Arnold, Master Of The Scud

There's a schooner out from Kingsport,     Through the morning's dazzle-gleam,     Snoring down the Bay of Fundy     With a norther on her beam.     How the tough wind springs to wrestle,     When the tide is on the flood!     And between them stands young daring--     Arnold, master of the Scud.     He is only "Martin's youngster,"     To the Minas coasting fleet,     "Twelve year old, and full of Satan     As a nut is full of meat."     With a wake of froth behind him,     And the gold green waste before,     Just as though the sea this morning     Were his boat pond by the door,     Legs a-straddle, grips the tiller     This young waif of the old sea;     When the wind comes harder, only     Laughs "Hurrah!" and holds her free.     Little wonder, as you watch him     With the dash in his blue eye,     Long ago his father called him     "Arnold, Master," on the sly,     While his mother's heart foreboded     Reckless father makes rash son.     So to-day the schooner carries     Just these two whose will is one.     Now the wind grows moody, shifting     Point by point into the east.     Wing and wing the Scud is flying     With her scuppers full of yeast.     And the father's older wisdom     On the sea-line has descried,     Like a stealthy cloud-bank making     Up to windward with the tide,     Those tall navies of disaster,     The pale squadrons of the fog,     That maraud this gray world border     Without pilot, chart, or log,     Ranging wanton as marooners     From Minudie to Manan.     "Heave to, and we'll reef, my master!"     Cries he; when no will of man     Spills the foresail, but a clumsy     Wind-flaw with a hand like stone     Hurls the boom round. In an instant     Arnold, Master, there alone     Sees a crushed corpse shot to seaward,     With the gray doom in its face;     And the climbing foam receives it     To its everlasting place.     What does Arnold, Master, think you?     Whimper like a child for dread?     That's not Arnold. Foulest weather     Strongest sailors ever bred.     And this slip of taut sea-faring     Grows a man who throttles fear.     Let the storm and dark in spite now     Do their worst with valor here!     Not a reef and not a shiver,     While the wind jeers in her shrouds,     And the flauts of foam and sea-fog     Swarm upon her deck in crowds,     Flies the Scud like a mad racer;     And with iron in his frown,     Holding hard by wrath and dreadnought,     Arnold, Master, rides her down.     Let the taffrail shriek through foam-heads!     Let the licking seas go glut     Elsewhere their old hunger, baffled!     Arnold's making for the Gut.     Cleft sheer down, the sea-wall mountains     Give that one port on the coast;     Made, the Basin lies in sunshine!     Missed, the little Scud is lost!     Come now, fog-horn, let your warning     Rip the wind to starboard there!     Suddenly that burly-throated     Welcome ploughs the cumbered air.     The young master hauls a little,     Crowds her up and sheets her home,     Heading for the narrow entry     Whence the safety signals come.     Then the wind lulls, and an eddy     Tells of ledges, where away;     Veers the Scud, sheet free, sun breaking,     Through the rifts, and--there's the bay!     Like a bird in from the storm-beat,     As the summer sun goes down,     Slows the schooner to her moorings     By the wharf at Digby town.     All the world next morning wondered.     Largest letters, there it stood,     "Storm in Fundy. A Boy's Daring.     Arnold, Master of the Scud."