OLD CRONK’S GHOST.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9652, 4 January 1910, Page 3

OLD CRONK’S GHOST.

(By 3?. R. Van Burn.)

“Yea,” said the'mate, “ghosts on land are generally falies —leastways, I think so, though some lumi-inbber spirit sharp might pat me in the wrong on this, without mu oh trouble Bat at sea it’s different. There’s plenty of ghosts walking about the tall water to-day, and more still on ships,as any able bodied mao will toil yon, with names and dates and no extra charge for the thrills, dometimes they drop on yon most ncexpeoted ■ like, as was the case wish old Captain Uronk, of the clipper Ship Morning Star oat of Now York for Bombay In the eighties. I was on board of that ship as second main and saw the whole thing as clear tin I see you now, only, of coarse, the light wasn’t quite so good. “It happened something like this. We had laid out to oatoh the tail .end of the monsoon and use it a pusher across the Indian Ocean, bat one thing and another happened to that cussed ship, and we hi? the region a mite too late. As it was, the old hooker rolled about ir. aii kinds of wind except the right one—the monotony being varied, by o calm every day or so. “This kept up until the old man's temper, or what was left of it aftor the trouble we’d had—boiled mao and ran out at the scnppers. After that, a oroas between a starving tiger and a lunatic would seemed genial and gladsome alongside of old Oronk. “The old man always had at bis command as fine a flow of language, chiefly in connection with the lower regions and the latter end of man, as anyone I ever knew. When he really unburdened himself, he could make the toughest packet rat between New Orleans and Cathay stiffen up and gasp for breath. To kind of balance his advantages in this respect, he was shy a leg. How he had missed it I don’t know. Some said'shark, some said he talked too fast one day so that his language piled np on the deck around him and burned his leg .off. This always seemed to me a reasonable and likely explanation, so we’ll let it go at that. “Now after we had been ploughing indiscriminate furrows for some weeks in the briny deep, with the thermometer so high we had to sent? a man np into the mizzen croestrees to take the readings and no prospect.-, of getting to any place in particular it began to look as though a crisr was coming on. We all felt this, No man could take on in tnat cl mate as old Oronk did and reason ably hope to make Ms mooring.. “When the smash did Anally come it came through Guggine, the first mate, a long, lean, swarthy Yank, born and raised in some New England prayer meeting. He was oniy about seven feet tall,, but piety was eight feet deep in him. He was wide across the shoulders, too, but doubled over like and hollowed out, and he always seemed to be worry ing about someone else’a latter end. Take him all in all he was about the most melancholy galoot that ever boxed the compass, but for all that he knew his business and attended strictly to it when he wasn't praying for somebody’s soul. “Yon can easy see, things being as they were, how the old xdan’n fuming and damning got on Guggins’s nerves. At last, ho co v ld ~>'t stand it any longer, and he spoko up and says to the old man, plMa, that his highly lurid and figurative urmner of speech was bringing (M-m -ho wrath of God on the ship, t.c' A

he didn’t take a double jro*d :c hit' lungs, we might just as well get ready to try how we, IIV-ca s place that would make the Judina Ocean seem like a oold-atorage p.am ; . He was careful to explain, ut no mo length, that it was strong!" nor oe i-.\ upon him that he himself vowlu be a happy exception but he on p fepr the worst for the res; ei r*y, v’6 not yet being made vessel in:' grace, or something to th..L i l “I was standing alongside looking on when Guggins spoke hi*; pi *;;; and I thought something woo/;,' hop pen. It did. Old Oronk sec mo*, for once positively at a loss >’<.d just the right word for the cow ’ . But he found It at last—this J sure of—but what it was I e'u.’t know, although I sho* V , for In fetching it up it pot p.i gd’d in his windplpe.somewt ' t in,-*, choked the life* ont of him. As least that’s the way u A .a me, thought maybe a ; a doctor might have ora led ;t apifle plexy, or some such fat. p, 1 * J’.; flopped down on the clc m i ! i old wooden leg kept raf-Mijp ."tor mi fora few minutes, bar Ni-g ip; --ne deck did him no good, w/; , the lumber finally ran down, mere was the old man dead - • m ."A and mad as fury that he ‘iidr.'fc able to fire his masterpiece s; 1 ■ gins before passing in ih; .'ijeTm. “I have always felt jda*; fcJut v/o did the right thing by :,':e old n-an—-nothing harried and unceremonious, but all regular and shipshape. Wa laid him out in strata in tba oabin, and kept him until just before sundown. Then we slid him overboard with a length of chain wrapped aronnd his wooden peg to take him down comfortably. “Guggins was the bright particular star of that occasion. He was in his element, and I will say for him Shat for a fine, rich strain of eloquence, dwelling strongly on the unpreparednesa of the deceased and the shortcomings and gloomy outlook for the survivors, I have never heard his equal. He pumped up such a fine, old, matured-in-the-wood brand of doctrine and handed it around with snob a liberal hand that some of the old shellbacks in the back row were In danger of getting religion and needing rnm, but he dried up at last, before we turned to about our business much as usual. We didn’t have much spirit left, leastways any of ua except Guggins, who looked almost happv, ana doped around the ship talking in whispers like we was afraid cf 'waking up the old man and starting him off again. “It was still Gfilm, but dull and coppery looking, with a smudge all around the horisou and the sea looking black, with nn occasional heave coming from nowheres in particular and boiling around the sides of the ship, which shook and squealed like a rat in a trap. The night shut down suddenly, like the lid of a obest, with thick, greasy clouds coming up from the horizon and galling away overhead, bun never a cat’s-paw down below ; only; the sea kept coming up and shaking tlhe old ship and glowing with a tV-iobly greenish light you could almiost read by. “I had 'the second watch, and by the time K went on duty, a bit of a moon had olimbad up out cf its bunk and was doin’ its beat to illuminate the watery waste, bat as an illumi-

nator of wastes it was a distinct fizzle—just a slant of light now and then, between the oiouda that got raised np and lost in the phosphorescence of the sea. A wall-eyed oat oouid have seen trouble coming, and I was feeling as fidgety as a woman at a tea-party with her baokhair fetching away; so when the watch, who had gathered together in the bows, suddenly set up a howl, I came near falling overboard There »rts no fun in that, however, so I just stepped forward lively, casually helping myself to a belaying pin on the/way, in case I should have any explanations to make to the watch. r ' X found the whole outfit bundled np against each other to keep from sprawling-on the deck. They were sil iuokingout along the bowsprit icd shaking and pointing, and never net iced me when I came among ibes. Naturally, I looked out too, to :-ee what was making all the disturbance, and there, about two cable '"ng I-hr- away, was old Oronk. In ibo flickering changing light, I could rutt; make out his face, but it was the old man right enough. I could see his head topped with

r;u ■ iid cap we all knew, and when came to the top of a wave, there •were his long bony arms waving and hechoui ug ns on. When I first caught sight of him, he was a trifle off the piv-b bow but just as I looked, the ..'.ip i.saed slowly on her heel and heeded directly for him. He was vliiltng over the top of the sea, jd falling with the waves, avU •.I?hough the old ship slid forward uneasily, we gained nothing oji hisi3, he moved ahead fathom for fathom with us and the ship ing hire ft dog on'a chain. Meantime t, L; a this was the worst of it—with every heave we could hear the bit of chain we had tied on him, rattling and Imaging on his wooden pin. 'We were a tough enough lot, ordinary, but I don’t mind admitting thr-snll the nerve left in the by:;oh of us, run into one, would’nfe isive ;?i ;u.;rfed to enough to drop a bar! v’t-koi in she plate at a prayer rnfivd,, l had sense enough left to ; : iy -;eefeli shut and the rest .according to their nature, fl'cm: gave a bad imitation of a n;r 4 u '■••£. Others swore much djf.,-"•■ftihr.- V id natnral-hbe —but all qrtlA'b . !•:’ 'nc agb they were afraid c,-old bear them. "“How ,i - .obis might have kept , r; i floa’'; suow, but suddenly a vote* if'-sr r; I iud us spoke up: " *\\ Mev von fools get tired of r s ;iyg gc { old. derelict maintop, vl-ith*’ ’’wiu? cuds of rigging flapping ’romifl it. ..-arhaps you will be kind ,;.p s jo' step to quarters. We itV.vfAw 51 slight chance to save •cVki;:., if we are quick about it. Mr ,! .iu, . your place is aft.’ a; > Gugglna, not mad, but , v - cirVny *M id of tired-like and vionTiifnl. 'We looked about quick •nd fee ■.•!> back of us was a squall o'.min:.: ■:> *;. The water was already wnitcoiM to windward 1 and we all andeiwi Hi now what old Oronk had been tr’ying to lead nspo and where T . TT o>vhs ’avr* landed if it hadn t f , ■ Jilt was a close f.,r 4 ve.; i , .-'U', but>B managed to pud vh.v”p-' Mth the loss of some ’ 5 i j X -spar or two—and that -i) •. iff-.? .n. old’Oronk. ' 1 Gi. vMa right? Were we i.'Mf'rt ;w; Id maintop floating on to.’ i don’t believe it. As -y a- ; -y-p-o concerned, it was the s , nil right, getting lonesome and- . coking’ for company. He ..km . have had his way too, only Mt ’ '.ggins happening to wake up baulk him. Of ooruse, you coniii never get Gugglns to admit the truth.

1 V •-ill own that, aa a seaman, L•. all there, but a long habit prayer meetings, contracted in - , youth, had warped his mind filled him with prejudices so •duf ne was really incapable of fcab- ■ >he common-sense view of anythvr‘g outside of his daily round of One or two words he let drop ,>• J’.-wards, though, made me think hi' vaan’t so dnrned sure of the ,■} niton story himself. Anyway I ,-ced he quit the sea soon after l-hat and went off on a missionary dailt somewhere on the South Seas. li the natives turned him into a long ■fig I’ll bet they found him tough.”