Part 11 (1/2)
It was getting late in the year. The steep cliffs that everywhere flank the sides of the great bay were already h.o.a.ry with snow. The big ponds were all ”fast,” and the fall deer hunt which follows the fishery was over. Most of the boats were hauled up, well out of reach of the ”ballicater” ice. The stage fronts had been taken down till the next spring, to save them from being torn to pieces by the rising and falling floe. Everywhere ”young slob,” as we call the endless round pans growing from the centre and covering the sea like the scales of a salmon, was making. But the people at the head of the bay were still waiting for those necessities of life, such as flour, mola.s.ses, and pork, which have to be imported as they are unable to provide them for themselves, and for which they must wait till the summer's voyage has been sent to market and sold to pay for them.
The responsibility of getting these supplies to them rested heavily on the shoulders of my good friend John Bourne, the only trader in the district. Women, children, whole families, were looking to him for those ”things” which if he failed to furnish would mean such woeful consequences that he could not face the winter without at least a serious attempt to provide them.
In the harbour lay his schooner, a saucy little craft which he had purchased only a short while before. He knew her sea qualities; and as the s.h.i.+p tugged at her chains, moving to and fro on the swell, she kept a fine ”swatch” of open water round her. Like some tethered animal, she seemed to be begging him to give her another run before Jack Frost gripped her in his chilly arms for months to come. The fact that he was a married man with hostages to fortune round his knees might have justified his conscience in not tempting the open sea at a time when frozen sheets and blocks choked with ice made it an open question if even a youngster ought to take the chances. But it happened that his ”better half,” like himself, had that ”right stuff”
in her which thinks of itself last, and her permission for the venture was never in question.
So Trader Bourne, being, like all our men, a sailor first and a landsman after, with his crew of the mate and a boy, and the handicap of a pa.s.senger, put to sea one fine afternoon in late November, his vessel loaded with good things for his necessitous friends ”up along.”
He was encouraged by a light breeze which, though blowing out of the bay and there ahead for him, gave smooth water and a clear sky.
To those who would have persuaded him to linger for a fair wind he had cheerfully countered that the schooner had ”two sides,” meaning that she could hold her own in adversity, and could claw well to windward; besides, ”'t will help to hold the Northern slob back”--that threatening spectre of our winters.
When darkness fell, however, very little progress had been made. The wind kept s.h.i.+fting against the schooner, and all hands could still make out the distant lights of home twinkling like tiny stars, apparently not more than a couple of miles under their lee.
”Shall us 'hard up,' and try it again at day light?” suggested the mate. ”If anything happens 't is a poor time of year to be out all night in a small craft.”
But the skipper only shrugged his shoulders, aware that the mate was never a ”snapper” seaman, being too much interested in gardens for his liking.
”It's only a mile or two to Beach Rock Cove. We'll make it on the next tack if the wind holds. 'T is a long leg and a short one, and we'll have a good chance then to make the Boiling Brooks to-morrow.”
”Lee oh!” and, putting the helm up, the Leading Light was soon racing off into the increasing darkness towards the cliffs away on the opposite side of the bay.
The wind freshened as the evening advanced--the usual experience of our late fall nights. An hour went by, and as the wind was still rising, the flying jib was taken in. After this the captain sent the crew below for a ”mug o' tea” while he took the first trick at the wheel.
Still the wind rose. The sea too was beginning to make, and the little craft started to fall to leeward too much to please the skipper. The men were again called, and together they reset all the head canvas.
The Leading Light now answered better to her helm, and, heading up a point, reached well into the bay.
”Smooth water again before dawn,” said the skipper in his endeavour to cheer the despondent mate, when once more they had gone aft. ”Looks like clearing overhead. I reckon she'll be well along by daylight.”
But the mate seemed ”stun,” and only grunted in return.
”You go down and finish supper, and then you can give me a spell at the wheel while I get my pipe lighted,” continued the captain.
Thereupon the other, nothing loath to have something to keep his mind diverted, was soon below, searching for consolation in a steaming mug, but failing to find it, in spite of the welcome contrast between the cosy warm cabin, and the darkness and driving spume on deck, lacking as he did, alas, the sea genius of our race.
”Watch on deck!” at length called Bourne; and a few minutes later, having entrusted the helm to the mate, he was lighting his pipe at the cabin fire. All of a sudden down, down, down went the lee floor of the cabin, and up, up, up went the weather, till it felt as if the little s.h.i.+p were really going over.
”What's up?” the skipper fairly yelled through the companion, as clinging and struggling his utmost he forced his way on deck, as soon as the vessel righted herself enough to make it possible. ”Hard down!
Hard down! Let her come up! Ease her! Ease her!”--and whether the puff of wind slackened or the mate lost hold of the wheel, he never has been able to tell, but she righted enough for a moment to let him get on the deck and rush forward to slack up the fore-sheet, bawling meanwhile through the darkness to the mate to keep her head up, as he himself tore and tugged at the rope.
The schooner, evidently well off the wind, yet with all her sheets hauled tight and clewed down, was literally flying ahead, but trying to dive right through the ponderous seas, instead of skimming over and laughing at them, as the captain well knew she ought to do. There wasn't a second to lose pondering the problem as to why she would not come up and save herself. Difficult and dangerous as it was in the pitch dark with the deck slippery with ice, and the dizzy angle at which it stood, the only certain way to save the situation was to let go that sheet. Frantically he struggled with the rope, firmly clinched though it was round its cleats with the ice that had made upon it.
Knowing how sensitive the vessel was and that she would answer to a half-spoke turn of the wheel, and utterly at a loss to understand her present stubbornness, he still kept calling to the helmsman, ”Hard down! Hard down!”--only to receive again the growling answer, ”Hard down it is. She's been hard down this long time.”
It was all no good. Up, up came the weather rail under the terrific pressure of the wind. The fore-sheet was now already well under water, cleat and all, and the captain had just time to dash for the bulwark and hold on for dear life, when over went the stout little craft, sails, masts, and rigging, all disappearing beneath the waves. It seemed as if a minute more and she must surely vanish altogether, and all hands be lost almost within sight of their own homes.
Tumultuous thoughts flooded the captain's mind as for one second he clung to the rail. Vain regrets were followed like lightning by a momentary resignation to fate. In the minds of most men hope would undoubtedly have perished right there. But Captain Bourne was made of better stuff. ”Nil desperandum” is the Englishman's soul; and soon he found himself crawling carefully hand over hand towards the after end of the vessel. Suddenly in the darkness he b.u.mped into something soft and warm lying out on the quarter. It proved to be his pa.s.senger, resigned and mute, with no suggestion to offer and no spirit to do more than lie and perish miserably.
Still climbing along he could not help marking the absence of the mate and the boy from the rail, which standing out alone against the sky-line was occasionally visible. Doubtless they must have been washed overboard when the vessel turned turtle. There was some heavy ballast in the schooner besides the barrels of flour and other supplies in her hold. Her deck also was loaded with freight, and alas, the s.h.i.+p's boat was lashed down to the deck with strong gripes beneath a lot of it. Moreover, it was on the starboard side, and away down under water anyhow. Though every moment he was expecting the Leading Light to make her last long dive, his courage never for a second deserted him.
He remembered that there was a new boat on the counter aft which he was carrying with him for one of his dealers. She was not lashed either, except that her painter was fast to a stanchion. It was just possible that she might still be afloat, riding to the schooner as a sea anchor. Still clinging to the rail he peered and peered through the darkness, only to see the great white mainsail now and again gleam ghostlike in the dim light when the super-inc.u.mbent water foamed over it, as the Leading Light wallowed in the sullen seas. Then something dark rose against the sky away out beyond the peak end of the gaff--something black looming up on the crest of a mighty comber.
An uncanny feeling crept over him. Yet what else could it be but the boat? But what could that boat be doing out there? Fascinated, he kept glaring out in that direction. Yes, surely, there it flashed again across the sky-line. This time he was satisfied that it was the boat, and that she was afloat and partly protected by the breakwater formed by the schooner's hull. She was riding splendidly. In an instant he recalled that he had given her a new long painter; and that somehow she must have been thrown clear when the s.h.i.+p turned over. Anyhow, she was his only chance for life. Get her he must, and get her at once.