Nancy nodded. “Oh, yes, they have medals too, sometimes.”
“But not enough. How many people do you really suppose the Captain has saved?”
“Oh, my, I don’t know,” laughed Nancy. “There are ever so many of them. I don’t think even father has kept track. He says it’s just his day’s work, and his duty. His favorite hymn is the one we so often sing at church over in the village, ‘Brightly Gleams Our Father’s Mercy.’”
Nancy’s strong young voice sang out the sweet old hymn until it fairly echoed over the waters. She was at the tiller of the Pirate, Tom’s catboat, while Sue sat up on what Nancy called “the lid,” the little deck between the cock pit and the coaming, her feet dangling over in true sea-rover fashion.
The lighthouse and life-saving station stood out in silhouette against the bright, sapphire sky, and the sea had the glimmer and the sheen of a blue bird’s glancing wing, with tints that changed prismatically with every cloud shadow.
“Nancy,” called Sue, suddenly, bending forward to take a better look at an island they were passing, “what’s that pile of rock over there, shaped like a tower?”
“It is a tower, or used to be. That’s Smugglers’ Cove. Father says he’s heard his father tell how a band of Nova Scotia pirates used to put in this bay years and years ago, and land their goods on this island, and a family of fishermen lived here who were really smugglers.”
“Are there any left now?” asked Sue, her blue eyes wide with interest.
Nancy shook her head, the fresh breeze blowing her yellow hair back from her tanned, happy face, that always seemed to be smiling like the Captain’s.
“They didn’t play fair with the pirates, and one night a ship was seen just outside the harbor, and nobody knows her name, or where she was bound. But after that night no living soul was ever seen on the island again, and the pirates never entered Eagle Bay after that. Father says after a few years some fisher boys ventured to land there, but they didn’t find anything. The pirates had carried away everybody, and all that belonged to them.”