Mary of Marion Isle

MARY OF MARION ISLE

Old Tom was, it appeared, a very religious man, and something of a mystic to boot. He told Mary of God and taught her to pray, though the Lord’s Prayer was the only one she could remember, and that imperfectly. Further, he discoursed to her much of angels and spirits which, he said, were all about them. In fact it was his habit to communicate with these spirits, which he did seated by himself with his hands upon a piece of wood, and, as he believed, to receive messages from them. Another device of his was to make Mary «scry», as it is called, in a large mother-of-pearl shell filled with pure water, and tell him what she saw there. This gift, real or imaginary, soon she developed to a considerable degree, though of it, for a long while, she would speak little to Andrew.

When she was about eleven Old Tom ceased to sleep in the same place with her, and took up his abode at night in the other cave. At first she felt very lonely during the long hours of darkness, and told him so. He answered that she must learn to accustom herself to solitude because the Spirits had informed him that soon he would die and join them. She cried when she heard this, but he said that she must not do so, as although he was sorry to leave her, it would be much happier for him. He added that the Spirits had told him also that in the end she too would be happy, for she would not always be left alone upon the island, and that meanwhile they and he would watch over her.

Perhaps the prophecy as to his coming death worked upon Old Tom’s mind, and in the end brought about its own fulfilment. At any rate, shortly after he began to occupy the other cave, illness of some kind overtook him, which caused him to

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grow weak and thin and to complain of pains in his inside. The result was that within a few months, he ceased to be able to bear exertion, so that she carried out all the work of the place under his directions. This, he declared, was good for her, since she must learn to do all these things without assistance. Fortunately her open-air, hardy life had made her stronger, even at that age, than are most full-grown women, so that she tilled their land, caught the fish, collected all that was needful to their simple wants, and in addition to nursing Old Tom, carried on the household work, if so it may be called, without undue fatigue, although she was growing rapidly at the time.

During the ensuing winter Old Tom became very ill, although until within a few days of his death he managed to get out a little every day. At last his strength failed him and he took to his bed, after which she was obliged to sleep in his cave to the end. He died in the spring nine years before her meeting with Andrew.

On the night before his death his mind, which had been clouded, grew quite clear and he spoke to her.

«Dearie», he said, for so he always called her, «I have to go away and leave you, because, you see, my time is up. I’ve prayed God it might be otherwise, but it is no use. Now you will be alone upon this desert place, and that’s a sad fate for one so young, and a girl at that, just living with beasts and birds and as it would seem, none to help you if you should fall sick or meet with accidents. But there, I have comfort for you. You won’t fall sick and you won’t come to harm in other ways. You’ll wonder how I know this. Well, although you mayn’t believe me either now or when you grow older, the Spirits told me – for what-

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ever the wise folk may say, there are spirits, Guardian Angels they call them in the Bible, who watch over and try to help us poor creatures, with whom sometimes we can get in touch. If it had not been for them and for the need of looking after you, I should have died long ago in this dreadful place, dearie, as now, when you can fend for yourself, I have got to die, of which, were it not for you, I should be very glad, although, like others, I have plenty of sins to answer for. For instance, I don’t think I need have killed that man in the boat because he wanted to disobey me when we were coming to land, but my violent temper got the better of me, who was a captain was not accustomed to be crossed when I gave orders. And there are many other worse things in my tally-book. Still, were it not for you, I should be glad to go who am as a dead man out of mind in the world, trusting to the mercy of God Who knows whereof we are made.

«And now I want to tell you something sad. I don’t know who you are. I have racked my old brain for memory but it won’t come. All I can call to mind about you is that you were one of several passengers put in my charge on that last voyage, and that I had to deliver you to some one who would meet you at Sydney in Australia – I think it was your father. Of course, I had his name and yours written down in my private log-book, but that went with the ship. For the rest you were brought aboard by a maid, a pretty girl, who carried on with the second officer, a silly fellow and a poor sailor, who was responsible for our trouble. When disaster came she trusted to him and not to me, and so was drowned with the rest. All I knew about you was that you were a sweet child named

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Mary whom everybody in the ship loved. I loved you, too, and when we were sinking I sent a bo’sun for you and kept you with me till the end, so that I might take you into my own boat.

«Well, as you know, we got to shore, and after those fools went away and were drowned, as I was sure they would be in the Race, though what they expected to find on that other island I could never understand, here we’ve lived together these six years, waiting for rescue that never came. And not so badly off either, since God has sent us food and shelter. And now I go to make the longest of all journeys, and you, dearie, must be left alone to do the best you can. But you won’t always be alone. When you have grown into a woman some one will come to be with you, a good man in his way, though I am afraid there will be trouble over that as well as joy, for this is a mixed world, and there are all sorts of things in it that you cannot understand. Still, at the blackest, remember this: Everything will come right in the end. I know it because the Spirits have told me. Now, good-bye and God bless you. Keep in mind all I have told you about planting and reaping and fishing, and, above all, don’t let the fires go out. Don’t get slovenly and idle, either, or let yourself rust, and always say your prayers. For be sure if you do these things you will come to no harm, but grow into a noble woman, although you are alone till that other comes. All these things are written in God’s Book, dearie, and good and evil together there’s nothing happens in the world without a purpose, although perhaps we can’t see what it is until we are out of it. I should like to be buried in the sea, but you won’t be able to do that yet awhile. You will need help. So let me lie till then. And now, good night and good-bye, dea-

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rie, till we meet again elsewhere. Be sure, although you don’t see me, I’ll always be watching over you, I and others».

Then he became insensible, and at dawn he died.

Mary told Andrew that to her the shock of his loss was terrible. Except when the sailor was knocked into the sea, this was her first experience of death, and to a quick and sensitive child it seemed a fearful thing. The utter stillness of that form frightened her, yet, and this shows her high spirit, as she had not strength to drag the body to the sea, she found courage by the light of her rude lamps to build up the grass fence about him, working at the task for many hours. Moreover, and this made matters worse, she loved the old sailor as a father; indeed, he was the only father she had ever known, and her loneliness without him could not be described.

Fortunately the warmer season was coming on and during all those summer months, if so they might be called, she must labour incessantly at her endless tasks lest she should starve in the cold, dark winter. The oats must be guarded, weeded and, when the time came, harvested and stored. The fish must be caught and dried, the eggs must be pickled, the oatstraw and other fodder must be laid up as winter food for the goats; these must be milked and herded, and so forth, all of which kept her busy from dawn to sunset. Then when night came she was too tired to think or do anything, except creep to her bed and sleep heavily, till the clamour of the wildfowl without told her that daybreak was at hand and her tasks began again.

It was not until winter returned with its snows and gales and darkness, when by comparison there was little to be done except prepare the land with her rude instruments of drift-

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wood and carry guano on to it in bags to keep it fertile, and feed the goats, that everything came home to her. That first winter, she said to Andrew, was very awful, so much so that she wished that she might die. Only in the blackest trials of her soul always there arose the memory of Old Tom’s prophecy that everything would come right in the end, and, believing it implicitly, this gave her the heart to struggle on, till at length once more there was the spring and she forgot her thoughts in endless work.

Thus she grew up full of extraordinary health and strength, so that even the coming of womanhood did not affect her body. Her mind, however, it did affect, and in a very curious fashion. Her intense sense of loneliness first lessened and then to a great extent departed, for the reason that she found companions, and these of very diverse sorts. First, there were the beasts and the birds with which she became wonderfully intimate, so that they felt no more fear of her than once they had of sweet St. Francis of Assisi. She knew them and they knew her, and when she went among them, the shy sea-fowl, as well as a few species that lived upon the land, would wheel about her head and settle on her shoulders. The very seals and sea-lions knew her and would not stir when she passed by them on the rocks, while her difficulty was to prevent the goats and rabbits from following her into her cave.

Her other associates were those of the imagination. This poor child believed that the spirit of Old Tom visited her at night, and that she made report to him of all that she was doing and took his counsel on this and that. Nor, as she imagined, did he come alone, for at times others accompanied him,

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one of them a shining form that she thought to be her mother, only she said these never spoke to her or she to them.

To her sight also even the elemental forces of the place took visible form. For instance, she averred that there was a dark and towering shape which appeared before the coming of great tempests, not to harm but to warn her. Thrice in her life, she said, she had seen that shape sweep past her. Once this happened when she was wandering on the moorland far from the cave, looking for a lost kid, or on some such errand. Suddenly the shape swept up and seemed to stand in front of her pointing towards the shore, while something told her that she must hurry home, and at this moment she saw the kid lying on a rock. She picked it up and fled not too soon, for as she reached the cave there came on a great darkness and the most fearful hurricane of wind that she had ever known upon the island, against which it would have been impossible for her to stand up on the moorland. The same thing happened to her once when she was gathering shellfish to make a change in her winter diet, and then the portent was followed by blinding snow which fell for thirty hours without stopping. On the third occasion she was out among the rocks seeing to her nets in calm, still weather, when suddenly she saw the dark shape standing before her, took warning and fled. Before ever she reached refuge she heard a sound, and looking over her shoulder, perceived an enormous wave flowing in towards the land and burying the rocks where she had been fathoms deep in foam. Doubtless, though this she did not know, it was a tidal wave caused by some volcanic disturbance at the bottom of the sea.

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Again, there was another shape of misty outline and gentler in its aspect which, she said, appeared at the times when it was best for her to sow her corn, and also to gather it without wet. She declared to Andrew that she never did either until she had seen this shape, and that therefore her little crop and her harvest had always been good. Lastly, there was something tremendous and without form, but with light inside of it, which she would see at times enthroned on the edge of a great precipice of rock. This she worshipped, for she thought that it was God Who had come to show that He had not forgotten her. She added that none of these apparitions frightened her, because she knew that all of them meant her well.

Such from year to year was Mary’s life upon the island, while she grew into her perfect and splendid womanhood. Soon all trouble and fear left her, and she became merry-hearted as the wild birds around her, like them seeking her food from God, and alive with beauty though this she did not know.

Still, although she had long ago given up any hope of rescue, always she awaited the fulfilment of the prophecy uttered by Old Tom’s dying lips, of the coming of one to be her companion. As to that matter, indeed, she did not tell Andrew all the truth at first.

But one thing weighed upon her. She knew that she was losing the use of speech and her knowledge of the English tongue. Even her thoughts went on in some queer language of her own, and when she tried to talk aloud, often she found herself uttering the cries of the various birds which she could imitate to perfection, or sometimes making noises like the beasts. When she sang, too, it was the song of the land-

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CHAPTER XX

THE TROGLODYTES

On the afternoon of the day following that of his arrival, when for a little while her many tasks seemed to be finished, Mary showed Andrew the wonders of her cave. It was much larger than his own, three times the size indeed, with sundry smaller caves opening out of it which she used as storehouses. Near to its mouth, but round a corner so that it could not be seen from outside, burned the second fire in a kind of pit. Like the other it was fed with the dried seaweed that gave off aromatic fumes with great heat and little smoke.

In the storehouse caves, some of which were large, she kept her hay and oat straw, also tanned sealskins, grain, the candles which she made, a great pile of dried stockfish, her few tin vessels that had come originally from the boat, grass nets, fishing lines made of seal sinews with rude hooks on them laboriously cut and rubbed out of the ivory of sea-lion tusks, a tin bucket taken from the boat, a cauldron that with much trouble Old Tom had fashioned out of a block of soapstone, which she used when melting blubber into oil, and lastly, among other articles, the water-cask, also from the boat, in which the oil was stored.

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