MARGERY MANESTY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2762, 20 February 1907, Page 63

MARGERY MANESTY.

By OSWALD WILDRIDGB.

[Copyright.]

CHAPTER XXII.— MARGERY CALLS ON THE SAILOR MEN.

HERE were twelve of them, sons of the sea, some tall, 6ome short, but all of them bronzed, brawny, stout-hearted. Jim Cameroon, by right that none would question, at the head of the table, the others disposed upon the settee to right and left. All except the skipper of the Daniel — entered in the log book and the family Bible as Harry Casson, but known to the world as "Goliath" — whose height ,nd girth banished him to the alleyway, where he crouched cross-legged fashion and almost filled up the gap. Standing room in the cabin he might have had, but he would have paid for it in extreme personal inconvenience, whilst considerations of economy forbade him a seat on the benches By what process of compression the others had succeeded in stowing themselves inside the Malachi's cabin is a problem which could only be explained by the fact itself ; though, after all, to the sailor the task of turning a quart into a pint bottle is a mere bagatelle. At no period were these men given to much speech, and ever since the first of those dark days wherein the bar sinister had appeared on the Graham escutcheon, they had conceived a still more pronounced, distaste for conversation, and each had paced the deck or hugged the home hearthstone engrossed in his own thoughts, his own fears, and haunted by suspicions that even loyalty could not stifle. And now there was the mystery of Cap'n Dan's summons, his precautions in serving it, his injunction, again and again repeated, that none other must know of their meeting, and above all the choice of midnight's eerie nour for their foregathering. So there they sat, under the saffron glare of a couple of greasy lamps, puffing their pipes and waiting, deeply impressed, but iree from all feverish agitation. The men who through life have waited upon the capricious breezes, who for weeks and weeks and. weeks have lain windbound, have at least obtained somewhat of the saving grace of patience. Into this little conclave, then, as the last of the twelve melancholy strokes trailed away from the old church tower, came Margery with Cap'n Dan, and as she dawned upon their astonished vision, a common impulse thrust every man to his feet and pulled the cap from every head. She was garbed in a long loose cloak of deepest blue, and the frilled hood, drawn well over her head, gave by contrast to the face it framed an almost deathly pallor. This the mariners noted as »he halted under the lintel ; also they saw that her eyes were shining brightly as the stars, and that underneath them Sorrow had graved his mourning lines. "You'll let me come in, won't you, Captain Cameron?" she inquired, with a wan smile, acd extended her hand across the table to the skipper, who responded with words of kindly welcome. "The cabin 'of an Allerdale brig's not exactly the proper place for a leddy, but you're mair welcome than I can tell you, an' me an' my ship's at your service. And" — with a comprehensive glance along the group of faces — "I think I can say t' same for all aboard at t' present moment." "Ay!" 1 Eleven bass voices rumbled an endorsement, xnd with a queenly little nod, Margery accepted their homage. Then each of the mariners had to be shaken by the hand, and some of them mentally registered a vow that whatever Margery Manesty isked of them she should have. A little later she was to know something of that oath and its import. The last brown hand released, she turned again to Cameron, to find him wriggling away from the table so that she might have his chair ; but this arrangement she promptly vetoed. "No, no, Captain Cameron, this is your ship, and that is your place — but 111 6it beside you if I may." Cameron looked dubiously about him. The cabin fiad been packed to begin with, and to find sitting Toom for Margery and her escort — Cap"n Dan still loomed in the background — bordered on the impossible. In a trice, however, Sam Hodgson slipped away into the skipper's bunk, where he lay with his head projecting like a jovial gargoyle, and Jack Cottier joined Goliath ! in the doorway, and the thing was done.

And then, her heart throbbing so that its beating was a pain, her hands, hidden undep her cloak, tightly clenched, Margery began her message — began and faltered and stopped. Once more that fear of the opposing voice, the smile of pitying contempt, the glance of blighting ridicule. "Easy, missy, easy ; we're all friends here."' This from Cap'n Dan. "Ay, all of us." This from Cameron, who, making a purchase of the table, struggled to his feet. '"Mebbe I can help you a bit, Miss Margery," he continued. "I've a lassie of my own at home, an' I'd take it kindly if somebody would stand by if ever she wanted to say the thing that was hard. You'll be wantin' to explain why you've called us in this by-ordinary fashion, but there's not a bit o' need for that. We ken it for ourselves. Cap'n Dan, there, has given a few on us, them you see around you, a, glint of the way you've stood by Maister Davie, an' you've shamed us, Miss Margery, you've just put us all to shame. We all loved the laddie, we all love him yet, an' our hearts are sore for the evil way that he's chosen. But we've stopped at pity and blame, an' after that thought o' little but the seams that need caulking an' the grub that men shouldn't be asked to eat. That's hoo we's acted, an' if it hadn't been for the bit maid with, a bright, bonny, gowden faith, David Graham would be a miserable hulk, a derelict, without a chance. "There's one point I'd like to put myself an' the mates straight on. Right from the varra. start o' this cruise we'd our peepers on Tom Tinion, an' perhaps when' you take note of i\very entry in th© log book it's not surprisin' that we should have thought him in Maister Davie's pay. Now — we're not so sure about it. Cap'n Dan's told us about Michael Strang, an' — we're sure o' nqthing. We seem to have drifted inta t' middle o' t' blackest. wettest, queerest fog that's ever licked about us. An' yet, amid all the murk, there's one apeck o' light at the masthead, thank God. An' it's you that's hung it there." A sound that might have been a sob beat upon the Malachi's wooden walls. "I just want to say one thing more," Cameron continued. "I'm speaking for myself, Miss Margery, an' t' others mun do t' same. I'd do anything — begin life ower agen an' ship a fore t' mast — if I could prove this thing a lie, prove that David Graham hasn't dropped to the level of a money-grubbing, ship-wrecking shark." "An' me, too, miss," Sam Hodgson roared from his eyrie. "An' me." "An' me." "An' me." And so the cry went all round. Margery raised her head, and now she was smiling, .smiling through tears, and this time there was no doubt about the sob. , , "God bless you for that," she exclaimed ; "I knew it all the time, but it's good to hear you say it. You've given me courage, Captain Cameron, driven all my foolish fears away and made me confident in the request I'm going to make. "I'm not troubling so much about the alur of the Habakkuk's loss now," she went on, "it's David himself, not his name, that you must help me to rescue. He's doing wrong — and you and I are going to help him to do right. That is the object that has +owered before me and made me ask you to meet me here, where no one can overlook us, at this hour, when n , eyes can spy upon our coming and our going." "Beggin' yer pardon, miss, Bill Kitson interrupted, "but divven't you think that if you axed him in your oan way you'd bring him too? Just you try him, Miss Margery, go till him an' tell him as how you want him to throw that manager chap owerboard an' clear aw t' bagwash jot of his ships' stores, an' git t' caulkers to wark wi" their pitch an' tow, in'— bless me, he'll do It, fail bit he will. Dash my buttons, miss, but if you axed him for John the Baptist's head on a charger he'd nut be able to refuse it. Try him— tioo do." Bizarre though it was, the speech, aroused in the girl to whom it was addressed a gence of gratification. The words were those of a friend. Still, she shook her head with marked decision. 'I want David to do right foi the work s sake and not for mine," she declared. "I wouldn't like it to be said of him that he'd forsaken the evil way for no better reason than to please me. Besides, he must be made to see the hatefulness of the system into which ambition has betrayed him then he will never want to return to it. I'm not saying that under r«-> circumstances would I act as you suggest, Mr Rits-on, but it would only be when all other measures had failed. "You know, I'm half afraid that I've lost some of my womanhood in this contest. There have been moments when I've longed for racks and thumbscrews— yes, and I'd have used them, too, to extract a confession, either from the man who has fled >r the one who ha 6 remained. Yes, racks and thumbscrews— anything, inything. I could be horribly cruel to gain my end — this end. And, if needs be, I will be cruel — oh, I'll be so very, very hard. Pity I'll put far from me, and my heart shall be turned to steel, and if you help me, if you <b the thing I'm going to ask, you will have to banish all fear of consequences, and make yourselves less merciful than winter's most terrible sea." Softly, softly, with steady rhythmical swing the old brig rocked at the bidding of the sea-going waters, a rope creaked dismally, the wavelets lapned playfully along a score of coppered hulls and babbled under the moss-green harbour walls, away beyond the lighthouse gleam the Sol way thrashed the bouldered barriers of the land, and down there in the tiny cabin a dozen sea-dogs clustered round a frail slip of girlhood, and at her bidding they passed from the commonplace of breadwinning and money-making into the realm of romance. No longer were they dabbling in the material of the merchant marine ;

they were marching through the moving phases of living drama. Watching their faces for sign, of agree' ment, of capitulation, Margery had a perfect revelation of the emotion through which her pleading successively carried them — interest hardening to amazement, this to incredulity, and in the c.nd a tempest of worrying perplexity. But she missed that other sensation, most significant of all, beheld not in their bearing a chivalric tribute to the woman, saw not in their silence, even in their bewilderment, an eloquent confession of a woman's power and the commanding sway of a woman's love. Fiom a man they would have turned, contemptuous, indifferent, or else, with derisive word and laugh, have made his scheme a thing of no account. ! That a glimmering appreciation of the fact had penetrated the inner consciousness of at least one of the (salts was manifest when Cameron's turn again came round. "It's a hard thing you've asked us to do, Miss Margery," he said. His lips were parched and hot, and his utterance thick and heavy. "It's hard — wonderful hard — sounds a bit like a mummer's wark — but we'll talk aboot it — seeing it's a leddy an' yourself that's asked us. Is there no other way? D'ye think it'll do?" "I've looked and looked for other ways, and I've always come back to this one as the best," she assured • him. "As for the result — I don't know ; I can only hope. 3ust the same as yourself, Captain Cameron, when you begin a new voyage, or as a landsman begins a new day. There's no knowledge of the end — only a little bit of hoping and a little bit of striving. "Don't you see," she continued, with a fresh access of warmth, "how it all depends on David? He's not bad, he doesn't mean ill. I know it. If I had any doubt I wouldn't dream of doing this thing. He's only a wee bit weaker than we'd thought him, and somebody hates him. And when he sees with his own eyes he'll want to do the right, and he'll grow strong — oh, so very, very strong." "I'?e hopin' seah, too," Jack Currie commented ; * "bit I niwer set varra much store on convarsion by force. Theer weer Sarah Bewsher, noo — she thowt to lick religion intil her sarvent lass, bit she oanly discovered a girt lump mair human depravity than she'd bargained for. An' there were " — "Avast,, there, Jack; we'll have that tale another time," Sam Hodgson interrupted, and then, turning to Margery, he asked : "Have you got it all charted, Miss Manesty? Can you show us how the thing's to be worked?" "No. I'm sure it can be done ; but after that it's- a task for sailors, and I've left the details to you. Cap'n Dan and the rest of you I'm certain can devise a way." "And how many of us will need 1o be in at it?" "The crew of one ship 2 of course.' "Which one?" "That is one of the points you must decide." "When?" "There also you must choose. All the risk is yours, none of it mine. The sooner the better." Cameron rested his arms upon the table and counted off the Graham craft at present in the harbour. Your sailor has a desperate distaste for theories — they are too intangible, suggestive of forlorn hopes, of disembodied spirits; but set before him a concrete problem, a difficulty with lines that may be traced, and he will attack it smilingly, and conquer with a chuckle. "Malachi, Obadiah, Daniel, Joshua. So Cameron ticked them off, and even while his fingers made their record Margery rose, the light of victory flashing in her eyes. Lumbering out of the alleyway to the foot of the table, Goliath stretched out his massive hand, and at the signal a dozen, hands were held forth in attestation of loyal service. And thus the pact was made.

eyes were smarting under it's touch. After all, the men who made this JUlbferous place their home deserved some measure of consideration. If only "bhis had not happened there was no telling what he might have done to render +heir lot- a little easier. Even as matters stood he might No, this was not 6elf-righteousnes3, it was a bit of the real David, the David who knelt by a father's bedside and promised. He raised his head and looked about him, disgust mingling with curiosity. Strange, but now he came to think of it, he had never regarded the fo'c's'le as a home. In his imagination tbe opsn deck, with the sea for walls and the sky for roof, had ranked as the sailor's dwelling ; the fo'c's'le had merely been a box into which the TaarintT occasionally dropped, bat always left *:he lid eff antif he escaped again. And now the lid was closed, and >»c, David Graham, the owner of mruir ships, was alone with the -bilge reek and tbs odo-<irs of ages. Faugh 1 Ah. at last! The little lid was flung back, a flood. :cy cold, but lii'e-restoring, rushed through the scuttle. Deep dov.n in his heart David thanked God for a breath of iresh air. Then he looked aloft, and all consciousness of gratitude fled. The ladder was being lowered ; now it was in its place, now-Casson and he were face to face, the skipper 000 l resolute, as though the meeting were one of the everyday passages; David- passionate, resentful, his nerves strung to their tightest tension, the hot biood of wrath pulsating through, his v^ins. 'Tm aaighty •eorry for thw.. Master David," the skipper began, but there his apology ended. "Well, keep your sorrow, man." David hotly interrnpt/ed, "and tell me what you mean. Why have you lured me here? Why have yoa carried me away to sea on my "own ship? What madness is behind it all' What do you mean to do? Answer me, man, answer me. or" — -he clenched, his fist and raised his arm — "or Til forget that I'm Jacob Graham's eon, and " "Haven't you forgotten that already, sir?" The upraised aim dropped limply. "Now, sir," Goliath continued, "I'll an«r»rer all yonr -whys and wherefores. It's a hard tiling we've done this night, and ' some day, please God, you'll see that it bears harder on as than on yourself. We've brought you here to show you — why Jacob Graham's son should do tbe thing his father asked." "A pretty tale,' David cried. "A deal yon" care for my father or his son. It's been lump-love with every one of you, service for what you could get. You have all prated oi loyalty, but the. moment Siander whispered you ran." 1 'If you're thinking of the Habakkuk, HI own that we did you a great wrong. It's true that we doubted you there, b"t we don't now. Though I reckon even that as part of the price* for your other ills." "Well, then, what "' >"JTist this/ Once your ships were seaworthy, . now they're rotting ; once they carried a safe load, now — if t' Daniel meets -witb a storm, God help us; once they -were well fed. now your men aTe given stuff not fit Sof a pagan. We've tried and tried and tried again to tell you, but you stopped your ears and wouldn't listen, and whiles you hid yourself so that we couldn't come near you. And so we've brought you away with, the hope in our hearts that you'll not refuse to look and see things for yourself. "It's your last chance, Master David. We've doDe you t' credit of thinking that you've been sailing in »he dark, but now you've that defence ao V>nger. All around you there are real, solid, ugly facts, and you may turn them Inside 3ut in broad daylight 3 yon will. It's a bold thing that we've done, and ao doubt you're greatly angered ; but, Master David, don't let your anger kill your judgment. There's not a man aboard, not a man in all your fleet, would harm a hair of your head, but avery one of them would take his life iv his 'hands to make Jacob Graham's son what Jacob himself would have him be." Ih dumb, bewildered silence, David listened to the skipper's confession and vppeal, and when the tale was told he had nothing to say. Of all his host of warring emotions wrath had shrivelled to an inconsequent trifle. The fact of abduction wae eclipsed by the revelation of thfe motive. He almost forgot that his men had carried him off to sea, and remembered chiefly the amazing influence to which they had surrendered. So he waited without a word and wrestled with strenuous thought. Waited until Goliath laid a kindly hand upon his shoulder and snapped the spell. A long, troubled look into the face of his captor, and David passed from the fo'c's'le to the deck, and sought refuge amid the shi<k»ws hanging darkly about the bow. (To be continued.)

—"I could die for you!" he pleaded. "You don't say so!" replied the girl, indifferently. "And," he continued, "my life is insured for £2000." "I am yours/ she cried, "till death."