FATHER MCQUEEN VISITS HIS FLOCK
After the storm from the northwest had blown itself out, a spell of soft
weather set in along the coast. East and southeast winds brought fog and
mild rains, the ice rotted along the land-wash and the snow dwindled
from the barrens and left dripping hummocks and patches of black bog
exposed. The wreck in Nolan's Cove had gone to pieces during the
blizzard, sunk its cargo of pianos, manufactured cotton and hardware in
six fathoms of water and flung a liberal proportion of its spars and
timbers ashore.
Black Dennis Nolan felt as sure that Jack Quinn had perished in the
storm as if he had seen him prone and stiff under the drifting snow. The
fool had left the harbor that night, sometime before the onslaught of
the blizzard, but after midnight to a certainty. He had gone out--and he
had not returned! There could be no doubt about his miserable fate. The
skipper pictured him in his clear mind as lying somewhere out on the
barrens with the red-bound casket clutched in a frozen hand. So the
skipper devoted a day to searching for him over the thawing, sodden
wilderness behind the harbor. He took Bill Brennen and Nick Leary with
him. The other men did not grumble at being left behind, perhaps because
they were learning the unwisdom of grumbling against the skipper's
orders, more likely because they did not care a dang if Foxey Jack Quinn
was ever found or not, dead or alive. Quinn had not been popular. The
skipper informed his two companions that the missing man had broken into
his house and robbed him of an article of great value.
"We bes sure to find him somewheres handy," said Bill Brennen. "Foxey
Jack was always a fool about the weather--didn't know east from west
when the wind blowed. What was it he robbed from ye, skipper?"
"Whatever it was, ye'll both git yer share if we finds it," replied the
skipper. "More nor that I bain't willin' to say."
He fixed Bill Brennen with a glance of his black eyes that made that
worthy tremble from his scantily-haired scalp to the soles of his big,
shuffling feet. Bill was one of those people who cannot get along
without a master. In the past, for lack of another, he had made an
exacting tyrant out of a very mild and loving wife; but since the
masterful opening of the new skipper's reign he had snapped his fingers
at his wife, who had ruled him for close upon twenty years. He was
shrewd, though weak, and his heart was full of the stuff in which
personal loyalty is bred and fostered. If the hand that beat him was the
hand that fed him--the hand of his master--then the beating seemed an
honorable and reasonable thing to him. True, the skipper had not yet
lifted a fist to him; but in this case darkling glances served quite as
well as blows. Bill had seen the strength of Dennis from the first and
from the first had loved it as a thing to serve--as the spirit of
mastery. Nick Leary, though a much younger man than Bill Brennen,
possessed the same spirit of service.
The three searched the barrens all day, from sun-up to dark, north,
south and inland. It was a gray day, sloppy underfoot and raw overhead.
At one time the skipper halted and lit his pipe within three yards of
the point of the edge of the cliff from which Quinn had pitched to his
death; but wind, snow and thaw had obliterated all trace of those
blindly staggering feet. The searchers explored the inner, tangled
recesses of a dozen thickets of spruce-tuck, snarled coverts of alders,
hollows hip-deep in sodden snow, and the pits and rocky shelters of
knolls and hummocks.
"He bes hid away somewheres, sure's Saint Peter was a fisherman," said
the skipper.
"Axin' yer pardon, skipper, I bes t'inkin' as how maybe he bain't dead,"
said Nick Leary, humbly. "Maybe he got t'rough to Brig Tickle, sir, an'
from the Tickle he'd be headin' for Witless Bay this very minute."
The skipper shook his head.
"There bain't a man on the coast could live t'rough a flurry the like o'
that widout he found shelter," he replied. "He bes dead somewheres widin
t'ree or four mile o' Chance Along, ye kin lay to that, Nick."
They returned to the harbor after dark and said not a word to the others
about the business that had occupied them throughout the day; Brennen
and Nick Leary were asked many questions, but they lied valiantly,
saying that they had been spying out boat-timber. Had they admitted that
they had devoted a whole day to searching over the barren for the body
of Foxey Jack Quinn a suspicion that the missing man had carried away
something of extraordinary value would have fired the harbor and set
every able-bodied inhabitant on the quest. That would not have suited
the skipper's plans. He did not want a knowledge of the necklace of
diamonds and rubies to become general.
Doubtless the search for Jack Quinn would have been continued on the
following day but for the unexpected arrival in Chance Along of the good
Father McQueen. The missionary's visits were usually unexpected. He came
now from the northward, on foot and unattended. In a haversack on his
sturdy shoulders he carried food, two books of devotions and one of
Irish poetry, and his vestments. Children who were playing a game called
"deer-hunting" on the barrens behind the harbor were the first to know
of the priest's approach. They shouted the news down to the gray cabins
on the slope. A few of the men were working out among the rocks, under
the skipper's supervision; others were cobbling skiffs and bullies that
lay high and dry beneath the empty stages, and the old fellows were
sitting around, giving advice and sucking at rank pipes. The harbor was
at peace; and, what was still more unusual, it was free from
hunger-fear. By the skipper's first important stroke of business his
reign promised to be prosperous, even though tyrannical. At word that
Father McQueen was sighted all work was stopped. The dories among the
outer rocks were pulled to the land-wash. The men left their tarring and
caulking under the drying-stages. Women issued from the cabins with
shawls thrown hastily about their heads and shoulders. The skipper led
the way up the twisty path to the level wilderness above. There was one
man in the world whom he feared--feared without bitterness even as he
did the saints on their thrones of gold. That man was Father McQueen.
Cap in hand, Black Dennis Nolan took the haversack from the priest and
slung it on his own shoulder.
"Ye've walked a weary way, father," he said. "Ye bes mud and water to
the knees, sir."
"But a step, Denny. Naught but a step, my son," replied the missionary,
cheerfully. "I was in Witless Bay for two holy baptisms, a marriage an'
a wake, an' I just took the notion to step over an' see ye all in
Chance Along. _Pax vobiscum_, all of ye! My children, ye look grand an'
hearty. How is Mother Nolan, the dear old body? Spry as ever, ye say?
Praise the saints for that."
The people, men, women, and children, clustered round him with beaming
faces, and in return he beamed at one and all, and spoke to a dozen by
name. He leaned on the skipper's arm.
"But it bes still early in the forenoon, father," said Dennis. "Where
did yer reverence sleep last night then?"
"Snug as a fox in his den, my son," replied the sturdy old man. "When
dark came on I found me a dry cave in the side of a knoll, an' dry moss
an' sticks for a fire."
"It bain't right for yer reverence to sleep out these rough winter
nights," protested the skipper. "Maybe ye'll be gettin' yer death one o'
these nights, sir."
"Nay, Denny, don't ye go worryin' about me," said the priest. "I am as
tough as a husky."
He descended the path to the clustered cabins, still holding the
skipper's arm and with the populace sliding and crowding at his muddy
heels. His gray eyes were as keen as they were kindly. He remarked
several of the great iron rings on the rocks to seaward.
"What are ye up to now, Denny?" he asked, halting for a moment, and
pointing with a plump but strong and weather-beaten hand.
The skipper's black eyes followed the line indicated.
"That bes a grand idee o' mine, yer reverence," he answered, after a
moment's hesitation. "Sure I'll tell ye all about it, sir, after ye get
yerself dry alongside the stove."
"Something to do with wrecks, Denny?" queried the priest.
"Aye, yer reverence, it bes a part o' the gear for salvin' wrecks,"
returned Nolan.
At the skipper's door Father McQueen dismissed his followers with a
blessing and a promise to see them all after dinner. Then, after a few
kindly words to Mother Nolan, he entered his own room, where Cormick had
a fire of driftwood roaring in the chimney. He soon returned to the
kitchen, in socks and moccasins of the skipper's, a rusty cassock and a
red blanket. The innate dignity and virtue of the old man gave to his
grotesque attire the seeming of robes of glory, in spite of the very
human twinkle in his gray eyes and the shadow of a grin about the
corners of his large mouth. He accepted a chair close to the stove--but
not the most comfortable chair, which was Mother Nolan's. They knew his
nature too well to offer him that. The skipper gave him a bowl of hot
wine, mulled with sugar and spices, which he accepted without demur and
sipped with relish. After a few minutes of general conversation, during
which Mother Nolan expatiated on her rheumatics, he turned to the
skipper, and laid a hand on that young giant's knee.
"So ye are preparing gear for the salving of wrecks, my son?" he
queried.
"Aye, yer reverence, we bes fixin' chains an' lines among the rocks so
as maybe we kin get a holt on whatever comes ashore," replied Nolan.
"A good idea," returned the other. And then, "Have ye had any wrecks
already this winter?"
"Aye, yer reverence, there be'd one in Nolan's Cove."
"So? Did any of the poor souls come ashore alive?"
"Aye, yer reverence, every mother's son o' them. They come ashore in
their boats, sir, an' left the ship acrost a rock wid a hole in her
bows bigger nor this house."
"And where are they now?"
"That I couldn't tell, yer reverence. They set out for Nap Harbor, to
the south, that very night, an' got there safe an' sound. An' I heard
tell, sir, as how they sailed from Nap Harbor for St. John's in a
fore-an'-after."
The priest regarded the skipper keenly.
"Safe and sound, ye say, Denny?"
"Aye, yer reverence, safe an' sound, wid their clothes on their backs
an' food an' drink in their pockets an' their bellies."
"I am glad to hear it, Denny. Ye sent them on their way warmly clad and
full-fed; but I'm thinking, my son, they must have left something behind
them? It's grand wine this, Denny."
"Aye, father, it bes grand wine. It came out o' the wreck, sir, along
wid a skiff-load o' fancy grub. There bes wine, spirits an' tinned stuff
in every house o' the harbor, yer reverence. But the cargo weren't no
manner o' use to us--an' the hull broke up an' went all abroad two days
back."
"So ye got nought from the wreck but a skiff-full of drink and food?"
"I bain't sayin' that, father dear, though it were as peaceful an'
dacent a wrack as ever yer reverence heard tell of. Maybe yer reverence
bes buildin' another church somewheres?--or a mission-house?--or sendin'
money up-along to the poor haythens?"
"Aye, Denny, I am doing all these things," replied the priest. "Since
first I set foot on Newfoundland I have built nine little churches,
twelve mission-houses and one hospital--aye, and sent a mint of money to
the poor folk of other lands. My dear parents left me a fortune of three
hundreds of English pounds a year, Denny; and every year I give two
hundred and fifty pounds of that fortune to the work of the Holy Church
and beg and take twice as much more from the rich to give the poor."
The skipper nodded. This information was not new to him.
"I was thinkin', yer reverence, as how some day ye'd maybe be buildin'
us a little church here in Chance Along," he said.
"It would take money, my son--money and hard work," returned the priest.
"Aye, father dear, 'twould take money an' work. There bes fifty golden
sovereigns I knows of for yer reverence."
"Clean money?"
"Aye, yer reverence."
"From the wreck, Denny?"
"Aye, father dear, from the last wrack."
"Without blood on it, my son?"
"Widout so much as a drop o' blood on it, so help me Saint Peter!"
"And the other lads, Denny? Are ye the only one in the harbor able to
pay me something for the building of a church?"
There was the one question on the good priest's tongue and another in
his clear eyes.
"I bes skipper, father dear, an' takes skipper's shares and pays
skipper's shares," replied Nolan. "But for me there'd not bin one bottle
o' wine come to us from the wrack an' the poor folks aboard her would
never have got ashore in their boats for want of a light on the
land-wash. As I kin spare ye fifty pounds for the holy work, yer
reverence, there bes nineteen men o' this harbor kin each be sparin' ye
ten."
Father McQueen nodded his gray head.
"Then we'll have the little church, Denny," he said. "Aye, lad, we'll
have the little church shining out to sea from the cliffs above Chance
Along."
Father McQueen was a good man and a good priest, and would as readily
have given his last breath as his last crust of bread in the service of
his Master; but for the past thirty years he had lived and worked in a
land of rocks, fogs and want, among people who snatched a livelihood
from the sea with benumbed fingers and wrists pitted deep with scars of
salt-water boils. He had seen them risk their lives for food on the
black rocks, the grinding ice and the treacherous tide; and now his
heart felt with their hearts, his eyes saw with their eyes. Their bitter
birthright was the harvest of the coastwise seas; and he now realized
their real and ethical right to all that they might gather from the
tide, be it cod, caplin, herrings or the timbers and freights of wrecked
ships. He saw that a wreck, like a good run of fish, was a thing to
profit by thankfully and give praise to the saints for; but he held that
no gift of God was to be gathered in violence. In the early years of his
work he had heard rumors and seen indications of things that had fired
him with a righteous fury and pity--rumors and hints of mariners
struggling landward only to be killed like so many seals as they
reached the hands to which they had looked for succor. The poor savages
who had committed such crimes as this had at first failed to understand
his fury and disgust; but with his tongue and his strong arms he had
driven into their hearts the fear of Holy Church and of the Reverend
Patrick McQueen. Even the wildest and dullest members of his
far-scattered flock learned in time that life was sacred--even the life
of a half-dead stranger awash in the surf. They even learned to refrain
from stripping and breaking up a wrecked or grounded vessel that was
still manned by a protesting crew; and with the fear of the good priest
in their hearts (even though he was a hundred miles away), they would do
their best to bring the unfortunate mariners safely ashore and then
share the vessel with the hungry sea.
That even a deserted or unpeopled wreck should be common property may
not seem right to some people; but it seemed right to Father
McQueen--and surely he should know what was right and what was wrong! It
was sometime about the date of this story that a missionary of another
and perhaps less broad and human creed than Father McQueen's wrote to
his bishop in the spring, "Thanks to God and two wrecks we got through
the winter without starving."
Father McQueen did not hurry away from Chance Along. Six months had
passed since his last visit and so he felt that this section of his
flock demanded both time and attention. His way of knowing his people
was by learning their outward as well as their inner lives, their
physical and also their spiritual being. He was not slow to see and
understand the skipper's ambitions and something of his methods. He read
Black Dennis Nolan for a strong, active, masterful and relentless
nature. He heard of Foxey Jack Quinn's departure and of the fight at the
edge of the cliff that had preceded it. He heard also that Quinn had
robbed the skipper before departing; but exactly what he had robbed him
of he could not learn. He questioned Dennis himself and had a lesson in
the art of evasion. He found it no great task to comfort the woman and
children of the fugitive Jack. They were well fed and had the skipper's
word that they should never lack food and clothing. He was not surprised
to learn from the deserted wife that the man had been a bully at home as
well as abroad. For his own part, he had never thought very highly of
Foxey Jack Quinn. He visited every cabin in the harbor, and those that
sheltered old and sick he visited many times. He was keenly interested
in the work that the skipper was doing among the rocks in front of the
harbor, and did not fail to point out persistently and authoritatively
that chains and ropes designed to facilitate the saving of freights
would also facilitate the saving of human lives. The skipper agreed with
him respectfully.
On the morning of Father McQueen's arrival in Chance Along, the skipper
dispatched Nick Leary to Witless Bay to learn whether or no Jack Quinn
had reached that place. Leary returned on the evening of the following
day with the expected information that nothing had been seen of the
missing man in Witless Bay. In his pocket he brought a recent issue of
St. John's newspaper, for which he had paid two shillings and two drams
of rum. This he brought as an offering to the skipper--for the skipper
could read print almost as well as a merchant and had a thirst for
information of the outside world.
The first item of news which the skipper managed to spell out was the
notice of a reward of five hundred pounds awaiting the person who
should recover Lady Harwood's necklace of twelve diamonds and fourteen
rubies and deliver it to Mr. Peter Wren, solicitor, Water Street, St.
John's. The notice went on to say that this necklace, together with
other smaller and less valuable articles of jewelry, had been taken by
force from the shipwrecked company of the bark _Durham Castle_, which
had gone ashore and to pieces in a desolate place called Frenchman's
Cove, on the east coast. It also gave the date of the wreck and stated
that if the necklace should be returned undamaged, no questions would be
asked. The skipper saw in a moment that the reward was offered for the
stones which he had found in the deserted berth and which Quinn had
robbed him of. Five hundred pounds? He shook his head over that. He had
read somewhere, at some time, about the value of diamonds, and he felt
sure that the necklace was worth many times the money offered for its
recovery. So the loss of it was known to the world? He had a great idea
of the circulation of the St. John's _Herald_. He had retired to a
secluded spot above the harbor to read the paper, and now he glanced
furtively over his shoulder. No limb of the law was in sight. He gazed
abroad over the sodden, gloomy barrens and reflected bitterly that the
treasure lay there in some pit or hollow, in a dead man's pocket,
perhaps within shouting-distance of where he stood. He swore that he
would recover it yet--but not for the reward offered by Mr. Peter Wren
in behalf of Lady Harwood. He re-read the notice slowly, following
letter and word with muttering lips and tracing finger. Then, at a
sudden thought of Father McQueen, he tore away that portion of the outer
sheet which contained the notice.
The skipper returned to his house and found the missionary seated beside
the stove chatting with Mother Nolan.
"Here bes a paper, yer reverence, Nick Leary fetched over from Witless
Bay," he said. "It bes tored, sir; but maybe ye'll find some good
readin' left in it."
The good father was charmed. He had not seen a newspaper for six weeks.
He dragged a pair of spectacles from a pocket of his rusty cassock, set
them upon his nose and hooked them over his ears, and read aloud every
word save those which the skipper had torn away.
On the fourth night after his arrival Father McQueen drew a plan of the
little church which he intended to build above the harbor.
"It will be the pride of the coast and a glory to Chance Along," he
said. "Denny, I am proud of ye for the suggestion. Ye said ye'd give me
a hundred pounds toward it, I think?"
"Fifty pound, yer reverence! Fifty pound bes what I offered ye, sir,"
returned the skipper, with dismay in his voice.
Father McQueen sighed and shook his head. A cold thrill of anxiety
passed through Dennis Nolan. With the good father displeased there would
be an end of his luck. He glanced at the priest and saw that he was
still shaking his head.
The skipper loved his new store of gold because it meant the beginning
of a fortune and therefore the extension of his power; but on the other
hand he feared that to displease the missionary now in the matter of a
part of that store might turn the saints themselves against him. And
without the good-will of the saints how could he expect his share of
luck?--his share of wrecks?
"I has seventy-five pound for yer reverence," he said. "It bes a
powerful sight of money, father dear, but ye bes welcome to it."
"It is well, my son," returned the missionary.
The skipper felt a glow of relief. He had avoided the risk of
displeasing the saints and at the same time had saved twenty-five
pounds. Even when you earn your money after the skipper's method,
twenty-five pounds looks like quite a considerable lump of money. He
took up a candle and fetched the sum in yellow English sovereigns from
his hiding-place.
Father McQueen devoted the following morning to collecting what he could
from the other men of the harbor. The skipper had furnished him with a
list of all who had shared in the golden harvest. It began to look as if
the church would be a fine one. Not satisfied with this, he issued
orders that the timber was to be cut and sawn without delay so that the
building of the church should be commenced when he returned to Chance
Along in June. He even drew up specifications of the lumber that would
be required and the stone for the foundation. Then, leaving in the
skipper's care all the gold which he had collected for the sacred
edifice, he marched sturdily away toward the north. The skipper
accompanied him and carried his knapsack, for ten miles of the way.
Two days after the missionary's departure a gale blew in from the
southeast; and at the first gray of a roaring dawn the look-out from
Squid Beach came hammering at the skipper's door with news of a ship on
the rocks under the cliffs a few miles along the coast. Every man and
boy who could swing a leg turned out. The gear was shouldered and the
skipper led the way northward at a run, lantern in hand. They found the
wreck about a mile north of Squid Beach, close against the face of the
cliff. She had struck with her port-bow and was listed sharply landward.
The seas beat so furiously upon her that every seventh comer washed her
clean and sent the spray smoking over her splintered spars. She showed
no sign of life. She lay in so desperate a place that even Black Dennis
Nolan, with all his gear and wits, could do nothing but wait until the
full fury of the gale should diminish.
It was close upon noon when the first line was made fast between the
cliff and the broken foremast of the wreck. The wind had slackened and
the seas fallen in a marked degree by this time. Looking down from the
cliff the men of Chance Along could see the slanted deck, cleared of all
superstructures and bulwarks, the stumps of spars with only the
foremast intact to the cross-trees and a tangle of rigging, yards,
canvas and tackle awash against the face of the cliff. Something--a
swathed human figure, perhaps--was lashed in the fore-top.
The skipper was the first to venture a passage from the edge of the
cliff to the foremast. He made it with several life-lines around his
waist. He reached the bundle lashed to the cross-trees and, clinging
with hands and feet, looked into the face of an unconscious but living
woman. So he hung for a long half-minute, staring. Then, hoisting
himself up to a more secure position, he pulled a flask of brandy from
his pocket.
So Black Dennis Nolan brought back to consciousness the person who was
to be the undoing of his great plans!