Part 5

“Thus, when we sailed southward over smooth and smiling seas, I fell victim to unrest that harassed me. I rose and looked abroad each day with eyes that searched eagerly for a threat of the fate that seemed impending; and even as I watched the sea, in like manner did I watch Eric Scarf, to discover if I could what it was that hung so threateningly over the man’s smiling head.

“If Eric felt any uneasiness, he gave no sign at first. He was as he had always been, confident, and quick, and strong. But the day came when a hint was given us, just as the impalpable atmospheric changes reveal through the glass the approach of storm.

“We had sighted whales more than once, and made a fair beginning on the long task ahead of us; and then one day in the South Atlantic, the boats were lowered for a pod that lay far off to southward. Eric got fast, and the third mate likewise. But the whale I had chosen as my goal took alarm, and whirled toward us, and then fled before our irons could reach him.

“There had been time, however, for us to see upon his head a dull scar, in the form of a cross, and I heard a cry from Eric’s boat, that was just getting fast, and turned to see Eric staring toward the spot where the old bull had disappeared.

“Then I remembered what the men had said about the whale which had stove Eric’s boat after the kill on the other voyage; and when we were aboard again, the cutting-in done, and the tryworks boiling and smoking, I was not surprised that Eric came to me.

“‘Mark,’ he whispered huskily, ‘was there a cross on the bull that got away?’

“I nodded. ‘On his head.’ I said. ‘An old scar, gouged into the blubber.’

“I saw his jaw set hard. ‘It can’t be!’ he exclaimed, half to himself. I said nothing; and he looked at me a moment later, with an agony of doubt in his eyes.

“‘Well, what of it. Eric?’ I asked, knowing, but thinking that to talk might ease the man.

“‘It was a scarred bull stove my boat—that day,’ he told me.

“‘Every old bull has his scars,’ I said easily.

“‘Aye—but—this was the same, Mark!’

“‘What matter?’

“He flushed and stammered like a child. ‘Her curse is on me,’ he declared. ‘The old bull is going to wait for me!’

“‘He’ll suffer by it,’ I laughed. ‘He’s a fat old duke, too.’

“Eric looked forward where the men were working, and looked aft, and then out across the sea; and then he looked at me at last with an appeal in his eyes. ‘Are you calling me “murderer” as she did, Mark?’ he asked.

“I shook my head. ‘She’s but a girl,’ I told him. ‘There was no need of killing the cow. But what matter for that? And the other—was no one’s blame.’

“His hand gripped my arm till I winced. ‘You mean it?’ he begged, hungrily.

“I clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Forget it all,’ I urged. ‘No harm will come.’

“‘It is not that I’m afraid,’ he told me swiftly; and I saw that I had roused him as I hoped to do.

“‘Sure of that?’ I asked.

“His eyes flamed. ‘I fear nothing, except myself,’ he exclaimed. ‘But I hear her word always; and I cannot bear it, Mark.’

“Before more could be said, Cap’n Tobbey came toward us; and Eric laughed as though at some jest of mine. His laughter was not a pleasant thing to hear, and I would have wished to reassure the man. But thereafter he gave me no further opportunity.

“I could see the thing was on his mind through the days that followed. He could not forget it; and he took to standing watch at the masthead when there was no need. I asked him once why he did this.

“‘To get the scarred bull, Mark,’ he told me. ‘That will end it.’

“‘You’ll never see him again!’

“He shook his head, and smiled grimly. ‘No fear,’ he said. ‘He’s about us.’

“And Eric was right; for the day we were finishing the trying out, the scarred bull was sighted again, this time so near the ship that his mark could be discerned through the glass as he rose to spout. Eric was aloft; and he tumbled down the rigging like a madman, and lowered; but there was a fog, and in the fog the bull was lost for that time.

“That was thrice he had been seen; and the fourth time came swiftly.

“Eric was never a man to fear or avoid conflict, even with the forces of the universe itself; and after this third appearance of the scarred bull whale, he scarce slept at all, but held himself and his boat’s crew ready for battle the day long. He was aloft from dawn till dark, endlessly scouring the seas for a spout that would reveal the creature which personified to him the thing he was fighting. He became silent, thoughtful; and strength flowed into him and nerved him to a hard and efficient readiness. He was like an athlete in training for a contest, every nerve and muscle tuned.

“We sighted the scarred whale for the fourth time on a Sunday morning; a day when the sea was just rippled by the gentlest breezes, when the sun shone warmly and comfortingly upon the world, when the boats danced upon the waves with a soothing and caressing motion. The water was blue as turquoise, and the sky above it; and the two met at the horizon with the sea’s deeper blue below the sky’s, and the whitecaps gleaming like silver in the wind.

“It was not Eric who sighted the whale, but one of the men on the fore-t’gallant crosstrees; and his long ‘Blo-o-o-o-o-ow’ came droning down to us on the decks and snatched each one to his post like machinery. Cap’n Tobbey turned his glass on the distant spouts, and ordered the boats away; and Eric’s hard and seasoned men made his boat swing ahead of the others instantly, and steadily increase the lead.

“There was no way of knowing whether or no this was the old scarred bull; but his spout told us it was a right whale, and not a sperm whale. Nevertheless, either Eric knew it was his enemy he went to meet, or else he was eager to discover whether it was or no, for he drove his men unsparingly, and was more than a quarter of a mile ahead of us when he reached the monster, and ran alongside.

“Over the water came to us the sound of his shouted command: ‘Let ’im have it!’ And I saw the boat steerer, standing in the bow with his knee in the clumsy-cleat, put all the strength of back and arms into the stroke, and snatch the second iron and send that home even as the whale leaped forward.

“While Eric and the boat steerer were changing places, the great whale up-ended ponderously, his flukes lifting gently toward the sky full thirty feet clear of the water, and slid down out of sight. He had sounded; and I spurred my men to harder efforts so that we might be at hand to help if need arose.

“Ahead of us, the boat lay idle on the waves. I could see Eric in the bow, his hand on the line where it ran through the notch, bending to peer down into the depths; and I could see he was putting a strain upon the line, for the bow was down and almost dipping in the waves.

“Then suddenly the bow bobbed up, the strain relaxed; and Eric bent further over in an effort to pierce the depths below him. The whale was coming up; and if by chance he came up under the boat, the fight would be done, forthwith. Eric shouted a command; and the men began to haul in the line desperately, dropping it in a loose coil astern. The boat steerer leaned upon his long oar, alert, bending to hear the word from Eric, and himself looking overside for any sign of the monster who was rushing up from the depths toward them.

“Then a shout from Eric, the boat swung around as though on a pivot; and next instant the whale breached between his boat and mine.

“There is no more splendid sight in the world than this; to see the biggest creature that breathes flinging his four or five score tons clear out of the water to hang, a black bulk against the sky, for an instant before he falls resoundingly. Imagine a leaping trout, magnify the trout’s size a million-fold or more, and you have some faint notion of the monstrous majesty and grace of the breaching whale.

“I had seen whales breach before, sometimes with terror, sometimes with wonder at the beauty of the spectacle; but when this whale leaped clear into the sky and seemed to hang for an instant fair above us, a thrill of horror shot through me.

“For as he was in the air, fair for all to see, the scar upon his head was revealed; a scar like a sunken cross, mark of some ancient wound. It was the scarred bull to which Eric’s boat was fast.

“I looked toward him, and saw that Eric had seen the scar; but Eric loved battle. He shouted to his men, and even as the great whale fell into the water again, Eric’s men hauled in till they were alongside the monster, and Eric drove home his lance.

“The whale, at the prick of steel, redoubled the furious struggle of the breach; and he rolled away and away from the boat, upon the surface, in a smother of foam and spray. The men were forced to loose the line again to avoid capsizing; but Eric himself set his hand to it, and by his own strength held the nose of the boat so near the rolling whale that when the enormous creature straightened out at last to run, half a dozen pulls brought them again alongside.

“They were in some fashion safer there than elsewhere. The harpoons had struck well behind the fin, and the whale’s rolling had wrapped the line about him in such fashion that when the boat pulled alongside it lay safely behind the fin, and yet safely forward of the flukes. If the whale rolled toward them, they would be crushed beneath his bulk; but short of such a move, the monster could not shake them off.

“And Eric was working his lance like mad. I had never seen such frantic energy. He sent the six-foot steel to its length into the soft body again and again, not with a long shove, but with a single stabbing thrust to each attack. His target was the whale’s greatest girth, and the lower part of the body; and although the battle seemed an endless flurry and strife of bloody foam, it was only a matter of seconds before the whale’s labored spouting crimsoned—sure sign he had received a mortal wound.

“I caught the sound of an exultant shout from Eric, and his boat sheered away. The monster had suddenly halted in its flight; it lay momentarily motionless, as though testing its own strength against this attack which had pierced its vitals. Then in a desperate and panic stricken flurry it leaped forward and away, the boat, with line running free, trailing safely behind.

“They drove past where my boat lay; and Eric turned to look toward me. He was a heroic figure in the bow of the little craft, erect and tall, his bright hair and his naked torso crimson with the flood from the whale’s bloody spout. He was gleaming wet with spray and red foam; and he waved his long lance as he passed and shouted:

“‘The scarred whale, Mark! I’ve killed him!’

“Before I could reply, he was beyond the sound of my voice; and then the great beast whirled and came back toward us. He must have seen my boat and supposed it that of his tormentor; for he charged at us, and only the swiftest swerve took us out of his path in time. Beyond me, I saw him wallow over the third mate’s boat and on; and I hurried to pick up the men in the water.

“Save for their bruises and their drenching, they were uninjured. We dragged them aboard, set a waif in the boat, tied its oars to keep it afloat, and set out after Eric and the whale. The great creature was circling in its last flurry; and as we drew near, with a tremendous spasm it threw its mighty bulk in a swift, short circle, and was still.

“We drove ahead, toward Eric’s boat; and Eric’s countenance was burning with a splendid triumph. This last moment of victorious pride Fate allowed him.

“He was ahead; his boat ran alongside the huge carcass, and Eric bent over the bow with the short boat spade to cut a hole in the whale’s tail for towing it to the ship.

“The boat spade is a steel blade, razor sharp, spade-shaped, attached to a stout wooden handle. Eric leaned far out and drove it into the tough fiber of the tail.

“And then the right whale’s flukes whirled in a last, spasmodic struggle; up they whirled, and over, and down. They missed the boat by inches; but from Eric’s strong hands the boat spade was torn. It twisted in the air, its steel blade flashing crimson. Under the blow of the flukes it twisted and sang, and then chocked home. The steel struck Eric squarely in the face; and it split his skull as you split a walnut.”

The old captain leaned forward to knock the dottel from his pipe upon the andirons, and settled in his chair again. For a little time we sat without speaking; but I asked at last:

“Joan—did she forgive him in the end?”

Cap’n Brackett’s grim old countenance softened. “Oh, aye,” he said. “She’d forgiven him before. She warned me when we started on the cruise to watch over him.” He filled and lighted his ancient pipe again, then softly finished: “She’s gone, long since. But our daughter looks very like her now.”

_Ben Ames Williams_.

WHEN BREATHITT WENT TO BATTLE

“_Bloody_” _Breathitt has been exempted from the draft_. _So prompt and general was the response of her fighting men to the call for volunteers_, _that her quota is more than filled_. _There is no need of conscription_. _Thus does the outlaw mountain county of Kentucky vindicate herself in the eyes of the world_, _mocking those who would shame her with a record more fanciful than true_.

—_News Item_.

Breathitt was at peace.

As the Cumberland sun climbed over the eastern hills, bringing the rugged flush of morning to each crag and ridge and peak, a travel-worn rider, astride an even more worn mare, drew up at the stile in front of a four-room log cabin. On the rider’s smooth, strong features were marks of a sleepless night, emphasized by a tense foreboding. As he stopped, his mare heaved a shuddering sigh of exhaustion and lowered her head in weary relief; the man bent one booted leg over the pommel of his saddle, and with an expression of pity gazed at the cabin for some moments before he called.

“Hallo!” There was no response from within the chinked walls; only the snarl of a cur, that skulked near the rickety porch, and the lonesome tinkle of a cowbell from the barn lot.

Again, “Hallo!” This time, after half a minute, the heavy front door opened on its wooden hinges and a mountaineer, with untrimmed, grizzled mustache, stepped out into the morning sunshine.

“Wal, if hit ain’t Lawyer Todd—howdy!” The old man’s face glowed with cordiality as he approached the stile.

“Git off yer mare and come in, lawyer,” he invited. “We’ve jest ate, but Lizzie’ll have ye some breakfast in a jiffy. Leave yer critter right thar and come on in.”

“Thank you, Seth, but I reckon I won’t for a while.” Lawyer Todd tried to smile in answer to the welcome, but his eyes were grave.

He was a man of middle age and some little refinement of appearance, in spite of the mud that now besplotehed him. A native of the Kentucky Mountains, he had taken his degree at a college in the Blue Grass, but had returned to the hills to practice among his own people. He was one of them: he knew their ways, their faults, their virtues, their peculiarities, and of Seth Brannon he was particularly wise. Ever since hanging out his shingle at the county seat, Todd had been his legal adviser whenever Seth had seen fit to waive the local militant manner of settling disputes and rely upon the instruments of law and order. Between the two men there existed a feeling that was more than professional. Seth, while many years his senior, made Todd his confidant, looked up to him with the deference due superior wisdom, and knew that his trust was not misplaced. In return Todd gave sympathetic understanding to this primitive man of the hills, respected his traditions, and stood by him in time of trouble.

It was this bond between friend and friend, rather than between lawyer and client, that had drawn Todd over long, hard miles through the most isolated and inaccessible part of that Kentucky county which bears the title “Bloody.”

Todd did not dismount from his mare; and old Seth, squatting on the stile block, regarded him keenly with eyes much used to the analysis of their fellow-men.

“What’s on yer mind, lawyer?” he inquired. “’Pears like all ain’t good news ye’ve brung over the hills with ye.”

He took in at a glance the mud-caked legs and belly of the mare, and the blue clay drops that had sprayed and dried on the lawyer, from his leather boots to his gray slouch hat.

“Ye must ’a’ come a long piece, from the looks o’ ye,” Seth resumed with friendly concern. “Shorely, now, ye ain’t rid all the way from Jackson town?”

“Yes,” Todd answered, “that’s what I have.”

“And what fer?”

The lawyer reached to an inside pocket and drew out a yellow envelope, the flap of which had been torn open. With a slowness that was almost hesitancy, he handed the envelope to the old man.

“The operator at Jackson gave that to me, Seth,” said Todd. “He knew I sorta attended to matters there in town for you and that I’d see you got it. It came just after dark yesterday, and I’ve been riding ever since to bring it to you—and break the news.”

Seth scratched his mustache with a calloused forefinger, turning the yellow envelope over and over and looking at it with curiosity.

“What is hit?” he asked. “Ye know—ye know, lawyer, readin’ ain’t one o’ my strong p’ints, and these here printed things don’t mean nothin’ to me. What’s hit all about?”

“It’s a telegram, Seth, a telegram—about Jim.”

“About Jim—my Jim?” The old man groped for a moment. “Why, lawyer, Jim knows his pa can’t neither read or write. What’d Jim send me a teleygram fer?”

“Jim didn’t send it. It came through the Canadian War Department, at Ottawa.” Todd braced himself in his saddle. “Seth, when Jim went away, did you ever reckon you mightn’t see him again?”

The old man’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t reckon much about hit a-tall,” he said. “Fact is, Jim went withouten my lief and agin my best jedgment.” He paused, but as the lawyer made no reply, went on:

“Ye see, Jim ’as plumb crazy to go to war, soon as he heard hit had broke loose over yan. But I says, says I, ‘Jim, this ain’t none o’ our war; hit’s a-happenin’ way outside o’ these mountings whar we ain’t got no business. I’m a ole man and I’ve come to love peace. Ten year ago, after we’d fought and fought and finally whopped the Allens, over on South Fork, I swore thar’d be no more war if I could help hit. And I’ve purty well kept my word. Now, Jim,’ says I, ‘this feller Keeser and his Germins ain’t hurt we’uns. I ain’t got nothin’ agin ’em. And, what’s more, I don’t want we or no other Brannon o’ the name to be startin’ trouble with sech people.’

“‘Pa,’ says Jim, ‘I ain’t a-goin’ to start trouble. Keeser’s already started hit. He and his Germins done sunk a lot o’ ships and kilt a whole mess o’ wimmen and chil’ren, some of ’em Amerikin wimmen and chil’ren too. The English and the French been a-fightin’ him over thar fer nigh on two year. Now hit looks like this country’s a-goin’ to take a hand. The army men at Washington says thar jest ain’t no way o’ our gittin’ ’round fightin’ Keeser; either we got to help lick him over yan in Eurip or he’ll lick us over here.’

“‘Then let him come on over and try hit,’ says I. ‘I ain’t shot skunks and Allens and wildcats all my life fer nothin’,’ says I. ‘The same ole rifle-gun my granddaddy brung up from North Calliney and kilt Injuns with ain’t so rusty and no ’count that I can’t shoot a few shoots at this Keeser feller and his Germins.

“‘But, Jim,’ I says, ‘Jim, ye know a mounting man fights best on his own ground. Hit ain’t in nature fer him to go scrappin’ on furren soil amongst furreners. Up a hillside, behind a bunch o’ laurel, is a heap better place fer a mounting man than in them trenches yer talkin’ about. Fust o’ all,’ says I, ‘I’m fer peace; but if ye’ve got to fight, then stay home and fight nigh yer own front door.’

“Them’s exactly the words I spoke to him, lawyer,” continued Seth, cramming a handful of tobacco into his mouth. “Wait till somebody’s hit ye, then hit back and hit back damn hard. But don’t go meddlin’ ’round in a country ye don’t know nothin’ about, ’mongst folks what ain’t no kin to ye. That’s what I says, jest about them very words.”

“And yet Jim went,” said Todd. “Those two years you gave him at Berea College, Seth, made Jim more thoughtful than most boys hereabouts. He read war, he studied war; and, impatient at the delay of his own government in getting into it, he went up to Canada, enlisted in her armies and shipped to France—”

“Yas, that ’as the way hit was,” assented the old man. “All his ma and me could do couldn’t keep that boy from goin’ oncet he’d sot his head on hit.

“That ’as ’most a year ago. Course we miss Jim and all that,” Seth added; “but even if he has gone to war agin’ Keeser and his Germins, the rest o’ us here ain’t bearin’ no grudge toward ’em so long as they leaves us in peace.”

“They aren’t leaving you in peace, Seth; that’s just it.” Todd watched him closely to see the effect of his words. “Already when Jim enlisted Keeser and his Germins’ had killed American citizens by the score. Since then they’ve killed other Americans; helpless, unoffending people who believed as you do that because they hadn’t harmed the Germans, the Germans wouldn’t harm them.

“You had some reason for opposing Jim’s enlistment. We weren’t at war with Germany then. He was under no personal or patriotic obligation to fight. He acted mostly from the urge of conscience, I know, and after much far-sighted deliberation. But now it’s different, Seth. Last week our men in Washington declared war on Germany. We’ve got to fight as a nation whether as individuals we want to fight or not. Otherwise your rifle-gun and mine, and all the rifle-guns in these mountains, won’t save our homes and our women and children once the Germans land in this country. Don’t you see how it is, Seth? Our boys have to go to war, to save from war those who are left behind. Don’t you feel differently now about Jim’s going the way he did?”

The old man shook his head stubbornly. “I tell ye, lawyer, hit ain’t any o’ our war. What happens outside o’ these hills don’t consarn me and my folks. ‘What happens amongst these hills we can take care of when hit comes. Let them as wants to fight, fight. We’uns don’t axe nothin’ o’ other folks and other folks ain’t got no business axein’ nothin’ o’ us. That’s whar hit stands with me, lawyer.”

“Listen, Seth.” Todd leaned toward him from his saddle. “You know, the people outside of Breathitt don’t think much of us who live here. Not only in other parts of Kentucky, but in all the other states and even abroad, they call us ‘Bloody.’ That’s because we’ve been a bit too handy with our guns. We’ve killed too many of our own folks. We haven’t paid much attention to the law. Now this war gives us a chance to show the outside world that there’s more good than bad in us; that we can leave off fighting each other and use our lead on the Germans.”

Todd leaned closer to the old man, enthusiasm in his voice. “Listen, Seth. The President wants volunteers for the army. He’s got to have soldiers, lots of them. And the best soldier material in the country is right up here in these hills. We men of Breathitt are born to the trigger. Most of us soldier in a manner all our lives. Now, I say, we’ve got to stop aiming our rifle-guns at each other and point ’em toward the enemy. I’ve been thinking about it considerably lately and I want your help in bringing this very thing to pass.