Kitabı oku: «Every Man for Himself», sayfa 3
“Jowl an’ me,” Tumm resumed, “fished the Holy Terror Tickles o’ the Labrador in the Got It nex’ season. He was a wonderful kind man, Jowl was – so pious, an’ soft t’ speak, an’ honest, an’ willin’ for his labor. At midsummer I got a bad hand, along of a cut with the splittin’-knife, an’ nothin’ would do Jowl but he’d lance it, an’ wash it, an’ bind it, like a woman, an’ do so much o’ my labor as he was able for, like a man. I fair got t’ like that lad o’ his – though ’twas but a young feller t’ home, at the time – for Jowl was forever talkin’ o’ Toby this an’ Toby that – not boastful gabble, but just tender an’ nice t’ hear. An’ a fine lad, by all accounts: a dutiful lad, brave an’ strong, if given overmuch t’ yieldin’ the road t’ save trouble, as Jowl said. I ’lowed, one night, when the Got It was bound home, with all the load the salt would give her, that I’d sort o’ like t’ know the lad that Jowl had.
“‘Why don’t you fetch un down the Labrador?’ says I.
“‘His schoolin’,’ says Jowl.
“‘Oh!’ says I.
“‘Ay,’ says he; ‘his mother’s wonderful particular about the schoolin’.’
“‘Anyhow,’ says I, ‘the schoolin’ won’t go on for all time.’
“‘No,’ says Jowl, ‘it won’t. An’ I’m ’lowin’ t’ harden Toby up a bit nex’ spring.’
“‘T’ the ice?’ says I.
“‘Ay,’ says he; ‘if I can overcome his mother.’
“‘’Tis a rough way t’ break a lad,’ says I.
“‘So much the better,’ says he. ‘It don’t take so long. Nothin’ like a sealin’ v’y’ge,’ says he, ‘t’ harden a lad. An’ if you comes along, Tumm,’ says he, ‘why, I won’t complain. I’m ’lowin’ t’ ship with Skipper Tommy Jump o’ the Second t’ None. She’s a tight schooner, o’ the Tiddle build, an’ I ’low Tommy Jump will get a load o’ fat, whatever comes of it. You better join, Tumm,’ says he, ‘an’ we’ll all be t’gether. I’m wantin’ you t’ get acquainted with Toby, an’ lend a hand with his education, which you can do t’ the queen’s taste, bein’ near of his age.’
“‘I’ll do it, Jowl,’ says I.
“An’ I done it; an’ afore we was through, I wisht I hadn’t.”
Tumm paused.
“An’ I done it – nex’ March – shipped along o’ Tommy Jump o’ the Second t’ None, with Jowl an’ his lad aboard,” he proceeded.
“‘You overcame the wife,’ says I, ‘didn’t you?’
“‘’Twas a tough job,’ says he. ‘She ’lowed the boy might come t’ harm, an’ wouldn’t give un up; but me an’ Toby pulled t’gether, an’ managed her, the day afore sailin’. She cried a wonderful lot; but, Lord! that’s only the way o’ women.’
“A likely lad o’ sixteen, this Toby – blue-eyed an’ fair, with curly hair an’ a face full o’ blushes. Polite as a girl, which is much too polite for safety at the ice. He’d make way for them that blustered; but he done it with such an air that we wasn’t no more’n off the Goggles afore the whole crew was all makin’ way for he. So I ’lowed he’d do– that he’d be took care of, just for love. But Jowl wasn’t o’ my mind.
“‘No,’ says he; ‘the lad’s too soft. He’ve got t’ be hardened.’
“‘Maybe,’ says I.
“‘If anything happened,’ says he, ‘Toby wouldn’t stand a show. The men is kind to un now,’ says he, ‘for they doesn’t lose nothin’ by it. If they stood t’ lose their lives, Tumm, they’d push un out o’ the way, an’ he’d go ’ithout a whimper. I got t’ talk t’ that lad for his own good.’
“Which he done.
“‘Toby,’ says he, ‘you is much too soft. Don’t you go an’ feel bad, now, lad, just because your father tells you so; for ’tis not much more’n a child you are, an’ your father’s old, an’ knows all about life. You got t’ get hard if you wants t’ hold your own. You’re too polite. You gives way too easy. Don’t give way – don’t give way under no circumstances. In this life,’ says he, ‘’tis every man for hisself. I don’t know why God made it that way,’ says he, ‘but He done it, an’ we got t’ stand by. You’re young,’ says he, ‘an’ thinks the world is what you’d have it be if you made it; but I’m old, an’ I knows that a man can’t be polite an’ live to his prime on this coast. Now, lad,’ says he, ‘we isn’t struck the ice yet, but I ’low I smell it; an’ once we gets the Second t’ None in the midst, ’most anything is likely t’ happen. If so be that Tommy Jump gets the schooner in a mess you look out for yourself; don’t think o’ nobody else, for you can’t afford to.’
“‘Yes, sir,’ says the boy.
“‘Mark me well, lad! I’m tellin’ you this for your own good. You won’t get no mercy showed you; so don’t you show mercy t’ nobody else. If it comes t’ your life or the other man’s, you put him out o’ the way afore he has time t’ put you. Don’t let un give battle. Hit un so quick as you’re able. It’ll be harder if you waits. You don’t have t’ be fair. ’Tisn’t expected. Nobody’s fair. An’ – ah, now, Toby!’ says he, puttin’ his arm over the boy’s shoulder, ‘if you feels like givin’ way, an’ lettin’ the other man have your chance, an’ if you can’t think o’ yourself, just you think o’ your mother. Ah, lad,’ says he, ‘she’d go an’ cry her eyes out if anything happened t’ you. Why, Toby – oh, my! now, lad – why, think o’ the way she’d sit in her rockin’-chair, an’ put her pinny to her eyes, an’ cry, an’ cry! You’re the only one she’ve got, an’ she couldn’t, lad, she couldn’t get along ’ithout you! Ah, she’d cry, an’ cry, an’ cry; an’ they wouldn’t be nothin’ in all the world t’ give her comfort! So don’t you go an’ grieve her, Toby,’ says he, ‘by bein’ tender-hearted. Ah, now, Toby!’ says he, ‘don’t you go an’ make your poor mother cry!’
“‘No, sir,’ says the lad. ‘I’ll not, sir!’
“‘That’s a good boy, Toby,’ says Jowl. ‘I ’low you’ll be a man when you grow up, if your mother doesn’t make a parson o’ you.’”
Tumm made a wry face.
“Well,” he continued, “Tommy Jump kep’ the Second t’ None beatin’ hither an’ yon off the Horse Islands for two days, expectin’ ice with the nor’east wind. ’Twas in the days afore the sealin’ was done in steamships from St. John’s, an’ they was a cloud o’ sail at the selsame thing. An’ we all put into White Bay, in the mornin’ in chase o’ the floe, an’ done a day’s work on the swiles [seals] afore night. But nex’ day we was jammed by the ice – the fleet o’ seventeen schooners, cotched in the bottom o’ the bay, an’ like t’ crack our hulls if the wind held. Whatever, the wind fell, an’ there come a time o’ calm an’ cold, an’ we was all froze in, beyond help, an’ could do nothin’ but wait for the ice t’ drive out an’ go abroad, an’ leave us t’ sink or sail, as might chance. Tommy Jump ’lowed the Second t’ None would sink; said her timbers was sprung, an’ she’d leak like a basket, an’ crush like a eggshell, once the ice begun t’ drive an’ grind an’ rafter – leastwise, he thunk so, admittin’ ’twas open t’ argument; an’ he wouldn’t go so far as t’ pledge the word of a gentleman that she would sink.
“‘Whatever,’ says he, ‘we’ll stick to her an’ find out.’
“The change o’ wind come at dusk – a big blow from the sou’west. ’Twas beyond doubt the ice would go t’ sea; so I tipped the wink t’ young Toby Jowl an’ told un the time was come.
“‘I’ll save my life, Tumm,’ says he, ‘if I’m able.’
“’Twas a pity! Ecod! t’ this day I ’low ’twas a pity; ’Twas a fine, sweet lad, that Toby; but he looked like a wolf, that night, in the light o’ the forecastle lamp, when his eyes flashed an his upper lip stretched thin over his teeth!
“‘You better get some grub in your pocket,’ says I.
“‘I got it,’ says he.
“‘Well,’ says I, ‘I ’low you’ve learned! Where’d you get it?”
“‘Stole it from the cook,’ says he.
“‘Any chance for me?’
“‘If you’re lively,’ says he. ‘The cook’s a fool… Will it come soon, Tumm?’ says he, with a grip on my wrist. ‘How long will it be, eh, Tumm, afore ’tis every man for hisself?’
“Soon enough, God knowed! By midnight the edge o’ the floe was rubbin’ Pa’tridge P’int, an’ the ice was troubled an’ angry. In an hour the pack had the bottom scrunched out o’ the Second t’ None; an’ she was kep’ above water – listed an’ dead – only by the jam o’ little pans ’longside. Tommy Jump ’lowed we’d strike the big billows o’ the open afore dawn an’ the pack would go abroad an’ leave us t’ fill an’ sink; said he couldn’t do no more, an’ the crew could take care o’ their own lives, which was what he would do, whatever come of it. ’Twas blowin’ big guns then – rippin’ in straight lines right off from Sop’s Arm an’ all them harbors for starved bodies an’ souls t’ the foot o’ the bay. An’ snow come with the wind; the heavens emptied theirselves; the air was thick an’ heavy. Seemed t’ me the wrath o’ sea an’ sky broke loose upon us – wind an’ ice an’ snow an’ big waves an’ cold – all the earth contains o’ hate for men! Skipper Tommy Jump ’lowed we’d better stick t’ the ship so long as we was able; which was merely his opinion, an’ if the hands had a mind t’ choose their pans while they was plenty, they was welcome t’ do it, an’ he wouldn’t see no man called a fool if his fists was big enough t’ stop it. But no man took t’ the ice at that time. An’ the Second t’ None ran on with the floe, out t’ sea, with the wind an’ snow playin’ the devil for their own amusement, an’ the ice groanin’ its own complaint…
“Then we struck the open.”
“‘Now, lads,’ yells Tommy Jump, when he got all hands amidships, ‘you better quit the ship. The best time,’ says he, ‘will be when you sees me go overside. But don’t get in my way. You get your own pans. God help the man that gets in my way!’
“Tommy Jump went overside when the ice opened an’ the Second t’ None begun t’ go down an’ the sea was spread with small pans, floatin’ free. ’Twas near dawn then. Things was gray; an’ the shapes o’ things was strange an’ big – out o’ size, fearsome. Dawn shot over the sea, a wide, flat beam from the east, an’ the shadows was big, an’ the light dim, an’ the air full o’ whirlin’ snow; an’ men’s eyes was too wide an’ red an’ frightened t’ look with sure sight upon the world. An’ all the ice was in a tumble o’ black water… An’ the Second t’ None went down… An’ I ’lowed they wasn’t no room on my pan for nobody but me. But I seed the shape of a man leap for my place. An’ I cursed un, an’ bade un go farther, or I’d drown un. An’ he leaped for the pan that lied next, where Jowl was afloat, with no room t’ spare. An’ Jowl hit quick an’ hard. He was waitin’, with his fists closed, when the black shape landed; an’ he hit quick an’ hard without lookin’… An’ I seed the face in the water… An’, oh, I knowed who ’twas!
“‘Dear God!’ says I.
“Jowl was now but a shape in the snow. ‘That you, Tumm?’ says he. ‘What you sayin’?’
“’ Why didn’t you take time t’ look?’ says I. ‘Oh, Jowl! why didn’t you take time?’
“‘T’ look?’ says he.
“‘Dear God!’
“‘What you sayin’ that for, Tumm?’ says he. ‘What you mean, Tumm? … My God!’ says he, ‘what is I gone an’ done? Who was that, Tumm? My God! Tell me! What is I done?’
“I couldn’t find no words t’ tell un.
“‘Oh, make haste,’ says he, ‘afore I drifts away!’
“‘Dear God!’ says I, ‘’twas Toby!’
“An’ he fell flat on the ice…An’ I didn’t see Jowl no more for four year. He was settled at Mad Tom’s Harbor then, where you seed un t’-day; an’ his wife was dead, an’ he didn’t go no more t’ the Labrador, nor t’ the ice, but fished the Mad Tom grounds with hook-an’-line on quiet days, an’ was turned timid, they said, with fear o’ the sea…”
The Good Samaritan ran softly through the slow, sleepy sea, bound across the bay to trade the ports of the shore.
“I tells you, sir,” Tumm burst out, “’tis hell. Life is! Maybe not where you hails from, sir; but ’tis on this coast. I ’low where you comes from they don’t take lives t’ save their own?”
“Not to save their own,” said I.
He did not understand.
III – THE MINSTREL
Salim Awad, poet, was the son of Tanous – that orator. Having now lost at love, he lay disconsolate on his pallet in the tenement overlooking the soap factory. He would not answer any voice; nor would he heed the gentle tap and call of old Khalil Khayyat, the tutor of his muse; nor would he yield his sorrow to the music of Nageeb Fiani, called the greatest player in all the world. For three hours Fiani, in the wail and sigh of his violin, had expressed the woe of love through the key-hole; but Salim Awad was not moved. No; the poet continued in desolation through the darkness of that night, and through the slow, grimy, unfeeling hours of day. He dwelt upon Haleema, Khouri’s daughter – she (as he thought) of the tresses of night, the beautiful one. Salim was in despair because this Haleema had chosen to wed Jimmie Brady, the truckman. She loved strength more than the uplifted spirit; and this maidens may do, as Salim knew, without reproach or injury.
When the dusk of the second day was gathered in his room, Salim looked up, eased by the tender obscurity. In the cobble-stoned street below the clatter of traffic had subsided; there were the shuffle and patter of feet of the low-born of his people, the murmur of voices, soft laughter, the plaintive cries of children – the dolorous medley of a summer night. Beyond the fire-escape, far past the roof of the soap factory, lifted high above the restless Western world, was the starlit sky; and Salim Awad, searching its uttermost depths, remembered the words of Antar, crying in his heart: “I pass the night regarding the stars of night in my distraction. Ask the night of me, and it will tell thee that I am the ally of sorrow and of anguish. I live desolate; there is no one like me. I am the friend of grief and of desire.”
The band was playing in Battery Park; the weird music of it, harsh, incomprehensible, an alien love-song —
“Hello, mah baby,
Hello, mah honey,
Hello, mah rag-time girl!”
drifted in at the open window with a breeze from the sea. But by this unmeaning tumult the soul of Salim Awad, being far removed, was not troubled; he remembered, again, the words of Antar, addressed to his beloved, repeating: “In thy forehead is my guide to truth; and in the night of thy tresses I wander astray. Thy bosom is created as an enchantment. O may God protect it ever in that perfection! Will fortune ever, O daughter of Malik, ever bless me with thy embrace? That would cure my heart of the sorrows of love.”
And again the music of the band in Battery Park drifted up the murmuring street,
“Just one girl,
Only just one girl!
There are others, I know, but they’re not my pearl.
Just one girl,
Only just one girl!
I’d be happy forever with just one girl!”
and came in at the open window with the idle breeze; and Salim heard nothing of the noise, but was grateful for the cool fingers of the wind softly lifting the hair from his damp brow.
It must be told – and herein is a mystery – that this same Salim, who had lost at love, now from the darkness of his tenement room contemplating the familiar stars, wise, remote, set in the uttermost heights of heaven beyond the soap factory, was by the magic of this great passion inspired to extol the graces of his beloved Haleema, Khouri’s daughter, star of the world, and to celebrate his own despair, the love-woe of Salim, the noble-born, the poet, the lover, the brokenhearted. Without meditation, as he has said, without brooding or design, as should occur, but rather, taking from the starlit infinitude beyond the soap factory, seizing from the mist of his vision and from the blood of agony dripping from his lacerated heart, he fashioned a love-song so exquisite and frail, so shy of contact with unfeeling souls, that he trembled in the presence of this beauty, for the moment forgetting his desolation, and conceived himself an instrument made of men, wrought of mortal hands, unworthy, which the fingers of angels had touched in alleviation of the sorrows of love.
Thereupon Salim Awad arose, and he made haste to Khalil Khayyat to tell him of this thing…
This same Khalil Khayyat, lover of children, that poet and mighty editor, the tutor of the young muse of this Salim – this patient gardener of the souls of men, wherein he sowed seeds of the flowers of the spirit – this same Khalil, poet, whose delight was in the tender bloom of sorrow and despair – this old Khayyat, friend of Salim, the youth, the noble-born, sat alone in the little back room of Nageeb Fiani, the pastry-cook and greatest player in all the world. And his narghile was glowing; the coal was live and red, showing as yet no gray ash, and the water bubbled by fits and starts, and the alien room, tawdry in its imitation of the Eastern splendor, dirty, flaring and sputtering with gas, was clouded with the sweet-smelling smoke. To the coffee, perfume rising with the steam from the delicate vessel, nor to the rattle of dice and boisterous shouts from the outer room, was this Khalil attending; for he had the evening dejection to nurse. He leaned over the green baize table, one long, lean brown hand lying upon Kawkab Elhorriah of that day, as if in affectionate pity, and his lean brown face was lifted in a rapture of anguish to the grimy ceiling; for the dream of the writing had failed, as all visions of beauty must fail in the reality of them, and there had been no divine spark in the labor of the day to set the world aflame against Abdul-Hamid, Sultan, slaughterer.
To him, then, at this moment of inevitable reaction, the love-lorn Salim, entering in haste.
“Once more, Salim,” said Khalil Khayyat, sadly, “I have failed.”
Salim softly closed the door.
“I am yet young, Salim,” the editor added, with an absent smile, in which was no bitterness at all, but the sweetness of long suffering. “I am yet young,” he repeated, “for in the beginning of my labor I hope.”
Salim turned the key.
“I am but a child,” Khalil Khayyat declared, his voice, now lifted, betraying despair. “I dream in letters of fire: I write in shadows. In my heart is a flame: from the point of my pen flows darkness. I proclaim a revolution: I hear loud laughter and the noise of dice. Salim,” he cried, “I am but a little child: when night falls upon the labor of my day I remember the morning!”
“Khalil!”
Khalil Khayyat was thrilled by the quality of this invocation.
“Khalil of the exalted mission, friend, poet, teacher of the aspiring,” Salim Awad whispered, leaning close to the ear of Khalil Khayyat, “a great thing has come to pass.”
Khayyat commanded his ecstatic perturbation.
“Hist!” Salim ejaculated. “Is there not one listening at the door?”
“There is no one, Salim; it is the feet of Nageeb the coffee-boy, passing to the table of Abosamara, the merchant.”
Salim hearkened.
“There is no one, Salim.”
“There is a breathing at the key-hole, Khalil,” Salim protested. “This great thing must not be known.”
“There is no one, Salim,” said Khalil Khayyat. “I have heard Abosamara call these seven times. Being rich, he is brutal to such as serve. The sound is of the feet of the little Intelligent One. He bears coffee to the impatient merchant. His feet are soft, by my training; they pass like a whisper… Salim, what is this great thing?”
“Nay, but, Khalil, I hesitate: the thing must not be heard.”
“Even so,” said Khalil Khayyat, contemptuously, being still a poet; “the people are of the muck of the world; they are common, they are not of our blood and learning. How shall they understand that which they hear?”
“Khalil,” Salim Awad answered, reassured, “I have known a great moment!”
“A great moment?” said Khalil Khayyat, being both old and wise. “Then it is because of agony. There has issued from this great pain,” said he, edging, in his artistic excitement, toward the victim of the muse, “a divine poem of love?”
Salim Awad sighed.
“Is it not so, Salim?”
Salim Awad flung himself upon the green baize table; and so great was his despair that the coffee-cup of Khalil Khayyat jumped in its saucer. “I have suffered: I have lost at love,” he answered. “I have been wounded; I bleed copiously. I lie alone in a desert. My passion is hunger and thirst and a gaping wound. From fever and the night I cry out. Whence is my healing and satisfaction? Nay, but, Khalil, devoted friend,” he groaned, looking up, “I have known the ultimate sorrow. Haleema!” cried he, rising, hands clasped and uplifted, eyes looking far beyond the alien, cobwebbed, blackened ceiling of the little back room of Nageeb Fiani, the pastry-cook and greatest player in all the world. “Haleema!” he cried, as it may meanly be translated. “Haleema – my sleep and waking, night and day of my desiring soul, my thought and heart-throb! Haleema – gone forever from me, the poet, the unworthy, fled to the arms of the strong, the knowing, the manager of horses, the one powerful and controlling! Haleema – beautiful one, fashioned of God, star of the night of the sons of men, glory of the universe, appealing, of the soft arms, of the bosom of sleep! Haleema – of the finger-tips of healing, of the warm touch of solace, of the bed of rest! Haleema, beautiful one, beloved, lost to me!.. Haleema!.. Haleema!..”
“God!” Khalil Khayyat ejaculated; “but this is indeed great poetry!”
Salim Awad collapsed.
“And from this,” asked Khalil Khayyat, cruel servant of art, being hopeful concerning the issue, “there has come a great poem? There must,” he muttered, “have come a love-song, a heart’s cry in comfort of such as have lost at love.”
Salim Awad looked up from the table.
“A cry of patient anguish,” said Khalil Khayyat.
“Khalil,” said Salim Awad, solemnly, “the strings of my soul have been touched by the hand of the Spirit.”
“By the Spirit?”
“The fingers of Infinite Woe.”
To this Khalil Khayyat made no reply, nor moved one muscle – save that his hand trembled a little, and his eyes, which had been steadfastly averted, suddenly searched the soul of Salim Awad. It was very still in the little back room. There was the sputtering of the gas, the tread of soft feet passing in haste to the kitchen, the clamor from the outer room, where common folk were gathered for their pleasure, but no sound, not so much as the drawing of breath, in the little room where these poets sat, and continued in this silence, until presently Khalil Khayyat drew very close to Salim Awad.
“Salim,” he whispered, “reveal this poem.”
“It cannot be uttered,” said Salim Awad.
Khalil Khayyat was by this amazed. “Is it then so great?” he asked. “Then, Salim,” said he, “let it be as a jewel held in common by us of all the world.”
“I am tempted!”
“I plead, Salim – I, Khalil Khayyat, the poet, the philosopher – I plead!”
“I may not share this great poem, Khalil,” said Salim Awad, commanding himself, “save with such as have suffered as I have suffered.”
“Then,” answered Khalil Khayyat, triumphantly, “the half is mine!”
“Is yours, Khalil?”
“The very half, Salim, is the inheritance of my woe!”
“Khalil,” answered Salim Awad, rising, “attend!” He smiled, in the way of youth upon the aged, and put an affectionate hand on the old man’s shoulder. “My song,” said he, passionately, “may not be uttered; for in all the world – since of these accidents God first made grief – there has been no love-sorrow like my despair!”
Then, indeed, Khalil Khayyat knew that this same Salim Awad was a worthy poet. And he was content; for he had known a young man to take of the woe from his own heart and fashion a love-song too sublime for revelation to the unfeeling world – which was surely poetry sufficient to the day. He asked no more concerning the song, but took counsel with Salim Awad upon his journey to Newfoundland, whither the young poet was going, there in trade and travel to ease the sorrows of love. And he told him many things about money and a pack, and how that, though engaged in trade, a man might still journey with poetry; the one being of place and time and necessity, and the other of the free and infinite soul. Concerning the words spoken that night in farewell by these poets, not so much as one word is known, though many men have greatly desired to know, believing the moment to have been propitious for high speaking; but not a word is to be written, not so much as a sigh to be described, for the door was closed, and, as it strangely chanced, there was no ear at the key-hole. But Nageeb Fiani, the greatest player in all the world, entering upon the departure of Salim Awad, was addressed by Khalil Khayyat.
“Nageeb,” said this great poet, “I have seen a minstrel go forth upon his wandering.”
“Upon what journey does the singer go, Khalil?”
“To the north, Nageeb.”
“What song, Khalil, does the man sing by the way?”
“The song is in his heart,“ said Khalil Khayyat.
Abosamara, the merchant, being only rich, had intruded from his own province. “Come!” cried he, in the way of the rich who are only rich. “Come!” cried he, “how shall a man sing with his heart?”
Khalil Khayyat was indignant.
“Come!” Abosamara demanded, “how shall this folly be accomplished?”
“How shall the deaf understand these things?” answered Khalil Khayyat.
And this became a saying…
Hapless Harbor, of the Newfoundland French shore, gray, dispirited, chilled to its ribs of rock – circumscribed by black sea and impenetrable walls of mist. There was a raw wind swaggering out of the northeast upon it: a mean, cold, wet wind – swaggering down the complaining sea through the fog. It had the grounds in a frothy turmoil, the shore rocks smothered in broken water, the spruce of the heads shivering, the world of bleak hill and wooded valley all clammy to the touch; and – chiefest triumph of its heartlessness – it had the little children of the place driven into the kitchens to restore their blue noses and warm their cracked hands. Hapless Harbor, then, in a nor’east blow, and a dirty day – uncivil weather; an ugly sea, a high wind, fog as thick as cheese, and, to top off with, a scowling glass. Still early spring – snow in the gullies, dripping in rivulets to the harbor water; ice at sea, driving with the variable, evil-spirited winds; perilous sailing and a wretched voyage of it upon that coast. A mean season, a dirty day – a time to be in harbor. A time most foul in feeling and intention, an hour to lie snug in the lee of some great rock.
The punt of Salim Awad, double-reefed in unwilling deference to the weather, had rounded Greedy Head soon after dawn, blown like a brown leaf, Salim being bound in from Catch-as-Catch-Can with the favoring wind. It was the third year of his wandering in quest of that ease of the sorrows of love; and as he came into quiet water from the toss and spray of the open, rather than a hymn in praise of the Almighty who had delivered him from the grasping reach of the sea, from its cold fingers, its green, dark, swaying grave – rather than this weakness – rather than this Newfoundland habit of worship, he muttered, as Antar, that great lover and warrior, had long ago cried from his soul: “Under thy veil is the rosebud of my life, and thine eyes are guarded with a multitude of arrows; round thy tent is a lion-warrior, the sword’s edge, and the spear’s point” – which had nothing to do, indeed, with a nor’east gale and the flying, biting, salty spray of a northern sea. But this Salim had come in, having put out from Catch-as-Catch-Can when gray light first broke upon the black, tumultuous world, being anxious to make Hapless Harbor as soon as might be, as he had promised a child in the fall of the year.
This Salim, poet, maker of the song that could not be uttered, tied up at the stage-head of Sam Swuth, who knew the sail of that small craft, and had lumbered down the hill to meet him.
“Pup of a day,” says Sam Swuth.
By this vulgarity Salim was appalled.
“Eh?” says Sam Swuth.
Salim’s pack, stowed amidships, was neatly and efficiently bound with tarpaulin, the infinite mystery of which he had mastered; but his punt, from stem to stern, swam deeply with water gathered on the way from Catch-as-Catch-Can.
“Pup of a day,” says Sam Swuth.
“Oh my, no!” cried Salim Awad, shocked by this inharmony with his mood. “Ver’ bad weather.”
“Pup of a day,” Sam Swuth insisted.
“Ver’ bad day,” said Salim Awad. “Ver’ beeg wind for thee punt.”
The pack was hoisted from the boat.
“An the glass don’t lie,” Sam Swuth promised, “they’s a sight dirtier comin’.”
Salim lifted the pack to his back. “Ver’ beeg sea,” said he. “Ver’ bad blow.”
“Ghost Rock breakin’?”
“Ver’ bad in thee Parlor of thee Devil,” Salim answered. “Ver’ long, black hands thee sea have. Ver’ white finger-nail,” he laughed. “Eh? Ver’ hong-ree hands. They reach for thee punt. But I am have escape,” he added, with a proud little grin. “I am have escape. I – Salim! Ver’ good sailor. Thee sea have not cotch me, you bet!”
“Ye’ll be lyin’ the night in Hapless?”
“Oh my, no! Ver’ poor business. I am mus’ go to thee Chain Teekle.”
Salim Awad went the round of mean white houses, exerting himself in trade, according to the cure prescribed for the mortal malady of which he suffered; but as he passed from door to door, light-hearted, dreaming of Haleema, she of the tresses of night, wherein the souls of men wandered astray, he still kept sharp lookout for Jamie Tuft, the young son of Skipper Jim, whom he had come through the wind to serve. Salim was shy – shy as a child; more shy than ever when bent upon some gentle deed; and Jamie was shy, shy as lads are shy; thus no meeting chanced until, when in the afternoon the wind had freshened, these two blundered together in the lee of Bishop’s Rock, where Jamie was hiding his humiliation, grief, and small body, but devoutly hoping, all the while, to be discovered and relieved. It was dry in that place, and sheltered from the wind; but between the Tickle heads, whence the harbor opened to the sea, the gale was to be observed at work upon the run.
Salim stopped dead. Jamie grinned painfully and kicked at the road.
“Hello!” cried Salim.
“’Lo, Joe!” growled Jamie.
Salim sighed. He wondered concerning the amount Jamie had managed to gather. Would it be sufficient to ease his conscience through the transaction? The sum was fixed. Jamie must have the money or go wanting. Salim feared to ask the question.
“I isn’t got it, Joe,” said Jamie.
“Oh my! Too bad!” Salim groaned.
