Old Man of the Sea

“ Those golden voices of the air:
"Friend, we will go to hell with thee,
Thy griefs, thy glories we will share,
And rule the earth, and bind the sea,
And set ten thousand devils free;—"
"What dost thou, stranger, at my side,
Thou gaunt old man accosting me?
Away, this is my night of pride!
On lunar seas my boat will glide
And I shall know the secret things."
The old man answered: "Woe betide!"
Said I "The world was made for kings:
To him who works and working sings
Come joy and majesty and power
And steadfast love with royal wings." ”

“ A majestic old man, bearded even as the prophets, stands there looking at the Western sky which the setting sun has turned into an ocean of gold. Island beyond island of cloud swims in that amber sea, each coral tinted and fringed with crimson foam. And as he gazes, the splendid old man is magnificently happy ”

“ The old man’s misfortunes have left him some humour yet, he chuckles delightedly at the idea of his secure and honourable possession of the stolen canoe, forgetting the suffering with which he paid for it, and how near he was to death by thirst, or more mercifully, by the waves of the sea. ”

“ Some people call me the Old Man of the Sea. Others have another name for me, and are terribly frightened when they meet me taking a walk by the shore. Therefore I avoid being seen by them, for they are so afraid, that they never see what I really am. ”

“ But after some pause, the old man said, What are ye, you strangers? any of the sea spirits? or miserable men like unto us? for we that are men by nature, born and bred in the earth, are now sea-dwellers, and swim up and down within the Continent of this whale, and know not certainly what to think of ourselves: we are like to men that be dead, and yet believe ourselves to be alive. ”

“ The Old Man of the Sea (Atui koro ekashi) is a monster able to swallow ships and whales. In shape it resembles a bag, and the suction of its mouth causes a frightfully rapid current. Once a boat was saved from this monster by one of the two sailors in it flinging his loin-cloth into the creature's open mouth. ”

“ At dusk we had shortened sail to topsails and reefed foresail. But the Old Man hung on to his canvas as the southing wind allowed us to go 'full and by' to the nor'-west. Hurtling seas swept the decks, tearing stout fittings from their lashings. The crazy old half-deck seemed about to fetch loose with every sea that crashed aboard. From stem to stern there was no shelter from the growing fury of the gale; but still the Old Man held to his course to make the most of the only proper 'slant' in six weary weeks. ”

“ The very old man, to whom he had given the bream, was guiding the vessel with an oar.
“My good old man, is it you? How did you manage to save me?” asked the astonished fisherman.
“I came to your assistance,” replied the old man, “because he who shows pity to others deserves their help when in need of it. But take the oar and row to whatever place you wish.”
And having thus spoken the mysterious old man disappeared. The fisherman crossed himself, and having looked round upon the royal palace sparkling with light he sighed deeply, and chanting the hymn “Under Thy Help,” put out to sea. ”

“ Well, we'll haul up t' th' wind anyway—t' make sure!" He gave the order, and went below to his charts.
Rolling heavily, broad to the sea and swell, we lay awhile. There was no sign of the weather clearing, no lift in the grey mist that hung dense over the rugged coast-line. On deck again, the Old Man stared long and earnestly at the rocky islets, seeking a further guidemark. In the waning daylight they were fast losing shape and colour. Only the breaking sea, white and sightly, marked them bold in the grey mist-laden breath of the Atlantic. ”

“ The old man was a huge, tough old fellow, and he dreaded nothing. He gazed at the fishermen and a feeling of disdain for their weakness23 came upon him. He thought of his old scolding mate, Top-knot. What a scared old bird she would be in a moment with that great eagle sailing straight as a bullet for her, his beak agape, and his hoarse scream sounding in her wake. How she would make for the open sea, only to be caught in a few moments and torn until she disgorged her fish. His eldest son would make a show of fight, perhaps, and in a very few minutes would be a badly used up pelican. ”

“ The old woman plucked from his head the third gold hair.
"Why do you not let me sleep in peace, mother?" cried the old man, angrily, and trying to rise.
"Lie still, my beloved son, and do not disturb yourself. I am sorry for having waked you. I was having a strange dream. Fancy! I seemed to see a boatman, on the shore of the Black Sea, complaining to a traveller that, for twenty years, nobody had come to replace him: when will that poor old man be relieved of his task?" ”

“ Even the old sailor realized this at length and decided to have mercy.
“I will tell you what we can do,” he said. “We will make you a model; schooner-rigged, we will have her, with everything complete and shipshape, so that you can learn the ropes too well ever to forget them. No,” as Billy tried to remonstrate, “of course I will have time. What is an old man good for, when he can’t follow the sea any longer, but to hand on what he knows to some one who will do him credit some day? ”

“ Only an old man remains, a warden, in keeping with the lowly state of his once trim barque. Too old (conservative, may be) to start sea life anew, he has come to shipkeeping—a not unpleasant way of life for an aged mariner, so that he can sit on the hatch on fine nights, with a neighbourly dock policeman or Customs watcher and talk of the sea as only he knows it. ”

“ I can imagine those old sailors, uneducated and superstitious, on the great ocean waters, watching the sky-lines and the dying sunsets as they dreamed of undiscovered shores, or by night on deck fancied they could hear the breakers beating against the starlit sky-line where loomed the shores of Eternity. Time and science have swept all that away from the sea for ever. ”

“ That in the mid-watch, when the old man—as his wont at intervals—stepped forth from the scuttle in which he leaned, and went to his pivot-hole, he suddenly thrust out his face fiercely, snuffing up the sea air as a sagacious ship’s dog will, in drawing nigh to some barbarous isle. ”

“ The Old Man paid no attention to his request, but paced fore and aft the weather side, gazing occasionally at the lazy royals, then fixing the man at the wheel with a reproachful eye. At last he turned to leeward with a surprised expression, as if astonished to find the tow-boat still there.
"Come, Cap.! Strike it right naow! What d'ye offer? Mind the wind, as there is ov it, is due east in the Strait."
The Old Man thought carefully for quite a time. "Hundred 'n fifty, 'n your hawser," he said. ”

“ It had gathered up from the marsh this tonic of the tides, this elixir vitae which all the doctors of the world have sought in vain. Some day some one of them, wiser than the rest, will distil its potency from the cool salt of sea tides, and humanity, poor hitherto, will find itself rich in possibilities of physical immortality. Sea captains have a foolish custom of settling down at eighty to enjoy life on shore, else there is no knowing how long they would live. They have breathed the aroma of this life-giving essence all their lives. ”

“ The moon not risen to set a boundary to sea and sky; no play of high light on the waste of heaving water; naught but the long inky ridges, rolling out of the west, that, lifting giddily to crest, sent us reeling into the windless trough. On the poop the Old Man and Pilot tramped fore and aft, talking together of landfalls and coasting affairs. As they came and went, snatches of their talk were borne to us, the watch on deck—sheltering from the weather at the break. The Old Man's "Aye, ayes," and "Goad, man's," and the voluble Welshman's "iss, indeed, Capt'in," and "I tell 'oo's." ”

“ All this would be said with a jocular twinkle in his eye: the vigorous old man had too much vitality for the sentimentalism of regret; and a little wistfully withal, because he was at home in life, taking a genuine pleasure in its feelings and its possessions; in the dignity of his reputation and his wealth, in his love for his daughter, and in his satisfaction with the ship—the plaything of his lonely leisure.
He had the cabin arranged in accordance with his simple ideal of comfort at sea. A big bookcase (he was a great reader) occupied one side of his stateroom ”

“ The Old Man did what he could for him, and spent more time in the fo'cas'le than most masters would have done. Not much could be done, for a ship is ill-fitted for an ailing man. At times there were relapses ”

“ But in this idle village gossip the Terrible Old Man took no interest at all. He was by nature reserved, and when one is aged and feeble one's reserve is doubly strong. Besides, so ancient a sea-captain must have witnessed scores of things much more stirring in the far-off days of his unremembered youth. ”

“ Lying on the sea strand, rocked in the old fisherman's boat, his ears filled with the echo of voices whispering incomprehensible things, he saw, and heard, and felt much of that which, though old as the heavens and the earth, ever remains eternally new, eternally mystical and divine—the delicious shock that follows upon youth's first vision of beauty supreme. ”

“ Yet in the blood of man there is a tide, an old sea-current rather, that is somehow akin to the twilight, which brings him rumours of beauty from however far away, as driftwood is found at sea from islands not yet discovered: and this spring-tide of current that visits the blood of man comes from the fabulous quarter of his lineage, from the legendary, the old; it takes him out to the woodlands, out to the hills; he listens to ancient song. ”

“ It soon got all over the ship that the 'old man' meant to attempt a rescue of those in distress, and there was a furious argument for'ard as to whether it could be done, and whether any captain was justified in asking his crew to man a boat in such a sea. The unanimous opinion of all the older men was that it couldn't be done. ”

“ There was gossip in the engineers' mess those next days: the Old Man was going to pieces. A man could stand so many years of the strain and then where was he? In a land berth, growing fat and paunchy, and eating his heart out for the sea, or—— The sea got him one way or another! ”

“ The old man's head was clear and good now and he was full of resolution but he had little hope. It was too good to last, he thought. He took one look at the great fish as he watched the shark close in. ”

“ He looked across the sea and knew how alone he was now. But he could see the prisms in the deep dark water and the line stretching ahead and the strange undulation of the calm. The clouds were building up now for the trade wind and he looked ahead and saw a flight of wild ducks etching themselves against the sky over the water, then blurring, then etching again and he knew no man was ever alone on the sea. ”

“ The fish just moved away slowly and the old man could not raise him an inch. His line was strong and made for heavy fish and he held it against his back until it was so taut that beads of water were jumping from it. Then it began to make a slow hissing sound in the water and he still held it, bracing himself against the thwart and leaning back against the pull. The boat began to move slowly off toward the North-West. ”

“ "Well, we can't have it, so don't let us grumble but shoulder our bundles and trudge along as cheerfully as Marmee does. I'm sure Aunt March is a regular Old Man of the Sea to me, but I suppose when I've learned to carry her without complaining, she will tumble off, or get so light that I shan't mind her." ”

“ The old man knew he was going far out and he left the smell of the land behind and rowed out into the clean early morning smell of the ocean. ”

“ In an insular home across the sea, interested still in the world's affairs, is an old man vigorous in his octogenarianism, a power, though out of power, a figure to be a monument in personal history, a great man. ”

“ How many hours a day a fisherman passes looking at the sea has never been counted. There is, perhaps, some unknown fascination for eye and ear, something calling which will not be denied. We noticed an old man who seemed glued to a stump in a nice sunny corner, out of the way of the wind, and the old man took possession of it. The view from this post was seaward, of course, and when the old man wasn't gazing at the sea and clouds, he took off his sou'wester and looked inside of that. Sometimes he put something inside his sou'wester, and then took something out and popped it in his mouth. ”

“ To do “old ocean” justice, I must say that there is nothing in the world more delightful than to be at sea a little while in mild weather; but when a gale is blowing, as I have since seen it, the ship going to pieces every hour, and the waves foaming, and snarling, and gnashing their teeth, as it were, in their impatience to get you and strangle you; then you naturally wish there wasn’t such a thing as a sea in the world ”

“ Never, in the course of his long life, had the old sailor spent a Christmas at sea; and now that he had his fine grandchildren to help make the holidays merry, it would have grieved him very much if he had been unable to reach one or the other of his ports in good season. His jolly old vessel was generally heavily laden, and very slow, and there were many days of calms on that sea when she did not sail at all, so that her voyages were usually very, very long. ”