THE EQUINOCTIAL GALE
When Sanford arrived at Keyport, a raw, southeast gale swept through
the deserted streets. About the wharves of the village itself idle
stevedores lounged under dripping roofs, watching the cloud-rack and
speculating on the chances of going to work. Out in the harbor the
fishing-boats rocked uneasily, their long, red pennants flattened
against the sky. Now and then a frightened sloop came hurrying in with
close-reefed jib, sousing her bow under at every plunge.
Away off in the open a dull gray mist, churned up by the tumbling
waves, dimmed the horizon, blurring here and there a belated coaster
laboring heavily under bare poles, while from Crotch Island way came
the roar of the pounding surf dashed headlong on the beach. The
long-expected equinoctial storm was at its height.
So fierce and so searching were the wind and rain that Sanford was
thoroughly drenched when he reached Captain Joe’s cottage.
“For the land’s sake, Mr. Sanford, come right in! Why, ye’re jest’s
soakin’ as though ye’d fell off the dock. Cap’n said ye was a-comin’,
but I hoped ye wouldn’t. I ain’t never see it blow so terrible, I
don’t know when. Gimme that overcoat,” slipping it from his shoulders
and arms. “Be yer feet wet?”
“Pretty wet, Mrs. Bell. I’ll go up to my room and get some dry
socks”—
“Ye ain’t a-goin’ to move one step. Set right down an’ get them shoes
off. I’ll go for the socks myself. I overhauled ’em last week with the
cap’n’s, and sot a new toe in one o’ them. I won’t be a minute!” she
cried, hurrying out of the room, and returning with heavy woolen socks
and a white worsted sweater.
“Guess ye’ll want these, too, sir,” she said, picking up a pair of
slippers.
“Where is Captain Joe?” asked Sanford, as he pulled off his wet shoes
and stockings and moved closer to the fire. It was an every-day scene
in Aunty Bell’s kitchen, where one half of her visitors were wet half
the time, and the other half wet all the time.
“I don’t jes’ know. He ain’t been home sence Saturday night but jes’
long ’nough to change his clothes an’ git a bite to eat. Come in from
the Ledge Saturday night on the tug two hours after the Screamer
brought in the men, an’ hollered to me to go git Caleb an’ come down
to the machine shop. You heared they broke the pump on the
h’istin’-engine, didn’t ye? They both been a-workin’ on it pretty much
ever sence.”
“Not the big hoister?” Sanford exclaimed, with a start, turning pale.
“Well, that’s what the cap’n said, sir. He an’ Caleb worked all
Saturday night an’ Sunday, an’ got a new castin’ made, an’ bored it
out yesterday. I told him he wouldn’t have no luck, workin’ on Sunday,
but he didn’t pay no more ’tention to me than th’ wind a-blowin’. It
was to be done this mornin’. He was up at five, an’ I ain’t seen him
sence. Said he was goin’ to git to the Ledge in Cap’n Potts’ cat-boat,
if it mod’rated.”
“He won’t go,” said Sanford, with a sigh of relief now that he knew
the break had been repaired without delay. “No cat-boat can live
outside to-day.”
“Well, all I know is, I heared him tell Lonny Bowles to ask Cap’n
Potts for it ’fore they went out,” she replied, as she hung Sanford’s
socks on a string especially reserved for such emergencies. “Said they
had two big cut stone to set, an’ they couldn’t get a pound o’ steam
on the Ledge till he brought the pump back.”
Sanford instinctively looked out of the window. The rain beat against
the panes. The boom of the surf sounded like distant cannon.
“Ye can’t do nothin’ with him when he gits one o’ his spells on,
noways,” continued Aunty Bell, as she raked out the coals. “Jes’ wait
till I grind some fresh coffee,—won’t take a minute. Then I’ll git
breakfast for ye.”
Sanford stepped into the sitting-room, closed the door, took off his
coat and waistcoat, loosened his collar, pulled on the sweater, and
came back into the kitchen, looking like a substitute in a game of
football. He always kept a stock of such dry luxuries in his little
room upstairs, Aunty Bell looking after them as she did after the
captain’s, and these rapid changes of dress were not unusual.
“How does Betty get on?” asked Sanford, drawing up a chair to the
table. The bustling little woman was bringing relays of bread, butter,
and other comforts, flitting between the pantry and the stove.
“Pretty peaked, sir; ye wouldn’t know her, poor little girl; it’d
break yer heart to see her,” she answered, as she placed a freshly
baked pie on the table. “She’s upstairs now. Cap’n wouldn’t let her
git up an’ go to work this mornin’, it blowed so. That’s her now
a-comin’ downstairs.”
Sanford rose and held out his hand. He had not seen Betty since the
memorable night when she had stood in his hallway, and he had taken
her to Mrs. Leroy’s. He had been but seldom at the captain’s of late,
going straight to the Ledge from the train, and had always missed her.
Betty started back, and her color came and went when she saw who it
was. She didn’t know anybody was downstairs, she said half
apologetically, addressing her words to Aunty Bell, her eyes averted
from Sanford’s face.
“Why, Betty, I’m glad to see you!” exclaimed Sanford in a cheery tone,
his mind going back to Mrs. Leroy’s admonition.
Betty raised her eyes with a timid, furtive glance, her face flushed
scarlet, but, reading Sanford’s entire sincerity in his face, she laid
her hand in his, saying it was a bad day, and that she hoped he was
not wet. Then she turned to help Mrs. Bell with the table.
Sanford watched her slight figure and care-worn face as she moved
about the room—hardly a trace in them of the Betty of old. When Aunty
Bell had gone down into the cellar, he called Betty to him and said in
a low voice, “I have a message for you.”
She turned quickly, as if anticipating some unwelcome revelation.
“Mrs. Leroy told me to give you her love.”
Betty’s eyes filled. “Is that what she said, Mr. Sanford?”
“Every word, Betty, and she means it all.”
The girl stood fingering the handles of the knives she had just laid
upon the cloth. After a pause, Sanford’s eyes still upon her face, she
answered slowly, with a pathos that went straight home to his heart:—
“Tell her, please, sir, that I thank her so much, and that I never
forget her. I am trying so hard—so hard—I promised her I would. You
don’t know, Mr. Sanford,—nobody won’t never know how good she was to
me. If I’d been her sister she couldn’t ’a’ done no more.”
It was but a slight glimpse of the girl’s real nature, but it settled
for Sanford all the misgivings he had had. It sent a quiver through
him, too, as his mind reverted to Kate’s own account of the interview.
He was about to tell her of Mrs. Leroy’s expected arrival at Medford,
and urge her to go over some Sunday, when Aunty Bell bustled in with a
covered dish.
“Come, child,” she said, “sit right down alongside o’ Mr. Sanford an’
git your breakfas’. You ain’t eat a morsel yet.”
There were no seats of honor and no second table in this house, except
for those who came late.
Here a sharp, quick knock sounded on the outer door, and in stalked
Captain Bob Brandt, six feet or more of wet oilskins, the rain
dripping from his sou’wester, his rosy, good-natured face peering out
from under the puckered brim.
“Cap’n Joe sent me down to the station for ye, sir, in case ye come,
but I missed ye, somehow. Mr. Carleton was on the platform, an’ said
he see ye git off. Guess ye must ’a’ come cross lots.”
“Did Mr. Carleton mention anything about receiving a telegram from me,
saying I wanted to see him?” inquired Sanford, as he shook the
skipper’s hand.
“Yes, sir; said he knew yer was comin’, but that he was goin’ over to
Medford till the storm was over.”
Sanford’s brow knit. Carleton had evidently avoided him.
“Did he leave any message or letter with Captain Joe?” Sanford asked,
after a pause. He still hoped that the coveted certificate had finally
been signed.
“Guess not, sir. Don’t think he see ’im. I suppose ye know Cap’n Joe’s
gone to the Ledge with the new pump?”
“Not in this storm?” cried Sanford, a look of alarm overspreading his
face.
“Yes, sir, half an hour ago, in Cap’n Potts’ Dolly. I watched ’em till
they run under the P’int, then I come for you; guess that’s what got
me late. She was under double reefs then, an’ a-smashin’ things for
all she was worth. I tell ye, ’t ain’t no good place out there for
nobody, not even Cap’n Joe.” As he spoke he took off his hat and
thrashed the water from it against the jamb of the door. “No, thank
ye, ma’am,” with a wave of his hand in answer to Mrs. Bell’s gesture
to sit down opposite Betty. “I had breakfast ’board the Screamer.”
“Who’s with him?” exclaimed Sanford, now really uneasy. Captain Joe’s
personal safety was worth more to him than the completion of a dozen
lighthouses.
“Caleb and Lonny Bowles. They’d go anywheres cap’n told ’em. He was
holdin’ tiller when I see him last; Caleb layin’ back on the sheet and
Lonny bailin’. Cap’n said he wouldn’t ’a’ risked it, only we was
behind an’ he didn’t want ye worried. I’m kind’er sorry they started;
it ain’t no picnic out there, I tell ye.”
Betty gave an anxious look at Aunty Bell.
“Is it a very bad storm, Cap’n Brandt?” she asked, almost in a
whisper.
“Wust I ever see, Mis’ West, since I worked round here,” nodding
kindly to Betty as he spoke, his face lighting up. He had always
believed in her because the captain had taken her home. “Everything
comin’ in under double reefs,—them that _is_ a-comin’ in. They
say two o’ them Lackawanna coal-barges went adrift at daylight an’
come ashore at Crotch Island. Had two men drownded, I hear.”
“Who told you that?” asked Sanford. The news only increased his
anxiety.
“The cap’n of the tow line, sir. He’s just telegraphed to New Haven
for a big wreckin’ tug.”
Sanford told Captain Brandt to wait, ran upstairs two steps at a time,
and reappeared in long rubber boots and mackintosh.
“I’ll walk up toward the lighthouse and find out how they are getting
on, Mrs. Bell,” he said. “We can see them from the lantern deck. Come,
Captain Brandt, I want you with me.” A skilled seaman like the skipper
might be needed before the day was over.
Betty and Aunty Bell looked after them until they had swung back the
garden gate with its clanking ball and chain, and had turned to breast
the gale in their walk of a mile or more up the shore road.
“Oh, aunty,” said Betty, with a tremor in her voice, all the blood
gone from her face, “do you think anything will happen?”
“Not ’s long ’s Cap’n Joe’s aboard, child. He ain’t a-takin’ no risks
he don’t know all about. Ye needn’t worry a mite. Set down an’ finish
yer breakfas’. I believe Mr. Sanford ain’t done more ’n swallow his
coffee,” she added, with a pitying look, as she inspected his plate.
The fact that her husband was exposed in an open boat to the fury of a
southeaster made no more impression upon her mind than if he had been
reported asleep upstairs. She knew there was no storm the captain
could not face.