Margaret was watching the part of his face not covered with his cap as his words were ground out haltingly, and she could see his lips twitch as old memories mingled with his present emotions. As he proceeded she saw from his simple words how deep-seated were his affections, and she wondered at the way he had concealed his love for her. A great compassion for him was welling up in her heart. As she listened to his words, it came upon her what it might be to love deeply and then to find that it only led to disappointment. She felt glad that she had given him some happiness—glad when he said he could look forward more cheerfully to going back to his hopeless existence. It was brave to speak of it thus—asking nothing. But when he said it was dreadful to be alone—always alone—his voice conveyed the idea of horror to her, and, in a moment, without knowing exactly why, the tears were in her eyes, and she was kneeling beside him on the sand asking what could be done, and blaming herself for giving him trouble. Her touch upon his hand thrilled him. He dared not remove his cap. He dared not look at her for very fear of his happiness; but then he heard a half sob in her voice, and that cured him. It would never do for her to be weeping. He had said too much, he thought. He partly sat up, leaning upon his hand, and was himself again. Margaret was looking at him (so beautiful with her dewy eyes), with but one thought in her mind, which was how to be kind to him, how to make up to him some of the care that his life had been shorn of. It was all done in a moment. Margaret said tearfully, "Oh, what can I do?" and Rankin's native quickness was present with him. He leaned forward, inspired by a new thought, and said, "Kiss me," and Margaret, knowing nothing but a great compassion for him, in which self was entirely forgotten, said: "Indeed, I will, if you would care for that."
CHAPTER XI.
YACHTING ONLY.
Some hearts might have yearned to have been on board during the fishing in Hay Bay, and to have enjoyed those evenings when the yacht anchored in the twilight calm, beside rocky shores, or near waving banks of sedge and rushes, where the whip-poor-will and bull frog supplied all the necessary music. I abandon all that occurred at pretty Picton and Belleville, but I must not forget the little episode that happened one evening near Indian Point as the yacht was on her way to Kingston. A fresh breeze had been blowing during the afternoon, and the two reefs, taken in for comfort's sake, still remained in the mainsail, as no one after dinner felt equal to the exertion of shaking them out. The wind had almost died away as they approached Indian Point, and not far off, on the other side of this long, narrow arm of the sea called the Bay of Quinte, lay MacDonald's Cove, a snug little place for anchorage in any kind of weather. A heavy bank of clouds was rapidly rising over the hills in the west, and hastening up the sky to extinguish the bright moon that had been making a fairy landscape of the bay and its surroundings, and the barometer was falling rapidly.
This condition of affairs Jack reported to Charley, who was below with several others having a little game in which the word "ante" seemed to be used sometimes in a tone of reproach. Charles answered gayly, without looking away from the game, that Jack had better get the yacht into the Cove while there was wind to take her there, and Jack, who observed that he was "seeing" and "raising" an antagonist for the fifth time on a pair of fours, thought a man should not be disturbed at such a time, and went on deck to shake out the reefs so as to drift into the Cove, if possible, before the storm came on. But when in the middle of the bay the wind gave out entirely. For half an hour the Ideal lay becalmed and motionless. Oilskin suits and sou'westers were donned. Now fringes of whitish scud, torn from the driving clouds, could be seen flying past the bleared moon, and it seemed in the increasing darkness, while they were waiting for the tumult, as if the shores around contracted, so as to give the yacht no space for movement. Jack took the compass bearings of the lighthouse, expecting soon to be in total darkness, and he had both anchors prepared for instant use. The sails had been close-reefed, but after being reefed they were lowered again so as to present nothing but bare poles to the squall. The darkness came on and grew intense. Between the rapidly increasing peals of thunder the squall could be heard approaching, moaning over the hills in the west and down the bay as if ravening for prey, while the lightning seemed to take a savage delight in spearing the distant cliffs which, in the flashes, were beautifully outlined in silhouette against an electric atmosphere. Still the yacht lay motionless in the dead air difficult to breathe and oppressive; and still Charley continued to "raise" and get "raised" in the cheerfully lighted cabin, whence the laughter and the talk of the game mingled strangely, in the ears of those on deck, with the sounds of the coming tempest. Margaret, with her head out of the companion-way, watched the scene with a nervousness that impending electrical storms oppressed her with. Her quick eyes soon caught sight of something on the water, not far off. A mystic line of white could be seen coming along the surface. She asked what it was at a moment when the deadness and blackness of the air seemed appalling, and the ear was filled with strange swishing sounds. She never heard any answer. Another instant and the yacht heeled over almost to the rail in that line of white water, which the whips of the tornado had lashed into spume. Blinding sheets of spray, picked up by the wind from the surface of water, flew over those on deck, and instantly the lee scuppers were gushing with the rain and spray which deluged the decks. Word was carried forward by a messenger from the wheel to hoist a bit of headsail, and when this was immediately done the yacht paid off before the squall, running easterly, with all the furies after her. The darkness was so great that it was impossible to see one's hand close to one's eyes. The thunderclaps near at hand were rendered more terrific by the echoes from the hills, and only while the lightning clothed the vessel in a spectral glare could they see one another. Still the yacht sped on, while Jack jealously watched the binnacle where the only guide was to be found. The Indian Point light, though not far off, was completely blotted out by the rain, which seemed to fall in solid masses, and even the lightning failed to indicate the shores or otherwise reveal their position.
A wild career, such as they were now pursuing, must end somewhere, and in the narrow rock-bound locality they were flying through, the chance of keeping to the proper channel entirely by compass and chart did not by any means amount to a certainty. Nor was anchoring in the middle of the highway to be thought of, especially as some trading vessels were known to be in the vicinity. The chance of being cut down by them was too great. Jack felt that an error now might cause the loss of the yacht. After calculating a variation of the compass in these parts, he decided to run before the gale for a while and keep in the channel if possible—hoping for a lull in the downfall of rain, so that his whereabouts could be discovered.
A high chopping sea was driving the yacht on, while she scudded under bare poles before the gale, and Jack had been for some little time endeavoring to estimate their rate of speed when the deluge seemed to abate partly and the glimmer of a light could be seen to the southward. A sailor called out "There's Indian Point light." If it had been the light he mentioned they would have had all they wanted. Jack feared they had run past it, but, to make sure, he asked the sailors their opinion. They all said they were certain it was Indian Point light. One of them declared he had seen the lighthouse itself in one of the flashes. So Jack had the peak of the mainsail partly hoisted and they drew around to the southward, so as to anchor under the lee of the lighthouse point. As the yacht came round sideways to the wind she lay down to it and moved slowly and heavily through the short angry seas that, hitting the side, threw spray all over her. Jack was feeling his way carefully and slowly through the inky blackness of the night with the lead-line going to show the depth of the water, when the lookout on the bowsprit-end, after they had proceeded a considerable distance to the south, suddenly cried "Breakers ahead!" and he tumbled inboard off the bowsprit, as if he thought the boat about to strike at once. "Let her go round, sir, for God's sake! We're right on the rocks."
Jack, back at the wheel, had not been able to get a glimpse of the foaming rocks in the lightning which the man on the bowsprit had seen. He despaired of the boat's going about, but he tried it. The high chopping sea stopped the yacht at once. He knew it was asking too much of her to come about with so little way on, and the canvas all in a bag, so, as there was evidently no room to wear the ship, he had the big anchor dropped. His intention was to come about by means of his anchor and get out on the other tack into the channel and anywhere away from the rocks and the breakers that could be heard above the tempest roaring close to them on the port side. While the chain was being paid out, the close-reefed mainsail was hoisted up to do its work properly. The storm staysail was also hoisted and sheeted home on the port side to back her head off from the land. As this was being done, the sailors paid out the anchor-chain rapidly. To do so more quickly they carelessly threw it off the winch and let it smoke through the hawse-pipe at its own pace. But suddenly there came a check to it, which, in the darkness, could not be accounted for. A bight or a knot in the chain had come up and got jammed somewhere, and now it refused to run out. The Ideal immediately straightened out the cable, and, at the moment, all the king's horses and all the king's men would have been powerless to clear it. Jack came forward, and with a lantern discovered how things were. "Never mind," he thought. "If she will lie here for a while no harm will be done." In the mean time, while the men were getting a tackle rigged to haul up a bit of the chain, so as to obtain control of it again, the rain ceased to fall, while the lightning, by which alone the men could see to work, served only to make the succeeding darkness more profound.