“Why, he was dreaming to be sure,” said I, “the thump was caused by the vessel just beginning to lift, and the swell rolling in made her strike against the piles. Pray, had the man who was ordered to ’tend her at tide-time got up upon the look-out when the master went on deck?”
“I carn’t say as he was, sir,” answered the veteran, “though I rather think not.”
“Well, go on, my old friend,” requested I, “let’s get to the imps.”
“After receiving one or two heavy blows,” continued the pensioner, “the skipper woke, and he thought he heard a shrill squeaking voice above say, ‘Bear a hand with that foresail and jib, and haul in the head-rope;’ and then there was a sort of a scrambling noise afore the windlass, and another chock aft by the starn lockers. So he slips on his pea-jacket and creeps up the companion, and there he saw five or six monstrous rats forward; two were hoisting the foresail, two were hooking on the jib, one was hauling in the head-rope, and another was shoving her bows off. Abaft was a rat bigger than all the rest, standing at the tiller and giving orders, and another had got hold of the quarter-rope and was singling the turns. You may well guess the ould chap was in a terrible taking at first; his teeth chattered like the palls of a windlass when they shorten in a slack cable; his knees knocked together——”
“Then he was knock-kneed,” said I, laughing heartily. “Really this is a clever tale: first, the old woman makes a threat, then she plays you a mount-a-bank trick, and lastly rat ifies her promise by——”
“I have not got to that yet, sir,” replied the old man, interrupting in his turn; “but you shall hear all about it, if you will only give me time.” He then continued, “Notwithstanding the tremblification the skipper was in at first, he wasn’t a man as was easily to be daunted in the long run; and seeing he was part owner of the craft as well as master, I’m thinking he was afraid they wouldn’t carry her out safely, and mayhap he thought they might turnout to be pirats——”
“That’s half a pun, old boy,” said I; “why your pirats would have made a splendid rat-pie, upon short allowance.”
“By all accounts one of ’em would have been meal for half a dozen messes,” replied the matter-of-fact old man. “But as I was a saying, sir, ould Hammond determined that at least he’d be master of his own cutter; for in those days the by-boats had running bowsprits, though they generally carried them over the stem to make most room; and also, that his own crew knew her trim and could work her best, he jumps up upon deck and catches hold of a——”
“A rat tan, or a piece of rat line stuff,” said I, interrupting him.
“No, sir,” answered the veteran rather testily; “he catches hold of a handspik, and began to hammer away like a fellow beating saltpetre bags in an Ingeeman’s hould at Diamond-harbour; and by the time we got upon deck, there wasn’t a rat to be seen nigh hand; though I must say I saw two or three dark objects in the distance running down towards the pier-head, and there was some thing like a man on his hands and knees slowly crawling after them. Howsomever, as I said before, the decks were cleared of the warmin, and we made all fast again.”