The Praying Skipper, and Other Stories E-Book

Ralph Delahaye Paine

• Herausgeber: Publisher s11838
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

The Praying Skipper, and Other Stories written by Ralph Delahaye Paine who was an American journalist and author popular in the early 20th century. This book was published in 1906. And now republish in ebook format. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book.

Leseprobe

The Praying Skipper, and Other Stories

By

Ralph Delahaye Paine

Table of Contents

THE PRAYING SKIPPER

A VICTORY UNFORESEEN

CORPORAL SWEENEY, DESERTER

THE LAST PILOT SCHOONER

THE JADE TEAPOT

CAPTAIN ARENDT'S CHOICE

SURFMAN BRAINARD'S "DAY OFF"

"'Cast me not off in the time of old age, forsake me not when my strength faileth.'"

THE PRAYING SKIPPER

"But I'm not going to stand for this sort of thing," angrily protested young Valentine as he shoved the letter at Port Captain Graham of the Palmetto Line. "The old man may be as good a sailor as you say he is, but it's high time we set him ashore on a half-pay pension. Why, he's making our service ridiculous. Read it out to Mr. Holmes."

The Port Captain fidgeted and awkwardly wiped his glasses, for the task was unwelcome:

Dear Valentine: Congratulations on your decision to mix up in the business of the old company. It seems a hefty responsibility for so young a man, but blood will tell. By the way, here is something for you to investigate while the new broom is sweeping the cobwebs away. I went South on your Suwannee a month ago, and have the honor to inform you that her captain is a venerable nuisance, and loose in his top story. He is a religious crank, clean dippy on it, held prayer-meetings until half the passengers were driven on deck, and had a lot of hysterical women flocking around him for two different services on Sunday. The Suwannee is a gospel ark in command of a praying skipper, and if only the sanctified are going to enjoy traveling in her, you will lose a lot of business. I reckon it's time the line had an overhauling, so good luck to you.

Yours as ever,

Jim.

Young Mr. Valentine explained to the surprised officials:

"The signer is an old college friend of mine, man of a great deal of influence here in New York, and he gives the line and its biggest, newest ship this kind of a black eye. And I have heard other rumors to the same effect. Now I want an explanation from both you gentlemen. You know all about Captain Jesse Kendrick of the Suwannee, and it's your business to report such idiotic performances. If you have been shielding a dottering old ass, who is unfit to go to sea any longer, the sooner the thing is sifted to the bottom the better."

Port Captain Graham flushed and twisted his white mustache with a fist like an oaken billet. He swallowed hard as if trying to keep his rising steam under control, and replied with a catch in his deep voice:

"Mr. Valentine, I've been with the Palmetto Line going on thirty years, from the time when your father bought the first old side-wheeler that flew the house flag. Jesse Kendrick was third under me in my first command and I know him inside out. A finer sailor and a better man never rounded Hatteras. Are you going to blackguard the ranking skipper afloat in your service because of a flimsy complaint like that, without calling the old man up to the office? Doesn't he get a hearing? Why, you've just now waltzed into this company like a boy with a lot of toy steamboats to play with, after loafing abroad in a muck of luxury ever since you left your college. You've never even clapped eyes on Captain Kendrick."

Mr. Holmes, the General Manager, was speaking before Mr. Valentine could make heated reply. He was largely office bred, and less outspoken than the rugged Port Captain:

"As far as his religion goes, we know that Captain Kendrick doesn't drink a drop, and that he won't ship anything but sober men. And your father had reason to send the old man a good many letters of commendation in his time. Shall I 'phone to the dock for Captain Kendrick? He sails this afternoon."

"You'll do nothing of the kind," snarled Valentine. "I'll do my own investigating this time, because you are a bunch of three old pals, do you see?"

"But you're not going to censure him right off the reel? Good God! it would break the old man's heart," exclaimed the Port Captain, leaning forward in a bluster of indignation. "I'll bet the morals of your friend, Jim What's-his-name, need investigatin' a damn sight more than the righteousness of Jesse Kendrick."

Mr. Valentine snapped back, but with weakening assurance:

"If you can't be civil, Captain Graham, there will be more than one reprimand in this day's work. I am the owner ashore, and I propose to be the boss at sea. I'll think it over, and if I want any more of your advice, I'll send for you. Good-morning."

He went into an inner office and closed the door. The Port Captain glared at the barrier, and growled as he trudged reluctantly into the outer hall, arm in arm with the General Manager.

"That spindle-shouldered, under-engined young cub as the make-believe boss of the Palmetto Line! What do you think of it, Holmes? Dyin' must have come hard to his dad when he took a last squint at the heir to the business. This one surely needs some of Jesse Kendrick's spare prayers."

"The young Valentine is cock of the walk," said the General Manager slowly. "But the bantam was crowing to show his authority this time. Anyhow, he said he would think it over, and that means he'll cool off. Don't say anything to Kendrick about it. No use of discounting trouble that may never come."

But the two men had small acquaintance with the methods of young Mr. Valentine. Without letting go his purpose, he had appeared to give way, because he shrunk from pitting his will against this masterful Port Captain, who made him feel like a house of cards in a big wind. It was not inconceivable that this over-bearing old monster might lay him across his knee and spank him in the white heat of a dispute. When he heard the two veterans depart, the new-fledged owner turned to his stenographer:

"Please take a letter to Captain Kendrick and mail it to catch him at New Orleans. I don't want him storming in here to-day."

The gray hair of the stenographer had been a bonny brown when she entered the employ of the Palmetto Line. As her pencil chased his words down the pages of her notebook, she glanced up with undisguised amazement, and dared to comment when her task was done:

"Please pardon me, but are you sure you mean Captain Kendrick of the Suwannee? You see, I have sailed with him on several vacation trips. When he leads the services on board, I think it is because the passengers like to hear him talk; such manly, honest talk about the faith he lives day by day. He reminds you of some Old Testament patriarch."

"Old Testament patriarchs are out of date," said Mr. Valentine with evident irritation. "Is there a conspiracy to boom the stock of this senile old geezer? Religion is all right for you women. I am going South in my private car next week, and by Jove, I will just come home on the Suwannee and look the situation over for myself. Mum's the word. And I don't want any more of my friends to be guying me about running a marine Sunday-school with a sea-parson in charge. That letter ought to choke him off coming back."

II

A fortnight later the Suwannee was steaming across the sapphire Gulf. Before her bow flying-fish skittered and splashed like flights of shrapnel bullets, on deck sailors were stretching awnings fore and aft, and wind-sails bellied in the open hatches. Men in flannels and women in trim, white freshness leaned along the rail and watched the sparkling play of color overside. There was the air of a yachting cruise in these pleasant aspects of the day's routine, yet the season was the dead of winter, and the Suwannee was hurrying as fast as twin screws could drive her toward bitter latitudes.

On the bridge walked to and fro, with a slightly limping gait, a man of an unusual presence. Those who looked up at him from the deck noted his uncommon height and breadth, and the white beard that swept almost to his waist. Nearer vision was needed to know the seamed yet mobile face, and the gray eye that held an eager light as of strong emotions continually burning. When he halted to speak to his first officer, his voice was sweet and vibrant:

"I am going below for a little while, Mr. Parlin. Call me when you've run down your course."

Captain Kendrick went into his room just abaft the wheelhouse, and picked up from his desk a typewritten letter that showed marks of much handling. He read it slowly, and his lip quivered as it had done with each of many previous readings. Seating himself upon the edge of the couch, he said aloud little fragments of the letter, taken here and there without sequence:

"Astonishing behavior ... guilty of annoyance ... serious complaints ... ridiculous religious display ... prime of usefulness past ... evidently ripe for retirement...."

The letter fell to the floor unheeded, as there came into his eyes a look of impassioned intensity that was focused ever so far beyond the walls of this little sea-cabin. He was on his knees and his head was in his hands as he murmured:

"Cast me not off in the time of old age, forsake me not when my strength faileth.... Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path in the great waters.... I said I will keep my mouth with a bridle while the wicked are before me. But it is also written that evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud and He shall hear my voice.... They have prepared a net for my steps, my heart is bowed down.... But Thou hast a mighty arm, strong is Thy hand and high is Thy right hand...."

While Captain Kendrick was voicing his troubles and his consolations in words wondrously framed by another strong man long ago, the purser of the Suwannee was sought out by Arthur Valentine, whose manner held a trace of uneasiness. He would not have confessed it, but far back in the young ship-owner's head was the glimmering notion that a terrier might be snapping at a mastiff. Was this imposing figure on the bridge the "dottering ass" to whom he had smartly dashed off his first official reprimand, gloating in the chance to test the sweep of his new authority? But this suspicion now shaped itself only in a growing fear lest he be discovered in such uncomfortably close quarters with Captain Jesse Kendrick. Mr. Valentine closed the door of the purser's room and set that worthy officer's teeth on edge by remarking:

"Fine morning. I say, you needn't bother to make any special point of seating me at the captain's table. Fact is, I don't want to be bored. Just put me over at your table, will you? And please tell nobody who I am. I want to look around a bit. The captain doesn't know that I'm on board, I take it, or he would have been showing me some troublesome attentions. So you need say nothing to him about it. Just see that my name is rubbed off his copy of the passenger list."

The purser disentangled himself from a staggering heap of cargo manifests, and emphasized his reply with a wave of an inky finger:

"All right, Mr. Valentine, if those are your orders, but you miss your guess if you think our skipper is going to run after you or any other passenger. He ain't that kind. But sub rosy you go and as far as you like, till further notice."

Slightly ruffled, Mr. Valentine sauntered on deck, where he fell in with Second-Officer Peter Carr, who proved to be contrastingly voluble and cheerful. Before the passenger could ask certain questions that were in his mind, Mr. Carr flourished an arm seaward, and began:

"Passin' that bark yonder reminds me of a voyage I sailed as bos'n in the old packet Guiding Star, out o' Liverpool for Sydney. We was carryin' two hundred Irish girls as immygrants, an' soon after we crossed the Line they mutinied 'cause we refused to give 'em curlin' irons, an' let 'em waltz with the sailors every night an' twice on Sunday. 'Bout four bells of the middle watch pourin' out o' the hatches they come like a consolidated female explosion. I was in th' waist, an' fust I knowed them millions of infuriated young angels surged straight at poor Peter Carr. Sez I to myself, here's too much of a good thing for once, an' with that I makes a flyin' scoot an' scrambles aloft like a cat with a bunch o' firecrackers belayed to its spanker boom. Sw-o-o-o-s-h, the rustle of them billion o' skirts is like the sound of a nor'easter. Wh-e-e-e-e, them shrieks of disapp'inted rage is still ringin' in my ears. I seen the poor old skipper poke his head out o' the companionway, an' so help me, before he had time to say——"

Mr. Carr stopped abruptly and his animated countenance froze in horror as he saw Captain Kendrick wave a beckoning hand from far forward.

"He's got me again," muttered the mate, as he obeyed the summons and was seen to follow the cause of his panic into the captain's room.

"Sit down, Mr. Carr," said Captain Kendrick, with a menacing note in his voice. "You have broken your solemn promise made to me last voyage. Those same old gestures told me you were climbing the shrouds of the Guiding Star again. How often have I got to tell you that the Guiding Star packet foundered a dozen years before you went to sea? You soft-shelled coaster, you wouldn't know the equator if it flew up and hit you in the nose. 'When you were crossing the Line'—lies, all lies!"

Peter Carr rubbed his red head and looked sheepish. "Right you are, sir. I forgot, sir," he stammered. "But I'm improvin'. I can feel it workin'."

"It isn't only your speech and conduct that need overhauling," commented Captain Kendrick severely, as he dug his two fists into his beard and towered over the contrite mate. "These things are signs of an inward state of spiritual rottenness, and I intend to hammer the blessed truth into you as long as we are shipmates. Look at me. Am I a worse sailor for trying to be what your mother on Cape Cod prayed you might grow into, when she used to tuck you up in bed?"

Mr. Carr was as earnest as ever in his turbulent career as he responded:

"I'll keep in mind what you say, sir. If all the people that flies church colors was like you, a —— —— sight more of 'em 'ud practice what they preach. Whoa, Bill, I didn't mean to rip out them naughty words. I swear I didn't, sir."

The old man sighed:

"You're still in the mire. But I'm not done with you. I'll have you on your knees yet, Peter Carr."

As the mate rolled forward he muttered:

"He's sometimes kind of wearin', but he means well. An' he's gettin' me so tame I'll be eatin' out of his hand before long."

Arthur Valentine was hovering within ear-shot, and he halted the solemn-faced officer with:

"Sorry you couldn't finish that bully yarn of the Guiding Star. Anything the matter? How did you escape from the two hundred angry ladies?"

Mr. Carr beamed with animation as he hastened to reply: "Well, as I was sayin', the poor old skipper of her stuck his head on deck, an' before he could— Oh, d— Ouch, excuse me. I bit my tongue. I mean, well, I never did get down out of that riggin', and that's the end of the yarn. Can't explain. No time to talk now."

Valentine was puzzled, and laid a hand on the sleeve of the fleeing mate:

"What the dickens ails you? Why can't you finish that yarn?"

Mr. Carr whipped round and shouted with a noble impulse:

"I ain't goin' to lie again, so help me. The captain's been laborin' with my poor sin-streaked soul, and I passed the word to steer by his sailin' chart. I've suffered enough without bein' keel-hauled any more about it."

"Beg pardon," smiled Valentine. "Now I see the joke. The good old man and the wandering boy. How nice of him. Perhaps he will pray for me if I send up a card. Is he often taken that way?"

"Pretty regular," grinned the mate as he made good his retreat.

"Was I right? Well, rather," thought Valentine. "It's time I took hold of things. If we should run into a storm, the old duffer would be on his knees praying for good weather and let the ship go to pot."

Later in the day a notice posted in the "social hall" caught his roving eye:

"To-morrow (Sunday) divine service will be held in the main saloon at ten o'clock. As is customary in steamers of this line when there is no clergyman among the passengers, the captain will be in charge of this service."

III

Four bells on Sunday morning found the saloon half filled with voyagers, most of whom looked as if church-going was their custom. Sunlight flooded through the open ports and fretted the floor with dancing patterns as the steamer rolled lazily with the weight of the breathing sea. A warm wind gushed under the skylights and brought with it the thankful twitter of a little brown land-bird blown into the rigging over night. If ever worship were meet at sea, a singular aptness was in the peace and brightness of this place.

A hymn was sung and the captain read the morning service from the prayer-book. Then he threw back his shoulders without knowing that he did so, until the blue uniform coat stretched very taut across his bulky chest, and his corded hand gripped a small Bible that lay before him. Something in his pose told those of quick intuition that big emotions were hard held. They knew not why, but this hoary pillar of a man was tugging at their sympathies even before he began to speak, at first frowningly, then with a gathering light in his rugged face:

"From time to time I have tried to make these shipboard services a little more than the routine calls for. It was my way of thinking that when the Lord has led a man up out of the pit, and planted his feet on the Rock, he ought not to be ashamed of it. Perhaps I have had pride in my redemption. But it seemed to me a wonderful thing that a wicked, drunken young sailor, with no mother and no home, should be brought up with a round turn, as by a miracle of grace; that like a great light shining on the deep waters, the new hope of a better, manlier life came to him; and that he found the peace that passeth all understanding. Since then, some men and women have told me that they remembered sailing with me long after the voyage was done.

"Now I can speak no more of these things. This may be my last voyage, and if I were to talk to you out of the fullness of my heart it would be wrong. For the Book says, 'servants obey your masters,' and I am still a servant, wearing a servant's livery, and I have been proud to wear it for a good many years. I can't say any more. Several passengers asked me to give a talk in connection with the morning's service, and I want them to know that in disappointing them, my wishes have been overruled. Let us all thank God for fair weather in a closing hymn."

Arthur Valentine left the saloon fairly well pleased with himself, but inwardly recording one objection:

"He's pretty well muzzled, but I wrote him to cut out all his religious palaver in public, and I won't stand for any more of this nonsense of playing the martyr. That goes."

While idling forward after lunch, he met the first-officer coming off watch. Mischievous fortune thus brought together a young man with an axe to grind and a soured elder with a grievance.

"So the captain is ready to stay ashore," observed Valentine after a few greeting commonplaces. "Did you hear his queer speech this morning? I wonder what he was driving at? A passenger can't help being curious to know."

Mr. Parlin was a ripe and ruddy picture of a mariner, passing as heartily frank of speech except among those who knew him well. A lurking notion that he had seen this young man in New York was somehow coupled in his mind with the company's head offices, where an errand had called him before leaving that port. As he studied the passenger before replying, his glance was drawn to the gun-metal cigarette case, casually produced, whose face bore in gold outline the initials "A. H. V." Mr. Parlin was not dull witted. These letters stood for the name of the "old man's son."

The first-officer became inwardly alert as he said: "Well, Captain Kendrick is getting old, and he hasn't been right since he was smashed up so bad three years ago."

"How smashed?" asked Valentine eagerly.

"Got washed into the scuppers of the Juanita. They found him jammed under a boat with his timbers busted to smithereens. You may have noticed that he walks with a list to port."

"He didn't break his head, did he?" and Valentine tapped his forehead with a significant finger.

"Well, that's not for me to say," and Mr. Parlin hesitated, with a flutter of an eyelid; "but he has his hobby, and he sets all the sail it'll carry. You may have noticed it this morning. But he was going it very easy then."

"I'd have had my ship long before this," continued Mr. Parlin, "if the old man hadn't put a black mark on my record in the main office. Now that he talks of going out of the line, there's no harm in my sayin' that if I'd flopped on my knees and spouted psalms instead of sticking to my duties, it would be Captain Parlin by now. Excuse me. I have some work on."

Valentine said to himself as he watched the burly, bow-legged figure lumber toward a main-deck ladder:

"Now, there's a proper sailor for you! And this captain—pshaw, he makes me sick."

At the same time Mr. Parlin was thinking:

"Neatly done. I put a nail in the old cuss's coffin."

Three days passed before Captain Kendrick made a social appearance on the after deck. His old friends among the passengers welcomed his lavish fund of stories, some of them a trifle heavy, but all delivered with beaming good nature, and such thunderous sallies of laughter as wagged the white beard until his audience joined in from sheer sympathy. Valentine hung on the outskirts for a little while and then preferred to walk the deck. He felt irritation and disgust, partly because he thought he ought to be holding the center of the stage, and regretting that expediency should force him to travel incognito. Wouldn't these silly folk open their eyes if they knew how easily he, the owner, could lay this childish old nuisance of a skipper on the shelf? And he chafed the more because the poison so deftly administered by the first mate was working to confirm all his headlong suspicions.

Scowling at the jolly company as he passed them, Valentine caught a new note of earnestness in the captain's voice and stopped to listen:

"It may not be wrong after all, now that you are all urging me, and I will cut it short. God has been very good to me, and in my poor way I try to bear witness. And you may understand when I tell you what happened in '67 when I was battering around the fo'ksle of a deep-water ship out of Baltimore. Never will I forget the night when——"

The words produced an extraordinary effect upon Valentine. Blind anger seized him. He could see nothing else than that the captain was defying his written order, the passengers abetting him, and the whole group making a mockery of his authoritative judgment. He brushed in among the listeners, and shouted in a gusty treble:

"This has got to stop, I tell you. What did I write you, Captain Kendrick, about all this religious tommy-rot? I'll show you whose orders go on this ship."

The company scattered as if a bomb had lit in the midst of it as Captain Kendrick took two strides, whipped out a long arm and grasped Valentine by the shoulder:

"No man gives me orders on the deck of my ship at sea. Do you want to go below in irons? Who are——"

"My name is A. H. Valentine, and I threatened to kick you out of your berth two weeks ago, and you know it," screamed the struggling young man. "Turn me loose, I tell you. Pension be hanged. Now you can go ashore and rot. I own this ship and a dozen like her. I'll put the first officer in command to-day, and it's high time, too. He deserves it, and I know why he lost his promotion."

"I don't care if you're the Emperor of Chiny. Put a stopper on that tongue of yours, or—" Captain Kendrick checked his hot words and looked at the agitated young man like a pitying father. "You don't know any better, do you? We'll talk it all over ashore. But not at sea, understand—not at sea."

Captain Kendrick walked slowly toward his room without looking back, and sent word for Mr. Parlin to come to him at once. The mate breezed in with hearty salutation, but his high color paled a little when he looked squarely at the captain's flinty face.

"Stand on your two feet like a man, Mr. Parlin, for you're before your commander. Have you been telling lies to a passenger named Valentine?"

"Didn't know Mr. Valentine was aboard, sir. Wouldn't know him if he was sitting there in your chair. Are you trying to insult me?"

"Could I insult a slush-bucket?" thundered the captain. "You have been talking to Mr. Valentine. Don't spit out the lie that's on the tip of your tongue. Two years ago, I found you asleep on watch. At other times you have been slack and inefficient. I reported you every time. That's why you've seen three mates go over your head and get their ships. If I'd had my way you'd have been disrated or thrown on the beach. But you worked wires ashore, you harpooned me in the back, and you held your berth instead of being kicked out for a better man."

The mate's face was purple as he stammered:

"I haven't said anything against you, sir."

"If you're trying to work up into the wind with Mr. Valentine, you wait until you get ashore," growled the captain. "This is my ship until she docks. You can't say I ever tried to convert you to God. He doesn't want jelly-fish. He wants men."

Driven into a corner, the mate tried to take the aggressive in a burst of defiance: