Oldport Days
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Thomas Wentworth Higginson >> Oldport Days
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Yet while they are silent, I like to trace back for these
component parts of my fire such brief histories as I share. This
block, for instance, came from the large schooner which now lies
at the end of Castle Hill Beach, bearing still aloft its broken
masts and shattered rigging, and with its keel yet stanch, except
that the stern-post is gone,--so that each tide sweeps in its
green harvest of glossy kelp, and then tosses it in the hold like
hay, desolately tenanting the place which once sheltered men. The
floating weed, so graceful in its own place, looks but dreary
when thus confined. On that fearfully cold Monday of last winter
(January 8, 1866) when the mercury stood at-10° even in this
mildest corner of New England,--this vessel was caught helplessly
amid the ice that drifted out of the west passage of Narragansett
Bay, before the fierce north-wind. They tried to beat into the
eastern entrance, but the schooner seemed in sinking condition,
the sails and helm were clogged with ice, and every rope, as an
eye-witness told me, was as large as a man's body with frozen
sleet. Twice they tacked across, making no progress; and then, to
save their lives, ran the vessel on the rocks and got ashore.
After they had left her, a higher wave swept her off, and drifted
her into a little cove, where she has ever since remained.
There were twelve wrecks along this shore last winter,--more than
during any season for a quarter of a century. I remember when the
first of these lay in great fragments on Graves Point, a schooner
having been stranded on Cormorant Rocks outside, and there broken
in pieces by the surf. She had been split lengthwise, and one
great side was leaning up against the sloping rock, bows on, like
some wild sea-creature never before beheld of men, and come there
but to die. So strong was this impression that when I afterwards
saw men at work upon the wreck, tearing out the iron bolts and
chains, it seemed like torturing the last moments of a living
thing. At my next visit there was no person in sight; another
companion fragment had floated ashore, and the two lay peacefully
beside the sailors' graves (which give the name to the point), as
if they found comfort there. A little farther on there was a brig
ashore and deserted. A fog came in from the sea; and, as I sat by
the graves, some unseen passing vessel struck eight bells for
noon. For a moment I fancied that it came from the empty brig,--a
ghostly call, to summon phantom sailors.
That smouldering brand, which has alternately gleamed and
darkened for so many minutes, I brought from Price's Neck last
winter, when the Brenton's Reef Light-ship went ashore. Yonder
the oddly shaped vessel rides at anchor now, two miles from land,
bearing her lanterns aloft at fore and main top. She parted her
moorings by night, in the fearful storm of October19, 1865; and I
well remember, that, as I walked through the streets that wild
evening, it seemed dangerous to be out of doors, and I tried to
imagine what was going on at sea, while at that very moment the
light-ship was driving on toward me in the darkness. It was thus
that it happened:-
There had been a heavy gale from the southeast, which, after a
few hours of lull, suddenly changed in the afternoon to the
southwest, which is, on this coast, the prevailing direction.
Beginning about three o'clock, this new wind had risen almost to
a hurricane by six, and held with equal fury till midnight, after
which it greatly diminished, though, when I visited the wreck
next morning, it was hard to walk against the blast. The
light-ship went adrift at eight in the evening; the men let go
another anchor, with forty fathoms of cable; this parted also,
but the cable dragged, as she drifted in, keeping the vessel's
head to the wind, which was greatly to her advantage. The great
waves took her over five lines of reef, on each of which her keel
grazed or held for a time. She came ashore on Price's Neck at
last, about eleven.
It was utterly dark; the sea broke high over the ship, even over
her lanterns, and the crew could only guess that they were near
the land by the sound of the surf. The captain was not on board,
and the mate was in command, though his leg had been broken while
holding the tiller. They could not hear each other's voices, and
could scarcely cling to the deck. There seemed every chance that
the ship would go to pieces before daylight. At last one of the
crew, named William Martin, a Scotchman, thinking, as he
afterwards told me, of his wife and three children, and of the
others on board who had families,--and that something must be
done, and he might as well do it as anybody,--got a rope bound
around his waist, and sprang overboard. I asked the mate next day
whether he ordered Martin to do this, and he said, "No, he
volunteered it. I would not have ordered him, for I would not
have done it myself." What made the thing most remarkable was,
that the man actually could not swim, and did not know how far
off the shore was, but trusted to the waves to take him
thither,--perhaps two hundred yards. His trust was repaid.
Struggling in the mighty surf, he sometimes felt the rocks
beneath his feet, sometimes bruised his hands against them. At
any rate he got on shore alive, and, securing his rope, made his
way over the moors to the town, and summoned his captain, who was
asleep in his own house. They returned at once to the spot, found
the line still fast, and the rest of the crew, four in number,
lowered the whaleboat, and were pulled to shore by the rope,
landing safely before daybreak.
When I saw the vessel next morning, she lay in a little cove,
stern on, not wholly out of water,--steady and upright as in a
dry-dock, with no sign of serious injury, except that the rudder
was gone. She did not seem like a wreck; the men were the wrecks.
As they lay among the rocks, bare or tattered, scarcely able to
move, waiting for low tide to go on board the vessel, it was like
a scene after a battle. They appeared too inert, poor fellows, to
do anything but yearn toward the sun. When they changed position
for shelter, from time to time, they crept along the rocks,
instead of walking. They were like the little floating sprays of
sea-weed, when you take them from the water and they become a
mere mass of pulp in your hand. Martin shared in the general
exhaustion, and no wonder; but he told his story very simply, and
showed me where he had landed. The feat seemed to me then, and
has always seemed, almost incredible, even for an expert swimmer.
He thus summed up the motives for his action: "I thought that God
was first, and I was next, and if I did the best I could, no man
could do more than that; so I jumped overboard." It is pleasant
to add, that, though a poor man, he utterly declined one of those
small donations of money by which we Anglo-Saxons are wont
clumsily to express our personal enthusiasms; and I think I
appreciated his whole action the more for its coming just at the
close of a war during which so many had readily accepted their
award of praise or pay for acts of less intrinsic daring than
his.
Stir the fire, Annie, with yonder broken fragment of a
flag-staff; its truck is still remaining, though the flag is
gone, and every nation might claim it. As you stir, the burning
brands evince a remembrance of their sea-lost life, the sparks
drift away like foam-flakes, the flames wave and flap like sails,
and the wail of the chimney sings a second shipwreck. As the tiny
scintillations gleam and scatter and vanish in the soot of the
chimney-wall, instead of "There goes the parson, and there goes
the clerk," it must be the captain and the crew we watch. A
drift-wood fire should always have children to tend it; for there
is something childlike about it, unlike the steadier glow of
walnut logs. It has a coaxing, infantine way of playing with the
oddly shaped bits of wood we give it, and of deserting one to
caress with flickering impulse another; and at night, when it
needs to be extinguished, it is as hard to put to rest as a
nursery of children, for some bright little head is constantly
springing up anew, from its pillow of ashes. And, in turn, what
endless delight children find in the manipulation of a fire!
What a variety of playthings, too, in this fuel of ours; such
inexplicable pieces, treenails and tholepins, trucks and sheaves,
the lid of a locker, and a broken handspike. These larger
fragments are from spars and planks and knees. Some were dropped
overboard in this quiet harbor; others may have floated from
Fayal or Hispaniola, Mozambique or Zanzibar. This eagle
figure-head, chipped and battered, but still possessing highly
aquiline features and a single eye, may have tangled its curved
beak in the vast weed-beds of the Sargasso Sea, or dipped it in
the Sea of Milk. Tell us your story, O heroic but dilapidated
bird! and perhaps song or legend may find in it themes that shall
be immortal.
The eagle is silent, and I suspect, Annie, that he is but a
plain, home-bred fowl after all. But what shall we say to this
piece of plank, hung with barnacles that look large enough for
the fabled barnacle-goose to emerge from? Observe this fragment a
little. Another piece is secured to it, not neatly, as with
proper tools, but clumsily, with many nails of different sizes,
driven unevenly and with their heads battered awry. Wedged
clumsily in between these pieces, and secured by a supplementary
nail, is a bit of broken rope. Let us touch that rope tenderly;
for who knows what despairing hands may last have clutched it
when this rude raft was made? It may, indeed, have been the
handiwork of children, on the Penobscot or the St. Mary's River.
But its Condition betokens voyages yet longer; and it may just as
well have come from the stranded "Golden Rule" on Roncador
Reef,--that picturesque shipwreck where (as a rescued woman told
me) the eyes of the people in their despair seemed full of
sublime resignation, so that there was no confusion or outcry,
and even gamblers and harlots looked death in the face as nobly,
for all that could be seen, as the saintly and the pure. Or who
knows but it floated round Cape Horn, from that other wreck, on
the Pacific shore, of the "Central America," where the rough
miners found that there was room in the boats only for their
wives and their gold; and where, pushing the women off, with a
few men to row them, the doomed husbands gave a cheer of courage
as the ship went down.
Here again is a piece of pine wood, cut in notches as for a
tally, and with every seventh notch the longest; these notches
having been cut deeply at the beginning, and feebly afterwards,
stopping abruptly before the end was reached. Who could have
carved it? Not a school-boy awaiting vacation, or a soldier
expecting his discharge; for then each tally would have been cut
off, instead of added. Nor could it be the squad of two soldiers
who garrison Rose Island; for their tour of duty lasts but a
week. There are small barnacles and sea-weed too, which give the
mysterious stick a sort of brevet antiquity. It has been long
adrift, and these little barnacles, opening and closing daily
their minute valves, have kept meanwhile their own register, and
with their busy fringed fingers have gathered from the whole
Atlantic that small share of its edible treasures which sufficed
for them. Plainly this waif has had its experiences. It was
Robinson Crusoe's, Annie, depend upon it. We will save it from
the flames, and when we establish our marine museum, nothing save
a veritable piece of the North Pole shall be held so valuable as
this undoubted relic from Juan Fernandez.
But the night deepens, and its reveries must end. With the winter
will pass away the winter-storms, and summer will bring its own
more insidious perils. Then the drowsy old seaport will blaze
into splendor, through saloon and avenue, amidst which many a
bright career will end suddenly and leave no sign. The ocean
tries feebly to emulate the profounder tragedies of the shore. In
the crowded halls of gay hotels, I see wrecks drifting
hopelessly, dismasted and rudderless, to be stranded on hearts
harder and more cruel than Brenton's Reef, yet hid in smiles
falser than its fleecy foam. What is a mere forsaken ship,
compared with stately houses from which those whom I first knew
in their youth and beauty have since fled into midnight and
despair?
But one last gleam upon our hearth lights up your innocent eyes,
little Annie, and dispels the gathering shade. The flame dies
down again, and you draw closer to my side. The pure moon looks
in at the southern window, replacing the ruddier glow; while the
fading embers lisp and prattle to one another, like drowsy
children, more and more faintly, till they fall asleep.
AN ARTIST'S CREATION.
When I reached Kenmure's house, one August evening, it was rather
a disappointment to find that he and his charming Laura had
absented themselves for twenty-four hours. I had not seen them
together since their marriage; my admiration for his varied
genius and her unvarying grace was at its height, and I was
really annoyed at the delay. My fair cousin, with her usual exact
housekeeping, had prepared everything for her guest, and then
bequeathed me, as she wrote, to Janet and baby Marian. It was a
pleasant arrangement, for between baby Marian and me there
existed a species of passion, I might almost say of betrothal,
ever since that little three-year-old sunbeam had blessed my
mother's house by lingering awhile in it, six months before.
Still I went to bed disappointed, though the delightful windows
of the chamber looked out upon the glimmering bay, and the
swinging lanterns at the yard-arms of the frigates shone like
some softer constellation beneath the brilliant sky. The house
was so close upon the water that the cool waves seemed to plash
deliciously against its very basement; and it was a comfort to
think that, if there were no adequate human greetings that night,
there would be plenty in the morning, since Marian would
inevitably be pulling my eyelids apart before sunrise.
It was scarcely dawn when I was roused by a little arm round my
neck, and waked to think I had one of Raphael's cherubs by my
side. Fingers of waxen softness were ruthlessly at work upon my
eyes, and the little form that met my touch felt lithe and
elastic, like a kitten's limbs. There was just light enough to
see the child, perched on the edge of the bed, her soft blue
dressing-gown trailing over the white night-dress, while her
black and long-fringed eyes shone through the dimness of morning.
She yielded gladly to my grasp, and I could fondle again the
silken hair, the velvety brunette cheek, the plump, childish
shoulders. Yet sleep still half held me, and when my cherub
appeared to hold it a cherubic practice to begin the day with a
demand for lively anecdote, I was fain drowsily to suggest that
she might first tell some stories to her doll. With the sunny
readiness that was a part of her nature, she straightway turned
to that young lady,--plain Susan Halliday, with both cheeks
patched, and eyes of different colors,--and soon discoursed both
her and me into repose.
When I waked again, it was to find the child conversing with the
morning star, which still shone through the window, scarcely so
lucent as her eyes, and bidding it go home to its mother, the
sun. Another lapse into dreams, and then a more vivid awakening,
and she had my ear at last, and won story after story, requiting
them with legends of her own youth, "almost a year ago,"--how she
was perilously lost, for instance, in the small front yard, with
a little playmate, early in the afternoon, and how they came and
peeped into the window, and thought all the world had forgotten
them. Then the sweet voice, distinct in its articulation as
Laura's, went straying off into wilder fancies,--a chaos of
autobiography and conjecture, like the letters of a war
correspondent. You would have thought her little life had yielded
more pangs and fears than might have sufficed for the discovery
of the North Pole; but breakfast-time drew near at last, and
Janet's honest voice was heard outside the door. I rather envied
the good Scotchwoman the pleasant task of polishing the smooth
cheeks and combing the dishevelled silk; but when, a little
later, the small maiden was riding down stairs in my arms, I
envied no one.
At sight of the bread and milk, my cherub was transformed into a
hungry human child, chiefly anxious to reach the bottom of her
porringer. I was with her a great deal that day. She gave no
manner of trouble: it was like having the charge of a floating
butterfly, endowed with warm arms to clasp, and a silvery voice
to prattle. I sent Janet out to sail, with the other servants, by
way of frolic, and Marian's perfect temperament was shown in the
way she watched the departing.
"There they go," she said, as she stood and danced at the window.
"Now they are out of sight."
"What!" I said, "are you pleased to have your friends go?"
"Yes," she answered; "but I shall be pleased-er to see them come
back."
Life to her was no alternation between joy and grief, but only
between joy and delight.
Twilight brought us to an improvised concert. Climbing the
piano-stool, she went over the notes with her little taper
fingers, touching the keys in a light, knowing way, that proved
her a musician's child. Then I must play for her, and let the
dance begin. This was a wondrous performance on her part, and
consisted at first in hopping up and down on one spot, with no
change of motion, but in her hands. She resembled a minute and
irrepressible Shaker, or a live and beautiful marionnette. Then
she placed Janet in the middle of the floor, And performed the
dance round her, after the manner of Vivien and Merlin. Then came
her supper, which, like its predecessors, was a solid and
absorbing meal; then one more fairy story, to magnetize her off,
and she danced and sang herself up stairs. And if she first came
to me in the morning with a halo round her head, she seemed still
to retain it when I at last watched her kneeling in the little
bed--perfectly motionless, with her hands placed together, and
her long lashes sweeping her cheeks--to repeat two verses of a
hymn which Janet had taught her. My nerves quivered a little when
I saw that Susan Halliday had also been duly prepared for the
night, and had been put in the same attitude, so far as her
jointless anatomy permitted. This being ended, the doll and her
mistress reposed together, and only an occasional toss of the
vigorous limbs, or a stifled baby murmur, would thenceforth
prove, through the darkened hours, that the one figure had in it
more of life than the other.
On the next morning Kenmure and Laura came back to us, and I
walked down to receive them at the boat. I had forgotten how
striking was their appearance, as they stood together. His broad,
strong, Saxon look, his manly bearing and clear blue eyes,
enhanced the fascination of her darker beauty.
America is full of the short-lived bloom and freshness of
girlhood; but it is a rare thing in one's life to see a beauty
that really controls with a permanent charm. One must remember
such personal loveliness, as one recalls some particular
moonlight or sunset, with a special and concentrated joy, which
the multiplicity of fainter impressions cannot disturb. When in
those days we used to read, in Petrarch's one hundred and
twenty-third sonnet, that he had once beheld on earth angelic
manners and celestial charms, whose very remembrance was a
delight and an affliction, since it made all else appear but
dream and shadow, we could easily fancy that nature had certain
permanent attributes which accompanied the name of Laura.
Our Laura had that rich brunette beauty before which the mere
snow and roses of the blonde must always seem wan and
unimpassioned. In the superb suffusions of her cheek there seemed
to flow a tide of passions and powers that might have been
tumultuous in a meaner woman, but over which, in her, the clear
and brilliant eyes and the sweet, proud mouth presided in
unbroken calm. These superb tints implied resources only, not a
struggle. With this torrent from the tropics in her veins, she
was the most equable person I ever saw, and had a supreme and
delicate good-sense, which, if not supplying the place of genius,
at least comprehended its work. Not intellectually gifted
herself, perhaps, she seemed the cause of gifts in others, and
furnished the atmosphere in which all showed their best. With the
steady and thoughtful enthusiasm of her Puritan ancestors, she
combined that charm which is so rare among their descendants,--a
grace which fascinated the humblest,while it would have been just
the same in the society of kings. Her person had the equipoise
and symmetry of her mind. While it had its separate points of
beauty, each a source of distinct and peculiar pleasure,--as, the
outline of her temples, the white line that parted her nightblack
hair, the bend of her wrists, the moulding of her
finger-tips,--yet these details were lost in the overwhelming
sweetness of her presence, and the serene atmosphere that she
diffused over all human life.
A few days passed rapidly by us. We walked and rode and boated
and read. Little Marian came and went, a living sunbeam, a
self-sufficing thing. It was soon obvious that she was far less
demonstrative toward her parents than toward me; while her
mother, gracious to her as to all, yet rarely caressed her, and
Kenmure, though habitually kind, was inclined to ignore her
existence, and could scarcely tolerate that she should for one
instant preoccupy his wife. For Laura he lived, and she must live
for him. He had a studio, which I rarely entered and Marian
never, though Laura was almost constantly there; and after the
first cordiality was past, I observed that their daily
expeditions were always arranged for only two. The weather was
beautiful, and they led the wildest outdoor life, cruising all
day or all night among the islands, regardless of hours, and
almost of health. No matter: Kenmure liked it, and what he liked
she loved. When at home, they were chiefly in the studio, he
painting, modelling, poetizing perhaps, and she inseparably
united with him in all. It was very beautiful, this unworldly and
passionate love, and I could have borne to be omitted in their
daily plans,--since little Marian was left to me,--save that it
seemed so strange to omit her also. Besides, there grew to be
something a little oppressive in this peculiar atmosphere; it was
like living in a greenhouse.
Yet they always spoke in the simplest way of this absorbing
passion, as of something about which no reticence was needed; it
was too sacred not to be mentioned; it would be wrong not to
utter freely to all the world what was doubtless the best thing
the world possessed. Thus Kenmure made Laura his model in all his
art; not to coin her into wealth or fame,--he would have scorned
it; he would have valued fame and wealth only as instruments for
proclaiming her. Looking simply at these two lovers, then, it was
plain that no human union could be more noble or stainless. Yet
so far as others were concerned, it sometimes seemed to me a kind
of duplex selfishness, so profound and so undisguised as to make
one shudder. "Is it," I asked myself at such moments, "a great
consecration, or a great crime?" But something must be allowed,
perhaps, for my own private dis-satisfactions in Marian's behalf.
I had easily persuaded Janet to let me have a peep every night at
my darling, as she slept; and once I was surprised to find Laura
sitting by the small white bed. Graceful and beautiful as she
always was, she never before had seemed to me so lovely, for she
never had seemed quite like a mother. But I could not demand a
sweeter look of tenderness than that with which she now gazed
upon her child.
Little Marian lay with one brown, plump hand visible from its
full white sleeve, while the other nestled half hid beneath the
sheet, grasping a pair of blue morocco shoes, the last
acquisition of her favorite doll. Drooping from beneath the
pillow hung a handful of scarlet poppies, which the child had
wished to place under her head, in the very superfluous project
of putting herself to sleep thereby. Her soft brown hair was
scattered on the sheet, her black lashes lay motionless upon the
olive cheeks. Laura wished to move her, that I might see her the
better.
"You will wake her," exclaimed I, in alarm.
"Wake this little dormouse?" Laura lightly answered.
"Impossible."
And, twining her arms about her, the young mother lifted the
child from the bed, three or four times in succession, while the
healthy little creature remained utterly undisturbed, breathing
the same quiet breath. I watched Laura with amazement; she seemed
transformed.
She gayly returned my eager look, and then, seeming suddenly to
penetrate its meaning, cast down her eyes, while the color
mounted into her cheeks. "You thought," she said, almost sternly,
"that I did not love my child."
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