A \ B \ C \ D \ E \ F \ G \ H \ I \ J \ K \ L \ M \ N \ O \ P \ R \ S \ T \ U \ V \ W \Z

Sheila of Big Wreck Cove by James A. Cooper

J >> James A. Cooper >> Sheila of Big Wreck Cove




"Still feel that tug to sta'bbo'd," grumbled Horry. "Just like--"

"Belay that!" commanded Tunis. "I begin to believe that's bad luck,
anyway. If you hadn't got on to that tack when we first put the
schooner into commission, those Portygees wouldn't have even
remembered the _Marlin B._ And _that_ schooner thousands of miles
away from these seas!"

"I cal'late 'Rion Latham would have found something else to harp on
then," said Zebedee. "He was bound to ruin you if he could."

Quickly the gale increased instead of abating, and it was utterly
impossible for the trio to get topsails on her. She needed the pull
of upper canvas if she was to tack properly for the mouth of the
channel into Big Wreck Cove.

They fought for two hours to bring this much-desired object to pass,
hoping for a lull or a shifting of the gale which might aid them.
The yellow sands of Wreckers' Head were plainly in view all that
time. To give up the attempt and run before the gale was a folly of
which Tunis Latham had no intention of being guilty if it could
possibly be avoided. Manned as she was, the schooner might never be
worked back to a landfall if they did so.

The keen old eyes of Horace Newbegin first spied the thing which
promised hope. From his station at the wheel he shouted something
which the younger men did not catch, but his pointing arm drew their
gaze shoreward.

Coming out from the Head was an open boat. Four figures pulled at
the oars while another held the steering sweep. The daring crew was
heading the boat straight on for the pitching schooner!

"The coast guard!" the old man was now heard to shout. "God bless
them fellers!"

But Tunis knew it was not the lifeboat from the distant station. He
knew the boat, if he could not at first identify those who manned
it. It was an old lifeboat that had been stored in a shed below
John-Ed Williams' place, and these men attempting their rescue were
some of the neighbors from Wreckers' Head.

They came on steadily, the steersman standing at his post and
handling the long oar as though it was a feather's weight. His huge
figure soon identified him. It was Captain John Dunn, who, like Ira
Ball, had left the sea, and he had left his right forearm, too,
because of some accident somewhere on the other side of the globe.
But with the steel hook screwed to its stump and the good hand
remaining to him, Captain Dunn handled that steering oar with more
skill than most other men with two good hands could have done.

How the four at the oars pulled the heavy boat! Tunis sought to
identify them as well. He saw John-Ed Williams--in a place at last
where he was forced to keep up his end, though he was notably a lazy
man. Ben Brewster had the oar directly behind John-Ed.

The third figure Tunis could not identify--not at once. The man at
the bow oar was Marvin Pike, who pulled a splendid stroke. So did
that unknown oarsman. They were all bravely tugging at the heavy
oars. Tunis had faith in them.

Zebedee suddenly plunged across the pitching deck and reached the
rail where Tunis stood. Discipline--at least seagoing etiquette--had
been somewhat in abeyance aboard the _Seamew_ during the last few
hours. Zeb caught the skipper by the arm.

"See her?" he bawled into the ear of the surprised Tunis.

"What's that?"

"See her hair? It's a girl! As I'm a living sinner, it's a girl!
Pulling number three oar, Captain Latham! Did you ever?"

Clinging to a stay, the captain of the _Seamew_ flung himself far
over the rail as the schooner chanced to roll. He could look down
into the approaching lifeboat. He saw the loosened, dark locks of
the girl who was pulling at number three oar. On the very heels of
Zeb's words the captain was confident of the girl's identity.

"Sheila!"

His voice could not have reached her ear because of the rush and
roar of the wind and sea, but, as though in answer to his shout, the
girl glanced back and up, over her shoulder. For a moment Tunis got
a flash of the face he so dearly loved.

What a woman she was! She lacked no more in courage than she did in
beauty and sweetness of disposition. What other girl along all this
coast--even one born of the Cape strain--would have dared take an
oar in that lifeboat in face of such dire peril as this?

"Good Lord, Cap'n Latham!" shrieked Zeb. "That's Miss Bostwick!"

Tunis straightened up, squared his shoulders, and looked at Zebedee
proudly. He wanted Zeb to know--he wanted the whole world to know,
if he could spread the news abroad--that the girl pulling number
three oar was the girl he loved, and was going to marry!

* * * * *

An hour later the _Seamew_, her topsails drawing full and her lower
canvas properly handled, drove on like the bird she was through the
channel into the cove, trailing the old lifeboat behind her. The
skipper had taken the wheel himself, but that "tug to sta'bbo'd" did
not disturb his equanimity as it sometimes did Horry's.

Sheila, muffled in oilskins and sea boots, but with her wet hair
flowing over her shoulders, stood beside the skipper. No matter how
satisfied and confident Tunis might appear, the girl was still in an
uncertain state of mind.

"And so," she said to him anxiously, "I do not know what to tell
them. Cap'n Ira seemed so poorly and so unhappy. And he says Aunt
Prue is almost ill.

"But it was Cap'n Ira who told me what to do when we saw the
_Seamew_ in danger; how to get the men together and how to launch
the boat! Oh, it was wonderful! He was not too overcome to be
practical and realize your need, Tunis."

"Trust Cap'n Ira," agreed the young man. "And what other girl could
have done what you did, Sheila? Hear what Cap'n John Dunn says? You
ought to be a sailor's daughter. _I_ can tell him you are going to
be a sailor's wife."

"No, no! Oh, Tunis! It can't--"

"No 'can't' in the dictionary," interrupted the captain of the
_Seamew_. "You and I are going to have one big talk, Sheila, after I
take you up home."

"Up home?" she repeated.

"You are going back to Cap'n Ira's. You know you are. That other
girl has beat it for Boston, you say, and there's not a living
reason why you shouldn't return to the Balls. Besides, they need
you. I could see that with half an eye when I went away the other
morning. The old man hobbling around the barn trying to catch an old
hen was a sight to make the angels weep."

"Poor, poor Cap'n Ira!" she murmured.

"And poor Aunt Prudence--and poor _me_!" exclaimed Tunis. "What do
you think is going to happen to me? If you go away, I shall have to
sell all I own in the world and follow you."

"Tunis!" she cried, almost in fear. "You wouldn't."

"I certainly would. I am going to have you, one way or another.
Nobody else shall get you, Sheila. And you can't go far enough or
fast enough to lose me."

"Don't!" she said faintly. "You cannot be in earnest. Do you know
what it means if you and I have any association whatsoever? Oh! I
thought this was all over--that you would not tear open the wound--"

"I don't mean to hurt you, Sheila," he said softly. But he was
smiling. "I have got something to tell you that will, I believe, put
an entirely different complexion on your affairs."

"What--what can you mean?" she burst out. "Oh, tell me!"

"I'll tell you a little of it now. Just enough to keep you from
thinking I am crazy. The rest I will not tell you save in the Balls'
sitting room before Cap'n Ira and Aunt Prue."

"Tunis!" she murmured with clasped hands.

"Yesterday I spent two hours in the manager's office of Hoskin &
Marl's. They have been looking for you for more than six months.
Naturally, there was no record of you after you left that--that
school when your time was out. They didn't seem to guess you'd have
got work in that Seller's place."

"What do you mean? What did they want me for?" gasped the girl.

"Near as I could find out from the old gentleman who seemed to be in
charge there at the store, they wanted to find you to beg your
pardon. He cried, that manager did. He broke down and cried like a
baby--especially after I had told him a few things that had happened
to you, and some things that might have happened if you hadn't found
such good friends in Cap'n Ira and Prudence. That's right. He was
all broke up."

The girl stood before him, straight as a reed. She rocked with the
pitching of the schooner, but it seemed as though her feet were
glued to the planks. She could not have fallen!

"They--they know--"

"They know they sent to jail the wrong girl. The woman that stole
the goods is dead, and before she died she wrote 'em all about it
from the sanitarium where the firm sent her. They are sending you
papers signed by the judge, the prosecuting attorney, even the
pawnbroker and the store detective, and--and a lot of other folks.
Why, Sheila, you are fully exonerated."

She began suddenly to weep, the great tears raining down her face,
although she still stood erect and kept her gaze fixed upon him.

"Six months! As long as I have been down here! Oh, Tunis! While we
were making up our plot on that bench on Boston Common and planning
to lie to these dear, good people down here--and everybody; while we
were beginning this coil of deceit and trouble, I might have gone
back there to the store and found all this out. And--and I would
never have needed to lie and deceive as I have done."

"Huh! Yes. I cal'late that's so, Sheila," he said. "But how about
me? Where would I have come in, if you had found out that your name
had been cleared and Hoskin & Marl were anxious to do well by you?
Seems to me, Sheila, there must be some compensation in that
thought. There is for me, at any rate."

She flashed him a look then that cleaved its way to Tunis Latham's
very soul. His tale did not remove from her heart all its burden.
She was still penitent for the falsehood she had told in direct
words to Cap'n Ira and Prudence about her first meeting with Tunis.
But that prevarication, at least, had been for no purpose of self
gain.

And so Sheila looked at her lover for just that passing moment with
all the passion which filled her heart for him. Had Tunis not been
steering the _Seamew_ through a pretty tortuous channel at just that
moment there is no knowing what he would have done--spurred by
Sheila's look!




CHAPTER XXXIII

A HAVEN OF REST


Wreckers' Head so shelters the cove from the northeast that the
schooner could be brought safely in to Luiz Wharf, instead of
dropping her anchor in deep water. Half the port, and all of
Portygee Town, crowded nearby wharves and streets to welcome Tunis
Latham's schooner; for news of her peril and the way in which help
had reached the _Seamew_ had come down from the Head as on the wings
of the wind itself.

There was one face on the wharf Tunis Latham sought out with grim
persistency as the schooner was made fast. He had purposely placed
Sheila in Zebedee Pauling's care. Tunis kept, directly under his
hand, the broken oar which had helped to make so much of his recent
trouble. When the _Seamew_ was safe, her skipper leaped ashore. And
he carried the broken oar with him.

Orion, grinning and sneering by turns, saw his cousin coming. It
must have been preternatural sagacity which caused him to see and
recognize the broken oar. Having seen it, he jumped for the head of
the wharf.

Tunis leaped away on his cousin's trail. The crowd parted to let
them through, and then joined in a streaming, excited tail to their
kite of progress. Most of the spectators lived in Portygee Town.
Some of them had been members of the _Seamew's_ deserting crews.
They were afraid of Tunis Latham, but they had little sympathy for
Orion.

The skipper caught up with him in the middle of the road and almost
opposite the Pareta cottage. Orion had picked up a cobblestone as he
reached the street and, finding himself about to be overtaken, he
turned and threw the missile at Tunis' head. The latter dodged it
and, with a single, savage blow of the oar felled his cousin to the
roadway.

"You unmitigated scoundrel!" Tunis roared. "I ought to take your
life. Because of you I nearly lost my own to-day--and the lives of
two other men and my schooner into the bargain. You villain!"

As Orion tried to scramble up, the skipper of the _Seamew_ made
another pass at him with the oar, and the fellow fell again.

"Don't hit me! Don't hit me again, Tunis! Remember I'm your cousin.
I--I haven't done a thing--true an' honest, I haven't!"

The listeners gathered closer. Tunis Latham's face displayed such
rage that the Portygees expected him to continue his attack with the
oar. But instead he shook it before their eyes--and Orion's.

"See it?" he demanded of the bystanders. "That's the scurvy trick
the dog played me. Found this broken oar in somebody's woodpile,
burned the name of the _Marlin B._ into the handle, and foisted it
on a fool crew to prove that my schooner was once called by that
name. I ought to pound him to death!"

Suddenly a brilliant figure whirled into the midst of the crowd and
reached the angry skipper and his victim. Eunez, her black eyes
ablaze, her face ruddy with anger, planted herself before Tunis
Latham, hands on hips, confronting him boldly. One glance at the
prostrate Orion assured her that, although there was blood upon his
face, he was not much hurt. She tossed her head and snapped her
fingers under the nose of the captain of the _Seamew_.

"So now, Tunis Latham! It is that you have waked up! Of a gr-r-reat
smartness are you, eh?" she cried. "You scorn us all, and tr-r-reat
us as you would dogs. Heh! All you shipmasters are alike.

"But _you_--we put the laugh on you, eh? That oar in your hand--ha,
ha! Do not lay the blame altogether upon your cousin. _I_ burned
those letters into that wood with my curling irons. Fooled by a
girl, eh, Tunis Latham? Ah! Learn your lesson, Captain Latham! We
Portygee women are not to be scorned by _any_ schooner captain. No!"

She snapped her fingers again in his face and turned away, swaying
her hips and tossing her head as she disappeared into her father's
cottage. When Tunis looked around for his cousin, he found that that
facile young man, taking advantage of the girl's intervention, had
slipped away.

* * * * *

A winter hurricane had pounced upon the Cape and torn at it with
teeth and claws, as though seeking to dismember it--to wrench the
forty-mile curved claw of the Cape from the remainder of Barnstable
County.

The driven snow masked everything--earth, houses, trees, and the
shivering bushes; it clung to these objects, iced upon them like
frosting. No craft ventured out of Big Wreck Cove, least of all the
_Seamew_, although she had a cargo in her hold and a complete and
satisfied crew in her forecastle.

Tunis Latham was speaking of the latter fact to Aunt Lucretia in the
warm and homelike kitchen of Latham's Folly.

"Zeb is a good fellow. He has got together a bunch of hands that
aren't afraid of ghosts or bogies. You couldn't make those Portygees
or some of the other hands we had see the ridiculousness of their
fear of the _Seamew_--bless her! But with this bunch Zeb has got
together I wouldn't fear to sail around the Horn."

His aunt looked startled at the suggestion and shook her head.

"I know you wouldn't want I should go for such a long voyage, Aunt
Lucretia," he replied. "And I don't want to myself. But I couldn't
be content here if I didn't see the prospect bright before me of
getting Ida--I mean, of getting Sheila."

His aunt looked at him again not unkindly, but said not a word.

"I've told you all about it, Aunt Lucretia," the skipper of the
_Seamew_ pursued. "Everything. If Sheila did wrong to come down here
as she did, I did a greater wrong in encouraging her to come and in
tempting her with the chance of escaping from the mess she was in.
And she's paid--we've both paid--for our folly.

"As for folks talking, if that Bostwick girl wants to keep her job
with Hoskin & Marl's she'll keep her mouth shut about Sheila. She
understands that. And Hoskin & Marl--everybody, in fact that was
connected with that awful thing that happened to Sheila--have done
all in their power to make amends."

For the first time his aunt's lips opened.

"The poor child!" she said.

"I want more than your sympathy for Sheila, auntie," he urged
earnestly. "I want your approval of what Sheila and I mean to
do--in time. Of course, I must be better established first and be
making money enough to support a--a family. And Sheila would not
think of leaving the old people up there. They need her so sorely."

"But you may as well know, first as last, Aunt Lucretia, that I mean
to marry Sheila. I know it was wrong in me to try to palm her off on
you as somebody she wasn't--to try to fool you--"

"You did not fool me, Tunis; not for a moment," she told him softly.

He stared at her in amazement.

"No," went on his usually inarticulate aunt. "The moment I first
looked into her face I knew she was not Sarah Honey's daughter. That
baby's eyes were brown when Sarah brought her here years ago; and no
brown eyes could change to such a beautiful violet-blue as--as
Sheila's. I knew you and she were trying to deceive me, but I could
not help loving the dear girl from my first sight of her."

That was a very long speech indeed for Aunt Lucretia to make. She
put her arms about Tunis Latham's neck and said all the rest she
might have said in a loving kiss.

Driving as the storm was, there remained something that took the
skipper of the _Seamew_ out into the welter of it. With the wet snow
plastering his back he climbed out of the saucerlike valley to the
rear premises of the Ball place. He even gave a look in at the barn
to make sure that all the chores were done for the night. The gray
ghost of the Queen of Sheba's face was raised a moment from her
manger while she looked at him inquiringly, blowing softly through
her nostrils the while.

"You're all right, anyway," said Tunis, chuckling as he closed the
barn door. "You've got a friend for life."

He went on to the kitchen door. Inside he could hear the bustle of
Sheila's swift feet, the croon of Prudence's gentle voice, and then
a mighty "A-choon!" as Cap'n Ira relieved his pent-up feelings.

"Don't let them fish cakes burn, gal," the old man drawled. "If
Tunis ain't here mighty quick he can eat his cold. Oh! Here he
is--right to the nick o' time, like the second mate's watch comin'
to breakfast."

Tunis had shaken his peacoat free of the clinging snow and now
stamped his sea-boots on the rug. He smiled broadly and confidently
at Sheila and she returned it so happily that her whole face seemed
to irradiate sunshine. Prudence nudged Cap'n Ira's elbow.

"Ain't it a pretty sight, Ira?" she whispered.

"She looks 'most as sweet as you did, Prue, when I took you to the
altar," sighed the old man windily. "I swan! Women is most alike,
young an' old. All but that dratted Ida May Bostwick. _She_ was a
caution to cats."

"Now you hush, Ira. She's our own rel'tive and we ought not to speak
ill of her."

"Ha!" blew Cap'n Ira, reminding Tunis of the old mare when she
snorted. "Ha! Maybe she is. But even so I want none o' her. An' I
told Elder Minnett so. I got kinder of an idee that the elder won't
be so brash, puttin' his spoon into other folks' porridge again."

"Hush, Ira! Don't be irreverent. Remember he's a minister."

"So he is. So he is," concluded Cap'n Ira. "They say charity covers
a multitude of sins; and I expect the call to be a preacher covers a
multitude of sinners." He chuckled mellowly again. "But sometimes
I've thought that the 'call' some of our preachers hear 'stead o'
being the voice of God is some other noise they mistook for it.
Well, there, Prudence, I won't say no more. But you must allow that
Elder Minnett's buttin' in, as the boys say, come pretty nigh
bustin' everything to flinders.

"Come, Tunis. Do sit down or that gal won't be able to dish up
supper, and I'm as hungry as a wolf. Pull up your chair, Prudence.
Ain't this livin', I want to know?" He shuddered luxuriously at the
howl and rattle of the wind without. "Now, folks: 'For that with
which we are about to be blessed make us truly thankful. Amen.' Put
your teeth in one o' them biscuit, Tunis. I want to recommend 'em
to you. Ain't none better on this endurin' Cape--no, sir. We got the
best cook on the Head. If you are ever lucky enough to get one ha'f
as good, Tunis--"

"Now, you be still, Ira," admonished Prudence, smiling comfortingly
at the blushing girl.

"You better sing small, Cap'n Ira," said the skipper of the _Seamew_
hoarsely. "It's mebbe just because we're good-natured and forbearing
that you are keeping your cook for a while."

"Ha! So that's the way the wind blows, eh?" croaked Cap'n Ira. "You
talk big, young man. But we know Sheila better than you do, p'r'aps.
Don't we, Prue?"

His little old wife, with her winter-apple face wrinkled in a smile
of utter confidence, leaned nearer Sheila to pat her hand. The girl
seized the wrinkled claw suddenly and pressed it with both of
hers--pressed it gratefully and with a full-charged heart.

"Don't be disturbed. Don't fear," she whispered so that the old
woman only might not hear. "I will not leave you."

The two men looked deeply into each other's eyes and with a great
understanding. They are not demonstrative, these Cape men, not as a
rule; but Cap'n Ira and Tunis Latham understood all entailed in that
promise so softly given, and they subscribed to it. Sheila was to
have her way.

Hours later Tunis lit the lamp in his bedroom and then stood before
his window, gazing out into the driving snow. Almost immediately he
saw the gleam of another lamp, far up the slope, showing from that
north window of Sheila's chamber in the old Ball house.

This was the signal they had agreed upon--their good-night symbol
whenever he was at home. He stood there a long time, looking out.

Although the wintry wind raved across Wreckers' Head and the snow
scurried wildly before it, there was springtime in the hearts of
Tunis Latham and Sheila--the springtime of their hopes.


THE END

Copyright (c) 2007. bestextbooks.com. All rights reserved.

Francis Loring Payne - "The Story of Versailles"

Hannah More - "Stories for the Young"

James Gray - "Sutherland and Caithness in Saga Time"

Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson - "The Man from Home"