From Kingdom to Colony

by Mary Devereux

  CHAPTER IV

  There was a long silence, broken at last by Mary saying, "Perhaps whatsome folk say of Moll is true,--that it is an evil gift she has. Andyet she has a sweet face and gentle manner."

  "I wonder if 't is truth, what they say of old Dimond, her father,"said Dorothy, her chin supported in one soft palm, while her eyeslooked off over the water, motionless almost as the seaweed growing onthe scarred rocks along the shore, left bare by the low tide.

  "What is that?" Mary asked.

  "Why, that whenever there was a dark, stormy night, with a galethreatening the ships at sea, he would go up on Burial Hill, and beatabout amongst the grass, to save the crews from shipwreck."

  Mary laughed. "What an idea!" she exclaimed. "How could beating theground about the dead benefit or protect the living, who are surely inthe keeping of Him who makes the tempests?"

  "I don't know," was Dorothy's simple answer. "Only that is what I'veheard, ever since I was a child. And such talk always took my fancy."

  "Well, old Dimond doesn't look now as if he could have strength to beatthe ground, or anything else. Poor old man, he is very feeble, and Ishould say 't is a happy thing for him that Moll can come down fromLynn now and then, to attend him."

  "Yes," Dorothy assented. Then, with a lively change of tone andmanner, "'T was odd, Mary, for her to say that when you left her dooryou were to see your true-love riding to meet you on horseback."

  Mary started, and without answering, turned her head away, while theblood rushed to her lovely face.

  "Which was he, sweetheart?" Dorothy persisted teasingly, bending herhead so as to bring her smiling face directly under the down-droppedblue eyes, and then laughing outright at the confusion she saw there.

  "Which one was it?" she repeated. "You know Hugh Knollys rode down theroad directly toward you, and then--"

  But Mary's white hand was over the laughing lips and silenced them.

  "If your father should hear you talking in such fashion, Dot, I feelsure he would be displeased with me for having gone with you to seeMoll." Mary made an effort to look and speak naturally, but her eyeswere very bright and her face was still deeply flushed.

  Dorothy smiled, and shook her curly head wilfully. "Not he," she saidwith decision; "leastway, not for long. He is stern enough, at times,to others; but he can never be severe with me."

  "Ah, Dot, but you are surely a spoiled child," said Mary, with a fondglance at the winsome face.

  Dorothy shrugged her small shoulders. "So Aunt Penine is alwayssaying; but all the aunts in the world could never come 'twixt myfather and me."

  Little 'Bitha, who had been crooning softly to herself, andimprovising, after a fashion of her own,--

  "The sea is blue, blue, blue, The sea is blue, and I love the sea,"

  suddenly cried out, "Oh, Dot, look, look! What an ugly fish!"

  They all looked, and saw a dead dogfish, its cruel teeth showing in thegaping jaws, go bobbing by, entangled in a mesh of floating seaweed.

  "Him look like dead nigger," said Pashar, as he flung a pebble at it.

  Old Leet scowled over his shoulder at his lively descendant.

  "Dere'll be anudder, an' real true, dead nigger ter keep him company,ef ye don't sit still, an' quit grampussin' 'bout de boat," he growled;and. Pashar became very quiet.

  They were now drawing in nearer to the shore, where the strip ofsand-beach lay down below the rocky headland, upon the highest point ofwhich stood Spray House, the home of Nicholson Broughton and hisdaughter Mary.

  The house--a low, rambling building, with gabled roof--was perched uponthe highest of a series of greenstone and syenite ledges, whose naturaljaggedness had no need to be strengthened by art to render them a safebulwark against the encroaching seas, when the storms flashed blindingmists and glittering spray about the diamond-paned windows.

  These looked off over the open water, and past the point of landintervening between Great Bay and Marblehead Rock. Upon the latter wasan odd beacon,--being a discarded pulpit from one of the Bostonchurches, whence, after hearing much of the noise and commotion of men,it had been transferred to this barren rock, there to listen to theceaseless tumult of the battling sea.

  Inland from Spray House stood the many great warehouses; and back ofthese stretched the pasture-lands, breaking here and there into roughhills, showing fields of golden splendor, where the wood-wax, or"dyer's weed," was growing in luxuriant wildness.

  Several small boats were drawn up on the beach; and anchored a littleway out, and directly opposite the front windows of Spray House, weretwo goodly-sized schooners, and a brig, their topmasts now touched bythe fiery gold of sunset.

  "I wish you were coming home with me, Mary," said Dorothy, as Leet ranthe boat's nose into the shingle, and Pashar leaped out to hold thestern.

  "I wish so, too. But you know it will not be many days before fathergoes up to Boston, and he said I should abide with you until hereturned."

  "That will be fine," said Dorothy, her face aglow with pleasure, asMary, after dropping a light kiss upon her check, arose to leave theboat. "Only, if I were you, I should coax him to let me go to Boston."

  "I did ask him; but he goes on public matters, he said, and was like tohave a quick and a rough trip." Mary was now standing upon the beach.

  "Well, be he gone a long or a short time, we shall all be very happy tohave you with us. That you know, surely." And Dorothy kissed her handto her friend, as Leet pulled out again into the water and rowed towardthe upper end of the bay, while Mary took her way across the beach tothe thread-like path leading up to the plateau that formed the backdooryard of Spray House.

  In the yard was Joe, the darkey serving-man, busy cutting more wood toincrease the already generous pile stored in the building near by,while Agnes, his niece, was in the kitchen, preparing the evening meal.

  In the long, low, oak-panelled "living-room" of the house, its windowsfacing the water, Mary found her father. He was standing--a tall,finely built man, nearly fifty--gazing through an open window. Hissturdy legs were well apart, as with hands in his trousers' pockets hewas jingling his keys and loose coin in a restless sort of way, whilehe hummed to himself.

  Mary entered so softly, or else his thoughts were so absorbing, that hedid not notice her until she stood close beside him and slipped a handwithin his arm. Then he started, and the scowl left his brow as heturned the frank, blue-gray eyes, so like her own, down upon herupturned, smiling face.

  "Ha, Pigsney!" he exclaimed, now smiling himself. "And have you had apleasant water-trip?" He looked at her lovingly, while he caressed theblonde head that just reached to his broad shoulder.

  "Yes," she replied hurriedly. "And I met Johnnie Strings, who has butjust come from over Salem way. He says there are quantities ofsoldiers there, and that they are like to come this way and spread allover the town."

  "You speak of them, sweetheart, as if they might be another epidemic ofsmallpox," he said grimly, "And so they are, so they are, if not indeedsomething worse." And the scowl came back to his face as he looked offover the water at his brig and schooners.

  "But what does it all mean, father?" Mary asked anxiously. "Think youthey will meet with opposition should they actually come down here?Oh, it would be dreadful to have any fighting right here in our streetsand before our very doors." The girl trembled, and her cheeks paled.

  "Nay, nay, lass," and he patted her shoulder reassuringly; "cross nobridges until you come to them." Then he added rather impatiently,"What does Johnnie Strings mean by telling such tales to affrightwomen-folk?"

  "We--Dorothy Devereux and I--met him, and we made him talk. But he didnot seem to want to tell us all he knew about it."

  "And quite right," said her father, smiling again. "Lord pity the manwho is fool enough to tell women--and girls, at that--all he knows ofsuch matters, in days like these."

  Mary looked up at him a little reproachfully, but he only bent andkissed her, as he said, now quite gr
avely: "I've much on my mind thisnight, my child, and I have to ask if you can be ready soon aftersupper to drive with me to the house of neighbor Devereux, and to stopthere a few days with Dorothy. I have certain matters to talk overwith him, and will pass the night there; and before daylight I must beon my way to Boston."