MOTHER NOLAN DOES SOME SPYING
John Darling was sore, hungry and cold; but his heart was joyful and
strong. He had been knocked over the head, and he had been robbed of the
newly-recovered necklace and the reward of a thousand pounds; but he had
found Flora, alive, evidently not ill-treated and not in any real danger
save of oblivion, and with the memory of him clear in her heart. He had
failed to get her away from the harbor; but he felt convinced that a way
of escape for both of them would soon occur. He did not fear Black
Dennis Nolan. The fellow was a man, after all. He knew that if he should
come to any serious physical injury at the skipper's hands it would be
in a fair fight. Also, he knew that Mother Nolan and Mary Kavanagh were
on his side--were as anxious to get Flora out of the harbor as he was to
take her out. But the planks upon which he lay were as cold and hard as
ice; and at last he began to wonder if even his splendid constitution
would stand a night of this exposure, bound hand and foot, without
serious results. He lay awake for hours, suffering in body but rejoicing
in heart. At last, numb with cold, he sank into a half-doze. He was
aroused by sounds at the door--the cry of a key turning an unoiled lock
and the creak of rusty hinges. Then the welcome gleam of a lantern
flooded to him along the frosty floor. The visitor was Bill Brennen. He
stooped above the sailor and squinted at him curiously. Under his left
arm he carried a caribou skin and several blankets.
"Lad," said he, "ye must be full o' the divil's own ginger to cross the
skipper as ye done. Sure an' the wonder bes why he didn't kill ye dead!
But now that ye still be alive, him not killin' ye in the first flush,
ye bes safe as Mother Nolan herself. A divil o' a woman that, entirely.
Saints in glory, me whiskers still aches desperate! Here bes a grand rug
for ye to lay on, an' blankets to cover yerself wid. The skipper sent
'em. Kill a man he will, in fair fight; but it bain't in his nature to
let any man go cold nor hungry in Chance Along."
He spread the caribou skin and one of the blankets on the floor and
rolled John Darling on to them. Then he threw two more blankets over him
and tucked them in. Next, he produced a flask from his pocket and
uncocked it.
"Skipper's orders," he said, and held the flask to the helpless one's
lips.
"Now ye bes as snug as any marchant, what wid yer grand bed an' yer drop
o' fine liquor in yer belly," he remarked. He turned at the door and
said, "Some one will be bringin' ye grub in the mornin'. Good night to
ye."
From that until morning, the prisoner on the floor, bound at wrist and
ankle, rested more peacefully than Black Dennis Nolan in his father's
bed; for the sailor was only sore in his muscles and bones, but the
skipper ached in heart and soul. The skipper tossed through the black
hours, reasoning against reason, hoping against hopelessness. The girl
hated him and despised him! Twist and turn as he might, he could not
escape from this conviction. Now he even doubted the power of the
diamonds and rubies to win her, having seen that in her eyes which had
brought all his dreams crumbling to choking dust. Pain had laid the
devil of fury in him and aroused the imp of stubbornness. He would wait
and watch. He was safe to keep them both in the harbor until the arrival
of Father McQueen, in June; and perhaps, by that time, he would see some
way of winning the girl. Should the necklace of diamonds and rubies fail
to impress the girl, then he might bribe John Darling with it to leave
the harbor. You see, the workings of the skipper's mind were as
primitive as his methods of coping with mutineers.
The skipper left his bed and the house at the first gray of dawn,
determined to search the coast high and low for a solution of the
mystery of the stranger's arrival. He went down between the silent
cabins, all roofed with new snow, and the empty snow-trimmed stages, and
looked out upon the little harbor. What was that, just at the edge of
the shadow of the rock to the right of the narrow passage?--a boat, lump
of wreckage or a shadow? Stare as he would, he could not determine the
nature of the thing in that faint and elfin twilight; but it drew his
eye and aroused his curiosity as no natural shadow of any familiar rock
could have done. He dragged a skiff from under one of the stages and
launched it into the quiet harbor and with a single oar over the stern
sculled out toward the black object on the steel-gray tide. It proved
to be a fine bully, empty and with the frozen painter hanging over the
bow and trailing alongside.
"So this bes how he come to Chance Along--an' not man enough to moor his
boat safe!" exclaimed the skipper.
The bully was as empty as on the day it had been built, save for one oar
lying across the thwarts. Not even a spar and sail were aboard her. The
man must be an absolute fool to set out along a dangerous coast, in a
bad time of year, single-handed and without grub or gear, reflected the
skipper. The thought that such a bungler as this stranger should be
preferred to himself, intensified his pangs of humiliation. No girl who
understood such things--no girl of that coast--would treat him so, he
reflected, bitterly. He pulled the dripping painter aboard the skiff,
made it fast around a thwart and towed the bully ashore.
Mary Kavanagh had been astir as early as the skipper himself. She had
gone first to the store. Peering through a window, she had made out the
stranger's form on the floor, bulkily blanketed. From the store, she
hastened to the skipper's house, saw his footprints pointing toward the
land-wash, and stood with her hand on the latch until a skiff slid out
into her line of vision from behind the drying-stages. She knew that the
skipper was on his way to investigate the derelict bully. She opened the
door then, entered quietly and went to Mother Nolan's room. The old
woman was sitting up in bed with her night-cap a-tilt over one ear.
"Saints alive, Mary, what mischief bes afoot now?" asked Mother Nolan.
Mary drew close to the bed-side and leaned over to her confederate.
"The captain bes safe in the store, all rolled up in blankets," she
whispered, "an'--an' I larned something last night that means as how we
kin get 'em both away before long, wid luck. An' I played a trick on the
skipper--so don't ye bes worryin' when he tells ye as how he's found the
captain's boat. Give the word to the lass to keep her heart up. Sure,
we'll be gettin' the two o' them safe out o' the harbor yet."
"An' where bes Denny now? How'd ye get into the house?" asked the old
woman.
"He bes out in a skiff this very minute, a-lookin' at the captain's boat
where it bes driftin' 'round the harbor. Sure, an' that bes just where
I wants him. An' now I'll be goin', Mother Nolan dear, for I bain't
wishin' Denny to catch me here a-whisperin' t'ye so early in the mornin'
or maybe he'd get the idea into his head as how us two women bain't such
harmless fools as what he's always bin takin' us for."
"Ye bes a fine girl, Mary Kavanagh," returned Mother Nolan, "an' I
trusts ye to clear this harbor o' trouble. I'll be tellin' the good word
to the poor lass inside this very minute. Her heart bain't all diamonds
an' pride, after all, as she let us know last night, poor dear."
Mary left them, and a minute later met the skipper on his way up from
the land-wash.
"I's found the boat the stranger come in," said the skipper.
"Sure, an' so ye would, Denny, if it was to be found," replied Mary.
The young man eyed her gloomily and inquiringly until she blushed and
turned her face away from him.
"Ye talks fair, Mary," he said. "Ye talks as if ye was a friend o' mine;
but ye bain't always actin' that same way, these days. Last night, now,
ye an' granny was sure fightin' agin me! I seed ye bat Nick Leary wid
the leg o' the chair--an' I seed that dacent old woman a-hangin' to Bill
Brennen's whiskers like a wildcat to the moss on a tree."
"An' why not, Denny Nolan?" retorted the girl. "Ye t'ree men was after
murderin' that poor lad! D'ye think Mother Nolan was wantin' to see ye
carried off to St. John's an' hung by yer neck? Sure, we was fightin'
agin ye. What hurt had that poor lad ever done to ye? He come to Chance
Along for his lass--an' sure, she was ready enough to be goin' away wid
him!"
The skipper's face darkened. "Who saved her life from the wrack?" he
cried. "Tell me that, will ye! Who salvaged her from the fore-top o' the
wrack?"
Without waiting for an answer, he brushed past Mary and strode up to his
house. The girl stood motionless for a little while, gazing after him
with a flushed face, twitching lips and a flicker of amusement in her
gray eyes.
"Poor Denny," she murmured. "His pride bes hurt more nor the heart of
him!"
John Darling was not honored by a visit from the skipper that day; but
Bill Brennen carried food to him, made up a fire in the stove, and even
loosed his bonds for a few minutes upon receiving his word of honor that
he would not take advantage of the kindness by trying to escape.
"What does Nolan intend to do with me?" asked Darling.
"Well, sir, it looks to me as how he bes figgerin' to keep ye in Chance
Along till June. He bes t'inkin' as how the young lady may blow 'round
to his own idee," replied Bill.
"And what is his idea?"
"As how he bes a better man nor ye be."
"But why does he figure to keep me until June? Why not until July, or
August--or next Christmas?"
"Well, sir, ye see it bes this way wid him. Father McQueen, the dear,
riverent gentleman--an' may he never die till I kills him, an' may every
blessed hair on his head turn into a wax candle to light him to
glory!--bes comin' back to Chance Along in June. The skipper bain't
afeared o' any man in the world but his riverence."
John Darling smiled. "I should like to see Father McQueen," he said;
"but I am afraid I must be going away from here considerably before the
first of June."
Bill wagged his head. "Now don't ye be too sure, sir," he whispered. "Ye
bain't dealin' wid any ignorant fisherman when ye bes dealin' wid Black
Dennis Nolan. Sure, didn't he find yer bully this very mornin'!"
"My bully!" exclaimed the other, losing color. "Where did he find it?"
"Driftin' in the harbor," returned Bill. "It bes a grand bully entirely,
sir."
Darling was silent for a moment. Then, trying to look as if the finding
of the bully drifting in the harbor was rather a joke, he laughed.
"And did he capture my crew of five strong men?" he asked.
Bill Brennen grinned. "Now ye needn't be tryin' any o' yer divilment on
me," he said. "The bully was as empty as Tim Sullivan's
brain-locker--an' the holy saints knows as that bes empty enough! Sure,
there wasn't even a sail aboard her, nor a bite o' grub nor a drop o'
liquor."
"My five men must have fallen overboard," said Darling, smiling. Poor
John! Now, should he manage to escape and get Flora out of the skipper's
house, how was he to get out of the harbor? What had happened to George
Wick? The tide must have carried the bully out of the drook, while
George was asleep, and drifted it around to the harbor. He promised
himself the pleasure of teaching Master George the art of mooring a boat
if he ever met him again.
John Darling spent an anxious day. Shortly after midnight he was
startled by a faint tapping on one of the windows. The night was pitch
black, and so he could see nothing. The tapping was repeated. He rolled
out of his blanket and across the floor toward the sound. His progress
was arrested by a rank of boxes and flour-bags. Pressing his shoulder
against these, he hitched himself to his feet, turned and leaned across
them until his face was within a foot of the faint square of the window.
Against the half-darkness he could now see something indistinct in
shape, and all of a dense blackness save for a pale patch that he knew
to be a human face. It was Mary Kavanagh. She told him briefly of the
way she had turned the skipper from searching the coast for his boat and
his companion; of Flora's safety, and of how she hoped to accomplish
their escape before long--perhaps on the following night. Wick was
still hidden in the drook, she said. She would try to get a boat of some
kind around to him on the next night; and if she succeeded in that, she
would return and try to get Darling out of the store and Flora out of
the skipper's house.
The sailor was at a loss for words in which to express his gratitude.
"But ye must promise me one thing," whispered the girl. "Ye must swear,
by all the holy saints, to do naught agin Denny Nolan when once ye git
safe away--swear that neither Flora nor yerself puts the law on to
Denny, nor on to any o' the folks o' this harbor, for whatever has been
done."
"I swear it, by all the saints," replied Darling. "For myself--but I
cannot promise it for Flora. You must arrange that with her."
Several hours after Mary's interview with John Darling, old Mother Nolan
awoke in her bed, suddenly, with all her nerves on the jump. The room
was dark, but she felt convinced that a light had been held close to her
face but a moment before. She felt no fear for herself, but a chilling
anxiety as to what deviltry Denny might be up to now. Could it be that
she was mistaken in him after all? Could it be that he was less of a
man than she had thought? She crawled noiselessly from her bed and stole
over to the door of Flora Lockhart's room. The door was fastened. With
the key, which she had brought from under her pillow, she made sure that
it was locked. She unlocked it noiselessly, opened the door a crack and
peered in. The room was lighted by the glow from the fire and by a
guttering candle on a chair beside the bed. She saw that the room was
empty, save for the sleeping girl. Closing the door softly and locking
it again, she turned and groped her way across to the kitchen door,
beneath which a narrow line of light was visible. Scarcely breathing,
she raised the latch, drew the door inward a distance of half an inch
and set one of her bright old eyes to the crack. She saw the skipper
kneeling in a corner of the kitchen, with his back to her and a candle
on the floor beside him. He seemed to be working busily and heavily, but
not a sound of his toil reached her eager ears.
"He bes hidin' something'," she reflected. "Shiftin' some o' his wracked
gold, maybe? But why bes he so sly about it to-night, a-spyin' in on his
old grandmother to see if she bes sound asleep or no?"
Presently, she closed the door and crept back to her bed. Next morning,
as soon as the skipper and young Cormick had left the house, she
examined the corner of the floor where the skipper had been at work. She
had to pull aside a wood-box to get at the spot. One of the narrow,
dusty planks showed that it had been tampered with. She pried it up with
a chisel, dug into the loose earth beneath and at last found a small box
covered with red leather. She opened it and gazed at the diamonds and
rubies in frightened fascination. Ignorant as she was of such things,
she knew that the value of these stones must be immense. At last she
closed the casket, returned it to the bottom of the hole and replaced
the earth, the plank and the wood-box. Where, when and how had the
skipper come by that treasure? she wondered. She hobbled over to Pat
Kavanagh's house and told Mary all about it.