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The Talking Ships
by
“Owners are rogues, for the most part,” commented the Danish barquentine, rubbing against the Touch-me-nots fender as if to nudge her. “There’s the Maria Stella Maris yonder can tell us a tale of the food they store us with. She went through a mutiny once, I’ve heard.”
“I’d rather not talk of it,” put in the Italian hastily, and a shudder ran through her timbers. “It’s a dreadful recollection, and I have that by my mizzen-mast which all the holystone in the world can never scour.”
“But I’ve had a mutiny, too!” said the Dutch galliot, with a voice of great importance; and this time the boy felt sure that the vessels nudged one another.
“It happened,” the galliot went on, “between my skipper and his vrauw, who was to all purpose our mate, and as good a mate as ever I sailed with. But she would not believe the world was round. The skipper took a Dutch cheese and tried to explain things: he moved the cheese round, as it might be, from west to east, and argued and argued, until at last, being a persevering man, he did really persuade her, but it took a whole voyage, and by the time he succeeded we were near home again, and in the North Sea Canal. The moment she was convinced, what must the woman do but go ashore to an aunt of hers who lived at Zaandam, and refuse to return on board, though her man went on his bended knees to her! ‘I will not,’ she said; ‘and that’s flat, at any rate.’ The poor man had to start afresh, undo every one of his arguments, and prove the earth flat again, before she would trust herself to travel. It cost us a week, but for my part I didn’t grudge it. Your cliffs and deep-water harbours don’t appeal to me. Give me a canal with windmills and summer-houses where you can look in on the families drinking tea as you sail by; give me, above all, a canal on Sundays, when the folks walk along the towing-path in their best clothes, and you feel as if you were going to church with them.”
“Give me rather,” said the Norwegian barque from Christiansund, “a fiord with forests running straight up to the snow mountains, and water so deep that no ship’s anchor can reach it.”
“I have seen most waters,” the Dane announced calmly and proudly. “As you see, I am very particular about my paint, for a ship ought to keep up her beauty and look as young as she can. But I have an ice-mark around my breast which is usually taken for a proof of experience, and as a philosopher I say that all waters are tolerable enough if one carries the talisman.”
“But can a ship be beautiful?” and “What is the talisman?” asked the Italian and the Nubian together.
“One at a time, please. My dear,” she addressed the Italian, “the point is, that men, whom we serve, think us beautiful indeed. It seems strange to us, who carry the thought of the forests we have left; and on warm days, when the sap awakes in us and tries to climb again, forgetting its weakness, we miss the green boughs and the moss at our feet and the birds overhead. But I have studied my reflection often enough in calm weather, and begin to see what men have in mind when they admire us.”
“And the talisman?” asked the Nubian again.
“The talisman? There is no one cure for useless regret, but each must choose his own. With me it is the thought of the child after whom I was christened. The day they launched me was her first birthday, and she a small thing held in the crook of her mother’s arm: when the bottle swung against my stem the wine spurted, and some drops of it fell on her face. The mother did not see me take the water–she was too busy wiping the drops away. But it was a successful launch, and I have brought the family luck, while she has brought them happiness. Because of it, and because our names are alike, her parents think of us together; and sometimes, when one begins to talk of ‘Thekla,’ the other will not know for a moment which of us is meant. They drink my health, too, on her birthday, which is the fourteenth of May; and you know King Solomon’s verse for the fourteenth–‘She is like the merchants’ ships, she bringeth her food from afar.’ This is what I have done while she was growing; for King Solomon wrote it for a wife, of course. But now I shall yield up my trust, for when I return she is to be married. She shall bind that verse upon her with a coral necklace I carry for my gift, and it shall dance on her white throat when her husband leads her out to open the wedding-ball.”