The Truth of the Oliver Cromwell
MARTIN CARR did a fine thing that afternoon. Martin and John Marsh were hauling trawls, when a sea capsized their dory. The same sea washed them both clear of the dory. John Marsh could not swim. It looked as if he had hauled his last trawl, and so beyond all question he had, but for Martin, who seized one of their buoy-kegs, which happened to bob up near by, and pushed it into John’s despairing arms. “Hang on for your life, John!” said Martin, and himself struck out for the dory, knowing that the buoy could not support two. It was perhaps forty feet to the bottom of the dory—not a great swim, that; but this was a winter’s day on the Grand Banks, and a man beaten back by a rough sea and borne down by the weight of heavy clothing, oilskins, and big jack-boots. When he had fought his way to the dory he had to wait a while before he dared try to climb up on it, he was that tired; and after he got there he found no strap to the plug, and so nothing to hang on to. He remembered then that he and John had often spoken of fixing up a strap for the plug, but had never fixed it.
“My own neglect,” muttered Martin, “and now I’m paying for it.”
Clinging to the smooth planking on the bottom of the dory was hard work that day, and becoming harder every minute, for the sea was making. And there was John to keep an eye on. “How’re you making out, Johnnie-boy?” he called.
“It’s heavy dragging, but I’m all right so far,” John answered.
“And how is it with you now, Johnnie-boy?” he called in a little while again.
“I can hang on a while yet, Martin.”