MARY KAVANAGH
A number of men with sore heads and dry mouths made their way to the top
of the cliff, across the barrens and into a thin belt of spruces. There
they worked as well as they could at cutting timber for Father McQueen's
church. They were a dolorous company. The daring spirit of mutiny had
passed away, leaving behind it the fear of the skipper. The courage,
uplift and inspiring glow of the brandy had ebbed and evaporated,
leaving the quaking stomach, the swimming brain, the misty eye. They
groaned as they hacked at the trees, for the desire to lie down on the
cold snow was heavy upon them; but still they hacked away, for the fear
of Black Dennis Nolan, the unconquerable, was like a hot breath upon
their necks. They said some bitter things about Dick Lynch.
The skipper visited the wreck, accompanied by Bill Brennen and a few of
the men and boys who had not taken part in yesterday's mutiny. The sea
was almost flat and there was no wind. The hatches were broken open; and
what they could see of the _Royal William's_ cargo looked entirely
satisfactory to them--sail-cloth, blankets, all manner of woollen and
cotton goods, boots and shoes, hams, cheeses and tinned meats. Though
some of these things were damaged by the salt water, few of them were
ruined by it. They worked all day at winching out the cargo. Next day,
the men who had cooled their sore heads in the woods were also put to
work on the stranded ship. With timbers and tarpaulins from the ship
they built a storehouse on the barren, in the midst of a thicket of
spruces. In the two days they managed to save about a quarter of the
cargo. The skipper drove them hard, an iron belaying pin in his hand and
slashing words always on his lips. But even the dullest of them saw that
he neither drove, cursed nor threatened Bill Brennen, Nick Leary or any
of the men who had kept out of the mutiny. Most of the stuff that was
salvaged was put in the new store, but a few hundreds of pounds of it
were carried to the harbor.
During these two days the skipper did not once set eyes on the girl he
had saved from the fore-top. Mother Nolan would not let him approach
within two yards of the door of the room in which she lay. It seemed,
from Mother Nolan's talk, that the beautiful stranger was always
sleeping. But, through the old woman, he learned her name. It was Flora
Lockhart.
When the skipper and Cormick reached home after the second day's work on
the cargo, Mother Nolan told them that Flora was in the grip of a
desperate fever, upon which none of her brews of roots and herbs seemed
to have any effect. She was hot as fire and babbled continually of
things strange and mad to the ears of the old woman. The skipper was
dismayed at the news; but his vigorous mind immediately began to search
for a means of dealing with the fever. He knew nothing of any remedies
save the local ones, in the manufacture and administering of which his
grandmother was a mistress. But here was the _Royal William's_
medicine-chest, and here was Pat Kavanagh who had sailed foreign voyages
in vessels carrying similar chests. He rushed from the house straight to
the poet-fiddler's cabin. He pushed open the door and entered without
knocking, as the custom is in Chance Along. Mary was attending to a
stew-pan on the stove, and Pat was seated in his chair with his wooden
leg strapped in place. The skipper told of the stranger's fever.
"An' ye has the ship's medicine-chest?" queried Pat. "Then we'll give
her the bitter white powder--quinine--aye, quinine. Every ship carries
it, lad. When I was took wid the fever in Port-o'-Spain didn't the mate
shake it on to me tongue till me ears crackled like hail on the roof,
an' when I got past stickin' out me tongue didn't he mix it wid whiskey
an' pour it into me? Sure, Denny! An' it knocked the fever galley west
in t'ree days an' left me limp as cook's dish-clout hangin' to dry under
the starboard life-boat. But it bes better nor dyin' entirely wid the
fever. I'll step round wid ye, skipper, and p'int out this here quinine
to ye."
And he did. He found a large bottle of quinine in the box, in powder
form. He measured out a quantity of it in doses of from three to five
grains, for his memory of the sizes of the doses administered to him by
the mate was somewhat dim, and advised Mother Nolan not to give the
powders too often nor yet not often enough. Mother Nolan asked for more
exact directions. She felt that she had a right to them. Pat Kavanagh
combed his long whiskers reflectively with his long fingers, gazing at
the medicine-chest with a far-away look in his pale eyes.
"I don't rightly recollect the ins an' outs o' me own case," he said, at
last, "but I has a dim picter in me mind o' how Mister Swim, the mate,
shook the powder on to me tongue every blessed time I opened me mouth to
holler. An' the b'ys let me drink all the cold water I could hold--aye,
an' never once did they wake me up when I was sleepin' quiet, not even
to give the quinine to me. An' they stowed me in blankets an' made me
sweat, though the fo'castle was hotter nor the hatches o' hell. An' when
I wouldn't stick out me tongue for the powder then they'd melt it in
whiskey an' pour it down me neck."
With this Mother Nolan had to be content. She retired to her own room,
mixed a powder in a cup of root-tea and gave it to the girl, who was
quiet now, though wide-awake and bright-eyed. Kavanagh went home,
invented a ballad about his fever in Port-o'-Spain, and wrote it upon
his memory, verse by verse--for he did not possess the art of writing
upon paper. After supper Cormick retired to the loft and his bed; but
the skipper did not touch a blanket that night. He spent most of the
time in his chair by the stove; but once in every hour he tiptoed into
his grandmother's room and listened. If he heard any sound from the
inner room when the old woman happened to be asleep he awakened her and
sent her in to Flora Lockhart. At dawn he fell asleep in his chair and
dreamed that he was the mate of a foreign-going ship, and that all he
had to do was to shake white powders on to the tongue of the girl he had
saved from the fore-top of the _Royal William_. Cormick shook him awake
when breakfast was ready. After hearing from Mother Nolan that the girl
seemed much cooler and better than she had since the early afternoon of
the previous day, he ate his breakfast and went out and sent all the
able-bodied men to get timber for Father McQueen's church, some from the
woods and others from the wreck. They would haul the timber after the
next fall of snow. But he did not go abroad himself. He hung about the
harbor all day, sometimes in his own kitchen, sometimes down on the
land-wash, and sometimes in other men's cabins. He put a new dressing on
the wound of the lad who had received the knife and paid another visit
to Dick Lynch. Lynch was still in bed; but this time he did not drag him
out on the floor.
Mother Nolan was full of common sense and wise instincts, in spite of
the fact that she believed in fairies, mermaids and the personal
attentions of the devil. She was doctor and nurse by nature as well as
by practice--by everything, in short, but education. So it happened that
she did not follow Pat Kavanagh's instructions to the letter. She argued
to herself that Pat's fever had been a hot-climate one, while Flora
Lockhart's was undoubtedly a cold-climate one. She saw that the girl's
trouble was a sickness, accompanied by high fever, brought on by cold
and exposure. So she did not give the quinine quite as generously as the
fiddler had recommended, and kept right on with her hot brews of herbs
and roots in addition. Instinct told her that if she could drive out the
cold the fever would follow it out of its own accord.
In the afternoon the girl became restless and highly feverish again, and
by sunset she was slightly delirious. She talked constantly in her
wonderful voice of fame, of great cities and of many more things which
sounded meaningless and alarming to Mother Nolan. For a little while
she thought she was on the _Royal William_, talking to the captain about
the great reception that awaited her in New York, her own city, which
she had left four years ago, humble and unknown, and was now returning
to, garlanded with European recognition. It was all double-Dutch to
Mother Nolan. She put an end to it with her potent dose of quinine and
whiskey. She spent this night in her patient's room, keeping the fire
roaring and catching catnaps in a chair by the hearth; and the skipper
haunted the other side of the door. Toward morning the girl asked for a
drink, as sanely as anybody could, took it eagerly, and then sank into a
quiet sleep. The old woman nodded in her chair. The skipper tiptoed back
to the kitchen and flung himself across his bed.
After the fourth day of the fight against the fever Mother Nolan saw
that the struggle was likely to prove too much for her, if prolonged at
the present pitch, whatever it might prove for Flora Lockhart; so she
sent the skipper over to bring Mary Kavanagh to her. Now Mary was as
kind-hearted and honest as she was big and beautiful. Her mind was
strong and sane, and spiced with a quick wit. Her kindness and honesty
were spiced with a warm temper. She was human all through. As she could
flame to love so could she flame to anger. As she could melt to pity so
could she chill to pride. In short, though she was a fine and good young
woman, she wasn't an angel. Angels have their place in heaven; and the
place and duty of Mary Kavanagh was on this poor earth, where men's
souls are still held in shells of clay and wrenched this way and that
way by the sorrows and joys of their red hearts. Like most good human
women, Mary had all the makings of a saint in her; but heaven itself
could never make a sexless, infallible angel of her.
Mary told her father not to forget to keep the fire burning, threw a
blue cloak over her head and shoulders, and accompanied the skipper back
to Mother Nolan. Short as the distance was between the two dwellings she
glanced twice at her companion, with kindliness, inquiry and something
of anxiety in her dark gray eyes. But he stared ahead of him so
intently, with eyes somewhat haggard from lack of sleep, that he did not
notice the glances. Mother Nolan welcomed her joyfully.
"Help me tend on this poor lamb from the wrack," said the old woman,
"an' ye'll be the savin' of me life. Me poor old eyes feels heavy as
stove-lids, Mary dear."
"Sure, I'll help ye, Mother Nolan, an' why not?" returned Mary, throwing
aside her cloak from her smooth brown head and strong, shapely
shoulders. "Father kin mind himself, if he bes put to it, for a little
while. Now tell me what ye does for the lady, Mother Nolan, dear, an'
give me a look at her, an' then pop into bed wid ye, an' I'll lay a
bottle o' hot water to yer feet."
"Saints bless ye, me dear. May every hair o' yer darlint head turn into
a wax candle to light ye to glory amongst the holy saints," returned the
old woman.
So it came about that Mary Kavanagh joined in the fight for the life of
the girl from the wreck. She stood her trick at Flora's bed-side turn
and turn about with the old woman, quiet as a fairy on her feet, though
she was surely as big as a dozen fairies, quiet as a whisper with her
voice, her hands as gentle as snow that falls in windless weather. She
did not worry about her father. There was bread in the bin and fish in
the shed for him, and he had his fiddle and his ballads. Every evening,
sometimes before and sometimes after supper, he came over and sat with
the skipper, combing his long beard with his restless fingers, and
telling improbable tales of his deep-sea voyages.
The skipper's faith in his grandmother and Mary was great. He soon
schooled himself to stay away from the house for hours at a time, and
give at least half his attention to the work of impressing the men with
his mastery, and getting out lumber for the little church which Father
McQueen was to build in June, on the barrens behind and above Chance
Along. The men felt and knew his touch of mastery. They felt that this
work at church-building was sure to lift any curse and devilment from
the harbor, if such things had really been, and establish the skipper's
good luck for all time. Dick Lynch, who still walked feebly, with a
bandage about his head, was in bad repute with all of them, and more
especially with the blood-kin of the young man whom he had knifed in the
drunken fight over the gold. But the youth who had been knifed, Pat
Brennen by name, was in a fair way to recover from the wound, thanks to
the skipper's care and the surgical dressings from the _Royal
William's_ medicine-chest. So they worked well, ate well, clothed
themselves in warm garments made by their womenfolk from the goods saved
from the last wreck, and said with their undependable tongues, from the
shallows of their undependable hearts, that Black Dennis Nolan was a
great man and a terrible. The spirit of distrust and revolt was dead--or
sound asleep, at least.
The hot poison of the fever in Flora Lockhart's blood was drawn after
days of ceaseless care and innumerable doses of quinine and brews of
herbs and roots; but it left behind it a weakness of spirit and body,
and a dangerous condition of chest and throat. Mother Nolan and Mary
Kavanagh saw that the fight was only half won, and neither of them laid
aside their arms for a moment, though they changed their tactics. Now
the fire in the chimney was kept roaring more fiercely than ever,
bottles of hot water were kept always in the bed, the blankets were
heated freely, and hot broth and steaming spirits were given in place of
the brews of roots and leaves. The skipper and Cormick went far afield
and succeeded in shooting several willow-grouse, and these Mother Nolan
made into broth for Flora. The best of everything that could be
procured was hers. She began to recover strength at last, and then each
day brought improvement. By this time she and Mary Kavanagh had warmed
toward each other until a friendship was established. Flora had thanked
Mary beautifully, many times over, for her care, and had talked a great
deal of herself and her ambitions. She had told Mary and Mother Nolan
the hardships and glories of her past and her great dreams for the
future. On the day that Mary was to go back to her father, Flora drew
her down and kissed her fondly.
"You and Mother Nolan have saved my life," she said, "and I am your
friend--yours especially, Mary--forever and ever. I shall prove my love
and gratitude, you may be sure. Out in the big world, Mary, I am
_somebody_--I have the power to do kindnesses and repay debts. New York
is full of fame and money, and a great deal of it is waiting for me."
Mary thanked her, kissed her in return, and said gently that she did not
want to be rewarded for her nursing, except by love. She added that it
was Black Dennis Nolan, the skipper, who had saved Flora's life.
"I remember him vaguely," said the other. "He took me away from that
terrible place where I was swaying and tossing between the waves and the
sky. The queer things I saw in my fever dreams have dimmed the memory of
the wreck, thank God--and now they themselves are growing dim. He is a
big man, is he not, and young and very strong? And his eyes are almost
black, I think. I will pay him for what he has done, you may be sure,
Mary. I suppose he is a fisherman, or something of that kind?"
"He bain't the kind to want money for what he has done," said Mary,
slowly. "He be skipper o' Chance Along, like his father was afore
him--but there never was another skipper like him, for all that. He
saved ye from the wrack, an' now ye lay in his house--but I warns ye not
to offer money to him for the sarvice he has done ye. Sure, he wouldn't
be needin' the money, an' wouldn't take it if he was. He lives by the
sea--aye, in his own way!--an' when the sea feeds full at all she fills
her men with the divil's own pride."
Flora was puzzled and slightly amused. She patted the other's hand and
smiled up at her.
"Is he so rich then?" she asked. "And what is a skipper?--if he is not
the captain of a ship? How can a man be the skipper of a village like
this?"
"His father was skipper," replied Mary. "The fore-an'-aft schooner bes
his, an' the store wid flour an' tea in it for whoever needs them. It
bes the way o' the coast--more or less."
"Have any letters come for me? Have people from New York arranged yet to
take me away?" asked Flora, suddenly forgetting about the skipper and
remembering her own career so terribly interrupted and so strangely
retarded. "I shall be able to travel in a few days, I think. What have
the newspapers said about my misfortunes?"
The pink faded a little from Mary's cheeks and her gray eyes seemed to
dim.
"Saints love ye!" she said. "There bes no letters for ye, my dear--an'
how would there be? Up-along they'll be still waitin' for the ship--or
maybe they have give up waitin' by this time. How would they know she
was wracked on this coast?"
The beautiful singer gazed at her in consternation and amazement. Her
wonderful sea-eyes flashed to their clear sea-depths where the
cross-lights lay.
"But--but has no word been sent to New York?--to anywhere?" she cried.
"Surely you cannot mean that people do not know of the wreck, and that I
am here? What of the owners of the ship? Oh, God, what a place!"
Mary was startled for a moment, then thoughtful. She had never before
wondered what the great world of "Up-along"--which is everywhere south
and east and west of Newfoundland, London, New York, Pernambuco,
Halifax, Montreal, Africa, China and the lands and seas around and
between--must think of the ships that sail away and never return. Wrecks
had always seemed to her as natural as tides and storms. When the tide
comes in who thinks of reporting it to the great world? Spars and
shattered timbers come in on the tides; and sometimes hulls more or less
unbroken; and sometimes living humans. Mary had seen something of these
things herself and had heard much. She had never known of the spars or
hulls being claimed by any person but the folk who found them and fought
with the sea for them. She had seen shipwrecked sailors tarry awhile,
take their food thankfully, and presently set out for St. John's and the
world beyond, by way of Witless Bay. None of them had ever come back to
Chance Along.
"I bes sorry for ye wid my whole heart," she said. "Yer folks will be
mournin' for ye, I fear--for how would they know ye was safe in Chance
Along? But the saints have presarved your life, dear, an' when
spring-time comes then ye can sail 'round to St. John's an' away to New
York. But sure, we might have writ a letter about ye an' carried it out
to Witless Bay. The skipper can write."
"I have been buried alive!" cried Flora, covering her face with her
hands and weeping unrestrainedly.
Mary tried to comfort her, then left the room to find Mother Nolan. The
old woman was in the kitchen, and Dennis was with her.
"She bes desperate wrought-up because--because her folks up-along will
think she bes dead," explained Mary. "She says she bes buried alive in
Chance Along. Skipper, ye had best write a letter about herself an' the
wrack, an' send it out. She bes a great person up-along."
The skipper sprang to his feet, staring at her with a blank face and
with defiance in his eyes.
"A letter!" he exclaimed, huskily. "No, by hell! Let 'em t'ink what they
wants to! Bain't Chance Along good enough for her?"