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Updated: June 19, 2025
Dozens of constables were on the watch for him; his sloop was searched many times; every one believed he was smuggling liquor all the time and yet no one ever caught him. All this happened when I was a boy, and yet to-day no one sees a small tops'l sloop gliding into some uninhabited cove that they don't say 'There goes the Sea Fox."
An' then I come down the coast 'til I found you lyin' here in the lee o' Saul's Island." After a pause, he said hoarsely, to Skipper Billy: "They had the smallpox at Tops'l Cove, says you? They got it yet at Smith's Arm? At Harbour Rim an' Highwater Cove they been dyin'? How did they die at Seldom Cove? Like flies, says you? An' one was a kid?" "My kid," said Skipper Billy, quietly still.
I've seen her off the Horn with studdin' sails set, when craft twice her length and tonnage had everything furled above the tops'l yard. Hi hum! you mustn't mind an old salt runnin' on this way. I've been out of the pickle tub a good while, but I cal'late the brine ain't all out of my system." His guide's eyes snapped. "I understand," he said, laughing.
Then nothin' partic'lar happened until we was well this side o' the Line, when one day, when all hands of us was shortenin' sail to a heavy squall as had bust upon us, Jim Tarbutt, a hordinary seaman, comin' down off the main tops'l yard by way o' the backstays, lets go his hold and drops slap on top o' Mr Townsend, what happened to be standin' underneath, and, instead of hurtin' of hisself, broke t'other man's neck and killed him dead on the spot!
"The tender!" And sure enough, out of the thick weather rolling up away over Bovisand they spied now a Service cutter bearing across close-hauled, leaning under her big tops'l and knocking up the water like ginger-beer with the stress of it.
Though it's seven years since that cyclone swep' over them, they're all right and goin' ahead again, full swing, as if nothin' had happened." "And is Ross the Third still king?" asked Nigel with much interest. "Ay at least he was king a few years ago when I passed this way and had occasion to land to replace a tops'l yard that had been carried away." "Then you won't arrive as a stranger?"
The canvas began to shake as the boat turned on its course after the whales, catching the skipper's eye, and he roared out orders to shorten sail. "Clew up fore and main to'gans'ls," he shouted; "take in the tops'ls. Colin, you go and furl the fore to'gans'l, and if the men are still busy on the tops'l yards, pass the gaskets round the main to'gans'l as well."
"All right! ye are the lad for me; ye can pull side an' feather stroke; ye can cl'ar a tops'l reef-tackle when the sail is full, ye are the lad for me. Steer bold; only steer true, by night an' day. I wish 't ye might no' meet wi' fogs an' icebergs an' collisions an' gales "An' yit, I wish it not.
Just as I was about to gee my last gasp, something struck me on the back o' the head, making me duck under the wather. What was that but the tops'l yard. Hech! I wasna long in mountin' on to it. I've left it out there afther I feeled my toes trailin' along the bottom. Now, my bonny babies, that's how Old Bill's been able to rejoin ye.
"It hit 'em 'fore they got even one tops'l clewed down. That one, the foretops'l 'twas, split to rags.
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