it this twenty years; have to go down to the shore and take a day's
fishing every hand's turn, though, to keep the old hulk clear of
barnacles. There! I do wish I lived nigher the shore, where I could see
the folks I know, and talk about what's been a-goin' on. You don't know
anything about it, you don't; but it's tryin' to a man to be called 'old
Cap'n Lant,' and, so to speak, be forgot when there's anything stirring,
and be called gran'ther by clumsy creatur's goin' on fifty and sixty,
who can't do no more work to-day than I can; an' then the women-folks
keeps a-tellin' me to be keerful and not fall, and as how I'm too old to
go out fishing; and when they want to be soft-spoken, they say as how
they don't see as I fail, and how wonderful I keep my hearin'. I never
did want to farm it, but 'she' always took it to heart when I was off on
a v'y'ge, and this farm and some consider'ble means beside come to her
from her brother, and they all sot to and give me no peace of mind till
I sold out my share of the Ann Eliza and come ashore for good. I did
keep an eighth of the Pactolus, and I was ship's husband for a long
spell, but she never was heard from on her last voyage to Singapore. I
was the lonesomest man, when I first come ashore, that ever you see.
Well, you are master hands to walk, if you come way up from the Brandon
house. I wish the women was at home. Know Miss Brandon? Why, yes; and I
remember all her brothers and sisters, and her father and mother. I can
see 'em now coming into meeting, proud as Lucifer and straight as a
mast, every one of 'em. Miss Katharine, she always had her butter from
this very farm. Some of the folks used to go down every Saturday, and my
wife, she's been in the house a hundred times, I s'pose. So you are
Hathaway Brandon's grand-daughter?" (to Kate); "why, he and I have been
out fishing together many's the time,--he and Chantrey, his next younger
brother. Henry, he was a disapp'intment; he went to furrin parts and
turned out a Catholic priest, I s'pose you've heard? I never was so set
ag'in Mr. Henry as some folks was. He was the pleasantest spoken of the
whole on 'em. You do look like the Brandons; you really favor 'em
consider'ble. Well, I'm pleased to see ye, I'm sure."
We asked him many questions about the old people, and found he knew all
the family histories and told them with great satisfaction. We found he
had his pet stories, and it must have been gratifying to have an
entirely new and fresh audience. He was adroit in leading the
conversation around to a point where the stories would come in
appropriately, and we helped him as much as possible. In a small
neighborhood all the people know each other's stories and experiences by
heart, and I have no doubt the old captain had been snubbed many times
on beginning a favorite anecdote. There was a story which he told us
that first day, which he assured us was strictly true, and it is
certainly a remarkable instance of the influence of one mind upon
another at a distance. It seems to me worth preserving, at any rate; and
as we heard it from the old man, with his solemn voice and serious
expression and quaint gestures, it was singularly impressive.
"When I was a youngster," said Captain Lant, "I was an orphan, and I was
bound out to old Mr. Peletiah Daw's folks, over on the Ridge Road. It
was in the time of the last war, and he had a nephew, Ben Dighton, a
dreadful high-strung, wild fellow, who had gone off on a privateer. The
old man, he set everything by Ben; he would disoblige his own boys any
day to please him. This was in his latter days, and he used to have
spells of wandering and being out of his head; and he used to call for
Ben and talk sort of foolish about him, till they would tell him to
stop. Ben never did a stroke of work for him, either, but he was a
handsome fellow, and had a way with him when he was good-natured. One
night old Peletiah had been very bad all day and was getting quieted
down, and it was after supper; we sat round in the kitchen, and he lay
in the bedroom opening out. There were some pitch-knots blazing, and the
light shone in on the bed, and all of a sudden something made me look up
and look in; and there was the old man setting up straight, with his
eyes shining at me like a cat's. 'Stop 'em!' says he; '_stop 'em!_' and
his two sons run in then to catch hold of him, for they thought he was
beginning with one of his wild spells; but he fell back on the bed and
began to cry like a baby. 'O, dear me,' says he, 'they've hung
him,--hung him right up to the yard-arm! O, they oughtn't to have done
it; cut him down quick! he didn't think; he means well, Ben does; he was
hasty. O my God, I can't bear to see him swing round by the neck! It's
poor Ben hung up to the yard-arm. Let me alone, I say!' Andrew and
Moses, they were holding him with all their might, and they were both
hearty men, but he 'most got away from them once or twice, and he
screeched and howled like a mad creatur', and then he would cry again
like a child. He was worn out after a while and lay back quiet, and said
over and over, 'Poor Ben!' and 'hung at the yard-arm'; and he told the
neighbors next day, but nobody noticed him much, and he seemed to forget
it as his mind come back. All that summer he was miser'ble, and towards
cold weather he failed right along, though he had been a master strong
man in his day, and his timbers held together well. Along late in the
fall he had taken to his bed, and one day there came to the house a
fellow named Sim Decker, a reckless fellow he was too, who had gone out
in the same ship with Ben. He pulled a long face when he came in, and
said he had brought bad news. They had been taken prisoner and carried
into port and put in jail, and Ben Dighton had got a fever there and
died.
"'You lie!' says the old man from the bedroom, speaking as loud and
f'erce as ever you heard. 'They hung him to the yard-arm!'
"'Don't mind him,' says Andrew; 'he's wandering-like, and he had a bad
dream along back in the spring; I s'posed he'd forgotten it.' But the
Decker fellow he turned pale, and kept talking crooked while he listened
to old Peletiah a-scolding to himself. He answered the questions the
women-folks asked him,--they took on a good deal,--but pretty soon he
got up and winked to me and Andrew, and we went out in the yard. He
began to swear, and then says he, 'When did the old man have his dream?'
Andrew couldn't remember, but I knew it was the night before he sold the
gray colt, and that was the 24th of April.
"'Well,' says Sim Decker, 'on the twenty-third day of April Ben Dighton
was hung to the yard-arm, and I see 'em do it, Lord help him! I didn't
mean to tell the women, and I s'posed you'd never know, for I'm all the
one of the ship's company you're ever likely to see. We were taken
prisoner, and Ben was mad as fire, and they were scared of him and
chained him to the deck; and while he was sulking there, a little
parrot of a midshipman come up and grinned at him, and snapped his
fingers in his face; and Ben lifted his hands with the heavy irons and
sprung at him like a tiger, and the boy dropped dead as a stone; and
they put the bight of a rope round Ben's neck and slung him right up to
the yard-arm, and there he swung back and forth until as soon as we
dared one of us clim' up and cut the rope and let him go over the ship's
side; and they put us in irons for that, curse 'em! How did that old man
in there know, and he bedridden here, nigh upon three thousand miles
off?' says he. But I guess there wasn't any of us could tell him," said
Captain Lant in conclusion. "It's something I never could account for,
but it's true as truth. I've known more such cases; some folks laughs at
me for believing 'em,--'the cap'n's yarns,' they calls 'em,--but if
you'll notice, everybody's got some yarn of that kind they do believe,
if they won't believe yours. And there's a good deal happens in the
world that's myster'ous. Now there was Widder Oliver Pinkham, over to
the P'int, told me with her own lips that she--" But just here we saw
the captain's expression alter suddenly, and looked around to see a
wagon coming up the lane. We immediately said we must go home, for it
was growing late, but asked permission to come again and hear the Widow
Oliver Pinkham story. We stopped, however, to see "the women-folks," and
afterward became so intimate with them that we were invited to spend the
afternoon and take tea, which invitation we accepted with great pride.
We went out fishing, also, with the captain and "Danny," of whom I will
tell you presently. I often think of Captain Lant in the winter, for he
told Kate once that he "felt master old in winter to what he did in
summer." He likes reading, fortunately, and we had a letter from him,
not long ago, acknowledging the receipt of some books of travel by land
and water which we had luckily thought to send him. He gave the latitude
and longitude of Deephaven at the beginning of his letter, and signed
himself, "Respectfully yours with esteem, Jacob Lant (condemned as
unseaworthy)."
_Danny_
Deephaven seemed more like one of the lazy little English seaside towns
than any other. It was not in the least American. There was no
excitement about anything; there were no manufactories; nobody seemed in
the least hurry. The only foreigners were a few stranded sailors. I do
not know when a house or a new building of any kind had been built; the
men were farmers, or went outward in boats, or inward in fish-wagons, or
sometimes mackerel and halibut fishing in schooners for the city
markets. Sometimes a schooner came to one of the wharves to load with
hay or firewood; but Deephaven used to be a town of note, rich and busy,
as its forsaken warehouses show.
We knew almost all the fisher-people at the shore, even old Dinnett, who
lived an apparently desolate life by himself in a hut and was reputed to
have been a bloodthirsty pirate in his youth. He was consequently feared
by all the children, and for misdemeanors in his latter days avoided
generally. Kate talked with him awhile one day on the shore, and made
him come up with her for a bandage for his hand which she saw he had
hurt badly; and the next morning he brought us a "new" lobster
apiece,--fishermen mean that a thing is only not salted when they say it
is "fresh." We happened to be in the hall, and received him ourselves,
and gave him a great piece of tobacco and (unintentionally) the means of
drinking our health. "Bless your pretty hearts!" said he; "may ye be
happy, and live long, and get good husbands, and if they ain't good to
you may they die from you!"
None of our friends were more interesting than the fishermen. The
fish-houses, which might be called the business centre of the town, were
at a little distance from the old warehouses, farther down the harbor
shore, and were ready to fall down in despair. There were some fishermen
who lived near by, but most of them were also farmers in a small way,
and lived in the village or farther inland. From our eastern windows we
could see the moorings, and we always liked to watch the boats go out or
come straying in, one after the other, ripping and skimming under the
square little sails; and we often went down to the fish-houses to see
what kind of a catch there had been.
I should have imagined that the sea would become very commonplace to men
whose business was carried on in boats, and who had spent night after
night and day after day from their boyhood on the water; but that is a
mistake. They have an awe of the sea and of its mysteries, and of what
it hides away from us. They are childish in their wonder at any strange
creature which they find. If they have not seen the sea-serpent, they
believe, I am sure, that other people have, and when a great shark or
black-fish or sword-fish was taken and brought in shore, everybody went
to see it, and we talked about it, and how brave its conqueror was, and
what a fight there had been, for a long time afterward.
I said that we liked to see the boats go out, but I must not give you
the impression that we saw them often, for they weighed anchor at an
early hour in the morning. I remember once there was a light fog over
the sea, lifting fast, as the sun was coming up, and the brownish sails
disappeared in the mist, while voices could still be heard for some
minutes after the men were hidden from sight. This gave one a curious
feeling, but afterward, when the sun had risen, everything looked much
the same as usual; the fog had gone, and the dories and even the larger
boats were distant specks on the sparkling sea.
One afternoon we made a new acquaintance in this wise. We went down to
the shore to see if we could hire a conveyance to the lighthouse the
next morning. We often went out early in one of the fishing-boats, and
after we had stayed as long as we pleased, Mr. Kew would bring us home.
It was quiet enough that day, for not a single boat had come in, and
there were no men to be seen along-shore. There was a solemn company of
lobster-coops or cages which had been brought in to be mended. They
always amused Kate. She said they seemed to her like droll old women
telling each other secrets. These were scattered about in different
attitudes, and looked more confidential than usual.
Just as we were going away we happened to see a man at work in one of
the sheds. He was the fisherman whom we knew least of all; an
odd-looking, silent sort of man, more sunburnt and weather-beaten than
any of the others. We had learned to know him by the bright red flannel
shirt he always wore, and besides, he was lame; some one told us he had
had a bad fall once, on board ship. Kate and I had always wished we
could find a chance to talk with him. He looked up at us pleasantly, and
when we nodded and smiled, he said "Good day" in a gruff, hearty voice,
and went on with his work, cleaning mackerel.
"Do you mind our watching you?" asked Kate.
"No, _ma'am_!" said the fisherman emphatically. So there we stood.
Those fish-houses were curious places, so different from any other kind
of workshop. In this there was a seine, or part of one, festooned among
the cross-beams overhead, and there were snarled fishing-lines, and
barrows to carry fish in, like wheelbarrows without wheels; there were
the queer round lobster-nets, and "kits" of salt mackerel, tubs of bait,
and piles of clams; and some queer bones, and parts of remarkable fish,
and lobster-claws of surprising size fastened on the walls for ornament.
There was a pile of rubbish down at the end; I dare say it was all
useful, however,--there is such mystery about the business.
Kate and I were never tired of hearing of the fish that come at
different times of the year, and go away again, like the birds; or of
the actions of the dog-fish, which the 'longshore-men hate so bitterly;
and then there are such curious legends and traditions, of which almost
all fishermen have a store.
"I think mackerel are the prettiest fish that swim," said I presently.
"So do I, miss," said the man, "not to say but I've seen more
fancy-looking fish down in southern waters, bright as any flower you
ever see; but a mackerel," holding up one admiringly, "why, they're so
clean-built and trig-looking! Put a cod alongside, and he looks as
lumbering as an old-fashioned Dutch brig aside a yacht.
"Those are good-looking fish, but they an't made much account of,"
continued our friend, as he pushed aside the mackerel and took another
tub. "They're hake, I s'pose you know. But I forgot,--I can't stop to
bother with them now." And he pulled forward a barrow full of small
fish, flat and hard, with pointed, bony heads.
"Those are porgies, aren't they?" asked Kate.
"Yes," said the man, "an' I'm going to sliver them for the trawls."
We knew what the trawls were, and supposed that the porgies were to be
used for bait; and we soon found out what "slivering" meant, by seeing
him take them by the head and cut a slice from first one side and then
the other in such a way that the pieces looked not unlike smaller fish.
"It seems to me," said I, "that fishermen always have sharper knives
than other people."
"Yes, we do like a sharp knife in our trade; and then we are mostly
strong-handed."
He was throwing the porgies' heads and backbones--all that was left of
them after slivering--in a heap, and now several cats walked in as if
they felt at home, and began a hearty lunch. "What a troop of pussies
there is round here," said I; "I wonder what will become of them in the
winter,--though, to be sure, the fishing goes on just the same."
"The better part of them don't get through the cold weather," said
Danny. "Two or three of the old ones have been here for years, and are
as much belonging to Deephaven as the meetin'-house; but the rest of
them an't to be depended on. You'll miss the young ones by the dozen,
come spring. I don't know myself but they move inland in the fall of the
year; they're knowing enough, if that's all!"
Kate and I stood in the wide doorway, arm in arm, looking sometimes at
the queer fisherman and the porgies, and sometimes out to sea. It was
low tide; the wind had risen a little, and the heavy salt air blew
toward us from the wet brown ledges in the rocky harbor. The sea was
bright blue, and the sun was shining. Two gulls were swinging lazily to
and fro; there was a flock of sand-pipers down by the water's edge, in a
great hurry, as usual.
Presently the fisherman spoke again, beginning with an odd laugh: "I
_was_ scared last winter! Jack Scudder and me, we were up in the Cap'n
Manning storehouse hunting for a half-bar'l of salt the skipper said was
there. It was an awful blustering kind of day, with a thin icy rain
blowing from all points at once; sea roaring as if it wished it could
come ashore and put a stop to everything. Bad days at sea, them are;
rigging all froze up. As I was saying, we were hunting for a half-bar'l
of salt, and I laid hold of a bar'l that had something heavy in the
bottom, and tilted it up, and my eye! there was a stir and a scratch and
a squeal, and out went some kind of a creatur', and I jumped back, not
looking for anything live, but I see in a minute it was a cat; and
perhaps you think it is a big story, but there were eight more in there,
hived in together to keep warm. I car'd 'em up some new fish that night;
they seemed short of provisions. We hadn't been out fishing as much as
common, and they hadn't dared to be round the fish-houses much, for a
fellow who came in on a coaster had a dog, and he used to chase 'em.
Hard chance they had, and lots of 'em died, I guess; but there seem to
be some survivin' relatives, an' al'ays just so hungry! I used to feed
them some when I was ashore. I think likely you've heard that a cat will
fetch you bad luck; but I don't know's that made much difference to me.
I kind of like to keep on the right side of 'em, too; if ever I have a
bad dream there's sure to be a cat in it; but I was brought up to be
clever to dumb beasts, an' I guess it's my natur'. Except fish," said
Danny after a minute's thought; "but then it never seems like they had
feelin's like creatur's that live ashore." And we all laughed heartily
and felt well acquainted.
"I s'pose you misses will laugh if I tell ye I kept a kitty once
myself." This was said rather shyly, and there was evidently a story, so
we were much interested, and Kate said, "Please tell us about it; was it
at sea?"
"Yes, it was at sea; leastways, on a coaster. I got her in a sing'lar
kind of way: it was one afternoon we were lying alongside Charlestown
Bridge, and I heard a young cat screeching real pitiful; and after I
looked all round, I see her in the water clutching on to the pier of the
bridge, and some little divils of boys were heaving rocks down at her. I
got into the schooner's tag-boat quick, I tell ye, and pushed off for
her, 'n' she let go just as I got there, 'n' I guess you never saw a
more miser'ble-looking creatur' than I fished out of the water. Cold
weather it was. Her leg was hurt, and her eye, and I thought first I'd
drop her overboard again, and then I didn't, and I took her aboard the
schooner and put her by the stove. I thought she might as well die where
it was warm. She eat a little mite of chowder before night, but she was
very slim; but next morning, when I went to see if she was dead, she
fell to licking my finger, and she did purr away like a dolphin. One of
her eyes was out, where a stone had took her, and she never got any use
of it, but she used to look at you so clever with the other, and she got
well of her lame foot after a while. I got to be ter'ble fond of her.
She was just the knowingest thing you ever saw, and she used to sleep
alongside of me in my bunk, and like as not she would go on deck with me
when it was my watch. I was coasting then for a year and eight months,
and I kept her all the time. We used to be in harbor consider'ble, and
about eight o'clock in the forenoon I used to drop a line and catch her
a couple of cunners. Now, it is cur'us that she used to know when I was
fishing for her. She would pounce on them fish and carry them off and
growl, and she knew when I got a bite,--she'd watch the line; but when
we were mackereling she never give us any trouble. She would never lift
a paw to touch any of our fish. She didn't have the thieving ways common
to most cats. She used to set round on deck in fair weather, and when
the wind blew she al'ays kept herself below. Sometimes when we were in
port she would go ashore awhile, and fetch back a bird or a mouse, but
she wouldn't eat it till she come and showed it to me. She never wanted
to stop long ashore, though I never shut her up; I always give her her
liberty. I got a good deal of joking about her from the fellows, but she
was a sight of company. I don' know as I ever had anything like me as
much as she did. Not to say as I ever had much of any trouble with
anybody, ashore or afloat. I'm a still kind of fellow, for all I look so
rough.
"But then, I han't had a home, what I call a home, since I was going on
nine year old."
"How has that happened?" asked Kate.
"Well, mother, she died, and I was bound out to a man in the tanning
trade, and I hated him, and I hated the trade; and when I was a little
bigger I ran away, and I've followed the sea ever since. I wasn't much
use to him, I guess; leastways, he never took the trouble to hunt me up.
"About the best place I ever was in was a hospital. It was in foreign
parts. Ye see I'm crippled some? I fell from the topsail yard to the
deck, and I struck my shoulder, and broke my leg, and banged myself all
up. It was to a nuns' hospital where they took me. All of the nuns were
Catholics, and they wore big white things on their heads. I don't
suppose you ever saw any. Have you? Well, now, that's queer! When I was
first there I was scared of them; they were real ladies, and I wasn't
used to being in a house, any way. One of them, that took care of me
most of the time, why, she would even set up half the night with me, and
I couldn't begin to tell you how good-natured she was, an' she'd look
real sorry too. I used to be ugly, I ached so, along in the first of my
being there, but I spoke of it when I was coming away, and she said it
was all right. She used to feed me, that lady did; and there were some
days I couldn't lift my head, and she would rise it on her arm. She give
me a little mite of a book, when I come away. I'm not much of a hand at
reading, but I always kept it on account of her. She was so pleased when
I got so's to set up in a chair and look out of the window. She wasn't
much of a hand to talk English. I did feel bad to come away from there;
I 'most wished I could be sick a while longer. I never said much of
anything either, and I don't know but she thought it was queer, but I am
a dreadful clumsy man to say anything, and I got flustered. I don't
know's I mind telling you; I was 'most a-crying. I used to think I'd lay
by some money and ship for there and carry her something real pretty.
But I don't rank able-bodied seaman like I used, and it's as much as I
can do to get a berth on a coaster; I suppose I might go as cook. I
liked to have died with my hurt at that hospital, but when I was getting
well it made me think of when I was a mite of a chap to home before
mother died, to be laying there in a clean bed with somebody to do for
me. Guess you think I'm a good hand to spin long yarns; somehow it comes
easy to talk to-day."
"What became of your cat?" asked Kate, after a pause, during which our
friend sliced away at the porgies.
"I never rightfully knew; it was in Salem harbor, and a windy night. I
was on deck consider'ble, for the schooner pitched lively, and once or
twice she dragged her anchor. I never saw the kitty after she eat her
supper. I remember I gave her some milk,--I used to buy her a pint once
in a while for a treat; I don't know but she might have gone off on a
cake of ice, but it did seem as if she had too much sense for that. Most
likely she missed her footing, and fell overboard in the dark. She was
marked real pretty, black and white, and kep' herself just as clean! She
knew as well as could be when foul weather was coming; she would bother
round and act queer; but when the sun was out she would sit round on
deck as pleased as a queen. There! I feel bad sometimes when I think of
her, and I never went into Salem since without hoping that I should see
her. I don't know but if I was a-going to begin my life over again, I'd
settle down ashore and have a snug little house and farm it. But I guess
I shall do better at fishing. Give me a trig-built topsail schooner
painted up nice, with a stripe on her, and clean sails, and a fresh wind
with the sun a-shining, and I feel first-rate."
"Do you believe that codfish swallow stones before a storm?" asked Kate.
I had been thinking about the lonely fisherman in a sentimental way, and
so irrelevant a question shocked me. "I saw he felt slightly embarrassed
at having talked about his affairs so much," Kate told me afterward,
"and I thought we should leave him feeling more at his ease if we talked
about fish for a while." And sure enough he did seem relieved, and gave
us his opinion about the codfish at once, adding that he never cared
much for cod any way; folks up country bought 'em a good deal, he heard.
Give him a haddock right out of the water for his dinner!
"I never can remember," said Kate, "whether it is cod or haddock that
have a black stripe along their sides--"
"O, those are haddock," said I; "they say that the Devil caught a
haddock once, and it slipped through his fingers and got scorched; so
all the haddock had the same mark afterward."
"Well, now, how did you know that old story?" said Danny, laughing
heartily; "ye mustn't believe all the old stories ye hear, mind ye!"
"O, no," said we.