Sweetapple Cove. George Van Schaick
gale we had left Will's Island, ten miles away, and skirted, without ever seeing them, some miles of cliffs. We had avoided scores of rocks over which the seas broke fiercely, and had finally dashed through a narrow opening in the appalling face of the huge ledge, unerringly. To me it seemed like a gigantic deed, beyond the powers of man.
The path began to widen, and Sammy again vouchsafed some information, taking up his slender thread of narrative as if it had never been interrupted.
"So they carries him up to th' house, on a fishbarrow, an' they sends for me, an' wuz all talkin' to onst, sayin' I must git you quick an' never mind what it costs. Them people don't mind what-nothin' costs, 'pears to me."
By this time we had risen well above the waters of Sweetapple Cove. The few scattered small houses appeared through the mist, their eaves dripping in unclean puddles. The most pretentious dwelling in the place is deserted. It boasts a small veranda and a fairly large front window over which boards have been nailed. In very halt and ill-formed letters a sign announces "The Royal Shop," a title certainly savoring of affluence. But it is a sad commentary upon the prosperity of the Cove that even a Syrian trader has tried the place and failed to eke out a living there.
Some dispirited goats forlornly watched our little procession for a moment, and resumed their mournful hunt outside the palings of tiny enclosures jealously protected against their incursions among a few anemic cabbages.
A little farther on the only cow in the place, who is descended from the scriptural lean ones, was munching the discarded tail of a large codfish which probably still held a faint flavor of the salt with which it had been preserved. Nondescript dogs, bearing very little resemblance to the original well-known breed, wandered aimlessly under the pelting rain.
Frenchy reached his dilapidated shack, and was the first to stop.
"Vell, so long," he said.
"Au revoir à demain!" I answered, as well as I could.
His somber, swarthy face brightened at the sound of words of his own tongue. I believe that to him they were a tiny glimpse of something well-beloved and of memories that refused to grow dim. For a moment he stood at the door, beaming upon me. A small boy came out, very grimy of face and hands and with a head covered with yellow curls. He was chiefly clad in an old woollen jersey repaired with yarn of many hues, that nearly reached his toes.
"Papa Yves!" he cried, leaping up joyfully, quite heedless of Frenchy's dripping oilskins.
The sailor lifted up the child and kissed him, whereupon he grasped the man's flaring ears as they projected from the huge tangled beard, and with a burst of happy laughter kissed him on both cheeks, under the eyes, in the only bare places.
We hurried on and soon reached one of the few houses distinguished from others by a coat of paint. By this time the evening was near at hand, yet the darkness would not have justified as yet a thrifty Newfoundland housewife in burning valuable kerosene. But from the windows of this place poured forth abundant light showing recklessness as to expense. Upon the porch were a few feeble geraniums, and some nasturtiums and bachelor's buttons twined themselves hopefully on strings disposed for them.
At the sound of our footsteps the door was quickly opened. A young woman appeared but the light was behind her and her features were not very distinct.
"Couldn't you get him?" she cried, in sore disappointment.
"Yes, ma'am. That's what I went for," said Sammy. "I telled yer I'd sure bring him, and here he be."
I had come nearer, and then, I am afraid, I somewhat forgot my manners and stared at her.
CHAPTER IV
From Miss Helen Jelliffe to Miss Jane Van Zandt
Dearest Aunt Jennie:
I did try so hard to get you to come on this cruise with us. You said you preferred remaining in Newport to sharing in a wild journey to places one has never heard of, and now I am compelled to recognize your superior wisdom. I wish we had never heard of this dreadful hole. I am now reduced to the condition of a weepful Niobe, utterly helpless to contend against the sad trend of events. I know how much you disapprove of lingering, being such an active little body, and so I will tell you the worst at once. Poor dear Daddy has just broken his leg, and, of all places, in the most forsaken hole and corner of this dreary island of Newfoundland.
Daddy has always boasted of his perseverance in the pursuit of the unusual in sport. This time he found it with a vengeance. Our mate, who hails from these parts, once told him of this place, and implied that the salmon in the little river running down into this cove would take a fly whether awake or asleep, and jostled one another for the privilege. While Daddy is rather fond of a gun, you and I know that there are only two weapons he is really absorbed in. I suppose that the first is the instrument he uses to cut off coupons with, and the next is his salmon rod, which I would like to break into little pieces, for it has been the cause of turning our long bowsprit towards this horrid jumble of rock and sea. I considered that we were lucky to have found our way into Sweetapple Cove without any particular disaster, but of course such luck could not last long.
We ought never to have come any way, for our skipper, the descendant of Vikings, had implied that our schooner was in need of all sorts of repairs, and that sensible people did not start off on long cruises just after months in Florida which had converted the ship's bottom into a sort of vegetable garden. Daddy consoled him by telling him he could leave us there and go off to St. John's to the dry-dock.
You know how pleasantly Daddy speaks to people, and how they detect under his words a firmness which effectively prevents long discussion. Stefansson is really a racing skipper, but he likes his berth on the Snowbird and said nothing more. We reached this place where, for lack of level ground, the few houses use all sorts of stilts and crutches, and invaded the village to the intense amazement of the populace and its dogs.
Then came Daddy's genius for organization. Within two hours we had rented a little house for next to nothing a week, furnished it in sixty minutes with odds and ends from the yacht, including our little brass bedsteads, which the people here firmly believe to be pure gold, A wild daughter of the Cove, a descendant of the family that gave it its extraordinary name, was engaged as a general servant. Daddy's valet and the cook had wept when they saw the place, and Father informed them that they were rubbish and might go back with the Snowbird, which presently sailed off for the scraping it appears to be entitled to.
Daddy at once selected a rod with all the care such affairs of state require, and set forth across the cove with two natives, in a dory. They went ashore on the banks of the little river and began to clamber over a terrific jumble of rocks. A salmon was caught so quickly that Father grew boyish with enthusiasm and capered over more rocks.
And then came the accident, Aunt Jennie, and I am still shaky, and tearful, and though I try to write like a normal human being I am desirous of shrieking. There was just a slip and a fall, and a foot caught between two boulders. Poor Daddy was dragged from the swift water into which he had been wading and placed in the bottom of the dory, a most damp and smelly ambulance.
Of course I dashed down to the shore as soon as people came to tell me what had happened, and naturally I got into everybody's way. It was strange to see how these very rough-looking men took hold of poor Daddy. They were just as gentle as could be, and made an arrangement of fish-carrying barrows upon which they lifted him up and brought him to the house.
I was weeping all this time and Daddy consoled me by telling me not to be a fool. Susie, our new handmaiden, simply howled. We were bundled out, chiefly by Daddy's language, and clamored for a doctor. It actually transpired that there was one in the place, to my infinite relief. The fact that he was gone to a little island away out at sea appeared to be but an insignificant detail. An ancient mariner whom Coleridge must have been acquainted with promised to go and bring him back. If the weather