Captain Hap had reached the years when a trip to the Grand Banks is
hard work, dory fishing off the coast a doubtful pleasure, and even
yachting in an industrial capacity is a burden. He had a quick eye,
a kind heart, a soft foot, and the gentle touch strangely enough
sometimes to be found in hands that have hauled in the cod-line
and the main-sheet for fifty years. In short, Captain Hap made an
excellent nurse, and sometimes served his day and generation in
that capacity.
Bayard lay on the straw mattress under the photograph of Leonardo’s
Christ, and thoughtfully watched Captain Hap. It was the first
day that conversation had presented itself to the sick man in the
light of a privilege; and he worked up to the luxury slowly through
intervals of delicious silence.
“Captain Hap, I am quite well now--as you see. I must speak next
Sunday.”
“Call it Sunday arter,” suggested Captain Hap.
“It was only a scratch on the head--wasn’t it, Cap’n? And this
cold. It _is_ a bad cold.”
“For a cold, yes, sir; quite a cold. You see, it anchored onto
your lungs; there air folks that call such colds inflammation.
That there cut on the head was a beautiful cut, sir; it healed as
healthy as a collie dog’s, or a year-old baby’s. We’ll have you
round, now, sir, before you can say Cap’n Hap!”
“Cap’n Hap?”
“Well, sir?”
“You’ve done something for me--I don’t know just what; whether it’s
my life that’s saved, or only a big doctor’s bill.”
“Ask Mrs. Granite, sir, and that there handy girl of hers; we’re
all in it. You kept the whole crew on deck for a few days. You was
a sick man--for a spell.”
“Captain, I am a well man now; and there’s one thing I will know.
I’ve asked you before. I’ve asked when I was out of my head, and
I’ve asked when I was in it, and I’ve never got an answer yet.
_Now_ I’m going to have it.”
“Be you?” said Captain Hap. His small, dark, soft eyes twinkled
gently; but they took on lustre of metal across the iris; as if a
spark of iron or flint had hit them.
“It is time,” said Bayard, “that I knew all about it.”
“Meaning”--began the captain softly.
“Meaning everything,” said Bayard impatiently. “The whole story.
It’s the best thing for me. I dream about it so.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed your dreams was bad,” replied the nurse
soothingly.
“Captain, where’s the Clara Em?”
“To the bottom,” responded the fisherman cheerfully.
“And the men? The crew? Her captain? Job Slip? How many were
drowned? Out with it, Cap’n! I’m not very easy to deceive, when I’m
in my senses. You may as well tell me everything.”
“Mebbe I mought,” observed the captain. “Sometimes it’s the best
way. There wasn’t but one of ’em drowned, sir,--more’s the pity.”
Bayard uttered an exclamation of shocked rebuke and indignation;
but the old captain sat rocking to and fro in Mrs. Granite’s best
wooden rocking-chair, with the placid expression of those who rest
from their labors, and are not afraid that their works should
follow them.
“Fellars that’ll take a new fisherman--a regular dandy like
that--and smash her onto Ragged Rock, bein’ in the condition those
fellars were, ain’t _worth_ savin’!” said the seaman severely.
“Your treasurer here, J. B. S. Bond, he says last time he come to
see you, says he: ’The whole of ’em warn’t _worth_ our minister!’”
“I must speak to Mr. Bond about that,” said the young man with a
clerical ring in his voice. “It wasn’t a proper thing for him to
say.--Who was drowned, Captain Hap?”
“Only Johnny,” replied the captain indifferently. “He was born
drunk, Johnny was; his father was so before him; and three uncles.
He ain’t any great loss.”
“Did you see Johnny’s mother, Captain,--on the cliff, there,--that
night?”
“I didn’t take notice of her particular,” replied Captain Hap
comfortably. “I see several women round. There’s usually a good
many on the rocks, such times.”
“Well, you’ve got me,” said Bayard with a smiling sigh. “I’m a
little too weak to play the parson on you yet, you Christian
heathen--you stony-hearted minister of mercy!”
“Sho!” said the captain. “’Tain’t fair to call names. I can’t hit
back; on a sick man.”
“Very well,” said Bayard, sinking back on his thin, small pillows.
“Just go ahead and tell me the whole business, then. Where is Job
Slip?”
“Off haddockin’.”
“Sober?”
“So far. He’s come over here half a dozen times, but the doctor
wouldn’t let him up to see you. His wife come, too. That woman,
she’d kiss the popples[1] underneath your rubber-boots.”
“Where’s Johnny’s mother?”
“They took her to the Widders’ Home yesterday. Some of ’em
screeches all the way over. Folks say she never said nothing.”
“What became of all those men--the crew and captain?”
“Why, they waited till ebb, just as I told you. Then they come
ashore, the whole twelve on ’em. The crew they come first, and
Cap’n Salt--that’s Joe Salt--he follered after. There was some
folks waited round to see ’em off--but it come up dreadful thick,
spite of the breeze; so thick it had stems to it. You couldn’t
see the vessel, not a line of her, and ’twas kinder cold and
disagree’ble. So most the folks went home. But they got ashore,
every man-jack of ’em alive.”
“Thank God!” breathed the sick man.
“Well,” said the captain, “that’s a matter of opinion. You’ve
talked enough, sir.”
“Just one more, Cap’n Hap! Just this! This I’ve _got_ to know. What
was it--exactly--that those men did? How did they come to be in
such a plight? How in the world--that beautiful new boat--and an
intelligent officer at the helm, Captain--how on earth did it come
about?”
“The Clara Em was sot to sail,” replied Captain Hap calmly.
“That’s about all. Her owners they were sot, and her cap’n he was
sot. It was the sotness done it. They’d make the market first,
you see, if they got the start--and it’s a job gettin’ your crew
aboard, you know. Anything to get your crew. Drunk or sober, that
isn’t the point. Drunker they be, the easier to ship ’em. _See? Get
your crew._ Get ’em anyhow! They was all full, every mother’s son
of ’em. Cap’n Joe, he was the only sober soul aboard, and that’s
the truth, and he knew it when he set sail. Yes--oh, yes. The storm
was comin’. He knew it was breezin’ up.--Oh, yes, of course. So
he got some sober men off the wharves to help him at the sheets,
and he put up every stitch. Yes, sir! Every stitch he had! And
out he sails--with thirteen drunken men aboard--him at the wheel,
and not a hand to help him. That’s the English on’t. The boat was
d----drunk, beg your pardon, Parson! He driv right out the harbor,
and it was a sou’easter, and blew quite a breeze o’ wind, and you
see he tacked, and set in, and he was tackin’ out, and it had
breezed up consider’ble more’n he expected. So he drove right on
the reef. That’s about it.”
“But why didn’t he take in sail?”
“How was he goin’ to do it with that crew? Why, he couldn’t leave
the wheel to tie a reef-point.”
“But there was his anchor.”
“Did you ever try to heave one of them big anchors? It takes four
men.”
“What a situation! Horrible!”
“Wall, yes; it was inconvenient--him at the wheel, and a dead drunk
crew, thirteen of ’em, below. Why, they was too drunk to know
whether they drowned or not.”
“Can the boat be raised? Will she ever be good for anything?”
“Kindlin’ wood,” remarked the captain dryly.
“Captain Hap,” asked Bayard feebly, “do things like this often
happen?”
“Sometimes.”
“Isn’t this an extreme case?”
“Well, it don’t happen every day.”
“But things of this kind--do they occur often? Do you know of other
cases?”
“Windover don’t have the monopoly of ’em by no means,” mused
Captain Hap. “There was the Daredevil over on South Shore. She was
launched about a year ago. She went on a trial spin one day, and
everybody aboard was pretty jolly. They put all their canvas up to
show her off. It was a nor’wester that day, and they driv her right
before the wind. She jest plunged bows down, and driv straight to
the bottom, the Daredevil did. Some said it was her name. But,
Lord, rum done it.”
“What do people say--how do they take it here in Windover, this
case of the Clara Em? Weren’t they indignant?”
“Wall, the insurance folks was mad.”
“No, but the people--the citizens--the Christian people--how do
they feel about it?”
“Oh, they’re used to it,” said Captain Hap.
Bayard turned wearily on his hard bed. He did not answer. He looked
out and towards the sea. The engraved Guido over the study-table
between the little windows regarded him. St. Michael was fighting
with his dragon still.
“_He_ never got wounded,” thought the sick man.
“Captain,” he said presently, “these rooms seem to be full
of--pleasant things. Who sent them all?”
“Them geraniums and other greens? Oh, the ladies of the mission,
every mother’s daughter of ’em, married and single, young an’ old.
Jellies? Lord! Yes. Jellies enough to stock a branch grocery. What
there _is_ in the female mind, come to sickness, that takes it out
in jellies”--mused the captain.
“I’ve taken solid comfort out of this screen,” said Bayard
gratefully. “I did suffer with the light before. Who sent that?”
“That’s Jane Granite’s idee,” replied the captain. “She seems to
be a clever girl. Took an old clo’es-horse and some rolls of wall
paper they had in the house. They give fifteen cents a roll for
that paper. It’s kinder tasty, don’t you think? ’Specially that
cherubim with blue wings settin’ on a basket of grapes.”
“That reminds me. I see--some Hamburg grapes,” said Bayard, with
the indifferent air of a man who purposely puts his vital question
last. He pointed to a heaping dish of hothouse fruit and other
delicacies never grown in Windover.
The captain replied that those come from the Boston gentleman;
they’d kept coming all along. He thought she said there was a card
to ’em by the name of--
“Worcester?” asked the sick man eagerly.
That was it. Worcester.
“He hasn’t been here, has he? The gentleman hasn’t called to see
me?”
The nurse shook his head, and Bayard turned his own away. He would
not have believed that his heart would have leaped like that at
such a little thing. He felt like a sick boy, sore and homesick
with the infinite longing for the love of kin. It was something to
know that he was not utterly forgotten. He asked for one of the
Boston pears, and ate it with pathetic eagerness.
“There’s been letters,” said the captain; “but the doctor’s orders
are agin your seeing ’em this week. There’s quite a pile. You see,
its bein’ in the papers let folks know.”
“In the papers! _What_ in the papers?”
“What do you s’pose?” asked the captain proudly. “A fellar don’t
swim out in the undertow off Ragged Rock to save a d---- fool of a
drunken fisherman every day.”
“I’ll be split and salted!” added the fisherman-nurse, “if we
didn’t have to have a watchman here three nights when you was
worst, to keep the reporters off ye. Thirteen Windover fellars
volunteered for the job, and they wouldn’t none of ’em take a cent
for it. They said they’d set up forty nights for you.”
“For _me_?” whispered the sick man. His eyes filled for the first
time since the Clara Em went ashore on Ragged Rock. Something new
and valuable seemed to have entered life as suddenly as the comfort
of kin and the support of friends, and that bright, inspiriting
atmosphere, which one calls the world, had gone from him. He had
not expected that precious thing--the love of those for whom we
sacrifice ourselves. He felt the first thrill of it with gratitude
touching to think of, in so young and lovable a man, with life and
all its brilliant and beautiful possibilities before him.
* * * * *
It was an April night, and sea and sky were soft in Windover.
A stranger stood in Angel Alley hesitating at a door, which bore
above its open welcome these seven words:--
“THE CHURCH OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST.”
“What goes on here?” the gentleman asked of a bystander.
“Better things than ever went on here before,” was the reply.
“They’ve got a _man_ up there. He ain’t no dummy in a minister’s
choker.”
The stranger put another question.
“Well,” came the cordial answer, “he has several names in Angel
Alley: fisherman’s friend is one of the most pop’lar. Some calls
him the gospel cap’n. There’s those that prefers jest to say, the
new minister. There’s one name he _don’t_ go by very often, and
that’s the Reverend Bayard.”
“He has no right to the title,” murmured the stranger.
“What’s that?” interposed the other quickly. The stranger made no
reply.
“Some call him the Christ’s Rest man,” proceeded the bystander
affably.
“That is a singular--ah--remarkable cognomen. How comes that?”
“Why, you see, the old name for this place was Seraph’s Rest--it
was the wust hell in Angel Alley--see? before he took it up an’ sot
to prayin’ in it. So folks got it kinder mixed with the Love of
Christ up on that sign there. Some calls the place Christlove for
short. I heerd an I-talian call him the Christman t’other day.”
The stranger took off his hat by instinct, it seemed unconsciously;
glanced at the inscription above the door, and passed thoughtfully
up the steep, bare stairs into the hall or room of worship.
The service was already in progress, for the hour was late, and
the gentleman observed with an air of surprise that the place was
filled. He looked about for a comfortable seat, but was forced to
content himself with standing-room in the extreme rear of the hall.
Crowds overflowed the wooden settees, brimmed into the aisles, and
were packed, in serried rows as tight as codfish in a box, against
the wall. The simile of the cod was forced upon the visitor’s mind
in more senses than one. A strong whiff of salt fish assailed him
on every side. This was varied by reminiscences of glue factories,
taking unmistakable form. An expression of disgust crossed the
stranger’s face; it quickly changed into that abstraction which
indicates the presence of moral emotion too great for attention to
trifles.
The usual New England religious audience was not to be seen in the
Church of the Love of Christ in Angel Alley. The unusual, plainly,
was. The wealth and what the “Windover Topsail” called the society
of Windover were sparsely represented on those hard settees. The
clean, sober faces of respectable families were out in good force;
these bore the earnest, half-perplexed, wholly pathetic expression
of uninfluential citizens who find themselves suddenly important
to and responsible for an unpopular movement; a class of people
who do not get into fiction or history, and who deserve a quality
of respect and sympathy which they do not receive; the kind of
person who sets us to wondering what was the personal view of the
situation dully revolving in the minds of Peter and the sons of
Zebedee when they put their nets to dry upon the shores of Galilee,
and tramped up and down Palestine at the call of a stronger and
diviner mind, wondering what it meant, and how it would all end.
These good people, not quite certain whether their own reputations
were injured or bettered by the fact, sat side by side with men and
women who are not known to the pews of churches. The homeless were
there, and the hopeless, the sinning, the miserable, the disgraced,
the neglected, the “rats” of the wharves, and the outcasts of the
dens.
The stranger stood packed in, elbow to elbow between an Italian
who served the country of his adoption upon the town waterworks,
and a dark-browed Portuguese sailor. American fishermen, washed
and shaven, in their Sunday clothes, filled the rear seats.
Against the wall, lines of rude, red faces crowded like cattle
at a spring; men of the sea and the coast, men without homes or
characters; that uninteresting and dangerous class which we dismiss
in two idle words as the “floating population.” Some of these men
were sober; some were not; others were hovering midway between
the two conditions: all were orderly, and a few were listening
with evidences of emotion to the hymn, in which by far the greater
portion of the audience joined. A girl wearing a Tam o’ Shanter and
a black fur cape, and singing in a fine, untrained contralto, held
her hymn-book over the settee to the Italian.
“Come, Tony! Pass it along!” she whispered, “I can get on without
it. Make ’em pile in and sing along the wall, there!”