Chapter 2

The days were getting short, and we made good
runs, all well on board but me, and the crew done their work by dint of
hard driving.”

I began to find this unexpected narrative a little dull. Captain
Littlepage spoke with a kind of slow correctness that lacked the
longshore high flavor to which I had grown used; but I listened
respectfully while he explained the winds having become contrary, and
talked on in a dreary sort of way about his voyage, the bad weather,
and the disadvantages he was under in the lightness of his ship, which
bounced about like a chip in a bucket, and would not answer the rudder
or properly respond to the most careful setting of sails.

“So there we were blowin' along anyways,” he complained; but looking at
me at this moment, and seeing that my thoughts were unkindly wandering,
he ceased to speak.

“It was a hard life at sea in those days, I am sure,” said I, with
redoubled interest.

“It was a dog's life,” said the poor old gentleman, quite reassured,
“but it made men of those who followed it. I see a change for the worse
even in our own town here; full of loafers now, small and poor as 'tis,
who once would have followed the sea, every lazy soul of 'em. There is
no occupation so fit for just that class o' men who never get beyond
the fo'cas'le. I view it, in addition, that a community narrows down and
grows dreadful ignorant when it is shut up to its own affairs, and gets
no knowledge of the outside world except from a cheap, unprincipled
newspaper. In the old days, a good part o' the best men here knew a
hundred ports and something of the way folks lived in them. They saw
the world for themselves, and like's not their wives and children saw it
with them. They may not have had the best of knowledge to carry with 'em
sight-seein', but they were some acquainted with foreign lands an' their
laws, an' could see outside the battle for town clerk here in Dunnet;
they got some sense o' proportion. Yes, they lived more dignified, and
their houses were better within an' without. Shipping's a terrible loss
to this part o' New England from a social point o' view, ma'am.”

“I have thought of that myself,” I returned, with my interest quite
awakened. “It accounts for the change in a great many things,--the sad
disappearance of sea-captains,--doesn't it?”

“A shipmaster was apt to get the habit of reading,” said my companion,
brightening still more, and taking on a most touching air of unreserve.
“A captain is not expected to be familiar with his crew, and for
company's sake in dull days and nights he turns to his book. Most of us
old shipmasters came to know 'most everything about something; one would
take to readin' on farming topics, and some were great on medicine,--but
Lord help their poor crews!--or some were all for history, and now and
then there'd be one like me that gave his time to the poets. I was well
acquainted with a shipmaster that was all for bees an' beekeepin'; and
if you met him in port and went aboard, he'd sit and talk a terrible
while about their havin' so much information, and the money that could
be made out of keepin' 'em. He was one of the smartest captains that
ever sailed the seas, but they used to call the Newcastle, a great
bark he commanded for many years, Tuttle's beehive. There was old Cap'n
Jameson: he had notions of Solomon's Temple, and made a very handsome
little model of the same, right from the Scripture measurements, same's
other sailors make little ships and design new tricks of rigging and all
that. No, there's nothing to take the place of shipping in a place like
ours. These bicycles offend me dreadfully; they don't afford no real
opportunities of experience such as a man gained on a voyage. No: when
folks left home in the old days they left it to some purpose, and when
they got home they stayed there and had some pride in it. There's no
large-minded way of thinking now: the worst have got to be best and rule
everything; we're all turned upside down and going back year by year.”

“Oh no, Captain Littlepage, I hope not,” said I, trying to soothe his
feelings.

There was a silence in the schoolhouse, but we could hear the noise of
the water on a beach below. It sounded like the strange warning wave
that gives notice of the turn of the tide. A late golden robin, with the
most joyful and eager of voices, was singing close by in a thicket of
wild roses.

VI. The Waiting Place

“HOW DID YOU manage with the rest of that rough voyage on the Minerva?”
I asked.

“I shall be glad to explain to you,” said Captain Littlepage, forgetting
his grievances for the moment. “If I had a map at hand I could explain
better. We were driven to and fro 'way up toward what we used to call
Parry's Discoveries, and lost our bearings. It was thick and foggy,
and at last I lost my ship; she drove on a rock, and we managed to get
ashore on what I took to be a barren island, the few of us that were
left alive. When she first struck, the sea was somewhat calmer than it
had been, and most of the crew, against orders, manned the long-boat and
put off in a hurry, and were never heard of more. Our own boat upset,
but the carpenter kept himself and me above water, and we drifted in.
I had no strength to call upon after my recent fever, and laid down to
die; but he found the tracks of a man and dog the second day, and
got along the shore to one of those far missionary stations that the
Moravians support. They were very poor themselves, and in distress;
'twas a useless place. There were but few Esquimaux left in that region.
There we remained for some time, and I became acquainted with strange
events.”

The captain lifted his head and gave me a questioning glance. I could
not help noticing that the dulled look in his eyes had gone, and there
was instead a clear intentness that made them seem dark and piercing.

“There was a supply ship expected, and the pastor, an excellent
Christian man, made no doubt that we should get passage in her. He was
hoping that orders would come to break up the station; but everything
was uncertain, and we got on the best we could for a while. We fished,
and helped the people in other ways; there was no other way of paying
our debts. I was taken to the pastor's house until I got better; but
they were crowded, and I felt myself in the way, and made excuse to join
with an old seaman, a Scotchman, who had built him a warm cabin, and had
room in it for another. He was looked upon with regard, and had stood by
the pastor in some troubles with the people. He had been on one of those
English exploring parties that found one end of the road to the north
pole, but never could find the other. We lived like dogs in a kennel, or
so you'd thought if you had seen the hut from the outside; but the main
thing was to keep warm; there were piles of bird-skins to lie on, and
he'd made him a good bunk, and there was another for me. 'Twas dreadful
dreary waitin' there; we begun to think the supply steamer was lost, and
my poor ship broke up and strewed herself all along the shore. We got to
watching on the headlands; my men and me knew the people were short of
supplies and had to pinch themselves. It ought to read in the Bible,
'Man cannot live by fish alone,' if they'd told the truth of things;
'taint bread that wears the worst on you! First part of the time, old
Gaffett, that I lived with, seemed speechless, and I didn't know what to
make of him, nor he of me, I dare say; but as we got acquainted, I
found he'd been through more disasters than I had, and had troubles that
wa'n't going to let him live a great while. It used to ease his mind to
talk to an understanding person, so we used to sit and talk together
all day, if it rained or blew so that we couldn't get out. I'd got a bad
blow on the back of my head at the time we came ashore, and it pained
me at times, and my strength was broken, anyway; I've never been so able
since.”

Captain Littlepage fell into a reverie.

“Then I had the good of my reading,” he explained presently. “I had
no books; the pastor spoke but little English, and all his books were
foreign; but I used to say over all I could remember. The old poets
little knew what comfort they could be to a man. I was well acquainted
with the works of Milton, but up there it did seem to me as if
Shakespeare was the king; he has his sea terms very accurate, and some
beautiful passages were calming to the mind. I could say them over until
I shed tears; there was nothing beautiful to me in that place but the
stars above and those passages of verse.

“Gaffett was always brooding and brooding, and talking to himself; he
was afraid he should never get away, and it preyed upon his mind. He
thought when I got home I could interest the scientific men in his
discovery: but they're all taken up with their own notions; some didn't
even take pains to answer the letters I wrote. You observe that I said
this crippled man Gaffett had been shipped on a voyage of discovery. I
now tell you that the ship was lost on its return, and only Gaffett and
two officers were saved off the Greenland coast, and he had knowledge
later that those men never got back to England; the brig they shipped on
was run down in the night. So no other living soul had the facts, and
he gave them to me. There is a strange sort of a country 'way up north
beyond the ice, and strange folks living in it. Gaffett believed it was
the next world to this.”

“What do you mean, Captain Littlepage?” I exclaimed. The old man was
bending forward and whispering; he looked over his shoulder before he
spoke the last sentence.

“To hear old Gaffett tell about it was something awful,” he said, going
on with his story quite steadily after the moment of excitement had
passed. “'Twas first a tale of dogs and sledges, and cold and wind and
snow. Then they begun to find the ice grow rotten; they had been frozen
in, and got into a current flowing north, far up beyond Fox Channel,
and they took to their boats when the ship got crushed, and this warm
current took them out of sight of the ice, and into a great open sea;
and they still followed it due north, just the very way they had planned
to go. Then they struck a coast that wasn't laid down or charted, but
the cliffs were such that no boat could land until they found a bay and
struck across under sail to the other side where the shore looked lower;
they were scant of provisions and out of water, but they got sight of
something that looked like a great town. 'For God's sake, Gaffett!' said
I, the first time he told me. 'You don't mean a town two degrees farther
north than ships had ever been?' for he'd got their course marked on an
old chart that he'd pieced out at the top; but he insisted upon it, and
told it over and over again, to be sure I had it straight to carry to
those who would be interested. There was no snow and ice, he said, after
they had sailed some days with that warm current, which seemed to come
right from under the ice that they'd been pinched up in and had been
crossing on foot for weeks.”

“But what about the town?” I asked. “Did they get to the town?”

“They did,” said the captain, “and found inhabitants; 'twas an awful
condition of things. It appeared, as near as Gaffett could express it,
like a place where there was neither living nor dead. They could see the
place when they were approaching it by sea pretty near like any town,
and thick with habitations; but all at once they lost sight of it
altogether, and when they got close inshore they could see the shapes
of folks, but they never could get near them,--all blowing gray figures
that would pass along alone, or sometimes gathered in companies as if
they were watching. The men were frightened at first, but the shapes
never came near them,--it was as if they blew back; and at last they all
got bold and went ashore, and found birds' eggs and sea fowl, like any
wild northern spot where creatures were tame and folks had never been,
and there was good water. Gaffett said that he and another man came near
one o' the fog-shaped men that was going along slow with the look of a
pack on his back, among the rocks, an' they chased him; but, Lord! he
flittered away out o' sight like a leaf the wind takes with it, or a
piece of cobweb. They would make as if they talked together, but there
was no sound of voices, and 'they acted as if they didn't see us, but
only felt us coming towards them,' says Gaffett one day, trying to tell
the particulars. They couldn't see the town when they were ashore. One
day the captain and the doctor were gone till night up across the high
land where the town had seemed to be, and they came back at night
beat out and white as ashes, and wrote and wrote all next day in their
notebooks, and whispered together full of excitement, and they were
sharp-spoken with the men when they offered to ask any questions.

“Then there came a day,” said Captain Littlepage, leaning toward me with
a strange look in his eyes, and whispering quickly. “The men all swore
they wouldn't stay any longer; the man on watch early in the morning
gave the alarm, and they all put off in the boat and got a little way
out to sea. Those folks, or whatever they were, come about 'em like
bats; all at once they raised incessant armies, and come as if to drive
'em back to sea. They stood thick at the edge o' the water like the
ridges o' grim war; no thought o' flight, none of retreat. Sometimes
a standing fight, then soaring on main wing tormented all the air.
And when they'd got the boat out o' reach o' danger, Gaffett said they
looked back, and there was the town again, standing up just as they'd
seen it first, comin' on the coast. Say what you might, they all
believed 'twas a kind of waiting-place between this world an' the next.”

The captain had sprung to his feet in his excitement, and made excited
gestures, but he still whispered huskily.

“Sit down, sir,” I said as quietly as I could, and he sank into his
chair quite spent.

“Gaffett thought the officers were hurrying home to report and to fit
out a new expedition when they were all lost. At the time, the men
got orders not to talk over what they had seen,” the old man explained
presently in a more natural tone.

“Weren't they all starving, and wasn't it a mirage or something of that
sort?” I ventured to ask. But he looked at me blankly.

“Gaffett had got so that his mind ran on nothing else,” he went on. “The
ship's surgeon let fall an opinion to the captain, one day, that 'twas
some condition o' the light and the magnetic currents that let them see
those folks. 'Twa'n't a right-feeling part of the world, anyway; they
had to battle with the compass to make it serve, an' everything seemed
to go wrong. Gaffett had worked it out in his own mind that they was
all common ghosts, but the conditions were unusual favorable for seeing
them. He was always talking about the Ge'graphical Society, but he never
took proper steps, as I viewed it now, and stayed right there at the
mission. He was a good deal crippled, and thought they'd confine him in
some jail of a hospital. He said he was waiting to find the right men to
tell, somebody bound north. Once in a while they stopped there to leave
a mail or something. He was set in his notions, and let two or three
proper explorin' expeditions go by him because he didn't like their
looks; but when I was there he had got restless, fearin' he might be
taken away or something. He had all his directions written out straight
as a string to give the right ones. I wanted him to trust 'em to me,
so I might have something to show, but he wouldn't. I suppose he's dead
now. I wrote to him an' I done all I could. 'Twill be a great exploit
some o' these days.”

I assented absent-mindedly, thinking more just then of my companion's
alert, determined look and the seafaring, ready aspect that had come to
his face; but at this moment there fell a sudden change, and the
old, pathetic, scholarly look returned. Behind me hung a map of North
America, and I saw, as I turned a little, that his eyes were fixed upon
the northernmost regions and their careful recent outlines with a look
of bewilderment.

VII. The Outer Island

GAFFETT WITH HIS good bunk and the bird-skins, the story of the wreck
of the Minerva, the human-shaped creatures of fog and cobweb, the great
words of Milton with which he described their onslaught upon the crew,
all this moving tale had such an air of truth that I could not argue
with Captain Littlepage. The old man looked away from the map as if it
had vaguely troubled him, and regarded me appealingly.

“We were just speaking of”--and he stopped. I saw that he had suddenly
forgotten his subject.

“There were a great many persons at the funeral,” I hastened to say.

“Oh yes,” the captain answered, with satisfaction. “All showed respect
who could. The sad circumstances had for a moment slipped my mind. Yes,
Mrs. Begg will be very much missed. She was a capital manager for her
husband when he was at sea. Oh yes, shipping is a very great loss.” And
he sighed heavily. “There was hardly a man of any standing who didn't
interest himself in some way in navigation. It always gave credit to a
town. I call it low-water mark now here in Dunnet.”

He rose with dignity to take leave, and asked me to stop at his house
some day, when he would show me some outlandish things that he had
brought home from sea. I was familiar with the subject of the decadence
of shipping interests in all its affecting branches, having been already
some time in Dunnet, and I felt sure that Captain Littlepage's mind had
now returned to a safe level.

As we came down the hill toward the village our ways divided, and when
I had seen the old captain well started on a smooth piece of sidewalk
which would lead him to his own door, we parted, the best of friends.
“Step in some afternoon,” he said, as affectionately as if I were a
fellow-shipmaster wrecked on the lee shore of age like himself. I
turned toward home, and presently met Mrs. Todd coming toward me with an
anxious expression.

“I see you sleevin' the old gentleman down the hill,” she suggested.

“Yes. I've had a very interesting afternoon with him,” I answered, and
her face brightened.

“Oh, then he's all right. I was afraid 'twas one o' his flighty spells,
an' Mari' Harris wouldn't”--

“Yes,” I returned, smiling, “he has been telling me some old stories,
but we talked about Mrs. Begg and the funeral beside, and Paradise
Lost.”

“I expect he got tellin' of you some o' his great narratives,” she
answered, looking at me shrewdly. “Funerals always sets him goin'. Some
o' them tales hangs together toler'ble well,” she added, with a sharper
look than before. “An' he's been a great reader all his seafarin' days.
Some thinks he overdid, and affected his head, but for a man o' his
years he's amazin' now when he's at his best. Oh, he used to be a
beautiful man!”

We were standing where there was a fine view of the harbor and its long
stretches of shore all covered by the great army of the pointed firs,
darkly cloaked and standing as if they waited to embark. As we looked
far seaward among the outer islands, the trees seemed to march seaward
still, going steadily over the heights and down to the water's edge.

It had been growing gray and cloudy, like the first evening of autumn,
and a shadow had fallen on the darkening shore. Suddenly, as we looked,
a gleam of golden sunshine struck the outer islands, and one of them
shone out clear in the light, and revealed itself in a compelling way to
our eyes. Mrs. Todd was looking off across the bay with a face full of
affection and interest. The sunburst upon that outermost island made
it seem like a sudden revelation of the world beyond this which some
believe to be so near.

“That's where mother lives,” said Mrs. Todd. “Can't we see it plain? I
was brought up out there on Green Island. I know every rock an' bush on
it.”

“Your mother!” I exclaimed, with great interest.

“Yes, dear, cert'in; I've got her yet, old's I be. She's one of them
spry, light-footed little women; always was, an' light-hearted, too,”
answered Mrs. Todd, with satisfaction. “She's seen all the trouble folks
can see, without it's her last sickness; an' she's got a word of courage
for everybody. Life ain't spoilt her a mite. She's eighty-six an' I'm
sixty-seven, and I've seen the time I've felt a good sight the oldest.
'Land sakes alive!' says she, last time I was out to see her. 'How you
do lurch about steppin' into a bo't?' I laughed so I liked to have gone
right over into the water; an' we pushed off, an' left her laughin'
there on the shore.”

The light had faded as we watched. Mrs. Todd had mounted a gray rock,
and stood there grand and architectural, like a caryatide. Presently she
stepped down, and we continued our way homeward.

“You an' me, we'll take a bo't an' go out some day and see mother,”
she promised me. “'Twould please her very much, an' there's one or two
sca'ce herbs grows better on the island than anywhere else. I ain't seen
their like nowheres here on the main.”

“Now I'm goin' right down to get us each a mug o' my beer,” she
announced as we entered the house, “an' I believe I'll sneak in a little
mite o' camomile. Goin' to the funeral an' all, I feel to have had a
very wearin' afternoon.”

I heard her going down into the cool little cellar, and then there was
considerable delay. When she returned, mug in hand, I noticed the taste
of camomile, in spite of my protest; but its flavor was disguised by
some other herb that I did not know, and she stood over me until I drank
it all and said that I liked it.

“I don't give that to everybody,” said Mrs. Todd kindly; and I felt for
a moment as if it were part of a spell and incantation, and as if my
enchantress would now begin to look like the cobweb shapes of the arctic
town. Nothing happened but a quiet evening and some delightful plans
that we made about going to Green Island, and on the morrow there was
the clear sunshine and blue sky of another day.

VIII. Green Island

ONE MORNING, very early, I heard Mrs. Todd in the garden outside my
window. By the unusual loudness of her remarks to a passer-by, and the
notes of a familiar hymn which she sang as she worked among the herbs,
and which came as if directed purposely to the sleepy ears of my
consciousness, I knew that she wished I would wake up and come and speak
to her.

In a few minutes she responded to a morning voice from behind the
blinds. “I expect you're goin' up to your schoolhouse to pass all this
pleasant day; yes, I expect you're goin' to be dreadful busy,” she said
despairingly.

“Perhaps not,” said I. “Why, what's going to be the matter with you,
Mrs. Todd?” For I supposed that she was tempted by the fine weather to
take one of her favorite expeditions along the shore pastures to gather
herbs and simples, and would like to have me keep the house.

“No, I don't want to go nowhere by land,” she answered gayly,--“no, not
by land; but I don't know's we shall have a better day all the rest of
the summer to go out to Green Island an' see mother. I waked up early
thinkin' of her. The wind's light northeast,--'twill take us right
straight out, an' this time o' year it's liable to change round
southwest an' fetch us home pretty, 'long late in the afternoon. Yes,
it's goin' to be a good day.”

“Speak to the captain and the Bowden boy, if you see anybody going by
toward the landing,” said I. “We'll take the big boat.”

“Oh, my sakes! now you let me do things my way,” said Mrs. Todd
scornfully. “No, dear, we won't take no big bo't. I'll just git a handy
dory, an' Johnny Bowden an' me, we'll man her ourselves. I don't want no
abler bo't than a good dory, an' a nice light breeze ain't goin' to make
no sea; an' Johnny's my cousin's son,--mother'll like to have him come;
an' he'll be down to the herrin' weirs all the time we're there, anyway;
we don't want to carry no men folks havin' to be considered every minute
an' takin' up all our time. No, you let me do; we'll just slip out an'
see mother by ourselves. I guess what breakfast you'll want's about
ready now.”

I had become well acquainted with Mrs. Todd as landlady, herb-gatherer,
and rustic philosopher; we had been discreet fellow-passengers once
or twice when I had sailed up the coast to a larger town than Dunnet
Landing to do some shopping; but I was yet to become acquainted with
her as a mariner. An hour later we pushed off from the landing in the
desired dory. The tide was just on the turn, beginning to fall,
and several friends and acquaintances stood along the side of the
dilapidated wharf and cheered us by their words and evident interest.
Johnny Bowden and I were both rowing in haste to get out where we could
catch the breeze and put up the small sail which lay clumsily furled
along the gunwale. Mrs. Todd sat aft, a stern and unbending lawgiver.

“You better let her drift; we'll get there 'bout as quick; the tide'll
take her right out from under these old buildin's; there's plenty wind
outside.”

“Your bo't ain't trimmed proper, Mis' Todd!” exclaimed a voice from
shore. “You're lo'ded so the bo't'll drag; you can't git her before
the wind, ma'am. You set 'midships, Mis' Todd, an' let the boy hold the
sheet 'n' steer after he gits the sail up; you won't never git out to
Green Island that way. She's lo'ded bad, your bo't is,--she's heavy
behind's she is now!”

Mrs. Todd turned with some difficulty and regarded the anxious adviser,
my right oar flew out of water, and we seemed about to capsize. “That
you, Asa? Good-mornin',” she said politely. “I al'ays liked the starn
seat best. When'd you git back from up country?”

This allusion to Asa's origin was not lost upon the rest of the company.
We were some little distance from shore, but we could hear a chuckle
of laughter, and Asa, a person who was too ready with his criticism and
advice on every possible subject, turned and walked indignantly away.

When we caught the wind we were soon on our seaward course, and only
stopped to underrun a trawl, for the floats of which Mrs. Todd looked
earnestly, explaining that her mother might not be prepared for three
extra to dinner; it was her brother's trawl, and she meant to just run
her eye along for the right sort of a little haddock. I leaned over the
boat's side with great interest and excitement, while she skillfully
handled the long line of hooks, and made scornful remarks upon
worthless, bait-consuming creatures of the sea as she reviewed them and
left them on the trawl or shook them off into the waves. At last we came
to what she pronounced a proper haddock, and having taken him on board
and ended his life resolutely, we went our way.