Of course we were all very curious to learn what had befallen Sailor
Ben that morning long ago, when he bade his little bride goodby and
disappeared so mysteriously.
After tea, that same evening, we assembled around the table in the
kitchen--the only place where Sailor Ben felt at home--to hear what he
had to say for himself.
The candles were snuffed, and a pitcher of foaming nut-brown ale was
set at the elbow of the speaker, who was evidently embarrassed by the
respectability of his audience, consisting of Captain Nutter, Miss
Abigail, myself, and Kitty, whose face shone with happiness like one of
the polished tin platters on the dresser.
“Well, my hearties,” commenced Sailor Ben--then he stopped short and
turned very red, as it struck him that maybe this was not quite the
proper way to address a dignitary like the Captain and a severe elderly
lady like Miss Abigail Nutter, who sat bolt upright staring at him as
she would have stared at the Tycoon of Japan himself.
“I ain't much of a hand at spinnin' a yarn,” remarked Sailor Ben,
apologetically, “'specially when the yarn is all about a man as has
made a fool of hisself, an' 'specially when that man's name is Benjamin
Watson.”
“Bravo!” cried Captain Nutter, rapping on the table encouragingly.
“Thankee, sir, thankee. I go back to the time when Kitty an' me was
livin' in lodgin's by the dock in New York. We was as happy, sir, as two
porpusses, which they toil not neither do they spin. But when I seed the
money gittin' low in the locker--Kitty's starboard stockin', savin' your
presence, marm--I got down-hearted like, seem' as I should be obleeged
to ship agin, for it didn't seem as I could do much ashore. An' then the
sea was my nat'ral spear of action. I wasn't exactly born on it, look
you, but I fell into it the fust time I was let out arter my birth. My
mother slipped her cable for a heavenly port afore I was old enough to
hail her; so I larnt to look on the ocean for a sort of step-mother--an'
a precious hard one she has been to me.
“The idee of leavin' Kitty so soon arter our marriage went agin my grain
considerable. I cruised along the docks for somethin' to do in the
way of stevedore: an' though I picked up a stray job here and there,
I didn't arn enough to buy ship-bisket for a rat; let alone feedin' two
human mouths. There wasn't nothin' honest I wouldn't have turned a hand
to; but the 'longshoremen gobbled up all the work, an' a outsider like
me didn't stand a show.
“Things got from bad to worse; the month's rent took all our cash except
a dollar or so, an' the sky looked kind o' squally fore an' aft. Well,
I set out one mornin'--that identical unlucky mornin'--determined to come
back an' toss some pay into Kitty's lap, if I had to sell my jacket for
it. I spied a brig unloadin' coal at pier No. 47--how well I remembers
it! I hailed the mate, an' offered myself for a coal-heaver. But I
wasn't wanted, as he told me civilly enough, which was better treatment
than usual. As I turned off rather glum I was signalled by one of them
sleek, smooth-spoken rascals with a white hat an' a weed on it, as is
always goin' about the piers a-seekin' who they may devower.
“We sailors know 'em for rascals from stem to starn, but somehow every
fresh one fleeces us jest as his mate did afore him. We don't larn
nothin' by exper'ence; we're jest no better than a lot of babys with no
brains.
“'Good mornin', my man,' sez the chap, as iley as you please.
“'Mornin', sir,' sez I.
“'Lookin' for a job?' sez he.
“'Through the big end of a telescope,' sez I--meanin' that the chances
for a job looked very small from my pint of view.
“'You're the man for my money,' sez the sharper, smilin' as innocent as
a cherubim; 'jest step in here, till we talk it over.'
“So I goes with him like a nat'ral-born idiot, into a little
grocery-shop near by, where we sets down at a table with a bottle atween
us. Then it comes out as there is a New Bedford whaler about to start
for the fishin' grounds, an' jest one able-bodied sailor like me is
wanted to make up the crew. Would I go? Yes, I wouldn't on no terms.
“'I'll bet you fifty dollars,' sez he, 'that you'll come back fust
mate.'
“'I'll bet you a hundred,' sez I, 'that I don't, for I've signed papers
as keeps me ashore, an' the parson has witnessed the deed.'
“So we sat there, he urgin' me to ship, an' I chaffin' him cheerful over
the bottle.
“Arter a while I begun to feel a little queer; things got foggy in my
upper works, an' I remembers, faint-like, of signin' a paper; then I
remembers bein' in a small boat; an' then I remembers nothin' until I
heard the mate's whistle pipin' all hands on deck. I tumbled up with
the rest; an' there I was--on board of a whaler outward bound for a three
years' cruise, an' my dear little lass ashore awaitin' for me.”
“Miserable wretch!” said Miss Abigail, in a voice that vibrated
among the tin platters on the dresser. This was Miss Abigail's way of
testifying her sympathy.
“Thankee, marm,” returned Sailor Ben, doubtfully.
“No talking to the man at the wheel,” cried the Captain. Upon which we
all laughed. “Spin!” added my grandfather.
Sailor Ben resumed:
“I leave you to guess the wretchedness as fell upon me, for I've not got
the gift to tell you. There I was down on the ship's books for a three
years' viage, an' no help for it. I feel nigh to six hundred years old
when I think how long that viage was. There isn't no hour-glass as runs
slow enough to keep a tally of the slowness of them fust hours. But I
done my duty like a man, seem' there wasn't no way of gettin' out of it.
I told my shipmates of the trick as had been played on me, an they tried
to cheer me up a bit; but I was sore sorrowful for a long spell. Many a
night on watch I put my face in my hands and sobbed for thinkin' of the
little woman left among the land-sharks, an' no man to have an eye on
her, God bless her!”
Here Kitty softly drew her chair nearer to Sailor Ben, and rested one
hand on his arm.
“Our adventures among the whales, I take it, doesn't consarn the present
company here assembled. So I give that the go by. There's an end to
everythin', even to a whalin' viage. My heart all but choked me the day
we put into New Bedford with our cargo of ile. I got my three years' pay
in a lump, an' made for New York like a flash of lightnin'. The people
hove to and looked at me, as I rushed through the streets like a madman,
until I came to the spot where the lodgin'-house stood on West Street.
But, Lord love ye, there wasn't no sech lodgin'-house there, but a great
new brick shop.
“I made bold to go in an' ask arter the old place, but nobody knowed
nothin' about it, save as it had been torn down two years or more. I was
adrift now, for I had reckoned all them days and nights on gittin' word
of Kitty from Dan Shackford, the man as kept the lodgin'.
“As I stood there with all the wind knocked out of my sails, the idee of
runnin' alongside the perlice-station popped into my head. The perlice
was likely to know the latitude of a man like Dan Shackford, who wasn't
over an' above respecktible. They did know--he had died in the Tombs jail
that day twelvemonth. A coincydunce, wasn't it? I was ready to drop when
they told me this; howsomever, I bore up an' give the chief a notion of
the fix I was in. He writ a notice which I put into the newspapers every
day for three months; but nothin' come of it. I cruised over the city
week in and week out I went to every sort of place where they hired
women hands; I didn't leave a think undone that a uneddicated man could
do. But nothin' come of it. I don't believe there was a wretcheder soul
in that big city of wretchedness than me. Sometimes I wanted to lay down
in the sheets and die.
“Driftin' disconsolate one day among the shippin', who should I
overhaul but the identical smooth-spoken chap with a white hat an' a
weed on it! I didn't know if there was any spent left in me, till I
clapped eye on his very onpleasant countenance. 'You villain!' sez
I, 'where's my little Irish lass as you dragged me away from?' an' I
lighted on him, hat and all, like that!”
Here Sailor Ben brought his fist down on the deal table with the force
of a sledge-hammer. Miss Abigail gave a start, and the ale leaped up in
the pitcher like a miniature fountain.
“I begs your parden, ladies and gentlemen all; but the thought of that
feller with his ring an' his watch-chain an' his walrus face, is alus
too many for me. I was for pitchin' him into the North River, when a
perliceman prevented me from benefitin' the human family. I had to pay
five dollars for hittin' the chap (they said it was salt and buttery),
an' that's what I call a neat, genteel luxury. It was worth double the
money jest to see that white hat, with a weed on it, layin' on the wharf
like a busted accordiun.
“Arter months of useless sarch, I went to sea agin. I never got into a
foren port but I kept a watch out for Kitty. Once I thought I seed her
in Liverpool, but it was only a gal as looked like her. The numbers of
women in different parts of the world as looked like her was amazin'. So
a good many years crawled by, an' I wandered from place to place, never
givin' up the sarch. I might have been chief mate scores of times, maybe
master; but I hadn't no ambition. I seed many strange things in them
years--outlandish people an' cities, storms, shipwracks, an' battles. I
seed many a true mate go down, an' sometimes I envied them what went to
their rest. But these things is neither here nor there.
“About a year ago I shipped on board the Belphoebe yonder, an' of all
the strange winds as ever blowed, the strangest an' the best was the
wind as blowed me to this here blessed spot. I can't be too thankful.
That I'm as thankful as it is possible for an uneddicated man to be, He
knows as reads the heart of all.”
Here ended Sailor Ben's yarn, which I have written down in his own
homely words as nearly as I can recall them. After he had finished, the
Captain shook hands with him and served out the ale.
As Kitty was about to drink, she paused, rested the cup on her knee, and
asked what day of the month it was.
“The twenty-seventh,” said the Captain, wondering what she was driving
at.
“Then,” cried Kitty, “it's ten years this night sence--”
“Since what?” asked my grandfather.
“Sence the little lass and I got spliced!” roared Sailor Ben. “There's
another coincydunce for you!”
On hearing this we all clapped hands, and the Captain, with a degree
of ceremony that was almost painful, drank a bumper to the health and
happiness of the bride and bridegroom.
It was a pleasant sight to see the two old lovers sitting side by side,
in spite of all, drinking from the same little cup--a battered zinc
dipper which Sailor Ben had unslung from a strap round his waist. I
think I never saw him without this dipper and a sheath-knife suspended
just back of his hip, ready for any convivial occasion.
We had a merry time of it. The Captain was in great force this evening,
and not only related his famous exploit in the War of 1812, but regaled
the company with a dashing sea-song from Mr. Shakespeare's play of The
Tempest. He had a mellow tenor voice (not Shakespeare, but the Captain),
and rolled out the verse with a will:
“The master, the swabber, the boatswain, and I,
The gunner, and his mate,
Lov'd Mall, Meg, and Marian, and Margery,
But none of us car'd for Kate.”
“A very good song, and very well sung,” says Sailor Ben; “but some of us
does care for Kate. Is this Mr. Shawkspear a seafarin' man, sir?”
“Not at present,” replied the Captain, with a monstrous twinkle in his
eye.
The clock was striking ten when the party broke up. The Captain walked
to the “Mariner's Home” with his guest, in order to question him
regarding his future movements.
“Well, sir,” said he, “I ain't as young as I was, an' I don't cal'ulate
to go to sea no more. I proposes to drop anchor here, an' hug the
land until the old hulk goes to pieces. I've got two or three thousand
dollars in the locker, an' expects to get on uncommon comfortable
without askin' no odds from the Assylum for Decayed Mariners.”
My grandfather indorsed the plan warmly, and Sailor Ben did drop anchor
in Rivermouth, where he speedily became one of the institutions of the
town.
His first step was to buy a small one-story cottage located at the
head of the wharf, within gun-shot of the Nutter House. To the great
amusement of my grandfather, Sailor Ben painted the cottage a light
sky-blue, and ran a broad black stripe around it just under the eaves.
In this stripe he painted white port-holes, at regular distances, making
his residence look as much like a man-of-war as possible. With a short
flag-staff projecting over the door like a bowsprit, the effect was
quite magical. My description of the exterior of this palatial residence
is complete when I add that the proprietor nailed a horseshoe against
the front door to keep off the witches--a very necessary precaution in
these latitudes.
The inside of Sailor Ben's abode was not less striking than the outside.
The cottage contained two rooms; the one opening on the wharf he
called his cabin; here he ate and slept. His few tumblers and a frugal
collection of crockery were set in a rack suspended over the table,
which had a cleat of wood nailed round the edge to prevent the dishes
from sliding off in case of a heavy sea. Hanging against the walls
were three or four highly colored prints of celebrated frigates, and
a lithograph picture of a rosy young woman insufficiently clad in the
American flag. This was labelled “Kitty,” though I'm sure it looked no
more like her than I did. A walrus-tooth with an Esquimaux engraved on
it, a shark's jaw, and the blade of a sword-fish were among the enviable
decorations of this apartment. In one corner stood his bunk, or bed,
and in the other his well-worn sea-chest, a perfect Pandora's box of
mysteries. You would have thought yourself in the cabin of a real ship.
The little room aft, separated from the cabin by a sliding door, was the
caboose. It held a cooking-stove, pots, pans, and groceries; also a lot
of fishing-lines and coils of tarred twine, which made the place smell
like a forecastle, and a delightful smell it is--to those who fancy it.
Kitty didn't leave our service, but played housekeeper for both
establishments, returning at night to Sailor Ben's. He shortly added
a wherry to his worldly goods, and in the fishing season made a very
handsome income. During the winter he employed himself manufacturing
crab-nets, for which he found no lack of customers.
His popularity among the boys was immense. A jackknife in his expert
hand was a whole chest of tools. He could whittle out anything from a
wooden chain to a Chinese pagoda, or a full-rigged seventy-four a foot
long. To own a ship of Sailor Ben's building was to be exalted above
your fellow-creatures. He didn't carve many, and those he refused to
sell, choosing to present them to his young friends, of whom Tom Bailey,
you may be sure, was one.
How delightful it was of winter nights to sit in his cosey cabin, close
to the ship's stove (he wouldn't hear of having a fireplace), and listen
to Sailor Ben's yarns! In the early summer twilights, when he sat on
the door-step splicing a rope or mending a net, he always had a bevy of
blooming young faces alongside.
The dear old fellow! How tenderly the years touched him after this--all
the more tenderly, it seemed, for having roughed him so cruelly in other
days!