TO PAMLICO SOUND FOR DUCK. 



173 



me of a tale Charles Hallock used to 

 tell, of old man Beasley, who lived 

 on the Rappahannock near Port Royal, 

 Va. He was over seventy, but still 

 handled his gun well. Whenever the 

 ducks arrived, he would take to his boat 

 and get an old darkey to push him. 

 He had a singular trick of throwing 

 his body forward just as he pulled 

 the trigger, so as to neutralize the 

 shock of the gun, for he was exceed- 

 ingly thin and spare. 



One day he saw a big flock of mal- 

 lards feeding-. He put an extra heavy 

 load in his muzzk loader, and taking 

 his seat in the bow of the boat was 

 silently propelled toward them. When 

 within about sixty yards, the old man 

 rose to his feet, cocked both barrels, 

 took aim at the ducks and just as he 

 pulled the trigger, remembering the 

 heavy load, he gave his body an extra 

 heavy lurch forward to meet the re- 

 bound of the gun. Now the old man 

 was in such haste that he forgot to put 

 caps on his gun ; as he pulled the trig- 

 ger both hammers clicked, and there 

 being no recoil to counterbalance the 

 impetus, he went head over heels into 

 the freezing water and was nearly 

 drowned before he could be hauled out. 



The fine weather which had greeted 

 our approach now changed, and old 

 Boreas awakening in his cave, let loose 

 all the winds that blow. A veritable 

 tempest raged, and the booming of the 

 billows as they struck the ocean shore, 

 though several miles distant, were dis- 

 tinctly audible when the careening 

 winds sank in momentary silence. At 

 times, such was the fury of the blast 

 that came sweeping unchecked over 

 thousands of miles of open water, that 

 we dared not open the door for fear 

 of being blown bodily away. Great 

 billows from the Atlantic, overlapping 

 each other, came on in serried lines like 

 a great cavalry charge, and the waves 

 soon covered our low-lying island. The 

 salt rollers swept and swirled around 

 our dwelling, and every now and then 

 the froth and spume would be driven 



through the cracks of the door and 

 casements. 



We did not feel alarmed, for the 

 dwelling was of brick with unusually 

 thick walls, which we felt sure could 

 withstand any force from the wind 

 and waves. Had the dwelling been of 

 wood, it would have been a different 

 matter; but as the house would shake 

 from the buffets of the wind surges, 

 it was no sedative to the nerves to 

 know that we were cooped up in a 

 building surrounded by raging waters. 

 It is true there were two or three boats 

 riding at anchor, but to have attempt- 

 ed to get off in them in such a howling 

 storm, would have been suicide. So 

 we sat glum and silent. Nancy grew 

 frightened, then hysterical, and 

 brought forth her accordion, and after 

 a prelude, she commenced to sing a 

 hymn ; and sang it in such a way, and 

 sent forth such blood-curdling sounds 

 from her musical utensil, as to chill us 

 to the marrow of our bones. As 

 Nancy became more impassioned and 

 unearthly, the wife of our host who 

 was in the next room began to wail. 

 Gus, as brave a boy as ever lived, sniv- 

 elled in sympathy, and his dog (Gus 

 called him dawg) came out from a 

 dark corner, gave a yelp or two, show- 

 ing that he was rising to the occasion, 

 then returned and relieved his feelings 

 by growling to himself. The fiercer 

 the storm roared without, the higher 

 the din waxed within ; Nancy seemed 

 inspired, and was a Sunday school, 

 choir and camp meeting all in one ; 

 with her eyes set in an ecstatic stare, 

 as if she already beheld the portals of 

 the blest, she sang those hymns in a 

 way little dreamed of by the author, 

 and the accordion, never since it was 

 glued together, had it been put to such 

 a strain ; it seemed to have caught the 

 contagion and become possessed. It 

 was a fair fight : the chrieking winds 

 and the thundering billows on the one 

 side, with Nancy and the accordion on 

 the other — the blare, the clatter, the 

 uproar, was something appalling. 

 George, who had learned profanity in 



