"I congratulate you, Cap'n Saul!" he would say. "I'm proud o' ye, sir!"
Driving this way and that, and squirming along, nosing and ramming and blasting a course through the floes, the Rough and Tumble loaded fifteen thousand seals in a week. It was still gray weather—no wind to matter; and the sea was flat in the lakes and lanes, and the ice was abroad, and no great frost fell to scorch the crew. Bill o' Burnt Bay was master of the Third Watch—the watch of Jonathan Farr and Toby. At dawn the First Watch filed over the side, every man with a gaff and a tow-rope and a biscuit or two; and all day long they killed and sculped and towed and panned the fat—all smothered in blood.
Meanwhile the Rough and Tumble ran away out of sight to land the Second Watch on another field, and beyond that, then, to land the Third Watch; and then she made back through the ice to stand by and pick up the First Watch. And when she had picked up the First Watch, and stowed away the seals, and had gathered the Second Watch, it was dusk and after every night, and sometimes long after, when she got back to pick up Bill o' Burnt Bay's watch, which was the last to leave the floe.
Thus it was labour all day and sweat most of the night—torches on the pans where the sculped seal lay; and torches on deck—the decks all red and slippery with blood and fat and ice. And it looked well for them, every one—a load of fat and the first to port with it.
Toby Farr killed and sculped and towed and panned a lad's full share of the fat.
"Well, sir," said Archie, one day, "how you getting along?"
"I thrives, sir," Toby replied.
"A cock so soon!" said Bill.
"My gran'pa," says Toby, "is teachin' me."