Among the Isles of Shoals: II

THESE islands bore some of the first footprints of New England Christianity and civilization. They were for a long time the abode of intelligence, refinement, and virtue, but were afterwards abandoned to a state of semi-barbarism.” The first intelligence of the place comes to us from the year 1614, when John Smith is supposed to have discovered them. The next date is of the landing of Christopher Leavitt, in 1623. In 1645, three brothers, Robert, John, and Richard Cults, emigrated from Wales, and on their way to the continent paused at the Isles of Shoals, and, finding them so pleasant, made their settlement here. Williamson mentions particularly Richard Gibson, from Topsham, England, and various other men from England and Wales. Many people speedily joined the little colony, which grew yearly more prosperous. In 1650, the Rev. John Brock came to live among the islanders, and remained with them twelve years. All that we hear of this man is so fine, he is represented as having been so faithful, zealous, intelligent, and humane, that it is no wonder the community flourished while he sat at the helm. It was said of him, “ He dwells as near Heaven as any man upon earth.” Cotton Mather thus quaintly praises him : “He was a good grammarian, chiefly in this, that he still spoke the truth from his heart. He was a good logician, chiefly in this, that he presented himself unto God with a reasonable service. He was a good arithmetician, chiefly in this, that he so numbered his days as to apply his heart unto wisdom. He was a good astronomer, chiefly in this, that his conversation was in Heaven. . . . . So much belonged to this good man, that so learned a life may well be judged worthy of being a written one.” After him came a long procession of the clergy, good, bad, and indifferent, up to the present time, when “divine service,” so called, has seemed a mere burlesque as it has been often carried on in the little church at Star. On the Massachusetts records there is a paragraph to the effect that, in the year 1653, Philip Babb of Hog Island was appointed constable for all the islands of Shoals, Star Island excepted. To Philip Babb we shall have occasion to refer again. “ In May, 1661,” says Williamson, “being places of note and great resort, the General Court incorporated the islands into a town called Appledore, and invested it with the powers and privileges of other towns.” There were then about forty families on Hog Island, but between that time and the year 1670 these removed to Star Island and joined the settlement there. This they were induced to do partly through fear of the Indians, who frequented Duck Island, and thence made plundering excursions upon them, carrying off their women while they were absent fishing, and doing a variety of harm ; but, as it is expressly stated that people living on the mainland sent their children to school at Appledore that they might be safe from the Indians, the statement of their depredations at the Shoals is perplexing. Probably the savages camped on Duck to carry on their craft of porpoise-fishing, which to this day they still pursue among the islands on the eastern coast of Maine. Star Island seemed a place of greater safety, and probably the greater advantages of landing and the convenience of a wide cove at the entrance of the village, with a little harbor wherein the fishing-craft might anchor with some security, were also inducements. William Pepperell, a native of Cornwall, England, emigrated to the place in the year 1676, and lived there upwards of twenty years and carried on a large fishery. “He was the father of Sir William Peppered, the most famous man Maine ever produced.” For more than a century previous to the Revolutionary War there were at the Shoals from three to six hundred inhabitants, and the little settlement flourished steadily. They had their church and school-house, and a court-house ; and the usual municipal officers were annually chosen and the town records regularly kept. From three to four thousand quintals of fish were yearly caught and cured by the islanders ; and, beside their trade with Spain, large quantities of fish were also carried to Portsmouth, for the West India market. In 1671 the islands belonged to John Mason and Sir Ferdinando Gorges. This indomitable old Spaniard always greatly interested me. He must have been a person of great force of character, strong, clear-headed, full of fire and energy. He was appointed governorgeneral of New England in 1637. Williamson has much to say of him : “ He and Sir Walter Raleigh, whose acquaintance was familiar, possessing minds equally elastic and adventurous, turned their thoughts at an early period of life towards the American hemisphere.” And so he came over, and, among other places, set his lordly feet upon these rocks. I can imagine his proud, dark, haughty figure standing on the lonely shore, in the quaint dress of the times ; with plumed hat, short cloak, long boots, and a bright sword sheathed in its scabbard by his side. Perhaps the spell of the place may have touched him for a moment, and made him pause in the midst of his ambitious dreams; and, looking out with “ a sad level gaze o’er the ocean,” which challenges thought, whether men are disposed to think or not, he may have felt the emptiness of his brilliant schemes and the paltriness of the motives that controlled his life. Williamson thus laments over him : “ Fame and wealth, so often the idols of superior intellects, were the prominent objects of this aspiring man. Constant and sincere in his friendships, he might have had extensively the estimation of others, had not selfishness been the centre of all his efforts. His life and name, though by no means free from blemishes, have just claims to the grateful recollections of the Eastern Americans and their posterity.”

From 1640 to 1775, says a report to the “ Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians and Others in North America,” the church at the Shoals was in a flourishing condition and had a succession of ministers, — Messrs. Hull, Brock, Belcher, Moody, Tucke, and Shaw, all of whom were good and faithful men ; two, Brock and Tucke, being men of learning and ability, with peculiarities of talent and character admirably fitting them for their work on these islands. Tucke was the only one who closed his life and ministry at the Shoals. He was a graduate of Harvard College of the class of 1723, was ordained at the Shoals July 20, 1732, and died there August 12, 1773, — his ministry thus covering more than forty years. His salary in 1771 was paid in merchantable fish, a quintal to a man, when there were on the Shoals from ninety to one hundred men, and a quintal of fish was worth a guinea. His grave was accidentally discovered in 1800, and the Hon. Dudley Atkins Tyng, who interested himself most charitably and indefatigably for the good of these islands, placed over it a slab of stone, with an inscription which still remains to tell of the fine qualities of the man whose dust it covers ; but year by year the rain-drops with delicate touches wear away the deeply cut letters, for the stone lies horizontal: even now they are scarcely legible, and soon the words of praise and appreciation will exist only in the memory of a few of the older inhabitants.

At the time of Mr. Tucke’s death, the prosperity of the Shoals was at its height. But in less than thirty years after his death a most woful condition of things was inaugurated.

The settlement flourished till the breaking out of the war, when it was found to be entirely at the mercy of the English, and obliged to furnish them with recruits and supplies. The inhabitants were, therefore, ordered by government to quit the islands; and as their trade was probably broken up, and their property exposed, most of them complied with the order, and settled in the neighboring seaport towns, where their descendants may be found to this day. Some of the people settled in Salem, and the Mr. White, so horribly murdered there many years ago, was bora at Appledore. Those who remained, with a few exceptions, were among the most ignorant and degraded of the people, and they went rapidly down into untold depths of misery. “ They burned the meetinghouse, and gave themselves up to quarrelling, profanity, and drunkenness, till they became almost barbarians ; or, as Mr. Morse expresses it, “ were given up to work all manner of wickedness with greediness.” In no place of the size has there been a greater absorption of “rum,” since the world was made. Mr. Reuben Moody, a theological student, lived at the Shoals tor a few months in the year 1822, and his description of the condition of things at that time is really frightful. He had no place to open a school : one of the islanders provided him with a room, fire, etc.; giving as a reason for his enthusiastic furtherance of Mr. Moody’s plans, that his children made such a disturbance at home that he could n’t sleep in the day-time ! An extract from Mr. Moody’s journal affords an idea of the morals of the inhabitants at this period : —

“May 1st. — I yet continue to witness the Heaven-daring impieties of this people. Yesterday my heart was shocked at seeing a man about seventy years of age, as devoid of reason as a maniac, giving way to his passions ; striving to express himself in more blasphemous language than he had the ability to utter, and being unable to express the malice of his heart in words, he would run at every one he saw. All was tumult and confusion, — men and women with tar-brushes, clenched fists, and stones ; one female who had an infant but eight clays old, with a stone in her hand and an oath on her tongue, threatened to dash out the brains of her antagonists. . . . . After I arrived among them some of them dispersed, some led their wives into the house, others drove them off, and a calm succeeded.”

In another part of the journal is an account of an old man who lived alone, and drank forty gallons of rum in twelve months. In less than three months six hundred gallons were consumed by forty-seven men. This statement shows what was the great trouble at the Shoals ; and though time has modified, it has not eliminated the apparently hereditary bane whose antidote is not yet discovered. The misuse of strong drink still proves a whirlpool more awful than the worst terrors of the pitiless ocean that hems the islanders in.

As may be seen by Mr. Moody’s journal, the clergy had a hard time of it among the heathen at the Isles of Shoals ; but they persevered, and many brave women at different times have gone among the people to teach the school and reclaim the little children from wretchedness and ignorance. Miss Peabody of Newburyport, who came to live with them in 1823, did wonders for them during the three years of her stay. She taught the school, visited the families, and on Sundays read to such audiences as she could collect, took seven of the poorer female children to live with her at the parsonage, instructed all who would learn in the arts of carding, spinning, weaving, knitting, sewing, braidingmats, etc. Truly she remembered what Satan finds for “ idle hands to do,” and kept all her charges busy and consequently happy. All honor to her memory : she was a wise and faithful servant. There is still an affectionate remembrance of her among the present inhabitants of Star, whose mothers she helped out of their degradation into a better life. I saw in one of the houses not long ago a sampler, blackened by age, but carefully preserved in a frame ; and was told that the dead grandmother of the family had made it when a little girl, under Miss Peabody’s supervision. In 1835, die Rev. Origen Smith went to live at Star, and remained perhaps ten years, doing much good among the people. He nearly succeeded in banishing the great demoralizer, liquor, and restored law and order. He is reverently remembered by the islanders. In 1855, an excellent man by the name of Mason occupied the post of minister for the islanders, and from his report to the “ Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians and Others in North America,” I make a few extracts. He says: “ The kind of business which the people pursue and by which they subsist affects unfavorably their habits, physical, social, and religious. Family discipline is neglected, domestic arrangements very imperfect, much time apparently wasted is spent in watching for favorable indications to pursue their calling. . . . . A bad moral influence is excited by a portion of the transient visitors to the Shoals during the summer months.” This is very true. He speaks of the people’s appreciation of the efforts made in their behalf; and says that they raised subscriptions among themselves for lighting the parsonage, and for fuel for the singing-school (which, by the way, was a most excellent institution) and mentions their surprising him by putting into the back kitchen of the parsonage a barrel of fine flour, a bucket of sugar, a leg of bacon, etc. “ Their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality,” he says ; and this little act shows that they were far from being indifferent or ungrateful. They were really attached to Mr. Mason, and it is a pity he could not have remained with them.

Within the last few years they have been trying bravely to help themselves, and they persevere with their annual fair to obtain money to pay the teacher who saves their little children from utter ignorance ; and many of them show a growing ambition in fitting up their houses and making their families more comfortable. Of late, continually recurring fires, kindled in drunken madness by the islanders themselves, or by the reckless few who have joined the settlement, have swept away nearly all the old houses, which have been replaced by smart new buildings, painted white, with green blinds, and with modern improvements, so that yearly the village grows less picturesque ; which is a charm one can afford to lose, when the external smartness is indicative of better living among the people. Twenty years ago Star Island Cove was charming, with its tumble-down fish-houses, and ancient cottages with low-shelving roofs, and porches covered with the golden lichen that so loves to embroider old weather-worn wood. Now there is not a vestige of those dilapidated buildings to be seen: almost everything is white and square and new; and they have even cleaned out the cove and removed the great accumulation of fish-bones which made the beach so curious.

The old town records are quaint and interesting, and the spelling and modes of expression so peculiar that I have copied a few. Mr, John Muchamore was the moderator of a meeting called “March ye 7th day, 1748. By a Legall town meeting of ye Free holders and Inhabitence of gosport, dewly quallefide to vote for Tiding men Collers of fish, Corders of wood. Addition to ye minister’s sallery Mr John Tucke, 100 lbs old tenor.”

In 1755, it was “ Agred in town mealing that if any person shall spelth [split] any fish above hie water marck and leave their heads and son bones [soundbones] their, shall pay ten lbs new tenor to the town, and any that is above now their, they that have them their, shall have them below hie warter in fortinets time or pay the same.” In another place “ it is agreed at ton meating evry person that is are kow [has a cow] shall carry them of at 15 day of may, keep them their til the 15 day of October or pay 20 shillings lawful money.” And “ if any person that have any hogs, If they do any damg, hom [whom] they do the damg to shall keep the hog for sattisfaxcon.”

The cows seem to have given a great deal of trouble. Here is one more extract on the subject: —

“This is a Leagel vot by the ton meeting, that if any presson or pressons shall leave their Cowks out after the fifteenth day of May and they do any Dameg, they shall be taken up and the owner of the kow shall pay teen shillings old tenor to the kow constabel and one half he shall have and the other shall give to the pour of the place.

“MR DAINEL RANDEL

“ Kow Constabel.”

“On March 11th 1762. A genarel free Voot past amongst the inhabents that every fall of the year when Mr Revd. John Tucke has his wood to Carry home evary men will not com that is abel to com shall pay forty shillings ould tenor.”

But the most delightfully preposterous entry is this : —

“March 12th 1769. A genarel free voot past amongst the inhabents to cus [cause] tow men to go to the Revd Mr John Tucke to hear wether he was willing to take one Quental of fish each man, or to take the price of Quental in ould tenor which he answered this that he thought it was easer to pay the fish than the money which he consented to taik the fish for the year insuing.”

“ On March ye 25 1771. “ then their was a mealing called and it was gurned until the 23rd day of apirel.

“MR DEEKEN WILLAM MUCHMORE

“ Moderator.”

Among the “ offorsers ” of “ Gospored ” were, besides “ Moderator ” and “Town Clarke,” “ Seelekt meen,” “ Counstauble,” “ Tidon meen” (Tithing-men) “ Coulears of fish,”—“ Coulear ” meaning, I suppose, culler, or person appointed to select fish, — and “ Sealers of Whood,” oftener expressed corders of wood.

In 1845 we read that Asa Caswell was chosen highway “ sovair.”

Very ancient tradition says that the method of courtship at the Isles of Shoals was after this fashion : — If a youth fell in love with a maid, he lay in wait till she passed by, and then pelted her with stones, after the manner of our friends of Marblehead ; so that if a fair Shoaler found herself the centre of a volley of missiles, she might be sure that an ardent admirer was expressing himself with decision certainly, if not with tact! If she turned and exhibited any curiosity as to the point of the compass whence the bombardment proceeded, her doubts were dispelled by another shower ; but if she went on her way in maiden meditation, then was her swain in despair, and life, as is usual in such cases, became a burden to him.

Within my remembrance an occasional cabbage - party made an agreeable variety in the life of the villagers. I never saw one, but have heard them described. Instead of regaling the guests with wine and ices, pork and cabbage were the principal refreshments offered them ; and if the cabbage came out of the garden of a neighbor, the spice of wickedness lent zest to the entertainment, — stolen fruit being always the sweetest.

It would seem strange that, while they live in so healthy a place, where the atmosphere is absolutely perfect in its purity, they should have suffered so much from ill health, and that so many should have died of consumption, the very disease for the cure of which physicians send invalids hither. The reasons are soon told. The first and most important is this, that, as nearly as they could, they have in past years hermetically sealed their houses, so that the air of heaven should not penetrate within. An open window, especially at night, they would have looked upon as madness, a temptation of Providence ; and during the winter they have deliberately poisoned themselves with every breath, like two thirds of the rest of the world. I have seen a little room containing a whole family, fishing-boots and all, bed, furniture, cooking-stove in full blast, and an oil lamp with a wick so high that the deadly smoke rose steadily, filling the air with what Browning might call “ filthiest gloom,” and mingling with the incense of ancient tobacco-pipes smoked by both sexes (for nearly all the old women used to smoke); every crack and cranny was stopped, and if by any chance the door opened for an instant, out rushed a fume in comparison with which the gusts from the lake of Tartarus might be imagined sweet. Shut in that deadly air a part of the family slept, sometimes all. What wonder that their chests were hollow, their faces haggard, and that apathy settled upon them ! Then their food was hardly selected with reference to health, saleratus and pork forming two of the principal ingredients in their daily fare. Within a few years past they have probably improved in these respects. Fifteen years ago I was passing a window one morning, at which a little child two years old was sitting, tied into a high chair before a table drawn close to the window, eating his breakfast alone in his glory. In his stout little fist he grasped a large iron spoon, and fed himself from a plate of beans swimming in fat, and with the pork cut up in squares for his better convenience. By the side of the plate stood a tin mug of bitterstrong black coffee sweetened with molasses. I spoke to his mother within ; “Arn’t you afraid such strong coffee will kill your baby ? ” “ O no,” she answered, and held it to his lips ; “there, drink that,” she said, “that’ll make you hold your head up! ” The poor child died before he grew to be a man, and all the family have fallen victims to consumption.

Very few of the old people are left at the present time, and the village is very like other fishing-villages along the coast. Most of the peculiar characteristics of the race are lost in the present generation of young women, who are addicted to the use of hoops and waterfalls, and young men, who condescend to spoil their good looks by dyeing their handsome blond beards with the fashionable mixture which inevitably produces a lustre like stove-blacking. But there are sensible fellows among them, fine specimens of the hardy New England fisherman, Saxon-bearded, broadshouldered, deep-chested, and bronzed with shade on shade of ruddy brown. The neutral blues and grays of the saltwater make perfect backgrounds for the pictures these men are continually showing one in their life about the boats. Nothing can be more satisfactory than the blendings and contrasts of color and the picturesque effect of the general aspect of the natives in their element. The eye is often struck with the richness of the color of some rough hand, glowing with blended red, brown, and orange, against the gray blue water, as it grasps an oar perhaps, or pulls in a rope. It is strange that the sun and wind, which give such fine tints to the complexions of the lords of creation, should leave such hideous traces on the faces of women. When they are exposed to the same salt wind and clear sunshine they take the hue of dried fish, and become objects for men and angels to weep over. To see a bona-fide Shoaler “sail a boat” (when the craft is a real boat and no tub) is an experience. The vessel obeys his hand at the rudder as a trained horse a touch on the rein, and seems to bow at the flash of his eye, turning on her heel and running up into the wind, “ luffing ” to lean again on the other tack, obedient, graceful, perfectly beautiful, yielding to breeze and to billow, yet swayed throughout by a stronger and more imperative law. The men become strongly attached to their boats, which seem to have a sort of human interest for them, — and no wonder. They lead a life of the greatest hardship and exposure, during the winter especially, setting their trawls fifteen or twenty miles to the eastward of the islands, drawing them next day if the stormy winds and waves will permit, and taking the fish to Portsmouth to sell. It is desperately hard work, trawling at this season, with the bitter wind blowing in their teeth, and the flying spray freezing upon everything it touches,— boats, masts, sails, decks, clothes, completely cased in ice, and fish frozen, solid as soon as taken from the waterThe inborn politeness of these fishermen to stranger - women is something delightful to witness. I remember once landing in Portsmouth, and being obliged to cross three or four schooners just in (with their freight of frozen fish lying open-mouthed in a solid mass on deck) to reach the wharf. No courtly gentlemen could have displayed more beautiful behavior than did these rough fellows, all pressing forward, with real grace, because the feeling which prompted them was a true and lofty feeling, to help me over the tangle of ropes and sails and anchors to a safe footing on shore. There is a ledge forty-five miles east of the islands, called Jeffrey’s Ledge, where the Shoalers go for spring fishing. During a northeast storm in May, part of the little fleet came reeling in before the gale ; and, not daring to trust themselves to beat up into the harbor (a poor shelter at best), round the rocky reefs and ledges, the fishermen anchored under the lee of Appledore, and there rode out the storm. They were in continual peril ; for, had their cables chafed apart with the shock and strain of the billows among which they plunged, or had their anchors dragged, which might have been expected (the bottom of the sea between the islands and the mainland being composed of mud, while all outside is rough and rocky), they would have inevitably been driven to their destruction on the opposite coast. It was not pleasant to watch them as the early twilight shut down over the vast weltering desolation of the sea, to see the slender masts waving helplessly from one side to another,— sometimes almost horizontal, as the hulls turned heavily this way and that, and the long breakers rolled in endless succession against them. They saw the lights in our windows a half-mile away; and we in the warm, bright, quiet room, sitting by a fire that danced and shone, fed with bits of wreck such as they might scatter on Rye Beach before morning, could hardly think of anything else than the misery of those poor fellows, wet, cold, hungry, sleepless, full of anxiety till the morning should break and the wind should lull. No boat could reach them through the terrible commotion of waves. But they rode through the night in safety, and the morning brought relief. One brave little schooner toughed it out ” on the distant ledge, and her captain told me that no one could stand on board of her, the pressure of the wind down on her decks was so great that she shuddered from stem to stern, and he feared she would shake to pieces, for she was old and not very seaworthy. Some of the men had wives and children watching them from lighted windows at Star. What a fearful night for them ! They could not tell from hour to hour, through the thick darkness, if yet the cables held ; they could not see till daybreak whether the sea had swallowed up their treasures. I wonder the wives were not white-haired when the sun rose and showed them those little specks yet rolling in the breakers ! The women are excessively timid about the water, more so than landswomen. Having the terror and might of the ocean continually encircling them, they become more impressed with it and distrust it, knowing it so well. Very few accidents happen, however : the islanders are a cautious people. Years ago, when the white sails of their little fleet of whale-boats used to flutter out of the sheltered bight and stand out to the fishing-grounds in the bay, how many eyes followed them in the early light and watched them in the distance through the day, till toward sunset they spread their wings to fly back with the evening wind ! How pathetic the gathering of women on the headlands, when out of the sky swept the squall that sent the small boats staggering before it, and blinded the eyes already drowned in tears, with the sudden rain that hid sky and sea and boats from their eager gaze! What wringing of hands, what despairing cries which the wild wind bore away while it caught and fluttered the homely draperies and unfastened the locks of maid and mother, to blow them about their pale faces and anxious eyes ! Now no longer the little fleet goes forth, for the greater part of the islanders have stout schooners, and go trawling with profit if not with pleasure. A few solitaries fish in small dories, and earn a slender livelihood thereby. The sea has helped these poor people, by bringing fuel to their very doors : the waves continually deposit driftwood in every cove and fissure of the rocks. But sad, anxious lives they have led, especially the women, many of whom have grown old before their time with hard work and bitter cares.

The local pronunciation of the Shoalers is very peculiar, and a shrewd sense of humor is one of their leading characteristics. Could De Quincey have lived among them, I think he might have been tempted to write an essay on swearing as a fine art, for it has reached a pitch hardly short of sublimity in this favored spot. They seemed to have had a genius for it, and some of them really devoted their best powers to its cultivation. The language was taxed to furnish them with prodigious forms of speech wherewith to express the slightest emotion of pain, anger, pleasure, or amusement ; and though the blood of the listener was sometimes chilled in his veins, overhearing their unhesitating profanity, the prevailing sentiment was likely to be one of amazement mingled with intense amusement, — the whole thing was so grotesque and monstrous, and their choice and arrangement of words so comical, and generally so very much to the point. The real Shoals phraseology existing In past years was something not to be described ; it is impossible by any process known to science to convey an idea of the intonations of their speech, quite different from Yankee drawl or sailor-talk, perfectly unique in itself. Why they should have called a swallow a “swallick,” and a sparrow a “sparrick,” I never could understand. Anything that ends in y or e they still pronounce ay, with great breadth : for instance, “ Benny ” is Bennaye; “ Billy,” Billaye; and so on. A man by the name of Beebe, the modern “ missionary,” was always spoken of as Beebay, when he was n’t called by a less respectful title. Their sense of fun showed itself in the nicknames with which they designated any person possessing the slightest peculiarity. For instance, twenty years ago a minister of the Methodist persuasion came to live among them ; his wife was unreasonably tall and thin. With the utmost promptitude and decision the irreverent christened her “ Legs,” and never spoke of her by any other name. “ Laigs has gone to Portsmouth,” or “ Laigs has got a new gown,” etc. ! A spinster of very dark complexion was called “ Scip,” an abbreviation of Scipio, a name supposed to appertain particularly to the colored race. Another was called “ Squint,” because of a defect in the power of vision ; and not only were they spoken of by these names, but called so to their faces habitually. One man earned for himself the title of “ Brag,” so that no one ever thought of calling him by his real name. His wife was Mrs. Brag ; and constant use so robbed these names of their offensiveness, that the bearers not only heard them with equanimity, but would hardly have known themselves by their true ones. One man was called “ Hing” ; one of two brothers “Bunker,” and the other “Shothead”; an ancient scold was called “ Zeke,” a flabby old woman “ Flut,” and so on indefinitely. Grandparents are addressed as Grans, and Gwammaye, Grans being an abbreviation of grandsire. “Tell yer grans his dinner’s ready,” calls .some woman from a cottage door. A woman, describing how ill her house was put together, said: “Lor, 'twa’n’t never built, 't was only hove together.” “ I don’ know whe’r or no it’s best or no to go fishing whiles mornin’,” says some rough fellow, meditating upon the state of winds and waters. Of his boat another says, “She strikes a sea and comes down like a pillow,” describing her smooth sailing. Some one relating the way the civil authorities used to take political matters into their own hands, said that “ if a man did n’t vote as they wanted him to, they took him and hove him up agin the meetin'-’us,” by way of bringing him to his senses. Two boys in bitter contention have been known to call each other “ Nasty-faced chowderheads ! ” With pride a man calls his boat a “ pretty piece of wood,” and to test the sailing - capacities of their schooners I have been told that they used to have a method peculiar if not unique. Trying a vessel in a heavy sea, they melted a quantity of lard in a frying-pan on the tiny stove in the cabin, and if, in the plunging of her stormy course, the fat was “hove” out of the frying-pan and the pan remained on the stove, she was considered to be a firstrate sailor. “ Does she heave the fat ? ” anxiously inquires the man at the helm of the watchers at the frying-pan below; and if the answer is in the affirmative, great is the rejoicing, and the character of the craft is established.

Nearly all the Shoalers have a singular gait, contracted from the effort to keep their equilibrium while standing in boats, and from the unavoidable gymnastics which any attempt at locomotion among the rocks renders necessary. Some stiff-jointed old men have been known to leap wildly from broad stone to stone on the smooth, flat pavements of Portsmouth town, finding it out of the question to walk evenly and decorously along the straight and easy way. This is no fable. Such is the force of habit. Most of the men are more or less round-shouldered, and seldom row upright, with head erect and shoulders thrown back. They stoop so much over the fish-tables, — cleaning, splitting, salting, packing, — that they acquire a permanent habit of stooping.

Twenty years ago, an old man by the name of Peter was alive on Star Island. He was said to be a hundred years old ; and anything more grisly in the shape of humanity it has never been my lot to behold. So lean and brown and ancient, he might have been Methuselah, for no one knew how long he had lived on this rolling planet. Years before he died he used to paddle across to our light-house, in placid summer days, and, scanning him with a child’s curiosity, I used to wonder how he kept alive. A few white hairs clung to his yellow crown, and his pale eyes, “where the very blue had turned to white,” looked vacantly and wearily out, as if trying faintly to see the end of the things of this world. Somebody, probably old Nabbaye, in whose cottage he lived, always scoured him with soft soap before he started on his voyage, and in consequence a most preternatural shine overspread his blank forehead. His under jaw had a disagreeably suggestive habit of dropping, he was so feeble and so old, poor wretch ! Yet would he brighten with a faint attempt at a smile when bread and meat were put into his hands, and say, over and over again, “Ye’re a Christian, ma’am, thank ye, ma’am, thank ye,” thrust all that was given him, no matter what, between his one upper garment — a checked shirt — and his bare skin, and then, by way of expressing his gratitude, would strike up a dolorous quaver of —

in a voice as querulous as a Scotch bagpipe.

Old Nabbaye, and Bennaye, her husband, with whom Peter lived, were a queer old couple. Nabbaye had a stubbly and unequal growth of sparse gray hair upon her chin, which gave her a most grim and terrible aspect, as I remember her, with the grizzled locks standing out about her head like one of the Furies. Yet she was a good enough old woman, kind to Peter and Bennaye, and kept her bit of a cottage tidy as might be. I well remember the grit of the shining sand on her scoured floor beneath my childish footsteps. The family climbed at night by a ladder up into a loft, which their little flock of fowls shared with them, to sleep. Going by the house one evening, some one heard Nabbaye call aloud to Bennaye up aloft, “ Come, Bennaye, fetch me down them heens’ aigs!” To which Bennaye made answer, “ I can’t find no aigs ! I ’ve looked een the bed and een under the bed. and I can’t find no aigs ! ”

Till Bennaye grew very feeble, every summer night he paddled abroad in his dory to fish for hake, and lonely he looked, tossing among the waves, when our boat bore down and passed him with a hail which he faintly returned, as we plunged lightly through the track of the moonlight, young and happy, rejoicing in the beauty of the night, while poor Bennaye only counted his gains in the grisly hake he caught, nor considered the rubies the light-house scattered on the waves, or how the moon sprinkled down silver before him. He did not mind the touch of the balmy wind that blew across his weather-beaten face with the same sweet greeting that so gladdened us, but fished and fished, watching his line through the short summer night, and, when a blush of dawn stole up in the east among the stars, wound up his tackle, took his oars, and paddled home to Nabbaye with his booty, — his “fare of fish” as the natives have it. Hake-fishing after this picturesque and tedious fashion is done away with now ; the islands are girdled with trawls, which catch more fish in one night than could be obtained in a week’s hard labor by hand.

When the dust of Bennaye and Nabbaye was mingled in the thin earth that scarce can cover the multitude of the dead on Star Island, a youthful couple, in whom I took great interest, occupied their little house. The woman was remarkably handsome, with a beautiful head and masses of rich black hair, a face regular as the face of a Greek statue, with eyes that sparkled and cheeks that glowed, — a beauty she soon exchanged for haggard and hollow looks. As their children were born they asked my advice on the christening of each, and, being youthful and romantic, I suggested Frederick as a sounding title for the first-born boy. Taylor being the reigning President, his name was instantly added, and the child was always addressed by his whole name. Going by the house one day, my ears were assailed by a sharp outcry: “Frederick Taylor, if you don’t come into the house this minute, I ’ll slat your head off! ” The tender mother borrowed her expression from the fishermen, who disengage mackerel and other delicategilled fish by “slatting” them off the hook.

All this family have gone, and the house in which they lived has fallen to ruin ; only the cellar remains, just such a rude hollow as those scattered over Appledore.

The people along the coast rather look down upon the Shoalers as being beyond the bounds of civilization. A young islander was expressing his opinion on some matter to a native of Rye, who answered him with great scorn : “ You don’t know nothin’ about it ! What do you know ? You never see an apple-tree all blowed out! ” A Shoaler, walking with some friends along a road in Rye, excited inextinguishable laughter by clutching his companion’s sleeve as a toad hopped innocently across the way, and crying: “ Mr. Berraye, what kind of a bug do you call that ? D—d if I ever see such a bug as that, Mr. Berraye ! ” in a comical terror. There are neither frogs nor toads at the Shoals. “ Set right down and help yourselves,” said an old fellow at whose door some guests from the Shoals appeared at dinner-time. “ Eat all you can. I ain’t got no manners; the girl’s got the manners, and she ain’t to hum.”

One old Shoaler, long since gone to another world, was a laughable and curious character. A man more wonderfully fulfilling the word “ homely ” in the Yankee sense, I never saw. He had the largest, most misshapen cheekbones ever constructed, an illimitable upper lip, teeth that should not be mentioned, and little watery eyes. Skin and hair and eyes and mouth were of the same pasty yellow, and that grotesque head was set on a little thin and shambling body. He used to be head singer at the church, and “ pitched the tune ” by whistling when the parson had read the hymn. Then all who could joined in the singing, which must have been remarkable, to say the least. So great a power of brag is seldom found in one human being as that which permeated him from top to toe, and found vent in stories of personal prowess and bravery unexampled in history. He used to tell a story of his encounter with thirteen “ Spanish grandeers ” in New Orleans, he having been a sailor a great part of his life : He was innocently peering into a theatre, when the grandeers fell upon him out of the exceeding pride of their hearts. “ Wall, sir, I turned, and I laid six o’ them grandeers to the right and seven to the left, and then I put her for the old brig, and I heerd no more on ’em ! ”

He considered himself unequalled as a musician, and would sing you ballad after ballad, sitting bent forward with his arms on his knees, and his wrinkled eyelids screwed tight together, grinding out the tune with a quiet steadiness of purpose that seemed to betoken no end to his capacities. Ballads of love and of war he sang, — the exploits of “Brave Wolf,” or, as he pronounced it, “Brahn Wolf,”and one famous song of a naval battle, of which only two lines remain in my memory : —

At the close of each verse he invariably dropped his voice, and said, instead of sung, the last word, which had a most abrupt and surprising effect, to which a listener never could become accustomed. The immortal ballad of Lord Bateman he had remodelled with beautiful variations of his own. The name of the coy maiden, the Turk’s only daughter, Sophia, was Susan Fryan, according to his version, and Lord Bateman was metamorphosed into Lord Bakum. When Susan Fryan crosses the sea to Lord Bakum’s castle and knocks so loud that the gates do ring, he makes the bold young porter, who was so ready for to let her in, go to his master, who sits feasting with a new bride, and say : —

The enjoyment with which he gave this song was delightful to witness. Of the many he used to sing, one was a doleful story of how a youth of high degree fell in love with his mother’s fair waitingwoman, Betsy, who was in consequence immediately transported to foreign lands. But alas for her lover,—

The word “ main ” was brought out with startling effect. Another song about a miller and his sons I only half remember : —

The manner in which this last verse was delivered was inimitable, the “ died in peace ” being spoken with great satisfaction. The singer had an ancient violin, which he used to hug under his wizened chin, and from which he drew such dismal tones as never before were heard on sea or land. He had no more idea of playing than one of the codfish he daily split and salted, yet he christened with pride all the shrieks and wails he drew out of the wretched instrument with various high-sounding titles. After he had entertained his audience for a while with these aimless sounds he was wont to say, “ Wall, now I ’ll give yer Prince Esterhazy’s March,” and forthwith began again precisely the same intolerable squeak.

After he died, other stars in the musical world appeared in the horizon, but none equalled him. They all seemed to think it necessary to shut their eyes and squirm like nothing human during the process of singing a song, and they “pitched the tune ” so high that no human voice ever could hope to reach it in safety. “Tew high, Bill, tew high, ’ one would say to the singer, with slow solemnity; so Bill tried again. " Tew high agin, Bill, tew high.” “ Wull,_you strike it, Obed,” Bill would say in despair ; and Obed would “ strike,” and hit exactly the same impossible altitude, whereat Bill would slap his knee and cry in glad surprise, “ D—d if he ain’t got it ! ” and forthwith catch Obed and launch on his perilous flight, and grow red in the face with the mighty effort of getting up there and remaining there through the intricacies and variations of the melody. One could but wonder whence these queer tunes came, how they were created ; some of them reminded one of the creaking and groaning of windlasses and masts, the rattling of rowlocks, the whistling of winds among cordage, yet with less of music in them than these natural sounds. The songs of the sailors heaving up the anchor are really beautiful often, the wild chant that rises sometimes into a grand chorus, all the strong voices borne out on the wind in the cry of

But these Shoals performances are lacking in any charm, except that of the broadest fun.

The process of dunning, which made the Shoals fish so famous a century ago, is almost a lost art, though the chief fisherman at Star still “duns” a few yearly. A real dunfish is handsome, cut in clear transparent strips, the color of brown sherry wine. The process is a tedious one : the fish are piled in the storehouse and undergo a period of “ sweating” after the first drying, then are carried out into sun and wind, dried again slightly, and again piled in the warehouse, and so on till the process Is complete. Drying fish in the common fashion is more difficult than might be imagined: it is necessary to watch and tend them continually as they lie on the picturesque “ flakes,” and if they are exposed at too early a stage to a sun too hot they burn as surely as a loat of bread in an intemperate over., only the burning does not crisp, but liquefies their substance.

For the last ten years fish have been caught about the Shoals by trawl and seine in such quantities that they are thinning fast, and the trade bids fair to be much less lucrative before many years have elapsed. The process of drawing the trawl is very picturesque and interesting, watched from the rocks or from the boat itself. The buoy being drawn in, then follow the baited hooks one after another. First perhaps a rockling shows his bright head above water: a pull, and in he comes flapping, with brilliant red fins distended, gaping mouth and indigo-colored eyes, and richly mottled skin ; a few futile somersets, and he subsides into slimy dejection. Next, perhaps, a big whelk is tossed into the boat; then a leaden gray haddock, with its dark stripe of color on each side ; then perhaps follow a few bare hooks ; then a hake, with horrid, cavernous mouth ; then a large purple star-fish ; or a clattering crab ; then a ling, a yellow - brown, wide - mouthed piece of ugliness never eaten here, but highly esteemed on the coast of Scotland; then more cod or haddock, or perhaps a lobster, bristling with indignation at the novel situation in which he finds himself; then a cusk, long, smooth, compact, and dark; then a catfish. Of all fiends commend me to the catfish as the most fiendish! Black as night, with thick and hideous skin, which looks a dull, mouldy green beneath the water, a head shaped as much like a cat’s as a fish’s head can be, in which the devil’s own eyes seem to glow with a dull, malicious gleam,— and such a mouth ! What terrible expressions these cold creatures carry to and fro in the vast dim spaces of the sea! All fish have a more or less imbecile and wobegone aspect, but this one looks absolutely evil, and Schiller might well say of him that he “grins through the grate of his spiky teeth,” and sharp and deadly are they; every man looks out for his boots when a catfish comes tumbling in, for they bite through leather, flesh and bones. They seize a ballast-stone between their jaws, and their teeth snap and fly in all directions. I have seen them bite the longblade of a sharp knife so fiercely, that when it was lifted and held aloft they kept their furious gripe, and dangled, flapping all their clumsy weight, hanging by their teeth to the blade. Sculpins abound and are a nuisance on the trawls. Ugly and grotesque as are the full-grown fish, there is nothing among the finny tribe more dainty, more quaint and delicate than the baby sculpin. Sometimes in a pool of crystal water one comes upon him unawares, — a fairy creature, the color of a blush-rose, striped and freaked and pied with silver and gleaming green, hanging in the almost invisible water as a bird in air, with broad transparent fins suffused with a faint pink color, stretched wide like wings to upbear the supple form. The curious head is only strange, not hideous as yet, and one gazes marvelling at all the beauty lavished on a thing of so little worth.

Wolf-fish, first cousins to the catfish, are found also on the trawls, and dogfish, with pointed snouts and sand-paper skins, abound to such an extent as to drive away everything else sometimes. Sand-dabs, a kind of flounder, fasten their sluggish bodies to the hooks, and a few beautiful red fish, called bream, are occasionally found ; also a few bluefish and sharks; frequently halibut,— though these latter are generally caught on trawls which are made especially for them. Sometimes a monstrous creature of horrible aspect, called the nursefish, is caught on a trawl, — an immense fish weighing twelve hundred pounds, with a skin like a nutmeg-grater, and no teeth ; a kind of sucker, hence its name. I asked a Shoaler what the nurse-fish looked like, and he answered promptly, “Like the Devil!” One weighing twelve hundred pounds has “two barrels of liver,” as the natives phrase it, which is very valuable for the oil it contains. One of the fishermen described a creature which they call mud-eel, — a foot and a half long, with a mouth like a rat, and two teeth. The bite of this water-snake is poisonous, the islanders aver, and tell a story of a man bitten by one at Mount Desert last year, “ who did not live longenough to get to the doctor.” They bite at the hooks on the trawl, and are drawn up in a lump of mud, and the men cut the ropes and mangle their lines to get rid of them. Huge sunfish are sometimes harpooned, lying on the top of the water, — a lump of flesh like cocoanut meat encased in a skin like rubber cloth, with a most dim and abject hint of a face roughly outlined on the edge, absurdly disproportionate to the size of the body. Sword-fish are also harpooned, weighing eight hundred pounds and upward; they are very delicate food. A sword-fish swimming leaves a wake a mile long on a calm day, and bewilders the imagination into a belief in sea-serpents. There’s a legend that a torpedo was caught here once upon a time, and the thrasher, fox-shark, or sea-fox occasionally alarms the fisherman with his tremendous flexible tail, that reaches “from the gunnel to the mainmasttop” when the creature comes to the surface. Also they tell of skip-jacks that sprang on board their boats at night when they were hake - fishing, “ little things about as large as mice, long and slender, with beaks like birds.” Sometimes a huge horse-mackerel flounders in and drives ashore on a ledge, for the gulls to scream over for weeks. Mackerel, herring, porgies, and shiners used to abound before the seines so thinned them. Bonito and blue-fish and dog-fish help drive away the more valuable varieties. It is a lovely sight to see a herring-net drawn in, especially by moonlight, when every fish hangs like a long silver drop from the close-set meshes. Perch are found in inexhaustible quantities about the rocks, and lump or butter fish are sometimes caught; pollock are very plentiful, — smooth, graceful, slender creatures! It is fascinating to watch them turningsomersets in the water close to the shore in full tides, or following a boat at sunset, and breaking the molten gold of the sea’s surface with silver-sparkling fin and tail. The rudder-fish is sometimes found, and alewives and menhaden. Whales are more or less plentiful in summer, “ spouting their foam-fountains in the sea.” Beautiful is the sparkling column of water rising suddenly afar off and falling noiselessly back again. Not long ago a whale twisted his tail in the cable of the schooner “Vesper,” lying to the eastward of the Shoals, and towed the vessel several miles, at the rate of twenty knots an hour, with the water boiling all over her from stem to stern!

Last winter some of the Shoalers were drawing a trawl between the Shoals and Boone Island, fifteen miles to the eastward. As they drew in the line and relieved each hook of its burden, lo ! a horror was lifted half above the surface, — part of a human body, which dropped off the hooks and was gone, while they shuddered and stared at each other, aghast at the hideous sight.

Porpoises are seen at all seasons. I never saw one near enough to gain a knowledge of its expression, but it always seemed to me that these fish led a more hilarious life than the greater part of their race, and I think they must carry less dejected countenances than most of the inhabitants of the sea. They frisk so delightfully on the surface, and ponderously plunge over and over with such apparent gayety and satisfaction ! I remember being out one moonless summer night beyond the light-house island, in a little boat filled with gay young people. The sea was like oil, the air was thick and warm, no star broke the upper darkness, only now and then the light-house threw its jewelled track along the water, and through the dense air its long rays stretched above, turning solemnly like the luminous spokes of a gigantic wheel, as the lamps slowly revolved. There had been much talk and song and laughter, much playing with the warm waves (or rather smooth undulations of the sea, for there was n’t a breath of wind to make a ripple), which broke at a touch into pale green phosphorescent fire. Beautiful arms, made bare to the shoulder, thrust down into the liquid darkness, shone flaming silver and gold ; from the fingers playing beneath, fire seemed to stream ; emerald sparks clung to the damp draperies ; and a splashing oar-blade half revealed sweet faces and bright young eyes. Suddenly a pause came in talk and song and laughter, and in the unaccustomed silence we seemed to be waiting for something. At once out of the darkness came a slow tremendous sigh that made us shiver in the soft air, as if all the woe and terror of the sea were condensed in that immense and awful breath; and we took our oars and pulled homeward, with the weird fires flashing from our bows and oar-blades. “ Only a porpoise blowing,” said the initiated, when we told our tale. It may have been “only a porpoise blowing,” but the leviathan himself could hardly have made a more prodigious sound.