CHRISTMAS DAY--OUR UNWILLING GUEST THE DOLPHIN
While gazing into the Infinite, analyzing the experience through which I
had just passed, and wondering where lay the Land of Shadows, my
dreaming was suddenly changed to material things by hearing a terrible
fight in the fore part of the ship. Jumping up on the deck-load, and
running forward, I could hear Riley shout:
"Club him, you old hen-catcher, you, before he goes through the
hawsepipe. That's the way, that's the way. Shure, bad luck to you, you
have missed him. Stand back there, stand back there, let me have at him.
There he goes again under the lumber. Get me the bar, Pete. Look out, me
byes. Shure and be Hivins out he comes again. Strike him between the
eyes, Pete. Give me the bar, Pete. Shure'n you couldn't shtrike the
sheep barn you was raised in."
"What's all this row about?" I asked.
"Ah, shure, sir, it's me auld friend Neptune would be after sendin' us a
Christmas present. He is as fine a bonita as iver greased a mouth, but
it's the divil's own toime we have had sub-duin' him."
"Bring him up on the deck-load and let us look him over."
"Riley," said I, when they had the great fish stretched out before us,
"that is a dolphin, and no bonita,--notice the wedge-shaped head, and
broad tail. No doubt he was cornered by a school of sword fish, and this
fastest fish that swims the ocean had to make a leap for life by jumping
aboard our ship. Bring the lantern here, and you will see him change to
all colors of the rainbow while he is dying, another proof that he is a
dolphin, that is, if he is not already dead."
"Be Hivins, and it's far from dead he is, look at the gills moving."
Surely enough, we watched and the beautiful colors came, brilliant blue
and green and shaded red, and again I wondered, and it seemed to me that
in the passing of the human life there might be just such a color
change, invisible to those who are left behind.
Dismissing these thoughts once and for all from my mind, I entered into
the long discussion incident to the settlement of claims on the dead
dolphin, as to who had discovered him, etc., etc. Broken-Nosed Pete was
sure that he had seen him first, very much to the disgust of Riley, who,
however, could not deny that his one eye was usually cocked to windward.
I then turned to the men and told them that they need no longer be
afraid of the ghost in the Captain's cabin.
Riley spoke up: "And, shure, sir, you wasn't thinking that it was meself
that was scared?"
"Why do you carry the belaying-pin aft to the wheel with you, if you are
not scared?" said Pete.
"Go wan, you broken-nosed heathen, it's the likes of me that knows the
likes av you. You degraded auld beachcomber, haven't I slept in ivery
graveyard from Heath Head in Ireland to Sline Head in Galway? Divil a
thing did I see only Mulligan's goat."
Riley was about to launch away with Mulligan's goat when I interrupted,
reassuring them and telling them that there was no need of carrying
belaying-pins to kill the ghost, for it had departed for shores unknown.
"Good luck to it," said Riley, highly pleased, "and more power to it.
And shure it is sinsible it is to lave on this howly Christmas morning.
I remimber one time on an auld side-wheeler running between Dublin and
London, it was twelve o'clock--"
Riley's story was cut short by the man at the wheel ringing eight bells,
four o'clock. Pete went off to clean the fish, and the others to their
watch below, while I turned in, leaving Riley alone with his
side-wheeler.
The sentiment of Christmas amongst sailors on the sea makes it a day of
strict observances. No work is done outside the working of ship, which
is steering or keeping lookout. There is no mat-making, model-making nor
patching old clothes in their watch below. They dress in their best
clothes, and for those that shave a great deal of time is spent in this
operation. No stray bristle has a chance to escape the religious hand of
a sailor on a day like this.
It is also a day of letter-writing, with good intentions of forwarding
them at the first port, but somehow in the general confusion when in
port, they are lost in a whirlpool of excitement. Considering a sign
between the ship and the post office reading "Bass' Ale," "Black and
White" or "Guinness's Stout," imagine any poor sailor doing his duty to
the folks at home! For the moment those glaring and fascinating signs
are home to him.
But today is too full of sentiment for him to think of alluring public
houses and pretty barmaids. It is given up to religious thoughts with a
firm resolution to sin no more.
The spirit of the day had even taken hold of the Socialist cook. In
serving dinner I noticed that he had on a clean apron and a white
jacket, a great concession for him. I was much attracted by his brogans,
which were much too large, and had a fine coating of stove polish to
enhance their charm.
"Why have you set a place for the Captain, Steward?" said I.
"Oh, just out of respect for him. You know he wasn't such a bad man
after all. Beside, it will make the table look more like a real
Christmas dinner. You can just suppose that your invited guest has been
delayed, and you can go on with your dinner."
I was beginning to like our cook more and more. It seemed that beneath
the hard crust of materialism, there was something very like love and
loyalty.
The German noodle soup, the canned turkey, and the plum pudding to top
off with was a very befitting dinner at sea. Of course, one must not
indulge too freely in plum pudding, especially when its specific gravity
exceeds that of heavy metals. This hypothesis was proven to me later in
the day.