The Harbor Master Part 6

"It bain't right for yer reverence to sleep out these rough winter nights," protested the skipper. "Maybe ye'll be gettin' yer death one o'

these nights, sir."

"Nay, Denny, don't ye go worryin' about me," said the priest. "I am as tough as a husky."

He descended the path to the cl.u.s.tered cabins, still holding the skipper's arm and with the populace sliding and crowding at his muddy heels. His gray eyes were as keen as they were kindly. He remarked several of the great iron rings on the rocks to seaward.

"What are ye up to now, Denny?" he asked, halting for a moment, and pointing with a plump but strong and weather-beaten hand.

The skipper's black eyes followed the line indicated.

"That bes a grand idee o' mine, yer reverence," he answered, after a moment's hesitation. "Sure I'll tell ye all about it, sir, after ye get yerself dry alongside the stove."

"Something to do with wrecks, Denny?" queried the priest.

"Aye, yer reverence, it bes a part o' the gear for salvin' wrecks,"

returned Nolan.

At the skipper's door Father McQueen dismissed his followers with a blessing and a promise to see them all after dinner. Then, after a few kindly words to Mother Nolan, he entered his own room, where Cormick had a fire of driftwood roaring in the chimney. He soon returned to the kitchen, in socks and moccasins of the skipper's, a rusty ca.s.sock and a red blanket. The innate dignity and virtue of the old man gave to his grotesque attire the seeming of robes of glory, in spite of the very human twinkle in his gray eyes and the shadow of a grin about the corners of his large mouth. He accepted a chair close to the stove--but not the most comfortable chair, which was Mother Nolan's. They knew his nature too well to offer him that. The skipper gave him a bowl of hot wine, mulled with sugar and spices, which he accepted without demur and sipped with relish. After a few minutes of general conversation, during which Mother Nolan expatiated on her rheumatics, he turned to the skipper, and laid a hand on that young giant's knee.

"So ye are preparing gear for the salving of wrecks, my son?" he queried.

"Aye, yer reverence, we bes fixin' chains an' lines among the rocks so as maybe we kin get a holt on whatever comes ash.o.r.e," replied Nolan.

"A good idea," returned the other. And then, "Have ye had any wrecks already this winter?"

"Aye, yer reverence, there be'd one in Nolan's Cove."

"So? Did any of the poor souls come ash.o.r.e alive?"

"Aye, yer reverence, every mother's son o' them. They come ash.o.r.e in their boats, sir, an' left the s.h.i.+p acrost a rock wid a hole in her bows bigger nor this house."

"And where are they now?"

"That I couldn't tell, yer reverence. They set out for Nap Harbor, to the south, that very night, an' got there safe an' sound. An' I heard tell, sir, as how they sailed from Nap Harbor for St. John's in a fore-an'-after."

The priest regarded the skipper keenly.

"Safe and sound, ye say, Denny?"

"Aye, yer reverence, safe an' sound, wid their clothes on their backs an' food an' drink in their pockets an' their bellies."

"I am glad to hear it, Denny. Ye sent them on their way warmly clad and full-fed; but I'm thinking, my son, they must have left something behind them? It's grand wine this, Denny."

"Aye, father, it bes grand wine. It came out o' the wreck, sir, along wid a skiff-load o' fancy grub. There bes wine, spirits an' tinned stuff in every house o' the harbor, yer reverence. But the cargo weren't no manner o' use to us--an' the hull broke up an' went all abroad two days back."

"So ye got nought from the wreck but a skiff-full of drink and food?"

"I bain't sayin' that, father dear, though it were as peaceful an'

dacent a wrack as ever yer reverence heard tell of. Maybe yer reverence bes buildin' another church somewheres?--or a mission-house?--or sendin'

money up-along to the poor haythens?"

"Aye, Denny, I am doing all these things," replied the priest. "Since first I set foot on Newfoundland I have built nine little churches, twelve mission-houses and one hospital--aye, and sent a mint of money to the poor folk of other lands. My dear parents left me a fortune of three hundreds of English pounds a year, Denny; and every year I give two hundred and fifty pounds of that fortune to the work of the Holy Church and beg and take twice as much more from the rich to give the poor."

The skipper nodded. This information was not new to him.

"I was thinkin', yer reverence, as how some day ye'd maybe be buildin'

us a little church here in Chance Along," he said.

"It would take money, my son--money and hard work," returned the priest.

"Aye, father dear, 'twould take money an' work. There bes fifty golden sovereigns I knows of for yer reverence."

"Clean money?"

"Aye, yer reverence."

"From the wreck, Denny?"

"Aye, father dear, from the last wrack."

"Without blood on it, my son?"

"Widout so much as a drop o' blood on it, so help me Saint Peter!"

"And the other lads, Denny? Are ye the only one in the harbor able to pay me something for the building of a church?"

There was the one question on the good priest's tongue and another in his clear eyes.

"I bes skipper, father dear, an' takes skipper's shares and pays skipper's shares," replied Nolan. "But for me there'd not bin one bottle o' wine come to us from the wrack an' the poor folks aboard her would never have got ash.o.r.e in their boats for want of a light on the land-wash. As I kin spare ye fifty pounds for the holy work, yer reverence, there bes nineteen men o' this harbor kin each be sparin' ye ten."

Father McQueen nodded his gray head.

"Then we'll have the little church, Denny," he said. "Aye, lad, we'll have the little church s.h.i.+ning out to sea from the cliffs above Chance Along."

Father McQueen was a good man and a good priest, and would as readily have given his last breath as his last crust of bread in the service of his Master; but for the past thirty years he had lived and worked in a land of rocks, fogs and want, among people who s.n.a.t.c.hed a livelihood from the sea with benumbed fingers and wrists pitted deep with scars of salt-water boils. He had seen them risk their lives for food on the black rocks, the grinding ice and the treacherous tide; and now his heart felt with their hearts, his eyes saw with their eyes. Their bitter birthright was the harvest of the coastwise seas; and he now realized their real and ethical right to all that they might gather from the tide, be it cod, caplin, herrings or the timbers and freights of wrecked s.h.i.+ps. He saw that a wreck, like a good run of fish, was a thing to profit by thankfully and give praise to the saints for; but he held that no gift of G.o.d was to be gathered in violence. In the early years of his work he had heard rumors and seen indications of things that had fired him with a righteous fury and pity--rumors and hints of mariners struggling landward only to be killed like so many seals as they reached the hands to which they had looked for succor. The poor savages who had committed such crimes as this had at first failed to understand his fury and disgust; but with his tongue and his strong arms he had driven into their hearts the fear of Holy Church and of the Reverend Patrick McQueen. Even the wildest and dullest members of his far-scattered flock learned in time that life was sacred--even the life of a half-dead stranger awash in the surf. They even learned to refrain from stripping and breaking up a wrecked or grounded vessel that was still manned by a protesting crew; and with the fear of the good priest in their hearts (even though he was a hundred miles away), they would do their best to bring the unfortunate mariners safely ash.o.r.e and then share the vessel with the hungry sea.

That even a deserted or unpeopled wreck should be common property may not seem right to some people; but it seemed right to Father McQueen--and surely he should know what was right and what was wrong! It was sometime about the date of this story that a missionary of another and perhaps less broad and human creed than Father McQueen's wrote to his bishop in the spring, "Thanks to G.o.d and two wrecks we got through the winter without starving."

Father McQueen did not hurry away from Chance Along. Six months had pa.s.sed since his last visit and so he felt that this section of his flock demanded both time and attention. His way of knowing his people was by learning their outward as well as their inner lives, their physical and also their spiritual being. He was not slow to see and understand the skipper's ambitions and something of his methods. He read Black Dennis Nolan for a strong, active, masterful and relentless nature. He heard of Foxey Jack Quinn's departure and of the fight at the edge of the cliff that had preceded it. He heard also that Quinn had robbed the skipper before departing; but exactly what he had robbed him of he could not learn. He questioned Dennis himself and had a lesson in the art of evasion. He found it no great task to comfort the woman and children of the fugitive Jack. They were well fed and had the skipper's word that they should never lack food and clothing. He was not surprised to learn from the deserted wife that the man had been a bully at home as well as abroad. For his own part, he had never thought very highly of Foxey Jack Quinn. He visited every cabin in the harbor, and those that sheltered old and sick he visited many times. He was keenly interested in the work that the skipper was doing among the rocks in front of the harbor, and did not fail to point out persistently and authoritatively that chains and ropes designed to facilitate the saving of freights would also facilitate the saving of human lives. The skipper agreed with him respectfully.

On the morning of Father McQueen's arrival in Chance Along, the skipper dispatched Nick Leary to Witless Bay to learn whether or no Jack Quinn had reached that place. Leary returned on the evening of the following day with the expected information that nothing had been seen of the missing man in Witless Bay. In his pocket he brought a recent issue of St. John's newspaper, for which he had paid two s.h.i.+llings and two drams of rum. This he brought as an offering to the skipper--for the skipper could read print almost as well as a merchant and had a thirst for information of the outside world.

The first item of news which the skipper managed to spell out was the notice of a reward of five hundred pounds awaiting the person who should recover Lady Harwood's necklace of twelve diamonds and fourteen rubies and deliver it to Mr. Peter Wren, solicitor, Water Street, St.

John's. The notice went on to say that this necklace, together with other smaller and less valuable articles of jewelry, had been taken by force from the s.h.i.+pwrecked company of the bark _Durham Castle_, which had gone ash.o.r.e and to pieces in a desolate place called Frenchman's Cove, on the east coast. It also gave the date of the wreck and stated that if the necklace should be returned undamaged, no questions would be asked. The skipper saw in a moment that the reward was offered for the stones which he had found in the deserted berth and which Quinn had robbed him of. Five hundred pounds? He shook his head over that. He had read somewhere, at some time, about the value of diamonds, and he felt sure that the necklace was worth many times the money offered for its recovery. So the loss of it was known to the world? He had a great idea of the circulation of the St. John's _Herald_. He had retired to a secluded spot above the harbor to read the paper, and now he glanced furtively over his shoulder. No limb of the law was in sight. He gazed abroad over the sodden, gloomy barrens and reflected bitterly that the treasure lay there in some pit or hollow, in a dead man's pocket, perhaps within shouting-distance of where he stood. He swore that he would recover it yet--but not for the reward offered by Mr. Peter Wren in behalf of Lady Harwood. He re-read the notice slowly, following letter and word with muttering lips and tracing finger. Then, at a sudden thought of Father McQueen, he tore away that portion of the outer sheet which contained the notice.

The skipper returned to his house and found the missionary seated beside the stove chatting with Mother Nolan.

"Here bes a paper, yer reverence, Nick Leary fetched over from Witless Bay," he said. "It bes tored, sir; but maybe ye'll find some good readin' left in it."