Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 by Various

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As we gave way on our oars, we shot along the inlet without much
difficulty; and presently old Bill announced that, he caught a faint
sight of the wreck in the distance--to all appearance 'most all gone but
the hull.' But we had little or no opportunity to indulge in speculation
or remark on the discovery, for in a moment or two we began to oppose
the wildness of the open main, and the hour of our real trial set in.
For the first time we could now appreciate the full force of the gale.
Good Heavens, how it blew! The waters seemed alive and in direst
convulsion. Everywhere huge walls of breakers were constantly upheaved
to be felled and shattered with a roar as of some terrific cannonade;
while the air became the arena for a helter-skelter tossing of sheets of
spray, clots of froth, and spirts of brine, which plentifully assailed
our poor boat in their madness, and, besides partially filling her with
slush, encased every man in a complete coating of ice. If our craft had
not been modeled with the very highest degree of skill, and if our
steersman had not been one of a thousand, we could have made no headway
at all in this appalling tumult. As it was, our advance was of the
weakest, and its success seemed very doubtful, let our efforts be what
they might. Not but what we could sufficiently hold our own in the swirl
of the vanquished waves; but when they swooped upon us in their full
stature, they not only sent the boat back as if she had been a mere
feather, but with a second's awkwardness on the part of old Bill they
would have flung her clean over from stem to stern, and our places among
the living would have been vacant. Having strained every nerve for
nearly two hours, we were still but part way through the breakers, while
some of the men began to complain of fatigue; with which old Bill seized
a favorable opportunity to put the boat about, and we were swept ashore
on the beach as in the twinkling of an eye. Here, we secured our boat by
hauling her high and dry on the strand; freed her from the slush and
water which had gained in her bottom; and then retired to the leeward of
a range of sand hills near by, to recruit our energies.

With full leisure to ponder over the difficulties confronting our
expedition, some few of the crew now began to 'speak it foully,' and
even to emit gruff proposals to return homewards. But to these waverers
old Bill at once administered the sternest rebuke; and, as they at last
held their peace, he averred with a gay smile (for he dearly loved the
presence of danger, and could never be brought to look on it other than
as a rough sort of irresponsible horse-play, over which he was sure in
one way or another to gain the mastery), that he had now weighed all the
conditions of the pass, and that the next time we attempted it we should
assuredly prevail. This assertion, coming from such a source, encouraged
one and all very greatly; and ere long we cheerfully launched our boat
once more, and again began to tug at the quivering oars. In a very
little while it became apparent enough that the tactics that Bill
intended to adopt in our present venture were very different from those
put in practice with the last. Instead of boldly facing the breakers as
he had heretofore done, he now began his maneuvering by laying us
directly in the trough of the sea,--planting the boat a little
crosswise, however, so as to prevent an untoward swell from riding over
her side and thus filling her,--and the instant he saw an advancing
breaker beginning to fracture, as a prelude to its downfall and
destruction, he boldly sped us, when the thing was at all practicable,
straight in the teeth of the gap, and as it proceeded to widen, we shot
through it, with the surf leaping and tossing on either hand high above
our heads. This stroke could have been possible only to a steersman
possessed of herculean strength, combined with the rarest daring and
coolness; and, as the result of these qualities, it was exceedingly
effective. It lessened the danger of our being capsized almost entirely.
Indeed, the sole mishap that was threatened by so doing, was the
liability to being swamped by the falling fragments of the breakers;
but this peril old Bill declared we might safely trust he would also
avert. It being the nature of humanity to experience a mood of high
exaltation with the surmounting of any serious obstacle, we now worked
our way with minds light and cheery, and with all thoughts of anything
like fatigue completely forgotten. Though our course was on the whole a
zigzag one, and though we certainly met with one or two serious rebuffs,
we were constantly gaining headway, and in something over an hour forced
the last line of the breakers, and stemmed what on ordinary occasions
would have been simply the blue body of the Atlantic. But even here a
huge commotion was reigning, though our progress was far less tedious
than it had previously been; and with about another hour's labor we were
alongside the wreck, and had climbed to her deck.

The plight of the vessel was mournful enough. She had evidently been
built for a three-masted schooner, but, as Bill had observed when he
first obtained a view of her, everything about her was well-nigh gone
save her hull. Her bulwarks had been thoroughly crushed, and so the sea
had successively torn away her boats, shivered her galley and
wheelhouse, and filled her cabin and hold. Her masts were also
destroyed, the fore and mizzen masts being carried away from their
steppings, and the main-mast broken completely in twain just above the
cross-trees. But a sight still more desolate, as well as harrowing, yet
awaited us, as, in overhauling the sail-encumbered shrouds of the
partially standing mast, we discovered several ice-bound figures rigidly
hanging therein, which, being cut away and lowered to our boat, proved
to be the body of a negro perfectly stark and dead, and three most
pitiable white sailors, whose life was so far extinguished that they
could neither move hand nor foot, nor utter more than the feeblest
moans.

When we had covered the face of the dead and sheltered the well-nigh
dead as best we could in the bottom of our boat, of course our chief
thought was to return to the shore as swiftly as possible. But on this
head there was no call to entertain the smallest solicitude; for after
old Bill, from a motive that we could not yet name, had 'stepped' a mast
through one of the foremost thwarts of the boat, and rigged a sail all
ready to be spread, we cast off from the wreck, and presently, dropping
into the full strength of the wind, were swept onward like an arrow,
with scarce the least use of any other oar than that in the hands of our
stalwart steersman. Speedily crossing the outer waters, we leaped and
bounded over the breakers; and when old Bill, as we were rushing along
the inlet, gave orders for the hoisting of the sail, we not only
hastened to obey him, but immediately saw an all-important reason for
the command. For we were now about entering the ice of the sounds; and
as the boat flew in its midst, her stiff, tight sail drove her through
the stubborn obstruction as easily and in much the same manner as the
steam plow rips up the matted bosom of the prairies. In due season we
reached the landing where we usually disembarked from the sounds, and
where we found a wagon awaiting us, to which we bore our sad freightage,
and led the way for old Bill's house. On arriving, we laid the corpse in
an outbuilding and carried the sailors into a bedroom. But what was to
be next done? To tell the truth, most of us knew no more than so many
children. But here our leader again showed his knowledge. Strongly
condemning the lighting of a fire in the apartment,--which some one was
about to do,--he set us busily at work bringing him a good supply of
tubs, and buckets of cold water, into which he dipped the naked persons
of the sufferers; and as this treatment, combined with a patient, gentle
chafing, which was also administered, at last restored the flow of their
vital forces, he gave them a few spoonfuls of broth apiece, and, while
they looked a gratefulness they could nowise express, lifted them like
babes with his giant arms to warm beds, where they fell into what was
at first a fitful, broken slumber, but finally a childlike, placid
sleep. They were saved!

If the reader is now curious to know why a man like old Bill was not a
patrician and captain in the campaign of life, rather than the mere
private and plebeian he was, I can answer that there were several things
which impeded that consummation. His character, though of wonderful
height and force in some respects, was, after all, without true
discipline, and presented many glaring incongruities. Thus, whatever he
had of what could really be named ambition was satisfied when he had
surprised us 'soundsers;' and our praise--and we lavished it upon him in
full measure, as we knew he liked it--was all the praise he seemed to
desire. Then, he was altogether one of us in his notions of pleasure and
recreation. Like the rest of us, he cordially appreciated the sparkling
product of the New England distilleries, and far more than any of us--to
such a pitch did his animal spirits rule--he relished our broad sea-side
jokes and songs, and as well our rattling jigs and hornpipes. As for
others attempting to elevate him to a more exalted station, the thing
was simply impossible. When led of his own accord to seek other society
than ours, he could by no means content himself with the companionship
of staid practical persons, who on account of his latent worth would
have readily countenanced, and with the least opportunity even served
him, but he invariably paid his court to adventurers; such creatures,
for instance, as seedy 'professors' of one kind or another, who, in the
inevitable shawl and threadbare suit of black, were constantly
dismounting at the village tavern, with proposals either to 'lecture' on
something, or 'teach' somewhat, as the case might happen to be, and who,
having no affinity whatever with the brawny, awkward Viking who fondly
hung on their shabby-genteel skirts, amused themselves at his greenness,
or pooh-pooh'd him altogether, as they saw fit. And when, as it not
unfrequently happened, official and influential individuals at a
distance were moved by the story of his renown to pay him their respects
in person, and listen courteously and gravely to his opinions, his
discrimination stood him in no better stead, for as soon as he possibly
could he bent the conference towards a sailor's revel, and astonished
his stately visitants by singing the spiciest songs, and sometimes even
by a Terpsichorean display in full costume; for he was excessively proud
of his accomplishments in this line, and implicitly believed that the
shaking of his elephantine limbs, and the whirling of his broad,
coatless flanks, formed a spectacle so tasteful and entertaining, that
no one could fail to enjoy it to the utmost. Assuredly I have now said
enough as to old Bill's incapacities for a grander role in life. In
reality that part of a lofty manhood to which he at first sight seemed
fitted, was not his; for, properly speaking, he was not an actual man,
but a boy--a grand and glorious boy, if you will, but yet a very boy;
and at length he met the fate of a boy, as we shall learn.

Once more we were engaged upon a wreck. But this time it was in no
hyperborean tempest that we were called forth, but when the very
sweetest airs of June were blowing. The case demanding our aid was that
of a wrecking schooner which had gaily left her moorings in New York
harbor to pick up a summer's living along the coast, but had
inadvertently cut up some of her capers rather too near our beach, and
so with one fine ebb tide found herself stranded. As it was an instance
of sickness in the regularly graduated and scientific college itself,
our whole shore was intensely 'tickled' at the accident. And again, as
this doctress, like many another ailing leech, was quite incapable of
curing her own suffering, her toddy-blossom-faced bully of a New York
captain was pleased to salute old Bill with cup high in air, and beg
that he would take a sufficient force and heave the distressed craft
into deep water. Thus a crew of us were called together and set to work
at the vessel. As the weather was so warm and beautiful, and as bed and
board were at this time to be had on the beach, we agreed among us that
our convenience would be the better served by taking up our temporary
quarters near the scene of our labors. Now, the place where we were
offered the necessary accommodation consisted of an ancient plank-built
tenement, which stood behind a sand-ridge that a far younger Atlantic
than ours had piled up, and then, retreating, abandoned. In winter this
rude domicile was bare and tenantless; but in the summer months it was
usually occupied by some thriftless gammer or gaffer from the main-land,
who, having stocked it with a few of the coarsest household goods, and
whatever provisions came to hand, offered entertainment to such wreckers
and 'soundsers' as happened to be in its vicinity. The present incumbent
of the hostel was a woman, claiming to be a widow, of the name of Rose;
bearing in most respects no resemblance whatever to any of her
predecessors. Where she was born, or had hitherto resided, none of us
knew: all that gossip could, gather was that she had unexpectedly
descended from a passing vessel with her effects and entered directly
the abandoned house. When questioned as to the scene of her earlier
life, she vaguely gave answer that she had disported herself largely in
'Philadelphy;' but as no 'Philadelphy' woman that ever walked through a
doorway was or is able to compound a chowder or bake a clam pie worthy
of the name, and as Madame Rose understood how to prepare both these
luxuries to a charm, her statement must have been false; she was,
undoubtedly, a 'coast-wise' lady, and one who knew who Jack was as well
as he himself did. Her appearance was, on the whole, agreeable. She was
tall, slender, of regular features, and, though indisputably on the
shady side of forty, was still free from any signs that would proclaim
her charms to be on the wane. I remember in particular that she had
long, white and regular teeth, thereby strongly contrasting with our
native women, who as a rule lose their teeth early. Her manners were
very novel to us. She was invariably of a simpering, ducking turn, and
interlarded her curt speech with curiously hard words. In dress she
carried matters with an incomparably high hand. She wore hoops 'all day
long,'--a freak then never even so much as thought of in our
village,--adorned her fingers with many rings, and her throat with large
florid brooches, and in the evening, after having brought her household
duties to a close, sat here or there with her sewing, in silks (though
perhaps not of the newest), or other highly-civilized stuffs.

Most of our crew regarded their hostess with greatly mingled feelings;
but old Bill entertained but one sentiment for her,--that of unqualified
admiration. As we only 'wrought' at the stranded schooner on the high
water,--some five hours out of the twenty-four,--he had plenty of
opportunity to dangle after his dearie, and did so unremittingly. While
the rest of us were either napping, dancing the lively 'straight four,'
hunting herns' eggs among the sand-hills, and so on, according to our
inclination, he, in far more romantic mood, seized all possible
opportunities to quickly gather fire-wood for his charmer, fill her
tea-kettle, open whatever clams and oysters she was about to cook, and,
above all, to recount for her delight one of those inimitable yarns of
his, at whose points he himself was sure to laugh till the rafters of
the house shook and the plates in the dresser rattled again. But this
was merely the first stage of his passion. Before long, as is not
unusual in such cases, it took another and more bodeful turn. That
inextinguishable laughter of his was heard no more, or at best gave
place to a feeble tittering; his stories dropped from his lips with but
flat pungency; and instead of performing his lady-love's 'chores' with a
mirthful readiness, he went through them in a heartsick way, the while
directing towards her furtive looks of supplication. The true state of
matters was now obvious to all Old Bill was another fatally-stricken
victim of that spooney archer-boy who next to death holds dominion over
men; and with his case, thus momentous, we could but feel a renewed
interest in his behalf, and busy our tongues about him. I, for my part,
thought that as he was a widower, and needful of a wife to comfort him
in his advancing age, and that as the present object of his affections,
if not a highly 'forcible' woman, seemed at all events to be one of whom
no great harm was to be feared, there could be no valid objection to his
being joined to her; particularly if nothing was divulged proving her to
be other than what she seemed. But this view I found to be on the whole
unacceptable to my auditory. Almost to a man they condemned the
propriety of the match. It could not actually be said that they disliked
Mrs. Hose, but they were jealous of her, as, in her manner and style of
array, she considerably dimmed the lustre of their own women; and they
distrusted her as she was a stranger; it being a marked habit with most
of our folks to distrust all strangers save those from whom they expect
pecuniary awards. But meanwhile, notwithstanding this criticism, the
little idyl in our midst was developing itself apace. On the afternoon
of one beautiful Sunday, a day in which we of course ordinarily did no
work, when the dinner-table had been well cleared away, what should we
see but old Bill swinging forth with his sailor gait from the house, and
arrayed as jauntily as his check shirt and pea-jacket (his only suit of
apparel at hand) would permit, to be speedily followed by Mrs. Rose, who
with one set of finger-tips held up the light folds of a sweetly blue
lawn skirt, and with the other bore aslant before her a bewitching pink
parasol. Undoubtedly there was a great indulgence in sly winks and
suppressed titterings on the part of such of us as chanced to be
witnesses of this at once festal and sentimental sally; but the twain
heeded naught whatsoever of these manifestations, but struck off along
the snow-white strand where the sea was droning its hymn so lazily that
it would have inevitably put itself to sleep, if the fish-hawks had not
so continually disturbed it by mischievously diving headlong into its
bosom. At last they returned again; and we soon became aware that the
stroll had not been without great results to both; since Mrs. Rose
affected to be laboring under a high degree of emotion, and retired to
the privacy of her apartment, while old Bill was by no means the
dolorous swain of a few hours before, but, making his way among us, with
his wide mouth stretching its best, proceeded formally to shake hands
with one and all as though he had finally got back from a long and
arduous voyage; and then, merrily calling for a certain brown jug which
was among our stores, removed the corn-cob which served as a cork, and
having wetted his great heart with a draught which I have no doubt
measured a full pint, fell, entirely regardless of the day, to
performing his most spirited hoe-down, while the most of us looked on
with a mirth that knew no bounds.

Yes, old Bill was now 'a happy man,' Mrs. Rose could but accept such a
suitor as he, if but from the fact that; his ardor and his pain were of
the freshest complexion, and of an amplitude fully proportioned to that
of his extraordinary physical bulk. As we tendered him our
congratulations upon his happy state, he received the courtesy with
extreme complacency. But, to tell the truth, those who did thus
congratulate him were but few. Most of the men remained of their old
mind as to the proposed match; indeed, I ere long found that they looked
upon it with less favor than ever. It appeared that they had been
inflamed with a rumor that Mrs. Rose intended to beguile her adorer to a
foreign shore, where a scion or two of her brilliant house found happy
sustenance; and that nothing but evil could accrue from such an act, was
of course as clear as noonday. Now, when I came to trace this rumor to
its source, I became apprised that it owed its publicity to an old man
of our number known by the nickname of 'Mister,' who was remarkable for
a rare amount of credulity, self-conceit, and obstinacy, and at the same
time for being the invariable butt of his company. This wiseacre averred
that he had succeeded in wringing from Mrs. Rose the confession that
directly she and old Bill were made man and wife, they were to depart
for Hatteras Inlet, on the coast of North Carolina, where the lady gay
possessed 'relations;' and this narrative, wofully muttered about among
our crew, and accompanied with a due amount of sighs and head-shakings,
had depressed them most fearfully, not withstanding the character of the
narrator.

The fact of the matter was, that most of the men were actually desirous
that a betrothal, contracted directly in the face of public opinion, and
without the smallest deference to anybody, as that of old Bill and Mrs.
Rose had been, should come to some kind of grief or other, and they were
fain to believe that it would do so. As for me, I was without true
concern on the subject, as I had ever been. If it should indeed fall out
that old Bill was to take a trip to Hatteras with his bride, I was
convinced that he would enjoy himself famously among the great abundance
of fish and game said to abound in that place, and that in the end he
would return to us again, to rule over us in greater splendor than ever;
as for his sweetheart or any of her like doing him any actual injury,
the idea seemed so preposterous to me, that whenever an opportunity
presented itself I did not fail to ridicule it to the utmost. Still, in
order to do my whole duty in the matter, I hastened to impress old Bill
with the importance of his becoming acquainted with the antecedents of
his lady-love, and thus saving himself from the possibility of a
misstep. But this counsel did no farther good than to bring a clouded
brow to my dear old friend, and so I did not persist in it. Indeed, we
communed together but little more in any way; for very shortly after he
resigned his place as our 'boss,' and left post-haste for the main-land.
Here, as was revealed to me in due season, he amazed the neighborhood by
incontinently renting his farmstead to a son with whom he had been on
indifferent terms for years; dispatching his daughter, who had
heretofore acted as his housekeeper, off to a distant town to become an
apprentice to a milliner's trade; and stowing his clothes and a shot-bag
of hard money which he was known to possess into a sailor's chest, with
which, together with his gun and a Methodist preacher, he again hurried
off for the asylum of his beloved. Arrived once more in the witching
presence, he waited till evening (yet how he was constrained so to do is
more than I can tell), and then, as we made it a duty to be gathered
about him once more, the wedding took place.

The occasion was one of such interest, that the preacher could but make
the most of it. After the nuptial benediction had been pronounced, he
straightway launched forth into a homily of such graciousness and force,
that but few of us missed being forcibly wrought upon, while Mrs. Rose
was stirred apparently to the depths of her being. On the day succeeding
the marriage, our light-hearted Benedict abandoned himself to another
jollification. But the next morning, a schooner headed in towards the
beach, and, slackening the peaks of her sails, sent ashore a yawl, whose
crew saluted Mrs. Rose as an old and familiar friend, and with whose
apparition, without the least regard as to what shift we wreckers were
to make, a great packing was begun in the house. Bedsteads were taken
down, beds were bundled up in sheets, crockery was thrust away in
barrels, and all borne one after the other to the yawl, where the bride,
with her potent parasol full spread, and pretending to shudder at the
sight of the gently heaving breakers through which she was soon to pass,
mincingly threw herself in the thick of the luggage, and old Bill
mounted the stern, with his huge palm extended for a good-by shake.
'Good-by, old chap,' said I, as I took his hand the last of all,
'good-by! You're not half mean enough to stay away from us forever; so
in the meantime do your best to show the Hatteras boys what a nice thing
it is to be somebody in the world!' And thus the boat put off, and,
reaching the schooner in a few moments, was hoisted to her decks. In a
few moments more the vessel had reset her sails, and, with a free wind,
bore straight to the southward out of sight.

Now comes the singular part of my story. In a few weeks from the time of
their sailing, we heard that old Bill and his wife had safely landed at
Hatteras Inlet, and rented a small house on one of the beaches there,
with the intention of opening a kind of tavern; but no sooner were they
fairly settled in their new abode than old Bill was found one morning
_dead in his bed_, with evident signs of having met with foul play;
though what kind of death these indications pointed at was very
uncertain.

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