OUT OF FREEKIRK HEAD
"OH, I wouldn't think of such a thing for a minute!"
Captain Bijonah Turner waved his hand with an air of finality and
favored his daughter with a glare meant to be pregnant with parental
authority.
"But, father, listen to reason!" cried Nellie; "here is mother to take
care of the three small children, and here am I with nothing whatever
to do. Be sensible and let me go along. I certainly ought to be able
to help in some way."
"But," expostulated the captain, "girls don't go on fishing-trips."
"Suppose the cook should fall sick or be hurt, then I would come in
handy, wouldn't I? But all this is not the real point. Things are
different with us than they have ever been before; we have no home,
and mother and the children have to board with Ma Sprague. If I stayed
here I should be a burden, and I couldn't stand that."
Bijonah scratched his head and looked at the girl helplessly. He had
yet to score his first victory over her in an argument.
"Have you asked your mother?" he queried at last, seeking his
time-worn refuge.
"Yes," said she, brightening at the imminence of victory, "and she
says she thinks it will be just the thing."
"All right," said Bijonah weakly; "come along then. But mind, you'll
find things different. Your mother is boss of any land she puts her
foot on, but once I get the _Rosan_ past Swallowtail _my_ word goes."
"All right, daddy dear," laughed the girl; "I know you'll be just the
finest captain I ever sailed with." She kissed him impulsively and ran
up-stairs to tell her mother the good news.
The departure of the fleet from Grande Mignon was a sad day in the
history of the island.
The sun had hardly shown red and dripping from the sea when all the
inhabitants were astir. Men from as far south as Seal Cove and Great
Harbor clattered up the King's Road in rickety vehicles, accompanied
by their families and their dunnage.
In Freekirk Head alone less than ten men would be left ashore. Of
these, one was Bill Boughton, the storekeeper, who was to arrange for
the disposal of the catch; but the others were either incapacitated,
sick, or old. The five aged fishermen, who subsisted on the charity
of the town, formed a delegation on one stringpiece to wave the fleet
farewell.
Altogether there were fifteen boats, ten schooners, and five sloops,
carrying in all more than a hundred and twenty-five men. The whole
resource of the island had been expended to provide tubs of bait and
barrels of salt enough for all these, let alone the provisions.
The men either shipped on shares or, if they were fearful of chance,
at a fixed monthly wage "and all found," to be paid after the proceeds
of the voyage were realized.
There was not a cent of Grande Mignon credit left in the world, and
there was no child too small to realize that on the outcome of this
venture hung the fate and future of the island.
It was a brilliant day, with a glorious blue sky overhead and a
bracing breeze out of the east. Just beyond Long Island a low stratum
of miasmic gray was the only shred of the usual fog to be seen on the
whole horizon. In the little roadstead the vessels, black-hulled or
white, rode eagerly and gracefully at their moorings, the bright sun
bringing out the red, yellow, green, blue, and brown of the dories
nested amidships.
At seven o'clock the steamer _Grande Mignon_ blew a great blast of her
whistle, cast off her lines, and cleared for St. Andrew's and St.
Stephens. Tooting a long, last salute, she rolled out into Fundy and
out of sight around the point.
For these men breakfast was long past, but there were the myriad last
details that could not be left undone; and it was fully eight o'clock
before the last dory was swung aboard and the last barrel stowed.
Then there came the clicking of many windlasses and the strain of many
ropes, and to the women and girls who lined the shore these noises
were as the beatings of the executioner's hand upon the cell-door of a
condemned man.
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 scrape
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 passage, 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 passed 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!