“‘Steady, there, at the wheel!’ he’d sing out. ‘Keep her on her course. ’Tis no more than a clever sailin’ breeze.’
“Believe me, sir,” Docks sighed, “they wasn’t a port Skipper Jim wouldn’t make, whatever the weather, if he could trade a dress or a Bible or a what-not for a quintal o’ fish. ‘Docks,’ says he, ‘Jagger,’ says he, ‘wants fish, an’ I got t’ get un.’ So it wasn’t pleasant sailin’ along o’ him in the fall o’ the year, when the wind was all in the nor’east, an’ the shore was a lee shore every night o’ the week. No, sir! ’twasn’t pleasant sailin’ along o’ Skipper Jim in the Sink or Swim. On no account, ’twasn’t pleasant! Believe me, sir, when I lets my heart feel again the fears o’ last fall, I haven’t no love left for Jim. No, sir! doin’ what he done this summer, I haven’t no love left for Jim.
“‘It’s fish me an’ Jagger wants, b‘y,’ says he t’ me, ‘an’ they’s no one’ll keep un from us.’
“‘Dear man!’ says I, pointin’ t’ the scales, ‘haven’t you got no conscience?’
“‘Conscience!’ says he. ‘What’s that? Sure,’ says he, ‘Jagger never heared that word!’
“Well, sir, as you knows, there’s been a wonderful cotch o’ fish on the Labrador side o’ the Straits this summer. An’ when Skipper Jim hears a Frenchman has brought the smallpox t’ Poor Luck Harbour, we was tradin’ the French shore o’ Newfoundland. Then he up an’ cusses the smallpox, an’ says he’ll make a v‘y’ge of it, no matter what. I’m thinkin’ ’twas all the fault o’ the cook, the skipper bein’ the contrary man he was; for the cook he says he’ve signed t’ cook the grub, an’ he’ll cook ’til he drops in his tracks, but he haven’t signed t’ take the smallpox, an’ he’ll be jiggered for a squid afore he’ll sail t’ the Labrador. ‘Smallpox!’ says the skipper. ‘Who says ’tis the smallpox? Me an’ Jagger says ’tis the chicken-pox.’ So the cook—the skipper havin’ the eyes he had—says he’ll sail t’ the Labrador all right, but he’ll see himself hanged for a mutineer afore he’ll enter Poor Luck Harbour. ‘Poor Luck Harbour, is it?’ says the skipper. ‘An’ is that where they’ve the—the—smallpox?’ says he. ‘We’ll lay a course for Poor Luck Harbour the morrow. I’ll prove ’tis the chicken-pox or eat the man that has it.’ So the cook—the skipper havin’ the eyes he had—says he ain’t afraid o’ no smallpox, but he knows what’ll come of it if the crew gets ashore.
“‘Ho, ho! cook,’ says the skipper. ‘You’ll go ashore along o’ me, me boy.’
“The next day we laid a course for Poor Luck Harbour, with a fair wind; an’ we dropped anchor in the cove that night. In the mornin’, sure enough, the skipper took the cook an’ the first hand ashore t’ show un a man with the chicken-pox; but I was kep’ aboard takin’ in fish, for such was the evil name the place had along o’ the smallpox that we was the only trader in the harbour, an’ had all the fish we could handle.
“‘Skipper,’ says I, when they come aboard, ‘is it the smallpox?’
“‘Docks, b‘y,’ says he, lookin’ me square in the eye, ‘you never yet heard me take back my words. I said I’d eat the man that had it. But I tells you what, b’y, I ain’t hankerin’ after a bite o’ what I seed!’