Harbor Tales Down North - Norman Duncan (top 10 books of all time txt) 📗

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 the telegram before undertaking the responsibility of its delivery?

As for the degree of peril in a crossing of Scalawag Run, she was not aware of it; she was from St. John's, not out-port born. The ice in the swell of the sea, with fog creeping around Point-o'-Bay in a rising wind, meant nothing to her experience. At any rate, she would not permit herself to fall into a questionable situation in which she might be called severely to account. She was not of that sort. She had her own interests to serve. They would be best served by an exact execution of her duty.

"This telegram," said she, "is an office secret, as I have told you already. I have my orders not to betray office secrets."

Tommy Lark was abashed.

"Look you," he argued. "If the message is of no consequence an' could be delayed----"

"I haven't said that it is of no consequence."

"Then _'tis_ of consequence!"

"I don't say that it is of consequence. I don't say anything either way. I don't say anything at all."

"Well, now," Tommy complained, "t' carry that message across Scalawag Run would be a wonderful dangerous----"

"You don't have to carry it across."

"True. Yet 'tis a man's part t' serve----"

"My instructions," the young woman interrupted, "are to deliver messages as promptly as possible. If you are crossing to Scalawag Harbor to-night, I should be glad if you would take this telegram with you. If you are not--well, that's not my affair. I am not instructed to urge anybody to deliver my messages."

"Is the message from the maid?"

"What a question!" the young woman exclaimed indignantly. "I'll not tell you!"

"Is there anything about sickness in it?"

"I'll not tell you."

"If 'tis a case o' sickness," Tommy declared, "we'll take it across, an' glad t' be o' service. If 'tis the other matter----"

"What other matter?" the young woman flashed.

"Well," Tommy replied, flushed and awkward, "there was another little matter between Elizabeth Luke an'----"

The young woman started.

"Elizabeth Luke!" she cried. "Did you say Elizabeth Luke?"

"I did, ma'am."

"I said nothing about Elizabeth Luke."

"We knows 'tis from she."

"Ah-ha!" the young woman exclaimed. "You know far too much. I think you have more interest in this telegram than you ought to have."

"I confess it."

The young woman surveyed Tommy Lark with sparkling curiosity. Her eyes twinkled. She pursed her lips.

"What's your name?" she inquired.

"Thomas Lark."

The young woman turned to Sandy Rowl.

"What's your name?" she demanded.

"Alexander Rowl. Is there--is there anything in the telegram about me? Aw, come now!"

The young woman laughed pleasantly. There was a romance in the wind. Her interest was coy.

"Would you like to know?" she teased, her face dimpling.

Sandy Rowl responded readily to this dimpling, flashing banter. A conclusion suggested itself with thrilling conviction.

"I would!" he declared.

"And to think that I could tell you!"

"I'm sure you could, ma'am!"

The young woman turned to Tommy Lark.

"Your name's Lark?"

"Yes, ma'am. There's nothin'--there's nothin' in the telegram about a man called Thomas Lark, is there?"

"And yours is Rowl?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I'm new to these parts," said the young woman, "and I'm trying to learn all the names I can master. Now, as for this telegram, you may take it or leave it, just as you will. What are you going to do? I want to close the office now and go home to tea."

"We'll take it," said Sandy Rowl. "Eh, Tommy?"

"Ay."

"An' we'll deliver it as soon as we're able. It may be the night. It may not be. What say t' that, Tommy?"

"We'll take it across."

* * * * *


With that the young woman handed the sealed envelope to Tommy Lark and bade them both goodnight.

Tommy Lark thrust the telegram in his waistcoat pocket and buttoned his jacket. Both men turned to the path to the crest of Black Cliff, whence a lesser foot-path led to the shore of the sea.

"One o' the two of us," said Sandy Rowl, "is named in that telegram. I'm sure of it."

Tommy Lark nodded.

"I knows it," Sandy proceeded, "because I seed a flicker in the woman's eye when she learned the two names of us. She's a sly one, that young woman!"

"Ay."

"You is chosen, Tommy."

"No, 'tis not I. 'Tis you. You is selected, Sandy. The woman twinkled when she named you. I marked it t' my sorrow."

"The maid would not choose me, Tommy," Sandy replied, his face awry with a triumphant smile, "when she might have you."

"She've done it."

In advance, on the path to the crest of Black Cliff, Tommy Lark was downcast and grim. Of a faithful, kindly nature in respect to his dealings with others, and hopeful for them all, and quick with an inspiring praise and encouragement, he could discover no virtue in himself, nor had he any compassion when he phrased the chapters of his own future; and though he was vigorous and decisive in action, not deterred by the gloom of any prospect, he was of a gray, hopeless mind in a crisis.

Rowl, however, was of a saucy, sanguine temperament; his faith in his own deserving was never diminished by discouragement; nor, whatever his lips might say, was he inclined to foresee in his future any unhappy turn of fortune. The telegraph operator, he was persuaded, had disclosed an understanding of the situation in a twinkle of her blue eyes and an amused twist of her thin lips; and the twinkle and the twist had indicated the presence of his name in Elizabeth Luke's telegram. Rowl was uplifted--triumphant.

In the wake of Tommy Lark he grinned, his teeth bare with delight and triumph. And as for Tommy Lark, he plodded on, striving grimly up the hill, his mind sure of its gloomy inference, his heart wrenched, his purpose resolved upon a worthy course of feeling and conduct. Let the dear maid have her way! She had chosen her happiness. And with that a good man must be content.

* * * * *


In the courtship of pretty Elizabeth Luke, Tommy Lark had acted directly, bluntly, impetuously, according to his nature. And he had been forehanded with his declaration. It was known to him that Sandy Rowl was pressing the same pursuit to a swift conclusion. Tommy Lark loved the maid. He had told her so with indiscreet precipitation; and into her confusion he had flung the momentous question.

"Maid," said he, "I loves you! Will you wed me?"

Sandy Rowl, being of a more subtle way in all things, had proceeded to the issue with delicate caution, creeping toward it by inches, as a man stalks a caribou. He too had been aware of rivalry; and, having surmised Tommy Lark's intention, he had sought the maid out unwittingly, not an hour after her passionate adventure with Tommy Lark, and had then cast the die of his own happiness.

In both cases the effect had been the same. Elizabeth Luke had wept and fled to her mother like a frightened child; and she had thereafter protested, with tears of indecision, torn this way and that until her heart ached beyond endurance, that she was not sure of her love for either, but felt that she loved both, nor could tell whom she loved the most, if either at all. In this agony of confusion, terrifying for a maid, she had fled beyond her mother's arms, to her grandmother's cottage at Grace Harbor, there to deliberate and decide, as she said; and she had promised to speed her conclusion with all the determination she could command, and to return a letter of decision.

In simple communities, such as Scalawag Harbor, a telegram is a shocking incident. Bad news must be sped; good news may await a convenient time. A telegram signifies the very desperation of haste and need--it conveys news only of the most momentous import; and upon every man into whose hands it falls it lays a grave obligation to expedite its delivery. Tommy Lark had never before touched a telegram; he had never before clapped eyes on one. He was vaguely aware of the telegram as a mystery of wire and a peculiar cunning of men. Telegrams had come to Scalawag Harbor in times of disaster in the course of Tommy Lark's nineteen years of life. Widow Mull, for example, when the _White Wolf_ was cast away at the ice, with George Mull found frozen on the floe, had been told of it in a