O By THOMAS J. PARTRIDGE N Cape Ann the winter waned; the springtime breathed on the ice-shackles that bound the harbor and the channel was free. Square, white cakes with a deck load of pebbles slipped from the shore boulders and started seaward on their first and last voyage. The crystal bridge that arched the brook toppled in and the brook, presenting arms to the sun, charged for the sea. Up the harbor, behind tug-boats that puffed importantly, came the new, mastless vessels fresh from the shipyards at Essex. A forest of topmasts, wharf-held, conforming to the undulations of the sea-port, writes its character and its length on the sky-line. "Here it is beautiful!" exclaimed Thorwarld the Dane, if the Sagas speak truly and when the Chevalier de Champlain looked on the blonde and crescent-shaped beaches, the sun-kissed dunes and the beautiful bay, wooded to its shore, he could think of no other word but "Le Beauport," and so it is designated on the old chart that looks like a corrugated iron roof. Even she who saw so clearly "Beyond the Gates," such a chance for comparison! has declared it a paradise. The South-Wind, he, too, must have been enamored of the charms here found, for, once on a time he came north a-wooing and, although we have no record of any special favors showered on the sister capes by the way, this we do know, when he kissed Cape Ann he left a Magnolia seed in her mouth. All the sea-rover blood in New England is astir this spring day and as the boundaries drawn by the pen of a diplomat might as well try to keep from a river the drain of its water-shed as to shut men from the mart of opportunity, crowds of fishermen are pouring in from the British Provinces neither daunted nor deterred by the last year's death rate and the memorial services. Every wharf is alive with new life and new hope for the mackerel are coming from the south, "The old sea-hunger to herd them, and the fishermen are determined to meet them half way, to keep the old tryst just to the northward of "Hat teras." Such a setting up of rigging, such a tarring down of rigging, such a stir and bustle and shouting of commands! The previous year Sol Jacobs, Prince of the Seine, had carried the first fresh mackerel into New York from southern waters. So closely did Eben Lewis keep in his wake that not a bowsprit got between them. So, as it stood, Newfoundland was in the lead with Maine a close second. This year, then, our skipper, Gloucester born, was determined that home talent should be to the fore, that the first despatch heralding the tidings of great joy around which the anxious owners would stand a-gape, would bear his signature. It was a laudable and a worthy ambition, this, for after the long winter famine the markets of a continent, the palates of eighty million people were waiting and fame and money awaited him who would be first to score. A great fleet was fitting away, all eyes on the unhandicapped leaders, every skipper big with the belief that this new effort would bear the fruit of all previous trial; that when the season wore to its close and the score was counted he would be reckoned pre-eminent, the first, in short, "high-line." This was Our skipper's secret dream and the "firm" had such faith in him, was so willing to further his ambition. that they had placed at his command the finest vessel the shipbuilders of Essex could turn out. His old Dad, a "killer" himself in the days of hook and line, to spur his son on continued to repeat "Keep a-trying' Sid, keep a-tryin'; it's funny, but the more you study mack'rel, the more you know about 'em!" and the old fellow would chuckle as if he had delivered himself of a new and a rich saying. And now, we were all ready, the last block of ice was in the bins, the seine-boat hoisted. on deck, the seine stowed snugly down, the tested compass, the medicine chest and the ship's papers handed on board and the new vessel, spick and span, stood ready to give a good account of herself in the long race to the south; and all that held us back was the failure of one member of the crew to put in his appearance. The skipper was pacing the deck and expressing his opinion of the absent one in forceful and vivid phrases. No wonder he fumed! Sol Jacobs was hauling out from the wharf; Eben Lewis, anchored in the stream was hoisting his mainsail, his dory, half full of men, was passing under our bow and the crowd stimulated with more than hope was shaking a rope in our faces, which same was a challenge to come on and they would tow us down south. From their throats burst a song that echoed out over the harbor and in among wharves: "Watch her, catch her, the While we all waited, sharing the skipper's impatience, a pale looking young fellow, evidently a stranger, appeared on the wharf. After a careful survey of our vessel and her crew he swung himself into the rigging and descended to our decks. Approaching the skipper who had been pointed out he addressed him: "Have you got your full complement of men, sir?" The set and unusual speech brought a grin on the faces of the assembled crew. "You mean, have we got our crowd, you've never been seinin'!" "Yes, sir, I'm an old fisherman, I can reef, splice and steer!" "You can, eh, well, here, toss up a marline-spike down there!-let's see you put that together!" The young man unstranded the two ropes ends presented to him and, handling the spike with unusual grace, dexterously spliced the ropes together making a neat, smooth splice. "That's well done,-you got that from a Swede!" "Yes, sir," said the demonstrator with a slight blush, "our sailing master was from Stockholm." "Well, young fellow, it's pretty rough work for those fine hands of yours, but if you want you can put your goods aboard. Throw McDonald's clothes on the dock." It was ready and willing hands that broke out the sails and sent them aloft to the merry peal of patent blocks and just as Sol Jacob's mainboom disappeared around the "Point" we began to crawl away from the wharf. "Now, boys, put the duck on her!" The topsails went block and becket with a song; the great balloon thrashed and bellied and was then trimmed down. "Bend on your staysail!" At the word of command the halyards were attached and the quadrangular piece of canvas began to ascend when it caught against the foreboom and was held down by the pressure of the wind. "Let her come to a bit!" The vessel came up in the eye of the wind; every sail began to quiver and then the staysail was run aloft. "Take a pull on the mainpeak while she is up in the wind!" A half dozen men ran to the mainpeak halyards and, while one man held the rope under the pin the remainder threw their weight on the halyards and the wrinkles in the mainsail were soon effaced. "One more, boys, for coming up! that's good-b'lay all! Put your wheel up!" And now, with a graceful swerve the vessel began to cover the course as if the pride of a blooded steed was beating through plank and stanchion. A man runs, a horse gallops, a bird flies, but is there a word or phrase that will fitly describe the grace and majesty of a Cape Ann schooner coming across the harbor's bosom, leaving her anchorage astern? Do not those ports through which the hawsers run behold things? Does not perception in that bowsprit dwell? Is there not intelligence in that triangle bounded by forefoot, waterline and rail? The snowy canvas, wing-like spread, the sheer embossed bows brought up like giant shoulders for opposition, her lines, rivalling the leviathans; the tapering spars; the flaunting burgee, all bespeak that she, if not born upon, was born for the element through which she moves! Her very air is eagerness for action and seems to say: "We are outward bound and I have caught the bent and purpose of those I bear!" Lo, where she steals across that blue and placid sea, impelled as by the breath of pride, silent as light, a sister of the dawn! The schooner "Blesing of the Bay," seventy foot keel, ninety tons burthen, carrying sixteen men all told, was an epitomized world. Before the vessel had made one day's sail, the tyrant, the timid, the sea lawyer, the cleverest fisherman, the unluckiest, the one who would be the butt of all practical jokes, the strong, the weak, the proud, the meek,-all had been fixed in their respective spheres by that immutable law that has governed and will govern the association of men to the end of time. One thing at once became apparent: the last man added to the vessel's roll, Langdon by name, was unfitted for and inexperienced in the life he had undertaken. The crew eyed him. His subdued manner, his desire to be alone, starting suddenly when spoken spoken to, marked him out. The history of every man on board had early become known to every one else, but the antecedents of the pale and silent man remained a mystery, and soon there grew up the self-same atmosphere that hung about the ship that bore the disobedient son of Amitai to Tarshish. "The man's running away from something!" said one. "The mack'rel will dive any seine that that face looks into!" said another. If there were no outspoken questions, the whole bearing of the fishermen implied: "What is thine occupation? and whence whence comest thou? what is thy country and from what people art thou? tell us we pray thee.' It was this ill-favored man that fate singled out for my watch-mate, and the incident I am about to relate occurred on the third night out. We were alone on deck,-I had the wheel and Langdon was On the lookout. It was an intensely dark night; the moon had not risen, and the low-lying black clouds threw an ebon pall over the face of the waters and shrouded the vessel in gloom. The indistinctness of the shrouds and masts made the white, new canvas appear like spectral wings floating unsupported on the night. As I sat on the wheel-box keeping the vessel on her course which on account of the smooth sea and steady character of the breeze required scarcely an effort, I could not but be conscious of an eerie feeling as I contemplated the inky blackness and the dim outlines of the silent vessel that glided over the smooth sea and through the gloom like a sheeted spirit flying intently south. The loneliness of the situation was relieved at intervals by the appearance of my watch-mate as he paced the forward deck in short, regular turns. Suddenly I missed him. While my straining sight waited for the form it had learned to expect, an instinctive fear, even then, knocking at my heart, a cry that curdled the blood in my veins, a sound like the thin screech of a throttled beast pierced the night air. Breaking in on that intense stillness, in such an hour the effect was unearthly. And now, the hair on my head stood up to hear the scamper of swift feet, and the next instant Langdon, as if a thousand demons were at his heels, burst out of the dark maindeck. He cleared the quarter deck in what appeared two bounds and stood beside me, his eyes dilated with terror, his hands beating the air as if he would fain keep back some embodied horror that was pressing upon him from the gloom ahead. "In God's name, man," I managed to ask, "what is it? what did you see?" "It's there!" he gasped, "it's there!" "Who,-what's there?" I asked. And now, I in turn began to quake, to breathe the atmosphere of a strange dread. I seized the man by the shoulders and, partly to dispel my own fears, partly to dissipate the palsy that bound his tongue, shook him fiercely: "Speak! what did you see?" "McHenry's ghost!" he panted, "I was refastening the starboard light-it-it tried to drag me out of the rigging!" I attempted to laugh, but I could feel that my face but stiffly wrinkled. "Go forward," I said, "and stand your watch,"-I would not have crossed the break of the deck at that moment for a mountain of gold. "Go!-there is no such thing as a ghost!" "No, no," he said with a shudder, "I thought the sea would deliver me, but it's here-it's here!" He wrung his hands in a spasm of agony. "Who was McHenry?" I asked, "and why should his ghost seek you?" "I will tell you," he began in faltering accents, as he glowered, now at the phosphorescent gleam of our wake, now into the black shadows that obscured the maindeck, "but don't tell the others, they will hound me, they will make the rest of the trip a nightmare!" At this moment the jib block began to speak for the mute compass and glancing into the binnacle I saw that I was off the course. I heard the skipper stir uneasily in his berth. "Speak lower," I said, "we are waking the skipper. "Who was McHenry?" "He was my chum, my roommate, dearer than my best brother. I held a loaded pistol in my hand, -held it carelessly; it went off and the ball entered his breast. He gasped and died at my feet. O the reproach in the eyes that glazed in death before me!" Langdon clutched his head in both hands as if he would by mere pressure shut off the working of the cerebral cells of memory. "In the dark," he went on, "in the places of danger, it is with me, it is on my back; I can't carry it longer-I cannot carry it longer!" He rushed to the rail and peered into the dark tide sweeping past. "They acquitted me,—it wasn't murder was it?" He appealed to me in an awed whisper. "I didn't mean it-it wasn't murder!" he repeated as if addressing some spectre presence in the gloom. Alarmed at the man's attitude, I placed my hand on his shoulder and said soothingly: "No, no, that was an accident; it might happen to any man." Fortunately, our watch was now up. The next watch answered the call and as I entered the cabin with Langdon I saw that his face was wan and dripping with perspiration. Rolling into my bunk I fell asleep listening to the restless movements of the man in the berth opposite. |