Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. SWEETAPPLE COVE BY GEORGE VAN SCHAIGK 1914 CHAPTER I _From John Grant's Diary_ Have I shown wisdom or made an arrant, egregious fool of myself? This, I suppose, is a question every man puts to himself after taking a sudden decision upon which a great deal depends. I have shaken the dust of the great city by the Hudson and forsaken its rich laboratories, its vast hospitals, the earnest workers who were beginning to show some slight interest in me. It was done not after mature consideration but owing to the whim of a moment, to a sudden desire to change the trend of things I felt I could no longer contend with. Now I live in a little house, among people who speak with an accent that has become unfamiliar to the great outside world. They have given up their two best rooms to me, at a rental so small that I am somewhat ashamed to tender it, at the end of every week. I also obtain the constant care and the pleasant smiles of a good old housewife who appears to take a certain amount of pride in her lodger. As far as I know I am the only boarder in Sweetapple Cove, as well as the only doctor. For a day or two after my arrival I accompanied the local parson, Mr. Barnett, on visits to people he considered to be in need of my ministrations. Now they are coming in droves, and many scattered dwellers on the bleak coast have heard of me. Little fishing-smacks meeting others from farther outports have spread the amazing news that there is a doctor at the Cove. With other pomps and vanities I have given up white shirts and collars, and my recent purchases include oilskins and long boots. This is fashionable apparel here, and my wearing them appears to impart confidence in my ability. My only reason for writing this is that the Barnetts go to bed early. Doubtless I may also acquire the habit, in good time. Moreover, there is always a danger of disturbing some important sermon-writing. In common decency I can't bother these delightful people every evening, although they have begged me to consider their home as my own. Mrs. Barnett is a most charming woman, and never in my life have I known anything like the welcome she impulsively extended, but she works hard and I cannot intrude too much. Hence the hours after nine are exceedingly long, when it chances that there are no sick people to look after. At first, of course, I just mooned around, and called myself all sorts of names, honestly considering myself the most stupendous fool ever permitted to exist in freedom from restraint. I plunged into books and devoured the medical weeklies which the irregular mails of the place brought me, yet this did not entirely suffice, and now I have begun to write. It may help the time to pass away, and prevent the attacks of mold and rust. Later on, if things do not shape themselves according to my hopes, these dangers will be of little import. These sheets may then mildew with the dampness of this land, or fly away to sea with the shrewd breezes that sweep over our coast, for all I shall care. At any rate they will have served their purpose. Of course I am trying to swallow my medicine like a little man. If there is a being I despise it is the fellow who whimpers. There is little that is admirable in professional pugilism, saving the smile often seen on a fighter's face after he has just received a particularly hard and crushing blow. Indeed, that smile is the bruiser's apology for his life. Lest it be inferred that I have been fighting, I hasten to declare that it was a rather one-sided contest in which I was defeated, lock, stock and barrel, by a mere slip of a girl towards whom I had only lifted up my hands in supplication. "We are both very young, John," she explained to me, with an exasperating, if unconscious, imitation of the doctors she had observed as they announced very disagreeable things to their patients. "Our lives are practically only beginning. Until now we have been like the vegetables that are brought up in little wooden boxes. We are to be taken up and planted in a field, where we are to grow up into something useful." "And we shall enjoy a great advantage over the young cabbages and lettuces," I chimed in. "We shall have the inestimable privilege of being permitted to select the particular farm or enclosure that pleases us best." "Of course," said Dora Maclennon, cheerfully. "But I should be ever so glad to have you select for the two of us," I told her. "I guarantee to follow you blindly." She put her hand on my arm and patted it in the abominably soothing way she has doubtless acquired in the babies' ward. In my case it was about as effectual as the traditional red rag to a bull. "Don't you dare touch me like that," I resented. "I'm quite through with the mumps and measles. My complaint is one you don't understand at all. You are unable to sympathize with me because love, to you, is a mere theoretical thing. You've heard of it, perhaps you are even ready to admit that some people suffer from such an ailment, but you don't really know anything about it. It has not been a part of your curriculum. I've been trying to inoculate you with this distemper but it won't take." "I suppose I'm a poor sort of soil for that kind of culture," she replied, rather wistfully. "There is no finer soil in the world," I protested, doggedly. Every man in the world and at least half the women would have agreed with me. The grace of her charming figure, her smiles and that one little dimple, the waving abundance of her silken hair, the rich inflections of her voice, each and all contradicted that foolish supposition of hers. "Well, I thought this was an invitation to dinner," remarked Dora, sweetly, with all the brutal talent of her sex for changing the drift of conversation. "Of course they fed us well at the hospital, when we had time to eat, but...." "Is that your last word?" I asked, trying to subdue the eagerness of my voice. "If you don't really care to go...." I rose and sought my hat and overcoat, while Dora wandered about my unpretentious office. "Your landlady could take lessons from Paddy's pig in cleanliness," she declared, running a finger over my bookcase and contemplating it with horror. "I wonder that you, a surgeon, should be an accomplice to such a mess." "It's pretty bad," I admitted, "but the poor thing has weak eyes, and she has seen better days." "She deserves the bad ones, then," Dora exclaimed. "As in the case of many other maladies, we have as yet been unable to discover the microbe of woman's inhumanity to woman," I observed. "When doggies meet they commonly growl," said Dora, "and when pussies meet they usually spit and scratch. Each according to his or her nature. And it seems to me that you could afford a new overcoat. That one is positively becoming green." "I do believe I have another one, somewhere," I admitted. "Then go and find it," she commanded. "You need some one to look after you." I turned on her like the proverbial flash, or perhaps like the Downtrodden worm. "Isn't that just what I've been gnashing my teeth over?" I asked. "I'm glad you have the grace to admit it." "I'll admit anything you like," she said. "But, John dear, we can't really be sure yet that I'm the one who ought to do it. And--and maybe there will be no room at the tables unless we hurry a little." She was buttoning up her gloves again, quite coolly, and cast approving glances at some radiographic prints on my wall. "That must have been a splendid fracture," she commented. "You are a few million years old in the ways of Eve," I told her, "but you are still young in the practice of trained nursing. To you broken legs and, perhaps, broken hearts, are as yet but interesting cases." She turned her shapely head towards me, and for an instant her eyes searched mine. "Do you really believe that?" she asked, in a very low-sweet voice. I stood before her, penitently. "I don't suppose I do," I acknowledged. "Let us say that it was just some of the growling of the dog. He doesn't usually mean anything by it." "You're an awfully good fellow, John," said the little nurse, pleasantly. "I know I've been hurting you a bit. Please, I'm sorry the medicine tastes so badly." The only thing I could do was to lift up one of her hands and kiss a white kid glove, _faute de mieux_. It was stretched over her fingers, however, and hence was part of her. When we reached the restaurant she selected a table and placed herself so that she might see as many diners as possible. If there had been people outside of Paradise, Eve would certainly have peeped through the palings. I handed her the bill of fare and she begged for Cape Cods. "You order the rest of it," she commanded. "I'm going to look." While I discussed dishes with the waiter her eyes wandered over the big room, taking in pretty dresses and becoming coiffures. Then she watched the leader of the little orchestra, who certainly wielded a masterful bow, and gave a little sigh of content. "We really could afford this at least once or twice a week," I sought to tempt her, "and the theatre besides, and--and--" She looked at me very gravely, moving a little from side to side, as if my head presented varied and interesting aspects. "That's one of the troubles with you," she finally said. "You have some money, a nice reasonable amount of money, and you can afford some things, and I can't tell whether you're going to be an amateur or a professional." "An amateur?" I repeated, dully. "I mean no reflection upon your abilities," she explained, hurriedly. "I know all that you have done in London and in Edinburgh, and these German places. You can tack more than half the letters of the alphabet after your name if you choose to. But I don't quite see what you are doing in New York." "You wrote that you were coming to study nursing here," I reminded her. "This is now a great centre of scientific research, thanks to the princely endowments of the universities. Have you the slightest notion of how many years I have loved you, Dora?" "Not quite so loud," she reproved me. "I believe it began in dear old St. John's. You were about fourteen when you declared your passion, and I wore pigtails and exceedingly short skirts. My legs, also, were the spindliest things." "Yes, that was the beginning, Dora, and it has continued ever since. During the years I spent abroad we kept on writing. It seemed to me that the whole thing was settled. I've always had your pictures with me; the first was little Dora, and the other one was taken when you first did your hair up and wore long dresses. During all that time St. John's was the garden of the Hesperides, and you were the golden thing I was toiling for. When you wrote that you were coming to New York I took the next boat over. Then you told me I must wait until you graduated. And now, after your commencement, I hoped, indeed I hoped--I'm afraid I'm worrying you, dear." She smiled at me, very pleasantly, but the little dimple held naught but mystery. I really think her eyes implied a sort of regret, as if she wished she could make the ordeal less hard for me. The waiter brought the oysters, which Dora consumed appreciatively. I was simply compelled to eat also, lest she should deem me a peevish loser in the great game I had sought to play. Yet I remember that these Cape Cods were distinctly hard to swallow, delicious though they probably were. Suddenly she looked up, and the little oyster impaled on her fork dropped on the plate. "There's Taurus!" she exclaimed, with gleaming eyes. She was looking at a rather tall man, of powerful build, whose abundant hair was splendidly tinged with silver, and who was coming in with a very beautiful woman. "Is that what you nurses call him?" I asked, recognizing one of the great surgeons of the world. "Yes," she answered. "Isn't he wonderful? We're all in love with him, the mean thing." "Kindly explain the adjective," I urged her. "Is it due to the fact that he protected himself against the wiles of a host of pretty women by marrying the sweetest one of the lot--with a single exception--to the utter despair of the remainder?" "Did you ever hear him blow up his house-staff?" Dora asked me. "I have heard that he could be rather strenuous at times," I admitted. "Well, that's how he infringes on our rights," Dora informed me. "I have never heard him say an angry word to a nurse. He just has a way of smiling at one, as if he were beholding an infinitesimal infant totally incapable of understanding. The sarcasm of it is utterly fierce and the nurse goes off, red and shaken, and feels like killing him. Don't you think we've got just as good a right as any whipper-snapper of a new intern to be blown up?" "Evidently," I assented. "It is an unfair discrimination." "And yet we're all just crazy for him. You can hardly understand how the personality of the man permeates the wards, how he gives one the impression of some wonderful being who has reached a pinnacle, and remains there, smilingly, without heeding the crowd below that worships and cheers. And how the patients adore him!" She evidently expected no answer from me, nor did I venture upon one. Her words were very significant, and gave me a rather hopeless feeling. She was under the influence of the glamour of great names and reputations. Her youth demanded hero-worship. Measured by her standards I was but a nice friend, to whom she could even be affectionate. Presently, in her enjoyment of our modest little dinner, she turned to me, appearing to forget the crowd, and sighed happily. "This would all be so delightful," she said, "if...." "I'll tell you, girlie," I said, "let us agree that all this has been a dream of mine. We will say that I have never been in love with you, and regard you now with profound indifference. It has been that which some very amazing practitioners are pleased to call an error. Now you will be able to enjoy happiness. As far as I am concerned I don't suppose it can make me feel any worse." "You're a dear good boy, John," she answered. "We shall always be awfully good friends, and perhaps, some day ... Now you must tell me all your plans." "Ladies first," I objected. "Well, my heart is still in Newfoundland, you know. But I'm going to stay at least a year in New York. I'm going to work among the poorest and most unpleasant, because I want to become self-reliant. Then I shall go back home. Think of a trained nurse let loose in some of those outports! I should just revel in it. I am an heiress worth five hundred dollars a year of my own. That would keep a lot of people up there. You see, I have a theory!" "Will you be so kind as to share it with me?" I asked. "Well, ordinary nursing is a humdrum thing" and there are thousands to do it. It is the same thing with you. Just now, having no practice as yet, you are working in laboratories with a lot of others; you run around hospitals--also with a crowd. What do you know about your ability to go right out and do a man's work, by yourself? That is what counts, to my mind." "I see the point," I informed her, "and you expect surely to return to the land of codfish." "Yes," she nodded, "and now what about you?" "Oh, I am going there next week," I replied. She opened her eyes very wide, vaguely scenting some sort of joke, but in this she erred. "I see no use in remaining here," I said, with a determination as strong as it was recent. "It would take me a long time to put myself on the level of men like Taurus, and I don't want a lot of nurses falling in love with me; I only asked for one. You are going back after a time. Very well, I'm going now, and I'll wait for you. I can easily find some place where a doctor is badly needed. You will answer my letters, won't you?" "I promise," she said, very gravely, "and it is a very good idea. One can always do a man's work up there." She ate a Nesselrode pudding while I enjoyed coffee and a cigar, to the extent that I forgot to drink the one and allowed the other to go out after a puff or two. "Your money came from a good St. John's merchant who made it from the people of the outports," she said. "You might spend a little on them now, gracefully. They need it badly enough." We remained silent for some time, thinking of the bleak coast of our big island, where the price of our little dinner would have represented a large sum, and then we left the restaurant and took a car up town. When she finally held out her little hand to me it was warm, and I fancied that from it came a current that was comforting, though it may have been but the affectionate regard of some years of good friendship. "You will dine again with me, next Thursday?" I asked her. "It will take me a few days to get ready." "Don't you think that Gordian knot had better be cut at once?" advised Dora. "I won't change my mind, and you know I've always been an obstinate thing. There are important things for both of us to achieve, somewhere. I must grope about to find my share of them, for I feel like the ship that did not find itself till it encountered a storm or two. If I promised to meet you next week you would keep on hoping. Do plunge right in now instead of shivering on the bank." "Don't trouble about any more metaphors," I told her. "You promise to go home within a year?" "I firmly intend to," she replied, "but you can't always depend on a woman's plans." "If I can't depend on you I have very little left to believe in," I declared. "I'm pretty sure I'll come," she said, "and--and God bless you, John!" So we separated there, in the silent street, before the nurses' home where she had taken a room a few days after her graduation. I couldn't trust myself to say anything more. The door closed upon her and I slowly walked back to my quarters, with a head full of dreary thoughts, and several times narrowly escaped speeding taxis and brought down upon myself some picturesque language. I fear that I was hardly in a mood to appreciate its beauty. CHAPTER II _From John Grant's Diary_ Four weeks ago, this evening, I sat with Dora in that bright dining room at the Rochambeau. My description of that last meeting of ours is a rather flippant one, I fancy, but some feminine faces are improved by powder, and some men's sentiments by a veneer of assumed cheerfulness. That cut of mine has not the slightest intention of healing by first intention; it is gaping as widely as ever, as far as I can judge. Yet I am glad I made no further effort. I suppose a man had better stop before he gets himself disliked. Yesterday morning I came out of a dilapidated dwelling in which I had spent the whole night, and scrambled away over some rocks. When I sat down my legs were hanging over a chasm at the foot of which grandly rolling waves burst into foam, keeping up the warfare waged during a million years against our sturdy cliffs. Rays of dulled crimson sought to penetrate, feebly, through the fog, as if the sun knew only too well how often it had been defeated in its contest against the murky vapors of this hazy land. My meeting with Mr. Barnett on the _Rosalind_ was a most fortunate accident. The earnest little clergyman sat next to me at the table, and immediately engaged me in conversation. I gathered from him that he had been begging in the great city and had managed to collect a very few hundred dollars for his little church. He spoke most cheerfully of all that he meant to achieve with all this wealth. "I am going to have the steeple finished," he said. "It will take but a few feet of lumber, and we still have half a keg of nails. Some day I expect to have a little reading room, and perhaps a magic lantern. I will try to give them some short lectures. I am ambitious, and hope that I am not expecting too much. We are really doing very nicely at Sweetapple Cove." "Where is that?" I asked him. The little parson gave me the desired geographical information and, finding me interested, began to speak of his work. He was one of the small band of devoted men whose lives are spent on the coast, engaged in serving their fellow-men to the best of their abilities. The extent of his parish was scarcely limited by the ability of a fishing boat to travel a day's journey, and he spoke very modestly of some rather narrow escapes from storm and ice. "If we only had a doctor!" he sighed. "Mrs. Barnett and I do our best. Things are sometimes just heartrending." At once I manifested interest, and angled for further information. This was just the sort of place I had in mind. It appeared that the nearest doctor was more than a day's travel away, and that the population was rather too poor to afford the luxury of professional advice. "We sometimes feel very hopeless," he told me. "How do you reach Sweetapple Cove?" I asked him. "There will be a little schooner in a few days," he answered. "I am a physician," I announced, "and am looking for exactly that kind of a practice." We were strolling on the deck at this time. Mr. Barnett turned quickly and grasped my arm. "There is hardly a dollar there for you," he said. "No sane man would come to such a place to practice. And there is a little hardship in that sort of work. You don't realize it." "I am under the impression that it is just the place for me," I told him. "There is really good salmon fishing in Sweetapple River," he began, excitedly, "and you can get caribou within a day's walk, and there are lots of trout, and..." I could see that he was eager to find some redeeming points for Sweetapple Cove. "Behold the tempter," I laughed. "Dear me! Of course I did not mean to tempt you," he said, flushing like a girl. "And I'm afraid you would have to live in some fisherman's house, and to furnish medicines as well as your services. Of course they might pay you something if the fishing happened to be good. It sometimes is, you know." As soon as we arrived in St. John's I made many and sundry purchases, with a proper discount for cash, and three days later we sailed out of the harbor on a tiny schooner laden with salt, barrels of flour and various other provisions. In less than forty-eight hours we arrived in Sweetapple Cove. The delighted reception I received from Mrs. Barnett, a sweet lovable woman, exalted my ideas of the value of my profession. She simply gloated over me and patted her husband on the back as if his superior genius had been the true cause of my arrival. At once she made arrangements for my living with Captain Sammy Moore, an ancient of the sea whose nice old wife accepted with tremulous pride the honor of sheltering me. The inhabitants and their offspring, the dogs and the goats, the fowls and the solitary cow, trooped about me for closer inspection, and my practice became at once established. I have taken some formidable walks over the barrens back inland, and have angled with distinguished success. The days are becoming fairly crowded ones. Shortly after sunrise, the day before yesterday, I was called upon to go to a little island several miles out at sea. Captain Sammy and a man called Frenchy took me out there. Their little fishing smack is the cab I use for running my remoter errands. I found a man nearly dying from a bad septic wound of his right arm. I judged that he might possibly survive an amputation, but that the loss of the breadwinner's limb would have been just as bad, as far as his family was concerned, as the death of the patient. There was nothing to do but grit one's teeth and take chances. I remained with him throughout the night, and in the morning was glad to detect some slight improvement. The keen breeze that expanded my lungs as I sat on the rocks did me a great deal of good. It rested me after the dreary vigil and presently I returned to my patient. I'm afraid that we men are poor nurses. We can keep on fighting and struggling and trying, but when we have to sit still and watch with folded arms the iron enters our souls, while the consciousness of helpless waiting is after all the bitterest thing we can contend against. Women are far more patient and enduring. Constantly I renewed the dressings, and bathed the limb in antiseptics, and gave a few stimulating drugs. Then I would watch the man's hurried breathing and feverish pulse. But I could not remain with idle hands very long at a time, and frequently strolled out to breathe the sea-scented air, in some place well to windward of the poor little fishhouses that reeked infamously with the scattered offal of cod. A disconsolate man was trying to mend a badly frayed net and a few ragged children, gaunt and underfed, followed me about, curiously, whispering among themselves. The sick man's wife sat most of the time, near the bed, hour after hour, a picture of intense, stolid misery. From time to time she wailed because there was no more tea. Always she hastened to obey my slightest request, clumsily, faithfully, like some humble dog to which some hard and scarcely understood task might have been given. One could see that she really had no hope. The usual way was for the men to fail to return, some day, when they went out and were caught in a bad storm, or when the ice-floes drifted out to sea, and then the women would wait, patiently, until the certainty of their bereavement had entered their souls. This one had the sad privilege of witnessing the tragedy. It was all happening in the little house of disjointed planks, and perhaps she took some comfort in the idea that she would be there at the last moment. It was easy to see, however, that she considered my efforts as some sort of rite which, at most, might comfort the dying. Before noon, when the haze had lifted before the sweep of a north east wind, one of the children called. The mother went out, hurriedly, while I stood at the open door. About a mile away a stunning white schooner was steaming towards the entrance of Sweetapple Cove. "I'm a-wonderin' what she be doin' here," said the woman, dully. "She ain't no ship of our parts. I never seen the like o' she." There was a glinting of light cast forth by bright brasses, and I could see a red spot which appeared to indicate the presence of a woman on board, clad perhaps in a crimson cape or shawl. We kept on staring at her for some time, as people do in forsaken places when a stranger passes by, and we returned to the bedside. The day stretched out its interminable length, but the night was longer still. The children had been put to bed in dark corners, after a meal of fish and hard bread. The smallest had clamored for some tea. "There ain't no more," said the mother. I had noticed that she had put aside a very small package of this luxury, on a high shelf. "Why don't you give them some?" I asked. "You forget that you have a little laid aside." "There won't be none left fer you," she answered. I ordered her to put the kettle on the fire at once and make tea for her young ones, and bade her take some also. "I told Sammy Moore to bring some to-morrow," I told her. I am afraid that I dozed a good many times, that night, on the little low stool near the bed. There was not much to be done. Gradually it dawned upon me that the man was getting better. The stimulants had produced some reaction, and the hot dry skin was becoming moister. I feared it might be but a temporary improvement, and hardly dared mention it. Yet the man was no longer delirious. Several times he asked for water, and once looked at me curiously, with a faint attempt at a smile, before his head again sank down on the pillow. Finally the sunlight came again, shortly after the smoky lamp had been extinguished, and I went out of the house, when the chill of the early morning seized me so that for a moment my teeth chattered. The woman followed me. "He do be a dreadful long time dyin'," she said, miserably. I suppose that I was nervous and weary with the two long nights of watching, and lost mastery over myself. To me those words sounded heartless, although now I realize they came from the depth of her woe. "You have no right to say such things," I reproved her sharply. "I don't think he is going to die. I believe that we have saved him." Then she sank on the ground, grasping one of my chilly hands and weeping over it. These were the first tears she had shed and I saw how grievously I had erred. As gently as I could I lifted her to her feet. "I'm sorry I spoke so gruffly," I said. "But I really believe that we are going to pull him through, and that we shall save his arm." At noon-time we saw the white yacht coming out of Sweetapple Cove. She was speeding away in the direction of St. John's. The weather was beginning to spoil, and at the foot of the seaward cliffs the great seas, smooth and oily, boomed with great crashes that portended a coming storm. Early in the afternoon the wind was coming in black squalls, accompanied by a rolling mist. As I looked towards the mainland I saw a fishing boat coming, leaning hard to the strong gale. An hour later Sammy and his man landed in the tiny cove and the old fellow came rushing towards me. "You is wanted to come ter onst," he said. "They is a man come yisterday on that white yacht. He went up th' river fur salmon, jist after his boat left, and bruk the leg o' he slippin' on the rocks. Yer got to come right now," I took the small package he brought me and rushed up to the house with it The improvement had continued, and I gave careful directions in regard to continuing the treatment. After this I descended to the tiny beach where the boat was waiting. "She be nasty when yer gets from the lee o' the island," Sammy informed me. "I mistrust its gettin' worse and some fog rollin' in wid' it. Mebbe yer doesn't jist feel like reskin' it?" "How about your wife and children, Sammy?" I asked. "There is no one depending on me." He took a long look, quietly gauging the possibilities. "I'm a-thinkin' we's like to make it all right," he finally told me. "And what about you and the little boy, Frenchy?" I asked the other man. "Me go orright," he answered. "Me see heem baby again." So we jumped aboard. The tiny cove was so sheltered that we had to give a few strokes of the oars before, suddenly, the little ship heeled to the blow. CHAPTER III _From John Grant's Diary_ In a few minutes the slight protection afforded us by Will's Island was denied us. I was anxious to ask further details about this injured man we were hurrying to see, but the two fishermen had no leisure for conversation. A few necessary words had to be shrieked. Even before I had finished putting on my oilskins the water was dashing over us, and old Sammy, at the tiller, was jockeying his boat with an intense preoccupation that could not be interfered with. The smack was of a couple of tons' burden, undecked, with big fish-boxes built astern and amidships. She carried two slender masts with no bowsprit to speak of, having no headsails, and her two tanned wings bellied out while the whole of her fabric pitched and rolled over the white crested waves. The fog was growing denser around us, as if we had been journeying through a swift-moving cloud. It was scudding in from the Grand Banks, pushed by a chill gale which might first have passed over the icy plateaux of inner Greenland. This lasted for a long time. We were all staring ahead and seeking to penetrate the blinding veil of vapor, and I felt more utterly strayed and lost than ever in my life before. Our faces were running with the salt spray that swished over the bows or flew over the quarters, to stream down into the bilge at our feet, foul with fragments of squid and caplin long dead. We were also beginning to listen eagerly for other sounds than the wind hissing in the cordage, the breaking of wave-tops and the hard thumping of the blunt bows upon the seas. "Look out sharp, byes, I'm mistrusting'," roared old Sammy. There were some long tense moments, ended by a shriek from Frenchy by the foremast. "Hard a-lee!" The sails shook in the wind and swung in-board, and out again, with a rattling of the little blocks. The forefoot rose high, once or twice, with the lessened headway, and a great savage mass of rock passed alongside, stretching out jagged spurs, like some wild beast robbed of its prey. Frenchy, ahead, crossed himself quietly, without excitement, and again peered into the fog. "Close call!" I shouted to the skipper, after I had recovered my breath, since I am not yet entirely inured to the risks these men constantly run. "We nigh got ketched," roared back Sammy Moore. "I were mistrustin' the tide wuz settin' inshore furder'n common. But I knows jist where I be now, anyways." His grim wrinkled face was unmoved, for during all his life he had been staring death in the face and such happenings as these were but incidents in the day's work. "I doesn't often git mistook," he shouted, "but fer this once it looks like the joke were on me." The little smack continued to rise and fall over the surge. Yves, the Frenchman, remained at his post forward, holding on to the foremast and indifferent to the spray that was drenching him as he stared through the fog, keenly. My attention was becoming relaxed for, after all, I was but a passenger. Despite Sammy's close shave I maintained a well-grounded faith in him. It was gorgeous to see him speed his boat over the turbulent waters with an inbred skill and ease which reminded one of seagulls buffeting the wind or harbor seals playing in their element. Like these the man was adapted to his life, not because he possessed wonderful intelligence but owing to the brine which, since childhood, had entered his blood. The vast ice-pans had revealed their secrets to him and the North Atlantic gales had become the breath of his nostrils. I can remember a time when I had an idea that I could handle a boat fairly well, but now I was compelled to recognize my limitations, while I really enjoyed the exhibition of Sammy's skill. "We'd ought ter be gettin' handy," roared the latter to Frenchy, who nodded back, turning towards us his dripping, bearded face, for an instant. Suddenly he extended his arm. "Me see. To port!" he shouted. Dimly, veiled by the fog curtain, of ghostly outline, a jutting cliff appeared and Sammy luffed slightly. On both sides of us the seas were dashing up some tremendous rocks, but directly ahead there was an opening between the combers that hurled themselves aloft, roaring and impotent, to fall back into seething masses of spume. There was a suggestion of tremendous walls over which voices were shrieking in the battle of unending centuries between the moving turmoil and the stolid cliffs, defying the battering waves. Our little boat flew on, and suddenly the rolling and pitching ceased as if some magic had oiled the waters. Within the land-locked cove the wind no longer howled and the surface was smooth. It was like awaking from the unrest of a nightmare to the peace of one's bed. We glided on, losing headway, for Frenchy had let the sheets run. With movements apparently slow, yet with the deftness which brings quick results, the sails were gathered about the masts and made fast, and presently we drifted against the small forest of poles supporting the flakes and fishhouses. These were black and glistening with the rain and from them came an odor, acrid and penetrating, of decaying fish in ill-emptied gurry-butts and of putrefying livers oozing out a black oil in open casks. We made our way over the precarious footing of unstable planks and shook ourselves like wet dogs, while Sammy stopped for a moment to hunt beneath his oilskins for a sodden plug of tobacco, from which he managed to gnaw off a satisfactory portion. "Well, we's here, anyways," he observed, quietly. "Sammy, you're a wonderful man!" I exclaimed, earnestly. The old fellow looked at me, but his seamed face appeared devoid of understanding. Slowly there seemed to dawn upon his mind the idea that this might be some sort of jest on my part, and the tanned leather of his countenance wrinkled further into a near approach to a smile, as we started up the steep path leading up to the village. Yet I had meant no pleasantry whatever, for really I was awed by the mystery of it all. In the fog that rolled in with the north-east 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 did not turn out too badly he would return in three or four hours. He informed me that it was beginning to look very nasty outside. It always does, in such cases, I believe. I spent
{'title': 'Sweetapple Cove by George Van Schaick', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}