From six till seven we toiled without intermission, stopping only an hour at noon for dinner, and sleeping in the open air, on the softest rocks, with no other canopy than the branches of a spreading oak, through whose scanty foliage I could see the stars winking and blinking in my face.
We found little time for conversation during the day, and it might be supposed that we should have had little inclination for it at night; but weary as I was, I could not resist the garrulity of one of my companions, whose amusing narrative, continued night after night, might well sustain a comparison with the more classic stories of Scheherezade.
Passing over the earlier parts of his history in which, as with other distinguished characters, his birth, whooping cough, and measles occupied the principal portion, we come to the time when the young Weaver, for such he was entitled, first displayed his ardent love of heroic adventure by running away from home, and embarking in a long and hazardous voyage in pursuit of mackerel.
This was the turning point in his life; and from this apparently unimportant step the skilful historian will easy trace all his subsequent career—all those striking ideosyncracies that, whether they betrayed the greatness or the weakness of his character, equally distinguished him from the mass of ordinary men around him.
The fishy odour of that first voyage still lingered about his person, as grateful to his senses as to others the bank of violets where they had played in childhood. He loved to talk of barrels and of quintals, of schools of mackerel and of cod; till in his flowing figures the little fishing smack assumed the state and importance of some mighty whaler, and his puny prey was invested with all the terrors of Leviathan.
No such mackerel were ever seen in these degenerate days, and no such storms as he then encountered. When, in process of years, the greater love of ease, and lessening spirit of adventure induced him, yet unwillingly, to give up what had hitherto been his favourite pastime, he manifested his icthyological propensities and the strength of early associations, by declining his affections upon an oyster. In the society of those amiable and suggestive testacea he passed many grateful hours, sailing the while in fancy o'er his much-loved Banks of Newfoundland, or watching the dying flounderings of some gigantic cod that had erewhile yielded to his victorious hook.
His observations on life and manners in the metropolis of New England, had about them the same smack of fishy sagacity, plainly declaring from what source his philosophy had been derived.
"Boston," said he, with a melancholy shake of the head at the tender recollection of some earlier passages in his varied experience, "Boston, I will allow, is a mighty dangerous place for a man to be out o' nights: yet, somehow'r other, I never felt very ticklish about it, though they know't I was in the habit of carrying about considerable sums o' money. Many and many's the time 'at I've been through some o' the very worst places in the city, with as much as a gallon or two of iseters, and sometimes the money for 'em, too; but nobody ever offered to touch me—I s'pose acause they'd a kind o' stinking notion 'at I'd be likely to prove an ugly customer.
"The gentleman as I was a working with used ollus to send me to carry the iseters; ''cause,' says he, 'Weaver's a man as can be depended on, and what he says he'll do, he'll do.' I remember one day, when we was all-fired busy—seems to me folks in Boston never ate so many iseters before—a gentleman was going to have a large party, and he sent for me to come and help. Boss, 'cause we was so busy, you know, was agoing to send somebody else; but the gentleman, he says, says he, 'I don't want nobody but Weaver.' So I went, and I was out in the kitchen a opening iseters for dear life, when the gentleman he came out, and asked me, why I didn't go in and see the folks. So, bimeby, I went in—I had on my best close, and looked about as smart as any on 'em—and his wife and daughters—he had four, and they was none o' yer milk-an'-water things either—they said, 'how d'ye do, Mr. Weaver? We are very glad to see you.' So I told 'em I was very glad to see them; and then I sat down and talked awhile, and bimeby somebody said sumthin' about iseters—so I began, and told 'em all I knew about it, and all about my going a-mackereling, and they was so interested, you never see.
"And then, sich a supper as they had! It was just the beatimost thing I ever did see; for they was real tip-top folks, and no mistake—and, as for the iseters, you may be sure, I looked out for them myself.