Roughing It
toward the society-young-lady. Stung to the quick, she tore her
affections from him and bestowed them with tenfold power upon the
lawyer, who responded with consuming zeal. But the parents would none of
it. What they wanted in the family was a Duke; and a Duke they were
determined to have; though they confessed that next to the Duke the
lawyer had their preference. Necessarily the blonde now went into a
decline. The parents were alarmed. They pleaded with her to marry the
Duke, but she steadfastly refused, and pined on. Then they laid a plan.
They told her to wait a year and a day, and if at the end of that time
she still felt that she could not marry the Duke, she might marry the
lawyer with their full consent. The result was as they had foreseen:
gladness came again, and the flush of returning health. Then the parents
took the next step in their scheme. They had the family physician
recommend a long sea voyage and much land travel for the thorough
restoration of the blonde’s strength; and they invited the Duke to be of
the party. They judged that the Duke’s constant presence and the
lawyer’s protracted absence would do the rest—for they did not invite
the lawyer.
So they set sail in a steamer for America—and the third day out, when
their sea-sickness called truce and permitted them to take their first
meal at the public table, behold there sat the lawyer! The Duke and
party made the best of an awkward situation; the voyage progressed, and
the vessel neared America.
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But, by and by, two hundred miles off New Bedford, the ship took fire;
she burned to the water’s edge; of all her crew and passengers, only
thirty were saved. They floated about the sea half an afternoon and all
night long. Among them were our friends. The lawyer, by superhuman
exertions, had saved the blonde and her parents, swimming back and forth
two hundred yards and bringing one each time—(the girl first). The Duke
had saved himself. In the morning two whale ships arrived on the scene
and sent their boats. The weather was stormy and the embarkation was
attended with much confusion and excitement. The lawyer did his duty
like a man; helped his exhausted and insensible blonde, her parents and
some others into a boat (the Duke helped himself in); then a child fell
overboard at the other end of the raft and the lawyer rushed thither and
helped half a dozen people fish it out, under the stimulus of its
mother’s screams. Then he ran back—a few seconds too late—the blonde’s
boat was under way. So he had to take the other boat, and go to the
other ship. The storm increased and drove the vessels out of sight of
each other—drove them whither it would.
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When it calmed, at the end of three days, the blonde’s ship was seven
hundred miles north of Boston and the other about seven hundred south of
that port. The blonde’s captain was bound on a whaling cruise in the
North Atlantic and could not go back such a distance or make a port
without orders; such being nautical law. The lawyer’s captain was to
cruise in the North Pacific, and _he_ could not go back or make a port
without orders. All the lawyer’s money and baggage were in the blonde’s
boat and went to the blonde’s ship—so his captain made him work his
passage as a common sailor. When both ships had been cruising nearly a
year, the one was off the coast of Greenland and the other in Behring’s
Strait. The blonde had long ago been well-nigh persuaded that her lawyer
had been washed overboard and lost just before the whale ships reached
the raft, and now, under the pleadings of her parents and the Duke she
was at last beginning to nerve herself for the doom of the covenant, and
prepare for the hated marriage.
But she would not yield a day before the date set. The weeks dragged on,
the time narrowed, orders were given to deck the ship for the wedding—a
wedding at sea among icebergs and walruses. Five days more and all would
be over. So the blonde reflected, with a sigh and a tear. Oh where was
her true love—and why, why did he not come and save her? At that moment
he was lifting his harpoon to strike a whale in Behring’s Strait, five
thousand miles away, by the way of the Arctic Ocean, or twenty thousand
by the way of the Horn—that was the reason. He struck, but not with
perfect aim—his foot slipped and he fell in the whale’s mouth and went
down his throat. He was insensible five days. Then he came to himself
and heard voices; daylight was streaming through a hole cut in the
whale’s roof. He climbed out and astonished the sailors who were
hoisting blubber up a ship’s side. He recognized the vessel, flew
aboard, surprised the wedding party at the altar and exclaimed:
“Stop the proceedings—I’m here! Come to my arms, my own!”
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There were foot-notes to this extravagant piece of literature wherein
the author endeavored to show that the whole thing was within the
possibilities; he said he got the incident of the whale traveling from
Behring’s Strait to the coast of Greenland, five thousand miles in five
days, through the Arctic Ocean, from Charles Reade’s “Love Me Little
Love Me Long,” and considered that that established the fact that the
thing could be done; and he instanced Jonah’s adventure as proof that a
man could live in a whale’s belly, and added that if a preacher could
stand it three days a lawyer could surely stand it five!
There was a fiercer storm than ever in the editorial sanctum now, and
the stranger was peremptorily discharged, and his manuscript flung at
his head. But he had already delayed things so much that there was not
time for some one else to rewrite the chapter, and so the paper came out
without any novel in it. It was but a feeble, struggling, stupid
journal, and the absence of the novel probably shook public confidence;
at any rate, before the first side of the next issue went to press, the
Weekly Occidental died as peacefully as an infant.
An effort was made to resurrect it, with the proposed advantage of a
telling new title, and Mr. F. said that The _Phenix_ would be just the
name for it, because it would give the idea of a resurrection from its
dead ashes in a new and undreamed of condition of splendor; but some
low- priced smarty on one of the dailies suggested that we call it the
_Lazarus_; and inasmuch as the people were not profound in Scriptural
matters but thought the resurrected Lazarus and the dilapidated
mendicant that begged in the rich man’s gateway were one and the same
person, the name became the laughing stock of the town, and killed the
paper for good and all.
I was sorry enough, for I was very proud of being connected with a
literary paper—prouder than I have ever been of anything since, perhaps.
I had written some rhymes for it—poetry I considered it—and it was a
great grief to me that the production was on the “first side” of the
issue that was not completed, and hence did not see the light. But time
brings its revenges—I can put it in here; it will answer in place of a
tear dropped to the memory of the lost Occidental. The idea (not the
chief idea, but the vehicle that bears it) was probably suggested by the
old song called “The Raging Canal,” but I cannot remember now. I do
remember, though, that at that time I thought my doggerel was one of the
ablest poems of the age: THE AGED PILOT MAN.
On the Erie Canal, it was, All on a summer’s day, I sailed forth with my
parents Far away to Albany.
From out the clouds at noon that day There came a dreadful storm, That
piled the billows high about, And filled us with alarm.
A man came rushing from a house, Saying, ‘Snub up your boat I pray, [The
customary canal technicality for “tie up.”] Snub up your boat, snub up,
alas, Snub up while yet you may.’
Our captain cast one glance astern, Then forward glancèd he, And said,
“My wife and little ones I never more shall see.”
Said Dollinger the pilot man, In noble words, but few,—“Fear not, but
lean on Dollinger, And he will fetch you through.”
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The boat drove on, the frightened mules Tore through the rain and wind,
And bravely still, in danger’s post, The whip-boy strode behind.
“Come ’board, come ’board,” the captain cried, “Nor tempt so wild a
storm;” But still the raging mules advanced, And still the boy strode
on.
Then said the captain to us all, “Alas, ’tis plain to me, The greater
danger is not there, But here upon the sea.
“So let us strive, while life remains, To save all souls on board, And
then if die at last we must, Let.... I cannot speak the word!”
Said Dollinger the pilot man, Tow’ring above the crew, “Fear not, but
trust in Dollinger, And he will fetch you through.”
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“Low bridge! low bridge!” all heads went down, The laboring bark sped
on; A mill we passed, we passed church, Hamlets, and fields of corn; And
all the world came out to see, And chased along the shore Crying, “Alas,
alas, the sheeted rain, The wind, the tempest’s roar! Alas, the gallant
ship and crew, Can nothing help them more?”
And from our deck sad eyes looked out Across the stormy scene: The
tossing wake of billows aft, The bending forests green, The chickens
sheltered under carts In lee of barn the cows, The skurrying swine with
straw in mouth, The wild spray from our bows!
“She balances! She wavers! Now let her go about! If she misses stays and
broaches to, We’re all”—then with a shout, “Huray! huray! Avast!
belay! Take in more sail! Lord, what a gale! Ho, boy, haul taut on the
hind mule’s tail!”
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“Ho! lighten ship! ho! man the pump! Ho, hostler, heave the lead!”
“A quarter-three!—’tis shoaling fast! Three feet large!—t-h-r-e-e
feet!—Three feet scant!” I cried in fright “Oh, is there no retreat?”
Said Dollinger, the pilot man, As on the vessel flew, “Fear not, but
trust in Dollinger, And he will fetch you through.”
A panic struck the bravest hearts, The boldest cheek turned pale; For
plain to all, this shoaling said A leak had burst the ditch’s bed! And,
straight as bolt from crossbow sped, Our ship swept on, with shoaling
lead, Before the fearful gale!
“Sever the tow-line! Cripple the mules!” Too late! There comes a
shock! Another length, and the fated craft Would have swum in the saving
lock!
Then gathered together the shipwrecked crew And took one last embrace,
While sorrowful tears from despairing eyes Ran down each hopeless face;
And some did think of their little ones Whom they never more might see,
And others of waiting wives at home, And mothers that grieved would be.
But of all the children of misery there On that poor sinking frame, But
one spake words of hope and faith, And I worshipped as they came: Said
Dollinger the pilot man,—(O brave heart, strong and true!)—“Fear not,
but trust in Dollinger, For he will fetch you through.”
Lo! scarce the words have passed his lips The dauntless prophet say’th,
When every soul about him seeth A wonder crown his faith!
“And count ye all, both great and small, As numbered with the dead: For
mariner for forty year, On Erie, boy and man, I never yet saw such a
storm, Or one’t with it began!”
So overboard a keg of nails And anvils three we threw, Likewise four
bales of gunny-sacks, Two hundred pounds of glue, Two sacks of corn,
four ditto wheat, A box of books, a cow, A violin, Lord Byron’s works, A
rip-saw and a sow.
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A curve! a curve! the dangers grow! “Labbord!—stabbord!—s-t-e-a-d-
y!—so!—Hard-a-port, Dol!—hellum-a-lee! Haw the head mule!—the aft
one gee! Luff!—bring her to the wind!”
For straight a farmer brought a plank,—(Mysteriously inspired)—And
laying it unto the ship, In silent awe retired.
Then every sufferer stood amazed That pilot man before; A moment stood.
Then wondering turned, And speechless walked ashore.