The Seiners Part 18

Yet next morning when Wesley Marrs went by us with the Lucy Foster bound for home and sang out, "Come along, Maurice, and get ready for the race--we'll have a brush on the way," our skipper only waved his hand and said, "No--this old plug can't sail." Wesley looked mighty puzzled at that, but kept on his way.

XXV

TROUBLE WITH THE DOMINION CUTTERS

Next day after, in a calm, Clancy and I had to take the dory and row out among the fleet for some salt. The skipper thought it likely that some of the vessels that were going home might have salt to spare. He doubted if he himself would have enough in case we struck another good school. So we rowed out. We went from one vessel to another without any luck, until we found ourselves aboard Tom O'Donnell--the Colleen Bawn. And just as we got aboard a school showed near by her, and they made a dash for it. The Colleen was pretty well insh.o.r.e then, and yet safe outside the three-mile limit in our judgment. Even in the judgment of one of the Canadian revenue cutters, the Mink, she was outside the limit. "You're all right, go ahead," her commander sang out from the bridge.

Yet trouble came of it. The Colleen's gang were making a set when along came the Lynx, the same cutter that had ordered our own skipper not to set two or three days back in the fog, and we had set in spite of him. I think I said that he had a bad reputation among our fleet.

In this case some said afterwards that he had been watching the Duncan since that time, and having seen a dory put out from her and go aboard Tom O'Donnell, that he then had a special watch for O'Donnell. Anyway, we know that as the Colleen Bawn's crew were pursing in the seine he came along and ordered them to cast loose the fish. "You're inside the limit," said this fellow now.

"I may be, but I don't think so," said O'Donnell to that.

"You're inside and you know it."

"You're a liar if you say I know it."

O'Donnell had had trouble with the Lynx before, and had small patience with her captain. More words came out of it, and while they were talking back and forth another of the fleet a mile to the east'ard put out a boat.

The cutter went after him, her captain singing out as he went, "You wait here till I come back." "Wait like h.e.l.l!" said O'Donnell, "and this breeze making," and continued to purse up. Pursed up, the fish aboard--there were forty or fifty barrels--he started off. One of those sudden breezes were springing up and it promised to be wind enough to suit anybody. We made out the Johnnie Duncan bearing down, intending no doubt to take off Clancy and me. But the cutter was coming toward us then, and O'Donnell said we had better stay aboard or we would be picked up on the way by the cutter's people and maybe get the Duncan and our skipper into trouble. That last--the thought that our skipper or the vessel might get mixed up in it--kept us aboard the Colleen Bawn.

The Lynx could steam as fast as any cutter they had on the Cape sh.o.r.e at that time, but the Colleen was a witch and O'Donnell a wonder at sailing her. So we stayed with O'Donnell and watched him and the cutter have it out. They had it, the cutter letting drive a shot every once in a while. The first shot, I remember, went whistling by the ear of one of O'Donnell's crew who was standing back-to in the waist, and so astonished him, he not expecting it, that he fell into the forehold. He raised a great racket among a lot of empty barrels. The fall never hurt him, but the things he said when he came on deck again! O'Donnell made him lie flat--and then all of us but Clancy, who refused to lie down but compromised by leaning over the house and watching the cutter and making comments on her actions for the benefit of the rest of us. Through it all O'Donnell stood to the wheel and the nearest he came to honoring the cutter by a compliment was when he'd half turn his head, spit over the rail and swear at her. The wind and sea-way together were too much for the cutter. The Colleen left her behind, and she at last drew off after bunching a few farewell shots.

O'Donnell then hove-to and took his seine-boat on deck. He had been towing it the wrong end foremost for the whole forty miles, and he was worried over it. "It's strained her maybe--and she almost a new boat,"

he lamented. "For the rest I don't care. That lad had it in for me all along. The other one though, he's decent--never bothers a man without a little reason. I was going home anyway for the race, and so it don't matter. I suppose Maurice will be along soon, Tommie? Did you see him coming after the cutter--he held her fine and he in no trim. What's it they say about Hollis beating the Johnnie yesterday? If he did, be sure he was specially prepared, and the Johnnie had an off-day. But I suppose he'll be holding on now for Gloucester?"

Clancy said maybe, but no telling, and explained how it had been--the skipper's discouragement after Hollis had beaten him.

O'Donnell said he was foolish to worry over a thing like that. "I know Sam Hollis," he said--"'twas a trap he laid for Maurice. He's got a smart vessel in the Withrow, but he can't run away from Maurice. No, nor beat him I doubt--with both in trim. But wait a while--let the day of the race get near and Maurice to thinking it over, and you'll see him flyin' home."

We hoped so. For ourselves we went home on the Colleen. There was nothing else for us to do. We had quite a time of it that trip with O'Donnell. He sailed about five hundred miles out of his way--away to the eastward and s'uth'ard. There might be cruisers and cutters galore after him, he said--they might put out from Halifax, or telegraph ahead--you couldn't tell what they might do, he said, and so he sailed the Colleen out to sea. But we came across the Bay one dark night without side-lights, and reached Boston all right. O'Donnell had a suit of sails stowed away in an East Boston wharf that he wanted to get out for the race. And also he didn't like his new foremast and was going to have a new one put in if there was time.

XXVI

THE GOSSIP IN GLOUCESTER

Clancy and I went home by train, reaching Gloucester as the first of an easterly gale set in. There we found it was nothing but talk of the race. We had not reached Main Street at all before Clancy was held up.

Clancy, of course, would know. Where was Maurice Blake? What were we doing in Gloucester and the Johnnie not in? The Duncans--especially the elder Mr. Duncan--Miss Foster, my cousin Nell, and Will Somers were boiling over. Where was Maurice Blake? Where was the Johnnie Duncan? Everybody in town seemed to know that Sam Hollis had given us a bad beating down Cape sh.o.r.e way, and the news had a mighty discouraging effect on all Maurice's friends, even on those of them who knew enough of Sam Hollis not to take his talk just as he wanted them to take it. Withrow's vessel had beaten the Johnnie Duncan with Maurice Blake sailing her--they had to believe that part of it, and that in itself was bad enough. Sam Hollis's stock was booming, you may be sure--and the race right close to hand, too.

"That little beating the Johnnie got didn't lose any in the telling by Sam Hollis and his gang, did it, Joe?" said Clancy to me, and then he went around borrowing all the money he could to bet the Johnnie Duncan would beat the Withrow in the race. But would Maurice now enter at all? I asked Clancy about that part--if there was not a chance that Maurice might not stay down the Cape sh.o.r.e way and let the race go.

But he only laughed and said, "Lord--Joey-boy, you've a lot to learn yet about Maurice in spite of your season's seining along with him."

It was a Monday morning when Clancy and I reached Gloucester. The race was to be sailed on Friday of that same week. For several days before this, we were told, Wesley Marrs, Sam Hollis, Tommie Ohlsen, and the rest of them had been out in the Bay tuning up their vessels like a lot of cup defenders. Never before had fishermen given so much attention to the little details before a race. The same day that we got home they were up on the ways for a final polis.h.i.+ng and primping up. They were smooth as porcelain when they came off. And coming off their skippers thought they had better take some of the ballast out of them. "'Tisn't as if it was winter weather"--it was the middle of September then--"with big seas and driving gales," was the way Wesley Marrs put it, and they all agreed that the chances were ten to one that the wind would not be strong enough to call for the heavy ballast they carried. Fishermen, of course, are built to be at their best when wind and sea are doing their worst, and so the taking out of ballast for a September race looked like good judgment. So about forty tons of ballast were taken out of most of them--the Lucy Foster, the Withrow, the Nannie O, and half a dozen others.

That looked all right, but on Tuesday night an easterly gale set in, the wind blowing forty-odd miles an hour. All day Wednesday it blew, and all day Thursday even harder, with a promise of blowing harder still on Friday, which was to be the day of the race. The people of Gloucester who had been praying for wind, "Wind for a fisherman's race--wind--wind," seemed likely to get what they wanted.

On Thursday I saw Tommie Ohlsen and Wesley Marrs in conference on the street. Wesley had his nose up in the air, sniffing the breeze. He shook his head with, "Tommie, I ought to've let the ballast stay in the Lucy. It looks like it's going to be the devil's own breeze for vessels that ain't prepared for it."

"Yes," said Ohlsen, "wind fifty-two mile an hour the weather man says, and still making. That's bad for light ballast and whole sail. If we could only put the ballast back----"

"Yes--if we could. But we can't put it back now--there ain't time to do it right and everybody would laugh at us too. And besides, if we did, all the others would put it back, and where's the difference?"

"Of course," said Tommie, "but if all of us would put it back it would make a better race."

In view of the reputation of Wesley Marrs and Ohlsen and O'Donnell and their vessels, we could not understand the confidence of Withrow and his people in Sam Hollis. He had a great vessel--n.o.body doubted it.

But it was doubted by many if she was the equal of some of the others, and few believed she was better. And Sam Hollis was not the man to carry the sail, or at least the fishermen of Gloucester generally did not think so. But Withrow and Hollis's gang kept on bragging and they backed their bragging up, too. I drew what money I had saved that summer out of my seining share--two hundred and twenty-five dollars--and bet it myself with one of the Withrow's crew that the Johnnie Duncan would beat the Withrow, whether the Johnnie was home to race or not. It was really betting against Withrow himself, who, it was said, was taking up every bet made by any of the Withrow's crew.

That was Thursday afternoon, and still no word of the Duncan.

"Good for you, Joey," said Clancy when he heard of that. "Even if Maurice don't come it's better to lose your money and shut them up.

But don't worry--he'll come. Do you think he's been standing and looking at this easterly--it's all along the coast to Newf'undland I see by the papers--and not swing her off? He's on his way now, and swinging all he's got to her, I'll bet. Wait and see."

"My," said my cousin Nell, "and so you bet your pile on the Johnnie Duncan whether she's in or not?--and if she don't reach here in time you lose it all?" and told it all over to her Will Somers, to whom I learned she was now engaged. And from that time on I noticed that Alice Foster beamed on me like an angel.

Minnie Arkell was home for the race just as Clancy had prophesied. She had come with some of her friends down from Boston three or four days before this, in the same steam-yacht she had been aboard of at Newport in June. Meeting me she asked me about our pa.s.sage home on the Colleen Bawn, and I told her of it. She listened with great interest.

"Is Tom O'Donnell as fine-looking as he used to be--with his grand figure and head and great beard? I remember some years ago I used to think him the finest-looking man I ever saw."

I told her that I guessed she'd think him fine-looking yet if she'd seen him to the wheel of the Colleen Bawn with the six-pound shot whistling by him, and he never so much as letting on he knew they were there. Her eyes shone at that. Then she offered to take any bets I made off my hands. "You can't afford to take your little savings out of the bank and bet it on a vessel that may not be here in time. I'll take it off your hands--come!"

That was an attractive side to her--caring but little for money--but I wasn't letting anybody take my bets off my hands. I still believed that Maurice would be home, though that was seven o'clock Thursday evening. I knew he would be home if he only guessed that his friends were betting on his vessel--and they not even knowing whether she was to be home in time for the race. And if he weren't home, I was ready to lose my little roll.

XXVII

IN CLANCY'S BOARDING-HOUSE

From Minnie Arkell, whom I met at the door of her own house, I went to Clancy's boarding house. I did not find Clancy then and I went off, but coming back again I found him, and a very busy man he was, with an immense crock of punch between his knees. He was explaining down in the kitchen to the other boarders--fifteen or twenty of the thirstiest-looking fishermen I ever laid eyes on--just how it was he made the punch. The bowl was about the size of a little beer keg.

"On the night of last Fourth of July," he was saying--"and I mind we came in that morning with a hundred and seventy-five barrels we got off Mount Desert--that night I warn't very busy. I gets this crock--four gallons--let you all have a look--a nice cold stony crock you see it is, and that they'd been using then in the house here for piccalilli--and a fine flavor still hanging to it. Wait a minute now till I tell you. It'll taste better, too, after you hear. And into the crock I puts two gallons of rum--fine rum it was--for a bottom. Every good punch has to have a bottom. It's like the big blocks they put under a house by way of a foundation, or the ballast down near the keel of a vessel--there'd be no stiffening without it, and the first good breeze she'd capsize, and then where'd you be? Now, on top of those two gallons--it was two o'clock in the morning, I mind, when I started to mix it--whiskey, brandy, and sherry--no, I can't tell what parts of each--for that's the secret of it. A fellow was dory-mate with me once--a Frenchman from Bordeaux--told me and said never to tell, and I gave my oath--down in St. Peer harbor in Miquelon it was--and afterwards he was lost on the Heptagon--and of course, never being released from the oath, I can't tell. Well, there was the rum, the whiskey, the brandy, and the sherry--and on top o' that went one can of canned pine-apple--canned pine is better than the pine-apple right out of its jacket. Why? Well, that's part of the secret. Then a dozen squeezed lemons and oranges. Then some maraschino. I'd got it off an Italian salt bark skipper in the harbor once. On top o' that I put one quart of green tea--boiled it myself--it was three in the morning then, I mind--and I sampled a cup of it. Wait now--wait. Just ease your sheets and let me tell it. Here's the best part of it. I takes that crock with the fourteen quarts of good stuff in it and lowers it to the bottom of the old well out in the yard with a lot of cold round little stones above and below and more little stones packed all around and then I lowers down two good-sized rocks on top o'

that--and nails boards over the well--that's why n.o.body could get into that well all this summer. Well, that was the morning after the last Fourth of July--I mind the sun was coming up over the rocks of Cape Ann when I was done. And that was July, and now the last of September--three months ago. A while ago in the dark and a howling gale--you all see me come in with it, didn't you? Yes, if you go out quick, you c'n see the well just where I left it--I goes out and digs it up--and here it is--and now it's here, we'll all have a little touch in honor of to-morrow, for it's a great day when the wind blows fifty or sixty miles an hour so that fishermen can have good weather for a race."

And they all had a little touch. Clancy sat on the table with the crock between his feet and bailed it out while they all agreed it was the smoothest stuff that ever slid down their throats. There was not a man in the gang who was not sure he could put away a barrel of it.

"Put away a barrel of it?" whispered Clancy--"yes. Let's get out of here, Joe. In an hour they'll be going into the air like firecrackers."