Chapter III (2)

At one moment, she would be heard discussing whether the new “circus rider,” (as she always called the preacher,) was as affecting in Timothy as the old one was pathetic in Paul, and anon, protecting dad’s horse from the invidious comparisons of some visitor, who, having heard, perhaps, that such horses as Fashion and Boston existed, thought himself qualified to doubt the old lady’s assertion that her father’s horse “Shumach” had run a mile on one particular occasion.

“Don’t tell _me_,” was her never-failing reply to their doubts, “don’t tell _me_ ’bout Fashun or Bosting, or any other beating ‘Shumach’ a fair race, for the thing was unfesible: didn’t he run a mile a minute by Squire Dim’s watch, which always stopt ’zactly at twelve, and didn’t he start a minute afore, and git out, jis as the long hand war givin’ its last quiver on ketchin’ the short leg of the watch? And didn’t he beat everything in Virginny ’cept once? Dad and the folks said he’d beat then, if young Mr. Spotswood hadn’t give ‘old Swaga,’ Shumach’s rider, some of that ‘Croton water,’ and jis ’fore the race Swage or Shumach, I don’t ’stinctly ’member which, but one of them had to ‘_let down_,’ and so dad’s hoss got beat.”

The son I will describe in a few words. Imbibing his parents’ contempt for letters, he was very illiterate, and as he had not enjoyed the equivalent of travel, was extremely ignorant on all matters not relating to hunting or plantation duties. He was a stout, active fellow, with a merry twinkling of the eye, indicative of humour, and partiality for practical joking. We had become very intimate, he instructing me in “forest lore,” and I, in return, giving amusing stories, or, what was as much to his liking, occasional introductions to my hunting-flask.

Now that I have introduced the “Dramatis Personæ,” I will proceed with my story. By way of relaxation, and to relieve the tedium incident more or less to a student’s life, I would take my gun, walk out to old Hibbs’s, spend a day or two, and return refreshed to my books.

One fine afternoon I started upon such an excursion, and as I had, upon a previous occasion missed killing a fine buck, owing to my having nothing but squirrel shot, I determined to go this time for the “antlered monarch,” by loading one barrel with fifteen “blue whistlers,” reserving the other for small game.

At the near end of the plantation was a fine spring, and adjacent, a small cave, the entrance artfully or naturally concealed, save to one acquainted with its locality. The cave was nothing but one of those subterranean washes so common in the west and south, and called “sink-holes.”

It was known only to young H. and myself, and we, for peculiar reasons, kept secret, having put it in requisition as the depository of a jug of “old Bourbon,” which we favoured, and as the old folks abominated drinking, we had found convenient to keep there, whither we would repair to get our drinks, and return to the house to hear them descant on the evils of drinking, and “vow no ‘drap,’ ’cept in doctor’s truck, should ever come on their plantation.”

Feeling very thirsty, I took my way by the spring that evening. As I descended the hill o’er-topping it, I beheld the hind parts of a bear slowly being drawn into the cave.

My heart bounded at the idea of killing a bear, and my plans were formed in a second. I had no dogs—the house was distant—and the bear becoming “small by degrees, and beautifully less.” Every hunter knows, if you shoot a squirrel in the head when it’s sticking out of a hole, ten to one he’ll jump out; and I reasoned that if this were true regarding squirrels, might not the operation of the same principle extract a bear, applying it low down in the back.

Quick as thought I levelled my gun and fired, intending to give him the buckshot when his body appeared; but what was my surprise and horror, when, instead of a bear rolling out, the parts were jerked nervously in, and the well-known voice of young H. reached my ears.

“Murder! Ingins! snakes and kuckle-burs! Oh! Lordy! ’nuff!—’nuff!—take him off! Jis let me off this wunst, dad, and I’ll never run mam’s colt again! Oh, Lordy! Lordy! _all my brains blowed clean out!_ Snakes! snakes!” yelled he, in a shriller tone, if possible, “Old Scratch on the outside and snakes in the sink-hole! I’ll die a Christian, anyhow, and if I die before I wake,” and out scrambled poor H., pursued by a large black-snake.

If my life had depended on it, I could not have restrained my laughter. Down fell the gun, and down dropped I shrieking convulsively. The hill was steep, and over and over I went, until my head striking against a stump at the bottom, stopped me, half senseless. On recovering somewhat from the stunning blow, I found Hibbs upon me, taking satisfaction from me for having blowed out his brains. A contest ensued, and H. finally relinquished his hold, but I saw from the knitting of his brows, that the bear-storm, instead of being over, was just brewing.

“Mr. Tensas,” he said with awful dignity, “I’m sorry I put into you ’fore you cum to, but you’re at yourself now, and as you’ve tuck a shot at me, it’s no more than far I should have a chance ’fore the hunt’s up.”

It was with the greatest difficulty I could get H. to bear with me until I explained the mistake; but as soon as he learned it, he broke out in a huge laugh:

“Oh, Dod busted! that’s ’nuff; you has my pardon. I ought to know’d you didn’t ’tend it; ’sides, you jis scraped the skin. I war wus skeered than hurt, and if you’ll go to the house and beg me off from the old folks, I’ll never let on you cuddent tell copperas breeches from bar-skin.”

Promising that I would use my influence, I proposed taking a drink, and that he should tell me how he had incurred his parent’s anger. He assented, and after we had inspected the cave, and seen that it held no other serpent than the one we craved, we entered its cool recess, and H. commenced:

“You see, Doc, I’d heered so much from mam ’bout her dad’s Shumach and his nigger Swage, and the mile a minute, and the Croton water what was gin him, and how she bleved that if it wara’t for bettin’, and the cussin’ and fightin’, runnin’ race-hosses warn’t the sin folks said it war; and if they war anything to make her ’gret gettin’ religion and jinin’ the church, it war cos she couldn’t ’tend races, and have a race-colt of her own to comfort her ’clinin’ years, sich as her daddy had afore her; so I couldn’t rest for wantin’ to see a hoss-race, and go shares, p’raps, in the colt she war wishin’ for.

“And then I’d think what sort of a hoss I’d want him to be—a quarter nag, a mile critter, or a hoss what could run (fur all mam says it can’t be did) a whole four mile at a stretch. Sometimes I think I’d rather own a quarter nag, for the suspense wouldn’t long be hung, and then we could run up the road to old Nick Bamer’s cow-pen, and Sally is almost allers out thar in the cool of the evenin’; and in course we wouldn’t be so cruel as to run the poor critter in the heat of the day. But then agin, I’d think I’d rather have a miler; for the ’citement would be greater, and we could run down the road to old Withers orchard, an his gal Miry is frightfully fond of sunnin’ herself thar, when she ’spects me ’long, and she’d hear of the race, certain; but then thar war the four-miler for my thinkin’, and I’d knew’d in such case the ’citement would be greatest of all, and you know, too, from dad’s stable to the grocery is jist four miles, an’ in case of any ’spute, all hands would be willin’ to run over, even if it had to be tried a dozen times.

“So I never could ’cide on which sort of a colt to wish for. It was fust one, then t’others, till I was nearly ’stracted. So I found the best way was to get the hoss fust, and then ’termine whether it should be Sally Bamers, and the cow-pen; Miry Withers, and the peach orchard; or Spillman’s grocery, with the bald face.

“You’ve seed my black colt, that one that dad’s father gin me in his will when he died, and I ’spect the reason he wrote that will war, that he might have wun then, for it’s more then he had when he was alive, for granma war a monstrus overbearin’ woman. The colt would cum up in my mind, every time I’d think whar I was to git a hoss. ‘Git out!’ said I at fust—_he_ never could run, and ’sides if he could, mam rides him now, an he’s too old for anything, ’cept totin her and bein’ called mine; for you see, though he war named Colt, yet for the old lady to call him old, would bin like the bar ’fecting contempt for the rabbit, on account of the shortness of his tail.

“Well, thought I, it does look sorter unpromisin’, but it’s colt or none; so I ’termined to put him in trainin’ the fust chance. Last Saturday, who should cum ridin’ up but the new circut preacher, a long-legged, weakly, sickly, never-contented-on-less-the-best-on-the-plantation-war-cooked-fur-him sort of a man; but I didn’t look at him twice, his hoss was the critter that took my eye; for the minute I looked at him, I knew him to be the same hoss as Sam Spooner used to win all his splurgin’ dimes with, the folks said, and wot he used to ride past our house so fine on. The hoss war a heap the wuss for age and change of masters; for preachers, though they’re mity ’ticular ’bout thar own comfort, seldom tends to thar hosses; for one is privit property and ’tother generally borried.

“I seed from the way the preacher rid, that he didn’t know the animal he war straddlin’; but I did, and I ’termined I wouldn’t lose sich a chance of trainin’ Colt by the side of a hoss wot had run real races. So that night, arter prayers and the folks was a-bed, I and Nigger Bill tuck the hosses and carried them down to the pastur’. It war a forty-aker lot, and consequently jist a quarter across—for I thought it best to promote Colt, by degrees, to a four-miler. When we got thar, the preacher’s hoss showed he war willin’; but Colt, dang him! commenced nibblin’ a fodder-stack over the fence. I nearly cried for vexment, but an idea struck me; I hitched the critter, and told Bill to get on Colt and stick tight wen I giv’ the word. Bill got reddy, and unbeknownst to him I pulled up a bunch of nettles, and, as I clapped them under Colt’s tail, yelled, ‘Go!’ Down shut his graceful like a steel-trap, and away he shot so quick an’ fast that he jumpt clean out from under Bill, and got nearly to the end of the quarter ’fore the nigger toch the ground: he lit on his head, and in course warn’t hurt—so we cotched Colt, an’ I mounted him.

“The next time I said ‘go’ he showed that age hadn’t spiled his legs or memory. Bill ’an me ’greed we could run him now, so Bill mounted Preacher and we got ready. Thar war a narrer part of the track ’tween two oaks, but as it war near the end of the quarter, I ’spected to pass Preacher ’fore we got thar, so I warn’t afraid of barkin’ my shins.

“We tuck a fair start, and off we went like a peeled ingun, an’ I soon ’scovered that it warn’t such an easy matter to pass Preacher, though Colt dun delightful; we got nigh the trees, and Preacher warn’t past yet, an’ I ’gan to get skeered, for it warn’t more than wide enuf for a horse and a half; so I hollered to Bill to hold up, but the imperdent nigger turned his ugly pictur, and said, ‘he’d be cussed if he warn’t goin’ to play his han’ out.’ I gin him to understand he’d better fix for a foot-race when we stopt, and tried to hold up Colt, but he wouldn’t stop. We reached the oaks, Colt tried to pass Preacher, Preacher tried to pass Colt, and cowollop, crosh, cochunk! we all cum down like ’simmons arter frost. Colt got up and won the race; Preacher tried hard to rise, but one hind leg had got threw the stirrup, an’ tother in the head stall, an’ he had to lay still, doubled up like a long nigger in a short bed. I lit on my feet, but Nigger Bill war gone entire. I looked up in the fork of one of the oaks, and thar he war sittin’, lookin’ very composed on surroundin’ nature. I couldn’t git him down till I promised not to hurt him for disobeyin’ orders, when he slid down. We’d ’nuff racin’ for that night, so we put up the hosses and went to bed.

“Next morning the folks got ready for church, when it was diskivered that the hosses had got out. I an’ Bill started off to look for them; we found them cleer off in the field, tryin’ to git in the pastur’ to run the last night’s race over, old Blaze, the reverlushunary mule, bein’ along to act as judge.

“By the time we got to the house it war nigh on to meetin’ hour; and dad had started to the preachin’, to tell the folks to sing on, as preacher and mam would be ’long bimeby. As the passun war in a hurry, and had been complainin’ that his creetur war dull, I ’suaded him to put on uncle Jim’s spurs what he fotch from Mexico. I saddled the passun’s hoss, takin’ ’ticular pains to let the saddle-blanket come down low in the flank. By the time these fixins war threw, mam war ’head nigh on to a quarter. ‘We must ride on, passun,’ I said, ‘or the folks’ll think we is lost.’ So I whipt up the mule I rid, the passun chirrupt and chuct to make his crittur gallop, but the animal didn’t mind him a pic. I ’gan to snicker, an’ the passun ’gan to git vext; sudden he thought of his spurs, so he ris up, an’ drove them _vim_ in his hoss’s flanx, till they went through his saddle-blanket, and like to bored his nag to the holler. By gosh! but it war a quickener—the hoss kickt till the passun had to hug him round the neck to keep from pitchin’ him over his head. He next jumpt up ’bout as high as a rail fence, passun holdin’ on and tryin’ to git his spurs—but they war lockt—his breeches split plum across with the strain, and the piece of wearin’ truck wot’s next the skin made a monstrous putty flag as the old hoss, like drunkards to a barbacue, streakt it up the road.

“Mam war ridin’ slowly along, thinkin’ how sorry she was, cos Chary Dolin, who always led her off, had sich a bad cold, an’ wouldn’t be able to ’sist her singin’ to-day. She war practisin’ the hymns, and had got as far whar it says, ‘I have a race to run,’ when the passun huv in sight, an’ in ’bout the dodgin’ of a diedapper, she found thar war truth in the words, for the colt, hearin’ the hoss cumin’ up behind, began to show symptoms of runnin’; but when he heard the passun holler, ‘wo wo!’ to his horse, he thought it war me shoutin’ ‘go!’ and sure ’nuff off they started jis as the passun got up even; so it war a fair race. Whoop! git out, but it war egsitin’—the dust flew, and the rail-fence appeered strate as a rifle. Thar war the passun, his legs fast to the critter’s flanx, arms lockt round his neck, face as pale as a rabbit’s belly, and the white flag streemin’ far behind—and thar war Mam, fust on one side, then on t’other, her new caliker swelled up round her like a bear with the dropsy, the old lady so much surprized she cuddent ride steddy, an’ tryin’ to stop her colt, but he war too well trained to stop while he heard ‘go!’

“Mam got ’sited at last, and her eyes ’gan to glimmer like she seen her daddy’s ghost axin’ ‘if he ever trained up a child or a race-hoss to be ’fraid of a small brush on a Sunday,’ she commenced ridin’ beautiful; she braced herself up in the saddle, and began to make calkerlations how she war to win the race, for it war nose and nose, and she saw the passun spurrin’ his critter every jump. She tuk off her shoe, and the way a number ten go-to-meetin’ brogan commenced givin’ a hoss particular Moses, were a caution to hoss-flesh—but still it kept nose and nose. She found she war carryin’ too much weight for Colt, so she ’gan to throw off plunder, till nuthin’ was left but her saddle and close, and the spurs kept tellin’ still. The old woman commenced strippin’ to lighten till it wouldn’t bin the clean thing for her to have taken off one dud more; an’ then when she found it war no use while the spurs lasted, she got cantankerous.

“‘Passun,’ said she, ‘I’ll be cust if it’s fair or gentlemanly for you, a preacher of the gospel, to take advantage of an old woman this way, usin’ spurs when you know _she_ can’t wear ’em—’taint Christian-like nuther,’ and she bust into cryin’.

“‘Wo! Miss Hibbs! Wo! Stop! Madam! Wo! Your son!’ he attempted to say, when the old woman tuck him on the back of the head, and fillin’ his mouth with right smart of a saddle-horn, and stoppin’ the talk, as far as his share went for the present.

“By this time they’d got nigh on to the meetin’-house, and the folks were harkin’ away on ‘Old Hundred,’ and wonderin’ what could have become of the passun and Mam Hibbs. One sister in a long beard axt another brethren in church, if she’d heerd anything ’bout that New York preecher runnin’ way with a woman old enough to be his muther. The brethrens gin a long sigh an’ groaned:

“‘It ain’t possible! marciful heavens! you don’t ’spicion?’ wen the sound of the hosses comin’, roused them up like a touch of the agur, an’ broke off their sarpent-talk.

“Dad run out to see what was to pay, but when he seed the hosses so close together, the passun spurrin’, and mam ridin’ close war skase whar she cum, he knew her fix in a second, and ’tarmined to help her; so clinchin’ a saplin’, he hid ’hind a stump ’bout ten steps off, and held on for the hosses. On they went in beautiful style, the passun’s spurs tellin’ terrible, and mam’s shoe operatin’ ‘no small pile of punkins,’—passun stretched out the length of two hosses, while mam sot as stiff and strate as a bull yearling in his fust fight, hittin’ her nag fust on one side, next on t’other, and the third for the passun, who had chawed the horn till little of the saddle, and less of his teeth war left, and his voice sounded as holler as a jackass-nicker in an old saw-mill.

“The hosses war nose and nose, jam up together so close that mam’s last kiverin’ and passun’s flag had got lockt, an’ ’tween bleached domestic and striped lindsey made a beautiful banner for the pious racers.

“On they went like a small arthquake, an’ it seemed like it war goin’ to be a draun race; but dad, when they got to him, let down with all his might on Colt, scarin’ him so bad that he jumpt clean ahead of passun, beatin’ him by a neck, buttin’ his own head agin the meetin’-house, an’ pitchin’ mam, like a lam for the sacryfise, plum through the winder ’mongst the mourners, leavin’ her only garment flutterin’ on a nail in the sash. The men shot their eyes and scrambled outen the house, an’ the woman gin mam so much of their close that they like to put themselves in the same fix.

“The passun quit the circut, and I haven’t been home yet.”

XVII.
A SHARK STORY.

“Well, gentlemen, I’ll go ahead, if you say so. Here’s the story. It is true, upon my honour, from beginning to end—every word of it. I once crossed over to Faulkner’s island to fish for _tautaugs_, as the north-side people call black fish, on the reefs hard by, in the Long Island Sound. Tim Titus (who died of the dropsy down at Shinnecock point, last spring) lived there then. Tim was a right good fellow, only he drank rather too much.

“It was during the latter part of July; the sharks and the dog-fish had just began to spoil sport. When Tim told me about the sharks, I resolved to go prepared to entertain these aquatic savages with all becoming attention and regard, if there should chance to be any interloping about our fishing ground. So, we rigged out a set of extra large hooks, and shipped some rope-yarn and steel chain, an axe, a couple of clubs, and an old harpoon, in addition to our ordinary equipments, and off we started. We threw out our anchor at half ebb-tide, and took some thumping large fish; two of them weighed thirteen pounds—so you may judge. The reef where we lay was about half a mile from the island, and, perhaps, a mile from the Connecticut shore. We floated there, very quietly, throwing out and hauling in, until the breaking of my line, with a sudden and severe jerk, informed me that the sea attorneys were in waiting, down stairs; and we accordingly prepared to give them a retainer. A salt pork cloak upon one of our magnum hooks forthwith engaged one of the gentlemen in our service. We got him alongside, and by dint of piercing, and thrusting, and banging, we accomplished a most exciting and merry murder. We had business enough of the kind to keep us employed until near low water. By this time, the sharks had all cleared out, and the black fish were biting again; the rock began to make its appearance above the water, and in a little while its hard bald head was entirely dry. Tim now proposed to set me out upon the rock, while he rowed ashore to get the jug, which, strange to say, we had left at the house. I assented to this proposition; first, because I began to feel the effects of the sun upon my tongue, and needed something to take, by the way of medicine; and secondly because the rock was a favourite spot for rod and reel, and famous for luck: so I took my _traps_, and a box of bait, and jumped upon my new station. Tim made for the island.

“Not many men would willingly have been left upon a little barren reef that was covered by every flow of the tide, in the midst of a waste of waters, at such a distance from the shore, even with an assurance from a companion more to be depended upon than mine, that he would return immediately and take him off. But somehow or other, the excitement of the sport was so high, and the romance of the situation was so delightful, that I thought of nothing else but the prospect of my fun, and the contemplation of the novelty and beauty of the scene. It was a mild, pleasant afternoon, in harvest time. The sky was clear and pure. The deep blue sound, heaving all around me, was studded with craft of all descriptions and dimensions, from the dipping sail-boat to the rolling merchantman, sinking and rising like sea-birds sporting with their white wings in the surge. The grain and grass on the neighbouring farms were gold and green, and gracefully they bent obeisance to a gently breathing south-wester. Farther off, the high upland, and the distant coast, gave a dim relief to the prominent features of the landscape, and seemed the rich but dusky frame of a brilliant fairy picture. Then, how still it was! not a sound could be heard, except the occasional rustling of my own motion, and the water beating against the sides, or gurgling in the fissures of the rock, or except now and then the cry of a solitary saucy gull, who would come out of his way in the firmament, to see what I was doing without a boat, all alone, in the middle of the sound; and who would hover, and cry, and chatter, and make two or three circling swoops and dashes at me, and then, after having satisfied his curiosity, glide away in search of some other food to scream at.

“I soon became half indolent, and quite indifferent about fishing; so I stretched myself out at full length upon the rock and gave myself up to the luxury of looking and thinking. The divine exercise soon put me fast asleep. I dreamed away a couple of hours, and longer might have dreamed, but for a tired fish-hawk who chose to make my head his resting place, and who waked and started me to my feet.

“‘Where is Tim Titus?’ I muttered to myself, as I strained my eyes over the now darkened water. But none was near me to answer that interesting question, and nothing was to be seen of either Tim or his boat. ‘He should have been here long ere this,’ thought I, ‘and he promised faithfully not to stay long—could he have forgotten? or has he paid too much devotion to the jug?’

“I began to feel uneasy, for the tide was rising fast, and soon would cover the top of the rock, and high water-mark was at least a foot above my head. I buttoned up my coat, for either the coming coolness of the evening, or else my growing apprehensions, had set me trembling and chattering most painfully. I braced my nerves, and set my teeth, and tried to hum ‘Begone, dull care,’ keeping time with my fists upon my thighs. But what music! what melancholy merriment! I started and shuddered at the doleful sound of my own voice. I am not naturally a coward; but I should like to know the man who would not, in such a situation, be alarmed. It is a cruel death to die to be merely drowned, and to go through the ordinary common-places of suffocation; but to see your death gradually rising to your eyes, to feel the water rising, inch by inch, upon your shivering sides, and to anticipate the certainly coming, choking struggle for your last breath, when, with the gurgling sound of an overflowing brook taking a new direction, the cold brine pours into mouth, ears, and nostrils, usurping the seat and avenues of health and life, and, with gradual flow, stifling—smothering—suffocating! It were better to die a thousand common deaths.

“This is one of the instances in which, it must be admitted, salt water is not a pleasant subject of contemplation. However, the rock was not yet covered, and hope, blessed hope, stuck faithfully by me. To beguile, if possible, the weary time, I put on a bait, and threw out for fish. I was sooner successful than I could have wished to be, for hardly had my line struck the water, before the hook was swallowed, and my rod was bent with the dead hard pull of a twelve foot shark. I let him run about fifty yards, and then reeled up. He appeared not at all alarmed, and I could scarcely feel him bear upon my fine hair line. He followed the pull gently and unresisting, came up to the rock, laid his nose upon its side, and looked up into my face, not as if utterly unconcerned, but with a sort of quizzical impudence, as though he perfectly understood the precarious nature of my situation. The conduct of my captive renewed and increased my alarm. And well it might; for the tide was now running over a corner of the rock behind me, and a small stream rushed through a cleft, or fissure, by my side, and formed a puddle at my very feet. I broke my hook out of the monster’s mouth, and leaned upon my rod for support.

“‘Where is Tim Titus?’ I cried aloud. ‘Curse on the drunken vagabond! Will he never come?’

“My ejaculations did no good. No Timothy appeared. It became evident that I must prepare for drowning, or for action. The reef was completely covered, and the water was above the soles of my feet. I was not much of a swimmer, and as to ever reaching the island, I could not even hope for that. However, there was no alternative, and I tried to encourage myself, by reflecting that necessity was the mother of invention, and that desperation will sometimes insure success. Besides, too, I considered and took comfort from the thought that I could wait for Tim, so long as I had a foothold, and then commit myself to the uncertain strength of my arms and legs for salvation. So I turned my bait-box upside down, and mounting upon that, endeavoured to comfort my spirits, and to be courageous, but submissive to my fate. I thought of death, and what it might bring with it, and I tried to repent of the multiplied iniquities of my almost wasted life; but I found that that was no place for a sinner to settle his accounts. Wretched soul, pray I could not.

“The water had not got above my ankles, when, to my inexpressible joy, I saw a sloop bending down towards me, with the evident intention of picking me up. No man can imagine what were the sensations of gratitude which filled my bosom at that moment.

“When she got within a hundred yards of the reef, I sung out to the man at the helm to luff up, and lie by, and lower the boat; but to my amazement, I could get no reply, nor notice of my request. I entreated them, for the love of heaven, to take me off; and I promised, I know not what rewards, that were entirely beyond my power of bestowal. But the brutal wretch of a captain, muttering something to the effect of ‘that he hadn’t time to stop,’ and giving me the kind and sensible advice to pull off my coat and swim ashore, put the helm hard down, and away bore the sloop on the other tack.

“‘Heartless villain!’ I shrieked out, in the torture of my disappointment; ‘may God reward your inhumanity.’

“The crew answered my prayer with a coarse, loud laugh; and the cook asked me through a speaking trumpet, ‘If I was not afraid of catching cold.’—The black rascal!

“It now was time to strip; for my knees felt the cool tide, and the wind dying away, left a heavy swell, that swayed and shook the box upon which I was mounted, so that I had occasionally to stoop, and paddle with my hands against the water in order to preserve my perpendicular. The setting sun sent his almost horizontal streams of fire across the dark waters, making them gloomy and terrific, by the contrast of his amber and purple glories.

“Something glided by me in the water, and then made a sudden halt. I looked upon the black mass, and, as my eye ran along its dark outline, I saw, with horror, that it was a shark; the identical monster out of whose mouth I had just broken my hook. He was fishing now for me, and was evidently only waiting for the tide to rise high enough above the rock, to glut at once his hunger and revenge. As the water continued to mount above my knees, he seemed to grow more hungry and familiar. At last, he made a desperate dash, and approaching within an inch of my legs, turned upon his back, and opened his huge jaws for an attack. With desperate strength, I thrust the end of my rod violently at his mouth; and the brass head, ringing against his teeth, threw him back into the deep current, and I lost sight of him entirely. This, however, was but a momentary repulse; for in the next minute he was close behind my back, and pulling at the skirts of my fustian coat, which hung dipping into the water. I leaned forward hastily, and endeavoured to extricate myself from the dangerous grasp; but the monster’s teeth were too firmly set, and his immense strength nearly drew me over. So, down flew my rod, and off went my jacket, devoted peace-offerings to my voracious visitor.

“In an instant, the waves all round me were lashed into froth and foam. No sooner was my poor old sporting friend drawn under the surface, than it was fought for by at least a dozen enormous combatants! The battle raged upon every side. High black fins rushed now here, now there, and long, strong tails scattered sleet and froth, and the brine was thrown up in jets, and eddied and curled, and fell, and swelled, like a whirlpool in Hell-gate.

“Of no long duration, however, was this fishy tourney. It seemed soon to be discovered that the prize contended for contained nothing edible but cheese and crackers, and no flesh; and as its mutilated fragments rose to the surface, the waves subsided into their former smooth condition. Not till then did I experience the real terrors of my situation. As I looked around me to see what had become of the robbers, I counted one, two, three, yes, up to twelve, successively, of the largest sharks I ever saw, floating in a circle around me, like divergent rays, all mathematically equidistant from the rock, and from each other; each perfectly motionless, and with his gloating, fiery eye, fixed full and fierce upon me. Basilisks and rattlesnakes! how the fire of their steady eyes entered into my heart! I was the centre of a circle, whose radii were sharks! I was the unsprung, or rather _unchewed_ game, at which a pack of hunting sea-dogs were making a dead point!

“There was one old fellow, that kept within the circumference of the circle. He seemed to be a sort of captain, or leader of the band; or, rather, he acted as the coroner for the other twelve of the inquisition, that were summoned to sit on, and eat up my body. He glided around and about, and every now and then would stop, and touch his nose against some one of his comrades, and seem to consult, or to give instructions as to the time and mode of operation. Occasionally, he would skull himself up towards me, and examine the condition of my flesh, and then again glide back, and rejoin the troupe, and flap his tail, and have another confabulation. The old rascal had, no doubt, been out into the highways and byways, and collected this company of his friends and kin-fish, and invited them to supper.

“I must confess, that horribly as I felt, I could not help but think of a tea-party, of demure old maids, sitting in a solemn circle, with their skinny hands in their laps, licking their expectant lips, while their hostess bustles about in the important functions of her preparations. With what an eye have I seen such appurtenances of humanity survey the location and adjustment of some especial condiment, which is about to be submitted to criticism and consumption.

“My sensations began to be, now, most exquisite indeed; but I will not attempt to describe them. I was neither hot nor cold, frightened nor composed; but I had a combination of all kinds of feelings and emotions. The present, past, future, heaven, earth, my father and mother, a little girl I knew once, and the sharks, were all confusedly mixed up together, and swelled my crazy brain almost to bursting. I cried, and laughed, and spouted, and screamed for Tim Titus.

“In a fit of most wise madness, I opened my broad-bladed fishing-knife, and waved it around my head with an air of defiance. As the tide continued to rise, my extravagance of madness mounted. At one time, I became persuaded that my tide-waiters were reasonable beings, who might be talked into mercy and humanity, if a body could only hit upon the right text. So, I bowed, and gesticulated, and threw out my hands, and talked to them, as friends, and brothers, members of my family, cousins, uncles, aunts, people waiting to have their bills paid; I scolded them as my servants; I abused them as duns; I implored them as jurymen sitting on the question of my life; I congratulated, and flattered them as my comrades upon some glorious enterprise; I sung and ranted to them, now as an actor in a play-house, and now as an elder at a camp-meeting; in one moment, roaring,

“‘On this cold flinty rock I will lay down my head,’—

and in the next, giving out to my attentive hearers for singing, a hymn of Dr. Watts so admirably appropriate to the occasion:

“‘On slippery rocks I see them stand,
While fiery billows roll below.’”

“What said I, what did I not say! Prose and poetry, scripture and drama, romance and ratiocination—out it came. ‘_Quamdiu, Catalina, nostra patientia abutere?_’—I sung out to the old captain, to begin with: ‘My brave associates, partners of my toil,’—so ran the strain. ‘On which side soever I turn my eyes,’—‘Gentlemen of the jury,’—‘I come not here to steal away your hearts,’—‘You are not wood, you are not stones, but’—‘Hah!’—‘Begin, ye tormentors, your tortures are vain,’—‘Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up to any sudden flood,’—‘The angry flood that lashed her groaning sides,’—‘Ladies and gentlemen,’—‘My very noble and approved good masters,’—‘Avaunt! and quit my sight; let the earth hide ye,’—‘Lie lightly on his head, O earth!’—‘O, heaven and earth, that it should come to this!’—‘The torrent roared, and we did buffet it with lusty sinews, stemming it aside and oaring it with hearts of controversy,’—‘Give me some drink, Titinius,’—‘Drink, boys, drink, and drown dull sorrow,’—‘For liquor it doth roll such comfort to the soul,’—‘Romans, countrymen and lovers, hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear,’—‘Fellow citizens, assembled as we are upon this interesting occasion, impressed with the truth and beauty,’—‘Isle of beauty, fare thee well,’—‘The quality of mercy is not strained,’—‘Magna veritas et prevalebit,’—‘Truth is potent, and’—‘Most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors,’—

“‘Oh, now you weep, and I perceive you feel
The dint of pity; these are gracious drops.
Kind souls! what! weep you when you but behold
Our Cæsar’s vesture wounded,’—

Ha! ha! ha!—and I broke out in a fit of most horrible laughter, as I thought of the mincemeat particles of my lacerated jacket.”

“In the meantime, the water had got well up towards my shoulders, and while I was shaking and vibrating upon my uncertain foothold, I felt the cold nose of the captain of the band snubbing against my side. Desperately, and without a definite object, I struck my knife at one of his eyes, and, by some singular fortune, cut it out clean from the socket. The shark darted back, and halted. In an instant, hope and reason came to my relief; and it occurred to me, that if I could only blind the monster, I might yet escape. Accordingly, I stood ready for the next attack. The loss of an eye did not seem to affect him much, for after shaking his head once or twice, he came up to me again, and when he was about half an inch off, turned upon his back. This was the critical moment. With a most unaccountable presence of mind, I laid hold of his nose with my left hand, and with my right scooped out his remaining organ of vision. He opened his big mouth, and champed his long teeth at me, in despair. But it was all over with him. I raised my right foot and gave him a hard shove, and he glided off into deep water, and went to the bottom.

“Well, gentlemen, I suppose you’d think it a hard story, but it’s none the less a fact, that I served every remaining one of those nineteen sharks in the same fashion. They all came up to me, one by one, regularly and in order, and I scooped their eyes out, and gave them a shove, and they went off into deep water, just like so many lambs. By the time I had scooped out and blinded a couple of dozen of them, they began to seem so scarce that I thought I would swim for the island, and fight the rest for fun, on the way; but just then, Tim Titus hove in sight, and it had got to be almost dark, and I concluded to get aboard and rest myself.”

XVIII.
A BEAR STORY.

“What a lie!” growled Daniel, as soon as the shark story was ended.

“Have my doubts;” suggested the somnolent Peter Probasco, with all the solemnity of a man who knows his situation; at the same time shaking his head and spilling his liquor.

“Ha! ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha!” roared all the rest of the boys together.

“Is he done?” asked Raynor Rock.

“How many shirks was there?” cried long John, putting in his unusual lingual oar.

“That story puts me in mind,” said Venus Raynor, “about what I’ve heerd tell on Ebenezer Smith, at the time he went down to the North Pole on a walen’ voyage.”

“Now look out for a screamer,” laughed out Raynor Rock, refilling his pipe. “Stand by, Mr. Cypress, to let the sheet go.”

“Is there anything uncommon about that yarn, Venus?”

“Oncommon! well, I expect it’s putty smart and oncommon for a man to go to sea with a bear, all alone, on a bare cake of ice. Captain Smith’s woman used to say she couldn’t bear to think on’t.”

“Tell us the whole of that, Venus,” said Ned—“that is, if it is true. Mine was—the whole of it—although Peter has his doubts.”

“I can’t tell it as well as Zoph can; but I’ve no ’jections to tell it my way, no how. So, here goes—that’s great brandy, Mr. Cypress.” There was a gurgling sound of “something-to-take,” running.

“Well, they was down into Baffin’s Bay, or some other o’ them cold Norwegen bays at the north, where the rain freezes as it comes down, and stands up in the air, on winter mornens, like great mountens o’ ice, all in streaks. Well, the schooner was layen at anchor, and all the hands was out into the small boats, looken out for wales—all except the capting, who said he wa’n’t very well that day. Well, he was walken up and down, on deck, smoken and thinking, I expect, mostly, when all of a sudden he reckoned he see one o’ them big white bears—polar bears, you know—big as thunder—with long teeth. He reckoned he see one on ’em sclumpen along on a great cake o’ ice, that lay on the leeward side of the bay, up agin the bank. The old capting wanted to kill one o’ them varments most wonderful, but he never lucked to get a chance. Now tho’, he thought, the time had come for him to walk into one on ’em at laast, and fix his mutton for him right. So he run forrard and lay hold onto a small skiff, that was layen near the forc’stal, and run her out and launched her; then he tuk a drink, and—here’s luck—and put in a stiff load of powder, a couple of balls, and jumped in, and pulled away for the ice.

“It wa’n’t long ’fore he got ’cross the bay, for it was a narrer piece of water—not more than haaf a mile wide—and then he got out on to the ice. It was a smart and large cake, and the bear was ’way down to the tother end on it, by the edge o’ the water. So, he walked fust strut along, and then when he got putty cloast he walked round catecorned-like—like’s if he was drivin’ for a plain plover—so that the bear wouldn’t think he was comen arter him, and he dragged himself along on his hands and knees, low down, mostly. Well, the bear didn’t seem to mind him none, and he got up within ’bout fifty yards on him, and then he looked so savage and big—the bear did—that the captain stopped and rested on his knees, and put up his gun, and was agoin’ to shoot. But just then the bear turned round and snuffed up the captin—just as one of Lif’s hounds snuffs up an old buck, Mr. Cypress—and begun to walk towards him, slowly like. He come along, the captin said, clump, clump, very slow, and made the ice bend and crack again under him, so that the water come up and putty much kivered it all over. Well, there the captin was all the time squat on his knees, with his gun pinted, waiten for the varment to come up, and his knees and legs was mighty cold by means of the water that the bear riz on the ice as I was mentionen. At last the bear seemed to make up his mind how the captin _would_ taste, and so he left off walkin’ slow, and started off on a smart swift trot, right towards the old man, with his mouth wide open, roaren, and his tail sticken out stiff. The captin kept still, looken out all the time putty sharp, I should say, till the beast got within about ten yards on him, and then he let him have it. He aimed right at the fleshy part of his heart, but the bear dodged at the flash, and rared up, and the balls went into his two hind legs, just by the jynt, one into each, and broke the thigh bones smack off, so that he went right down aft, on the ice, thump, on his hind quarters, with nothen standen but his fore legs, and his head riz up, a growlen at the captin. When the old man see him down, and tryen to slide along the ice to get his revenge, likely, thinks he to himself, thinks he, I might as well get up and go and cut that ere creter’s throat. So he tuk out his knife and opened it.

“But when he started to get up, he found, to his astonishment, that he was fruz fast to the ice. Don’t laugh: it’s a fact; there an’t no doubt. The water, you see, had been round him a smart and long while, whilst he was waiten for the bear, and it’s wonderful cold in them regions, as I was sayen, and you’ll freeze in a minit if you don’t keep moven about smartly. So the captin he strained first one leg, and then he strained tother, but he couldn’t move ’em none. They was both fruz fast into the ice, about an inch and a half deep, from knee to toe, tight as a Jersey oyster perryauger on a mud flat at low water. So he laid down his gun, and looked at the bear, and doubled up his fists.

“‘Come on, you bloody varmint,’ says the old man, as the bear swalloped along on his hinder eend, comen at him.

“He kept getten weaker, tho,’ and comen slower and slower all the time, so that at last, he didn’t seem to move none; and directly, when he’d got so near that the captin could jist give him a dig in the nose by reachen forrard putty smart and far, the captin see that the beast was fruz fast too, nor he couldn’t move a step further forrard no ways. Then the captin burst out a laughen, and clapped his hands down on to his thighs, and roared. The bear seemed to be most onmighty mad at the old man’s fun, and set up such a growlen that what should come to pass, but the ice cracks and breaks all around the captin and the bear, down to the water’s edge, and the wind jist then a shiften, and comen off shore, away they floated on a cake of ice about ten by six, off to sea, without the darned a biscot or a quart o’ liquor to stand ’em on the cruise! There they sot, the bear and the captin, just so near that when they both reached forrards, they could jist about touch noses, and nother one not able to move any part on him, only excepten his upper part and fore paws.”

“By jolly! that was rather a critical predicament, Venus,” cried Ned, buttoning his coat. “I should have thought that the captain’s nose and ears and hands would have been frozen too.”

“That’s quite naytr’l to suppose, Sir, but you see the bear kept him warm in the upper parts, by being so cloast to him, and breathen hard and hot on the old man whenever he growled at him. Them polar bears is wonderful hardy animals, and has a monstrous deal o’ heat into ’em, by means of their bein’ able to stand such cold climates, I expect. And so the captin knowed this, and whenever he felt chilly, he just tuk up his ramrod and stirred up the old rascal, and made him roar and squeal, and then the hot breath would come pouren out all over the captin, and made the air quite moderat and pleasant.”

“Well, go on, Venus. Take another horn first.”

“Well, there a’nt much more on’t. Off they went to sea, and sometimes the wind druv ’em nothe, and then agin it druv ’em southe, but they went southe mostly; and so it went on until they were out about three weeks. So at last, one afternoon—”

“But, Venus, stop: tell us, in the name of wonder, how did the captain contrive to support life all this time?”

“Why, Sir, to be sure, it was a hard kind o’ life to support, but a hardy man will get used to almost—”

“No, no: what did he eat? what did he feed on?”

“O—O—I’d liked to’ve skipped that ere. Why, Sir, I’ve heerd different accounts as to that. Uncle Obe Verity told me he reckoned the captin cut off one of the bear’s paws, when he lay stretched out asleep one day, with his jack-knife, and sucked that for fodder, and they say there’s a smart deal o’ nourishment in a white bear’s foot. But if I may be allowed to spend my ’pinion, I should say my old man’s account is the rightest, and that’s—what’s as follows. You see after they’d been out three days abouts, they begun to grow kind o’ hungry, and then they got friendly, for misery loves company, you know; and the captin said the bear looked at him several times, very sorrowful, as much as to say, ‘Captin, what the devil shall we do?’ Well, one day they was sitten looken at each other, with the tears ready to burst out o’ their eyes, when all of a hurry, somethin’ come floppen up out o’ the water onto the ice. The captin looked and see it was a seal. The bear’s eyes kindled up as he looked at it, and then, the captin said, he giv him a wink to keep still. So there they sot, still as starch, till the seal not thinken nothin’ o’ them no more nor if they was dead, walked right up between ’em. Then slump! went down old whitey’s nails into the fish’s flesh, and the captin run his jack-knife into the tender loin. The seal soon got his bitters, and the captin cut a big hunk off the tale eend, and put it behind him, out o’ the bear’s reach, and then he felt smart and comfortable, for he had stores enough for a long cruise, though the bear couldn’t say so much for himself.