The Atlantic Monthly/Volume 9/Number 53/A Raft that no Man made
A RAFT THAT NO MAN MADE.
I am a soldier: but my tale, this time, is not of war.
The man of whom the Muse talked to the blind bard of old had grown wise in wayfaring. He had seen such men and cities as the sun shines on, and the great wonders of land and sea; and he had visited the farther countries, whose indwellers, having been once at home in the green fields and under the sky and roofs of the cheery earth, were now gone forth and forward into a dim and shadowed land, from which they found no backward path to these old haunts, and their old loves:—
GREEK HERE GREEK HERE Od. xi.
At the Charter-House I learned the story of the King of Ithaca, and read it for something better than a task; and since, though I have never seen so many cities as the much-wandering man, nor grown so wise, yet have heard and seen and remembered, for myself, words and things from crowded streets and fairs and shows and wave-washed quays and murmurous market-places in many lands; and for his GREEK HERE,—his people wrapt in cloud and vapor, whom "no glad sun finds with his beams,"—have been borne along a perilous path through thick mists, among the crashing ice of the Upper Atlantic, as well as sweltered upon a Southern sea, and have learned something of men and something of God.
I was in Newfoundland, a lieutenant of Royal Engineers, in Major Gore's time, and went about a good deal among the people, in surveying for Government. One of my old friends there was Skipper Benjie Westham, of Brigus, a shortish, stout, bald man, with a cheerful, honest face and a kind voice; and he, mending a caplin-seine one day, told me this story, which I will try to tell after him.
We were upon the high ground, beyond where the church stands now, and Prudence, the fisher-man's daughter, and Ralph Barrows, her husband, were with Skipper Benjie when he began; and I had an hour by the watch to spend. The neighborhood, all about, was still; the only men who were in sight were so far off that we heard nothing from them; no wind was stirring near us, and a slow sail could be seen outside. Everything was right for listening and telling.
"I can tell 'ee what I sid[1] myself, Sir," said Skipper Benjie. "It is n' like a story that 's put down in books: it's on'y like what we planters[2] tells of a winter's night or sech: but it 's feelun, mubbe, an' 'ee won't expect much off a man as could n' never read,——not so much as Bible or Prayer-Book, even."
Skipper Benjie looked just like what he was thought: a true-hearted, healthy man, a good fisherman, and a good seaman. There was no need of any one's saying it. So I only waited till he went on speaking.
"'T was one time I goed to th' Ice, Sir. I never goed but once, an' 't was a'most the first v'yage ever was, ef 't was n' the very first; an' 't was the last for me, an' worse agen for the rest-part o' that crew, that never goed no more! 'T was tarrible sad douns wi' they!"
This preface was accompanied by some preliminary handling of the caplin-seine, also, to find out the broken places and get them about him. Ralph and Prudence deftly helped him. Then, making his story wait, after this opening, he took one hole to begin at in mending, chose his seat, and drew the seine up to his knee. At the same time I got nearer to the fellowship of the family by persuading the planter (who yielded with a pleasant smile) to let me try my hand at the netting. Prudence quietly took to herself a share of the work, and Ralph alone was unbusied.
"They calls th' Ice a wicked place,—Sundays an' weekin days all alike; an' to my seemun it 's a cruel, bloody place, jes' so well—but not all thinks alike, surely.—Rafe, lad, mubbe 'ee 'd ruther go down cove-ways, an' overhaul the punt a bit."
Ralph, who perhaps had stood waiting for the very dismissal that he now got, assented and left us three. Prudence, to be sure, looked after him as if she would a good deal rather go with him than stay; but she stayed, nevertheless, and worked at the seine. I interpreted to myself Skipper Benjie's sending away of one of his hearers by supposing that his son-in-law had often heard his tales; but the planter explained himself:—
"'Ee sees, Sir, I knocked off goun to th' Ice becase 't was each a terrible cruel place, to my seemun. They swiles[3] be so knowun like,——as knowun as a dog, in a manner, an' lovun to their own, like Christens, a'most, more than bastes; an' they 'm got red blood, for all they lives most-partly in water; an' then I found 'em so friendly, when I was wantun friends badly. But I s'pose the swile-fishery 's needful; an' I knows, in course, that even Christens' blood 's got to be taken sometimes, when it's bad blood, an' I would n' be childish about they things: on'y,—-ef it 's me,—when I can live by fishun, I don' want to go an' club an' shoot an' cut an' slash among poor harmless things that 'ould never harm man or 'oman, an' 'ould cry great tears down for pity-sake, an' got a sound like a Christen: I 'ould n' like to go a-swilun for gain,——not after beun among 'em, way I was, anyways."
This apology made it plain that Skipper Benjie was large-hearted enough, or indulgent enough, not to seek to strain others, even his own family, up to his own way in everything; and it might easily be thought that the young fisherman had different feelings about sealing from those that the planter's story was meant to bring out. All being ready, he began his tale again:—
"I shipped wi' Skipper Isra'l Gooden, from Carbonear: the schooner was the Baccaloue, wi' forty men, all told. 'T was of a Sunday morn'n 'e 'ould sail, twel'th day o' March, wi' another schooner in company,—the Sparrow. There was a many of us was n' too good, but we thowt wrong of 'e's takun the Lord's Day to 'e'sself.—Wull, Sir, afore I comed 'ome, I was in a great desert country, an' floated on sea wi' a monstrous great raft that no man never made, creakun an' Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 9.pdf/378 Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 9.pdf/379 Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 9.pdf/380 Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 9.pdf/381 Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 9.pdf/382 livun: an' the first look struck me a'moet like a bullet! There I sid a sail! There a sail, an' 't was like heaven Openun, an' God settun her down there. About three mile away she was, to nothe'ard, in th' Ice.
"I could ha' sid, at first look, what schooner 't was; but I did n' want to look hard at her. I kep' my peace, a spurt, an' then I runned an' bawled out, 'Glory be to God!' an' then I stopped, an' made proper thanks to Un. An' there she was, same as ef I 'd a-walked of from her an hour ago! It felt so long as ef I 'd been livun years, an' they would n' know me, sca'ce. Somehow I did n' think I could come up wi' her.
"I started, in the name o' God, wi' all my might, an' went, an' went—'t was a five mile, wi' goun round,—an' got her, thank God! 'T was n' the Baccaloue, (I sid that long before,) 't was t' other schooner, the Sparrow, repairun damages they 'd got day before. So that kep' 'em there, an' I 'd a-been took from one an' brought to t' other.
"I could n' do a hand's turn tull we got into the Bay agen,—I was so clear beat out. The Sparrow kep' her man, an' fotch home about thirty-eight hundred swiles, an' a poor man off th' Ice: but they, poor fellows, that I went out wi', never comed no more; an' I never went agen.
"I kep' the skin o' the poor baste, Sir: that 's 'e on my cap."
When the planter had fairly finished his tale, it was a little while before I could teach my eyes to see the things about me in their places. The slow-going sail, outside, I at first saw as the schooner that brought away the lost man from the Ice; the green of the earth would not, at first, show itself through the white with which the fancy covered it; and at first I could not quite feel that the ground was fast under my feet. I even mistook one of my own men (the sight of whom was to warn me that I was wanted elsewhere) for one of the crew of the schooner Sparrow of a generation ago.
I got the tale and its scene gathered away, presently, inside my mind, and shook myself into a present association with surrounding things, and took my leave. I went away the more gratified that I had a chance of lifting my cap to a matron, dark-haired and comely, (who, I was sure, at a glance, had once been the maiden of Benjie Westham's "troth-plight,") and receiving a handsome curtsy in return.