Cast Away in the Cold Part 2

'We've picked up a lubber in New Bedford town,-- Come away, away, sto-r-m along, John, Get a-long, storm a-long, storm's g-one along,'

'Our lubber's lugger-rigged, and we'll do him brown,-- Come away, away, sto-r-m along, John, Get a-long, storm a-long, storm's g-one along.'

"The last sentiment about lugger-rigged lubber being done brown made them all laugh even more than the other, and caused an interruption of the chorus to the extent of at least four revolutions of the windla.s.s; but when the laugh was over, they went at the dismal chorus with double the energy they had shown before, repeating all they had then said about 'John's getting along,' and 'storming along,' as if they rather liked John for doing these things. Thus they went on without much variety, until I was sick and tired enough of it. The 'lubber' part of it was too clearly aimed at me to be mistaken; but I could not discover in it anything but nonsense all the way through to the end.

"After a while I heard some one cry out, 'The anchor's away,' which as I afterwards learned, meant the anchor had been lifted from the bottom; and then the sailors all scattered to obey an order to do something, which I had not the least idea of, with a sail, and with some ropes, which appeared to me to be so mixed up that n.o.body could tell one from the other, nor make head nor tail of them. In the twinkling of an eye, however, in spite of the mixed-up ropes, there was a great flapping of white canvas, and a creaking and rattling of pulleys. Then the huge white sail was fully spread, the wind was bulging it out in the middle like a balloon, the s.h.i.+p's head was turned away from the town, and we were moving off. Next came an order to 'lay aloft and shake out the topsail'; but happily in this order I was not included, but was, instead, directed to 'lend a hand to get the anchor aboard,' which operation was quickly accomplished, and the heavy ma.s.s of crooked iron which had held the s.h.i.+p firmly in the harbor was soon fastened in its proper place on the bow, to what is called a 'cat-head.' By the time this was done, every sail was set, and we were flying before the wind out into the great ocean.

"And now you see my wish was gratified. I was in a s.h.i.+p and off on the 'world of waters,' with the career of a sailor before me,--a career to my imagination when on the farm full of romance, and presenting everything that was desirable in life. But was it so in reality when I was brought face to face with it,--when I had exchanged the farm for the forecastle? By no means. Indeed, I was filled with nothing but disgust first, and terror afterwards. The first sight which I had of the ocean was much less satisfactory to me than would have been my father's duck-pond. I soon got miserably sick; night came on, dark and fearful; the winds rose; the waves dashed with great force against the s.h.i.+p's sides, often breaking over the deck, and wetting me to the skin. I was s.h.i.+vering with cold; I was afraid that I should be washed overboard; I was afraid that I should be killed by something tumbling on me from aloft, for there was such a great rattling up there in the darkness that I thought everything was broken loose. I could not stand on the deck without support, and was knocked about when I attempted to move; every time the s.h.i.+p went down into the trough of a sea I thought all my insides were coming up. So, altogether, you see I was in a very bad way.

How, indeed, should it be otherwise? for can you imagine any ills so great as these?

1st, To have all your clothes wet; 2d, To have a sick stomach; and, 3d, To be in a dreadful fright.

"Now that was precisely my condition; and I was already reaping the fruits of my folly in running away from home and exchanging a farm for a forecastle."

The Captain here paused and laughed heartily at the picture he had drawn of himself in his ridiculous _role_ of "the young sailor-boy," and, after clearing his throat again, was about to proceed with the story, when he perceived that the shades of evening had already begun to fall upon the arbor. Looking out among the trees, he saw the leaves and branches standing sharply out against the golden sky, which showed him that the day was ended and the sun was set. So he told his little friends to hasten home before the dews began to fall upon the gra.s.s, and come again next day. This they promised thankfully, and told the Captain that they "never, never, never would forget it."

But the head of William was filled with a bright idea, and he was bound to discharge it before he left the place. "O Captain Hardy," cried the little fellow, "do you know what I was thinking of?"

"How should I, before you tell me?" was the Captain's very natural answer.

"Why, I was thinking how nice it would be to write all this down on paper. It would read just like a printed book."

The Captain said he "liked the idea," but he doubted if William could remember it. But William thought he could remember every word of it, and declared that it was splendid; and Fred and Alice, following after, said that it was splendid too. But whether the story that the Captain told was splendid, or the idea of writing it down was splendid, or exactly what was splendid, was not then and there settled; yet it was fully settled that William was to write the story down the best he could, and ask his father to correct the worst mistakes. And now, when this was done, the happy children said "Good evening" to the Captain, and set out merrily for home, little Alice holding to her brother's hand, as she tripped lightly over the green field, turning every dozen steps to throw back through the tender evening air, from her dainty little fingertips, a laughing kiss to the ancient mariner, whose face beamed kindly on her from the arbor door.

CHAPTER IV.

The Old Man, having related to the Little People how the Young Man went to Sea, now proceeds to tell what the Young Man did there.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The two days which the old man and his young friends had pa.s.sed together had so completely broken down all restraint between them, that the children almost felt as if they had known the old man all their lives.

It was therefore quite natural, that, when they went down next day, they should feel inclined to give him a surprise. So they concerted a plan of sneaking quietly around the house that they might come upon him suddenly, for they saw him working in his garden, hoeing up the weeds.

"Now let's astonish him," said William.

"That's a jolly idea," said Fred, while Alice said nothing at all, but was as pleased as she could be.

The little party crawled noiselessly along the fence, through the open gate, and sprang upon the Captain with a yell, like a parcel of wild Indians; and sure enough they did surprise him, for he jumped behind his hoe, as if preparing to defend himself against an attack of enemies.

"Heyday, my hearties!" exclaimed the Captain, when he saw who was there.

"Ain't you ashamed of yourselves to scare the old man that way?" and he joined the laugh that the children raised at his own expense,--enjoying it as much as they did.

"That's a trick of William's, I'll be bound," said he; "but no matter, I'll forgive you; and I'm right glad you've come, too, for it's precious hot, and I'm tired hoeing up the weeds; so now, let us get out of the sun, into the crow's nest."

"The crow's nest!" cried William. "What's that?"

"Why, the arbor, to be sure," said the Captain. "Don't you like the name?"

"Of course I do," answered William. "It's such a cunning name."

It was but a few steps to the "crow's nest," and the happy party once seated, the Captain was ready in an instant to pick up the thread where he had broken it short off when they had parted in the golden evening of the day before, and then to spin on the yarn.

"And now, my lively trickster and genius of the quill," said he to William, "how is it about writing down the story? What does your father say?"

"O," answered William, "I've written down almost every word of what you said, and papa has examined it, and says he likes it. There it is";--and he pulled a roll of paper from his pocket and handed it to the Captain.

The old man took it from William's hand, looking all the while much gratified; and after pulling out a pair of curious-looking, old-fas.h.i.+oned spectacles from a curious-looking, old-fas.h.i.+oned red-morocco case, which was much the worse for wear, he fixed them on his nose very carefully, and then, after unfolding the sheets of paper, he glanced knowingly over them.

"That's good," said he; "that's s.h.i.+p-shape, and as it ought to be. Why, lad, you're a regular genius, and sure to turn out a second Scott, or Cooper, or some such writing chap."

"I am glad you like it, Captain Hardy," said William, pleased that he had pleased his friend.

"Like it!" exclaimed the Captain. "Like it!! that's just _what_ I do; and now, since I'm to be made famous in this way, I'll be more careful with my speech. And no bad spelling either," ran on the Captain, while he kept turning back the leaves, "as there would have been if you had put it down just as I spoke it. But never mind that now; take back the papers, lad, and keep them safe; we'll go on now, if we can only find where the yarn was broken yesterday. Do any of you remember?"

"I do," said William, laughing. "You had just got out into the great ocean, and were frightened half to death."

"O yes, that's it," went on the Captain,--"frightened half to death; that's sure enough, and no mistake; and so would you have been, my lad, if you had been in my place. But I don't think I'll tell you anything more about my miserable life on board that s.h.i.+p. Hadn't we better skip that?"

"O no, no!" cried the children all together, "don't skip anything."

"Well, then," said the obliging Captain, glad enough to see how much his young friends were interested, "if you _will_ know what sort of a miserable time young sailors have of it, I'll tell you; and let me tell you, too, there's many a one of them has just as bad a time as I had.

"In the first place, you see, they gave me such wretched food to eat, all out of a rusty old tin plate, and I was all the time so sick from the motion of the vessel as we went tossing up and down on the rough sea, and from the tobacco-smoke of the forecastle, and all the other bad smells, that I could hardly eat a mouthful, so that I was half ready to die of starvation; and, as if this was not misery enough, the sailors were all the time, when in the forecastle, quarrelling like so many wild beasts in a cage; and as two of them had pistols, and all of them had knives, I was every minute in dread lest they should take it into their heads to murder each other, and kill me by mistake. So, I can tell you, being a young sailor-boy isn't what it's cracked up to be."

"O, wasn't it dreadful!" said Alice, "to be sick all the time, and n.o.body there to take care of you."

"Well, I wasn't so sick, maybe, after all," answered the Captain, smiling,--"only _sea-sick_, you know; and then, for the credit of the s.h.i.+p, I'll say that, if you had nice plum-pudding every day for dinner, you would think it horrid stuff if you were sea-sick."

"But don't people die when they are sea-sick?" inquired Alice.

"Not often, child," answered the Captain, playfully; "but they feel all the time as if they were going to, and when they don't feel that way, they feel as if they'd like to.

"However, I was miserable enough in more ways than one; for to these troubles was added a great distress of mind, caused by the sport the sailors made of me, and also by remorse of conscience for having run away from home, and thus got myself into this great sc.r.a.pe. Then, to make the matter worse,--as if it was not bad enough already,--a violent storm set upon us in the dark night. You could never imagine how the s.h.i.+p rolled about over the waves. Sometimes they swept clear across the s.h.i.+p, as if threatening our lives; and all the time the creaking of the masts, the roaring of the wind through the rigging, and the las.h.i.+ng of the seas, filled my ears with such awful sounds that I was in the greatest terror, and I thought that every moment would certainly be my last. Then, as if still further to add to my fears, one of the sailors told me, right in the midst of the storm, that we were bound for the Northern seas, to catch whales and seals. So now, what little sc.r.a.p of courage I had left took instant flight, and I fell at once to praying (which I am ashamed to say I had never in my life done before), fully satisfied as I was that, if this course did not save me, nothing would.

In truth, I believe I should actually have died of fright had not the storm come soon to an end; and indeed it was many days before I got over thinking that I should, in one way or another, have a speedy pa.s.sage into the next world, and therefore I did not much concern myself with where we were going in this. Hence I grew to be very unpopular with the people in the s.h.i.+p, and learned next to nothing. I was always in somebody's way, was always getting hold of the wrong rope, and was in truth all the time doing mischief rather than good. So I was set down as a hopeless idiot, and was considered proper game for everybody. The sailors tormented me in every possible way.

"One day (knowing how green I was) they set to talking about fixing up a table in the forecastle, and one of them said, 'What a fine thing it would be if the mate (who turned out to be the red-faced man I had met in the street, and who took me to the s.h.i.+pping-office) would only let us have the keelson.' So this being agreed to in a very serious manner (which I hadn't wit enough to see was all put on), I was sent to carry their pet.i.tion. Seeing the mate on the quarter-deck, I approached, and in a very respectful manner thus addressed him: 'If you please, sir, I come to ask if you will let us have the keelson for a table?' Whereupon the mate turned fiercely upon me, and, to my great astonishment, roared out at the very top of his voice, 'What! what's that you say? Say that again, will you?' So I repeated the question as he had told me to,--feeling all the while as if I should like the deck to open and swallow me up. I had scarcely finished before I perceived that the mate was growing more and more angry; if, indeed, anything could possibly exceed the pa.s.sion he was in already. His face was many shades redder than it was before,--and, indeed, it was so very red that it looked as if it might s.h.i.+ne in the dark. His hat fell off, as it seemed to me, in consequence of his stiff red hair rising up on end, and he raised his voice so loud that it sounded more like the howl of a wild beast than anything I could compare it to. 'You lubber!' he shouted. 'You villain!'

he shrieked; 'you, you!'--and here it seemed as if he was choking with hard words which he couldn't get rid of,--'you come here to play tricks on me! You try to fool me! I'll teach you!'--and, seizing hold of the first thing he could lay his hands on (I did not stop to see what it was, but wheeled about greatly terrified), he let fly at me with such violence that I am sure I must have been finished off for certain had I not quickly dodged my head. When I returned to the forecastle, the sailors had a great laugh at me, and they called me ever afterwards 'Jack Keelson.' The keelson, you must know, is a great ma.s.s of wood down in the very bottom of the s.h.i.+p, running the whole length of it; but how should I have learned that?

"At another time I was told to go and 'grease the saddle.' Not knowing that this was a block of wood spiked to the mainmast to support the main boom, and thinking this a trick too, I refused to go, and came again near getting my head broken by the red-faced mate. I did not believe there was anything like a 'saddle' in the s.h.i.+p.

"And thus the sailors continued to worry me. Once, when I was very weak with sea-sickness and wanted to keep down a dinner which I had just eaten, they insisted upon it, that, if I would only put into my mouth a piece of fat pork, and _keep it there_, my dinner would stay in its place. The sailors were right enough, for as soon as my dinner began to start up, of course away went the fat pork out ahead of it.