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Sit down and I'll sing you a ditty,
'Bout the time I was out on the Dan;
Maurice Crotty was one of our sailors,
A comical cure of a man.
He could spin out a yarn by the hour,
And lies he could tell by the score;
And when Crotty would kick up a ditty,
All hands in her galley would roar.
The captain sang out one fine morning,
"Come, Crotty, your trick at the wheel."
Well, he shook like a mouse in a skillet,
So timid and nervous did feel.
We struck the whitecoats the next morning,
It was over the side every man;
With his gaff and his bat on his shoulder,
As we copied over each pan.
And Maurice, a half-mile behind us,
He was catchin' all kinds of queer frills;
He was bowin' and scrapin' on tiptoe,
Like a man in a set of quadrilles.
Comin' home, 'bout a mile from the steamer,
We saw Maurice stripped off for a bout;
And the big old dog hood with his flippers,
Was stretchin' him out every clout.
"Well, I challenged him fair," said poor Maurice,
For a fight he before me does stand;
But he took a mean dirty advantage,
And he hit me with rocks in his hand."
Well, we backed him in turn to the steamer,
And tucked him up snugly in bed;
Next morning, he came to his senses,
He called me aside and he said:
"Well, he musta got drunk from the liquor,
Or else he woulda beat me to death;
For I'm certain he had a nice jag,
And I got the smell of Old Tom from his breath."
This arrangement by Jim Payne.
A variant was collected in 1952 from Gordon Willis (1911-2001) of St. John's, NL, by Ken Peacock and published in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 1, pp,73-74, by The National Museum Of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved.
Two variants were also collected, one in 1977 from Moses Harris of Lethbridge, and one in 1978 from Pius Power, Sr. of Southeast Bight, NL, by Genevieve Lehr and Anita Best and published as #74 in Come And I Will Sing You: A Newfoundland Songbook, pp.127-131, edited by Genevieve Lehr (University of Toronto Press © 1985/2003).
Genevieve Lehr noted that Maurice Crotty or Spring Of The Wadhams appeared in Burke and Oliver's The People's Songster. It is difficult to say whether Johnny Burke actually wrote the song or not. At any rate, the text is incomplete compared with the variants collected by Lehr — there is no mention of the fight with the old dog-hood or the apothecary shop in the 1900 publication. It appeared in the 1927 edition of Doyle's Old-Time Songs And Poetry of Newfoundland as The Spring Maurice Crotty Fought The Old Dog-Hood with the note: "Amongst sealers this song was very popular years ago, and no doubt many will be glad to see it in print. Maurice Crotty was supposed to be a lad from St. John's, and his first experience at the seal fishery will be read with amusement by the old time sealers."
From the Dictionary Of Newfoundland English:
Copied - jumped from pan to pan.
Dog hood - very dangerous, breeding-age, male hood seal.
Old Tom - rum.
Pan - floating field of Arctic ice.
Whitecoats - young harp seals with white fur.
