“‘I’ll get her off, Archie,’ says I, ‘if I got t’ jump in the sea an’ haul her off with a line in my teeth.’
“‘I knowed you would,’ says he; ‘an’ you got the best teeth, Skipper Bill,’ says he, ‘t’ be found on this here coast. As for me, skipper,’ says he, ‘I’m goin’ down t’ St. John’s if I got t’ walk on water. I told my father that I’d be in his office on the first o’ September––an’ I’m goin’ t’ be there. If I can’t be there with the fish I can be there with the promise o’ fish; an’ I can back 293 that promise up with a motor boat, a sloop yacht an’ a pony an’ cart. I don’t know how I’m goin’ t’ get t’ St. John’s,’ says he, ‘an’ I don’t want t’ walk on a wet sea like this; but I’m goin’ t’ get there somehow by the first o’ September, an’ I’m goin’ to assoom’––yes, sir, ‘assoom, Skipper Bill,’ says Archie––‘I’m goin’ to assoom that you’ll fetch down the Spot Cash an’ the tail an’ fins of every last tom-cod aboard that there craft.’
“An’ I’m goin’ t’ do it!” Skipper Bill roared in conclusion, with a slap of the counter with his hairy fist that made the depleted stock rattle on the shelves.
“Does you t-t-think you c-c-can haul her off with your teeth?” Donald North asked with staring eyes.
Bill o’ Burnt Bay burst into a shout of laughter.
“We’ll have no help from the Jolly Harbour folk,” said Billy Topsail, gravely. “They’re good-humoured men,” he added, “but they means t’ have this here schooner if they can.”
“Never mind,” said Skipper Bill, with an assumption of far more hope than was in his honest, willing heart. “We’ll get her off afore they comes again.” 294
“Wisht you’d ’urry up,” said Bagg.
With the Spot Cash high and dry––with a small crew aboard––with a numerous folk, clever and unfriendly (however good-humoured they were), bent on possessing that which they were fully persuaded it was their right to have––with no help near at hand and small prospect of the appearance of aid––the task which Archie Armstrong had set Bill o’ Burnt Bay was the most difficult one the old sea-dog had ever encountered in a long career of hard work, self-dependence and tight places. The Jolly Harbour folk might laugh and joke, they might even offer sympathy, they might be the most hospitable, tender-hearted, God-fearing folk in the world; but tradition had taught them that what the sea cast up belonged righteously to the men who could take it, and they would with good consciences and the best humour in the world stand upon that doctrine. And Bill o’ Burnt Bay would do no murder to prevent them: it was not the custom of the coast to do murder in such cases; and Archie Armstrong’s last injunction had been to take no lives.
Bill o’ Burnt Bay declared in growing wrath to the boys that he would come next door to murder.