Oddie drew the slide back from the cabin companion-way. “Set the watch,” he called, and the first on watch, Martin Carr, came up and took the wheel from him.
“Gloucester,” said Oddie--“you know the course, Martin. And be easy on her. ’Tisn’t in nature for a vessel not to loosen a bit after last night, but there’ll be nothing the pumps won’t clear. I know that by the heave of her under me. She’s all right, Martin--a great vessel. We owe our lives to her ableness this night, but pump her out,” and went below to draw off his boots. His legs were so swollen that he had to split the leather from knee to heel to get them off, and when he turned them upside down sand ran out of the legs of them. “A wild night,” he said, and looked curiously at the sand--a wild night it was--“and I’m tired. Since leavin’ Gloucester I’ve not seen my bunk. Call me in two hours,” and turned in on the floor and fell instantly asleep.
After a storm it should be good to see the fine green water rippling again under the sun, but to Patsie Oddie it brought no sense of joy. He only glowered and glowered as down the coast he sailed the _Delia_. Even the sight of Cape Sable, which generally brings a smile to the faces of fishermen homeward bound, had no effect on him. He drove her on, and even seemed to welcome the cold nor’-wester that met him when he straightened out for what in a fair wind, and his vessel tight, would have been one long last riotous leg.
He smashed into that nor’-wester, and it smashed into him. Tack, tack, tack--the _Delia_ did not have her own way all the time. Three days and three nights it was, with the able _Delia_ gradually encasing herself in ice. Only the ice seemed to please Patsie Oddie. The day he left Gloucester it had been just like that on incoming vessels. And that was a bitter day, and it was a bitter day again when he was coming back--and not with cold alone. Ice, ice, ice--“Let her ice up,” and from Cape Sable to the slip in Gloucester Harbor he kept her going.
The _Delia_ was no sooner tied to the dock than away went the crew of the _Eldorado_. Away also went the _Delia’s_ crew as soon as they had tidied things up and the Skipper had given the word.
Patsie himself did not hurry. There was nothing for him to hurry for. So he cleaned up, changed his clothes, locked the cabin of the _Delia_, and went slowly up the dock.