The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1912-06-08
THE SPUYTEN
DUYVIL
By F. A. Mitchell

there's such thing as the DEVIL" sail
an old Jack Tar who had weathere
SO many gales that they had blow
nearly all the hair off his head an,
furrowed his cheeks like the ribbed SCI
sand "Well, l might O. thought SC
too, if hadn't seen the folly o. flyin
in the devils face. There was Dutcl
cap'n when I was youngster that wa
a turrible hand to swear and punish hi
men and blaspheme and all that, blu
every voyage paid him, and he got rich
He made money on the goods he tut
out and made money on the goods b.
brought back.
"He was mighty proud o. disap
pointin' US all, was the Cap'n Gunneel
and after while when he started on &
voyage he changed the name of bis
ship from the Maggie Bristow. which
was the name of the cap'n's grand
daughter-a little angel she was. too
to the Spuyten Duyvil. which in Amer
lean means. In spite o. the devil.
Cap'n Gunneel intended by the name
that he would sail his ship and succeed
In spite o. Satan. 1t was the useless
est thing he could o. done. There's nc
use o. gittin' any one down on We, and
the devils the worst pusson to get
down on We there be. Besides the cap'n
had got all his luck by usin' the name
of a good little gal. and he might a
left well enough alone.
"Well, mates. he hadn't more'n got
out o. the harbor afore 1t begun to
blow a gale from the nor'east. that
freshened to a howlin' hurricane. 1t
seemed Is If the devil was In the wind
IN sayin': You'll sail your ship and
make money in spite O. me. will We!
You jist plow ahead. Yell feel my
fists in your face with every wave
and every gust O. wind
at blew three days, when the wind
went down. but next thing no'th'ard
the sea filed with foatin' icebergs,
and purity soon it closed In around the
Spuyten Duyvil. and the mercury went
down. down. till it registered 40 or 30
degrees below zero. And 1t didn't
warm up again neither. The crew
want prepared for SIGH weather. and,
not havin' any furs or SIGH warm
clothes--they was intendln' to make
for the tropics-one after the other
froze stiff One on 'em was at the
wheel, another had dashed himself to
the riggin' tryin' to unclew sail. an
other was layin' over the fo'castle.
and so on--all dead.
But the cap'n. instead O. dyin', his
brain froze, and it made him crazy.
AFTER that the cold let up. the ship
got out o. the ice. and there was plain
sailin'. but the ship had got clear out
of her course, bein' somewhere off the
coast o. Nova Scotia, headn' for the
eastern coast O. Africa. was ship
ped on the brig General Jackson then.
and we run across the Spuyten Duyvil
sou'west o. Madeira. When we came
near enough to see what was goin' on
aboard her we seen the man at the
wheel, the one In the riggin' and the
Teller leanin' over the fo'castle. while
the cap'n was goln' about givin' 'em
orders, jist g IL they was livin' men.
I'VE thort at first they was Twin
men, but our cap'n. who was a-iookin'
at 'em through a glass. said they
wasn't
when we come within speakin' dis.
lance we hailed the only live man on
deck. the cap'n, and asked him II we
could do anything for him. He said |
no; he didn't ask any odds o. any
body. He was maxim a cruise in his
ship, the Spuyten Duyvil, and he
didn't care for the devil and all his
mps. Our cap'n tried to argue with
him into comm aboard. but he
wouldn't. He said he had a fine crew,
plenty o. water and provisions and he
was goiD' to make more money on that
.ruise than any he'd ever sailed on.
'There was good deal o. sea on,
maxim 1t dangerous to try to board
the Spuyten Duyvil. and our cap'n
lidn't think 1t wo'th while to risk the
ives of his able men to save that OF a
unatlc, so we parted company, and the
asst we saw o. tother ship her master
was tryin' to knock down the body
eanin' over the fo'castle rail with a
,apstan bar. But the clothes was froze
10 stiff to the rail that they held the
corpse up.
THAT was when the Spuyten Duyvil
vas real ship. Arterward we heered
# her as a phantom. She was seen
lown off Cape Horn and another time
n Boring sea. But nobody who saw
Ter reported that she was real. One
eport was that she doomed up In
freak In a fog. but 1t closed over her
t once, and a demoniacal laugh was
eard comm from where she'd been {
cen. So far as could git at what &
be was on these appearances she was /
be same ship with the body at the
vheel. the man in the riggin' and the
ne on the fo'castle. only they'd al,
ONE to be skeletons. The cap'n was
eported THROWN his arms about wild.
nd they said his swesrin', his threats
gainst the devil and the like o. that
,ade their blood run cold. q
81 saw the ship after she'd got TO be a {
pook just oncet. We was comm down i
ff the coast o. Newfoundland In drift .
J. fee. OF course there was a lot O. {
always Is with ice-and I
aught only glimpse of her through
le fog. She was Just as I'd seen her
lie first time. only rotten and her cap'n