Maid of the Mist Part 48

"I am sorry not to be able to help, but I shall be quite all right here. You will..." she began, with a quite novel access of timidity, and finished with a rush,--"you will be very careful. I am rather fearful of that horrid wreckage. If you never came back----"

"I will be very careful, and I will certainly come back--laden, I hope, with good things," and he went off on the raft, and she stood watching and waving her hand at times when he turned, until he disappeared along the spit. And as he went his heart beat high, for he did not believe that her fears were chiefly for herself, although she had made it appear so.

He found the wreckage considerably altered. The gale had swept it bare of all traces of their previous peckings and nibblings, and had piled and stuffed it with tempting-looking new plunder. And with things less attractive. Whatever had been left of the mate had disappeared, hurled down probably into some black crack. But, during the day, in various crannies he came on no less than three drowned men, partly dressed in what appeared to him naval uniform, anyway not in the usual slops of the merchant service. And they set him thinking how narrow, yet how sharp, was the dividing line between themselves and the outer world.

He built his raft as usual and toiled all day, smas.h.i.+ng his way through scores of boxes, cases, seamen's chests, and rooting in them as eagerly as ever did the mate, but with a different spirit within him.

First he gathered indispensable stores, and practice had by this time so perfected his eye that he could tell almost at a glance what a cask or box contained, how long it had been afloat, and what damage its contents were likely to have suffered.

Many odd, and some extraordinary and incomprehensible, things his hasty search brought to light. It was indeed an absorbing inquisition into, an endless revelation of, the ruling pa.s.sions and frailties of the human heart.

Little h.o.a.rds of money and jewelry were his commonest finds, pitiful now in view of their uselessness to those who had gathered them. But he would take from the pile nothing but what it rightly owed them, means of life and the tempering of its hard conditions, and he left all these untouched. Tobacco and pipes, and flints and steel, were lawful plunder.

One bra.s.s-bound chest he broke open and found great store of women's clothing, rich with lace and finely wrought even to the eyes of a man.

The Girl might find that useful and he began to make a selection, with the eyes of her delight dancing before him as he did so. Then with a start, and a sharp breath of amazement, he straightened up for a moment, crammed everything back into the chest, and hauled it to the edge of the pile and hurled it into the sea. For there, at the bottom, wedged tight among all these delicate draperies was the body of a new-born child, strangled at its birth, as he knew by the look of it.

Bundles of letters, papers which might be of highest import to waiting friends, anxious heirs, business houses, he found in places, but left them as they were.

He came on another box containing women's clothes, of plainer material and simpler make, and rooted carefully after the character of its owner before deciding to take some back for The Girl. It seemed above suspicion, and he rejoiced to be able to supply some of her more pressing needs. Clothes for himself the wreckage had always been generous of, but to come upon two chests of women's things in one day was extraordinary. They had at times searched far and wide and anxiously, and never lighted on one.

He got back with his load, and in two journeys from the spit got it all on board, before it was too dark for his reward in The Girl's exuberant joy at the things he had brought for her.

"Shoes! ... stockings! ... Some proper needles and thread! ... and oh, but I am glad to see these other things! ... I was was.h.i.+ng some of my things while you were away, but it was not easy with one hand ... And another brush and comb! ... and scissors! If we can clean them I can cut your hair for you."

"I shall be grateful. I feel like a savage. I'll clean them all right."

"And did you make any strange discoveries?" she asked, while they sat at supper, as one asks news of the outer world from a traveller.

"Oh, heaps. Jewels and money, and papers, letters and so on----"

"They might be interesting,--in winter days."

"I had not thought of that. I'll bring you an armful tomorrow."

"You will go again tomorrow?"

"I must go till I think we have enough for the winter's siege. There may be weeks when I can't get out there. This storm brought in a mighty pile of stuff and it's best to get it while it's in good condition. Do you want more clothes if I can find them?"

"A woman never has too many," she laughed. "But don't waste time searching for them. I can manage very well, especially now that I have needles and thread."

"I just smash open each box as I come to it. One never knows what one may come upon. Their contents are as different as their owners. I have been trying to imagine them from their belongings."

He wrought at the pile for many days, and she filled in the time at home by evaporating endless pans of water over the fire to get the salt, and managed to acc.u.mulate quite a fair supply.

He brought over for her amus.e.m.e.nt a great bundle of written papers which she was too busy to delve into at the moment, all her time being given to salt-making. And then one day he returned exultant with some great lumps of rock salt, such as cattle love to lick, and her little efforts were like to be put in the shade. But he averred that her salt was infinitely the finer to a cultivated taste and they would use it only on very special occasions.

He brought her too a quant.i.ty of oatmeal in cases, and--treasure-trove indeed--a dozen cans of the oil used for s.h.i.+ps' lights. He searched in vain for a lantern, but felt sure he could turn that oil to account in some way during the long winter nights. From the marks on the cases in the neighbourhood of these discoveries, and the superior quality of some of their contents, he thought a wars.h.i.+p must have gone down not very far away.

His belief was confirmed by finding other unusual supplies in the same place, and he worked at it for days until there was hardly a case or box or barrel which he had not tapped.

One of his greatest finds was a handful of spare tools, in a chest that had probably belonged to a s.h.i.+p's carpenter--an auger, a gimlet, a chisel, a screwdriver, and a small piece of sharpening hone. And that same day he lighted on an unpretentious little box, stoutly made of deal, which had swelled with the water to the partial protection of its contents. A glance inside showed him how great was this treasure, and he carried it at once to his raft and bestowed it with care.

When he opened the little deal case on deck that evening The Girl gave a joyful cry, "Books! Oh, but I am glad, and the winter nights will not be long! Let me see them all quickly.--"Poems," by Robert Burns.

"Life of Samuel Johnson," by James Boswell. The Book of Common Prayer.

"Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," by Edward Gibbon, Vol 1. "The Vicar of Wakefield," by Oliver Goldsmith. "Tristram Shandy," by Laurence Sterne. "The Castle of Otranto," by Horace Walpole. The Annual Register--one, two, three volumes. "Tom Jones," by Henry Fielding. "Clarissa Harlowe," by Samuel Richardson. Cruden's Concordance. Hymns by Rev. Isaac Watts, D.D. A Bible. One, two, three volumes of sermons. John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" and "Holy War," and Foxe's "Book of Martyrs"! Oh, we shall do famously. Now what do you make of the owner of this fine thing?" she challenged him merrily.

"A parson, I should say. They are the greatest readers. But that is easily seen," and he turned to the fly-leaves of several of the volumes and found them all inscribed with the same name, 'James Elwes, Esq.

M.A. Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford.'

"Good Mr Elwes! I am sorry he is drowned, but I am grateful to him for taking his books with him when he travelled, and leaving them behind him when he went. That is the greatest find yet," said she.

"We won't despise the lower things. All the same I'm glad to have the books."

"They will be a wonderful help. Let us dry them at once. They are more precious than jewels," and he got her soft cloths, and they carefully mopped up and wiped over every volume and promised them they should be set in the sun to complete their cure on the morrow.

"And those horrid birds?" she asked, as they worked. "You had no trouble from them?"

"They were all too busy elsewhere. There is grain enough floating about there to feed a city. They will be plump and happy birds for some time to come. They were too busy even to quarrel and they never so much as looked my way."

LI

As though exhausted by its late violence, or needing rest before renewing it, the weather continued mild and open except for occasional mists.

Thanks to her own caution and Wulfrey's a.s.siduous attention, The Girl's arm was going on well, and she was looking forward eagerly to being an active member of society again.

"You see, I have never been laid up in my life before," she said, "and it is unnatural to me. A dozen times a day I have to stop that wretched arm when it wants to do something."

"A very little longer and it shall do what it wants, within reason.

Let me rub it again for you."

"You are a great believer in rubbing," she said, with reminiscent smiles, as she surrendered the arm to him, and he rubbed it gently and tirelessly to keep the sinews and muscles from stiffening.

"I have found great virtue in it, and great reward," he smiled back.

He took her ash.o.r.e almost every day, and they rambled far along the northern beach and enjoyed the soft autumnal days to the full. But all the time his thoughts were on the coming winter whose rigours he had no means of forecasting. And so, like a wise man, he made such provision as was possible for the worst.

He set her to gathering and drying every herb she deemed suitable for seasoning purposes. And he himself caught very many fish and split them open and dried them in the sun as he had read was done elsewhere.

He tried some rabbits in the same way, but they did not take to it and had to be used for bait.

And, after a few days' rest from his exertions at the wreckage, he set to work on building a house on sh.o.r.e, in case anything should happen to the 'Jane and Mary,' or they should find solid ground preferable to water during the winter gales.

He had for a long time past secured every nail he could knock out of the old timbers, and regarded them as most precious possessions. The finding of the auger and gimlet opened up wider possibilities. Where nails are scarce, a hole and a peg may take their place. Wood he had in superfluity, for the remains of every raft that had brought cargo from the pile lay strewn about the spit, in some cases hurled half-way across it by the waves that broke there in the storm times.

Where best to build was a matter not easily decided. They would need all the suns.h.i.+ne obtainable. But all the heaviest gales came from the south and west and from these they wanted shelter. And they must be within easy reach of the fresh-water pools and not too far from the s.h.i.+p, where their supplies would be mostly stored.

After much discussion they fixed on an odd little hollow--a mere cup in the centre of three sandhills of size, which stood close together and moreover were well matted with wire-gra.s.s and looked too solid to whirl away in a gale as the smaller hills constantly did.