“‘Skipper Jim,’ says I, ‘sure you isn’t goin’ t’ put this fish on the market!’
“‘Hut!’ says he. ‘Jagger an’ me is worryin’ about the price o’ fish already.’
“We beat about offshore for three days, with the skipper laid up in the forecastle. Now what do you make o’ that? The skipper laid up in the forecastle along o’ Tommy Mib—an’ Tommy took the way he was! Come, now, what do you make o’ that?” We shook our heads, one and all; it was plain that the skipper, too, had been stricken. “Well, sir,” Docks went on, “when Skipper Jim come up t’ give the word for Rocky Harbour, he looked like a man risin’ from the dead. ‘Take her there,’ says he, ‘an’ sing out t’ me when you’re runnin’ in.’ Then down he went agin; but, whatever, me an’ the cook an’ the second hand was willin’ enough t’ sail her t’ Rocky Harbour without un, for ’twas in our minds t’ cut an’ run in the punt when the anchor was down. ‘A scurvy trick,’ says you, ‘t’ leave old Skipper Jim an’ Tommy Mib in the forecastle, all alone—an’ Tommy took that way?’ A scurvy trick!” cried Docks, his voice aquiver. “Ay, maybe! But you ain’t been aboard no smallpox-ship. You ain’t never knowed what ’tis t’ lie in your bunk in the dark o’ long nights shiverin’ for fear you’ll be took afore mornin’. An’ maybe you hasn’t seed a man took the way Tommy Mib was took—not took quite that way.”
“Yes, I has, b’y,” said Skipper Billy, quietly. “’Twas a kid that I seed.”
“Was it, now?” Docks whispered, vacantly.
“A kid o’ ten years,” Skipper Billy replied.
“Ah, well,” said Docks, “kids dies young. Whatever,” he went on, hurriedly, “the old man come on deck when he was slippin’ up the narrows t’ the basin at Rocky Harbour.
“‘’Tis the last port I’ll trade,’ says he, ‘for I’m sick, an’ wantin’ t’ get home.’
“We was well up, with the canvas half off her, sailin’ easy, on the lookout for a berth, when a punt put out from a stage up alongshore, an’ come down with the water curlin’ from her bows.
“‘What’s the meanin’ o’ that, Docks?’ sings the skipper, pointin’ t’ the punt. ‘They’re goin’ out o’ the course t’ keep t’ win’ard.’