Between the great northern current, and the breeze which plumes the innumerable waves with sparkling white, our course has become rather more tortuous and rough than is agreeable to landsmen who have only come abroad upon the deep for pleasure and instruction. The painter has cleaned his pallet, wiped his brushes, shut his painting-box, and gone below. I am sitting here, near the helm, close upon the deck, screened from the spray that occasionally flies over, heavily coated, and cold at that, making some almost illegible notes. Life, it is often said, is a stormy ocean. It is on the ocean, certainly, that one feels the whole force of the comparison.
The wind, which is blowing strongly, is getting into the north, dead ahead, and sweeping us away upon our back track. We are too lightly ballasted to tack with success, and hold our own. The bergs are retiring, and appear like ruins and broken columns. We are now fairly on the retreat, and flying under reefed sails to a little bay, called Cat Harbor. All aloft has the tightness and the ring of drums, and the whistling of a hundred fifes. The voice of the master is quick, and to the point, and the motions and the footsteps of the men, rapid. On our bows are the explosion and the shock of swells, the resounding knocks and calls of old Neptune, and upon the deck such showers of his most brilliant flowers and bouquets as I feel in no haste to gather. The sea-fowl whirl in the gale like loose plumes and papers, pouring out their wild complaints as they pass.
CHAPTER XX.
CAT HARBOR.—EVENING SERVICE IN CHURCH.—THE FISHERMAN’S FIRE.—THE RETURN AT MIDNIGHT.
At eight o’clock, our brave little pink-stern was lying at anchor in her haven, as quietly as a babe in its cradle, with the wind piping a pleasant lullaby in the rigging, and the roar of the ocean nearly lost in the distance. A few rude erections along the rocky shore, with a small church, a store and warehouse, compose the town of Cat Harbor, the life of which seems to be the water-craft busy in the one common employment, some returning with the catch of the day, others going for the catch of the night. While C—— was painting a sketch of the scene, the sun vanished behind the purple inland hills, with unusual splendor, and left the distant icebergs in such a white “as no fuller on earth can white them.”
After dinner, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, Mr. Hutchinson, who knew that the clergyman in charge was absent, resolved to go ashore, and invite the people to attend divine service. As soon as we were landed, he left us to make our way to the church, at our leisure, while he ran from house to house to announce himself, and to give notice of the intended services. Our path, as usual in these coast hamlets, went in zigzag, serpentine ways, among evergreen fishing-bowers, and many-legged flakes and huts, and oddly-fenced potato-patches. In the marshy field around the church, we had some time to amuse ourselves with gathering slender bulrushes tipped with plumes of whitest down. They were sprinkled all abroad like snow-flakes over the dusky green ground, and we ran about with the eagerness of boys, selecting the prettiest as specimens for home.
Twilight was already close upon the darkness. We turned from the chase of our thistle-down toys, and gazed upon the solemn magnificence around us—the dark and lonesome land—the bay, reflecting the colored heavens—the warm orange fading out into the cool pearl, and the pearl finally lost in the broad blue above.
It was fully candle-light when the congregation, about forty, assembled, and the service began. The missionary preached extempore a practical sermon adapted to his hearers, and we sang, to the tune of Old Hundred, the One Hundredth Psalm, making the dimly-lighted sanctuary ring again. After church, our party were invited to warm at one of the houses, which we did most effectually before a broad and roaring fire, while mine host recounted the toil and the pleasure of getting winter wood over the deep snows with his team of dogs, and the more perilous and exciting labors of the fish-harvest, upon which life and all depend. At the mention of the puff-pig, the local name for the common porpoise, we indulged ourselves in a childish laugh. A more ludicrous, and at the same time a more descriptive name could not be hit upon.
During the half-hour around the exhilarating July fire, there dropped in, one by one, a room-full, curious to see and hear the strangers from St. Johns and America, as the United States are often called. We parted with a general shaking of hands, and plenty of good wishes, among which was one, “that we might have many igh hicebergs.” Some half dozen attended us to the shore, and brought us off in handsome style over the calm and phosphorescent waters. At every dip of the oars it was like unraking the sparkling embers, so brilliant was that beautiful light of the sea. The boatmen called it the burning of the water. “When the water burnt,” they said, “it was a sure sign of south wind and a plenty of fish.”
It was one of those still and starry nights which require only an incident or so to make them too beautiful ever to be forgotten. Those incidents were now present, in a peculiarly plaintive murmur of the ocean, the kindling waves, and a delicate play of the Aurora Borealis. When we reached our vessel it was almost midnight, and still there was sweet daylight in the far north-west, moving along the circle of the northern horizon to brighten into morning before we were half through our light and dreamy slumbers. Weary and drowsy, all have crept to their berths; and I will creep into mine when I have put the period to the notes of this long and delightful day. I hear the footfalls of the watch on deck. May God keep us through the short, but most solitary night, and speed us early on our northern voyage!