yin' it was simply vile! The crew had
written what they thought of it on the new paint o' the fo'c'sle, but I
had not a decent soul wi' me to complain on. There was nothin' for me to
do save watch the hawsers an' the Kite's tail squatterin' down in
white watter when she lifted to a sea; so I got steam on the after
donkey-pump, an' pumped oot the engine-room. There's no sense in leavin'
waiter loose in a ship. When she was dry, I went doun the shaft-tunnel,
an' found she was leakin' a little through the stuffin'box, but nothin'
to make wark. The propeller had e'en jarred off, as I knew it must, an'
Calder had been waitin' for it to go wi' his hand on the gear. He told
me as much when I met him ashore. There was nothin' started or strained.
It had just slipped awa' to the bed o' the Atlantic as easy as a man
dyin' wi' due warning--a most providential business for all concerned.
Syne I took stock o' the Grotkau's upper works. Her boats had been
smashed on the davits, an' here an' there was the rail missin', an' a
ventilator or two had fetched awa', an' the bridge-rails were bent by
the seas; but her hatches were tight, and she'd taken no sort of harm.
Dod, I came to hate her like a human bein', for I was eight weary days
aboard, starvin'--ay, starvin'--within a cable's length o' plenty. All
day I laid in the bunk reading the' Woman-Hater,' the grandest book
Charlie Reade ever wrote, an' pickin' a toothful here an' there. It was
weary, weary work. Eight days, man, I was aboard the Grotkau, an' not
one full meal did I make. Sma' blame her crew would not stay by her. The
other man? Oh I warked him wi' a vengeance to keep him warm.

"It came on to blow when we fetched soundin's, an' that kept me standin'
by the hawsers, lashed to the capstan, breathin' twixt green seas. I
near died o' cauld an' hunger, for the Grotkau towed like a barge, an'
Bell howkit her along through or over. It was vara thick up-Channel,
too. We were standin' in to make some sort o' light, an' we near walked
over twa three fishin'-boats, an' they cried us we were overclose to
Falmouth. Then we were near cut down by a drunken foreign fruiter that
was blunderin' between us an' the shore, and it got thicker an' thicker
that night, an' I could feel by the tow Bell did not know whaur he was.
Losh, we knew in the morn, for the wind blew the fog oot like a candle,
an' the sun came clear; and as surely as McRimmon gied me my cheque, the
shadow o' the Eddystone lay