and the clouds seem to be thickening; I guess we shall have it cooler
'long towards noon. It looked last night as if we were going to have
foul weather, but the scud seemed to blow off, and it was as pretty a
morning as ever I see. 'A growing moon chaws up the clouds,' my
gran'ther used to say. He was as knowing about the weather as anybody I
ever come across; 'most always hit it just about right. Some folks lay
all the weather to the moon, accordin' to where she quarters, and when
she's in perigee we're going to have this kind of weather, and when
she's in apogee she's got to do so and so for sartain; but gran'ther he
used to laugh at all them things. He said it never made no kind of
difference, and he went by the looks of the clouds and the feel of the
air, and he thought folks couldn't make no kind of rules that held good,
that had to do with the moon. Well, he did use to depend on the moon
some; everybody knows we aren't so likely to have foul weather in a
growing moon as we be when she's waning. But some folks I could name,
they can't do nothing without having the moon's opinion on it. When I
went my second voyage afore the mast we was in port ten days at Cadiz,
and the ship she needed salting dreadful. The mate kept telling the
captain how low the salt was in her, and we was going a long voyage from
there, but no, he wouldn't have her salted nohow, because it was the
wane of the moon. He was an amazing set kind of man, the cap'n was, and
would have his own way on sea or shore. The mate was his own brother,
and they used to fight like a cat and dog; they owned most of the ship
between 'em. I was slushing the mizzen-mast, and heard 'em a disputin'
about the salt. The cap'n was a first-rate seaman and died rich, but he
was dreadful notional. I know one time we were a lyin' out in the stream
all ready to weigh anchor, and everything was in trim, the men were up
in the rigging and a fresh breeze going out, just what we'd been waiting
for, and the word was passed to take in sail and make everything fast.
The men swore, and everybody said the cap'n had had some kind of a
warning. But that night it began to blow, and I tell you afore morning
we were glad enough we were in harbor. The old Victor she dragged her
anchor, and the fore-to'gallant sail and r'yal got loose somehow and was
blown out of the bolt-ropes. Most of the canvas and rigging was old, but
we had first-rate weather after that, and didn't bend near all the new
sail we had aboard, though the cap'n was most afraid we'd come short
when we left Boston. That was 'most sixty year ago," said the captain,
reflectively. "How time does slip away! You young folks haven't any
idea. She was a first-rate ship, the old Victor was, though I suppose
she wouldn't cut much of a dash now 'longside of some of the new
clippers.
"There used to be some strange-looking crafts in those days; there was
the old brig Hannah. They used to say she would sail backwards as fast
as forwards, and she was so square in the bows, they used to call her
the sugar-box. She was master old, the Hannah was, and there wasn't a
port from here to New Orleans where she wasn't known; she used to carry
a master cargo for her size, more than some ships that ranked two
hundred and fifty ton, and she was put down for two hundred. She used to
make good voyages, the Hannah did, and then there was the Pactolus; she
was just about such another,--you would have laughed to see her. She
sailed out of this port for a good many years. Cap'n Wall he told me
that if he had her before the wind with a cargo of cotton, she would
make a middling good run, but load her deep with salt, and you might as
well try to sail a stick of oak timber with a handkerchief. She was a
stout-built ship: I shouldn't wonder if her timbers were afloat
somewhere yet; she was sold to some parties out in San Francisco. There!
everything's changed from what it was when I used to follow the sea. I
wonder sometimes if the sailors have as queer works aboard ship as they
used. Bless ye! Deephaven used to be a different place to what it is
now; there was hardly a day in the year that you didn't hear the
shipwrights' hammers, and there was always something going on at the
wharves. You would see the folks from up country comin' in with their
loads of oak knees and plank, and logs o' rock-maple for keels when
there was snow on the ground in winter-time, and the big sticks of
timber-pine for masts would come crawling along the road with their
three and four yoke of oxen all frosted up, the sleds creaking and the
snow growling and the men flapping their arms to keep warm, and
hallooing as if there wan't nothin' else goin' on in the world except to
get them masts to the ship-yard. Bless ye! two o' them teams together
would stretch from here 'most up to the Widow Jim's place,--no such
timber-pines nowadays."
"I suppose the sailors are very jolly together sometimes," said Kate,
meditatively, with the least flicker of a smile at me. The captain did
not answer for a minute, as he was battling with an obstinate snarl in
his line; but when he had found the right loop he said, "I've had the
best times and the hardest times of my life at sea, that's certain! I
was just thinking it over when you spoke. I'll tell you some stories one
day or 'nother that'll please you. Land! you've no idea what tricks some
of those wild fellows will be up to. Now, saying they fetch home a cargo
of wines and they want a drink; they've got a trick so they can get it.
Saying it's champagne, they'll fetch up a basket, and how do you suppose
they'll get into it?"
Of course we didn't know.
"Well, every basket will be counted, and they're fastened up particular,
so they can tell in a minute if they've been tampered with; and neither
must you draw the corks if you could get the basket open. I suppose ye
may have seen champagne, how it's all wired and waxed. Now, they take a
clean tub, them fellows do, and just shake the basket and jounce it up
and down till they break the bottles and let the wine drain out; then
they take it down in the hold and put it back with the rest, and when
the cargo is delivered there's only one or two whole bottles in that
basket, and there's a dreadful fuss about its being stowed so foolish."
The captain told this with an air of great satisfaction, but we did not
show the least suspicion that he might have assisted at some such
festivity.
"Then they have a way of breaking into a cask. It won't do to start the
bung, and it won't do to bore a hole where it can be seen, but they're
up to that: they slip back one of the end hoops and bore two holes
underneath it, one for the air to go in and one for the liquor to come
out, and after they get all out they want they put in some spigots and
cut them down close to the stave, knock back the hoop again, and there
ye are, all trig."
"I never should have thought of it," said Kate, admiringly.
"There isn't nothing," Cap'n Sands went on, "that'll hender some masters
from cheating the owners a little. Get them off in a foreign port, and
there's nobody to watch, and they most of them have a feeling that they
ain't getting full pay, and they'll charge things to the ship that she
never seen nor heard of. There were two shipmasters that sailed out of
Salem. I heard one of 'em tell the story. They had both come into port
from Liverpool nigh the same time, and one of 'em, he was dressed up in
a handsome suit of clothes, and the other looked kind of poverty-struck.
'Where did you get them clothes?' says he. 'Why, to Liverpool,' says the
other; 'you don't mean to say you come away without none, cheap as cloth
was there?' 'Why, yes,' says the other cap'n,--'I can't afford to wear
such clothes as those be, and I don't see how you can, either.' 'Charge
'em to the ship, bless ye; the owners expect it.'
"So the next v'y'ge the poor cap'n he had a nice rig for himself made to
the best tailor's in Bristol, and charged it, say ten pounds, in the
ship's account; and when he came home the ship's husband he was looking
over the papers, and 'What's this?' says he, 'how come the ship to run
up a tailor's bill?' 'Why, them's mine,' says the cap'n, very meaching.
'I understood that there wouldn't be no objection made.' 'Well, you made
a mistake,' says the other, laughing; 'guess I'd better scratch this
out.' And it wasn't long before the cap'n met the one who had put him up
to doing it, and he give him a blowing up for getting him into such a
fix. 'Land sakes alive!' says he, 'were you fool enough to set it down
in the account? Why, I put mine in, so many bolts of Russia duck.'"
Captain Sands seemed to enjoy this reminiscence, and to our
satisfaction, in a few minutes, after he had offered to take the oars,
he went on to tell us another story.
"Why, as for cheating, there's plenty of that all over the world. The
first v'y'ge I went into Havana as master of the Deerhound, she had
never been in the port before and had to be measured and recorded, and
then pay her tonnage duties every time she went into port there
afterward, according to what she was registered on the custom-house
books. The inspector he come aboard, and he went below and looked round,
and he measured her between decks; but he never offered to set down any
figgers, and when we came back into the cabin, says he, 'Yes--yes--good
ship! you put one bloon front of this eye, _so!_' says he, 'an' I not
see with him; and you put one more doubloon front of other eye, and how
you think I see at all what figger you write?' So I took his book and I
set down her measurements and made her out twenty ton short, and he took
his doubloons and shoved 'em into his pocket. There, it isn't what you
call straight dealing, but everybody done it that dared, and you'd eat
up all the profits of a v'y'ge and the owners would just as soon you'd
try a little up-country air, if you paid all those dues according to
law. Tonnage was dreadful high and wharfage too, in some ports, and
they'd get your last cent some way or 'nother if ye weren't sharp.
"Old Cap'n Carew, uncle to them ye see to meeting, did a smart thing in
the time of the embargo. Folks got tired of it, and it was dreadful hard
times; ships rotting at the wharves, and Deephaven never was quite the
same afterward, though the old place held out for a good while before
she let go as ye see her now. You'd 'a' had a hard grip on't when I was
a young man to make me believe it would ever be so dull here. Well,
Cap'n Carew he bought an old brig that was lying over by East Parish,
and he began fitting her up and loading her for the West Indies, and the
farmers they'd come in there by night from all round the country, to
sell salt-fish and lumber and potatoes, and glad enough they were, I
tell ye. The rigging was put in order, and it wasn't long before she was
ready to sail, and it was all kept mighty quiet. She lay up to an old
wharf in a cove where she wouldn't be much noticed, and they took care
not to paint her any or to attract any attention.
"One day Cap'n Carew was over in Riverport dining out with some
gentlemen, and the revenue officer sat next to him, and by and by says
he, 'Why won't ye take a ride with me this afternoon? I've had warning
that there's a brig loading for the West Indies over beyond Deephaven
somewheres, and I'm going over to seize her.' And he laughed to himself
as if he expected fun, and something in his pocket beside. Well, the
first minute that Cap'n Carew dared, after dinner, he slipped out, and
he hired the swiftest horse in Riverport and rode for dear life, and
told the folks who were in the secret, and some who weren't, what was
the matter, and every soul turned to and helped finish loading her and
getting the rigging ready and the water aboard; but just as they were
leaving the cove--the wind was blowing just right--along came the
revenue officer with two or three men, and they come off in a boat and
boarded her as important as could be.
"'Won't ye step into the cabin, gentlemen, and take a glass o' wine?'
says Cap'n Carew, very polite; and the wind came in fresher,--something
like a squall for a few minutes,--and the men had the sails spread
before you could say Jack Robi'son, and before those fellows knew what
they were about the old brig was a standing out to sea, and the folks on
the wharves cheered and yelled. The Cap'n gave the officers a good scare
and offered 'em a free passage to the West Indies, and finally they said
they wouldn't report at headquarters if he'd let 'em go ashore; so he
told the sailors to lower their boat about two miles off Deephaven, and
they pulled ashore meek enough. Cap'n Carew had a first-rate run, and
made a lot of money, so I have heard it said. Bless ye! every shipmaster
would have done just the same if he had dared, and everybody was glad
when they heard about it. Dreadful foolish piece of business that
embargo was!
"Now I declare," said Captain Sands, after he had finished this
narrative, "here I'm a telling stories and you're doin' all the work.
You'll pull a boat ahead of anybody, if you keep on. Tom Kew was
a-praisin' up both of you to me the other day: says he, 'They don't put
on no airs, but I tell ye they can pull a boat well, and swim like
fish,' says he. There now, if you'll give me the oars I'll put the dory
just where I want her, and you can be getting your lines ready. I know a
place here where it's always toler'ble fishing, and I guess we'll get
something."
Kate and I cracked our clams on the gunwale of the boat, and cut them
into nice little bits for bait with a piece of the shell, and by the
time the captain had thrown out the killick we were ready to begin, and
found the fishing much more exciting than it had been at the wharf.
"I don't know as I ever see 'em bite faster," said the old sailor,
presently; "guess it's because they like the folks that's fishing. Well,
I'm pleased. I thought I'd let 'Bijah take some along to Denby in the
cart to-morrow if I got more than I could use at home. I didn't
calc'late on having such a lively crew aboard. I s'pose ye wouldn't care
about going out a little further by and by to see if we can't get two or
three haddock?" And we answered that we should like nothing better.
It was growing cloudy, and was much cooler,--the perfection of a day for
fishing,--and we sat there diligently pulling in cunners, and talking a
little once in a while. The tide was nearly out, and Black Rock looked
almost large enough to be called an island. The sea was smooth and the
low waves broke lazily among the seaweed-covered ledges, while our boat
swayed about on the water, lifting and falling gently as the waves went
in shore. We were not a very long way from the lighthouse, and once we
could see Mrs. Kew's big white apron as she stood in the doorway for a
few minutes. There was no noise except the plash of the low-tide waves
and the occasional flutter of a fish in the bottom of the dory. Kate and
I always killed our fish at once by a rap on the head, for it certainly
saved the poor creatures much discomfort, and ourselves as well, and it
made it easier to take them off the hook than if they were flopping
about and making us aware of our cruelty.
Suddenly the captain wound up his line and said he thought we'd better
be going in, and Kate and I looked at him with surprise. "It is only
half past ten," said I, looking at my watch. "Don't hurry in on our
account," added Kate, persuasively, for we were having a very good time.
"I guess we won't mind about the haddock. I've got a feelin' we'd better
go ashore." And he looked up into the sky and turned to see the west. "I
knew there was something the matter; there's going to be a shower." And
we looked behind us to see a bank of heavy clouds coming over fast. "I
wish we had two pair of oars," said Captain Sands. "I'm afraid we shall
get caught."
"You needn't mind us," said Kate. "We aren't in the least afraid of our
clothes, and we don't get cold when we're wet; we have made sure of
that."
"Well, I'm glad to hear that," said the cap'n. "Women-folks are apt to
be dreadful scared of a wetting; but I'd just as lief not get wet
myself. I had a twinge of rheumatism yesterday. I guess we'll get
ashore fast enough. No. I feel well enough to-day, but you can row if
you want to, and I'll take the oars the last part of the way."
When we reached the moorings the clouds were black, and the thunder
rattled and boomed over the sea, while heavy spatters of rain were
already falling. We did not go to the wharves, but stopped down the
shore at the fish-houses, the nearer place of shelter. "You just select
some of those cunners," said the captain, who was beginning to be a
little out of breath, "and then you can run right up and get under
cover, and I'll put a bit of old sail over the rest of the fish to keep
the fresh water off." By the time the boat touched the shore and we had
pulled it up on the pebbles, the rain had begun in good earnest. Luckily
there was a barrow lying near, and we loaded that in a hurry, and just
then the captain caught sight of a well-known red shirt in an open door,
and shouted, "Halloa, Danny! lend us a hand with these fish, for we're
nigh on to being shipwrecked." And then we ran up to the fish-house and
waited awhile, though we stood in the doorway watching the lightning,
and there were so many leaks in the roof that we might almost as well
have been out of doors. It was one of Danny's quietest days, and he
silently beheaded hake, only winking at us once very gravely at
something our other companion said.
"There!" said Captain Sands, "folks may say what they have a mind to; I
didn't see that shower coming up, and I know as well as I want to that
my wife did, and impressed it on my mind. Our house sets high, and she
watches the sky and is al'ays a worrying when I go out fishing for fear
something's going to happen to me,' specially sence I've got to be along
in years."
This was just what Kate and I wished to hear, for we had been told that
Captain Sands had most decided opinions on dreams and other mysteries,
and could tell some stories which were considered incredible by even a
Deephaven audience, to whom the marvellous was of every-day occurrence.
"Then it has happened before?" asked Kate. "I wondered why you started
so suddenly to come in."
"Happened!" said the captain. "Bless ye, yes! I'll tell you my views
about these p'ints one o' those days. I've thought a good deal about
'em by spells. Not that I can explain 'em, nor anybody else, but it's no
use to laugh at 'em as some folks do. Cap'n Lant--you know Cap'n
Lant?--he and I have talked it over consider'ble, and he says to me,
'Everybody's got some story of the kind they will believe in spite of
everything, and yet they won't believe yourn.'"
The shower seemed to be over now, and we felt compelled to go home, as
the captain did not go on with his remarks. I hope he did not see
Danny's wink. Skipper Scudder, who was Danny's friend and partner, came
up just then and asked us if we knew what the sign was when the sun came
out through the rain. I said that I had always heard it would rain again
next day. "O no," said Skipper Scudder, "the Devil is whipping his
wife."
After dinner Kate and I went for a walk through some pine woods which
were beautiful after the rain; the mosses and lichens which had been
dried up were all freshened and blooming out in the dampness. The smell
of the wet pitch-pines was unusually sweet, and we wandered about for an
hour or two there, to find some ferns we wanted, and then walked over
toward East Parish, and home by the long beach late in the afternoon. We
came as far as the boat-landing, meaning to go home through the lane,
but to our delight we saw Captain Sands sitting alone on an old
overturned whaleboat, whittling busily at a piece of dried kelp. "Good
evenin'," said our friend, cheerfully. And we explained that we had
taken a long walk and thought we would rest awhile before we went home
to supper. Kate perched herself on the boat, and I sat down on a ship's
knee which lay on the pebbles.
"Didn't get any hurt from being out in the shower, I hope?"
"No, indeed," laughed Kate, "and we had such a good time. I hope you
won't mind taking us out again some time."
"Bless ye! no," said the captain. "My girl Lo'isa, she that's Mis
Winslow over to Riverport, used to go out with me a good deal, and it
seemed natural to have you aboard. I missed Lo'isa after she got
married, for she was al'ays ready to go anywhere 'long of father. She's
had slim health of late years. I tell 'em she's been too much shut up
out of the fresh air and sun. When she was young her mother never could
pr'vail on her to set in the house stiddy and sew, and she used to have
great misgivin's that Lo'isa never was going to be capable. How about
those fish you caught this morning? good, were they? Mis Sands had
dinner on the stocks when I got home, and she said she wouldn't fry any
'til supper-time; but I calc'lated to have 'em this noon. I like 'em
best right out o' the water. Little more and we should have got them
wet. That's one of my whims; I can't bear to let fish get rained on."
"O Captain Sands!" said I, there being a convenient pause, "you were
speaking of your wife just now; did you ask her if she saw the shower?"
"First thing she spoke of when I got into the house. 'There,' says she,
'I was afraid you wouldn't see the rain coming in time, and I had my
heart in my mouth when it began to thunder. I thought you'd get soaked
through, and be laid up for a fortnight,' says she. 'I guess a summer
shower won't hurt an old sailor like me,' says I." And the captain
reached for another piece of his kelp-stalk, and whittled away more
busily than ever. Kate took out her knife and also began to cut kelp,
and I threw pebbles in the hope of hitting a spider which sat
complacently on a stone not far away, and when he suddenly vanished
there was nothing for me to do but to whittle kelp also.
"Do you suppose," said Kate, "that Mrs. Sands really made you know about
that shower?"
The captain put on his most serious look, coughed slowly, and moved
himself a few inches nearer us, along the boat. I think he fully
understood the importance and solemnity of the subject. "It ain't for us
to say what we do know or don't, for there's nothing sartain, but I made
up my mind long ago that there's something about these p'ints that's
myster'ous. My wife and me will be sitting there to home and there won't
be no word between us for an hour, and then of a sudden we'll speak up
about the same thing. Now the way I view it, she either puts it into my
head or I into hers. I've spoke up lots of times about something, when I
didn't know what I was going to say when I began, and she'll say she was
just thinking of that. Like as not you have noticed it sometimes? There
was something my mind was dwellin' on yesterday, and she come right out
with it, and I'd a good deal rather she hadn't," said the captain,
ruefully. "I didn't want to rake it all over ag'in, I'm sure." And then
he recollected himself, and was silent, which his audience must confess
to have regretted for a moment.
"I used to think a good deal about such things when I was younger, and
I'm free to say I took more stock in dreams and such like than I do now.
I rec'lect old Parson Lorimer--this Parson Lorimer's father who was
settled here first--spoke to me once about it, and said it was a
tempting of Providence, and that we hadn't no right to pry into secrets.
I know I had a dream-book then that I picked up in a shop in Bristol
once when I was there on the Ranger, and all the young folks were beset
to get sight of it. I see what fools it made of folks, bothering their
heads about such things, and I pretty much let them go: all this stuff
about spirit-rappings is enough to make a man crazy. You don't get no
good by it. I come across a paper once with a lot of letters in it from
sperits, and I cast my eye over 'em, and I says to myself, 'Well, I
always was given to understand that when we come to a futur' state we
was goin' to have more wisdom than we can get afore'; but them letters
hadn't any more sense to 'em, nor so much, as a man could write here
without schooling, and I should think that if the letters be all
straight, if the folks who wrote 'em had any kind of ambition they'd
want to be movin' back here again. But as for one person's having
something to do with another any distance off, why, that's another
thing; there ain't any nonsense about that. I know it's true jest as
well as I want to," said the cap'n, warming up. "I'll tell ye how I was
led to make up my mind about it. One time I waked a man up out of a
sound sleep looking at him, and it set me to thinking. First, there
wasn't any noise, and then ag'in there wasn't any touch so he could feel
it, and I says to myself, 'Why couldn't I ha' done it the width of two
rooms as well as one, and why couldn't I ha' done it with my back
turned?' It couldn't have been the looking so much as the thinking. And
then I car'd it further, and I says, 'Why ain't a mile as good as a
yard? and it's the thinking that does it,' says I, 'and we've got some
faculty or other that we don't know much about. We've got some way of
sending our thought like a bullet goes out of a gun and it hits. We
don't know nothing except what we see. And some folks is scared, and
some more thinks it is all nonsense and laughs. But there's something we
haven't got the hang of.' It makes me think o' them little black
polliwogs that turns into frogs in the fresh-water puddles in the ma'sh.
There's a time before their tails drop off and their legs have sprouted
out, when they don't get any use o' their legs, and I dare say they're
in their way consider'ble; but after they get to be frogs they find out
what they're for without no kind of trouble. I guess we shall turn these
fac'lties to account some time or 'nother. Seems to me, though, that we
might depend on 'em now more than we do."
The captain was under full sail on what we had heard was his pet
subject, and it was a great satisfaction to listen to what he had to
say. It loses a great deal in being written, for the old sailor's voice
and gestures and thorough earnestness all carried no little persuasion.
And it was impossible not to be sure that he knew more than people
usually do about these mysteries in which he delighted.