NEWS FROM HOME 175 



aboard, but the hard-hearted captains coldly re- 

 fused him, one after the other. He was a de- 

 serter, they told himi; he had made his bed and 

 he could lie in it; to take him away would en- 

 courage others to desert. Some captains cursed 

 him; some ordered him off their vessels. Fi- 

 nally the ships sailed away for the whaling 

 grounds, leaving him marooned on the bleak 

 shore to pass another year in the squalor of his 

 igloo. 



Next year when tllie whaling fleet came again 

 it was the same story over again. Again he 

 watched the ships arrive with a heart beating 

 high with hope and gigain he saw their topmasts 

 disappear over the horizon, leaving him hopeless 

 and wretched behind. Before he came aboard 

 the brig, he had made the rounds of the other 

 ships and had met with the same refusals as of 

 yore. I saw him go aft and plead with Captain 

 Shorey and that stern old sea dog turned him 

 down as curtly as the other skippers had done. 

 The ships sailed away, leaving him to his fate. 

 To me his story was the most pathetic that ever 

 fell within my personal experience. I never 



