This was no time for words, I knew that my Mother’s life and my own depended upon quick and decisive action. Unheeding her plaintive laments, I clasped a piece of line and made her fast, then with the other end about my own waist I climbed up on the starboard bulwarks, and, committing myself to our only chance, I closed my eyes and took a great leap. It seemed to me that I was endlessly in mid-air, and then I had the sensation of my boots crashing on solid rock. From the jar, I was hurled into a heap, but was on my feet again in an instant, and making sure of my footing, called:
“Come on, Mother.”
She still hesitated, woman-like, at the horror of that black abyss.
“Come on, it’s now or never!” I sang out sharply. To overcome her inertia, I gave the rope a strong pull, and at that urge she jumped over the side, but not with sufficient strength to make it, and I saw her vanish in the foaming welter.
For a moment, I felt the lifeline about me tauten, then digging my heels for a firm hold, I pulled in with might and main, with the result that I brought her clambering up the wet side of the bowlders. She was drenched to the skin, and the angry seas seemed to be reaching forth to tear her from my grasp; but I hung on, and at last, utterly spent, I had the joy of pulling her up safe and sound upon the fastness of the granite rock.
Crawling further up the rocks there was a thick growth of stunted spruce which afforded shelter from the teeth of the wind. Except for the wetting we were none the worse for the harrowing experiences through which we had passed. It seemed as though we had been snatched from the jaws of death. Even as we looked we saw our stout vessel being pounded to splinters in the maelstrom of white water. This sight filled us with a sense of awe, and Mother, who had sufficiently recovered from the shock of the icy plunge, put her arm around me, and answering to her devout nature, gave thanks for our delivery.
CHAPTER V
Rescue
As the sun rose, dispelling the mists of dawn, we saw that the land nearest to us was separated by a narrow tickle through which the seas were surging like a mill-race.
The tide was going down, however, and soon, holding my Mother by the hand, I was able to wade across and climb up on the opposite shore, where there was a deep wooded growth, and an abundance of blueberries which we ate with relish.
The island on which we had landed was about half a mile across, high in the center with terraced peaks on the seaward exposure. Striking through the underbrush, we came at last to a fisherman’s shack, built under a high cliff. Inside the hut was an improvised fireplace, and as there was an abundance of driftwood handy and a supply of matches, we soon had a great fire roaring away.
When my clothes were thoroughly dry, I set out for a further examination of the place, leaving my Mother at rest in one of the bunks.
Striking down on the lee side, to my surprise, another channel opened out before me. So this was also an island with a still further gulf intervening between us and the mainland.
In order to spy out the country better, I climbed up on a high rock and gazed across. Here on the sheltered side the water was comparatively calm, the channel itself being about; a quarter of a mile wide, with a shelving sandy beach on the far shore. The mainland presented a gentle undulation of hill and valley with the white spire of a church and the tops of houses just discernible in the distance.
I knew that Mother could not cross this channel, and as there was no sign of a boat, I determined to swim across, and press on to the settlement and ask for help.
As Mother would worry about my undertaking such a swim, I contented myself by glancing at the hut to see that she was all right. Then I came down, and taking off my boots and jacket, I plunged boldly in and struck out for the opposite shore.
I was a good swimmer and at the start had no doubt about the undertaking. But out in the center a strong tide was running, and I found myself gradually pitting my puny strength against it, which of course was foolishness; the harder I struggled the more winded I became, until it was apparent that I was losing out.
In the irresistible swirl of that mighty current panic seized me. I was beginning to lash the water in that mad frenzy which is the precursor of sure drowning, when the thought of my Mother flashed upon me, and with a return of reason it was borne home that I must be cool no matter what happened. I had more than myself to consider. At this, I began to float easily, surrendering myself to the current, with the result that the foe of a moment before was transformed into a friend, which bore me swiftly to a jutting out cape, about a quarter of a mile further down, where I was overjoyed to feel my feet upon sandy bottom, and was soon safe upon the mainland.
After walking several miles in the direction of the white steeple, I arrived on the fringes of a settlement, and stopped at a blacksmith’s forge to ask my whereabouts.
The smith informed me that I was in Canso.
“Is the Airlie in port?” I inquired.
“Yea, that’s her, lying there at Whitman’s wharf,” he said, coming to the door, and pointing toward a beautiful white schooner about a mile further down the foreshore.
In brief time I was aboard this vessel, and without ceremony proceeded straight into the cabin, where I found my Uncle Jock working on a bait tally.
As I stood there, barefoot, in my sodden
clothes, he looked up at me sharply; then, with recognition, he leapt to his feet and exclaimed:
“Why, it’s Johnnie Angus!”
Clasping me warmly by the hand, he inquired:
“And where’s your Father?”
For the first time since I had determined to be a man, I broke down and wept bitterly.
With a sympathetic softness that I never would have attributed to him, Uncle Jock soothed me down, and at last I told him of our adventures since leaving Judique.
He listened in silence until the reported altercation between my Father and Black Dan, then, unable to contain himself, he started to pace up and down in that narrow cabin, like a caged lion.
But when I went on to tell of my Mother left alone on the island, his rage swiftly passed.
“When will you go and fetch her?”
“Right away.”
A couple of hours later, off the island, we caught sight of Mother gazing toward us from a high promontory. After bringing the vessel to, a dory was put over, and as we landed on the beach, Mother threw her arms about me:
“Oh, Johnnie Angus, what have you done?”
“I swam across for help.”
Gazing wide-eyed at the stretch of intervening water, Mother suddenly burst into tears.
“I thought that the wicked sea had also snatched away my laddie.”
“Aye, and he’s a bra’ lad,” said my Uncle. “It’s a grand sailor that we’ll be makin’ o’ him.”
At this casual remark, an unexpected passion seized my Mother.
“How dare ye I” she shrieked.
Uncle Jock was astounded by this outburst.
“What on earth d’ye mean, Mary?”
“It’s well ye ken,” she replied bitterly. “The cruel sea has robbed me o’ all me menfolk, an’ now I tell ye no son of mine will ever go to sea.”
“Ah, but he will, though.”
“Why?”
“To settle up an ancient score.”
CHAPTER VI
A Foul Weather Jock
“After being wrecked on Whitehead and going through the frightful experiences therewith, Mother fled back to our inland farm.
“I never again want to rest mine eyes upon the wicked ocean,” she declared.
Our home was situated far up on Judique Mountain, out of sight and sound of the sea, for which fact my mother was truly thankful. Up there in the secluded fastness, she did her utmost to knock all sea-going notions out of my head, planning that at least one of the MacPhees should
abandon fishing and turn entirely to the farming.
Malcolm MacLellan, the schoolmaster, abetted my Mother in this, by holding forth on the uselessness of “selling one’s soul to a ship.” Said he, “Sea-faring is a rovin’, vagabond existence, and dinna ye forget, Johnnie Angus, ‘a rollin’s stone gathers nae moss.’”
Louis, our handy-man about the place, did his part to offset the efforts of the others.
Louis was a Gaelic-speaking negro, rescued by my father from the wreck of a French fisherman off Sable Island. After his rescue, in deep gratitude, he had become almost the slave of our family, coming ashore and accepting willingly the drudgery of an inland farm. But, no matter how faithful black Louis might be in his farm work, no power on earth could quench the sailor that was in him; he belonged to blue water, as truly as the petrel belonged to a stormy sky.
In season and out, Louis was forever regaling me with yarns of the fishing fleets, in which MacPhees had always shone. For our family, the sea was a sort of battle ground, where in a peaceful age, fighting Highland blood still found its opportunity to conquer.
Our mountain glen was situated four miles from the port, but that distance was nothing to me, and I always found opportunity to get down there, where I learned, as only boys can, the mysteries of boating and sailing.
Notwithstanding earlier tragic experiences, the sea became my constant nurse, than which there is no finer for youth. I gave this nurse my best, and in return she offered her reward in vigor and in the zesty joy of life. At sixteen, I was big and strong for my age, as good a sea dog as any on our coast.
Because I was intended for the sea, no mother
love nor mountain wall could hold me back.
It was a mere rumor that started me that morning upon the pathway of adventure. Just off for school, I ran across one of the neighbors, who was coming up from the port with a load of feed, and who sang out:
“Hi, there, Johnnie Angus, the fleet’s in Port Hood Harbor.”
“Where from?”
“North Bay.”
“Seen Uncle Jock?”
“Nay, but he ought to be in soon.”
This last remark decided me on a right-about- face, and with Louis, my constant accomplice on such escapades, I was soon bound down the road that lay in the opposite direction from Malcolm MacLellan, the sour-faced schoolmaster.
Port Hood, that morning, was worth coming far to see. Scores of vessels were already anchored in the harbor, with others continually arriving. Hundreds of fishermen swarmed the streets, while the whole town rang with roistering shouts and merry laughter.
A bunch of fishermen in from the Banks is the nearest thing to a lot of schoolboys, with the difference that they are living great stories, not just reading them; that’s why, I suppose, I was always so keen on their society.
As a storm was making, with the weather growing wilder all the time, there was a spice of danger in the air. Small boats were plying back and forth, while to add to the excitement, ever and anon, a splendid schooner, with snowy piled-up canvas, would come racing in as grandly as a cup-defender, each skipper seeming to vie with the others in taking still more desperate chances.
With the yarns that one heard along the wharves, the larks and pranks about the town, the dory races in the harbor, and the constant arrival of new vessels, it was small wonder that Louis and I lost all sense of time.
Late in the afternoon, word was passed that Black Dan Campbell had just been sighted. Black Dan, somehow, I held responsible for the death of my father. He had been pulled out of the sea, safe enough, got himself a new vessel and swaggered about as if not a speck of blame ever attached to him. Nevertheless, his boat was good to see.
Rushing to the end of the long pier, I beheld his vessel, the Dundee, storming in from the Outer Heads. Her skipper, with an eye for effect, was sporting everything he could carry, while onlooking sailing sharps indulged in varied comments:
“Some dustin’, eh?”
“A gale fit to blow the tails off horses, an’ everything set up to his stays’l, he’s askin’ fer it.”
“Aye, but his vessel’s stiff as a church. Ye’ve got to allow she carries her muslin well.”
“Bah, an’ what’s the fool gainin’ by all his crackin’ on? A few hours earlier in port, a bit o’ vanity to make ‘em talk, an’ then, some day, the missin’ list is the end o’ his story.”
“Black Dan there is a man-killer. Glad I don’t sail wi’ the likes o’ him.”
“Just look at that, now, will ye?”
The Dundee, eating into the wind, had started to claw off the outer bar. Her sheets were set like iron, while the gale, blowing the tops off of the seas, smothered her in spindrift, and set the breakers crashing into carded wool just underneath her lee.
It was a picture of matchless hardihood, and daring.
“One slip, me lad, one slip, an’ ye’ll be into Kingdom Come!”
With supreme abandon, the Dundee drove her bows into the lifting seas, and then, having chanced to the utmost, off that fringe of menace, she came ramping safely into the inner harbor.
As she forged onward, the talk on the pierhead was suddenly cut short. Straight down upon us she bore with a steady roar of resisting water, her forefoot foaming, her bowsprit threatening to sweep everything before it.
And so, I found myself aboard a fisherman, outward bound
Upon the wharf, directly in her path, a frantic scramble for safety ensued. In the midst of the panic, old fishermen held their ground and winked. While shore-hands waited for an imminent crash, the oncoming, menacing bowsprit veered half a point and just grazed her yellow streak along the corner of the wharf.
“Ready about.—Hard alee.”
Like pistol shots, the orders came up from her quarter. As she swept by on the opposite tack, I looked down into the eye of Black Dan Campbell, every breath of him instinct with pride and self-sufficiency. One could not help admiring his dash, and yet, somehow, I did not like the man. Outside of the old score between our families, the very sight of him awakened latent resentment.
All this time, I had been longing for a sight of my uncle’s vessel. Why should he allow Black Dan Campbell to walk off with the honors?
I was beginning to feel that perhaps Uncle Jock might not make it at all that evening, and I had gone into a shop, where yarns were passing, when someone called from the doorway;
“Here’s the last of ‘em.”
Rushing out, I beheld a lone white schooner in the offing, under short canvas, with topmasts housed, stepping warily. In respect for the threatening prospects, she had everything reefed down. Far from exhibiting the dash and bravado of the others, she gave the lee shore a wide berth, and entered the harbor with all the caution of some timorous old lady.
Jeers and shouts of laughter broke from the Dundee, as the last arrival came to anchor just astern of her.
Arch Campbell, one of Black Dan’s ilk, standing near me, burst out:
“That there Jock MacPhee’s a regular whipper-in.”
“What d’ye call him that for?”
“Because he’s always shortening canvas. When others are crackin’ on, he’s runnin’ off. If it’s rough weather, when he’s due to sail, ye’ll see him huggin’ port until it’s over. When his dories is out, underhauling his gear, he’ll be callin’ ‘em in at the first sign o’ weather. He’s got no more spunk than a hen wi’ a lot o’ chickens.”
Somehow, I felt that all this contained a measure of truth, and yet I knew it was false, and wanted to stand up and declare to the Campbell fellow: “You’re a liar.”
But a grizzled shell-back took the job out of my hands.
“Have ye ever sailed wi’ Jock MacPhee?” he inquired.
“No fear,” answered Arch Campbell loftily. “He may be all right fer the old men’s h
ome,
but he’s no good fer the Grand Banks fleet.”
“Aye, ye’re wrong there, me young sprout. Let me tell ye, Cap’n Jock may not be one o’ yer swankin’ sail-draggers, but he’s got the finest qualities that any fishin’ skipper ever had.” “What’s that?”
“He’s careful wi’ the lives o’ men.”
CHAPTER VII
Night Of The Big Blow
No sooner was my uncle’s vessel “clubbed down” to her riding hawser, than Louis and I determined to get a dory and put out into the harbor and go aboard.
This was easier said than done, as the loud, high piping of the wind and breakers foaming white above the sunken rocks warned us that it was bad weather in the boisterous outside channel.
There was a long run down the harbor to where the fleet was moored, and so, to save time, we stepped the mast, and made sail, which, of course, meant that we had to watch out sharp. In a heavy blow, there is far more danger in running a small boat, than in reaching, the danger being in the likelihood of the sail gybing, with the consequent peril of broaching to, or wringing the spars out of her. Guarding against this in a racing dory on such a day for utmost canniness.
At the lower end of the harbor was a piece of shoal water, breaking white, with the ships’ basin just across.
“Shall we take the short cut, or go around?” inquired Louis.
“Short cut,” I answered.
“All right, we’ll have to come to, then.”
Bringing her up, momentarily, Louis beat the wind out of the sail and unstepped the mast, after which we shipped the oars, and with a short, deep-sea stroke, we headed for the outmost line of broken water.
Another moment, and we were in the midst of sharp, crashing seas. The first roller that overtook us threw up our stern, and depressed the bow until we stood almost on end.
In quick succession we passed through the descending, the horizontal, and the ascending positions, as successive seas went by. Onlookers, if they could have beheld us at that moment, would have seen in action a pair of broncho-busters and rough-riders of the deep.
Crested Seas Page 4