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

“But how could it? So I scraped the snow away, but ’t was easy to see ’t was smaller than a man. There wasn’ no man on that dreadful place but me! Wull, Sir, ’t was a poor swile, wi’ blood runnun all under; an’ I got my cuffs23 an’ sleeves all red wi’ it. It looked like a fellow-creatur’s blood, a’most, an’ I was a lost man, left to die away out there in th’ Ice, an’ I said, ‘Poor thing! poor thing!’ an’ I didn’ mind about the wind, or th’ ice, or the schooner goun away from me afore a gale, (I wouldn’ mind about ’em,) an’ a poor lost Christen may show a good turn to a hurt thing, ef ’t was on’y a baste. So I smoothed away the snow wi’ my cuffs, an’ I sid ’t was a poor thing wi’ her whelp close by her, an’ her tongue out, as ef she’d a-died fondlun an’ lickun it; an’ a great puddle o’ blood,—it looked tarrible heartless, when I was so nigh to death, an’ wasn’ hungry. An’ then I feeled a stick, an’ I thowt, ‘It may be a help to me,’ an’ so I pulled un, an’ it wouldn’ come, an’ I found she was lyun on it; so I hauled agen, an’, when it comed, ’t was my gaff the poor baste had got away from me, an’ got it under her, an’ she was a-lyun on it. Some o’ the men, when they was runnun for dear life, must ha’ struck ’em, out o’ madness like, an’ laved ’em to die where they was. ’T was the whelp wasn’ quite dead. ’Ee’ll think ’t was foolish, Sir, but it seemed as though they was somethun to me, an’ I’d a-lost the last friendly thing there was.