Hauling a Barge to her Berth
We seemed to be on the right tack at last. Having learned what more we could, we prepared to come to grips with the owner.
CHAPTER VI
“Sail on! nor fear to breast the sea,
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee!”
The owner of the Will Arding, whom we met the next day, was a kindly simple man who told us all we needed to know about the vessel. We had prepared ourselves to cope with a coper of the worst kind; but we were soon disarmed, and that not to our detriment. He told us that the barge had just finished her contract, and as, in his opinion, the days of small barges were over, except in good times, he was going to sell her, as she was barely paying her way. He showed us the record of her trips, the cargoes she had carried, the places she had traded to, and the repairs done to her from time to time.
He was so agreeable that the Mate hesitated to ask about her character, but her sense of duty prevailed. One collision, in which she was not to blame, and two fingers off the hand of one of her mates, appeared to be the only blots on an otherwise stainless career. Joe Applegate had already told us of the collision, though not of the fingers, and I hoped that the Mate would be satisfied. And she was, when she had learned that the fingers had been lost in the least ominous manner in which fingers conceivably could be lost.