Part 29 (1/2)
”Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't; it's an uncertain fish the pilchard, and it's a rough life is fis.h.i.+ng on this coast. There aint a good harbor not this side of the Lizard; and if they're caught in a gale from the southeast it goes hard with them. With a southwester they can run back here.”
”Were you ever a fisherman yourself?”
”Aye, I began life at it; I went a-fis.h.i.+ng as a boy well-nigh fifty year back, but I got a sickener of it, and tramped to Plymouth and s.h.i.+pped in a frigate there, and served all my time in queen's s.h.i.+ps.”
”Did you get sick of fis.h.i.+ng because of the hards.h.i.+ps of the life, or from any particular circ.u.mstance?”
”I got wrecked on the Scillys. There was fifty boats lost that night, and scarce a hand was saved. I shouldn't have been saved myself if it had not been for a dream of mother's.”
”That's curious,” I said. ”Would you mind telling me about it?”
The old sailor did not speak for a minute or two; and then, after a sharp puff at his pipe, he told me the following story, of which I have but slightly altered the wording:
I lived with mother at Tregannock. It's a bit of a village now, as it was then. My father had been washed overboard and drowned two years before. I was his only son. The boat I sailed in was mother's, and four men and myself worked her in shares. I was twenty-one, or maybe twenty-two, years old then. It was one day early in October. We had had a bad season, and times were hard. We'd agreed to start at eight o'clock in the morning. I was up at five, and went down to the boats to see as everything was ready. When I got back mother had made breakfast; and when we sat down I saw that the old woman had been crying, and looked altogether queer like.
”My boy,” says she, ”I want you not to go out this trip.”
”Not go out!” said I; ”not go out, mother! Why? What's happened? Your share and mine didn't come to three pounds last month, and it would be a talk if I didn't go out in the _Jane_. Why, what is it?”
”My boy,” says she, ”I've had a dream as how you was drowned.”
”Drowned!” said I; ”I'm not going to be drowned, mother.”
But what she said made me feel creepy like, for us Cornishmen goes a good deal on dreams and tokens; and sure enough mother had dreamed father was going to be drowned before he started on that last trip of his.
”That's not all, Will,” she said. ”I dreamed of you in bed, and a chap was leaning over you cutting your throat.”
I didn't care much for going on with my breakfast after that; but in a minute or two I plucks up and says:
”Well, mother, you're wrong, anyhow; for if I be drowned no one has no call to cut my throat.”
”I didn't see you downright drowned in my dream,” she said. ”You was in the sea--a terribly rough sea--at night, and the waves were breaking down on you.”
”I can't help going, mother,” I says, after a bit. ”It's a fine day, and it's our boat. All the lads and girls in the village would laugh at me if I stayed at home.”
”That's just what your father said; and he went to his death.”
And my mother, as she says this, puts her ap.r.o.n over her head and began to cry again. I'd more than half a mind to give way; but you know what young chaps are. The thought of what the girls of the place would say about my being afraid to go was too much for me.
At last, when mother saw I was bent on going, she got up and said:
”Well, Will, if my prayers can't keep you back, will you do something else I ask you?”
”I will, mother,” said I--”anything but stay back.”
She went off without a word into her bedroom, and she came back with something in her arms.
”Look here, Will, I made this for your father, and he wouldn't have it; now I ask you to take it, and put it on if a storm comes on. You see, you can put it on under your dreadnaught coat, and no one will be any the wiser.”
The thing she brought in was two flat Dutch spirit-bottles, sewn between two pieces of canvas. It had got strings sewed on for tying round the body, and put on as she did to show me how, one bottle each side of the chest, it lay pretty flat.