“‘What’s it?’
“‘Your mother,’ says he. ‘’Tis all hearsay with you an’ me. But I wants t’ know for myself. Heaven or hell, damnation or salvation, God or nothin’!’ says he. ‘I wouldn’t care if I on’y knowed. But I don’t know, an’ can’t find out. I’m tired o’ hearsay an’ guessin’, Tumm. I wants t’ know. Dear God of all men,’ says he, with his fists in the air, ‘I wants t’ know!’
“‘Easy,’ says I. ‘Easy there! Don’t you say no more. ’Tis mixin’ t’ the mind. So,’ says I, ‘I ’low I’ll turn in for the night.’
“Down I goes. But I didn’t turn in. I couldn’t—not just then. I raked around in the bottom o’ my old nunny-bag for the Bible my dear mother put there when first I sot out for the Labrador in the Fear of the Lord. ‘I wants a message,’ thinks I; ‘an’ I wants it bad, an’ I wants it almighty quick!’ An’ I spread the Book on the forecastle table, an’ I put my finger down on the page, an’ I got all my nerves t’gether—an’ I looked! Then I closed the Book. They wasn’t much of a message; it done, t’ be sure, but ’twasn’t much: for that there yarn o’ Jonah an’ the whale is harsh readin’ for us poor fishermen. But I closed the Book, an’ wrapped it up again in my mother’s cotton, an’ put it back in the bottom o’ my nunny-bag, an’ sighed, an’ went on deck. An’ I cotched poor Botch by the throat; an’, ‘Botch,’ says I, ‘don’t you never say no more about souls t’ me. Men,’ says I, ‘is all hangin’ on off a lee shore in a big gale from the open; an’ they isn’t no mercy in that wind. I got my anchor down,’ says I. ‘My fathers forged it, hook-an’-chain, an’ they weathered it out, without fear or favor. ’Tis the on’y anchor I got, anyhow, an’ I don’t want it t’ part. For if it do, the broken bones o’ my soul will lie slimy an’ rotten on the reefs t’ leeward through all eternity. You leave me be,’ says I. ‘Don’t you never say soul t’ me no more!’
“I ’low,” Tumm sighed, while he picked at a knot in the table with his clasp-knife, “that if I could ’‘a’ done more’n just what mother teached me, I’d sure have prayed for poor Abraham Botch that night!”
He sighed again.
“We fished the Farm Yard,” Tumm continued, “an’ Indian Harbor, an’ beat south into Domino Run; but we didn’t get no chance t’ use a pound o’ salt for all that. They didn’t seem t’ be no sign o’ fish anywheres on the s’uth’ard or middle coast o’ the Labrador. We run here,’ an’ we beat there, an’ we fluttered around like a half-shot gull; but we didn’t come up with no fish. Down went the trap, an’ up she come: not even a lumpfish or a lobser t’ grace the labor. Winds in the east, lop on the sea, fog in the sky, ice in the water, colds on the chest, boils on the wrists; but nar’ a fish in the hold! It drove Mad Bill Likely stark. ‘Lads,’ says he, ‘the fish is north o’ Mugford. I’m goin’ down,’ says he, ‘if we haves t’ winter at Chidley on swile-fat an’ sea-weed. For,’ says he, ‘Butt o’ Twillingate, which owns this craft, an’ has outfitted every man o’ this crew, is on his last legs, an’ I’d rather face the Lord in a black shroud o’ sin than tie up t’ the old man’s wharf with a empty hold. For the Lord is used to it,’ says he, ‘an’ wouldn’t mind; but Old Man Butt would cry.’ So we ’lowed we’d stand by, whatever come of it; an’ down north we went, late in the season, with a rippin’ wind astern. An’ we found the fish ’long about Kidalick; an’ we went at it, night an’ day, an’ loaded in a fortnight. ‘An’ now, lads,’ says Mad Bill Likely, when the decks was awash, ‘you can all go t’ sleep, an’ be jiggered t’ you!’ An’ down I dropped on the last stack o’ green cod, an’ slep’ for more hours than I dast tell you.
“Then we started south.
“‘Tumm,’ says Botch, when we was well underway, ‘we’re deep. We’re awful deep.’
“‘But it ain’t salt,’ says I; ‘’tis fish.’