Culm Rock Part 21

"Call on de Lord, Hagar," she muttered frequently; "can't nuffin else help ye now!"

Sometimes she fell to chanting her thoughts,--the sound of her own voice was pleasant to her in the loneliness,--and she piled cedar chips on the fire to see their cheerful blaze and enjoy their brisk crackle.

"Might as well hab a candle," she said, after a time. "Git yer knittin', chile, an' 'pear as ef ye didn't distrus' de Lord. What ef de wind is blowin'? what ef de sea is a-screamin'? Don't ye know whose wind and whose sea 'tis?" She got up to grope for a candle on the shelf over the fireplace.

"Hagar!" exclaimed a voice at the farther end of the kitchen,--a voice so full of compressed fear and anxiety that the old negress tumbled back in her chair with affright,--"Hagar! are you here?"

demanded the voice.

"Bress ye! yes, I's here, Mas'r d.i.c.k!" she answered, catching sight of his white face by the dining-room door. "I's here, but ye spoke so suddent! Jes' wait, an' I'll hab a candle in a minnit."

The candle was found, and, after a long blowing of coals and burning of splinters, began to burn dimly. Hagar set it on the table, and looked up at her master with a start of alarm, his face was so white and anxious.

"Hagar," said he, huskily, "_Noll was to start from Hastings this morning!_"

The old negress stood looking at him a full minute,--a fearful, lonesome minute in which the rain beat against the panes, and the awful voice of the sea filled the room,--then she sank down by the fire with a low cry.

"Lord bress us all!" she wailed, as she looked up, "fur he'll nebber get here, Mas'r d.i.c.k!"

Trafford looked at her silently. Oh, that awful voice without!--the thunder, the tremble of the earth, the screaming of the wind! At last,--

"Is ye certain sure, Mas'r d.i.c.k? D'ye _know_ he started? Did he say?"

"Oh, Hagar, if I did not--_not know_,--if I had any doubt that he started, I would give all my possessions this very moment!"

"'Tain't de money nor de lands dat'll do now!" moaned Hagar, beginning to sway back and forth; "it's only de Lord! De Lord's on de sea to-night, an' 'tain't fur man to say! Oh, Mas'r d.i.c.k! t'ink o' dat bressed boy in dese waves an' dis wind!"

"Hush!" said the master, imperatively, "I will _not_ think of it! It can't be! Noll? Oh, Hagar, I believe I'm going mad!" He turned away from the old negress and opened the door. The tempest swept in, overturning the candle and flaring up the fire, and bearing the rain, in one long gust, across the little kitchen, even into Hagar's face.

Trafford stood there, regardless of wind and rain, looking out upon the sea. The mighty tumult awed him and filled his heart with a sense of man's utter weakness and helplessness. The foamy expanse gleamed whitely through the night,--awful with the terror of death,--and its deafening roar smote upon his ears, and in the slightest lull, the rain-drops fell with a soft, dull patter. Noll in it all?--in this fearful, yawning sea,--in this wild tumult of wind and rain,--in the vast waste of waves which the thick darkness shrouded, and where death was riding? "G.o.d help me!" he cried in sudden frenzy,--"G.o.d help me!"

He looked up at the thick, black depths of sky with a groan of agony when he remembered his utter powerlessness. But what right had he to look to Heaven for aid?--he who knew not G.o.d, nor sought him, nor desired his love? The bitterness of this thought made him groan and beat his breast. Would He--whom all his life long he had refused and rejected--hear his cries?

Hagar's voice came to him here through all the din and thunder, beseeching that the door might be closed. He closed it behind him, and stepped out into the darkness. It was already past the hour for the "Gull" to arrive, he remembered, and then a sudden thought flashed through his brain that beacons ought to be kindled to guide the skipper, if he were not already beyond the need of earthly guides and beacons. And close upon this thought came a remembrance of the Culm fishermen,--stout, skilful sailors, all of them,--and a great hope filled his heart that in them he might find aid in his extremity. And without waiting for a second thought, he started through the inky darkness and the tempest for Culm village. He ran till he was breathless. He climbed and groped his way over and along the slippery rocks, the awful voice of the sea filling his ears and goading him on.

CHAPTER XXII.

WEARY WATCHING.

The evening wore on. They were all on the beach,--Trafford and the Culm fishermen,--and now a beacon fire streamed up into the darkness, and made the night seem even more black and intense. They had piled their heap of driftwood somewhat in the shelter of a great rock, and around it the men were huddled, muttering and whispering to each other, and casting sober glances at Trafford, who stood apart from them in the shadow. Not a word had he spoken since the fire was kindled, but, grim and silent as a statue, had stood there, with his eyes looking upon the gleaming sea, and the rain beating in his face.

He had worked desperately while gathering driftwood.

"The master be crazed, like," Dirk had whispered to the men as they came in with armfuls of fuel. "D'ye see his eyes? D'ye see the way he be runnin' up an' down, poor man?"

"Ay, an' his lad be where many o' your'n an' mine ha' been, eh, Dirk?"

said Hark Harby. "Mabby he ken tell what 'tis ter be losin' his own, an' no help fur it, eh?"

"Sh!" said Dirk; "the sea ben't able ter get sech a lad as his every day. If he be lost, 'tis a losin' fur more'n he, yender."

This was before the beacon was kindled. Now they huddled in a gloomy circle about the hissing, sputtering fire, some crouching close to the rock to save themselves from the rain, and the others drawing their heads down into their wide-collared jackets, that bade defiance to the wet. The wind whirled and raved, and the sea thundered on. The fire cast a little pathway of light through the darkness, down to the sea's edge, and they could see its waves all beaten to foam as white as milk, flecking the sand in great patches. It was an awful waiting.

By and by Hagar came down along the sand in a great hood-cloak that gave her a most weird and witchlike appearance. The fishermen looked at her with startled, suspicious eyes as the bent old figure suddenly emerged from the darkness into the full glare of the firelight. The old negress pa.s.sed on to where Trafford was standing.

"I's here, Mas'r d.i.c.k," she said, touching his arm, as if fain to a.s.sure him of her presence and sympathy.

He did not repel her, but said, with much of kindness in his tone, "This is no place for you, Hagar."

"De Lord's here," said Hagar, quietly, "an' I's gwine ter stay. I isn't feared, Mas'r d.i.c.k."

Trafford looked in her wrinkled, time-worn old face yearningly. This black, ignorant old woman had something within her heart that gave her a peace and serenity in this fearful hour that he envied. He felt the truth of this as he had never felt it before. She was stayed and upheld by some invisible hand. Somehow, in her humble life, this old negress had found some great truth which all his own study and research had failed to teach him. He turned about and made her a seat of boards on an old spar which lay on the sand, under the shelter of the rock by the fire.

"T'ank ye, Mas'r d.i.c.k," said Hagar, tremulously, as she sat down. This unusual kindness touched her. It was like his old-time thoughtfulness and gentleness, when he was her own blithe, merry schoolboy, she thought.

The rain began to fall less heavily. Only now and then a great drop fell with a hiss and sputter into the fire; but the wind grew fiercer as the evening waned, and the thunder and pounding of the sea was deafening. The spray dashed higher and higher, quite up to the backs of the men who huddled about the fire, and its fine mist sifted even into Hagar's face and grizzled locks.

"'Tain't nuffin tu what dat bressed boy is suff'rin'," she sighed, wiping the cold drops off her cheeks; "'pears as ef dis ole heart 'ud split'n two, thinkin' ob it. O good Lord, bress de chile!--bress him,--bress him!--dat's all Hagar ken say."

It was a weary watching. As the war of the sea grew louder and the wind fiercer, the Culm fishermen gathered into a yet closer group, and looked with awed and sober faces in the fire. For all that these men followed the sea, and it was almost a native element to them, they seemed to have a great dread and awe of it. Trafford yet stood apart from them with his eyes looking into the dense night, and Hagar, all m.u.f.fled in her great cloak, swayed slowly to and fro with her face hidden. Oh, the suspense and agony of those minutes!--the weary watching and waiting for--what?

It came at last. In the short s.p.a.ce of silence between the bursting of two great waves, there rose a cry from out the great waste of darkness beyond their little length and breadth of light. Trafford started and sprang forward. The men around the fire were startled from their crouching positions by this shrill, sudden shout, and looked in one another's faces and--waited. But the cry was not repeated. Then Dirk said,--

"It wur the skipper, sure. O Lord, men! but I be feared the 'Gull' be on the rocks, yender."

The sweat stood in drops on his forehead, and he slowly clinched and unclinched his great brawny hands. Trafford heard his words, and a sudden faintness like death smote him. But it pa.s.sed away, and in sudden frenzy and despair he rushed up to Dirk, exclaiming,--

"How do you know, man? How can you tell? There was only a cry!"

Before Dirk could answer, there rose, clear and distinct, that one solitary voice from out the darkness,--a fearful, appealing cry for aid from some human heart out there in the awful presence of death.

And that thrilling cry was all. It never came again. Trafford beat his breast with agony. Then he turned upon the fishermen.

"Why do you stand here," he cried, furiously, "when they are perishing out there? My boy is there!--my boy that's done so much for you and yours! Will you let him drown without lifting a hand to save him?"

"It be no use to try," said the men, pointing to the surf; "boat's ud crack like a gull's sh.e.l.l out there."

"But try,--only try!" shouted Trafford, in an agonized tone. "If money will tempt you, you shall have all of mine! You shall have more than ever your eyes saw before! I will make you all rich!--only try,--only try!"

"We'd try soon enough for the young master's sake, an' ye might keep yer gold," said Dirk; "but it wud be no use, an' only losin' of life.

The lad be beyont our help or yer gold, either."

"'Tain't de money nor de lands dat'll do, now," moaned Hagar; "it's only de Lord!"

"But think of it, you ungrateful wretches!" cried Trafford, frantically,--"the lad has done more for you and yours than you can ever repay! He went across the sea this time to do you good, and it's for your sakes that he's out in the peril yonder! Will you let him drown without even an attempt to save him? Will you?"

Dirk shook his head. "It be no use," he said, "but we ken try. I be not one to hev it said that I be unthankful. Here, lads, give us a hand! Ef I'll be riskin' my life fur any one, 'tis fur the lad yender."

They dragged a boat down to the curling line of foam, and watching for a favorable opportunity, launched it. Trafford sprang in with them, and they pushed into the darkness. It seemed hardly three minutes to those who stood around the fire, before a great wave came riding in and threw the boat and its load upon the sand. Dirk sprang up and seized Trafford before the returning flood had engulfed him. He pointed to the rent ribs of the boat, saying, as he shook himself,--