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Updated: May 5, 2025
Sounds of revelry issued from its door, and the voice of Joe Stubley was heard singing with tremendous energy "Britons, never, never, never, shall be slaves," although he and all his companions were at that very moment thoroughly in one or two cases almost hopelessly enslaved to the most terrible tyrant that has ever crushed the human race!
Its rig was so similar to that of the other smacks that a stranger might have taken it for one of the fleet but the fishermen knew better. It was that enemy of souls, that floating grog-shop, that pirate of the North Sea, the coper. "Good luck to 'ee," muttered Joe Stubley, whose sharp, because sympathetic, eye was first to observe the vessel.
"I'd change with 'ee, Jim, if I could," growled Joe Stubley, one of the group of invalids who filled the cabin at the time. There was a general laugh, as much at Joe's lugubrious visage as at his melancholy tone. "Why, what's wrong with you, Stubs?" asked Fred.
Whatever reply Joe Stubley meant to make was interrupted by Jim Freeman exclaiming with an oath that he had lost again, and would play no more. He flung down the cards recklessly, and David Duffy gathered them up, with the twinkling smile of a good-natured victor. "Come, let's have a yarn," cried Freeman, filling his pipe, with the intention of soothing his vanquished spirit.
"But you tell stories sometimes, don't you?" asked Hawkson. "No, never." "Oh! that's a story anyhow," cried Freeman. "Come, I'll spin ye one," said the skipper, in that hearty tone which had an irresistible tendency to put hearers in good humour, and sometimes even raised the growling spirit of Joe Stubley into something like amiability.
Among these Bob Lumsden and his friend Pat Stiver took an active part. Here and there couples of men leaned over the side and talked to each other in undertones of their Saviour and the life to come. In the bow Manx Bradley got hold of Joe Stubley and pleaded hard with him to come to Jesus, and receive power from the Holy Spirit to enable him to give up all his evil ways.
So, lads, I've got you here to ask if you're willin' to ship with me." "I'm willin', of course," cried Pat Stiver eagerly, "an so's Bob Lumpy. I'll answer for him!" There was a general laugh at this, but Bob Lumsden, who was present, chose to answer for himself, and said he was heartily willing. So said David Duffy, and so also said Joe Stubley.
Joe Stubley swore that it "was not," whereupon Dick Martin planted his fist on Joe Stubley's nose and laid its growly owner flat on the deck. Starting up, Joe was about to retaliate, when Lockley, seizing him by the neck thrust him over the side into the boat, and ordered his more or less drunken crew to follow.
"What's the use o' grumblin', Stub?" said Hawkson, lifting a live coal with his fingers to light his pipe. "Don't `Stub' me," said Stubley in an angry tone. "Would you rather like me to stab you?" asked Hawkson, with a good-humoured glance, as he puffed at his pipe. "I'd rather you clapped a stopper on your jaw." "Ah so's you might have all the jawin' to yourself?" retorted Hawkson.
"There goes Martin," growled Joe Stubley; "you can always tell when it's him, 'cause he don't curse an' swear." Stubley or Stubby, as his mates called him did not intend this for a compliment by any means, though it may sound like one. Being an irreligious as well as a stupid man, he held that all who professed religion were hypocritical and silly.
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