d different feelings about
sealing from those that the planter's story was meant to bring
out. All being ready, he began his tale again:--

"I shipped wi' Skipper Isra'l Gooden, from Carbonear; the schooner
was the Baccaloue, wi' forty men, all told. 'T was of a Sunday
morn'n 'e 'ould sail, twel'th day o' March, wi' another schooner
in company,--the Sparrow. There was a many of us was n' too good,
but we thowt wrong of 'e's takun the Lord's Day to 'e'sself. Wull,
Sir, afore I comed 'ome, I was in a great desert country, an' floated
on sea wi' a monstrous great raft that no man never made, creakun
an' crashun an' groanun an' tumblun an' wastun an' goun to pieces,
an' no man on her but me, an' full o' livun things,--dreadful!

"About a five hours out, 't was, we first sid the blink,[4] an'
comed up wi' th' Ice about off Cape Bonavis'. We fell in wi' it
south, an' worked up nothe along: but we did n' see swiles for two
or three days yet; on'y we was workun along; pokun the cakes of
ice away, an' haulun through wi' main strength sometimes, holdun
on wi' bights o' ropes out o' the bow; an' more times, agen, in
clear water: sometimes mist all round us, 'ee could n' see the
ship's len'th, sca'ce; an' more times snow, jes' so thick; an'
then a gale o' wind, mubbe, would a'most blow all the spars out
of her, seemunly.

[Footnote 4: A dull glare on the horizon, from the immense masses
of ice.]

"We kep' sight o' th' other schooner, most-partly; an' when we
did n' keep it, we'd get it agen. So one night 't was a beautiful
moonlight night: I think I never sid a moon so bright as that moon
was; an' such lovely sights a body 'ould n' think could be! Little
islands, an' bigger, agen, there was, on every hand, shinun so
bright, wi' great, awful-lookun shadows! an' then the sea all black,
between! They did look so beautiful as ef a body could go an' bide
on 'em, in' a manner; an' the sky was jes' so blue, an' the stars
all shinun out, an' the moon all so bright! I never looked upon
the like. An' so I stood in the bows; an' I don' know ef I thowt
o' God first, but I was thinkun o' my girl that I was troth-plight
wi' then, an' a many things, when all of a sudden we comed upon
the hardest ice we'd a-had; an' into it; an' then, wi' pokun an'
haulun, workun along. An' there was a cry goed up,--like the cry
of a babby, 't was, an' I thowt mubbe 't was a somethun had got
upon one o' they islands; but I said, agen, 'How could it?' an' one