a.
Then all the boats greatly applauded Long Jack, and the Galway men held
their tongue.

"Ain't it elegant?" said Dan, bobbing like a young seal at home.
"She'll break about once every ha'af hour now, 'les the swell piles up
good. What's her reg'lar time when she's at work, Tom Platt?"

"Once ivry fifteen minutes, to the tick. Harve, you've seen the
greatest thing on the Banks; an' but for Long Jack you'd seen some dead
men too."

There came a sound of merriment where the fog lay thicker and the
schooners were ringing their bells. A big bark nosed cautiously out of
the mist, and was received with shouts and cries of, "Come along,
darlin'," from the Irishry.

"Another Frenchman?" said Harvey.

"Hain't you eyes? She's a Baltimore boat; goin' in fear an' tremblin',"
said Dan. "We'll guy the very sticks out of her. Guess it's the fust
time her skipper ever met up with the Fleet this way."

She was a black, buxom, eight-hundred-ton craft. Her mainsail was
looped up, and her topsail flapped undecidedly in what little wind was
moving. Now a bark is feminine beyond all other daughters of the sea,
and this tall, hesitating creature, with her white and gilt figurehead,
looked just like a bewildered woman half lifting her skirts to cross a
muddy street under the jeers of bad little boys. That was very much her
situation. She knew she was somewhere in the neighbourhood of the
Virgin, had caught the roar of it, and was, therefore, asking her way.
This is a small part of what she heard from the dancing dories:

"The Virgin? Fwhat are you talkin' of? 'This is Le Have on a Sunday
mornin'. Go home an' sober up."

"Go home, ye tarrapin! Go home an' tell 'em we're comin'."

Half a dozen voices together, in a most tuneful chorus, as her stern
went down with a roll and a bubble into the troughs:
"Thay-aah-she-strikes!"

"Hard up! Hard up fer your life! You're on top of her now."

"Daown! Hard daown! Let go everything!"

"All hands to the pumps!"

"Daown jib an' pole her!"

Here the skipper lost his temper and said things. Instantly fishing was
suspended to answer him, and he heard many curious facts about his boat
and her next port of call. They asked him if he were insured; and
whence he had stolen his anchor, because, they said, it belonged to the
_Carrie Pitman_; they called his boat a mud-scow, and accused him of
dumping garbage to frighten the fish; they offered to tow him and
charge it to his wife; and one audaciou