“Aye, aye, sir,” we made answer, under his nose, having been scurrying forwards while he was speaking, the Irish mate adding in his native vernacular, “Begorrah, we’ll rig up the whole, sir, in the twinkling of a bedpost, sure!”
“Hullo!” exclaimed the skipper, “is that you, O’Neil?”
“Faith, all that’s lift of me, sir!”
“How’s that?—I was just going to send down to your cabin to rouse you out.”
“Begorrah, its moighty little rousin’ I want, sor! The ould barquey’s that lively that she’d wake a man who’d been d’id for a wake, sure! I’ve been so rowled about in me burth and banged agin’ the bulkheads that my bones fell loike jelly and I’m blue-mouldy all over. But what d’ye want, cap’en? Sure, I’m helping the youngster with this whale here.”
“By jingo!” cried the skipper, “you’re the right man in the right place!”
“Faith, that’s what the gaolor s’id to the burghlor, sor, when he fixed him up noicely on the treadmill!”
The skipper laughed.
“Well, you fix up your job all right, and you’ll be as good as your friend the gaoler,” he said. “When we have the helm all alaunto again, we can bear up on our course and jog along comfortably. I think we are lucky to have got off so lightly, considering the wind and sea, with this steering gear breaking down at such an awkward moment!”
“Ah, we ain’t seed the worse on it yet, and you’d better not holler till ye’re out o’ the wood!” muttered old Masters under his breath, in reply to this expression of opinion of the skipper, the boatswain having come to our assistance with all the hands he could muster, so as to get the wheel below the bridge in working order as soon as possible. “I knowed that this ghost-ship meant sumkin’ and we ain’t come to the end o’ the log yet!”