Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 40, February, 1861», страница 4

SCUPPAUG

The crowd was decidedly a heterogeneous one on the edge of which I stood at eight o'clock, A.M., one scorching July morning, under an awning at the end of a rickety pier, waiting for the excursion-steamer which was to convey us to the distant sand-banks over which the clear waters lap, away down below the green-sloped highlands of Neversink,—sea-shoal banks, from which silvery fishes were warning us off with their waving fins.

Now the crowd, being a heterogeneous one, as I have said, had the vulgar element pervading it to a dominant extent. It consisted mainly of such "common people," indeed, that no person of exquisite refinement would have thought of feeling his way through it, unless his hands were protected by what Aminadab Sleek calls "little goat-gloves." And yet there is another style of mitten, a large, unshapely, bloated knuckle-fender, stuffed with curled hair, that might be far more appropriate to the operation of shouldering in among such "muscular Christians" as the majority around, on the occasion to which I refer.

In the resorts to which habitual tipplers have recourse for consolation of the spirituous kind, a cheap variety is usually on hand to meet exigencies,—the exigency of a commercial crisis, for instance, when the last lonely dime of the drinker is painfully extracted from the pocket, to be replaced by seven inconsiderable cents. This abomination is termed "all sorts" by the publican and his indispensable sinner. It is the accumulation of the drainage of innumerable gone drinks,—fancy and otherwise. The exquisite in the "little goat-gloves" would not hob-nob with me in that execrable beverage; no more would I with him; and yet one of its components may be the aristocratic Champagne. In the social elements of a water-excursion-party may be found the "all sorts" of a particular kind of city-life,—the good of it and the bad of it, with a dash of something that is very low. But I am going to talk about the thing as I found it,—the rough side of the social mill-stone; and, seeing that I have suffered nothing by contact with it, I suppose no harm will come to such as listen to the little I have got to say on the subject.

A benevolent desire to launch far and wide the already well-spread reputation of the New York rowdy impels the present writer to declare his conviction, that, should Physiology offer a premium for the production of a perfect and unmitigated specimen of polisson, Experience would seek for it among the choice representatives of the class in question,—ay, and find it, too. Nor would the ardor of search be chilled by the suggestion of scarcity conveyed in the practical sarcasm of the sly old cynic, when he scorched human nature with a horn lantern by instituting a search with it on the sun-bright highways for an unauthenticated type of man. And yet the rowdy, like many another ugly and repulsive thing, may have his use. In the East Indies, it is customary to keep a live turtle in the wayside water-tanks which are so precious in that thirsty land, the movements of the animal, as well as the industry with which it devours all noxious particles which chance may have conveyed into the waters, serving to keep them in a condition of purity and health. The rowdy is the turtle in the tank,—so far, at least, as being an ugly beast to look at and a great promoter of commotion,—by which latter service he keeps the community alive to the presence of impure particles in the social element, if he does not assist in getting rid of them. An alligator in an aquarium might furnish a better comparison for him in other respects.

Of this class there are many branches; but the one with which I have to deal at present is to be studied to most advantage by visiting some pier of the great river-frontage of New York, to which excursion-boats rush emulously at appointed hours, crossing and jostling each other with proper respect for their individual rights as free commoners of the well-tilled waters. Here, as, with audacious disregard of the chance-medley of smashed guards and obliterated paddle-boxes, the great water-wagons graze wheels upon the ripple-paved turnpike of the river, the steamboat-runner, squalidly red from the effects of last night's carouse, and reeking sensibly of the alcoholic "morning call," may be recognized by the native manner in which he makes the pier peculiarly his own,—by the inflammatory character—which unremitting dissipation has imparted to the inhaling apparatus of his unclassical features,—by the filthy splendor of his linen, which a low-buttoning waistcoat, gorgeous and dirty likewise, unbosoms disadvantageously to the gaze of the beholder,—by the invariable "diamond" pin, of gift-book style, with which the juncture of the first-mentioned integument is effected, if not adorned,—and, above all, by the massive guards and guy-chains with which his watch is hitched on to the belaying arrangements of Chatham Street garments, the original texture and tint of which have long been superseded by predominant grease. Hand and elbow with the professional city-rowdy the steamboat-runner is ever to be found: at the cribs, where the second-rate men of the "fancy" hold their secret meetings; clinging about the doors of the Court of Sessions, where, as eavesdroppers,—for they are known to the door-keeper, and rejected from the friendship of that stern officer,—they strive, with ear at keyhole, to catch a word or two which may give them a clue to the probable fate of "Jim," who is in the dock there, on his trial for homicide or some such light peccadillo; loitering round the dog-pit institutions, where the quadrupeds look so amazingly like men and the men like quadrupeds,—especially in that one where the eye of taste may be gratified by the supernatural symmetry of the stuffed bull-terriers in glass cases, the enormity of which specimens is accounted for by the gentlemanly proprietor, who tells us that "the man as stuffed 'em never stuffed anythink else afore, only howls."

I suppose it must have been the tacit acknowledgment of some superiority by me inappreciable, that accorded to one individual of the small assemblage of roughs under notice a decidedly influential position among the congenial spirits hovering around. The superior blanchness of this person's linen would seem to indicate that his association with mere runners was but occasional and for commercial ends. Also might that conclusion have been deduced from the immaculacy of his cream-white Panama hat. That was a jaunty article, with upturned brim, the pride of which was discernible in the very simplicity with which it sat, unadulterated by band or trimmings, upon the closely cropped, mole-colored head of the wearer. Thirty dollars, at least, must have been its marketable value. Instead of being fitted with chain-tackle, the watch of this superior person maintained its connection with the open air by means of a broad watered ribbon plummeted straight down his leg with a seal hardly inferior in size to a deep-sea lead. This daring recurrence to first principles is much to be observed, of late, among the choice spirits of the so-called "sporting" fraternity of New York.

This man, as I supposed, and as I subsequently heard from my friend Locus, of the police, who came upon the pier, was not a runner now, but had risen from that respectable rank by large exercise of the virtues so intimately associated with it. In attributing an exalted position to him I was right. He was the keeper of a house of entertainment for emigrants in one of the down-town tributaries to Broadway, where tickets could also be had for California and most other parts of the world, at an advance of not more than one-third on the rates charged at the regular steamboat-offices. Considering the respectability of this person's occupation, I was surprised when Locus referred to him, familiarly, as "Flashy Joe," adding that he was widely known, if not respected, and that he would, probably, be entitled some day to have his portrait placed in a gallery of which he, Locus, knew, but into which my aesthetic researches have not hitherto led me.

There was another noticeable character in the rough part of the heterogeneous crowd. This man, while on a footing of the greatest intimacy with the runners, was far inferior to them in the matter of dress. Locus, in reply to my queries, informed me that he was a professional oyster-opener; but, judging from his appearance in general, I should have guessed that he was a professional oyster-catcher also,—a human dredge, employed chiefly at the bottom of the sea. A perfect Hercules in build, "Lobster Bob," as Locus called him, made his appearance on the wharf with two enormous creels of oysters, one balanced on each hip, with the careless ease of unconscious strength, His costume consisted solely of a ragged blue cotton shirt and trousers, immense knobby cowskin boots white with age, and a mouldy drab felt hat. The button-less blue shirt flapped widely open from his brawny chest; and his shirt-sleeves, rolled up to the shoulder, gave full display to a pair of arms of a mould not usually to be found outside the prize-ring, and but seldom within the sanctuary of that magic circle. As if in compensation for the merely nominal allowance of costume tolerated by this crustacean professor, his chest and arms were entirely covered with a wild arabesque of tattoo-work, in blue and red. Many and original artists must have been employed in the embellishment of Robert's tawny hide. The one to whose sense of the fitness of things was intrusted the illustration of his right arm had seized boldly upon the oval protuberance of the biceps, a few skilfully disposed dots and dashes upon which had converted it into a face which was no bad reproduction of Bob's own. On the broad flexors of his sun-bronzed fore-arm there blazed a grand device which might have puzzled a whole college of heralds to interpret,—a combination of eagles and banners and shields, coruscating with stars and radiant with stripes. But more suggestive than any of these shams was the stern reality of a purple scar which ran round the back of his neck, from ear to ear. More than one man must have been hurt, when that scar was made.

Notwithstanding the bull-dog projection of this formidable giant's lower jaw, there sometimes beamed on his face that good-natured expression often observable in men whose unusual muscular development places them on a footing of physical superiority to those with whom they shoulder along the road of life. When the runners "chaffed" him, nevertheless, it was in a mild way, and with manifest respect for his muscle,—a sentiment in no way diminished when he suddenly clutched one of the least cautious among them by the nape of the neck, and held him out at arm's-length, for some seconds, over the drowny water that kept lazily licking at the green moss on the old stakes of the rickety pier.

Even unto the Prince of Darkness, saith proverbial philosophy, let us concede his due. If, then, a single ray of good illuminates at some happy moment the dark spirit of these roughs, let it be recorded with that bare, unfledged truth which is so much better a bird than uncandor with the finest of feathers upon him.

Feeling his way into the circle with a stick, there came a poor blind man, of diminutive stature, squeezing beneath his left arm a suffocating accordion, which, every now and then, as he stumbled against the uneven planks of the wharf, gave a querulous squeak, doleful in its cadence as the feeble quavers evoked by Mr. William Davidge, comedian, from the asthmatic clarionet of Jem Bags, in the farce of the "Wandering Minstrel."

"Come, b'hoys!" cried Lobster Bob, "let's have a squeeze of music from Billy, afore the boat comes up"; and, plumping down one of his creels in the middle of the crowd, he lifted up the musician, and seated him upon the rough, cold oysters,—a throne fitter, certainly, for a follower of Neptune than a votary of Apollo. One of the roughs danced an ungraceful measure to the music of the accordion, mimicking, as he did so, the queer contortions into which the musician twisted his features in perfect harmony with his woful strains. All of them were gentle to the blind man, though, as if his darkness had brought to them a ray of light; and presently one of them takes off the musician's cap, drops into it a silver dime, and goes the rounds of the throng with many jocose appeals in favor of the owner, to whom he presently returns it in a condition of silver lining analogous to, but more substantial than that of the poet's cloud.

But now the poor music of the accordion was quite extinguished by the bellowing of the brazen horns of the "cotillon band" on the deck of our expected steamer, as she rounded to from the upper piers at which she had been taking in excursionists. This caused a stir in the crowd under the awning, many of whom were fathers of families taking their wives and children out for a rare holiday. The smallest babies had not been left at home, but were there in all their primary scarletude, set off by the whitest of lace-frilled caps trimmed with the bluest of ribbons. And now came the time for these small choristers to take up the "wondrous tale"; for the big horns had ceased to wrangle, and the crushing and rushing of the crowd woke up infancy to a sense of its wrongs and a consciousness of the necessity for action.

There were some nice-looking girls around, neatly dressed, too, though by no means in their Sunday-best; for la petite New-Yorkaise is aware of the mishaps to be encountered by those who venture far out to sea in ships. They had sweethearts with them, for the most part, or brothers, or cousins, mayhap: but they were sadly neglected by these protectors, as we stood under the awning on the pier; for the male mind was full of fishing, and the male hands were employed in making up tackle with a most unscientific kind of skill.

And now the final rush came, as the steamer made fast alongside the outermost of the boats already lying at the pier, across the decks of which our heterogeneous crowd began to make its way with as little scrambling as possible, on account of the petticoat-hoops, which are capital monitors in a turmoil. Women swayed their babies like balancing-poles, as they tottered along the gangway-plank. Men tried to secure themselves from being brushed into eternity by the powerful sweep of skirts. My own personal reminiscence of this transit from the wharf to the gallant bark of our choice is melancholy and vague, being marked chiefly to memory by the complicated curse bestowed upon me by a hideous old Irish-woman, whose oranges I accidentally upset in the crowd, and by whom I was subsequently derided with buffo song and scurrilous dance as long as the steamer remained within hearing and sight.

Away we are steaming down the bay, at last, a motley party of men, women, and children of all sizes and sorts: husbands, wives, milliners and their lovers; young men who have brought no young women with them, because they have come for fishing and fishing only; and advanced fathers, who, making a virtue of having brought out wife and child for a holiday, now leave them a good deal to take care of themselves, and devote all their energies to being pleasant as remotely from them as circumstances will allow. Roughs, to the number of a dozen or so, mostly steamboat-runners and their congeners, are of the party, headed by Flashy Joe. Lobster Bob has set up his oyster-plank in a central situation. Venders of unfresh-looking refreshments have established themselves on board; and the bar-keeper, near the forecastle, is preparing himself for the worst.

By-and-by I noticed a good-looking specimen of Young New York on board, and was introduced to him by a cigar. He was a handsome boy, with dark, oval face, and Arabian eyes. The silky black line that just marked the curve of his upper lip gave promise of a splendid moustache; his closely crisped black hair was but just visible below the rim of his jaunty straw hat, the band of which was a tasselled cord of crimson silk; while his lithe figure was suggested rather than displayed by the waving lines of his loose brown jacket with tapering gigot sleeves. His low-cut shirt-collar and narrow silken neck-tie were in the style called "English," as quite decidedly, also, were his cross-barred trousers of balloony build; nor, although thus flinging himself for diversion into the vortex of the lower crowd, had he foregone the luxury of tan-colored kid gloves and patent-leather shoes. He was a bright boy, and precocious as a lady-killer; for, already, before we had left far behind us the pleasant slopes of Bay Ridge, with its peeping villa-parapets of brown and white, and its umbrageous masses of chromatic green, he had evidently engaged the affections of an espiègle little straw-bonnet-maker, who did her hair something like his own, in a close-curled crop, and had her pretty little person safely shut up in a high-necked dress.

That young lady had a suitor with her, who was clearly not a sweetheart, however, by a good deal, but merely a follower tolerated for the day, and on the score of convenience only. He was a tall, gaunt, pale young man, with long hands and feet, slouching shoulders and narrow chest, and a strange, indescribable nullity of expression dwelling upon his features. He did not appear to be encouraged much by little Straw-Goods, whose mind was probably occupied with prospective possibilities of being led out to the festive dance by Young New York. Altogether, he was an unsatisfactory-looking young man, his unfinished look reminding one of raw material, though it would have been hard to say for what.

But the band had now ceased mellowing out the favorite medley which begins with "Casta Diva" and runs over into the lovely cadences of "Gentle Annie"; and the abrupt transition from that mournful strain to a light cotillon air warned four hundred holiday-people that the festive dance was about to begin on the wide floor between the engine-room and the saloon. Cotillons are a leading pastime among the people; and as the water was pretty smooth down the bay, and a splendid breeze rushed aft between-decks, many laughing girls and well-dressed matronly women now made their appearance on the floor. Dancing without noise is a luxury as yet uncalled for. Dancers must have music, we know,—and what is music, but wild noise caught and trained? But these cotillons were unnecessarily boisterous, on account of the roughs, who, looked upon as outsiders by the better-behaved portion of the throng, got up a wild war-step of their own on the skirts of the legitimate dance, dishonestly appropriating to their coarse movements the music intended for it alone, as they stamped and shouted, and wheeled round with a ludicrous affectation of grace, in the space between the dancers and the bulkheads of the deck. One of these roughs, a drunken, young fellow of wiry build, whose hair, face, eyes, nose, ears, and hands were all of the color of tomato-catchup, might have made an excellent low comedian, had destiny led him upon the "boards." He had just been complaining to his companions that his hand had been refused for the dance by a girl at whom he pointed the red finger of wrath,—a pale, but very interesting seamstress, who was whirling about with a much decenter young man than the red one is ever likely to be. And then he nobly took his revenge by the clever, but unprincipled way in which he caricatured the rather remarkable dancing of the young man who was the object of his hate, and whose style of movement it would not be consistent with this writer's duty to deny was amenable to severity, and must, in any society, have subjected him who indulged in it to the scorn of the flouter and the contempt of all high-minded men.

All through the dance, it was a thing to be remembered, how superior in deportment the women were to the men. Probably it was from a natural instinct for grace, and abhorrence of the ludicrous, that they merely skimmed through the figures, without any of the demonstrations displayed by their beaux. It was pleasant to look at the nice little straw-goods damsel with the boyish hair, and to mark the contrast between her kitten glidings and the premeditated atrocities of Raw Material, as he wove and unwove his ungainly legs before her, in a manner appalling to witness. She had only a common palm-leaf fan, I remarked,—worth, probably, about two cents. But Young New York, as he waited patiently for the deadly ocean-malady to fall upon Raw Material, who was unquestionably a subject for it, and was drinking, besides, drew tightly up his tan-colored gloves, and, twirling with finger and thumb the air just about where it must some day be displaced by the future tendrils of the coming moustache, affirmed upon oath his intention of presenting her with a fan more worthy of her well-kept little hand, ere kind Fortune could have time to drop another excursion-ticket into her work-basket.

Should the solemn question arise as to how I knew that one of these young women was in the straw-bonnet line, another a milliner, a third a dress-maker, and so forth, I will answer it by stating that the left forefinger of the seamstress, long since vulcanized into a little file, furnishes the infallible sign which indicates the class. To the practised eye, the varieties are known by many a token: by the smart little close-grained cereal bonnet which little Straw-Goods put away before she came into the dance; by the spicy creation of silk and ribbons which roosts demurely, like a cedar-bird, on the back hair of the pale girl, who is a milliner; by the superior manner in which the hoops are disguised in the structure surrounding that blonde young wife with the pink baby, who is a dressmaker. Let the lofty read studiously the signs that in the heavens are portentous of storm or of shine; I, who am of commoner clay, must content myself with deciphering those that are of earth.

But a "sea-change" was upon us. Last night there was a tornado of rain and thunder and wind, and the effects of the latter were now perceptible, as we began to rock through the ground-swell off Sandy Hook, and down past the twin light-houses on the high, sunny ridges of Neversink. The music ceased, the dancers deserted the 'tween-decks floor, and, as the rocking of the boat increased, there arose in the direction of the ladies' cabin audible suggestions of woe.

And now the twin beacon-towers of Neversink were far, far behind, having taken a position with regard to us which may be described, in military phrase, as an échelon movement upon our flank, and we went surging through a fleet of little green fishing-boats, manned each by a single fisherman in a red shirt, whose two horny hands appeared to be a couple too few for the hauling in of the violet and silver porgies, with which the well of his little green craft was alive and flapping. In the middle of this fleet we rounded to, the anchor was let go, and we were hard and fast upon the Fishing-Banks.

The first thing done, on these excursions, by those who come to fish,—which includes nearly all the men,—is to establish a claim somewhere along the railing of the steamer, by attaching to it a strong whip-cord fishing-line, with a leaden sinker and hook of moderate size,—the latter lashed on, in most instances, with a disregard for art which must be intensely disgusting to any man whose piscatorial memories are associated with the wily salmon and the epicurean trout. Triangular tin boxes are brought along by the fishermen to hold their bait, which consists of soft clams, liberally sprinkled with salt to keep them in a wholesome condition for the afternoon take. Attaching a line to any part of the rail or combings, or to any projecting point of the boat, establishes the droit de pêche at that particular spot,—a right respected with such rigorous etiquette, that the owner may then go his way with confidence, to inspect the resources of the bar, or join the gay throng of dancers between-decks.

There must be something singularly fascinating in this curious pastime of fishing with a hand-line from the jumping-off places of a steamboat or pier. Doubtless it is from a defective sympathetic organization that the writer of these pages does not himself "seem to see it." Nevertheless, I look upon the illusion with a respect almost bordering upon fear, although not quite in that spirit of veneration which moves illogical savages to fall down and worship the stranger lunatic whom chance has led to their odorous residences. Dwelling one summer on the New Jersey shore, I used to loiter, day after day, upon a deserted wharf, at the end of which was ever to be seen a broad-beamed fisherman, sitting upon an uncomfortably wooden chair, from which he dabbled perpetually with his whip-cord line in the shallow water that washed the slimy face-timbers of the wharf. There he sat, day after day, and all day, and, for aught I know, all through the summer-night, a big-timbered, sea-worthy man, reading contentedly a daily paper of local growth, and pulling up never a better bit of sea-luck than the puny, mean-spirited fishling called by unscientific persons the burgall. I would at any time have freely given ten cents for the privilege of overhauling old broad-beam's carpet-bag, which he always placed before him on the string-piece, with a view, I suppose, of frustrating anything like a guerrilla plunder-movement upon his widely extended rear. Ay, there must be something strangely entrancing in dragging the shoal waters with a hand-line, for unsuspicious, easily duped members of the acanthopterygian tribe of fishes,—under which alarming denomination come, I believe, nearly all the finny fellows to be met with on these sand-banks, from the bluefish to the burgall. Only think how stuck up they would be above the lowly mollusks of the same waters, if they knew themselves as Acanthopterygii, and were aware that their great-grandfather was an Acanthopteryx before them, and so away back in the age of waters that once were over all! "Very ancient and fish-like" is their genealogy, to be sure!

In the far-away days, when Neversink was, but the twin beacon-towers that now watch upon its heights were not,—when Sandy Hook was a hook only, and not a telegraph-station, from which the first glimpse of an inward-bound argosy is winked by lightning right in at the window of the down-town office where Mercator sits jingling the coins in his trousers' pockets,—in those days, the only excursion-boats that rocked upon the ground-swell over the pale, sandy reaches of the Fishing-Banks were the tiny barklets that shot out on calm days from the sweeping coves, with their tawny tarred-and-feathered crews: for of such grotesque result of the decorative art of Lynch doth ever remind me the noble Indian warrior in his plumes and paint. Unfitted, by the circumscribed character of their sea-craft, their tackle, and their skill, for pushing their enterprise out into the deeper water, where the shark might haply say to the horse-mackerel,—"Come, old horse, let you and me hook ourselves on, and take these foolish tawny fellows and their brown cockle-shell down into the under-tow,"—they supplied their primitive wants by enticing from the shallows the beautiful, sunny-scaled shoal-fish, well named by ichthyologists Argyrops, the "silver-eyed." But the poor Indian, who knew no Greek,—poor old savage, lament for him with a scholarly eheu!—called this shiner of the sea, in his own barbarous lingo, Scuppaug. Can any master of Indian dialects tell us whether that word, too, means "him of the silver eye"? If it does, revoke, O student, your shrill eheu for the Greekless and untrousered savage of the canoe, suppress your feelings, and go steadily into rhabdomancy with several divining-rods, in search of the Pierian spring which must surely exist somewhere among the guttural districts of the Ojibbeway tongue.

And here there is diversion for philologist as well as fisherman; for while the latter is catching the fish, the former may seize on the fact, that in this word, Scuppaug, is to be found the origin of the two separate names by which Argyrops, the silver-eyed, is miscalled in local vernacular. True to the national proclivity for clipping names, the fishermen of Rhode Island appeal to him by the first syllable only of his Indian one,—for in the waters thereabout he is talked of by the familiar abbreviation, Scup. But to the excursionists and fishermen of New York he is known only as Porgy, or Paugie, a form as obviously derived from the last syllable of his Indian name as the emphatic "siree" of our greatest orators is from the modest monosyllable "sir." Porgy seems to be the accepted form of the word; but letters of the old, unphonetic kind are poor guides to pronunciation. And a beautiful, clean-scaled fish is Porgy,—whose g, by-the-by, as I learned from a funny man in the heterogeneous crowd, is pronounced "hard, as in 'git eowt.'" A lovely fish is he, as he comes dripping up the side of the vessel from his briny pastures. Silver is the pervading gleam of his oval form; but while he is yet wet and fresh, the silver is flushed with a chromatic radiance of gold, and violet, and pale metallic green, all blending and harmonizing like the mother-o'-pearl lustre in some rare sea-shell. The true value of this fish is not of a commercial kind, for he cannot be deemed particularly exquisite in a gastronomic sense; neither is he staple as a provision of food. His virtue lies in the inducement offered to him by the citizen of moderate means, who, for a trifling outlay, can secure for himself and family the invigorating influence of the salt sea-breezes, by having a run down outside the Hook any fine day in summer, with an object. The average weight of the porgy of these banks may be set down at about a pound.