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The stout fisherman smoothed out the net a little upon his knee, and drew it in closer, and heaved a great sigh: he did not look at his hearers. "When 'e throwed it down, it walloped, an' cried, an' soughed, an' its poor eyes blinded wi' blood! I could n' stand it; for 'e might ha' killed un; an' so 'e goes for a quart o' rum, for fetchun first swile, an' I went an' put the poor thing out o' pain.
It may be here remarked by captious readers, if such there be, that this cannot appropriately be styled the beginning of that grand sealing, or, as it is now styled, "swile huntin'," industry, which calls into action every year hundreds of steam and other vessels, and thousands of men, who slaughter hundreds of thousands of seals; which produces mints of money, and in the prosecutions of which men dare the terrible dangers of ice-drift and pack, in order that they may bludgeon the young seals upon the floes.
There was swiles every two or three yards a'most, old uns an' young uns, all round everywhere; an' I feeled shamed in a manner: but I got my gaff, an' cleaned un, an' then, in God's name, I took the big swile, that was dead by its dead whelp, an' hauled it away, where the t' other poor things could n' si' me, an' I sculped it, an' took the pelt; for I thowt I'd wear un, now the poor dead thing did n' want to make oose of un no more, an' partly becase 't was sech a lovun thing.
"The wind comes to blow a gale before you has time to get to Swile Island, and I wonders and wonders about un, and I fears you gets in a wonderful bad fix. But they's no way I can be helpin', so I says, ''Tis no use to worry. To-day's to-day and to-morrow's to-morrow, and so I'll trust the Lard and the good sense o' the two lads to get un out o' any fix they gets in."
What old Kate Nolan says she says, an' the divil himself couldn't make a liar of her!" "I thought ye was a man, Denny, an' fought like a man," said Mary Kavanagh, in a low voice that shook with unuttered sobs; "but if ye strikes him now, a-layin' there as harmless as a swile, then I'll know ye for a coward an' a murderer."
Anyways I scared the swile real bad, an' meself worse. That time I were cookin' aboard a schooner on the Labrador, as belonged ter me cousin Hyatt, him as is just a bit humpy-backed. He got one o' them dories wid a glass bottom, an' they say his back crooked a kneelin' down ter see the cod, afore settin' the traps." "What kind of traps?" I asked her.
Ice still covers the Labrador harbors in May, and this is when the seal hunt begins, or, as the liveyere says, he goes "swileing." He calls a seal a "swile."
"I'm wonderful hungry too," admitted Toby. "I'm as empty as a flour barrel that's been scraped, and I'm not knowin' anything we could find to eat, with snow on the ground. If the ground were clear we might be findin' berries, though I'm doubtin' there's many on Swile Island. But if there are, they're under the snow and they'll have to bide there, for we never could be findin' they."
"Come down wid ye, then," said George, his voice none too steady, "but I warns ye as how I hes a lantern here an' a pistol, an' if ye bain't all alone by yerself I'll shoot ye like a swile an' ax ye yer business afterwards. I's heard queer t'ings o' Chance Along!" "I bes alone," returned Mary, "an' if ye fires yer pistol at me then ye bes a dirty coward."
I never expected to get out again, but t' good Lord arranged it, I suppose, that I should strike a low shelf running off level with t' water, and by kicking like a swile, I was able to climb up and on to the ballicaters. "There was always a boat hauled up on t' cape for men gunning to get birds or swiles, and t' only chance was to get there and launch her before t' ice passed out.
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