The frost rendered it impossible to form the
snow into balls, but the men made up for this by throwing it about each
other's eyes and ears in handfuls.
"What d'ye mean by insultin' my mate?--take that!" said Peter Grim,
giving the Irishman a twirl that tumbled him on the deck.
"Oh, bad manners to ye!" spluttered O'Riley, as he rose and ran away;
"why don't ye hit a man o' yer own size?"
"'Deed, then, it must be because there's not one o' my own size to hit,"
remarked the carpenter with a broad grin.
This was true. Grim's colossal proportions were increased so much by his
hairy dress that he seemed to have spread out into the dimensions of
two large men rolled into one. But O'Riley was not to be overturned with
impunity. Skulking round behind the crew, who were laughing at Grim's
joke, he came upon the giant in the rear, and seizing the short tail of
his jumper, pulled him violently down on the deck.
"Ah, then, give it him, boys!" cried O'Riley, pushing the carpenter flat
down, and obliterating his black beard and his whole visage in a mass of
snow. Several of the wilder spirits among the men leaped on the
prostrate Grim, and nearly smothered him before he could gather himself
up for a struggle; then they fled in all directions while their victim
regained his feet, and rushed wildly after them. At last he caught
O'Riley, and grasping him by the two shoulders gave him a heave that was
intended and "calc'lated," as Amos Parr afterwards remarked, "to pitch
him over the foretop-sail-yard!" But an Irishman is not easily overcome.
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