“All hands ahoy!” roared William Smart as he rushed to the foresail halyards.
The summons was not needed. All the men were present, and each knew exactly what to do in the circumstances. But what avails the strength and capacity of man when his weapon is useless?
“She’ll never beat into Plymouth Sound wi’ the wind in this direction,” observed one of the masons, when sail had been set.
“Beat!” exclaimed another contemptuously, “she can’t beat with the wind in any direction.”
“An’ yit, boys,” cried Maroon, “she may be said to be a first-rate baiter, for she always baits us complaitly.”
“I never, no I never did see such a scow!” said John Bowden, with a deepening growl of indignation, “she’s more like an Irish pig than a—”
“Ah then, don’t be hard upon the poor pigs of owld Ireland,” interrupted Maroon, pathetically.
“Bah!” continued Bowden, “I only wish we had the man that planned her on board, that we might keel-haul him. I’ve sailed in a’most every kind of craft that floats—from a Chinese junk to a British three-decker, and between the two extremes there’s a pretty extensive choice of washin’-tubs, but the equal o’ this here Buss I never did see—no never; take another haul on the foretops’l halyards, boys, and shut your potato-traps for fear the wind blows your teeth overboard. Look alive!”
That the Buss deserved the character so emphatically given to her was proved by the fact that, after an unsuccessful attempt to reach the Sound, she was finally run into Dartmouth Roads, and, shortly afterwards, her ungainly tossings, for that season, came to a close.