A Poor Man's House Part 16

"'Tisn't vitty. I said so all along."

[Sidenote: _HAULING INBOARD_]

"If a skat o' rain comes--and 'tis raining on land, seems so--the wind'll back out to sou'west, an' us'll hae to rin for it. A perty lop'll get up tu, an' we'm more'n a mile from land."

"Us'll haul in be 'leven. No gude hanging on out here. If the wind _du_ back...."

I have never heard them talk so much about the weather. And all the while, the sky drove into splendid cloud-forms, all windy, nearly all rainy. We lost the Eddystone light, then lost the Seacombe light and recovered the former, as a storm drifted along sh.o.r.e. From time to time we thought the wind was backing a bit.

Supper, for me, had to be crammed down on a rather queasy stomach.

"We'm all ways to once!" Tony remarked. The wind did definitely back a point or two. "Only let it once die away," said Tony in the tone of _I told you so_; "then yu'll see how it can spring from the sou'west when 'tis a-minded."

One minute I wished myself home, safe in bed, and thought with grotesque grief of some unfinished work. Next minute, I knew that I would not have missed the night out there for any consideration. The grey, slightly sheeny boil of the sea around us; the sweeping savagery of the sky; the intimacy of the waters....

But we were all relieved when eleven o'clock came. The watchfulness was a strain.

When one is steering instead of hauling, the getting-in of nine forty-fathom nets seems interminable. One net, two nets, three nets--a third of nine,--four, five--more than half the fleet,--six--two-thirds of nine,--seven, eight--nine all but one;--and so on, with an occasional wave coming inboard, until the very last square buoy comes bobbing towards the boat; hand over hand, buoy by buoy, net by net, holding fast when the pull of the tide is too strong, and pausing irritably to pick out the fish. We stepped the great mast, shifted all the ballast to wind'ard. John came aft to steer, and seated himself on the counter, a strangely powerful, statuesque figure in his wet oilskins. "Have 'ee got the sheet in yer hand?" Tony called out from the bows.

John did not trouble to reply.

"Have 'ee got the sheet in yer hand, John?"

"No, I an't! What the h.e.l.l do 'ee want the sheet for? Wind's abeam."

"Might want it bad," said Tony.

[Sidenote: _A REMBRANDTESQUE PICTURE_]

We left it fast however; and with the same, an elemental pa.s.sion took possession of my mind; ousted all else. I had been anxious about the sheet, had thought John foolhardy. Now I didn't care. I could have cried out aloud for joy as the brave old craft rose to the seas with a marvellous easy motion and the waves came skatting in over the bows.

Before long, I was on my knees with the baler; John was getting every inch out of the wind, and Tony was standing abaft the nets with the sheet dangling through his hand. By the light of the riding-lamp on the mizzen mast (its gla.s.s patched with an old jam cover), they in their angular wet oil-skins--the rain was pelting--and the rich wet brown of the boat's varnish, made a wonderful Rembrandtesque picture. I hardly know how long we were sailing home; it slipped my mind to take the time. About two o'clock I was halfway down the beach with Tony cursing above me and John doing the same below. Someone had 'messed up' our capstan wire. While Tony was putting that right in the dark--and pinching his fingers severely--the boat washed broadside on and began to fill. We had only five dozen fish. They sold badly.

In time, and with practice, I could, I believe, do most that these fishermen do except one thing: I doubt I could stand the racket of my own thoughts. Tony and John would go out to-night, to-morrow, every night. But I have slept so dead (not from bodily tiredness) that, the door being bolted against the children, they were unable to waken me for dinner, and in the end Tony told them to 'let the poor beast bide.'

Of what nature was that pa.s.sion, so exultant and so tiring? Are these fishermen so used to it that they 'don't take much note o'it'? For they feel it. I have seen it in their faces. One can always tell. The eyes widen and brighten; hasty movements become so desperately cool. If what was an episode in my life, is part and parcel of theirs, how much the better for _them_!

29

To-day the sea pa.s.sion, or whatever it is, came again.

While I was asleep, the wind backed and freshened. Balks of wood from a naval target kept washing in. Balks make winter firing when coal is dear and money scarce. Boats had been bringing them in all the morning, till the sea became too rough. Tony had none however. In the afternoon he complained bitterly:

"They all got some wude but me, an' us an't got enough in house for the winter nuther." Just then we saw a large piece washing along on the flood tide over the outside of Broken Rocks. "Get a rope--gra.s.s rope, mind. Down with her. The _c.o.c.k Robin_! Quick. Jump aboard. Take oars.

Hurry up casn'? Get hold thic oar. Look out!"

[Sidenote: _OUT AFTER FLOTSAM_]

No time to wait for a smooth. Tony shoved the _c.o.c.k Robin_ into a surf we should not otherwise have thought of facing. As it turned out, we got off better than we usually do in only a moderate sea, though we should have capsized to a certainty had the boat sheered. 'Twas, "Look out! Damme, look out! Here's a swell coming! Get her head to it or we'm over. Gude for us!" Some of the waves, rising and topping in the shallow water over the rocks, seemed to make the _c.o.c.k Robin_ sit upright on her stern, like a dog begging, and the higher the seas rose the more we gloried in them. Sufficient for the moment was the wave thereof. We swore at each other in a sort of chant. I had to repress an impulse to jump overboard and swim to the balk, instead of trying to work up to it with a boat that had, every other moment, to be turned bows on to the sea. The slightest error of judgment on Tony's part, and we should indeed have swum for it. I had such a curious feeling of being _in_ the sea--as much a part of it as the waves themselves--that the affair ceased to be a struggle. It became a glorious great big game. Yet for work we were so cool that, though we towed our balk ash.o.r.e and shoved off after another, we hardly got wet above the knees.

We were beside ourselves, and all ourselves. Where does that exultant feeling, that devil-beyond-oneself, come from? From what depth of human personality does it uprise, whirling, like those primitive pa.s.sions--s.e.x, hunger, rage, fear--which may be boxed up awhile by the will, but which, once unloosed, sweep the will aside and carry one off like froth in a gale, until physical exhaustion sets in and allows the will to re-a.s.sert itself? One understands the evolution of the primitive self-preservative and race-preservative pa.s.sions. How has this latent daredevilry become so implanted in us that it rises from the bottom depths of one's nature; and how has it become ordinarily so hidden?

Above all what is the effect of this pa.s.sion on seafaring men? To say that familiarity breeds contempt is--even if it be correct--to beg the question. What is the effect of that familiarity? It might be said that they are the subjects of a sub-acute, persistent form of the daredevilry which uprose in me unexpectedly and acutely. But again, the sub-acute lifelong form of it is likely to have the greater influence on a man's self, on his morale and his character. Hence, I believe, the width of these men, their largeness. It was good to hear Tony talk in the most matter-of-fact manner (yet with a touch of reverence, as towards an ever-possible contingency) of a Salcombe fisherman who was drowned. "Her was drownded all through his own carelessness, and didn't rise in the water for a month. ('Tis nine days down and nine days up, wi' the crab bites out of 'ee, as a rule.) An' he wer carried up by the tide an' collected, like, out o' the water just at the back o' his own house. Nice quiet chap he was." That coolness of speech one saw plainly, is the outcome not of contempt, still less of non-feeling, but of familiarity, of a breadth of mind in looking at the catastrophe. I have not noticed such breadth of mind elsewhere except among those who live precariously and the few of very great religious faith.

An hour after bringing in the balks, we were hauling the boats over the wall, and at high tide the seas swept across the road.

30

[Sidenote: _A SING-SONG_]

Many an evening we have had small sing-songs in the kitchen. To-night, on account of my going and the need to give me a cheery send-off, we had quite a concert. Tony was star.

Supper being pushed back on the table and a piece of wreckage flung on the fire, he made himself ready by taking off his soaked boots and stockings, and plumping his feet on Mam Widger's lap; then brought himself into the vocal mood with a long rigmarole that he used to recite with the Mummers at Christmas time. Soon we were humming, whistling and singing "Sweet Evelina," whose sole musical merit is that her chorus goes with a swing. The fire crackled and burnt blue. The fragrant steam of the grog rose to the ceiling and settled on the window. We leaned right back in our chairs.

"Missis," said Tony, "I feels like zingin' to-night."

"Wait a minute while I shuts the door, else they kids'll be down for more supper."

"Us got it, an't us?"

"Yes, but _they_'ve had enough."

When Tony sings, he throws his head back and closes his eyes, so that, but for the motions of his mouth, he looks asleep, even deathlike, and is, in fact, withdrawn into himself.

I think he sees his songs, as well as sings them. I often wonder what pictures are flitting through his mind beneath (as I imagine) the place where the thick grizzled hair thins to the red forehead. His voice is a high tenor. I make accompaniment an octave below, whilst Mrs Widger--a little nasal in tone and not infrequently adrift in tune--supports him from above.

We sang "The Poor Smuggler's Boy"--

Your pity I crave, Won't you give me employ?

Or forlorn I must wander, Said the poor smuggler's boy.

Then the "Skipper and his Boy"--

Over the mounting waves so 'igh, We'll sail together, my boy and I-I, We'll sail together, my bo-oy and I!

"Have 'ee wrote to George?" Tony asked.

"'Tis your place to du that."

"I an't got time...."

"Thee asn't got time for nort!"

The fisher's is a merry life!

Blow, winds, blow!

The fisher and his vitty wife!

Row, boys, row!

He drives no plough on stubborn land, His fruits are ready to his hand.

No nipping frosts his orchards fear, He has his autumn all the year, Blow, winds, blow!