ADVENTURE IN A CASK.
On the next day (17th of March), when the fleet of adventurers
departs for the spring seal fishery, the little seaport town of St.
John's presents an unusual aspect of bustle and gaiety. On that
anniversary, at least one hundred vessels, having on board three
thousand seamen, batmen, and gunners, sail to seek their fortune in
the ice-fields; but on the day I am about to describe, the number of
craft and their crews far exceeded this.
The day was clear and sunny, not a speck of cloud was in the sky,
whose immensity of blue made the eye almost ache, while the intense
brilliance of the snow, which covered the hills and the whole
scenery, made them seem to vibrate in the sunshine, and caused a
species of blindness, especially on entering any apartment, however
large or well-lighted; for after being out of doors in that season
and region for an hour or so, a house usually seems totally dark for
a time.
For some days previous there had been that species of drizzle which
is termed locally "a silver thaw," thus, all the houses of the town,
the roofs, walls, and chimneys; the trees, the shipping in the frozen
harbour, every mast, yard, and inch of standing or running rigging,
were thickly coated with clear ice, which sparkled like prisms in the
sunshine, making them seem as if formed of transparent crystal.
Then, there was a glittering in the frosty atmosphere, as if it was
composed of minute particles, while the intensity of the cold made
one feel as if a coarse file were being roughly applied to one's nose
or cheekbones on facing the west, the point whence the wind came over
the vast and snow-covered tracts of untrodden and unexplored country
which stretch away for three hundred miles towards the Red Indian
Lake and the Bay of Exploits.
The keepers of stores and shops--who in St. John are usually dressed
like seamen, in round jackets and glazed hats--with all idlers, were
pouring through every avenue and thoroughfare, and spreading over the
harbour. All the ships displayed their colours, and the sound of
music, as bands perambulated the ice, rang upon the clear and ambient
air, mingled with the musical jingle of the sleigh bells, as the more
wealthy folks, muffled and shawled to the nose, galloped their horses
with arrow-like speed from side to side of the harbour.
The latter and the town (but especially the grog-shops) were crowded
by the seal fishermen, who had come in from all parts of the coast,
and bore bundles of clothing slung over their backs, each having his
carefully selected club wherewith to smite the young seals on the
head, and also to be used as a gaff or ice-hook. Many of these men
were also armed with long sealing-guns, which are twice the size and
weight of an ordinary musket, and resemble the huge, unwieldy gingals
of the East Indians, having flintlocks of a clumsy fashion.
They are generally loaded with coarse-grained powder and pieces of
lead, termed _slugs_, to shoot the old seals, who frequently prove
refractory, and dangerous when defending their young.
Those fishers who are thus armed as gunners rank before the mere
clubmen, and receive a small remuneration, or are remitted some of
the "berth money" which is usually paid to the storekeeper or
merchant who equips the vessel for the ice; "the outfitting," says
one who is well-informed on these matters, "being always defrayed by
the receipt of one-half the cargo of seals, the other half going to
adventurers, with these and other deductions for extra supplies."
But, as Captain Hartly fitted out his own vessel and shipped his own
crew, gunners, and batmen at stipulated salaries, he expected to reap
the whole profits of the expedition.
In addition to the project I had in view, I was particularly anxious
to witness the gaiety of this the only and yearly colonial gala
day--the shipping of the crews, (who always proceed in procession
along the ice,) with the cutting-out and departure of the sealers;
but old Mr. Uriah Skrew, with his clean-shaven face and small cunning
eyes, was in the counting-room betimes, and piled work upon me thick
and fast, to anticipate any application for a day's leave.
"May I not go out for an hour, sir, and see what is going on in the
harbour?" I asked, gently.
"No, sir," he replied, sharply; "such nonsense only leads to
idleness--idleness to dissipation, and dissipation to ruin! That is
the sliding-scale, young man----"
"Oh! my good sir, you are too severe."
"Severe! Mr. Jack Manly!----"
"Well, sir?"
"I have always been kind and indulgent to you."
"Kind--hum."
"Yes; more kind and indulgent than your father, my worthy partner,
wishes--and more than he would be."
"Query?"
"What do you mean by 'query'?" he demanded in a bullying tone, for he
intensely disliked me, fearing that I should soon be admitted into
the firm.
"Because I have my doubts on the subject, and your refusal to grant
me leave to-day confirms my opinion of you, Mr. Skrew."
"Very well; enough of this, not a word more, or by the first ship for
Europe I will write what you'll wish had not been written. Not a
word more."
"I am mute as a fish."
"Engross these papers--but, first, go to the store on the wharf, and
tell the keeper to speak with me; and look sharp!"
I put on my cap and left the counting-room, feeling assured that many
a day would elapse ere I stood within it again, as I caught a glimpse
of Paul Reeves, mate of the _Leda_, and two seamen, loitering
outside; but near the window, wherein stood my desk, under the leaf
of which I deposited a letter addressed to Mr. Skrew, informing him,
in the parlance of Bob Hartly, that "I had slipped my cable and gone
to sea."
"Captain Hartly's friend, sir?" said the mate, touching his hat, and
winking knowingly.
"Yes."
"All right, sir! here is the cask, step in, and Tom Hammer, our
carpenter, and his mate, will head you up in it comfortably in less
than a minute."
"No one is near?" said I, anxiously glancing round the courtyard.
"Not a soul, sir: in you go, on with the head, Tom, and be quick, for
the ice channel is cutting fast to the fairway; the jib and
foretopsail are loose, and the lashings all but cast off."
The counting-room of Messrs. Manly and Skrew stood within a
courtyard, which was entered by a gateway from Water-street; and from
this court--which was formed by four large wooden stores, all
pitched, tarred, and now coated with snow and ice--a path led down to
the wharf, at the end of which, as at the end of all the others that
jutted into the harbour, a mercantile flag was displayed from a mast.
In this court were piles of old barrels, hampers, boxes, an anchor, a
spare topmast or so, half buried under the usual white mantle, on
which a flock of poor little snowbirds were hopping and twittering
drearily.
"Do you feel snug, sir?" inquired Paul Reeves, through the bunghole.
"Yes; but please to lose no time in getting me through the crowd on
the wharf, and on board the _Leda_" I replied, in a somewhat
imploring tone of voice; for the cask, though a roomy one, was the
reverse of comfortable, and already I longed to stretch myself.
"The _Leda_ lies just outside the Bristol clipper."
"She that was overhauled and plundered, and had three of her crew
shot by the _Black Schooner_?"
"Yes, sir," replied Reeves, as the two seamen hoisted up the cask;
and I soon became aware by the clamour around me that I was being
conveyed down to the wharf, where Mr. Skrew, in a full suit of
Petersham and sables, was walking to and fro till his sledge arrived.
"Hallo, what have you fellows got in the cask?" he demanded as I was
borne past him.
"Some of the captain's stores, sir," replied Reeves.
"His grandmother's best featherbed," added the carpenter.
"Very good," said Uriah, as I was deposited almost on his gouty toes.
Men often stumbled against my cask, and swore at it or pushed it
aside. Once a fellow seated himself on it, and kicked with his heels
till I was nearly deranged, and the impulse to scare him by a shout
became almost irrepressible. For a time, I dreaded that it might be
tumbled off the wharf into the sludge and broken ice alongside!
Ere long the wharf was cleared; I heard the clanking of the gates, as
the keeper, by order of Mr. Skrew, locked them, doubtless to exclude
me therefrom on this great gala day; and then followed the jangling
of bells, as he stepped into his sledge, and departed upon the ice.
Thus I was left to my own reflections on the solitary wharf.
Before this, a great commotion had taken place at the extremity
thereof, as the Bristol clipper by some mismanagement ran foul of the
_Leda_, and the usual volleys of threats, oaths, and orders incident
to such collisions in harbour were exchanged from the decks and
rigging of both vessels, while, by using boat-hooks aloft and fenders
below, the crew strove to keep the rigging clear and the hulls apart.
Amid this unexpected hurly-burly, I was _forgotten_ in my cask!
The wharf stood near the western extremity of the town, which lies
along the basin of the harbour. The sounds in my vicinity seemed all
to die away, as the crowd along the shore and upon the ice followed
the ships, which in succession were warped along their ice-channels
into the fairway, and each was greeted by a tremendous cheer as the
sails fell, their head canvas filled, and they broke into blue water;
but hours seemed to elapse, without a person coming near the horrible
cask in which I was imprisoned, and the agonies I endured are beyond
description!
The sense of oppression and of being cramped amounted to intense
bodily torture; thus a perspiration alternately burning hot and icy
cold burst over me. The interior of this now detested prison seemed
hot as a furnace; yet there was in my soul a deadly fear of perishing
by cold, as I should assuredly do, if left all night on the locked
wharf, in such a climate, with the thermometer at twelve degrees
below the freezing point!
How fruitlessly I repented me of the silly project of thus escaping,
and alternately longed to be back again in Skrew's snug
counting-room, or on board the departing brig--of being anywhere,
instead of being thus "cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd," and forgotten. A
terror of being conveyed on board, and left, perhaps, in the
hold--left undiscovered till dead of suffocation, gave me wild
energy; madly I strove to kick or beat out the head of the cask; but
my legs were powerless, as if suffering from paralysis, for my aching
knees were wedged under my chin, and I might as well have attempted
to escape from a block of adamant.
Faintness and delirium were fast coming over me! I screamed like a
madman; but my hoarse voice was lost in the hollow of the cask.
Though a perspiration bathed all my aching limbs, my tongue clove to
my palate, and soon became hot and dry. Starry lights seemed to
flash and dance before me in the darkness; my brain reeled; then I
gasped, as sense and pulsation ebbed together, and after enduring
three hours (as I afterwards learned) of such agony as those who were
confined in the stone chests of the Venetians, or in the iron cages
which Louis XI. placed in the Bastille, alone could have known--I
fainted.