Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling (e manga reader .txt) đ
- Author: Rudyard Kipling
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âHarmon Rush he said that was the way to rise âem. Plain United States is good enough fer me. Weâre all dretful short on tearakker. Young feller, donât you speak French?â
âOh, yes,â said Harvey valiantly; and he bawled: âHi! Say! Arretez vous! Attendez! Nous sommes venant pour tabac.â
âAh, tabac, tabac!â they cried, and laughed again.
âThat hit âem. Letâs heave a dory over, anyway,â said Tom Platt. âI donât exactly hold no certificates on French, but I know another lingo that goes, I guess. Come on, Harve, anâ interpret.â
The raffle and confusion when he and Harvey were hauled up the barkâs black side was indescribable. Her cabin was all stuck round with glaring coloured prints of the Virginâthe Virgin of Newfoundland, they called her. Harvey found his French of no recognized Bank brand, and his conversation was limited to nods and grins. But Tom Platt waved his arms and got along swimmingly. The captain gave him a drink of unspeakable gin, and the opera-comique crew, with their hairy throats, red caps, and long knives, greeted him as a brother. Then the trade began. They had tobacco, plenty of itâAmerican, that had never paid duty to France. They wanted chocolate and crackers. Harvey rowed back to arrange with the cook and Disko, who owned the stores, and on his return the cocoa-tins and cracker-bags were counted out by the Frenchmanâs wheel. It looked like a piratical division of loot; but Tom Platt came out of it roped with black pigtail and stuffed with cakes of chewing and smoking tobacco. Then those jovial mariners swung off into the mist, and the last Harvey heard was a gay chorus:
âPar derriere chez ma tante, ilây a un bois joli, Et le rossignol y chante Et le jour et la nuitâŠ.
Que donneriez vous, belle, Qui lâarnenerait ici? Je donnerai Quebec, Sorel et Saint Denis.â
âHow was it my French didnât go, and your sign-talk did?â Harvey demanded when the barter had been distributed among the Weâre Heres.
âSign-talk!â Platt guffawed. âWell, yes, âtwas sign-talk, but a heap olderân your French, Harve. Them French boats are chockfull oâ Freemasons, anâ thatâs why.â
âAre you a Freemason, then?â
âLooks that way, donât it?â said the man-oâ-warâs man, stuffing his pipe; and Harvey had another mystery of the deep sea to brood upon.
The thing that struck him most was the exceedingly casual way in which some craft loafed about the broad Atlantic. Fishing-boats, as Dan said, were naturally dependent on the courtesy and wisdom of their neighbours; but one expected better things of steamers. That was after another interesting interview, when they had been chased for three miles by a big lumbering old cattle-boat, all boarded over on the upper deck, that smelt like a thousand cattle-pens. A very excited officer yelled at them through a speaking-trumpet, and she lay and lollopped helplessly on the water while Disko ran the âWeâre Hereâ under her lee and gave the skipper a piece of his mind. âWhere might ye beâeh? Ye donât deserve to be anywheres. You barn-yard tramps go hogginâ the road on the high seas with no blame consideration fer your neighbours, anâ your eyes in your coffee-cups instid oâ in your silly heads.â
At this the skipper danced on the bridge and said something about Diskoâs own eyes. âWe havenât had an observation for three days. Dâyou suppose we can run her blind?â he shouted.
âWa-al, I can,â Disko retorted. âWhatâs come to your lead? Et it? Canât ye smell bottom, or are them cattle too rank?â
âWhat dâ ye feed âem?â said Uncle Salters with intense seriousness, for the smell of the pens woke all the farmer in him. âThey say they fall off dretful on a vâyage. Dunno as itâs any oâ my business, but Iâve a kind oâ notion that oil-cake broke small anâ sprinkledââ
âThunder!â said a cattle-man in a red jersey as he looked over the side. âWhat asylum did they let His Whiskers out of?â
âYoung feller,â Salters began, standing up in the fore-rigging, âlet me tell yeou âfore we go any further that Iâveââ
The officer on the bridge took off his cap with immense politeness. âExcuse me,â he said, âbut Iâve asked for my reckoning. If the agricultural person with the hair will kindly shut his head, the sea-green barnacle âwith the wall-eye may perhaps condescend to enlighten us.â
âNaow youâve made a show oâ me, Salters,â said Disko, angrily. He could not stand up to that particular sort of talk, and snapped out the latitude and longitude without more lectures.
âWell, thatâs a boat-load of lunatics, sure,â said the skipper, as he rang up the engine-room and tossed a bundle of newspapers into the schooner.
âOf all the blamed fools, next to you, Salters, him anâ his crowd are abaout the likeliest Iâve ever seen,â said Disko as the âWeâre Hereâ slid away. âI was jest givinâ him my jedgment on lullsikinâ round these waters like a lost child, anâ you must cut in with your fool farminâ. Canât ye never keep things sepârate?â
Harvey, Dan, and the others stood back, winking one to the other and full of joy; but Disko and Salters wrangled seriously till evening, Salters arguing that a cattle-boat was practically a barn on blue water, and Disko insisting that, even if this were the case, decency and fisher-pride demanded that he should have kept âthings sepârate.â Long Jack stood it in silence for a time,âan angry skipper makes an unhappy crew,âand then he spoke across the table after supper:
âFwhatâs the good oâ bodderinâ fwhat theyâll say?â said he.
âTheyâll tell that tale agin us fer yearsâthatâs all,â said Disko. âOil-cake sprinkled!â
âWith salt, oâ course,â said Salters, Impenitent, reading the farming reports from a week-old New York paper.
âItâs plumb mortifyinâ to all my feelinâs,â the skipper went on.
âCanât see ut that way,â said Long Jack, the peacemaker âLook at here, Disko! Is there another packet afloat this day in this weather cud haâ met a tramp anâ over anâ above givinâ her her reckoninâ, âover anâ above that, I say,âcud haâ discoorsed wid her quite intelligent on the management av steers anâ such at sea? Forgit ut! Av coorse they will not. âTwas the most compenjus conversation that iver accrued. Double game anâ twice runninââall to us.â Dan kicked Harvey under the table, and Harvey choked in his cup.
âWell,â said Salters, who felt that his honour had been somewhat plastered, âI said I didnât know as âtwuz any business oâ mine, âfore I spoke.â
âAnâ right there,â said Tom Platt, experienced in discipline and etiquetteââright there, I take it, Disko, you should haâ asked him to stop ef the conversation wuz likely, in your jedgment, to be anywaysâwhat it shouldnât.â
âDunno but thatâs so,â said Disko, who saw his way to an honourable retreat from a fit of the dignities.
âWhy, oâ course it was so,â said Salters, âyou beinâ skipper here; anâ Iâd cheerful hev stopped on a hintânot from any leadinâ or conviction, but fer the sake oâ bearinâ an example to these two blame boys of aours.â
âDidnât I tell you, Harve, âtwould come araound to us âfore weâd done? Always those blame boys. But I wouldnât have missed the show fer a half-share in a halibutter,â Dan whispered.
âStill, things should haâ been kepâ sepârate,â said Disko, and the light of new argument lit in Saltersâs eye as he crumbled cut plug into his pipe.
âThereâs a power av vartue in keepinâ things sepârate,â said Long Jack, intent on stilling the storm. âThatâs fwhat Steyning of Steyning and Hareâs fâund when he sent Counahan fer skipper on the Manila D. Kuhn, instid oâ Cap. Newton that was took with inflamâtry rheumatism anâ couldnât go. Counahan the Navigator we called him.â
âNick Counahan he never went aboard fer a night âthout a pond oâ rum somewheres in the manifest,â said Tom Platt, playing up to the lead. âHe used to bum araound the câmission houses to Boston lookinâ fer the Lord to make him captain of a tow-boat on his merits. Sam Coy, up to Atlantic Avenoo, give him his board free fer a year or more on account of his stories.
âCounahan the Navigator! Tck! Tck! Dead these fifteen year, ainât he?â
âSeventeen, I guess. He died the year the Caspar McVeagh was built; but he could niver keep things sepârate. Steyning tuk him fer the reason the thief tuk the hot stoveâbekaze there was nothinâ else that season. The men was all to the Banks, and Counahan he whacked up an iverlastinâ hard crowd fer crew. Rum! Ye cud haâ floated the Manila, insurance anâ all, in fwhat they stowed aboard her. They lefâ Boston Harbour for the great Grand Bank wid a roarinâ norâwester behind âem anâ all hands full to the bung. Anâ the hivens looked after thim, for divil a watch did they set, anâ divil a rope did they lay hand to, till theyâd seen the bottom av a fifteen-gallon cask oâ bug-juice. That was about wan week, so far as Counahan remembered. (If I cud only tell the tale as he told ut!) All that whoile the wind blew like ould glory, anâ the Marillaââtwas summer, and theyâd give her a foretopmastâstruck her gait and kept ut. Then Counahan tuk the hog-yoke anâ thrembled over it for a whoile, anâ made out, betwixâ that anâ the chart anâ the singinâ in his head, that they was to the southâard oâ Sable Island, gettinâ along glorious, but speakinâ nothinâ. Then they broached another keg, anâ quit speculatinâ about anythinâ fer another spell. The Marilla she lay down whin she dropped Boston Light, and she never lufted her lee-rail up to that timeâhustlinâ on one anâ the same slant. But they saw no weed, nor gulls, nor schooners; anâ prisintly they obsarved theyâd bin out a matter oâ fourteen days and they mistrusted the Bank has suspinded payment. So they sounded, anâ got sixty fathom. âThatâs me,â sez Counahan. âThatâs me ivâry time! Iâve run her slat on the Bank fer you, anâ when we get thirty fathom weâll turn in like little men. Counahan is the bây,â sez he. âCounahan the Navigator!â
âNexâ cast they got ninety. Sez Counahan: âEither the lead-lineâs tuk to stretchinâ or else the Bankâs sunk.â
âThey hauled ut up, beinâ just about in that state when ut seemed right anâ reasonable, and sat down on the deck countinâ the knots, anâ gettinâ her snarled up hijjus. The Marilla sheâd struck her gait, anâ she hild ut, anâ prisintly along came a tramp, anâ Counahan spoke her.
ââHev ye seen any fishinâ-boats now?â sez he, quite casual.
ââThereâs lashinâs av them off the Irish coast,â sez the tramp.
ââAah! go shake yerseif,â sez Counahan. âFwhat have I to do wid the Irish coast?â
ââThen fwhat are ye doinâ here?â sez the tramp.
ââSufferinâ Christianity!â sez Counahan (he always said that whin his pumps sucked anâ he was not feelinâ good)ââSufferinâ Christianity!â he sez, âwhere am I at?â
ââThirty-five mile west-souâwest oâ Cape Clear,â sez the tramp, âif thatâs any consolation to you.â
âCounahan fetched wan jump, four feet sivin inches, measured by the cook.
ââConsolation!â sez he, bould as brass. âDâye take me fer a dialect? Thirty-five mile from Cape Clear, anâ fourteen days from Boston Light. Sufferinâ Christianity, âtis a record, anâ by the same token Iâve a mother to Skibbereen!â Think av ut! The gall av um! But ye see he could niver keep things sepârate.
âThe crew was mostly Cork anâ Kerry men, barrinâ one Marylander that wanted to go back, but they called him a mutineer, anâ they ran the ould Marilla into Skibbereen, anâ they had an illigant time visitinâ around with
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