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The "Coal-Coffin," albeit an unseaworthy vessel, is a picturesque object. Its dirty sails are of a fine rich colour, because of their very dirtiness. Its weather-worn and filthy spars, and hull and rigging, possess a harmony of tone which can only be acquired by age.
It was something new to the crew of the "Coal-Coffin" to be thus checked in an enthusiastic cheer, and to be rebuked by the object of their admiration for not being able to swim. Deep and long was the discussion they had that evening around the windlass on this subject. Some held that it was absurd to blame men for not being able, "when p'raps they couldn't if they wor to try."
It sent the cutwater crashing through bulwark, plank, and beam, until the "Coal-Coffin" was cut right down amidships, within a foot of the water-line. There was a wild cry from the men as they leaped towards their destroyer. Some succeeded in grasping ropes, others missed and fell back bruised and stunned on the sloop's deck.
Next day Haco Barepoles steered the "Coal-Coffin" triumphantly into the port of London, with a hole in her side big enough, if Tom Grattan's report is to be believed, "to admit of a punt bein' row'd d'rect from the sea into the hold!" The steamer which had run down the sloop of Haco Barepoles was a large iron one, which had just set out on a voyage to the West Indies.
At night the wind again veered round to the northward, enabling the "Coal-Coffin" to spread most of her canvass, keep her course, and bowl pleasantly along before the breeze. But the weather was still thick, necessitating a sharp look-out.
"Yes, father, I'm quite sure of that." "Well then, Susan, you're a sensible girl, and you ought to know best; but I don't feel easy about ye, 'cause you're just as like as two peas to your dear mother, what went to the bottom in the last coal-coffin I commanded, an' you would ha' gone too, darlin', if I hadn't bin spared to swim ashore with ye on my back. It was all I could do.
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