all night the storm did its tyrannous work over sea and land; all night, around old dempster’s house, it howled its direful menaces. but the house stood firm, for it had been built to withstand the shock of any storm; only shivered now and then as the gale smote it with heavier hand, then tore on its way lamenting.
more than once miss sullivan awoke and lay listening to the storm’s wild voices—voices which recalled the past—voices whispering, pleading, sighing, moaning to be heard again and again answered. and they were answered—answered with bitter moans and tears, and at last with prayers for patience and peace, and, if need were, for pardon.
neither mrs. dempster nor miranda understood the enthusiasm of miss sullivan for storms and breakers. there were several things they would rather do than venture out next morning: the chief of which was to stay at home.
old dempster looked uneasily at the cloud-drift. the wind was as furious as ever, but the rain came only in keen showers.
[31]“these ’ere sou’-easters,” said he, “never last long at this time o’ the year. it’ll be clear as moonshine by long about noon. but ef you’ve got your mind set on goin’ out, i’ll rig you out so you’ll be dry as a rooster. dan’l, go down to the mill an’ bring up them short overhauls.”
dan’l brought up a great coat of yellow, oiled canvas, and a tarpaulin with a flap like the tail of a barbary sheep. mrs. dempster supplied a pair of dan’l’s fishing boots, outgrown by him in one bare-footed summer, but still impervious.
miss sullivan, a person very critical in her toilet, hesitated a little at this unaccustomed attire. however, it was the sensible style. miranda aided her in encasing herself. stiffish were both overhauls and boots; stiffness itself, at the first interview.
when they returned to the kitchen to stand inspection, a sound was heard as if the kettle of dried apples boiling on the stove had suddenly bubbled and sputtered over. it was dan’l, utterly unable to control his laughter. he immediately disappeared, and was heard in the wood-shed endeavouring to whistle, but constantly breaking down into a snicker.
“poor dan’l!” said miss sullivan; “i must look very droll, indeed.”
“wal,” said mrs. dempster, “you are kind er like my idee of a mormon—i mean one o’ them folks in the pictures with gals’ heads an’ more like[32] a codfish to the other end. now if one o’ them gals should make herself decent with a set of overhauls—an’ massy knows she wants suthin’ to cover her—she’d look jest as pooty as you do. wouldn’t she, old man?”
to avoid other comparisons as complimentary to mermen or maids, miss sullivan ran from her circle of amused admirers and, passing among the pathless cucumber vines of the little garden, began awkwardly to climb the fence that kept any amphibious rodent monster of the deep from predatory excursions among the radishes and hollyhocks. beyond the garden, a thicket of wild fruit vines nearly closed the shoreward path. drops of rain hung heavy, crushing the bushes with pearly wreaths. a few raspberries were only waiting one sunny day to take their dull purple crimson of ripeness. it was wet work to penetrate by the obliterated path. miss sullivan, however, crowded steadily forward.
when the rustling of her passage through the thicket ceased, she could hear the neighbour crashing of breakers. black rock head rose to the north of the rocky cove, home of dempster’s boat. southward stood other headlands, and southern-most, wrecker’s point, where all the fury of surges driven by the southeast gale would be felt. when the mingled mist, spray, and rain were drifted away for a moment, and shrank to give space to a great, howling blast, she could see a lofty white ghostly[33] object, like a ship in full sail, dimly visible, suddenly lift itself against the dark front of the head. then it sank away, dashed to nothingness of foamy wreck. a hollow roar came, as the cavernous cleft of the head was overcrowded with the breaker, and, gushing up, the mass of uprising waters overwhelmed the promontory and, spreading, mantled over its smooth surfaces and tore in many cataracts down its chasms to the sea. the head, through veils of mist, seemed like a distant dome mountain of snow.
black rock head was evidently unapproachable, so miss sullivan faced the blast and its blinding, driving spray, for a sheltered spot farther on toward wrecker’s point. she found that her foreground of vision of storm-experiences was crowding itself with quite unsatisfactory detail. there was no sieve of trees by the shore to filter the salt showers. sometimes there was but a narrow path between slippery slopes of grass and rounded rocks glistening with the touch of the more ambitious breakers. as she passed by these perilous places, an unlooked-for wash of water would come hungrily up and hasten hungrily back, willing to sweep away fragile womanhood. the morning was well advanced when, with slow and difficult progress, the lady who, after her bold vigour of devotion to her object, merits, at least for the nonce, the title of our heroine, reached wrecker’s point.
[34]of seeing much that storms may do she had had her heart’s desire. all the dread fury of maddened winds had burst upon her till she had tottered back to some shelter of intervening rock, appalled at tempest terrors that houselings never know. in tremulous pauses, when the gale was still, she had heard the coming thunder of the long breaker, coming awfully because an infinite ocean drove it on; and as this went bursting like an upward avalanche from crag to crag beyond, in the silence while the next billow was lifting she had heard those dreadful ocean voices surrounding her, a wild atmosphere of remorse—of remorse unpardoned and forever unpardonable for all the murderous wrongs of ocean to the world. and after these came the bewildering whirl of spray and rain, the crash, the hissing fall, and then the great blow of the breaker like a knell. it hammered at the world’s foundations, until that solid world seemed an unstable thing to tread.
the rain had ceased when miss sullivan reached the point. it was clearing, and she could look more widely over the immense agitation and sway of the lurid sea. she sat for an hour or wandered about over perils of wave-worn crags, that waves were now striving vainly to shatter. at last she remembered that she had the beach still to visit before her return. her path thither was through a wood, tangled and bewildering with vines and[35] underbrush. the storm was now almost a calm, but the thunder of the surges followed her as she hastened along the dripping trail. penetrating slowly through the wood by paths of uneasy footing, she began to distinguish the distant part of the beach. it formed one end of a parallelogram, whose sides were dark ranges of low, broken precipice and the farther end the blank of sea. opposite her, the precipice continued up into a wooded mountain. the sun was just breaking forth and scattering a slender, illumined scarf of mist, that wavered in among the trees of the mountain-side, and melted into that ever-fresh wonder of beauty, the calm sky of summer.
there was much rubbish strewn along the beach. miss sullivan could see old waterlogged slabs, logs purple with long drowning, pieces of spar, a plank or so. as she descended and looked over the nearer sands, she saw more rubbish; more than usual, perhaps of a recent wreck. such a storm could hardly pass without touching the pockets of jolly underwriters—less jolly over their noon sandwich as the telegraph told of ships ashore.
the path began to skirt the edge of the broken cliff, and finally descended rapidly, by a series of dangerous stepping places, toward the level. it was quite evident there had been a wreck. the water deepened very slowly out from the shore, and each swell, as it swept in, drove along bits or masses[36] of wreckage, and retiring, dragged them back, to be again heaved farther up.
miss sullivan had never before seen a wreck. she suddenly seemed very curious to examine this one nearer,—passionately curious, indeed,—and began to leap down the hillside rather precipitately. however, she was now used to dan’l’s boots; otherwise her headlong speed would have been dangerous. she found it rather deep trudging in the sand, deeper and more difficult as she ran rapidly down after the returning waves; and she found it a struggle for her own life in the undertow, as she resolutely plunged forward and, grasping some wrecked fragments, fought with so much desperate womanish force as she had to drag them in to shore and safety.
these fragments had lashed to them the body of a man.
the sea had done with this object what it chose; it was weary of its plaything, and now aided her in her merciful task. for many moments she was ready to despair and drown; but hope was her ally, and a nervous, unsuspected strength, and at last she gained a firm footing and dragged the man away from the waves up on the wet sand.
she sank exhausted in a dizzy trance, blinded and fainting. it had been a terrible, heart-rending agony of combat—a very doubtful strife for two lives with the hungry sea.
[37]starting up at last, she seemed to shrink from quieter examination of the wrecked person. but conquering fear or superstition in a moment’s struggle, she knelt beside him. his arm was raised, covering his face, and his clenched hand held something that was attached by a strand of silk around his neck. as she removed the arm, the hand relaxed in hers and a small book fell from it; she pulled it from the silk and laid it hastily by.
parting the hair from the sadly bruised and battered face, she looked vainly into closed eyes for any light of life. she laid her hand where the heart should be beating; she placed her lips close, nay, almost touching, livid lips, to catch a faintest breath; she did all those passionately desperate things that one may do, feeling that another life may depend on each lapsing moment’s effort. she had nothing to cut the lashings which bound him to the wreck, and tore at them furiously, vainly, with her teeth. there was a hard, dry sobbing in her throat, and her features worked convulsively as she paused, exhausted, and gazed down at that white, quiet face. she was ready again to despair. she could not leave him; would no help come? the sun seemed oppressively hot and cruel—a staring, insulting fullness of daylight.
help was coming. she heard a cheerful woman’s voice singing a negro melody in the wood. miranda had evidently expected that miss sullivan’s circuit[38] would bring her to the beach and had come to join her.
miss sullivan essayed to scream, but could not. miranda came to the bank, and seeing her standing like a ghost, vainly striving to beckon, divined the whole in an instant and sprang down the steps.
“is he dead?” cried miranda.
the formalising of a dreaded thought into words makes its terrors doubly terrible.
“dead! i fear so,” said miss sullivan, very slowly and with a shiver.
“he shan’t die if we can help it,” said miranda resolutely. “here, miss mary, you run right up to the second field. up there, uncle jake’s out with the boys, seeing if they can mow after the shower. bring ’em down quick—i’ll cut him loose.”
suiting act to word, she whipped out a jagged penknife of schoolmarm days from her pocket, and began to saw at the lashings.
miss sullivan clambered, panting, up the cliff and plunged into the wood. presently she appeared at a run, followed by uncle jake and the two boys—biggish boys of six feet two.
miranda had cut the lashings of rotten stuff. uncle jake supported the man in his arms. he was perfectly insensible.
“he’s not dead,” said uncle jake.
[39]“he’ll live; i know he’ll live!” cried miranda.
“hooray!” shouted the two boys tumultuously—a view-halloo for a found life.
“thank god!” said miss sullivan, with a quick, irrepressible sob of thankfulness.
