250XXXIIO’DONNELL CARRIES AWAY BOTH MASTS
We were next to the last vessel across the starting line. The Nannie O––we couldn’t see them all––about held the Lucy Foster and the Colleen Bawn level. The Withrow showed herself to be a wonderful vessel off the wind, too. Wesley Marrs was around the stake-boat first. In the fog and drizzle the leaders did not find the stake-boat at once. Wesley happening to be nearest to it when they did see it, got the benefit and was first around. We were close up, almost near enough to board the Withrow’s quarter rounding. I am not sure that the skipper and Clancy, who were to the wheel, did not try to give Hollis a poke with the end of our long bowsprit; but if they did, the Johnnie was not quite fast enough for that. The Withrow beat us around. Looking back we could see the others coming like wild horses. Every one of them, except one that carried away something and hauled up and out of it, was diving into it to the foremast with every leap the same as we had been. On that first leg nobody could stand anywhere251for’ard of the fore-hatch or he would have been swept overboard.
Leaving Egg Rock and going for Minot’s Ledge, the skipper left the wheel and George Nelson took his place beside Clancy. It was drizzling then, every now and then that settling down so that we couldn’t see three lengths ahead. At such times we simply hoped that nobody ahead would carry away anything or in any way become disabled in the road.
Well clear of the stake-boat, however, it lifted and we could see what we were doing. The Lucy Foster was still ahead with O’Donnell and Ohlsen and Hollis almost abreast––no more than a few lengths between. Practically they were all about just as they started. We were next. It was a broad reach to Minot’s Ledge and hard going for all hands. It must be remembered that we all had everything on, even to balloon and staysails, and our halyards were lashed aloft. The men to the mast-head, who were up there to shift tacks, were having a sweet time of it hanging on, even lashed though they were.
Everybody was pretty well strung up at this time. The skipper, a line about his elbow, was hooked up to the main-rigging––the weather side, of course––and it was up to a man’s waist and boiling white on the lee side. The crew were snug252up under the weather rail and hanging on––no mistake either about the way they were hanging on. Every once in awhile one of us would poke his head up to see what they were doing to windward of us. Mr. Duncan, who had come aboard just before we left the dock, was trying to sit on the weather bitt near the wheel-box. He had a line around his waist, too. He had bet a lot of money with Withrow on the race, but I don’t think that his money was worrying him half so much as some other things then.
So far as we could see at this time we were making as good weather as any of them. And our best chance––the beat home––was yet to come. The Johnnie had the stiffness for that. Had the Johnnie reached Gloucester from the Cape Shore earlier she, too, would have been lightened up and made less stiff. To be sure she would have had her bottom scrubbed and we would have had her up to racing pitch, with every bit of sail just so and her trim gauged to a hair’s depth, but that did not matter so very much now. The Johnnie was in shape for a hard drag like this, and for that we had to thank the tricky Sam Hollis. We began to see that after all it was a bit of good luck our vessel not being home in time to tune up the same as the rest of the fleet.
It was along about here––half-way on the reach253to Minot’s––that Tommie Ohlsen broke his main-gaff. It was the fault of the Eastern Point, the Boston steamer. She had gone ahead of the fleet, taking almost a straight course for Minot’s Ledge. Reaching across from Half-Way Rock to Minot’s the fleet began to overhaul her. She, making bad weather of it along here, started to turn around. But, rolling to her top-rail, it was too much for them, and her captain kept her straight on for Boston. That was all right, but her action threw Ohlsen off. She was right in the Nannie O’s way, and to save the steamer and themselves from a collision and certain loss of life, Ohlsen had to jibe the Nannie O, and so suddenly that the Nannie O’s gaff broke under the strain. And that lost Ohlsen his chance for the race. It was too bad, for with Ohlsen, Marrs, and O’Donnell, each in his own vessel in a breeze, you could put the names in a hat and shake them up. When we went by the Nannie O her crew were getting the trysail out of the hold, and they finished the race with that, and made good going of it, as we saw afterward. Indeed, a trysail that day would have been sail enough for almost any men but these.
Before we reached Minot’s there was some sail went into the air. One after the other went the balloons––on the Foster, the Colleen, the Withrow and at last on us. I don’t know whether254they had any trouble on the others––being too busy with our own to watch––but we came near to losing men with ours. It got caught under our keel, and we started to try to haul it in––the skipper having an economical notion of saving the owner the expense of a new sail, I suppose. But Mr. Duncan, seeing what he was at, sang out: “Let the sail go to the devil, Captain––I’ll pay for the new one myself.” Even at that we had to crawl out on the bowsprit––six or eight of us––with sharp knives, and cut it away, and we were glad to get back again. The Johnnie never slackened. It was desperate work.
Rounding Minot’s, Tom O’Donnell gave an exhibition of desperate seamanship. He had made up his mind, it seems, that he was due to pass Wesley Marrs along here. But first he had to get by the Withrow. Off Minot’s was the turning buoy, with just room, as it was considered, for one vessel at a time to pass safely in that sea.
O’Donnell figured that the tide being high there was easily room for two, and then breasted up to the Withrow, outside of her and with the rocks just under his quarter. Hollis, seeing him come, made a motion as if to force him on the rocks, but O’Donnell, standing to his own wheel, called out––“You do, Sam Hollis, and we’ll both go.” There certainly would have been a collision, with both255vessels and both crews––fifty men––very likely lost, but Hollis weakened and kept off. That kind of work was too strong for him. He had so little room that his main-boom hit the can-buoy as he swept by.
Once well around O’Donnell, in great humor, and courting death, worked by Hollis and then, making ready to tack and pass Wesley’s bow, let the Colleen have her swing, but with all that sail on and in that breeze, there could be only one outcome. And yet he might have got away with it but for his new foremast, which, as he had feared, had not the strength it should have had. He let her go, never stopped to haul in his sheets––he had not time to if he was to cross Wesley’s bow. So he swung her and the full force of the wind getting her laid both spars over the side––first one and then the other clean as could be.
Hollis never stopped or made a motion to help, but kept on after the Lucy Foster. We almost ran over O’Donnell, but luffed in time, and the skipper called out to O’Donnell that we’d stand by and take his men off.
O’Donnell was swearing everything blue. “Go on––go on––don’t mind me. Go on, I tell you. We’re all right. I’ll have her under jury rig and be home for supper. Go on, Maurice––go on and beat that divil Hollis!”
256
Half way to Eastern Point on the way back saw us in the wake of the Withrow, which was then almost up with the Lucy Foster. It was the beat home now, with all of us looking to see the Withrow do great things, for just off the ways and with all her ballast in she was in great trim for it. Going to windward, too, was generally held to be her best point of sailing. All that Hollis had to do was to keep his nerve and drive her.
257XXXIIITHE ABLE JOHNNIE DUNCAN
Hollis was certainly driving her now. He ought to have felt safe in doing so with the Lucy Foster to go by, for the Lucy, by reason of the ballast taken out of her, should, everything else being equal, capsize before the Withrow.
Hollis must have had that in mind, for he followed Wesley Marrs’s every move. Wesley was sailing her wide. And our skipper approved of that, too. To attempt a too close course in the sea that was out in the Bay that day, with the blasts of wind that were sweeping down, would have deadened her way altogether too much––maybe hung her up. And so it was “Keep her a full whatever you do,” and that, with coming about when the others did––we being afraid to split tacks––made plenty of work for us.
“Hard-a-lee” it was one after the other, and for every “Hard-a-lee” twenty of us went down into the roaring sea fore and aft and hauled in and slackened away sheets, while aloft, the fellows lashed to the foremast head shifted top and staysail258tacks. They were wise to lash themselves up aloft, for with every tack, she rolled down into it as if she were never coming up, and when she did come up shook herself as if she would snap her topmasts off.
Half way to Eastern Point on the beat home it seemed to occur to the skipper and to Clancy that the Johnnie Duncan stood a chance to win the race. It was Clancy, still lashed to the wheel, now with Long Steve, turned his head for just a second to Mr. Duncan and spoke the first word of it.
“Mr. Duncan, do you know, but the Johnnie’s got a chance to win this race?”
“D’y’think so, Tommie––d’y’think so?”
Some of us in the crew had been thinking of that same thing some time, and we watched Mr. Duncan, who, with a life line about him, was clinging to a bitt aft, and watching things with tight lips, a drawn face and shiny eyes. We listened to hear what else he might have to say. But he didn’t realize at once what it meant. His eyes and his mind were on the Lucy Foster.
“What d’y’think of the Lucy and the Withrow, Tommie?” Mr. Duncan said next.
Tommie took a fresh look at the Lucy Foster, which was certainly doing stunts. It was along this time that big Jim Murch––a tall man, but even so, he was no more than six feet four, and259the Lucy twenty-four feet beam––was swinging from the ring-bolts under the windward rail and throwing his feet out trying to touch with his heels the sea that was swashing up on the Lucy’s deck. And every once in a while he did touch, for the Lucy, feeling the need of her ballast, was making pretty heavy weather of it. Every time she rolled and her sheer poles went under, Jim would holler out that he’d touched again.
We could hear him over on the Johnnie at times. Mr. Duncan, who believed that nothing ever built could beat the Lucy Foster, began to worry at that, and again he spoke to Clancy. He had to holler to make himself heard.
“But what do you think of the Lucy’s chances, Tommie?”
Clancy shook his head.
And getting nothing out of Clancy, Mr. Duncan called out then: “What do you think of the Lucy, you, Captain Blake?”
The skipper shook his head, too. “I’m afraid it’s too much for her.”
And then––one elbow was hitched in the weather rigging and a half hitch around his waist––the skipper swung around, and looking over to the Withrow, he went on:
“I don’t see, Mr. Duncan, why we don’t stand a pretty good chance to win out on Hollis.”
260
“Why not––why not––if anything happens to the Lucy.”
It jarred us some to think that even there, in spite of the great race the Johnnie was making of it, she was still, in the old man’s eyes, only a second string to the Lucy Foster.
About then the wind seemed to come harder than ever, but Clancy at the wheel never let up on the Johnnie. He socked it to her––wide and free he sailed her. Kept her going––oh, but he kept her going. “If this one only had a clean bottom and a chance to tune her up before going out,” said somebody, and we all said, “Oh, if she only had––just half a day on the railway before this race.”
We were fairly buried at times on the Johnnie––on the Lucy Foster it must have been tough. And along here the staysail came off the Withrow and eased her a lot. We would all have been better off with less sail along about that time. In proof of that we could see back behind us where the Nannie O, under her trysail, was almost holding her own. But it wouldn’t do to take it off. Had they not all said before putting off that morning that what sail came off that day would be blown off?––yes, sir––let it blow a hundred miles an hour. And fishermen’s pride was keeping sail on us and the Foster. Hollis tried to make it look261that his staysail blew off, but we knew better––a knife to the halyards did the work.
It was after her big staysail was off and she making easier weather of it that the Withrow crossed the Lucy’s bow for the first time in the race and took the lead.
We all felt for Mr. Duncan, who couldn’t seem to believe his eyes. We all felt for Wesley, too, who was desperately trying to hold the wind of the Withrow––he had even rigged blocks to his jib sheets and led them to cleats clear aft to flatten his headsails yet more. And Wesley’s crew hauled like demons on those jib sheets––hauled and hauled with the vessel under way all the time––hauled so hard, in fact, that with the extra purchase given them by the blocks they pulled the cleats clean out, and away went the Lucy’s jib and jumbo––and there was Wesley hung up. And out of the race, for we were all too near the finish for her to win out then unless the Johnnie and the Withrow capsized entirely.
Mr. Duncan, when he saw the Lucy’s crew trying to save the headsails, couldn’t contain himself.
“Cut ’em away––cut ’em to hell!” he sang out, and we all had to smile, he spoke so excitedly. But it was no use. The Lucy was out of the race, and going by her, we didn’t look at Mr. Duncan nor262Wesley Marrs––we knew they were both taking it hard––but watched the Withrow.
Over on the other tack we went, first the Withrow, then the Johnnie. We were nearing the finish line, and we were pretty well worked up––the awful squalls were swooping down and burying us. We could hear Hollis’s voice and see his crew go up when he warned his men at the wheel to ease up on her when the squalls hit. On our vessel the skipper never waved an arm nor opened his mouth to Clancy at the wheel. And of his own accord you may be sure that Clancy wasn’t easing up. Not Tommie Clancy––no, sir––he just drove her––let her have it full––lashed her like, with his teeth and eyes flashing through the sea that was swashing over him. And the Johnnie fairly sizzled through the water.
There were several times in the race when we thought the going was as bad as could be, but now we were all sure that this was the worst of all. There was some excuse for Mr. Duncan when he called out:
“My God, Tommie, but if she makes one of those low dives again, will she ever come up?”
“I dunno,” said Clancy to that. “But don’t you worry, Mr. Duncan, if any vessel out of Gloucester’ll come up, this one’ll come up.”
He was standing with the water, the clear water,263not the swash, well up to his waist then, and we could hear him:
“Oh, I love old Ocean’s smile,I love old Ocean’s frowning––I love old Ocean all the while,My prayer’s for death by drowning.”
“Oh, I love old Ocean’s smile,I love old Ocean’s frowning––I love old Ocean all the while,My prayer’s for death by drowning.”
“Oh, I love old Ocean’s smile,
I love old Ocean’s frowning––
I love old Ocean all the while,
My prayer’s for death by drowning.”
That was too much for Mr. Duncan, and, watching his chance, he dove between the house and rail, to the weather rigging, where the skipper grabbed him and made him fast beside himself. The old man took a look down the slant of the deck and took a fresh hold of the rigging.
“Captain Blake, isn’t she down pretty low?”
“Maybe––maybe––Mr. Duncan, but she’ll go lower yet before the sail comes off her. This is the day Sam Hollis was going to make me take in sail.”
Less than a minute after that we made our rush for the line. Hollis tried to crowd us outside the stake-boat, which was rolling head to wind and sea, worse than a lightship in a surf gale––tried to crowd us out just as an awful squall swooped down. It was the Johnnie or the Withrow then. We took it full and they didn’t, and there is all there was to it. But for a minute it was either vessel’s race. At the critical time Sam Hollis didn’t have the nerve, and the skipper and Clancy did.
264
They looked at each other––the skipper and Clancy––and Clancy soaked her. Held to it cruelly––recklessly. It was too much to ask of a vessel. Down she went––buried. It was heaven or hell, as they say, for a while. I know I climbed on to her weather run, and it was from there I saw Withrow ducking her head to it––hove to, in fact, for the blast to pass.
The Johnnie weathered it. Able––able. Up she rose, a horse, and across the line we shot like a bullet, and so close to the judge’s boat that we could have jumped aboard.
We all but hit the Henry Clay Parker, Billie Simms’s vessel, on the other side of the line, and it was on her that old Peter of Crow’s Nest, leaping into the air and cracking his heels together, called out as we drove by:
“The Johnnie Duncan wins––the able Johnnie Duncan––sailin’ across the line on her side and her crew sittin’ out on the keel.”
265XXXIVMINNIE ARKELL ONCE MORE
We were hardly across the line when there was a broom at our truck––a new broom that I know I, for one, never saw before. And yet I suppose every vessel that sailed in the race that day had a new broom hid away somewhere below––to be handy if needed.
But it was the Johnnie Duncan, sailing up the harbor, that carried hers to the truck. And it was Mr. Duncan who stood aft of her and took most of the cheers, and it was Clancy and Long Steve who waved their hands from the wheel-box, and it was the skipper who leaned against the weather rigging, and the rest of us who lined the weather rail and answered the foolish questions of people along the road.
Every vessel we met seemed to think we had done something great; and I suppose we had in a way––that is, skipper, crew and vessel. We had out-carried and out-sailed the best out of Gloucester in a breeze that was a breeze. We had taken the chance of being capsized or hove-down and266losing the vessel and ourselves. Mr. Duncan, I think, realized more than anybody else at the time what we had been through. “I didn’t know what it really was to be,” he said, “before I started. If I had, I doubt very much if I’d have started.” We all said––“No, no, you’d have gone just the same, Mr. Duncan;” and we believed he would, too.
Going up the harbor somebody hinted to Clancy that he ought to go and have a mug-up for himself after his hard work––and it had been hard work. “And I’ll take your place at the wheel,” said that somebody, “for you must be tired, Tommie.”
“And maybe I am tired, too,” answered Clancy, “but if I am, I’m just thick enough not to know it. But don’t fool yourself that if I stood lashed to this wheel since she crossed the starting line this morning I’m going to quit it now and let you take her up the harbor and get all the bouquets. I’ll have a mug-up by and by, and it’ll be a mug-up, don’t you worry.”
And it was a mug-up. He took the gold and silver cup given to Maurice as a skipper of the winning vessel, and with the crew in his wake headed a course for the Anchorage, where he filled it till it flowed––and didn’t have to pay for filling it, either.
“It’s the swellest growler that I ever expect to empty. Gold and silver––and holds six quarts267level. Just a little touch all round, and we’ll fill her up again. ‘Carte blanche, and charge it to me,’ says Mr. Duncan.”
“What kind is carte blanche, Tommie?” asked Andie Howe.
“They’ll tell you behind the bar,” said Clancy.
“Billie,” ordered Andie, “just a little touch of carte blanche, will you, while Clancy’s talking. He’s the slowest man to begin that ever I see. Speeches––speeches––speeches, when your throat’s full of gurry––dry, salty gurry. A little touch of that carte blanche that Mr. Duncan ordered for the crew of the Johnnie Duncan, Billie, will you?”
“Carte blanche––yes,” went on Clancy, “and I callate the old fizzy stuff’s the thing to do justice to this fe-lic-i-tous oc-ca-sion. Do I hear the voice of my shipmates? Aye, aye, I hear them––and in accents unmistakable. Well, here’s a shoot––six quarts level––and a few pieces of ice floating around on top. My soul, but don’t it look fine and rich? Have a look, everybody.”
“Let’s have a drink instead,” hollered Parsons.
Clancy paid no attention to that. “Who was the lad in that Greek bunch in the old days that they sank up to his neck in the lake––cold sparkling water––and peaches and oranges and grapes floating on a little raft close by––but him fixed so he couldn’t bend his head down to get a drink nor268lift his head to take a bite of fruit––and hot weather all the time, mind you. Lord, the thirst he raised after a while! What was his––oh, yes, Tantalus––that’s the lad, Tantalus––the cold sparkling water. Man, the thirst he–––”
“The thirst of Tantalus ain’t a patch on the thirst I got. And this is something better than cold sparkling water. That’s you all over, Tommie––joking at serious times,” wailed Parsons.
“Is it as bad as that with you, Eddie? Well, let’s forget Tantalus and drink instead to the able-est, handsom-est, fast-est vessel that ever weathered Eastern Point––to the Johnnie Duncan––and her skipper.”
“And Mr. Duncan, Tommie––he’s all right, too.”
“Yes, of course, Mr. Duncan. And while we’re at it, here’s to the whole blessed gang of us––skipper, owner and crew––we’re all corkers.”
“Drive her, Tommie!” roared a dozen voices, and Tommie drove her for a good pint before he set the cup down again.
It was a great celebration altogether. Wherever one of our gang was there was an admiring crowd. Nobody but us was listened to. And the questions we had to answer! And of course we were all willing enough to talk. We must have told the story of the race over about twenty times269each. After a while, of course, some of our fellows, with all the entertaining and admiration that was handed out to them, had to put a touch or two to it. It was strong enough to tell the bare facts of that race, I thought, but one or two had to give their imaginations a chance. One man, a fisherman, one of those who had been on one of the excursion boats, and so didn’t see the race at all, came along about two hours after the Duncan crew struck the Anchorage and listened to Andie Howe for a while. And going away it was he who said, “It must have been a race that. As near as I c’n make it out the Johnnie sailed most of that race keel up.”
“Oh, don’t go away mad,” Andie called after him. “Come back and have a little touch of carte blanche––it’s on the old man.”
“I’ll take it for him,” came a voice. It was old Peter of Crow’s Nest, who took his drink and asked for Clancy. Clancy was in the back part of the room, and I ran and got him. Peter led the way to the sidewalk.
“Tommie, go and get Maurice, if it ain’t too late.”
“What is it?”
“It’s Minnie Arkell. Coming up the dock after the race she ran up and grabbed him and threw her arms about his neck. ‘You’re the man to sail a270race in heavy weather,’ she hollers, and a hundred people looking on. And there’s half a dozen of those friends of hers and they’re up to her house and now making ready for a wine celebration. Go and get him before it is too late.”
271XXXVCLANCY LAYS DOWN THE LAW
Clancy started on the run and I after him. “We’ll go to his boarding-house first, Joe, and if he’s not there, to Minnie Arkell’s.”
He wasn’t in his boarding-house, and we hurried out. On the sidewalk we almost ran into little Johnnie Duncan.
“Oh, Captain Clancy––or you, Joe Buckley––won’t you tell me about the race? Grandpa was too busy to tell me, but went down the wharf with a lot of people to show them the Johnnie Duncan. They all left the office and told me to mind it. And my cousin Alice came in with Joe’s cousin Nell. And I saw Captain Blake with some people and ran after him and I just caught up with him and they went off and left me. And then a little while ago he came back by himself and ran toward the dock and didn’t even see me. And Captain Blake used to be so good to me!” Poor Johnnie was all but crying.
“Toward the dock? That’s good,” breathed Clancy. “Stay here, Johnnie, and we’ll tell you272about the race when we get back,” and led the way to Mr. Duncan’s office.
We found the skipper in the outer office, standing beside the bookkeeper’s desk and looking out of the window next the slip. Hearing us coming he turned and then we saw that he held in his hands an open box with a string of beautiful pearls. Noticing us gaze at the pearls in surprise, he said, “Mr. Duncan gave me these for winning the race. And I took them, thinking that somebody or other might like them.”
“And don’t she?” asked Clancy––it seemed to slip out of Tommie without his knowing it.
“I guess not,” said Maurice. Only then did it flash on me what it all might mean.
“Did you try?” asked Clancy.
“Try! Yes, and was made a fool of. Oh, what’s the use––what in hell’s the use?” He stood silent a moment. “I guess not,” he said then––looked out the window again, and hove the whole string out of the open window and into the slip.
Clancy and myself both jumped to stop him, but we weren’t quick enough. They were gone––the whole beautiful necklace. The skipper fixed his eyes on where they had struck the water. Then he turned and left the office. At the door he stopped and said: “I don’t know––maybe I won’t take the Johnnie next trip, and if I don’t, Tommie,273I hope you’ll take her––Mr. Duncan will let you have her if you want. I hope you’ll take her anyway, for you know what a vessel she is. You’ll take care of her––” and went and left us.
Clancy swore to himself for a while. He hadn’t quite done when the door of the rear office opened and Miss Foster herself came out. She greeted me sweetly––she always did––but was going out without paying any attention to Clancy. She looked pale––although perhaps I would not have noticed her paleness particularly only for what had just happened.
I was surprised to see then what Clancy did. Before she had got to the door he was beside her.
“Miss Foster, Miss Foster,” he said, and his tone was so different from what I had ever heard from him before that I could hardly believe it. He was a big man, it must be remembered, and still on him were the double-banked oilskins and heavy jack-boots he wore through the race. Also his face was flushed from the excitement of the day––the salt water was not yet dry on him and his eyes were shining, shining not alone with the glow of a man who had been lashed to a wheel steering a vessel in a gale––and, too, to victory––for hours, and not alone with the light that comes from two or three quarts of champagne––it was something274more than that. Whatever it was it surprised me and held Alice Foster’s attention.
“Mister Clancy,” she said, and turned to him.
“Yes, Mister Clancy––or Tommie Clancy––or Captain Clancy, as it is at times––master of an odd vessel now and again––but Clancy all the time––just Clancy, good-for-nothing Clancy––hard drinker––reveller––night-owl––disturber of the peace––at best only a fisherman who’ll by and by go out and get lost like thousands of the other fishermen before him––as a hundred every year do now and have three lines in the paper––name, age, birthplace, street and number of his boarding-house, and that will be the end of it. But that don’t matter––Tommie Clancy, whatever he is, is a friend of Maurice Blake’s. And he means to speak a word for Maurice.
“For a long time now, Miss Foster, Maurice has thought the world of you. He never told me––he never told anybody. But I know him. He waited a long time, I’m sure, before he even told himself––maybe even before he knew it himself. But I knew it––bunk-mates, watch-mates, dory-mates we’ve been. He’s master of a fine vessel now and I’m one of his crew. He’s gone ahead and I’ve stayed behind. Why? Because he’s carried in his heart the picture of a girl he thought could be all a woman ought to be to a man. And that was well275A man like Maurice needs that, and maybe––maybe––you’re all that he thought and more maybe, Miss Foster. Wait––he had that picture before his eyes all the time. I hadn’t any picture. Years ago, when I was Maurice’s age, I might have had something like it, and now look at me. And why? Why, Miss Foster, you’re a woman––could you guess? No? Think. What’s running in a man’s head, do you think, in the long winter nights when he’s walking the deck, with the high heavens above and the great, black rolling sea around him? What’s in his head when, trawls hauled and his fish aboard, when the danger and the hard work are mostly by, his vessel’s going to the west’ard? What when he’s an hour to rest and he’s lying, smoking and thinking, in his bunk? What’s been in Maurice’s head and in his heart all the years he’s loafed with the likes of me and yet never fell to my level? Anything he ever read anywhere, do you think, or was it a warm image that every time he came ashore and was lucky enough to get a look at you he could see was true to the woman it stood for? When you had no more idea of it than what was going on at the North Pole he was watching you––and thinking of you. Always thinking of you, Miss Foster. He never thought he had a chance. I know him. Who asks a woman like you to share a fisherman’s life? Is it276a man like Maurice? Sometimes––maybe with the blood racing through him after a great race he might. A while ago he did, Miss Foster. And what gave him the courage?
“Listen to me now, Miss Foster, and say what you please afterward. Maurice and I are friends. Friends. I’ve been with him on the bottom of a capsized dory when we both expected we’d hauled our last trawl––with the seas washing over us and we both getting weak and him getting black in the face––and maybe I was, too. I told you this once before, but let me tell it again. ‘Come and take the plug strap, Tommie,’ he says to me. ‘Come and take the plug strap.’ Do you know what that means, Miss Foster?––and the seas sweeping over you and your whole body getting numb? And I’ve been with him four days and four nights––astray in the fog of the Western Banks in winter, and, for all we knew and believed, we were gone. In times like those men get to know each other, and I tell you, Miss Foster––” Clancy choked and stopped. “To-day he sailed a race the like of which was never sailed before. A dozen times he took the chance of himself going over the rail. And why? The better to keep an eye on things and help his vessel along? Yes. But why that? For that cup we’ve drowned a dozen times in wine to-day? He never looked277twice at it when he got ashore. He hasn’t seen it since he handed it to me on the dock. The boys might like to look at it, he said. He’s forgot he ever won it by now. He let us take it up to a rum-shop and drink out of it the same as if it was a tin-pail––the beautiful gold and silver cup––engraved. We used it for a growler for all Maurice cared for the value of it, and there’s forty men walking the streets now that’s got a list they got out of that cup. We might have lost it, battered each other’s drunken heads in with it, and he wouldn’t have said a dozen words about it. But there was a necklace of pearls, and he thought you’d like them. ‘To you, Maurice, for winning the race,’ says Mr. Duncan, ‘for winning the race,’ and hands Maurice the pearls––your own guardian, Miss Foster, and most crazy, he was that pleased. And that’s what Maurice ran up to get when the race was over––there was something a girl might like, or thought so. And then what? On the way down a woman that I know––that you know––tried to hold him up. Kissed him before a hundred people––she knew you were waiting––she knew, trust a woman––and walked down part way with him, because you were looking. And he being a man, and weak, and only twenty-six––and the racing blood still running through him––maybe forgot himself for five minutes––not knowing you278were within a mile. That doesn’t excuse him? No, you’re right, it don’t. But he, poor boy, knowing nothing––what does a boy of twenty-six know?––knowing nothing––suspecting nothing––and yet, if he forgot himself, he never really forgot you. He hurries on to you and offers you the necklace that he risked his life to get. And you––what did you say?”
“What did I say? I told him that perhaps he knew somebody that he’d rather give it to before me–––”
“Before you? There’s a woman. You’re not satisfied when a man fights all the devil in himself for you, but you must rub it into him while he’s doing it. Maurice––or maybe you don’t understand. You could say things like that to a dog––if a dog could understand––and he’d come back and lick your hand. Maurice has blood and fire in him. And here’s a woman––whatever else she is––is warm-blooded too. She wants Maurice, and, by God, she’ll get him if you keep on. Do you remember the night of the Master Mariners’ ball––the night before we sailed on the Southern cruise? Well, that night this woman, she waits for Maurice and stops him on his way home. But she didn’t get him. He was up in the wind for a minute or two, but one spoke of the wheel and he found his head again. Again last June in Newport on a279warm summer’s night––flowers, music, wine––the cabin of a beautiful yacht––she asks him to wait over a day or two in Newport harbor. Does he? Does he? Not Maurice. With never a touch of the wheel, off he swings and drives for home. And why didn’t he stay? Why, do you suppose? Didn’t he tell you a while ago? Good God! Look here––you’re no fool. Look at me––ten years ago I was another Maurice. And this woman––I tell you she knows men. She don’t care whether a man is rich or poor, tall or short, thin or fat, so long as she likes him. And I tell you she loves Maurice––as well as she can love––and she’s not a good enough woman––there it is. And they’re all saying you’re likely to marry Withrow. Wait now. Withrow, I’m telling you, isn’t fit to wash the gurry off Maurice’s jack-boots. I’m a careless man, Miss Foster, and in my life I’ve done things I wish now I hadn’t, but I draw the line above the head of a man like Withrow. Whatever I am, I’m too good to be company for Fred Withrow. And on top of all that he’s so carried away with this other woman––this same woman––and she caring more for Maurice’s eyelash than Withrow’s whole two hundred and ten pounds––Withrow is so carried away with her that he is ready to elope with her––elope with her! I know that––never mind how. Bring Withrow and me together, and280I’ll tell him––tell him, yes, and throw him through the door afterward if he denies it. This woman is enough of a woman to want Maurice––Maurice with nothing at all––before Withrow with all he’s got and all he can get her or give her––and she’s clever enough to come pretty near getting what she wants. And now, Miss Foster, suppose you think it over. I’m going to hunt up Maurice, though I’m not too sure we’ll find him in a hurry. Good-by.”
He swept his sou’wester wide to her and went out the door. I said good-by without looking at her. I was too ashamed––and went after Clancy. But I think she was crying to herself as I went out.
281XXXVIMAURICE BLAKE IS RECALLED
The morning after the race I was eating breakfast at home and I could not remember when I enjoyed a meal like that one. I had had a fine long sleep and the sleep that comes to a man after he’s been through a long and exciting experience does make him feel like a world-beater. I felt that I could go out and about leap the length of a seine-boat or rip up a plank sidewalk. It was worth while to be alive, and everything tasted so good.
I had put away six fried eggs and about fourteen of those little slices of bacon before I even thought of slacking up (with my mother piling them up as fast as I lifted them off)––and maybe I wouldn’t have slacked then only my cousin Nell came skipping in.
She kissed my mother half a dozen times, and danced around the room. “Four vessels off the Johnnie Duncan’s model have already been ordered. Four, auntie––four. There will be a fleet of them yet, you’ll see. And how are you, Joe?”
“Fine,” I said, and kept on eating.
282
Nell didn’t like my not noticing how glad she was feeling, I suppose, for all at once, as I was about to sugar another cup of coffee, she ran her hands through my hair and yanked till I couldn’t pretend any longer.
“There, now, with your mind off your stomach, perhaps you’ll look up and converse when a lady deigns to notice you. How much money did Mr. Withrow lose on the race?”
“I don’t know, but it was a good pile; I know that.”
“And how much did Mr. Duncan win?”
“I don’t know that, either; but I hope it was a good roll, for he won about all Withrow lost.”
“M-m––but aren’t you in love with your old employer? But let’s not mind common money matters. What do you think of the Johnnie Duncan for a vessel?”
“She’s a dog––a dog.”
“Isn’t she! And the fastest, able-est and the handsomest vessel that ever sailed past Eastern Point, isn’t she?”
“That’s what she is.”
“And who designed her?”
“Who? Let me see. Oh, yes, some local man.”
“You don’t know! Look up here. Who designed her!”
“Oh, yes. ’Twas a Gloucester man.”
283
“A Gloucester man? Look up again. Now––who––de––signed––the––John––nie––Dun––can!”
“Ouch, yes. A ver-y fine and a-ble––and handsome gen-tle-man––a wonderful man.”
“That’s a little better. And his name?”
“William Somers––William the Illustrious––William the First––‘First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of Gloucestermen’––and if you let me stand up, I’ll do a break-down to show you how glad I am.”
“Now you’re showing something like appreciation. And now where do you suppose your friend Clancy is and your skipper?”
“Clancy? Lord knows. Maybe in a circle of admiring friends, singing whatever is his latest. ‘Hove flat down’ was the last I heard. If it was earlier in the day––about three in the morning––it would be pretty sure to be that.”
“What a pity, and he such a fine man otherwise!”
“What’s a pity?”
“Why, his getting drunk, as I hear he does very often.”
“Gets drunk? Who gets drunk? Clancy? That’s news to me. As long as I’ve known him I never saw him drunk yet. He gets mellow and loose––but drunk! Clancy drunk? Why, Nell!”
284
“Oh, well, all right, he’s an apostle of temperance then. But Captain Blake––where is he?”
“I couldn’t say––why?”
“I have a message for him.”
“Did you try his boarding-house?”
“Yes. That is, Will did, and he wasn’t there, hadn’t been there at all, they said, since the afternoon before.”
“That so? Where else did you try? Duncan’s office?”
“We did, and no word of him there.”
“Try Clancy’s boarding-house?”
“Yes, and no word.”
“Try––h-m––the Anchorage?”
“Oh, Joe, you don’t think he’s been loafing there since?”
“No, I don’t. And yet after the way he got turned down yesterday, you know––there’s no telling what a man might do.”
“Well, Will looked in there, too.”
“You fat little fox! Why didn’t you say that at first? And no word?”
“No.”
“Well, I don’t know where he’d be then.”
“Nor I, except––did you notice the wind has hauled to the northwest?”
“I did.”
“Well. Do you know that old vessel that Mr.285Withrow’s been trying to get a crew for––the Flamingo?”
“M-h-h.”
“Well, this morning early she went out––on a hand-lining trip to the east’ard, it is said. And Will says that he thinks––he doesn’t know, mind you, because they won’t tell him anything down to Withrow’s––but he thinks that Maurice Blake’s shipped in her.”
“Wow! She won’t last out one good breeze on the Banks.”
“That is just what Will said. And it’s too bad, for I had a message for him––a message that would make everything all right. I suppose you can guess?”
“Guess? H-m-m––I don’t know as I want to.”
“Well, don’t get mad about it, anyway. How would you feel if you saw that horrid Minnie Arkell rush up and––Oh, you know what I mean. However, I’ve been pleading with Alice since yesterday afternoon. For two hours I was up in her room last evening, and poor Will walking the veranda down below. I put Captain Blake’s case as I thought a friend of his would put it––as you would put it, say––perhaps better in some ways––for I could not forget that he sailed the Johnnie Duncan yesterday, and her winning meant so much286to Will. Yes, and I’m not forgetting Clancy and the rest of her crew––indeed, I’m not––I felt as though I could kiss every one of them.”
“Well, here’s one of them.”
“Don’t get saucy because your mother is standing by. Go and find Maurice Blake. Go ahead, won’t you, Joe? Tell him that everything is all right. She is proud.”
“That’s a nice sounding word for it––pride. Stuck on herself is what I’d say.”
“No, she isn’t. You must allow a woman self-respect, you know.”
“I guess so. And it must be her long suit, seeing she’s always leading from it.”
“Oh, keep your fishermen’s jokes for the mugging-up times on your vessel. You go and get Maurice Blake––or find Mr. Clancy and have him get him––if he hasn’t gone on the Flamingo.”
So I went out. On a cruise along the water front I found a whole lot of people. I saw Wesley Marrs and Tommie Ohlsen––sorrowful and neither saying much––looking after their vessels––Ohlsen seeing to a new gaff. “I ought to’ve lost,” said Ohlsen. “Look at that for a rotten piece of wood.” Sam Hollis was around, too, trying to explain how it was he didn’t win the race. But he couldn’t explain to anybody’s satisfaction how his stays’l went nor why he hove-to when that squall struck him––the287same squall that shot the Johnnie Duncan across the line. Tom O’Donnell was there, looking down on the deck of the vessel in which he took so much pride. “Two holes in her deck where her spars ought to be,” he was saying when I came along. I asked him if he had seen Maurice that morning, and it was from him I learned for certain that Maurice had shipped on the Flamingo. “I didn’t see her leaving, boy, but Withrow himself told me this morning. ‘And I hope he’ll never come back,’ he said at the same time. ‘’Tis you that takes a licking hard. But maybe ’tis the insurance,’ I says. ‘If that’s what you’re thinking,’ says he, ‘she isn’t insured.’ ‘Then it must be the divil’s own repair she’s in when no company at all will insure her,’ I says. Sure, we had hard words over it, but that won’t bring back Maurice––he’s gone in the Flamingo, Joe.”
I went after Clancy then, and after a long chase, that took me to Boston and back, I caught up with him. He was full of repentance and was gloomy. It was up in his boarding-house––in his room. He, looking tired, was thinking of taking a kink of sleep.
“Hulloh, Joe! And I don’t wonder you look surprised, Joe. I must be getting old. Thursday morning I got up after as fine a night’s sleep as a man’d want. That was Thursday. Then Thursday288night, Friday, Friday night, Saturday––two nights and three days, and I’m sleepy already. Sleepy, Joe, and I remember the time I could go a whole week, and then, after a good night’s sleep, wake up fine and daisy and be ready for another week. Joe, there’s a moral in that if you can only work it out.”
Clancy stayed silent after that, not inclined to talk, I could see, until I told him about Maurice having shipped in the Flamingo and the hard crew that had gone in her.
That stirred him. “Great Lord, gone in that shoe-box! Why, Joe, I’d as soon put to sea in a market basket calked with butter. And the man that’s got her––Dave Warner! He’s crazy, Joe, if ever a man was crazy. Clean out of his head over a girl that he met in Gloucester once, but now living in Halifax, and she won’t have anything to do with him. He’s daffy over her. If she was drowning alongside you’d curse your luck because you had to gaff her in. That is, you would only she’s a woman, of course. Wants to get lost, Joe, I believe––wants to! If this was Boston or New York and in older days, I’d say that Dave and Withrow must have shanghaied a crew to man the Flamingo’s kind. But you c’n get men here to go in anything sometimes. Wait a bit and I’ll be along with you. We’ll see old Duncan and maybe we c’n head the Flamingo off.”