“Smack on the weather beam, that looks like the Gospel ship, sir,” said the mate, looking down the hatchway.
The skipper closed his book at once and went on deck, but the night was so dark, and the smack in question so far off, that they were unable to make her out among the numerous lights of the fleet.
In another part of that fleet, not far distant, floated the Cormorant. Here too, as in many other smacks, the effects of the Sunbeam’s beneficent influence had begun to tell. Groggy Fox’s crew was noted as one of the most quarrelsome and dissipated in the fleet. On this particular Saturday night, however, all was quiet, for most of the men were busy with books, pamphlets, and tracts. One who had, as his mate said, come by a broken head, was slumbering in his berth, scientifically bandaged and convalescent, and Groggy himself, with a pair of tortoiseshell glasses on his nose, was deep in a book which he pronounced to be “one o’ the wery best wollums he had ever come across in the whole course of his life,” leaving it to be inferred, perhaps, that he had come across a very large number of volumes in his day.
While he was thus engaged one of the men whispered in his ear, “A coper alongside, sir.”
The skipper shut the “wery best wollum” at once, and ordered out the boat.
“Put a cask o’ oysters in her,” he said.
Usually his men were eager to go with their skipper, but on this night some of them were so interested in the books they were reading that they preferred to remain on board. Others went, and, with their skipper, got themselves “fuddled” on the proceeds of the owner’s oysters. If oysters had not been handy, fish or something else would have been used instead, for Skipper Fox was not particular—he was still clinging to “the poor old stranded wreck.”
It was dawn when, according to their appropriate phrase, they “tumbled” over the side of the coper into their boat. As they bade the Dutchman good night they observed that he was looking “black as thunder” at the horizon.
“W–wat’s wrong, ol’ b–boy?” asked Groggy.
The Dutchman pointed to the horizon. “No use for me to shtop here, mit dat alongside!” he replied.