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Page 32
"Wheat-in-the-ear, my true-love's posy blowin,
Wheat-in-the-ear, we're goin' off to sea;
Wheat-in-the-ear, I left you fit for sowin,
When I come back a loaf o' bread you'll be!"
That made Harvey almost weep, though he could not tell why. But
it was much worse when the cook dropped the potatoes and held
out his hands for the fiddle. Still leaning against the locker door,
he struck into a tune that was like something very bad but sure to
happen whatever you did. After a little he sang, in an unknown
tongue, his big chin down on the fiddle-tail, his white eyeballs
glaring in the lamplight. Harvey swung out of his bunk to hear
better; and amid the straining of the timbers and the wash of the
waters the tune crooned and moaned on, like lee surf in a blind
fog, till it ended with a wail.
"Jimmy Christmas! Thet gives me the blue creevles," said Dan.
"What in thunder is it?"
"The song of Fin McCoul," said the cook, "when he wass going to
Norway." His English was not thick, but all clear-cut, as though it
came from a phonograph.
"Faith, I've been to Norway, but I didn't make that unwholesim
noise. 'Tis like some of the old songs, though," said Long Jack,
sighing.
"Don't let's hev another 'thout somethin' between," said Dan; and
the accordion struck up a rattling, catchy tune that ended:
"It's six an' twenty Sundays sence las' we saw the land,
With fifteen hunder quintal,
An' fifteen hunder quintal,
'Teen hunder toppin' quintal,
'Twix' old 'Queereau an' Grand!"
"Hold on!" roared Tom Platt. "D'ye want to nail the trip, Dan?
That's Jonah sure, 'less you sing it after all our salt's wet."
"No, 'tain't, is it, Dad? Not unless you sing the very las' verse. You
can't learn me anything on Jonahs!"
"What's that?" said Harvey. "What's a Jonah?"
"A Jonah's anything that spoils the luck. Sometimes it's a
man--sometimes it's a boy--or a bucket. I've known a splittin'-knife
Jonah two trips till we was on to her," said Tom Platt. "There's all
sorts o' Jonahs. Jim Bourke was one till he was drowned on
Georges. I'd never ship with Jim Bourke, not if I was starvin'. There
wuz a green dory on the Ezra Flood. Thet was a Jonah, too, the
worst sort o' Jonah. Drowned four men, she did, an' used to shine
fiery O, nights in the nest"
"And you believe that?" said Harvey, remembering what Tom Platt
had said about candles and models. "Haven't we all got to take
what's served?"
A mutter of dissent ran round the bunks. "Outboard, yes; inboard,
things can happen," said Disko. "Don't you go makin' a mock of
Jonahs, young feller."
"Well, Harve ain't no Jonah. Day after we catched him," Dan cut
in, "we had a toppin' good catch."
The cook threw up his head and laughed suddenly--a queer, thin
laugh. He was a most disconcerting nigger.
"Murder!" said Long Jack. "Don't do that again, doctor. We ain't
used to ut."
"What's wrong?" said Dan. "Ain't he our mascot, and didn't they
strike on good after we'd struck him?"
"Oh! yess," said the cook. "I know that, but the catch iss not finish
yet."
"He ain't goin' to do us any harm," said Dan, hotly. "Where are ye
hintin' an' edgin' to? He's all right"
"No harm. No. But one day he will be your master, Danny."
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