Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling (e manga reader .txt) đ
- Author: Rudyard Kipling
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âHainât your folk gone yet?â he grunted. âWhat are you doinâ here, young feller?â
âO ye Seas and Floods, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever!â
âHainât he good right?â said Dan. âHeâs bin there, same as the rest of us.â
âNot in them clothes,â Salters snarled.
âShut your head, Salters,â said Disko. âYour bileâs gone back on you. Stay right where ye are, Harve.â
Then up and spoke the orator of the occasion, another pillar of the municipality, bidding the world welcome to Gloucester, and incidentally pointing out wherein Gloucester excelled the rest of the world. Then he turned to the sea-wealth of the city, and spoke of the price that must be paid for the yearly harvest. They would hear later the names of their lost dead one hundred and seventeen of them. (The widows stared a little, and looked at one another here.) Gloucester could not boast any overwhelming mills or factories. Her sons worked for such wage as the sea gave; and they all knew that neither Georges nor the Banks were cow-pastures. The utmost that folk ashore could accomplish was to help the widows and the orphans, and after a few general remarks he took this opportunity of thanking, in the name of the city, those who had so public-spiritedly consented to participate in the exercises of the occasion.
âI jest despise the begginâ pieces in it,â growled Disko. âIt donât give folk a fair notion of us.â
âEf folk wonât be fore-handed anâ put by when theyâve the chance,â returned Salters, âit stands in the nature oâ things they hev to be âshamed. You take warninâ by that, young feller. Riches endureth but for a season, ef you scatter them araound on lugsuriesâ
âBut to lose everything, everything,â said Penn. âWhat can you do then? Once Iââthe watery blue eyes stared up and down as if looking for something to steady themââonce I readâin a book, I thinkâof a boat where every one was run downâexcept some oneâand he said to meââ
âShucks!â said Salters, cutting in. âYou read a little less anâ take more intârust in your vittles, and youâll come nearer earninâ your keep, Penn.â
Harvey, jammed among the fishermen, felt a creepy, crawly, tingling thrill that began in the back of his neck and ended at his boots. He was cold, too, though it was a stifling day.
âThat the actress from Philadelphia?â said Disko Troop, scowling at the platform. âYouâve fixed it about old man Ireson, hainât ye, Harve? Ye know why naow.â
It was not âIresonâs Rideâ that the woman delivered, but some sort of poem about a fishing-port called Brixham and a fleet of trawlers beating in against storm by night, while the women made a guiding fire at the head of the quay with everything they could lay hands on.
âThey took the grandmaâs blanket, Who shivered and bade them go; They took the babyâs cradle, Who could not say them no.â
âWhew!â said Dan, peering over Long Jackâs shoulder. âThatâs great! Must haâ bin expensive, though.â
âGround-hog case,â said the Galway man. âBadly lighted port, Danny.â
âAnd knew not all the while If they were lighting a bonfire Or only a funeral pile.â
The wonderful voice took hold of people by their heartstrings; and when she told how the drenched crews were flung ashore, living and dead, and they carried the bodies to the glare of the fires, asking: âChild, is this your father?â or âWife, is this your man?â you could hear hard breathing all over the benches.
âAnd when the boats of Brixham Go out to face the gales, Think of the love that travels Like light upon their sails!â
There was very little applause when she finished. The women were looking for their handkerchiefs, and many of the men stared at the ceiling with shiny eyes.
âHâm,â said Salters; âthat âuâd cost ye a dollar to hear at any theatreâmaybe two. Some folk, I presoom, can afford it. âSeems downright waste to me⊠. Naow, how in Jerusalem did Cap. Bart Edwardes strike adrift here?â
âNo keepinâ him under,â said an Eastport man behind. âHeâs a poet, anâ heâs baound to say his piece. âComes from daown aour way, too.â
He did not say that Captain B. Edwardes had striven for five consecutive years to be allowed to recite a piece of his own composition on Gloucester Memorial Day. An amused and exhausted committee had at last given him his desire. The simplicity and utter happiness of the old man, as he stood up in his very best Sunday clothes, won the audience ere he opened his mouth. They sat unmurmuring through seven-and-thirty hatchet-made verses describing at fullest length the loss of the schooner Joan Hasken off the Georges in the gale of 1867, and when he came to an end they shouted with one kindly throat.
A far-sighted Boston reporter slid away for a full copy of the epic and an interview with the author; so that earth had nothing more to offer Captain Bart Edwardes, ex-whaler, shipwright, master-fisherman, and poet, in the seventy-third year of his age.
âNaow, I call that sensible,â said the Eastport man. âIâve bin over that graound with his writinâ, jest as he read it, in my two hands, and I can testily that heâs got it all in.â
âIf Dan here couldnât do betterân that with one hand before breakfast, he ought to be switched,â said Salters, upholding the honor of Massachusetts on general principles. âNot but what Iâm free to own heâs considerable littâeryâfer Maine. Stillââ
âGuess Uncle Saltersâs goinâ to die this trip. Fust compliment heâs ever paid me,â Dan sniggered. âWhatâs wrong with you, Harve? You act all quiet and you look greenish. Feelinâ sick?â
âDonât know whatâs the matter with me,â Harvey implied. âSeems if my insides were too big for my outsides. Iâm all crowded up and shivery.â
âDispepsy? Pshawâtoo bad. Weâll wait for the readinâ, anâ then weâll quit, anâ catch the tide.â
The widowsâthey were nearly all of that seasonâs makingâbraced themselves rigidly like people going to be shot in cold blood, for they knew what was coming. The summer-boarder girls in pink and blue shirt-waists stopped tittering over Captain Edwardesâs wonderful poem, and looked back to see why all was silent. The fishermen pressed forward as that town official who had talked to Cheyne bobbed up on the platform and began to read the yearâs list of losses, dividing them into months. Last Septemberâs casualties were mostly single men and strangers, but his voice rang very loud in the stillness of the hall.
âSeptember 9th. Schooner Florrie Anderson lost, with all aboard, off the Georges.
âReuben Pitman, master, 50, single, Main Street, City.
âEmil Olsen, 19, single, 329 Hammond Street, City. Denmark.
âOscar Standberg, single, 25. Sweden.
âCarl Stanberg, single, 28, Main Street. City.
âPedro, supposed Madeira, single, Keeneâs boardinghouse. City.
âJoseph Welsh, alias Joseph Wright, 30, St. Johnâs, Newfoundland.â
âNoâAugusty, Maine,â a voice cried from the body of the hall.
âHe shipped from St. Johnâs,â said the reader, looking to see.
âI know it. He belongs in Augusty. My nevvy.â
The reader made a pencilled correction on the margin of the list, and resumed.
âSame schooner, Charlie Ritchie, Liverpool, Nova Scotia, 33, single.
âAlbert May, 267 Rogers Street, City, 27, single.
âSeptember 27th. âOrvin Dollard, 30, married, drowned in dory off Eastern Point.â
That shot went home, for one of the widows flinched where she sat, clasping and unclasping her hands. Mrs. Cheyne, who had been listening with wide-opened eyes, threw up her head and choked. Danâs mother, a few seats to the right, saw and heard and quickly moved to her side. The reading went on. By the time they reached the January and February wrecks the shots were falling thick and fast, and the widows drew breath between their teeth.
âFebruary 14th. âSchooner Harry Randolph dismasted on the way home from Newfoundland; Asa Musie, married, 32, Main Street, City, lost overboard.
âFebruary 23d. âSchooner Gilbert Hope; went astray in dory, Robert Beavon, 29, married, native of Pubnico, Nova Scotia.â
But his wife was in the hall. They heard a low cry, as though a little animal had been hit. It was stifled at once, and a girl staggered out of the hall. She had been hoping against hope for months, because some who have gone adrift in dories have been miraculously picked up by deep-sea sailing-ships. Now she had her certainty, and Harvey could see the policeman on the sidewalk hailing a hack for her. âItâs fifty cents to the depotââthe driver began, but the policeman held up his handââbut Iâm goinâ there anyway. Jump right in. Look at here, Al; you donât pull me next time my lamps ainât lit. See?â
The side-door closed on the patch of bright sunshine, and Harveyâs eyes turned again to the reader and his endless list.
âApril 19th. âSchooner Mamie Douglas lost on the Banks with all hands.
âEdward Canton, 43, master, married, City.
âD. Hawkins, alias Williams, 34, married, Shelbourne, Nova Scotia.
âG. W. Clay, coloured, 28, married, City.â
And so on, and so on. Great lumps were rising in Harveyâs throat, and his stomach reminded him of the day when he fell from the liner.
âMay 10th. âSchooner âWeâre Hereâ [the blood tingled all over him] Otto Svendson, 20, single, City, lost overboard.â
Once more a low, tearing cry from somewhere at the back of the hall.
âShe shouldnât haâ come. She shouldnât haâ come,â said Long Jack, with a cluck of pity.
âDonât scrowge, Harve,â grunted Dan. Harvey heard that much, but the rest was all darkness spotted with fiery wheels. Disko leaned forward and spoke to his wife, where she sat with one arm round Mrs. Cheyne, and the other holding down the snatching, catching, ringed hands.
âLean your head daownâright daown!â he whispered. âItâll go off in a minute.â
âI ca-anât! I do-donât! Oh, let meââ Mrs. Cheyne did not at all know what she said.
âYou must,â Mrs. Troop repeated. âYour boyâs jest fainted dead away. They do that some when theyâre gettinâ their growth. âWish to tend to him? We can git aout this side. Quite quiet. You come right along with me. Pshaâ, my dear, weâre both women, I guess. We must tend to aour menfolk. Come!â
The âWeâre Heresâ promptly went through the crowd as a body-guard, and it was a very white and shaken Harvey that they propped up on a bench in an anteroom.
âFavours his ma,â was Mrs. Troopâs ouly comment, as the mother bent over her boy.
âHow dâyou suppose he could ever stand it?â she cried indignantly to Cheyne, who had said nothing at all. âIt was horribleâhorrible! We shouldnât have come. Itâs wrong and wicked! Itâit isnât right! Whyâwhy couldnât they put these things in the papers, where they belong? Are you better, darling?â
That made Harvey very properly ashamed. âOh, Iâm all right, I guess,â he said, struggling to his feet, with a broken giggle. âMust haâ been something I ate for breakfast.â
âCoffee, perhaps,â said Cheyne, whose face was all in hard lines, as though it had been cut out of bronze. âWe wonât go back again.â
âGuess âtwould be âbaoutâs well to git daown to the wharf,â said Disko. âItâs close in along with them Dagoes, anâ the fresh air will fresh Mrs. Cheyne up.â
Harvey announced that he never felt better in his life; but it was not till he saw the âWeâre Hereâ, fresh from the lumperâs hands, at Wouvermanâs wharf, that he lost his all-overish feelings in a queer mixture of pride and sorrowfulness. Other peopleâsummer boarders and such-likeâplayed about in cat-boats or looked at the sea from
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