DIRK'S TROUBLE.
Noll closed his books one afternoon after recitations, saying, "I'll
put on my overcoat, Uncle Richard, and take a run up the shore,--just
for exercise. The waves are monstrous, and how they thunder! I haven't
seen them so large since I came to Culm."
"Look out for the tide," continued his uncle; "keep away from that
narrow strip of sand up the shore, for the waves will cover it in an
hour."
Noll promised to be cautious, and ran off after cap and overcoat.
Hagar met him as he came down from his room all muffled for the walk,
and exclaimed,--
"Bress ye, honey! where ye bound fur now? Dis yer is a drefful bad
time on de shore! I's 'feard to hev ye roun' dar!" looking at him
anxiously.
Noll laughed merrily. "Do you think I'm too small to take care of
myself, Hagar?" he asked; "I'm only going for a walk, and to see the
waves. I'll be back for supper with Uncle Richard."
The sky was wild and gray with clouds. A keen, chilly wind swept
fiercely over the rocks and along the shore, and the dark,
foam-fringed waves rode grandly in upon the beach with a thunderous
shock as they flew into spray. Some of the spray mist wet Noll's face,
even as he stood upon the piazza steps. But, warmly clad, and loving
the sight of the wild tumult, he started with a light heart for his
walk up the shore. As far as he could see, the sea was dark and
gloomy, with long curves of foam whitening its surface and gleaming on
the crests of its racing waves. At his feet, on the sand, lay great
tangles of kelp and flecks of yeasty froth. The air was keen, and
frosty enough to film the still pools in the hollows with brittle ice,
and where the spray fell upon the rocks, it congealed and cased the
old boulders with glittering mail. Not a sail was there in sight, and
Noll thought the sea had never looked so vast and lonely as now. Along
the horizon the clouds were white-edged, and seemed to open and lead
away into illimitable distances of vapor. He stopped under the shelter
of a rock to look behind him, over the path which he had trodden. The
stone house looked dark and forbidding, like everything else under
this wild gray sky; but Noll had long ago ceased to consider it as
resembling a prison. It was home, now, and so took a fairer, brighter
shape in his eyes. Beyond, the pines stood up against the sky, full of
sombreness and inky shadow.
"How cold and desolate everything is!" thought Noll; "but it's not
half so gloomy as it seems, after all. I wish, though, that Ned--dear
fellow!--was here, just to make it lively once in a while." He walked
on, listening to the heavy thunder of waves, and looking upon the
troubled waste of sea, till he came to the curve of the shore. Here
lay the narrow path of pebbles against which his uncle had warned him.
But there seemed no immediate danger, for the path looked as wide as
ever, and as there was yet an hour before the tide would be in, Noll
hurried across, the salt spray flying wildly about him.
"I'll go on a little further," he thought, "and I shall get home long
enough before tea-time, then."
Having gone a little way, however, he chanced to remember that he had
not been at Culm village for a month, at least, and longed to take a
run down to the little cluster of houses.
"How the waves will dash in there!" he thought; "and I wonder how
those huts stand such a tempest as this? I've a good mind to go,
anyhow,--it's such a good chance to see the place in a gale." He
wavered and walked hesitatingly about in the sand for a few minutes,
and at last decided to go. He ran and walked by turns, the wind
blowing his curly locks in his eyes and taking his breath almost away
with its fierce gusts; yet he kept on. It seemed as if the waves
jarred and thundered heavier on this Culm side than on his own quarter
of the Rock; at any rate, the wind was more powerful, and blew the
spray upon him in showers.
"I'll get drenched, if the wind keeps on like this!" he thought; "if I
weren't so near, I'd turn back; but the houses are in sight, already,
and I've got to get acquainted with salt water. I'll keep on!"
When he drew near the little settlement, he was tired enough with
running and battling the wind, and was content to take a slower pace.
Never had the fishermen's huts looked so forlorn and miserable as now.
Noll half expected to see them come tumbling and rolling along the
sand in every gust of wind which struck them; yet, with some
mysterious attraction to their sandy foundations, they held their own,
though some of them creaked and groaned with the strain which was
brought to bear upon their timbers.
The boy kept on toward the little wharf, over which the waves rolled
and tumbled furiously, without meeting a soul. The water dashed so
high and wildly up the sand that he was obliged to keep well up beside
the houses to escape a drenching. He thought he had never looked upon
so grand a sight as the sea presented here,--all its vast waste
lashed into great waves that came roaring in like white-maned monsters
to dash themselves upon the laud.
Standing here, close by Dirk Sharp's door, Noll suddenly fancied he
heard a faint wail within. He was not at all sure, the sea thundered
so, and the wind screamed so shrilly about the miserable dwelling; but
presently, in a slight lull of the tempest, he heard the wail--if wail
it was--again. It sounded like the voice of a child,--a child
suffering illness or pain.
"I wonder if Dirk has any little ones?" thought Noll; "and what can he
do with them, if they are ill?"
Mentally hoping that his ears had deceived him, and that no one on the
desolate Rock stood in need of aid which they could not have, he was
about to turn away and retrace his steps homeward, as the sky seemed
to shut down grayer and darker than before, and nightfall was
approaching. But at that instant the door of the dwelling opened, and
out came Dirk, beating his breast and crying aloud, whether with pain
or grief Noll was too surprised to notice at first.
The man failed to see the lad standing close by his door-step till he
had taken several strides up and down the sand, where the wind blew
the spray full upon him,--walking there hatless and coatless. When he
did perceive him, he stopped short, exclaiming, almost fiercely,--
"What _ye_ here fur, lad?--what ye here fur? The Lord knows it's no
place fur the sort ye b'long to!"
"I was looking at the sea," said Noll; "and--and--what's the matter,
Dirk?"
"Nothin' that'll do ye any good ter know!" cried Dirk, roughly,
beginning to pace up and down the sand again. "Ye can't know nothin'
o' trouble, lad! How ken ye?"
Noll hardly knew what answer to make to this vehement question, and
finally made none at all, but asked,--
"Are any of your family ill, Dirk?"
"Ill? Sick, ye mean? O Lord! yes, yes,--and dyin'!"
Noll started. Some one ill and dying on this dreary, wretched Rock!
and no doctor to give aid. He did not know how far he might dare to
interrogate Dirk in his present half-frenzied condition, but ventured,
after a minute or two of silence, to ask,--
"Is it one of the children?"
"Yes, my little gal!" said Dirk, groaning,--"my little gal it is, an'
nothin' to keep her frum it. O Lord! seems as ef I sh'u'd go mad!" and
he threw up his hands to the lowering sky in despair, and faced about
to the sea, letting the cold drops drive into his face.
Noll was fain to comfort him, but was at a loss how to offer
consolation to such anguish as Dirk's.
"Isn't there some one on the Rock that can help, that knows something
about medicine?" he asked, eagerly.
"No, no, lad!" Dirk cried, "there ain't a soul this side o' the sea
ken help my little gal! Ye don' know nothin' o' trouble, lad! Ye don'
know what 'tis ter feel that yer chile's dyin' fur want o' somethin'
to save it! O Lord! seems as ef I c'u'd swim through this sea to
Hastings fur my little gal!"
He rushed down to the boiling surf, and Noll half expected to see him
throw himself into the sea; but he came back, drenched with a great
wave, with despair and agony upon his face.
"Here, lad," he exclaimed, "come in,--come in an' see what trouble is!
Ye don' know. How ken ye?"
Noll followed, and Dirk pushed open the door of his dwelling. The air
which met the boy as he entered the small, low room was so close and
foul that he almost staggered back. The floor was bare, and through a
crack under the door the keen wind swept in across it, flaring the
fire on the stone hearth and puffing ashes and smoke about. A fishy
odor was upon everything. Household utensils were scattered about in
front of the hearth, occupying a quarter of the room, and what few
chairs and other articles of wooden furniture there were, were fairly
black with dirt and smoke. Noll had never before entered a dwelling so
filthy, wretched, and miserable as this.
"Here, lad," said Dirk, brokenly,--"here--be--the--little gal," and
pointed to one corner, where, watched over by a thin, slovenly woman,
the child lay on its little bed.
The mother did not take her eyes off the girl, and Noll went forward,
with much inward repugnance, to look upon Dirk's treasure. The child's
cheeks were flushed a bright red, and it lay with drowsy, heavy-lidded
eyes, uttering, at intervals, a low wail.
Noll shivered, and involuntarily thought of those dreary, desolate
graves which he stumbled upon in one of his rambles. Could nothing be
done? Must the child die for lack of a little medicine? He looked
through the little dirt-crusted window upon the tossing sea, and saw
what a hopeless barrier it interposed between them and aid. He thought
of Uncle Richard, and knew that it was useless to expect aid from that
direction; and then he thought of _Hagar_! She was a good nurse, he
remembered, and knew--or claimed to know--a vast deal about medicine.
Perhaps she could help this child! he thought, with a glad heart, and
if she could! His heart suddenly sank, for he remembered that the old
housekeeper could not make a journey through the storm and tempest,
even had she the necessary skill.
"But," he thought to himself, "I can tell her about the child,--it's
got a fever,--and she can send medicines; and to-morrow, if it's
pleasant, she can come herself!" and thinking thus, Noll turned to
Dirk, with--
"I can get you some medicines, I think, from our old housekeeper. May
I? Shall I try?"
The fisherman was silent with surprise. He would probably have sooner
expected aid from across the raging sea than from this lad.
Noll read an answer in his eyes, and hastened to the door, and bounded
away without waiting for any more words or explanations.
How fast it had grown dark while he was in Dirk's hut! The horizon was
quite hidden, so was all the wide waste a half-mile from shore; but
with the coming of night the sea had lost none of its thunder, nor
the wind aught of its fierceness. Noll ran till he was out of breath.
Then he walked, thinking that the homeward path was wonderfully long.
Then he ran again, feeling almost as if the child's life depended upon
his exertions, and seeming to hear its wail above all the din of wind
and waves.
Suddenly he plashed to his ankles, and this brought his headlong race
to an abrupt termination. What could it mean? Then he remembered, with
a sudden chill, what, in his eagerness and anxiety, he had entirely
forgotten,--the tide was coming in, and was already over the path
which Uncle Richard warned him against.
He looked back. The beach over which he had come glimmered faintly in
the dusk, with its long line of breakers gleaming far up and down.
Back there in the darkness, he thought, Dirk's child was dying for
want of medicine. Oh! what to do? He looked down at the foam creeping
about his ankles, and said to himself,--
"Pshaw! it's only over shoe, now, and my feet are wet already. I'll
dash through; 'twon't take but three minutes, and I _can't_ wait!"
He sprang on, thinking to clear the short strip, which the tide had
covered, with a few bounds. A wave, high and broad, which had been
gathering power and volume in all its long, onward course, came
sweeping thunderingly in and engulfed him.