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 they obsarved they’d bin out a matter o’ fourteen days and they mistrusted the Bank has suspinded payment. So they sounded, an’ got sixty fathom. ‘That’s me,’ sez Counahan. ‘That’s me iv’ry time! I’ve run her slat on the Bank fer you, an’ when we get thirty fathom we’ll turn in like little men. Counahan is the b’y,’ sez he. ‘Counahan the Navigator!’
“Nex’ cast they got ninety. Sez Counahan: ‘Either the lead-line’s tuk to stretchin’ or else the Bank’s sunk.’
“They hauled ut up, bein’ just about in that state when ut seemed right an’ reasonable, and sat down on the deck countin’ the knots, an’ gettin’ her snarled up hijjus.
The Marilla she’d struck her gait, an’ she hild ut, an’ prisintly along came a tramp, an’ Counahan spoke her.
“ ‘Hev ye seen any fishin’-boats now?’ sez he, quite casual.
“ ‘There’s lashin’s av them off the Irish coast,’ sez the tramp.