“T’ how you looks at it. In a mess, now—you take it in a nasty mess, when ’tis every man for hisself an’ the devil take the hindmost—in a mess like that, I ’low, the devil often gets the _man_ o’ the party, an’ the swine goes free. But ’tis all just accordin’ t’ how you looks at it; an’ as for _my_ taste, I’d be ashamed t’ come through fifty year o’ life on this coast alive.”
“Ay, b’y?” the skipper inquired, with a curl of the lip.
“It wouldn’t _look_ right,” drawled Tumm.
“Now,” said Tumm, “you take the case o’ old man Jowl o’ Mad Tom’s Harbor—”
“Excuse me, Tumm b’y,” the skipper interrupted. “If you’re goin’ t’ crack off, just bide a spell till I gets on deck.”
Presently we heard his footsteps going aft....
“A wonderful long time ago, sir,” Tumm began, “when Jowl was in his prime an’ I was a lad, we was shipped for the Labrador aboard the _Wings o’ the Mornin’_. She was a thirty-ton fore-an’-after, o’ Tuggleby’s build—Tuggleby o’ Dog Harbor—hailin’ from Witch Cove, an’ bound down t’ the Wayward Tickles, with a fair intention o’ takin’ a look-in at Run-by-Guess an’ Ships’ Graveyard, t’ the nor’ard o’ Mugford, if the Tickles was bare. Two days out from Witch Cove, somewheres off Gull Island, an’ a bit t’ the sou’west, we was cotched in a switch o’ weather. ’Twas a nor’east blow, mixed with rain an’ hail; an’ in the brewin’ it kep’ us guessin’ what ’twould accomplish afore it got tired, it looked so lusty an’ devilish. The skipper ’lowed ’twould trouble some stomachs, whatever else, afore we got out of it, for ’twas the first v’y’ge o’ that season for every man Jack o’ the crew. An’ she blowed, an’ afore mornin’ she’d tear your hair out by the roots if you took off your cap, an’ the sea was white an’ the day was black. The _Wings o’ the Mornin’_ done well enough for forty-eight hours, an’ then she lost her grit an’ quit. Three seas an’ a gust o’ wind crumpled her up. She come out of it a wreck—topmast gone, spars shivered, gear in a tangle, an’ deck swep’ clean. Still an’ all, she behaved like a lady; she kep’ her head up, so well as she was able, till a big sea snatched her rudder; an’ then she breathed her last, an’ begun t’ roll under our feet, dead as a log. So we went below t’ have a cup o’ tea.