Fisherman's Cove was a long way from Mrs. Stump's boarding-house, but
that fact gave Sally no concern. And Fisherman's Cove was much changed
from the Cove that Uncle John used to tell her about, where he had
been used to go to see the men haul the seines. Its waters had been
fouled by the outpourings of a sewer, and the fish had deserted them
years before; but that would not make the ice any the less attractive
with a young moon shining upon it.
And the way to Fisherman's Cove was not the way that Uncle John had
been in the habit of taking. His way, fifty years before, had led him
out upon a quiet country road until he came to a little lane that led
down, between high growths of bushes, to a little farmhouse. The
farmhouse had overlooked the Cove. Sally could not go through the
little lane to the little old farmhouse, because the farmhouse was not
there now, and because there was a horrible fence of new boards right
across the lane. They had been building mills on the shores of
Fisherman's Cove for thirty years; and the ice ponds on which the boys
and girls of thirty years before used to skate--Miss Patty had skated
there, often--were no longer ice ponds, but thriving mill villages,
with their long rows of brilliantly lighted windows and their neat
tenements, the later ones of three stories, each story having its neat
clothes-porch. If you don't know what a clothes-porch is, just go down
there and see for yourself. And these neat tenements of three stories
each sheltered I don't know how many families of Portuguese
mill-workers, who may have been neat, but who probably were not.
Thriving! Ugh! as Miss Patty invariably said, turning her head away.
She did not have to go that way often, but when she did have to she
preferred to shut her eyes until her horse had taken her past it all.
Besides, Mrs. Stump's was not on Apple Tree Street, but in a much less
fashionable neighborhood; one which had been fashionable some seventy
or eighty years before. As fashion left that street and moved upon the
ridge, the fine old houses--for they were fine old houses, even
there--gradually fell in their estate. The way from Mrs. Stump's to
Fisherman's Cove did not lie by that thriving mill village which has
been mentioned, but by other thriving mill villages, with their
tenements which, being older, were presumably not so neat. There was
little to choose between the ways. Either was disagreeable enough,
especially at any time when the hands were in the street, and no girl
would have chosen such a time to walk upon that road. Even Sally would
have avoided it; but the mill-hands were now shut up in their mills
and working merrily or otherwise, and she did not give the matter a
thought.
As she started upon her road, a man who had been leaning negligently
upon a post at the next corner, bestirred himself, unleaned, and came
toward her. Sally glanced up at him and stopped. "Oh, dear!" she said,
in a voice of comical dismay. "Oh, dear! And I promised mother that I
wouldn't do anything rash."
The man continued to come toward her. He had a leisurely air of
certainty which ordinarily would have antagonized Sally at once.
"Well, Sally?" he said questioningly, when he was near enough to be
heard without raising his voice.
"Well, Everett," Sally returned, with some sharpness. "I should really
like to know what you were doing on that corner."
"Doing?" he asked in surprise. "Why, nothing at all. I was only
waiting for you."
"And why," she said, with more sharpness than before, "if you were
waiting for me, didn't you come to the house and wait there?"
"I don't like to go to boarding-houses and wait," he replied, smiling.
"I have a prejudice against boarding-houses, although I have no doubt
that Mrs. Stump's is an excellent house. And my going there might
excite some comment."
"Is it your idea," Sally retorted quickly, "that your waiting on the
next corner will not excite comment? There has been too much comment
already."
"Well, Sally, what if there has been a certain amount of it? We don't
care, do we?"
"I am not sure that we don't," she answered slowly, looking him in the
face thoughtfully. "I am not sure. In fact, I think we do."
He flushed a little under her direct gaze. That subject was not to be
pursued.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"I am going for a walk," she replied; "for a long walk. And I--"
"Then you'd better ride," he said quickly, interrupting her. "I can
get Sawny in five minutes. Where will you be?"
"No," Sally spoke earnestly. "Don't. I'd rather not. I prefer to walk.
And, Everett, I'd rather you wouldn't go with me. I want to take this
walk alone."
Everett was surprised. It was rather a shock to find that he wasn't
wanted.
"Oh," he said coldly. "Very well. I hope you will have a most pleasant
walk to--wherever you are going."
Sally's heart was too tender. Everett seemed hurt, and she didn't like
to feel that she had hurt him. "I am going to Fisherman's Cove," she
said.
"Fisherman's Cove! But you know that will take you through the heart
of milltown."
"Yes, but the mills aren't out. I'll come back early."
"It's not a way for a girl to choose."
Sally smiled. "I'll be all right, I think."
Everett shrugged his shoulders. "You'd much better let me drive you.
We can go to the Cove as well as elsewhere."
Sally shook her head gently.
"As you please," he said; and he shrugged again and turned away.
Sally looked after him for a moment. "Oh, dear," she sighed. "Now I've
offended him--mortally, I suppose. But it doesn't matter. I was
forgetting. Nothing really matters." It didn't matter. It might be
better if she had offended him mortally if he would stay offended.
So Sally put aside all thoughts of Everett and resumed her walk. She
had no great difficulty in putting aside thoughts of him. I do not
know what her thoughts were, as she walked on towards the Cove, but it
is safe to say that they were not of Everett. She must have been
thinking pretty deeply of something, for she took her way
unconsciously and without seeing where she was going; and she passed
the few people that she met without seeing them or being conscious
that they were there. Walking so, like one asleep, she came to the end
of that street, where it runs into River Street.
River Street is a dirty street. Its best friends could not say more
for it. The reason is not far to seek; and a part of that reason is
that, for many years--say sixty years or even seventy--it has served
for a residence street for the same class of people. Residence street
is perhaps rather a high-sounding name for it. You may use any other
words that you like better, for River Street, from the point where
Sally entered it to within a half-dozen blocks of the centre of the
town, was, for long years, the one place where certain people lived.
It was so wholly given up to those people that it was known as Fayal;
and Fayal had a reputation which was not altogether savory. The
inhabitants of this local Fayal were, in the old days, sailors, and
sailors of the roughest sort; with crimps and sharks and women of
several kinds, and an occasional overlord. There were no mills to
speak of, twenty-five years ago, at this end of the town. When the
mills began to come, the inhabitants of Fayal--at least, some of
them--sent for their friends from the islands, and the friends, in
turn, sent for their families; the old sailor class, the rough men
with gold hoops in their ears, gradually died off and the reputation
of River Street improved. Like the street itself, it is not yet
altogether savory.
At River Street, Sally began to find herself among the tenements, for
Fayal had lain in the other direction and the old River Street had
faded out, right here, into the remains of a country road which ended
at the beach, not half a mile beyond. There was no country road now,
and the less said about this particular part of the beach the better.
Sally paused for an instant and looked about her. From this point on,
River Street was a continuous row of tenements, very neat and tidy
tenements, no doubt, at a distance. There was no gleam in that same
distance which betokened the Cove, only the neat and tidy tenements,
horribly neat and tidy. Sally felt a sinking of the heart or somewhere
about that region, although I believe it is not the heart that sinks.
"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed, under her breath. "I had forgotten that it
was so forlorn. I will hurry through it. I wish I could shut my eyes,
as Patty does, but I suppose I shall need to see."
So she hurried along, past the rows of tenements, past the few women
that she met and past the small children playing in the street. The
women paid no attention to her, being intent upon their own business
and having enough of it to keep them well occupied. She passed a mill,
with its throbbing of looms and its clattering and clicking of
spindles. The long rows of windows were just beginning to be lighted
as she passed. She went on, past more tenements, less closely set, and
past another mill. The windows of this second mill were already
lighted, and the same throbbing and clattering came faintly to her
ears. In front of this mill was a broad street, almost a square, and
beyond the street an open lot,--I had almost said a field, but it
lacked one essential to being a field,--evidently used by the
population, old and young, as a playground. This lot was surrounded by
the remains of an old stone wall, a relic of the better days, when it
had been a field. Now, there was no vestige of vegetation; no living
thing. A pig would have died of starvation in that lot. Both street
and lot were covered with frozen mud and dirty snow, and a film of
repulsive dirt, that would not wash off, coated the old stones of the
wall. The whole place filled Sally with disgust. If these mills had to
be somewhere, why must they put them here? Why must they? Weren't
there other places, without robbing--
Sally broke off. She had been almost talking aloud to herself in
fierce rebellion. Mills! Mills! Nothing but mills! They had taken up
every foot of the shore in Whitby except what was occupied by the
wharves. What were the people thinking of, that they suffered it? They
had seen foot after foot, mile after mile, of shore given to the
mills, and not a single feeble voice had been raised to prevent. They
had seen the mills stretch forth surreptitious, grasping hands and
take unto themselves pieces of their beautiful old shore road, a
quarter of a mile at a time. That road had been unequaled for beauty,
thirty years before. Sally had heard Patty speak of it often, mourning
its loss. She, herself, had seen great stretches of that shore taken
by the mills within the past ten years, and she had not known enough
to speak or even to care. The people were mill-mad--or sleeping.
Well--and Sally sighed--a haughty spirit before destruction; just
before it, she hoped. A thousand times rather the few hardened
sailor-men in their place than that horde everywhere.
It is to be feared that Sally was getting excited; and it is to be
feared that she was not truly democratic. Well, she was not and she
never pretended to be. What of it? She never pretended to be what she
was not. And as she thought these thoughts, she came out from behind
the third mill and gave a little gasp of delight. There lay
Fisherman's Cove, its frozen surface saffron and blue and crimson; and
the clouds above golden and saffron and crimson, with lavender and
purple in the shadows. The sun had just gone down behind another mill
on the opposite shore. Sally stumbled on--she didn't dare take her
eyes off that--but she stumbled on, as fast as she could, past the few
scattered tenements which lay between her and the open road, and she
sat down on a great stone that was part of the old sea-wall. For at
this point the road ran close to the waters of the Cove, and the
beach, with its load of broken ice, was at her feet. And she sighed
again and sat there, watching, and a great peace fell upon her spirit
and she was content.
Sally gazed, first at the sky and then at the ice of the Cove; and the
golden lights upon the clouds changed to saffron and the saffron to
crimson and the purple deepened. In the ice, the green which had
lingered in places changed to blue and the blue to indigo and the
saffron and crimson darkened and were gone. Ah! This was worth while.
Was anything else worth while? What did she care, sitting there, for
schools or mills or anything, indeed, but sitting there and gazing?
She half turned and looked out into the bay where sky and water meet.
She could not tell which was water and which was sky, for both had
become a dull slate-blue. She looked again at the Cove. The color had
gone, but there was a faint silvery light from a young moon which hung
above the mill on the opposite shore. And from the windows of the mill
shone other lights. These mills were rather picturesque at night and
at a distance; they were rather pretty--of a kind. Sally did not care
for that kind. The greater the distance, the more picturesque they
were. Sally laughed to herself at the thought. Her laugh was gay
enough and it would have done her mother's heart good to hear it. She
was content; so content that she took no heed of the time, but she sat
there until the young moon had sunk, in its turn, almost to the mill,
and she roused herself and found that she was cold, which was not
strange. And it was too late for a girl to be going past the mills;
which was not strange either. If she was going, she had better be
about it. So she got up from the great stone, took a last long look at
the fast-darkening sky, shivered and started back, at a good pace,
along the road.
She passed the last mill and, as she came to the corner of the fence,
she heard the roar of many feet coming out. They burst through the
doorway and she heard them pattering on the frozen mud behind her. But
it was dark and she was well ahead.
At the second mill, the one of the broad square and the open lot, she
saw the crowd of mill-hands pouring out of the gate as she approached.
The crowd swelled and overflowed the sidewalk and then the street and
poured over the wall into the lot, slowly, like some huge stream of
molasses. As Sally continued on her way, she met this human stream
coming toward her; but it divided before her and closed behind her,
letting her through slowly. They are a peaceable, law-abiding set, for
the most part, but the mill lays its heavy hand upon them. The older
ones among them went stolidly to their kennels; but a few of the
mill-girls looked after Sally and made quite audible remarks about her
and giggled and laughed and nudged the men. And the men--the young
men--looked back at her and thought--but I don't know what they
thought. I only know that two of them, of mixed race, turned and
followed on after her.
Sally was not aware that she was being followed, but many of the
mill-girls were, and the giggling and the laughter grew, until Sally
turned to see the cause. Having seen, she did not change her pace, but
pursued her way steadily without again looking back or seeming to know
of her two followers. The crowd ahead, going north, and the crowd
behind her, going south, were well separated by this time, and there
was a wide space between them. In this space were only Sally and the
two men, now close behind her, and a few stragglers. In this way they
went on for some distance, while the crowd ahead gradually melted away
into the tenements on either side; and they were within a few blocks
of the corner where Sally would turn off of River Street. The street
was not well lighted and it was deserted.
The men came up, one on either side of Sally, and one of them said
something to her, too vile to be recorded. Sally kept her eyes
straight ahead and she thought rapidly. She was not exactly
frightened, but she was thinking what she had better do. It would do
little good to scream. The outcome of such a course was doubtful and,
besides, Sally was not the kind of a girl who screams easily or at
all. She meditated fighting. She could have put up a good fight; but
there were two of the men and they would have been pleased with a
fight, two men against one girl. What else was there for her to do?
She could run, and she could run well; so well that there was an even
chance, perhaps, that she could run faster and last longer than those
mill-trained men. Eight or ten years of the mill do not help a man's
lungs much or his morals. The dust, you know,--it seems to get into
their morals as well as into their lungs. If only she didn't have
skirts to bother her; but her skirt was neither tight nor very long.
The man repeated his vile speech; and Sally darted away, gathering her
skirts as she ran.
The men had been taken by surprise, but they put out after her as fast
as they could, laughing. This was sport; and although laughter is not
recommended for runners, they managed to gain a little at first. After
that first burst, they ceased to gain, but they held their own, and
the chase sped merrily along River Street, a scant five yards
separating the hunters from their quarry. Sally reached her corner and
turned off of River Street, passing under the light of a street lamp
as she made the turn. Coming down that street was a man. Sally did not
see very well, for he was not in the full light and, besides, her eyes
were full of tears because of her running. But the man gave a start
and an exclamation and he began to run and he ran into those men like
a locomotive, and he swung at one of them and hit him and knocked him
into the middle of the street, so that he landed on the back of his
neck in the roadway and lay limp and still. The other would have run
away, but the man caught him around the neck with his left hand and
cast him as far as his fellow, rolling over and over.
"Damn you!" he cried low. "No, you don't. Damn you!"
Doubtless he was forgiven that cry, even as Sally forgave it. She had
stopped and was leaning against a fence. When she saw the men go into
the street, one after the other, she gave a quick chuckle of delight.
She may have been a little hysterical. It would not have been strange.
The second man who had been so summarily cast into the road was rising
slowly, muttering and half sobbing. The first man continued to lie
limp and still, and the man who had cast him there advanced slowly
toward him; upon which that other ceased beating the dust from his
clothes and edged away, muttering more loudly threats and
vituperations. The man continued to advance, but he raised his head
into the full light from the street lamp and he laughed shortly.
"You'd better be off," he said. "Get out, and hurry about it."
Sally saw his face well enough in the dim light and she knew the
voice. She had not really needed to recognize either, for she knew
well enough, in her heart, who it was that had come to her aid in the
nick of time. She chuckled again with delight, then drew a shivering
breath and gave a sob. There was no doubt about it, Sally was
hysterical. She knew that she was and she stifled the sob in her
throat. She despised hysterics. And she laughed a little because she
couldn't help it, and she went to him.
He was kneeling in the road and he had the man's head upon one knee
and was feeling him gently. He raised his head as she came near.
"I can't tell whether I have hurt him or not. It's awkward. We can't
leave him lying here in the street, although he deserves no better
treatment. I wish I had a horse here. You don't happen to know of one,
do you, Sally?"
"N--no," she answered slowly, "not near here. I suppose I could get
Sawny, if you would wait."
Fox laughed. "I don't want to ask Everett for Sawny."
"Neither do I." The sound of a horse's hoofs came to them faintly.
"There's one now. I'll run to the corner and stop him." And, before
Fox could make any reply, she was off, running.
The sound of the horse's hoofs stopped and presently came on, down the
street.
"Hello!" cried a voice. "Is that Doctor Sanderson? What can I do?"
"It's Eugene Spencer, Fox," remarked Sally, getting out. "Wasn't that
luck?"
"Yes," said Jane, "wasn't it? Shall I take Sally home?"
Fox and Sally both preferred that he should take the man.
"I hate to ask you to take him out to my hospital," said Fox
apologetically, "but I don't know of anything better. I'll telephone
them before you can get there, and I'll be out within an hour. I don't
think he's seriously hurt."
So they bundled the man in, and Jane drove off, rather crestfallen.
For his part, he thought that he ought to take Sally home first, at
least. The man still lurking in the shadows hurled vile epithets and
obscenities and ran after Jane.
Fox laughed a little, nervously. "Hope he has a pleasant chase. He'll
hardly catch Spencer." Eugene was already at the corner. "My first
patient, Sally, although the Retreat is not open yet. This man is not
the kind of patient I shall hope to have, but it seemed better to send
him there and avoid publicity. We can take good care of him. Hello!"
There was some kind of an uproar just around the corner. It lasted
only a moment and then Eugene came driving back, alone.
"That man of yours," he said, pulling up short, "recovered very
suddenly, rolled out, and the pair of them ran down the street like
scared rabbits. I didn't chase them, for I thought that you would
probably be glad enough to get rid of him."
"I am," Fox replied, with evident relief. "He can't be much hurt. I'm
much obliged to you, Spencer."
"Shan't I take Sally home? Or there's room for both of you, if you
don't mind a little crowding."
"We will walk home, thank you, Jane," said Sally, with the finality he
had come to expect. "I haven't seen Fox for a long time and I have a
lot to say to him."
So Eugene, muttering something under his breath, made a very short
turn, in which process he very nearly tipped over, and gave his horse
a cut with the whip. The animal, which was not expecting this and did
not deserve it, gave a bound and they were gone.
Sally chuckled. "Display of temper on Mr. Spencer's part," Fox
observed, "wholly uncalled for. Bad for the horse, too. I judge that
he is not the equal of Everett as a horse trainer."
Sally's chuckling broke out afresh. "No, he's not, I'm afraid. Those
displays of temper are not unusual. Now, Fox, come along."
Fox was a little surprised--just a little--to feel Sally's hand within
his arm, but he did know better than to show his surprise, if there
were some things that he didn't know. If he had only known,
he--well--but Sally was speaking to him.
"Now, Fox," she was saying, "how in the world did you happen to turn
up just at that moment? You were in the nick of time."
"Oh, I don't know about that. You would probably have left them. They
were about all in, both of them. But I didn't happen to turn up. It
wasn't any accident. I was looking for you."
Unconsciously, Sally tightened her hold upon his arm. "Oh," she
murmured, "that was nice!"
"I only got here this afternoon," Fox continued, paying no obvious
attention to her murmured remark, "and I went right to Mrs. Stump's. I
found your mother a little upset and rather anxious, but I didn't
succeed in finding out what it was about." He did not say--perhaps he
did not know--how upset Mrs. Ladue had been. She had been torn by
conflicting emotions, and she showed evidences of it. But there had
been never a moment's hesitation about the course she would pursue.
Only she had raised troubled, tearful eyes to Fox, and had said--but
what Mrs. Ladue had said forms no part of this chronicle. Whatever she
said, she did not tell him clearly of the rumors connecting Everett's
name with Sally's. He would hear those rumors soon enough, if there
was anything in them; if there was not, for that matter.
Sally had been thinking. "I am afraid," she said softly, "that it was
about me. I hoped she was all over it when I left."
Fox turned his head and looked at her, but he did not reply to her
remark directly. "She said that you had gone for a walk, but she
didn't know where. I waited a long time, thinking you might come in.
Your mother and I had a long talk."
Sally would have given a good deal to know what the long talk was
about. "It--it isn't true, Fox," she began slowly.
"What! It is true, too. We talked for an hour and forty minutes, while
I was waiting. I know."
Sally laughed nervously. "I--I meant that anything you may hear about
me isn't true."
"Clear as mud, Sally. Well, I'll remember. Anything that I hear about
you isn't true. But I'm not likely to hear the voice of rumor
especially if it's about you."
Sally made no reply to this, and Fox went on. "When it began to grow
dark, I made some inquiries, and I found a certain person who had seen
you go out; and you had met a man at the next corner--Who was the man,
Sally?"
"Everett," Sally replied briefly; and she started to say more, but
thought better of it--or worse, as you like--and shut her lips tight
together.
"Oh, yes, she said she thought it was Everett. I thought that,
perhaps, she was mistaken."
"No," said Sally, "she was not mistaken."
"Hum!" said Fox, smiling to himself; but Sally could not see that.
"And this exceedingly well-informed person said that you and Everett
evidently had a spat on the street corner, and that he went off, mad."
"Yes," said Sally, nodding. She might have known that Fox couldn't see
the nod.
"Too bad!" said Fox. "Exemplary young man--especially one who has seen
the world and who has as perfect manners as Everett wishes it to be
thought that he has--shouldn't go off mad. Very young. It reminds one
of your young friend, Spencer. We should expect him to go off mad,
shouldn't we, Sally?"
Sally chuckled again. "We should."
"Well," Fox resumed, "finding that you had been last seen hiking down
the street without male escort, Everett having got mad and declined to
play and gone home,--it is to be hoped that he had gone home,--I put
out after you, lippety-clippety. All the male inhabitants of Whitby
seem to think that is their chief end in life."
"Oh, Fox," said Sally faintly, "they don't."
"They do," Fox insisted; "all except Dick." He laughed. "Speaking of
Dick reminds me that I have something to tell you if you don't let me
forget it. Well, loping along that way, I came to the historic
corner--of what street?"
"River Street. How did you happen to come that way?"
"Followed my nose. You had gone along this street. So did I. You came
to the corner. So did I, and I nearly ran into you."
She shivered a little. Fox felt it, and held his arm closer to him.
"Are you cold, Sally?"
"No." She spoke low. "But I'm glad you came, Fox. I'm very glad."
"So am I, for several reasons not to be catalogued at present." They
had almost reached Mrs. Stump's. "Oh, I was going to tell you
something in connection with Dick. Henrietta's engaged. She wanted me
to tell you. So, it is to be presumed, is Dick."
"I'm very glad, but I'm not surprised. I don't suppose Henrietta
expected me to be."
"She didn't mention it, so you don't have to be."
"I'll write to her to-night. So that accounts for Dick's mysterious
disappearances."
"He's been visiting us at your old place, Sally. He was so much
interested in seeing your favorite trees and in hearing about you,
that Henrietta felt rather jealous."
Sally laughed derisively. They were standing at the foot of Mrs.
Stump's fine granite steps. Fox was silent for a moment, looking at
Sally.
"I know," he said at last thoughtfully, "I know where there are some
gynesaurus trees near Whitby."
Sally's face lighted up. "Could a person climb them, Fox?"
"A person about twenty-two years old?" asked Fox. "I should think she
might if she is able."
"She is able," she returned, nodding emphatically. "Will you tell me
where they are?"
"Some day," Fox answered, not looking at her, "I will show them to
you."