Hare’s f’und when he sent Counahan fer skipper on the Marilla D. Kuhn , instid o’ Cap. Newton that was took with inflam’try rheumatism an’ couldn’t go. Counahan the Navigator we called him.”
“Nick Counahan he never went aboard fer a night ’thout a pond o’ rum somewheres in the manifest,” said Tom Platt, playing up to the lead. “He used to bum araound the c’mission houses to Boston lookin’ fer the Lord to make him captain of a towboat on his merits. Sam Coy, up to Atlantic Avenoo, give him his board free fer a year or more on account of his stories.
“Counahan the Navigator! Tck! Tck! Dead these fifteen year, ain’t he?”
“Seventeen, I guess. He died the year the Caspar McVeagh was built; but he could niver keep things sep’rate. Steyning tuk him fer the reason the thief tuk the hot stove—bekaze there was nothin’ else that season. The men was all to the Banks, and Counahan he whacked up an iverlastin’ hard crowd fer crew. Rum! Ye cud ha’ floated the Marilla , insurance an’ all, in fwhat they stowed aboard her. They lef’ Boston Harbour for the great Grand Bank wid a roarin’ nor’wester behind ’em an’ all hands full to the bung. An’ the hivens looked after thim, for divil a watch did they set, an’ divil a rope did they lay hand to, till they’d seen the bottom av a fifteen-gallon cask o’ bug-juice. That was about wan week, so far as Counahan remembered. (If I cud only tell the tale as he told ut!) All that whoile the wind blew like ould glory, an’ the Marilla —’twas summer, and they’d give her a foretopmast—struck her gait and kept ut. Then Counahan tuk the hog-yoke an’ thrembled over it for a whoile, an’ made out, betwix’ that an’ the chart an’ the singin’ in his head, that they was to the south’ard o’ Sable Island, gettin’ along glorious, but speakin’ nothin’. Then they broached another keg, an’ quit speculatin’ about anythin’ fer another spell. The Marilla she lay down whin she dropped Boston Light, and she never lufted her lee-rail up to that time—hustlin’ on one an’ the same slant. But they saw no weed, nor gulls, nor schooners; an’ prisintly