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 mil