Sonnie-Boy's People Part 21

"Sure, an' I'm on my way to the vessel now, an' she'll be leavin' the bay for the States in the mornin'."

"You think she will," amended Shepperd, from behind the musician, who was his own strong-lunged daughter Sue.

On a chair atop of a fish-box in one corner was balanced Sue, a native genius, who puffed most industriously into a musical instrument made of a sheet of tissue-paper wrapped around a fine-tooth comb.

Tim Lacy, though he never let on, caught the sly remark. Less guileless than he looked was Lacy, a little man, forever lighting his pipe. He struck another match now, and between puffs delivered a belated message.

So many years senior was Lacy to his skipper that he used to talk to him like a father.

"You know, as you said yourself, we was to hurry, Sammie--and do come now, Sammie"--_puff_--"and hurry on"--_puff_--"to Half-Tide Beach"--_puff_--"and there we'll take the dory for the vessel. Ah-h, there she's goin'. No, drat her, she's out again! Hurry on, boy. We oughtn't be standin' here all night. The crew'll be waitin' for us wi'

the vessel at Caplin Cove. A special word they left for you, Sammie.

They says if you was here"--here Tim stepped close and whispered--"as how I was to tell you they're feared for trouble."

He peered over the flame of the last-lit match at his skipper.

"'Tell him, Tim,' they says to me, 'that if we're to get the last o' the herrin' aboard that they're afeard it'll have to be an early start.' I mis...o...b.."--_puff_--"they have a notion of how there was goin' to be trouble. So come on; do, boy."

"One more, Tim; one more dance before we break up. A crime to go out on a cold night like this and not have a farewell dance. Come on, Bess; what d'y' say? There's the girl!"

Tim was gone, but back and forth Sam and Bess sidled and stamped, and many another minute pa.s.sed with Sam still whirling his able-bodied partner, pacing her across and back again, lifting her off her feet, and swinging her--one, two, three full circles off the floor. And Sam was the boy could do it, a hundred and seventy pounds though she weighed, and continued to whirl her after the last dance till they were out of the room and into the shadows of the porch, where he s.n.a.t.c.hed her up and kissed her fair.

The girl's heart leaped out to him. Did ever such a man make landing in the bay before? And surely he must think the world of her? Tenderness for him overwhelmed her; and out under the stars she whispered the words of warning in his ear.

"What's it, Bess? You're not foolin'? The trader to the head of them?"

"Ay, an' they'll be at Half-Tide Beach afore the sun rises----"

"D'y' mean, Bessie, d'y' mean----"

"I mean all that's bad they'll do to you, Sammie. I heard 'em my own self. 'What right has this American to come here and take the herrin'

from our very doors? What right?' That's the way the trader talked to 'em in the back room afore you came in. 'In the old days I've seen men beat to death on the beach for less,' I heard 'em through the bulkhead.

'Ay, an' their vessels run up on the rocks somewhere,' he goes on. An'

it's you, Sammie, they has in mind."

"And the crew to Caplin Cove, an' only me and Tim to stand by the vessel. The vessel and her full hold. But who'll get the word to them?

If only there was some one, some one we could trust, Bess!"

"There is one that could do that, too, boy."

"Who? What! Yourself, Bess? Could you make where they are--Caplin Cove--alone, and by night--and tell 'em what's in the wind, so they'll be aboard in time, while I go and hurry after Tim Lacy to the vessel at Half-Tide Harbor? Could a woman like a man well enough to do that?"

"Well, women likes men sometimes, Sammie."

"G.o.d bless you, Bess, of course. And sometimes, too, a man likes--But, Bess!" She lay swaying in the hollow of his arm. "Bessie!"--and oh, the nearness of him! "I don't want to fool you, girl--we _was_ carryin' sail the night your brother Simon was lost. A livin' gale, and she b.u.t.tin'

into it with a whole mains'l--you won't hold that agin' me?"

"How could I, Sammie? A man that's a man at all is bound to carry sail at times. And fishermen, sail-carryin' or no sail-carryin', they comes and goes."

"Ay, girl, and sometimes goes quicker than they comes. Oh, Bess, the fine men I've been shipmates with! And now 'twould take a chart of all the banks 'tween Hatteras and Greenland to find out where the bones of the half of 'em lie."

"But do go now, Sammie." She snuggled closer to him. "Have a care now, for I'm lovin' you now, Sammie."

"Ay, you are. And I'm lovin' you, Bess. But your father, Bess; he'll put you out."

"Well, if he do----"

"If he do, Bess, you know who'll be waitin' for you."

"Ay, I do. An' I'll come to you, too, no fear, boy. But no matter about John Lowe now, boy, so you won't forget me, Sammie."

"Never a forget, Bessie."

"Then hold me again, Sammie, afore we part. And don't forget--never a man afore did I like like I likes you, Sammie."

And Bess had gone and delivered her message to Leary's crew at Caplin Cove. "Be all hands aboard afore dawn and have her ready to sail," was Bessie's message, and with that put off for home in her father's little sloop. There had been stars on her run over, bright, cheerful stars that made you overlook the frost in the air, but no stars now. But that was the way of the weather in the bay.

In the lee of Shingle Spit it was calm enough, and so, for all the boom of the sea outside, Bess had time for revery. A gran' figur' of a man, Sammie Leary. Strong he was. Ay, strong. An' not stern. Lord knows, there was enough of that to home. No, no, saft-like same as Sammie--that was the kind for a woman to love.

And Sammie now. Out under the shadow of the porch he had said: "You're the la.s.s for me." Ay, he did. But so many talked like that and meant naught by it, but took your kiss and your heart wi' the kiss and sailed away, and you never again see 'em, mayhap. There was Jessie Mann, and--Oh, no matter them. Sammie was none o' their kind o' men. An'

yet--there were those who said that one like Sammie never made a good husband. Sailed wi' too free a sheet, he did. An' yet, did ever a vessel get anywhere without a free sheet at times?

And, thinking of a free sheet, Bess gave the little sloop a foot or two more of main-sheet. And there she was going through the water faster for it. And she would need to go fast through the water if so be she was to get home this night. And if she didn't get home--but 'twas o'er-early to worry about what her father would say.

But was it all so true about a free sheet? Was it no' true that, holdin'

a vessel's nose to the wind, she'd sail her course wi' never a foot o'

leeway? 'Twas so her father maintained. Always safest to be on the straight course, her father held. True enough, but wi' the wind ahead, what headway? None at all--while, if you let them run off a bit, when they did come back on the course they was farther on the road, arter all. Ay, so it was. And Sammie? What did the poor boy ever know of a home or a lovin' heart to guide him! Oh, ay, women should make allowances for men like Sammie. 'Twas the good heart in him.

Out beyond the end of the spit the little boat began to feel the pressure of the wind and the thump of the sea. She jumped so because there wasn't much ballast in her. An' there was the matter o' ballast now. A gran' thing in a vessel, a bit o' ballast--like religion in a body. Not all religion, like her father, for then 'twas like a vessel loaded down wi' ballast--took a gale o' wind to stir her, and a vessel o' that kind was no mortal use whatever--except mayhap for a lightship or something o' that kind.

The sea by now was coming inboard regularly, and Bess knew she should be carrying less sail; but it would mean a lot of time to reef the mainsail, and if she was to get on there was small time for reefing, 'specially as the wind was hauling to the east. A beat home now, as Captain Leary warned her, 'twould be. Surely she would never be home by daylight now. And colder now it was. Ay, it was. She drew the tarpaulin over her knees, and that helped to keep off the spray which, as it splashed up from her bows, was carried aft in sheets before every squall.

And those squalls were frequent. And little pellets of hail were thickening the air. And over the tarpaulin that covered her the ice was making. Sailin' by the wind, 'tis terrible cold. She was becoming drowsy--hard work to keep from falling asleep. Good enough for her--ay, good enough, her father would say--dancin' half the night and carryin'

messages to strangers the other half.

The air softened and that was some relief; but in place of the awful cold--and still cold enough--was now the snow. And in that snow-storm, with the wind continually veering, she knew at last she must have run off her course; for the sound of the surf beating against the rocks came to her.

And what would that be? What now? Ay, Shark's Fin Ledge it must be. She must ha' sailed wi' too free a sheet, arter all. Ay, she must ha'. Time to come about now. But not so much sail on! Well, sail or no sail, it was time to come about. About she was comin'--ay--she was--no!--ay----

Over came the boom, and then high it skied, and then the wind took it and slit the sail from boom to gaff and off to leeward went the sloop.

Too much sheet that time, thought poor Bess, and could have cried at herself. And might have cried if she had nothing else to do. But no time now. Her little sloop was rolling and pitching in the seas, and drifting, always drifting; and in that snow there was no seeing how fast she was drifting in to the ledge; but fast enough, no doubt.

No use wailing over it. Bess took to bailing, and the work kept her from thinking overmuch of herself; only she couldn't help picturing her father with his Bible, and her stepmother waiting up for her. And Sammie? Never another dance or kiss from Sammie. And oh, the black disgrace of it if she was lost in the bay, when maybe they found her body ground to pieces on the ledge! There would be those who would say--what wouldn't they say--of her that couldn't hide her likin' for him up to the dance at Shepperd's?

III

The tail of the night found Leary striding over the hills. "Going to heave her herrin' overboard, are they? And she'll never clear for home, hah? She won't, eh?" And over the hills he ran. In and out, up and down, over the crests, and at last down the tangled slope across moss-grown rocks where lay the tide-tossed kelp, and onto the beach, where in the dawn he came suddenly on them.