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He had seen on the poop the name of the boat and its destination, guessing at once the class of navigation to which it was dedicated. It was a Sicilian schooner from Trapani, built for fishing. An artistic calker had sculptured a wooden cray-fish climbing over the rudder. From the two sides of the prow dangled a double row of cray-fish carved with the innocent prolixity of medieval imagination.
Only the meanest calker of the meanest crew of the meanest merchantman, anchored in the meanest English seaport, considered himself immeasurably superior to this amuser of the "scum," and believed that a calker is as superior to an actor as a lord is to a calker. Gwynplaine was, therefore, like all comedians, applauded and kept at a distance.
While before the law of the State he was the equal of any other man, caste prejudice prevented him from finding work at his trade of calker; and he therefore sought employment as a laborer. This he found easily, and for three years worked at whatever his hands found to do. The hardest toil was easy to him, the heaviest burdens were light; for the money that he earned went into his own pocket.
So they put two platoons iv polismen in front iv th' Orangeys an' three behind, an' a double column alongside; an' away they wint. "No wan intherfered with thim; an' that didn't plaze Morgan Dempsey, who 'd served his time a calker in a ship-yard. Bein' iv a injaneyous disposition, he made up his mind f'r to do something to show that pathrietism wasn't dead in this counthry.
In the fort it was decided to leave about forty men "with a provision of bread and wine for more than a year, seed for planting, the long boat of the ship, a calker, a carpenter, a gunner, and many other persons who have earnestly desired to serve your Highnesses and oblige me by remaining here and searching for the gold mine."
Learning that my trade was that of a calker, he promptly decided that the best place for me was in New Bedford, Mass. He told me that many ships for whaling voyages were fitted out there, and that I might there find work at my trade and make a good living.
But we could not be half so amusing to them as they were to us. There they sat with the dessert before them but no wine-decanters forthcoming. How long they had sat thus, I have no idea. If you think your mamma has, you may ask her. Captain Calker and General Fortescue looked positively white about the gills.
I found employment, the third day after my arrival in New Bedford, in stowing a sloop with a load of oil for the New York market. It was new, hard, and dirty work, even for a calker, but I went at it with a glad heart and a willing hand.
A few days after the coming of Tupas's wife and the other women, he sent his niece to Legazpi. She was the first native to receive baptism, "although the father prior made her wait some days, enforcing upon her mind what it meant to be a Christian, and what she must believe and observe after her baptism." She was named Isabel, and married Master Andrea, a Greek calker, a few days after.
Learning that I was a calker by trade, he promptly decided that New Bedford was the proper place to send me. "Many ships," said he, "are there fitted out for the whaling business, and you may there find work at your trade, and make a good living."
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