hook my handes, an' then I thowt, 'Mubbe I may be goun wrong way.'
So I groaned to the Lard to stop the snow. Then I on'y ran this way an'
that way, an' groaned for snow to knock off.[I] I knowed we was driftun
mubbe a twenty leagues a day, and anyways I wanted to be doun what I
could, keepun up over th' Ice so well as I could, Noofundland-ways, an'
I might come to somethun,--to a schooner or somethun; anyways I'd get up
so near as I could. So I looked for a lee. I s'pose 'ee'd ha' knowed
better what to do, Sir," said the planter, here again appealing to me,
and showing by his question that he understood me, in spite of my
pea-jacket.

[Footnote I: To stop.]

I had been so carried along with his story that I had felt as if I were
the man on the Ice, myself, and assured him, that, though I could get
along pretty well on land, _and could even do something at
netting_, I should have been very awkward in his place.

"Wull, Sir, I looked for a lee. ('T wouldn' ha' been so cold, to say
cold, ef it hadn' a-blowed so tarrible hard.) First step, I stumbled
upon somethun in the snow, seemed soft, like a body! Then I comed all
together, hopun an' fearun an' all together. Down I goed upon my knees
to un, an' I smoothed away the snow, all tremblun, an' there was a moan,
as ef 't was a-livun.

"'O Lard!' I said, 'who's this? Be this one of our men?'

"But how could it? So I scraped the snow away, but 't was easy to see 't
was smaller than a man. There wasn' no man on that dreadful place but
me! Wull, Sir, 't was a poor swile, wi' blood runnun all under; an' I
got my cuffs[J] an' sleeves all red wi' it. It looked like a
fellow-creatur's blood, a'most, an' I was a lost man, left to die away
out there in th' Ice, an' I said, 'Poor thing! poor thing!' an' I didn'
mind about the wind, or th' ice, or the schooner goun away from me afore
a gale, (I _wouldn'_ mind about 'em,) an' a poor lost Christen may
show a good turn to a hurt thing, ef 't was on'y a baste. So I smoothed
away the snow wi' my cuffs, an' I sid 't was a poor thing wi' her whelp
close by her, an' her tongue out, as ef she'd a-died fondlun an' lickun
it; an' a great puddle o' blood,--it looked tarrible heartless, when I
was so nigh to death, an' wasn' hungry. An' then I feeled a stick, an' I
thowt, 'It may be a help to me,' an' so I pulled un, an' it wouldn'
come, an' I found she was lyun on it; so I hauled agen, an', when it
comed, 't was my gaff the poor baste had