Part 5
Till Bennaye grew very feeble, every summer night he paddled abroad in his dory to fish for hake, and lonely he looked, tossing among the waves, when our boat bore down and passed him with a hail which he faintly returned, as we plunged lightly through the track of the moonlight, young and happy, rejoicing in the beauty of the night, while poor Bennaye only counted his gains in the grisly hake he caught, nor considered the rubies the lighthouse scattered on the waves, or how the moon sprinkled down silver before him. He did not mind the touch of the balmy wind that blew across his weather-beaten face with the same sweet greeting that so gladdened us, but fished and fished, watching his line through the short summer night, and, when a blush of dawn stole up in the east among the stars, wound up his tackle, took his oars, and paddled home to Nabbaye with his booty,--his “fare of fish” as the natives have it. Hake-fishing after this picturesque and tedious fashion is done away with now; the islands are girdled with trawls, which catch more fish in one night than could be obtained in a week’s hard labor by hand.
When the dust of Bennaye and Nabbaye was mingled in the thin earth that scarce can cover the multitude of the dead on Star Island, a youthful couple, in whom I took great interest, occupied their little house. The woman was remarkably handsome, with a beautiful head and masses of rich black hair, a face regular as the face of a Greek statue, with eyes that sparkled and cheeks that glowed,--a beauty she soon exchanged for haggard and hollow looks. As their children were born they asked my advice on the christening of each, and, being youthful and romantic, I suggested Frederick as a sounding title for the first-born boy. Taylor being the reigning President, his name was instantly added, and the child was always addressed by his whole name. Going by the house one day, my ears were assailed by a sharp outcry: “Frederick Taylor, if you don’t come into the house this minute, I’ll slat your head off!” The tender mother borrowed her expression from the fishermen, who disengage mackerel and other delicate-gilled fish by “slatting” them off the hook.
All this family have gone, and the house in which they lived has fallen to ruin; only the cellar remains, just such a rude hollow as those scattered over Appledore.
The people along the coast rather look down upon the Shoalers as being beyond the bounds of civilization. A young islander was expressing his opinion on some matter to a native of Rye, who answered him with great scorn: “You don’t know nothin’ about it! What do _you_ know? _You_ never see an apple-tree all blowed out.” A Shoaler, walking with some friends along a road in Rye, excited inextinguishable laughter by clutching his companion’s sleeve as a toad hopped innocently across the way, and crying: “Mr. Berraye, what kind of a bug do you call that? D--d if I ever see such a bug as that, Mr. Berraye!” in a comical terror. There are neither frogs nor toads at the Shoals. “Set right down and help yourselves,” said an old fellow at whose door some guests from the Shoals appeared at dinner-time. “Eat all you can. I ain’t got no manners; the girl’s got the manners, and she ain’t to hum.”
One old Shoaler, long since gone to another world, was a laughable and curious character. A man more wonderfully fulfilling the word “homely” in the Yankee sense, I never saw. He had the largest, most misshapen cheek-bones ever constructed, an illimitable upper lip, teeth that should not be mentioned, and small, watery eyes. Skin and hair and eyes and mouth were of the same pasty yellow, and that grotesque head was set on a little, thin, and shambling body. He used to be head singer at the church, and “pitched the tune” by whistling when the parson had read the hymn. Then all who could joined in the singing, which must have been remarkable, to say the least. So great a power of brag is seldom found in one human being as that which permeated him from top to toe, and found vent in stories of personal prowess and bravery unexampled in history. He used to tell a story of his encounter with thirteen “Spanish grandeers” in New Orleans, he having been a sailor a great part of his life. He was innocently peering into a theatre, when the “grandeers” fell upon him out of the exceeding pride of their hearts. “Wall, sir, I turned, and I laid six o’ them grandeers to the right and seven to the left, and then I put her for the old brig, and I heerd no more on ’em!”
He considered himself unequalled as a musician, and would sing you ballad after ballad, sitting bent forward with his arms on his knees, and his wrinkled eyelids screwed tight together, grinding out the tune with a quiet steadiness of purpose that seemed to betoken no end to his capacities. Ballads of love and of war he sang,--the exploits of “Brave Wolf,” or, as he pronounced it, “Brahn Wolf,” and one famous song of a naval battle, of which only two lines remain in my memory;--
“With sixteen brass nineteens the Lion did growl, With nineteen brass twenties the Tiger did howl.”
At the close of each verse he invariably dropped his voice, and said, instead of sung, the last word, which had a most abrupt and surprising effect, to which a listener never could become accustomed. The immortal ballad of Lord Bateman he had remodelled with beautiful variations of his own. The name of the coy maiden, the Turk’s only daughter, Sophia, was Susan Fryan, according to his version, and Lord Bateman was metamorphosed into Lord Bakum. When Susan Fryan crosses the sea to Lord Bakum’s castle and knocks so loud that the gates do ring, he makes the bold young porter, who was so ready for to let her in, go to his master, who sits feasting with a new bride, and say:--
“Seven long years have I tended your gate, sir, Seven long years out of twenty-three, But so fair a creetur as now stands waitin’ Never before with my eyes did see.
“O, she has rings on every finger, And round her middle if she’s one she has three; O, I’m sure she’s got more good gold about her Than would buy your bride and her companie!”
The enjoyment with which he gave this song was delightful to witness. Of the many he used to sing, one was a doleful story of how a youth of high degree fell in love with his mother’s fair waiting-woman, Betsy, who was in consequence immediately transported to foreign lands. But alas for her lover!--
“Then he fell sick and like to have died; His mother round his sick-bed cried, But all her crying it was in vain, For Betsy was a-ploughing the raging main!”
The word “main” was brought out with startling effect. Another song about a miller and his sons I only half remember:--
“The miller he called his oldest son, Saying, ‘Now my glass it is almost run, If I to you the mill relate, What toll do you _re_sign to take?’
“The son replied: ‘My name is Jack, And out of a bushel I’ll take a peck.’ ‘Go, go, you fool!’ the old man cried, And called the next to his bedside.
“The second said: ‘My name is Ralph, And out of a bushel I’ll take a half.’ ‘Go, go, you fool!’ the old man cried, And called the next to his bedside.
“The youngest said: ‘My name is Paul, And out of a bushel I’ll take it all!’ ‘You are my son!’ the old man cried, And _shot_ up his eyes and died in peace.”
The manner in which this last verse was delivered was inimitable, the “died in peace” being spoken with great satisfaction. The singer had an ancient violin, which he used to hug under his wizened chin, and from which he drew such dismal tones as never before were heard on sea or land. He had no more idea of playing than one of the codfish he daily split and salted, yet he christened with pride all the shrieks and wails he drew out of the wretched instrument with various high-sounding titles. After he had entertained his audience for a while with these aimless sounds, he was wont to say, “Wall, now I’ll give yer Prince Esterhazy’s March,” and forthwith began again precisely the same intolerable squeak.
After he died, other stars in the musical world appeared in the horizon, but none equalled him. They all seemed to think it necessary to shut their eyes and squirm like nothing human during the process of singing a song, and they “pitched the tune” so high that no human voice ever could hope to reach it in safety. “Tew high, Bill, tew high,” one would say to the singer, with slow solemnity; so Bill tried again. “Tew high again, Bill, tew high.” “Wull, _you_ strike it, Obed,” Bill would say in despair; and Obed would “strike,” and hit exactly the same impossible altitude, whereat Bill would slap his knee, and cry in glad surprise, “D--d if he ain’t got it!” and forth, with catch Obed and launch on his perilous flight, and grow red in the face with the mighty effort of getting up there, and remaining there through the intricacies and variations of the melody. One could but wonder whence these queer tunes came,--how they were created; some of them reminded one of the creaking and groaning of windlasses and masts, the rattling of rowlocks, the whistling of winds among cordage, yet with less of music in them than these natural sounds. The songs of the sailors heaving up the anchor are really beautiful often, the wild chant that rises sometimes into a grand chorus, all the strong voices borne out on the wind in the cry of
“Yo ho, the roaring river!”
But these Shoals performances are lacking in any charm, except that of the broadest fun.
The process of dunning, which made the Shoals fish so famous a century ago, is almost a lost art, though the chief fisherman at Star still “duns” a few yearly. A real dunfish is handsome, cut in transparent strips, the color of brown sherry wine. The process is a tedious one: the fish are piled in the storehouse and undergo a period of “sweating” after the first drying, then are carried out into sun and wind, dried again slightly, and again piled in the warehouse, and so on till the process is complete. Drying fish in the common fashion is more difficult than might be imagined: it is necessary to watch and tend them continually as they lie on the picturesque “flakes,” and if they are exposed at too early a stage to a sun too hot they burn as surely as a loaf of bread in an intemperate oven, only the burning does not crisp, but liquefies their substance.
For the last ten years fish have been caught about the Shoals by trawl and seine in such quantities that they are thinning fast, and the trade bids fair to be much less lucrative before many years have elapsed. The process of drawing the trawl is very picturesque and interesting, watched from the rocks or from the boat itself. The buoy being drawn in, then follow the baited hooks one after another. First, perhaps, a rockling shows his bright head above water; a pull, and in he comes flapping, with brilliant red fins distended, gaping mouth, indigo-colored eyes, and richly mottled skin: a few futile somersets, and he subsides into slimy dejection. Next, perhaps, a big whelk is tossed into the boat; then a leaden-gray haddock, with its dark stripe of color on each side; then, perhaps, follow a few bare hooks; then a hake, with horrid, cavernous mouth; then a large purple star-fish, or a clattering crab; then a ling,--a yellow-brown, wide-mouthed piece of ugliness never eaten here, but highly esteemed on the coast of Scotland; then more cod or haddock, or perhaps a lobster, bristling with indignation at the novel situation in which he finds himself; then a cusk, long, smooth, compact, and dark; then a catfish. Of all fiends commend me to the catfish as the most fiendish! Black as night, with thick and hideous skin, which looks a dull, mouldy green beneath the water, a head shaped as much like a cat’s as a fish’s head can be, in which the devil’s own eyes seem to glow with a dull, malicious gleam,--and such a mouth! What terrible expressions these cold creatures carry to and fro in the vast, dim spaces of the sea! All fish have a more or less imbecile and wobegone aspect; but this one looks absolutely evil, and Schiller might well say of him that he “grins through the grate of his spiky teeth,” and sharp and deadly are they; every man looks out for his boots when a catfish comes tumbling in, for they bite through leather, flesh, and bones. They seize a ballast-stone between their jaws, and their teeth snap and fly in all directions. I have seen them bite the long blade of a sharp knife so fiercely, that, when it was lifted and held aloft, they kept their furious gripe, and dangled, flapping all their clumsy weight, hanging by their teeth to the blade. Sculpins abound, and are a nuisance on the trawls. Ugly and grotesque as are the full-grown fish, there is nothing among the finny tribe more dainty, more quaint and delicate, than the baby sculpin. Sometimes in a pool of crystal water one comes upon him unawares,--a fairy creature, the color of a blush-rose, striped and freaked and pied with silver and gleaming green, hanging in the almost invisible water as a bird in air, with broad, transparent fins suffused with a faint pink color, stretched wide like wings to upbear the supple form. The curious head is only strange, not hideous as yet, and one gazes marvelling at all the beauty lavished on a thing of so little worth.
Wolf-fish, first cousins to the catfish, are found also on the trawls; and dog-fish, with pointed snouts and sand-paper skins, abound to such an extent as to drive away everything else sometimes. Sand-dabs, a kind of flounder, fasten their sluggish bodies to the hooks, and a few beautiful red fish, called bream, are occasionally found; also a few blue-fish and sharks; frequently halibut,--though these latter are generally caught on trawls which are made especially for them. Sometimes is caught on a trawl a monstrous creature of horrible aspect, called the nurse-fish,--an immense fish weighing twelve hundred pounds, with a skin like a nutmeg-grater, and no teeth,--a kind of sucker, hence its name. I asked a Shoaler what the nurse-fish looked like, and he answered promptly, “Like the Devil!” One weighing twelve hundred pounds has “two barrels of liver,” as the natives phrase it, which is very valuable for the oil it contains. One of the fishermen described a creature which they call mud-eel,--a foot and a half long, with a mouth like a rat, and two teeth. The bite of this water-snake is poisonous, the islanders aver, and tell a story of a man bitten by one at Mount Desert last year, “who did not live long enough to get to the doctor.” They bite at the hooks on the trawl, and are drawn up in a lump of mud, and the men cut the ropes and mangle their lines to get rid of them. Huge sunfish are sometimes harpooned, lying on the top of the water,--a lump of flesh like cocoanut meat encased in a skin like rubber cloth, with a most dim and abject hint of a face, absurdly disproportionate to the size of the body, roughly outlined on the edge. Sword-fish are also harpooned, weighing eight hundred pounds and upward; they are very delicate food. A sword-fish swimming leaves a wake a mile long on a calm day, and bewilders the imagination into a belief in sea-serpents. There’s a legend that a torpedo was caught here once upon a time; and the thrasher, fox-shark, or sea-fox occasionally alarms the fisherman with his tremendous flexible tail, that reaches “from the gunnel to the mainmast-top” when the creature comes to the surface. Also they tell of skip-jacks that sprang on board their boats at night when they were hake-fishing,--“little things about as large as mice, long and slender, with beaks like birds.” Sometimes a huge horse-mackerel flounders in and drives ashore on a ledge, for the gulls to scream over for weeks. Mackerel, herring, porgies, and shiners used to abound before the seines so thinned them. Bonito and blue-fish and dog-fish help drive away the more valuable varieties. It is a lovely sight to see a herring-net drawn in, especially by moonlight, when every fish hangs like a long silver drop from the close-set meshes. Perch are found in inexhaustible quantities about the rocks, and lump or butter fish are sometimes caught; pollock are very plentiful,--smooth, graceful, slender creatures! It is fascinating to watch them turning somersets in the water close to the shore in full tides, or following a boat at sunset, and breaking the molten gold of the sea’s surface with silver-sparkling fin and tail. The rudder-fish is sometimes found, and alewives and menhaden. Whales are more or less plentiful in summer, “spouting their foam-fountains in the sea.” Beautiful is the sparkling column of water rising suddenly afar off and falling noiselessly back again. Not long ago a whale twisted his tail in the cable of the schooner Vesper, lying to the eastward of the Shoals, and towed the vessel several miles, at the rate of twenty knots an hour, with the water boiling all over her from stem to stern!
Last winter some of the Shoalers were drawing a trawl between the Shoals and Boone Island, fifteen miles to the eastward. As they drew in the line and relieved each hook of its burden, lo! a horror was lifted half above the surface,--part of a human body, which dropped off the hooks and was gone, while they shuddered, and stared at each other, aghast at the hideous sight.
Porpoises are seen at all seasons. I never saw one near enough to gain a knowledge of its expression, but it always seemed to me that these fish led a more hilarious life than the greater part of their race, and I think they must carry less dejected countenances than most of the inhabitants of the sea. They frisk so delightfully on the surface, and ponderously plunge over and over with such apparent gayety and satisfaction! I remember being out one moonless summer night beyond the lighthouse island, in a little boat filled with gay young people. The sea was like oil, the air was thick and warm, no star broke the upper darkness, only now and then the lighthouse threw its jewelled track along the water, and through the dense air its long rays stretched above, turning solemnly, like the luminous spokes of a gigantic wheel, as the lamps slowly revolved. There had been much talk and song and laughter, much playing with the warm waves (or rather smooth undulations of the sea, for there wasn’t a breath of wind to make a ripple), which broke at a touch into pale-green, phosphorescent fire. Beautiful arms, made bare to the shoulder, thrust down into the liquid darkness, shone flaming silver and gold; from the fingers playing beneath, fire seemed to stream; emerald sparks clung to the damp draperies; and a splashing oar-blade half revealed sweet faces and bright young eyes. Suddenly a pause came in talk and song and laughter, and in the unaccustomed silence we seemed to be waiting for something. At once out of the darkness came a slow, tremendous sigh that made us shiver in the soft air, as if all the woe and terror of the sea were condensed in that immense and awful breath; and we took our oars and pulled homeward, with the weird fires flashing from our bows and oar-blades. “Only a porpoise blowing,” said the initiated, when we told our tale. It may have been “only a porpoise blowing”; but the leviathan himself could hardly have made a more prodigious sound.
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