The Tides of Barnegat Part 31

"How do you know?" Lucy asked, looking at the incoming schooner from under her half-closed lids. The voice came like the thin piping of a flute preceding the orchestral crash, merely sounded so as to let everybody know it was present.

"One of my carriages was shipped by her. I paid Captain Farguson the freight just before I went away."

"What's her name?"--slight tremolo--only a note or two.

"The Polly Walters," droned Max, talking at random, mind neither on the sloop nor her captain.

"Named after his wife?" The flute-like notes came more crisply.

"Yes, so he told me." Max had now ceased to give any attention to his answers. He had about made up his mind that something serious was the matter and that he would ask her and find out.

"Ought to be called the Max Feilding, from the way she tacks about.

She's changed her course three times since I've been watching her."

Max shot a glance athwart his shoulder and caught a glimpse of the pretty lips thinned and straightened and the half-closed eyes and wrinkled forehead. He was evidently the disturbing cause, but in what way he could not for the life of him see. That she was angry to the tips of her fingers was beyond question; the first time he had seen her thus in all their acquaintance.

"Yes-that would fit her exactly," he answered with a smile and with a certain soothing tone in his voice. "Every tack her captain makes brings him the nearer to the woman he loves."

"Rather poetic, Max, but slightly farcical. Every tack you make lands you in a different port--with a woman waiting in every one of them."

The first notes of the overture had now been struck.

"No one was waiting in Philadelphia for me except Sue, and I only met her by accident," he said good-naturedly, and in a tone that showed he would not quarrel, no matter what the provocation; "she came in to see her doctor. Didn't stay an hour."

"Did you take her driving?" This came in a thin, piccolo tone-barely enough room for it to escape through her lips. All the big drums and heavy bra.s.s were now being moved up.

"No; had nothing to take her out in. Why do you ask? What has happened, little--"

"Take anybody else?" she interrupted.

"No."

He spoke quite frankly and simply. At any other time she would have believed him. She had always done so in matters of this kind, partly because she didn't much care and partly because she made it a point never to doubt the word of a man, either by suspicion or inference, who was attentive to her. This time she did care, and she intended to tell him so. All she dreaded was that the big horns and the tom-toms would get away from her leadership and the hoped-for, correctly played symphony end in an uproar.

"Max," she said, turning her head and lifting her finger at him with the movement of a conductor's baton, "how can you lie to me like that?

You never went near your lawyer; you went to see Miss Billeton, and you've spent every minute with her since you left me. Don't tell me you didn't. I know everything you've done, and--" Ba.s.s drums, ba.s.s viols, ba.s.soons--everything--was loose now.

She had given up her child to be with him! Everything, in fact--all her people at Yardley; her dear old nurse. She had lied to Jane about chaperoning Sue--all to come down and keep him from being lonely. What she wanted was a certain confidence in return. It made not the slightest difference to her how many women he loved, or how many women loved him; she didn't love him, and she never would; but unless she was treated differently from a child and like the woman that she was, she was going straight back to Yardley, and then back to Paris, etc., etc.

She knew, as she rushed on in a flood of abuse such as only a woman can let loose when she is thoroughly jealous and entirely angry, that she was destroying the work of months of plotting, and that he would be lost to her forever, but she was powerless to check the torrent of her invective. Only when her breath gave out did she stop.

Max had sat still through it all, his eyes expressing first astonishment and then a certain snap of admiration, as he saw the color rising and falling in her cheeks. It was not the only time in his experience that he had had to face similar outbursts. It was the first time, however, that he had not felt like striking back. Other women's outbreaks had bored him and generally had ended his interest in them--this one was more charming than ever. He liked, too, her American pluck and savage independence. Jealous she certainly was, but there was no whine about it; nor was there any flop at the close--floppy women he detested--had always done so. Lucy struck straight out from her shoulder and feared nothing.

As she raged on, the grays beating the water with their well-polished hoofs, he continued to sit perfectly still, never moving a muscle of his face nor changing his patient, tolerant expression. The best plan, he knew, was to let all the steam out of the boiler and then gradually rake the fires.

"My dear little woman,"' he began, "to tell you the truth, I never laid eyes on Morton; didn't want to, in fact. All that was an excuse to get away. I thought you wanted a rest, and I went away to let you have it.

Miss Billeton I haven't seen for three months, and couldn't if I would, for she is engaged to her cousin and is now in Paris buying her wedding clothes. I don't know who has been humbugging you, but they've done it very badly. There is not one word of truth in what you've said from beginning to end."

There is a certain ring in a truthful statement that overcomes all doubts. Lucy felt this before Max had finished. She felt, too, with a sudden thrill, that she still held him. Then there came the instantaneous desire to wipe out all traces of the outburst and keep his good-will.

"And you swear it?" she asked, her belief already a.s.serting itself in her tones, her voice falling to its old seductive pitch.

"On my honor as a man," he answered simply.

For a time she remained silent, her mind working behind her mask of eyes and lips, the setting sun slanting across the beach and lighting up her face and hair, the grays splashing the suds with their impatient feet. Max kept his gaze upon her. He saw that the outbreak was over and that she was a little ashamed of her tirade. He saw, too, man of the world as he was, that she was casting about in her mind for some way in which she could regain for herself her old position without too much humiliation.

"Don't say another word, little woman," he said in his kindest tone.

"You didn't mean a word of it; you haven't been well lately, and I oughtn't to have left you. Tighten up your reins; we'll drive on if you don't mind."

That night after the moon had set and the lights had been turned out along the boardwalk and the upper and lower porticos and all Beach Haven had turned in for the night, and Lucy had gone to her apartments, and Mr. and Mrs. Coates and the rest of them, single and double, were asleep, Max, who had been pacing up and down his dressing-room, stopped suddenly before his mirror, and lifting the shade from the lamp, made a critical examination of his face.

"Forty, and I look it!" he said, pinching his chin with his thumb and forefinger, and turning his cheek so that the light would fall on the few gray hairs about his temples. "That beggar Miggs said so yesterday at the club. By gad, how pretty she was, and how her eyes snapped! I didn't think it was in her!"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE SWEDE'S STORY

Captain Holt had selected his crew--picked surfmen, every one of them--and the chief of the bureau had endorsed the list without comment or inquiry. The captain's own appointment as keeper of the new Life-Saving Station was due as much to his knowledge of men as to his skill as a seaman, and so when his list was sent in--men he said he could "vouch for"--it took but a moment for the chief to write "Approved" across its face.

Isaac Polhemus came first: Sixty years of age, silent, gray, thick-set; face scarred and seamed by many weathers, but fresh as a baby's; two china-blue eyes--peep-holes through which you looked into his open heart; shoulders hard and tough as cordwood hands a bunch of knots; legs like snubbing-posts, body quick-moving; brain quick-thinking; alert as a dog when on duty, calm as a sleepy cat beside a stove when his time was his own. Sixty only in years, this man; forty in strength and in skill, twenty in suppleness, and a one-year-old toddling infant in all that made for guile. "Uncle Ike" some of the younger men once called him, wondering behind their hands whether he was not too old and believing all the time that he was. "Uncle Ike" they still called him, but it was a t.i.tle of affection and pride; affection for the man underneath the blue woollen shirt, and pride because they were deemed worthy to pull an oar beside him.

The change took place the winter before when he was serving at Manasquan and when he pulled four men single-handed from out of a surf that would have staggered the bravest. There was no life-boat within reach and no hand to help. It was at night--a snowstorm raging and the sea a corral of hungry beasts fighting the length of the beach. The shipwrecked crew had left their schooner pounding on the outer bar, and finding their cries drowned by the roar of the waters, had taken to their boat. She came bow on, the sea-drenched sailors clinging to her sides. Uncle Isaac Polhemus caught sight of her just as a savage pursuing roller dived under her stern, lifted the frail sh.e.l.l on its broad back, and whirled it bottom side up and stern foremost on to the beach. Dashing into the suds, he jerked two of the crew to their feet before they knew what had struck them; then sprang back for the others clinging to the seats and slowly drowning in the smother. Twice he plunged headlong after them, bracing himself against the backsuck, then with the help of his steel-like grip all four were dragged clear of the souse. Ever after it was "Uncle Isaac" or "that old hang-on," but always with a lifting of the chin in pride.

Samuel Green came next: Forty-five, long, Lincoln-bodied, and bony; coal-black hair, coal-black eyes, and charcoal-black mustache; neck like a loop in standing rigging; arms long as cant-hooks, with the steel grips for fingers; sluggish in movement and slow in action until the supreme moment of danger tautened his nerves to breaking point; then came an instantaneous spring, quick as the recoil of a parted hawser. All his life a fisherman except the five years he spent in the Arctic and the year he served at Squan; later he had helped in the volunteer crew alongsh.o.r.e. Loving the service, he had sent word over to Captain Holt that he'd like "to be put on," to which the captain had sent back word by the same messenger "Tell him he IS put on." And he WAS, as soon as the papers were returned from Washington. Captain Nat had no record to look up or inquiries to make as to the character or fitness of Sam Green. He was the man who the winter before had slipped a rope about his body, plunged into the surf and swam out to the brig Gorgus and brought back three out of the five men lashed to the rigging, all too benumbed to make fast the shot-line fired across her deck.

Charles Morgan's name followed in regular order, and then Parks--men who had sailed with Captain Holt, and whose word and pluck he could depend upon; and Mulligan from Barnegat, who could pull a boat with the best of them; and last, and least in years, those two slim, tightly knit, lithe young tiger-cats, Tod and Archie.

Captain Nat had overhauled each man and had inspected him as closely as he would have done the timber for a new mast or the manila to make its rigging. Here was a service that required cool heads, honest hearts, and the highest technical skill, and the men under him must be sound to the core. He intended to do his duty, and so should every man subject to his orders. The Government had trusted him and he held himself responsible. This would probably be his last duty, and it would be well done. He was childless, sixty-five years old, and had been idle for years. Now he would show his neighbors something of his skill and his power to command. He did not need the pay; he needed the occupation and the being in touch with the things about him. For the last fifteen or more years he had nursed a sorrow and lived the life almost of a recluse. It was time he threw it off.

During the first week of service, with his crew about him, he explained to them in minute detail their several duties. Each day in the week would have its special work: Monday would be beach drill, practising with the firing gun and line and the safety car. Tuesday was boat drill; running the boat on its wagon to the edge of the sea, unloading it, and pushing it into the surf, each man in his place, oars poised, the others springing in and taking their seats beside their mates. On Wednesdays flag drills; practising with the international code of signals, so as to communicate with stranded vessels. Thursdays, beach apparatus again. Friday, resuscitation of drowning men. Sat.u.r.day, scrub-day; every man except himself and the cook (each man was cook in turn for a week) on his knees with bucket and brush, and every floor, chair, table, and window scoured clean. Sunday, a day of rest, except for the beach patrol, which at night never ceased, and which by day only ceased when the sky was clear of snow and fog.

This night patrol would be divided into watches of four hours each at eight, twelve, and four. Two of the crew were to make the tramp of the beach, separating opposite the Station, one going south two and a half miles to meet the surfman from the next Station, and the other going north to the inlet; exchanging their bra.s.s checks each with the other, as a record of their faithfulness.

In addition to these bra.s.s checks each patrol would carry three Coston signal cartridges in a water-proof box, and a holder into which they were fitted, the handle having an igniter working on a spring to explode the cartridge, which burned a red light. These will-o'-the-wisps, flashed suddenly from out a desolate coast, have sent a thrill of hope through the heart of many a man clinging to frozen rigging or lashed to some piece of wreckage that the hungry surf, lying in wait, would pounce upon and chew to shreds.

The men listened gravely to the captain's words and took up their duties. Most of them knew them before, and no minute explanations were necessary. Skilled men understand the value of discipline and prefer it to any milder form of government. Archie was the only member who raised his eyes in astonishment when the captain, looking his way, mentioned the scrubbing and washing, each man to take his turn, but he made no reply except to nudge Tod and say under his breath:

"Wouldn't you like to see Aunt Lucy's face when she comes some Sat.u.r.day morning? She'll be pleased, won't she?" As to the cooking, that did not bother him; he and Tod had cooked many a meal on Fogarty's stove, and mother Fogarty had always said Archie could beat her any day making biscuit and doughnuts and frying ham.

Before the second week was out the Station had fallen into its regular routine. The casual visitor during the sunny hours of the soft September days when practice drill was over might see only a lonely house built on the sand; and upon entering, a few men leaning back in their chairs against the wall of the living-room reading the papers or smoking their pipes, and perhaps a few others leisurely overhauling the apparatus, making minor repairs, or polishing up some detail the weather had dulled. At night, too, with the radiance of the moon making a pathway of silver across the gentle swell of the sleepy surf, he would doubtless wonder at their continued idle life as he watched the two surfmen separate and begin their walk up and down the beach radiant in the moonlight. But he would change his mind should he chance upon a north-easterly gale, the sea a froth in which no boat could live, the slant of a sou'wester the only protection against the cruel lash of the wind. If this glimpse was not convincing, let him stand in the door of their house in the stillness of a winter's night, and catch the shout and rush of the crew tumbling from their bunks at the cry of "Wreck ash.o.r.e!" from the lips of some breathless patrol who had stumbled over sand-dunes or plunged through snowdrifts up to his waist to give warning. It will take less than a minute to swing wide the doors, grapple the life-boat and apparatus and whirl them over the dunes to the beach; and but a moment more to send a solid shot flying through the air on its mission of mercy. And there is no time lost. Ten men have been landed in forty-five minutes through or over a surf that could be heard for miles; rescuers and rescued half dead. But no man let go his grip nor did any heart quail. Their duty was in front of them; that was what the Government paid for, and that was what they would earn--every penny of it.

The Station house in order, the captain was ready for visitors--those he wanted. Those he did not want--the riffraff of the ship-yard and the loungers about the taverns--he told politely to stay away; and as the land was Government property and his will supreme, he was obeyed.

Little Ellen had been the first guest, and by special invitation.

"All ready, Miss Jane, for you and the doctor and the Pond Lily; bring her down any time. That's what kind o' makes it lonely lyin' shut up with the men. We ain't got no flowers bloomin' 'round, and the sand gits purty white and blank-lookin' sometimes. Bring her down, you and the doctor; she's better'n a pot full o' daisies."