CAPTAIN ZEERVOGEL.
Two miles from the Rectory is the village or small seaport of
Erlesmere.
It is a sunshiny little place, having a row of fishermen's houses,
that are covered by woodbine and honeysuckle, amid which, and over
which, are quantities of brown nets and black bladders, drying in the
breeze.
Garlands of red-floats are tossed upon the same breeze, as they are
strung in lines across the little street; and others, that are
painted yellow, nestle, like great pumpkins, amid the luxuriant
masses of leaves which cover the picturesque little dwellings. Boats
of all sizes and rusty anchors encumber the little street, which is
paved with round stones; while oars, spare yards, and masts stand
against the walls and eaves in all directions.
Swarms of red-cheeked children gambol amid this nautical _débris_;
and they bring such quantities of shells and pebbles from the
sea-beach that there are as many in the street as on the shore.
One of the leading features in the fisher-village of Erlesmere is a
little public house, at the ivy-covered porch of which a group of
burly weather-beaten fellows in long boots, striped shirts, and red
nightcaps, and constantly smoking, drinking, and "taking squints to
seaward" through an old battered telescope, "served" round with
spun-yarn. Near it is a small dock-yard, where their boats are
built, tarred, and painted, and where a passing coaster may have a
trivial repair effected, and occasionally be hove down.
This dock is inclosed by a low ruinous wall, but, of course, is open
toward the sea. It is full of well-seasoned logs, queer odds and
ends of trees--it is redolent of tar and bilge, and is knee-deep in
chips and shavings. Its only ornament is a flag-staff, whereon an
old union jack is displayed on national holidays; for we are very
loyal people in Erlesmere, no penny newspaper having ever found its
way there to create disunion among us. We have no traditions that go
beyond the days of Nelson, Howe, and Duncan; and one old fellow, the
patriarch of the village, remembers well that sunny morning in the
last days of 1805, when a great squadron was seen standing slowly
up-channel, with all their ensigns half hoisted, for the hero of
Trafalgar lay dead in the cabin of the _Victory_!
It happened, only _last year_, that a small Dutch schooner of some
fifty tons was laid down on the gridiron at Erlesmere dock, for the
purpose of being repaired. This was an event of some importance, and
the whole nautical population cheerfully lent a hand in unloading
her, and securing the cargo, which consisted of apples and Tergou
cheeses; while her skipper, Captain Zeervogel, and the six men who
composed his crew, became for the time the lions and oracles of the
smoking-room and porch of the ivy-covered tavern, where it was
tacitly agreed that nothing should be said about Lord Duncan, or "the
licking he gave these Dutch lubbers off the Texel," in our
grandfathers' days.
I had never seen a Dutch craft before; thus the quaint aspect of this
schooner, with her deep waist, her bow and stern which were so clumsy
in their form and strength, so exactly alike, and tilted up till she
resembled a cheese cut in half--her leeboards, her brown oak planks,
all bright with varnish, and her little cabin windows encircled by
alternate stripes of red, green, and white paint, all made her, to
me, a source of wonder; and I was daily on board, having obtained a
free entry, after the bestowal of some schnaps (_i.e._, gin and
water) upon the captain, Jan van Zeervogel, who told me many a
strange tale of the North Sea, for he was a pleasant and
communicative old fellow, having, as he told me, a wife and children,
who kept his farm on the isle of Wolfersdyck, near South Beveland,
while he tempted the dangers of the ocean to dispose of its
agricultural produce.
One night, while the schooner was still on the gridiron, but when her
repairs were nearly completed, I was with him in the little dungeon
which he called his cabin; darkness had set in, and the hour was
late--later than I ought to have been aboard--for we kept early hours
at the Rectory; but the novelty of the situation, the old Dutchman's
stories, the fumes of his meerschaum, and the effect of some peaches,
which he gave me from a large gallipot, wherein his wife had
preserved them in brandy, rendered me careless as to how the time
passed.
"So, Captain Zeervogel," said I, "you are a farmer as well as a
mariner?"
"Yes, a schiffer as well as a boor, a plougher alike of the land and
sea," he replied, in good English. "I have a farm" (he pronounced it
_varrm_, and so on, using consonants in a mode with which I shall not
afflict the reader), "at Wolfersdyck, which is one of the most
pleasant of the Zealand isles, and is about six miles long. It was
larger once, but when the dykes broke, the sea swallowed up a great
portion of it. About three hundred years ago the sea burst over all
Beveland, and for many a year nothing of it was visible above the
water, but the vanes and tops of the church steeples, with the
sea-gulls and petrels perching on them.* So, you see, master, as soon
as we come to anchor in the Zuid-vliet, and have our fore and aft
canvas in the brails, my horses come from their stables, we run a
hawser ahead, and thereby they tow the schooner through a little
canal right into my own farm-yard, where my wife, my children, my
house-dog--even the pigs, cocks and hens await and welcome us. There
we load her, and victual the crew forward and the cabin aft, with the
produce of my own land. My brother, who kept the Schiffer Huys on
the shore of the Zuid-vliet, used to manage all that for me. But
good Adrian is gone now--he died under strange and terrible
circumstances, heaven rest him!"
* This was in 1532.
The usually jolly Dutch captain emitted a sigh and a mighty puff of
smoke together. He applied once more to a square-case bottle of
schiedam, and then became silent--even sad.
"Strange circumstances?" said I, echoing his words; "may I inquire
what they were?"
"Ugh, myn brooder! I almost shudder when I think of them!"
My curiosity was naturally excited, and I added--
"Was he drowned?"
"No, no--worse."
"Killed?"
"I cannot say; he died by my hand on that cabin floor; and yet he did
not, for he perished of a marsh fever ashore."
I thought that the brain of Captain Jan Van Zeervogel was disordered,
or at least was becoming affected by the contents of his bottle of
schiedam; but he resumed:
"Though I am not one who is much used to looking astern in the voyage
of life, or back through the mists of time and memory, I will tell
you this strange story, Mr. Rodney, as it happened to me."
The captain carefully refilled the brown bowl of his large pipe, lit
it with equal deliberation, and after a few whiffs, during which his
keen, gray eyes were bent on the cabin floor, he fixed them on the
rudder case, and then commenced his tale.