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Page 43
"Fwhat's the good o' bodderin' fwhat they'll say?" said he.
"They'll tell that tale agin us fer years--that's all," said Disko.
"Oil-cake sprinkled!"
"With salt, o' course," said Salters, Impenitent, reading the
farming reports from a week-old New York paper.
"It's plumb mortifyin' to all my feelin's," the skipper went on.
"Can't see ut that way," said Long Jack, the peacemaker "Look at
here, Disko! Is there another packet afloat this day in this weather
cud ha' met a tramp an' over an' above givin' her her reckonin',
--over an' above that, I say,--cud ha' discoorsed wid her quite intelligent
on the management av steers an' such at sea? Forgit ut! Av coorse they
will not. 'Twas the most compenjus conversation that iver accrued.
Double game an' twice runnin'--all to us." Dan kicked Harvey under
the table, and Harvey choked in his cup.
"Well," said Salters, who felt that his honour had been somewhat
plastered, "I said I didn't know as 'twuz any business o' mine, 'fore
I spoke."
"An' right there," said Tom Platt, experienced in discipline and
etiquette--"right there, I take it, Disko, you should ha' asked him to
stop ef the conversation wuz likely, in your jedgment, to be
anyways--what it shouldn't."
"Dunno but that's so," said Disko, who saw his way to an
honourable retreat from a fit of the dignities.
"Why, o' course it was so," said Salters, "you bein' skipper here;
an' I'd cheerful hev stopped on a hint--not from any leadin' or
conviction, but fer the sake o' bearin' an example to these two
blame boys of aours."
"Didn't I tell you, Harve, 'twould come araound to us 'fore we'd
done? Always those blame boys. But I wouldn't have missed the
show fer a half-share in a halibutter," Dan whispered.
"Still, things should ha' been kep' sep'rate," said Disko, and the
light of new argument lit in Salters's eye as he crumbled cut plug
into his pipe.
"There's a power av vartue in keepin' things sep'rate," said Long
Jack, intent on stilling the storm. "That's fwhat Steyning of
Steyning and Hare's f'und when he sent Counahan fer skipper on
the Manila D. Kuhn, instid o' Cap. Newton that was took with
inflam'try rheumatism an' couldn't go. Counahan the Navigator we
called him."
"Nick Counahan he never went aboard fer a night 'thout a pond o'
rum somewheres in the manifest," said Tom Platt, playing up to
the lead. "He used to bum araound the c'mission houses to Boston
lookin' fer the Lord to make him captain of a tow-boat on his
merits. Sam Coy, up to Atlantic Avenoo, give him his board free
fer a year or more on account of his stories.
"Counahan the Navigator! Tck! Tck! Dead these fifteen year, ain't
he?"
"Seventeen, I guess. He died the year the Caspar McVeagh was
built; but he could niver keep things sep'rate. Steyning tuk him fer
the reason the thief tuk the hot stove--bekaze there was nothin' else
that season. The men was all to the Banks, and Counahan he
whacked up an iverlastin' hard crowd fer crew. Rum! Ye cud ha'
floated the Manila, insurance an' all, in fwhat they stowed aboard
her. They lef' Boston Harbour for the great Grand Bank wid a
roarin' nor'wester behind 'em an' all hands full to the bung. An' the
hivens looked after thim, for divil a watch did they set, an' divil a
rope did they lay hand to, till they'd seen the bottom av a
fifteen-gallon cask o' bug-juice. That was about wan week, so far
as Counahan remembered. (If I cud only tell the tale as he told ut!)
All that whoile the wind blew like ould glory, an' the Marilla--'twas
summer, and they'd give her a foretopmast--struck her gait and kept
ut. Then Counahan tuk the hog-yoke an' thrembled over it for a
whoile, an' made out, betwix' that an' the chart an' the singin' in his
head, that they was to the south'ard o' Sable Island, gettin' along
glorious, but speakin' nothin'. Then they broached another keg, an'
quit speculatin' about anythin' fer another spell. The Marilla she
lay down whin she dropped Boston Light, and she never lufted her
lee-rail up to that time--hustlin' on one an' the same slant. But they
saw no weed, nor gulls, nor schooners; an' prisintly they obsarved
they'd bin out a matter o' fourteen days and they mis-trusted the
Bank has suspinded payment. So they sounded, an' got sixty
fathom. 'That's me,' sez Counahan. 'That's me iv'ry time! I've run
her slat on the Bank fer you, an' when we get thirty fathom we'll
turn in like little men. Counahan is the b'y,' sez he. 'Counahan the
Navigator!'
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