Harbor Tales Down North. Duncan Norman
Luke's mother.
Point-o'-Bay, in the lee of which the cottages of Point-o'-Bay Cove were gathered, as in the crook of a finger, thrust itself into the open sea. Scalawag Island, of which Scalawag Harbor was a sheltered cove, lay against the open sea. Between Point-o'-Bay and Scalawag Island was the run called Scalawag, of the width of two miles, leading from the wide open into Whale Bay, where it was broken and lost in the mist of the islands. There had been wind at sea—a far-off gale, perhaps, then exhausted, or plunging away into the southern seas, leaving a turmoil of water behind it.
Directly into the run, rolling from the open, the sea was swelling in gigantic billows. There would have been no crossing at all had there not been ice in the run; but there was ice in the run—plenty of ice, fragments of the fields in the Labrador drift, blown in by a breeze of the day before, and wallowing there, the wind having fallen away to a wet, gray breeze which served but to hold the ice in the bay.
It seemed, from the crest of Black Cliff, where Tommy Lark and Sandy Rowl stood gazing, each debating with his own courage, that the ice was heavy enough for the passage—thick ice, of varying extent, from fragments, like cracked ice, to wide pans; and the whole, it seemed, floated in contact, pan touching pan all the way across from the feet of Black Cliff to the first rocks of Scalawag Harbor.
What was inimical was the lift and fall of the ice in the great swells running in from the open sea.
"Well?" said Tommy Lark.
"I don't know. What do you think?"
"It might be done. I don't know."
"Ay; it might be. No tellin' for sure, though. The ice is in a wonderful tumble out there."
"Seems t' be heavy ice on the edge o' the sea."
"'Tis in a terrible commotion. I'd not chance it out there. I've never seed the ice so tossed about in the sea afore."
Tommy Lark reflected.
"Ay," he determined at last; "the best course across is by way o' the heavy ice on the edge o' the sea. There mus' be a wonderful steep slant t' some o' them pans when the big seas slips beneath them. Yet a man could go warily an' maybe keep from slidin' off. If the worst comes t' the worst, he could dig his toes an' nails in an' crawl. 'Tis not plain from here if them pans is touchin' each other all the way across; but it looks that way—I 'low they is touchin', with maybe a few small gaps that a man could get round somehow. Anyhow, 'tis not quite certain that a man would cast hisself away t' no purpose out there; an' if there's evil news in that telegram I 'low a man could find excuse enough t' try his luck."
"There's news both good and evil in it."
"I don't know," said Tommy Lark uneasily. "Maybe there is. 'Tis awful t' contemplate. I'm wonderful nervous, Sandy. Isn't you?"
"I is."
"Think the wind will rise? It threatens."
"I don't know. It has a sort of a switch to it that bodes a night o' temper. 'Tis veerin' t' the east. 'Twill be a gale from the open if it blows at all."
Tommy Lark turned from a listless contemplation of the gray reaches of the open sea.
"News both good an' evil!" he mused.
"The one for me an' the other for you. An' God knows the issue! I can't fathom it."
"I wish 'twas over with."
"Me too. I'm eager t' make an end o' the matter. 'Twill be a sad conclusion for me."
"I can't think it, Sandy. I thinks the sadness will be mine."
"You rouse my hope, Tommy."
"If 'tis not I, 'twill be you."
"'Twill be you."
Tommy Lark shook his head dolefully. He sighed.
"Ah, no!" said he. "I'm not that deservin' an' fortunate."
"Anyhow, there's good news in that telegram for one of us," Sandy declared, "an' bad news for the other. An' whatever the news—whether good for me an' bad for you, or good for you an' bad for me—'tis of a sort that should keep for a safer time than this. If 'tis good news for you, you've no right t' risk a foot on the floe this night; if 'tis bad news for you, you might risk what you liked, an' no matter about it. 'Tis the same with me. Until we knows what's in that telegram, or until the fall of a better time than this for crossin' Scalawag Run, we've neither of us no right t' venture a yard from shore."
"You've the right of it, so far as you goes," Tommy Lark replied; "but the telegram may contain other news than the news you speaks of."
"No, Tommy."
"She said nothin' t' me about a telegram. She said she'd send a letter."
"She've telegraphed t' ease her mind."
"Why to her mother?"
"'Tis jus' a maid's way, t' do a thing like that."
"Think so, Sandy? It makes me wonderful nervous. Isn't you wonderful nervous, Sandy?"
"I am that."
"I'm wonderful curious, too. Isn't you?"
"I is. I'm impatient as well. Isn't you?"
"I'm havin' a tough struggle t' command my patience. What you think she telegraphed for?"
"Havin' made up her mind, she jus' couldn't wait t' speak it."
"I wonder what——"
"Me too, Sandy. God knows it! Still an' all, impatient as I is, I can wait for the answer. 'Twould be sin an' folly for a man t' take his life out on Scalawag Run this night for no better reason than t' satisfy his curiosity. I'm in favor o' waitin' with patience for a better time across."
"The maid might be ill," Tommy Lark objected.
"She's not ill. She's jus' positive an' restless. I knows her ways well enough t' know that much."
"She might be ill."
"True, she might; but she——"
"An' if——"
Sandy Rowl, who had been staring absently up the coast toward the sea, started and exclaimed.
"Ecod!" said he. "A bank o' fog's comin' round Point-o'-Bay!"
"Man!"
"That ends it."
"'Tis a pity!"
"'Twill be thick as mud on the floe in half an hour. We must lie the night here."
"I don't know, Sandy."
Sandy laughed.
"Tommy," said he, "'tis a wicked folly t' cling t' your notion any longer."
"I wants t' know what's in that telegram."
"So does I."
"I'm fair shiverin' with eagerness t' know. Isn't you?"
"I'm none too steady."
"Sandy, I jus' got t' know!"
"Well, then," Sandy Rowl proposed, "we'll go an' bait the telegraph lady into tellin' us."
It was an empty pursuit. The young woman from St. John's was obdurate. Not a hint escaped her in response to the baiting and awkward interrogation of Tommy Lark and Sandy Rowl; and the more they besought her, the more suspicious she grew. She was an obstinate young person—she was precise, she was scrupulous, she was of a secretive, untrustful turn of mind; and as she was ambitious for advancement from the dreary isolation of Point-o'-Bay Cove, she was not to be entrapped or entreated into what she had determined was a breach of discipline. Moreover, it appeared to her suspicious intelligence that these young men were too eager for information. Who were they? She had not been long in charge of the office at Point-o'-Bay Cove. She did not know them. And why should they demand to know the contents of