"She looks a bit cranky, anyway," I ventured.
"Warped and gaping. But still she'll do the trip for all that."
We reached the shore, and Dirrik ordered me up into the wood to fill the sacks, while he just ran up to old Iversen, the pilot, for a moment.
I managed, not without some difficulty, to get the boat loaded up, but it was a full half-hour before Dirrik appeared.
At last he came strolling down, in company with a pretty, buxom girl. "This is my young lady, an' her name's Margine," said Dirrik, and pointing to me: "Our new hand on board."—"Well, see you make a nice trip," said Margine, "and come back again soon."
We caulked the Jenny as per instructions, and got her taut as a bottle. "Ants, they trundles off sharp, all they know, into the holes for safety," Dirrik explained, "and take along the pine needles with 'em."
A fresh northerly wind took us well out into the North Sea; then, a few days later, we lay becalmed on the Dogger. An English fishing vessel sent a boat aboard of us, trading fresh cod for a couple of bottles of gin. Looking through the skylight I saw the old man quietly making up the two bottles from one, by the simple process of adding water to fill up. Rank swindling it seemed to me, but he explained afterwards that it was "our way of keeping down drunkenness, my boy."
Eight days out from Drammen we put in to Seaham Harbour. Half our cargo under deck was sodden through, for we'd three feet of water in the hold all the voyage, despite the patent caulking.
"Get it worse going home," said Dirrik. "We're taking small coal to Drobak."
A few hours later we were getting in our cargo, and soon the Jenny was loaded almost to the waterline with smalls. We were just about to batten down the hatches, when the skipper came along and told us to wait, there was some Government stuff still to come.