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“No. No, he can’t move her, Doctor,” he repeated, as if he were reading my thoughts, as I truly believe that he was. For our minds in the North are not crusted like tender feet with horny coverings from the chafe of boots, or as are minds beset with telephones, special deliveries, and editions of the yellow press.

“No, Uncle Rube, you don’t think I’d sit here if I wasn’t certain of it. You’ve got him beaten to a frazzle this time.”

I was right then, for Uncle Rube “slacked away” as he put it, and took up the thread of his story again without further comment, but not before apologizing for any undue familiarity into which the excitement, of which he was well aware, might have betrayed him.

“Us found t’ seals early that year, and panned a voyage of as fine young fat as ever a ‘swiler’ wished for, but t’ weather was dirty from t’ day us struck t’ patch, as if Jack Frost was determined us shouldn’t have ’em. Anyhow, afore we could pick up more’n half what us’d killed, a dozen o’ our lads got adrift on t’ floe, and though they got aboard another vessel, us thought ’em was lost. While us sailed about looking for ’em, us lost most o’ t’ pans. So round t’ beginning of April t’ skipper, in company with a score of other schooners, put her for the Norrard, in hopes of cutting off some of t’ old seals in t’ swatches. T’ slob being very heavy outside, us lay for inside Belle Isle, and carried open water most across t’ Straits. Well, sir, t’ wind veered round all of a sudden, just as us was abeam of t’ Devil’s Table, and t’ Gulf ice came out of t’ Straits fair roaring”–and Uncle Rube took another contemplative puff at his pipe.

“It would have been all right if only t’ big field had gone off t’ same time before t’ wind. But somehow there were a big block held up by t’ Islands, and t’ western ice just came and hit it clip! It must have been all up with us right there but for t’ northeast current, and that took our vessel like a nutshell and whisked her away in t’ heavy slob as if to carry her along the Labrador coast. But it proved us was not far enough off t’ land, for just about midday t’ Red Islands come up like dark specks out o’ t’ ice–right ahead t’ way we was being driven. T’ other schooners was caught in t’ jam too and drifting with us, little black dots scattered over t’ surface of t’ ice field like t’ currants in slices of sweet white loaf.

“I believe our skipper knowed it were no good, just as soon as t’ watch called him to see for hisself. But he made out as if there was nothing to it, and ordered all hands to be ready to take t’ ice, as though ‘t was a patch o’ swiles instead of rocks ahead. But when he started getting up grub, and canvas, and all sorts of things, and had us put ’em in t’ boats, us knew it were no old harps he was thinking of.

“Well, sir, it seemed as if it had to be. The old Manxman went as fair for them reefs as if she was being hauled there with a capstan. It was fair uncanny, and I believes there be more in some one driving her there than most people ‘lows. Anyhow, tied up as us was in t’ heavy jam, right fair towards ’em she had to go, and then on to ’em, and up over t’ reef as if us ‘d laid t’ course express for ’em, while every other vessel round us went clear. T’ reef’s about five feet out o’ water at high springs, and about ten feet over surface on t’ neaps. Springs it was that day, t’ moon being nearly full, and t’ first crack ripped t’ bottom clean out o’ t’ old ship. Us all hustled out on to t’ ice, taking with us all us could carry, working as quick as ever us could, for t’ pressure o’ wind was rafting t’ pans on to t’ rocks, and almost before us knew it, what remained of her above t’ ice had gone right on over t’ shoals; and long before dusk, I reckons, had gone down through it. At any rate, us saw no more of her. Us tried to make a bit of shelter for t’ night out o’ some of t’ canvas, but t’ wind never slacked a peck, and t’ rafting ice soon carried away even t’ few things us had saved.