Cast Away in the Cold Read online

  CHAPTER III.

  Which Shows the Old Man To Be a Man of His Word.

  As we may well suppose, the Captain's little friends did not tarry athome next day beyond the appointed time; but true as the hands of theclock to mark the hour and minute on the dial-plate, they set out forCaptain Hardy's house as fast as they could go,--as if their very livesdepended on their speed. They found the Captain seated in the shadyarbor, smoking a long clay pipe. "I'm glad to see you, children," washis greeting to them; and glad enough he was too,--much more glad,maybe, than he would care to own,--as glad, perhaps, as the childrenwere themselves.

  "And now, my dears," continued he, "shall we have the story? There is nowind, you see, so we cannot have a sail."

  "O, the story! yes, yes, the story," cried the children, all at once.

  "Then the story it shall be," replied the old man; "but first you mustsit down,"--and the children sat down upon the rustic seat, and closedtheir mouths, and opened wide their ears, prepared to listen; while theCaptain knocked the ashes from his long clay pipe, and stuck it in therafter overhead, and clearing up his throat, prepared to talk.

  "Now you must know," began the Captain, "that I cannot finish the storyI'm going to tell you all in one day,--indeed, I can only just begin it.It's a very long one, so you must come down to-morrow, and next day,and every bright day after that until we've done. Does that please you?"

  "Yes, yes," was the ready answer, and little Alice laughed loud withjoy.

  "Will you be sure to remember the name of the place you come to? Willyou remember that its name is 'Mariner's Rest'? Will you remember that?"

  "Yes, indeed we will."

  "And now for the boat we're to have a sail in by and by; what do youthink I've called that?" asked the Captain.

  "Sea-Gull?" guessed William.

  "Water-Witch?" guessed Fred.

  "White Dove?" guessed Alice.

  "All wrong," said the Captain, smiling a smile of the greatestsatisfaction. "I've painted the name on her in bright golden letters,and when you go down again to look at her, you'll see _Alice_ there, andthe letters are just the color of some little girl's hair I know of."

  "Is that really her name?" shouted both the boys at once, glad as theycould be; "how jolly!" But little Alice said never a word, but creptclose to the old man's side, and the old man put his great, big armaround the child's small body, and as the soft sunlight came stealing inthrough the openings in the foliage of the trees, flinging patches ofbrightness here and there upon the grass around, the Captain began hisstory.

  "Now, my little listeners," spoke the Captain, "you must know that whatI am going to tell you occurred to me at a very early period of my life,when I was a mere boy; in fact, the adventures which I shall now relateto you were the first I ever had.

  "To begin, then, at the very beginning, I must tell you that I was bornquite near Rockdale. So you see I have good reason for always liking tocome back here. It is like coming home, you know. The place of my birthis only eleven miles from Rockdale by the public road, which runs offthere in a west-nor'westerly direction.

  "My mother died when I was six years old, but I remember her as a goodand gentle woman. She was taken away, however, too early to have leftany distinct impression upon my mind or character. I was thus left togrow up with three brothers and two sisters, all but one of whom wereolder than myself, without a mother's kindly care and instruction; and Imust here own, that I grew to be a self-willed and obstinate boy; andthis disposition led me into a course of disobedience which, but for theprotecting care of a merciful Providence, would have brought my life toa speedy end.

  "My father being poor, neither myself nor my brothers and sistersreceived any other education than what was afforded by the commoncountry school. It was, indeed, as much as my father could do at anytime to support so large a family, and, at the end of the year, makeboth ends meet.

  "As for myself, I was altogether a very ungrateful fellow, andappreciated neither the goodness of my father nor any of the otherblessings which I had. Of the advantages of a moderate education whichwere offered to me I did not avail myself,--preferring mischief andidleness to my studies; and I manifested so little desire to learn, andwas so troublesome to the master, that I was at length sent home, andforbidden to come back any more; whereupon my father, very naturally,grew angry with me, and no doubt thinking it hopeless to try further tomake anything of me, he regularly bound me over, or hired me out, for aperiod of years, to a neighboring farmer, who compelled me to work veryhard; so I thought myself ill used, whereas, in truth, I did not receivehalf my deserts.

  "With this farmer I lived three years and a half before he made thediscovery that I was wholly useless to him, and that I did not do workenough to pay for the food I ate; so the farmer complained to my father,and threatened to send me home. This made me very indignant, as Ifoolishly thought myself a greatly abused and injured person, and, in anevil hour, I resolved to stand it no longer. I would spite the oldfarmer, and punish my father for listening to him, by running away.

  "I was now in my eighteenth year,--old enough, as one would havethought, to have more manliness and self-respect; but about this I hadnot reflected much.

  "I set out on my ridiculous journey without one pang of regret,--sohardened was I in heart and conscience,--carrying with me only a changeof clothing, and having in my pocket only one small piece of bread, andtwo small pieces of silver. It was rather a bold adventure, but Ithought I should have no difficulty in reaching New Bedford, where I wasfully resolved to take ship and go to sea.

  "The journey to New Bedford was a much more difficult undertaking than Ihad counted upon, and, I believe, but for the wound which it would havecaused to my pride, I should have gone back at the end of the first fivemiles. I held on, however, and reached my destination on the second day,having stopped overnight at a public house or inn, where my two piecesof silver disappeared in paying for my supper and lodging andbreakfast.

  "I arrived at New Bedford near the middle of the afternoon of the secondday, very hot and dusty, for I had walked all the way through thebroiling sun along the high-road; and I was very tired and hungry, too,for I had tasted no food since morning, having no more money to buy anywith, and not liking to beg. So I wandered on through the town towardsthe place where the masts of ships were to be seen as I looked down thestreet,--feeling miserable enough, I can assure you.

  "Up to this period of my life, I had never been ten miles from home, andhad never seen a city, so of course everything was new to me. By thistime, however, I had come to reflect seriously on my folly, and this,coupled with hunger and fatigue, so far banished curiosity from my mindthat I was not in the least impressed by what I saw. In truth, I veryheartily wished myself back on the farm; for if the labor there was notto my liking, it was at least not so hard as what I had performed thesepast two days, in walking along the dusty road,--and then I was, when onthe farm, never without the means to satisfy my hunger.

  "What I should have done at this critical stage, had not some one cometo my assistance, I cannot imagine. I was afraid to ask any questions ofthe passers-by, for I did not really know what to ask them, or how toexplain my situation; and, seeing that everybody was gaping at me withwonder and curiosity (and many of them were clearly laughing at myabsurd appearance), I hurried on, not having the least idea of where Ishould go or what I should do.

  "At length I saw a man with a very red face approaching on the oppositeside of the street, and from his general appearance I guessed him to bea sailor; so, driven almost to desperation, I crossed over to him,looking, I am sure, the very picture of despair, and I thus accostedhim: 'If you please, sir, can you tell me where I can go and ship for avoyage?'

  "'A voyage!' shouted he, in reply, 'a voyage! A pretty looking fellowyou for a voyage!'--which observation very much confused me. Then heasked me a great many questions, using a great many hard names, themeaning of which I did not at all understand, and the necessity forwhich I could not exactly see. I n
oticed that he called me 'landlubber'very frequently, but I had no idea whether he meant to compliment orabuse me, though it seemed more likely to me that it was the latter.After a while, however, he seemed to have grown tired of talking, or hadexhausted all his strange words, for he turned short round and bade mefollow him, which I did, with very much the feelings a culprit must havewhen he is going to prison.

  "We went down a steep hill, and arrived presently at a low, dingy place,the only peculiar feature of which was that it smelled of tar and had agreat many people lounging about in it. It was, as I soon found out, a'shipping office,'--that is, a place where sailors engage themselves fora voyage. No sooner had we entered than my conductor led me up to a talldesk, and then, addressing himself to a sharp-faced man on the otherside of it, he said something which I did not clearly comprehend. Then Iwas told to sign a paper, which I did without even reading a word of it,and then the red-faced man cried out in a very loud and startling toneof voice, 'Bill!' when somebody at once rolled off a bench, andscrambled to his feet. This was evidently the 'Bill' alluded to.

  "When Bill had got upon his feet, he surveyed me for an instant, as Ithought, with a very needlessly firm expression of countenance, and thenstarted towards the door, saying to me as he set off, 'This way, youlubber.' I followed after him with much the same feelings which I hadbefore when I followed the man with the red face, until we came down towhere the ships were, and then we descended a sort of ladder, or stairs,at the foot of which I stumbled into a boat, and had like to have goneoverboard into the water. At this, the people in the boat set up a greatlaugh at my clumsiness,--just as if I had ever been in a boat before,and could help being clumsy. To make the matter worse, I sat down in thewrong place, where one of the men was to pull an oar; and when, afterbeing told to 'get out of that,' with no end of hard names, I asked whatbench I should sit on, they all laughed louder than before, which stillfurther overwhelmed me with confusion. I did not then know that what Icalled a 'bench,' they called a 'thwart,' or more commonly 'thawt.'

  "At length, after much abuse and more laughter, I managed to get intothe forward part of the boat, which was called, as I found out, 'thebows,' where there was barely room to coil myself up, and the boat beingsoon pushed off from the wharf, the oars were put out, and then I heardan order to 'give way,' and then the oars splashed in the water, and Ifelt the boat moving; and now, as I realized that I was in truth leavingmy home and native land, perhaps to see them no more forever, my heartsank heavy in my breast; and it was as much as I could do to keep thetears from pouring out of my eyes, as we glided on over the harbor.Indeed, my eyes were so bedimmed that I scarcely saw anything at alluntil we came around under the stern of a ship, when I heard the order'lay in your oars.' Then one of the men caught hold of the end of arope, which was thrown from the ship; and, the boat being made fast, weall scrambled up the ship's side; and then I was hustled along to a holein the forward part of the deck (having what looked like a box turnedupside down over it), through which, now utterly bewildered, Idescended, by means of a ladder, to a dark, damp, mouldy place, whichwas filled with the foul smells of tar and bilge-water, and thick withtobacco-smoke. This, they told me, was the 'fo'casle,' that is,forecastle, where lived the 'crew,' of which I became now painfullyconscious that I was one. If there had been the slightest chance, Ishould have run away; but running away from a ship is a very differentthing from running away from a farm.

  The Romance of the Sea.]

  "If I had wished myself back on the farm before, how much more did Iwish it now! But too late, too late, for we were all ordered up out ofthe forecastle even before I had tasted a mouthful of food. In truth,however, it is very likely that I was too sick with the foul odors,tobacco-smoke, and heart-burnings to have eaten anything, even had itbeen set before me.

  "Upon reaching the deck, I was immediately ordered to lay hold of awooden shaft, about six feet long, which ran through the end of an ironlever; and being joined by some more of the crew, we pushed down andlifted up this lever, just like firemen working an old-fashionedfire-engine. Opposite to us was another party pushing down when we werelifting up, and lifting up when we were pushing down. I soon found outthat by this operation we were turning over and over what seemed to be agreat log of wood, with iron bands at the ends of it, and having a greatchain winding up around it. The chain came in through a round hole inthe ship's side, with a loud 'click, click,' and I learned that theycalled it a 'cable,' while the machine we were working was called a'windlass.' The cable was of course fast to the anchor, and it was veryevident to me that we were going to put to sea immediately. The idea ofit was now as dreadful to me as it had before been agreeable, when I hadcontemplated it from the stand-point of a quiet farm, a good many milesaway from the sea. But I could not help myself. No matter what mighthappen, my fate was sealed, so far as concerned this ship.

  "We had not been long engaged at this work of turning the windlass,before my companions set up a song, keeping time with the lever which wewere pushing up and down, one of them leading off by reciting a singleline, in which something was said about Sallie coming, or having come,or going to come to 'New York town'; after which they all united in adismal chorus, that had not a particle of sense in it, so far as I couldsee, from beginning to end. When they had finished off with the chorus,the leader set to screaming again about 'Sallie' and 'New York town,'and then as before came the chorus. Having completely exhausted himselfon the subject of Sallie, he began to invent, and his inventive geniuswas rewarded with a laugh which interfered with the chorus through abouttwo turns of the windlass. What he invented I will recite, that you maysee how senseless it was; and I will drawl it out very slow to imitatethem. But first let me say, when they were through with this chorus, theleader put in his tongue again, inventing a sentiment to rhyme with thefirst, howling it out as if he would split his throat in the endeavor.This is what it all was:--

  'We've picked up a lubber in New Bedford town,--Come away, away, sto-r-m along, John,Get a-long, storm a-long, storm's g-one along,'

  'Our lubber's lugger-rigged, and we'll do him brown,--Come away, away, sto-r-m along, John,Get a-long, storm a-long, storm's g-one along.'

  "The last sentiment about lugger-rigged lubber being done brown made themall laugh even more than the other, and caused an interruption of thechorus to the extent of at least four revolutions of the windlass; butwhen the laugh was over, they went at the dismal chorus with double theenergy they had shown before, repeating all they had then said about'John's getting along,' and 'storming along,' as if they rather likedJohn for doing these things. Thus they went on without much variety,until I was sick and tired enough of it. The 'lubber' part of it was tooclearly aimed at me to be mistaken; but I could not discover in itanything but nonsense all the way through to the end.

  "After a while I heard some one cry out, 'The anchor's away,' which as Iafterwards learned, meant the anchor had been lifted from the bottom;and then the sailors all scattered to obey an order to do something,which I had not the least idea of, with a sail, and with some ropes,which appeared to me to be so mixed up that nobody could tell one fromthe other, nor make head nor tail of them. In the twinkling of an eye,however, in spite of the mixed-up ropes, there was a great flapping ofwhite canvas, and a creaking and rattling of pulleys. Then the hugewhite sail was fully spread, the wind was bulging it out in the middlelike a balloon, the ship's head was turned away from the town, and wewere moving off. Next came an order to 'lay aloft and shake out thetopsail'; but happily in this order I was not included, but was,instead, directed to 'lend a hand to get the anchor aboard,' whichoperation was quickly accomplished, and the heavy mass of crooked ironwhich had held the ship firmly in the harbor was soon fastened in itsproper place on the bow, to what is called a 'cat-head.' By the timethis was done, every sail was set, and we were flying before the windout into the great ocean.

  "And now you see my wish was gratified. I was in a ship and off on the'world of waters,' with the career of a sailor before me,-
-a career tomy imagination when on the farm full of romance, and presentingeverything that was desirable in life. But was it so in reality when Iwas brought face to face with it,--when I had exchanged the farm for theforecastle? By no means. Indeed, I was filled with nothing but disgustfirst, and terror afterwards. The first sight which I had of the oceanwas much less satisfactory to me than would have been my father'sduck-pond. I soon got miserably sick; night came on, dark and fearful;the winds rose; the waves dashed with great force against the ship'ssides, often breaking over the deck, and wetting me to the skin. I wasshivering with cold; I was afraid that I should be washed overboard; Iwas afraid that I should be killed by something tumbling on me fromaloft, for there was such a great rattling up there in the darkness thatI thought everything was broken loose. I could not stand on the deckwithout support, and was knocked about when I attempted to move; everytime the ship went down into the trough of a sea I thought all myinsides were coming up. So, altogether, you see I was in a very bad way.How, indeed, should it be otherwise? for can you imagine any ills sogreat as these?

  1st, To have all your clothes wet; 2d, To have a sick stomach; and, 3d, To be in a dreadful fright.

  "Now that was precisely my condition; and I was already reaping thefruits of my folly in running away from home and exchanging a farm for aforecastle."

  * * * * *

  The Captain here paused and laughed heartily at the picture he had drawnof himself in his ridiculous _role_ of "the young sailor-boy," and,after clearing his throat again, was about to proceed with the story,when he perceived that the shades of evening had already begun to fallupon the arbor. Looking out among the trees, he saw the leaves andbranches standing sharply out against the golden sky, which showed himthat the day was ended and the sun was set. So he told his littlefriends to hasten home before the dews began to fall upon the grass, andcome again next day. This they promised thankfully, and told the Captainthat they "never, never, never would forget it."

  But the head of William was filled with a bright idea, and he was boundto discharge it before he left the place. "O Captain Hardy," cried thelittle fellow, "do you know what I was thinking of?"

  "How should I, before you tell me?" was the Captain's very naturalanswer.

  "Why, I was thinking how nice it would be to write all this down onpaper. It would read just like a printed book."

  The Captain said he "liked the idea," but he doubted if William couldremember it. But William thought he could remember every word of it, anddeclared that it was splendid; and Fred and Alice, following after, saidthat it was splendid too. But whether the story that the Captain toldwas splendid, or the idea of writing it down was splendid, or exactlywhat was splendid, was not then and there settled; yet it was fullysettled that William was to write the story down the best he could, andask his father to correct the worst mistakes. And now, when this wasdone, the happy children said "Good evening" to the Captain, and set outmerrily for home, little Alice holding to her brother's hand, as shetripped lightly over the green field, turning every dozen steps to throwback through the tender evening air, from her dainty little fingertips,a laughing kiss to the ancient mariner, whose face beamed kindly on herfrom the arbor door.