een christened "Scrowger
Jim"; and though he had hidden himself on the Georges ever since, he
found his honours waiting for him full blown. They took it up in a sort
of firecracker chorus: "Jim! O Jim! Jim! O Jim! Sssscrowger Jim!" That
pleased everybody. And when a poetical Beverly man--he had been making
it up all day, and talked about it for weeks--sang, "The _Carrie
Pitman's_ anchor doesn't hold her for a cent" the dories felt that they
were indeed fortunate. Then they had to ask that Beverly man how he was
off for beans, because even poets must not have things all their own
way. Every schooner and nearly every man got it in turn. Was there a
careless or dirty cook anywhere? The dories sang about him and his
food. Was a schooner badly found? The Fleet was told at full length.
Had a man hooked tobacco from a mess-mate? He was named in meeting; the
name tossed from roller to roller. Disko's infallible judgments, Long
Jack's market-boat that he had sold years ago, Dan's sweetheart (oh,
but Dan was an angry boy!), Penn's bad luck with dory-anchors, Salter's
views on manure, Manuel's little slips from virtue ashore, and Harvey's
ladylike handling of the oar--all were laid before the public; and as
the fog fell around them in silvery sheets beneath the sun, the voices
sounded like a bench of invisible judges pronouncing sentence.

The dories roved and fished and squabbled till a swell underran the
sea. Then they drew more apart to save their sides, and some one called
that if the swell continued the Virgin would break. A reckless Galway
man with his nephew denied this, hauled up anchor, and rowed over the
very rock itself. Many voices called them to come away, while others
dared them to hold on. As the smooth-backed rollers passed to the
southward, they hove the dory high and high into the mist, and dropped
her in ugly, sucking, dimpled water, where she spun round her anchor,
within a foot or two of the hidden rock. It was playing with death for
mere bravado; and the boats looked on in uneasy silence till Long Jack
rowed up behind his countrymen and quietly cut their roding.

"Can't ye hear ut knockin'?" he cried. "Pull for you miserable lives!
Pull!"

The men swore and tried to argue as the boat drifted; but the next
swell checked a little, like a man tripping on a carpet. There was a
deep sob and a gathering roar, and the Virgin flung up a couple of
acres of foaming water, white, furious, and ghastly over the shoal se