Hiring in a Ha'nt: Schooner Days CMXLII (942)

by C. H. J. Snider

"CLEM," said the barrel-bellied Capt. B. A. Goodfellow, "I've bought the Anna Miles, up in Cobourg, leastways the In-law's helped me to. Whatta ye say to come up with us and help fit her out? And could ye get 'Thusa to come along to cook? I'll give ye mate's wages, though I have to give the In-law's the mate's berth. And I'll give Thusa same as the men, for she's worth it."

"What did you want to go and buy a vessel with a name like that for? demanded Clement Clewlin, looking up the frozen Long Beach of the Bay of Quinte. "Gonta set up a zoo? And don't they say she's ha'nted? I don't hold with ha'nts, but they say you can hear drownded men clawing her sides and their ghosts whimpering and squeaking to be taken up, like they did in that schooner that sank the Lady Elgin—"

"Ha'nted my eye!" snorted Capt. Goodfellow. "I've known that vessel all her life, and so have you, and she never drowned nobody!"

"I'm not saying she did. I'm only telling you what they say. And I suppose you know the mainmast head was wrung out of her last fall?"

FARM STUFF

Clem Clewlin, best rigger in Picton was using the privilege of the "good man" in the schooner trade to talk back to anyone. The good man was not necessarily pious. But he was competent. Clem was both.

The captain on his part was using that familiarity indigenous to lake and farm of calling everybody and his wife by their first names. 'Thusa was Mrs. Clement Clewlin, whose christened name was that of the unchristened nymph of the wave, Arethusa.

"Well, ye see, Clem," and Goodfellow's eyes tried to twinkle as merrily as the gold earrings he wore to strengthen his sight and help him in the dark, "we got her at a good figger in that account. She surveys high, and carries big, and there's a new mainmast lying ready for her on the dock."

"Who've ye got to rig and step it?" asked Clem, looking towards Chuckery Hill as though in search of a rigger.

"W-e-l-l, the In-law ain't much, being more off the farm, as ye might say-—."

"Should be useful with Anna-miles," grinned Clem.

"But I'm counting on you, and there's Johnny Bowerman, and Johnny Selix—."

"Good boys, but young-—.

"And willing," Goodfellow hastened to add, "and with 'Thusa cooking, the two of you will be making big money and at no expense, Will you come?"

"No drinking on board?" studying the captain's belt line.

"No drinking on board," said the captain solemnly. "Is it a bargain?"

"Hafta see 'Thusa," said Clem.

The captain wondered why. Clem certainly wore the britches in that family though his wife was the bigger of the two. She was an enormous woman. She was second-sighted. She could read the cards and teacups and reflections in wells.

"THE ANIMILE"

"It will be a hard trip, but all will come through," she of the Nereid name had said, when consulted. So a group of five men and one outsize woman boarded the tri-weekly train at Picton, and found the Anna Miles nuzzling the frozen stringpiece of the "T" at Cobourg on the evening of the same day. It was early in a cold spring, and the ice was still in the harbor.

The Anna Miles was a fine sizeable schooner, 107 feet long, 201 tons measurement, and over 400 tons capacity. She had an almost straight stem, curling superciliously in a cut-water-knee under the bowsprit, and she had two ports like small house-windows in her squarish transom, to light the poop-cabin. This cabin ran right cross the stern, the width of the vessel, a common practice in 1867 when she had been built. There was a skylight in the cabin's deckhead. The wheel was in a cockpit. She looked forlorn, with only the foremast standing, and her mainmast lying on the dock.

Capt. Goodfellow and the In-law, who had brought the crew from Prince Edward County to fit out his new acquisition, went aboard first.

Clem Clewlin had said this vessel was haunted. He was going to show he wasn't afraid. That was why he went aboard first, leaving Clem and his wife and the two sailors standing on the wharf.

The captain produced the key of the cabin, which he had received on paying down the cash the week before. He unlocked the companion slide and shoved it forward. There was a ping! like the prongs of a burner make when a lamp glass is pulled back, a little thump of something falling, a scuttering, scuffling, and a sound of whimpering, crying, groaning, not unlike fenders squeaking against a stringpiece.

"There's someone there!" those on the wharf heard the In-law say, "Don't go down! Get help!"

"Shut up" they heard Goodfellow reply impolitely. Then both men tumbled out over the rail. "Forgot I had to get the forecastle key. Tumble aboard and make yourselves at home. Be right back—."

"In the morning, mebbe" mumbled the In-law, disappearing towards the good old British Hotel.

WEIGHTY PROBLEM

"Will that ladder hold me?" inquired 'Thusa, cautiously. Clem tried it, said "Yep, up ye come," and handed her gallantly over the rail.

In the raw April dusk the open companion slide yawned blankly at them. Clem dove down the short flight of steps, struck a match, fumbled around, struck another, and got a lamp going in the galley. It was on gimbals. It had no chimney. 'Thusa found the chimney, unbroken, for it was good tough flint glass, on the galley floor.

There was a good supply of kindling and stove wood in the Woodbox, and in short order 'Thusa had the fire going, all the lamps in the cabin shining brightly, and despatched Clem for groceries, and the two Prince Edward boys for water.

The Rooneys, the former owners, had hospitably laid in a stock of provisions, so Clem's mission was superfluous. But he brought back the captain and the mate and a lean, lank stable cat, tiger striped, though none of the three wanted to come.

"I tell you there was someone down in that cabin, and they were lighting the lamp, and they scratched and whimpered—" the In-law protested.

As he spoke the scuffling, gibbering and squeaking resumed, culminating in a little scream.

"Rats!" said Clem.

Mrs. Tiger appeared with tail erected and a rat in her lean jaws?

Next morning the prone mainmast was clothed with its gear, sheer-legs were rigged from the two booms, and despite bucolic awkwardness and inexperience the mast was safely stepped, the topmast sent aloft and fidded, the shrouds set up and rattled down, and all sails bent without mishap. And all the rats were cleaned out. It was a hard week's work for all hands and Mrs. Tiger.