“Nan, are you within? I’ve come to beg a thing of ye, Mother.”
Anny stood outside Nan Swayle’s little cabin and knocked at the door. It
was early afternoon and the hot sun poured down on the gray purplish
saltings, but in spite of the heat the hut was shut up.
Anny began to be afraid that the old woman had gone away, and a sudden
feeling of terrible loneliness seized her; she knocked again
frantically.
There was silence for a moment or so and then Nan’s great booming voice
came out to the waiting girl like a welcome peal of thunder after a
lightning flash:
“Good swine, peace to ye, whoever you are. What do you want wi’ old
Mother Swayle?”
“‘Tis I, Mother--Anny Farran, and in great need.” The girl spoke eagerly
and her voice shook unsteadily.
There was the sound of someone moving hastily across the hut; the door
flung open and Nan’s great gaunt form appeared in the opening.
“Come in, child, in,” she said kindly, her shrewd, keen eyes taking in
the girl’s white, haggard face and miserable expression.
Anny looked up at her for a moment, and then her mouth twitched
convulsively at the corners, her eyes filled with tears, and she flung
herself in the old woman’s arms, sobbing hysterically.
Nan led her into the little dark hut and sat on an empty keg, gently
pulling the girl down beside her. Then she began to rock herself gently
to and fro. She said nothing for some minutes, during which Anny’s sobs
grew less and less violent.
“Now what’s the matter, my daughter?” said Nan, after the girl’s grief
had somewhat abated.
Anny began to cry afresh.
“Oh, Nan, what will I do?” she sobbed. “What will I do?”
The older woman put her hands on the girl’s shoulders and held her firm.
“Cry till ye can cry no more, lass, and then tell your story; ’tis the
best way; crying eases the heart. The Lord gave women tears that their
hearts might not break every day,” she said, her great kindly voice
echoing round and about the little shanty.
Anny lifted up her tear-stained face from the old woman’s knee, and,
carefully avoiding her piercing brown eyes, began to speak in a
half-whisper, stopping here and there to wipe her eyes.
“When I came home from the wedding wi’ Master Dick,” she began--Nan
started at her words and carefully suppressed an exclamation of
horrified surprise--“we passed--Hal--on the way--and, when I got to the
Ship, no one was in the kitchen, so I sat down on the long seat and
thought on the Captain, and after a while Hal comes in, and----” She
paused.
Nan said nothing but sat staring in front of her.
Anny looked up quickly.
“You knew that we had quarrelled, Mother?” she said.
Nan nodded.
The girl paused, and when she spoke again her voice had sunk into a
murmur.
“He did not see me at first for the kitchen was dark and I in the
corner. I watched him, Nan, I watched him come in, sit down before the
counting-table, and take down the slate, and I saw him push it away, and
then draw it to him again, and I saw him put his hand through his hair,
and I heard him breathe loudly and slowly, and as though it somewhat
hurt him, and I--oh, Mother--I heard him call me: ‘Anny, Anny, Anny,’ he
said as though he was speaking from a long way off; then he laid his
head on his arms there on the counting-table and I heard him breathing
again, loud and fast.”
Her voice died away and there was no sound in the coolness of the little
hut; then she began to cry again.
Suddenly Nan spoke, and her voice sounded sharp after Anny’s impassioned
murmuring.
“And you were married to the Spanish captain?” she asked.
Anny sat up, her beautiful green eyes brimming with tears.
“Yes,” she said pitifully, “and I love him.”
“Who? Black’erchief Dick?”
“Nay, oh, nay, Mother; nay, Hal, Hal Grame--my love!” A sob rose in her
throat but she swallowed it down and continued almost eagerly, “And as
he sat there, and I watching, I knew ’twas he I loved, for all his
foolings, and I wondered would I creep behind and put my arms about his
neck, and put my face to his hair, but I minded I was married to the
Spaniard, and I knew I could not wed with Hal, and I wondered what would
I do, and then, as I was watching him, he looked up and saw me. His face
was very pale, and I have never seen any one but the dead so pale. I
thought he would have cried out, for his mouth opened and his lips
moved, but he said naught; then he stood up and came toward me, slowly,
as though I had been a spirit, and his eyes were so dark and full of
something, I know not what--that I put up my hands to hide my face.”
She broke off abruptly and looked round her, and brushed the hair off
her forehead before she spoke again--all the time Nan rocked silently to
and fro.
“Then I heard him speaking below his breath, and his voice hurt me, Nan;
his voice hurt me. ‘Anny,’ he said, ‘Anny, are you come back to me, my
love?’ and I heard him fall on his knees at my feet, and I felt his head
in my lap and his arms about my waist--and I loved him. Oh, Nan! I loved
him so!”
Her hands clutched at the older woman’s gown convulsively.
“Mother, will you tell him? Will you tell him?” she broke out suddenly.
“I couldn’t, I couldn’t, not when he was kneeling there more like a
young lad than a man.”
Nan stopped rocking and faced the pleading, frantic little girl before
her.
“You did not tell him?” she said slowly.
Anny shook her head.
“Nay, I could not tell him--I love him so,” she said. “I got up and ran
away to bed, leaving him there, his head on the seat I had left, and,
oh, Nan! all night long I dreamed I could still hear him breathing
heavily like that and calling ‘Anny, Anny, Anny.’ Oh, Nan! tell him for
me, tell him for me! I could not stay in the Ship and he there not
knowing. Both our hearts would break.”
Nan looked at her curiously.
“I will tell him,” she said.
A sigh of relief broke from Anny’s lips and Nan went on: “I did not know
you had wedded with the Spaniard, lass; why did you so? You must have
been mad; what will ye do now?”
Anny looked at her in astonishment.
“I had no choice,” she said. “Pet----”
A light of understanding swept over Nan’s expressive face and she sprang
to her feet.
“Miserable hell-cat that I am,” she exclaimed, her great voice shaking
with fury, “to be turned aside by Pet’s damned witchcraft, and sent
home without having done aught. Oh, why did ye do it, lass, why did ye
do it?”
Anny shrugged her shoulders.
“‘Tis nothing, Mother, nothing,” she said wearily. “I shall not be known
as his wife. There will be no difference, save that I cannot wed with
Hal.” Once again her voice broke on the name.
Nan stared at the girl incredulously.
“Did he say so?” she gasped.
Anny shrugged again. “Nay, not in words,” she said carelessly, “but he
said, ‘Go back to the Ship and I will come,’ so you see nothing will
change.”
The elder woman seized the girl by the shoulders.
“You’re mad, Anny,” she said fiercely. “Don’t you see he’ll take you
away? When the Spaniard comes to the Ship, he comes for you.”
Anny sprang to her feet, her eyes wide with fear and amazement. This
view of the affair had not presented itself to her before.
“Take me away?” she repeated wonderingly, and then, as the full meaning
of the words came to her, a little terrified scream escaped her. “I
won’t go,” she said quickly, “I won’t go--leave this Island? Leave the
Ship? Leave Hal? No, I won’t go--I----” She stopped suddenly and turned
to the old woman, an expression of horror on her face.
“There was none who could stay him wedding me,” she said slowly, her
eyes growing larger and more frightened at every word. “There was none
who could stay him wedding me; there will be none to stay him taking me
away. Oh!----”
She dropped down on the beaten earth floor, shuddering violently.
Nan looked down at her for a few seconds and then out of the door over
the flat marshes to the hilly wooded island beyond.
“The witchcraft of Pet Salt--blast her--stayed me once, Anny,” she said,
“but none shall stay me the second time, my daughter.”