“De olt man dell me he bin fery font of me,’n he coin’ t’ gif me dupple pay; but ven ve ket to Grafesent ’n sent all de crout ashore in ierns, I vant t’ sell my slush to a poatman—I haf fifteen parrels—unt de poatman offer me £25 for it. But de olt man he say he want haluf—haluf my slush vat I ben safin fery near tree years! I say to him, ‘Look here, Cap’n Tunn, I luf you petter as mineselluf; but pefore I led you take away haluf my slush, I coin to see vich is de pest man, you alla me.’ He don’t say no more, but he valk up to me unt make a crab at my peard, unt den it vas us two for it. But he vasn’t a man, he vas ten deffels stuff into von liddle man’s body. I tondt know how long ve fight, I tondt know how ve fight; but ven I vake oop I ain’t any fightin’ man no more. My het is crack unt haluf my teet gone, unt I haf some arms unt legs break pesides. But he gomes to see me in de ’ospital, unt he ses, ‘Olsen, my poy, you bin a tam goot man, ’n I haf sell your slush for tirty poun’ unt pring you de money. You haf £120 to take, unt ven you come out, tondt you go to sea no more; you puy a cook-shop in de Highvay; you make your fortune.’ Den he go avay, unt I never see him any more.
“Ven I come out I traw my 150 soffrins unt puy a pelt to carry dem rount me. Unt I pig up mit a nice liddle gal from de country, unt ve haf a yolly time. Ve make it oop to ked marrit righd off, unt dake dat cook-shop so soon as I haf yoost a liddle run rount. Den I sdart on de spree unt I keep it oop for tree veeks, until I ked bad in my het, allvus dirsty unt nefer can’t get any trinks dat seems vet. Afterwards I co vat you call oudt—off my het, unt I tond’t know vedder I isn’t back in de Panama agen, fightin’, fightin’ all day unt all night. Ven I ked vell agen, I got nuthin’, no money, no close, no vife. So I tink I petter go unt look for a ship, unt ven I ked dis von I ain’t eat anyting for tree days.”
Then, as abruptly as he had opened the conversation, he closed it by getting up and leaving us, having, I supposed, obeyed the uncontrollable impulse to tell his story that comes now and then upon every man.
A LESSON IN CHRISTMAS-KEEPING
Morning broke bleakly forbidding on the iron-bound coast of Kerguelen Island. Over the fantastic peaks, flung broadcast as if from the primeval cauldron of the world, hung a grim pall of low, grey-black cloud, so low, indeed, that the sea-birds drifting disconsolately to and fro between barren shore and gale-tossed sea were often hidden from view as if behind a fog-bank, and only their melancholy screams denoted their presence, until they glinted into sight again like huge snow-flakes hesitating to fall. Yet it was the Antarctic mid-summer, it was the breaking of Christmas Day.
As the pale dawn grew less weak, it revealed a tiny encampment, just a few odds and ends of drifting wreckage piled forlornly together, and yielding a dubious shelter to a huddled-up group of fourteen men, sleeping in spite of their surroundings. Presently, there were exposed, perched upon the snarling teeth of an outlying rock-cluster, the “ribs and trucks” of a small wooden ship, a barque-rigged craft of about four hundred tons. Her rigging hung in slovenly festoons from the drunkenly standing masts, the yards made more angles with their unstable supports than are known to Euclid, while through many a jagged gap in her topsides the mad sea rushed wantonly, as if elated with its opportunities of marring the handiwork of the daring sea-masters.
The outlook was certainly sufficiently discomforting; yet, as one by one the sleepers awakened, and with many a grunt and shiver crept forth from their lair, it would have been difficult to judge from the expressions upon their weather-beaten countenances how hopeless was the situation that they were in.
For they came of a breed that is strong to endure hardness, that takes its much bitter with little sweet as a matter of course, and, by dint of steady refusal to be dismayed at Fate’s fiercest frowns, has built up for itself a most gallantly earned reputation for pluck, endurance, and success throughout the civilized world. They were Scotch to a man, rugged and stern as the granite of their native Aberdeenshire.
They were the crew of the barque Jeanie Deans, of Peterhead, which, while outward bound from Aberdeen to Otago, New Zealand, had, after long striving against weather extraordinarily severe for the time of year, been hurled against that terrific coast during the previous afternoon. Their escape shoreward had been as miraculous as fifty per cent. of such escapes are, and, beyond their lives, they had saved nothing. So the prospect was unpromising. Nothing could be expected from the break-up of the ship. She was loaded with ironwork of various sorts, and her stores were not in any water-tight cases which might bring them ashore in an eatable condition. But the large-limbed, red-bearded skipper, after a keen look round, said—