, where he snatched her up and

kissed her fair.

The girl's heart leaped out to him. Did ever such a man make landing in

the bay before? And surely he must think the world of her? Tenderness

for him overwhelmed her; and out under the stars she whispered the words

of warning in his ear.

"What's it, Bess? You're not foolin'? The trader to the head of them?"

"Ay, an' they'll be at Half-Tide Beach afore the sun rises----"

"D'y' mean, Bessie, d'y' mean----"

"I mean all that's bad they'll do to you, Sammie. I heard 'em my own

self. 'What right has this American to come here and take the herrin'

from our very doors? What right?' That's the way the trader talked to

'em in the back room afore you came in. 'In the old days I've seen men

beat to death on the beach for less,' I heard 'em through the bulkhead.

'Ay, an' their vessels run up on the rocks somewhere,' he goes on. An'

it's you, Sammie, they has in mind."

"And the crew to Caplin Cove, an' only me and Tim to stand by the

vessel. The vessel and her full hold. But who'll get the word to them?

If only there was some one, some one we could trust, Bess!"

"There is one that could do that, too, boy."

"Who? What! Yourself, Bess? Could you make where they are--Caplin

Cove--alone, and by night--and tell 'em what's in the wind, so they'll

be aboard in time, while I go and hurry after Tim Lacy to the vessel at

Half-Tide Harbor? Could a woman like a man well enough to do that?"

"Well, women likes men sometimes, Sammie."

"God bless you, Bess, of course. And sometimes, too, a man likes--But,

Bess!" She lay swaying in the hollow of his arm. "Bessie!"--and oh, the

nearness of him! "I don't want to fool you, girl--we _was_ carryin' sail

the night your brother Simon was lost. A livin' gale, and she buttin'

into it with a whole mains'l--you won't hold that agin' me?"

"How could I, Sammie? A man that's a man at all is bound to carry sail

at times. And fishermen, sail-carryin' or no sail-carryin', they comes

and goes."

"Ay, girl, and sometimes goes quicker than they comes. Oh, Bess, the

fine men I've been shipmates with! And now 'twould take a chart of all

the banks 'tween Hatteras and Greenland to find out where the bones of

the half of 'em lie."

"But do go now, Sammie." She snuggled closer to him. "Have a care now,

for I'm lovin' you now, Sammie."

"Ay, you are. And I'm lovin' you, Bess. But your father, Bess; he'll put

you out."

"Well, if he do----"

"If he do, Bess, you know who'll be waitin' for you."

"Ay, I do. An' I'll come to you, too, no fear, boy. But no matter about

John Lowe now, boy, so you won't forget me, Sammie."

"Never a forget, Bessie."

"Then hold me again, Sammie, afore we part. And don't forget--never a

man afore did I like like I likes you, Sammie."

* * * * *

And Bess had gone and delivered her message to Leary's crew at Caplin

Cove. "Be all hands aboard afore dawn and have her ready to sail," was

Bessie's message, and with that put off for home in her father's little

sloop. There had been stars on her run over, bright, cheerful stars that

made you overlook the frost in the air, but no stars now. But that was

the way of the weather in the bay.

In the lee of Shingle Spit it was calm enough, and so, for all the boom

of the sea outside, Bess had time for revery. A gran' figur' of a man,

Sammie Leary. Strong he was. Ay, strong. An' not stern. Lord knows,

there was enough of that to home. No, no, saft-like same as Sammie--that

was the kind for a woman to love.

And Sammie now. Out under the shadow of the porch he had said: "You're

the lass for me." Ay, he did. But so many talked like that and meant

naught by it, but took your kiss and your heart wi' the kiss and sailed

away, and you never again see 'em, mayhap. There was Jessie Mann,

and--Oh, no matter them. Sammie was none o' their kind o' men. An'

yet--there were those who said that one like Sammie never made a good

husband. Sailed wi' too free a sheet, he did. An' yet, did ever a vessel

get anywhere without a free sheet at times?

And, thinking of a free sheet, Bess gave the little sloop a foot or two

more of main-sheet. And there she was going through the water faster for

it. And she would need to go fast through the water if so be she was to

get home this night. And if she didn't get home--but 'twas o'er-early to

worry about what her father would say.

But was it all so true about a free sheet? Was it no' true that, holdin'

a vessel's nose to the wind, she'd sail her course wi' never a foot o'

leeway? 'Twas so her father maintained. Always safest to be on the

straight course, her father held. True enough, but wi' the wind ahead,

what headway? None at all--while, if you let them run off a bit, when

they did come back on the course they was farther on the road, arter

all. Ay, so it was. And Sammie? What did the poor boy ever know of a

home or a lovin' heart to guide him! Oh, ay, women should make

allowances for men like Sammie. 'Twas the good heart in him.

Out beyond the end of the spit the little boat began to feel the

pressure of the wind and the thump of the sea. She jumped so because

there wasn't much ballast in her. An' there was the matter o' ballast

now. A gran' thing in a vessel, a bit o' ballast--like religion in a

body. Not all religion, like her father, for then 'twas like a vessel

loaded down wi' ballast--took a gale o' wind to stir her, and a vessel

o' that kind was no mortal use whatever--except mayhap for a lightship

or something o' that kind.

The sea by now was coming inboard regularly, and Bess knew she should

be carrying less sail; but it would mean a lot of time to reef the

mainsail, and if she was to get on there was small time for reefing,

'specially as the wind was hauling to the east. A beat home now, as

Captain Leary warned her, 'twould be. Surely she would never be home by

daylight now. And colder now it was. Ay, it was. She drew the tarpaulin

over her knees, and that helped to keep off the spray which, as it

splashed up from her bows, was carried aft in sheets before every

squall.

And those squalls were frequent. And little pellets of hail were

thickening the air. And over the tarpaulin that covered her the ice was

making. Sailin' by the wind, 'tis terrible cold. She was becoming

drowsy--hard work to keep from falling asleep. Good enough for her--ay,

good enough, her father would say--dancin' half the night and carryin'

messages to strangers the other half.

The air softened and that was some relief; but in place of the awful

cold--and still cold enough--was now the snow. And in that snow-storm,

with the wind continually veering, she knew at last she must have run

off her course; for the sound of the surf beating against the rocks came

to her.

And what would that be? What now? Ay, Shark's Fin Ledge it must be. She

must ha' sailed wi' too free a sheet, arter all. Ay, she must ha'. Time

to come about now. But not so much sail on! Well, sail or no sail, it

was time to come about. About she was comin'--ay--she was--no!--ay----

Over came the boom, and then high it skied, and then the wind took it

and slit the sail from boom to gaff and off to leeward went the sloop.

Too much sheet that time, thought poor Bess, and could have cried at

herself. And might have cried if she had nothing else to do. But no time

now. Her little sloop was rolling and pitching in the seas, and

drifting, always drifting; and in that snow there was no seeing how fast

she was drifting in to the ledge; but fast enough, no doubt.

No use wailing over it. Bess took to bailing, and the work kept her from

thinking overmuch of herself; only she couldn't help picturing her

father with his Bible, and her stepmother waiting up for her. And

Sammie? Never another dance or kiss from Sammie. And oh, the black

disgrace of it if she was lost in the bay, when maybe they found her

body ground to pieces on the ledge! There would be those who would

say--what wouldn't they say--of her that couldn't hide her likin' for

him up to the dance at Shepperd's?