Part First.
Every boy realizes the fascination of fishing, even if he gets nothing
but bites--mosquito bites at that. It is the anticipation of what one
_may_ catch which heightens the every charm of the sport itself.
But taking flounders from the wharf, or trout in the mill-stream, is
quite a different thing from cod or pollock fishing in thirty fathoms of
green sea. The one may sometimes be the pursuit of pleasure under
difficulties; the other is generally the pursuit of business under
danger. So at least most of you would have said had you seen "the widow
Buttles's Ben" at the time when my story begins.
He was standing upright in a fourteen-foot dory, and I may add that the
dory, generally speaking, was also standing upright, which is not so
surprising, for, in the first place, the wind was blowing half a gale;
in the second place, Ben's boat was anchored, with fifty fathom of scope
near the "Breaking Shoals," and by chart Breaking Shoals bear E.N.E.
from Covert Point, distance three and a quarter miles, with nothing
nearer than Europe to check the force of the Atlantic billows.
"No idea it was so late," muttered Ben, a little anxiously, as he began
to reel up one of the lines. "Looks baddish to wind'ard, and the sea is
getting up," he added, with a rapid glance from the cloud-bank behind
which the sun had set to the heaving ocean about him. A landsman would
have supposed that the sea had already got up. How Ben kept his balance
so easily, as the dory "ran" on the slopes of the great waves, which
slipped from under its flat bottom with such startling suddenness, would
seem marvellous to any one except a person living alongshore. But Ben
Buttles was perfectly at home in his dory; for in the little sea-board
village of Covert, whose distant lights were just visible through the
gathering darkness, every man owned some kind of a boat, while every
other man was "Cap'n" or "Skipper." Hence the most that troubled Ben was
the thought that he had been so taken up with fishing as to forget that
the sun had begun to set, the tide to ebb, and a gale to rise.
"And I promised mother to be home by dark-- _Gorry-buster!_"
This last untranslatable word was called forth by a tremendous tug at
his other line, which he had just taken up.
"Why, I must have hooked on to an anchor," gasped Ben, as he pulled and
panted. But an anchor would never have darted off like mad when it was
near the surface, taking thirty or forty fathoms of his line before he
could check it. And as Ben, who was sturdy and strong for his age, began
to haul in his line by main force a fathom at a time, he well knew what
it was he had hooked.
"I never caught one, but I know just how it's done," he said, setting
his teeth firmly together, as the great fish, now nearly alongside,
began to show signs of being exhausted by its struggles.
Holding his shortened line firmly in his left hand, Ben picked up his
"gaff"--a short pole, to one end of which a stout hook is affixed. As
the dory sank into a great chasm of water, he threw his weight on one
side, pressing the gunwale level with the water, so that it almost
touched the side of his finny prey. One dexterous movement of both hands
and knees, and the halibut--for this was the kind of fish he had
secured--was fairly "scooped" into the dory, where it was quickly
stunned by a blow on the head.
Ben was exultant, but there was little time in which to pat himself on
the shoulder. The gale had been growing and the gloom increasing while
he was absorbed in his exciting sport. The dory was tugging at her
"killock" like a mad thing, as though realizing the necessity for making
an immediate change of base.
He lost no time in getting his anchor, with which he also got a thorough
drenching, and began to pull vigorously toward Covert Light, which was
streaming out through the storm and gloom. But, alas! hardly had he
taken a dozen strokes when his starboard oar snapped off close to the
blade, where he had spliced it the day before.
To think was to act with the widow's Ben. Backing water with the other
oar to keep the dory "head on" for a moment, he drew it rapidly inboard.
Seizing the end of the bow painter, he made a clove-hitch round the
middle of the whole oar and the disabled one, lashing the two firmly
together. Then, just as the dory was on the point of swinging broadside
to the waves (in which case she would have capsized in a twinkling), he
threw the whole arrangement over the weather bow.
The resistance of this temporary drag in the water brought the dory head
on to the terrible sea, but Ben saw at a glance that she did not ride
easy.
"Too much dead weight amidships," he said. And with a sigh he launched
the big halibut over the rail, following it with the twenty or more
large cod and pollock that he had also taken. This had the desired
effect, and now the buoyant craft began to ride the great rollers,
scarcely taking any water on board, except the spray blown from the wave
crests by the force of the wind, which was now coming in heavy gusts
from the northwest.
As Ben sat huddled in the dory's stern, his thoughts were not
particularly cheerful. Not that he was utterly cast down, or had given
up all hope of being saved--oh no, Ben Buttles was more than ordinarily
courageous, or, as his mother used to say, "He was dretful ventur'some."
But he knew the chances were against him. He had forgotten it, but it
suddenly occurred to him that it was the 18th of October, and this
storm, therefore, was undoubtedly the "line gale." He was drifting
seaward before it on the ebb tide, about three knots an hour. Even if
the dory lived through the night, the prospect of being picked up next
day in such a gale was _very_ small. If anything happened to him, the
two-hundred-dollar mortgage on the little brown house would never be
paid, interest or principal.
"And mother would have to go," thought Ben, swallowing violently at a
hard lump in his throat. For Mr. Travis, who held the mortgage, wanted
to get their little house into his possession, and tear it down, that he
might build a summer hotel on its site. Mrs. Buttles would have no one
but God to look to if Benjie should be taken away. Husband and three
sons were all sleeping under the billows. No wonder, then, that while
her storm-tossed boy, recalling these things, was praying in his heart,
"Lord, comfort and care for mother," she, kneeling by the bed-side at
home, was crying out in agony, "Lord, save my boy."
Blacker grew the night, wilder the billows, and louder the voice of the
storm. No boat that was ever built could live much longer in such a sea.
The wave crests were constantly breaking over the dory's gunwale,
forcing Ben to bail continually.
"She can't stand this much longer," said Ben, despairingly, as the dory
rose on an awful sea, and he felt for a moment the full force of the
gale. But what was the ghostly red glare which suddenly shone into Ben's
white face through the gloom? What but the side-light of the brig
_Calypso_, hove to on the starboard tack! And as a wild cry rose to the
boy's lips, the dory was swept with terrible force against the black
hull of the vessel itself, shattering the frail craft as though it had
been made of egg-shell china.
Clutching frantically at the brig's smooth slippery sides as he was
swept past, Ben's fingers grasped one of the iron chain-plates of the
main-channel, as the brig sank in the trough of the sea. Seizing its
fellow with his other hand, he clung to it with a death-grasp. As the
brig began slowly to rise on the great slope of black water towering
above her, Ben summoned all his remaining strength. Half scrambling,
half climbing, he pulled himself up on the weather-rail; from thence he
was thrown inboard by a lurch of the brig, at the very feet of Captain
Bob Adams. Captain Bob, who had been reared in the navy, was not only a
cool man, but also a thorough disciplinarian. Ben's appearance was so
sudden, and unexpected that Captain Adams took him for one of his own
crew who had violated the rules of sea etiquette in coming aft on the
weather-quarter, which is sacred to ship's officers alone. And as the
boy scrambled to his feet, Captain Bob's energetic words surprised him
even more than the fact of his own strange deliverance.
"But I couldn't help it, sir," shouted the bewildered Ben (for between
the roar of wind and sea, one could hardly hear himself think), wiping
the spray from his eyes; "I was laying to in my dory by a drag, and she
drifted foul of the brig."
"Oh," replied Captain Bob, who was never known to express surprise at
anything, "_that_ was it, eh? Well, go below, and the steward will give
you some hot coffee. Go to loo'ard, too," he roared, as Ben proceeded to
obey.
The steward, who was a colored gentleman, grumbled at the order, but of
course dared not refuse. And after Ben had swallowed a pint or so of the
invigorating fluid, and got into a dry shirt and trousers furnished by
the second mate, he began to feel perfectly at home. He found that the
brig was from Bangor, Maine, bound to Savannah, in ballast.
"And likely enough it will moderate by to-morrow, so I can put you on
board some in-bound fisherman," said Captain Bob, who, despite his gruff
voice, was one of the kindest-hearted men in the world. But the mercury
kept falling in the barometer, and the wind, suddenly veering round into
the northeast, blew harder than ever before morning, and by daybreak
there was nothing left but to "scud" before the heaviest gale that had
visited our coast for years. Under a fore storm-stay-sail, close-reefed
foretopsail and main stay-sail, the _Calypso_ sped over and through the
storm-tossed sea at a rate which made Ben hold his breath.
"You'll, have to make the voyage with us, youngster, whether or no,"
said the Captain, grimly, and Ben only nodded.
If his mother could have known of his safety, he would rather have
enjoyed the novelty of the situation, for Ben was a born sailor. But
there was no help for it, and he accepted the situation with the best
possible grace. It is an ill wind that blows nobody good, and the
equinoctial gale blew them clear by stormy Cape Hatteras before it was
fairly exhausted. Then came the strong but steady breathings of the
trade-wind to fill the _Calypso_'s every sail. And ten days later, as
Mrs. Buttles was dropping hot tears on some rusty bits of crape with
which she was trimming her Sunday bonnet, she was nearly thrown into
convulsions of joy by the receipt of a telegram reading thus:
"SAVANNAH, _October_ 28, 187-.
"Picked up by brig CALYPSO. Will write soon.
"BENJAMIN J. BUTTLES."
"For this an' all other mercies, thank the Lord!" reverently exclaimed
the good woman, wiping her glasses. "But I _do_ hope," she added, a
moment later, "that Ben won't go to gettin' into no scrapes down to
Savannah, for he's sech a _dretful_ ventur'some creeter." Whether he
did, and if so, how he did it, remains to be told in the next number.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]