It was--

I can hardly bear to say. Not that it was disappointing to me

particularly, because my sense had begun to come back and take revenge

on my piratical imagination. Of course, thought I, in this modern time

it couldn’t be gold; if this had happened in the days of Blackbeard or

John Flint, it might have been. Besides, a box of gold would sink, not

float serenely past. It was--No shrinking, now; I have got to tell. One

more effort!

♦ _Questionable Spoil_ ♦

It was--a box of clams! hundreds and hundreds of clams. At first we

thought that they were good, and this rather tickled the cook, who, as

usual when anything was going on, had come out of the galley, his apron

strings flopping behind him. But after they had broken open five or

six and tasted them--

The old man had pretty well recovered by this time, and in exasperated

tones he ordered the bo’s’n to heave the box overboard. But they had

already dumped about half of the clams out upon the deck in sorting

them over, and there was an oily mess there. The bo’s’n picked up the

box, staggered under it, and almost had it over the taffrail, when the

weight overwhelmed him, and again he staggered backwards under it,

spilling out most of the clams. A mighty oath followed from the enraged

bo’s’n; then he shouted out to the mate: “Here, give a hand with the

cursed thing!” Together they got it over; whereupon the bo’s’n fetched

a shovel and scooped the rest of the mess over.

That was done, and it certainly did leave the crew in a sullen,

mutinous condition. “The idea,” they cursed “--to put us to that

trouble over an old box of rotten clams!” The skipper, his greediness

disappointed, was shamefacedly pacing the deck, while the cook retired

into the galley, muttering: “Oh, Lordy! Lordy!”

* * * * *

The sea still heaved and pulsated strangely, rose and slid back into

its own deep hollows. All day the fog scudded across, with its briny

smell. It seemed to be clutching you in its cold, wet arms, and it

saturated you. All you could breathe was that damp, salt wetness. There

were times when we could barely see the tip of the flying jibboom from

aft, and there were other times when the sun tried its best to shine

through, and we could see up there the feeble yellow splotch of it. And

it was bitter cold--a wet, miserable cold, not the fresh cold of the

former breeze.

♦ _A Buoy in Fog_ ♦

There is nothing more uncanny than passing a bell buoy or a whistling

buoy in such weather. All sense of direction is lost. To tell which way

we were heading, or from which way the wind was coming, I saw even the

crew go up aft to look at the compass. Everything was a moving space,

swirling slowly around and around us. Approaching a buoy, you hear

first a loud whistling and droning somewhere far off in the future;

and, because you can’t see it, it makes you shudder. Sometimes you

think it’s to starboard, and sometimes you are sure it’s to port, and

then you have the strangest feeling that it’s dead astern. But how can

it be astern, you ask yourself, when you haven’t yet passed it? You

can’t definitely tell where it is until you come within sight of it, or

unless you have sea ears trained for such things. You become haunted

with the strange music of that whistler, and you listen and listen for

it, to find out _where_ it is. But it mocks you, and dodges you, and

plays hide and seek with you, knowing itself quite safe beneath the

curtain of fog.

Yes, you feel that it is a mournful and mocking sound, that calling.

And then, perhaps the fog breaks for an instant, and you see the thing

which has been playing with you. You see it looming vaguely, strangely,

from sea and fog all mixed together--a great red monster lifting up its

head to howl, a haunted brick-red castle, rocking there amid the swell.

And then it roars or tolls its bell again, and you feel that it has

lifted its voice in despair at being discovered.

Watching a buoy, we could see very clearly how slowly the ship was

making headway, and how fast she was making leeway. We felt, seeing a

thing like that looming at us from the depths of the sea, more alone

and queer, more desolate than ever. Again that sense of solitude

overwhelmed us.

This happened once or twice that day. But the captain had lost his

reckoning--absolutely lost it! His instruments depended upon the sun,

and there was none of that. Dead reckoning was of no use, because of

the leeway, and the no wind, and the swell. When we passed a buoy which

the captain didn’t understand, he and the mate got together on the

cabin floor, on their knees and elbows, over the chart, one on each

side of it, to work out the position. Neither could come to a definite

solution of that buoy, and the captain appeared nervous and worried.

He would come on deck, saying: “If there’s anything I hate, it’s these

June mulls!” And then the mate would say, very confidentially, to

me: “It’s his own fault, the withered old fool. If he’d done what he

oughter have done, stayed right there where he knew where he was, we

wouldn’t have got into this trouble. Sometimes I think the old fellow’s

got no more sense than a baby.”

There was nothing much to be done; at least, if there were anything the

captain certainly showed his ignorance of it. Some of the crew thought

that he ought to drop anchor now, before they got into a hole somewhere

alongshore. But the old man kept a-going, and we beat about, blowing

that infernal horn, all day. What with the gloom, the silence, the fog,

the wetness and coldness, and that horn at regular intervals, we were

pretty tired by evening, and ready enough to drop into our bunks. I had

tried pumping the horn a little, and found that I enjoyed the sound

somewhat more when I helped to make it.

♦ _Impudence from the Foghorn_ ♦

There is one amusing detail connected with that horn which I mustn’t

forget. It was a rather rickety old affair, and if you pumped it too

furiously it would stop its long, steady drone and go off into croaking

falsetto whoops. It was a commonly agreed fact among the crew that,

when it did this, it was exactly like the old man’s voice. When the

old man pumped his voice too hard, it, too, would go off into the same

sort of croaking whoops. And the crew--especially, of course, Bob, who,

when it was his trick at the horn, always, after pumping it correctly

for a few seconds, let it go off into those whoops--thought it a great

joke to make the horn echo the old man’s excitement. It all disgusted

the old cook very much. He would sit in the galley door, with a roaring

fire in the galley stove (to which we would come in at frequent

intervals for a warming-up), muttering his favorite mutter of “Oh,

Lordy! Lordy!” and saying that it was all nonsense, that business. But

it seemed rather to tickle the mate, who, with his customary malicious

chuckles, would pretend to be rather disgusted, but whose eyes would

twinkle in that piratical way which made me think that he really

enjoyed the joke.

* * * * *

We beat about, hard-aleeing, all the afternoon. That awful “Hard alee!”

whoop of the skipper sounded inexpressibly dismal, echoing through

the fog, and echoed by the foghorn. After a diverting yarn from the

steward, which I shall soon repeat, we slept in the midst of the roll,

and were grateful for the privilege.

The cook, returning after supper from the cabin with his basket of food

and dirty dishes, saw the two of us promenading the decks in the fog,

apparently doing just about nothing, and he decided that it was a bully

good chance for talking. He stood there securely, holding his basket,

and rattled on and on and on until I felt pretty sure there would be no

finish, ever. I missed, unfortunately, the beginning of the tale; not

realizing what we were in for, I had started walking forward, looking

over the bulwarks. When I returned, the yarn was _in medias res_. The

cook, it seemed, was in a three-masted schooner which was going to race

a four-masted schooner from somewhere to somewhere else, to find out

which was the better vessel. As I missed the beginning, I don’t know

any more about it. The cook was just saying, with the most dramatic

gesticulation I had ever seen:

♦ _A Sporting Event_ ♦

“--Well, it was a fine day, that day we was goin’ to race; good sailin’

breeze, everythin’ just dandy. But luck seemed to be agin us. We manned

the capstan at the same time as the crew of t’ other vessel, an’ we was

workin’ away good and brisk, but it didn’t seem t’ work right. Well, we

had t’ stop heavin’ and see what was the matter. It took a good long

time t’ get it fixed, ’n’ then ’twarn’t fixed right, so we had a bully

hard time gettin’ the anchor up. By this time, the four-master was out

o’ the harbor, gettin’ a good breeze, ’n’ a’most out o’ sight. Then

we started t’ get our centerboard down. But that didn’t work right,

neither, and try as we might, we couldn’t get her down. We got grease

’n’ poured it down, and I brought soap from the galley, ’n’ we worked

away ’n’ worked away at it. Well, finally we got her down, ’n’ then we

got our sails up ’n’ were off.

“I thought we was niver goin’ out o’ that harbor. There wasn’t much

wind there, ’n’ we went so _slow_! Well, we got a good breeze after

a time, ’n’ then we did tear along. But the _Edward Coles_ was ’way

out o’ sight, ’n’ we was pretty sure we was niver goin’ to catch up

with her. The next mornin’ there was quite a argyment in the after

cabin as t’ where she was. Some held she was t’ windward of us, some

held to leeward, and some says she was straight astern. The cap’n said

she was t’ windward. But I knowed better. Says I: ‘No, sir, she ain’t

t’ windward, she’s astern of us,’ ‘Oh, Si, it’s impossible. I know

she’s t’ windward.’ ‘I’ll wager with you she’s astern,’ says I. ‘I

won’t wager with you, Si, ’cause you’ll on’y lose yer money. She’s t’

windward.’ ‘what do you think, mate?’ says I t’ the chief mate. ‘Oh, I

think she’s t’ windward.’ ‘Sir,’ says I, ‘I ’nsist I’ll wager with you.

Now I’ll put up ten dollars agin your ten cents, ’n’ we’ll see ’bout

it.’ ‘No, Si,’ says he, ‘I won’t make a wager like that.’ ‘Oh, sir,’

says I, ’y’ ain’t got no sportin’ blood in you. Come on, now, wager ten

cents aginst my ten dollars! We’ll see who’s right this time!’

“‘Now, Si,’ says he, ‘y’ must know where th’ schooner is, t’ make a

wager like that. Otherwise ye’d niver put up ten dollars aginst ten

cents.’ ‘Oh, go on, sir, wager with me!’ says I. ‘Well, Si, but you

must know something t’ make a wager like that.’ Well, I coaxed, ’n’ I

coaxed, ’n’ I coaxed, but fer the life of me I couldn’t make him put up

ten cents. Then says I: ‘Sir, y’ ain’t got no sportin’ blood in you,

’n’ I’m goin’ t’ tell you what I know. You go up halfway in th’ mizzen

riggin’, ’n’ you’ll see the _Edward Coles_ astern of us.’ Well, the

skipper banged his fist down on th’ cabin table, ’n’ jumped up ’n’ ran

on deck. He went right up halfway into the mizzen rigging, ’n’ then

he slapped his leg ’n’ hollers out: ‘By Godfrey almighty, there’s the

_Edward Coles_! You’re right, Si, there she be.’ How’d I know? Well, o’

course I’d a been up in the mizzen riggin’ early that mornin’, ’n’ I

seen her astern of us.

“Well, we won that race by a good long shot, I’ll say, now!”

And then I saw the apron strings dangling, as the old man walked

sedately back into the galley with his basket of dishes, leaving us

alone in the cold, wet fog.

♦ _Ghostly Weather_ ♦

* * * * *

The fog swept about the little ship all night. The first thing I saw

when I thrust myself out of the cabin was Richardson, at the helm. He

was bunched up in a massive overcoat, and his shoulders were shrugged

up the way they always were in cold weather. He was dripping wet,

and standing in the center of a cloud of fog, which swept around him

menacingly, like the white, floating shroud of a ghost. However, it

was not so thick, and the sun made on it a kind of shimmering rainbow,

which the crew called a “fog eater.” It was very mysterious and lovely

to see that path of faint iridescence, glimmering in a ghostly way

through the monotonous whiteness. There was no more wind than the day

before, perhaps not even so much, and I think there was more of a roll

than I had known on any of the previous days. I had a great deal of fun

practising walking about on the decks. If there had been much more of a

roll, the crew said, she would have been rolling water on her decks. As

it was, I saw none of that.

Of course the sails, the booms, the rigging, the tackle were all making

their infernal racket--a racket which wears on your sense even more

than the silence of the fog. Here the mate gave me a very quaint

descriptive sentence. Said he: “I hate to sit here and listen to her

flap her wings and shake her feathers.” How like flapping wings and

shaking feathers it sounded!

We went in pretty close to some land or other, but as the captain had

not yet got his bearings, we didn’t know what it was. We had an idea

that we were somewhere near the mouth of the Lahave River, where we

wanted to go. There was nothing much to be done except drive on until

the weather cleared off. The captain said that there was no earthly use

in trying to keep a-going without any wind. “We’ve got t’ have a breeze

t’ sail, ’n’ that’s all there is to it.” So he decided to drop anchor,

before we should be carried ashore by our leeway. “Get down the outer

jib, boys!” he bellowed out, “flyin’ jib, ’n’ jib!” Then the mate, on

the fo’c’sle deck: “Get down the outer jib, sir!” Then the bo’s’n, from

the jib halyards: “Get down the outer jib, sir!” in his usual mocking

voice. But then, just as they were about to get down the forestaysail

also, the captain’s voice rang out again: “Hold on the forestaysail a

minute!” And the mate: “Hold on the forestaysail a minute, sir!” And

the bo’s’n: “Hold on the forestaysail a minute, sir!” The captain had

noticed a tiny breath of air rising, and now he commanded the jibs to

be hauled up again. Once more we set sail--or set jibs, rather--and

started off. We were going a little bit faster, but still the schooner

was flapping her wings and shaking her feathers.

♦ _Lost Bearings_ ♦

I went forrard to have a small talk with the mate. “Quite a little

trouble to no purpose, wasn’t it?” said I.

“Well, ’s long ’s it pleases him, all right,” replied Mate Bill.

“Well, mate, are we still off Cape Sable?” (This was a great joke among

the crew, because of waking up so many mornings in succession to be

told that we were off Cape Sable.)

“Hanged if _I_ know where we are! The old man doesn’t know, neither,

’n’ we can’t find out ’ntil this pesky fog clears away. But I wish th’

skipper would get some sense in ’s head ’n’ let us stay at anchor,

afore we gets into any worse scrape ’n this. We’ll be aground, next.”

Indeed, the old man did appear to be extremely nervous. “If there’s

anything I hate, it’s these June mulls!” he would say, over and over.

He always appeared to be shivering and shaking, and he had acquired a

terrific cold in his head. When he came down for meals, I noticed that

he could barely eat and drink, his hands were quivering and shaking so.

Yes, the old man was certainly alarmed over something--over losing his

bearings, and being shut in by fog. But he didn’t anchor. While there

was a breath of air stirring, he kept the schooner to her course, and

we went sailing very, very slowly up the coast of Nova Scotia.

About the only happening that afternoon that was in the least piratical

occurred when I went forward to have a chin with the crew, and found no

one there. The galley and the fo’c’sle were both quite deserted. The

captain strode by once as I was talking to Bob at the wheel, and said:

“Don’t talk to the helmsman, Barbara--it distracts him.” So I hadn’t

talked again with anyone at the wheel. Yes, the helmsman was at his

trick, the lookout was at the foghorn, and--there was no one else in

evidence. How strange! I went exploring. I happened to look into the

engine-room--and, lo! there they all were. The cook was there, leaning

against the wall with one elbow, the other hand on his hip, his legs

crossed, looking very important. The mate was there, and his dark,

piratical eyes were full of the light of mutiny. The bo’s’n was there,

with his customary careless, fresh look. Irish Bill was there, and his

rather wicked Irish eyes were gleaming. _What were they doing?_ I asked

myself.

“What’s going on?” said I. “You look as mischievous as though you were

concocting a mutiny. _Are_ you?”

“Oh, we’re just talkin’,” explained Bill.

“’N’ plannin’ some deviltry,” said the cook.

♦ _Brewings of Mutiny_ ♦

“I see,” said I.

I really had an idea that they weren’t so innocent as they pretended.

They probably wouldn’t have let me into their secrets anyhow. But I

knew the man to go to--a special friend of the cook’s, to whom the cook

confided everything in fullest detail: my shipmate.

From him I discovered startling things. I didn’t inquire too closely,

but I imagine they came from the cook. It seems that the crew had

gathered in the engine-room for the purpose of a conference on writing

a _letter of complaint against Captain Avery_. They were agreeing to

stand by each other in this mutiny like brothers--_and to sign their

names to this letter_! I’d wager all the pirate treasure ever buried

that it was the cook who suggested it.

“I guess the cook would sign _his_ name, all right!” said I.

“Oh, he’d sign his name all over the letter,” said my shipmate.

That set me thinking, I tell you. I really wished that the cook or Mate

Bill would confide in me enough to tell me the story. But evidently

they would go up to a certain point with me, such as jesting about the

old man, but not far enough to reveal to me such deep and dangerous

secrets. They didn’t need to worry: for the world I wouldn’t have

betrayed them!

* * * * *

As usual, we turned in early. That night I was so unfortunate as to

sleep soundly through a happening which I was very sorry to miss.

Perhaps it was owing to the fact that Mate Bill had been having a

long conference with the two of us that night. We had been sitting on

the after hatchway, all in a row, and Mate Bill was showing us how

to tie different knots. I really believe there isn’t a knot in the

world that he couldn’t tie. He went on and on, showing us more and

more complicated ones, even splicing. Every now and then he would say

assuringly: “There! now you’ll know how to tie that when you go home.”

But I confess that I was so dazzled with the multitude of twists and

turns that I couldn’t remember any of them until, later, I looked them

all up in my dictionary. Perhaps it was with all these knots dancing in

my head that I went to sleep so early and slept so soundly. Or perhaps

it was because my hard, uncomfortable bunk was very snug and warm

compared with the sea and the fog.

♦ _Professors of Knots_ ♦

Or perhaps it was the delight of a certain thing which happened just

before we turned in. It was this way: At first, during this knot-tying

lesson, Mate Bill and I had been sitting there alone, but presently

my shipmate emerged from the cabin doorway and joined us. Then the

bo’s’n, too, came strolling along from the direction of the fo’c’sle

and began to contend against Mate Bill, wagering that Bill couldn’t

tie this knot or that, and Bill wagering that he could. Bob was very

clever, too. Bill’s challenging assertion that he couldn’t braid nine

strands he answered by promptly selecting the nine from a pile of old

frayed rope, tying them to a backstay, and braiding them up. We had

quite a little joke about the common square knot. After Bill had asked

me many times if I could tie this, or if I could tie that, I replied by

saying that the only good knot I could tie was the square knot. But Bob

spoke up sneeringly and said that I couldn’t tie a square knot. I said

that I could, and was just about to select a strand and tie it, when

Bill interposed and said: “Oh! I know what you mean, Bob. Your square

knot ain’t no good. ’Tain’t a reg’lar square knot.”

“Bet you can’t tie it,” said Bob.

“Well, what good is it when you have it tied?”

Bob now went to work and invented a very pretty, but useless, knot

which, as Bill said, was the start for a square braid. But, after all,

I was really right, and I had Bill to back me, and I selected my strand

and tied my square knot. Bill took it and examined it very carefully;

then he said that it was all right, and passed it on to Bob. Bob, too,

looked at it, said in his turn that it was all right, and tossed it

back to me. I doubt if there was ever such a fuss over a simple square

knot.

As I said before, my shipmate had now come out from the warm depths

of the cabin; and he was watching all this, standing over us on the

poop deck. Now he called me, saying: “Come up here a minute, and see

what you see!” And he went down and took my place beside Mate Bill. I

looked down at the two of them; and truly it was a marvellous sight. It

had now grown almost pitch dark, and I could just see the silhouettes

of two forms, sitting there, their heads together, very still--still

except for Mate Bill’s fingers, which were busily at work in the

tangles of some new knot. Behind them was the pile of old rope, like

sacks of spoil in a heap--and they looked, those hunched figures,

like two whispering spooks, sitting out there in the rain, “plannin’

deviltry,” as the cook would have said, and counting over their coins.

♦ _Squalls at Sea_ ♦

And I mustn’t forget a rather piratical incident which happened just

before we turned in. We had gone below, and were sitting together,

talking about June mulls, when suddenly Mate Bill came down and went

in to his bunk. It had started raining, and it was very dark. He had

come down, in his wet-weather costume, to get a lantern. I didn’t see

him when he came down, but as soon as he had gone in to his bunk my

shipmate nudged my arm and said in a whisper: “Watch the mate, now,

when he comes out with the lantern. See if he doesn’t look piratical!”

I kept an eye on the small room of the mate, and presently we saw him

come out, in his oilskins, sou’wester, and sea boots, all dripping wet,

and lighted uncannily by the light of the lantern. Piratical! Never,

in all the time before, had I seen him look so much so. He nodded

good-night and clomped up the steps again, in his heavy boots.

Perhaps, as I said, all this had made my mind swirl with tangles of

ropes and imaginings of pirates. Whatever the cause, I slept through

the worst racket of the whole trip. The rest is hearsay--what I was

told the next morning by the crew and my shipmate, who were amazed that

I hadn’t waked up.

The mate had told me on several occasions that in the month of June

we were likely to have “squalls.” At first I had got the idea that

squalls were simply the cat’s-paws which we see on inland lakes, only

more violent. Later I decided, from what Bill said, that it only meant

wind coming in spurts and then dying down. But at last I understood

that squalls were raging thunderstorms which pass over the sea quickly,

quickly, and are gone. Bill told me of several times, during his sailor

career, when they had seen squalls coming from far off, sweeping

wildly across the sea, blackening the sky, and had barely time to take

the sails down before they were swamped in it. Squalls were very

dangerous, the mate said, and whenever they were at all violent the

sails would have to come down.

Well, we had one in the middle of that night. There were thunder,

lightning, rain by the bucketful, and much stronger wind than any we

had had. They described how the whole crew--even the cook, roused up

out of his bunk--had scurried back and forth right over my head, to

get down the sails at full speed. They wondered how on earth I could

possibly have slept through that, let alone the howling of the wind,

the rolling of the thunder, the brilliance of the lightning, and the

tossing and plunging of the schooner. They crowned it by describing how

the spanker gaff had been let down, one man at the peak halyards, the

other at the throat halyards, and how the gaff had been let go in the

tumult and come rattling down with a terrific crash on the deck house

right over me. The old man, at this little mishap, had jumped with

terror, and shrieked out a curse in so loud a voice that they wondered

why that alone hadn’t waked me.

♦ _Blue and Gold_ ♦

The cook, of course, had his little word on this episode. He took me

aside to the galley and told me in scornful terms how the old man had

got excited and hectic, after his custom, and what a ridiculous crew

we had, who didn’t know how to do anything right, and did nothing but

rush frantically around from here to there and back again, and how

such foolishness wouldn’t have been allowed in _his_ day, when sailors

were sailors, not landlubbers! Also, I was told how Bob, who, during

all this, had been at the foghorn, had seen a good-sized steamer near

by, and, very much afraid of running into her, had blown the foghorn so

long, loud, and furiously that at length Mate Bill had to go forward

and stop him. We had evidently been on the starboard tack, because

Bob had intended to blow the horn once; but he had made it one such

prodigiously long blast (the Mate said he must have blown it for a full

ten minutes) that Bill was afraid the steamer wouldn’t understand what

on earth we _were_ trying to do.

* * * * *

When I first went on deck the next morning, I had a suspicion that all

this might be a joke, or, at least, greatly exaggerated. But when I saw

how every last wisp of the fog had blown away, leaving the air crystal

clear, though still almost calm, I knew that it must have taken some

violence to banish it all so quickly and completely. What a heavenly

blue the sky was! It was one of those deep, quivering blues which I

have so often seen at Sunapee. The sails shone sparklingly white,

instead of their usual gray; the trucks of the masts were shining

and clear-cut against that sky. We were quite near the shore, sailing

before a steady breeze--just enough to keep the sails rounded, and to

make the schooner yield and cant a little, yet not enough to make more

than a delicate dash of foam along our sides.

During the whole trip I had not seen a lovelier shore. Even the shore

of New Haven as we had left it on that memorable first day, with

West Rock jutting up strangely; and the long green line of Martha’s

Vineyard as we had passed it; and the coast line of Rhode Island, on

the afternoon of the first day--none of these was nearly so lovely as

what now confronted us. It was a shore of low green hills, brighter

than emerald in the sunlight and against the sky. They were high

hills, yet with so gradual a slope that they presented an aspect of

luxuriance and verdure, like a very mossy forest. Somber shadows were

constantly passing over them like dark ghosts, reminding me of how the

valleys had looked down at the foot of Moosilauke, with the shadows of

slowly moving clouds on the radiance of the autumn trees. My first real

glimpse of Nova Scotia! A beautiful land.

♦ _Gibes at the Lubber_ ♦

But the captain was no better off as to his bearings. He was sailing

on with a rather doubtful air, looking again and again at his charts.

It was the cook’s opinion that he had passed Lahave River and was

now on his way up to Lunenberg; but he added: “’Tain’t up t’ me t’

say anything.” All of us were much relieved to find the fog cleared

away, and everyone was much happier. Richardson, however, incurred two

gibes that day from the mate. He had been set to work scrubbing off

the deckhouse, while Mate Bill and I sat together discussing knots and

watching him. Richardson, as was his custom, was doing the job very

feebly and slowly, as though bored to death with it. At last the mate

raised his head and said, with that wicked twinkle in his black eyes

that I have described so many times: “Oh, hurry up, Dick, do! You’re

slower ’n an old woman with her washin’.” Later in the day almost the

same thing happened, when Richardson was scrubbing the highest part of

the starboard fo’c’sle wall. “Don’t be all day over it, Dick,” said the

mate. “Put some elbow-grease into it!” Whereat Richardson smiled feebly

and tried to scrub a trifle harder.

As for me, the forbidden rigging looked more and more enticing now that

the sails gleamed so white, and I was determined to have a climb. I

had, to be sure, climbed about a little on one of the foggy days, when

it had broken for a moment on our port bow, revealing a dark mass of

land. The mate had gone up into the rigging to see if he could identify

anything, and I had gone with him. But, though it was impressive to

have seen the land lying over there like a mass of black fog, it

wasn’t really fun, and I had longed for a good day. Now, accordingly, I

went aft and asked Captain Avery if I might run up to the crosstrees.

“Oh, sure,” he replied, “go ahead up, ’n’ hold hard.” So I started

for the port mizzen rigging. But that was our leeward side, and the

captain called me: “Don’t go up on that side, Barbara. Allus go on the

wind’ard.”

“Why, Captain?”

“Well, y’ see, when the schooner” (he always pronounced this _skewner_)

“is heelin’ over to loo’ard, the loo’ard riggin’ gets slack, ’n’ the

wind’ard riggin’ is taut all the while. ’N’ then, too, the loo’ard

riggin’ ’s much straighter, ’n’ harder t’ climb. That don’t make no

partic’lar difference to a sailor, ’coz ’f anything lets go, he kin

always stop hisself, but with a greenhorn ’t’s different.”

♦ _’Twixt Sea and Sky_ ♦

It was quite insulting to the pride of my sailor career to be called

a greenhorn, but then, it was all right with me whatever they called

me. I went to the starboard mizzen rigging, and up I climbed, with the

same delightful sensations which I always had. But today there were

other sensations, too. The schooner was rolling quite a little, and

I had now, in the rigging, the same curious feelings that I had had

running about the deck in our big gale. First the rigging seemed to

slide away beneath my feet, and then it would be there before me. All

the time I held very “hard” with my hands and went up steadily, though

somewhat more slowly than usual. The mate called out to me to hold the

shrouds, not the ratlines: because then, if a ratline happened to let

go, I should still have something to hold to. I followed this advice,

and very carefully kept one hand upon the rigging while I was low down,

and both when I was high enough so that the ratlines were comfortably

short and the shrouds near enough together. Still, the sway was very

puzzling, and it increased as I mounted. I stuck to it, and when

finally I sat down, rather breathless, on the crosstrees, I felt more

as if I were on a seesaw than I have ever felt, even on a real seesaw.

The crosstrees made graceful swoops and slow half circles through the

air, and I saw the sea beneath me, first on one side, then on the

other. It was very beautiful, but very alarming, too; and I felt more

than ever like a sailor. That breath-taking instant when one gets from

the crosstrees on to the ratlines and hangs for a moment over the sea

was more breath-taking than ever. I thought of this, one of the sailor

chanteys in _Iron Men and Wooden Ships_:

“When the foaming waves run mountains high, And the landsmen cry,

‘All’s gone,’ sir, The sailor hangs ’twixt sea and sky, And he jokes

with Davy Jones, sir!”

For that instant I certainly felt the danger of joking with Davy. But

the moment of peril was passed without mishap, and, after looking again

at those beautiful hills, of which from up here I could see much more,

I came down.

* * * * *

♦ _Phantasmal_ ♦

Now a speck was descried by the hawk’s eyes of the old man, on the

starboard horizon (or, as he always pronounced it, _orison_ with an

_h_ in front). Nearer and nearer it came, and finally it turned out

to be just what I had hoped: a sail. Eagerly we watched, and as it

skimmed slowly down along the skyline toward us we saw that it was

another lofty four-masted schooner. But how insignificant it was away

off there, how like a child’s toy ship! We could see her masts, like

matches, and her tiny gaffs and booms. The jibs were no more than

slivers of silver thread, pointing away into the sky like fingers of

moonlight; the topsails were four little snow-capped peaks along the

edge of the sky. But as she drew nearer, she looked more and more like

a crowned princess of the seas. No ship could have seemed more proud,

except one of those square-riggers which used to go flying like white

clouds across the ocean. She passed us so near on our starboard beam

that she loomed almost over us, and we gazed silently up into her

sails. At almost the same time we tacked, swung across the wind, and

fell away to port. And now she showed us her stern, and we could see

how her sails were set. They were “wing and wing” or, as the mate used

to say, “wung out”: that is, with the spanker to starboard, mainsail

to port, and foresail and jibs hardly drawing, because of being cut

off from the wind by the other sails. Even our own sails, when we had

had them set that way, had not seemed so much like wings. She reminded

me of a gull spreading out its wings to fly up from the water. The

very lines and curves of the sails interlaced with each other, and the

farther away she sailed, the more like some huge sea bird she became.

The sun made a vast stretch of gold. Soon after she had passed us, she

dipped into that burning sea. First her sails grew bright with the

sunlight, and then, as she sailed farther and farther into the heart of

the blaze, they melted away into the sun. When we looked, there seemed

to be not a vestige of sail upon her. Her handsome hull we could see

perfectly, black in the mirror of gold. Even her masts were clearly

outlined, her very crosstrees. But she was stripped of canvas; the sun

had stolen it. She was no more than a skeleton, a weird phantom ship.

As we watched, we saw her draw out of that enchanted part of the sea.

Slowly she became real again; slowly her sails appeared. First they

were bright gold with reflected light, then only flushed with it;

and then they were snowy once more. By this time she was tiny in the

distance. At last she disappeared--into Lunenberg, the skipper thought.

This was the most perfect weather of the whole trip. The alluring hills

grew brighter as the sun mounted, until they were like precious jewels

in a setting of incredibly blue sky. The sea sparkled with the sun,

and it, too, was bluer than on any day before. Again I was dazzled by

the hugeness and the wideness of the sun-path here on the sea. The

brilliant splotch of gold seems to spread out boundlessly. It is much

brighter, too, than I have ever seen it on an inland lake, as though

each tiny salt-crystal were reflecting the rays a thousand times.

Millions, millions of sparks, leaping up from that blueness, breaking

into showers of fire!

♦ _Nearing the Lahave_ ♦

Where the sky was clear, it was a very deep blue. There were banks of

massive white clouds on the horizon, although the zenith was entirely

free of them. These cast down deep shadows which cooled the green fire

of the hills here and there, gliding over them slowly. We were running

nearer and nearer now. The skipper had located us and determined where

Lahave was. We had passed it, as the cook had said, and were wheeling

about to find it; running back the way we had come, but much nearer

to the coast than before, so that it seemed different, and much more

beautiful. All the time, though we were running down the coast, we were

drawing closer and closer to it, and the hills looked more and more

verdurous. What a contrast to the vacancy of boundless ocean which we

had had before us a few days back!

There seemed to be a great many small fishermen hereabout. We didn’t

actually pass any close, but we counted seven or eight off on the

horizon. We would be looking at one sail, a tiny peak fretting the

skyline, when someone would catch sight of another. But they were all

so far away and so hard to see that our eyes went crazy after a while,

so that all we could see was miniature sails.

There was hardly time for staring at them, for we were now nearing

Lahave. We could see a deep, narrow indentation in the shore line,

bounded on each side by hills sloping down into the sea--no more than

two arms of green land, clasping the bay within. It looked like a

very narrow opening for a schooner of our size to sail through, and I

wondered what could be done, supposing there were an adverse wind. I

climbed up in the rigging two or three times more before we reached the

opening, feeling extremely glad, deep down, to have retrieved that

privilege. The hills and the stretch of blue harbor within looked,

of course, lovelier than ever from so high, and I stayed up at the

crosstrees, watching our progress toward it, for quite a long time.

Although we seemed to be so near, we were as yet easily two miles

away, the mate said. Suddenly we heard the booming of surf on a small

rock-bound islet to the starboard of the entrance. We could see the

great white crests rise up and up, toweringly, like foam-castles, then

dash furiously up the bar a way, then subside into themselves with a

crash and a dull roar. And all this two miles away!

The mate and I fell to talking. We leaned over the starboard bulwarks

watching the surf, and talked mainly about swimming. The mate said:

“Well, kin you swim, Barbara?”

“Oh yes, mate,” said I, “I swim a lot. I believe I could swim from here

over to that island.”

“Two miles?” He looked at me incredulously.

“Well, perhaps not quite,” I yielded. “But almost. How are you on

swimming?”

“I can’t swim a stroke,” said Bill. “Y’ see, I hain’t never had no

chance.”

“But it strikes me,” said I, “that anyone who’s a sailor _ought_ to be

able to.”

♦ _Another Professor of Knots_ ♦

“Well, ye’re right, I reckon,” said he. “But I never been shipwrecked

yit. ’N’ I’m goin’ t’ resign afore long, too!” And his eyes sparkled,

as usual, at his joke.

He began telling about his working abilities. “You know, I do twice as

much work ’s any other man aboard here. They all act ’s though they was

skeered to death t’ get their hands dirty. Why, ’f I didn’t work with

’em--’f I didn’t sooge the deck ’n’ paint the bulwarks--there’d not

be a stroke o’ work done here. There’s a thousand little jobs that no

one’ll ever do ’ceptin’ myself. Remember that day when you come down t’

the schooner ’n’ I was sewin’ that outer jib? Well, the boys got the

afternoon off, and I could ’ave, too, if I’d ast; but w’at did I do? I

stayed aboard, like a blinkin’ fool, and worked all afternoon on that

jib. Well, ’t would have never got done ’f I hadn’t done it.”

Evidently the mate’s head was still running strong on knots, for, after

a little, he got himself a strand of rope, and fell to tying it up in

all the ways he could think of. I asked him how Richardson was at tying

knots. Bill replied about as I expected: “Oh, Dick! he can’t tie two

half-hitches and git ’em right.”

I was eager to show him _something_ about string that he didn’t know,

but I felt that this was impossible. At last I had an idea: “Do you

know cat’s-cradle, mate?” “Cat’s-cradle? No.” I ran down into the cabin

and hunted up a bit of string. For as much as a half-hour we were

taking it off each other’s hands. I succeeded in amusing the mate by

it; and to me it seemed a more interesting game than ever before. It is

perfect to play on shipboard, between watches.

Then we fell to talking about boats--small ones, such as canoes and

rowboats. Said he: “Well, I tell you, I niver was very strong on

canoes. I’m skeered of ’em. Too tipsy for me! I tell you, I wouldn’t go

out in one in rough weather ’f you paid me.” And I told him what fun

Daddy and I used to have on Sunapee and Ossipee, battling in the white

canoe the strongest gales that came.

“But, of course,” said I, “there you never have any weather that’s

dangerous. You never have weather anything like what we had a few days

ago.”

♦ _A Jewelled Seascape_ ♦

The talk somewhat broke up as we neared the harbor. Mate Bill had never

been to Bridgewater, and it struck him, no less than me, as very lovely

country. The bright green of the hills rose up, dominating everything,

and reaching down those two almost human arms to clasp the blue waters

of the bay. I shall never, never forget the loveliness of the entrance

to that river as we came directly outside it and began to swing in. The

breeze seemed to reach quite a distance up into the bay, and we sailed

easily before it, the sails full and steady. At every inch of our

progress the landscape changed. Now we would look up the river, where

it disappeared around a bend; then back out at the sea, where there

seemed to be two horizons--first the edge of our own bay, clasped with

those hill-arms, then the horizon of the sea itself, stretching away

outside, blue and boundless.

Perhaps you have seen pictures of the Mediterranean Sea, or of harbors

in Italy, and wondered at the incredible greenness of the hills,

the blueness of the water. Here it was the same: the hills were so

gorgeously bright, and shone in such crystal contrast to the brilliant

sea and bay, that you just couldn’t believe it was real. Such color

could not exist! Green and blue flames, mingling together, yet sharply

outlined and distinguished. Those hills were like an emerald crown for

the sea. At one place where we looked back at the sea which we were

leaving so fast, that boundless mass of color shone bravely between two

islands--small islands, just out at the edge of the bay. Being shadowed

by higher hills, they looked dark, almost as though spruce-forested. In

contrast, that glowing stretch of sea looked brighter, bluer, than ever.

* * * * *

There was quite a breeze in here; there were even whitecaps glistening

now and then. The skipper was in high hopes that the breeze would

reach clear up the river to the anchoring ground, so that we shouldn’t

have to be towed. He wanted to progress as far up the river that

night as possible. But when we hailed some men who were working on an

anchored three-master, they said that the wind didn’t reach up far, and

that the tide was running out “agin” us. The skipper decided to stick

to it as long as he could. I went up in the rigging again. I looked

down upon a sea of billowing green hills, inset with the sapphires of

the various pools which formed parts of the great bay; also, upon more

wind and waves than I had realized there were. Then I saw a little

power boat, looking like no more than a very large canoe with an

engine and a great dark red sail, scudding rapidly out toward us. The

man who was running it hailed the skipper, who had been looking down

over the starboard bulwarks, ever and again taking the wheel himself.

“Want a pilot up the river?” “No, I guess not,” shouted our skipper in

return. As for me, I felt more than ever elated in my high station on

the crosstrees, especially since I was looking down over nothing but

beautiful country. The little power boat with its dark red sail looked

so much like a child’s toy from up there that I couldn’t resist waving

to the man in its stern. But either he didn’t see me or else he had his

hands full running the boat, for I got no return.

♦ _Cap’n and Cap_ ♦

A little farther on a small launch sped up to our side and asked the

same question, promptly receiving the same answer from the captain. But

still farther on, when the hills and small emerald islands began to cut

off the wind, and the sails began to flap, and we found that the tide

was sweeping us down, the captain replied differently to the skipper of

a tug who shouted over “Want a tug up?” “Yes, sure!”

The tug came close to the side of the _Norman D._ The skipper, a very

curious-looking Dutchman, leaped aboard and shook Captain Avery warmly

by the hand, after first looking him over incredulously from head to

heel. “Why! If this ain’t Cap’n Avery!” said he.

“True for you,” said our skipper. “Glad I am t’ see you, Joe.”

“’T’s a bully long time since you’ve been up Bridgewater way--eh, Cap?”

“Hey-y-y-y-y?”

“You hain’t been up this way fer a long time, Cap!”

“No, I haven’t.”

And the like friendly remarks went on monotonously, with extreme

cheerfulness, for a long time. Nothing I could ever say would

adequately describe the Dutchman. He was a huge, broad-shouldered man

with a huge face and small, glistening blue eyes. He looked wild,

but nevertheless kindly. He had a crazy manner of friendliness and

nonchalance, and he swanked about the schooner as if he were her

captain. I felt that he was extremely amiable at heart, and I was very

much interested and amused by him. Incidentally, he was a lively and

vigorous tobacco-chewer.

♦ _Excitement for Dick_ ♦

And now Richardson was to have his moment of excitement. It was this

way: The towrope was attached to the tug, and Richardson was called aft

by “Here, boys! Here, boys! Here, boys!” to make it fast around our

two starboard mooring-posts. If he had been wise, he would have let

someone else answer that call. He did it, as I thought, quite briskly

and cleverly, winding the rope in a figure-of-eight formation around

the two posts. But the Dutchman, who had leaped briskly back into the

tug to superintend things in his swaggering way there, decided that

it wasn’t short enough, and he bellowed back his opinion to Captain

Avery. “Take up the slack!” whooped Captain Avery. But this was not

such an easy matter for Richardson. To begin with, all those fancy

figure-of-eight loops which he had cast around the mooring-posts had

to be untangled. He didn’t seem to have a very successful time of

it getting them off. I must here remark that, whenever anything was

found carelessly done, it was always Richardson who was to blame.

For instance, one morning when we had tacked, the bo’s’n had sprung

to the main sheet where it was belayed. If there had been any wind,

Richardson’s belaying (for, presumably, it _was_ Richardson’s) wouldn’t

have lasted long. It was very loosely tangled around the pin. In a

flash the bo’s’n had exclaimed: “That looks like Richardson’s work!

He must ’a’ done that.” Yes, Richardson did betray a kind of mixed-up

sloppiness in his work. He had just got the figures-of-eight off the

mooring-posts and begun to haul up the slack in the towrope, when

Captain Avery, irritated beyond endurance by his slowness, thundered

out: “Hurry up there, Richardson! Hurry up! Hurry! Quick! Quick! Blast

you, Richardson! Quick!” in such an appalling voice that Richardson

worked desperately, getting in the slack. I never saw a man cast

figures-of-eight with such rapidity, and he did not stop until there

was enough rope on the posts to have held the entire Presidential Range

a mile above ground. Then he went forward, the skipper glowering at him.

* * * * *

Now the captain of the tug had come aboard again, along with one of

the tug’s crew--a wild, glaring-eyed youth, slender as a nail and very

dark. The two skippers began talking in a very friendly way, calling

each other--apparently after the Dutch or Nova Scotian fashion--“Cap.”

The glaring youth hung around for a while, but, finding that the two

had nothing in particular to communicate to him, he returned, after one

inquisitive glance, to his work aboard the tug.

♦ _In the Harbor_ ♦

We were now gliding smoothly and rather briskly up into the harbor. The

river widened out gradually, with ever and again beautiful glimpses

back at the emerald islets and the sea, or up ahead into the hills,

down among which the water flowed, looking bright sapphire blue.

After what seemed a very short time, the tug left us in the loveliest

landlocked harbor imaginable. The green hills dipped away in a wide

sweep and circle to right and left, clasping the blue bay, whose

waters seemed to murmur with the rush of the tide. On each side, and

lying down beneath the hills, were towns, very small and elfin from

this distance. The masses of close-set white and gray houses, with

now and then a large red barn looming in the greenness of fields and

hills, completed one’s idea of a landlocked Italian harbor. The fields

were bright sunny green, by contrast with the more vivid emerald of

the hills. Two small islands over on the west side of the bay looked

mysterious and uninhabited, as though they sheltered pirate treasure.

One of them seemed to have a fairly good landing-beach on our side

of it; but this beach, though smooth and gradual, appeared to be

covered with some mysterious dark substance which I could by no means

understand.

We were far from being the only schooner there. Indeed, it seemed like

quite a busy little country seaport. A small three-master was lying

close in at one of the wharves belonging to the western town; a shapely

little schooner with a black hull. Others lay scattered at anchor

around the edges of the harbor--some of them being used, and others

(among them a dismantled two-master, one of whose topmasts was gone) in

a disused state. The _Norman D._ was, however, by far the largest and

loveliest of the schooners there, and we entered that enchanted circle

of water feeling as proud and lovely as a white-robed queen. The tug

left us near the middle of the bay, but slightly nearer the western

edge. Down went our mudhook, with a magical and melancholy splash.

Here I must confess a great weakness of mine, in a moment of which I

submitted ingloriously to human nature. I felt, in the presence of

the queer, domineering Dutch skipper, as if I should rather like to

show that I wasn’t an “ornery street gal,” and that I had some small

ability as a sailor. I began to be just as helpful as I could possibly

manage. I bustled and ran around after Mate Bill, who was getting the

sail-stops out. He got those coils of rope, each about ten feet long,

out of one of the small after hatchways, and each of us took an armful

and went forward, distributing them. He would leave a certain number

by the spanker boom, ready for use, and then another bundle by the

mainsail boom; the first bundle went to the foresail. The sails were

still up, having been left in order to help our progress up the river;

and the mate simply tossed the sail-stops over the boom so that they

lay across it, each end trailing on the deck, ready to receive the

sails when they should be let down. Together we fitted out the foresail

and mainsail booms; then the mate, having something else to do, left me

to finish the spanker. I did so, at least as far as I could reach, and

then he came aft and placed the stops across the overhanging end.

* * * * *

♦ _Bill’s Morals_ ♦

All the time the mate was talking in earnest, agitated tones about

the skipper of the tug. He certainly was a character worth some small

consideration. The mate didn’t approve of him at all. He struck Bill as

a snob, somehow, much too proud to talk to a common sailor; indeed, he

hadn’t said a word to the mate in all the time he was on the schooner.

And, as Richard H. Dana, Jr., says: “When the voyage is at an end, you

do as you please; but so long as you belong to the same vessel, you

must be a shipmate to him on shore, or he will not be a shipmate to you

on board.” And Bill had a delicate streak of sensitiveness.

The mate thought that the skipper of the tug was very vulgar because

he chewed tobacco so much and so heartily--he thought the same, as a

matter of fact, about Captain Avery himself--and he went on somewhat in

this way:

“Now, here’s how it is with me. I don’t approve o’ such things ’s

chewin’ tobacker, drinkin’, ’n’ so on. I don’t approve of ’em, ’n’ I

never can. I used t’ chew a little when I was a young lad and first

went t’ sea, ’cause I didn’t know better. But I give it up afore long.

’N’ as fer smokin’--well, I smoke a cigarette now and then, but not as

a stiddy thing. ’n’ drinkin’? Well, I’m not a boasting man, but I’ll

tell you that I was never drunk once in all my life. Now, that’s a

pretty good record fer a man that’s lived as rough as I have, and been

t’ sea fifteen year. And I’ve never, in all my born days, bought more

than one bottle o’ whisky.

“But Bob, m’ brother, him’d get drunk ivery day if he had th’ chance.

As it is, he gets drunk every time he goes ashore. I talk and talk and

argue ’bout it with him, but it never does no good. Y’ can’t drum any

reason into that lad. He beats all!”

So we talked together--or, at least, I listened and the mate

talked--until we dropped anchor in the midst of that peaceful bay. It

was now getting toward sunset, and the old man wanted to go ashore

to the little sleeping town in order to telephone for a tug to pull

us up to Bridgewater in the morning. The mate lowered a small, light

flat-bottomed skiff which had been hoisted just beneath the larger

dory on the davits, and concealed by it. (In fact, I had not noticed

it before.) It was lowered, brought around to the port side of the

schooner, and tied just beneath the taffrail. Then a stout ladder was

brought, put down the side of the ship, and made fast. I was eager to

watch the skipper descend this vertical ladder, as well as to see him

try to row the little skiff. The cook, probably eager to see him make

a miscue and get a wetting, came sedately out of the galley and stood

watching wickedly.

“Are you going alone, sir?” queried the mate.

“Yes, I gesso, Bill.”

♦ _The Skipper’s Misstep_ ♦

Secretly I had hopes of being allowed to accompany him, not having had

my feet off the _Norman D._ for ten days; but the captain said nothing

about it, and I said nothing. The moment of excitement was arriving. I

imagine that the whole crew craned their necks from wherever they were,

to see the old man fall into the waters of the Lahave River. The cook

now had an I-wish-to-heaven-you’d-get-drowned look on his face. The

captain asked the mate if the oarlocks were all right, and the mate

descended himself, to see. They were, and the oars were put into place.

Everything was in readiness. Then down went the captain, grasping the

rungs desperately with his horny, trembling old hands. It looked as

if everything were going all right. The mate held the painter of the

skiff, ready to cast off as soon as the old man was ready, and he was

holding the boat cleverly just beneath the ladder. But the skipper had

not reckoned on the small, almost invisible heaves which are constantly

taking place in the mouth of that river, where the water is influenced

both by the tide and by the current of the river itself. Just as he

was about to step into the boat, one of those smooth waves came along,

sweeping the boat from beneath his feet. “Look out fer that swell,

sir!” shouted the mate. The old man paid not the slightest heed, but

went right on, stepping off into the boat just as that wave occurred.

It disturbed his balance: and he staggered, then sprawled down into

the boat just as one leg trailed in the water up to the knee. Then he

regained himself, got at the oars, caught the painter as the mate threw

it down, and pushed off.

He was used to rowing, all right, but the tide and the current bothered

him considerably. He was swept downstream so fast that he had to head

much farther upstream than he wanted to. At last he landed on a sort

of beach. The mate made the remark, when he started, that he was

“weaker ’n a cat.”

* * * * *

So odd a thing now took place among the crew that I was glad I had

stayed aboard. The sails had been lowered and snugly furled, and now

the crew seemed to think that there was nothing under the sun to do.

They all came aft in a body, including the cook, and stood around on

the poop deck, sitting on the deckhouse, chinning and making merry. The

audacity of it was very amusing. When the old skipper was aboard no one

ever came aft except when called, or to take his trick at the helm.

But now all rules were off, and they seemed to take a defiant pleasure

in being where they weren’t supposed to be. Their talk ran mainly on

the skipper, and they said some tremendously insulting things. The

cook, through it all, pretended great authority, standing there in a

way which made me think he was trying very hard to look dignified, and

nodding his head grimly every now and then.

“I wisht he had fallen in--really,” said the bo’s’n, in a mournful

voice.

“We’d ’a’ been well rid o’ that rascal,” said the cook.

♦ _On Forbidden Ground_ ♦

“’N’ say, Bob, didja see that guy from the tug?” said Roy. “So that’s

the kind o’ friends the old man has, is it?”

“He’d ’a’ won the champeenship of spitting,” stated Bob.

“I told you,” interposed the cook, “he’s known all over Nova Scotia fer

his low-down rascality.”

“’N’ fer interferin’ in _your_ business, I suppose.”

“Interferin’ ’s no word fer it. Say, you know--” And then came, for the

hundredth time, the tale of how the Chinese cook had chased Captain

Avery ashore with a drawn cutlass when he had come forward to see

the galley. This sort of talk went on for a long time, with the cook

interposing now and then to call Captain Avery “cussed old wretch,” and

“p’ison divil,” and so on, at a great rate; and with the mate standing

by the taffrail, looking wicked and piratical, with that suppressed

smile in his face and that black twinkle in his eyes. The bo’s’n,

too, was “full of it” that evening, and every now and then one of his

mocking calls would ring out over the waters of the Lahave, much louder

and bolder than ever before.

Presently the mate and I drew more or less apart from the others. “Say,

Barbara,” said Bill, “how’d you like a row in that little skiff when

the old man comes back, if ’t ain’t too late?”

“Oh, that would be splendid.”

“Kin you row?”

“Try me and see!”

“Well, you can row, then, and, if ’t ain’t too dark, we’ll go out.”

“All right. But say, mate, are the boys going ashore tonight?”

“Yes, I reckon they are, if they can get the chance. We’ll give ’em the

skiff when we get back.”

“Are you going ashore?”

“No, I reckon not.”

By this time the sun was nearing the horizon, spreading a gorgeous

russet glow over there, and looking like a great ball of scarlet fire.

Suddenly there was a loud hail from near where the old man had beached

the skiff. All of us thought it was he; it sounded unmistakably like

his harsh whoop. “Here, boys! Here, boys! Here, boys!” said the bo’s’n

shrilly. “Don’t you want us to swim over and git you?”

♦ _The Skipper’s Return_ ♦

But the mate silenced him, with a mild oath, and answered the hail

with one loud “Hallo-o-o-o-o!” Then there was a dead silence. The crew

was staring. The cook was the first one to speak: “I would be glad if

that was the old man’s death-whoop,” said he. These words fell from

the mouth of the sinister little old man in an icy way, sounding like

a death-knell indeed. The bo’s’n was next, and he said: “What’s that?

Go buy a package o’ cigarettes!” And next the mate: “Oh, shame, to

mock the poor old fellow like that! I wouldn’t talk that way about him

for worlds; not me!” “Huh!” said the cook. “Cap’n Avery jaws me about

smokin’ a few decent little cigarettes, ’n’ then--w’at does he do? He

goes ’n’ chaws _tobacker_!”

By this time we had all decided that it wasn’t the captain at all, and

we began talking again as merrily as ever. The mate was looking rather

stern now, or, at least, trying to, but something in his eye and the

corners of his mouth told me that he enjoyed the jokes of the crew.

Then a little speck was descried off through the dark, and, behold! it

was the skipper returning, rowing back in the same feeble way. He was

welcomed with quite a burst of subdued mocks from the bo’s’n, and then

the crew slunk away forward and disappeared in a very business-like

way. Even the haughty little cook went forward to the galley pretty

fast.

* * * * *

“Don’t you think it’s too late for us to go out in the skiff?” I asked

the mate. It was now almost dark, and the glow in the west had faded to

a deep russet.

“Oh, there’s no reason why we can’t go out a little,” said Bill, who

was evidently quite eager about the idea.

A few moments afterward the old man had come in close, the mate had

caught the thrown painter, and the captain had scrambled out of the

skiff and up the ladder. “Now, Barbara!” said the mate, with a cunning

wink at me. Instantly I had started down the ladder. “Won’t you be cold

with nothing but that jumper on?”

“No, I think not,” said I. I climbed down the ladder and got

successfully into the boat.

“Do you want to row, Barbara?”

“Surely, mate, unless you do.”

“All right, then--you row.”

♦ _A Harbor Excursion_ ♦

He cast the painter down to me. I caught it, holding the ladder with

the other hand. Down came the mate, and we pushed off. It gave me very

delightful sensations to come down that ladder. It struck home upon my

piratical senses that it must be very much like the sort of ladder by

which buccaneers would board other ships. Even going down instead of

up, I had the feeling of boarding the ship of an enemy. But my ideas

changed when I felt the oars securely in my hands, and I decided to

show the mate a little brisk rowing. Feeling quite in my own element, I

struck out. The little skiff was so much lighter and happier than the

heavy old tubs I am accustomed to rowing that, under my tremendous

strokes, we shot along amazingly, in spite of the powerful river

current which had seemed to trouble the old man. I can’t explain to

you the delight I had in being in a small boat again and having oars

grasped firmly in my hands. It seemed strange, too, to see the little

waves so very near me. I leaned back with all my weight upon the oars,

bringing them down together in strong, quick rhythm. How lightly the

skiff danced on! I knew that progress at this rate would draw comment

from Bill sooner or later, and, indeed, I didn’t have long to wait:

“Say, you sure can row good, Barbara!”

“Well, yes--I’m pretty well used to it. I’ve rowed quite a lot before.”

We agreed to go over towards the place where the captain had landed,

but farther upstream, so that we should have a good chance to see the

small three-masted schooner which was lying close in to the wharf

there. There was quite a wind added to the current; I felt a pleasant

resistance, and heard the whispering chuckle of waves beneath the bow.

I had been rowing some minutes very briskly, not thinking of anything

in particular, and more or less watching the water. Suddenly the mate

said: “The schooner looks pretty from here, don’t she, Barbara?” I

raised my head and looked back. The _Norman D._ lay there, in the midst

of those unstill waters, like a dream--a thought. Ten times lovelier

she seemed than ever before. She raised her head quietly from that

small round bay, and shone, in her whiteness, like a beautiful ghost.

At one moment she dominated the entire ring of hills like a snow-capped

mountain looming from a sea of dark foothills and spruce forests;

at another she only blended softly and quietly with the water, like

a wraith of the sea; again, she was a drifting sea gull, or a snowy

albatross with dark wings. By the magical influence of the dusk, she

was quivering and unsteady, like a mirage. And soon she was no more

than a lovely white shadow--a flicker--a whim of the twilight. Whatever

she was or might be, all images of piracy left me at the sight of her,

lying calm and innocent in the dusk.

Not until all these thoughts had passed through me did I answer the

mate. “Pretty? I should say she is!”

* * * * *

But now we had almost reached the other schooner. I hadn’t ceased

my vigorous rowing, though, in wonder of the _Norman D._, it had

considerably abated.

“Are you getting tired, Barbara?”

♦ _The Mysterious Isle_ ♦

I nearly smiled. If he had known the way I had rowed around and about

Lake Sunapee, in a boat which took twice as much strength as this one

merely to keep under way--! “Me? No, mate. I don’t get tired so easily

as that!” And I gradually speeded up again. The other schooner, the

small three-master, seemed, in the soft darkness, much more like a

pirate craft than that snow-lily of a _Norman D._ She had a slender,

graceful black hull with a band of yellow around it below the bulwarks,

and her name in yellow letters. Alas! I have forgotten what it was. She

was a dainty little vessel; the mate, too, said so.

“Well, where would you like to go now, Barbara?”

“What do you say about going over to the island on the other side of

the bay?”

“Are you sure you can row that far?”

“Oh, certainly, certainly.”

“You don’t want me to take her?”

“Not unless you want to.”

Here, you see, I made use of this pleasure excursion to get a glimpse

of that mysterious little island about which I had become so curious.

I wanted to see what that dark beach really was. We crossed the bow of

the _Norman D._ at a slashing rate. (Both of us raised our eyes and saw

her huge, high jibboom looming about us, seeming to point at the sky

itself.) We neared the island; closer and closer we drew in, until we

could hear the breeze whispering in its trees. It loomed darksomely. It

is one of my lasting regrets that I didn’t have the chance to land and

do some true exploration there, in the approved piratical fashion. I am

sure that considerable treasure might have been found. But by this time

it was getting pretty dark, and we couldn’t see where we were going.

The mate was afraid to let me land, because we didn’t know the place,

and we couldn’t see where rocks were. But closer and closer I drew in,

rowing very slowly now. I could see jagged rocks thrusting up from the

water close to the shore. Now we could almost _feel_ that uncanny dark

island, like the breath of a ghost upon our cheeks.

Ahead was that mass of darkness which I once thought had been a beach.

Now I still thought that it was a beach, covered with seaweeds. But

when I saw what it really was, I was so surprised that I forgot where I

was going. It was nothing but a huge, long shelf of dark rock, sloping

down gradually from the woods to the sea, almost at the grade of a

beach, and almost as smooth as a paved street. It was covered thickly

with massive seaweeds, some of them, I could see in the half-light,

as much as six feet long; a dense, dark shroud of them, spread like a

mermaid carpet over that great rock, with the waves gently lifting and

stirring those which overhung into the sea.

♦ _The Place of Treasure_ ♦

This was the final impression of the island. And it served to implant

that little place very firmly in my memory. I made a deep resolve that,

if I should ever chance to go up Lahave way again, I would at any

cost visit that island. We ought to go together there, Alan, with our

shovels and picks over our shoulders, in the search for treasure. Can’t

you see us doing it? Fifty-fifty! Only we _must_ pick out a sailing

vessel to go in. Don’t you think so? Can you conceive of any earthly

pleasure in going on a pirate expedition in a steamer? I can’t. In

such a case you always want to go in the way you suppose the pirates

themselves went. The nearer you can do it to the way they did it, the

nearer success you will be. That is a secret which few treasure-hunters

know, and you had better keep it fairly close. Such secrets must not be

revealed to the world.

Mate Bill and I talked little during this cruise. What we did say was

mostly about Bridgewater, and schooners, and the sea, and the old man,

and the steward; and I said some things about Lake Sunapee, canoes,

rowboats, sailboats, swimming, fishing, and so on. It was very quiet,

almost whispered talk, for we were somehow under the influence of the

night, and of the beauty of the little landlocked harbor. Also, we were

awed by the queenliness of the _Norman D._, towering there so white

that you fancied she was in full moonlight while the rest of the world

wasn’t. The water beneath her heel and forefoot was black, very black;

yet we could somehow detect brighter shadows moving about and blending

into it.

“Isn’t she a very good-looking schooner, mate, for one of her size?”

“Yes, I think she is. She’s one o’ the best-looking three-masters I’ve

ever seen. But she’s too high forrard. Now, ’f she was just a little

lower forrard, or a bit higher aft, she’d be just right. The stern of

any ship ought to be higher than the forrard part, to look right.”

Bill was, in all probability, right about that. But she was so

beautiful and quiet there that it seemed almost profane to disturb

her by such minute criticism. No more was said until we had got very

near her. Because she was at anchor, the side lights (which, by the

way, I had so faithfully watched being lit every night while we were

under way) were not lit, but three or four very small, bright riding

lights were gleaming, up fairly high in the rigging, at bow and stern,

mysterious in the darkness, hovering like fireflies with perpetual

lights above the vast white hulk.

Again the mate broke the silence: “When you go back to the schooner,

Barbara, go close under her stern, will you? There’s a spot there I

want to look at.”

“All right, mate.”

♦ _A Spectral Moment_ ♦

“But you’ll have to be careful to allow fer the current.”

“I guess I can manage it.”

Quickly and, I think, rather skillfully, I guided the little skiff

under the counter of the _Norman D._ Not until then could we really see

how fast the current was running. It was sweeping past the schooner

at a tremendous rate. The shadow of the overhanging stern made the

water uncanny and green there. And the gigantic rudder hung there,

motionless, dark and awful in its immense curves. I liked to think how

often that same rudder had guided the _Norman D._ through tempestuous

waters.

The mate looked at a place on the bottom where the wood seemed to be

worn and frayed. Then we pushed on and drew up at the foot of the

ladder. There was another boat dancing there, tied by its painter.

What could it mean? We made our own skiff fast and climbed up. I felt

more than ever like a pirate boarding a ship, as I climbed up that

crude vertical ladder with the mate following me. I could almost feel a

cutlass between my teeth. But when I remembered the loveliness of the

lonely white schooner as she had looked from a little way off in the

bay, this feeling vanished entirely.

* * * * *

The next thing was to see who were our guests. The bo’s’n greeted us,

and said in a playful whisper: “The old man’s got callers.” Next we

heard harsh, racking, scraping sounds from below. “What on earth--?”

said I. “The old man’s playing his gramophone.” Well, thought I, there

goes one of the cook’s statements! He evidently _isn’t_ too stingy

to use the needles, after all. He was playing some horrible talking

record, and he seemed quite to be enjoying himself, for I heard loud

bursts of whooping laughter every now and then, followed by the happy

giggles of some female voice. I could resist no longer, and I stomped

heavily down the after doorway of the cabin, striding briskly through,

glancing curiously to right and left as I passed, and then stomping out

the forward door. I beheld very strange things. The captain was sitting

beside the gramophone, laughing and beaming all over, and in the two

rooms of the cabin was quite an audience of old and young, with two or

three giggling girls and children. I must confess that I resented such

an intrusion into the _Norman D._ I felt that these people could not

belong to the adventures that had surrounded me for the past several

days. No; they were landsmen--they had no business here.

♦ _Confabulation_ ♦

I fled forrard, in company with Mate Bill and my shipmate. The cook

was in the galley, and we gathered there, a jolly company, and had

a regular “go” of it. The boys--Richardson, Irish Bill, Roy, and

Bob--had taken possession of the skiff and started briskly ashore.

Trust them to take the first opportunity! The cook was disgusted with

them, as he always was. He said it was ridiculous that four full-grown

men should try to jam themselves into that skiff, built for not more

than two. In _his_ day such foolishness wouldn’t have been allowed.

This deserting all duty and running ashore at the first chance made

him sick, he said. Then he fell to arguing with the mate as to which

could do the worse things to the old man, and which could strike the

harder blow. The mate insisted that the steward couldn’t make him feel

anything, and the cook said he had made many a better man feel a great

deal. This talk continued for a long time. Among other things, we heard

once more the tale of how the Chinese cook had chased Captain Avery

ashore with a drawn cutlass, and the tale of how the cook was seasick

in his bunk for ten days, and how the quart of cold tea cured him.

Those two were his favorites. After that discussion was ended, and the

landlubbers had gone back to land, the three of us went aft, leaving

the cook to shut up the galley for the night. There was a little more

friendly but insignificant talk with the mate, out in the frosty

starlight; then we turned in.

For about the first time during that whole trip, we slept steady--that

is, with no rolling. Although at first I missed that cradling motion, I

slept as soundly as ever.

* * * * *

In the morning I got out on deck early. The harbor and the hills around

it looked, by broad day-light, twice as lovely as before. How blue that

water, and how like ancient towns the two little villages, lying there

amid those green, green hills!

A little way up the stream was a sort of thing which looked like a

large, fat bell buoy. I was sure I hadn’t seen it in the evening. I

asked the mate about it, and “Blamed if I know” was all I got. Captain

Avery didn’t understand it, either. All of a sudden the top of it

threw forth a glorious shower of red sparks, accompanied by a long

_fiz-z-z-z-z-z-z!_ and the thing, whatever it was, started slowly

churning down the river, lifting its head high like some monstrous

ancient dragon or a crocodile of some extinct and forgotten species.

As it came closer and closer, with a curious gliding motion, we saw

that it was a sort of raft with an engine, laden with mud and clay. A

mud-scow!

♦ _Painting under Difficulties_ ♦

Two small tugs came churning downstream. The old man hailed them both

through his long speaking-trumpet, and asked each if it were the tug

that was to tow him up. Both replied that others were coming down

shortly. Meanwhile the mate had started mixing up a dark green paint

for the waterways, and the captain was standing over his shoulder,

pestering the life out of him, and telling him that the color wasn’t

dark enough, or that it wasn’t bright enough, and that it needed a

touch of this, and that, and the other. The mate was mighty glad

when he got the bucket prepared to the satisfaction of the old man.

(Incidentally, he insisted that there was altogether too much of the

color mixed for the waterways, and the mate obstinately persisted

that there wasn’t too much. When the old man got out of the way for

a moment, he repeated slyly to me his former statement that if the

old fellow could have his way “he’d make one can o’ paint go for the

hull ship.”) He took the can down by the port waterways and started

painting, but the old man came up and said something critical about it.

This was the last straw. The mate deliberately laid down his brush,

left the paint-can, and strode over to where I was sitting, without

so much as another look at the captain. Then said he: “P’isonous old

wretch! Always interferin’, as usual! Well, all I can say is, if he

wants me to take it easy, I sure will.” And he did.

But now the crew were gathering up forward to tell their adventures to

the mate and the cook. I wanted to be in on that, and I went skipping

up forward, too. Bob was the chosen orator of the party, and he began,

with strange chuckles and squeaks and scrapes and rasps, to tell the

tale.

“How many new wimmenfolks did you pick up?” asked the cook.

“I dunno why,” replied the bo’s’n, “but all the wimmenfolk seemed t’

be mighty feared of us. We was goin’ along, when we come up behind a

woman with a big basket, ’n’ she took one good look behind her, ’n’

then ducked into the first doorway. When we passed, we looked back, ’n’

there she was agin, walkin’ behind us. Well, a little further on we

come up to two girls walkin’ along. ’N’ they did jist the same thing.

They ducked right into the first doorway, ’n’ waited awhile, till we

went by. ’N’ then, when we looked back agin, there they was, comin’

along behind.”

“Pshaw!” said the mate, “you’ll get all the gals in Bridgewater so

skeered of us that when I go ashore they won’t come anywhere near me.

I don’t go ashore like that, skeering all the wimmenfolk out o’ their

wits. I go ashore like a gen’leman, I do. W’at do you ’xpect, goin’

ashore lookin’ like bums, you?”

“Say, Bill,” interposed Bob, again, “you’re no more a gen’leman when y’

go ashore ’n I am. I got a new suit, I have, ’n’ new shoes, too.”

♦ _Resurrection of the Mudhook_ ♦

“So have I,” said Roy, “and a brand-new four-in-hand tie.”

“Me, too,” said Richardson, “’n’ a tie-pin, too.”

“Who give it to you?” said Roy.

“M’ best girl.”

“Humph!” said Bill, emphatically. “I can take the shine out o’ you all,

when I make up m’ mind to ’t.”

* * * * *

But now events were occurring aft, and I scampered back again. A third

tug was chugging its way slowly down the river, and the old man had his

speaking-trumpet all ready and was mustering up his whoops to hail it.

It proved to be the right tug; and the skipper shouted to the mate, up

forrard, to get the mudhook up.

“Get up the mudhook, boys!” trilled out the bo’s’n, in such a voice

that I wonder the skipper didn’t hear him. I ran forward again, at

this, to see the anchor come up--something I always loved. Somehow it

wasn’t, this time, so ghostlike and awesome as on the day when, out

of sight of land, we had hauled it up through the fog. But there is

always one moment, just before the arms reach out of the water, when it

reminds one of a skeleton.

The tug was now rapidly making fast on our port side. (Richardson,

I noticed, stuck most carefully to his painting of the bulwarks.)

When the skipper of this tug jumped aboard, I fairly caught my breath

with amazement. He was exactly the same sort of man as the other tug

master--wild, kindly, huge, Dutch, and another “champeen” spitter;

and with the same swaggering, swanky, bossy, familiar way. He also

recognized Captain Avery, and greeted him in almost the same way as

the other, calling him, also, “Cap.” Captain Avery recognized him,

too, and again we watched the two sitting there in a most friendly

way, asking each other how this person was, and that was, and whether

they remembered how they once changed watchchains, and saying how glad

they were to see each other again, and one asking how the voyage down

was, and the other replying that “we got caught i’ the fog fer a few

days--wet, nasty fog, ye knaow, with a sloppy, nasty roll going.”

♦ _Up the Lahave_ ♦

The new arrival was even more of a champeen spitter than the other.

While he was steering the schooner (for Captain Avery was so obliging

as to let him steer, which the other appreciated), he would simply turn

his head and spit clean and clear over the bulwarks. It was Homeric.

Again the mate filled my ears with his non-approval, and he talked

considerably about what a mess the fellow was making all over the

deck. “He seems t’ be pretty good at it, though,” said Bill. “Poor old

Cap’n Avery has t’ go clean t’ the side o’ the schooner when he wants

t’ spit.”

I was glad to be starting on this little run up the river, though I had

secretly hoped to explore that mysterious island early in the morning.

We went around bend after bend of the stream, always seeing new bends

ahead. Sometimes we passed pine and spruce woods; sometimes there was

nothing but hills; sometimes there were fields and orchards of apple

trees, or country villages, or yellow and gray beaches. Once we passed

a place where a small schooner was under construction. I longed to stay

and examine her closely. She was a very deep-bottomed boat, not more

than a hundred feet long, yet apparently destined to be a three-master.

I should have loved to see her finished. A three-master of that size

must look quite like a fairy ship.

It seemed no time at all before we rounded the last great curve of the

river, and saw, ahead of us, Bridgewater spread out, one dense mass of

houses and higher buildings, crowded together like an army. I hated to

see the proud and strong _Norman D._, her sails down and furled, being

towed, pushed, dragged, hauled, up the river by such s puny, dirty tug,

like a prisoner or a wrecked ship, as if she were incapable of taking

care of herself; she who took care of herself so nobly when there was

wind, and she had sea room!

Well, here we were at the end of the interesting part of our journey.

Our piratical adventure had ended. A month before, I had had not the

slightest idea that it could even begin. Three weeks before, I had only

the faintest hopes; it was then like a dream somewhere in the future.

Two weeks before, I had longed for it and clamored for it. And then

it had suddenly become real and tangible, almost clutchable. Eleven

days before, I was wild because I couldn’t believe it. Ten days ago, I

had started; it _was_ real, after all! All this went through my mind

quickly and silently. How mysterious is Time, and how strange in its

doings--the same thing ahead of you one day, behind you the next! Here

we were in Bridgewater.

The tug took us in to the wharf on the eastern side of the town, just

ahead of a schooner very much like the _Norman D._ She was another

three-master, with a black painted hull and ornaments, and her name in

yellow letters, very fancily decorated with yellow curves and scrolls.

Her name was _Hazel L. Myra_.

♦ _The Lure of the Crosstrees_ ♦

By the wharf were sky-high piles of lath, bound up in great bundles

like shocks of corn. It was the next cargo of the _Norman D._, all

ready for New York. The wharf was dirty and disused, as was this part

of the town. Three boys, street urchins in rags, came strolling by to

look at the new schooner. A couple of laughing, robust farmers passed

and spoke to the Captain. The day was unmercifully hot, and I felt

rather weary and depressed, and longed to be out at sea again, in a

good brisk sailing breeze, with the whitecaps roaring and looking like

wild white warhorses.

* * * * *

Suddenly there came a faint, warm breath of wind upon my port cheek.

The tug left us and chugged away, muddying the water with her

propeller. Then an impulse came over me--an irresistible impulse to

climb, and climb, and climb; up on to the crosstrees, up to the sky.

I could no more tell you why than I could say why I knew I wanted

to climb the mainmast rigging rather than any other. And this was

not, strangely enough, for the sake of “showing off” to the boys and

farmers. Many times I have climbed for that reason--to show that I was

not a landlubber--but this was for no earthly reason at all; I simply

wanted to climb. And climb I did! I went up like a cat, a squirrel.

I never stopped until I reached my well-beloved crosstrees. Then I

sat down, and thought and thought, looking down all the time upon the

people so far below me. And I thought of them, and of how small and

insignificant they were, like grains of pepper in the pepper-caster. I

laughed at them proudly. And yet I was no less insignificant myself,

from down there! I was only a chipmunk frisking up into the branches.

When one is sitting on the crosstrees, one is in an entirely separate

world. Perhaps you feel that you’re in Heaven--that is, as to position;

perhaps you are a god on Olympus, looking down upon the world. However

you feel, I think there is always an idea that someone ought to be on

the crosstrees of the mast next to you. I don’t know quite why, but I

always had that sense. Then it would be entirely like a separate world:

two would make a vast population. You would look across to each other,

and nod, and smile, as if to say some secret that no one else knew

anything about; and it would be so strange to be friendly over such

a chasm! That was how the ancient Greek gods and goddesses must have

felt, alone with each other on Olympus, looking down on a world so far

below, and yet having a world of their own right with them. You begin

to get a sense--a vague idea--of the immensity of space. It is strange

what a difference sixty feet can make. It is the same on a mountain-top.

* * * * *

♦ _Shore Leave_ ♦

I came down from the mainmast crosstrees, feeling sorry to be at

Bridgewater. My shipmate was in the act of scrambling over the side of

the schooner. Shortly afterward he disappeared upon the country road,

evidently going to find out about trains. Then the steward suggested

that the mate should go ashore to get the mail, if there were any. The

captain had gone ashore immediately upon touching the wharf, and the

mate was free to do whatever he liked. It was agreed that he should go

up to the post office, and I with him.

The mate started to change his clothes, but the steward stopped him,

saying: “Oh, shucks, Bill! go as you are.”

“Oh, I couldn’t.”

“Sure! go ahead.”

“I niver yet went ashore lookin’ this way. I’d be ashamed to.”

“Oh, never mind, mate,” said I. “You go as you are, and I’ll go as I

am, and we’ll have a bully time of it.”

Agreed. We scrambled over the side, and felt the ground beneath our

feet again. It was very strange. Even when the schooner was in port and

safe out of the wind, there was a feeling about her that the ground

doesn’t have; an air of unsteadiness. She feels like a ship always.

Which the ground doesn’t. At first I was puzzled. I walked slowly,

because it was so strange. Presently I picked up my pace and strode

on at a great rate--_but_ rolling from side to side with a real sailor

swagger as I walked. It wasn’t put on at all; it was real. I can’t

describe to you how queer that was. I had always, always dreamed in a

vague way about going to sea, and returning brawny, sunburned, and with

a sailor walk. And at last it was true, though like a dream.

So we strode merrily along, Bill in his ragged sailor clothes, with

the same hat on his head that he had worn all through the trip (except

in the fog, when he had worn his sou’wester). His shirt-sleeves were

rolled up, as they always were, and his shirt was unbuttoned three

buttons at the neck, as it always was (except on extra hot days, when

it was open clear down to his belt). I was in my gay old sailor rags,

and I had on a sunburn that would have made a beach bonfire look pale.

And both of us were striding along the road, side by side, with such a

sailor roll, and such an I’ve-just-come-home-from-sea,-sir look, that

no one could have mistaken us for anything but sailors. I only wished

I had a bit of tattooing to display, as Mate Bill had. He had a very

elegant full-rigged ship on the inside of his left forearm, almost

buried in brawn and brownness. He told me, with an air of pride, that

it had cost him two dollars to have it put on.

♦ _Shipmates Ashore_ ♦

If I had been walking, in silks and satins, beside the King of

England, I could not have felt prouder than I did then. It was the

supreme moment of my life. We pushed on, and everyone looked at us, as

I knew they would. And somehow I could forget most successfully who I

really was, and be neither more nor less than Mate Bill’s shipmate.

Lustily and rollingly we walked, and there were strange moments when,

as I looked ahead at the dusty road, curving into the woods, it seemed

to be waving gently up and down, just as the deck or the end of the

flying jibboom had waved in our rolling days. There were times when the

whole world waved up and down, making me feel quite dizzy--much more

so than at any time on the schooner herself. The strangeness of solid

ground! We walked, Mate Bill and I.

We crossed a bridge into the main part of the town. Here were

fashionable folk everywhere. We walked steadily, looking neither to

left nor right, but rolling like two ships in a high cross swell.

Everyone stared. But I was not myself then at all. I didn’t come of

even a decent family. I was a common sailor, and Mate Bill’s shipmate.

I let them stare. I didn’t have the smallest apology to offer, to

myself or anyone else, for my appearance. I held my head high and felt

proud--oh, so proud!--of walking beside Mate Bill. A common sailor was

higher in rank than the King of England. I was higher in rank than the

Queen of it. So there we walked, the King and the Queen--Bill brown and

hearty and tattooed, I scarlet, ragged, and proud.

* * * * *

For a moment or two we paused on the bridge and leaned over the

railing, looking down into the water. Then we turned to look back at

the _Norman D._ where she lay on the other side of the river. That was

another of those supreme moments. Now we had changed from two merry,

laughing comrades, walking lustily along, looking neither to right nor

left, to two shipmates, two common sailors, stopping together on the

streets to spin a yarn and gossip a bit. A couple of girls passed by.

They nudged each other, and giggled.

♦ _The Staring Lady_ ♦

We went on, with people staring and nudging each other on all sides

upon our approach. We neared the post office. It was jammed full of

school children, girls, jesting boys, older women. Here was the supreme

chance! We went up those small, long steps two by two, instead of one

at a time, and rolled our way into the place, still looking neither

to left nor right, but pushing on right lustily through the crowd.

We entered, the King, the Queen--he lusty and brown, and with the

heartiest, merriest, most piratical sailor face you ever saw; she

scarlet as fire, ragged, and very cheerful. It was “shipmate” this,

“shipmate” that, all the time; I took great pains that more than one

person should hear us call each other so. We elbowed, yarning merrily,

through the crowd, and it certainly did make them stare to see us

striding in that way, as free and easy as if we had been sailors and

shipmates all our born days. In a loud voice Bill asked if the mail had

come in. It hadn’t, and it wasn’t due for a quarter of an hour.

While Bill was asking this, I was standing just behind him, my hands

on my hips, looking as full of the sea as I could. Suddenly I became

aware of a lady, tall, slender, and dressed in black from head to foot,

standing near me in a corner of the room. She had a curious, small,

kind face, and she smiled at me so hard that I had to give her a smile

in return. No doubt she, like all the rest, thought it strange to see

me with Mate Bill, who, from the exposed inside of his left forearm,

was certainly a sailor. People, looking at us, would feel us entirely

different from what we were. They would see a very sunburned, ragged

little girl in company with a hearty sailor. That was delightful,

too--especially as that same sunburned little girl was so free and gay

with the sailor, so shipmate-ish; but it was not nearly so delightful

as my own idea that I actually was Bill’s shipmate. Anyway, I didn’t

care; I just didn’t care.

Somehow, after I had turned my head away from the woman, something

within me said that she was staring hard. I felt rather as if she

shouldn’t stare quite so hard. It was all right to have her look at me

in surprise and smile in a friendly way--that was just what I wanted;

but should she keep her eyes fixed and fixed and fixed on me like that?

I couldn’t resist looking again, out of the corner of my eye. She _was_

staring. I dropped her another smile. Then I forced myself to forget

her, and looked away.

Now Bill spoke up: “What’s the use of waitin’ in here fer fifteen

minutes? I know I’m eager enough to get out in the air. What do you say

we stroll by the river a bit, ’n’ then come back later?”

“All right with me, shipmate,” said I. “A little fresh air wouldn’t

come amiss, now you speak of it. Let’s go.”

♦ _The Point of View_ ♦

I spoke this quietly enough so that no one could hear--all except the

“shipmate.” Then, after one parting look at the woman, who was still

staring, I followed Mate Bill out through the crowd, and down the

little steps two by two, and down the street, and out by the river.

There we stopped and strolled back and forth, as he had suggested, and

talked, and went out on the bridge to look down into the water again.

Soon we went back. The woman was not there, and I felt considerably

relieved about that, because something in her small, quiet, kind eyes

made me feel uncomfortable. They were like winking glass beads.

* * * * *

Mate Bill asked, in a hearty voice: “Any mail fer th’ schooner _Norman

D._, the schooner that just come in here today?”

The girl sorted out the various mail for different schooners. There

seemed to be a great deal for another one, but none for us.

“That’s funny,” said Bill. “Huh! All that trouble fer nothin’! Well,

it’s been a nice walk.”

It had. I didn’t feel in the least disappointed about the absence of

mail, but I wouldn’t have missed the walk for the world.