I confess I greatly disliked the aspect of things in-shore, with such a pilot; but the aspect of things outside was still worse. Short-handed as we were, it would be impossible to keep the ship in the channel, should the gale come on as heavily as it threatened; and a single experiment satisfied me, the four men in the boat would be of very little use in working her: for I never saw persons who knew anything of the water, more awkward than they turned out to be on our decks. Michael knew something, it is true; but he was too old to turn his knowledge to much practical account, for when I sent him to the wheel, Neb had to remain there to assist him in steering. There was no choice, therefore, and I determined to stand close in, when, should no suitable offer, it would always be in our power to ware offshore. The fishing-boat was dropped astern, accordingly, the men were all kept in the ship, and we stood in nearer to the coast: the Dawn bending to the blasts, under the sail we carried, in a way to render it difficult to stand erect on her decks.
The coast promised well as to formation, though there was much to apprehend on the subject of the bottom. Among rocks an anchor is a ticklish thing to confide in, and I feared it might be a difficult matter to find a proper bottom, as far out as I deemed it prudent to remain. But Michael, and Terence, and Pat, and Murphy, or whatever were the names of our protesting confident friends, insisted that 'ould Ireland' would never fail us. Marble and I stood on the forecastle, watching the formation of the coast, and making our comments, as the ship drove through the short seas, buried to her figure-head. At length, we thought a head-land that was discernible a little under our lee-bow, looked promising, and Michael was called from the wheel and questioned concerning it. The fellow affirmed he knew the place well, and that the holding-ground on each side of it was excellent, consenting at once to a proposition of mine to bring up under its lee. We edged off, therefore, for this point, making the necessary preparations for bringing up.
I was too busy in getting in canvas to note the progress of the ship for the next twenty minutes. It took all four of us to stow the jib, leaving Michael at the wheel the while. And a tremendous job it was, though (I say it in humility) four better men never lay out on a spar, than those who set about the task on this occasion. We got it in, however, but, I need scarcely tell the seaman, it was not "stowed in the skin." Marble insisted on leading the party, and never before had I seen the old fellow work as he did on that day. He had a faculty of incorporating his body and limbs with the wood and ropes, standing, as it might be, on air, working and dragging with his arms and broad shoulders, in a way that appeared to give him just as much command of his entire strength, as another man would possess on the ground.
At length we reduced the canvass to the fore-top-mast stay-sail, and main-top-sail, the latter double-reefed. It was getting to be time that the last should be close reefed, (and we carried four reefs in the Dawn), but we hoped the cloth would hold out until we wanted to roll it up altogether. The puffs, however, began to come gale-fashion, and I foresaw we should get it presently in a style that would require good looking to.
The ship soon drove within the extremity of the head-land, the lead giving us forty fathoms of water. I had previously asked Michael what water we might expect, but this he frankly owned he could not tell. He was certain that ships sometimes anchored there, but what water they found was more than he knew. He was no conjuror, and guessing might be dangerous, so he chose to say nothing about it. It was nervous work for a ship-master to carry his vessel on a coast, under such pilotage as this. I certainly would have wore round as it was, were it not for the fact that there was a clear sea to leeward, and that it would always be as easy to run out into the open water, as the wind was at that moment.
Marble and I now began to question our fisherman as to the precise point where he intended to fetch up. Michael was bothered, and it was plain enough his knowledge was of the most general character. As for the particulars of his calling, he treated them with the coolest indifference. He had been much at sea in his younger days, it is true; but it was in ships of war, where the ropes were put into his hands by captains of the mast, and where his superiors did all the thinking. He could tell whether ships did or did not anchor near a particular spot, but he knew no reason for the one, or for the other. In a word, he had just that sort of knowledge of seamanship as one gets of the world by living in a province, where we all learn the leading principles of humanity, and trust to magazines and works of fiction for the finesse of life.
The lead proved a better guide than Michael, and seeing some breakers in-shore of us, I gave the order to clew up the main-top-sail, and to luff to the wind, before the ship should lose her way. Our Irishmen pulled and hauled well enough, as soon as they were directed what to do; which enabled Marble and myself each to stand by a stopper. We had previously got the two bowers a-cock-bill, (the cables were bent as soon as we made the land); and nothing remained but to let run. Neb was at the wheel, with orders to spring to the cables as soon as he heard them running out, and everything was in readiness. I shouted the order to "let run," and down both our anchors went, at the same instant, in twenty-two fathoms' water. The ship took cable at a fearful rate; but Marble and Diogenes being at one bower, and Neb and I at the other, we succeeded in snubbing her, with something like twenty fathoms within the hawse-holes. There was a minute, when I thought the old bark would get away from us; and when, by desperate efforts, we did succeed in checking the mass, it seemed as if she would shake the windlass out of her. No time was lost in stoppering the cables, and in rolling up the main-top-sail.
Michael and his companions now came to wish us good luck, get the guineas, and to take their leave. The sea was already so rough that the only mode that remained of getting into their boat was by dropping from the end of the spanker boom. I endeavoured to persuade two or three of these fellows to stick by the ship, but in vain. They were all married, and they had a certain protection against impressment in their present manner of life; whereas, should they be found at large, some man-of-war would probably pick them up; and Michael's tales of the past had not given them any great zest for the sort of life he described.
When these Irish fishermen left us, and ran in-shore, we were thrown again altogether on our own resources. I had explained to Michael our want of hands, however, attributing it to accidents and impressments, and he thought he could persuade four or five young fellows to come off, as soon as the gale abated, on condition we would take them to America, after discharging at Hamburg. These were to be mere peasants, it is true, for seamen were scarce in that part of the world; but they would be better than nothing. Half a dozen athletic young Irishmen would relieve us seamen from a vast deal of the heavy, lugging work of the ship, and leave us strength and spirits to do that which unavoidably fell to our share. With the understanding that he was to receive, himself, a guinea a-head for each sound man thus brought us, we parted from old Michael, who probably has never piloted a ship since, as I strongly suspect he had never done before.