University of Virginia Library

51. CHAPTER LI.
A STRANGER APPROACHES LADFORD.

OUR Newfoundland skies are as lovely as those of
other and choicer lands; although the gorgeous
and exquisite hues that elsewhere hang on flower-stems
in the heavy sunshine do not brighten the face of
the earth here, but have sought the weeds under our salt
northern waves and made them beautiful. The sky is
glorious at morn and eve in summer, and at summer's
noon is clear and high; and in the night, when the sun
is gone and has left his place to the stars, then also the
air is so clear, that it is beautiful for that very thing: in
winter, it is flashed and flushed all over with the Northern
Lights.

In the evening of one of the fine days of September,
one bright, strong star was poised in the eastern sky,
alone, shining up the open water between the Backside
of Peterport and Castle-Bay, and throwing its far-world
light faintly among the shrubs and trees. Its wake upon
the Bay was not seen from the point at which we find
some of the characters of our story, on that evening;
though its glory in the heavens was seen most clearly
over the wild, rough headland, half-a-mile away, at Mad
Cove. The point was behind Mr. Urston's house, near
the Worrell, where the steep descent goes sidelong down

to the tiny cove and bit of pebbly beach. Just at that
place, a person who was coming down from the direction
of the house, stopped and turned eastward, silently; and,
after a moment's pause, turning again, said aloud, but as
if exclaiming to himself only, or apostrophizing the beautiful
planet:—

“Star of the Sea!—It shines like sweet hope to the
guilty, and a harbor to the shipwrecked;—like the gate
of Heaven, ajar.”

These words,—mostly a translation from a Roman
Catholic Hymn to the Virgin, “Salve, Virgo florens,”—
were said with the accent and manner of a gentleman,
and with the fervor of deep feeling. In the dim light,
it might be seen also, by one near him, that his dress
was not the jacket and trowsers of the planters of the
country.

At the instant of his turning, a man who was coming
up the sidelong path from the little cove, had come
within five or six yards of him.

“Good evening to you, my friend!” said the speaker,
to the man coming up. “What fare, to-day? Apostles
sometimes toiled a good many hours, and got nothing for
their labor.”

“Much the same wi' us, then,” answered the man, in a
very meek voice, taking a pipe out of his mouth and
putting it in his pocket, leaving the evening to all its
darkness.

“Ah! we're well met: this is William Ladford, that
I've heard so much of: the best boatman in the Bay?”

“I'se agoun up here a bit, sir: did 'ee want any
thing wi' I?” said the man, as if he had not heard, or
had not understood.

“Yes; since we've met, I should like a moment's talk

with you. I think I know something that may be a good
deal for your advantage.”

The gentleman, accidentally or designedly, put his cane
across the path, against a little fur-tree or bush, working it
in his hands as he spoke.

“Mubbe, this 'am' person, hereaway, abeam of us,”
said the fisherman (turning to the right hand as he spoke,
though he had not seemed to look in that direction before);
“mubbe 'e belongs to 'ee, sir; do 'e?”

“I didn't notice him,” answered the gentleman. “There
was a man to keep me company going home from Mr.
Urston's, here; he'll know my voice, if it's he.”

So saying, he called:—“Who's there?”

No answer was given, and the figure moved away
hastily, and disappeared.

“Ef ee'll be so good as excuse me, for a spurt, I'll go
down and make the punt all right, sir. The wind's like
to come up here out o' Nothe-east, bum-bye, accord'n as
the moon rises.—It isn' right to ax a gen'leman o' your
soart to wait upon the like of I;” he added, hesitating,
for manners' sake.

“Can I help you about the boat?” asked the gentleman,
in a hearty way that would be very taking with
most fishermen.

“Thank'ee, sir, I'll do very well alone;” answered
the man, turning and going, with a quick, light step, down
the sloping turf, and then down the rocky ledge that
makes the path athwart the cliff.

In the black amphitheatre broken out of the rock, he
was soon lost. The moon, to whose rising he had referred,
was coming, but was not yet come; and though
the light began to spread itself out before her, it did not
make its way into this abyss.

The gentleman, after waiting a moment where he had
been standing, began also to go down, saying, at the first
steps:—

“Si descendero ad inferos—”

He might have gone thirty or forty yards, which would
have brought him near to the western wall, where the
path ends, and where a practised eye could just make out
the black, bulky, shapeless masses of rock, across which
the broken pathway led to the swashing water outside.
Here he stood still.

The fisherman seemed to have gone into darkness,
through some opening in it, as into a cave by its mouth.
Only the sounds from his operations, now here, now
there, made to seem very distinct and near by the shape
of the place, with its walls of rock, proved that he was
busy.

By the time the gentleman reached the ground above,
again, he found the fisherman close behind him. The
latter dropped from his shoulder one end of a long pole,
(which, from the click of its metal-shod point upon a
stone, as it fell, was probably a boat-hook,) and stood prepared
to listen.

The other said:—

“It occurred to me that you'd be just the man that a
friend of mine wants, for mate of a fine schooner; and I
think I could get the place for you, if you'd like it.”

“It's very kind of 'ee, sir, being a parfect stranger,”
returned Ladford, with something that sounded like irony.

“Nobody's a stranger to me; my office makes me
every man's friend: I'm a clergyman. Besides, I happen
to know more of you than you think; I know that case of
Abernethy.”

“Do 'ee, now, sir?” said Ladford, in a very stolid

way; “I've ahard 'e'd a many cases. 'E was a great
doctor, wasn' 'e?”

“Pardon me,” said the Clergyman, severely; “I'm not
in the habit of wasting words, or trifling.” He then
softened his voice, and added, “but I won't blame you;
you're used to being on your guard, and think, perhaps,
I'm not sure of my man. I'll show you: Warrener
Lane, you've heard of, I think. I know him; and I
know what happened in the hold of the `Guernsey
Light,' on the Fourteenth day of December, Fifteen years
ago.”

“If 'ee do, then,” said Ladford, in better speech than
he had yet used, “you know no harm of me in it.”

“Don't be afraid, my friend; I don't bring this up as
an accuser,” said the Clergyman. “I mentioned it only
to show that I knew you.—I know about Susan Barbury,
too, and the child,” he added, in a low and gentle voice.
“You see I know more than one thing about you.”

Ladford moved on his feet, but was silent.

“I feel the more interested in you, for what I know;
and if I can serve you, shall be rejoiced. What do you
think of the place I speak of; the `berth,' as I suppose
you'd call it?”

“Thank 'ee, sir; I believe I'll stay where I am a
while.—I don't care much about places,” said the fisherman.

“I understand your case, you know; and I assure you
there'd be no danger. We can take care,—you'd be secure,
I mean,—and a pardon might be got out from the Crown,
too, and then you'd be free.”

“Thank 'ee, sir; I believe I won't try the place, if it's
the same to you.”

“Really,” said the Clergyman, with feeling, “you ought

not to be in this condition of perpetual fear; your pardon
ought to be got. You've a title to it, I'm sure.”

“I don't need any thing done for me, sir, thank ye.”

“Ah! you've got friends engaged about it? Very
well; it ought to be so. A man like you oughtn't to be
wasted.”

“I don't say that; I don't speak of pardons. I want
God's pardon.”

“I'm glad to hear you say that,” said the Clergyman.
“That's the great thing, indeed; the other is of comparatively
little consequence; though here's a man that, if he
chooses to give you up—”

Ladford's eyes, as the rising light of the moon showed,
looked sharply into the shadow of the house, where the
other figure had before appeared and disappeared; his
companion continued:—

“Any man, I mean, can get the price set upon you, if
he chooses to give you up, just as he could get the price
of a seal's pelt for the shooting; and that's a pretty hard
case.”

“It's a pretty hard case for one that's in it; but I think
it isn't mine, sir,” said Ladford.

“I speak only as a friend; but you know your own
case. Only, let me advise you not to trust too much to
your neighbors' good-will, said the Clergyman, significantly.

At this, the former smuggler looked into the face of
his companion, who stood with his square back to the
moon.

“You're a minister, you say, sir?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered the Clergyman, briefly.

“It's good there's a better world than this, if a man
can only get to it,” said Ladford, again.

The splendid star looked farther off, now that the moon
was shining in the sky; but the great dark sea swashing
at the foot of the cliffs, and the great dark land, over
which the wind was blowing, and the vast silence from all
human things, seemed less of kin to the human heart than
the sights and sounds of day. It was a time for thinking
of things that are not of the earth.

“It is, indeed!” answered the Minister, solemnly, to
the fisherman's last words. “`God's pardon,' as you
said, is the great thing. I wish you only knew that pardon
Here is pardon There!”

“I think there's no better way than `Repent, and believe
the Gospel?'” said Ladford, inquiringly.

“Yes, there is a better way.—You know what it is to
have a quittance, when you've paid a debt; so you might
have a quittance when you pay the debt to God. Why
need a man be doubting or despairing all his life, and
never knowing whether he's in the way to heaven or to
hell? Isn't there a promise, `Whosesoever sins YE remit,
they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins YE retain,
they are retained?'”

“You're not a Church-minister, I think, sir?”

“Yes; though not a Church-of-England-minister.
I'm sorry for the Church of England;—I won't abuse it;
—I'm sorry that it has neither the will nor the power to
cure the sickness of the soul. It cannot say to the penitent,
`Go, thy sins are forgiven thee!' It looks so like a
Church, I'm sorry it isn't a Church!”

The moon had spread her splendor over the sky as
they talked.

“Do you see me strike off that twig of laurel, or whatever
it is?” continued the speaker, smiting, with a sudden,
sharp stroke of his stick. “That's the thing for a

man that feels the burden of sin. Or did you ever turn
in, in a heavy blow near shore, and fall asleep, expecting
to be roused any moment to handle the ship, and wake
up with the little ripples tinkling under the counter; and,
when you came on deck, see the bright sun, and green
fields, and trees, and hedge-rows, in a safe harbor?”

“I don't suppose I ever turned in, in a gale of wind on
the coast!” answered the man of the sea. “But,” he
added, “I know what it is to get into a land-locked harbor,
after knocking about, outside.”

“Yes;—I'm no sailor or fisherman;—but you can
think what spiritual peace, and a safe harbor for the soul
would be.”

“Yes, indeed, sir; I hope I've known that, too, thank
God!”

“I wish it were so; it's not a thing to deceive one's
self in; there's one way;—alas! there is but one way!”

“Your way won't do without repentance, I suppose,
sir?”

“No; but, then, we're the judges of repentance,” said
the Clergyman.

“And you may make a mistake! — I believe the
Church-Ministers have got all the power that anybody's
got, from the Lord,” said Ladford, more warmly; “and
here's my promise: `He that believeth in me, though he
was dead, yet he shall live!' and that dear, sweet hymn
tells us about the harbor:—

“But how do you know when you believe enough to
have your sins forgiven? You're in the dark, you see.”

`I can steer by compass,” said Ladford. “`Christ
shall give thee light,' the Bible says. I always heard that
when God gave a man sorrow for his sins, and gave him
grace to keep from them, then a man might know he was
forgiven; and that 'll do for me I hope.—I hope it
will!”

“`The Bible says'!” repeated the other, but in a restrained
voice. “The Bible says, `Let us eat and drink,
for to-morrow we shall die!' But I don't mean to draw
you into an argument.—No, no; no, no.—So you won't
let me serve you, in any way?”

The fair moon was swinging herself steadily up, toward
the top of heaven, during all this time; the physical darkness
between these two men had been steadily lessening,
and the shadows in the abyss below them, and the little
thickets of `goold,' and other bushes and small trees, were
fain, under the eye of the great queen of heaven, to draw
themselves in, closer and closer. All outward nature
seemed to be opening its bosom.

“Thank ye, sir; I shouldn't like to trouble ye.—I believe
it's Father Nicholas; isn't it?” said Ladford.

“Yes; I shouldn't have told you till you asked, though
it might have given me credit with you, and made my
poor offer for your service the more valuable. I'm the
priest that they're trying to make out a murderer, or cannibal,
or kidnapper, at least. I believe you've some evidence;
and, by getting your pardon, I should be making
your evidence—(if you have any)—worth something;
for it's worth nothing now. I've no worse disposition
than that. Your case is a deeply interesting one; and I
couldn't but feel it so, knowing it thoroughly as I do.”

“Did you think I wouldn't go and testify against you,
after your doing all that for me?” asked Ladford.

“That would rest with God; we musn't bargain.
`Freely we have received; freely we give.'”

Ladford, at this point, drew himself up.

“I believe I'll just keep myself to myself, for the present,”
said he, shouldering his boat-hook.

“Very good; take care of yourself, then!” said
Father Nicholas, and turned to move away; but his
place was likely to be filled by two men, who made
their appearance as the priest had said the last few
words, in a little louder tone than he had been speaking
in, and who came, at an easy walk, from the eastern
end of the house, one of them whistling. They
both touched their hats, without any other salutation, as
they passed the priest now going up the same path by
which they were coming to the scene of the late conversation.

“I must wish you a Good-evenun, too,” said Ladford,
as they got within thirty feet of him, “so well as the
t'other gentleman;” and he began backing down the
grassy slope towards the break in the rock, when two
other men appeared, coming more leisurely down the
path.

“It's too much throuble for ye, Misther Ladford,” said
one of the advancing men. “Mebbe you won't mind one
Tim Croonan, that hasn't forgot yerself, anny way, nor
isn't likely to, ayther, I'm thinkin'.”

Ladford turned, and, at a steady gait, continued his
course toward the water.

“The old fox is going down to his hole,” said the one
of the foremost men who had not yet spoken; and both
quickened their steps. They were, at this moment, at about
the same distance from the man they were following as

at first; for, though they were coming fast, yet the old
smuggler had a very rapid way of getting on, without
apparent effort.

He was on the ledge of rock that sloped down athwart
the precipice; the moon was lighting up, beautifully, the
western side of the picturesque little place, and part of
the bottom, while it left in deep shadow that to the east,
and the landward side, as if they were yet in the block
from which the others—with their rounds, and flats, and
hollows, and deep crevices—had been cut.

“We've got good hould of him now,” continued the last
speaker, as Ladford passed along this ledge, with the
moon shining broad upon his back, and showing even
the uncouth outlines of his dress. He turned once more
upon this narrow path, despite the nearness of his pursuers;
and as he did so, the man who had just spoken,
drew back and held back his companion with his hand,
saying, in a low voice:—

“Don't crowd him! Give him time, and he'll hang
himself all the harder.”

Crooman had been by no means crowding; and he
stood still very readily.

It seemed madness for the man, if he had any occasion
to fear these two pursuers, and wished to escape them, to
loiter, as he seemed about to do, in his flight. At the
best he must go down, and there was no other way up
than that he was descending; the wall which his path
traversed obliquely downwards, was, except that path, as
sheer and steep as masonry. So was the western side of
the amphitheatre. Below, to be sure, was the water, and
all these fishermen take to the water like seals—if they
have but something to put between them and it. If
he could reach the water—and launch his punt, moreover,

—before both or either of these two could overtake
him —: then what?

“Is it kind or neighborly of 'ee?” asked Ladford, “to
come about the business you're on?” stopping almost
within their very reach.

The first speaker, Croonan, spoke first, now, in answer,
and leisurely, too, as one who knew well that the man
they were after would gain nothing in the end by stopping
to parley here.

“It's meself that's afther getting good rason to wish
longer acquainten wid ye,” said he, in an easy way, and
not very unkind, either.

“That's not it. I wouldn' run aw'y for that,” said
Ladford. “I've sid the time —” he was going on as
if he saw the same time now; but he checked himself
instantly. “I'll bide off from a quarrel, and I'll never
fight except to save myself, and then not harder nor
longer than what's aneedun. I've seed enough o' quarrellin'—”

“Oh! ye're a precious light o' the gospel, I suppose,”
interrupted Croonan's companion. “When ye're done
praching, ye'll be the better of sthretching yer legs a bit,
in case ye'd be forgettin' what to do wid thim, yer tongue
is that quick.”

The former smuggler took his leave of them in quite a
different tone:—

“I'm sorry ye want to hunt me down; but I forgive
'ee,” said he.

“We'll give you more rason for it, afther a bit, then,”
cried Froyne.

“Ah! now,” said one of the two hindmost men, speaking
in a restrained voice, as if afraid of being overheard,
“don't be too hard upon a poor fellow!”

“I've no gridge against the man,” said Croonan, whose
heart was not a bad one, “nor I don't wish to crowd um.
Give um a channce, Froyne.”

“Thank you for your good will, Mr. Duggan,” said
the hunted man.

Ladford now recommenced his descent with more alacrity
than before; and suddenly, when he had got within a
third of the distance to the end of the ledge, he set his
boat-hook out upon the top of one of the rocks that stood
about half way between him and the water, and leaped
off.

“He's killing himself!” cried Froyne, who was foremost;
and the two stopped in their descent, to see him
fall among the rocks which filled about half the bottom of
the little amphitheatre on the west side. Of course it was
but a few seconds, and then, instead of a dull crash, came
a splash in the water, which explained the manœuvre;
with his long pole he had made such a flying leap as had
saved him a minute or so of slow work.

“Now's your chance man! Go on, Froyne!” shouted
Croonan. “Give a lep with yer constable's stick, and
bate the boat-hook.” But the speaker himself was less in
a hurry.

“Come on, then, and let's get him out o' the wather,
the great tom-cod that he is!” said Froyne the constable,
(for so it was,) “till I'll clap my ten claws upon um.”

The constable ran down the path and scrambled, as fast
as might be, over the rocks, and Croonan followed; but
long before they got half way over them, Ladford was in
his punt and sculling silently out, and with a little sail set
as a hare sets its scut over its back, in its race for life.

“That's a game two can play at,” cried Froyne, “and
two'll make more nor wan at it, I'm thinking.”

“Ay! my b'y!” said Croonan, at the same moment,
“do ye think, havn't we our own punt—ay, and the oars
locked in? See, now, wasn't that the wise way?”

The force of two strong men soon urged the boat off
into the water; and—practised fisherman as Croonan, at
least, was—how long was poor, single-handed Ladford—
if he had been the best boatman in Newfoundland—to
hold his own against the two?

Their precaution had made their oars secure; for the
fugitive had had no time to pick or practise upon locks;
their sail was there all safe, and they were presently following.

As Froyne seated himself at the bow-oar, while Croonan
took the other to scull, they both exclaimed, “What
water's this?”

“Arrunt we on the wrong side iv the boat, someway?”
asked the constable.

“Ah! thin,” said Croonan, “we've stove the boat
someway, that's what it is, wid getting her into the wather.
Th' other side iv it 's not so dry as this, if ye'd
try it.”

“Ah! thin, it's me opinion that it's that ugly ould
blagyard has put his divil's hoof through it, or his boat-hook,
anny way.”

“No!” said Ladford, who was within easy hearing, “I
couldn' have the heart to break a hole in the side of an
honest punt; and I haven' adoned it to she.” And he
kept steadily on his course towards Castle-Bay.

The two men in the other boat were in trouble; but all
the while Croonan kept his oar working instinctively.

“Where's this it is?” inquired Croonan. “I think it's
the plug is started; whativer made me have one in it
at all?”

“Whativer's started,” said the landsman, “I'm thinkin
there'll be small odds bechux the inside and the outside iv
it, shortly, and it's meself would sooner swim in clear wather.
Can't we lift the boat someway?”

“Can't ye swim and pussh the boat?” cried Mr. Duggan,
(still not over loud,) as he and his companion
laughed at the expedition.

“Can't you put your fut on it?” called Croonan. “Put
yer big fut over the hole!”

“Sure, can I put my fut down on the summit o' the
say? Do ye think is my leg long enough?” inquired
the constable. “Do ye now? An' that's what I'd have
to do, to keep it all out.”

“Clap a tole-pin in, then, can't ye? See, that's wan
that ye're rowing against,” cried the fisherman.

“Indade, thin, and it's against my will that I'm rowin',
just; and how will I find the hole, more nor the hole
iv the ocean, supposin' I could start the tall-pin, itself?”

“What'll we do at ahl, thin?” said Croonan, again.
“Sure, we'll have to put back and stop it.” The constable,
mean time, in his effort at the thole-pin, had jerked
himself backward into a wet seat, with a splash.

“There's wan o' them 's taken good advice, anny way,”
said Mr. Duggan, laughing.

The constable rose up from his misadventure, and assented
to Croonan's proposal.

“Well, thin, I've nothin' to say again goin' back, for it's
goin' to the botthom, y' are, kapin' on this way, just, an'
indade, I think there's small good in that, anny way, towards
bein' on dry land, and only washin' yer phiz now
and agen, when ye'd be the betther iv it.”

Ladford kept silently on, in the bright moonlight,
without a word or sound, except of the steady working

of his oar, and sight and sound of him grew farther and
fainter.

“Quick, thin! an' we'll get some sorrt iv a plug, in a
jiffy,” said Croonan, and they soon finished their short return
voyage to the point of departure.

“I think ye may cut up yer constable's stick,” suggested
Mr. Duggan, “an' make a plug off it.”

Here, however, they staid; for there was no stick of
any sort nearer than one of the little fir-trees, and it was
some time before one of these could be got at; and then
neither man had a knife in his pocket that would cut very
readily; and it was a long time, in the dark, before they
could do any thing; and at length they gave it up.

“Will, thin,” said Croonan, the good feeling of his nation
coming over him, and his countrymen's aversion to a
warrant, even in the hands of a man of the true religion,
“I don't owe um any gridge, now; but yerself set me on,
Mike Froyne. I'm glad he's not goin' to be hung this
night, anny way.”

“There's time enough, yet,” said the constable.

“Come, come, then, man, and mix a little something
warrm wid the watther y' are afther takin',” said Mr.
Duggan, “an' tell us what ye would have done to um,
if ye'd got um.”

There was a pretty little beach, that we have mentioned,
occupying about half the back part of the bottom
of the amphitheatre; on this little hide-away place they
left their punt, where it lay like something the water had
thrown in a corner, to play with at leisure. The men
mounted once more the path to the upper air, and departed.

Higher up in the heavens, and higher, the moon
mounted; and here and there around, below,—as if they

had been thrust down, until they rested upon the horizon,
—lay, looking up with bright faces, clouds of the fair,
mild night. The sea, whose bosom heaves by night as
well as day, urged up its even murmurs on the ear.

All else was still.