Note (return) — A RAFT THAT NO MAN MADE.

“I was th’ only one, seemunly, to be cast out alive, an’ wi’ the dearest maid in the world (so I thought) waitun for me. I s’pose ’ee might ha’ knowed somethun better, Sir; but I was n’ larned, an’ I ran so fast as ever I could up the way I thowt home was, an’ I groaned, an’ groaned, an’ shook my handès, an’ then I thowt, ‘Mubbe I may be goun wrong way.’ So I groaned to the Lard to stop the snow. Then I on’y ran this way an’ that way, an’ groaned for snow to knock off.22 I knowed we was driftun mubbe a twenty leagues a day, and anyways I wanted to be doun what I could, keepun up over th’ Ice so well as I could, Noofundland-ways, an’ I might come to somethun,—to a schooner or somethun; anyways I’d get up so near as I could. So I looked for a lee. I s’pose ’ee’d ha’ knowed better what to do, Sir,” said the planter, here again appealing to me, and showing by his question that he understood me, in spite of my pea-jacket.