When they passed the breakwater it caught her bows smartly, and slued her for a few moments out of her course. But the helmsman quickly put her up, and the strong paddles fought the water fiercely, and successfully too.
Balked in its design of driving the Osprey against the breakwater, the wind did all sorts of ill-natured things. It cut the smoke of the funnel clean off, and drove its dark wreaths to leeward; it rattled the braces, it shook the rigging; it slammed the companion doorways, swayed the hanging boats about, and dashed the spray inboard with sometimes a green sea, till everybody who had to be on deck and hadn't an oilskin on was drenched to the skin. A nasty, disagreeable old wind!
The Osprey didn't seem to mind it a bit. She had a broad beam of her own, a strong bowsprit and jibboom, and she lifted her bows slowly, and with a sturdy disdain that showed she cared for neither wind nor sea.
Nor did the men either—every one of whom had been picked and chosen by Captain Leeward himself, every one of whom was as hardy as the vikings of old.
Before the ship was two miles from the Sound, and while standing amidships talking to Grant,—the Osprey's head being now turned to west-and-south, so that spray no longer flew inboard,—Creggan said:
"Listen, doctor; what a grand singer!"
For up from the forehatch rose high above the roar of the wind a manly voice, singing one of Dibdin's most favourite songs:—
"Blow high, blow low, let tempests tear
The mainmast by the board,
My heart with thoughts of thee, my dear,
And love well stor'd,
Shall brave all danger, scorn all fear;
The roaring winds, the raging sea;
In hopes on shore
To be once more
Safe moor'd with thee."
"Yes, he sings well. And do you know, that with the kindliest heart that ever was in sailor's breast, Captain Leeward has his peculiarities."
"Yes?"