I
have seen him at work and he made me shudder, although the sight of his
amazing agility might have given anybody confidence. On wet nights when
the deck was like a rink, he would make a rush as the boat pitched; then
he would pick up his rope unerringly in the dark and, in another second,
you would see him over the side with one foot on the trawl-beam in an
attitude risky enough to make you want to close your eyes.
It was nothing much to see him take a flying spring on to the main boom
in the dark, and hang there reefing while the vessel jerked so that you
might have fancied she must send his ribs through the skin. I say it was
nothing, because he performed this feat nearly every winter night, after
the midnight haul, and the spectacle grew common. I never knew him
bungle over a rope or make a bad slip, and it was simply a pleasure to
see him steer. He never threw away an inch, and his way of stealing foot
by foot was worthy of any jockey. Sometimes when I was at the wheel and
running a little to leeward of another vessel, he would say, "I reckon I
can weather him, sir, if you let me have her a bit;" and then, with
delicate touches and catlike watching of every puff and every send of
the sea, he would edge his way up, and pass his opponent neatly.
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