There was a knock at the back door, which opened, and disclosed one of the purlmen, who had left his boat in sight at the stairs, and wanted a quart of gin in the large tin can he brought with him. He was a short, red-faced, tough-looking fellow, and he needed the gin, as I soon learned, to mix with his hot beer to make the purl. He had a short conversation with my grandfather when the gin was brought, of which I heard no more than the words "high water at twelve." But as he went down the passage he turned, and sang out: "You got the news, Cap'en, o' course?"
"What? Viney and Marr?"
The man nodded, with a click and a twitch of the mouth. Then he snapped his fingers, and jerked them expressively upward. After which he ejaculated the single word "Marr," and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. By which I understood him to repeat, with no waste of language, the story that it was all up with the firm, and the junior partner had bolted.
"That," said Grandfather Nat, when the man was gone—"that's Bill Stagg, an' he's the on'y purlman as don't come ashore to sleep. Sleeps in his boat, winter an' summer, does Bill Stagg. How'd you like that, Stevy?"
I thought I should catch cold, and perhaps tumble overboard, if I had a bad dream; and I said so.
"Ah well, Bill Stagg don't mind. He was A.B. aboard o' me when Mr. Viney was my mate many years ago, an' a good A.B. too. Bill Stagg, he makes fast somewhere quiet at night, an' curls up snug as a weevil. Mostly under the piles o' this here house, when the wind ain't east. Saves him rent, ye see; so he does pretty well."
And with that my grandfather put on his coat and reached the pilot cap that was his everyday wear.