The Harbor of Doubt. Francis William Sullivan
stood for so long confirmed their fears for their own property; but to see the village content and smiling, except for a poor building or two, was joy enough to overbalance the personal loss.
So those who expected a tearful and emotional home-coming were disappointed.
Code met the dory that rowed ashore after Bijonah had made fast to his mooring in the little cove that was the roadstead for the fishing fleet. He had half expected to share the duty with Nat Burns since the recent change in his relations to the Tanners, but Burns did not put in an appearance, although it was three o’clock in the afternoon.
Bijonah shook hands with him, and Ma Tanner kissed him, the latter ceremony being a baptism of happy tears that all were safe and alive. Bijonah cleared his voice and pulled hard at his beard.
“Understand you’re quite a hero, Code,” he ventured bluffly, careful to conceal any emotion, but resolved to give the occasion its due.
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“Oh, rot, captain!” said Code equally bluffly, and the ceremony was over.
But not so with Ma Tanner. She wept and laughed over the preserver of her offspring, and called him so many exalting names that he was glad to turn her over to Nellie and his mother at the Schofield gate.
Hot and flushed with the notoriety she had given him along the main road, he retired to the corner shop and drank wonderful cold ginger-beer out of a white stone jug until his temperature had returned to normal.
But later he returned to the house, and found the Tanners about to depart. The widow Sprague, near the Odd Fellows’ Hall, who lived, as she expressed it, “all deserted and alone,” had agreed to take the family into her rambling cottage. Luke Fraser had brought his truck-cart up alongside the rescued Tanner belongings, and they were already half loaded.
“Can you come down to the widdy’s to-night, Code?” asked Bijonah. “I’ve got somethin’ to tell ye that ought to int’rest ye consid’able.”
“Yes, I’ll be there about eight,” was the reply as Schofield joined in loading the truck.
He found the captain that night smoking a pipe on the low front porch of the Widow Sprague’s cottage, evidently very much at home. Bijonah motioned him to a chair and proffered a cigar with a 40 slightly self-conscious air. Inside the house, Code could hear the sound of people moving about and the voice of a woman singing low, as though to a child. He told himself without question that this was Nellie getting the kiddies to sleep.
“A feller hears queer things over in St. John’s sometimes,” announced Bijonah suddenly, sucking at his pipe.
“Yes.”
“An’ this time I heard somethin’ about you.”
“Me? I don’t know three people in St. John’s.”
“Guess I met one of the three, then.”
“Where? How? Who was it?”
Bijonah Tanner coughed and shifted uneasily in his chair.
“Wal,” he said, “I was takin’ a little turn along the water-front, just a leetle turn, as the wife will tell you, when I dropped into a––er––that is––a rum-shop and heard three men at the table next to mine talking about you.”
Schofield smiled broadly in the darkness. Bijonah’s little turns along the water-front of St. John’s or any other port had been the subject for much prayer and supplication in the hearts of many devout persons thoroughly interested in their neighbor’s welfare. And of late years Ma Tanner had been making trips with him to supply stimulus to his conscience.
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“What were they talking about?” So far from being suspicious, Code was merely idly curious of the gossip about him.
“My boy,” said Tanner, suddenly grave, “I was the best friend your father had for forty years, and I’m goin’ to try and be as good a friend to his son. But you mustn’t mind what I tell ye.”
“I won’t, captain. Go ahead,” said Code, his interest awakening.
“Wal, them men was talkin’ about the loss of the old May Schofield, and one of ’em in particular allowed as how he didn’t think it should have foundered when it did. What d’ye think of that?”
Schofield had stiffened in his chair as though undergoing a spasm of pain. The sentences smote him between the eyes of his sensibilities. Had it come to this, that his name was being bandied dishonorably about the barrooms of St. John’s? If so, how and why?
“Then I suppose you’ve heard the talk in Grande Mignon before this?”
“Yes, Code, I have; and I’ve called every man a liar that said anything definite against you. I’m gettin’ old, but there ain’t very many men here able enough to shove that name back down my throat, an’ I notice none of ’em tried. It’s all idle talk, that’s all; an’ there ain’t a soul that can prove a single thing against you, even cowardice. An’ 42 that’s more’n can be said o’ some men in this village.”
Code was grateful, and he said so. It was something to find a friend so stanch and loyal that suspicion had never even found soil in his mind where it might take root. Two such he had now: Elsa Mallaby and Bijonah Tanner.
“What else did those men say?” he asked in conclusion.
“If I remember right, an’ I was perfectly clear at the time, this is what one said: ‘Fellers,’ sez ’e to the other two, ’e sez––‘fellers, that young Captain Schofield in Freekirk Head is goin’ on the rocks, or I don’t hear what’s goin’ on in my office.’
“‘Then they’re goin’ to sue him to recover part of his insurance on the old schooner May Schofield?’ asks the second.
“‘If I didn’t hear the chief say that this mornin’ you can shoot me on sight!’ the first answers. An’ then for a while I couldn’t hear any more, an’ you can bet I was watchin’ the door somethin’ awful for fear ma would come in an’ spoil it all by draggin’ me off.”
“But who were these men?” asked Code. “Whom did they mean by the chief?”
“I was just gettin’ to that. After a while, from a little bit here an’ a little there, I made out that the first young feller was private secretary to the president 43 of the Marine Insurance Company. That’s the firm that carried the old May, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. They’ve got my Rosan, too, though I wish mightily now that they hadn’t. This feller is the private secretary to the president, an’ the other two are clerks or something in the office. They may have been up to something crooked, and then again they may have just been talkin’ things over as young fellers often do when they’re interested in their work. Anyway, there’s enough in what they said to set you thinkin’, I cal’late.”
“Yes,” said Code slowly and grimly, “it is. I’ve only known that the island was talking since last night, and now I find St. John’s is, too. It’s spreading pretty fast, it seems; and I wonder where it will end?” He pondered silently for a while.
“If they sue to recover, what’ll you do?” ventured Tanner hesitatingly.
“God knows!” answered Schofield and laughed bitterly. “I haven’t got a thing on earth but the Charming Lass, an’ this year I haven’t caught enough fish to pay for my new mains’l. My credit is still good at Bill Boughton’s, but that’s all.”
“But the cottage––”
“That is my mother’s, and they could never get that. If they sue and I lose they must take the Lass, and after they’ve subtracted the judgment 44 from the sale price I suppose I’ll get the rest––maybe