‘Of course, he was a tryin’ to make out there warn’t no danger to the wessel and nawthen to make a fuss about. You see, he was afeared there might be questions asked about it, and he might get into trouble. Anyway, it don’t do a pilot no good to get a wessel ashore, even if that ain’t his fault which it warn’t this time, for the wessel was took aback by the shift o’ wind and got agraound afore they could do anything with her.
‘One thing I knaowed as soon as my foot touched them decks, and that was that she warn’t going to be long afore she come off. Sizewell Bank’s like many another raound here; that’s as hard as a road on the ebb and all alive on the flood, and them as knaows, same as we, can tell from the way a wessel bumps what she’s up to. I could feel she warn’t workin’ in the sand no more, but was beginning to fleet, and ’ud soon be paoundin’ heavier than ever, but ’ud be on the move each time a sea lifted she. Howsomdever, I kep’ my eyes on the cap’n, and I could see he was skeered about his wessel, and ’ud be suthen pleased to have she in deep water agin.
‘“Cap’n,” I says, “three hundred and fifty pounds. No cure, no pay.”
“Too much,” says the cap’n, but I see he’d like to pay it.
‘“Too much?” says the pilot. “I should think it is! The tide’s a flowin’, and she’ll come off herself soon; besides, if she don’t we’ll have a dozen tugs and steamers by in two or three hours, and any of ’em glad to earn a fifty-pun’ note for a pluck off.”
‘“That’ll be high water in two and a half hours, and you’ll be here another ebb if you ain’t careful,” I says to the cap’n, “and this sand’s as hard as a rock on the ebb. The pilot’ll tell you that if you don’t knaow that already for yourself.”
‘“There ain’t no call to pay all that money,” says the pilot. “She’ll come off right enough.”
‘“Well,” I says to the cap’n, “if I go off this ship I ain’t a comin’ aboard agin ’cept for much bigger money, and when she’s started her garboards and ’s making water you’ll be sorry you refused a fair offer!”
‘“I’ll give yer two hundred,” says the cap’n.
‘That fared to me best to take it, for she was bumpin’ heavier, and I laowed she’d begin to shift a bit soon. Then agin, the paounding was in our favour, for I see that skeered the cap’n wonnerful, so I starts a bluff on him.