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The Tides of Barnegat

F >> F. Hopkinson Smith >> The Tides of Barnegat




A dozen coats were stripped from as many backs,
a shawl of Mrs. Fogarty's handed to Polhemus, the
doors burst in and Uncle Isaac lunging in tumbled
the garments on the floor. On these the captain laid
the body of the rescued man, the slouch hat still
clinging to his head.

While this was being done another procession was
approaching the house. Tod and Parks were carrying
Archie's unconscious form, the water dripping
from his clothing. Tod had his hands under the
boy's armpits and Parks carried his feet. Behind
the three walked Jane, half supported by the doctor.

"Dead!" she moaned. "Oh, no--no--no, John;
it cannot be! Not my Archie! my brave Archie!"

The captain heard the tramp of the men's feet
on the board floor of the runway outside and rose
to his feet. He had been kneeling beside the form
of the rescued man. His face was knotted with the
agony he had passed through, his voice still thick
and hoarse from battling with the sea.

"What's that she says?" he cried, straining his
ears to catch Jane's words. "What's that! Archie
dead! No! 'Tain't so, is it, doctor?"

Doctor John, his arm still supporting Jane, shook
his head gravely and pointed to his own forehead.

"It's all over, captain," he said in a broken voice.
"Skull fractured."

"Hit with them logs! Archie! Oh, my God!
And this man ain't much better off--he ain't hardly
breathin'. See for yerself, doctor. Here, Tod, lay
Archie on these coats. Move back that boat, men,
to give 'em room, and push them stools out of the
way. Oh, Miss Jane, maybe it ain't true, maybe
he'll come round! I've seen 'em this way more'n
a dozen times. Here, doctor let's get these wet
clo'es off 'em." He dropped between the two limp,
soggy bodies and began tearing open the shirt from
the man's chest. Jane, who had thrown herself in
a passion of grief on the water-soaked floor beside
Archie, commenced wiping the dead boy's face with
her handkerchief, smoothing the short wet curls from
his forehead as she wept.

The man's shirt and collar loosened, Captain Holt
pulled the slouch hat from his head, wrenched the
wet shoes loose, wrapped the cold feet in the dry
shawl, and began tucking the pile of coats closer
about the man's shoulders that he might rest the
easier. For a moment he looked intently at the pallid
face smeared with ooze and grime, and limp
body that the doctor was working over, and then
stepped to where Tod now crouched beside his friend,
the one he had loved all his life. The young surfman's
strong body was shaking with the sobs he
could no longer restrain.

"It's rough, Tod," said the captain, in a choking
voice, which grew clearer as he talked on. "Almighty
rough on ye and on all of us. You did what
you could--ye risked yer life for him, and there
ain't nobody kin do more. I wouldn't send ye out
again, but there's work to do. Them two men of
Cap'n Ambrose's is drowned, and they'll come ashore
some'er's near the inlet, and you and Parks better
hunt 'em up. They live up to Barnegat, ye know,
and their folks'll be wantin' 'em." It was strange
how calm he was. His sense of duty was now controlling
him.

Tod had raised himself to his feet when the captain
had begun to speak and stood with his wet sou'wester
in his hand.

"Been like a brother to me," was all he said, as
he brushed the tears from his eyes and went to join
Parks.

The captain watched Tod's retreating figure for
a moment, and bending again over Archie's corpse,
stood gazing at the dead face, his hands folded across
his girth--as one does when watching a body being
slowly lowered into a grave.

"I loved ye, boy," Jane heard him say between
her sobs. "I loved ye! You knowed it, boy. I
hoped to tell ye so out loud so everybody could hear.
Now they'll never know."

Straightening himself up, he walked firmly to the
open door about which the people pressed, held back
by the line of surfmen headed by Polhemus, and
calmly surveyed the crowd. Close to the opening,
trying to press her way in to Jane, his eyes fell on
Lucy. Behind her stood Max Feilding.

"Friends," said the captain, in a low, restrained
voice, every trace of his grief and excitement gone,
"I've got to ask ye to git considerable way back
and keep still. We got Doctor John here and Miss
Jane, and there ain't nothin' ye kin do. When
there is I'll call ye. Polhemus, you and Green see
this order is obeyed."

Again he hesitated, then raising his eyes over the
group nearest the door, he beckoned to Lucy, pushed
her in ahead of him, caught the swinging doors in
his hands, and shut them tight. This done, he again
dropped on his knees beside the doctor and the now
breathing man.




CHAPTER XXII



THE CLAW OF THE SEA-PUSS


With the closing of the doors the murmur of the
crowd, the dull glare of the gray sky, and the thrash
of the wind were shut out. The only light in the
House of Refuge now came from the two small
windows, one above the form of the suffering man
and the other behind the dead body of Archie. Jane's
head was close to the boy's chest, her sobs coming
from between her hands, held before her face. The
shock of Archie's death had robbed her of all her
strength. Lucy knelt beside her, her shoulder resting
against a pile of cordage. Every now and then she
would steal a furtive glance around the room--at
the boat, at the rafters overhead, at the stove with
its pile of kindling--and a slight shudder would
pass through her. She had forgotten nothing of the
past, nor of the room in which she crouched. Every
scar and stain stood out as clear and naked as those
on some long-buried wreck dug from shifting sands
by a change of tide.

A few feet away the doctor was stripping the wet
clothes from the rescued man and piling the dry
coats over him to warm him back to life. His emergency
bag, handed in by Polhemus through the crack
of the closed doors, had been opened, a bottle selected,
and some spoonfuls of brandy forced down the sufferer's
throat. He saw that the sea-water had not
harmed him; it was the cordwood and wreckage
that had crushed the breath out of him. In confirmation
he pointed to a thin streak of blood oozing from
one ear. The captain nodded, and continued chafing
the man's hands--working with the skill of a surfman
over the water-soaked body. Once he remarked
in a half-whisper--so low that Jane could not hear
him:

"I ain't sure yet, doctor. I thought it was Bart
when I grabbed him fust; but he looks kind o'
different from what I expected to see him. If it's
him he'll know me when he comes to. I ain't changed
so much maybe. I'll rub his feet now," and he kept
on with his work of resuscitation.

Lucy's straining ears had caught the captain's
words of doubt, but they gave her no hope. She
had recognized at the first glance the man of all
others in the world she feared most. His small
ears, the way the hair grew on the temples, the bend
of the neck and slope from the chin to the throat.
No--she had no misgivings. These features had
been part of her life--had been constantly before
her since the hour Jane had told her of Bart's expected
return. Her time had come; nothing could
save her. He would regain consciousness, just as
the captain had said, and would open those awful
hollow eyes and would look at her, and then that
dreadful mouth, with its thin, ashen lips, would speak
to her, and she could deny nothing. Trusting to her
luck--something which had never failed her--she
had continued in her determination to keep everything
from Max. Now it would all come as a shock
to him, and when he asked her if it was true she
could only bow her head.

She dared not look at Archie--she could not.
All her injustice to him and to Jane; her abandonment
of him when a baby; her neglect of him since,
her selfish life of pleasure; her triumph over Max--
all came into review, one picture after another, like
the unrolling of a chart. Even while her hand was
on Jane's shoulder, and while comforting words fell
from her lips, her mind and eyes were fixed on the
face of the man whom the doctor was slowly bringing
back to life.

Not that her sympathy was withheld from Archie
and Jane. It was her terror that dominated her--
a terror that froze her blood and clogged her veins
and dulled every sensibility and emotion. She was
like one lowered into a grave beside a corpse upon
which every moment the earth would fall, entombing
the living with the dead.

The man groaned and turned his head, as if in
pain. A convulsive movement of the lips and face
followed, and then the eyes partly opened.

Lucy clutched at the coil of rope, staggered to her
feet, and braced herself for the shock. He would
rise now, and begin staring about, and then he would
recognize her. The captain knew what was coming;
he was even now planning in his mind the details
of the horrible plot of which Jane had told her!

Captain Holt stooped closer and peered under the
half-closed lids.

"Brown eyes," she heard him mutter to himself,
"just 's the Swede told me." She knew their
color; they had looked into her own too often.

Doctor John felt about with his hand and drew a
small package of letters from inside the man's shirt.
They were tied with a string and soaked with salt
water. This he handed to the captain.

The captain pulled them apart and examined them
carefully.

"It's him," he said with a start, "it's Bart! It's
all plain now. Here's my letter," and he held it up.
"See the printing at the top--'Life-Saving Service'?
And here's some more--they're all stuck together.
Wait! here's one--fine writing." Then his
voice dropped so that only the doctor could hear:
"Ain't that signed 'Lucy'? Yes--'Lucy'--and
it's an old one."

The doctor waved the letters away and again laid
his hand on the sufferer's chest, keeping it close to
his heart. The captain bent nearer. Jane, who,
crazed with grief, had been caressing Archie's cold
cheeks, lifted her head as if aware of the approach
of some crisis, and turned to where the doctor knelt
beside the rescued man. Lucy leaned forward with
straining eyes and ears.

The stillness of death fell upon the small room.
Outside could be heard the pound and thrash of the
surf and the moan of the gale; no human voice--
men and women were talking in whispers. One soul
had gone to God and another life hung by a thread.

The doctor raised his finger.

The man's face twitched convulsively, the lids
opened wider, there came a short, inward gasp, and
the jaw dropped.

"He's dead," said the doctor, and rose to his
feet. Then he took his handkerchief from his pocket
and laid it over the dead man's face.

As the words fell from his lips Lucy caught at
the wall, and with an almost hysterical cry of joy
threw herself into Jane's arms.

The captain leaned back against the life-boat and
for some moments his eyes were fixed on the body
of his dead son.

"I ain't never loved nothin' all my life, doctor,"
he said, his voice choking, "that it didn't go that
way."

Doctor John made no reply except with his eyes.
Silence is ofttimes more sympathetic than the spoken
word. He was putting his remedies back into his
bag so that he might rejoin Jane. The captain
continued:

"All I've got is gone now--the wife, Archie, and
now Bart. I counted on these two. Bad day's work,
doctor--bad day's work." Then in a firm tone, "I'll
open the doors now and call in the men; we got to
git these two bodies up to the Station, and then we'll
get 'em home somehow."

Instantly all Lucy's terror returned. An unaccountable,
unreasoning panic took possession of her.
All her past again rose before her. She feared the
captain now more than she had Bart. Crazed over the
loss of his son he would blurt out everything. Max
would hear and know--know about Archie and Bart
and all her life!

Springing to her feet, maddened with an undefinable
terror, she caught the captain's hand as he
reached out for the fastenings of the door.

"Don't--don't tell them who he is! Promise
me you won't tell them anything! Say it's a
stranger! You are not sure it's he--I heard you
say so!"

"Not say it's my own son! Why?" He was
entirely unconscious of what was in her mind.

Jane had risen to her feet at the note of agony
in Lucy's voice and had stepped to her side as if to
protect her. The doctor stood listening in amazement
to Lucy's outbreak. He knew her reasons, and
was appalled at her rashness.

"No! Don't--DON'T!" Lucy was looking up into
the captain's face now, all her terror in her eyes.

"Why, I can't see what good that'll do!" For
the moment he thought that the excitement had
turned her head. "Isaac Polhemus'll know him,"
he continued, "soon's he sets his eyes on him. And
even if I was mean enough to do it, which I ain't,
these letters would tell. They've got to go to the
Superintendent 'long with everything else found on
bodies. Your name's on some o' 'em and mine's on
some others. We'll git 'em ag'in, but not till Gov'ment
see 'em."

These were the letters which had haunted her!

"Give them to me! They're mine!" she cried,
seizing the captain's fingers and trying to twist the
letters from his grasp.

A frown gathered on the captain's brow and his
voice had an ugly ring in it:

"But I tell ye the Superintendent's got to have
'em for a while. That's regulations, and that's what
we carry out. They ain't goin' to be lost--you'll
git 'em ag'in."

"He sha'n't have them, I tell you!" Her voice
rang now with something of her old imperious tone.
"Nobody shall have them. They're mine--not
yours--nor his. Give them--"

"And break my oath!" interrupted the captain.
For the first time he realized what her outburst
meant and what inspired it.

"What difference does that make in a matter like
this? Give them to me. You dare not keep them,"
she cried, tightening her fingers in the effort to
wrench the letters from his hand. "Sister--doctor
--speak to him! Make him give them to me--I will
have them!"

The captain brushed aside her hand as easily as a
child would brush aside a flower. His lips were tight
shut, his eyes flashing.

"You want me to lie to the department?"

"YES!" She was beside herself now with fear
and rage. "I don't care who you lie to! You
brute--you coward-- I want them! I will have
them!" Again she made a spring for the letters.

"See here, you she-devil. Look at me!"--the
words came in cold, cutting tones. "You're the only
thing livin', or dead, that ever dared ask Nathaniel
Holt to do a thing like that. And you think I'd
do it to oblige ye? You're rotten as punk--that's
what ye are! Rotten from yer keel to yer top-gallant!
and allus have been since I knowed ye!"

Jane started forward and faced the now enraged
man.

"You must not, captain--you shall not speak to
my sister that way!" she commanded.

The doctor stopped between them: "You forget
that she is a woman. I forbid you to--"

"I will, I tell ye, doctor! It's true, and you
know it." The captain's voice now dominated the
room.

"That's no reason why you should abuse her.
You're too much of a man to act as you do."

"It's because I'm a man that I do act this way.
She's done nothin' but bring trouble to this town
ever since she landed in it from school nigh twenty
year ago. Druv out that dead boy of mine lyin'
there, and made a tramp of him; throwed Archie
off on Miss Jane; lied to the man who married her,
and been livin' a lie ever since. And now she wants
me to break my oath! Damn her--"

The doctor laid his hand over the captain's mouth.
"Stop! And I mean it!" His own calm eyes were
flashing now. "This is not the place for talk of this
kind. We are in the presence of death, and--"

The captain caught the doctor's wrist and held it
like a vice.

"I won't stop. I'll have it out--I've lived all
the lies I'm goin' to live! I told you all this fifteen
year ago when I thought Bart was dead, and you
wanted me to keep shut, and I did, and you did, too,
and you ain't never opened your mouth since. That's
because you're a man--all four square sides of ye.
You didn't want to hurt Miss Jane, and no more did
I. That's why I passed Archie there in the street;
that's why I turned round and looked after him when
I couldn't see sometimes for the tears in my eyes; and
all to save that THING there that ain't worth savin'!
By God, when I think of it I want to tear my tongue
out for keepin' still as long as I have!"

Lucy, who had shrunk back against the wall, now
raised her head:

"Coward! Coward!" she muttered.

The captain turned and faced her, his eyes blazing,
his rage uncontrollable:

"Yes, you're a THING, I tell ye !--and I'll say it
ag'in. I used to think it was Bart's fault. Now I
know it warn't. It was yours. You tricked him,
damn ye! Do ye hear? Ye tricked him with yer
lies and yer ways. Now they're over--there'll be no
more lies--not while I live! I'm goin' to strip ye
to bare poles so's folks 'round here kin see. Git out
of my way--all of ye! Out, I tell ye!"

The doctor had stepped in front of the infuriated
man, his back to the closed door, his open palm upraised.

"I will not, and you shall not!" he cried. "What
you are about do to is ruin--for Lucy, for Jane, and
for little Ellen. You cannot--you shall not put such
a stain upon that child. You love her, you--"

"Yes--too well to let that woman touch her ag'in
if I kin help it!" The fury of the merciless sea was
in him now--the roar and pound of the surf in his
voice. "She'll be a curse to the child all her days;
she'll go back on her when she's a mind to just as
she did on Archie. There ain't a dog that runs the
streets that would 'a' done that. She didn't keer
then, and she don't keer now, with him a-lyin' dead
there. She ain't looked at him once nor shed a tear.
It's too late. All hell can't stop me! Out of my
way, I tell ye, doctor, or I'll hurt ye!"

With a wrench he swung back the doors and flung
himself into the light.

"Come in, men! Isaac, Green--all of ye--and
you over there! I got something to say, and I
don't want ye to miss a word of it! You, too, Mr.
Feilding, and that lady next ye--and everybody else
that kin hear!

"That's my son, Barton Holt, lyin' there dead!
The one I druv out o' here nigh twenty year ago.
It warn't for playin' cards, but on account of a
woman; and there she stands--Lucy Cobden! That
dead boy beside him is their child--my own grandson,
Archie! Out of respect to the best woman that
ever lived, Miss Jane Cobden, I've kep' still. If
anybody ain't satisfied all they got to do is to look
over these letters. That's all!"

Lucy, with a wild, despairing look at Max, had
sunk to the floor and lay cowering beneath the lifeboat,
her face hidden in the folds of her cloak.

Jane had shrunk back behind one of the big folding
doors and stood concealed from the gaze of the
astonished crowd, many of whom were pressing into
the entrance. Her head was on the doctor's shoulder,
her fingers had tight hold of his sleeve. Doctor
John's arms were about her frail figure, his lips close
to her cheek.

"Don't, dear--don't," he said softly. "You have
nothing to reproach yourself with. Your life has
been one long sacrifice."

"Oh, but Archie, John! Think of my boy being
gone! Oh, I loved him so, John!"

"You made a man of him, Jane. All he was he
owed to you." He was holding her to him--comforting
her as a father would a child.

"And my poor Lucy," Jane moaned on, "and
the awful, awful disgrace!" Her face was still
hidden in his shoulder, her frame shaking with the
agony of her grief, the words coming slowly, as if
wrung one by one out of her breaking heart.

"You did your duty, dear--all of it." His lips
were close to her ear. No one else heard.

"And you knew it all these years, John--and you
did not tell me."

"It was your secret, dear; not mine."

"Yes, I know--but I have been so blind--so foolish.
I have hurt you so often, and you have been
so true through it all. O John, please--please forgive
me! My heart has been so sore at times--I
have suffered so!"

Then, with a quick lifting of her head, as if the
thought alarmed her, she asked in sudden haste:

"And you love me, John, just the same? Say
you love me, John!"

He gathered her closer, and his lips touched her
cheek:

"I never remember, my darling, when I did not
love you. Have you ever doubted me?"

"No, John, no! Never, never! Kiss me again,
my beloved. You are all I have in the world!"


THE END

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