this way an’ that way, wi’ big, pooty, black eyes, to see what was the manun of it, when they’d never doned any harm in God’s world that ‘E made, an’ would n’, even ef you killed ’em:  on’y the poor mother baste ketched my gaff, that I was goun to strike wi’, betwixt her teeth, an’ I could n’ get it away.  ‘T was n’ like fishun!  (I was weak-hearted like:  I s’pose ‘t was wi’ what was comun that I did n’ know.) Then comed a hail, all of a sudden, from the schooner (we had n’ been gone more ’n a five minutes, ef ’t was so much,—­no, not more ’n a three); but I was glad to hear it come then, however:  an’ so every man ran, one afore t’ other.  There the schooner was, tearun through all, an’ we runnun for dear life.  I falled among the slob,[7] and got out agen.  ‘T was another man pushun agen me doned it.  I could n’ ‘elp myself from goun in, an’ when I got out I was astarn of all, an’ there was the schooner carryun on, right through to clear water!  So, hold of a bight o’ line, or anything! an’ they swung up in over bows an’ sides! an’ swash! she struck the water, an’ was out o’ sight in a minute, an’ the snow drivun as ef ‘t would bury her, an’ a man laved behind on a pan of ice, an’ the great black say two fathom ahead, an’ the storm-wind blowun ’im into it!”

[Footnote 7:  Broken ice, between large cakes, or against the shore.]

The planter stopped speaking.  We had all gone along so with the story, that the stout seafarer, as he wrought the whole scene up about us, seemed instinctively to lean back and brace his feet against the ground, and clutch his net.  The young woman looked up, this time; and the cold snow-blast seemed to howl through that still summer’s noon, and the terrific ice-fields and hills to be crashing against the solid earth that we sat upon, and all things round changed to the far-off stormy ocean and boundless frozen wastes.

The planter began to speak again:—­

“So I falled right down upon th’ ice, sayun, ’Lard, help me!  Lard, help me!’ an’ crawlun away, wi’ the snow in my face (I was afeard, a’most, to stand), ‘Lard, help me!  Lard, help me!’

“‘T was n’ all hard ice, but many places lolly;[8] an’ once I goed right down wi’ my hand-wristes an’ my armes in cold water, part-ways to the bottom o’ th’ ocean; and a’most head-first into un, as I’d a-been, in wi’ my legs afore:  but, thanks be to God!  ’E helped me out of un, but colder an’ wetter agen.

[Footnote 8:  Snow in water, not yet frozen, but looking like the white ice.]

“In course I wanted to folly the schooner; so I runned up along, a little ways from the edge, an’ then I runned down along:  but ’t was all great black ocean outside, an’ she gone miles an’ miles away; an’ by two hours’ time, even ef she’d come to, itself, an’ all clear weather, I could n’ never see her; an’ ef she could come back, she could n’ never find me, more ‘n I could find any one o’ they flakes o’ snow.  The schooner was gone, an’ I was laved out o’ the world!