SOME EARLY VISITS
The skipper kept his two unswerving henchmen to supper and brewed a
mighty bowl in their honor. He even condescended to thank Nick for his
warning, roundabout and prolonged though it had been, and to throw a
word of praise to Bill Brennen. He felt that the unqualified success of
his unexpected attack upon the mob had rewon for him much of his mastery
of the harbor. The others agreed with him. Bill Brennen, with a mug full
of punch in his hand, and his eyes on the broken oar which had stood in
a corner, humbly advised him to bestir himself at an early hour in the
morning, and put the finishing touches on the lesson. He advised a
house-to-house visitation before the heroes had recovered from the
brandy and the birch billet--not to mention the oar.
"Bat 'em agin whilst their heads bes still sore," said Bill--which is
only another and more original way of saying, "Strike while the iron is
hot."
"When ye give 'em all the money, skipper, they sure t'ought ye was
bewitched," said Nick Leary. "They t'ought ye was under a spell--an'
next they was t'inkin' as how the gold sure had a curse on to it or ye
wouldn't give it to 'em."
The skipper nodded. "I was too easy wid 'em!" he said. "Sure, b'ys, I'll
be mendin' it."
Bill and Nick departed at last; Cormick ascending the ladder to his bed
in the loft; Mother Nolan brewed a dose of herbs of great virtue--she
was wise in such things--and still the skipper sat by the stove and
smoked his pipe. Never before had his life known another such day as
this. Now he could have sworn that a whole month had passed since he had
been awakened by news of the wreck under the cliff, and again it seemed
as swift and dazzling as the flash of the powder in the pan of his old
sealing-gun when the spark flies from the flint. It had certainly been
an astonishing day! He had saved a life. He had seen those wonderful,
pale lids blink open and the soul sweep back into those wonderful eyes.
He had been elbow to elbow with violent death. He had struggled
submerged in water tinged with blood. He had known exultation, anger
and something which a less courageous man would have accepted for
defeat. He had suffered a mutiny--and later, in a few violent, reckless
minutes of action he had broken it--or cowed it at least. Now he felt
himself master of the harbor again, but not the master of his own
destiny. He did not sum up his case in these terms; but this is what it
came to. Destiny was a conviction with him, and not a word at all--a
nameless conviction. He did not consider the future anew; but he felt,
without analyzing it, a breathless, new curiosity of what the morrow
might hold for him. This sensation was in connection with the girl.
Apart from her, his old plans and ambitions stood. He felt no
uncertainty and no curiosity concerning the morrow's dealings with the
men. He considered it a commonplace subject. He would act upon Bill
Brennen's advice and visit the mutineers at an early hour; and as to the
wreck?--well, if conditions proved favorable he would break out the
cargo and see what could be made of it.
Mother Nolan entered with an empty cup in her hand.
"She took her draught like a babe, an' bes sleepin' agin peaceful as an
angel," she whispered. "Mind ye makes no noise, Denny. No more o' yer
fightin' an' cursin' this night!"
Black Dennis Nolan put in a night of disturbed dreaming and crawled from
his bed before the first streak of dawn. He pulled on his heavy garments
and seal-hide "skinnywoppers," built up the fire in the stove, brewed
and gulped a mug of tea, and then unbolted the door noiselessly and went
out. The dawn was lifting by now, clear, glass-gray and narrow at the
rim of the sea to the eastward and southward. The air was still. The
lapping of the tide along the icy land-wash and the dull whispering of
it among the seaward rocks were the only sounds. The skipper stood
motionless beside his own door for a few minutes. Small windows blinked
alight here and there; faint, muffled sounds of awakening life came to
him from the cabins; pale streamers of smoke arose into the breathless
air from the little chimneys.
"Now I'll pay me calls on 'em, like good Father McQueen himself,"
murmured the skipper.
He moved across the frosty rock to the nearest door. It was opened to
him by a wide-eyed woman with a ragged shawl thrown over her head.
"Mornin' to ye, Kate. How bes yer man Tim this mornin'?" inquired the
skipper.
He stepped inside without waiting for an answer or an invitation. He
found Tim in the bed beside the stove, snoring heavily. He grabbed his
shoulder and shook it roughly until the fellow closed his mouth and
opened his eyes.
"Tim Leary, ye squid, shut off yer fog-horn an' hark to me!" he
exclaimed. "By sun-up ye goes back to the woods and commences cuttin'
out poles for Father McQueen's church. Ye'll take yer brother Corny an'
Peter Walen along wid ye an' ye'll chop poles all day. Mark that, Tim. I
let ye take a fling yesterday, jist to see what kind o' dogs ye be; but
if ever I catches ye takin' another widout the word from me I'll be
killin' ye!"
The man groaned.
"Holy saints, skipper, ye'd not be sendin' me to choppin' poles wid a
head on me like a lobster-pot?" he whispered. "Sure, skipper, me poor
head feels that desperate bad, what wid the liquor an' the clout ye give
me, I couldn't heave it up from the pillow if Saint Peter himself give
the word."
"I bain't troublin' about Saint Peter," returned the skipper. "If ever
he wants ye to chop poles he'll see as how ye does it, I bes t'inkin'!
It bes me a-tellin' ye now; an' if ye can't carry yer head to the woods
wid ye to-day, ye treacherous dog, I'll knock it off for ye to-night so
ye'll be able to carry it 'round in yer two hands. Mark that!"
So the skipper paid his round of morning calls. At some cabins he paused
only long enough to shout a word through the door, at others he remained
for several minutes, re-inspiring treacherous but simple hearts with the
fear of Dennis Nolan, master of Chance Along. At one bed he stayed for
fifteen minutes, examining and rebandaging the wound given by the knife
of Dick Lynch. As for that drunken, sullen, treacherous savage, Dick
Lynch himself, he dragged him from his blankets, knocked him about the
floor, and then flung him back on to his bed. Then, turning to the dazed
man's horrified wife, he said, "See that he don't turn on me agin,
Biddy, or by the crowns o' the Holy Saints I'll be the everlastin' death
o' him!"
At some of the cabins his orders were for the woods, and at some they
were for work on the stranded ship. He did not disturb Bill Brennen or
Nick Leary. He knew that they would be around at his house for orders by
sun-up. The last cabin he visited was that of Pat Kavanagh. Kavanagh was
a man of parts, and had been a close friend of the old skipper. He was a
man of the world, having sailed deep-sea voyages in his youth. He was a
grand fiddler, a grand singer, and had made more "Come-all-ye's" than
you could count on your fingers and toes. He had a wooden leg; and his
daughter was the finest girl in Chance Along. His best known
Come-all-ye, which is sung to this day from Caplin Arm to Bay Bulls,
starts like this:--
"Come, all ye hardy fishermen
An' hearken to me lay
O' how the good brig 'Peggy Bell'
Went down in Trin'ty Bay.
"The skipper he was from St. John's,
The mate from Harbor Grace;
The bosun was a noble lad
Wid whiskers 'round his face."
Pat Kavanagh was the author of the ballad that commences this way, and
of many more.
He was proud of his daughter and his wooden leg; he was happy with his
fiddle and his verses; he did not hold with physical or emotional
violence, and asked the world for nothing more than to be left alone
beside his stove with a knowledge that there was something in the pot
and a few cakes of hard bread in the bin. He could not understand the
new skipper, his terrible activity, his hard-fisted ways and his
ambitions, and he took no stock in wrecks except as subjects for songs;
but he had been delighted with a gift of four fine blankets and two
quarts of rum which the skipper had made him recently.
Mary Kavanagh opened the door to the skipper, and let a fine light slip
into her blue eyes at the sight of him. Her cheeks, which had been
unusually pale when she opened the door, flushed bright and deep. The
young man greeted her pleasantly and easily, and stepped across the
threshold. Pat was already out of bed and seated in his chair close to
the stove. He was long and thin, with a straggling beard and moustaches,
a long face, a long nose, and kindly, twinkling eyes. Though he looked
happy enough he also looked like a widower--why, I can't say. It may
have been owing to his general unstowed, unfurled, unswabbed
appearance. He had not yet fastened on his wooden leg. He never did,
nowadays, until he had eaten his breakfast and played a tune or two on
his fiddle. His eyes were paler than his daughter's, and not nearly so
bright, and he had a way of staring at a thing for minutes at a time as
if he did not see it--and usually he didn't. Altogether, he was a very
impractical person. He must have made a feeble sailor--a regular fool as
a look-out--and the wonder is that he lost only one leg during his
deep-sea career. He looked at the skipper with that calm, far-away
shimmer in his eyes, combing his thin whiskers with his fingers. He did
not speak. His wooden leg was leaning up against his chair.
"Good morning to ye, Pat Kavanagh," said the skipper.
The poet blinked his eyes, thereby altering their expression from a
shimmer to a gray, wise gleam.
"So it bes yerself, Skipper Denny," he said. "Set down. Set down. Sure,
b'y, I didn't expect to see ye so spry to-day, an' was just studyin' out
a few verses concernin' death an' pride an' ructions that would keep yer
memory green."
"Whist, father!" exclaimed the girl.
"I bain't dead, Pat, so ye kin set to on some new varses," said the
skipper. "If ye t'ought them poor fools ye heard yowlin' last night was
to be the death o' me, then ye was on the wrong tack. But I bes here now
to ax yer opinion concernin' them same fools, Pat. Yesterday they raised
a mutiny agin me, all along o' a poor girl as I saved from the wrack,
an' last night an' this mornin' I larned 'em the error o' their ways.
Now ye was once a deep-sea sailorman, Pat, a-sailin' foreign v'yages,
an' so I wants ye to tell me what I'd better be doin' wid some o' them
squid? There was Foxey Jack Quinn; but he run away an' done for himself
in the flurry. Here bes Dick Lynch, nigh as treacherous an' full o'
divilment as ever Jack was, growlin' an' snarlin' at me heels like a
starvin' husky an' showin' his teeth every now an' agin. So I wants to
know, Pat, will I kill him dead or run him out o' the harbor? I bes
skipper here--aye, an' more nor skipper--an' all a man has to do to live
safe an' happy an' rich in this harbor bes to do what I tells him to
do--but this here Dick Lynch bain't knowledgeable enough to see it. I's
had to bat him twice. Next time I bats him maybe I'd best finish the
job? I puts it to ye, Pat Kavanagh, because ye knows the world an' how
sich things bes done aboard foreign-going ships."
"This harbor bain't no foreign-going ship, Denny," replied the poet.
"True, Pat; but if I calls it a ship it bes the same as one!" retorted
the skipper.
"If ye takes it that way, Denny, then ye'd best be handin' the lad over
to the jedges to be tried for mutiny," suggested the other, quietly.
"But if ye wants my opinion, ye'll leave him be."
"Leave him be?"
"Aye. He bain't worth troublin' about. Bat him now an' agin, if he tries
to knife ye, an' maybe he'll follow Jack Quinn. But this harbor bain't a
ship, lad. The skipper o' a ship has the law to his back in cases o'
mutiny an' the like--but the law bain't behind ye, Dennis Nolan!"
"The divil fly away wid the law!" cried the skipper. "I bes skipper
here! I makes the law for this harbor--an' them as don't like the laws I
makes kin go somewheres else."
"Leave him be, skipper. That bes what I tells ye, for yer own good.
Don't kill him. Ye kin break up desarted wracks; ye kin fill yer pockets
wid gold; ye kin bat yer mates over the nob if ye wants to; but once ye
gets to killin' men, Denny Nolan, then ye'll find the law to yer back
sure enough, a-fixin' a noose around yer neck! Aye, lad, that bes the
truth! I warns ye because I likes ye--an' I bes glad to see ye so
prosperous."