“If you take my advice,” said Mr. Chester, when on one occasion he was discussing the matter with the boys and Mr. Nye, “you’ll put a motor in her. I suppose it will be little less than heresy to suggest it to the whalemen, but a motor will be a godsend in the ice.”
“You’re right,” assented Mr. Nye. “Whale-ships have had auxiliary power before now and the Narwhal can stand a motor. Yes, I think there’s no question that a motor will prove a most valuable asset. Why, even in towage it’ll save its own cost.”
But when Cap’n Pem heard of this he almost exploded. “Consarn sech rattletrap contraptions!” he exclaimed. “Ain’t sails an’ the win’ God gave us good enough fer to take this here ship where we aim fer to go? Motor! By cricky! do ye want fer to make a ottymobil out o’ the ol’ Narwhal.”
“Shure thin’ an’ ’twill be a shofure yez’ll be afther wantin’,” put in Mike. “An’ b’ the same token, ’tis a foine motorneer Oi am meself. B’gorra ’tis a shame to be a-turnin’ o’ the ould schooner into a power boat, but handy ’twill be Oi do be thinkin’ manny the toime.”
But despite Pem’s protests and contempt and sarcastic remarks, the motor was installed and Mike, who really had had experience in handling motors in the navy, was rated as engineer.
In regard to the rigging, Cap’n Pem and the boys had their way. Captain Edwards had agreed with the old whaleman that a topsail schooner was the handiest vessel to navigate in the ice; also he had pointed out that, having been originally rigged as such, it was cheaper and easier to re-rig the Narwhal in the same way.
So the tall and tapering spars were set up, the long and beautifully proportioned cross yards for the foremast were slung, the standing rigging was bowsed taut, served, and tarred; the huge blocks and the maze of halyards, lifts, braces, sheets, lines and ropes were rigged, and, resplendent in a coat of new paint, the rejuvenated Narwhal’s motor was started and she chugged slowly across the harbor to the New Bedford dock.
“Now what do you think of her?” asked Tom of old Mike as the staunch, trim schooner was warped alongside the dock, and her lofty, golden-tinted spars loomed high above the water-front buildings.
“Waall, b’gorra, ’tis not the same ship at all, at all,” declared the Irishman. “Shure ’tis loike the sailor’s knoife she do be—the same ould knoife, barrin’ new blades an’ a new handle.”
“Gid out!” cried old Pem. “By heck, if ye got a new timber leg I ’spec’ ye’d be a dod gasted new man, eh?”