CHAPTER I. RILLA.
"Here yo', Shags! What yo' got thar, ol' dog? Haul it out! Like it's atreasure from a ship that's gone down. Ahoy, thar, Shagsie! Here comes acrashin' big wave. Whoo! Wa'n't that-un a tarnal whopper? An' yo' lostyer 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 thenarrow, pebbly strip of beach and gazed intently at the whirling,seething water where a breaker of unusual size had crashed high, sendingthese two for a moment scrambling up the rocks.
Back of them towered an almost perpendicular cliff, on top of which stoodthe Windy Island Lighthouse, severe in outline, but glaring red and whitein color that it might be readily observed in the daytime by pilots whowere strangers in those dangerous waters.
Many a shoal there was under the tossing, turbulent waves, unsuspected bythe unwary mariner, and, in the heavy fogs that often hung like wet,impenetrable blankets over that part of the New England coast, many avessel would have crashed to its destruction had it not been for thefaithful Captain Ezra Bassett, who had been keeper of the light sinceRilla was a baby.
The dog's sight must have been keener than that of the girl, for a momentlater he dashed away up the narrow strip of beach and began to barkfuriously at some object that was tossing on an incoming wave. The girlraced after him, her hazel eyes glowing with excitement, her long brownhair, with a glint of red in it, unfastened, flying back of her.
"'Tain't the same thing, Shagsie!" she shouted to her companion. "'Tain'twhat yo' was tryin' to fetch ashore down below by the rocks. This-un ismore like a box or suthin!"
The eager expression in the girl's big, starlike eyes changed to one ofconcern 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, andgazed searchingly out toward the horizon, but in another moment her eagerinterest returned to the box. "Look, yo' ol' dog. It's ridin' high. We'llget 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 plungeddeep into the seething foam, caught a banded box of foreign appearanceand held on with all her strength while the undertow tried to drag hertreasure away, but the wave receded and the box was left high.
"We got it, ol' Shags. We got it!" she cried triumphantly, tossing backher sun-shimmered hair, for, when she had stooped, it had fallen abouther face. This hindered the freedom of her movements, and so, snatchingup a wet green ribbon of seaweed, she tied her hair back with it. Anotherwave was rushing, roaring shoreward. One quick seaward glance told herthat it was going to be the biggest one yet.
Could she get the box high enough to be out of reach of that nextbreaker? How she tugged! But her efforts were fruitless, for with adeafening thud the wave crashed over her, lifting the box to which shestill 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 TreasureCave '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'swakin', so we'd better heave to and hist her."
Rilla had found a leather handle on one end of the box, and holding fastto this, slowly and with great effort she began dragging it up the rocksand about half an hour later, as a reward for her perseverence, shedisappeared with it into a small opening in the cliff, and not a momenttoo 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 havingsafely hidden the box in her Treasure Cave, the girl had suddenly thoughtthat she must go at once and prepare her grandfather's evening meal.
"Shagsie," she confided, "ol' dog, we'll have to wait over till tomorrerto 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 thelight, her grandfather gazed at her keenly from under his shaggy greybrows. "A severe, unforgiving man," some folks called him, but he hadn'tlooked long at the darling of his heart before his expression changed,softened until those grey eyes that had often struck terror to anoffending deckhand shone with a light that was infinitely tender.
"Well, Rilly gal, fust mate of the Lighthouse Craft, I cal'late ye'vebeen workin' purty hard this past hour doin' nothin'. 'Pears like yerpurty het up lookin'."
The girl made no reply, though she laughed over her shoulder at the oldman, who, with his cap pushed back, sat by the stove in his woodenarmchair, smoking his corncob pipe in solid comfort.
This was the hour that he liked best, when his gal was cooking hisevening meal and chattering to him of this and that--inconsequentialthings--telling him how the lame pelican that had been away for a weekhad returned, but not alone, for a beautiful pelican that wasn't lame atall had been with him, or, when she wasn't chattering, she was singingmeeting-house songs in her sweet untrained voice while she fried the fishand potatoes, but tonight the old captain noted that the girl wasunusually silent, that her cheeks were almost feverishly red, and therewas 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 andmarried the young man from the city. The eyes under the shaggy grey browswere hard again, and Rilla, noting in the face of the grand-dad she soloved the expression she dreaded, ran to him, fork in hand and pressingher cheek against his forehead, she cried:
"Oh, Grand-dad, what set yo' thinkin' o' that? Yo' know I wouldn't beleavin' yo'. I love yo', Grand-dad; I'll allays, allays stay, an' be yerfust 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 tosee as the girl, with an earnest, almost inspired expression on her trulybeautiful face, stood up and lifting her hand, seemingly unconscious thatit held a fork, said in a voice ringing with sincerity, "I call God towitness that I'll never go away from yo', Grand-dad, without yerpermittin' it."
Then there was one of those sudden changes that made Rilla soirresistable. "Grand-dad," she cried, teasingly, as she stooped andlooked with laughing eyes directly into the grey ones that were softeningagain, "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 inhis ma's store."
"Yer heavin' oil on troubled waters, and the sea's smoothin' down," theold captain said as he drew his chair up to the table and took up hisknife and fork preparatory to eating the good supper that Rilla hadplaced before him. But, instead of beginning, he remarked: "I can'tfigger out why I keep thinkin' of city fellers this week past. They don'tany of 'em come to Tunkett at this time o' the year. That thar summerhotel at the pint is closed as tight as a clam that can't be openedwithout smashin' it, an' so are the cottages, as the rich folks call themgray 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 hergrandfather sitting just outside the door smoking his beloved corncobpipe and watching the sunset. She went out and sat on a wooden stool athis feet. Rilla loved to sit quietly with folded hands while the glow wasfading in the west and dream dreams. Just as the last flush was palingthe old man rose.
"Time to put the light on, Rilly gal," he said.
She heard his heavy
steps climbing the spiral stairs. Fainter and fainterthey grew, and then, a moment later, just as the first stars glimmeredthrough the dusk, the great light flashed over the sea and began slowlyturning, for the lighthouse was on an island one mile from shore, and thewaters all about it were illumined.
For a moment Rilla saw a fishing boat that was nearly becalmed and wouldhave 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 herfeet, accompanied her. "Good-night, Grand-dad," she said, standing ontiptoe 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' totell me all about it, like yo' promised, aren't yo', Grand-dad?"
A grunt, which could hardly be interpreted in the affirmative, was theonly 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. Themoon was rising and she liked its light best. For a moment she stood atthe open window, facing the town, which in the fall and winter was sodark and quiet in the evening, but in summer, when the city people werein their cabins on the point, it was pulsing with life, color and music.Rilla never visited the town in summer. She was then practically aprisoner on the small rocky island. For a long time she stood watchingthe waves that lifted silvery crests in the moonlight. "I wonder who mydad was," she thought, as she had many times before. "I wonder why henever came for me, after my girl-mother died." Forgotten was the box inTreasure Cave.
Many had been the moods of Rilla that day, but when she had undressed inthe moonlight she knelt, not by the bedside, but facing the window.Looking up toward the peaceful, starry sky, she whispered softly, "God inHeaven, 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 intoher hitherto quiet and uneventful life her first real adventure.