Phillips joined us. “We’re discussing nautical history, chief.” Being assured that this really was so, Phillips said he was uncertain about the true story of the Golden Hind’s boatswain, but he felt certain about our not reaching Buenos Aires in the morning. If he were not a moral man, he would “bet you, sir, two pence on the point.”
The pilot, a tan-brown moustached little man, came in–not for his black straw hat, but for his oilskins and goloshes. “That’s right,” said Phillips with malevolent sympathy, “that’s right, pilot, always keep your feet thoroughly dry.” The pilot had at least the excuse that it was drizzling outside.
It blew hard and harder all night; and the next morning, Sunday, one thought of the collapse of an English October. About half-past seven we dropped anchor in the “roads” outside our promised port; on all sides bleakly lapping and passing the pea-soup waters of the River Plate. Father Prout’s whimsical haunting old lines pervaded my mind as I stared and warmed myself with pacing up and down:
With deep affection and recollection
I often think of the Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would, in days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle their magic spells.
On this I ponder, where’er I wander,
And thus grow fonder, sweet Cork, of thee,
With thy bells of Shandon,