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An Idyl Of Rickity Tickle
by
“‘Then sure you’ll take me!’
“‘I wouldn’t get my fish,’ says he. ‘I’d be scared o’ losin’ you. I’d sail the Word o’ the Lord like a ninny. Thinks I–I got t’ be careful! Thinks I–why, I can’t have Tumm cast away, for what would his mother do? Thinks I–I’ll reef, an’ I’ll harbor, an’ I can’t get along, an’ I might hit ice, an’ I might go ashore on Devil-May-Care. An’ I wouldn’t get my fish!‘
“‘Still an’ all, I got t’ go!’
“‘You isn’t driven,’ says he.
“‘Skipper Davy,’ says I, fair desperate, ‘I got a maid.’
“‘A what ?’ says he.
“‘A maid, Skipper Davy,’ says I, ‘an’ I wants with all my heart t’ prove my courage.’
“‘What you goin’ t’ do with her?’
“‘I’ll wed her in due season.’
“Skipper Davy jumped–an’ stared at me until I fair blushed. I’d shook un well, it seemed, without knowin’–fair t’ the core of his heart, as it turned out–an’ I’d somehow give un a glimpse of his own young days, which he’d forgot all about an’ buried in the years since then, an’ couldn’t now believe had been true. ‘A maid?’ says he then. ‘A–maid! An’ you’ll wed her in due season! You, lad! Knee-high to a locust! An’ you wants t’ go down the Labrador t’ prove your courage for the sake of a maid? For–Love! Tis not a share o’ the catch you wants–’tis not altogether the sight o’ strange places–’tis not t’ master the tricks o’ sailin’–’tis not t’ learn the reefs an’ berths o’ the Labrador. ‘Tis t’ prove–your–courage! An’ for the sake of a maid! Is that the behavior o’ lads in the world in these times? Was it always the way–with lads? I wonder–I wonder an I might ever have done that –in my youth!’
“I couldn’t tell un.
“‘Tumm,’ says he, ‘I’ll further your purpose, God help me!’
* * * * *
“An’ then the first adventure comin’ down like a patch o’ sunshine over the sea! Ah-ha, the glory o’ that time! Sixteen–an’ as yet no adventure beyond the waters of our parts! A nobbly time off Mad Mull in a easterly wind–a night on the ice in the spring o’ the year–a wrecked punt in the tickle waters; but no big adventure–no right t’ swagger–none t’ cock my cap–an’ no great tale o’ the north coast t’ tell the little lads o’ Rickity Tickle on the hills of a Sunday afternoon. But now, at last, I’d a berth with Davy Junk, a thing beyond belief, an’ I was bound out when the weather fell fair. An’ out we put, in the Word o’ the Lord, in good time; an’ Skipper Davy–moved by fear of his fondness, no doubt–cuffed me from Rickity Tickle t’ the Straits, an’ kicked me from the Barnyards t’ Thumb-an’-Finger o’ Pinch-Me Head. ‘I isn’t able t’ be partial, lad,’ says he, ‘t’ them I’m fool enough t’ be fond of.’ Whatever had come to un overnight at Rickity Tickle–an’ however he’d learned t’ peep in new ways–there was no sign o’ conversion on the cruise from Rickity t’ Pinch-Me. But ’twas some comfort t’ be well in the lead o’ the fleet in the Straits, when a westerly gale blowed the ice off-shore, an’ it fair healed my bruises an’ cured my dumps t’ get the traps down between the Thumb an’ the Finger afore a sail showed up in the gray weather t’ s’uth’ard. Hard sailin’, every inch o’ the way down–blind an’ mad. Skipper Davy at the wheel: fog alongshore, ice in the fog, reefs off the heads, an’ a wind, by times, t’ make the Word o’ the Lord howl with the labor o’ drivin’ north.