27IVLITTLE JOHNNIE DUNCAN STANDS EXAMINATION
By this time I should have gone home, I suppose, and had something to eat––it was getting on into the afternoon––but I didn’t want to have a talk with my mother yet awhile, and so kept on to Crow’s Nest, where I found half a dozen good-natured loafers. Not all were loafers exactly––three or four were simply waiting around before shipping on some seiner for the mackerel season. It promised to shower at the time, too, and of course the gentlemen who formed old Peter’s staff could not think of venturing out in threatening weather.
And there they were, with Peter Hines, the paid man in charge of Crow’s Nest, keeping a benevolent eye on them. Yarning, arguing, skylarking, advising Peter, and having fun with little Johnnie Duncan they were when I entered. Johnnie was the grandson of the head of the Duncan firm, a fine, clear-eyed boy, that nobody could help liking. He thought fishermen were the greatest people in the world. Whatever a fisherman did was all right to Johnnie.
28
I had got all the news at Crow’s Nest and was just thinking of moving along toward home when Tommie Clancy popped in. Of course that made a difference. I wasn’t going to move while Clancy was around.
“My soul, but here’s where the real gentlemen are,” he had to say first, and then, “Anybody seen Maurice to-day?”
I told him I had, and where.
“Anybody with him?”
“Well, not with him exactly.” I shook my head, and said nothing of Minnie Arkell, nor of Sam Hollis, although Clancy, looking at me, I could see, guessed that there was something else; and he might have asked me something more only for the crowd and little Johnnie Duncan.
Johnnie was trying to climb up onto Clancy, and so Clancy, turning from me, took Johnnie up and gave him a toss that all but hit his head against the roof. “And how’s she heading, Johnnie-boy?” and taking a seat stood Johnnie up beside him.
“East-s’uth-east, and a fair, fair wind,” answered Johnnie.
“East-s’uth-east––my, but you said that fine. And a fair wind? Must be bound Georges Bank way. And how long will you hold that course?”
29
“From Eastern Point––a hundred and thirty-five mile.”
“Yes––and then?”
“Then you throw her up and heave the lead.”
“And heave the lead––sure enough. And then?”
“And then, if you find you’re clear of the North Shoal, you put her to the s’uth’ard and west’ard till you’re in onto the Bank.”
“S’uth’ard and west’ard––that’s the boy. Man, but I’ll live to see you going to the Custom House and taking out your master’s papers yet.”
“And can I join the Master Mariners then?”
“That’s what you can, and walk down Main Street with a swing to your shoulders, too. And now you’re up on the Bank and twenty-five fathom of water and the right bottom––and you’re a hand-liner, say, after cod––what then?”
“Let go her chain and begin fishing.”
“And would you give her a short or a long string of cable?”
“M-m––I’m not sure. A long string you’d hang on better, but a short scope and you could get out faster in case you were dragging and going onto the shoals. What would you do, Captain Clancy? You never told me that, did you?”
“Well, it would depend, too, though handliners generally calculate on hanging on, blow how it30will. But never mind that; suppose your anchor dragged or parted and into the shoal water you went in a gale, an easterly, say––and the bank right under your lee––wind sixty or seventy or eighty mile an hour––what would you do?”
“Anchor not hold? M-m––Then I’d––give her the second one.”
“And if that dragged, too––or parted?”
“Both of ’em? M-m”––Johnnie was taking deep breaths now––“why, then I’d have to put sail to her–––”
“What sail?”
“Why, jib, jumbo, fore and main.”
“And the wind blowing eighty mile an hour?”
“Why, yes, if she’d stand it.”
“My, but she’d have to be an able vessel that––all four lowers and the wind blowing eighty mile an hour. Man, but you’re a dog! Suppose she couldn’t stand it?”
“Then I’d reef the mains’l.”
“And if that was too much––what then?”
“Reef it again.”
“And too much yet?”
“Balance-reef it––maybe take it in altogether––and the jib with it, and get out the riding-sail.”
“And would you do nothing to the fores’l?”
“M-m––I dunno––with some vessels maybe I’d reef that, too––maybe take it in altogether.”
31
“My, but you’re cert’nly a dog. And what then?”
“Why, then I’d try to work her out.”
“And would you be doing anything with the lead?”
“Oh, we’d be keeping the lead going all the time, for banging her across and back like that you wouldn’t know where you were just.”
“And would you come clear, d’y’ think?”
“Yes, sir––if the gear held and with an able vessel we ought to.”
“If the gear held––that’s it. Be sure, Johnnie-boy, you see that the gear is all right before ever you leave port. And with an able vessel, you say? With that new one of your gran’pa’s––would you come clear with her?”
“Oh, she’d come clear––built to go fresh halibuting next winter, that one.”
“Yes––and seining this spring. But suppose now you were haddocking––trawling––eight or ten dories, and you just arrived on the grounds, picked out a good spot, and there you are––you’re all baited up and ready?”
“Winter time?”
“Winter time, yes.”
“First I’d single-reef the mains’l. Then I’d hold her up a little––not too much––me being skipper would be to the wheel myself––and then32I’d give the order, ‘Dories to the rail!’ and then, when everything was all right––when I’d be satisfied we wouldn’t foul the next vessel’s trawls––I’d call out, ‘Over with your wind’ard dory!’”
“Loud and clear you’d holler, because the wind might be high.”
“Loud and clear, yes––‘Let go your wind’ard dory!’––like that. And ‘Set to the west’ard,’ or the east’ard, whatever it was––according to the tide, you know. I’d call that out to the dory as it went sliding by the quarter––the vessel, of course, ’d be sailing all the time––and next, ‘Wind’ard dory to the rail!’ And then, when we’d gone ahead enough, again, ‘Let go your looard dory!’ and then, ‘Looard dory to the rail! Let go your wind’ard dory! Let go your looard dory!’ and so till they were all over the side.”
“And supposing, they being all out, it came on thick, or snowing, and some of them went astray, and it was time to go home, having filled her with eighty or ninety or a hundred thousand of fresh fish, a fair wind, and every prospect of a good market––what then?”
“Oh, I’d have to wait, of course––cruise around and stand by.”
“And suppose you couldn’t find them again?”
“Why, after waiting until I was sure they were gone, I’d come home.”
33
“And your flag?”
“Half-mast.”
“Half-mast––that’s it. I hope you’ll never have to fly a half-masted flag, Johnnie. But suppose you did see them, and they were in shoal water, say––and the shoals to looard, of course, and it blowing–––”
“I’d stand in and get them.”
“And it blowing hard––blowing hard, Johnnie?––and shoal––shoal water?”
“Why”––Johnnie was looking troubled––“why, I’d have to stand in just the same, wouldn’t I?”
“Your own men and you ask me, Johnnie-boy?”
“Why, of course I’d have to stand in and get them.”
“And if you got in so far you couldn’t get out––you got smothered, say?”
“Why, then––then we’d be lost––all hands would be lost.”
Poor Johnnie! he was all but crying.
“That’s it. And that’s where some would say you showed yourself a man, and some a fool, Johnnie-boy. Some would say, ‘Use judgment––think of the other eighteen or twenty men safe aboard the vessel.’ Would you use judgment, or what, Johnnie?”
“M-m––I don’t know. What would you do, Captain Clancy?”
34
“What d’y’ think I’d do, Johnnie?” Clancy drew the boy up and tucked the little face to his own broad breast. The rest of us knew well enough what Clancy would do. “Judgment hell!” Clancy would say, and go in and get lost––or maybe get away with it where a more careful man would be lost––but we waited to hear what Johnnie––such a little boy––would say. He said it at last, after looking long into Clancy’s face.
“I think you’d go in, Captain Clancy.”
Clancy laughed at that. “Lord, Johnnie-boy, no wonder everybody loves you. No matter what a man does, all you see is the best that’s in him.”
It was time to clean up then, and Johnnie of course was bound to help.
35VFROM OUT OF CROW’S NEST
“What’ll I do with this?” asked Johnnie, in the middle of the cleaning up, holding up a pan of sweepings.
“Oh, that”––Clancy naturally took charge––“heave it overboard. Ebb tide’ll carry it away. Heave it into the slip. Wait––maybe you’ll have to hoist the hatches. ’Tisn’t raining much now, anyway, and it will soon stop altogether. Might as well go aloft and make a good job of the hatches, hadn’t he, Peter?”
“Wait a minute.” Peter was squinting through the porthole. “I shouldn’t wonder but this is one of our fellows coming in. I know she’s a banker. The Enchantress, I think. Look, Tommie, and see what you make of her.”
Clancy looked. “That’s who it is, Peter. Hi, Johnnie, here’ll be a chance for you to hoist the flag. Hurry aloft and tend to the hatches, as Peter says, and you can hoist the flag for the Enchantress home from the Banks.”
In bad weather, like it was that day, the little36balcony of Crow’s Nest was shut in by little hatches, arranged so that they could be run up and down, the same as hatches are slid over the companionway of a fisherman’s cabin or forec’s’le. Johnnie was a pretty active boy, and he was up the rope ladder and onto the roof in a few seconds. We could hear him walking above, and soon the hatches slid away and we all could look freely out to sea again.
“All right below?” called out Johnnie.
“Not yet,” answered Peter. He was standing by the rail of the balcony and untwisting the halyards that served to hoist the signal-flags to the mast-head. Peter seemed slow at it, and Clancy called out again, “Wait a bit, and we’ll overhaul the halyards.” Then, looking up and noticing that Johnnie was standing on the edge of the roof, he added, “And be careful and not slip on those wet planks.”
“Aye, aye!” Johnnie was in high glee. “And then I can run up the flag for the Enchantress?”
“Sure, you’ve been such a good boy to-day.”
“M-m––but that’ll be fine. I can catch the halyards from here if you’ll swing them in a little.”
“All right––be careful. Here you go now.”
“Let ’em come––I got–––”
The first thing we knew of what had happened was when we saw Johnnie’s body come pitching37down. He struck old Peter first, staggering him, and from there he shot down out of sight.
Clancy jumped to the rail in time to save Peter from toppling over it and just in time, as he said afterward, to see the boy splash in the slip below. He yanked Peter to his feet, and then, without turning around, he called out, “A couple of you run to the head of the dock––there’ll be a dory there somewhere––row ’round to the slip with it. He’ll be carried under the south side––look for him there if I’m not there before you. Drive her now!”
“Here, Joe, wake up!” Clancy had untied the ends of the halyards after whirling them through the block above, and now had the whole line piled up on the balcony. He took a couple of turns around his waist, took another turn around a cleat under the balcony rail, passed the bight of the line to me, and said, “Here, Joe, lower me. Take hold you, too, Peter. Pay out and not too careful. Oh, faster, man! If he ain’t dead he’ll drown, maybe––if he gets sucked in and caught under those piles it’s all off.”
He was sliding over the rail, the line tautening to his weight in no time, and he talking all the time. “Lower away––lower, lower! Faster––faster than that––he’s rising again––second time––and drifting under the wharf, sure’s fate!38Faster––faster––what’s wrong?––what’s caught there?––let her run!”
The halyards had become fouled, and Peter was trying to clear them, calling to Clancy to wait.
“Fouled?” roared Clancy. “Cast it off altogether. Let go altogether and let me drop.”
“We can’t––the bight of it’s caught around Peter’s legs!” I called to him.
“Oh, hell! take a couple of half-hitches around the cleat then––look out now!” He gripped the halyards high above his head with both hands, gave a jumping pull, and let himself drop. The line parted and down he shot.
He must have been shaken by the shock of his fall, but I guess he had his senses with him when he came up again, for in no time he was striking toward where Johnnie had come up last. Then I ran downstairs, down to the dock, and was just in time to see Parsons and Moore rowing a dory desperately up the slip, and Clancy with Johnnie chest-up, and a hand under his neck, kicking from under the stringers, and calling out, “This way with the dory––drive her, fellows, drive her!”
I did not wait for any more––I knew Johnnie was safe with Clancy––but ran to the office of the Duncans and told them that Johnnie had fallen into the dock and got wet, and that it might be well to telephone for a doctor. His grandfather39knew it was serious without my saying any more, and rang up at once.
That had hardly been done when Clancy came in the door with Johnnie in his arms. The boy was limp and unconscious and water was dripping from him. Old Mr. Duncan was worried enough, but composed in his manner for all that. He met Clancy at the door. “This way, Captain; lay him on this couch. The doctor will be here in a very few minutes now. Perhaps we can do something while he is on the way. Just how did it happen? and we’ll know better what to do, perhaps.”
Clancy told his story in forty words. “He’s probably shook up and his lungs must be full of water. But he may come out all right––his eyelids quivered coming up the dock. Better strip his shirt and waist off. He’s got a lot of water in him––roll him over and we’ll get some of it out.”
He worked away on Johnnie, and had the water pretty well out of him by the time the uncle and the doctor came. It was hard work for a time, but it came at last to when the doctor stood up, rested his arms for a breath, said, “Ah––he’s all right now,” and went on again. It was not so very long after that that Johnnie opened his eyes––for about a second. But pretty soon he opened them to stay. His first look was for his grandfather,40but his first word was for Clancy. “I could see you when you jumped, Captain Clancy––it was great.”
Then they bundled Johnnie into a carriage and his uncle took him home.
“Lord, but I thought he was gone, Joe. But let’s get out of this,” said Clancy, and we were making for the door, with Clancy’s clothes still wringing wet, when we were stopped by the elder Mr. Duncan, who shook hands with both of us and then went on to speak to Clancy.
“Captain Clancy–––”
“Captain once, but–––”
“I know, I know, but not from lack of ability, at any rate. Let me thank you. His mother will thank you herself later, and make you feel, I know, her sense of what she owes to you. And his cousin Alice––she thinks the world of him. There, I know you don’t want to hear any more, but you shall––maybe later––though it may come up in another way. But tell me––wait, come inside a minute. Come in you, too, Joe,” he said, turning to me, but I said I’d rather wait outside. I wanted to have a smoke to get my nerves steady again, I guess.
So Clancy and Mr. Duncan went inside, and through the window, whenever I looked up, I could see them. As their talk went on I could see41that they were getting very much interested about something or other. Clancy particularly was laying down the law with a clenched fist and an arm that swung through the air like a jibing boom. Somebody, I knew, was getting it.
When they came out Mr. Duncan stopped at the door, and said, as if by way of a parting word, “And so you think that’s the cause of Withrow’s picking a quarrel with Maurice? Well, I never thought of that before, but maybe you’re right. And now, what do you say to a vessel for yourself?”
“Me take a vessel? No, sir––not for me. But when you’ve got vessels to hand around, Mr. Duncan, bear Maurice in mind––he’s a fisherman.”
We left Mr. Duncan then, he making ready to telephone to learn how Johnnie was getting along. Clancy said his clothes were beginning to feel so dry that he did not know as he would go to his boarding-house. “I think we’d better go up to the Anchorage and have a little touch. But I forgot––you don’t drink, Joe? No? So I thought, but don’t you care––you’re young yet. Come along, anyway, and have a smoke.”
And so we went along to the Anchorage, and while we were there, I smoking one of those barroom cigars and Clancy nursing the after-taste of his drink and declaring that a touch of good liquor42was equal to a warm stove for drying wet clothes, I told him what I would have told him in Crow’s Nest if there had not been so many around––about Minnie Arkell calling Maurice back into her grandmother’s house, and then Sam Hollis coming along and going in after him.
“What!” and stopped dead. Suddenly he brought his fist through the air. “I’ll”––and as suddenly stopped it midway. “No, I won’t, either. But I’ll put Maurice wise to them. What should he know at his age and with his up-bringing of what’s in the heads of people like them. And if I don’t have something further to say to old Mr. Duncan! But now let’s go back to Arkell’s––come on, Joe.”
But I didn’t go back with him. I didn’t think that I could do Maurice any good then, and I might be in the way if Clancy wanted to speak his mind out to anybody. I went home instead, where I expected to have troubles of my own, for I knew that my mother wouldn’t like the idea of my going seining.
43VIMAURICE BLAKE GETS A VESSEL
Three days after Johnnie Duncan fell out of Crow’s Nest the new Duncan vessel designed by Will Somers was towed around from Essex. She had been named the Johnnie Duncan. I spent the best part of the next three days watching the sparmakers and riggers at work on her. And when they had done with her and she fit to go to sea, she did look handsome. She had not quite the length of the new vessel of Sam Hollis’s, which lay at Withrow’s dock just below her, and that probably helped to give her a more powerful look to people that compared them. Too able-looking altogether to be real fast, some thought, to hold the Withrow vessel in anything short of a gale, but I didn’t feel so sure she wouldn’t sail in a moderate breeze, too. I had seen her on the stocks, and knew the beautiful lines below the water-mark. And she was going to carry the sail to drive her. I took particular pains to get the measurements of her mainmast while it lay on the dock under the shears. It was eighty-seven feet––and she only a hundred and ten feet over all––and44it stepped plumb in the middle of her, further forward than a mainmast was generally put in a fisherman. To that was shackled a seventy-five foot boom, and eighty-odd tons of pig-iron were cemented close down to her keel, and that floored over and stanchioned snug. For the rest, she was very narrow forward, as I think I said––everybody said she’d never stand the strain of her fore-rigging when they got to driving her on a long passage. And she carried an ungodly bowsprit––thirty-seven feet outboard––easily the longest bowsprit out of Gloucester. Topmasts to match, and there was some sail to drive a vessel. But she had the hull for it, full and yet easy, with the greatest beam pretty well aft of the mainmast, and she drew fifteen and a half feet of water.
I was still looking her over, her third day in the riggers’ and sailmakers’ hands, when Clancy came along.
“Handsome, ain’t she, and only needing a skipper and crew to be off on the Southern cruise, eh, Joe?”
“That’s all. And according to the talk, you’re to be the skipper.”
“Well, talk has another according coming to it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. But what happened at Mrs. Arkell’s the other day?”
“What happened? Joe, but I was glad you45didn’t come with me. You’d have felt as I did about it, I know. There they were––the two of them––Hollis and Withrow––yes, Withrow there––when I broke in on them, and Maurice between them––drunk. Yes, sir, drunk and helpless. They called it a wine-party, as though a man couldn’t get as good and drunk on wine in a private residence as ever he could on whiskey or rum in the back room of a saloon. Well, sir, I asked a question or two, and they tried to face me out, but out they went––first Hollis, and then Withrow, one after the other, and both good and lively. And then Minnie Arkell popped in from her own house by way of the backyard. She didn’t expect to see me––I know she didn’t. Had gone over to her house when the men began to drink, she said, and had just come over to see granny.
“Well, I told her what I thought. ‘It means nothing to you,’ I said, ‘to see a man make a fool of himself––that’s been a good part of your business in life for some time, now––to see men make fools of themselves for you. Withrow had reasons for wanting him disgraced––never mind why. Sam Hollis, maybe, has his reasons too. And the two of them are being helped along by you. You could have stopped this thing here to-day, but you didn’t.’ ‘No, no, Tommie,’ she says. ‘Yes, yes,’ I went on, ‘and don’t try to tell me different.46If I didn’t know you since you were a little girl you might be able to convince me, but I know you. Maurice, when he was himself, passed you by. You were bound to have him. You know a real man, more’s the pity, when you see one, and you know that Maurice, young and green and soft as he is, has more life and dash than a dozen of the kind you’ve been mixing with lately.’
“Oh, but I laid it on, Joe. Yes. A shame to have to talk like that to a woman, but I just had to. I didn’t stop there. ‘You’re handsome, and you’re rich, Minnie Arkell; got a lot of life left in you yet, and go off travelling with people who get their names regularly in the Boston papers; but just the same, Minnie Arkell, there are women in jail not half so bad as you––women doing time who’ve done less mischief in the world than you have.’”
“Wasn’t that pretty rough, Tommie?”
“Rough? Lord, yes––but true, Joe, true. And if you’d only see poor Maurice lying there! Cried? I could’ve cried, Joe––not since my mother died did I come so near to it. But it was done.
“Well, I made Minnie go and get her grandmother. And, Joe, if you’d seen that fine old lady––oh, but she’s got a heart in her––stoop and put Maurice’s head on her bosom as if he47was a little child. ‘The poor, poor boy. No mother here,’ she said, ‘and the best man on earth might come to it. Leave him to me, Tommie.’ Lord, I could have knelt down at her feet––the heart in her, Joe.”
“And how has Maurice been since?”
“All right. That was the first time in his life that he was drunk. I think it will be his last. But let’s go aboard the Johnnie.”
After looking over the Johnnie Duncan and admiring her to our hearts’ content, we sat down in her cabin and began to talk of the seining season to come. Others came down and joined in––George Moore, Eddie Parsons among others––and they asked Clancy what he was going to do. Was he going to see about a chance to go seining, or what? Moore said he’s been waiting to see what Maurice Blake was going to do; but as it was beginning to look as though Maurice was done for, he guessed he’d take a look around. He asked Clancy what he thought, and Clancy said he didn’t know––time enough yet.
Maurice Blake himself dropped down then. He was looking better, and everybody was glad to see it. He’d quit drinking––that was certain; and now he was a picture of a man––not pretty, but strong-looking, with his eyes glowing and his skin flushing with the good blood inside him. He took48a seat on the lockers and began to whittle a block of soft pine into a model of a hull, and after a while, with a squint along the sheer of his little model, he asked if anybody had seen Tom O’Donnell or Wesley Marrs. Several said yes, they had, and he asked where, and when they told him he got up and said he guessed he’d go along––as he couldn’t get a vessel himself, he might as well see about a chance to go hand. “And as we’ve been together so much in times gone by, Tommie, and you, Eddie and George, what do you say if we go together now?”
“All right,” said Clancy, “but wait a minute––who’s that in the gangway?”
It turned out to be Johnnie Duncan. He had a fat bundle under his arm, and bundle and all Clancy took him up, tossed him into the air, said “All right again, Johnnie-boy?” and kissed him when he caught him down.
Johnnie started to undo his bundle. “I tell you it’s great to be out again––the way they kept me cooped up the last few days,” and then, cutting the string to hurry matters, opened the bundle and spread a handsome set of colors on the lockers. “The Johnnie Duncan’s,” said he. “I picked out the kind they were to be, but mummer worked the monograms herself. See, red and blue. And see that for an ensign! and the firm’s flag––and the49highs––look!––the J. A. D. twisted up the same as on the handkerchiefs we strained the coffee through last week. And the burgee––the letters on the burgee––my cousin Alice worked them. And these stars––see, on the ensign––mummer and my cousin both worked them. Gran’pa said the vessel ought to be sure a lucky one, and all she needs is an able master, he says, and if Captain Blake will take her he’ll be proud to have him sail the Johnnie Duncan–––”
Maurice Blake stood up. “Me?”
“Yes,” said Johnnie. “Gran’pa says that you can have her just as soon as you go to the Custom House and get your papers. There, I think I remembered it all, except of course that the colors are from me and mummer and my cousin Alice, and will you fly them for us?”
Maurice laid down his model and picked up the colors. Then he looked at Johnnie and said, “Thank you, Johnnie; and tell your mother, Johnnie, and your cousin, that I’ll fly the Johnnie Duncan’s colors––and stand by them––if ever it comes to standing by––till she goes under. Tell your grandfather that I’ll be proud to be master of his vessel and I’ll sail her the best I know how.”
“That’s you, Maurice,” said Clancy.
Maurice drew his hand across his eyes and sat down again. And as soon as they decently could,50Clancy, George Moore, and Eddie Parsons asked him if they might ship with him for the Southern cruise. Maurice said they very well knew that he’d be glad to have them. He asked me, too, he felt so good, and of course I jumped at the chance.
51VIICLANCY CROSSES MINNIE ARKELL
The Johnnie Duncan only needed to have her stores taken aboard to go to sea. And that was attended to next morning, and she was out for her trial trip the same afternoon. Everybody said she looked as handsome as a photograph going out, though all the old sharks, when they saw her mainsail hoisted for the first time, said she’d certainly have need of her quarter and draught to stand up under it.
It was a great day for sailing, though––the finest kind of a breeze, and smooth water. We early carried away our foretopmast, which had a flaw in it. It was just as well to discover it then. Without topsail and balloon we had it out with the Eastern Point on her way back from Boston. She was not much of a steamer for speed, but her schedule called for twelve knots and she generally made pretty near it––eleven or eleven and a half, according to how her stokers felt, I guess. We headed her off after a while, and that was doing pretty well for that breeze, with a new vessel not yet loosened up.
52
“But the balloon was too much for her,” said Mr. Duncan, as we shot into the dock after beating the Eastern Point.
“No, the balloon was all right––’twas the topm’st was a bit light,” answered Maurice.
Old Mr. Duncan smiled at that. “But what do you think of her, Captain Blake?”
“Oh, she’s like all the rest of them when she’s alone––sails like the devil,” the skipper answered to that, but he smiled with it and we all knew he was satisfied with her.
That night was the Master Mariners’ Ball, and I waited up till late to talk with my cousin Nell, who had gone there with Will Somers. Finally they came along past my house and I hailed them.
Nell broke right in as usual with what was uppermost in her mind. “I don’t suppose you saw me and Alice, but we were in Mr. Duncan’s office when you and Mr. Clancy and Captain Blake were coming up the dock to-day after the trial trip. Mr. Duncan told us what Captain Blake said of the Johnnie Duncan, but now tell me, what did the rest of you think of her? What does your friend Clancy say? He knows a vessel.”
“Clancy,” I answered, “thought what we all thought, I guess––that she’s a fast vessel any way you take her, but he won’t say she’s the fastest vessel out of Gloucester, even after she’s put in trim53and loosened up. But in a sea-going way and with wind enough––with wind enough, mind––he thinks she’ll do pretty well.”
“With wind enough and in a sea-way?” repeated Nell. “Then I hope that when the fishermen’s race is sailed next fall it’s a howling gale and seas clear to your mast-head. Yes, and you needn’t laugh––don’t you know what it means to Will?”
And I did realize. Somers, a fine fellow, was just then beginning to get a chance at designing fishermen. So far he had done pretty well, but it was on the Johnnie Duncan, I knew, he had pinned his faith. For his own sake, I hoped that the Johnnie would do great things, but for Nell’s sake I prayed she would. Nell thought a lot of Will and wasn’t ashamed to show her liking, and thinking of that set me to thinking of other things.
“Was Miss Foster to the ball?” I asked her.
“She was,” said Nell.
“And with whom?”
“Mr. Withrow.”
“Oh-h, Lord!”
“Oh-h!––and why Oh-h-h?”
“I wish she’d gone with Maurice.”
“H-m––that was drunk the other day?”
“Yes, I suppose that queers him forever. And54the other fellow does ten times as bad, only under cover. Who told you?”
“Never mind. Wasn’t he?”
“Was Maurice to the ball?”
“He was.”
“And who with?”
“With nobody.”
“Good. Was Mrs. Miner there?”
“Mrs. Miner?”––and such a sniff!––“yes, she was there.”
“With Sam Hollis?”
“Yes, and flirted with half the men in the hall and with your Maurice Blake outrageously.”
“That so? Could Maurice help that much? But I wish, just the same, that Miss Foster had gone with Maurice.”
“Well, there was one very good reason.”
“What?”
“He didn’t ask her. And Mr. Withrow made a handsome cavalier anyway.”
“A handsome”––I was going to say lobster, but I didn’t. Instead I told her why Maurice didn’t ask Miss Foster––that he didn’t think enough of himself, probably. And that led up to a talk about Maurice Blake and Clancy. Before I got through I had Nell won over. Indeed, I think she was won over before I began at all.
“There’s a whole lot you don’t know yet,” she55said at last. “Get Captain Blake to make a name for himself seining, and for sailing his vessel as she ought to be sailed, and I’ll get down on my knees to Alice for him––sail her as she ought to be sailed, remember. And make a good stock with her, and you’ll see.”
So, as I walked down the street with Nell and Will Somers a part of the way, the talk was in that strain, and when I left them, after passing Sam Hollis bound home, it was with the hope of things coming out all right. I was feeling happy until I got near Minnie Arkell’s door, where my worrying began again, for there on the steps and in the glare of the electric light was Minnie Arkell herself, as though she were waiting for somebody. And not wanting to have her know that I saw her waiting at her door steps at that time of night, I stepped in the shadows until she should go in. It was then that Maurice came along, and she called him up. And he went up and stood on the step below her and she bent over him as if she wanted to lift him up. And it was less than five minutes since Sam Hollis left her.
“Come around by way of the side door of grandma’s house, Maurice, and through her yard and into my house, and nobody will see you. And then no old grannies will talk and we’ll have a little supper all to ourselves. Hurry now.” She was56talking as if she owned him. I did not hear what Maurice said, nor I did not want to hear; but making for the corner, he went by me like a shot, and “O Lord!” I heard him groan as he passed me, not recognizing me––not even seeing me, I believe.
I did not know what to make of it and let him go by. But after he had turned the corner and Minnie Arkell had shut her door––and she watched him till he disappeared around the corner––I ran after him. In my hurrying after him I heard the voice of Clancy coming down the street. He was singing. I had heard from Nell of Clancy being at the ball, where he was as usual in charge of the commissary. I could imagine how they must have drove things around the punch-bowl with Clancy to the wheel. He was coming along now and for blocks anybody that was not dead could hear him. And getting nearer I had to admire him. He was magnificent, even with a list to port. Not often, I imagined, did men of Clancy’s lace and figure get into evening dress. The height and breadth of him!––and spreading enough linen on his shirt front to make a sail for quite a little vessel. He was almost on top of me, with
“Oh, hove flat down on th’ Western BanksWas the Bounding Billow, Captain Hanks––And–––”
“Oh, hove flat down on th’ Western BanksWas the Bounding Billow, Captain Hanks––And–––”
“Oh, hove flat down on th’ Western Banks
Was the Bounding Billow, Captain Hanks––
And–––”
when I hailed him.
57
“Hulloh, if it ain’t Joe Buckley. Why, Joey, but aren’t you out pretty late to-night? But maybe you’re only standing watch for somebody? Three o’clock, Joey, and no excuse for you, for you didn’t have to stand by the supplies––” But then I rushed him around the corner, and down the street to the side door of Mrs. Arkell’s and just in time to head off Maurice, bound as I knew for Minnie Arkell’s house across the yard. I didn’t have a chance to say a word to Tommie, but he didn’t have to be told. If I’d been explaining for a week he couldn’t have picked things up any better than he did.
“Maurice––hi, Maurice! Oh, ’tis you, isn’t it. Well, Maurice-boy, all the night I waited for a chance to have a word with you, but ne’er a chance could I get. Early in the evening––when I was fit for ladies’ company––Miss Foster said how proud she was to know me––me, who had saved her cousin Johnnie’s life. And then she asked me about the vessel, and I told her, Maurice, that nothing like the Duncan ever pushed salt water from out of her way before. ‘Nothing with two sticks in her,’ says I, and I laid it on thick; ‘and Maurice Blake,’ says I––and there, Maurice, I only spoke true catechism. ‘Maurice Blake,’ says I, ‘is the man to sail her.’ She was glad, she said, to know that, because her chum, Miss Buckley––Joe’s58cousin there––wanted that particular vessel to be a success. And she herself was interested in it. Never mind the reasons, she said. And she always did believe––and, Maurice, listen now––she knew that Captain Blake would do the Johnnie Duncan justice. And I said to her––well, Maurice, what I said you can guess well enough. No, come to think, you can’t guess, but I won’t tell you to your face. But thinking of it now, I mind, Maurice, the time when we were dory-mates––you and me, Maurice––and the cold winter’s day our dory was capsized. And dark coming on and nothing in sight, and I could see you beginning to get tired. But tired as you were, Maurice, tired as you were and the gray look beginning to creep over you, you says, ‘Tommie, take the plug strap for a while, you.’”
“But you didn’t take it, Tommie.”
“No, I didn’t take it––and why? I didn’t take it––and why? Because, though the mothers that bore us both were great women––all fire and iron––’twas in me to last longer––you a boy and your first winter fishing, and me a tough, hard old trawler. And you had all of life before you, and I’d run through some hard years of mine. If I’d gone ’twould have been no great loss, but you, Maurice, innocent as a child––how could I? I’d known men and women, good and bad––I’d lived life and I’d59had my chance and thrown it away––but at your age the things you had to learn! Maybe I didn’t think it all out like that, but that was why I didn’t take the plug strap. But, Maurice-boy, I never forgot it. ‘Take the plug strap, you, Tommie,’ you says. We were dory-mates, of course, but, Maurice-boy, I’ll never forget it.”
Clancy took off his hat and drew his hand across his forehead. “And where were you bound when we stopped you, Maurice?”
“Oh, I don’t know. To take a walk maybe.”
“Sure, and why not? Let’s all take a walk. Let’s take a walk down to the dock and have a look at the vessel. Too dark? So it is, but we can see the shadow of her masts rising up to the clouds and we can open up the cabin and go below and have a smoke. Come, Maurice. Come on, Joe.”
And down to the cabin of the Johnnie Duncan we went, and Clancy never in such humor. For three hours––from a little after three o’clock until after six––we sat on the lockers, Clancy talking and we smoking and roaring at him. Only the sun coming up over Eastern Point, lighting up the harbor and striking into the cabin of the Johnnie Duncan, brought Clancy to a halt.
He moved then and we with him. We left Maurice at the door of old Mrs. Arkell’s, the old60lady herself in the doorway and asking us if we had a good time at the ball. Standing on the steps, before he went in, Maurice said to me: “Tell your cousin, Joe, that when I do race the Johnnie, I’ll take the spars out of her before anything gets by––take the spars out or send her under. I can’t do any more than that.”
The Johnnie Duncan was to leave at ten o’clock and so I left Clancy at his boarding-house. He looked tired when I left him. But he was chuckling, too. I asked him what it was that made him smile so.
“I’ll give you three guesses,” he said, but I didn’t guess.
61VIIITHE SEINING FLEET PUTS OUT TO SEA
The rest of that morning, between leaving Clancy and getting back to the dock again, I spent in cleaning up and overhauling my home outfit. My mother couldn’t be made to believe that store bedding was of much use––and she was right, I guess––and so a warranted mattress and blankets and comforters and a pillow were made into a bundle and thrown onto a waiting wagon. Then it was good-by to all––good-by to my cousin Nell, who had come over from her house, good-by and a kiss for her little sister––late for school she was, but didn’t care she said––and then good-by to my mother. That took longer. Then it was into the wagon with my bedding and off to the dock.
At Duncan’s store I had charged up to me such other stuff as I needed: Two suits of oilskins, yellow and black, two sou’westers, heavy and light, two blue-gray flannel shirts, a black sweater, a pair of rubber boots, two pairs of woollen mitts and62four pairs of cotton mitts, five pounds of smoking tobacco, a new pipe, and so on. When I had all my stuff tied up, I swung up abreast of Clancy and together we headed for the end of Duncan’s dock, where the Johnnie Duncan lay.
Quite a fleet went out ahead of us that morning. Being a new vessel, there was a lot of things that were not ready until the last minute. And then there was the new foretopmast––promised at nine o’clock it was––not slung and stayed up until after ten. And then our second seine, which finally we had to leave for Wesley Marrs to take next morning. And there were the usual two or three men late. Clancy and Andie Howe went up to have a farewell drink and were gone so long that the skipper sent me after them. I found them both in the Anchorage, where Clancy had met a man he hadn’t seen for ten years––an old dory-mate––thought he was lost five years before in the West Indies. “But here he is, fine and handsome. Another little touch all around and a cigar for Joe, and we’re off for the Southern cruise.”
We left then and started for the dock, with Clancy full of poetry. There happened to be a young woman looking out of a window on the way down. Clancy did not know her, nor she him, so far as I knew, but something about him seemed to take her eye. She leaned far out and waved63her handkerchief at him. That was enough. Clancy broke out––