Three hundred voices answered cheerily:  “Nick Bra-ady.”  It sounded like an organ chant.

“Who stole the lampwicks?” That was Dan’s contribution.

“Nick Bra-ady,” sang the boats.

“Who biled the salt bait fer soup?” This was an unknown backbiter a quarter of a mile away.

Again the joyful chorus.  Now, Brady was not especially mean, but he had that reputation, and the Fleet made the most of it.  Then they discovered a man from a Truro boat who, six years before, had been convicted of using a tackle with five or six hooks—­a “scrowger,” they call it—­in the Shoals.  Naturally, he had been christened “Scrowger Jim”; and though he had hidden himself on the Georges ever since, he found his honours waiting for him full blown.  They took it up in a sort of firecracker chorus:  “Jim! 0 Jim!  Jim! 0 Jim!  Sssscrowger Jim!” That pleased everybody.  And when a poetical Beverly man—­he had been making it up all day, and talked about it for weeks—­sang, “The Carrie Pitman’s anchor doesn’t hold her for a cent” the dories felt that they were indeed fortunate.  Then they had to ask that Beverly man how he was off for beans, because even poets must not have things all their own way.  Every schooner and nearly every man got it in turn.  Was there a careless or dirty cook anywhere?  The dories sang about him and his food.  Was a schooner badly found?  The Fleet was told at full length.  Had a man hooked tobacco from a mess-mate?  He was named in meeting; the name tossed from roller to roller.  Disko’s infallible judgments, Long Jack’s market-boat that he had sold years ago, Dan’s sweetheart (oh, but Dan was an angry boy!), Penn’s bad luck with dory-anchors, Salter’s views on manure, Manuel’s little slips from virtue ashore, and Harvey’s ladylike handling of the oar—­all were laid before the public; and as the fog fell around them in silvery sheets beneath the sun, the voices sounded like a bench of invisible judges pronouncing sentence.

The dories roved and fished and squabbled till a swell underran the sea.  Then they drew more apart to save their sides, and some one called that if the swell continued the Virgin would break.  A reckless Galway man with his nephew denied this, hauled up anchor, and rowed over the very rock itself.  Many voices called them to come away, while others dared them to hold on.  As the smooth-backed rollers passed to the southward, they hove the dory high and high into the mist, and dropped her in ugly, sucking, dimpled water, where she spun round her anchor, within a foot or two of the hidden rock.  It was playing with death for mere bravado; and the boats looked on in uneasy silence till Long Jack rowed up behind his countrymen and quietly cut their roding.

“Can’t ye hear ut knockin’?” he cried.  “Pull for you miserable lives!  Pull!”

The men swore and tried to argue as the boat drifted; but the next swell checked a little, like a man tripping on a carpet.  There was a deep sob and a gathering roar, and the Virgin flung up a couple of acres of foaming water, white, furious, and ghastly over the shoal sea.  Then all the boats greatly applauded Long Jack, and the Galway men held their tongue.