Rosabelle shaw, p.8
Rosabelle Shaw, page 8
They were hastening down to the shore by now, and old Cowie’s dismal croakings were drowned by the thunder of the waves. The wind was so fierce that they could hardly stand upright—it tore at their clothes like a living force. John joined a knot of his own men in the shelter of a boulder—they were clad in oilskins and sea-boots, and some of them carried lanthorns. There was a little murmur of welcome as John approached—“A bad business, Maister Shaw!” “Ay, there she is—ye’ll catch a glimpse o’ her as she lifts tae the waves.” “She’s been sending up rockets.” “Ay, it was the wife haird the rockets and wakened me.”
John gazed out to sea in the direction indicated. Dawn was breaking now, and in the faint, grey, dismal light he could make out the dark bulk of the ill-fated vessel, wallowing in the trough of the seas. It was still too dark to make out what manner of ship she was, or to guess at her probable tonnage, but John saw at once that old Cowie’s predictions were only too true, she was driving straight on to the wedge-shaped rock and no man could save her. Even as he looked, a rocket went up from the doomed ship; it soared skywards and burst in a shower of sparks The crack of the gun could be heard above the roar of the storm. It was a signal for help, but the poor creatures who sent it were beyond men’s aid—they must have known that this was the case, and sent it up as a last despairing effort. There was nothing to be done—nothing at all—no boat could be launched in the teeth of that gale, and, if launched, no boat could have lived for a moment in that sea. The little group of men watched in silence while the ship drove nearer and nearer her end.
“She’s struck!” cried a man suddenly.
“Eh—Goad help them!” exclaimed another.
John was dumb with horror
A wave lifted the ship like a cockleshell—lifted her high out of the water—and dashed her upon the rock. For a moment she hung there—balanced upon the point of it—and then she slid backwards and vanished from sight. They could hear the crash of her striking, the tearing of her hull, the rending of her plates on the tooth of the rock.
A groan of horror went up from the watchers on the shore.
“Is there naething we can dae?” demanded one of the younger men. “Maister Shaw, can we no’ help them? Guid Goad, that we should stan’ here an’ see the creatures droon before oor eyes!”
“We’ll mebbe save a few yet,” said old Cowie. “Ye’ve guid een, Robbie—keep ye a guid watch. If any o’ them’s sweepit intae the bay we can mak’ a tent at saving them.”
“Give me the rope,” John said, in a hoarse strained voice that he scarcely recognised as his own. “I’ll be the first man——”
They all knew what to do, and in a few moments the living chain was made. John had fastened the end of the rope round his waist, and had grasped Burnett’s hand. Thus roped like mountaineers, only much closer together, the men went down to the sea.
“There’s summat there, Maister Shaw,” said the young fellow who had spoken before—it was Fanny’s garden-boy, John noticed now—“there’s summat dark in the watter—a bundle most like——”
John gazed seawards and he saw what Robbie meant—a dark object floating over the waves. It might be a man in a cork jacket, or it might be a piece of timber from the wrecked ship.
“Wait!” cried old Cowie. “Wait ye for the wave, Maister Shaw.”
John nodded. He waited for the wave, and then, as it broke and receded, he plunged into the sea. In a moment he felt the pull of the water, and would have been sucked out to sea but for the rope about his waist and Burnett’s firm grip upon his left hand. The next wave broke against his shoulder, and forced him to his knees, but Burnett pulled him up and they pressed forward. They had passed beyond the breakers when the third wave came and John saw a dark object coming towards him. He struggled towards it and seized it with his free hand, but it was too slippery to hold and was swept from his grasp. He knew then that it was not a man—it was too small—a mere bundle tossed by the waves, but John was so dazed that he had lost all sense of values: he was breathless, battered, deafened, and half-drowned. There was only one thought in his mind, and that was to lay hold of the bundle and bring it safe to shore. Again it came towards him, this time on the crest of a wave, and again he grasped it. He could feel the slippery roughness of a cork jacket against his hand. He caught hold of a loosened cord and twisted it round his fingers.
The next moment he saw the green concave surface of a wave, towering above his head, and he felt the terrifying suck of its backwash tearing at his legs … he saw it curl over … and then a perfect avalanche of white water broke upon him and smashed him to the ground.
When John recovered consciousness he was lying on the shore in the lee of a rock. Somebody was working his arms and pressing his chest. John opened his eyes and saw old Cowie’s wrinkled face.
“Eh—that’s fine!” the old man exclaimed. “Ye’re a’ richt noo, Maister Shaw.”
“Yes,” said John faintly, but he felt far from all right—he felt weak and sick, and his chest hurt when he breathed.
Old Cowie pressed a black bottle to John’s lips—it was whisky, Cowie’s panacea for every ill. John drank some of it, and the rough hot liquid burned his throat, but the warmth ran through his body, and revived him.
“Where are the other men?” he asked anxiously.
“They’re a’ richt,” Cowie assured him. “They’re doon watching the sea——”
“And where’s that bundle?” said John, raising himself on his elbow and looking round.
The bundle which he had rescued from the sea at the risk of his life was lying beside him on the sand; it seemed to consist of a brown blanket done up in a cork jacket.
Cowie rolled it over with his foot—“It’s juist naething——” he began … and then suddenly his face changed and he bent down and began to tear at the strings—“Ma Goad, it’s a wean!” he exclaimed in amazement.
John helped him, and together they undid the wrappings and disclosed a small child—a boy of three years old or thereabouts. The little creature seemed lifeless, its face was blue and pinched, and its small hands clenched in a sort of rigor, but John was aware that many an apparently lifeless person has been resuscitated by artificial respiration, and old Cowie knew it too. They set to work to apply the treatment without further delay. By this time the rest of the men had gathered round; they were worn out, and drenched to the skin, but all their efforts had been of no avail, and now the tide had begun to ebb and the debris from the wreck was drifting out to sea.
There was no hope now for the crew of the ill-fated vessel. The child was the only survivor of the wreck, and John, as he looked at the small pinched face, could not but think that its survival was extremely doubtful.
“There,” said Cowie at last. “That’s aboot all we can dae for the puir wee thing. Pit it beneath yer coat, Maister Shaw, and tak’ it up tae the hoose—mebbe the warmth will help it.”
John unbuttoned his coat and placed the child inside, then he turned his back to the sea and walked, slowly and laboriously, back to Shaws.
11
Fanny’s battle with Death
When Fanny saw the poor little creature in John’s arms her heart went out to it in a wave of compassion, and she made up her mind then and there that, if human care could save it, it should live. Fanny knew little of nursing, but she was a born nurse, for she had in her the determination to cheat death. The child developed pneumonia, and his life hung by a thread. Fanny tended him night and day; she lived and moved in a dream—there was nothing in her save the determination to save the child. The doctor came and went; he too was obsessed with the child, but his obsession was professional—no doctor likes to lose a battle with death.
John’s mind was in a queer turmoil these days. His body was still weak from his battle with the sea, and this weakness troubled him. John had never been ill in his life, and he could not understand the strange fits of giddiness that assailed him suddenly and unexpectedly as he rode round the farm. If he had mentioned these to the doctor they could have been easily explained, for they were due to a slight concussion which he had received when the wave burst upon his head, but, oddly enough, although he saw the doctor almost every day, it never occurred to John to consult him about his condition. He battled on, feeling sick and wretched; his brain would not work properly, and everything seemed dreamlike and far away.
John still did not know whether his dreadful suspicions on the night of the wreck had any foundation or not. It was by no means uncommon for ships to be wrecked at Shaws, and it might well be that the vessel had lost her bearings in the storm and had been driven upon the rocks by the force of the wind, but he found it impossible to banish from his mind the terrible thought that the ship had been lured upon the rocks by the lame donkey. The thought haunted him night and day. How could he find out the truth? John struggled with the problem in his mazed brain, but could find no way of solving it. He could speak of his suspicions to nobody: not to Fanny, for Fanny must be guarded from the knowledge that anything so dreadful was possible: not to Burnett, for Burnett had warned him against O’Malley: besides, when John considered the possibility of talking to Burnett, he began to realise that he could never explain the sequence of his mind upon the night of the storm. Burnett was a hard-headed Scotsman, and John knew that he could never make Burnett understand how at first his brain had refused to supply the information as to the meaning of “the lame donkey” and had given it to him in full measure a few hours after. It was a “fishy” sort of story—or so it seemed to John—and he would have found it difficult to believe himself if it had been told him by another man. Not Fanny, then, and not Burnett—who else was left? Should he speak of his suspicions to O’Malley? No, he could not do that either; he knew too little. If the man were innocent he would have a legitimate grievance against John, and O’Malley was too dangerous to rouse; if the man were guilty, his guilt could never be proved—or at least John saw no way of proving it. I must get rid of him, John thought as he rode along on the chestnut cob (which seemed so curiously unmanageable these days), I must get rid of hime somehow—not just at once, in case he should suspect that I know—I must find some good reason for getting rid of him.
But now that John wanted to get rid of O’Malley he could find no good reason for so doing. Burnett declared that the man had settled down, he was making an excellent job of the field and had ceased to cause trouble at the cottages. He was “walking out” with the dairymaid from Langside, and spoke of getting married in the spring. “I was wrong aboot the mahn,” Burnett declared, “and you were richt, Maister Shaw. O’Malley’s a useful mahn—we could dae waur than tak’ him on permanent at Shaws.” John said nothing of this—there was nothing to say. He was still determined to get rid of O’Malley, but he must have some legitimate excuse.
The ship which had gone ashore on the reef was found to be the S.S. Fendris, a tramp steamer, bound for Leith with a cargo of wine from Lisbon. Her Insurance Company sent a representative to see the wreck with a view to salvage. The tide was in when Mr. Watson arrived, the sea was calm and placid, and the skies were blue, Mr. Watson was surprised and somewhat suspicious to find that there was no wreck to be seen—he found it hard to believe that the ship had disappeared completely. John tried to explain, but his brain was too muddled, too cluttered up with other thoughts, and he knew that his explanations were unconvincing. Mr. Watson asked leave to interrogate the farm-hands, and returned from his task more bewildered than ever. Fortunately by this time the tide had ebbed, and John was able to take him over the reef of boulders to the Spanish Rock—an expedition which Mr. Watson found far from enjoyable—and they looked down into the deep water, and saw the tangle of twisted metal which was all that remained of the wreck. Seeing is believing, and the Insurance Agent made some notes and departed to report to his firm that the S.S. Fendris was a total loss.
John was thankful to see the last of Mr. Watson, but it was by no means the last of the trouble, for questions were asked in the House—questions which were not easily answered: “Is the Honourable Member aware that a ship went down on the coast of Scotland with all hands, and that no attempts were made to rescue her crew?” “Is the Honourable Member aware that this is not the first ship to be lost on that wild and rocky shore?” The Honourable Member was so badgered that he was forced to take some action, and the result of his action was a letter to John suggesting that a lifeboat should be established at Shaws. John knew that a lifeboat would be useless—it was a lighthouse that was needed. He had suggested this before, but the question had been shelved on the grounds of expense. He wrote again, reiterating his opinion, and offering sufficient land upon the red sandstone promontory for a lighthouse to be built, but by this time some other question was occupying the attention of the authorities concerned, and John’s offer was shelved again.
There was yet another matter which worried John considerably and preyed upon his mind—he could not discover the identity of the child which had been swept into his arms by the sea. John wrote to the proper authorities asking them to trace the child, and received in reply a letter informing him that the S.S. Fendris did not carry passengers so that he must be mistaken in believing that a small child was on board the ship when she was wrecked. They remained—so they declared—John’s obedient servants, etc., etc. John was annoyed with his obedient servants, and wrote to them again, pointing out that the child was here at Shaws, and that it had most assuredly been on the ship when it was wrecked, and added that he would be obliged if they would take steps to find the child’s relations without further delay. No answer was forthcoming to this somewhat belligerent epistle, and John began to regret the tone in which he had written—perhaps if he had adopted a more humble attitude his letter would have had better attention.
In a few days the beach at Shaws was littered with debris from the wreck which had been swept into the bay by the incoming tide. It was the usual flotsam and jetsam—broken beams and mattresses and pieces of furniture such as broken chairs and tables; there were also doors and hatches and other details of a ship’s fittings which had been loosened from their holdings by the pounding of the waves; there were pieces of the ship’s companion-ladder, and bales and cases, all smashed to matchwood and there were straw bottle-holders by the hundred (for the ship’s cargo had consisted largely of wine) and pieces of broken bottles and straw-covered flagons. The villagers were to be seen picking over the litter and appropriating the stuff for their own use. John saw them there as he rode past. He saw O’Malley and Glaister and Turnbull and Lang, the four whom he suspected of the crime, but he also saw many of the men who had been boldest and most untiring in their efforts on the night of the wreck. It was not surprising to find them there, for wreckage such as this was the perquisite of the finder. It belonged by law to the Insurance Company—or so John supposed—but the Insurance Company did not want it. John watched them for a few minutes, sick at heart. He could not object to what they were doing, for it was an age-old custom and indeed he had joined in it himself not so very many years ago—there were many small treasures at Shaws which had been culled from wrecks in Shaws Bay by himself and his forebears—but this wreck was different; it was a nightmare to John; and he could not bear to see his people searching light-heartedly amongst the remains.
It seemed to John that the whole population of Shaws Farm was on the shore that Sunday afternoon—men, women, and children—they were poking about amongst the debris, calling out to each other and laughing gleefully over the discovery of some new treasure. He saw Burnett coming towards him with something in his hand, but he could not speak to Burnett just then—he could not speak to anybody—so he turned away and rode slowly home.
The house of Shaws was a dreary comfortless place these days. Fanny was busy with her patient, and her two young maids, relieved from supervision, were too raw and untrained to carry on alone. John returned, wet and weary, to find a dead fire and unappetising meals. He found his daughter sulky, whining, and neglected, and his wife worn out, haggard, and irritable from lack of sleep. He was all the more miserable and helpless because he had always been well looked after at home. His mother had been a good housekeeper, and Mrs. Curle had followed in her footsteps and carried out her duties conscientiously. Fanny’s régime had been less experienced, but John had not suffered any serious inconvenience from her mistakes.
John could do nothing to improve the conditions in the house, but he found that there was one thing he could do—he could amuse and entertain Rosabelle. Rosabelle began to watch for her father at tea-time, to run to him and climb on to his knee. She had lost her goddess, but, with childish philosophy, she accepted a god in her place. John was flattered by Rosabelle’s attentions, and her childish prattle comforted him and took his mind off his troubles. He liked to feel her soft arms round his neck. He began to tell her stories—long complicated stories about a little mouse that lived in a hole in the big barn. He also found—somewhat to his surprise—that he could give Rosabelle her bath and put her to bed, and Rosabelle was “good” with him, and preferred him to Kate in the rôle of nurse.
One evening, about a fortnight after the wreck, John and Rosabelle were sitting in the drawing-room. They had had their tea, and had just begun a fresh instalment of the adventures of Mr. Mouse, when Fanny came in.
John looked up and smiled. “Well, Fanny, how is your protégé?” he inquired.
“Jay!” cried Rosabelle, clapping her hands with delight. “How’s Jay?”
“He’s better,” Fanny declared, sinking into a chair with a weary sigh. “He really is better to-day. He’s sleeping quite peacefully, so I’ve left Kate to keep an eye on him.”
“Jay’s better,” Rosabelle said, nodding her head wisely.
“Jay! Why do you call him Jay?” Fanny asked.
John laughed. “It was because I asked how your protégé was. We’ve got a little ape here, Fanny.”
