Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling (e manga reader .txt) đ
- Author: Rudyard Kipling
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He was a recognized part of the scheme of things on the Weâre Here; had his place at the table and among the bunks; and could hold his own in the long talks on stormy days, when the others were always ready to listen to what they called his âfairy-talesâ of his life ashore. It did not take him more than two days and a quarter to feel that if he spoke of his own lifeâit seemed very far awayâno one except Dan (and even Danâs belief was sorely tried) credited him. So he invented a friend, a boy he had heard of, who drove a miniature four-pony drag in Toledo, Ohio, and ordered five suits of clothes at a time and led things called âgermansâ at parties where the oldest girl was not quite fifteen, but all the presents were solid silver. Salters protested that this kind of yarn was desperately wicked, if not indeed positively blasphemous, but he listened as greedily as the others; and their criticisms at the end gave Harvey entirely new notions on âgermans,â clothes, cigarettes with gold-leaf tips, rings, watches, scent, small dinner-parties, champagne, card-playing, and hotel accommodation. Little by little he changed his tone when speaking of his âfriend,â whom Long Jack had christened âthe Crazy Kid,â âthe Gilt-edged Baby,â âthe Suckinâ Vanderpoop,â and other pet names; and with his sea-booted feet cocked up on the table would even invent histories about silk pajamas and specially imported neckwear, to the âfriendâsâ discredit. Harvey was a very adaptable person, with a keen eye and ear for every face and tone about him.
Before long he knew where Disko kept the old greencrusted quadrant that they called the âhog-yokeââunder the bed-bag in his bunk. When he took the sun, and with the help of âThe Old Farmerâsâ almanac found the latitude, Harvey would jump down into the cabin and scratch the reckoning and date with a nail on the rust of the stovepipe. Now, the chief engineer of the liner could have done no more, and no engineer of thirty yearsâ service could have assumed one half of the ancient-mariner air with which Harvey, first careful to spit over the side, made public the schoonerâs position for that day, and then and not till then relieved Disko of the quadrant. There is an etiquette in all these things.
The said âhog-yoke,â an Eldridge chart, the farming almanac, Bluntâs âCoast Pilot,â and Bowditchâs âNavigatorâ were all the weapons Disko needed to guide him, except the deep-sea lead that was his spare eye. Harvey nearly slew Penn with it when Tom Platt taught him first how to âfly the blue pigeonâ; and, though his strength was not equal to continuous sounding in any sort of a sea, for calm weather with a seven-pound lead on shoal water Disko used him freely. As Dan said:
ââTainât soundinâs dad wants. Itâs samples. Grease her up good, Harve.â Harvey would tallow the cup at the end, and carefully bring the sand, shell, sludge, or whatever it might be, to Disko, who fingered and smelt it and gave judgment As has been said, when Disko thought of cod he thought as a cod; and by some long-tested mixture of instinct and experience, moved the Weâre Here from berth to berth, always with the fish, as a blindfolded chess-player moves on the unseen board.
But Diskoâs board was the Grand Bankâa triangle two hundred and fifty miles on each sideâa waste of wallowing sea, cloaked with dank fog, vexed with gales, harried with drifting ice, scored by the tracks of the reckless liners, and dotted with the sails of the fishing-fleet.
For days they worked in fogâHarvey at the bellâtill, grown familiar with the thick airs, he went out with Tom Platt, his heart rather in his mouth. But the fog would not lift, and the fish were biting, and no one can stay helplessly afraid for six hours at a time. Harvey devoted himself to his lines and the gaff or gob-stick as Tom Platt called for them; and they rowed back to the schooner guided by the bell and Tomâs instinct; Manuelâs conch sounding thin and faint beside them. But it was an unearthly experience, and, for the first time in a month, Harvey dreamed of the shifting, smoking floors of water round the dory, the lines that strayed away into nothing, and the air above that melted on the sea below ten feet from his straining eyes. A few days later he was out with Manuel on what should have been forty-fathom bottom, but the whole length of the roding ran out, and still the anchor found nothing, and Harvey grew mortally afraid, for that his last touch with earth was lost. âWhale-hole,â said Manuel, hauling in. âThat is good joke on Disko. Come!â and he rowed to the schooner to find Tom Platt and the others jeering at the skipper because, for once, he had led them to the edge of the barren Whale-deep, the blank hole of the Grand Bank. They made another berth through the fog, and that time the hair of Harveyâs head stood up when he went out in Manuelâs dory. A whiteness moved in the whiteness of the fog with a breath like the breath of the grave, and there was a roaring, a plunging, and spouting. It was his first introduction to the dread summer berg of the Banks, and he cowered in the bottom of the boat while Manuel laughed. There were days, though, clear and soft and warm, when it seemed a sin to do anything but loaf over the handlines and spank the drifting âsun-scaldsâ with an oar; and there were days of light airs, when Harvey was taught how to steer the schooner from one berth to another.
It thrilled through him when he first felt the keel answer to his band on the spokes and slide over the long hollows as the foresail scythed back and forth against the blue sky. That was magnificent, in spite of Disko saying that it would break a snakeâs back to follow his wake. But, as usual, pride ran before a fall. They were sailing on the wind with the staysailâan old one, luckilyâset, and Harvey jammed her right into it to show Dan how completely he had mastered the art. The foresail went over with a bang, and the foregaff stabbed and ripped through the staysail, which was, of course, prevented from going over by the mainstay. They lowered the wreck in awful silence, and Harvey spent his leisure hours for the next few days under Tom Plattâs lee, learning to use a needle and palm. Dan hooted with joy, for, as he said, he had made the very same blunder himself in his early days.
Boylike, Harvey imitated all the men by turns, till he had combined Diskoâs peculiar stoop at the wheel, Long Jackâs swinging overhand when the lines were hauled, Manuelâs round-shouldered but effective stroke in a dory, and Tom Plattâs generous Ohio stride along the deck.
ââTis beautiful to see how he takes to ut,â said Long Jack, when Harvey was looking out by the windlass one thick noon. âIâll lay my wage anâ share âtis moreân half play-actinâ to him, anâ he consates himself heâs a bowld mariner. Watch his little bit av a back now!â
âThatâs the way we all begin,â said Tom Platt. âThe boys they make believe all the time till theyâve cheated âemselves into beinâ men, anâ so till they dieâpretendinâ anâ pretendinâ. I done it on the old Ohio, I know. Stood my first watchâharbor-watchâfeelinâ finerân Farragut. Danâs full oâ the same kind oâ notions. See âem now, actinâ to be genewine moss-backsâvery hair a rope-yarn anâ blood Stockholm tar.â He spoke down the cabin stairs. âGuess youâre mistook in your judgments fer once, Disko. What in Rome made ye tell us all here the kid was crazy?â
âHe wuz,â Disko replied. âCrazy ez a loon when he come aboard; but Iâll say heâs sobered up considâble sence. I cured him.â
âHe yarns good,â said Tom Platt. âTâother night he told us abaout a kid of his own size steerinâ a cunninâ little rig anâ four ponies up anâ down Toledo, Ohio, I think âtwas, anâ givinâ suppers to a crowd oâ simâlar kids. Curâus kind oâ fairy-tale, but blame interestinâ. He knows scores of âem.â
âGuess he strikes âem outen his own head,â Disko called from the cabin, where he was busy with the logbook. âStands to reason that sort is all made up. It donât take in no one but Dan, anâ he laughs at it. Iâve heard him, behind my back.â
âYever hear what Simâon Peter Caâhoun said when they whacked up a match âtwixâ his sister Hitty anâ Lorinâ Jerauld, anâ the boys put up that joke on him daown to Georges?â drawled Uncle Salters, who was dripping peaceably under the lee of the starboard dory-nest.
Tom Platt puffed at his pipe in scornful silence: he was a Cape Cod man, and had not known that tale more than twenty years. Uncle Salters went on with a rasping chuckie:
âSimâon Peter Caâhoun he said, anâ he was jest right, abaout Lorinâ, âHaâaf on the taown,â he said, âanâ tâother haâaf blame fool; anâ they told me sheâs married a âich man.â Simâon Peter Caâhoun he hednât no roof to his mouth, anâ talked that way.â
âHe didnât talk any Pennsylvania Dutch,â Tom Platt replied. âYouâd better leave a Cape man to tell that tale. The Caâhouns was gypsies frum âway back.â
âWal, I donât profess to be any elocutionist,â Salters said. âIâm cominâ to the moral oâ things. Thatâs jest abaout what aour Harve be! Haâaf on the taown, anâ tâother haâaf blame fool; anâ thereâs someâll believe heâs a rich man. Yah!â
âDid ye ever think how sweet âtwould be to sail wid a full crew oâ Salterses?â said Long Jack. âHaâaf in the furrer anâ other haâaf in the muck-heap, as Caâhoun did not say, anâ makes out heâs a fisherman!â
A little laugh went round at Saltersâs expense.
Disko held his tongue, and wrought over the logbook that he kept in a hatchet-faced, square hand; this was the kind of thing that ran on, page after soiled page:
âJuly 17. This day thick fog and few fish. Made berth to northward. So ends this day.
âJuly 18. This day comes in with thick fog. Caught a few fish.
âJuly 19. This day comes in with light breeze from N.E. and fine weather. Made a berth to eastward. Caught plenty fish.
âJuly 20. This, the Sabbath, comes in with fog and light winds. So ends this day. Total fish caught this week, 3,478.â
They never worked on Sundays, but shaved, and washed themselves if it were fine, and Pennsylvania sang hymns. Once or twice he suggested that, if ft was not an impertinence, he thought he could preach a little. Uncle Salters nearly jumped down his throat at the mere notion, reminding him that he was not a preacher and mustnât think of such things. âWeâd hev him rememberinâ Johnstown next,â Salters explained, âanâ what would happen then?â so they compromised on his reading aloud from a book called âJosephus.â It was an old leather-bound volume, smelling of a hundred voyages, very solid and very like the Bible, but enlivened with accounts of battles and sieges; and they read it nearly from cover to cover. Otherwise Penn was a silent little body. He would not utter a word for three days on end sometimes, though he played checkers, listened to the songs, and laughed at the stories. When they tried to stir him up, he would answer: âI donât wish to seem unneighbourly, but it is because I have nothing
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