In my school vacations I used occasionally to visit an old sailor
friend, a man of uncommon natural gifts, and that varied experience of
life which does so much to supply the want of other means of
education. He must have been a handsome man in his youth, and though
time and hardship had done their utmost to make a ruin of his bold
features, and had made it needful to braid his still jetty black locks
together to cover his bald crown, his was a fine, striking head yet,
to my boyish fancy. I loved to sit at his feet, and hear him tell the
events of sixty years of toil and danger, suffering and well-earned
joy, as he leaned with both hands upon his stout staff, his body
swaying with the earnestness of his speech. His labors and perils were
now ended, and in his age and infirmity he had found a quiet haven. He
had built a small house by the side of the home of his childhood, and
his son, who followed his father's vocation, lived under the same
roof. This son and two daughters were all that remained to him of a
large family.
"An easterly bank and a westerly glim are certain signs of a wet
skin!" said the fisherman, pointing to the heavy black masses of cloud
that hung over the eastern horizon, one morning when I had risen at
sunrise for a day's fishing. "'T won't do; don't go out to-day!
There's soon such a breeze off shore, as, with the heavy chop, would
make you sick enough! Besides, the old dory won't put up with such a
storm as is coming. No fishing, my boy, to-day."
His old father said, "Stephen is right. There is a blow brewing." And
he came to look, leaning on his cane. "Stay in to-day."
I yielded, and the sky during the morning slowly assumed a dull,
leaden hue. The storm came on in the afternoon, heavily pattering, and
pouring, and blowing against the windows, and obscuring the little
light of an autumn twilight. I wandered through the few small rooms of
the cottage, endeavoring to amuse myself, while the light lasted, with
two funeral sermons and an old newspaper. Then I sat down at a window,
and I well remember the gloomy landscape, seen through the rain, in
the dusk:--the marsh, with the creek dividing it, the bare round
eminence between the house and the beach, or rather the rocky cliffs,
and on either side the wide, lonely sands, with heavy foam-capped
breakers rolling in upon the shore, with a sound like a solemn
dirge. At a distance on the left, half hidden by the walnut-trees, lay
the ruins of a mill, which had always the air of being haunted. A
high, rocky hill, very nearly perpendicular on the side next the
house, was covered on the sides and top with junipers, pines, and
other evergreens. As the darkness thickened, I left the lonely "best
room" for the seat in the large chimney-corner, in the kitchen. The
old wife tottered round, making preparations for the evening meal, and
muttered recollections of shipwrecks which the storm brought to her
mind. Now and then she would go to a window, turn back her cap-border
from her forehead, put her face close to the glass, shading off the
firelight with her hand, and gaze out into the darkness.
"Asa did not go out either, thank the good Father!" she said. The dog
whined piteously. "St! St! Poor Scip! Here, shall have a piece! Good
dog! A fearful night indeed it is."
The two men came in from the barn, shook off the wet, and drew near
the fire.
"Just such a night, twenty-nine years ago come August, we ran afoul of
Hatteras. You remember, old woman, how they frighted ye about me,
don't ye?"
Amidst such reminiscences we were called to supper. I remember being
solemnly impressed when that old man, bent with hardship and the
weight of years, clasped his hands reverently, and in rude terms, but
full of meaning, asked a blessing upon their humble board. I remember
the flickering light from the logs burning on the hearth, and how it
showed, upon the faces of those who sat there, a strong feeling of the
words in which rose an added petition in behalf of those on the mighty
deep.
Supper being ended, the old man took down the tobacco-board, and, when
he had cut enough to fill his pipe, handed it to his son, who, having
done the same, restored it to its nail in the chimney-corner. Then
they smoked, and talked of dangers braved and overcome, of pirates,
and shipwrecks, and escapes, till I involuntarily drew closer into my
corner, and looked over my shoulder. Suddenly the dog under the table
gave a whining growl.
"I never seed the like o' that dog," exclaimed the fisherman, turning
to me. "I thought he was asleep. But if ever a foot comes nigh the
house at night, he gives notice. Depend on it, there's some one
coming."
The door of the little entry opened, with a rush of the whistling
wind, and a man stepped in. The dog half rose, and though he wagged
his tail, in token that he knew the step to be that of a friend, he
kept up a low whine. A young man, muffled to the eyes, and with the
water dripping from his huge pea-jacket, opened the kitchen-door.
"William Crosby, why, what brings you out in such a storm as this?
Strip off your coat, and draw up to the fire, can't ye? Where are you
bound, then, and the night as dark as a wolf's throat?"
The young fisherman made no answer, unless by a motion of his hand. As
he turned back the collar from his face, we saw by the waving light
that it was pale as death. The long wet locks already lay upon his
cheeks, making them more ghastly as he struggled to speak. "O Stephen
Lee, it's no time to be sitting by the fire, when old Asa Osborn is
rolling in the waters. A man's drownded; and who's to get the body for
the wife and the children--God pity them!--afore the ebb carries it
out to sea?"
The old man drew his hand across his forehead, and rose. I looked at
him as he drew up his tall figure, and looked the young messenger full
in the eye. In a low, deep whisper, he said, "Who, William, did ye
say? You said a man's drownded,--but tell me the name again."
"Yes, Gran'sir, I did say it. Old Uncle Ase Flemming, he and the
minister went out a fishing in the morning. The minister got his boots
off in the water, and after a long time he's swum ashore. But poor
Uncle Ase--. Stephen, come along. His poor wife's gone down to the
beach, now."
They left the house, and I shut the door after them, and came back
softly to my seat by the old man's knee.
Once before I had seen him, when a heavy sorrow fell upon him. It was
on a beautiful summer's day, and the open window let in the cool
breeze from the sea. He was sitting by it in his arm-chair, looking
out upon the calm water, buried in thought. His favorite daughter had
long been very low, and might sink away at any moment. The old dog was
at his feet asleep. The clock ticked in the corner, and the sun was
shining upon the floor. Some friends sat by in silence, with sorrowful
countenances. His little grandchild came to his side, and said,
"Mother says, tell Grandpa Aunt Lucy's gone home."
The old man did not alter his position. For some time he sat in deep
thought, looking out with unseeing gaze, and winding his thumbs, as
before. Of five fair daughters, three had before died by the same
disease, consumption. He had seen them slowly fade away, one by one,
and had followed his children to the grave in the secluded
burying-ground, where the green sod was now to be broken to receive
the fourth.
Rising slowly, he walked across the room, and, taking the well-worn
family Bible, returned with it to his seat; and, as he turned the
leaves, he said in a low tone to himself, "There's only one left now!"
Then he sat entirely silent, with his eyes fixed upon the sacred
page. He did not utter one word of lamentation, he did not shed a
tear, but as he turned his eye on me, in passing, its expression went
to my heart. Stealing softly out, I left him to the silent Comforter
whose blessing is on the mourner.
Now the scene was changed. One was suddenly taken from his side who
had been a companion from boyhood to old age. They had played and
worked in company; together they had embarked on their first voyage,
and their last; and they had settled down in close neighborhood in the
evening of their days. Each had preserved the other's life in some
moment of peril, but took small praise to himself for so simple an act
of duty. Few words of fondness had ever passed between them. They had
gone along the path of life, without perhaps being conscious of any
peculiarly strong tie of friendship binding them together, till they
were thus torn asunder. The death of a daughter, long and slowly
wasting away before his eyes, could be calmly borne. But this blow was
wholly unforeseen, and his chest heavily rose and fell, and by the
bright firelight I saw tears rolling over his weather-beaten cheeks.
"A child will weep a bramble's smart,
A maid to see her sparrow part,
A stripling for a woman's heart;
Talk not of grief, till thou hast seen
The hard-drawn tears of bearded men."
The fury of the storm being abated, I resolved to follow Stephen down
to the shore. He was not in sight, and I knew not what direction to
take. It was a gloomy night, the transient glimpses of the moon
between driving masses of clouds only making the scene more wild and
appalling. I could see the tops of the tall trees bending under the
fury of the blast, ere it came to sweep the beach. The heaving billows
were covered with foam, far as the eye could reach, and, rising and
tumbling, seemed striving with each other as they rolled on towards
the sands. I had seen storms upon the ocean before, but never had it
presented so awful and majestic an appearance. As the breakers struck
upon the shore, and sent a huge mass of water upon the sands, their
sullen roar mingled with the howling and rushing of the wind, and
filled me with awe.
There were torches upon the beach, and as I drew near, I saw the
fishermen run together to one point. The body had just been washed
ashore, and lay stretched upon the sands. The head was bare, and long
locks of white hair streamed down upon the shoulders. The heavy
pea-jacket was off from one arm, as if he had endeavored to extricate
himself from it in the water. The sinewy arms lay powerless and free
from tension then, but they told me that, when they first drew him
from the surf, both hands were grasping a broken oar with such
strength that they were unable to loose his hold, till suddenly the
muscles relaxed, and the arms fell upon the ground. They turned the
body, and a little water ran from the mouth. Then, gently raising it
upon their shoulders, they bore it home.