Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1891-05-06
THE SHIPPERS STORY,

llIU Nnll | UltO NlUItI.
''Well, SIR" said the old captain to
me, retired shipmaster, with the gaze
of a vulture under the apparently
sleepy lid, and face full of lines and
discoloration like the wrinkling of cur
rents in the brassy swaths of dead
calm on some dingy spread of water off
the West African coast-"I hal been al
ways bit superstitious up to then, but
/ own that the job cured me. But it
made me see also that it isn't reasona-
bic to be contemptuous of ones fellow
creatures who believe in spirits and
manifestations of which there is no
organ, sense or quality in the human
body to take notice of, saving credulity.
1t comes to this, sir: Human nature
never gets beyond certain pass. We
sail to that point and then the wind
shifts and we drop astern. From time
to time it is put into us to think
foollshlv, that the thoughtful among us
may understand how little ahead of the
old folks we are in spite of all our dis
coveries. I've watched this fad of
ghosts among us of late-the growth of
societies which aim to enlarge mems
knowledge of what doesn't eXist-and
it takes me back to the days when [ was
Il young 'un, when there were still
witches in the country, and old women
were ducked and drowned for sailing
athwart the moonlight on broomsticks.
We were bit coarser then in our SUI
perstitions than now, made our ghosts
hays instead of spirits of beauty, fed
from candles in turnips, and reckoned
that when old Bogey wanthd us he ar
rived down the chimney. But the
quality remains the same. 1t is only
frightened in these times, polished up
and made to look in other ways finer.
Now. however, to give YOU my yarn.
81 was master on a ship of eight hun
dred tons. We were loaded with gen
eral cargo, bound to the East Indies.
1t is many years ago, when ships COM
panies were numerous, partly through
the compulsion of the navigation laws,
partly because owners wanted their
ships to keep afoat, partly because you
wouldn't have got sailors to ship if there
had not been hands to do the work;
and my complement numbered between
forty and forty-fve men. In a crowd of
this kind one doesn't take particular
notice. When the crew are few you
come to know your Jims, and Joes, and
Toms, as you come to know your dogs
at home, or as man who is worth only
a few shillings is not only conscious of
what he has in his pocket, but can tell
you the character of the coins also. We
were without passengers, simply we'll
manned cargo vessel, all of the olden
time, though handsome boat in her
way. frigate built, painted ports, wide
channels, great black tops, the yards
square enough to serve a ine-of-battle
ship, and the royals, when ast-headed,
sitting close against the trucks-the
lppoperest topping off, to my taste, to
the fabric Of a full-rigged ship We
afternoon there came on sudden
squall. The fore and mizzen topgallant
sails were clewed up, with a hand stand
ing by at the main topgallant billiards.
I noticed some figures in fine fore
rigging going aloft to roll up the
sail there, and then on a sudden there
was commotion, a running of men for
ward and a gathering of them into a
heap around something. I told the
anate to go and see what was the matter.
He returned with the news that man
in the act of going aloft had fallen dead
on the deck off the rail. Wewere with
out a doctor, and all hands looked to me
in case of this kind. | walked to
where the man lay, and found him to
be an able seaman. An old, yellow
haired man, whose face l had before
taken notice of for the ghastly complex
ionof it; sort of dusky, parchment
like hue, the color of sailors duff
that's been too long in the coppers.
The lids were half closed, nothing but
the whites showing; the lips set hard in
"a sort of half grin, without froth, and
and the arms outstretched in the pos
ture of a cru:ifed person. Short of
skeleton, to nv notion, one ought to
never be able to say cocksurely, point
ingto a BODY, this is death. The fellow
might be in faint or in fit, or cata-
leptic; his body in deaths straight
Jacket, and the mind within all alive
and wondering what the deuce has
gone wrong outside. L ordered him to
be carried to his bunk and to be rubbed,
and to be treated as if he was to be
brought to, and if that failed, then to be
slowed away out of sight OF the men,
but not to be stitched up for bit, SO
that if there was any spark of life in him
it might have a chance. The fact is, /
wanted to make sure he was dead man
before he was tossed oyerboard-a very
proper feeling in me, no doubt, though
there was touch of morbidity init, too,
for. to tell the truth, the one quiet hor-
ror of nv life in those days was the
thought of being buried alive, and what
J feared for myself | WAS not the sort OF
man to put upon another. :,
well, after two days we were all
agreed that he was dead, SO | gave or
ders for him to be stitched up and
brought to the gangway, and next morn
ing we held the service. 1t was always
my desire that matters of this kind
should be carried out with proper sol
emnity. | considered it worked as
wholesome influence among the sailors
who were made to understand that
dead seaman on the ocean was not t6
be treated as if he were dead paupel
out of workhousa; that a show of re
spect and regret at all events should &c