A joyous, rollicking set we were, and the whole expedition was a frolic of the first water. One of the drollest features of these little impromptu voyages often was the woe-begone aspect of some unsuspecting land-lubber, who had been beguiled into thinking that he would like a trip to Boston by seeing the pretty “Brilliant” courtesying in the smooth waters of Maquoit, and so had embarked, in innocent ignorance of the physiological resets of such enterprises.
I remember the first morning out. As we were driving ahead, under a stiff breeze, I came on deck, and found the respectable Deacon Muggins, who in his Sunday coat had serenely embarked the day before, now desolately clinging to the railing, very white about the gills, and contemplating the sea with a most suggestive expression of disgust and horror.
“Why, deacon, good-morning! How are you? Splendid morning!” said I maliciously.
He drew a deep breath, surveyed me with a mixture of indignation and despair, and then gave vent to his feelings: “Tell ye what: there was one darned old fool up to Brunswick yesterday! but he ain't there now: he's here.” The deacon, in the weekly prayer-meeting at Brunswick, used to talk of the necessity of being “emptied of self:” he seemed to be in the way of it in the most literal manner at the present moment. In a few minutes he was extended on the deck, the most utterly limp and dejected of deacons, and vowing with energy, if he ever got out o' this 'ere, you wouldn't catch him again. Of course, my chum and I were not seasick. We were prosperous young sophomores in Bowdoin College, and would have scorned to acknowledge such a weakness. In fact, we were in that happy state of self-opinion where we surveyed every thing in creation, as birds do, from above, and were disposed to patronize everybody we met, with a pleasing conviction that there was nothing worth knowing, but what we were likely to know, or worth doing, but what we could do.
Capt. Stanwood liked us, and we liked him: we patronized him, and he was quietly amused at our patronage, and returned it in kind. He was a good specimen of the sea-captain in those early days in Maine: a man in middle life, tall, thin, wiry, and active, full of resource and shrewd mother-wit; a man very confident in his opinions, because his knowledge was all got at first-hand,—the result of a careful use of his own five senses. From his childhood he had followed the seas, and, as he grew older, made voyages to Archangel, to Messina, to the West Indies, and finally round the Horn; and, having carried a very sharp and careful pair of eyes, he had acquired not only a snug competency of worldly goods, but a large stock of facts and inductions, which stood him in stead of an education. He was master of a thriving farm at Harpswell, and, being tethered somewhat by love of wife and children, was mostly stationary there, yet solaced himself by running a little schooner to Boston, and driving a thriving bit of trade by the means. With that reverence for learning' which never deserts the New-Englander, he liked us the better for being collegians, and amiably conceded that there were things quite worth knowing taught “up to Brunswick there,” though he delighted now and then to show his superiority in talking about what he knew better than we.
Jim Larned, the mate, was a lusty youngster, a sister's son whom he had taken in training in the way he should go. Jim had already made a voyage to Liverpool and the East Indies, and felt himself also quite an authority in his own way.
The evenings were raw and cool; and we generally gathered round the cabin stove, cracking walnuts, smoking, and telling stories, and having a jolly time generally. It is but due to those old days to say that a most respectable Puritan flavor penetrated even the recesses of those coasters,—a sort of gentle Bible and psalm-book aroma, so that there was not a word or a joke among the men to annoy the susceptibilities even of a deacon. Our deacon, somewhat consoled and amended, lay serene in his berth, rather enjoying the yarns that we were spinning. The web, of course, was many-colored,—of quaint and strange and wonderful; and, as the night wore on, it was dyed in certain weird tints of the supernatural.
“Well,” said Jim Larned, “folks may say what they're a mind to: there are things that there's no sort o' way o' 'countin' for,—things you've jist got to say. Well, here's suthin' to work that I don't know nothin' about; and, come to question any man up sharp, you 'll find he's seen one thing o' that sort' himself; and this 'ere I'm going to tell's my story:—
“Four years ago I went down to aunt Jerushy's at Fair Haven. Her husband's in the oysterin' business, and I used to go out with him considerable. Well, there was Bill Jones there,—a real bright fellow, one of your open-handed, lively fellows,—and he took a fancy to me, and I to him, and he and I struck up a friendship. He run an oyster-smack to New York, and did a considerable good business for a young man. Well, Bill had a fellow on his smack that I never looks of. He was from the Malays, or foreign crittur, or other; spoke broken English; had eyes set kind o' edgeways 'n his head: homely as sin he was, and I always mistrusted him. 'Bill,' I used to say, 'you look out for that fellow: don't you trust him. If I was you, I'd ship him off short metre.' But Bill, he only laughed. 'Why,' says he, 'I can get double work for the same pay out o' that fellow; and what do I care if he ain't handsome?' I remember how chipper an' cheery Bill looked when he was sayin' that, just as he was going down to New York with his load o' oysters. Well, the next night I was sound asleep in aunt Jerusha's front-chamber that opens towards the Sound, and I was waked right clear out o' sleep by Bill's voice screaming to me. I got up and run to the window, and looked liked the some out, and I heard it again, plain as any thing: 'Jim, Jim! Help, help!' It wasn't a common cry, neither: it was screeched out, as if somebody was murdering him. I tell you, it rung through my head for weeks afterwards.”
“Well, what came of it?” said my chum, as the narrator made a pause, and we all looked at him in silence.