For a moment Mary stood in dismay; then she cried wildly, "Oh, they're drowned, they're drowned! Jim come deown ter eour heouse las' night a-sayin' he'd heard the firin' o' a ship in 'stress, an' askin' Eb ter go with him an' help him git his boat eout, an' telled me ter run along deown to Zack Tumnaydoo's An' ax Zack an' Ellery ter go with 'em. An' I did, an' that's the las' anybody's seen o' any one on 'em. Oh dear! oh dear!" And wringing her hands, the sobbing girl ran back as quickly as she had come to impart to her mother and sisters the full extent of her evil tidings.
The cold, sad, desolate weeks and months that now rolled slowly on are to this day remembered on Nantucket as those of the "hard winter." Provisions were scarce, fuel was difficult to obtain, the harbor was frozen over, so that few fish could be taken there, and all communication with "the main" was cut off by British cruisers. In January the cherished old horse was killed because there was no longer hay to feed him, and even oats were "too precious to be fed to dumb beasts." In February the stalwart old Stephen lay grimly down to die, saying pityingly, "It's time, gals: I can't dew ye no more good by stayin'; an' I'm so tired."
The day succeeding the silent funeral, where two women had dropped the few tears that were left them to shed, good old Thomas Macy came and took his daughter and her mother to his own home. And in windy, still frozen March the wail of a tiny baby was heard in the house.
Under all the trouble the two brave women made no moan. Silently clinging together, never losing sight of each other for more than a few moments at a time, they yet said nothing of their greatest grief, that Jim should have disappeared with such unworthy words on his lips and thoughts in his heart, until, a few days after the baby's birth, Sarah said to her mother, "I know he's not dead. If he'd ha' died, he'd ha' come back and told me he was sorry. Fur I dew think he'd be sorry. Don't thee, mother?" And the mother nodded assent and smiled through her tears.
But, in truth, they had a more substantial reason than poor Sarah's wistful fancy for thinking that Jim was living. When the ice broke up, his boat was found in a little cove, where it had floated right-side up, without any serious injury except the carrying away of the sails. Of course this discovery roused new hopes in the homes of the missing men. It did not "stand to reason" that four big strong, temperate young fellows, brought up to the hardy, amphibious island-life, had all fallen overboard, any more than it "stood to sense" that the boat had upset and then righted of itself. Besides, "none of the boy's corpuses had ever floated up." So the Tucketers took courage and felt sure that, whatever had become of the missing men, they were not drowned.
But still the slow months came and went, till the summer and autumn and another winter had passed by; and patient old Rachel Starbuck grew daily a little quieter and a little grayer; and the brave young wife grew a little stronger to bear, but not a whit less loving or prone to suffer, and stately old Thomas Macy grew daily more gentle and pitying in his ways as he looked long at the winsome face of the happy, wee grandchild, that throve and crowed and tried to utter sweet little hesitating words as gayly as if the world had never a sin, a sorrow or a weakness in it.
One day Sarah and her mother had carried the baby down to the small cottage at the back of the cliff, whither they went to attend to some little household matter; for, although they did not mention the subject, even to themselves, they still kept all there in readiness against Jim's coming home. Here, in the soft May sunshine, the red-frocked baby was sitting on the green turf step, playing with some "daffies," first of the season, which Sarah had plucked from the little garden in the rear. The mother and daughter were in the house, when both were alarmed by a scream from the usually merry child. A man had it closely clasped in his arms, kissing it and calling it between half-choked sobs his "own pretty, pretty baby." The man was thin, pock-marked, bald, and clad in a ragged uniform of a British sailor, but to the faithful, longing eyes of mother and wife there was no mistaking their Jim.
It was long ere the story could be told, but at last they learned that on that sad November night Jim and his companions had gone out to the relief of the signaling ship. She was, as old Stephen had conjectured, a British man-o'-war. Being short of hands, and having on board as pilot a renegade native of the island, who knew where a ship could "lay-to" in safety, she had taken advantage of the storm to attract strong men within the range of her guns, then to command them to surrender, and thus to impress them into "His Majesty's service" as "able seamen."
For a long time Jim had managed to keep alive his resentful feelings toward his wife, accusing of being the source of all his misfortunes the poor little woman who was loving and longing so sincerely for him. But when illness came he could hold out no longer. "I made up my mind then," said he, "that if ever I got hum agin, I'd go deown on my knees an' ax pardin' o' my Sairy."
But she had never been angry, and was now only too thankful that Jim and his friends had escaped safely.