She's All the World to Me Part 21

The boy's eyes were bright with a radiant brightness, and glistening tears ran down his face in gracious drops like dew. The men hung their heads and were mute.

All at once there came a breath of wind. At first it was as soft as an angel's whisper. Then it grew stronger and ruffled the sea. Every man lifted his eyes and looked at his mates. Each was struggling with a painful idea that perhaps he was the victim of a delusion of the sense.

But the chill breath of the wind was indeed among them. "Isn't it beginning to puff up from the sou'-west?" asked one, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

At that Davy Cain jumped to his feet. The idea of the supernatural had already gone from him, at least. "Now for the sheets, and to make sail,"

he cried.

As mate formerly, Davy const.i.tuted himself skipper now.

One after one the men got up and bustled about. Their limbs were wellnigh frozen stiff.

"Heave hearty, men; heave and away."

All was stir and animation in an instant. Pulling at the ropes, the men had begun to laugh--yes, with their husky, grating, tear-drowned voices even to laugh.

"Bear a hand, men. We're drifting fast into the down-stream to Contrary," cried Davy.

Then a gruesome sense of the ludicrous took hold of him. It was the swift reaction from solemn thoughts.

"Lay on, Quilleash, my man. Why, you're going about like a brewing-pan.

What are your arms for, eh?"

The old fellow's eyes, that had been dim with tears a moment ago, glistened with grisly mischief.

"Who hasn't heard that a Manxman's arms are three legs?" he said, with a hungry smile.

How the men laughed! What humor there was now in the haggard old saw!

"Where are you for, Davy?" cried one.

"Scotland--Shetlands," answered Davy, indefinitely.

"Hooraa! Bold fellow. Ha, ha, ha, he."

"I've been there before to-day, Davy," said Quilleash; "they're all poor men there; but it's right kind they are. Aw, yes, it's safe and well we'll be when we're there. What's it sayin'?--'When one poor man helps another poor man, G.o.d laughs.'"

How they worked! In two minutes mainsail and mizzen were up, and they filled away and stood out. But they had drifted into the down-stream, though they knew it not as yet.

From the sh.o.r.es of death they had sailed somehow into the waters of life. Hope was theirs once more.

They began to talk of what had caused the wind. "It was the blessed St.

Patrick," said Killip. St. Patrick was the patron saint of that sea, and Killip was a Catholic and more than half an Irishman.

"St. Patrick be--" cried Davy Cain, with a scornful laugh. They got to high words, and at length almost to blows.

Old Quilleash had been at the tiller. His grisly face had grown ghastly again. "Drop it, men," he cried, in a voice of fear. "Look yander! D'ye see what's coming?"

The men looked toward the west. The long, thin cloud which Danny knew as the cat's-tail was scudding fast in the line of their Starboard quarter.

"Make all snug," cried Davy.

A storm was coming. It was very near; in ten minutes it was upon them.

It was a terrific tempest, and they knew now that they were in the down-stream.

The men stared once more into each others' faces. Their quips were gone; their hopeful spirits had broken down.

"G.o.d, it's running a ten knots' tide," shouted Quilleash.

"And we're driving before it--dead on for Peel," answered Davy, with an appalling look of fear toward the west, where the wind was seen to be churning the long waves into foam.

Danny saw it all, but there was no agony in his face and no cry of dread on his lips. "I think at whiles I'd like to die in a big sea like that."

His despair was courage now.

CHAPTER XIX

THE WORLD'S WANT IS MEN

In the old house at Balladhoo, three hearts nearly made glad had still one painful pa.s.sage to experience. It was dusk. By the fire stood Mylrea Balladhoo, with Mona Cregeen seated beside him. Christian had stepped to the door, and now returning to the room with the stranger previously seen in his company, he said, with averted face, "This is the man, father."

Balladhoo neither lifted his eyes to the new-comer nor shifted their gaze from the fire. His frame trembled perceptibly as he said, "I know your business, sir, and it shall have my attention." The stranger glanced from father to son. They stood apart, each unable to meet the other's face. Perhaps there is no more touching sight in nature, rightly regarded, than an old man, and to the pathos incident to age Balladhoo added the sorrow of a wretched and shattered hope.

"May I ask if this deed was drawn by your authority?" said the stranger.

He stepped up to the old man, and put the doc.u.ment into his listless hand. Balladhoo glanced down at it, but his poor blurred eyes saw nothing.

"Yes," he answered, promptly enough, but in a husky voice. Christian's face quivered, and his head dropped on his breast. The stranger looked incredulous. "It is quite right if you say so," he answered, with a cold smile.

Balladhoo lifted his face. It was seamed with lines of pain, and told of a terrible struggle. "I _do_ say so," he replied.

His fingers crumpled the deed as he spoke; but his head was erect, and truth seemed to sit on his lips. Christian sat down and buried his eyes in his hand.

The stranger smiled again the some cold smile. "The mortgagor wishes to withdraw the mortgage," he said.

"He may do so--in fifteen days," answered Balladhoo.

"That will suffice. It would be cruel to prolong a painful interview."

Then, with a glance toward Christian, as he sat convulsed with distress that he was unable to conceal, the stranger added, in a hard tone:

"Only, the mortgagor came to have reasons to think that perhaps the deed had been drawn without your knowledge."

Balladhoo handed back the doc.u.ment with a nerveless hand. He looked again through dim eyes at the stranger, and said quietly, but with an awful inward effort, "You have my answer--I knew of it."

The recording angel set down the words in the Book of Life to the old man's credit in heaven. They were not true.

The stranger bowed low and retired.