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The Cruise of the Dolphin

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

May, 1999 [Etext #1757]

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Transcript prepared by Susan L. Farley.

The Cruise of the Dolphin

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

(1 An episode from The Story of a Bad Boy, the narrator being Tom

Bailey, the hero of the tale.)

Every Rivermouth boy looks upon the sea as being in some way mixed

up with his destiny. While he is yet a baby lying in his cradle, he

hears the dull, far-off boom of the breakers; when he is older, he

wanders by the sandy shore, watching the waves that come plunging

up the beach like white-maned sea-horses, as Thoreau calls them;

his eye follows the lessening sail as it fades into the blue

horizon, and he burns for the time when he shall stand on the

quarter-deck of his own ship, and go sailing proudly across that

mysterious waste of waters.

Then the town itself is full of hints and flavors of the sea. The

gables and roofs of the houses facing eastward are covered with red

rust, like the flukes of old anchors; a salty smell pervades the

air, and dense gray fogs, the very breath of Ocean, periodically

creep up into the quiet streets and envelop everything. The

terrific storms that lash the coast; the kelp and spars, and

sometimes the bodies of drowned men, tossed on shore by the

scornful waves; the shipyards, the wharves, and the tawny fleet of

fishing-smacks yearly fitted out at Rivermouth--these things, and a

hundred other, feed the imagination and fill the brain of every

healthy boy with dreams of adventure. He learns to swim almost as

soon as he can walk; he draws in with his mother's milk the art of

handling an oar: he is born a sailor, whatever he may turn out to

be afterwards.

To own the whole or a portion of a rowboat is his earliest

ambition. No wonder that I, born to this life, and coming back to

it with freshest sympathies, should have caught the prevailing

infection. No wonder I longed to buy a part of the trim little

sailboat Dolphin, which chanced just then to be in the market. This

was in the latter part of May.

Three shares, at five or six dollars each, I forget which, had

already been taken by Phil Adams, Fred Langdon, and Binny Wallace.

The fourth and remaining share hung fire. Unless a purchaser could

be found for this, the bargain was to fall through.

I am afraid I required but slight urging to join in the investment.

I had four dollars and fifty cents on hand, and the treasurer of

the Centipedes (1 A secret society, composed of twelve boys of the

Temple Grammar School, Rivermouth.) advanced me the balance,

receiving my silver pencil-case as ample security. It was a proud

moment when I stood on the wharf with my partners, inspecting the

Dolphin, moored at the foot of a very slippery flight of steps. She

was painted white with a green stripe outside, and on the stern a

yellow dolphin, with its scarlet mouth wide open, stared with a

surprised expression at its own reflection in the water. The boat

was a great bargain.

I whirled my cap in the air, and ran to the stairs leading down

from the wharf, when a hand was laid gently on my shoulder. I

turned, and faced Captain Nutter (2 Tom Bailey's grandfather.) I

never saw such an old sharp-eye as he was in those days.

I knew he would not be angry with me for buying a rowboat; but I

also knew that the little bowsprit suggesting a jib and the

tapering mast ready for its few square feet of canvas were trifles

not likely to meet his approval. As far as rowing on the river,

among the wharves, was concerned, the Captain had long since

withdrawn his decided objections, having convinced himself, by

going out with me several times, that I could manage a pair of

sculls as well as anybody.

I was right in my surmises. He commanded me, in the most emphatic

terms, never to go out in the Dolphin without leaving the mast in

the boat-house. This curtailed my anticipated sport, but the

pleasure of having a pull whenever I wanted it remained. I never

disobeyed the Captain's orders touching the sail, though I

sometimes extended my row beyond the points he has indicated.

The river was dangerous for sailboats. Squalls, without the

slightest warning, were of frequent occurrence; scarcely a year

passed that three or four persons were not drowned under the very

windows of the town, and these, oddly enough, were generally

seacaptains, who either did not understand the river, or lacked the

skill to handle a small craft.

A knowledge of such disasters, one of which I witnessed, consoled

me somewhat when I saw Phil Adams skimming over the water in a

spanking breeze with every stitch of canvas set. There were few

better yachtsmen than Phil Adams. He usually went sailing alone,

for both Langdon and Binny Wallace were under the same restrictions

I was.

Not long after the purchase of the boat, we planned an excursion to

Sandpeep Island, the last of the islands in the harbor. We purposed

to start early in the morning, and return with the tide in the

moonlight. Our only difficulty was to obtain a whole day's

exemption from school, the customary half-holiday not being long

enough for our picnic. Somehow, we could not work it; but fortune

arranged it for us. I may say here, that, whatever else I did, I

never played truant ("hookey" we called it) in my life.

One afternoon the four owners of the Dolphin exchanged significant

glances when Mr. Grimshaw announced from the desk that there would

be no school the following day, he having just received

intelligence of the death of his uncle in Boston. I was sincerely

attached to Mr. Grimshaw, but I am afraid that the death of his

uncle did not affect me as it ought to have done.

We were up before sunrise the next morning, in order to take

advantage of the flood-tide, which waits for no man. Our

preparations for the cruise were made the previous evening. In the

way of eatables and drinkables, we had stored in the stern of the

Dolphin a generous bag of hard-tack (for the chowder), a piece of

pork to fry the cunners in, three gigantic apple pies (bought at

Pettingil's), half a dozen lemons, and a keg of spring water--the

last-named articles were slung over the side, to keep it cool, as

soon as we got under way. The crockery and the bricks for our camp-

stove we placed in the bows with the groceries, which included

sugar, pepper, salt, and a bottle of pickles. Phil Adams

contributed to the outfit a small tent of unbleached cotton cloth,

under which we intended to take our nooning.

We unshipped the mast, threw in an extra oar, and were ready to

embark. I do not believe that Christopher Columbus, when he started

on his rather successful voyage of discovery, felt half the

responsibility and importance that weighed upon me as I sat on the

middle seat of the Dolphin, with my oar resting in the rowlock. I

wonder if Christopher Columbus quietly slipped out of the house

without letting his estimable family know what he was up to?

Charley Marden, whose father had promised to cane him if he ever

stepped foot on sail or row boat, came down to the wharf in a sour-

grape humor, to see us off. Nothing would tempt him to go out on

the river in such a crazy clam-shell of a boat. He pretended that

he did not expect to behold us alive again, and tried to throw a

wet blanket over the expedition.

"Guess you'll have a squally time of it," said Charley, casting off

the painter. "I'll drop in at old Newbury's" (Newbury was the

parish undertaker) "and leave word, as I go along!"

"Bosh!" muttered Phil Adams, sticking the boathook into the

string-piece of the wharf, and sending the Dolphin half a dozen

yards toward the current.

How calm and lovely the river was! Not a ripple stirred on the

glassy surface, broken only by the sharp cutwater of our tiny

craft. The sun, as round and red as an August moon, was by this

time peering above the water-line.

The town had drifted behind us, and we were entering among the

group of islands. Sometimes we could almost touch with our boat-

hook the shelving banks on either side. As we neared the mouth of

the harbor, a little breeze now and then wrinkled the blue water,

shook the spangles from the foliage, and gently lifted the spiral

mist-wreaths that still clung alongshore. The measured dip of our

oars and the drowsy twitterings of the birds seemed to mingle with,

rather than break, the enchanted silence that reigned about us.

The scent of the new clover comes back to me now, as I recall that

delicious morning when we floated away in a fairy boat down a river

like a dream!

The sun was well up when the nose of the Dolphin nestled against

the snow-white bosom of Sandpeep Island. This island, as I have

said before, was the last of the cluster, one side of it being

washed by the sea. We landed on the river-side, the sloping sands

and quiet water affording us a good place to moor the boat.

It took us an hour or more to transport our stores to the spot

selected for the encampment. Having pitched our tent, using the

five oars to support the canvas, we got out our lines, and went

down the rocks seaward to fish. It was early for cunners, but we

were lucky enough to catch as nice a mess as ever you saw. A cod

for the chowder was not so easily secured. At last Binny Wallace

hauled in a plump little fellow clustered all over with flaky

silver.

To skin the fish, build our fireplace, and cook the chowder kept us

busy the next two hours.

The fresh air and the exercise had given us the appetites of

wolves, and we were about famished by the time the savory mixture

was ready for our clam-shell saucers.

I shall not insult the rising generation on the seaboard by telling

them how delectable is a chowder compounded and eaten in this

Robinson Crusoe fashion. As for the boys who live inland, and know

not of such marine feasts, my heart is full of pity for them. What

wasted lives! Not to know the delights of a clambake, not to love

chowder, to be ignorant of lobscouse!

How happy we were, we four, sitting cross-legged in the crisp salt

grass, with the invigorating seabreeze blowing gratefully through

our hair! What a joyous thing was life, and how far off seemed

death--death, that lurks in all pleasant places, and was so near!

The banquet finished, Phil Adams drew from his pocket a handful of

sweet-fern cigars; but as none of the party could indulge without

imminent risk of becoming ill, we all, on one pretext or another,

declined, and Phil smoked by himself.

The wind had freshened by this, and we found it comfortable to put

on the jackets which had been thrown aside in the heat of the day.

We strolled along the beach and gathered large quantities of the

fairy-woven Iceland moss, which at certain seasons is washed to

these shores; then we played at ducks and drakes, and then, the sun

being sufficiently low, we went in bathing.

Before our bath was ended a slight change had come over the sky and

sea; fleecy-white clouds scudded here and there, and a muffled moan

from the breakers caught our ears from time to time. While we were

dressing, a few hurried drops of rain came lisping down, and we

adjourned to the tent to wait the passing of the squall.

"We're all right, anyhow," said Phil Adams. "It won't be much of a

blow, and we'll be as snug as a bug in a rug, here in the tent,

particularly if we have that lemonade which some of you fellows

were going to make.

By an oversight, the lemons had been left in the boat. Binny

Wallace volunteered to go for them.

"Put an extra stone on the painter, Binny," said Adams, calling

after him; "it would be awkward to have the Dolphin give us the

slip and return to port minus her passengers."

"That it would," answered Binny, scrambling down the rocks.

Sandpeep Island is diamond-shaped--one point running out into the

sea, and the other looking towards the town. Our tent was on the

river-side. Though the Dolphin was also on the same side, she lay

out of sight by the beach at the farther extremity of the island.

Binny Wallace had been absent five or six minutes when we heard him

calling our several names in tones that indicated distress or

surprise, we could not tell which. Our first thought was, "The boat

has broken adrift!"

We sprung to our feet and hastened down to the beach. On turning

the bluff which hid the mooring-place from our view, we found the

conjecture correct. Not only was the Dolphin afloat, but poor

little Binny Wallace was standing in the bows with his arms

stretched helplessly towards us--drifting out to sea!

"Head the boat inshore!" shouted Phil Adams.

Wallace ran to the tiller; but the slight cockle-shell merely swung

round and drifted broadside on. Oh, if we had but left a single

scull in the Dolphin!

"Can you swim it?" cried Adams desperately, using his hand as a

speaking-trumpet, for the distance between the boat and the island

widened momently.

Binny Wallace looked down at the sea, which was covered with white

caps, and made a despairing gesture. He knew, and we knew, that the

stoutest swimmer could not live forty seconds in those angry

waters.

A wild, insane light came into Phil Adam's eyes, as he stood knee-

deep in the boiling surf, and for an instant I think he meditated

plunging into the ocean after the receding boat.

The sky darkened, and an ugly look stole rapidly over the broken

surface of the sea.

Binny Wallace half rose from his seat in the stern, and waved his

hand to us in token of farewell. In spite of the distance,

increasing every moment, we could see his face plainly. The anxious

expression it wore at first had passed. It was pale and meek now,

and I love to think there was a kind of halo about it, like that

which painters place around the forehead of a saint. So he drifted

away.

The sky grew darker and darker. It was only by straining our eyes

through the unnatural twilight that we could keep the Dolphin in

sight. The figure of Binny Wallace was no longer visible, for the

boat itself had dwindled to a mere white dot on the black water.

Now we lost it, and our hearts stopped throbbing; and now the speck

appeared again, for an instant, on the crest of a high wave.

Finally it went out like a spark, and we saw it no more. Then we

gazed at one another, and dared not speak.

Absorbed in following the course of the boat, we had scarcely

noticed the huddled inky clouds that sagged heavily all around us.

From these threatening masses, seamed at intervals with pale

lightning, there now burst a heavy peal of thunder that shook the

ground under our feet. A sudden squall struck the sea, ploughing

deep white furrows into it, and at the same instant a single

piercing shriek rose above the tempest--the frightened cry of a

gull swooping over the island. How it startled us!

It was impossible any longer to keep our footing on the beach. The

wind and the breakers would have swept us into the ocean if we had

not clung to one another with the desperation of drowning men.

Taking advantage of a momentary lull, we crawled up the sands on

our hands and knees, and, pausing in the lee of the granite ledge

to gain breath, returned to the camp, where we found that the gale

had snapped all the fastenings of the tent but one. Held by this,

the puffed-out canvas swayed in the wind like a balloon. It was a

task of some difficulty to secure it, which we did by beating down

the canvas with the oars.

After several trials, we succeeded in setting up the tent on the

leeward side of the ledge. Blinded by the vivid flashes of

lightning, and drenched by the rain, which fell in torrents, we

crept, half dead with fear and anguish, under our flimsy shelter.

Neither the anguish nor the fear was on our own account, for we

were comparatively safe, but for poor little Binny Wallace, driven

out to sea in the merciless gale. We shuddered to think of him in

that frail shell, drifting on and on to his grave, the sky rent

with lightning over his head, and the green abysses yawning beneath

him. We suddenly fell to crying, and cried I know not how long.

Meanwhile the storm raged with augmented fury. We were obliged to

hold on to the ropes of the tent to prevent it blowing away. The

spray from the river leaped several yards up the rocks and clutched

at us malignantly. The very island trembled with the concussions of

the sea beating upon it, and at times I fancied that it had broken

loose from its foundation and was floating off with us. The

breakers, streaked with angry phosphorus, were fearful to look at.

The wind rose higher and higher, cutting long slits in the tent,

through which the rain poured incessantly. To complete the sum of

our miseries, the night was at hand. It came down abruptly, at

last, like a curtain, shutting in Sandpeep Island from all the

world.

It was a dirty night, as the sailors say. The darkness was

something that could be felt as well as seen--it pressed down upon

one with a cold, clammy touch. Gazing into the hollow blackness,

all sorts of imaginable shapes seemed to start forth from vacancy--

brilliant colors, stars, prisms, and dancing lights. What boy,

lying awake at night, has not amused or terrified himself by

peopling the spaces around his bed with these phenomena of his own

eyes?

"I say," whispered Fred Langdon, at last, clutching my hand, "don't

you see things--out there--in the dark?"

"Yes, yes--Binny Wallace's face!"

I added to my own nervousness by making this avowal; though for the

last ten minutes I had seen little besides that star-pale face with

its angelic hair and brows. First a slim yellow circle, like the

nimbus round the dark moon, took shape and grew sharp against the

darkness; then this faded gradually, and there was the Face,

wearing the same sad, sweet look it wore when he waved his hand to

us across the awful water. This optical illusion kept repeating

itself.

"And I too," said Adams." I see it every now and then, outside

there. What wouldn't I give if it really was poor little Wallace

looking in at us! O boys, how shall we dare to go back to the town

without him? I've wished a hundred times, since we've been sitting

here, that I was in his place, alive or dead!"

We dreaded the approach of morning as much as we longed for it. The

morning would tell us all. Was it possible for the Dolphin to

outride such a storm? There was a lighthouse on Mackerel Reef,

which lay directly in the course the boat had taken when it

disappeared. If the Dolphin had caught on this reef, perhaps Binny

Wallace was safe. Perhaps his cries had been heard by the keeper of

the light. The man owned a life-boat, and had rescued several

persons. Who could tell?

Such were the questions we asked ourselves again and again, as we

lay huddled together waiting for daybreak. What an endless night it

was! I have known months that did not seem so long.

Our position was irksome rather than perilous; for the day was

certain to bring us relief from the town, where our prolonged

absence, together with the storm, had no doubt excited the

liveliest alarm for our safety. But the cold, the darkness, and the

suspense were hard to bear.

Our soaked jackets had chilled us to the bone. In order to keep

warm we lay so closely that we could hear our hearts beat above the

tumult of sea and sky.

After a while we grew very hungry, not having broken our fast since

early in the day. The rain had turned the hard-tack into a sort of

dough; but it was better than nothing.

We used to laugh at Fred Langdon for always carrying in his pocket

a small vial of essence of peppermint or sassafras, a few drops of

which, sprinkled on a lump of loaf-sugar, he seemed to consider a

great luxury. I do not know what would have become of us at this

crisis if it had not been for that omnipresent bottle of hot stuff.

We poured the stinging liquid over our sugar, which had kept dry in

a sardine-box, and warmed ourselves with frequent doses.

After four or five hours the rain ceased, the wind died away to a

moan, and the sea--no longer raging like a maniac--sobbed and

sobbed with a piteous human voice all along the coast. And well it

might, after that night's work. Twelve sail of the Gloucester

fishing fleet had gone down with every soul on board, just outside

of Whale's-Back Light. Think of the wide grief that follows in the

wake of one wreck; then think of the despairing women who wrung

their hands and wept, the next morning, in the streets of

Gloucester, Marblehead, and Newcastle!

Though our strength was nearly spent, we were too cold to sleep.

Once I sunk into a troubled doze, when I seemed to hear Charley

Marden's parting words, only it was the Sea that said them. After

that I threw off the drowsiness whenever it threatened to overcome

me.

Fred Langdon was the earliest to discover a filmy, luminous streak

in the sky, the first glimmering of sunrise.

"Look, it is nearly daybreak!"

While we were following the direction of his finger, a sound of

distant oars fell upon our ears.

We listened breathlessly; and as the dip of the blades became more

audible, we discerned two foggy lights, like will-o'-the-wisps,

floating on the river.

Running down to the water's edge, we hailed the boats with all our

might. The call was heard, for the oars rested a moment in the

row-locks, and then pulled in towards the island.

It was two boats from the town, in the foremost of which we could

now make out the figures of Captain Nutter and Binny Wallace's

father. We shrunk back on seeing him.

"Thank God!" cried Mr. Wallace fervently, as he leaped from the

wherry without waiting for the bow to touch the beach.

But when he saw only three boys standing on the sands, his eye

wandered restlessly about in quest of the fourth; then a deadly

pallor overspread his features.

Our story was soon told. A solemn silence fell upon the crowd of

rough boatmen gathered round, interrupted only by a stifled sob

form one poor old man who stood apart from the rest.

The sea was still running too high for any small boat to venture

out; so it was arranged that the wherry should take us back to

town, leaving the yawl, with a picked crew, to hug the island until

daybreak, and then set forth in search of the Dolphin.

Though it was barely sunrise when we reached town, there were a

great many persons assembled at the landing eager for intelligence

from missing boats. Two picnic parties had started down river the

day before, just previous to the gale, and nothing had been heard

of them. It turned out that the pleasure-seekers saw their danger

in time, and ran ashore on one of the least exposed islands, where

they passed the night. Shortly after our own arrival they appeared

off Rivermouth, much to the joy of their friends, in two shattered,

dismasted boats.

The excitement over, I was in a forlorn state, physically and

mentally. Captain Nutter put me to bed between hot blankets, and

sent Kitty Collins for the doctor. I was wandering in my mind, and

fancied myself still on Sandpeep Island: now we were building our

brick stove to cook the chowder, and, in my delirium, I laughed

aloud and shouted to my comrades; now the sky darkened, and the

squall struck the island; now I gave orders to Wallace how to

manage the boat, and now I cried because the rain was pouring in on

me through the holes in the tent. Towards evening a high fever set

in, and it was many days before my grandfather deemed it prudent

to tell me that the Dolphin had been found, floating keel upwards,

four miles southeast of Mackerel Reef.

Poor little Binny Wallace! How strange it seemed, when I went to

school again, to see that empty seat in the fifth row! How gloomy

the playground was, lacking the sunshine of his gentle, sensitive

face! One day a folded sheet slipped from my algebra: it was the

last note he ever wrote me. I could not read it for the tears.

What a pang shot across my heart the afternoon it was whispered

through the town that a body had been washed ashore at Grave

Point--the place where we bathed! We bathed there no more! How well

I remember the funeral, and what a piteous sight it was afterwards

to see his familiar name on a small headstone in the Old South

Burying-Ground!

Poor little Binny Wallace! Always the same to me. The rest of us

have grown up into hard, worldly men, fighting the fight of life;

but you are forever young, and gentle, and pure; a part of my own

childhood that time cannot wither; always a little boy, always poor

little Binny Wallace!

End of Project Gutenberg Etext of The Cruise of the Dolphin, by Aldrich