Part 21 (1/2)
”Call on de Lord, Hagar,” she muttered frequently; ”can't nuffin else help ye now!”
Sometimes she fell to chanting her thoughts,--the sound of her own voice was pleasant to her in the loneliness,--and she piled cedar chips on the fire to see their cheerful blaze and enjoy their brisk crackle.
”Might as well hab a candle,” she said, after a time. ”Git yer knittin', chile, an' 'pear as ef ye didn't distrus' de Lord. What ef de wind is blowin'? what ef de sea is a-screamin'? Don't ye know whose wind and whose sea 'tis?” She got up to grope for a candle on the shelf over the fireplace.
”Hagar!” exclaimed a voice at the farther end of the kitchen,--a voice so full of compressed fear and anxiety that the old negress tumbled back in her chair with affright,--”Hagar! are you here?”
demanded the voice.
”Bress ye! yes, I's here, Mas'r d.i.c.k!” she answered, catching sight of his white face by the dining-room door. ”I's here, but ye spoke so suddent! Jes' wait, an' I'll hab a candle in a minnit.”
The candle was found, and, after a long blowing of coals and burning of splinters, began to burn dimly. Hagar set it on the table, and looked up at her master with a start of alarm, his face was so white and anxious.
”Hagar,” said he, huskily, ”_Noll was to start from Hastings this morning!_”
The old negress stood looking at him a full minute,--a fearful, lonesome minute in which the rain beat against the panes, and the awful voice of the sea filled the room,--then she sank down by the fire with a low cry.
”Lord bress us all!” she wailed, as she looked up, ”fur he'll nebber get here, Mas'r d.i.c.k!”
Trafford looked at her silently. Oh, that awful voice without!--the thunder, the tremble of the earth, the screaming of the wind! At last,--
”Is ye certain sure, Mas'r d.i.c.k? D'ye _know_ he started? Did he say?”
”Oh, Hagar, if I did not--_not know_,--if I had any doubt that he started, I would give all my possessions this very moment!”
”'Tain't de money nor de lands dat'll do now!” moaned Hagar, beginning to sway back and forth; ”it's only de Lord! De Lord's on de sea to-night, an' 'tain't fur man to say! Oh, Mas'r d.i.c.k! t'ink o' dat bressed boy in dese waves an' dis wind!”
”Hus.h.!.+” said the master, imperatively, ”I will _not_ think of it! It can't be! Noll? Oh, Hagar, I believe I'm going mad!” He turned away from the old negress and opened the door. The tempest swept in, overturning the candle and flaring up the fire, and bearing the rain, in one long gust, across the little kitchen, even into Hagar's face.
Trafford stood there, regardless of wind and rain, looking out upon the sea. The mighty tumult awed him and filled his heart with a sense of man's utter weakness and helplessness. The foamy expanse gleamed whitely through the night,--awful with the terror of death,--and its deafening roar smote upon his ears, and in the slightest lull, the rain-drops fell with a soft, dull patter. Noll in it all?--in this fearful, yawning sea,--in this wild tumult of wind and rain,--in the vast waste of waves which the thick darkness shrouded, and where death was riding? ”G.o.d help me!” he cried in sudden frenzy,--”G.o.d help me!”
He looked up at the thick, black depths of sky with a groan of agony when he remembered his utter powerlessness. But what right had he to look to Heaven for aid?--he who knew not G.o.d, nor sought him, nor desired his love? The bitterness of this thought made him groan and beat his breast. Would He--whom all his life long he had refused and rejected--hear his cries?
Hagar's voice came to him here through all the din and thunder, beseeching that the door might be closed. He closed it behind him, and stepped out into the darkness. It was already past the hour for the ”Gull” to arrive, he remembered, and then a sudden thought flashed through his brain that beacons ought to be kindled to guide the skipper, if he were not already beyond the need of earthly guides and beacons. And close upon this thought came a remembrance of the Culm fishermen,--stout, skilful sailors, all of them,--and a great hope filled his heart that in them he might find aid in his extremity. And without waiting for a second thought, he started through the inky darkness and the tempest for Culm village. He ran till he was breathless. He climbed and groped his way over and along the slippery rocks, the awful voice of the sea filling his ears and goading him on.
CHAPTER XXII.
WEARY WATCHING.
The evening wore on. They were all on the beach,--Trafford and the Culm fishermen,--and now a beacon fire streamed up into the darkness, and made the night seem even more black and intense. They had piled their heap of driftwood somewhat in the shelter of a great rock, and around it the men were huddled, muttering and whispering to each other, and casting sober glances at Trafford, who stood apart from them in the shadow. Not a word had he spoken since the fire was kindled, but, grim and silent as a statue, had stood there, with his eyes looking upon the gleaming sea, and the rain beating in his face.
He had worked desperately while gathering driftwood.
”The master be crazed, like,” Dirk had whispered to the men as they came in with armfuls of fuel. ”D'ye see his eyes? D'ye see the way he be runnin' up an' down, poor man?”
”Ay, an' his lad be where many o' your'n an' mine ha' been, eh, Dirk?”
said Hark Harby. ”Mabby he ken tell what 'tis ter be losin' his own, an' no help fur it, eh?”
”s.h.!.+” said Dirk; ”the sea ben't able ter get sech a lad as his every day. If he be lost, 'tis a losin' fur more'n he, yender.”