Every Man for Himself. Duncan Norman

botch – an’ the nothin’ about un. Botch in nothin’. Accordin’ t’ my lights, ’tis a sinful thing t’do; an’ when I first seed Botch at it, I ’lowed he was lackin’ in religious opinions. ’Twas just as if his soul had pulled down the blinds, an’ locked the front door, an’ gone out for a walk, without leavin’ word when ’twould be home. An’, accordin’ t’ my lights, it ain’t right, nor wise, for a man’s soul t’ do no such thing. A man’s soul ’ain’t got no common-sense; it ’ain’t got no caution, no manners, no nothin’ that it needs in a wicked world like this. When it gets loose, ’t is liable t’ wander far, an’ get lost, an’ miss its supper. Accordin’ t’ my lights, it ought t’ be kep’ in, an’ fed an’ washed regular, an’ put t’ bed at nine o’clock. But Botch! well, there lied his body in the wet, like an unloved child, while his soul went cavortin’ over the Milky Way.

      “He come to all of a sudden. ‘Tumm,’ says he, ‘you is.’

      “‘Ay,’ says I, ‘Tumm I is. ’Tis the name I was born with.’

      “‘You don’t find me,’ says he. ‘I says you is.’

      “‘Is what?’

      “‘Just —is!’

      “With that, I took un. ’Twas all t’ oncet. He was tellin’ me that I was. Well, I is. Damme! ’twasn’t anything I didn’t know if I’d stopped t’ think. But they wasn’t nobody ever called my notice to it afore, an’ I’d been too busy about the fish t’ mind it. So I was sort o’ – s’prised. It don’t matter, look you! t’ be; but ’tis mixin’ t’ the mind an’ fearsome t’ stop t’ think about it. An’ it come t’ me all t’ oncet; an’ I was s’prised, an’ I was scared.

      “‘Now, Tumm,’ says he, with his finger p’intin’, ‘where was you?’

      “‘Fishin’ off the Shark’s Fin,’ says I. ‘We just come up loaded, an’ – ’

      “‘You don’t find me,’ says he. ‘I says, where was you afore you was is?’

      “‘Is you gone mad?’ says I.

      “‘Not at all, Tumm,’ says he. ‘Not at all! ’Tis a plain question. You is, isn’t you? Well, then, you must have been was. Now, then, Tumm, where was you?’

      “‘Afore I was born?’

      “‘Ay – afore you was is.’

      “‘God knows!’ says I. ‘I ’low I don’t. An’ look you, Botch,’ says I, ‘this talk ain’t right. You isn’t a infidel, is you?’

      “‘Oh no!’ says he.

      “‘Then,’ says I, for I was mad, ‘where in hell did you think up all this ghostly tomfoolery?’

      “‘On the grounds,’ says he.

      “‘On the grounds?’ Lads,” said Tumm to the crew, his voice falling, “you knows what that means, doesn’t you?”

      The Jug Cove fishing-grounds lie off Breakheart Head. They are beset with peril and all the mysteries of the earth. They are fished from little punts, which the men of Jug Cove cleverly make with their own hands, every man his own punt, having been taught to this by their fathers, who learned of the fathers before them, out of the knowledge which ancient contention with the wiles of the wind and of the sea had disclosed. The timber is from the wilderness, taken at leisure; the iron and hemp are from the far-off southern world, which is to the men of the place like a grandmother’s tale, loved and incredible. Off the Head the sea is spread with rock and shallow. It is a sea of wondrously changing colors – blue, red as blood, gray, black with the night. It is a sea of changing moods: of swift, unprovoked wrath; of unsought and surprising gentlenesses. It is not to be understood. There is no mastery of it to be won. It gives no accounting to men. It has no feeling. The shore is bare and stolid. Black cliffs rise from the water; they are forever white at the base with the fret of the sea. Inland, the blue-black hills lift their heads; they are unknown to the folk – hills of fear, remote and cruel. Seaward, fogs and winds are bred; the misty distances are vast and mysterious, wherein are the great cliffs of the world’s edge. Winds and fogs and ice are loose and passionate upon the waters. Overhead is the high, wide sky, its appalling immensity revealed from the rim to the rim. Clouds, white and black, crimson and gold, fluffy, torn to shreds, wing restlessly from nowhere to nowhere. It is a vast, silent, restless place. At night its infinite spaces are alight with the dread marvel of stars. The universe is voiceless and indifferent. It has no purpose – save to follow its inscrutable will. Sea and wind are aimless. The land is dumb, self-centred; it has neither message nor care for its children. And from dawn to dark the punts of Jug Cove float in the midst of these terrors.

      “Eh?” Tumm resumed. “You knows what it is, lads. ’Tis bad enough t’ think in company, when a man can peep into a human eye an’ steady his old hulk; but t’ think alone – an’ at the fishin’! I ’low Botch ought to have knowed better; for they’s too many men gone t’ the mad-house t’ St. John’s already from this here coast along o’ thinkin’. But Botch thinked at will. ‘Tumm,’ says he, ‘I done a power o’ thinkin’ in my life – out there on the grounds, between Breakheart Head an’ the Tombstone, that breakin’ rock t’ the east’ard. I’ve thunk o’ wind an’ sea, o’ sky an’ soil, o’ tears an’ laughter an’ crooked backs, o’ love an’ death, rags an’ robbery, of all the things of earth an’ in the hearts o’ men; an’ I don’t know nothin’! My God! after all, I don’t know nothin’! The more I’ve thunk, the less I’ve knowed. ’Tis all come down t’ this, now, Tumm: that I is. An’ if I is, I was an’ will be. But sometimes I misdoubt the was; an’ if I loses my grip on the was, Tumm, my God! what’ll become o’ the will be? Can you tell me that, Tumm? Is I got t’ come down t’ the is? Can’t I build nothin’ on that? Can’t I go no further than the is? An’ will I lose even that? Is I got t’ come down t’ knowin’ nothin’ at all?’

      “‘Look you! Botch,’ says I, ‘don’t you know the price o’ fish?’

      “‘No,’ says he. ‘But it ain’t nothin’ t’ know. It ain’t worth knowin’. It – it – it don’t matter!’

      “‘I ’low,’ says I, ‘your wife don’t think likewise. You got a wife, isn’t you?’

      “‘Ay,’ says he.

      “‘An’ a kid?’

      “‘I don’t know,’ says he.

      “‘You what!’ says I.

      “‘I don’t know,’ says he. ‘She was engaged at it when I come up on the Head. They was a lot o’ women in the house, an’ a wonderful lot o’ fuss an’ muss. You’d be s’prised, Tumm,’ says he, ’t’ know how much fuss a thing like this can make. So,’ says he, ‘I ’lowed I’d come up on the Pillar o’ Cloud an’ think a spell in peace.’

      “‘An’ what?’ says I.

      “‘Have a little spurt at thinkin’.’

      “‘O’ she?’

      “‘Oh no, Tumm,’ says he; ‘that ain’t nothin’ t’ think about. But,’ says he, ‘I s’pose I might as well go down now, an’ see what’s happened. I hopes ’tis a boy,’ says he, ‘for somehow girls don’t seem t’ have much show.’

      “An’ with that,” drawled Tumm, “down the Pillar o’ Cloud goes Abraham Botch.”

      He paused to laugh; and ’twas a soft, sad little laugh – dwelling upon things long past.

      “An’ by-and-by,” he continued, “I took the goat-path t’ the water-side; an’ I went aboard the Quick as Wink in a fog o’ dreams an’ questions. The crew was weighin’ anchor, then; an’