Rilla of the Lighthouse

Grace May North

Rilla of the Lighthouse

CHAPTER I.

RILLA

“Here yo’, Shags! What yo’ got thar, ol’ dog? Haul it out! Like it’s a treasure from a ship that’s gone down. Ahoy, thar, Shagsie! Here comes a crashin’ big wave. Whoo! Wa’n’t that-un a tarnal whopper? An’ yo’ lost yer treasure, sure sartin! Sharp ahead now, ol’ dog, d’y see it anywhar?”

The wind-blown girl and the big shaggy dog stood side by side on the narrow, pebbly strip of beach and gazed intently at the whirling, seething water where a breaker of unusual size had crashed high, sending these two for a moment scrambling up the rocks.

Back of them towered an almost perpendicular cliff, on top of which stood the Windy Island Lighthouse, severe in outline, but glaring red and white in color that it might be readily observed in the daytime by pilots who were strangers in those dangerous waters.

Many a shoal there was under the tossing, turbulent waves, unsuspected by the unwary mariner, and, in the heavy fogs that often hung like wet, impenetrable blankets over that part of the New England coast, many a vessel would have crashed to its destruction had it not been for the faithful Captain Ezra Bassett, who had been keeper of the light since Rilla was a baby.

The dog’s sight must have been keener than that of the girl, for a moment later he dashed away up the narrow strip of beach and began to bark furiously at some object that was tossing on an incoming wave. The girl raced after him, her hazel eyes glowing with excitement, her long brown hair, with a glint of red in it, unfastened, flying back of her.

“’Tain’t the same thing, Shagsie!” she shouted to her companion. “’Tain’t what yo’ was tryin’ to fetch ashore down below by the rocks. This-un is more like a box or suthin!”

The eager expression in the girl’s big, starlike eyes changed to one of concern and anxiety.

“Shags,” she cried, “thar’s been a wreck, that’s sure sartin, but ’twa’n’t hereabouts, ’pears like.” She shaded her eyes with one hand, and gazed searchingly out toward the horizon, but in another moment her eager interest returned to the box. “Look, yo’ ol’ dog. It’s ridin’ high. We’ll get it, yo’ see if we don’t. Yi-hi! Here she comes. Heave ahead now, Shagsie!”

The dog raced around, barking wildly, but the barefooted girl plunged deep into the seething foam, caught a banded box of foreign appearance and held on with all her strength while the undertow tried to drag her treasure away, but the wave receded and the box was left high.

“We got it, ol’ Shags. We got it!” she cried triumphantly, tossing back her sun-shimmered hair, for, when she had stooped, it had fallen about her face. This hindered the freedom of her movements, and so, snatching up a wet green ribbon of seaweed, she tied her hair back with it. Another wave was rushing, roaring shoreward. One quick seaward glance told her that it was going to be the biggest one yet.

Could she get the box high enough to be out of reach of that next breaker? How she tugged! But her efforts were fruitless, for with a deafening thud the wave crashed over her, lifting the box to which she still clung and hurling them both farther up the beach.

The girl was drenched but exultant and miraculously unhurt.

“We’ve got it now, sure sartin, Shags, ol’ dog.” Flushed and breathless, she sank down on the banded box for a moment to rest, but the dog, sniffing at it, barked his excitement.

“Yo’d like to know what’s in it, would yo’?” queried the laughing girl. “Well, sir, so would I, but like as not we’d better get it into Treasure Cave ’fore we open it, like as not we’d better.”

As the girl spoke she glanced up at the lighthouse, towering above her.

“Grand-dad’s still asleep, I reckon, but ’twa’n’t be long now afore he’s wakin’, so we’d better heave to and hist her.”

Rilla had found a leather handle on one end of the box, and holding fast to this, slowly and with great effort she began dragging it up the rocks and about half an hour later, as a reward for her perseverence, she disappeared with it into a small opening in the cliff, and not a moment too soon, for a stentorian voice, high above her, called, “Rilly gal, where be yo’? Don’ yo’ know as it’s past time for mess?”

“Yeah, Grand-dad. We was just a-comin’,” Which was the truth, for having safely hidden the box in her Treasure Cave, the girl had suddenly thought that she must go at once and prepare her grandfather’s evening meal.

“Shagsie,” she confided, “ol’ dog, we’ll have to wait over till tomorrer to know what’s in it. We’ll come an’ look as soon as its sun-up. Yo-o! How I hope it’s suthin’ wonderful!”

When Muriel Storm entered the kitchen of the small house adjoining the light, her grandfather gazed at her keenly from under his shaggy grey brows. “A severe, unforgiving man,” some folks called him, but he hadn’t looked long at the darling of his heart before his expression changed, softened until those grey eyes that had often struck terror to an offending deckhand shone with a light that was infinitely tender.

“Well, Rilly gal, fust mate of the Lighthouse Craft, I cal’late ye’ve been workin’ purty hard this past hour doin’ nothin’. ’Pears like yer purty het up lookin’.”

The girl made no reply, though she laughed over her shoulder at the old man, who, with his cap pushed back, sat by the stove in his wooden armchair, smoking his corncob pipe in solid comfort.

This was the hour that he liked best, when his gal was cooking his evening meal and chattering to him of this and that – inconsequential things – telling him how the lame pelican that had been away for a week had returned, but not alone, for a beautiful pelican that wasn’t lame at all had been with him, or, when she wasn’t chattering, she was singing meeting-house songs in her sweet untrained voice while she fried the fish and potatoes, but tonight the old captain noted that the girl was unusually silent, that her cheeks were almost feverishly red, and there was a sudden clutching dread in his heart. Just so had the other Rilly, this girl’s mother, looked and acted the day before she ran away and married the young man from the city. The eyes under the shaggy grey brows were hard again, and Rilla, noting in the face of the grand-dad she so loved the expression she dreaded, ran to him, fork in hand and pressing her cheek against his forehead, she cried:

“Oh, Grand-dad, what set yo’ thinkin’ o’ that? Yo’ know I wouldn’t be leavin’ yo’. I love yo’, Grand-dad; I’ll allays, allays stay, an’ be yer fust mate.”

“Clear to the end of the v’yage? Take an oath to it, Rilly?”

It might have seemed ludicrous to an onlooker, but there was no one to see as the girl, with an earnest, almost inspired expression on her truly beautiful face, stood up and lifting her hand, seemingly unconscious that it held a fork, said in a voice ringing with sincerity, “I call God to witness that I’ll never go away from yo’, Grand-dad, without yer permittin’ it.”

Then there was one of those sudden changes that made Rilla so irresistable. “Grand-dad,” she cried, teasingly, as she stooped and looked with laughing eyes directly into the grey ones that were softening again, “I’m only sixteen, come next month, and why ’tis yo’ worry so ’bout my marryin’, sartin is puzzlin’. I don’t even know a boy ’ceptin’ Mrs. Sol Dexter’s Buddy, and he’s not as high as one of the barrels in his ma’s store.”

“Yer heavin’ oil on troubled waters, and the sea’s smoothin’ down,” the old captain said as he drew his chair up to the table and took up his knife and fork preparatory to eating the good supper that Rilla had placed before him. But, instead of beginning, he remarked: “I can’t figger out why I keep thinkin’ of city fellers this week past. They don’t any of ’em come to Tunkett at this time o’ the year. That thar summer hotel at the pint is closed as tight as a clam that can’t be opened without smashin’ it, an’ so are the cottages, as the rich folks call them gray shanties they loaf around in every summer, so I figger yer ol’ grand-dad must be gettin’ hallucinations.”

When the supper dishes had been washed and put away, Rilla found her grandfather sitting just outside the door smoking his beloved corncob pipe and watching the sunset. She went out and sat on a wooden stool at his feet. Rilla loved to sit quietly with folded hands while the glow was fading in the west and dream dreams. Just as the last flush was paling the old man rose.

“Time to put the light on, Rilly gal,” he said.

She heard his heavy steps climbing the spiral stairs. Fainter and fainter they grew, and then, a moment later, just as the first stars glimmered through the dusk, the great light flashed over the sea and began slowly turning, for the lighthouse was on an island one mile from shore, and the waters all about it were illumined.

For a moment Rilla saw a fishing boat that was nearly becalmed and would have trouble reaching port that night.

“It’s ol’ Cap’n Barney, like’s not. He’s allays late gettin’ in.”

The girl rose and went indoors. Shags, who had been lying silently at her feet, accompanied her. “Good-night, Grand-dad,” she said, standing on tiptoe to kiss the old man, who stood erect in spite of his many years.

Then almost shyly she added: “Grand-dad, when I come sixteen yer goin’ to tell me all about it, like yo’ promised, aren’t yo’, Grand-dad?”

A grunt, which could hardly be interpreted in the affirmative, was the only reply, and yet neither had it been negative.

Kissing him again, Rilla went to her snug little room over the kitchen, and Shags followed, for he always slept just outside her closed door.

Rilla did not light the kerosene lamp that stood on the small table. The moon was rising and she liked its light best. For a moment she stood at the open window, facing the town, which in the fall and winter was so dark and quiet in the evening, but in summer, when the city people were in their cabins on the point, it was pulsing with life, color and music. Rilla never visited the town in summer. She was then practically a prisoner on the small rocky island. For a long time she stood watching the waves that lifted silvery crests in the moonlight. “I wonder who my dad was,” she thought, as she had many times before. “I wonder why he never came for me, after my girl-mother died.” Forgotten was the box in Treasure Cave.

Many had been the moods of Rilla that day, but when she had undressed in the moonlight she knelt, not by the bedside, but facing the window. Looking up toward the peaceful, starry sky, she whispered softly, “God in Heaven, bless my grand-dad, and – and my father – who never came for me. Amen.”

Soon she was asleep, little dreaming that the next day was to bring into her hitherto quiet and uneventful life her first real adventure.

CHAPTER II.

A GIFT FROM THE SEA

Sunrise and the memory of the treasure box came at the same time. Rilla was dressed in a twinkling. She did not even stop to peer into the bit of broken mirror which Mrs. Sol Dexter had given her, hoping that with it would go the proverbial seven years of bad luck. Mrs. Sol Dexter kept the general store and postoffice in the fishing village of Tunkett.

She was absolutely honest, was Mrs. Sol, but not inclined to be generous. If the scales tipped one cranberry too many, out came that cranberry! She had never before been known to give anything away, but something which might bring bad luck she had been willing to part with.

It had been a happy day for Rilla, that one, when for the first time she had acquired a real mirror.

It was, of course, after the summer season, or she would not have been in town at all. And on that same day her grand-dad had given her a whole quarter to spend just as she wished and she had asked Mrs. Sol Dexter for two hair ribbons, one to match the sunrise and one like the green in the hollow of a wave just before it turns over when the sun is shining on it.

“Queerest gal, that!” Mrs. Dexter confided to her husband, Cap’n Sol, the next time he came in from one of his sea “v’yages.”

“She must get all them sunset notions from her pa’s side. I recollect hearin’ he was an artist fellow.”

“Wall,” the good-natured man had replied, “if that pore gal gets any comfort out’n ’em, I’m sure sartin glad. She’s little more’n a prisoner most o’ the year over thar on Windy Island. Jest because her ma ran off ’n’ married up wi’ that city feller, ol’ Ezry Bassett is tarnal sartin the same thing’ll happen to Rilly. But I cal’late them thar city fellars, on the whole, ain’t hankerin’ to splice up with lighthouse keepers’ gals nor grand-gals, neither.”

When Rilla had reached home that never-to-be-forgotten day when she had purchased something all by herself and for the very first time, she had slipped up to her room with the broken mirror and she had tied on both of the new hair ribbons, one red and one green. They weren’t the shades that she had really wanted, but they were the prettiest that Mrs. Sol Dexter had in stock. Then she gazed long at her reflection in the mirror. Once – just once – her grand-dad had told her that she was the “splittin’ image” of her mother, who had died when she was only seventeen.

“I’ve allays wished as I had a photygraf of her,” Rilla had thought. “Now I can be lookin’ in the mirror an’ pretendin’ it’s a picture of my mother, only she’d be lots sweeter lookin’. Mrs. Sol Dexter said as how the summer folks called her beautiful.”

There was always a wistful, yearning expression in the hazel eyes of the girl when she thought of her mother.

But all this had happened the autumn before. Bad luck had not befallen Rilla – she didn’t even know that a broken mirror was supposed to bring bad luck – and that is probably why it had not done so; for we get, in this world, what we expect very often, and this little lass, who lived so close to nature, was always expecting something wonderful to happen and she found real joy in the simplest things.

The dog, lying just outside the door, lifted a listening ear the moment his little mistress had stepped out of bed and he was eagerly waiting when she softly opened the door.

“Sh! Shagsie, ol’ dog, don’ be barkin’,” the girl cautioned. “Grand-dad’s put the light out an’ he’s gone back to his bunk for ’nother forty winks. You’n I’ll have time to see what’s in the box. Sh-h! Soft now!”

The dog’s intelligent brown eyes were watching the face of his mistress and he seemed to understand that he must be very quiet. If Muriel tiptoed as she went down the curving flight of steps to the kitchen, so too did Shags. As she passed the door of her grand-dad’s bedroom she could hear his even breathing.

It was not unusual for Rilla and Shags to climb to the top of the crags to watch the sunrise, and so, even if her grandfather had awakened, he would have thought nothing of it, but it was not to the highest point of the cliff that the girl went.

Instead, she clambered down what appeared to be a perilous descent, but both she and the dog were as sure-footed as mountain goats, and they were soon standing on the out-jutting ledge in front of a small opening which was the entrance to her Treasure Cave.

Eager as the girl was to learn the secret that the box contained, she did not go in at once, but paused, turning toward the sea. The waves, lifting snowy crests, caught the dawning glory of the sky. Impulsively she stretched her arms out to the sun.

There was something sacred to this untaught girl about the rebirth of each day, and the glory of the sky and sea was reflected in her radiant upturned face. Only for a brief while did the pageantry last, and the world – Rilla’s world, all that she knew – was again attired in its everyday garb, sky-blue, sea-green, rock-grey, while over all was the shining sun-gold.

Stooping, for the cave door was too small to be entered by so tall a girl were she standing erect, Rilla disappeared from the ledge and Shags followed her. The cave within was larger than one might suppose, and was lighted by wide crevices here and there in its wall of rocks through which rays of sunlight slanted. The continuous roar of the surf, crashing on the rocks below, was somewhat dulled.

Rilla leaped forward with a little cry of joy.

“Shags,” she called gleefully, “it’s still here! ’Twa’n’t a dream-box arter all. I sort o’ got to thinkin’ in the night it might be.” She clapped her hands, for there were moments when Rilla was a very little girl at heart, much younger than her years, and yet at other times, when she was comforting her old grand-dad and soothing away his imaginary fears, she was far older than fifteen.

Shags was now permitted to bark his excitement, which he did, capering in puppy fashion about the banded box of foreign appearance.

The girl looked at it with her head on one side. “How in time are we to get into it, ol’ dog?” she inquired as she stooped to examine the box. “’Pears like we’ll have to smash it. Here yo’, Shags, what’s that tag-end yer tuggin’ on? Yo-o! It’s the answer to the riddle, like’s not! That strap’s got a buckle on it, an’ it’s mate’s the same. Heave ho! Open she comes. Easy as sailin’ down stream.” As the girl spoke she lifted the cover of the box and uttered a cry of mingled joy and amazement.

“Thunder sakes! Tarnell!” she ejaculated, unconsciously using both of her grandfather’s favorite exclamations at once.

“Shagsie, ol’ dog, will you be lookin’! There’s a mirror inside the cover as hasn’t a crack in it. Yo-o! It comes out. There now, stood up it’s as tall as I am.” As the girl talked to her interested companion she lifted the mirror-lined cover and placed it against the wall of the cave. Meanwhile the curious dog was dragging something from the box. Rilla leaped forward to rescue whatever it might be. “Lie down, sir, and mind orders,” she commanded. “I’m skipper o’ this craft.” After rescuing the mysterious something which the dog had evidently considered his rightful share of the booty, the girl knelt and examined the contents of the box. She then turned glowing eyes toward her comrade, who had minded her and was watching her intently, his head low on his outstretched paws. “Land a Goshen!” she ejaculated. “Shagsie, ol’ dog, what’d yo’ think? This here box is full o’ riggin’s for a fine lady such as comes from the city for the summer, ’pears like, though I’ve never seen ’em close to.”

Awed, and hardly able to believe her eyes, Rilla lifted a truly wonderful garment from the trunk – it was silk – and green, sea-green like the heart of a wave just before its foamy crest curls over in the sun.

It was trimmed with silvery, spangly lace.

“It’s a dress to wear, ’pears like, though thar’s not much to it as yo’ could call sleeves, an’, yo-o! Shagsie, will yo’ look? Here’s slipper things! Soft as the moss on the nor’east side o’ a rock an’ green, wi’ silver buckles.” Then the girl’s excited, merry laughter rang out as she drew forth another treasure. “Don’ tell me yo’ don’ know what this here is, Shagsie,” she chuckled. “Maybe yo’ think it’s a green spider-web, but ’tisn’t; no, sir, it’s got a heel and a toe to it! That’s a stockin’, ol’ dog. Now, who’d – ” She paused and listened intently. Ringing clear above the booming crash of the surf she heard her grand-dad calling. Quickly she ran to the opening.

“Rilly gal, tarnation sakes, whar be you? Never seem to be around mess time lately. The kettle’s singin’ like a tipsy sailor and ’bout to dance its cap off.”

“Comin’, Grand-dad,” the girl thrust her head out to reply, in a quieter moment, when a wave was receding; then hastily, but with infinite care, she knelt and smoothed the silken folds of the shimmering green gown, replaced the mirror-lined top, strapped it down and then covered the whole with an old sail cloth which had been one of Rilla’s former stowed-away treasures.

If the girl had been excited the night before, she was much more so this early morning. However, her grand-dad was preoccupied and did not notice the flushed cheeks and eager, glowing eyes of his “fust mate.” Silently he ate his quarter of apple pie, gulped down a huge cup of steaming coffee. It was plain to the girl who watched him that he was thinking of something intently.

Rilla was counting the minutes that would have to elapse before she revisited the cave, when her grand-dad pushed his armchair back from the table and arose.

“Rilly gal,” he peered over his spectacles at the girl, “I’ve got to navigate to town this mornin’. Oil and supplies are gettin’ tarnicky low, ’pears like. Equinoxial storms are due in port mos’ any day now, so we’ll not put the v’yage off any longer. Fust mate, be gettin’ into yer sea-goin’ togs.”

Muriel’s heart sank. “Oh, Grand-daddy, do I have to go?” The piercing grey eyes under shaggy brows turned toward the girl questioningly. Had he heard aright? Could it be his “gal” begging not to be taken to town, when usually it was right the other way.

Then he laughed. “What a suspicious ol’ sea-dog I am,” he ruminated. “Mabbe the gal’s rigged up some new fancy notion down in that cave o’ her’n.” Aloud he said heartily. “All right, fust mate, stay anchored if ye want to. I’m thinkin’ thar’s nothin’ on Windy Island to molest ye. Thar’s the gun in the corner if yer needin’ it, but Shags, here, will protect ye, won’t ye, ol’ skipper?”

The dog leaped alongside as the old man went down the steep, wet stairs that led to the wharf, near which a dory was floating.

The girl stood in the open door, and with shaded eyes watched the scudding sailboat until, as was his custom, her grand-dad turned to wave to her as he passed the first buoy.

There were many buoys, painted in varying bright colors, that the skipper of each incoming fishing smack might have no trouble in locating his own particular mooring place. On a moonlighted night, when the sailing boats were all in, it was indeed a pretty sight to see the flotilla, some newly painted and others weather-stained, bobbing on the choppy waters of the bay.

Windy Island, though only a quarter of a mile wide, was nearly a mile long, and protected one of the snuggest little harbors to be found along that wild, rugged coast.

As soon as the kitchen was shipshape, Muriel raced toward the outer edge of the cliff, calling “Yo-o, come on, Shagsie, ol’ dog. We’ll cruise back to the cave.”

But Rilla did not enter her Treasure Cave again that day, for in another moment, and quite unexpectedly, she was launched upon her very first real adventure.

CHAPTER III.

A FIRST ADVENTURE

Muriel did not have to call a second time to her shaggy friend, for up the steep, wet steps from the wharf the dog leaped and lifted intelligent, inquiring eyes. “Don’ let’s go to the cave fust off, Shagsie.” The girl always talked to her four-footed companion as though she were sure that he could understand. “Let’s go to that pebbly beach war yo’ found suthin’ yesterday an’ lost it. Mabbe it got washed up shore agin, whatever ’twas. Mabbe now! What say, ol’ Shags?”

Knowing that a reply was expected when his mistress stooped and stroked his head, the dog yapped eagerly, then raced alongside of the barefooted girl, who followed an infrequently used trail which ambled along toward the north end of the island, where the beach was wildest.

The shore, however, could not be seen until one was nearly upon it. When it came within the vision of the girl she stood still so suddenly that Shags, having kept on, was several lengths ahead before he was conscious that he was alone.

He turned back inquiringly. “Sh! Keep still!” the girl whispered, her hazel eyes growing darker and wider as she gazed, almost as though she were frightened at something just below on the rocky beach.

What she saw was not really fear-inspiring. A youth, dressed in white flannels, who appeared to be but little older than Rilla, was standing with his hands in his pockets gazing at a flat-bottomed, weather-stained sailboat, in which he had evidently just landed and which he had drawn as high as he could up on the shore.

He turned with a start when an angry voice called, “Clear out! Go away! We don’ want any landlubbers here!”

The lad, however, did not seem to be in the least intimidated by this outburst from the rocks above him.

Looking up, he actually smiled. A barefooted girl with red-brown hair blowing in the wind and with a shaggy yellow and white dog at her side was, to his thought, a picture more to be admired than feared.