SHE'S ALL THE WORLD TO ME
When the crew of the "Ben-my-Chree" had recovered from their first
consternation on seeing the body of Kisseck rise to the surface and
shoot away like a spectre boat, they hoisted sail and stood once more
out to sea. The gentle breeze filled the canvas, and for half an hour
the jib lay over the side, while the fishing-boat scudded along like a
startled bird.
The sun rose over the land, a thin gauze obscuring it. The red light
flashed and died away as if the wind were the sunshine. The haggard
faces of the men caught at moments a lurid glow from it. In the west a
mass of bluish cloud rested a little while on the horizon, and then
passed into a nimbus of gray rain-cloud that floated above it. Such was
the dawn and sunrise of a fateful day.
They were sailing north; they had no haven in their view. But Peel was
behind them. Think what home is to the fisherman who goes down into the
great deep. Then know that to them home could be all this no longer. The
silvery voices of girls, the innocent prattle of little children, the
welcome of wife, the glowing hearth--these were theirs no more. Then
belly out, brave sail, and back off with a noise like thunder; let the
blocks creak, and the ropes strain. Anywhere, anywhere, away from the
withering reproach of the crime of one and the guilt of all.
But they were standing only two miles off Jurby Point when once more the
wind fell to a dead calm. The men looked into each other's faces. Here
was the work of fate. There was to be no flying away; God meant them to
die on these waters. The sail flapped idly; they furled it, and the boat
drifted south.
Then one after one sat down on the deck, helpless and hopeless. Hours
went by. The day wore on. A passing breath sometimes stirred the waters,
and again all around was dumb, dead, pulseless peace. Hearing only the
faint flap of the rippling tide, they drifted, drifted, drifted.
Then they thought of home once more, and now with other feelings. Death
was before them--slow, sure, relentless death. There was to be no
jugglery. Let it be death at home rather than death on this desert sea.
Anything, anything but this blind end--this dumb end; this dying bit by
bit on still waters. To see the darkness come again and the sun rise
afresh, and once more the sun sink and the darkness deepen, and still to
lie there with nothing around but the changeless sea, and nothing above
but the empty sky, and only the eye of God upon them, while the winds
and the waters lay in His avenging hand. Let it rather be death--swift
death, just death--there where their crime was attempted, and one black
deed was done.
Thus despair took hold of them and drove all fear away. Each hard man,
with despair seated on his rugged face, longed, like a sick child, to
lay his head in the lap of home.
"What's it saying?" muttered the old man Quilleash, "'A green hill when
far away; bare, bare when it is near.'"
It was some vague sense of their hopelessness that was floating through
the old man's mind as he recalled the pathetic Manx proverb. The others
looked down at the deck with a stony stare.
Danny still lay forward. When the speck that had glided along the waters
could be seen no more, he had turned and gazed in silence toward the
eastern light and the distant shores of morning. If madness be the
symbol on earth of the tortures of the damned, Danny had then a few
hours' blessed respite. He saw calmly what he had done and why he had
done it. "Surely, God is just," he thought: "surely He will not condemn
me; surely, surely not." Then, amid surging inward tears, which his eyes
refused to shed, the simple lad tried to recall the good words that he
had heard in the course of his poor, neglected, battered life. One after
one they came back to him, most of them from some far-away and hazy
dream-world, strangely bright with the vision of a face that looked
fondly upon him, and even kissed him tenderly. "Gentle Jesus!" and "Now
I lay me down to sleep"--he could remember them both pretty well, and
their simple words went up with the supplicatory ardor of his great
grown heart to the sky on which his longing eyes were bent.
The thought of Mona intertwined itself with the yearning hope of pardon
and peace. It sustained him now to think of her. She became part of his
scheme of penitence. His love for her was to redeem him in the Father's
eye. He was to take it to the foot of God's white throne, and when his
guilt came up for judgment he was to lay it meekly there and look up
into the good Father's face. God had sent him his great love, and it was
not for his harm that he had sent it.
Then a film overspread his sight, and when he awoke he knew that he had
slept. He had seen Mona in a dream. There was a happy thought in her
face. She loved and was beloved. Everything about her spoke of peace.
All her troubles were gone forever. No, not that either. In her eyes was
the reflection of his own face, and sometimes it made them sad. At the
memory of this the dried-up well of Danny's own eyes moistened at last
to tears.
The cold, thick winter day was far worn toward sunset. Not a breath of
wind was stirring. Gilded by the sun's rays, the waters to the west made
a floor of bleared red. The fishing-boat had drifted nearly ten miles to
the south. If she should drift two miles more she must float into the
southeasterly current that flows under Contrary Head. The crew lay
half-frozen on the deck. No one cared to go below. All was still around
them, and silence was in their midst. At last a man lifted his head, and
asked if any one could say what had become of Christian. No one knew.
Old Quilleash thought he must have come by some mischief, and perhaps be
captured or even dead. It was only the general hopelessness of their
hearts that gave a ready consent to this view of the possibilities. Then
they talked of Christian as if he were no longer a living man.
"He didn't want to be in it, didn't the young masther," said one.
"Did you see how he was for cris-crossin' and putting up obstacles at
every turn?" said another.
"That was nothin' to the way he was glad when we saw the lad's fire over
the Lockjaw, and had to make a slant for it and leave the thing not
done."
"Aw, well, well," said Quilleash, "it was poor Bill that's gone, God
help him, that led the young masther into the shoal water. What's it
sayin'--'Black as is the raven, he'll get a partner;' but Bill, poor
chap, he must be for makin' a raven out of a dove."
"God won't be hard on the masther. No, no, God'll never be hard on a
good heart because it keeps company with a bad head."
"It'll be Bill, poor chap, that'll have to stand for it when the big
days comes," said Davy Cain.
"No, not that anyway. Still, for sure, it's every herring must hang by
his own gill. Aw, yes, man," said Tommy Tear.
"Poor Masther Christian," said Quilleash, "I remember him since he was a
baby in his mother's arms--and a fine lady, too. And when he grew up it
was, 'How are you, Billy Quilleash?' And when he came straight from
Oxford College, and all the larning at him, and the fine English tongue,
and all to that, it was, 'And how are you to-day, Billy?' 'I'm middlin'
to-day, Masther Christian.' Aw, yes, yes, a tender heart at him anyhow,
and no pride at all, at all."
The old man's memories were not thrilling to narrate, but they brought
the tears to his eyes, and he brushed them away with his sleeve.
They were now drifting past Peel, two miles from the coast. It was
Christmas Eve. Old Quilleash thought of this, and they talked of
Christmas Eves gone by, and of what happy days there had been. This was
too tender a chord, and they were soon silent once more. Then, while the
waters lay cold and clear and still, and the sun was sinking in the
west, there came floating to them from the land through the breathless
air the sound of church-bells. It was the last drop in their cup. The
rude men could bear up no longer. More than one dropped his head on to
his knees and sobbed aloud. Then Quilleash, in a husky voice, and
coarsely, as if ashamed of the impulse, said, "Some one pray, will you?"
"Ay," said another. "Ay," said a third. But no one prayed.
"You, Billy," said one. The old man had never known a prayer.
"You, Davy." Davy shook his head. None could pray.
All lay quiet as death around them. Only the faint sound of the bells
was borne to them as a mellow whisper.
Then Danny rose silently to his feet. No one had thought of asking him.
With that longing look in his big eyes, he turned to the land and began
to sing. He was thinking of Mona. All his soul was going out to her. She
was his anchor, his hope, his prayer. The lad's voice, laden with tears,
floated away over the great waters. This was what he sang:
"Her brow is like the snaw-drift,
Her neck is like the swan,
Her face it is the fairest
That e'er the sun shone on;
That e'er the sun shone on.
* * * * *
"And she's a' the world to me;
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me doon and dee."
The boy's eyes were bright with a radiant brightness, and glistening
tears ran down his face in gracious drops like dew. The men hung their
heads and were mute.
All at once there came a breath of wind. At first it was as soft as an
angel's whisper. Then it grew stronger and ruffled the sea. Every man
lifted his eyes and looked at his mates. Each was struggling with a
painful idea that perhaps he was the victim of a delusion of the sense.
But the chill breath of the wind was indeed among them. "Isn't it
beginning to puff up from the sou'-west?" asked one, in a hoarse
whisper.
At that Davy Cain jumped to his feet. The idea of the supernatural had
already gone from him, at least. "Now for the sheets, and to make sail,"
he cried.
As mate formerly, Davy constituted himself skipper now.
One after one the men got up and bustled about. Their limbs were
wellnigh frozen stiff.
"Heave hearty, men; heave and away."
All was stir and animation in an instant. Pulling at the ropes, the men
had begun to laugh--yes, with their husky, grating, tear-drowned voices
even to laugh.
"Bear a hand, men. We're drifting fast into the down-stream to
Contrary," cried Davy.
Then a gruesome sense of the ludicrous took hold of him. It was the
swift reaction from solemn thoughts.
"Lay on, Quilleash, my man. Why, you're going about like a brewing-pan.
What are your arms for, eh?"
The old fellow's eyes, that had been dim with tears a moment ago,
glistened with grisly mischief.
"Who hasn't heard that a Manxman's arms are three legs?" he said, with a
hungry smile.
How the men laughed! What humor there was now in the haggard old saw!
"Where are you for, Davy?" cried one.
"Scotland--Shetlands," answered Davy, indefinitely.
"Hooraa! Bold fellow. Ha, ha, ha, he."
"I've been there before to-day, Davy," said Quilleash; "they're all poor
men there; but it's right kind they are. Aw, yes, it's safe and well
we'll be when we're there. What's it sayin'?--'When one poor man helps
another poor man, God laughs.'"
How they worked! In two minutes mainsail and mizzen were up, and they
filled away and stood out. But they had drifted into the down-stream,
though they knew it not as yet.
From the shores of death they had sailed somehow into the waters of
life. Hope was theirs once more.
They began to talk of what had caused the wind. "It was the blessed St.
Patrick," said Killip. St. Patrick was the patron saint of that sea,
and Killip was a Catholic and more than half an Irishman.
"St. Patrick be--" cried Davy Cain, with a scornful laugh. They got to
high words, and at length almost to blows.
Old Quilleash had been at the tiller. His grisly face had grown ghastly
again. "Drop it, men," he cried, in a voice of fear. "Look yander! D'ye
see what's coming?"
The men looked toward the west. The long, thin cloud which Danny knew as
the cat's-tail was scudding fast in the line of their Starboard quarter.
"Make all snug," cried Davy.
A storm was coming. It was very near; in ten minutes it was upon them.
It was a terrific tempest, and they knew now that they were in the
down-stream.
The men stared once more into each others' faces. Their quips were gone;
their hopeful spirits had broken down.
"God, it's running a ten knots' tide," shouted Quilleash.
"And we're driving before it--dead on for Peel," answered Davy, with an
appalling look of fear toward the west, where the wind was seen to be
churning the long waves into foam.
Danny saw it all, but there was no agony in his face and no cry of dread
on his lips. "I think at whiles I'd like to die in a big sea like that."
His despair was courage now.