A ROMANCE OF WHOOPING HARBOR
BY NORMAN DUNCAN
The trader Good Samaritan—they called her the Cheap and Nasty on the Shore; God knows why! for she was dealing fairly for the fish, if something smartly—was wind-bound at Heart's Ease Cove, riding safe in the lee of the Giant's Hand: champing her anchor chain; nodding to the swell, which swept through the tickle and spent itself in the landlocked water, collapsing to quiet. It was late of a dirty night, but the schooner lay in shelter from the roaring wind; and the forecastle lamp was alight, the bogie snoring, the crew sprawling at case, purring in the light and warmth and security of the hour.... By and by, when the skipper's allowance of tea and hard biscuit had fulfilled its destiny, Tumm, the clerk, told the tale of Whooping Harbor, wherein the maid met Fate in the person of the fool from Thunder Arm; and I came down from the deck—from the black, wet wind of the open, changed to a wrathful flutter by the eternal barrier—in time to hear. And I was glad, for we know little enough of love, being blind of soul, perverse and proud; and love is strange past all things: wayward, accounting not, of infinite aspects—radiant to our vision, colorless; sombre, black as hell; but of unfailing beauty, we may be sure, had we but the eyes to see, the heart to interpret....
“We was reachin' up t' Whoopin' Harbor,” said Tumm, “t' give the White Lily a night's lodgin', it bein' a wonderful windish night; clear enough, the moon sailin' a cloudy sky, but with a bank o' fog sneakin' round Cape Muggy like a fish-thief. An' we wasn't in no haste, anyhow, t' make Sinners' Tickle, for we was the first schooner down the Labrador that season, an' 'twas pick an' choose your berth for we, with a clean bill t' every head from Starvation Cove t' the Settin' Hen, so quick as the fish struck. So the skipper he says we'll hang the ol girl up t' Whoopin' Harbor 'til dawn; an' we'll all have a watch below, says he, with a cup o' tea, says he, if the cook can bile the water 'ithout burnin' it. Which was wonderful hard for the cook t' manage, look you! as the skipper, which knowed nothin' about feelin's, would never stop tellin' un: the cook bein' from Thunder Arm, a half-witted, glossy-eyed lumpfish o' the name o' Moses Shoos, born by chance and brung up likewise, as desperate a cook as ever tartured a stummick, but meanin' so wonderful well that we loved un, though he were like t' finish us off, every man jack, by the slow p'ison o' dirt.
“'Cook, you dunderhead!' says the skipper, with a wink t' the crew. 'You been an' scarched the water agin.'
“Shoos he looked like he'd give up for good on the spot—just like he knowed he was a fool, an' had knowed it for a long, long time,—sort o' like he was sorry for we an' sick of hisself.
“'Cook,' says the skipper, 'you went an' done it agin. Yes, you did! Don't you go denyin' of it. You'll kill us, cook,' says he, 'if you goes on like this. They isn't nothin' worse for the system,' says he, 'than this here burned water. The alamnacs,' says he, shakin' his finger at the poor cook, ''ll tell you that!'
“'I 'low I did burn that water, skipper,' says the cook, 'if you says so. But I isn't got all my wits,' says he, the cry-baby; 'an' God knows I'm doin' my best!'
“'I always did allow, cook,' says the skipper, 'that God knowed more'n I ever thunk.'