their lives----"
"You never can tell."
"I'd not chance it again for----"
"We isn't drowned yet."
"Yet!" Rowl exclaimed. "No--not yet! We've a minute or so for
prayers!"
Tommy Lark laughed.
"I'll get under way now," said he. "I'm not so very much afraid o'
failin'."
* * * * *
There was no melodrama in the situation. It was a commonplace peril of
the coast; it was a reasonable endeavor. It was thrilling, to be
sure--the conjunction of a living peril with the emergency of the
message. Yet the dusk and sweeping drizzle of rain, the vanishing
lights of Scalawag Harbor, the interruption of the lane of water, the
mounting seas, their declivities flecked with a path of treacherous
ice, all were familiar realities to Tommy Lark and Sandy Rowl.
Moreover, a telegram was not a letter. It was an urgent message. It
imposed upon a man's conscience the obligation to speed it. It should
be delivered with determined expedition. Elsewhere, in a rural
community, for example, a good neighbor would not hesitate to harness
his horse on a similar errand and travel a deep road of a dark night
in the fall of the year; nor, with the snow falling thick, would he
confront a midnight trudge to his neighbor's house with any louder
complaint than a fretful growl.
It was in this spirit, after all, touched with an intimate solicitude
which his love for Elizabeth Luke aroused, that Tommy Lark had
undertaken the passage of Scalawag Run. The maid was ill--her message
should be sped. As he paused on the brink of the lane, however,
waiting for the ice to lie flat in the trough, poised for the spring
to the first pan, a curious apprehension for the safety of Sandy Rowl
took hold of him, and he delayed his start.
"Sandy," said he, "you be careful o' yourself."
"I will that!" Sandy declared. He grinned. "You've no need t' warn me,
Tommy," he added.
"If aught should go amiss with you," Tommy explained, "'twould be
wonderful hard--on Elizabeth."
Sandy Rowl caught the honest truth and unselfishness of the warning in
Tommy Lark's voice.
"I thanks you, Tommy," said he. "'Twas well spoken."
"Oh, you owes me no thanks," Tommy replied simply. "I'd not have the
maid grieved for all the world."
"I'll tell her that you said so."
Tommy was startled.
"You speak, Sandy," said he in gloomy foreboding, "as though I had
come near t' my death."
"We've both come near t' death."
"Ay--maybe. Well--no matter."
"'Tis a despairful thing to say."
"I'm not carin' very much what happens t' my life," young Tommy
declared. "You'll mind that I said so. An' I'm glad that I isn't
carin' very much any more. Mark that, Sandy--an' remember."
Between the edge of Tommy Lark's commodious pan and the promising
block in the middle of the lane lay five cakes of ice. They varied in
size and weight; and they were swinging in the swell--climbing the
steep sides of the big waves, riding the crests, slipping downhill,
tipped to an angle, and lying flat in the trough of the seas. In
respect to their distribution they were like stones in a brook: it was
a zigzag course--the intervals varied. Leaping from stone to stone to
cross a brook, using his arms to maintain a balance, a man can not
pause; and his difficulty increases as he leaps--he grows more and
more confused, and finds it all the while harder to keep upright. What
he fears is a mossy stone and a rolling stone. The small cakes of ice
were as slippery as a mossy stone in a brook, and as treacherously
unstable as a rolling stone; and in two particulars they were vastly
more difficult to deal with; they were all in motion, and not one of
them would bear the weight of a man. There was more ice in the lane.
It was a mere scattering of fragments and a gathered patch or two of
slush.
Tommy Lark's path to the pan in the middle of the lane was definite:
the five small cakes of ice--he must cover the distance in six leaps
without pause; and, having come to the middle of the lane, he could
rest and catch his breath while he chose out the course beyond. If
there chanced to be no path beyond, discretion would compel an
immediate return.
"Well," said he, crouching for the first leap, "I'm off, whatever
comes of it!"
"Mind the slant o' the ice!"
"I'll take it in the trough."
"Not yet!"
Tommy Lark waited for the sea to roll on.
"You bother me," he complained. "I might have been half way across by
this time."
"You'd have been cotched on the side of a swell. If you're cotched
like that you'll slip off the ice. There isn't a man livin' can cross
that ice on the slant of a sea."
"Be still!"
The pan was subsiding from the incline of a sea to the level of the
trough.
"Now!" Sandy Rowl snapped.
When the ice floated in the trough, Tommy Lark leaped, designing to
attain his objective as nearly as possible before the following wave
lifted his path to an incline. He landed fairly in the middle of the
first cake, and had left it for the second before it sank. The second
leap was short. It was difficult, nevertheless, for two reasons. He
had no time to gather himself for the impulse, and his flight was
taken from sinking ground. Almost he fell short. Six inches less, and
he would have landed on the edge of the cake and toppled back into the
sea when it tipped to the sudden weight. But he struck near enough
to the center to restrain the ice, in a few active steps, from sinking
by the edge; and as the second cake was more substantial than the
first, he was able to leap with confidence for the third, whence he
danced lightly toward the fourth.
[Illustration: "Well, I'm off, whatever comes of it."]
The fourth cake, however, lay abruptly to the right. A sudden violent
turn was required to reach it. It was comparatively substantial; but
it was rugged rather than flat--there was a niggardly, treacherous
surface for landing, and as ground for a flight the cake furnished a
doubtful opportunity. There was no time for recovery. When Tommy Lark
landed, the ice began to waver and sink. He had landed awkwardly, his
feet in a tangle; and, as there was no time for placing his feet in a
better way, he must leap awkwardly--leap instantly, leaving the event
to chance. And leap he did. It was a supreme effort toward the fifth
cake.
By this time the ice was fast climbing the side of a swelling wave.
The crest of the sea was higher than Tommy Lark's head. Had the sea
broken it would have fallen on him--it would have submerged and
overwhelmed him. It did not break. The wind snatched a thin spindrift
from the crest and flung it past like a squall of rain. That was all.
Tommy Lark was midway of the sea, as a man might be on the side of a
steep hill: there was the crest above and the trough below; and the
fifth cake of ice was tipped to an increasingly perilous angle.
Moreover, it was small; it was the least of all--a momentary foothold,
to be touched lightly in passing on to the slant of the wide pan in
the middle of the lane.
All this was clear to Tommy Lark when he took his awkward leap from
the fourth cake. What he feared was less the meager proportions of the
fifth cake--which would be sufficient, he fancied, to give him an
impulse for the last leap--than the slant of the big pan to which he
was bound, which was precisely as steep as the wave it was climbing.
And this fear was justified by the event. Tommy Lark touched the
little cake with the toe of his seal-hide boot, with the sea then
nearing its climax, and alighted prostrate on the smooth slant of the
big pan. He grasped for handhold: there was none; and, had not the
surface of the pan been approaching a horizontal on the crest of the
sea, he would have shot over the edge. Nothing else saved him.
Tommy Lark rose and established his balance with widespread feet and
waving arms.
"'Tis not too bad," he called.
"What's beyond?"
"No trouble beyond."
There was more ice beyond. It was small. Tommy Lark danced across to
the other side of the lane, however, without great difficulty. He
could not have paused on the way. The ice, thick though it was, was
too light.
"Safe over!" he shouted.
"I'm comin'."
"Mind the leap for the big pan. 'Tis a ticklish landin'. That's all
you've t' fear."
* * * * *
Sandy Rowl was as agile as Tommy Lark. He was as competent--he was as
practiced. Following the same course as Tommy Lark, he encountered the
same difficulties and met them in the same way; and thus he proceeded
from the first sinking cake through the short leap to the second more
substantial one, whence he leaped with confidence to the third, landed
on the rugged fourth, his feet ill placed for the next leap, and
sprang awkwardly for the small fifth cake, meaning to touch it lightly
on his course to the big pan.
But he had started an instant too soon. When, therefore, he came to
the last leap, with the crest of the wave above him and the trough
below, the pan was midway of the side of the sea, its inclination at
the widest. He slipped--fell; and he rolled off into the water and
sank. When he came to the surface, the ice was on the crest of the
sea, beginning its descent. He grasped the edge of it and tried to
draw himself aboard. In this he failed. The pan was too thick--too
high in the water; and the weight of his boots and clothes was too
great to overcome. In the trough of the sea, where his opportunity was
best, he almost succeeded. He established one knee on the pan and
strove desperately and with all his strength to lift himself over the
edge. But the pan began to climb before he succeeded, leaving him
helpless on the lower edge of the incline; and the best he could do to
save himself was to cling to it with bare, striving fingers, waiting
for his opportunity to renew itself.
To Tommy Lark it was plain that Sandy Rowl could not lift himself out
of the water.
"Hang fast'" he shouted. "I'll help you!"
Timing his start, as best he was able, to land him on the pan in the
middle of the lane when it lay in the trough, Tommy Lark set out to
the rescue. It will be recalled that the pan would not support two
men. Two men could not accurately adjust their weight. Both would
strive for the center. They would grapple there; and, in the end, when
the pan jumped on edge both would be thrown off.
Tommy Lark was aware of the capacity of the pan. Had that capacity
been equal to the weight of two men, it would have been a simple
matter for him to run out, grasp Sandy Rowl by the collar, and drag
him from the water. In the circumstances, however, what help he could
give Sandy Rowl must be applied in the moment through which he would
remain on the ice before it sank; and enough of the brief interval
must be saved wherein to escape either onward or back.
Rowl did not need much help. With one knee on the ice, lifting himself
with all his might, a strong, quick pull would assist him over the
edge. But Rowl was not ready. When Tommy Lark landed on the pan,
Sandy was deep in the water, his hands gripping the ice, his face
upturned, his shoulders submerged. Tommy did not even pause. He ran on
to the other side of the lane. When he turned, Rowl had an elbow and
foot on the pan and was waiting for help; but Tommy Lark hesitated,
disheartened--the pan would support less weight than he had thought.
The second trial failed. Rowl was ready. It was not that. Tommy Lark
landed awkwardly on the pan from the fifth cake of ice. He consumed
the interval of his stay in regaining his feet. He did not dare
remain. Before he could stretch a hand toward Rowl, the pan was
submerged, and he must leap on in haste to the opposite shore of the
lane; and the escape had been narrow--almost he had been caught.
Returning, then, to try for the third time, he caught Rowl by the
collar, jerked him, felt him rise, dropped him, sure that he had
contributed the needed impulse, and ran on. But when he turned,
confident that he would find Rowl sprawling on the pan, Rowl had
failed and dropped back in the water.
For the fourth time Tommy essayed the crossing, with Rowl waiting, as
before, foot and elbow on the ice; and he was determined to leap more
cautiously from the fifth cake of ice and to risk more on the pan that
he might gain more--to land more circumspectly, opposing his weight
to Rowl's weight, and to pause until the pan was flooded deep. The
plan served his turn. He landed fairly, bent deliberately, caught
Rowl's coat with both hands, dragged him on the pan, leaped away,
springing out of six inches of water; and when, having crossed to the
Scalawag shore of the lane, he turned, Rowl was still on the ice, flat
on his back, resting. It was a rescue.
Presently Sandy Rowl joined Tommy Lark.
"All right?" Tommy inquired.
"I'm cold an' I'm drippin'," Sandy replied; "but otherwise I'm fair
enough an' glad t' be breathin' the breath o' life. I won't thank you,
Tommy."
"I don't want no thanks."
"I won't thank you. No, Tommy. I'll do better. I'll leave Elizabeth t'
thank you. You've won a full measure o' thanks, Tommy, from
Elizabeth."
"You thinks well o' yourself," Tommy declared. "I'm danged if you
don't!"
* * * * *
An hour later Tommy Lark and the dripping Sandy Rowl entered the
kitchen of Elizabeth Luke's home at Scalawag Harbor. Skipper James was
off to prayer meeting. Elizabeth Luke's mother sat knitting alone by
the kitchen fire. To her, then, Tommy Lark presented the telegram,
having first warned her, to ease the shock, that a message had
arrived, contents unknown, from the region of Grace Harbor. Having
commanded her self-possession, Elizabeth Luke's mother received and
read the telegram, Tommy Lark and Sandy Rowl standing by, eyes wide to
catch the first indication of the contents in the expression of the
slow old woman's countenance.
There was no indication, however--not that Tommy Lark and Sandy Rowl
could read. Elizabeth Luke's mother stared at the telegram; that was
all. She was neither downcast nor rejoiced. Her face was blank.
Having read the brief message once, she read it again; and having
reflected, and having read it for the third time, and having reflected
once more, without achieving any enlightenment whatsoever, she looked
up, her wrinkled face screwed in an effort to solve the mystery. She
pursed her lips, she tapped the floor with her toe, she tapped her
nose with her forefinger, she pushed up her spectacles, she scratched
her chin, even she scratched her head; and then she declared to Tommy
Lark and Sandy Rowl that she could make nothing of it at all.
"Is the maid sick?" Tommy inquired.
"She is."
"I knowed it!" Tommy declared.
"She says she's homesick." Elizabeth's mother pulled down her
spectacles and referred to the telegram. "'Homesick,' says she," she
added.
"What else?"
"I can't fathom it. I knows what she means when she says she's
homesick; I've been that myself. But what's this about Squid Cove?
'Tis the queerest thing ever I knowed!"
Tommy Lark flushed.
"Woman," he demanded, eager and tense, "what does the maid say about
Squid Cove?"
"She says she's homesick for the cottage in Squid Cove. An' that's
every last word that she says."
"There's no cottage in Squid Cove," said Sandy.
"No cottage there," Elizabeth's mother agreed, "t' be homesick for.
'Tis a very queer thing."
"There's no cottage in Squid Cove," said Tommy Lark; "but there's
lumber for a cottage lyin' there on the rocks."
"What about that?"
"'Tis my lumber!" Tommy roared. "An' the maid knows it!"
* * * * *
II
THE SIREN OF SCALAWAG RUN
* * * * *
II
THE SIREN OF SCALAWAG RUN
Scalawag Run suspected the sentimental entanglement into which Fate
had mischievously cast Dickie Blue and pretty Peggie Lacey and there
abandoned them; and Scalawag Run was inclined to be more scornful than
sympathetic. What Dickie Blue should have done in the circumstances
was transparent to every young blade in the harbor--an instant, bold
behavior, issuing immediately in the festive popping of guns at a
wedding and a hearty charivari thereafter; and those soft devices to
which pretty Peggy Lacey should have resorted without scruple in her
own relief, were not unknown, you may be sure, to the wise, whispering
maids of the place. It was too complacently agreed that the situation,
being left to the direction and mastery of Time, would proceed to a
happy conclusion as a matter of course. There would be a conjunction
of the light of the moon, for example, with the soft, love-lorn
weather of June--the shadows of the alders on the winding road to
Squid Cove and the sleepy tinkle of the goats' bells dropping down
from the slopes of The Topmast into the murmur of the sea. There had
been just such favorable auspices of late, however--June moonlight and
the music of a languorous night, with Dickie Blue and pretty Peggy
Lacey meandering the shadowy Squid Cove road together; and the
experience of Scalawag Run was still defied--no blushes and laughter
and shining news of a wedding at Scalawag Run.
Dickie Blue, returning from the Squid Cove road, found his father,
Skipper John, waiting at the gate.
"Well?" Skipper John demanded.
"'Tis I, sir."
"I knows that. I been waitin' for you. How'd ye get along the night?"
"I got along well enough."
"How far did yer get along?"
"I--I proceeded."
"What did ye do?"
"Who, sir?" Dickie replied. "Me?"
"Ay, you! Who else?"
"I didn't do nothin' much," said Dickie.
"Ha!" Skipper John snorted. "Nothin' much, eh! Was you with the maid
at all on the roads?"
"Well, yes, sir," Dickie replied. "I was with her."
Skipper John spoke in scorn. "You was with her!" said he. "An' you
didn't do nothin' much! Well, well!" And then, explosively: "Did you
do nothin' at all?"
"I didn't go t' no great lengths with her."
"What lengths?"
"Well," Dickie drawled, "I----"
Skipper John broke in impatiently. "What I wants t' know," said he,
"is a very simple thing. Did you pop?"
"Me?"
Skipper John was disgusted.
"Ecod!" he ejaculated. "Then you didn't!"
"I didn't pop," said Dickie. "That is--not quite."
"Did you come into peril o' poppin'?"
"Well," Dickie admitted, "I brooded on it."
"Whew!" Skipper John ejaculated. "You brooded on it, did you? An' what
happened then?"
"I--I hesitated."
"Well, well! Now that was cautious, wasn't it? An' why did
you--hesitate?"
"Dang it!" Dickie complained, "t' hear you talk, a man might think
that Peggy Lacey was the only maid in Scalawag Run. I'm willin' an'
eager t' be wed. I jus' don't want t' make no mistake. That's all.
Dang it, there's shoals o' maids hereabouts! An' I isn't goin' t'
swallow the first hook that's cast my way. I'll take my time, sir, an'
that's an end o' the matter."
"You're nigh twenty-one," Skipper John warned.
"I've time enough yet. I'm in no hurry."
"Pah!" Skipper John snorted. "'Tis a poor stick of a man that's as
slow as you at courtin'! No hurry, eh? What ye made of, anyhow? When I
was your age----"
"Have done with boastin', sir. I'll not be driven. I'll pick and
choose an' satisfy my taste."
"Is Peggy Lacey a wasteful maid?" Skipper John inquired.
"No; she's not a wasteful maid."
"Is she good?"
"She's pious enough for me."
"Is she healthy?"
"Nothin' wrong with her health that anybody ever fetched t' my notice.
She seems sound."
"Is she fair?"
"She'll pass."
"I'm not askin' if she pass. I'm askin' you if she isn't the fairest
maid in Scalawag Run."
"'Tis a matter o' taste, father."
"An' what's your taste--if you have any?"
"If I was pickin' a fault," Dickie replied, "I'd say that she might
have a touch more o' color in her cheeks t' match my notion o'
beauty."
"A bit too pallid t' suit your delicate notion o' beauty!" Skipper
John scoffed. "Well, well!"
"I knows rosier maids than she."
"I've no doubt of it. 'Tis a pity the good Lord's handiwork can't be
remedied t' suit you. Mm-mm! Well, well! An' is there anything else
out o' the way with God Almighty's idea o' what a fair maid looks
like?"
"Dang me!" Dickie protested again. "I isn't denyin' that she's fair!"
"No; but----"
"Ah, well, isn't I got a right t' my notions? What's the harm in
admirin' rosy cheeks? Isn't nothin' the matter with rosy cheeks, is
there?"
"They fade, my son."
"I knows that well enough, sir," Dickie declared; "but they're pretty
while they last. An' I'd never be the man t' complain, sir, when they
faded. You'd not think so ill o' me as all that, would you?"
"You'd not--complain when they faded?"
"I'd not shame my honor so!"
"Ah, well, Dick," said Skipper John, having reflected a moment upon
this fine, honest sentiment, "'tis not the pallid cheeks o' the maid
that trouble you. I knows you well, an' I knows what the trouble is.
The maid has been frank enough t' leave you see that she cares for
you. She've no wiles to entangle you with; an' I 'low that she'd
despise the use o' them anyhow. Did she cast her line with cunnin',
she'd hook you soon enough; but that she'll never do, my son--she's
too proud an' honest for that. Ay; that's it--too innocent t' conceal
her feelin's an' too proud to ensnare you. You was always the lad,
Dick, t' scorn what you could have an' crave that which was beyond
your reach. Do you mind the time when you took over the little
_Robin's Wing_ from Trader Tom Jenkins for the Labrador fishin'? She
was offered you on fair credit, an' you found fault with the craft an'
the terms, an' dawdled an' complained, until Trader Tom offered her t'
Long George Long o' Hide-an'-Seek Harbor; an' then you went flyin' t'
Trader Tom's office, with your heart in your mouth, lest you lose the
chance afore you got there. Had Trader Tom withheld the _Robin's
Wing_, you would have clamored your voice hoarse t' get her. Speak me
fair, now--is you sorry you took the _Robin's Wing_?"
"I isn't."
"Is you ever repented a minute?"
"No, sir. Why should I?"
"Then there's a hint for your stupidity in that matter. Take the maid
an' be done with it. God be thanked I isn't a widower-man. If I was,
I'd bring your chance into peril soon enough," said his father. "'Tis
t' be a fair day for fishin' the Skiff-an'-Punt grounds the morrow. Go
t' bed. I'll pray that wisdom may overcome your caution afore you're
decrepit."
Skipper John thought his son a great dunderhead. And Dickie Blue was a
dunderhead. No doubt about it. Yet the failing was largely the fault
of his years. A strapping fellow, this young Dickie Blue, blue-eyed in
the Newfoundland way, and merry and modest enough in the main, who had
recently discovered a critical interest in the comparative charms of
the maids of the harbor. There were so many maids in the world! Dang
it, it was confusing! There was Peggy Lacey. She was adorable. Nobody
could deny it. Had she worn roses in her cheeks she would have been
irresistible altogether. And there was the new schoolmistress from
Grace Harbor. That superior maid had her points, too. She did not lack
attractions. They were more intellectual than anything else. Still,
they had a positive appeal. There were snares for the heart in
brilliant conversation and a traveled knowledge of the world. Dang it,
anyhow, a man might number all the maids in the harbor and find charms
enough in each! Only a fool would choose from such an abundance in
haste. A wise man would deliberate--observe, compare, reflect; and a
sure conviction would come of that course.
* * * * *