Culm Rock Part 8

Noll followed, and Dirk pushed open the door of his dwelling. The air which met the boy as he entered the small, low room was so close and foul that he almost staggered back. The floor was bare, and through a crack under the door the keen wind swept in across it, flaring the fire on the stone hearth and puffing ashes and smoke about. A fishy odor was upon everything. Household utensils were scattered about in front of the hearth, occupying a quarter of the room, and what few chairs and other articles of wooden furniture there were, were fairly black with dirt and smoke. Noll had never before entered a dwelling so filthy, wretched, and miserable as this.

"Here, lad," said Dirk, brokenly,--"here--be--the--little gal," and pointed to one corner, where, watched over by a thin, slovenly woman, the child lay on its little bed.

The mother did not take her eyes off the girl, and Noll went forward, with much inward repugnance, to look upon Dirk's treasure. The child's cheeks were flushed a bright red, and it lay with drowsy, heavy-lidded eyes, uttering, at intervals, a low wail.

Noll s.h.i.+vered, and involuntarily thought of those dreary, desolate graves which he stumbled upon in one of his rambles. Could nothing be done? Must the child die for lack of a little medicine? He looked through the little dirt-crusted window upon the tossing sea, and saw what a hopeless barrier it interposed between them and aid. He thought of Uncle Richard, and knew that it was useless to expect aid from that direction; and then he thought of _Hagar_! She was a good nurse, he remembered, and knew--or claimed to know--a vast deal about medicine.

Perhaps she could help this child! he thought, with a glad heart, and if she could! His heart suddenly sank, for he remembered that the old housekeeper could not make a journey through the storm and tempest, even had she the necessary skill.

"But," he thought to himself, "I can tell her about the child,--it's got a fever,--and she can send medicines; and to-morrow, if it's pleasant, she can come herself!" and thinking thus, Noll turned to Dirk, with--

"I can get you some medicines, I think, from our old housekeeper. May I? Shall I try?"

The fisherman was silent with surprise. He would probably have sooner expected aid from across the raging sea than from this lad.

Noll read an answer in his eyes, and hastened to the door, and bounded away without waiting for any more words or explanations.

How fast it had grown dark while he was in Dirk's hut! The horizon was quite hidden, so was all the wide waste a half-mile from sh.o.r.e; but with the coming of night the sea had lost none of its thunder, nor the wind aught of its fierceness. Noll ran till he was out of breath.

Then he walked, thinking that the homeward path was wonderfully long.

Then he ran again, feeling almost as if the child's life depended upon his exertions, and seeming to hear its wail above all the din of wind and waves.

Suddenly he plashed to his ankles, and this brought his headlong race to an abrupt termination. What could it mean? Then he remembered, with a sudden chill, what, in his eagerness and anxiety, he had entirely forgotten,--the tide was coming in, and was already over the path which Uncle Richard warned him against.

He looked back. The beach over which he had come glimmered faintly in the dusk, with its long line of breakers gleaming far up and down.

Back there in the darkness, he thought, Dirk's child was dying for want of medicine. Oh! what to do? He looked down at the foam creeping about his ankles, and said to himself,--

"Pshaw! it's only over shoe, now, and my feet are wet already. I'll dash through; 'twon't take but three minutes, and I _can't_ wait!"

He sprang on, thinking to clear the short strip, which the tide had covered, with a few bounds. A wave, high and broad, which had been gathering power and volume in all its long, onward course, came sweeping thunderingly in and engulfed him.

CHAPTER X.

IN THE SEA.

Noll's presence of mind enabled him to clutch the jagged sides of the rock desperately, so that in the wave's return he was not drawn with it into the sea depths. Stunned, strangled, half blinded, and impelled by a sudden horror of death in the cold, treacherous sea, he took two or three forward steps, fell, then rose and strove to struggle on.

But a little hollow in the path let him down into the flood to his waist. The spray flew into his eyes and mouth, and breathless and bewildered he fell again, this time to disappear under the foam-flecked water. He struggled up to air and life at last, with many gasps for breath, and once more clutched at the rocks behind him. It all seemed like the terror of a dream, not real and threatening. Was he to be drowned? Some sudden thought of the pleasantness of life, of dear friends across this same cruel, ravenous sea, of Uncle Richard and his warning, came to him here. To be drowned in this dark, chill, raging flood? Oh! no, no! Then he saw, out in the gloom and mistiness, the white gleaming of a wave-crest, rising and sinking, but sweeping steadily toward him, and knew that it would dash upon his narrow foothold. Could he survive another?

Then from Noll's lips came a shrill cry, which rose above the thunder and battering of the sea; and, whether from terror or whether from the fact that the dear name was so warm and vivid in his heart at that moment, the cry was not "Help!" but, "Papa, papa!"

The cry was answered!--at least, Noll fancied it was, and clung to the jagged edges of rock with a new love of life in his heart, and, with his eyes on the approaching wave, which began to loom up dark and vast, cried out again with all his might.

Out of the darkness which hovered over his submerged path beyond, a figure came struggling,--battling the water and making desperate efforts to run,--crying,--

"Noll, Noll! where are you?"

"Here,--Uncle Richard,--quick!" answered the boy, clinging desperately to his only refuge,--the slippery, icy rocks.

The wave came thunderingly in, burst, and hid uncle and nephew from each other. Trafford uttered a groan of despair, and stood, for an instant, like one palsied. Back swept the flood, leaving the sand bare for a minute, and with a shout, the master of the stone house rushed forward, seized the figure which had fallen there, and sprang away toward the sand and safety. He gained it, and tremblingly laid his burden down. Had he only saved a body from which the life had flown?

"Oh, Noll!" he cried, brokenly,--"Noll, Noll!"

Only the sea and the wailing of the wind answered him. Hurriedly gathering the boy in his arms, he started for the house, running and stumbling through the sand and over the rocks, fearful lest he should reach its warmth and shelter too late. But before he had gained half the distance between him and the redly-gleaming window, where he knew Hagar was sitting before her fire, Noll stirred in his arms. Trafford stopped, fearing that his excited imagination had deceived him.

"Noll," he cried, "speak to me,--speak!"

"Yes--only--I'm--I'm so cold," chattered Noll, faintly; "and--Uncle Richard--you--you've saved me!"

Trafford could not speak, so great was the load which had suddenly lifted from his heart. He started on with his burden, though Noll protested against being carried, and at every step rejoiced within himself. What cared he for the thunder of the sea, the wind's screaming, and the terror of death which they boded? _His_ treasure was safe, safe!--torn from the very yawning mouth of the deep, and what were wreck and disaster of others to him? He came to the little kitchen, presently, the light from its one window toward the sh.o.r.e beaming cheerily upon him, and threw open the door and entered so suddenly that Hagar screamed out with affright.

"De good Lord help us now!" she cried at the sight of the master and his burden. "What's happened, Mas'r d.i.c.k?"

Noll answered, a.s.suringly, "Nothing very serious, Hagar. I've been in--the sea. Oh, Uncle Richard! how did you find me?"

Trafford set his burden down upon the three-legged stool which Hagar had just vacated, saying,--

"I was looking for you, Noll, and heard your cry. O Heaven! what if I had failed to hear it!"

"I should have been swept away," said Noll.

Here Hagar recovered her wits sufficiently to give a little howl of lamentation.

"Out ob de sea! out ob de sea!" she cried; "de Lord be t'anked fur it!

Dat yer sea am a drefful t'ing, honey,--allers swallerin', swallerin', an' nebber ken get 'nough fur itself, nohow. Hagar's seen it; she knows what dat yer sea is, an' t'ank de Lord, he's let ye come out of it alive. Mas'r d.i.c.k, why don't ye t'ank Him fur savin' ob yer boy fur ye?"

"Hus.h.!.+" said Trafford, his face growing gloomy; "find Noll some dry clothes, Hagar. Quick, woman!"

"Yes, in a minnit, Mas'r d.i.c.k; quick's I ken git dis yer ole candle lit. But ef ye don't t'ank de Lord now, ye'll have to come to it 'fore long, Mas'r d.i.c.k; Hagar tells ye so! dat yer time'll come! it'll come!"

"Hus.h.!.+" said Trafford, harshly, "and do as I bade you."

Hagar went out, sighing, "Dat time'll come, dat time'll come, bress de Lord!"

Noll looked up from his seat by the fire, where he sat dripping and s.h.i.+vering, and said,--

"But aren't you glad I'm safe, Uncle Richard?--aren't you thankful?"

Trafford answered this question with a look which made his nephew exclaim,--

"I know you are, Uncle Richard! Then why--why--aren't you thankful to G.o.d?"

"Don't, don't, Noll!" said his uncle. "Strip off those wet garments and make haste to get warm again. Culm Rock is no place for one to be sick in. Hurry, boy?"

Instead of hurrying, however, Noll suddenly grew very grave and exclaimed,--

"Oh, I've forgotten something, Uncle Richard! That tide drove it all out of my head. What can I do? Dirk Sharp's little girl is sick--dying, and I was to bring her some medicine, if Hagar had any!"