“How long is this for?” Harvey asked of Manuel.

“Till she get a little quiet, and we can row to trawl.  Perhaps to-night.  Perhaps two days more.  You do not like?  Eh, wha-at?”

“I should have been crazy sick a week ago, but it doesn’t seem to upset me now—­much.”

“That is because we make you fisherman, these days.  If I was you, when I come to Gloucester I would give two, three big candles for my good luck.”

“Give who?”

“To be sure—­the Virgin of our Church on the Hill.  She is very good to fishermen all the time.  That is why so few of us Portugee men ever are drowned.”

“You’re a Roman Catholic, then?”

“I am a Madeira man.  I am not a Porto Pico boy.  Shall I be Baptist, then?  Eh, wha-at?  I always give candles—­two, three more when I come to Gloucester.  The good Virgin she never forgets me, Manuel.”

“I don’t sense it that way,” Tom Platt put in from his bunk, his scarred face lit up by the glare of a match as he sucked at his pipe.  “It stands to reason the sea’s the sea; and you’ll get jest about what’s goin’, candles or kerosene, fer that matter.”

“’Tis a mighty good thing,” said Long Jack, “to have a friend at coort, though.  I’m o’ Manuel’s way o’ thinkin’ About tin years back I was crew to a Sou’ Boston market-boat.  We was off Minot’s Ledge wid a northeaster, butt first, atop of us, thicker’n burgoo.  The ould man was dhrunk, his chin waggin’ on the tiller, an’ I sez to myself, ’If iver I stick my boat-huk into T-wharf again, I’ll show the saints fwhat manner o’ craft they saved me out av.’  Now, I’m here, as ye can well see, an’ the model of the dhirty ould Kathleen, that took me a month to make, I gave ut to the priest, an’ he hung ut up forninst the altar.  There’s more sense in givin’ a model that’s by way o’ bein’ a work av art than any candle.  Ye can buy candles at store, but a model shows the good saints ye’ve tuk trouble an’ are grateful.”

“D’you believe that, Irish?” said Tom Platt, turning on his elbow.

“Would I do ut if I did not, Ohio?”

“Wa-al, Enoch Fuller he made a model o’ the old Ohio, and she’s to Calem museum now.  Mighty pretty model, too, but I guess Enoch he never done it fer no sacrifice; an’ the way I take it is—­”

There were the makings of an hour-long discussion of the kind that fishermen love, where the talk runs in shouting circles and no one proves anything at the end, had not Dan struck up this cheerful rhyme: 

“Up jumped the mackerel with his stripe’d back.  Reef in the mainsail, and haul on the tack; For it’s windy weather—­”

Here Long Jack joined in: 

    And it’s blowy weather;
    When the winds begin to blow, pipe all hands together!”

Dan went on, with a cautious look at Tom Platt, holding the accordion low in the bunk: 

    “Up jumped the cod with his chuckle-head,
    Went to the main-chains to heave at the lead;
    For it’s windy weather,” etc.