“It’s all right, thank you, Murty,” Norah answered, securing Bosun. “I wish I had known you’d been at this horrible job so long. I could have brought you out some tea. You must be frozen.”
“Don’t you worry; I’ve something better,” said Jim, producing a flask, at the sight of which Murty’s eyes brightened.
“Well, I’ll not be sorry for a drink,” he said, gratefully. “Cold! It’d freeze a poley bear to be standin’ in that water; and that’s what I’ve been doin’ these two hours, coaxin’ of that onnatural baste. Thanks, Mr. Jim.” His teeth chattered against the silver cup as he drank.
“I knew you’d need it,” Jim said. “This isn’t a winter job. Mud deep, Murty?”
“Och, deep as you like!” said Murty lucidly. He handed back the cup. “ ’Tis good to feel that sendin’ a taste of a glow through a frozen man! The mud’s deeper than the water, Mr. Jim—there’s mighty little of that. Good sticky mud too; it takes a powerful grip of the boot.”
“Have you moved him at all?”
“I have not. He’s precisely where he was when I found him, barrin’ he’s sunk deeper. I tried driving and I tried pulling; Billy an’ I got our stirrup-leathers joined and did our divilmost to haul him out; and I’ve beaten the poor baste most unfeeling. There’s no stirring him. So I sent Billy in f’r ye, and I’ve been employing me time laying down logs an’ slabs all round him, the way he’ll get a howlt for his feet when we do move him—an’ have something f’r ourselves to stand on while we’re getting the tackling on to him. That same is needed.” Mr. O’Toole looked down ruefully at his mud-plastered feet and legs. “Near bogged I was meself, an’ I beltin’ him; a good thing f’r me I got a howlt on his tail, though I expect he thought it was a misfortunit thing for him. But it was him or me.”
“You certainly must have had a cheerful time,” Jim observed. “I’d sooner have lots of jobs than laying down a wood pavement under water in this weather.”
“Well, it passes the time away, an’ that’s about all you can say f’r it,” said Murty, grimly. “Here’s that black image. ’Twas all I wished wan of us had been on old Nugget—we’d have skull-dragged the baste out somehow, before he sank as deep as he is now. But we’ll manage it nice an’ pleasant, with all that tackling.”
“I hope so,” Jim said, surveying the muddy water a little doubtfully. “We’ll have a good try, anyhow. Better stay out of the water now, Murty; you’ve had quite enough. We can rope him.”