“YOU was thinkin’ of goin’ to-day, was you, Isly?”

It was Joe Brazybone who spoke. He was standing on the wharf, at a little distance from the two Herons; there was an air of suppressed excitement about the three which told that some great thing was toward.

“Yes, Joe,” said Isla. “You know very well that I am going. Why do you ask me so many times?”

“Nothin’; nothin’ at all!” said Joe, hastily. He stood in a curious attitude, with one hand held behind him; and, whenever Isla turned to look at him, he sidled about in a confused, guilty fashion, keeping his face turned resolutely toward her.

“Was you goin’ that way, Isly?” he persisted. “Without no bunnit on your head? Ain’t you afraid of ketchin’ somethin’?”

Isla laughed.

“Mrs. Maynard tried to make me wear a hat,” she said. “I never wore a hat in my life, Joe. I could not see with straw down over my eyes. And what should I catch?”

Joe looked miserable. Loyalty forbade him to say plainly that she would be stared at in the city if she went about bareheaded. He glanced nervously behind him, his hands twitching; then at the girl again; but Isla had already forgotten him, and was gazing with all her eyes at the schooner, which was evidently nearly ready to sail.

“Will you take me aboard now, Joe?” she said. “I think it must be time.”

Joe’s red and brown turned to a deep purple; with a desperate effort he mastered his confusion, and brought his hand round to the front. It held a strange object, which he thrust forward to Isla.

“You take this!” he pleaded. “You take this, Isly, and wear it for old Joe. ’Tain’t what I could wish, but ’t will cover your head, and—and keep you from ketchin’ things. Some say ’tis handsome, but I don’t know how that is. Anyway, ’twas the best I could do.”

The thing he held out was a bonnet, of vast size and ancient fashion. The front was filled with crushed and faded muslin flowers; the crumpled ribbons and tarnished silk showed that it had lain for years in its box. Isla gazed at it in amazement.

“’Twas Ma’am’s!” said Joe, hastening to explain. “My own mother’s, I mean, Isly. That’s why it don’t look quite so new-fangled as some. But there’s good stuff in this bunnit. I remember of Ma’am’s sayin’ so, when father brought it home to her over from the main. I was a youngster then, but I remember her very words. ‘’Tis too gay for my age, Hiram,’ she says; ‘but there’s good stuff in it, and I’m obleeged to you for fetchin’ of it.’ You take it now, Isly, and keep it. Many’s the time Mother Brazybone as is has tried to get her hands on to this bunnit, but Joe was too many for her. Old Joe ain’t got many handsome things, but what he has ain’t goin’ to no Brazybone. When my little Heron lady wants any of old Joe’s things, she’s only got to speak for ’em, and there they be. So you take the bunnit, Isly, and ’t will do me good to see ye in it.”

Isla knew little about bonnets, but her eyes told her that this was a hideous monstrosity. Nevertheless she took it, and smiled at Joe with friendly eyes. “Thank you, Joe!” she said. “It is ever so kind of you to give me something that belonged to your mother. I won’t put it on now, because I shouldn’t know how to wear it. I’ll take it with me on board the schooner, Joe, and then we will see.”

Joe nodded in delight, and then went and got his little red boat, and rowed Isla and Jacob over to the mail-schooner, which was making signals for departure. Jacob’s eyes were round with wonder at all he was seeing. He held Isla’s hand tight, but having that, feared nothing, and followed cheerfully where she bade him.

Captain Ezekiel, the sturdy, brown-bearded skipper of the Egret, welcomed the children kindly enough. He hardly knew the wild Heron girl by sight, but he knew all about her, and had learned through Joe Brazybone of her plans for her little brother. Most of the villagers thought it was tomfoolery, and said the appointments of Providence weren’t good enough for Herons, so this girl was going to try and reverse the Lord’s jedgment about her deef-dummy brother. But Captain Ezekiel knew too much for this point of view, and had silenced the talk, as much as he[67]
[68]
[69] could, and promised the preacher to befriend the two helpless children.

He was a silent man, and, after nodding kindly to Jacob, and telling Isla to make herself at home, he had nothing further to say. As he and his mate hoisted the shining sail, Isla turned to Joe to say good-by.

“Joe,” she said, “you have been so good and kind. I can’t thank you, Joe, but Giles will be glad if he knows.”

Joe did not take the hand she held out to him.

“I—I wasn’t thinkin’ of goin’ back right away, Isly,” he said, shuffling awkwardly about, with his eyes on the deck. “Cap’n ’Zekle, he’s no objection to me goin’ over to the main, he says. I wa’n’t calc’latin’ to go back right yet, ye see.”

“Oh!” said Isla, in surprise. It was years since Joe Brazybone had left the island, and she knew it.

“I didn’t know you had friends over on the main, Joe.”

“Not—not rightly friends, perhaps I shouldn’t call ’em,” Joe admitted, still studying the planks with attention. “But—well” (and his face brightened visibly), “I ain’t got no enemies. There’s where it is, you see, Isly, I ain’t got no enemies, so there’s nothin’ to hender my goin’ over to the main, so long as Cap’n Zekle has no objection.”

He drew a long breath after this statement, and ventured to steal a look at Isla out of the corner of his eye. But Isla thought little of what he said. She accepted the homage of the queer man who had loved her father; it seemed entirely natural that Joe Brazybone should be devoted to her; but she gave him little thought beyond a kindly feeling, and a consciousness that she could make him happy for a day by smiling and nodding to him, even though she seldom spoke. Now she had said far more than usual, and she thought no more of his matters. Her thoughts still flew forward to the new life, the prisoned life in which Jacob would be all her sun and air, her world, her joy, as she would be his. But her eyes turned backward with passionate longing toward the home that they were leaving. The schooner moved swiftly, sailing along the southern shore. Now they were coming to the South Rocks, her own rocks, where half of her heart must stay, while her body went on, away. They passed the opening of the Dead Valley. It seemed as if the sleeping mammoths must rise from their long slumber and call to her; as if every crag and cliff, every ragged, friendly tree, must see her desertion and cry out upon it. Her eyes strained backward as the schooner flew, the heart seemed torn out of her breast. See! The ravens, rising from a tufted fir, and sailing slowly above the valley. Were they looking for her? Would they know why she had gone, how it killed her to go? Now the wild birds flapped toward the shore, uttering a harsh cry; and it smote on the girl’s heart like a reproach. An answering cry rose to her lips, but she forced it back, and, turning resolutely away, fixed her eyes on little Jacob’s face. The boy was smiling happily at the bright waves as they rose and fell around the schooner; and Isla took his hand in hers and saw her sunshine in his face.