Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1916-03-31
An Ancient
Mariner Stale
By F. a, Mitchell

Wv F'fF' N'NN NNNlAlNk ~ ~ NNlNNlN
village whore was temporarily stop
ping On q wooden bench facing the
occnu sat an old man. aud l. having
time on my hands sat down beside
him. ! asked him the cause Of the
Dlllng, ana he said that sea captain
who had long been a resident Of the
place had died and was being buried
! remarked on the dismal effect Of the
strokes, each stroke following the one
before after long interval in painful
regularity
"lou think that a dismal sound, siry"
said the old man, "What would you
think II you heard u bell atollu for
the dead that had been rugged by their
selves for that particular purposef In
this we're ease sexton is pullln' on
the rope; In the ease I'm tNlkln' about
the dead was a-tolllu' the bcll,"
looked aside NJ the old man curl
ou,ly, There was something about
him 10 Indicate that he had been a
sailor and Il lieht IN his eye that
caused me 10 wonder If he were not
an Ancient Mariner with tale 10 tell
Though the light did not exactly lndl-
cate insanity, The fact of his speaking
Of the dead tolllng their own funeral
bells looked suspicious asked him
TO explain, and he did so ms follows
"When | was n younker | sailed from
this port every two or three years for
the east, There was no Sucz canal In
them days, and we always went around
the Horn or the Cape On one o. them
voyages when we was I'm the Pacific
what I'm goln TO tell you happened
The Pacific Is go big that it's kind O
lonesome. When puSsOn has seen
nothin' but water for n month and
nary ship or sighted land, even
sailor will sometimes feel as II he's
lost In never cndn' space.
zone night when we'd had reason 10
feel that way was one o the watch
and, sailin' along in the darkness
there was neither moon or stars
thort heard the faint sound Of bell
| listened hard and heard II again
When heard 1t n third time | asked
one o the watch If he heard it too
He listened and said he did. Then |
knUwed 1t wasn't my fancy.
zone after another the rest o the
watch heard the sound, 1t wasn't reg
ular; the strokes come any way There
wasn't no hell at sea that ever made
such sounds except bell buoy. But
we was In the middle o the Pacific
ocean, where there wasn't no need OF
n bell buoy And yet the strokes kept
comm, sometimes near together, some.
times far apart, sometimes heavy,
sometimes light and in that big ocean
o blackness atop and below they was
awful melancholy.
Either we was mOvin' toward the
sounds or they was movin' toward us
or mebbe both Anyway they was
CROWN palmer. The ole man come
on deck all Of a sudden. He'd heard
the tollin' and couldn't make it out
1t drifted past MS in the darkness
SOundin' clear for awhile. then CROWN
fainter aStern The ole man couldn't
bear to lose ii without KNOWN what
it was and give an order to put the
ship about and stand by or follow If
needed till dawn, which was couple |
O hours off. SO we did, and durin |
them two hours, the dolefuleSt | ever
experienced we kept within the sound |
o that bell.
"Mornin come at last and couple
o miles away we saw somepin black, |
which, as the light growed, turned out
to he dismantled ship. She was
arOllin' and a-plungin', and every time
she rolled or plunged we heard that
solemn tollin That's what we'd been
wrecks bell.
THE old man allowed that she was
a derelict with no one aboard Of her
and her bell rope had rolled away or
become unlashed. We sailed up to
within short pull Of her, and the
second mate boarded her, | bein' one
o the boats crew to take him there.
Her decks were awash, and 1t was
plain there was nothin' alive on her
before we got TO her We went on to
her deck for'ard, which was a little
higher than the stern, and looked
but we didn't go below. One
D the men looked down a hatch, and
his report was not encouragin' for us
to 90 down among the dead men, and
we let EN- alone.
well, now. told you that I'd
Known case where the dead tolled
heir own funeral bell This was it,
rhe crew, KNOWN they was doomed,
had nailed a board up near the bell
md had painted on it message
All hope gone. The ships bell will toll
)ur requiem.
"They had cut away the bell rope
entirely.
Wed brought blast with us to
ink the ship, and we put it where it
would do the work. but the ole man.
earin' we might fail, had ordered the
nate on no account to leave that bell
-tollin' to give persons on other ships
he shiverS We'd brought axes with