University of Virginia Library

56. CHAPTER LVI.
THE GHOST AGAIN.

CAPTAIN NOLESWORTH had persuaded the
chief mate to go down again; and while he himself
staid on deck, until late in the forenoon, and
kept an eye to every thing, yet, sometimes, leaning upon
the quarter-rail, with his back to the deck, he seemed to
lose himself in thought.

It was about ten o'clock in the forenoon, that the
master went below; and, presently coming up, called to
the steward to go down forward, and see what was
against the bulk-head door; (for in the “Spring-Bird” a
door opened from the cabin into the hold.) The man sent
had scarcely disappeared before he came out of the hatch
again, in all fright.

“It's the ghost!” said he; and the cry made a new
stir on board. The second mate, who had just laid
himself down on deck, sprang down the hatchway,
and the Captain hurried from the cabin and followed
him.

The weight that lay against the bulk-head-door, was
indeed,—as they could make out by the daylight coming
down through the broad opening in the deck,—a girl's
body. It lay, asleep or dead, with the right arm under
the cheek, the eyes closed, and the rich, black hair, loosed

from under the cap, lying like a black flood upon the
shoulders.

“Well! Well!” said the Captain, throwing up his
hands.

“That's her, and no mistake!” said Mr. Keefe; and
the two lifted her tenderly, as sailors do, and opening the
door against which she had leaned, carried her through
and laid her on the cabin-floor.

“This must be something she's taken,” said the Captain;
“but how, on earth, did she come aboard of us,
after all?” (It must be remembered that he had sailed
four days after her disappearance.)

“That boat didn't come aboard without hands, that
other night,” said the second mate.

They lost no time in applying restoratives, such as
years of experience had made the Captain familiar with,
and his medicine-chest furnished; and presently brought
her to consciousness.

“There! Thank God!” said the master.

“Amen!” said the mate and second mate.

She looked a little wildly, and her mind was a few
moments in gathering itself together; and even then, she
was weak and faint; but it was Lucy Barbury, herself, a
good deal worn and wasted, but with something of her own
brightness in her eye, and of her own sweet smile at her lip.

She spoke first, asking abruptly:—

“How did I get there?”

“That we can't tell you;” said the Captain, “if you
can't tell us.”

“Are father and mother alive?”

“Yes,” said Captain Nolesworth, and then turned to
his second mate: “Here's Mr. Keefe,” said he, “that
knows all about things, better than I do.”

The second mate answered every thing very satisfactorily;
and then, putting a check upon their own
curiosity, they had some tea and brewse,[1] made in the
best art of the ship's cook, and by the time she had satisfied
her appetite, (which was good enough to encourage
the captain much,) she was put in possession of one of
the two state-rooms that the brig counted and left to
rest.

The brig was a changed thing with her on board.
Had she had but the history of the last night about her,
it would have been much; but every sailor in the ship
was soon talking of the lovely and wonderful character
of her life at home.

The wind grew lighter as day declined; but the sick
girl grew better there at sea,—perhaps was already
getting better when she came on board, and here she
was, missed and mourned in Peterport, and strangely
enough, wandering off upon the ocean.

“If we hadn't been all fools together last night,” said
the captain, when he was out of her hearing, “we might
have stood a chance of landing her; but we must make
the best of it now.”

Her story was soon told when they could get it; she
only remembered being at Mr. Urston's and seeing Mrs.
Calloran, before finding herself in a room with two nuns,
at Bay-Harbor. They told her that Father Nicholas
was offering up the mass for her, and the Sisters were
fasting and praying for her, and she would go home as
soon as she was well enough. She did not know how
many days she had been there, for her memory of the
time was much confused, and of the day of her escape
particularly, whether from the effect of medicine or some

other cause, her recollection was not distinct. She heard
them speak of the “Spring Bird” being about to sail for
Madeira, and after the nuns were in bed, between nine
and ten o'clock, she put on a white dress which had been
made in the nunnery for her, threw a cloak and hood
over her and escaped. She had a sort of fancy in her
mind at the time, that she was a slave whose story she
had read. To scull a boat was easy and natural to her
as to walk the street.

“Yes, that's the way our boat came aboard, when we
were ashore, all hands but Dick (he's a bright chap!).
It would be almost a good job to pitch that letter we got
from the nunnery for Funchal, into the sea to the sharks,”
said Keefe.

—“So that youngster that wanted to ship with me,—
the one that was going to be a priest,”—said the captain,
by way of particularizing, “is a cousin of yours?”

Lucy colored. “Not my first cousin,” said she.

“Well, he looked like a fine fellow, only he was out of
heart when he came to me.”

Lucy, in her innocent way, began eagerly,—

“Was that after—?” and there stopped.

“I don't know what had been before it,” said the Captain,
significantly, and smiling at the same time; “but it
was before you went away. He gave that all up though,
and he's safe enough at home, I think.”

Time went on. The Captain did his best to keep her
in good spirits, and was a cheery man, and everybody on
board was ready to do any thing for the pretty maiden's
pleasure. The only real chivalry extant in this age is
in sailors, and they treated her like a queen. A great
many things were continually contrived and done to
amuse her; but it will easily be thought, that though her

strong constitution rallied from the fever, yet it was impossible
for her to be happy or at ease, knowing that at
home there must be mourning for her as for one lost, and
that gray hairs most dear, might for her sake be bending
in sorrow toward the grave.

Still no one tried to entertain her, so hard as she to
cheer herself.

The passage to Madeira was a long one. After their
first fine favoring wind came a dead calm, and twelve
hours after a gale began to blow under the summer sky,
and blew them down many a league, and then they
worked up again, past the Azores as well as they could
with fickle baffling winds.

It was clear weather when they first got sight of land,
some sixty miles away, and then the towering peaks rose
up more and more plainly, and as they drew in towards
Funchal in early evening, the luxuriant light and dark
green of the foliage showed themselves through that atmosphere,
which seems to be the property of such a
climate, and there came out over the water sweet smells,
that had been gathering for the many centuries that this
lovely spot has lain under its sun; but the eyes of our
Newfoundland maiden were full of tears for the homely
island, poor and barren, that held her father's house, and
for those that she knew had wept and still were weeping
for her.