THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA
The morning after they got back to Mackinac Margaret invited Mr.
Harcourt to take a walk with her, and for almost the first time since he
had known her she left Philip behind. Bess looked at them a little
wonderingly when they went out, and still more so when they returned,
for Margaret's face showed traces of tears and John Harcourt was
unusually serious.
She had led the way to the fort steps and on the top landing where so
many confidences have been shared, she told him her story. She had
agreed with Mrs. Pennybacker the night before that the time had come now
when he should be told. It seemed almost his right. She had told it very
simply, not striving after effect; but the pathos of that story was in
the situation, not in any words that might be used to depict it.
Harcourt was strongly moved by what he heard.
As they neared the hotel on their return she said to him, "I am known
here only as Mrs. Osborne. Perhaps you'd better continue to call me so."
"Let me call you Margaret," he begged. "I cannot bear to call you by a
false name and I do not dare to use your true one." And she consented,
for she felt that her confidence, far more than anything that he could
call her, had set the seal upon their friendship.
After this he fell into the habit of looking out for her, of going to
the boats when they came in and haunting the hotels. True, Smeltzer had
told him he was on his way to Chicago, but he had not implicit
confidence in that gentleman's word. But though he kept up a close
surreptitious watch, no Smeltzer appeared.
It was perhaps a week after this that the party with the exception of
Mrs. Pennybacker started off for a two days' trip up to the "Soo," as
the interesting little town of Sault Sainte Marie, with its rapids and
its great ship canal, is called.
They went off in high spirits, and a little later Mrs. Pennybacker saw
their handkerchiefs waving to her from the little steamer, _John A.
Paxton_. Indeed, Margaret had seemed like another person after learning
that Smeltzer was on his way to Chicago. That proved to her that he was
not looking for her, or that he had given up the search in this part of
the country at any rate. There was probably no safer place for them
anywhere now than right here.
The boat was almost ready to start when they reached it, and they lost
no time in securing good places on the landward side of the stern where
they could see all that was to be seen of the receding island. This took
them away from the dock side, to Philip's great distress, and Margaret
said at last,
"Go over to that side where you can watch them if you want to." Philip
joyfully obeyed, and from the deck looked down with a child's interest
on the moving life below. This was immensely more interesting to him
than any view of land or sea could be.
He was not alone in the feeling. A man below who was evidently not a
dock hand stood idly scanning the people on deck. A little child with
long curls and a girl's hat and dress leaned over the railing. The man
had formed the habit of noticing children, a very pleasant habit in any
one, but somewhat unusual in a man of his type.
"Hello, little girl," he called up.
Philip ignored the friendly greeting. The situation was very cruel. It
was bad enough to have to wear these detestable girl's clothes, but to
be taunted with femininity by a person he had never in his life seen
before--this was rather too much. His mother had cautioned him never to
speak to strangers and never upon any account to disclose the secret of
his sex--but his mother was now at the other side of the boat and he
felt sure he was leaving this man for good. The _John A. Paxton_ was
even now drawing in her cable. He looked around him, dropped his voice
to a safe pitch, and announced defiantly as the boat pulled off,
"I isn't any girl! I'm a boy!"
"The--devil you are!" the man said, whistling softly, and swung himself
over the low rail.
The marine view with Mackinac receding in the west is not so beautiful
as the approach from the other side, but it was attractive enough to
enlist the close attention of our party as long as there was a green
shore in sight.
"Upon my word," said Harcourt at last, looking off to the north, "there
is the light-house that tells us we will soon be at our first
stopping-place. I'll go down and see what the chances are for dinner."
He came back in a few moments and drew his chair close to Margaret.
"I don't want to alarm you unnecessarily, but I am afraid there is
trouble ahead of us. I have just seen that fellow Smeltzer again....
Yes, down on the lower deck."
Margaret called Philip to her and caught him up with a despairing
gesture. "Do you really suppose he is after us?" she asked with dry
lips.
"I am afraid he is. I shouldn't have said anything about it if it hadn't
been for a word I overheard him say to the captain about his being an
officer and authorized to take 'them' into custody when he reached the
'Soo'."
"But what can I do?" asked Margaret. "There is no possible chance now to
get away."
"I think," said Harcourt, after a moment's thought, "that I would take a
stateroom and keep Philip out of sight until I can have a talk with the
man. I will try to make an opportunity without exciting his suspicions.
If I find out definitely that it is you he was talking about I think
perhaps it might be well for you to invoke the captain's
assistance,--and don't lose heart; we have the day before us in which to
concoct some scheme to outwit him."
"But on the water--" Margaret said despairingly.
She went at once to see the stewardess about a room, Philip--frightened
and mystified at her still face--clinging to her, and Bess following,
not much less alarmed.
The stewardess was a buxom Irish girl, and if ever a face indicated a
good heart it was Norah Brannigan's. Looking into it and realizing her
sore need of a friend, Margaret called her into the room after she had
sent Bess back to Mr. Harcourt, took the woman's freckled hand, and
poured out her sorrows and her fears.... And would she not help her?
In her desperate need she had thrown herself upon an utter stranger, but
she had not read amiss the honest face.
"'Will I help you?' Sure, mem, and it is Norah Brannigan will do that
same! I wud do it for the swate eyes of ye, darlint, to say nothin' o'
divilin' that black-hearted vilyan--come aboard a dacent boat for the
purpose o' stalin' your b'y, bad luck to him! And what is it ye was
wantin' me to do, mem?"
"I want you to hide us," said Margaret hurriedly, brought face to face
with the emergency by Norah's question,--"hide us anywhere you can about
the boat--down in the hold, if you haven't any other place." She said it
with a vague remembrance of the stowaways crossing the ocean thus. "And
then tell him that we are not here--that we have fallen
overboard--anything--to throw him off the track." Then, with sudden
fear, "Would you mind telling what was not true to save my boy?"
"Divil a bit wud I moind!" said Norah, with a snap of her brown eyes.
"Sure, mem, it wud rej'ice the heart of Norah Brannigan to lie to a
vilyan loike that--bad luck to him!--st'alin' women's childer that they
have borne--Ah-h! they're a bad lot, mem, is men--a bad lot!--barrin'
Michael Callaghan, who is as foine a b'y as ye wud wush to see. There's
few loike him--more's the pity! But whisht now, who is this divil you're
a-fearin' and what is he loike?"
Margaret described the man as far as she was able.
"I seen him!" cried Norah Brannigan. "I seen him shtandin' on the dock
a-talkin' to this blissed child jist as we was castin' off--after the
plank was in--and then he took a handspring, he did, over the rail."
"Philip!"
"Mama!... mama!... I didn't say anything--only--only--" It ended in a
burst of weeping.
"Only what, Philip?" She was wild with anxiety. "Tell mama what you
said."
"Only that--that--mama!... I thes told him--I--wasn't--any--girl-l!"
"Oh, Philip! Philip!"
While mother and son were thus reckoning their accounts Norah Brannigan
had on her thinking cap, and this article on the head of an Irish girl
often covers quick wits.
"You are dead sure, mem, that this man will get the child once we reach
the 'Soo'?"
"Oh, yes, yes! I am perfectly certain of it now."
"Well," said Norah Brannigan, with an encouraging wink of her left eye,
"what's the matter wid givin' him the shlip?"
"How can I--away off here in the Lake?" Margaret asked despairingly.
"We are not in the Lake now, mem, nor in the Straits of Mackinac,
nayther. We are at this moment enterin' St. Mary's River, mem, and sure
it is a good omen that it is named for a mother that had to run off wid
her own child. Pray to her, mem! pray to her!" Then, her religious sense
appeased, she went on with shrewd acumen, "And wud ye take a chance,
now?"
"I would do anything! anything!"
"And cud the gur-l or b'y, whichever it is by that time--" she was
looking down sternly at Philip, winking one eye at Margaret
meantime--"cud he be depinded on, mem? because," added Norah Brannigan,
cruelly, "ef he should turn baby now, and git skeered--and cry--or
blab--" she spoke slowly, that he might take it all in, and Philip was
regarding her with the closest attention--"why, he wud upset our whole
kittle o' fish, mem."
Philip turned to his mother with the most earnest protestation.
"Mama, I _won't_! I won't cwy--or--or b-blag--or upset any fish!"
"I think," said Margaret, taking the little tear-stained face between
her palms and looking searchingly into his eyes, "I think--I
believe--that he can be depended on. Now, what is your plan?"
The stewardess took her to the stateroom window and pointed over to the
mainland at the left.
"Ye see them houses, and the shmoke--there just beyant the light-house
on the point?"
"Yes, yes."
"That, mem, is Detour, our first shtop. Within the hour we'll be there,
and--"
"Well?"
"--and there," said Norah Brannigan, with a nod and a significant
closing of her left optic, "is where we give him the shlip."
"Oh, we can't! we can't!" cried Margaret, in despair. "Don't you know
that he will be on the watch for everybody that leaves the boat? If
there was only somebody there to help us!" Margaret groaned. "But
alone--"
"Sure, mem, and there is."
"Who?"
"Michael Callaghan."
"And who is Michael Callaghan?"
"A dock hand at Detour,--and as foine a b'y as ye cud wush to see." Then
with a very conscious look on her honest face, "And what Michael
Callaghan wuddent do for Norah Brannigan--why, mem, it can't be done!
Now, set down here on the berth, darlint, and let me tell ye me plan."
* * * * *
As the _Paxton_ made the landing at Detour Bess and John Harcourt stood
on deck just above the gangway and watched the scene with interest,
though it must be confessed that Bess had many disturbing qualms of
conscience at enjoying anything while Margaret, shut up in her
stateroom, was in such straits. She felt that she ought to go and share
her isolation, but Mr. Harcourt had pointed out that if Smeltzer
happened to be sauntering around it would be better for it to appear
that they were not on their guard. He convinced her that there would be
ample time for conference and sympathy after they left Detour, and she
might as well see what was to be seen there. There is something very
fascinating about watching a boat's unloading at a country landing, and
in the end she yielded and stayed, compounding with her conscience by a
vow to go the minute the boat started again.
Detour is on the west side of St. Mary's River and has an unusually
broad dock with a warehouse at the right, and another much farther back
on the left. This makes a broad frontage which was unbroken that day by
even a goods-box or a barrel. If Norah Brannigan was hoping to hide her
proteges behind a chance pile of lumber or the usual impedimenta of a
dock, there seemed scant hope for her here. Detour had all the time
there was, and used it in taking care of her freight. The road trailed
off up the hill where was "the store," a blacksmith's shop, and a
somewhat pretentious hotel. On the dock lounged half a dozen men who
enlivened the time of waiting by sparring with one another.
A coil of rope was thrown out to one of them who caught it with a
dextrous hand. In a moment the great cable was over the post and the
_John A. Paxton_ crunching against the timbers of the dock. Then the
gangway was shoved out and the passengers were going off.
"How many do you say will get off?" said Harcourt. "Quick!"
"Oh,--twenty."
"Twenty! I'll say four--caramels against a cigar."
"All right!"
One man followed by a dog had already stepped ashore. A country woman,
in a blue calico with a dejected looking back and a sunbonnet, followed,
and then a half-grown boy. That was all. The dock hands brought out a
couple of plows, a crated sewing machine, and a white iron bedstead with
brass knobs. Then they went aboard and reappeared in a minute with a
line of wheelbarrows loaded with soap boxes, nail kegs, etc. Detour
evidently bought by the small quantity.
"Are the passengers all gone?" asked Bess, incredulously. "Surely that
isn't all."
"That's all. I've won as usual."
"You didn't win! You said four and there were only three."
"Four!"
"Three. Just three."
"Three? You can't count. There were four passengers--two men, one woman,
and a dog. There! fifty cents, please!"
The last wheelbarrow, trundled by a sturdy Irish lad, had in it a
clothes-basket with a blue-check apron tied neatly over it.
"Look out there, Moike!" cried the stewardess, springing to the side of
the basket and steadying it across the narrow gangway. "Don't ye drop me
table linen or--ye might git dropped yeself--see?" She said it with a
saucy air and leaned toward him threatening a friendly cuff which he
dodged while the man in front looked back and laughed good humoredly.
"Give it to him!" he said.
"She just wants to flirt with him," said Harcourt. "That's the way you
all make fools of us. Well, I don't suppose they have much to enliven
their days."
As he said, it was not much time that Norah had with her sweetheart that
day, but it was enough. As the cable was pulled in she called out gayly,
"Put them clothes in the warehouse, Moike, till the wash-lady comes.
She'll be there 'gin two o'clock."
The woman in the blue calico was toiling up the dusty street. She had
not waited to see the unloading.
As the boat headed up-stream Bess started up.
"I _must_ go and see about Margaret. I feel too mean for anything!"
"Wait just a minute and see these islands. Aren't they pretty?"
They were indeed, and of assorted sizes,--some, tiny disks of
green--some, larger, with low grassy banks extending out from the copse
like a green fringe--and beyond, the wooded shores of St. Joseph which
looked as if it might be the mainland. But Bess would not stay to see.
She was not gone long. When she came back she looked cautiously around
and went close up to him.
"Margaret is gone!"