THE 
 SEINERS 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES B. CONNOLLY 
 
 AUTHOR OF "OUT OF GLOUCESTER," 
 "JEB HUTTON," ETC. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 NEW YORK:::::::::::::::::i 9 io 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 
 Published, May, 1904 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 I. THE NEW VESSEL OF WITHROW S . . i 
 
 II. A LITTLE JOG ALONG THE DOCKS . . g 
 
 III. MINNIE ARKELL 16 
 
 IV. LITTLE JOHNNIE DUNCAN STANDS EX 
 
 AMINATION 27 
 
 V. FROM OUT OF CROW S NEST .... 35 
 
 VI. MAURICE BLAKE GETS A VESSEL . . 43 
 
 VII. GLANCY GROSSES MINNIE ARKELL . .51 
 
 VIII. THE SEINING FLEET PUTS OUT TO SEA 61 
 
 IX. MACKEREL 70 
 
 X. WE LOSE OUR SEINE 82 
 
 XI. AN OVER-NIGHT BREEZE 87 
 
 XII. THE FLEET RUNS TO HARBOR ... 99 
 
 XIII. WESLEY MARRS BRINGS A MESSAGE . 119 
 
 XIV. A PROSPECT OF NIGHT-SEINING . . .123 
 XV. GLANCY TO THE MAST-HEAD . . . .129 
 
 XVI. WE GET A FINE SCHOOL 137 
 
 XVII. A DRIVE FOR MARKET 144 
 
 XVIII. A BRUSH WITH THE YACHTING FLEET . 153 
 
 XIX. MINNIE ARKELL AGAIN 159 
 
 v 
 
 248977 
 
Contents 
 
 xx. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 xxv. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE SKIPPER PUTS FOR HOME . . 172 
 
 SEINERS* WORK 175 
 
 ON THE CAPE SHORE 184 
 
 DRESSING DOWN 193 
 
 THE WITHROW OUTSAILS THE DUN 
 CAN 202 
 
 TROUBLE WITH THE DOMINION 
 CUTTERS . 206 
 
 211 
 217 
 
 220 
 2 3 
 235 
 243 
 
 THE GOSSIP IN GLOUCESTER . . . 
 IN CLANCY S BOARDING-HOUSE . . 
 IN THE ARKELL KITCHEN .... 
 MAURICE BLAKE COMES HOME . . 
 THE MORNING OF THE RACE . . . 
 THE START OF THE RACE . . . 
 O DONNELL CARRIES AWAY BOTH 
 
 MASTS 250 
 
 THE ABLE JOHNNIE DUNCAN . . 257 
 MINNIE ARKELL ONCE MORE . . 265 
 CLANCY LAYS DOWN THE LAW . .271 
 MAURICE BLAKE is RECALLED . .281 
 
 THE GIRL IN CANSO 289 
 
 THE DUNCAN GOES TO THE WEST - 
 
 ARD 297 
 
 THE HEART OF CLANCY . . . 309 
 
 VI 
 
THE SEINERS 
 
The Seiners 
 
 THE NEW VESSEL OF WITHROW S 
 
 IT was only a few days before this that the 
 new vessel of Mr. Withrow s, built by him, 
 as everybody supposed, for Maurice Blake, had 
 been towed around from Essex, and I remember 
 how Maurice stood on the dock that afternoon 
 and looked her over. 
 
 There was not a bolt or a plank or a seam in 
 her whole hull, not a square inch inside or out, that 
 he had not been over half a dozen times while 
 she was on the stocks ; but now he had to look her 
 over again, and as he looked his eyes took on a 
 shine. She had been designed by a man famous 
 the world over, and was intended to beat any 
 thing that ever sailed past Eastern Point. 
 
 She certainly was a great-looking model of a 
 vessel, and "If she only sails and handles half so 
 well as she looks, she ll do for me," said Maurice. 
 "Yes, sir, and if she s up to what I think she ought 
 to be, I wouldn t be afraid to bet my share of what 
 
 I 
 
The Seiners 
 
 we make out South that she ll hold her own with 
 anything out of Gloucester give her a few weeks 
 to loosen up, of course." 
 
 That was a good deal to say, for it was a great 
 fleet of vessels sailing out of Gloucester; but even 
 so, even allowing for a young skipper s pride in 
 his first crack vessel, it meant a whole lot coming 
 like that from Maurice Blake. 
 
 And on top of all that Maurice and Withrow 
 had to quarrel, though what about I never found 
 out. I only know that I was ready to believe that 
 Withrow was to blame, for I liked Maurice and 
 did not like Withrow, even though Withrow was 
 the man from whom I drew my pay every week. 
 And yet I could not understand it, for Maurice 
 Blake had been far and away the most successful 
 skipper sailing for Withrow, and Withrow always 
 had a good eye for the dollar. 
 
 No more came of it until this particular morn 
 ing, some days after Maurice and Withrow had 
 quarrelled. Wesley Marrs and Tommie Clancy, 
 two men that I never tired of listening to, were on 
 the dock and sizing up the new vessel. Wesley 
 Marrs was himself a great fisherman, and master 
 at this time of the wonderful Lucy Foster. 
 
 When she swings the main boom over 
 And she feels the wind abaft, 
 
 2 
 
The New Vessel of Withrow s 
 
 The way she ll walk to Gloucester* 11 
 Make a steamer look a raft. 
 
 For she s the Lucy Foster, 
 
 She s a seiner out of Gloucester, 
 
 was the way the fishermen of the port used to sing 
 about the Lucy; while Tommie Clancy was Mau 
 rice Blake s closest friend. 
 
 With ballast stored, masts stepped, rigging set 
 up, and sails bent, setting as sweet as could be to 
 her lines and the lumpers beginning to get her 
 ready for the mackerel season, the Fred Withrow 
 was certainly a picture. 
 
 After a couple of extra long pulls, blowing the 
 smoke into the air, and another look above and 
 below, "That one she ll sail some or I don t 
 know," said Wesley. 
 
 "She sure will," said Tommie; "and it s a 
 jeesly shame Maurice isn t to have her." Then 
 turning to me, "What in the devil s name ails that 
 man you work for, Joey?" 
 
 I said I didn t know. 
 
 "No, nor nobody else knows. I d like to work 
 in that store for him for about ten minutes. I 
 think I d make him say something in that ten 
 minutes that would give me a good excuse for 
 heaving him out the window. He had an argu 
 ment with Maurice, Wesley, and Maurice don t 
 
 3 
 
The Seiners 
 
 know what it was half about, but he knows he 
 came near to punching Withrow." 
 
 And Wesley and Tommie had to talk that out; 
 and between the pair of them, thinking of what 
 they said, I thought I ought to walk back to the 
 store with barely a civil look for my employer, 
 who didn t like that at all, for he generally wanted 
 to hand out the black looks himself. 
 
 Then the girls my cousin Nellie and her par 
 ticular chum, Alice Foster came in to weigh 
 themselves, and also to remind me, they said, that 
 I was to take them over to Essex the next day for 
 the launching of the new vessel for the Duncan 
 firm, which had been designed by a friend of 
 Nell s, a young fellow named Will Somers, who 
 was just beginning to get a name in Gloucester for 
 fast and able models of vessels. Withrow, who 
 was not over-liberal with his holidays, said I might 
 go mostly, I suspect, because Alice Foster had 
 said she would not make the trip without Nell, 
 and Nell would not go unless I went too. 
 
 Then Nell and Miss Foster went on with the 
 business of weighing themselves. That was in 
 line with the latest fad. It was always something 
 or other, and physical culture was in the air at 
 this time with every other girl in Gloucester, so 
 far as I could see either Indian-club swinging 
 or dumb-bell drilling, long walks, and things of 
 
 4 
 
The New Vessel of Withrow s 
 
 that kind, and telling how much better they felt 
 after it. My cousin Nell, who went in for any 
 thing that anybody ever told her about, was try 
 ing to reduce her weight. According to some 
 perfect-form charts, or something or other on 
 printed sheets, she weighed seven pounds more 
 than she should for her height. I thought she was 
 about the right weight myself, and told her so, 
 but she said no she was positively fat. "Look 
 at Alice," she said, "she s just the thing." 
 
 I looked at Alice Miss Foster I always called 
 her myself and certainly she was a lovely girl, 
 though perhaps a little too conscious of it. She 
 was one of the few that weren t going in for any 
 thing that I could see. She wasn t even weighing 
 herself, or at least she didn t until Mr. Withrow, 
 with his company manners in fine working order, 
 asked her if she wouldn t allow him to weigh her. 
 
 There were people in town who said it was 
 not for nothing that Alice Foster was so chummy 
 with my cousin Nell. They meant, of course, that 
 being chummy with Nell, who came down regu 
 larly to see me, gave herself a good excuse to come 
 along and so have a word with Withrow. Fred 
 Withrow himself was a big, well-built, handsome 
 man an unusually good-looking man, I d call 
 him and a great heart-breaker, according to re 
 port some of it his own. And he was wealthy, 
 
 5 
 
The Seiners 
 
 too. I did not know, but somehow or other I did 
 not believe it, or maybe it was that I hoped rather 
 than believed that Miss Foster did not care par 
 ticularly for him; for I did not like him myself, 
 although I worked for him and was taking his 
 money. Being day in and day out with him in 
 the store, you see I saw him pretty much as he 
 really was, and I hated to think of a fine girl 
 for with all her cool ways I knew Miss Foster was 
 that marrying him. Just how Withrow thought 
 he stood with Miss Foster I did not know he 
 was a pretty close-mouthed man when he wanted 
 to be. Miss Foster herself was that reserved kind 
 of a girl that you cannot always place. She struck 
 me as being a girl that would die before she would 
 confess a weakness or a troublesome feeling. And 
 yet, without knowing how it came there, there was 
 always a notion in the back of my head that made 
 me half-believe that she did not come to the store 
 with my cousin out of pure companionship. There 
 was something besides and what could it be but 
 Withrow ? 
 
 After the weighing was done Nell asked me all 
 at once, "I hear, Joe, that Captain Hollis is going 
 to have your new vessel? How is that? We 
 I thought that Captain Blake was going master 
 of her and such a pretty vessel!" 
 
 I answered that I didn t know how it was, and 
 6 
 
The New Vessel of Withrow s 
 
 looked over at my employer, as much as to say, 
 "Maybe he can tell you." 
 
 I think now that I must have been a pretty 
 impudent lad, letting my employer know what I 
 thought of him as I did in those days. I think, 
 too, he had a pretty shrewd notion of what I 
 thought of himself and Maurice Blake. At any 
 rate, after the girls had gone, he worked himself 
 into a fine bit of temper, and I talked back at him, 
 and the end of it was that he discharged me or 
 I quit I m not sure which. I do know that it 
 was rapid-fire talk while it lasted. 
 
 It was some satisfaction to me to tell Withrow 
 just about what I did think of him before I went. 
 He didn t quite throw me out of the door, al 
 though he was big enough for that; but he looked 
 as if he wanted to. And maybe he would have, 
 too, or tried it, only I said, "Mind I don t give 
 you what Tommie Clancy threatened to give you 
 once," and his nerve went flat. I couldn t have 
 handled him as Clancy had any more than I could 
 have hove a barrel of salt mackerel over my head, 
 which was what the strong fishermen of the port 
 were doing about that time to prove their strength ; 
 but the bluff went, and I couldn t help throwing out 
 my chest as I went out the door and thinking that 
 I was getting to be a great judge of human nature. 
 
 7 
 
II 
 
 A LITTLE JOG ALONG THE DOCKS 
 
 I WAS sorry to lose my job. I was twenty years 
 old, without a trade or special knowledge of 
 any kind, and beyond the outfitting of fishing ves 
 sels, knowing nothing of any business, and with 
 no more than a high school education and that 
 two years behind me and I knew of no place in 
 Gloucester where I could begin all over and right 
 away get as much pay as I had left behind me. I 
 might go to Boston, of course, and try for some 
 thing there I was not ten minutes out of With- 
 row s before I thought of doing that. But a little 
 further thought and I knew there were more capa 
 ble men than I walking the streets of Boston look 
 ing for work. However, a lot could happen 
 before I would have to worry, and so I decided 
 to take the air and think it over. 
 
 I might go fishing certainly I had had a little 
 experience in my school vacations if my mother 
 would only stand for it. As to that I did not 
 know. If it came to fishing or starving one or 
 the other then of course she would have to let 
 me go fishing. But my father had been lost on the 
 
 8 
 
A Little Jog Along the Docks 
 
 Grand Banks with his vessel and all hands and 
 then one brother was already fishing. So I hardly 
 thought she would allow me, and anyway I knew 
 she would never have a good night s rest while I 
 was out. 
 
 However, I kept thinking it over. To get away 
 by myself I took a ride over to Essex. There I 
 knew I would find half a dozen vessels on the 
 stocks, and there they were the latest vessel for 
 the Duncan firm and three more for other firms. I 
 knew one of the ship-carpenters in ElwelFs yard, 
 Levi Woodbury, and he was telling me about some 
 of the vessels that had been launched lately. "Of 
 course," he said, u you saw the one launched a few 
 days ago from here that one built for Mr. With- 
 row?" 
 
 I said I had, and that she was a wonder to look 
 at and that I wished Maurice Blake, and not Sam 
 Hollis, was to have her. 
 
 "Yes," said Levi, "and a pity. Maurice Blake 
 could have sailed her right, though for that matter 
 Sam Hollis is a clever hand to sail a vessel, too. 
 And she ought to sail some, that vessel. But look 
 here at this one for the Duncans and to be launched 
 to-morrow. Designed by Will Somers know 
 him? Yes? A nice young fellow. Ain t she 
 able-looking?" 
 
 She certainly was, and handsome, and Levi went 
 9 
 
The Seiners 
 
 on to tell me about her. He showed me where she 
 was like and where she differed from the Lucy Fos 
 ter, the Fred Withrow, the Nannie O, the Colleen 
 Bawn, and the others which were then causing trou 
 ble in Gloucester with crews fighting over their good 
 qualities. I did not know a whole lot about ves 
 sels, but having been born in Gloucester and hav 
 ing soaked in the atmosphere all my life and loving 
 vessels besides, I had a lot of notions about them. 
 And I liked this last Duncan vessel. By the wind 
 and in a sea-way, it struck me she would be a won 
 der. There was something more than just the fine 
 lines of her. There is that about vessels. You 
 can take two vessels, model them alike, rig them 
 alike, handle them alike, and still one will sail 
 rings around the other. And why is it? I ve 
 heard a hundred fishermen at different times say 
 that and then ask, Why is it? This one was aw 
 fully sharp forward, too sharp some might have 
 said, with little more forefoot than most of the 
 late-built flyers ; but she was deep and had a quar 
 ter that I knew would stand up under her sail. I 
 liked the after-part of her. Racing machines are 
 all right for a few months or a year or two and 
 in smooth water, but give me a vessel that can 
 stand up under sail. I thought I could see where, 
 if they gave her sail enough, especially aft, and a 
 skipper that would drive her, she might do great 
 
 10 
 
A Little Jog Along the Docks 
 
 things. And certainly she ought to be a comfort 
 in a blow and bring a fellow home and there s 
 a whole lot in that being in a vessel that you 
 feel will bring you home again. 
 
 I looked over the others, but none of them held 
 me like the Duncan vessel, and I soon came back 
 to Gloucester and took a walk along the water 
 front. 
 
 It was well into March at this time the third 
 week in March, I remember and there was a 
 great business doing along the docks. The salt 
 bankers were almost ready to leave twenty-eight 
 or thirty sail fitting out for the Grand Banks. And 
 then there were the seiners the mackerel catchers 
 seventy or eighty sail of them making ready for 
 the Southern cruise. All that meant that things 
 would be humming for a while. So I took a walk 
 along the docks to see it. 
 
 Most of the vessels that had been fishing during 
 the winter had been stripped of their winter sails, 
 and now aboard these they were bending on the 
 summer suits and slinging up what top spars had 
 not already been sent up. For the vessels that 
 had been laid up all winter and stripped of every 
 thing, they were getting out the gear from the 
 lofts. Everywhere it was topmasts being sent up, 
 sails being dragged out, stays swayed taut, hal 
 yards and sheets rove an overhauling generally. 
 
 n 
 
The Seiners 
 
 On the railways Burnham s, Parkhurst s, and 
 Tarr s were vessels having their bottoms 
 scrubbed and painted and their topsides lined out. 
 And they all looked so handsome and smelt so fine 
 with their riggings being tarred, not with the 
 smoky tar that people ashore put on house-roofs, 
 but the fine rich-smelling tar that goes into vessels 
 rigging; and there was the black and dark sea- 
 green paint for the sides, with the gold or yellow 
 or sometimes red stripe to mark the run, and main 
 and quarter rails being varnished. 
 
 And the seine-boats ! If there is anything afloat 
 that sets more easily on the water than a seine-boat 
 I never saw it, unless it might be a birch-bark 
 canoe and who d want to be caught out in a blow 
 in a canoe? The seine-boats all looked as natural 
 as so many sea-gulls thirty-six or thirty-eight feet 
 long, green or blue bottoms to just above the water- 
 line so that it would show, and above that all clear 
 white except for the blue or red or yellow or green 
 decorations that some skippers liked. And the 
 seines that went with them were coming in wagons 
 from the net and twine factory, tanned brown or 
 tarred black and all ready to be hauled on to the 
 vessels decks or stowed in the holds below, until 
 the fleet should be in among the mackerel to the 
 south ard off Hatteras or Cape May or some 
 where down that way. 
 
 12 
 
A Little Jog Along the Docks 
 
 To feel all that and the rest of it to walk to 
 the tops of your shoes in pine chips in the spar 
 yards, to measure the lengths of booms and gaffs 
 for yourself if you weren t sure who were going to 
 spread the big mainsails, to go up in the sail-lofts 
 and see the sailmakers, bench after bench of them, 
 making their needles and the long waxed threads 
 fly through the canvas that it seemed a pity wasn t 
 to stay so white forever to see them spread the 
 canvas out along the chalk lines on the varnished 
 floor, fixing leach and luff ropes to them and put 
 ting the leather-bound cringles in, and putting 
 them in too so they d stay, for by and by men s 
 lives would depend on the way they hung on all 
 that, railways, sail-lofts, vessels, boats, docks alive 
 with men jumping to their work skippers, crews, 
 carpenters, riggers, lumpers, all thinking, talking, 
 and, I suppose, dreaming of the season s work 
 ahead m-m there was life for a man! Who d 
 want to work in a store after that? 
 
 I stopped at Duncan s wharf and looked at 
 Wesley Marrs s vessel, the Lucy Foster, and then 
 the Colleen Bawn. 
 
 And O Donnell drove the Colleen like a ghost through all that 
 
 gale, 
 And around twas roaring mountains and above twas blinding 
 
 hail, 
 
 13 
 
The Seiners 
 
 and so on. And the Nannie O, another vessel that 
 fishermen sang songs about. 
 
 Oh, the lovely Nannie O, 
 
 The able Nannie O, 
 
 The Nannie O a-drivin* through the gale. 
 
 They were lying there, tied to the docks. They 
 were all dreams, so long and clean, with the beau 
 tiful sheer fore and aft, and the overhang of the 
 racers they were meant to be the gold run, with 
 the grain of the varnished oak rails shining above 
 the night-black of their topsides, and varnished 
 spars. They had the look of vessels that could 
 sail and they could, and live out a gale nothing 
 like them afloat I d heard people say that ought 
 to know. 
 
 I walked along another stretch and at With- 
 row s dock I saw again the new one that had been 
 built for Maurice Blake but given to Sam Hollis, 
 who was a boon companion of Withrow s ashore, 
 as I may have said already. Hollis s gang were 
 bragging even now that she d trim anything that 
 ever sailed the Lucy Foster, the Nannie O, the 
 Colleen Bawn, and all the rest of them. And 
 there were some old sharks, too, upon the docks 
 who said they didn t know but she looked as if she 
 could. But a lot of other people didn t think it 
 she was all right as a vessel, but Sam Hollis wasn t 
 
 14 
 
A Little Jog Along the Docks 
 
 a Wesley Marrs, nor a Tom O Donnell, nor a 
 Tommie Ohlsen, nor even a Maurice Blake, who 
 was a much younger man and a less experienced 
 fisherman than any of the others. 
 
 All that, with the vessels anchored in the stream 
 and the little dories running up and down and in and 
 out it all brought back again the trips I d made 
 with my father, clear back to the time when I was 
 a little boy, so small that in heavy weather he 
 wouldn t trust me to go forward or aft myself, but 
 would carry me in his arms himself it all made 
 me so long for the sea that my head went round 
 and I found myself staggering like a drunken man 
 as I tried to walk away from it. 
 
Ill 
 
 MINNIE ARKELL 
 
 THERE was nothing for it. For a thousand 
 dollars a month I could not stay ashore. 
 Somebody or other would give me a chance to go 
 seining, some good skipper I knew; and if none of 
 the killers would give me a chance, then I d try 
 some old pod of a skipper. My mother would just 
 have to let me go. It was only summer fishing 
 after all seining wasn t like winter trawling 
 and in the end she would see it as I did. 
 
 I walked along, and as the last man in my mind 
 was Maurice Blake, of course he was the first I 
 had to run into. He was not looking well ; I mean 
 he was not looking as he should have looked. 
 There was a reckless manner about him that no 
 more belonged to him than a regularly quiet man 
 ner belonged to his friend Tommie Clancy. And 
 I guessed why he had been drinking. I had 
 heard it already. Generally when a man starts to 
 drink for the first time everybody talks about it. 
 I was suprised, and I wished he hadn t. But we 
 are always finding out new things about men. In 
 
 16 
 
Minnie Arkell 
 
 my heart I was not blaming Maurice so much may 
 be as I should. I d always been taught that drink 
 ing in excess was an awful habit, but some other 
 wise fine men I knew drank at times, and I wasn t 
 going to blame Maurice till I knew more about it. 
 
 And we can forgive a lot, too, in those we like. 
 Maurice had no family to think of, and it must 
 have been a blow to him not to get so fine a vessel 
 as the Fred Withrow after he had been promised 
 and had set his heart on it. And then to see her 
 go to a man like Sam Hollis ! and with the prospect 
 of not getting another until a man like Withrow 
 felt like saying you could. Everybody in Glouces 
 ter seemed to know that Withrow was doing all he 
 could to keep Maurice from getting a vessel, and 
 as the owners had banded together just before this 
 for protection, as they called it, "against outside 
 interference," and as Withrow was one of the 
 largest owners and a man of influence beyond his 
 vessel holdings, he was quite a power at this time. 
 
 Maurice Blake was far from being drunk, how 
 ever, when I met him this day. Indeed, I do not 
 believe that in his most reckless hour up to this 
 time he had ever lost control of himself so far as 
 not to know pretty nearly what he was doing all 
 the time; but certainly he had been drinking this 
 day, and the drinking manner did not set well on 
 him. 
 
The Seiners 
 
 Maurice was standing on the front steps of 
 Mrs. Arkell s boarding-house when I saw him, It 
 was Mrs. Arkell s granddaughter Minnie that 
 married the wealthy Mr. Miner a rather loud 
 sort of man, who had been reported as saying that 
 he would give her a good time and show her life. 
 He may have given her a good time I don t 
 know but he was dead in two years. He was 
 supposed to be very rich three or four millions 
 but on settling up there was less than half a mil 
 lion. Of course that wasn t bad enough for 
 Minnie to buy a big house next her grandmother s 
 for a summer home, and enough to go off trav 
 elling whenever she pleased. 
 
 When she came back to Gloucester she was still 
 a very handsome girl, spoken of as the "Miner 
 widow" among people who had known her only 
 since her marriage, but still called Minnie Arkell 
 by most of those who had known her when she 
 was a child. In Gloucester she bought the first 
 house just around the corner from her grand 
 mother s. A handy passage between their two 
 back yards allowed her to visit her grandmother 
 whenever she pleased. She wanted to be near her 
 own people, she said, and was more in her grand 
 mother s house than her own. 
 
 Maurice came down the steps of Mrs. Arkell s 
 boarding-house as I came along, and joined me on 
 
 18 
 
Minnie Arkell 
 
 the sidewalk. He asked me the first thing if I 
 wouldn t have a drink, and I said no. 
 
 "Oh, I forgot," he said, "you don t drink. 
 Have a cigar," and he pulled one out of his pocket, 
 and I took and lit it. Generally I smoked a pipe, 
 but I liked good cigars, though I couldn t afford 
 them myself. This was not a good one more 
 like the kind they hand out in bar-rooms when 
 men get tired of drinking and say they guess they ll 
 have a smoke. 
 
 "How does it happen, Joe, you re not at the 
 store? I always thought Withrow held his men 
 pretty close to hours." 
 
 "Well, so he does, but I m not working for him 
 now." And then I told him that I had had an 
 argument with Withrow, been discharged, and 
 was thinking of going fishing. I didn t tell him at 
 first how it all came about, but I think he guessed 
 it, for all at once, after a searching look, he 
 reached out and shook hands with me. 
 
 "If ever I get a vessel again, Joe, and you still 
 want to go fishing and care for a chance with me, 
 you can have it if you can t go with a better man, 
 I mean. I ll take you and be glad to have you." 
 
 That meant a good berth, of course, for Mau 
 rice was a killer. 
 
 I looked at Maurice when he wasn t watching 
 me, and felt sorry for him. He was a man that 
 
 19 
 
The Seiners 
 
 anybody would like the looks of. It wasn t that 
 he was a handsome man I never could get to like 
 pretty men myself but there was something about 
 him that made you feel you could trust him. The 
 heavy tan of his face and the grip of his jaw 
 would spoil almost anybody for a beauty man, I 
 suppose, but he had fine eyes and his mouth was 
 all right, and he had a head that you d like to 
 stand off one side and look at, with hair that 
 seemed to lift and wave with every breath of 
 wind, and when he smiled you felt somehow that 
 he d saved that particular smile for you. He was 
 no better built than a hundred other men I knew 
 who were going fishing, and he was no bigger than 
 a thousand others sailing out of Gloucester, and 
 not near so big as a lot of others five feet ten 
 or eleven, maybe, he was, with level shoulders, and 
 very light on his feet but looking at him you 
 knew he was all there. 
 
 After smoking a while and watching him be 
 tween puffs, it flashed on me all at once that I was 
 pretty thick. A word or two my cousin Nell had 
 let slip not so much what she said as the way she 
 said it gave me a hint of a whole lot of things. 
 Looking at Maurice now I asked him if he had 
 seen my cousin or Miss Foster lately. 
 
 He flushed up as he looked at me, and I saw 
 that whatever he was thinking of it had not been 
 
 20 
 
Minnie Arkell 
 
 far away from what I had been thinking of. "No, 
 I haven t seen them" slowly. "How is your 
 cousin?" 
 
 "Oh, she seems to be all right. They were both 
 in to the store this morning." 
 
 "What doing?" I thought he was beginning to 
 worry, but I tried not to let on that I noticed it. 
 I was beginning to feel like a sleuth, or a detec 
 tive, or a diplomat, or something. 
 
 "Well, I don t know. Nell said they came in 
 to see me, but all that happened that I had any 
 hand in was to weigh her. She gained another 
 pound last week, and it s worrying her. The 
 more exercise she takes the heavier she gets, she 
 says. She s a hundred and thirty-one now. Of 
 course, while they re there Withrow had to help 
 out and make himself agreeable, especially to 
 Miss Foster, but I can t see that she warms up to 
 him." 
 
 "Ha? No? You don t think so?" 
 
 "Not much, but maybe it s her way. She s 
 pretty frosty generally anyway, different from my 
 cousin she s something like." 
 
 "Yes, your cousin is all right," said Maurice. 
 
 "You bet," I said. "She don t stand around 
 and chill the air." 
 
 "Why does Miss Foster always? Is that her 
 way? I don t know much about her." 
 
 21 
 
The Seiners 
 
 "Well, I don t know so very much myself 
 mostly what my cousin tells me. Still, I guess 
 she s all right; but she strikes me as one of the 
 kind that might make an awful lot of a man and 
 never let on until she was dead sure of him." 
 
 "H-m That means she could think a whole 
 lot of Withrow and not let on, Joe?" 
 
 I tried to look at Maurice like my oldest 
 brother used to look at me sometimes when he 
 tried to make me feel that I was a very green kid 
 indeed, and said, "Well, if she s the kind to care 
 for a man like Withrow, all I ve got to say is that 
 she ll deserve all she ll get. He s no good." 
 
 "That may be, but how s she to know? I 
 know, you know, and half the men in Gloucester 
 know that he s rotten ; but take a woman who only 
 sees him at his best and when he s watching out 
 how s she to know?" 
 
 "I don t know, but being a woman she ought 
 to," was all I could say to that. It came into my 
 mind just then that when I next saw my cousin 
 Nell I d tell her what I really knew, and more 
 than that what I really thought of my old em 
 ployer. Perhaps she d carry it to Miss Foster. 
 If it was to be Maurice or Withrow, I knew on 
 which side I was going to be. 
 
 Both of us were quiet then, neither of us quite 
 knowing what to say perhaps. Then together we 
 
 22 
 
Minnie Arkell 
 
 started to walk to the corner of the side street. 
 We were past the side-door of the boarding- 
 house when a voice called out, "Oh, Maurice," and 
 then, maybe noticing me, I suppose, "Oh, Captain 
 Blake," and Maurice turned. Minnie Arkell 
 Mrs. Miner rather was there at the kitchen 
 window. I didn t know she was in town at all 
 thought she hadn t got back from Florida, or 
 North Carolina, or wherever it was she had been 
 for the winter. 
 
 "Won t you come in a minute, Captain, and 
 your friend? He doesn t remember me do you, 
 Joe? and yet we were playmates once," which 
 was true. I was often taken to Mrs. Arkell s 
 when a little fellow by skippers who were friends 
 of my father s. They used to tell me about him, 
 and I liked to listen. 
 
 "I thought I d run over and see granny," she 
 went on. "I m back to the old house for a while. 
 Won t you come in?" 
 
 My mind had long been set against Minnie 
 Arkell. I knew about her throwing over a fine 
 young fellow, a promising skipper, to marry 
 Miner. I may have been too young at the time 
 to judge anybody, but after that I had small 
 use for her. My ideas in the matter were of 
 course pretty much what older men had put into 
 me. 
 
 33 
 
The Seiners 
 
 I had listened to them skippers and others 
 and yet now, when she held out her hand to me 
 and smiled, I didn t feel nearly so set against her. 
 She certainly was a handsome girl, and yet I hoped 
 that Maurice wouldn t fall in love with her, as 
 most everybody did that came to the Arkell house. 
 
 I said that I did not have time to come in, and 
 started to make off. Maurice asked me where I 
 was bound. I told him that I thought of taking 
 a look in at Crow s Nest and getting the news. 
 
 "Yes, you ll get it there, sure enough. When 
 they can t tell you anything else up there they can 
 tell you what everybody s doing." He smiled at 
 that, turned slowly toward the side-door, as if he 
 would rather go with me to Crow s Nest, and I 
 went off. 
 
 Just outside the gate I saw Sam Hollis, a man 
 I never did like. Tommie Clancy, the man that 
 could size up a person quicker than anybody I d 
 ever met, used to say that deep down, if you could 
 get at Hollis, you d find a quitter, but that nobody 
 had ever got into him. I d been meeting Hollis 
 after every trip in for two years in Withrow s 
 store. He was a successful fisherman, and a 
 sharp, keen man ashore, but he was a man I never 
 quite took to. One of his ambitions, I felt satis 
 fied, was to be reckoned a devil of a fellow. He d 
 have given a year s earnings, I knew, to have peo- 
 
Minnie Arkell 
 
 pie point him out on the street and say, "There s 
 Sam Hollis there s the boy to carry sail nobody 
 ever made him take his mains l in," the same as 
 they used to say of a half dozen or so that really 
 would carry sail that would drive a vessel under 
 before they would be the first to reef. But the 
 people didn t do that, although, let him tell it, he 
 did wonderful things out to sea, and he had such 
 a way of telling it, too, that he d almost make you 
 believe him. But as Clancy used to say, after he d 
 left you, and you had time to think it over, you d 
 see where here and there his story wasn t well- 
 calked. My own idea was that he wanted a repu 
 tation so that he could pose as a devil of a fellow 
 with certain people ashore. It is easy enough to 
 see that even a more careful man than Sam Hollis 
 might take a chance for a smile from a woman 
 like Minnie Arkell. 
 
 Anyhow, I never felt at home with Hollis, and 
 so was willing to take Clancy s judgment straight. 
 Hollis was a man about forty, and had been one 
 of Minnie Arkell s admirers ever since I could re 
 member ever since she was old enough to have 
 any, I mean, and she wasn t any late bloomer, as 
 Clancy used to say. 
 
 Hollis went into the Arkell house by the door 
 that had only just closed behind Maurice and Min 
 nie Arkell. I didn t like that very much, and was 
 
 25 
 
The Seiners 
 
 thinking of turning back and going in, too; but 
 on second thought it occurred to me that perhaps 
 only Maurice would have a welcome for me. So I 
 didn t enter, but kept on to Crow s Nest instead. 
 
IV 
 
 LITTLE JOHNNIE DUNCAN STANDS EXAMINATION 
 
 BY this time I should have gone home, I sup 
 pose, 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 benev 
 olent 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 lik 
 ing. He thought fishermen were the greatest peo 
 ple in the world. Whatever a fisherman did was 
 all right to Johnnie. 
 
 27 
 
The Seiners 
 
 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," an 
 swered 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?" 
 
 28 
 
Johnnie Duncan Stands Examination 
 
 "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 go 
 ing onto the shoals. What would you do, Cap 
 tain Clancy? You never told me that, did you?" 
 
 "Well, it would depend, too, though handliners 
 generally calculate on hanging on, blow how it 
 
 29 
 
The Seiners 
 
 will. 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." 
 
Johnnie Duncan Stands Examination 
 
 "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 hali- 
 buting 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 then 
 
The Seiners 
 
 I d give the order, Dories to the rail! and then, 
 when everything was all right when I d be sat 
 isfied 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." 
 
 3* 
 
Johnnie Duncan Stands Examination 
 
 "And your flag?" 
 
 "Half-mast." 
 
 "Half-mast that s it. I hope you ll never 
 have to fly a half-masted flag, Johnnie. But sup 
 pose 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, John 
 nie? 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?" 
 
 33 
 
The Seiners 
 
 "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. 
 
 34 
 
M 
 
 FROM OUT OF CROWDS NEST 
 
 "TT THAT LL I do with this?" asked Johnnie, 
 
 W in the middle of the cleaning up, hold 
 ing up a pan of sweepings. 
 
 4 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 En 
 chantress home from the Banks." 
 
 In bad weather, like it was that day, the little 
 
 35* 
 
The Seiners 
 
 balcony 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 hal 
 yards that served to hoist the signal-flags to the 
 masthead. 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 higK 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 hal 
 yards 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 pitching 
 
 36 
 
From Out of Crow s Nest 
 
 down. 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! 
 
 37 
 
The Seiners 
 
 Faster 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 alto 
 gether. 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 grandfather 
 
 38 
 
From Out of Crow s Nest 
 
 knew 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 drip 
 ping 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, per- 
 haps." 
 
 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 eye 
 lids 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, u 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 grand- 
 
 39 
 
The Seiners 
 
 father, but 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 in 
 side 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 see 
 
 40 
 
From Out of Crow s Nest 
 
 that they were getting very much interested about 
 something or other. Clancy particularly was lay 
 ing 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 your 
 self?" 
 
 "Me take a vessel? No, sir not for me. But 
 when you ve got vessels to hand around, Mr. Dun 
 can, 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 for 
 got 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 bar 
 room cigars and Clancy nursing the after-taste of 
 his drink and declaring that a touch of good liquor 
 
The Seiners 
 
 was 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. 
 
VI 
 
 MAURICE BLAKE GETS A VESSEL 
 
 THREE days after Johnnie Duncan fell out 
 of Crow s Nest the new Duncan vessel de 
 signed 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 watch 
 ing 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 and 
 
 43 
 
The Seiners 
 
 it stepped plumb in the middle of her, further for 
 ward than a mainmast was generally put in a fish 
 erman. To that was shackled a seventy-five foot 
 boom, and eighty-odd tons of pig-iron were ce 
 mented 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 every 
 body 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, 
 gnd 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 skip 
 per 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 you 
 44 
 
Maurice Blake Gets a Vessel 
 
 didn 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 busi 
 ness in life for some time now to see men make 
 fools of themselves for you. Withrow had rea 
 sons 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* 
 
 45 
 
The Seiners 
 
 If 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 he 
 
 46 
 
Maurice Blake Gets a Vessel 
 
 was 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 sea 
 son 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 took 
 
 47 
 
The Seiners 
 
 a 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 Don- 
 nell 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 the 
 
Maurice Blake Gets a Vessel 
 
 highs 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 ves 
 sel 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 re 
 membered 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, John 
 nie, and your cousin, that I ll fly the Johnnie Dun 
 can 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, 
 
 49 
 
The Seiners 
 
 Clancy, 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. 
 
VII 
 
 CLANCY 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 cer 
 tainly 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, accord 
 ing 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. 
 
 51 
 
The Seiners 
 
 "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 upper 
 most 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 com 
 ing 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 trim 
 
 52 
 
Clancy Crosses Minnie Arkell 
 
 and loosened up. But in a sea-going way and with 
 wind enough with wind enough, mind he thinks 
 she ll do pretty well. 5 * 
 
 "With wind enough and in a sea-way ?" re 
 peated Nell. "Then I hope that when the fisher 
 men 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. And 
 
 53 
 
The Seiners 
 
 the other fellow does ten times as bad, only under 
 cover. Who told you?" 
 
 "Nevermind. 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," she 
 54 
 
Clancy Crosses Minnie Arkell 
 
 said 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 some 
 body. 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 was 
 
 55 
 
The Seiners 
 
 talking 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 Banks 
 Was the Bounding Billow, Captain Hanks 
 And " 
 
 when I hailed him. 
 
Clancy Crosses Minnie Arkell 
 
 "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 Min 
 nie 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 
 phance 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 Buck- 
 
 57 
 
The Seiners 
 
 ley Joe s cousin there wanted that particular 
 vessel to be a success. And she herself was in 
 terested 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 win 
 ter s day our dory was capsized. And dark com 
 ing 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 traw 
 ler. 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 d 
 
 58 
 
Clancy Crosses Minnie Arkell 
 
 had 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 old 
 
 59 
 
The Seiners 
 
 lady 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 any 
 thing 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 chuck 
 ling, 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. 
 
 60 
 
VIII 
 
 THE 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 and 
 
 61 
 
The Seiners 
 
 four 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 morn 
 ing. 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. An 
 other 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 waved 
 
 62 
 
The Seining Fleet Puts Out to Sea 
 
 her handkerchief at him. That was enough. 
 Clancy broke out 
 
 " The wind blows warm and the wind blows fair, 
 
 Oh, the wind blows westerly 
 Our jibs are up and our anchor s in, 
 
 For the Duncan s going to sea. 
 And will you wait for me, sweetheart ? 
 
 Oh, will you wait for me ? 
 And will you be my love again 
 
 When I come back from sea ? 
 
 " Oh, sway away and start her sheets 
 
 And point her easterly 
 It s tackle-pennant, boom her out 
 
 And turn the Duncan free. 
 You ll see some sailing now, my boys, 
 
 We re off for the Southern cruise 
 They ll try to hold the Johnnie D, 
 
 But they ll find it of no use." 
 
 I didn t wait any longer than that for Clancy, 
 but ran ahead to the Duncan. I found her with 
 jibs up and paying off. I was in time to get 
 aboard without trouble, but Clancy and Howe 
 coming later had to make a pier-head jump of it. 
 Clancy, who could leap like a hound drunk or 
 sober made it all right with his feet on the 
 end of the bowsprit and his fingers on the 
 balloon stay when he landed, but Howe fell 
 short, and we had the liveliest kind of a time 
 gaffing him in over the bow, he not being able 
 
 63 
 
The Seiners 
 
 to swim. They must have heard us yelling clear 
 to Eastern Point, I guess. Andie didn t mind. 
 "I must be with a lot of dogs have to jump 
 overboard to get aboard." He spat out what 
 water he had to, and started right in to winch 
 up the mainsail with the gang. He had on a 
 brand-new suit, good cloth and a fine fit. 
 
 "You ll soon dry out in the sun, Andie-boy," 
 they all said to him. 
 
 "I s pose so. But will my clothes ever fit me 
 again like they did? and my fine new patent- 
 leather shoes I" 
 
 Drifting down by the dock next to Duncan s 
 our long bowsprit almost swept off a row of old 
 fellows from the cap-log. They had to scramble, 
 but didn t mind. "Good luck, and I hope you fill 
 her up," they called out. 
 
 "Oh, we ll try and get our share of *em," our 
 fellows called back. 
 
 There was a young woman on the next dock 
 one of the kind that quite often come down to take 
 snap-shots. A stranger to Gloucester she must 
 have been, for not only that Gloucester girls don t 
 generally come down to the docks to see the fisher 
 men off, but she said good-by to us. She meant 
 all right, but she should never have said good-by 
 to a fisherman. It s unlucky. Too many of them 
 don t come back, and then the good-by comes true. 
 
The Seining Fleet Puts Out to Sea 
 
 Andie Howe looked a funny sight when we 
 were making sail. Clancy, who, once he got 
 started, took a lot of stopping, was still going: 
 
 "Oh, the Johnnie Duncan, fast and able 
 Good-by, dear, good-by, my Mabel 
 And will you save a kiss for me 
 When I come back from sea ? 
 
 "Yes," roared Andie, 
 
 " And don t forget I love you, dear, 
 And save a kiss for me," 
 
 with the salt water dripping from his fine new suit 
 of clothes and the patent-leather shoes he was so 
 fond of. 
 
 And Clancy again : 
 
 " Oh, a deep blue sky and a deep blue sea 
 And a blue-eyed girl awaiting me," 
 
 and Howe, 
 
 " Oh, too-roo-roo and a too-roo-ree 
 
 And a hi-did-dy ho-did-dy ho-dee-dee," 
 
 and Clancy, 
 
 " Too-roo-roo and a too-roo-ree, 
 
 The Johnnie Duncan s going to sea," 
 
 and Howe a little shy on the words 
 
 Tum-did-dy dum-did-dy.dum-did-dy-dum, 
 Hoo-roo-roo and a dum by gum." 
 
 65 
 
The Seiners 
 
 And by that time the gang were joining in and 
 sheeting flat the topsails with a great swing. 
 
 I don t suppose that Gloucester Harbor will 
 ever again look as beautiful to me as it did that 
 morning when we sailed out. Forty sail of seiners 
 leaving within two hours, and to see them going 
 to see them one after another loose sails and up 
 with them, break out anchors, pay off, and away! 
 It was the first day of April and the first fine day 
 in a week, and those handsome vessels going out 
 one after the other in their fresh paint and new 
 sails it was a sight to make a man s heart thump. 
 
 "The Johnnie Duncan, seiner of Gloucester 
 watch her walk across the Bay to-day," was 
 George Moore s little speech when he came on 
 deck to heave his first bucket of scraps over the 
 rail. George was cook. 
 
 And she did walk. We squared away with half 
 a dozen others abreast of us and Eastern Point 
 astern of us all. Among the forty sail of fisher 
 men that were standing across the Bay that morn 
 ing we knew we d find some that could sail. There 
 was the Ruth Ripley, Pitt Ripley s vessel. He 
 worked her clear of the bunch that came out of 
 the harbor and came after us, and we had it with 
 him across to Cape Cod. Forty miles before we 
 beat him ; but Pitt Ripley had a great sailer in the 
 Ruth, and we would have been satisfied to hold 
 
 66 
 
The Seining Fleet Puts Out to Sea 
 
 her even. "Only wait till by and by, when we 
 get her in trim," we kept saying. 
 
 This one ll smother some of them yet," said 
 Eddie Parsons, looking back at the Ruth. He 
 felt pretty good, because he had the wheel when 
 we finally crossed the Ruth s bow. 
 
 "With good steering yes," said Clancy. 
 
 "Of course," exclaimed Eddie to that, and filled 
 his chest full, and then, looking around and catch 
 ing everybody laughing, let his chest flatten again. 
 
 The skipper didn t have much to say right away 
 about her sailing. He was watching her, though. 
 He d look at her sails, have an eye on how they 
 set and drew, take a look over her quarter, an 
 other look aloft, and then back at the Ruth, then 
 a look for the vessels still ahead. "We ll know 
 more about it after we ve tried her out with the 
 Lucy Foster or the Colleen Bawn or Hollis s new 
 vessel," he said, after a while. 
 
 One thing we soon found out, and that was that 
 she was a stiff vessel. That was after a squall hit 
 us off Cape Cod. We watched the rest of them 
 then. Some luffed and others took in sail, and 
 about them we could not tell. But those that took 
 it full gave us an idea of how we were behaving. 
 "Let her have it and see how she ll do," said the 
 skipper, and Howe, who was at the wheel with 
 his clothes good and dry again let her have it 
 
 6? 
 
The Seiners 
 
 full. With everything on and tearing through 
 the water like a torpedo-boat, one puff rolled her 
 down till she filled herself chock up between the 
 house and rail, but she kept right on going. Some 
 vessels can t sail at all with decks under, but the 
 Johnnie never stopped. "She s all right, this one," 
 said everybody then. A second later she took a 
 slap of it over her bow, nearly smothering the 
 cook, who had just come up to dump some potato 
 parings over the rail. The way he came up cough 
 ing and spitting and then his dive for the com- 
 panionway everybody had to roar. 
 
 "Did y see the cook hop? did y see him hop?" 
 called Andie, who was afraid somebody had 
 missed it. 
 
 We passed the Marauder, Soudan McLeody 
 soon after. His mainmast had broken off eight 
 or ten feet below the head. They were clearing 
 away the wreckage. "I s pose I oughter had more 
 sense," he called out as we went by. 
 
 "Oh, I don t know maybe the spar was rot 
 ten," said Maurice, and that was a nice way to 
 put it, too. 
 
 That night it came a flat calm, and with barely 
 steerage way for us. There was a big four-masted 
 coaster bound south, too, and light, and for the 
 best part of the night we had a drifting match 
 with her. Coasters as a rule are not great all- 
 
 68 
 
The Seining Fleet Puts Out to Sea 
 
 round sailers, but some of them, with their flat 
 bottoms and shoal draft, in a fair wind and go 
 ing light, can run like ghosts, and this was one of 
 that kind. We had our work cut out to hold this 
 one while the wind was light and astern, but in 
 the morning, when it hauled and came fresher, we 
 went flying over the shoals. So far as the looks 
 of it went the big coaster might as well have been 
 anchored then. 
 
 All that day we held on. And it was a lesson 
 in sailing to see the way some of those seiners 
 were handled. Our skipper spent most of that 
 day finding out how she sailed best and putting 
 marks on her sheets for quick trimming by and by. 
 
 Trying each other out, measuring one vessel 
 against another, the fleet went down the coast. 
 We passed a few and were passed by none, and 
 that was something. Ahead of us somewhere 
 were a half-dozen flyers. If we could have beaten 
 some of them we should have had something to 
 brag about; but no telling, we might get our 
 chance yet. 
 
IX 
 
 MACKEREL 
 
 THROUGHOUT all that night the lights of 
 the fleet were all about us, ahead and be 
 hind. At breakfast next morning four o clock 
 we were off Delaware Breakwater, and that 
 afternoon at two we began the mast-head watch 
 for fish. And on that fine April day it was a 
 handsome sight forty sail of seiners in sight, 
 spread out and cruising lazily. 
 
 The skipper was the first to get into his oilskins 
 and heavy sweater, for with a vessel hopping along 
 at even no more than six or seven knots by the 
 wind it is pretty chilly aloft, nice and comfortable 
 though it may be on deck in the sun. 
 
 There was a game of seven-up going on in the 
 cabin, and the sun striking down the companion- 
 way was bothering Andie Howe. He began to 
 complain. "Hi, up there to the wheel! Hi, 
 Eddie can t you put her on the other tack? 
 the sun s in my eyes. How can a man see the 
 cards with the sun in his eyes?" 
 
 Parsons didn t have the chance to talk back 
 when the word came from aloft to put the seine- 
 
 70 
 
Mackerel 
 
 boat over the side, and after that to overhaul the 
 seine and pile it in the boat. Vessels ahead had 
 seen mackerel, the skipper called out. We got 
 into oilskins and boots and made ready. Those 
 who were going into the seine-boat had already 
 picked out in what positions they were going to 
 row, and now there was an overhauling of oars 
 and putting marks on them so that they could be 
 picked out in a hurry. Clancy and I were to be 
 dorymen. We made ready the dory, and then 
 Clancy went to the mast-head with the skipper and 
 Long Steve, whose watch it was aloft. 
 
 Things began to look like business soon. Even 
 from the deck we could see that one or two ves 
 sels ahead had boats out. We began to picture 
 ourselves setting around a big school and landing 
 the first mackerel of the year into New York. I 
 think everybody aboard was having that dream, 
 though everybody pretended not to be in earnest. 
 You could hear them : U A nice school now three 
 hundred barrels." "Or two hundred would be 
 doing pretty well." "Or even a hundred barrels 
 wouldn t be bad." There were two or three young 
 fellows among the crew, fellows like myself, who 
 had never seen much seining, and they couldn t 
 keep still for excitement when from the mast 
 head came the word that a boat ahead was out and 
 making a set. 
 
The Seiners 
 
 We were going along all the time and when 
 we could see from the deck for ourselves the boats 
 that were setting, Billie Hurd couldn t stand it 
 any longer, but had to go aloft, too. The four 
 of them made a fine picture the skipper and Steve 
 standing easily on the spreaders, one leaning 
 against the mast and the other against the back 
 stay, with Hurd perched on the jib halyards block 
 and Clancy on the spring-stay, and all looking as 
 comfortable as if they were in rockers at home. 
 I d have given a hundred dollars then to be able 
 to stand up there on one foot and lean as easily as 
 the skipper against the stay with the vessel going 
 along as she was. I made up my mind to practise 
 it when next I went aloft. 
 
 I went to the mast-head myself by and by, and, 
 seeing half a dozen schools almost at once, I be 
 came so excited that I could hardly speak. The 
 skipper was excited, too, but he didn t show it, 
 only by his eyes and talking more jerkily than 
 usual. He paid no attention to two or three 
 schools that made me just crazy just to look at, 
 but at last, when he thought it was time, he be 
 gan to move. Ten or a dozen Gloucester ves 
 sels were bunched together, and one porgy steamer 
 that is, built for porgy or menhaden fishing, 
 but just now trying for mackerel like the rest of 
 us. 
 
 7.2 
 
Mackerel 
 
 "There ll be plenty of them up soon, don t you 
 think, Tommie?" the skipper asked. 
 
 "Plenty," answered Tommie, "plenty," with 
 his eyes ever on the fish. "I think Sam Hollis 
 has got his all right, but Pitt Ripley I don t 
 know." 
 
 It was getting well along toward sunset then, 
 with everybody worried, the skipper still aloft, and 
 one boat making ready to set about a mile inside 
 of us. "They ll dive," said our skipper, and 
 they did. "There s Pitt Ripley s school now," and 
 he pointed to where a raft of mackerel were rising 
 and rippling the water black, and heading for the 
 north. "There s another gone down, too 
 they ll dive that fellow. Who is it Al McNeill? 
 yes. But they ll come up again, and when it 
 does, it s ours." And they did come up, and when 
 they did the skipper made a jump and roared, 
 "Into the boat!" There was a scramble. "Stay 
 up here, you Billie, and watch the school," he said 
 to Hurd, and "Go down, you," to me. I slid 
 down by the jib halyards. The skipper and 
 Clancy came down by the back-stay and beat me 
 to the deck. They must have tumbled down, they 
 were down so quick. 
 
 "Hurry the Aurora s going after it, too." 
 The Aurora was one of Withrow s fleet and we 
 were bound to beat her. I had hardly time to 
 
 73 
 
The Seiners 
 
 leap into the dory after Clancy, and we were off, 
 with nobody left aboard but Hurd to the mast 
 head and the cook, who was to stay on deck and 
 sail the vessel. 
 
 In the seine-boat it was double-banked oars, 
 nine long blades and a monstrous big one steering 
 good as another oar that and all driving for 
 dear life, with Long Steve and a cork-passer 
 standing by the seine and the skipper on top of 
 it, with his eyes fixed on the school ahead his 
 only motions to open his mouth and to wave with 
 his hands to the steersman behind him. "Drive 
 her drive her," he called to the crew. "More 
 yet more yet," to the steering oar. "There s the 
 porgy steamer s boat, too, after the same school. 
 Drive her now, fellows!" 
 
 The mackerel were wild as could be, great rafts 
 of them, and travelling faster than the old seiners 
 in the gang said they had ever seen them travel 
 before, and what was worse, not staying up long. 
 There were boats out from three or four vessels 
 before we pushed off with ours. I remember the 
 porgy steamer had cut in ahead and given their 
 boat a long start for a school. However, that 
 school did not stay up long enough and they had 
 their row for nothing. But then their steamer 
 picked them up again and dropped them on the 
 way to the same school that we were trying for. 
 
 74 
 
Mackerel 
 
 How some of our gang did swear at them ! And 
 all because they were steam power. 
 
 It promised to be a pretty little race, but that 
 school, too, went down before either of us could 
 head it, and so it was another row for nothing. 
 We lay on our oars then, both boats ready for 
 another row, with the skipper and seine-heaver in 
 each standing on top of the seine and watch 
 ing for the fish to show again. Of course both 
 gangs were sizing each other up, too. I think 
 myself that the Duncan s crowd were a huskier 
 lot of men than the steamer s. Our fellows looked 
 more like fishermen, as was to be expected, because 
 in Gloucester good fishermen are so common that 
 naturally, a man hailing from there gets so that 
 he wants to be a good fisherman, too, and of course 
 the men coming there are all pretty good to begin 
 with, leaving out the fellows who are born and 
 brought up around Gloucester and who have it in 
 their blood. A man doesn t leave Newfoundland 
 or Cape Breton or even Nova Scotia or Maine 
 and the islands along the coast, or give up any 
 safe, steady work he may have, to come to 
 Gloucester to fish unless he feels that he can come 
 pretty near to holding his end up. That s not 
 saying that a whole lot of fine fishermen do not 
 stay at home, with never any desire to fish out of 
 Gloucester, in spite of the good money that a fish- 
 
 75] 
 
 
The Seiners 
 
 erman with a good skipper can make from there, 
 but just the same they re a pretty smart and able 
 lot that do come. And so, while our gang was 
 half made up of men that were born far away 
 from Gloucester, yet they had the Gloucester 
 spirit, which is everything in deep-sea fishing, 
 when nerve and strength and skill count for so 
 much. And this other crowd the porgy steam 
 er s did not have that look. 
 
 "Look at what we re coming to," somebody 
 called. "All steam boys soon, and on wages 
 wages!" he repeated, "and going around the 
 deck, with a blue guernsey with letters on the chest 
 of it A.D.Q. or some other damn company." 
 
 "Well, that would not be bad either, with your 
 grub bill sure and your money counted out at the 
 end of every month," answered somebody else. 
 
 I was sizing up the two gangs myself, I being 
 in the dory with Clancy, and I guess that nearly 
 everyone of us was doing the same thing and 
 keeping an eye out for fish at the same time, when 
 all at once a school popped up the other side of 
 the porgyman s boat. Perhaps, half a mile it was 
 and, for a wonder, not going like a streak. 
 
 We saw it first and got to going first, but the 
 Aurora s boat and the steamer s boat were nearer, 
 and so when we were all under good headway 
 there were two lengths or so that we had to make 
 
 76 
 
Mackerel 
 
 up on each. Well, that was all right. Two 
 lengths weren t so many, and we drove her. It 
 was something to see the fellows lay out to it 
 then doubled-banked, two men to each wide seat 
 and each man with a long oar, which he had 
 picked out and trimmed to suit himself, and every 
 man in his own particular place as if in a racing 
 crew. 
 
 And now every man was bending to it. A big 
 fellow, named Rory McKinnon, was setting the 
 stroke. There was a kick and a heave to every 
 stroke, and the men encouraging each other. 
 "Now now give it to her," was all that I could 
 hear coming out of him. All this time we in the 
 dory were coming on behind, Clancy and I hav 
 ing to beat their dory just as our boat had to 
 beat their boat. And we were driving, too, you 
 may be sure. Clancy was making his oars bend 
 like whips. "Blast em! There s no stiffness to 
 em," he was complaining. And then, "Sock it to 
 her," he would call out to our fellows in the seine- 
 boat. "We ve got the porgy crew licked that s 
 the stuff," came from the skipper. From on top of 
 the seine he was watching the fish, watching the 
 gang, watching the other boats, watching us in 
 the dory watching everything. Whoever made 
 a slip then would hear from it afterwards, we 
 knew. And clip, clip, clip it was, with the swash 
 
 77 
 
The Seiners 
 
 just curling nicely under the bow of the other 
 boat, and I suppose our own, too, if we could 
 have seen. 
 
 Our boat was gaining on the Aurora s and the 
 skipper was warming up. The fish was going the 
 same way we were, still a quarter of a mile ahead. 
 
 "Drive her," said the skipper. "Drive her 
 drive her another length and you got em. And, 
 Kenney, it s the best of ash you ve got. Don t be 
 afraid of breaking it. And, Dan Burns, didn t 
 y ever learn to keep stroke in the Bay of Islands 
 with nine more men beside you rowing? And 
 drive her hit her up now here s where we got 
 em they can t hold it on their lives. Now then, 
 another dozen strokes and it s over. One, two, 
 three quicker, Lord, quicker six, seven oh, 
 now she s fair flying look at her leap. You 
 blessed lobster, keep rowing and not looking over 
 your shoulder. We got to get the fish first." 
 
 A quarter mile of that with the foam ripping 
 by us, and every man with his blood like fire 
 jumping to his oar, when the skipper leaped back 
 to the steering oar. "Stand by," he called, and 
 then, "Now over with the buoy," and over it 
 went, with the dory at hand and Tommie Clancy 
 right there to pick it up and hold it to windward. 
 And then went the seine over in huge armfuls. 
 Just to see Long Steve throw that seine was worth 
 
 7.8 
 
Mackerel 
 
 a trip South. And he was vain as a child of his 
 strength and endurance. "My, but look at him!" 
 Clancy called out "look at the back of himi" 
 "He s a horse," somebody else would have to 
 say, and "H-g-gh," Steve would grunt, and 
 "H-g-gh" he would fill the air full of tarred net 
 ting, "H-g-gh pass them corks," and over it 
 would go, "H-g-gh," and the skipper would say, 
 "That s the boy, Steve," and Steve would heave 
 to break his back right then and there. All the 
 time they were driving the seine-boat to its limit, 
 and the skipper was laying to the big steering oar, 
 the longest of them all and taking a strong man 
 to handle it properly laying to it, swinging from 
 the waist like a hammer-thrower, and the boat 
 jumping to it. She came jumping right for us in 
 the dory in a little while. It doesn t take a good 
 gang long to put a quarter mile of netting around 
 a school of mackerel. 
 
 It was a pretty set he made. "Pretty, pretty," 
 you could almost hear the old seiners saying be 
 tween their teeth, even as they were all rowing 
 with jaws set and never a let-up until the circle 
 was completed, when it was oars into the air and 
 Clancy leaping from the dory into the seine-boat 
 to help purse up. "It s a raft if ever we get em," 
 were his first words, and everybody that wasn t 
 too breathless said yes, it was a jeesly raft of fish. 
 
 79 
 
The Seiners 
 
 "Purse in," it was then, and lively. And so we 
 pursed in, hauling on the running line in the lower 
 edge of the seine, something as the string around 
 the neck of a tobacco bag is drawn tight. It was 
 heavy work of course, but everybody made light 
 of it. We could not tell if the fish were in it or 
 not. The leaders might have dove when they felt 
 the twine against their noses and so escaped with 
 the whole school following after, or they might 
 have taken no alarm and stayed in. 
 
 So we pursed in, not knowing whether we were 
 to have a good haul with a hundred or a hundred 
 and fifty dollars apiece at the end of it, or whether 
 we would have our work for nothing. All hands 
 kept up the pretence of joking, of course, but every 
 body was anxious enough. It was more than the 
 money it was fisherman s pride. Were we to get 
 into New York and have it telegraphed on to 
 Gloucester for everybody that knew us to read and 
 talk about landing the first mackerel of the 
 year? We watched while the circle narrowed and 
 the pool inside grew shallower. Somebody said, 
 "There s one," and we could see the shine of it, 
 and another and another and then the whole 
 mass of them rose flipping. They lashed the water 
 into foam, rushed around the edges, nosed the 
 corks of the seine. I don t think myself that 
 mackerel are particularly intelligent, take them 
 
 80 
 
Mackerel 
 
 generally; but at times they seem to know these 
 fellows, at least, seemed to know they were gone 
 and they thrashed about in fury. A mackerel is a 
 handsome fish any time, but to see him right you 
 want to see him fresh-seined. They whipped the 
 water white now tens of thousands of them. I 
 don t believe that the oldest seiner there didn t feel 
 his heart beat faster the first mackerel of the 
 year. "And Lord knows, maybe a couple of hun 
 dred barrels," and the skipper s eyes shone it 
 meant a lot to him. And some of the men began 
 to talk like children, they were so pleased. 
 
 81 
 
WE LOSE OUR SEINE 
 
 TWO hundred barrels the skipper had said, 
 but long before we were all pursed up we 
 knew that five hundred barrels would never hold 
 the fish in that seine. The size of that school filled 
 us with joy and yet it was the very size of it that 
 caused us our trouble. It was too big for the seine, 
 and when they began to settle down and take the 
 twine with them the trouble began for us. No bit 
 of twine ever made to be handled from a seine-boat 
 was big enough to hold that school of fish when 
 they began to go down. 
 
 The skipper was awake to it early and signalled 
 for the vessel to come alongside. So the Johnnie 
 stood over to us, and Hurd, pushing the spare dory 
 over with Moore s help, came jumping with it to 
 the side of the seine where I was alone in the first 
 dory. He hadn t even stopped to get into his oil 
 skins, he was in such a hurry. By the skipper s 
 orders I had made fast some of the corks to the 
 thwarts in the dory and Billie took some into the 
 spare dory. The whole length of the seine-boat 
 they were making fast the seine too. In that way 
 
 82 
 
We Lose Our Seine 
 
 the skipper hoped to buoy up the fish and hold 
 them until we could lighten the seine up by bailing 
 some of the fish onto the deck of the vessel. But 
 it was of no use. There must have been a thousand 
 barrels of them, and dories and seine-boat began 
 to go under. It was over the rail of my dory 
 and spare dory both, and both Billie and myself 
 to our waists, when the skipper sung out for us to 
 jump and save ourselves. We hung on a little 
 longer, but it got to be too much for us and over 
 board we went. We were not in danger then. It 
 is true that the sea was making and we were 
 weighted down with oilskins and rubber boots, but 
 we had for support the corks that had not yet 
 gone under. And along the corks we hauled our 
 selves toward the seine-boat. I was praying that 
 the sharks that sometimes follow up mackerel 
 would not bother us. It is probable that they 
 would not even if there were any around, as mack 
 erel are better eating. And such a fuss as we made 
 hauling ourselves through the water ! We d have 
 scared away a whole school of sharks. Before we 
 could get to the seine-boat that, too, was under. 
 "Jump!" called the skipper, and "Jump every 
 body!" called Clancy, and themselves both hang 
 ing on to a last handful of twine. The men in the 
 seine-boat jumped and struck out for the vessel, 
 which was now quite close, with the cook, the only 
 
 83 
 
The Seiners 
 
 man left aboard, throwing over keelers, draw- 
 buckets, the main sheet anything within his reach 
 that was loose and would support a man. 
 
 The skipper and Clancy hung on to the last. 
 "Jump you, Tommie!" called the skipper. "Not 
 me till you go," answered Clancy. They couldn t 
 do a bit of good, but they hung on, each grabbing 
 handfuls of twine in a last effort to hold up the 
 seine. The seine-boat went under and they up 
 to their necks and then it turned over and in 
 toward the seine. Some of us hollered we were 
 afraid that it was all up with both of them that 
 they would be thrown toward the inside and tan 
 gled up in the seine. But both of them bobbed up, 
 the skipper saying nothing, but Clancy sputtering 
 like a crazy man. The dories coming loose gave a 
 few of us a chance to climb up on the bottom of 
 them, and when the seine-boat came bobbing up 
 most of the others climbed up on the bottom of 
 that. And there was some swearing done then, 
 you may be sure ! The gang would have been all 
 right then, waiting to be picked up by the cook 
 from the vessel, which was then pretty handy ; but 
 the seine-boat started to go under again and then 
 came the slap of a little sea, and overboard went 
 seven or eight of us. Clancy was one of those 
 thrown into the water. We all remembered it 
 afterwards because he called out for Andie Howe. 
 
We Lose Our Seine 
 
 "Where s Andie?" 
 
 "Here," said Andie. 
 
 1 Where?" 
 
 "Hanging onto the bow of the seine-boat." 
 
 "Well, hang on a while longer," said Clancy and 
 struck out for the vessel, and made it too, oilskins, 
 big boots and all. He threw two or three lines 
 out at once one especially to Thad Simpson, the 
 other man of the crew besides Andie Howe who it 
 was known couldn t swim. So Clancy hauled him 
 in. The third man he hauled in was Billie Hurd. 
 
 "Good Lord, Tommie," said Billie, "you hove 
 a line over my head to Andie Howe." 
 
 "You pop-eyed Spanish mackerel!" roared 
 Clancy at him, "you ought to know by this time 
 that Andie can t swim." 
 
 "I know, but he was all oiled up, and look 
 at me " 
 
 "Go to hell," said Clancy. 
 
 We all got aboard after a while, but our fine 
 new seine was gone, and the big school of fish too. 
 After a hard grapple we got the dories and a little 
 later the seine-boat, and after a lot more work we 
 got them right side up. The dories we pulled the 
 plugs out of to let them drain and then took 
 them on deck, but the seine-boat we had to pump 
 out. By then it was pretty well on in the night 
 and I remember how the moon rose just as we had 
 
 85 
 
The Seiners 
 
 it fairly well dried out and dropped astern rose 
 as big as a barrel-head and threw a yellow light 
 over it, and then went out of sight, for a breeze 
 was on us. 
 
 And "Oh, Lord! that thousand-barrel school 1" 
 groaned everybody. 
 
 86 
 
XI 
 
 AN OVER-NIGHT BREEZE 
 
 IT wasn t bad enough that we came near losing 
 a few men and our boat, and our seine alto 
 gether, but it must come on to breeze up on top of 
 that and drive us off the grounds. After putting 
 everything to rights, we were having a mug-up for 
 ward and wondering if the skipper would take sail 
 off her or what, when we heard the call that 
 settled it. 
 
 "On deck everybody!" we heard. And when 
 we got there, came from the skipper, "Take in the 
 balloon, tie it up and put it below. Haul down 
 your stays l too and go aloft a couple of you, 
 fore and aft, and put the tops ls in gaskets." 
 
 We attended to that a gang out on the bow 
 sprit, half a dozen aloft and so on with the skip 
 per to the wheel while it was being done. When 
 we had finished it was, "Haul the seine-boat along 
 side pump out what water s left." Then, "Shift 
 that painter and hook on the big painter. Drop 
 her astern and give her plenty of line. Where s 
 the dory-men? Where s Tommie and Joe? Haul 
 the dories into the hatch, Tommie, and make em 
 
The Seiners 
 
 fast. Gripe em good while you re at it. Clear 
 the deck of all loose gear put it below, all of it 
 keelers, everything. Maybe twon t be much of a 
 blow, but there s no telling it may. She mayn t 
 be the kind that washes everything over, but put 
 it all safe anyway." 
 
 The skipper watched all this until he had seen 
 everything cleared up and heard "All fast the 
 dory," from the waist. Then he looked up and 
 took note of sky and wind. "Don t feel any too 
 good. Maybe twill blow off, but we might s well 
 run in. We ll have to wait for our other seine 
 anyway and Wesley will be sure to put into the 
 Breakwater for news on his way down, especially 
 if it comes to blow." 
 
 He dropped below then to light his pipe. See 
 ing me and Parsons, with me trying to fix up Par- 
 sons s leg where it had been gashed Eddie never 
 knew how in the mix-up of the evening, the 
 skipper said, "There s some liniment in the chest 
 and some linen in one of the drawers under my 
 bunk. Get it. And some of you might s well turn 
 in and have a nap. She ll be all right the watch 
 and myself can look after her now," and he went 
 on deck again, puffing like an engine to keep his 
 pipe going. 
 
 Most of them did turn in and were soon asleep. 
 Some of the older men had a smoke and an over- 
 
An Over-Night Breeze 
 
 hauling of their wet clothes, while a few joined in a 
 little game of draw before turning in. One or two 
 were deploring the loss of the seine. The near 
 ness to losing lives didn t seem to be worrying 
 anybody. For myself, I was somewhat worked 
 up. There was one time in the water when I 
 thought I was gone. So I went on deck after the 
 skipper. It was a black night and breezing all 
 the time and I wanted to see how the vessel be 
 haved. The Johnnie was close-hauled at this 
 time and swashing under, and I knew without ask 
 ing further that the skipper intended to make 
 Delaware Breakwater. 
 
 While hurrying forward, after lending a hand 
 to batten down the main hatch the Johnnie 
 plunging along all the time and my head per 
 haps a little too high in the air, I stumbled off the 
 break and plump over a man under the windward 
 rail. I thought I was going to leeward and maybe 
 overboard, but somebody hooked onto the full in 
 the back of my oil-jacket, hauled me up the inclined 
 deck again, and in a roaring whisper said, "Get a 
 hold here, Joey here s a ring-bolt for you. 
 Don t let go on your life ! Isn t it fine?" It was 
 Clancy. He had nights, I know, when he couldn t 
 sleep, and like me, I suppose, he wanted to watch 
 the sea, which just then was firing grandly. Into 
 this sea the vessel was diving nose first bring- 
 
 89. 
 
The Seiners 
 
 ing her bowsprit down, down, down, and then up, 
 up, up, until her thirty-seven-foot bowsprit would 
 be pointing to where the North star should be. 
 Whenever she heaved like that I could feel her 
 deck swelling under me. I remember when I used 
 to play foot-ball at the high school at home and it 
 was getting handy to a touch-down, with perhaps 
 only a few yards to gain and the other side braced 
 to stop it, that a fellow playing back had to buck 
 like that from under a line when he had to scatter 
 tons, or what he thought was tons, of people on 
 top of him. The vessel was that way now, only 
 with every dive she had hundreds of tons to lift 
 from under. At a time like that you can feel the 
 ribs of a vessel brace within her just as if she was 
 human. Now I could almost feel her heart 
 pumping and her lungs pounding somewhere in 
 side. I could feel her brace to meet it, feel her 
 shiver, as if she was scared half to death, and al 
 most hear her screech like a winner every time she 
 cleared it and threw it over her head. 
 
 Now down she went the Johnnie Duncan 
 down and forward, for she wouldn t be held back 
 shoulders and breast slap into it. Clear to her 
 waist she went, fighting the sea from her. To 
 either side were tumbling the broken waves, curling 
 away like beach combers. The hollow of each was 
 a curved sheet of electric white, and the top the 
 
 90 
 
An Over-Night Breeze 
 
 crest was a heavier, hotter white. The crests 
 would rise above our rail and break, and back into 
 the hollows would fall a shower of shooting stars 
 that almost sizzled. There wasn t a star above, 
 but millions on the water ! 
 
 "Ever see anything like that ashore, Joey-boy?" 
 said Clancy, and I had to roar a whisper that I 
 never had. 
 
 Through this play of fire the Johnnie leaped 
 with great bounds. She boiled her way, and astern 
 she left a wake in which the seine-boat was rear 
 ing and diving with a fine little independent trail 
 of its own. 
 
 Two men forward the watch were leaning 
 over the windlass and peering into the night. 
 They were there for whatever they might see, but 
 particularly were they looking for the double white 
 light of Five Fathom Bank lightship. The skip 
 per was at the wheel. When he got in the way of 
 the cabin light, we could catch the shine from his 
 dripping oil-clothes, and the spark from his pipe 
 which he kept going through it all marked his 
 position when he stepped back into the darkness. 
 
 Clancy noticed him. "There s a man for you, 
 Joey. Think what it meant to a young skipper 
 with a new vessel the loss of that school and the 
 seine on top of it the very first day he struck fish. 
 If we d got that, he might have been the first vessel 
 
 91 
 
The Seiners 
 
 of the year into the New York market. And think 
 of the price the first fish fetch ! and the honor of 
 it and he breaking his heart to make a reputation 
 this year. And yet not a yip out of him not a 
 cranky word to one of the gang all night. A 
 great man I call him and a fisherman." I 
 thought so, too. 
 
 Sometimes I imagined I could see the wink of 
 red and green lights abreast and astern, which I 
 probably did, for there should have been fifty sail 
 or so of seiners inside and outside of us there 
 were sixty sail of the fleet in sight that afternoon 
 and I knew that, barring a possible few that had 
 got fish and were driving for the New York mar 
 ket, all the others were like ourselves, under lower 
 sails and boring into it, with extra lookout forward, 
 the skipper at the wheel or on the quarter and all 
 ears and eyes for the surf and lights inshore when 
 we should get there. 
 
 "Something ahead! dead ahead! sa-ail!" came 
 suddenly from forward. There was a scraping 
 of boot-heels at the wheel. "What d y make of 
 it? all right, I see her!" In the shadow we saw 
 the skipper pulling the wheel down. Ahead I 
 imagined I saw a dark patch, but to make sure I 
 squirmed up to the fore-rigging. Whoever she 
 was, the light from her cabin skylight was right 
 there and I realized that we were pretty close, but 
 
 92 
 
An Over-Night Breeze 
 
 not really how close until a boat bobbed up under 
 my jaws almost. Right from under our bow it 
 heaved. It was a seiner and that was her seine- 
 boat towing astern, and I could easily have heaved 
 a line to her helmsman as we swept by her. There 
 was an awfully tall shadow of sails half up to 
 the clouds I thought and the black of the hull 
 looked as long as a dock. A voice was hurled to 
 us, but we couldn t quite make it out but it was 
 the watch, probably, saying a word or two by way 
 of easing his feelings. 
 
 We worked up to the windward of that one and 
 slowly crowded past her tumbling green light. 
 Then the skipper let the wheel fly up and we shot 
 ahead vand soon we had her directly astern, with 
 her one green and one red eye looking after us. 
 "That s one fellow we outsail," thought I to my 
 self, and I knew I was beginning to love the 
 Johnnie Duncan. 
 
 All through that night it went on like that. 
 
 At four o clock or so in the morning the cook 
 stuck his head out of the slit in the forec s le com- 
 panionway and spoke his welcome little piece. 
 "Can t have any reg lar sit-down this morning, 
 boys. Have to leave the china in the becket for 
 a while yet, but all that wants can make a mug-up, 
 and when we get inside if we do in anything like 
 a decent hour we ll have breakfast." 
 
 93 
 
The Seiners 
 
 At five o clock the sky began to brighten to the 
 eastward, but there was no let-up to the wind or 
 sea. If anything it was breezing up. At six 
 o clock, when the short blasts of the lightship split 
 the air abreast of us, things were good and lively, 
 but there was no daylight to go by then. The wash 
 that in the night only buried her bow good was 
 then coming over her to the foremast and filling 
 the gangway between the house and rail as it raced 
 aft. The beauty of double-lashing the dories be 
 gan to appear, and all hands might have been 
 towing astern all night by the look of them. But 
 the Johnnie Duncan was doing well and the opin 
 ion of the crew generally was that the skipper 
 could slap every rag to her and she d carry it 
 that is, if she had to. The skipper put her more 
 westerly after we had passed the lightship and 
 on we went. 
 
 We had the company of a couple of coasters in 
 this part of the drive ; and by that, if nothing else, 
 a man might know we were inshore. Some 
 Gloucester men were in sight, too, though most of 
 the fleet, we guessed, were still outside of us. The 
 coasters were colliers, three-masters both, and 
 reefed down, wallowing in the sea. One had her 
 foretopmast snapped short off, and such patched 
 sails as she had on looked lonesome. The gang, of 
 course, had to make fun of her. 
 
 94 
 
An Over-Night Breeze 
 
 "There s one way to house a topm st!" 
 
 "Broke your clothes-pole, old girl!" 
 
 "Better take in your washing there looks like 
 rain!" 
 
 "Go it, you beauty ! I only wish I had my cam- 
 eraw. If y only suspected how lovely you look!" 
 
 Two big ocean tugs, one clear white and one all 
 black, offered a change in looks, though in nothing 
 else, for each one, with two barges of coal, was 
 making desperate hauling of it, and the Break 
 water yet a good bit away. 
 
 "Hustle em, you husky coal-jammers!" roared 
 Parsons at them, as if he could be heard beyond 
 the rail. "I wouldn t be aboard of you for my 
 share of the Southern trip and mackerel away up 
 in G, too. Would you, Billie?" 
 
 "Then? Naw!" said Hurd, with a wrinkling 
 of his little nose. 
 
 "No," nor me neither," said Long Steve. "Hi 
 ever hear the cook ever hear George Moore s 
 song: 
 
 < If ever you go to sea, my boy, 
 Don t ever you ship on a steamer ; 
 There s stacks to scrape and rails to paint 
 It s always work to clean her. 
 When the wind is wrong and the shore is by, 
 They ll keep you clear of leeway, 
 But they roll and they jolt and they re never dry 
 They re the devil s own in a sea-way! " 
 
 95 
 
The Seiners 
 
 Steve, trying to sing that, had one hand hooked 
 into a ring-bolt under the rail and he was slowly 
 pickling we were all pickling like a salted 
 mackerel in a barrel. 
 
 An hour past Five Fathom and the tall white 
 tower of Cape Henlopen could be made out ahead, 
 as well as the gray tower of Cape May through the 
 mists to the northward. The wind was coming 
 faster and it felt heavier. We could judge best of 
 how we were looking ourselves by watching all our 
 fellows near by. We could see to the bottom 
 planks of two to leeward of us, while on the slop 
 ing deck of one to windward it was plain that only 
 what was lashed or bolted was still there. When 
 they reared they almost stood up straight, and 
 when they scooped into it the wonder was that all 
 the water taken aboard didn t hold her until the 
 next comber could have a fair whack at her. 
 
 The men that is, a few of them might joke, 
 but were all glad to be getting in. There s no fun 
 staying wet and getting wetter all night long. If 
 it wasn t for the wetness of a fellow it would have 
 been great, for it was the finest kind of ex 
 citement, our running to harbor that night 
 especially in the morning when we were passing 
 three or four and nobody passing us. We went 
 by one fellow the Martinet she was a fair 
 enough sailer passed her to windward of course, 
 
An Over-Night Breeze 
 
 our gang looking across at their gang and nobody 
 saying a word, but everybody thinking a lot, you 
 may be sure. It was worth a square meal that. 
 
 With the Martinet astern, the skipper let her 
 pay off and run for the end of the Breakwater. 
 For a while he let the wind take her fair abeam, 
 with sheets in, and the way she sizzled through the 
 water was a caution. There was a moment that 
 an extra good blast hit her that my heart sank, 
 but I reflected that the skipper knew his business, 
 and so tried to take it unconcernedly. Everybody 
 around me was joking and laughing to think, I 
 suppose, that we would soon be in. 
 
 A moment after that I went down to leeward. 
 The sea was bubbling in over her rail at the fore- 
 rigging and I wanted to get the feel of it. I got 
 it. It is pretty shoal water on the bar at the mouth 
 of the Delaware River and quite a little sea on 
 when it blows. One sea came aboard. Somebody 
 yelled and I saw it but too late and slap ! over 
 I went over the rail big boots and oilskins I 
 went down into the roaring. For a second my 
 head came up and I saw the vessel. Everybody 
 aboard was standing by. The skipper was whirl 
 ing the spokes and the vessel was coming around 
 like a top. I never saw a vessel roll down so 
 far in all my life. I went under again and coming 
 up heard a dull shout. There was a line beside 
 
 97 
 
The Seiners 
 
 me. "Grab hold!" yelled somebody. No need 
 to tell me I grabbed hold. It was the seine- 
 boat s painter. The Johnnie was still shooting and 
 when the line tautened it came as near to pulling 
 my arms out of my shoulders as ever I want to 
 have them again. But I hung on. Then she came 
 up, and they hauled the painter in and gaffed me 
 over the rail. 
 
 "You blankety blank fool!" roared Clancy, as 
 soon as I stood up u don t you know any better? 
 A fine thing we d have to be telegraphing home, 
 wouldn t it? Are you all right now?" 
 
 "All right," I said, and felt pretty cheap. 
 
 While being hauled in, knowing that I was 
 safe, I had been thinking what a fine little ad 
 venture I d have to tell when we got back to 
 Gloucester, but after Clancy got through with me 
 I saw that there were two ways to look at it. So 
 I took my old place under the windward rail and 
 didn t move from there again till it was time to 
 take sail off her. 
 
XII 
 
 THE FLEET RUNS TO HARBOR 
 
 N EARING the Breakwater we had more com 
 pany. Other seiners, with boats astern and 
 dories on deck, were coming in; jumbo, jib, fore 
 and reefed main-sail generally, and all plunging 
 gloriously with a harbor near at hand. 
 
 For the next few hours of that morning any 
 watcher in the lighthouse on the Breakwater could 
 have seen plenty of samples of clever seamanship. 
 At our time we were only one of a half-dozen at 
 the business of working around the jetty, some 
 making for one end and some for the other. 
 There was a great trying of tacks and some plain 
 criticism of tactics and weatherly qualities. There 
 was one who tried to cut in before he could quite 
 make it. When he had to put back or run ashore 
 and lose her, a great laugh went up, though there 
 was nothing the matter with the try. He had only 
 tried too much. 
 
 Eddie Parsons was the sharp critic. "Trying to 
 beat out the fleet, hey ? And with that old hooker ? 
 Nothing wrong with your nerve, old man, but 
 some fine day, when there s a little wind stirring, 
 you ll roll that tub over a little too far. That s 
 
 99 
 
The Seiners 
 
 right jam her up now! Think you got a steam 
 boat ? Wonder nobody ever told you about sailing 
 a vessel. Come out of it, old man, and let her 
 swing off." 
 
 We had yet to get in ourselves, and that we had 
 the Johnnie Duncan to eat into the wind we were 
 thankful. At last we were by and reaching down 
 to the end of the jetty. We all began to feel good 
 once we were sure of it. It was fine, too, to listen 
 to Clancy as we got near. He was standing on 
 the break, leaning against the weather rigging and 
 looking forward. 
 
 "You d think she d been coming here for a 
 hundred years, wouldn t you? Look at her point 
 her nose now at that beacon don t have to give 
 this one the wheel at all. She s the girl. See her 
 bow off now. Man, but she knows as well as you 
 and me she ll be inside and snug s a kenched 
 mackerel before long. Watch her kick into the 
 wind now. Oh, she s the lady, this one. I ve 
 sailed many of them, but she s the queen of them 
 all, this one." 
 
 A half dozen of lucky fellows were in before us. 
 We drove in among them, under the bow of one 
 and past the stern of another. They were all 
 watching us, after the custom of the fleet in harbor. 
 We knew this and behaved as smartly as we could 
 without slopping over. 
 
 100 
 
The Fleet Runs to Harbor 
 
 By and by our skipper picked out a place to his 
 fancy. "Stand by halyards and down-hauls," was 
 his warning. 
 
 "Ready all ready." 
 
 "Ready with the anchor!" 
 
 "All ready the anchor, sir!" 
 
 "Down with your jib ! Down with jumbo I Let 
 go your fore halyards ! Watch out now ready 
 let go your anchor!" 
 
 Rattle whizz whir-r-r splash ! clink and 
 the Johnnie Duncan of Gloucester was safe to her 
 mooring. 
 
 And not till then did our skipper, ten hours to 
 the wheel, unclinch his grip, hook the becket to a 
 spoke, slat his sou wester on the wheel-box and 
 ease his mind. 
 
 "Thank the Lord, there s a jeesly blow behind 
 us. There s some outside ll wish they had a shore 
 job before they get in. Hi, boys, when you get 
 her tied up for ard, better all go below and have a 
 bite to eat. Let the mains l stand and give it a 
 chance to dry." Then he looked about him. 
 "And I didn t notice that anybody passed us on 
 the way." There was a whole lot in that last. 
 
 After eating a bite, I went over in the dory to 
 the lighthouse on the jetty, where seamen s mail 
 was taken care of. After leaving my letters I 
 stopped to watch some of the fleet coming. It was 
 
 101 
 
The Seiners 
 
 easy enough to pick them. The long, slick-look 
 ing, lively seine-boat in tow and the black pile of 
 netting on deck told what they were, and they came 
 jumping out of the mists in a way to make a man s 
 heart beat. 
 
 There was a man standing on the jetty. He was 
 master of a three-masted coaster, he told me. 
 "You come off one of them Gloucester mackerel- 
 catchers?" he asked me. I said yes. "That new- 
 looking one that came in a while ago?" I said yes 
 again. 
 
 "I was watching her she s a dream a dream. 
 I never see anything like them the whole bunch 
 of em. Look at this one ain t she got on about 
 all she can stand up under though? My soul, 
 ain t she staggering! I expect her skipper knows 
 his business don t expect he d be skipper of a 
 fine vessel like that if he didn t. But if twas me 
 I d just about take a wide tuck or two in that ever- 
 lastin mains l he s got there. My conscience, but 
 ain t he asockin it to her ! I s pose that s the way 
 some of your vessels are sailed out and never 
 heard from again that was never run into, nor 
 rolled over, nor sunk in a reg lar way, but just 
 drove right into it head-first trying to make a pas 
 sage and drowned before ever they could rise 
 again. Well, good-luck to you, old girl, and your 
 skipper, whoever he is, and I guess if your canvas 
 
 102 
 
The Fleet Runs to Harbor 
 
 stays on you ll be to anchor before a great while, 
 for you re making steamboat time. Go it, old 
 girl, and your little baby on behind, go it! There 
 ain t nothing short of an ocean liner could get you 
 now. Go it ! a sail or two don t matter if it s a 
 good mackerel season I s pose the owners don t 
 mind if you blow away a few sails. Go it, God 
 bless you ! Go it ! you re the lads can sail a vessel, 
 you fishermen of Gloucester. Lord, if I dared to 
 try a thing like that with my vessel and my crew 
 and the old gear I got, I rather expect I d have a 
 rigger s bill by the time I got home if ever I got 
 home carryin on like that in my old hooker." 
 
 I watched her, too. She was the Tarantula, Jim 
 Porter, another sail-carrier. Around the point and 
 across she tore and over toward the sands beyond, 
 swung off on her heel to her skipper s heave, came 
 down by the wreck of a big three-master on the 
 inner beach, and around and up opposite what 
 looked like a building on the hill. Then it was 
 down with the wheel, down with headsails, let go 
 fore-halyards, over with the anchor, and there she 
 was, another fisherman of Gloucester, at rest in 
 harbor after an all-night fight with a lively breeze. 
 
 And I left the master of the coaster there and 
 went back to the Duncan, where the crew were 
 standing along the rail or leaning over the house 
 and having a lot of fun sizing up those who were 
 
 103 
 
The Seiners 
 
 coming in. It is one of the enjoyments of the 
 seining fleet this racing to harbor when it blows 
 and then watching the others work in. IVe heard 
 it said that no place in the world can show a fleet 
 like them all fine vessels, from one hundred to 
 one hundred and twenty feet over all, deep 
 draught, heavily sparred, and provided with all 
 kinds of sail. They were ably managed, of course, 
 and a dash to port makes the finest kind of a 
 regatta. No better chances are offered to try ves 
 sels and seamanship no drifting or flukes but 
 wind enough for all hands and on all points of 
 sailing generally. 
 
 They came swooping in one after the other 
 like huge sea-gulls, only with wings held close. 
 Now, with plenty of light, those already in could 
 easily see the others coming long before they 
 rounded the jetty. Even if we couldn t see the 
 hulls of them, there were fellows who could name 
 them one vessel after the other just by the spars 
 and upper rigging. The cut of a topsail, the look 
 of a masthead, the set of a gaff the smallest 
 little thing was enough to place them, so well were 
 they acquainted with one another. And the dis 
 tance at which some of them could pick out a 
 vessel was amazing. 
 
 George Moore, coming up out of the forec s le 
 to dump over some scraps, spied one. "The Mary 
 
 104 
 
The Fleet Runs to Harbor 
 
 Grace Adams," he sang out, "the shortest 
 foremast out of Gloucester. She mustVe been well 
 inside when she started to get in at this time. 
 Slow man, but she is slow, that one." 
 
 "Yes, that s the old girl, and behind her is the 
 Dreamer- Charlie Green black mastheads and 
 two patches on her jumbo. She ll be in and all fast 
 before the Mary Grace s straightened out." 
 
 And so it was almost. The Mary Adams was 
 one of the older fleet and never much of a sailer. 
 The Dreamer was one of the newer vessels, able, 
 and a big sailer. They were well raked by the 
 critics, as under their four lowers they whipped in 
 and around and passed on by. 
 
 After the Dreamer came the Madeline, with 
 "Black Jack" Hogan, a fleshy man for a fisher 
 man, who minded his way and remained unmoved 
 at the compliments paid his vessel, one of the prize 
 beauties of the fleet. The Marguerite, Charley 
 Falvey, a dog at seining, always among the 
 high-liners, who got more fun out of a summer s 
 seining than most men ever got out of yachting, 
 who bought all the latest inventions in gear as fast 
 as they came out and who had a dainty way of 
 getting fish. The Marguerite dipped her bow as 
 she passed, while her clever skipper nodded along 
 the line. 
 
 The King Philip, another fast beauty, made her 
 105. 
 
The Seiners 
 
 bow and dipped her jibs to her mates in harbor. 
 At sight of her master, Al McNeill, a great shout 
 goes up. "Ho, ho ! boys, here s Lucky Al ! Whose 
 seine was it couldn t hold a jeesly big school one 
 day off here last spring but Billie Simms ? Yes, 
 sir, Billie Simms. Billie fills up and was just about 
 thinking he d have to let the rest go when who 
 heaves in sight and rounds to and says, Can I help 
 y out, William? Who but Lucky Al McNeill, 
 of course. Bales out two hundred barrels as nice 
 fat mackerel as anybody d want to see. Just fills 
 me up, says Al, and scoots to market. Just been 
 to New York, mind you, that same week with two 
 hundred and fifty barrels he got twelve cents 
 apiece for. Just fills me up, says Al, and scoots. 
 No, he ain t a bit lucky, Captain Al ain t mar 
 ried a young wife only last fall." 
 
 Then followed the Albatross, with Mark 
 Powers giving the orders. Then the Privateer, an 
 other fast one, but going sluggishly now because of 
 a stove-in seine-boat wallowing astern. Then the 
 North Wind, with her decks swept clear of every 
 thing but her house and hatches. Seine-boat, seine 
 and dory were gone. 
 
 After her was a big, powerful vessel, the Ave 
 Maria, with the most erratic skipper of all. This 
 man never appeared but the gossip broke out. 
 Andie Howe had his record. "Here comes George 
 
 1 06 
 
The Fleet Runs to Harbor 
 
 Ross. What s this they say now? that he don t 
 come down from the mast-head now like he used 
 to, when he strikes a school. When I was with him 
 he was a pretty lively man comin from aloft 
 used to sort of fall down, you know. But now he 
 comes down gentle-like slides down the back 
 stay. Only trouble now he s got to get new rubber 
 boots every other trip, count of the creases he 
 wears in the legs of them sliding down the wire. 
 I tell you they all lose their nerve as they get 
 older. There s Billie Simms coming behind him. 
 He s given up tryin to sail his vessel on the side 
 and tryin to see how long he c n carry all he c n 
 pile on. Billie says t ain t like when a fellow s 
 young and ain t got any family. I expect it s about 
 the same with George since he got married." The 
 master of the Ave Maria didn t even glance over 
 as he piloted his vessel along. He very well knew 
 that we were talking about him. 
 
 Pretty soon came one that everybody looked at 
 doubtfully. She sported a new mainmast and a 
 new fore-gaff. u Who s this old hooker with her 
 new spars ? Looks like a vessel just home from salt 
 fishing, don t she? Lord, but she needs painting." 
 Nobody seemed to know who she was, and as she 
 got nearer there was a straining of eyes for her 
 name forward. "The H-A-R-B-I oh, the Harb 
 inger. Must be old Marks and the old craft he 
 
 107 
 
The Seiners 
 
 bought down East last fall. This the old man, 
 of course the Harbinger. How long s she been 
 down here? Came down ahead of the fleet? 
 Well, she ought to by the looks of her she needs 
 a good early start to get anywhere. They ought 
 to be glad to get in. I mind that September breeze 
 twenty year ago that the old man said blew all the 
 water off Quero and drove him ashore on Sable 
 Island. He says he ain t taking any more line 
 storms in his. No, nor anybody else in the old 
 square-enders he gen rally sails in. I ll bet he s 
 glad to change winter trawling for summer sein 
 ing. I ll bet he put in a few wakeful nights on 
 the Banks in his time mind the time he parted 
 his cable and came bumping over Sable Island 
 No the-east Bar? Found the only channel there 
 was, I callate. Special little angels was looking 
 out for me, he says, when he got home. Yes, 
 says Wesley Marrs he was telling it to Wesley 
 yes, says Wesley, but I ll bet keepin the lead 
 goin had a hell of a lot to do with it, too. 
 
 So they came rolling in by the end of the jetty 
 until they could make one last tack of it. Like 
 tumbling dolphins they were seiners all, with a 
 single boat towing astern and a single dory, or 
 sometimes two dories, lashed in the waist, all gear 
 stowed away, under four lower sails mostly 
 jumbo, jib, fore and main, though now and then 
 
 108 
 
The Fleet Runs to Harbor 
 
 was one with a mainsail in stops and a trysail laced 
 to the gaff, and all laying down to it until their 
 rails were washing under and the sea hissed over 
 the bows. 
 
 Anybody would have to admire them as they 
 came scooting past. When they thought they were 
 close enough to the Breakwater and some went 
 pretty close up or down would go the wheel, 
 according to which end of the jetty they came in 
 by, around they would go, and across the flats and 
 down on the fleet they would come shooting. They 
 breasted into the hollows like any sea-bird and 
 lifted with every heave to shake the water from 
 bilge to quarter. They came across with never a 
 let-up, shaving everything along the way until a 
 good berth was picked out. Then they let go sails, 
 dropped anchor and were ready for a rest. 
 
 Nobody got by our fellows without a word. 
 And we weren t the only crew of critics. Bungling 
 seamanship would get a slashing here, but there 
 was none of that. It was all good, but there are 
 degrees of goodness, of course. First-class seaman 
 ship being a matter of course, only a wonderful 
 exhibition won approval from everybody. And 
 crews coming in, knowing what was ahead of 
 them, made no mistakes in that harbor. 
 
 A dozen ordinary skippers sailed past before a 
 famous fisherman at length came in. Everybody 
 
The Seiners 
 
 knew him a dog, a high-liner, truly a master 
 manner. A murmur went up. "There s the boy," 
 said Tommie Clancy. "I mind last summer when 
 he came into Souris just such a day as this, but 
 with more wind stirring. Twas Fourth of July 
 and we had all our flags to the peak and some 
 fine patriotic fights going on ashore that day our 
 flag and the English. The harbor was jammed 
 with seiners and fresh-fishers. You couldn t see 
 room for a dory, looking at em end on. But that 
 don t jar Tom O Donnell. What does he do ? He 
 just comes in and sails around the fleet like a cup- 
 defender on parade and every bit of canvas he 
 had aboard flying only his crew had to hang 
 onto the ring-bolts under the wind ard rail. Well, 
 he comes piling in, looks the fleet over, sizes up 
 everything, picks out a nice spot as he shoots 
 around, sails out the harbor again clean out, yes 
 sir, clean out comes about and it blowing a liv 
 ing gale all the time shoots her in again, dives 
 across a line of us, and fetches her up standing. 
 We could ve jumped from our rail to his in jack 
 boots, he was that close to us and another fellow 
 the other side. Slid her in like you slide the cover 
 into a diddy box. Yes, sir, and that s the same 
 lad you see coming along now Tom O Donnell 
 and his Colleen Bawn." 
 
 He certainly was coming on now, and a fine 
 no 
 
The Fleet Runs to Harbor 
 
 working vessel he had. She showed it in every 
 move. She came around like a twin-screw launch, 
 picked out her berth like she had intelligence in her 
 eyes, made for it, swirled, fluttered like a bird, felt 
 with her claws for the ground underneath, found 
 it, gripped it, swayed, hung on, and at last settled 
 gently in her place. There was no more jar to the 
 whole thing than if she had been a cat-boat in a 
 summer breeze. "Pretty, pretty, pretty/ you 
 could hear the gang along our rail. 
 
 "They talk about knockabout racing craft," said 
 Clancy, "but did y ever see anything drop to a 
 berth slicker than that ? And that s a vessel you c n 
 go to sea in, and in the hardest winter gale that 
 ever blew you c n turn in when your watch is done 
 and have a feeling of comfort." 
 
 "Where s the steam trawler, the porgy boat, we 
 saw yesterday?" 
 
 "Put into Chincoteague most likely nearer 
 than here." 
 
 "That s what we ll have to come to yet steam 
 ers, and go on wages like a waiter in a hotel." 
 
 "Yes," said Clancy, "I s pose so, but with ves 
 sels like we got and the seamen sailing out of 
 Gloucester we ll stave em off a long time yet, and 
 even as it is, give me a breeze and a vessel like this 
 one under us and we ll beat out all the steam fisher 
 men that ever turned a screw." 
 
 in 
 
The Seiners 
 
 One of the latest experiments in a fishermen s 
 model reached in then and her coming started a 
 chorus. They were always trying new models in 
 Gloucester, everybody was so anxious to have a 
 winner. This one s sails were still white and 
 pretty and her hull still shiny in fresh black paint. 
 The red stripe along her rail and the gold stripe 
 along her run set off her lines ; her gear didn t have 
 a speck on it, her spars were yellow as could be 
 and to leeward we thought we could still smell the 
 patent varnish. For that matter there were several 
 there as new-looking as she was, our own vessel 
 for one; but there had been a lot of talk about 
 this one. She was going to clean out the fleet. She 
 had been pretending to a lot, and as she hadn t yet 
 made good, of course she got a great raking. 
 
 "She s here at last, boys the yacht, the wonder 
 ful, marvellous Victory! Ain t she a bird? Built 
 to beat the fleet ! Look at the knockabout bow of 
 her!" 
 
 "Knockabout googleums h-yah! Scoop shovel 
 snout and a stern ugly as a battle-ship s, and the 
 Lord knows there was overhang and to spare 
 to tail her out decent. Cut out the yellow and the 
 red and the whole lot of gold decorations and 
 she s as homely as a Newf undland jack." 
 
 "Just the same, she c n sail," said somebody 
 who wanted to start an argument. 
 
 112 
 
The Fleet Runs to Harbor 
 
 "Sail! Yah! might beat a Rockport granite 
 sloop. Ever hear of the Henry Clay Parker, 
 Mister Billie Simms, and the little licking she 
 gave this winner of yours ? No ? Well, you want 
 to go around and have a drink or two with the boys 
 next time you re ashore and get the news. It was 
 like a dog-fish and a mackerel the Henry just eat 
 her up. And there s the others. Why, this one 
 underneath us d make a holy show of her, I ll bet. 
 And there s half a dozen others. There s the 
 oh, what s the use?" 
 
 "Oh, Eddie Parsons, a perfect lady and coming 
 in like a high-stepper and yet you must malign her 
 beauty and make light of her virtue," and Clancy 
 jammed Parsons s sou wester down over his eyes 
 "hush up, Eddie." 
 
 Into the harbor and after the Victory heaved 
 another one. And she was the real thing hand 
 some, fast and able. And she had a record for 
 bringing the fish home an able vessel and well- 
 known for it. She could carry whole sails when 
 some of the others were double-reefed and think 
 ing of dragging trysails out of the hold. And her 
 skipper was a wonder. 
 
 "You c n cut all the others out here comes the 
 real thing. Here s the old dog himself. Did he 
 ever miss a blow ? And look at him. Every man 
 comes in here to-day under four lowers, no more, 
 
The Seiners 
 
 and some under reefed mains l, or trys l, but four 
 whole lowers ain t enough for this gentleman not 
 for Wesley. He must carry that gaff-tops l if he 
 pulls the planks out of her. He always brings 
 her home, but if some of the underwriters d see 
 him out here they d soon blacklist him till he 
 mended his ways. It s a blessed wonder he ain t 
 found bottom before this. Look at her now skat 
 ing on her ear. There she goes if they d just 
 lower a man over the weather rail with a line on 
 him he could write his name on her keel I" 
 
 And she certainly was something to make a 
 man s eyes stick out. There had been a vessel or 
 two that staggered before, but the Lucy fairly 
 rolled down into it, and there was no earthly reason 
 why she should do it except that it pleased her 
 skipper to sport that extra kite. 
 
 She boiled up from the end of the jetty, and her 
 wake was the wake of a screw steamer. She had 
 come from home, we knew, and so it happened 
 she was one of the last to get in. The harbor was 
 crowded as she straightened out. We knew she 
 would not have too much leeway coming on, and 
 what berth she was after kept everybody guessing. 
 
 "If she goes where s she pointing and most 
 vessels do she ll find a berth down on the beach 
 on that course, down about where the wreck is. 
 It ll be dry enough walking when she gets there. 
 
 114 
 
The Fleet Runs to Harbor 
 
 If she keeps on the gait she s going now, she ought 
 to be able to fetch good and high and dry up on 
 the mud. They d cert nly be able to step ashore 
 when they get there. Ah-h-h, but that s more 
 like it." 
 
 She was taking it over the quarter then. She 
 cleared the stern of the most leeward of the fleet 
 and then kicked off, heading over to where the 
 Johnnie Duncan and the Victory lay. The betting 
 was that she would round to and drop in between 
 us two. There was room there, but only just room. 
 It would be a close fit, but there was room. 
 
 But she didn t round to. She held straight on 
 without the sign of a swerve. On the Johnnie, the 
 gang being almost in her path picked out a course 
 for her. Between the outer end of our seine-boat 
 and the end of the bowsprit of the Mary Grace 
 Adams was a passage that may have been the 
 width of a vessel. But the space seemed too nar 
 row. Our crew were wondering if he would try 
 it. Even the skipper, standing in the companion- 
 way, stepped up on deck to have a better look. 
 
 "He s got to take it quarterin , and it ain t wide 
 enough," said Eddie Parsons. 
 
 "Quartering yes, but with everything hauled 
 inboard," said the skipper. "He ll try it, I guess. 
 I was with him for two years, and if he feels like 
 trying it he ll try it." 
 
The Seiners 
 
 "And s pose he does try it, Skipper?" 
 
 "Oh, he ll come pretty near making it, though 
 he stands a good chance to scrape the paint off our 
 seine-boat going by. No, don t touch the seine- 
 boat let her be as she is. We ll fool em if they 
 think they c n jar anybody here coming on like 
 that. There s room enough if nothing slips, and 
 if they hit it s their look-out." 
 
 It looked like a narrow space for a vessel of her 
 beam to go through, but she hopped along, and 
 the eyes of all the harbor followed her to the 
 point where she must turn tail or make the passage. 
 
 She held on her chance to go back was gone. 
 
 "Watch her, boys. Now she s whooping look 
 at her come I" 
 
 And she was coming. Her windward side was 
 lifted so high that her bottom planks could be 
 seen. Her oil-skinned crew were crowded for 
 ward. There were men at the fore-halyards, at 
 jib-halyards, at the down-hauls, and a group were 
 standing by the anchor. Two men were at the 
 wheel. 
 
 She bit into it. There was froth at her mouth* 
 She was so near now that we could read the faces 
 of her crew; and wide awake to this fine seaman 
 ship we all leaned over the rail, the better to see 
 how she d make out. The crews of half the vessels 
 inside the Breakwater were watching her. 
 
 116 
 
The Fleet Runs to Harbor 
 
 She was a length away and jumping to it. It 
 was yet in doubt, but she was certainly rushing to 
 some sort of a finish. She rushed on, and w-r-r-rp I 
 her weather bow came down on the Johnnie s 
 seine-boat. But it didn t quite hit it. Her quarter 
 to leeward just cut under the Adams bowsprit and 
 the leech of her mainsail seemed to flatten past. 
 For a moment we were not certain, but no jolt or 
 lurch came and our seine-boat seemed all right. 
 Another jump and she was clear by. And then we 
 felt like cheering her, and her skipper Wesley 
 Marrs, too, as he stood to the wheel and sung out, 
 "Couldn t scare you, could I, Maurice. I thought 
 you d haul your seine-boat in. I ve got your extra 
 seine," and swept by. 
 
 From our deck and from the deck of the Adams, 
 and from the decks of half a dozen others, could 
 be heard murmurs, and there was a general point 
 ing out of the redoubtable skipper himself to the 
 green hands that knew him only by reputation. 
 "That s him, Wesley himself the stocky little 
 man of the two at the wheel." 
 
 If the stocky little man heard the hails that 
 were sent after him, he made no sign, unless a 
 faint dipping of his sou wester back over his wind 
 ward shoulder was his way of showing it. 
 
 He had business yet, had Wesley Marrs. There 
 was a tug and a barge and another big seiner in 
 
 "7 
 
The Seiners 
 
 his course. He clipped the tug, scraped the barge, 
 and set the seiner s boat a-dancing, and two lengths 
 more he put down the wheel and threw her grace 
 fully into the wind. Down came jib, down came 
 jumbo, over splashed the anchor. She ran for 
 ward a little, rattled back a link or two, steadied 
 herself, and there she was. Her big mainsail was 
 yet shaking in the wind, her gaff-topsail yet flut 
 tering aloft, but she herself, the Lucy Foster of 
 Gloucester, was at your service. "And what do 
 you think of her, people?" might just as well have 
 been shot off her deck through a megaphone, for 
 that was what her bearing and the unnatural 
 smartness of her crew plainly were saying. 
 
 We all drew breath again. Clancy unbent from 
 the rail and shook his head in high approval. He 
 took off his sou wester, slatted it over the after-bitt 
 to clear the brim of water, and spoke his mind. 
 "You ll see nothing cleaner than that in this har 
 bor to-day, fellows, and you ll see some pretty fair 
 work at that. That fellow he s an able seaman." 
 
 "Yes, sir an able seaman," said the skipper 
 also. 
 
 And Clancy and the skipper were something in 
 the line of able seamen themselves. 
 
 :u& 
 
XIII 
 
 WESLEY MARKS BRINGS A MESSAGE 
 
 GENERALLY a day in harbor is a day of 
 loafing for the crew of a seiner; but it was 
 not so altogether with us that day. Within two 
 hours of the time that Wesley Marrs came in to 
 the Breakwater in such slashing style the skipper 
 had us into the seine-boat and on the way to the 
 Lucy Foster. By his orders we took along ten 
 empty mackerel barrels. "We ll go over to the 
 beach first and fill these barrels up with sand." 
 We all knew what the sand was for the Johnnie 
 Duncan was going to be put in trim to do her best 
 sailing. Coming down the coast the skipper and 
 Clancy decided that she was down by the stern 
 a trifle. 
 
 So we attended to the sand, and on the way back 
 hauled our second seine out of the hold of the Lucy 
 Foster, and piled it into the seine-boat. With the 
 last of the twine into the seine-boat and just as we 
 were about to push off from the Lucy, Wesley 
 Marrs put a foot on the rail of his vessel and 
 spoke to Maurice. 
 
 "And when I was taking the last of that aboard 
 UIQ 
 
The Seiners 
 
 in the dock in Gloucester, you wouldn t believe 
 who it was stepped onto the cap-log and looking 
 down on the deck of the Lucy says, And you ll 
 take good care of that seine for Captain Blake, 
 won t you, Captain Marrs? Could you guess 
 now, Maurice?" 
 
 "No," said Maurice. 
 
 "No, I ll bet you can t. It isn t often she comes 
 down the dock. Miss Foster no less. And what 
 makes you think I won t? I asks her. Oh, of 
 course I know you will, she says, and deliver it 
 to him in good order, too. I ll try, I says, as 
 though it was a desp rate job I had on hand to 
 put a seine in the hold and turn it over to another 
 vessel when I met her. But what makes you worry 
 about this partic lar seine, Miss Foster? I asks." 
 
 "Which Miss Foster was it, Wesley the one 
 your vessel is named after?" broke in our skipper. 
 
 "No no but the younger one Alice. But 
 what makes you worry? I asks her, and she didn t 
 say anything, but that one that s with her all the 
 time the one that goes with the lad that designed 
 the Johnnie Duncan " 
 
 "Joe s cousin here " 
 
 "That s it the fat little Buckley girl a fine 
 girl too. And if I was a younger man and looking 
 for a wife, there s the kind for me but anyway 
 she up and says, Alice is worried, Captain Marrs, 
 
 120 
 
Wesley Marrs Brings a Message 
 
 because she owns a third of Captain Blake s vessel 
 a good part of her little fortune s in the Duncan 
 and if anything happens to the seine one-third 
 of it, of course, comes out of her. And it cost a 
 good many hundred dollars. So you must be care 
 ful. Oh, that s it? says I. Then it ll be short 
 ened sail and extra careful watches on the Lucy 
 till I meet Maurice, for I mustn t lose any property 
 of Miss Foster s. " 
 
 We rowed away from the Lucy Foster, and I 
 supposed that was the end of it. But that night 
 going on deck to take a last look at the stars before 
 turning in, there was the skipper and Clancy walk 
 ing the break and talking. 
 
 "And did you know, Tommie, that Miss Fos 
 ter owned any of this one?" the skipper was saying. 
 
 "No," said Tommie, "I didn t know, but " 
 
 "But you suspected. Well, I didn t even suspect. 
 And there s that seine we lost last night cost all 
 of eight hundred dollars." 
 
 "That s what it did a fine seine." 
 
 A few minutes later the skipper went below, 
 and Clancy, seeing me, said, "Hold on, Joey. Did 
 you hear what the skipper said?" 
 
 "About Miss Foster owning a share of the 
 vessel?" 
 
 "Well, not that so much, but about the loss of 
 the seine?" 
 
 121 
 
The Seiners 
 
 "Yes why?" 
 
 "Why? Joe, but sometimes a man would think 
 you were about ten year old. I tell you, Joe, I m 
 not too sure it s going to be Withrow. And if you 
 don t see some driving on this one when next we 
 get among the fish, then " But he didn t finish 
 it, only clucked his tongue and went below. 
 
 Clancy was right again. During the night the 
 weather moderated, and in the morning the first 
 of the fleet to go out past the Breakwater was the 
 Johnnie Duncan. It looked to us as if the skipper 
 thought the mackerel would be all gone out of the 
 sea before we got back to the spot where we had 
 struck them two days before. 
 
 122 
 
XIV 
 
 A PROSPECT OF NIGHT-SEINING 
 
 WE might have stayed in harbor another 
 twenty-four hours and lost nothing by it. 
 It was dawn when we put out from the Delaware 
 Breakwater, and by dark of the same day we were 
 back to where we had met the big school and lost 
 the seine two days before. And there we hung 
 about for another night and day waiting for the sea 
 to flatten out. Mackerel rarely show in rough 
 weather, even if you could put out a seine-boat and 
 go after them. But I suppose that it did us no 
 harm to be on the ground and ready. 
 
 On the evening of the next day there was some 
 thing doing. There was still some sea on, but not 
 enough to hurt. Along about eight o clock, I re 
 member, I came off watch and dropped into the 
 forec s le to fix up my arm, which was still badly 
 strained from hanging onto the seine-boat s painter 
 when I was washed overboard. The skipper, tak 
 ing a look, told me not to go into the dory that 
 night, but to let Billie Hurd, who was spare hand,, 
 take my place, and for me to stay aboard. I would 
 
 123 
 
The Seiners 
 
 rather have gone into the dory, of course, but was 
 not able to pull an oar that is, pull it as I d have 
 to pull when driving for a school and knowing I 
 would be no more than so much freight in the 
 dory there was nothing else to do. "And if we see 
 fish, Clancy ll stay to the mast-head to-night as 
 good a seine-master as sails out of Gloucester is 
 Tommie better than me," he said. "I m going 
 in the seine-boat, and Eddie Parsons, you ll take 
 Clancy s place in the dory." And buttoning his 
 oil-jacket up tight, he put on his mitts and went 
 on deck. 
 
 That evening the forward gang were doing 
 about as much work as seiners at leisure usually do. 
 It was in the air that we would strike fish, but the 
 men had not yet been told to get ready. So four of 
 them were playing whist at the table under the 
 lamp and two were lying half in and half out of 
 opposite upper bunks, trying to get more of the 
 light on the pages of the books they were read 
 ing. Long Steve, in a lower port bunk nearer the 
 gangway, was humming something sentimental, 
 and two were in a knot on the lockers, arguing 
 fiercely over nothing in particular. There was a 
 fellow in the peak roaring out, "Scots wha hae wi 
 Wallace bled." Only the cook, just done with 
 mixing bread, seemed to have ever done a lick of 
 work in his life, and he was now standing by the 
 
 124 
 
A Prospect of Night-Seining 
 
 galley fire rolling the dough off his fingers. The 
 cook on a fisherman is always a busy man. 
 
 Down the companion-way and into the thick of 
 this dropped Clancy, oiled up and all ready to go 
 aloft. To the mast-head of a vessel, even on an 
 April night in southern waters, it is cold enough, 
 especially when, like a seiner, she is nearly always 
 by the wind; and Clancy was wrapped up. "I 
 think," said Clancy, as his boot-heels hit the floor, 
 "I ll have a mug-up. " From the boiler on the gal 
 ley-stove he poured out a mug of coffee and from 
 the grub-locker he took a slice of bread and two 
 thick slices of cold beef. He buried the bread 
 among the beef and leaned against the foremast 
 while he ate. 
 
 Once when Clancy was a skipper he did a fine 
 bit of rescuing out to sea, and after he got home a 
 newspaper man saw him and wrote him up. I had 
 the clipping stuck on the wall of Withrow s store 
 for months and had read it so often that I knew it 
 by heart. u ln heavy jack-boots and summer sou 
 wester, with a black jersey of fine quality sticking 
 up above the neck of his oil-jacket, with a face that 
 won you at sight; cheeks a nice even pink; damp, 
 storm-beaten, and healthful ; with mouth, eyes, and 
 jaw bespeaking humor, sympathy, and courage; 
 .shoulders that seemed made for butting to wind 
 ward an attractive, inspiring, magnetic man al- 
 
The Seiners 
 
 together that is Captain Tommie Clancy of the 
 Gloucester fisherman, the Mary Andrews." That 
 was how it read, and certainly it fitted him now, as 
 he stood there in the middle of the thick curling 
 smoke of the pipes, holding the mug of coffee in 
 one hand and the sandwich of bread and meat in 
 the other, leaning easily against the butt of the 
 foremast, and between gulps and bites taking no 
 tice of the crew. 
 
 u Give me," he said to the cook as the proper 
 man for an audience, "a seiner s crew when they re 
 not on fish for real gentlemen of leisure. Look at 
 em now you d think they were all near-sighted, 
 with their cards up to their chins. And above them 
 look Kipling to starb d and the Duchess to port. 
 Mulvaney, I ll bet, filled full of whiskey and keep 
 ing the heathen on the jump, and Airy Fairy Lil 
 lian, or some other daisy with winning ways, dis 
 turbing the peace of mind of half a dozen dukes. 
 Mulvaney s all right, but the Duchess! They ll 
 be taking books of that kind to the mast-head next. 
 What d y s pose I found aft the other day? Now 
 what d y s pose? I ll bet you d never guess. No, 
 no. Well, He Loved, but Was Lured Away. 
 Yes. Isn t that fine stuff for a fisherman to be 
 feeding on? But whoever was reading it, he was 
 ashamed of it. Well, who owns this thing? says 
 I, picking up the lured-away lad. Nobody, speaks 
 
 126 
 
A Prospect of Night-Seining 
 
 up Sam there. Of course he didn t own it O 
 no! 
 
 "Violet Vance," went on Clancy, and took an 
 other bite of his sandwich. "Violet Vance and 
 Wilful Winnie and a whole holdful of airy crea 
 tures couldn t help a fisherman when there s any 
 thing stirring. I waded through a whole bunch of 
 em once," he reached over and took a wedge 
 of pie from the grub-locker. u Yes, I went through 
 a whole bunch of em once pretty good pie this, 
 cook, though gen rally those artificial apples that 
 swings on strings ain t in it with the natural tree 
 apples for pie once when we were laying some 
 where to the east ard of Sable Island, in a blow 
 and a thick fog fresh halibuting and right in 
 the way of the liners. And I expect I was going 
 around like a man asleep, because the skipper 
 comes up and begins to talk to me. It was my 
 first trip with him and I was a young lad. Young 
 fellow, says the skipper, Matt Dawson this was 
 in the Lorelei young fellow, says Matt, you 
 look tired. Let me call up the crew and swing a 
 hammock for you from the fore-rigging to the 
 jumbo boom. How ll that do for you? When the 
 jumbo slats it ll keep the hammock rocking. Let 
 me, he says. T raps, he goes on, you wouldn t 
 mind waking up long enough to give this music 
 box a turn or two every now and then while the 
 
 127 
 
The Seiners 
 
 fog lasts. We had a patent fog-horn aboard, the 
 first I ever saw, and I d clear forgot it warn t 
 used to patent horns. But just another little 
 wedge of pie, George. 
 
 "However, I suppose when there s nothing do 
 ing there s no very great harm. But we ll try to 
 keep some of you busy to-night. Praise the Lord, 
 the moon s out of the way and it s looking black 
 already and the sea ought to fire up fine later on. 
 And there s a nice little breeze to overhaul a good 
 school when we see one. If any of you are begin 
 ning to think of getting in a wink of sleep then 
 you d better turn in now, for you re sure to be out 
 before long. I m going aloft." 
 
 Clancy climbed up the companion-way. Then 
 followed the scraping of his boot-heels across the 
 deck. Half a minute later, had anybody cared to 
 go up and have a look, I suppose he would have 
 been discovered astraddle of the highest block 
 above the forethroat he and the skipper watch 
 ing out sharply for the lights of the many other 
 vessels about them, but more particularly straining 
 their eyes for the phosphorescent trails of mack 
 erel. 
 
 12$ 
 
XV 
 
 CLANCY TO THE MAST-HEAD 
 
 THE men below knew their skipper an<J 
 Clancy too well to imagine that they were 
 to be too long left in peace. And then, too, the 
 next man off watch reported a proper night for 
 mackerel. "Not a blessed star out and black! 
 It s like digging a hole in the ground and looking 
 into it. And the skipper s getting nervous, I know. 
 I could hear him stirrin round up there when I 
 was for ard just now, and he hollered to the wheel 
 that up to the no the ard it looked like planty of 
 fish. And I callate we ain t the only vessel got 
 eyes for it, he said." 
 
 "Yes," said his watch-mate, who had just 
 dropped down, "it s nothing but side-lights all 
 round and " 
 
 Just then came the skipper s voice from aloft. 
 "Tell the boys they might s well oil up and be 
 ready." The watch did not have to repeat it 
 we all heard it below, and fore and aft, in cabin 
 and forec s le, the gang made ready. Cards, nov 
 els, and all the hot arguments went by the board, 
 
 129 
 
The Seiners 
 
 and then after a mug-up for nearly all we slid into 
 oil-clothes, boots and souVesters, and puffing at 
 what was probably to be the last pipeful of the 
 evening, we lay around on lockers and on the floor, 
 backs to the butt of the mast and backs to the 
 stove wherever there was space for a broad back 
 and a pair of stout legs our fellows dropped 
 themselves, discussing all the while the things that 
 interested them fish, fishing, fast vessels, big 
 shares, politics, Bob Fitzsimmons, John L. Sulli 
 van, good stories, and just then particularly, be 
 cause two of the crew were thinking of marrying, 
 the awful price of real estate in Gloucester. 
 
 By and by, ringing as clear as if he himself 
 stood at the companion-way, came the skipper s 
 voice from the mast-head: u On deck everybody! * 
 No more discussion, no more loafing pipes were 
 smothered into bosoms, and up the companion-way 
 crowded oil-skins and jack-boots. 
 
 Then came: "It looks like fish ahead of us. 
 Haul the boat alongside and drop the dory over." 
 
 We jumped. Four laid hands on the dory in 
 the waist and ten or a dozen heaved away on the 
 stiff painter of the seine-boat that was towing 
 astern. Into the air and over the starboard rail 
 went the dory, while ploughing up to the vessel s 
 boom at the port fore-rigging came the bow of the 
 seine-boat. 
 
 130 
 
Clancy to the Mast-Head 
 
 Then followed: u Put the tops ls to her sharp 
 
 now." 
 
 The halyards could be heard whirring up to 
 ward the sky, while two bunches of us sagged and 
 lifted on the deck below. Among us it was, u Now 
 then o-ho sway away good," until topsails 
 were flat as boards, and the schooner, hauled up, 
 had heeled to her scuppers. 
 
 "Slap the stays l to her and up with the balloon. 
 Half the fleet s driving to the no the ard. Lively." 
 
 The Johnnie liked that rarely. With the seven 
 ty-five foot main-boom sheeted in to her rail, with 
 the thirty-seven-foot spike bowsprit poking a lane 
 in the sea when she dove and a path among the 
 clouds when she lifted, with her midship rail all but 
 flush with the sea and the night breeze to sing to 
 her of course she liked it, and she showed her 
 liking. She d tear herself apart now before she d 
 let anything in the fleet go by her. And red and 
 green lights were racing to both quarters of her. 
 
 "Into the boat!" It was the skipper s voice 
 again, and fifteen men leaped over the rail at the 
 word. Two dropped into the dory and thirteen 
 jumped from the vessel s rail onto thwarts or net 
 ting or into the bottom of the seine-boat any 
 where at all so that they get in quickly. As extra 
 hand on deck I had to stand by and pay out the 
 painter. 
 
The Seiners 
 
 In tHe middle of it came the skipper sliding 
 down from the mast-head. "Drop astern, boat and 
 dory," he called out, and himself leaped over the 
 quarter and onto the pile of netting as into the 
 Johnnie s boiling wake they went. The thirty- 
 eight-foot seine-boat was checked up a dozen 
 fathoms astern, and the dory just astern of that. 
 The two men in the dory had to fend off despe 
 rately as they slid by the seine-boat. 
 
 On the deck of the Johnnie were the cook, who 
 had the wheel, and myself, who had to stand by 
 the sheets. There would be stirring times soon, 
 for even from the deck occasional flashes of light, 
 marking small pods of mackerel, could be made 
 out on the surface of the sea. Clancy, now at the 
 mast-head alone, was noting these signs, we felt 
 sure, and with them a whole lot of other things. 
 To the mast-heads of other vessels out in the night 
 were other skippers, or seine-masters, and all with 
 skill and nerve and a great will to get fish. 
 
 The Johnnie was making perhaps ten knots good 
 now, and with every jerk the painter of the seine- 
 boat chafed and groaned in the taffrail chock. 
 The skipper from the boat called for more line. 
 "Slack away a bit, slack away. We re not 
 porpoises." 
 
 I jumped to attend to the painter just as Clancy s 
 voice broke in from above : "Swing her off about 
 
 132 
 
Clancy to the Mast-Head 
 
 two points, ease your main sheet and keep an eye 
 on that light to looard. Off, off that s good 
 hold her and Joe, slack stays l and then foretops l 
 halyards. Be ready to let go balloon halyards and 
 stand by down-haul. Look alive." 
 
 I paid out some sheet from the bitt by the wheel- 
 box, unbuttoned the after stays l tack, jumped for 
 ward and loosed up halyards till her kites dropped 
 limp. 
 
 "Down with your balloon there and at the 
 wheel there, jibe her over. Watch out for that 
 fellow astern he s pretty handy to our boat. 
 Watch out in boat and dory!" The last warning 
 was a roar. 
 
 The big balloon gossamer came rattling down 
 the long stay and the jaws of the booms ratched, 
 fore and main, as they swung over. From astern 
 came the voices of the men in boat and dory, warn 
 ing each other to hang on when they felt her jib 
 ing. Some of them must have come near to being 
 jerked overboard. "Why in God s name don t you 
 slack that painter?" came the voice of the skipper 
 from the boat. 
 
 I leaped to give them more painter, and "Draw 
 away your jib draw away your jumbo," came 
 from aloft. Sheets were barely fast when it was : 
 "Steady at the wheel, George steady her 
 ste-a-dy Great God ! man, if you can t see can t 
 
 133 
 
The Seiners 
 
 you feel that fellow just ahead? And, skipper, tell 
 them to close their jaws astern there water won t 
 hurt em. Ready all now?" 
 
 "Ready!" roared back the skipper. 
 
 "All right. Down with your wheel a bit now, 
 George. Down more yet. Hold her there." 
 
 The vessels that we had dodged by this bit of 
 luffing were now dropping by us ; one red light was 
 slowly sliding past our quarter to port, and one 
 green shooting by our bow to starboard. Evident 
 ly Clancy had only been waiting to steer clear of 
 these two neighbors, for there was plenty of fish in 
 sight now. The sea was flashing with trails of 
 them. Clancy now began to bite out commands. 
 
 "Stand ready everybody. In the boat and dory 
 there is everything ready, skipper?" 
 
 "All ready, boat and dory." 
 
 Out came Clancy s orders then rapid fire 
 and as he ripped them out, no whistling wind 
 could smother his voice, no swash of the sea could 
 drown it. In boat, dory and on deck, every brain 
 glowed to understand and every heart pumped to 
 obey. 
 
 "Up with your wheel, George, and let her swing 
 by. , Stea-dy. Ready in the boat. Steady your 
 wheel. Are you ready in the boat ? Let her swing 
 off a little more, George. Steady hold her there. 
 Stand by in the boat. Now then now ! Cast off 
 
 134 
 
Clancy to the Mast-Head 
 
 your painter, cast off and pull to the westward. 
 And drive her ! Up with the wheel. More yet 
 that s good. Drive her, I say, skipper. Where s 
 that dory? I don t see the dory. The dory, the 
 dory where in hell s the dory? show that lan 
 tern in the dory. All right, the dory. Hold her 
 up, George. Don t let her swing off another inch 
 now. Drive her, boys, drive her ! Look out now 1 
 Stand by the seine ! Stand by the twine do you 
 hear, Steve! The twine! Drive her drive her 
 blessed Lord ! drive her. That s the stuff, skip 
 per, drive her! Let her come up, George. Down 
 with your wheel down with you wheel ste-a-dy. 
 Drive her, skipper, drive her! Turn in now in 
 shorter yet. Drive her now where s that 
 dory ! hold her up ! not you, George ! you re all 
 right ste-a-dy. Hold that dory up to the wind! 
 that s it, boys you re all right straight ahead 
 now! That s the stuff. Turn her in now again, 
 skipper. In the dory there show your lantern in 
 the dory and be ready for the seine-boat. Good 
 enough. Now cover your lantern in the dory and 
 haul away when you re ready." 
 
 To have experienced the strain and drive of that 
 rush, to have held an oar in the boat during that 
 and to have shared with the men in the confidence 
 they gathered ours was a skipper to steer a boat 
 around a school and the soul that rang in Clan- 
 
 135 
 
The Seiners 
 
 cy s voice ! why, just to stand on deck, as I did, 
 and listen to it it was like living. 
 
 During this dash we could make out neither boat 
 nor dory from deck, but the flashes of light raised 
 by the oars at every stroke were plainly to be seen 
 in that phosphorescent sea. Certainly they were 
 making that boat hop along! Ten good men, 
 with every man a long, broad blade, and double 
 banked, so that every man might encourage his 
 mate and be himself spurred on by desperate effort. 
 Legs, arms, shoulders, back, all went into it and 
 their wake alive with smoke and fire to tell them 
 they were moving ! To be in that ? The middle 
 of a black night on the Atlantic was this, and the 
 big seine-heaver was throwing the seine in great 
 armfuls. And Hurd and Parsons in the little dory 
 tossing behind and gamely trying to keep up! 
 They were glad enough to be in the dory, I know, 
 to get hold of the buoy, and you can be sure there 
 was some lively action aboard of her when Clancy 
 called so fiercely to them to hold the buoy up to 
 the wind, so that the efforts of the crew of the 
 seine-boat, racing to get their two hundred odd 
 fathoms of twine fence around the flying school, 
 might not go for naught. 
 
 136 
 
XVI 
 
 WE GET A FINE SCHOOL 
 
 WITH his "Haul away now when you re 
 ready," Clancy came down from aloft. 
 He was sliding down evidently by way of the jib 
 halyards, for there was the sound of a chafing 
 whiz that could be nothing else than the friction 
 of oilskins against taut manila rope, a sudden 
 check, as of a block met on the way, an impatient, 
 soft, little forgivable oath, and then a plump! 
 that meant that he must have dropped the last 
 twelve or fifteen feet to the deck. Immediately 
 came the scurry of his boot-heels as he hurried aft. 
 In another moment he stood in the glow of the 
 binnacle light, and reaching back toward the 
 shadow of the cook, but never turning his head 
 from that spot out in the dark where he had last 
 seen the boat, he took the wheel. 
 
 "All right, George, I ve got you. A good-sized 
 school, by the looks, if they got them, and I think 
 they have. Did you see that boat ahead we near 
 ran into? the last time we put the wheel down? 
 Man, but for a second I thought they were gone. 
 
 137 
 
The Seiners 
 
 I hope no blessed vessel comes as near to our fel 
 lows. And they were so busy rowing and heav 
 ing twine they never saw us, and myself nearly 
 cross-eyed trying to watch them and our own boat 
 and the fish all the time. Go below, George, she s 
 all right now, and tell Joe where is he ? to go 
 below, too, and have a mug-up for himself. He 
 must be soaked through taking the swash that 
 mustVe come over her bow for the last hour. But 
 tell him to come right up so s to keep watch out 
 ahead." 
 
 I didn t go below, however, but standing by the 
 fore-rigging kept an eye out ahead. Clancy him 
 self stood to the wheel with his head ever turned 
 over one shoulder, until he saw the flare of a torch 
 from the seine-boat. "Good!" he exclaimed. 
 "What there is is safe now, anyway." 
 
 After that his work was easy. He had only to 
 dodge the lights of other vessels now, the old red 
 and green lights that had been our neighbors all 
 that evening, and a few new yellow flares that came 
 from other seine-boats. So his eyes ranged the 
 blackness and in rings about his own seine-boat he 
 sailed the Johnnie Duncan. That the crew were 
 quite a little while pursing up only gave him sat 
 isfaction. "A nice school, Joe, if they got it all," 
 he said, "a nice school of em." And after a pause, 
 "I think I ll stand down and have a look." 
 
 138 
 
We Get a Fine School 
 
 He ran down, luffed, and hailed, "Hi skipper, 
 what s it like ?" 
 
 From the row of figures that were seen to be 
 crowding gunnel and thwarts and hauling on the 
 seine, one shadow straightened up beside the smoky 
 torch and spoke. "Can t be sure yet, Tommie, but 
 things look all right so far. A fair-sized school if 
 we don t lose em." 
 
 "Lord, don t lose em, skipper, though I think 
 you ve got em fast enough now. Sounds natural 
 to hear em flipping inside the corks, don t it? 
 Ought to be hurrying em up, skipper it s getting 
 along in the night." 
 
 Clancy, very well satisfied, stood away again and 
 continued to sail triangles around boat and dory. 
 Being now clear of the greater part of the mental 
 strain his spirits began to lighten. Merely by way 
 of being sociable with himself he hummed some 
 old ditties. There was that about the old coaster, 
 the Eliza Jane. I liked to hear him sing that, as, 
 dancing a one-footed jig-step by the wheel-box, he 
 bumped it out : 
 
 " Oh, the Liza Jane with a blue foremast 
 And a load of hay came drifting past. 
 Her skipper stood aft and he said, How do ? 
 We re the Liza Jane and who be you ? 
 
 He stood by the wheel and he says, How do ? 
 We re from Bangor, Maine from where be you? * 
 
 139. 
 
The Seiners 
 
 The Liza Jane got a new main truck 
 A darn fine thing but wouldn t stay stuck. 
 Came a breeze one day from the no -no j -west 
 And the gosh-darned thing came down with the rest. 
 
 Oh, hi-diddle-di a breeze from the west 
 
 Who d a* thunk the truck wouldn t stuck with the rest? 
 
 " Oh, the Liza Jane left the wharf one day, 
 A fine flood tide and the day Friday, 
 But the darned old tide sent her bow askew 
 And the Liza Jane began for to slew. 
 
 Oh, hi-diddle-di she d a fairly flew, 
 If she only could sail the other end to. 
 
 (t Oh, the Liza Jane left port one day, 
 
 With her hold full of squash and her deck all hay. 
 Two years back with her sails all set 
 She put from Bath she s sailing yet. 
 
 Oh, hi-diddle-di for a good old craft 
 
 She d ve sailed very well with her bow on aft." 
 
 There was a long story to the Eliza Jane, but 
 Clancy did not finish it. Maybe he felt that it was 
 not in harmony with that lowering sky or that 
 flashing sea. Maybe, too, in the waters that rolled 
 and the wake that smoked was the inspiration for 
 something more stirring. At any rate he began, in 
 a voice that carried far, an old ballad of the war 
 of 1812. 
 
 Two or three more stanzas to warm up, and 
 the fight was on. And you would think Clancy 
 
 140 
 
We Get a Fine School 
 
 was in it. He laid every mast and yard of the 
 enemy over the side of her, he made her decks run 
 with blood, and at the last, in a noble effort, he 
 caused her to strike her flag. 
 
 By the time he had finished that, it happened 
 that we were running before the wind, and, going 
 so, it was very quiet aboard the vessel. There was 
 none of the close-hauled wash through her scup 
 pers, nor was there much play of wind through 
 stays and halyards. It was in fact unusually quiet, 
 and it needed only that to set Clancy off on a more 
 melancholy tack. So in a subdued voice he began 
 the recitation of one of the incidents that have 
 helped to make orphans of Gloucester children: 
 
 " Twelve good vessels fighting through the night . 
 Fighting, fighting, that no the-east gale ; 
 Every man, be sure, did his might, 
 But never a sign of a single sail 
 Was there in the morning when the sun shone red. 
 But a hundred and seventy fine men dead 
 Were settling somewhere into the sand 
 On Georges shoals, which is Drowned Men s Land. 
 
 Seventy widows kneeling " 
 
 A long hail came over the water and a torch was 
 raised and lowered. u Hi-i " hallooed the voice. 
 
 "Hi-i-i " hallooed back Clancy as he pulled 
 down his wheel. You might have thought he in 
 tended to run over them. But no, for at the very 
 
 141 
 
The Seiners 
 
 last second he threw her up cleverly and let her 
 settle beside the boat, from which most of the men 
 came tumbling immediately over the side of the 
 vessel. Of those who stayed, one shackled the 
 boat s bow onto the iron that hung from the boom 
 at the fore-rigging, and having done that, braced 
 an oar between himself and the vessel s run to hold 
 the boat away and steady while another in the 
 stern of the boat did the same thing with his oar. 
 In the boat s waist two men hung o nto the seine. 
 
 A section of the cork edge of the seine was then 
 gathered inboard and clamped down over the ves 
 sel s rail, with the mackerel crowded into the 
 middle part, and the bunt of the seine thus held 
 safely between boat and vessel. Into this space 
 the sea swashed and slapped after a manner that 
 kept all in the boat completely drenched and made 
 it pretty hard for the men in bow and stern to fend 
 off and retain their balance at the same time. 
 
 And then began the bailing in. Guided by the 
 skipper, who stood on the break, our big dip-net, 
 which could hold a barrel easily, was dropped over 
 the rail and in among the kicking fish. A twist 
 and a turn and "He-yew!" the skipper yelled. 
 "Oy-hoo !" grunted the two gangs of us at the hal 
 yards, and into the air and over the rail swung the 
 dip-net, swimming full. "Down!" We let it sag 
 quickly to Clancy and Parsons, who were at the 
 
 14* 
 
We Get a Fine School 
 
 rail. "Hi-o!" they called cheerfully, and turned 
 the dip-net inside out. Out and down it went 
 again, "He-yew!" and up and in it came again. 
 "Oy-hoo!" "Hi-o!" and flop! it was turned up 
 side down and another barrel of fat, lusty fish 
 flipped their length against the hard deck. Head 
 and tail they flipped, each head and tail ten 
 times a second seemingly, until it sounded they 
 beat the deck so frantically as if a regiment of 
 gentle little drummer boys were tapping a low but 
 wonderfully quick-sounding roll. Scales flew. We 
 found some next morning glued to the mast-head. 
 I never can get some people to believe that it is so 
 mackerel scales to the mast-head. 
 
 "He-yew!" called the skipper, "Oy-hoo!" hol 
 lered the halyards gang, "Hi-o!" sung out Clancy 
 and Parsons cheerily at the rail. "Fine fat fish," 
 commented the men in the seine-boat, the only men 
 who had time to draw an extra breath. 
 
 Blazing torches were all around us. Arms 
 worked up and down, big boots stamped, while in 
 board and out swung the dip-net, and onto the deck 
 flopped the mackerel. "Drive her!" called the 
 skipper, and "He-yew!" "Oy-hoo!" and "Hi-o!" 
 it went. Drenched oilskins steamed, wet faces 
 glowed, glad eyes shone through the smoke flare, 
 and the pitching vessel, left to herself, plunged up 
 and down to the lift and fall of every sea. 
 
 H3 
 
XVII 
 
 A DRIVE FOR MARKET 
 
 HER deck was pretty well filled with mackerel 
 when "All dry," said Long Steve, and drew 
 the last of the seine into the boat. 
 
 "Then hurry aboard and drop that seine-boat 
 astern. And whose watch? Take the wheel 
 wait till I give you the course there. But don t 
 drive her awhile yet. Some of those fish might be 
 washed over. But it won t be for long." 
 
 "Ready with the ice?" he asked next. 
 
 "All ready," and the men who had been chop 
 ping ice and making ready the pens in the hold 
 stood by to take the mackerel as we passed them 
 down. 
 
 As soon as we had enough of them off the 
 vessel s deck to make it safe to drive her, the skip 
 per gave her a little more sheet and let her go for 
 New York. We hustled the seine-boat aboard too. 
 Some other vessels must have got fish, too, and 
 there was no time to waste. 
 
 It was a good-sized school and when we had 
 them all iced and below more than thirty thou 
 sand count it was time for all hands to turn in 
 
A Drive For Market 
 
 all but the two men on watch of course. I didn t 
 turn in myself, but after a mug-up and pipeful be 
 low came on deck again. It was a pretty good sort 
 of a night for a dark night, with a moderate breeze 
 that sang in your ears when you leaned against the 
 halyards and a sea that lapped bucketfuls of spray 
 over her rail forward and that tumbled away in a 
 wide flat hump as our quarter slipped on and left 
 it behind. 
 
 I found the skipper leaning against the weather 
 rigging and watching a red light coming up on us. 
 Noticing me he said, "There s that porgy steamer 
 that we beat out for that school the other day 
 overhauling us now. There s the beauty of steam. 
 The crew of this one knows more in a minute than 
 they know in a week about fishing in that steamer, 
 and we d be carrying our summer kites when that 
 gang, if they were in a sailing vessel, would be 
 laying to an anchor; and with our boat out and 
 their boat out and a school in sight they d have 
 to take our leavings. But here s one of the times 
 when they have the best of it." 
 
 There wasn t much wind stirring then, but it 
 promised to breeze up, or so the skipper thought, 
 and I m sure I was glad to hear him say it, for 
 the harder it blew the sooner we would get to New 
 York and the better our chance to beat the porgy- 
 man. First in to market got the cream. 
 
The Seiners 
 
 It was pretty well on to daybreak when the 
 porgy steamer got up abreast of us and after 
 a while worked by. One of them took the trouble 
 to sing out to us when they went by, "Well, you got 
 a school before us, but we ll be tied up and into 
 the dock and spending our money ashore whilst 
 you re still along the Jersey coast somewhere." 
 
 And we supposed they would, but Hurd, who 
 was then to our wheel, had to call back to them, 
 "Oh, I dunno. I dunno about that it s a good 
 run to Fulton Market dock yet." And, turning to 
 us, "I hope the bloody old boiler explodes so no- 
 body ll be able to find a mackerel of em this side 
 the Bay of Fundy. Of course I wouldn t want to 
 see the men come to any harm, but wouldn t it jar 
 you them scrubs?" 
 
 The skipper wasn t saying anything. And it 
 meant a lot to him, too. He was looking after the 
 steamer and, I know, praying for wind. We could 
 see it in his eyes. 
 
 And sometimes things come as we like to have 
 them. At full dawn it was a nice breeze with the 
 Johnnie Duncan washing her face in plenty of good 
 spray and the fine sun shining warm on a fresh 
 sea-way. Another hour, the wind hauling and still 
 making, the Johnnie was down to her rail, and 
 awhile after that she was getting all the wind she 
 needed. 
 
 146 
 
A Drive For Market 
 
 "We may have a chance to try her out on this 
 run, who knows?" said the skipper. We were 
 coming up on the porgy steamer then and you 
 should have seen his eyes when they looked from 
 the rail to the deck of his vessel and from the 
 deck again to aloft. On the steamer the gang were 
 in the waist watching us coming and they must 
 have been piling the coal into her below and giv 
 ing her the jet steadily, for out of her funnel was 
 coming the smoke in clouds mixed with steam. 
 
 "But their firemen can stoke till they re black in 
 the face and they won t get more than eleven or 
 eleven and a half knots out of her," said Clancy. 
 "I know her the Nautilus and if this one under 
 us ain t logging her fourteen good then I don t 
 know. And she ll be doing better yet before we 
 see New York." 
 
 They were driving the porgyman then, but she 
 was fated. Once we began to get her she came 
 back to us fast enough, and once she was astern 
 she troubled us no more. After the porgyman we 
 passed a big white yacht, evidently just up from 
 the West Indies after a winter s cruise. She looked 
 a model for a good sailer, but there was no chance 
 to try her out, for they had her under shortened 
 sail when we went by. 
 
 There was a New York blue-fisherman on our 
 weather bow bound for New York, too, and the 
 
The Seiners 
 
 way we went by her was a scandal. And farther 
 on we drove by a big bark big enough, almost, 
 to take us aboard. They were plainly trying to 
 make a passage on her, but we left her too. Then 
 we passed another yacht, but she wasn t carrying 
 half our sail. Her hull was as long as ours, but 
 she didn t begin to be sparred as we were. We 
 must have had ten feet on her main-boom and ten 
 feet more bowsprit outboard, and yet under her 
 four lower sails she seemed to be making heavy 
 going of it. It s a good yacht that can hold a fish 
 erman in a breeze and a sea-way. We beat this 
 one about as bad as we beat the blue-fisherman. 
 As we went by we tried to look as though we had 
 beaten so many vessels that we d lost all interest in 
 racing, and at the same time we were all dancing 
 on our toes to think what a vessel we had under 
 us. It was that passage we held the north-bound 
 Savannah steamer for seven hours. Her passen 
 gers stood by the rail and watched us, and when 
 at last we crowded our bowsprit past her nose, they 
 waved their handkerchiefs and cheered us like 
 mad. 
 
 "When we get this one loosened up a bit and 
 down to her trim, she ll sail some or I don t know," 
 said our skipper. He stood in the cabin gangway 
 then and filled his boots with water, but he wouldn t 
 take in sail. Back behind us was another seiner. 
 
 148 
 
A Drive For Market 
 
 We could just make out that they were soaking it 
 to her too. The skipper nodded his head back 
 at her. Then, with one hand on the house and the 
 other on the rail, he looked out from under our 
 main-boom and across at the steamer. "Not a rag 
 let the spars come out of her." 
 
 One thing was sure the Johnnie was a vessel 
 that could stand driving. She didn t crowd her 
 self as she got going. No, sir! The harder we 
 drove her the faster she went. Laying down on 
 her side made no difference to her. In fact we were 
 not sure that she wouldn t do her best sailing on 
 her side. But it hadn t come to that yet. She was 
 standing up under sail fine. Most of them, we 
 knew, would have washed everything off their deck 
 before that. And certainly there would have been 
 no standing down by the lee rail on too many of 
 them with that breeze abeam. 
 
 Going up New York harbor, where we had to 
 tack, the Savannah steamer could have gone by if 
 she had to, but big steamers slow down some going 
 into a harbor, and we holding on to everything 
 made up for the extra distance sailed. The wind, 
 of course, was nothing to what it was outside, and 
 that made some difference. Anyway, we kept the 
 Johnnie going and held the steamer up to the Bat 
 tery, where, as she had to go up North River, she 
 gave us three toots. The people on the Battery 
 
 149 
 
The Seiners 
 
 must have had a good look at us. I guess it was 
 not every day they saw a schooner of the Johnnie s 
 size carrying on like that. Billie Hurd had to pay 
 his respects to them. "Look, you loafers, look, 
 and see a real vessel sailing in." 
 
 There was a sassy little East River towboat that 
 wanted to give us a tow, but our skipper said it 
 would be losing time to take sail off and wait for a 
 line then. The tug captain said, "Oh, no; and 
 you can t dock her anyway in this harbor without 
 a tug." 
 
 "Oh, I can dock her all right, I guess," said our 
 skipper. 
 
 "Maybe you think you can, but wait till you try 
 it, and have a nice little bill for damages besides." 
 
 "Well, the vessel s good for the damages, too." 
 
 That towboat tailed us just the same, but we 
 had the satisfaction of fooling him. The skipper 
 kept the Johnnie going till the right time and then, 
 when the tugboat people thought it was too late, 
 he shot her about on her heel and into the dock 
 with her mainsail coming down on the run and 
 jibs dead. 
 
 A couple of East Side loafers standing on the 
 wharf cap-log were nearly swept away by the end 
 of our bowsprit, we came on so fast. Four or five 
 of us leaped ashore, and with lines out and made 
 fast in no time, we had her docked without so much 
 
 150 
 
A Drive For Market 
 
 as cracking a single shingle of the house across the 
 head of the dock. 
 
 We sold our mackerel for nineteen cents apiece. 
 Fifty-seven hundred and odd dollars was our stock, 
 and about a hundred and forty dollars each man s 
 share. We felt a little bit chesty after that. We 
 were not the first to market that year, but we were 
 the first since the early flurry, and the biggest stock 
 so far that spring was to our credit. 
 
 We stood on the deck and watched the porgy 
 steamer come in and tie up, too late for that day s 
 market. Some of our fellows had to ask them 
 where they got their fish to the s uth ard or 
 where? and two or three fights came out of it, 
 but no harm done. Then nearly everybody drew 
 some money off the skipper, and we smoked fifteen- 
 cent cigars and threw our chests out. We all went 
 uptown, too, and took in the theatres that night, 
 and afterwards treated each other and pretty 
 nearly everybody else that we met along the East 
 Side on the way back, until the policemen began to 
 notice us and ask if we didn t think we d better 
 be getting back to our ships. One or two of the 
 crew had to get into fights with the toughs along 
 the water front, but we were all safely aboard by 
 three o clock in the morning. 
 
 All but Clancy. Some of us were trying to get 
 some sleep along towards morning when Clancy 
 
The Seiners 
 
 came aboard with a fine shore list. The cook, who 
 was up and stirring about for breakfast, noticed 
 him first. "It s a fine list you ve got, Tommie." 
 "And why not? and a fine beam wind coming 
 down the street. I m like a lot of other deep- 
 draught craft of good model, George I sail best 
 with the wind abeam. A bit of a list gets you 
 down to your lines." And until we turned out for 
 breakfast, after which it was time to be off and 
 away to the fleet again, he kept us all in a roar with 
 the story of his adventures. 
 
 152 
 
XVIII 
 
 A BRUSH WITH THE YACHTING FLEET 
 
 THROUGH all of that montK and through 
 most of the month of May we chased the 
 mackerel up the coast. By the middle of May 
 we were well up front with the killers, and our 
 skipper s reputation was gaining. The vessel, too, 
 was getting quite a name as a sailer. Along the 
 Maryland, Delaware, and Jersey coasts we chased 
 them on up to off Sandy Hook and then along 
 the Long Island shore, running them fresh into 
 New York. There were nights and days that 
 spring when we saw some driving on the Johnnie 
 Duncan. 
 
 Toward the end of May, with the fish schooling 
 easterly to off No Man s Land and reported as 
 being seen on Georges and in the Bay of Fundy 
 working to the eastward all the time we thought 
 the skipper would put for home, take in salt, fill 
 the hold with barrels and refit for a Cape Shore 
 trip that is, head the fish off along the Nova 
 Scotia shore, from Cape Sable and on to anywhere 
 around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and stay there 
 until we had filled her up with salt mackerel. We 
 
The Seiners 
 
 thought so, because most of the fleet had decided 
 on that plan and because we had been away from 
 home since the first of April. But no he stayed 
 cruising off Block Island and running them fresh 
 into Newport with the last half-dozen of the fleet. 
 Our idea of it was that the skipper wanted to go 
 home badly enough, but he was set on getting a 
 big stock and didn t care what it cost himself or us 
 to get it. Some of us would have given a lot to 
 be home. 
 
 " Oh, fine blue sky and a fine blue sea 
 And a blue-eyed girl awaiting me,* 
 
 was how Clancy put it as he came down from aloft 
 one afternoon and took the wheel from me. u By 
 the wind is it, Joe?" 
 
 "By the wind," I said the usual word when 
 seiners are cruising for mackerel, and I went aloft 
 to take his place at the mast-head. It was a lazy 
 watch, as the mackerel generally were not showing 
 at this time in the middle of the day. They seemed 
 to prefer the early morning or the late afternoon, 
 or above all a dark night. 
 
 Long Steve, who came up this day to pass the 
 time with me aloft, had been telling me about his 
 old home, when we both noticed the topsails of 
 what we knew must be the first of a fleet of big 
 schooner yachts racing to Newport from New 
 
 154 
 
A Brush With The Yachting Fleet 
 
 York, no doubt, on one of their ocean races. Steve, 
 of course, had to try to name the leader, while 
 she was yet miles away seiners have wonderful 
 eyes for vessels and was still at it, naming the 
 others behind, when the next on watch relieved 
 me and I went below. 
 
 The first of the yachts was almost on us when 
 I came down, and Clancy was watching her like 
 a hawk when he turned the wheel over to the next 
 man. She was as about as big as we were. We 
 knew her well. She had been a cup defender and 
 afterwards changed to a schooner rig. Our skipper 
 was taking a nap below at this time, or we sup 
 posed he was. He had been up nearly a week, 
 with no more than a two-hours sleep each day, and 
 so was pretty well tired. That was what made 
 Clancy stand by the wheel and ask if the skipper 
 was still asleep. 
 
 "No," said the skipper himself. He had just 
 turned out, and in his stocking feet he came to the 
 companionway and looked up. ".What is it?" 
 
 "Here s this big yacht crawling by on our quar 
 ter she ll be by us soon. I thought you wouldn t 
 like it." 
 
 "I ll be right up. Tell the gang to sway up." 
 
 He drew on his slip-shods and came on deck. 
 He took a look over at the yacht while we were 
 swaying up. When we had everything good and 
 
The Seiners 
 
 flat and trimmed sheets a bit, the skipper called 
 out to take in the fore-topsail. "She hasn t got hers 
 set," he explained. 
 
 Now, a fore-topsail does not help much hauled 
 up, as were the Johnnie Duncan and the yacht, it 
 would be a hindrance to most vessels, and, perhaps, 
 because it did not help her was why the yacht had 
 not hers set. But it showed the skipper s fairness. 
 Ours had been left set, because we might need it 
 in a hurry, and also because with the skipper be 
 low nobody could order it down. Now we clewed 
 it up. 
 
 Clancy, standing aft, threw a look at our seine- 
 boat, which of course we had in tow. "She s quite 
 a drag," he suggested, u for a vessel that s racing." 
 
 "Yes," said the skipper, "but wait a while. We 
 won t cast it off unless we have to." 
 
 We did not have to. We soon had her in trim. 
 For weeks the skipper and Clancy had been mark 
 ing the Johnnie s sheets so that in an emergency 
 they could whip her into her best sailing in no time. 
 With that, and with the shifting of some barrels 
 of salt that we had on deck, we soon had her going. 
 It is surprising what a lot of difference the shifting 
 of a few barrels of salt will make in the trim of a 
 vessel. We had not had a try with anything for 
 two weeks or so and had become careless. The 
 last thing we did was to take some barrels of fresh 
 
 156 
 
A Brush With The Yachting Fleet 
 
 water that happened to be standing forward of the 
 windlass and shift them aft, and then the Johnnie 
 began to go along for fair. 
 
 Coming up to Block Island Light things were 
 pretty even. Then it came a question of who was 
 to go to windward. The yacht hauled her main- 
 sheet in to two blocks. So did we, and, further, ran 
 a line from the cringle in her foresail to the 
 weather rigging. She could not make it we had 
 her. 
 
 "Mind the time," said the skipper, when at 
 last we had her under our quarter "mind the 
 time, Tommie, when we used to do so much racing 
 down on the Cape shore? There s where we had 
 plenty of time for racing and all sorts of foolish 
 ness. I was pretty young then, but I mind it well. 
 A string of men on the rigging from the shear 
 poles clear up to the mast-head yes, and a man 
 astraddle the main gaff once or twice, passing 
 buckets of water to wet down the mains l." 
 
 "Yes, and barrels of water out toward the 
 end of the main-boom keep the sail stretched. 
 Man, but those were the days we paid attention 
 to racing." 
 
 "Those were the days," asserted the skipper. 
 "But we can do a little of it now, too." 
 
 By that you will understand we were walking 
 away from our yacht. We were to anchor in the 
 
 157 
 
The Seiners 
 
 harhor while she was still corning, and we hud 
 lowed our seme hoat all llir way. 
 
 "Lord," -.aid ( lan< y, ;r. wr were tyin;/ up our 
 foresail, "hill I d like lo see this one in an ocean 
 HIM- willi plenty of wind stiinnj not a Hat 
 hrer/.c and a short drap. like we had lo-day." 
 
XIX 
 
 MINNIE ARKELL AGAIN 
 
 C< ^MING on to dark that night a gig put off 
 from the schooner-yacht and rowed over 
 to us. On the way she was hailed and pasted ft 
 few words with a steam-yacht anchored in between. 
 The man in the stem of the gig was not satisfied 
 until he had been rowed three times around the 
 Johnnie. When he had looked his fill he came 
 alongside. 
 
 1 le mistook Clancy for the skipper. I suppose 
 he couldn t imagine a man of Clancy s figure and 
 hearing to be an ordinary hand on a fisherman. S 
 to Clancy he said, "Captain, you ve got a wonder 
 ful vessel here. Put a single stick in her and she ll 
 beat the world." 
 
 "Yes," said Clancy, "and she d be a hell of a 
 fine fisherman then, wouldn t she?" 
 
 The rest of us had to roar at that. We at once 
 pictured the Johnnie rigged up as a sloop out on 
 the Grand Banks, trawling or hand-lining, with 
 the crew trying to handle her in some of the winter 
 gales that struck in there. And a great chance 
 
 J59 
 
The Seiners 
 
 she would have rigged as a sloop and her one 
 big sail, making a winter passage home eight or 
 nine or ten hundred miles, when as it was, with 
 the sail split up to schooner rig, men found it bad 
 enough. 
 
 The master of the yacht had a message for our 
 captain, he said, and Clancy told him the skipper 
 was below. There they talked for a while and 
 after the yachtsman had gone Maurice, inviting 
 four or five of us along, dressed up, called for the 
 seine-boat, got in and was rowed over to a steam- 
 yacht that we now remembered had hailed the 
 schooner-yacht s gig. All brass and varnish and 
 white paint and gold she would be in the daytime, 
 but now she was all lit up with electric lights below 
 and Japanese lanterns on deck. 
 
 When we came alongside, who should come to 
 the gangway of the yacht and welcome Maurice 
 but Minnie Arkell Mrs. Miner. She greeted all 
 of us for that matter she never pretended not to 
 see people and invited us all below for refresh 
 ments. There was a good lay-out there and we 
 pitched into it. Seiners are great people at table 
 or in a bunk. They can turn to and eat, or turn 
 in and sleep any minute, day or night. So now we 
 turned to. Clancy did great things to the wine. 
 Generally he took whiskey, but he did not object 
 to good wine now and then. He and one fellow 
 
 1 60 
 
Minnie Arkell Again 
 
 in a blue coat, white duck trousers, and a blue cap 
 that never left his head, had a great chat. 
 
 "I callate that if he didn t have that cap with 
 the button on front nobody d know he was a real 
 yachtsman, would they?" Eddie Parsons whispered 
 in my ear. 
 
 The owner of the steam-yacht was trying to con 
 vince Tommie that yachting would be more in his 
 line than fishing, but Tommie couldn t see it. 
 
 "But why not?" he asked at last. "Why not, 
 Mr. Clancy? Is it a matter of money? If it is, 
 I ll make that right. I pay ordinary hands twenty- 
 five and thirty dollars a month and found, but I ll 
 pay you fifty sixty seventy dollars a month to 
 go with me. I m going to race this steamer this 
 summer and I want a quartermaster a man like 
 you that can steer to a hair-line. Seventy dollars 
 a month now what do you say? n 
 
 "Come now, my good man, what do you say?" 
 Clancy got that off without so much as a smile. 
 "But you couldn t make it seventy-five now, could 
 you? No, I didn t mean that quite, though I ve 
 been out the dock in Gloucester of a Saturday noon 
 and back again to the dock of a Tuesday noon 
 three days and shared two hundred dollars not 
 as skipper, mind you, but just as hand. There 
 now, I hope you re not going to get angry. Hadn t 
 we better have another little touch? But I can see 
 
 161 
 
The Seiners 
 
 myself in a suit of white duck, touching my cap, 
 and saying, Aye, aye, sir, to some slob no refer 
 ence to you, mind you but some slob in a uniform 
 that s got a yacht, not because he loves the sea, 
 but because he wants to butt in somewhere who 
 lives aboard his yacht just the same as he does in 
 his house ashore electric bells, baths, servants, 
 barber and all and hugs the shore so close that he 
 gets the morning paper as regularly as when he s 
 at home. When that kind go yachting all they 
 miss are the tables on the lawn and the auto 
 mobiles going by the door. They even have canary- 
 birds some of them in cages. Yes, and wouldn t 
 be caught twenty miles off shore no, not even in 
 a summer s breeze for And where would he be 
 in a winter s gale ? I can see myself rowing a gig 
 with somebody like that in the stern giving orders 
 and fooling well, some simple-minded women 
 folks, maybe, who know as much of the sea as 
 they do of the next world most of them fooling 
 them into believing that he s a devil yes, a clean 
 devil on the water. Seventy a month for that? 
 couldn t you make it seventy-five?" 
 
 "You don t mean to say that " 
 
 "Yes," said Clancy, "I do. I d rather stick to 
 fishing than but here s a shoot and let s call the 
 quartermaster s job off." 
 
 Minnie Arkell chimed in here. "A real fisher- 
 162 
 
Minnie Arkell Again 
 
 man, you must remember, Mr. Keith, doesn t care 
 much for yachting because leaving out the ques 
 tion of wages, for he does make more at fish 
 ing he can remain a fisherman and yet be inde 
 pendent" 
 
 "You mean they don t have to take orders as 
 if they were on a yacht, Mrs. Miner?" 
 
 "No, no don t make any mistake there. The 
 discipline of a yacht, so far as I know it, is baby 
 play to what they have on a good fisherman. The 
 discipline aboard a warship is nothing to that 
 aboard a fisherman, like Captain Blake s vessel 
 say, when there is anything to be done. Fisher 
 men, it s true, don t have to touch their caps and 
 say, Very good, sir, to a man who may be no more 
 of a real man than themselves. On your yacht I 
 suppose you d discharge a man who didn t do what 
 he was told, and on a warship he would be sent 
 to the brig, I suppose. On a fisherman he d be put 
 ashore. On a fisherman they not only obey orders, 
 but they carry them out on the jump. And why? 
 Because they ve always done it. Why, deep-sea 
 fishermen are always getting into places where only 
 the best of seamanship can save them, and they 
 very early get in the way of doing things up quick 
 and right. When a Gloucester skipper orders in 
 the sail, say in a gale of wind, and more than apt 
 to be in the middle of the night you don t see 
 
The Seiners 
 
 men trying to see how long it will take them to 
 get into oilskins or filling another pipe before 
 they climb on deck. No, sir the first man out on 
 the bowsprit, if it s the jib to come in or out on 
 the foot-ropes, if it s the mainsail to be tied up 
 he s the man that will have a right to hold his head 
 high next day aboard that vessel. And so the 
 crew of a fisherman jump to their work if they 
 didn t there d be a lot more of them lost than 
 there are." 
 
 "Dear me," said Mr. Keith, "that never oc 
 curred to me before. But how is it, Mrs. Miner, 
 that you have it down so fine?" 
 
 "My father was a Gloucester skipper, and since 
 I was that high" she put her hand on a level 
 with her knee "I ve been listening to fishermen. 
 And yachting life does tend to spoil a fisherman," 
 she went on to explain. "After a summer of yacht 
 ing a fisherman will begin to think that a winter 
 of fishing is going to be a serious thing." She was 
 warmed up then and went on talking at a great 
 rate. And listening to her I could understand bet 
 ter why men took to her. She had warm blood in 
 her. If it were not for her weakness to be ad- 
 naired by men, she would have been a great woman. 
 "And they get so, that what seems extraordinary 
 work to you is only an every-day matter to them. 
 Do you remember that last schooner-yacht race 
 
Minnie Arkell Again 
 
 across the Atlantic? when two or three reporters 
 went along, and after they got back wrote all kinds 
 of stories of what a desperate trip it was how 
 rough it was and dangerous ! Well, that time there 
 were three or four Gloucestermen making the run 
 to Iceland. Now, they were not as big as the 
 racing yachts and they were loaded down with all 
 the stores for a long salt trip their holds full of 
 salt, for one thing and yet they made about as 
 good time to Iceland as that yachtsman made to 
 Queenstown. And they weren t driving their ves 
 sels either they don t drive on the way out. It s 
 only coming home that they try to make passages. 
 Now, they must have got the same weather and 
 yet nobody ever heard them in their letters home 
 report a word of bad weather, or ever afterward, 
 either. And yet but were you to Iceland that 
 time, Maurice?" 
 
 "No," said the skipper, "but you were, 
 Tommie?" 
 
 "Yes," answered Clancy, "in the Lucy Foster. 
 We made Rik-ie-vik inside of fourteen days, carry 
 ing both tops ls all the way. Wesley Wesley 
 Marrs wasn t hurrying her, of course. As Mrs. 
 Miner says, the vessels going to the east ard don t 
 hurry, except now and then when two of them 
 with records get together. And the Lucy was logy, 
 of course, with the three hundred and odd hogs- 
 
 165 
 
The Seiners 
 
 heads of salt and other stuff in her. If we d been 
 driving her going to Iceland that time we d have 
 had the stays l and balloon to her and she d have 
 gone right along with them, too." 
 
 Mrs. Miner looked around at her yachting 
 friends to see if they were getting all that. 
 
 "There was one day that passage it blew a 
 bit," exclaimed Clancy. "And that was the day we 
 thought we saw a fellow to the east ard. We had 
 men by the halyards all that day with splitting 
 knives." 
 
 "Why?" asked Keith. 
 
 "Why, to cut before she could capsize." 
 
 "Oh!" said Keith and said it with a little 
 click. 
 
 "But that s nothing. I ve seen the gang with 
 Tom O Donnell standing watch by the halyards 
 for days with axes when he was making a pas 
 sage." 
 
 Minnie Arkell filled another glass of champagne 
 for Clancy, and Clancy didn t give the fizz too 
 much time to melt away either. 
 
 "These men are the real things," she said, but 
 Clancy, for fear we were getting too much credit, 
 broke in, "Not us seiners. It s the winter fisher 
 men trawlers and hand-liners that are the real 
 things. Of course, we lose men now and then 
 seining, but it s in winter up on the shoal water 
 
 166 
 
Minnie Arkell Again 
 
 on the Banks that there s where you have some 
 seas to buck against," and he went on to tell of a 
 battle with a gale on a winter s night on the Grand 
 Banks. Clancy could tell a story as well as any 
 body I ever met. He could make the blood jump 
 to your heart, or the tears to your eyes or he could 
 chill you till the blood froze. When he got 
 through you could hear them all breathing men 
 and women both, like people who had just run a 
 race. "Two hundred and odd men sailing out of 
 Gloucester," he said, "went down that night. 
 There weren t too many came safe out of that 
 blow. The father of this boy here was lost the 
 Mary Buckley warn t it, Joe? named for your 
 mother?" 
 
 "And my father, too, was lost soon after," said 
 Minnie Arkell, and the glance she gave me melted 
 a lot of prejudice I had felt for her. That was the 
 good human side to her. 
 
 "No better man ever sailed out of Gloucester, 
 Mrs. Miner," said Clancy. 
 
 She flushed up. "Thank you, Tommie, for that, 
 though I know he was a reckless man." And, she 
 might have added, he left some of his recklessness 
 in the blood of the Arkells. 
 
 The skipper told them a lot about sea life that 
 night. Some of the stories he told, though long 
 known in Gloucester, they took to be yarns at first. 
 
The Seiners 
 
 They could not believe that men went through such 
 things and lived. And then the skipper had such 
 an easy way of telling them. After a man has 
 been through a lot of unusual things- had them 
 years behind him and almost forgotten them I 
 suppose they don t surprise him any more. 
 
 The skipper looked well that night. When he 
 warmed up and his eyes took on a fresh shine and 
 his mouth softened like a woman s, I tell you he 
 was a winner. I could not help comparing him 
 with the steam-yacht owner, who was a good-look 
 ing man, too, but in a different way. Both of them, 
 to look at, were of the same size. Both had their 
 clothes made by tailors who knew their business 
 and took pains with the fitting, though it was 
 easy to fit men like Clancy and the skipper, such 
 fine level shoulders and flat broad backs they had. 
 Now the skipper, as I say, when he warmed up 
 began to look something like what he ought like 
 he did when walking the quarter and the vessel 
 going out to sea. Only then it would be in a blue 
 flannel shirt open at the throat and in jack-boots. 
 But now, in the cabin of that yacht, dressed as he 
 was in black clothes like anybody else and in good- 
 fitting shoes, you had to take a second look at him 
 to get his measure. The yachtsman thought that 
 he and the skipper were of about the same size, and 
 barring that the skipper s shoulders were a shade 
 
 168 
 
Minnie Arkell Again 
 
 wider there wasn t so much difference to look at. 
 But there was a difference, just the same. The 
 yachtsman weighed a hundred and seventy-five 
 pounds. He asked what Maurice weighed. "Oh, 
 about the same," said Maurice. But I and Clancy 
 knew that he weighed a hundred and ninety-five, 
 and Minnie Arkell, who knew too, finally had to 
 tell it, and then they all took another look at the 
 two men and could see where the difference lay. 
 There was no padding to Maurice, and when 
 you put your hand where his shoulders and 
 back muscles ought to be you found something 
 there. 
 
 When we were leaving that night, Mrs. Miner 
 stopped Maurice on the gangway to say, "And 
 when they have the fishermen s race this fall, you 
 must sail the Johnnie Duncan, Maurice, as youVe 
 never sailed a vessel yet. With you on the quarter 
 and Clancy to the wheel she ought to do great 
 things." 
 
 "Oh, we ll race her as well as we know how if 
 we re around, but Tom O Donnell and Wesley 
 Marrs and Tommie Ohlsen and Sam Hollis and 
 the rest they ll have something to say about it, 
 I m afraid." 
 
 "What of it? You ve got the vessel and you 
 must win I ll bet all the loose money I have in 
 the world on her. Remember I own a third of 
 
 169 
 
The Seiners 
 
 her. Mr. Duncan sold me a third just before I 
 left Gloucester." 
 
 That was a surprise to us that Mrs. Miner 
 owned a part of the Johnnie Duncan. It set Clancy 
 to figuring, and turning in that night, he said he 
 was full of fizzy wine, but clear-headed enough 
 "Well, what do you make of that? The Foster 
 girl a third and Minnie Arkell a third of this one. 
 I m just wise to it that it wasn t old Duncan alone 
 that wanted Maurice for skipper. Lord, Lord, 
 down at the Delaware Breakwater do you remem 
 ber that when we heard that the Foster girl owned 
 a part of this one, I said, like the wise guy I thought 
 I was, Ha, ha, I said, so Miss Foster owns a 
 third? That s it, eh? And now it s Minnie 
 Arkell a third. Where does Withrow come in? 
 And did you hear her when she invited Maurice to 
 the time they re going to have on that same steam- 
 yacht to-morrow night ? that was when she whis 
 pered to him at the gangway, when we were leav 
 ing. She tried to get him to promise to come, and 
 at last he said he would if he was in the harbor. 
 Then be sure to be in the harbor you re skipper 
 and can do as you please. Do come/ she said at 
 the last, good and loud, and tell them how to sail a 
 vessel in heavy weather. They only play at it, so 
 do come and tell them. And then in a low 
 voice But I want you to come for yourself. 
 
 170 
 
Minnie Arkell Again 
 
 That s what she says Tor yourself, she says in 
 a whisper almost. Take a run into the harbor to 
 morrow night if you can, Maurice, she says. O 
 Lord, women women they don t know a thing 
 ^-no," and Clancy turned in. 
 
XX 
 
 THE SKIPPER PUTS FOR HOME 
 
 WE were out of Newport Harbor before day 
 break of next morning, and cruised inside 
 Block Island all that day. We all thought the 
 skipper would be in to Newport that night it 
 was no more than a two hours run the way the 
 wind was and we waited. 
 
 The test came after supper. We had supper as 
 usual, at three o clock. Breakfast at four, dinner 
 at ten, supper at three mug-ups before and after 
 and in between. Along about four o clock the 
 skipper, standing on the break, stood looking back 
 toward where Newport lay. Had we turned then 
 we d have been in nicely by dark. It was a fine 
 afternoon the finest kind of an afternoon a clear 
 blue sky, and a smooth blue sea with the surface 
 just rippling beautifully. All fire was the sun and 
 the sails of every vessel in sight looked white as 
 could be. Several yachts passed us steam and sail 
 all bright and handsome and all bound into New 
 port, and the skipper s eyes rested long on them 
 on one of them particularly with music aboard. 
 
 ,172 
 
The Skipper Puts For Home 
 
 The skipper looked back a long time looked 
 back, and looked back. He began walking the 
 quarter back and forth, back and forth, back and 
 forth. The sun got lower and lower, the sea lost 
 some of its blue, and the air grew fresher, and still 
 he kept looking back. 
 
 "It ll be a grand sunset to-night, Tommie." 
 "The finest kind. But one thing wrong with 
 
 it" 
 
 "What s that?" 
 
 "We re not seeing it astern of us." 
 
 The skipper stopped. "Astern? That s so, too 
 it is a fine westerly, isn t it?" 
 
 Clancy said nothing, only leaned against the rig 
 ging, not a move out of him puffing his pipe and 
 looking away. 
 
 Nobody spoke till the skipper spoke again. 
 
 "Who s to the wheel you, Steve? How s she 
 heading now? 
 
 "No the by west." 
 
 "No the by west? Put her east by no the ease 
 off your mainsheet. Let it go to the knot. Call 
 the gang and make sail stays l and balloon - 
 everything we ll go home, I guess." 
 
 Clancy snapped the pipe out of his mouth and 
 hove it over the rail. Then he went for the fore- 
 c s le gangway. In two jumps he was there. 
 
 "Up, you loafers on deck and make sail. To 
 173, 
 
The Seiners 
 
 the eastward, says the skipper, and over the shoals 
 we ll put her to-night." 
 
 "Home ! Home good enough and hurroo I" 
 we could hear from below. 
 
 The skipper said nothing more only all night 
 long he walked the quarter. 
 
 Next day when we were almost abreast of Cape 
 Cod Clancy began to instruct me. "Here s a tip 
 for any girl friends you got, Joe. See the skipper 
 last night? Tell them if they re after a man a 
 real man even if he s a bit shy tell them " 
 Oh, the advice that Clancy could give ! 
 
 About the time that we left Cape Cod light 
 astern and squared away for Thatcher s with 
 Gloucester Harbor almost in sight with the rocks 
 of Eastern Point dead ahead Clancy began to 
 sing again : 
 
 " Oh, a deep blue sky and a deep blue sea 
 And a blue-eyed girl awaiting me 
 Too-roo-roo and a too-roo-ree 
 Who wouldn t a Gloucester seiner be ? 
 
 Ha, Joey-boy?" and gave me a slap on the shoul 
 der that sent me half-way to the break. 
 
 That was all right, but I went aloft so I could 
 see the rocks of Cape Ann a mite sooner, I was 
 just beginning to discover that I had been almost 
 homesick. 
 
 174 
 
XXI 
 
 SEINERS WORK 
 
 WE were high line of the seining fleet when 
 we got home from the Southern cruise and 
 we felt pretty proud of ourselves. It was some 
 thing to stand on the corner on one of the days 
 when the Johnnie was fitting out again, and have 
 other fellows come up to you and say, "What s 
 that they say you fellows shared on the Southern 
 trip?" And when we d tell them, and we trying 
 not to throw out our chests too much, it was fine 
 to hear them say, "That so? Lord, but that s 
 great. Well, if Maurice only holds out he ll make 
 a great season of it, won t he?" 
 
 "Oh, he ll hold out," we d say, and lead the way 
 down to the Anchorage or some other place for a 
 drink or a cigar, for of course, with the money 
 we d made, we naturally felt like spending some 
 of it on those who were not doing so well. And of 
 course, too, no seiner could ever resist anybody who 
 talks to him in a nice friendly way like that. 
 
 The skipper s doings ashore interested all of his 
 crew, of course, although me, perhaps, more than 
 
The Seiners 
 
 anybody else, unless it was Clancy. I got pretty 
 regular bulletins from my cousin Nell. She was 
 for the skipper, first, last and all the time. 
 
 "I like him/ she said to me more than a dozen 
 times. "I do like him, but I never imagined that 
 a man who does so well at sea could shrink into 
 himself as he does. Why, you almost have to haul 
 him out by the ears ashore. If it weren t for me I 
 really believe " and she stopped. 
 
 But I thought I understood what she meant. 
 "Meaning your chum, Alice Foster?" I said. 
 
 "Yes, meaning my chum, Alice Foster. Why?" 
 
 "Oh, I don t know. Sometimes I think she s a 
 kind of a frost." 
 
 "No, she isn t a frost, and don t you come 
 around here again and tell me so." 
 
 Nor did I, for I would not have an argument 
 with Nell for all the Alice Fosters in the world, 
 for if Nell were anybody else but my first cousin, 
 I think I would have fallen in love with her myself. 
 
 And then we put out to sea and again we were 
 living the life of seiners, having it hard and easy in 
 streaks. There were the times when we went along 
 for a week and did not do a tap but eat, sleep, 
 stand a trick at the wheel, a watch to the mast 
 head, and skylark around the deck, and read, or 
 have a quiet game of draw or whist or seven-up 
 below. But again there were times when we were 
 
 176 
 
Seiner s Work 
 
 on fish, and our skipper being a driver, it was 
 jump, jump, jump for a week on end. There was 
 that time in August when the fish were so plentiful 
 on Georges Bank, when, standing to the mast 
 head, you could see nothing but mackerel schooling 
 for fifteen or twenty miles either side of the vessel. 
 But, oh, they were wild! A dozen times we d 
 heave the seine put off from the vessel, put out 
 that two hundred and odd fathom of twine, drive 
 seine-boat and dory to the limit, purse in and 
 not so much as a single mackerel caught by the 
 gills. That happened fifteen or twenty times some 
 days, maybe. We got our fill of sets that month. 
 But then again there was a week off Cape Cod and 
 in the Bay of Fundy and off the Maine coast when 
 we ran them fresh to Boston market, when we 
 landed more mackerel it was said in a single week 
 than was ever landed before by one vessel. We 
 were five days and five nights that time without see 
 ing our bunks. It was forever out and after them, 
 heave the seine, purse up and bail in, ice some, and 
 dress the rest along the way, and the vessel with 
 everything on driving for Boston. 
 
 We stood to it that week, you may be sure, until 
 coming on the fifth day some of us fell asleep over 
 the keelers as the Johnnie was coming into T 
 Wharf. I remember that I could just barely see 
 in a kind of a hazy way the row of people along the 
 
 177 
 
The Seiners 
 
 cap-log when we made fast. And yet after that 
 we had to hoist them out of the hold and onto the 
 dock. That day, going out again, the skipper 
 made all but the watch and himself turn in. That 
 afternoon, when everybody had had a little kink, 
 the skipper himself, who had been under a heavier 
 strain than any of us, suddenly fell backward over 
 the house and sound asleep. And there he lay all 
 the rest of that day and that night. 
 
 After ten or twelve hours of it we tried to wake 
 him, but not a budge. We tried again, but no use. 
 At last he came to and without any help at all. 
 Sitting up, he asked where we were, and being told, 
 he said nothing for a moment or so, and then sud 
 denly "That so ? How long was I asleep ?" We 
 told him seventeen hours. "Good Lord!" he 
 groaned, and after a mug-up scooted for the mast 
 head like a factory hand with the seven o clock 
 whistle blowing. "He s a fisherman, the skipper," 
 said the gang as they watched him climb the 
 rigging. 
 
 And he was a fisherman. All that summer he 
 drove things with but little time for us ashore. 
 Twice he put into Gloucester with a day to our 
 selves and another time we had a chance to run 
 down after we had put into Boston for market, 
 and that we suspected was because the skipper 
 found he could not keep away himself any longer. 
 
Seiner s Work 
 
 Things, we judged, were going pretty well with 
 him in Gloucester. He did not pretertd any longer 
 now that he was not interested in Miss Foster, and 
 from my cousin Nell I got occasional hints, most 
 of which I confided to Clancy, who explained them 
 as if they were so many parables. 
 
 "It ll be all right," said Clancy, "if only Minnie 
 Arkell stands clear. I m glad she s away for the 
 summer, but she ll turn up in the fall. You ll see 
 her just before the race large as life, and some of 
 her swell-dressed friends, and a yacht, I ll bet." 
 
 Considering how deeply the skipper was inter 
 ested in Miss Foster, some of us thought he ought 
 to be putting in a little time ashore between trips. 
 After a run into the Boston fresh fish market, say, 
 we would have liked mighty well to take in the 
 theatre, or a trip to the beach, or some other little 
 entertainment of a night. But no, it was in and 
 out drive, drive, drive. 
 
 He was all ambition, the skipper. He was go 
 ing to be up front or break something. Miss Fos 
 ter was one of the ambitious kind, too. If she was 
 going to have a fisherman, he would have to be a 
 killer or she would know why. And so I suppose 
 that had a lot to do with the way the skipper drove 
 things. 
 
 We had our loafing spells, as I say, but mostly 
 it was plenty of work. That time when we stayed 
 
 179 
 
The Seiners 
 
 awake for five days and nights was not the only 
 one. Another time our legs swelled up and the 
 blood came out of the ends of our fingers with 
 standing up to the keelers and dressing fish without 
 rest. But, Lord, nobody minded that. After we d 
 got rested up we felt better than ever. 
 
 We had good luck generally. We lost neither 
 men nor gear to amount to anything that summer. 
 That seine we lost trying for our first school to the 
 s uth ard in the spring was the only bit of misfor 
 tune that came, and we had long ago made up for 
 that. But others were not so lucky. There was 
 the loss of the Ruth Ripley, Pitt Ripley s vessel. I 
 think I have said that she was a fast vessel. She 
 was fast fast, but of the cranky type. We were 
 jogging along a little to windward of her one fine 
 afternoon it had been a fine September day and 
 now it was coming on to evening. To the westward 
 of Cape Sable, in the Bay of Fundy, it was, and no 
 hint of a blow up to within a few minutes of the 
 time when the squall struck the Ruth. I suppose 
 it would have been more prudent on Pitt s part if 
 he had had less sail on, but like most of the skip 
 pers in the fleet I guess he was not looking for 
 any record for prudence. Any minute he might 
 have to be up and driving her, and keeping sail on 
 was the quickest way to have it when you needed it 
 in a hurry. The squall hit her it hit us, too, but 
 
 180 
 
Seiner s Work 
 
 we saw it coming and met it and beyond washing 
 a few keelers overboard, when she rolled down, no 
 harm was done to the Johnnie. On the Ripley, I 
 suppose, they saw it too, but the Ripley and 
 the Duncan were not the same class of vessel 
 by any means. She went over hove down, 
 with her foremast under water to the cross-trees 
 almost. 
 
 Most of her crew were below at the time, some 
 in their bunks. Four or five of those below never 
 reached the deck at all the water rushing down 
 the companionways cut them off. Some rushed 
 aft where the stern was high out of water and some 
 piled into the rigging. Some were calling out and 
 giving advice to others. We could hear them 
 plainly. Two jumped to the wheel and threw it up, 
 but she would not right. 
 
 We had the Johnnie to keep right side up, but 
 we saw the whole thing. It could not have been 
 more than two or three minutes from the time the 
 squall struck her when she was going down head 
 first. Those of her crew who had gone to the 
 stern were going with her, but those who had taken 
 to the rigging, by leaping wide came clear. Their 
 seine-boat, which had been towing astern, might 
 have been of use to them, but being fast to the ves 
 sel by the painter it was pretty well filled with water 
 before anybody had a chance to cut the painter. 
 
 181 
 
The Seiners 
 
 The man that cut it went down with the vessel. He 
 was all right, whoever he was. Those in the water 
 were looking about for the dory, and found that 
 half full of water, too. They were trying to bail 
 the water out of the dory, after hauling it across 
 the bow of the submerged seine-boat, when we got 
 them in our seine-boat and picked up what was left 
 of them. 
 
 Nine of them were lost, her skipper among 
 them. One of the men saved the cook said that 
 when the squall struck the vessel, Captain Ripley 
 had been seen to jump for the boom tackle, which 
 he unhitched, and then to spring for the lashings 
 of the dory, which he cut with his knife. The 
 cook also said that he thought the skipper lost his 
 life because of the half-stunning blow that he must 
 have received from the fore-boom while he was on 
 the rail trying to free the dory. The vessel was 
 sinking all the time and it being dark or near it 
 in the squall I suppose Captain Ripley could not 
 watch everything. No doubt, it was the fore- 
 boom hit him and knocked him overboard. Cer 
 tainly he was knocked overboard, and the last seen 
 of him he was swimming and pushing an empty 
 barrel before him to one of the crew. "Keep 
 your nerve up," he called to the cook, and after 
 that he suddenly disappeared. He got a man s 
 death, anyway. 
 
 182 
 
Seiner s Work 
 
 We rowed back to the Duncan with the sur 
 vivors. Nine men gone it was a hard story to 
 take home with us, but we had it to do. It was all 
 a part of fishing life, and so we put back for 
 Gloucester. 
 
 183 
 
XXII 
 
 ON THE CAPE SHORE 
 
 WHILE we were into Gloucester, after tak 
 ing home the crew of the Ruth Ripley, 
 our vessel was put on the ways. That was after 
 a talk between the skipper and Mr. Duncan. 
 There is always something that needs attend 
 ing to on a fisherman, and this time it was our 
 water-tanks. And while they were being looked 
 after, the Johnnie was overhauled, her bottom 
 scrubbed and topsides painted. Old Mr. Duncan, 
 we found, was beginning to take a lot of pride in 
 our vessel and balked at no expense to have her in 
 trim. And now that the Ripley was lost, he would 
 have only two vessels to represent him in the big 
 fishermen s race, which was then only four weeks 
 away. 
 
 "Hurry up home now," he said to Maurice as 
 we left the dock that time. "Hurry up, and give 
 yourself plenty of time to tune her up and get her 
 in trim for the race. I ve set my heart on it. You 
 or the Lucy Foster must win that race, and what 
 ever else we do we ve got to beat Withrow s ves 
 sel, anyway." 
 
 184 
 
On the Cape Shore 
 
 And Miss Foster said that one of her guardian s 
 vessels would have to win the race, and my cousin 
 Nell said that the Johnnie Duncan would have to 
 win. There was a lot depending on it, she said. 
 It meant a lot to Will Somers, I suppose Nell 
 meant. 
 
 We figured that we had time to make a Cape 
 shore trip, and, with fair luck, to fill the Johnnie 
 with salt mackerel and be back in time to get her 
 in good condition for the race, which this year, be 
 cause it was anniversary year in Gloucester, prom 
 ised to be the greatest ever sailed. 
 
 Our plans were somewhat interfered with by a 
 rescue we made. We found a Glasgow bark, New 
 York bound, in the Bay of Fundy, and her crew in 
 hard straits. We stood down and after a lot of 
 trouble took them off Clancy and Long Steve in 
 the dory. Billie Hurd came near being the second 
 man in the dory, but Clancy, grabbing him as he 
 had one foot over the rail, hauled him back with, 
 "Way for your elders, little man," and jumped in 
 beside Long Steve. 
 
 "Elders, but not betters," said Hurd. 
 , "Have it your own way," answered Clancy, 
 "but I go in the dory." 
 
 The rescue was really a fine thing, but the im 
 portant thing was that some of the rescued men 
 had been exposed to the battering of the sea so 
 
 185 
 
The Seiners 
 
 long that they needed medical attention, and so 
 we drove for home and cracked our foremast- 
 head doing it. That delayed us almost a week, for 
 the skipper had to have that spar just so. A lot 
 might depend on it, same as the rest of the gear. 
 And it was a spar as fine a bit of timber, Oregon 
 pine of course, as was ever set up in a fisherman. 
 And maybe that too was just as well, with the race 
 coming on. 
 
 By the time we were down the Cape shore 
 down Canso way and among the fleet again, we 
 had lost a week. Our hold was still to fill up, and 
 only two weeks and a day to the race. Wesley 
 Marrs, Tom O Donnell, Sam Hollis, and the rest 
 were then talking of going home and making 
 ready for the race. Bottoms would have to be 
 scrubbed, extra gear put ashore a whole lot of 
 things done and a few try-outs in the Bay by way 
 of tuning up. 
 
 The race was the talk of all the fleet. Half the 
 crews on the Cape shore wanted to be in Glouces 
 ter when the race came off, and some of the skip 
 pers of the slower vessels, which would not enter 
 because they had no show to win, were already 
 scheming to be home just before the race so that 
 they could be on hand to follow it. 
 
 The morning after we were back among the 
 fleet we got a small school right from under the, 
 
 186 
 
On the Cape Shore 
 
 eyes of the Lynx, one of the English cutters which 
 were patrolling the coast to see that we didn t get 
 any fish within the three-mile limit. I remember 
 that while we were satisfied at the time that we 
 were outside the line, we did not know what the 
 revenue-cutter might say, and particularly the 
 Lynx, whose captain had a hard name among our 
 fleet for his readiness to suspect law-breaking when 
 there wasn t any. The cutter people generally 
 seemed to want to be fair toward us, but this 
 Lynx s captain was certainly a vindictive cuss. 
 Anything hailing from Gloucester was an abomina 
 tion in his eyes. And so this morning, when, after 
 we had decided that we were outside the limit, 
 and made ready to set, it was hard to have to take 
 the order of the Lynx and sheer off. Our judg 
 ment of distance ought to have been as good as his 
 better, really, we thought it, because we were 
 always judging distances at sea, and more at home 
 upon the sea, too. But that made no difference 
 what the cutter people said had to be law for us. 
 
 So this time he ordered us not to set where we 
 were or he d seize our vessel. Several Gloucester 
 vessels had been confiscated just before this and the 
 owners had to pay the fine to recover them. One 
 owner disputed the judgment and his case was then 
 waiting settlement. Another who refused to pay 
 saw his vessel turned into a lightship and placed 
 
 187 
 
The Seiners 
 
 down Miramichi way in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 
 where it is yet. This day the commander of the 
 Lynx might have some reason to think that his 
 order ended that for us and we could almost see 
 him chuckling but it didn t. A fog was creeping 
 up at the time and in ten minutes it was on us, and 
 under cover of the fog we got a little school the 
 same school we thought and on the exact spot 
 where the cutter was lying when she ordered us off. 
 Didn t we cackle though when we bailed it in ? Oh, 
 no! It was not much of a school only twenty 
 barrels but it made us all feel fine. Not alone did 
 we feel that we had got the better of the English 
 cutter, but also that luck was coming to us again. 
 We justified ourselves by saying that we honestly 
 believed we were outside the three-mile limit, and 
 that our judgment was as good as theirs. 
 
 That night the forec s le of the Johnnie Duncan 
 presented one of the most beatific scenes I ever saw. 
 Everybody was in the temper of an angel. There 
 was nothing doing no whist at the table, no read 
 ing out of upper bunks, no love song from the 
 peak, and no fierce argument on the lockers. We 
 were discussing the cutters and the talk was very 
 soothing. The cook, as usual, was finishing up a 
 batch of dough. You might have thought he was 
 the only man who had been working in a week, 
 were it not for the wet oil-clothes hanging up to 
 
 188 
 
On the Cape Shore 
 
 dry, and the overhauling of second suits of oil- 
 clothes by some of the gang. Every man, except 
 the cook, who never smoked while at work, was 
 puffing away as if he misdoubted he would ever 
 get another chance for a pipeful in his life. "Har 
 mony most ex-quis-ite," said somebody, and that s 
 what must have been that hung over the forec s le, 
 and it seemed to be merely in keeping with the 
 heavenly order of things that the atmosphere 
 showed pale blue wherever the rays of the lamp 
 could get a chance to strike through. 
 
 When Clancy dropped down for his usual mug- 
 up before going to the mast-head for the night of 
 course, he wasn t going to let that get by without 
 having a word to say about it. He leaned against 
 the foremast and took a look around. "My soul, 
 but it s as if the blessed angels were fanning their 
 wings over this forehold. There s Brian Boru 
 and Lord Salisbury there double-banked on the 
 same locker, and nothing doing on any Irish ques 
 tion. There s the lad that sleeps in the peak and 
 not a single hallelujah of praise for his darling 
 Lucille. The other one the wild man that sings 
 the Bobbie Burns songs not a shriek out of him. 
 And Bill and John no longer spoiling their eye 
 sight on bad print. I expect it s that little school 
 of fish the first in two weeks or more. The pros 
 pect must be making you all pleased. Well, it 
 
 189 
 
The Seiners 
 
 ought. A few hundred barrels of that kind of 
 mackerel as fine fish as ever I see bailed over the 
 rail. And some of you ready reckoners ought to 
 easily figure up what ll be coming to us if we ever 
 fill her up say five hundred barrels. A good 
 thing a few hundred barrels of mackerel. A few 
 too many of em for good trim, but it s comfort 
 ing to know they re there. She seemed to be in 
 pretty nice trim when we tried out one or two of 
 the fleet this morning, didn t she ? And to-night, if 
 it breezes up and it looks now as if it will we ll 
 get some more if it s a night like last night. One 
 time there last night did you notice her, cook ? 
 that time that crazy lad started to cross our bow 
 and we luffed her. Why, man, she shot over like 
 I don t know what just shot like one of those 
 torpedo boats we see around when the Navy goes 
 evoluting. I was near shook overboard from aloft. 
 They tell me they re going crazy over the race in 
 Gloucester. Well, here s one that ll bet his sum 
 mer s earnings " 
 
 "What s left of it, you mean, Tommie," said 
 George Moore from his pan of dough. 
 
 "Well, yes, what s left of it and what I c n 
 borrow. Old man Duncan ll stake me, and there s 
 others. I hope, though, it blows a jeesly gale. For 
 this one, God bless her, she c n sail, and some of 
 them ll find it out when it s too late, maybe. Sam 
 
 190 
 
On the Cape Shore 
 
 Hollis for one. There s a man I d give my eye 
 almost, to beat. And maybe the skipper hasn t 
 got it in for him ! He doesn t say much, Maurice 
 don t, but a while ago, after coming down 
 from aloft, Billie Simms hails him and tells him 
 that the cutter people know all about that little 
 school to-day and who told him, who told him? 
 Well, the skipper ll drive this one to the bot 
 tom before he ever lets Sam Hollis or any of 
 Withrow s vessels get by him when we race. Yes, 
 sir. But, Georgie-boy" Clancy shouldered away 
 from the foremast "how is it for a wedge or two 
 of one of those blueberry pies you got cooling 
 there? Just a little wedge, now. But you don t 
 need to be too close-hauled with your knife 
 no. Sailing by the wind is all right when you re 
 jogging in and out among the fleet, and nothing 
 partic lar doing except an eye out for mackerel, 
 but you want to give her a full always always, 
 Georgie when you re cutting pie. There s the 
 lad straight across the beam. And now at right 
 angles again. And now lay one atop of the other, 
 and you have it an invention of my own a 
 blueberry sandwich. M-m but look at the juice 
 squish through her scuppers!" He held it up 
 for all of us to have a look. "Now another little 
 wash of coffee in the wake of that and I ll be all 
 right for a fine little watch aloft." 
 
 191 
 
The Seiners 
 
 He jammed his sou wester hard down, and 
 heroically waved away the remainder of the pie. 
 "No, no. First thing I know I ll be having dys 
 pepsia. I never had it yet, but I might," and then 
 heaved himself up the companionway, humming, 
 as he went, one of his old favorites : 
 
 " Oh, the Liza Jane and the Maria Louise 
 Sailed a race one day for a peck of peas. 
 You d hardly believe the way them two 
 Carried sail that day they fairly flew. 
 
 People ashore they said, Gee whiz! 
 The Liza Jane the fastest is. " 
 
 We could hear him scrambling, still humming, 
 over the barrels on deck. He halted long enough 
 by the rail to say, "How is it, boys?" to the watch 
 on deck, and then swung himself up the rigging. 
 Once aloft he had his work cut out, with hours of 
 strain on brain and nerve. But Clancy never 
 minded he never minded anything so far as we 
 could make out. 
 
XXIII 
 
 DRESSING DOWN 
 
 THAT night was the worst I ever put in towing 
 astern of a vessel. "Owling" is the sein 
 ers word for that kind of work. It was "owling" 
 sure enough, with the seine-boat on a short painter 
 and the dory on a shorter painter still and astern 
 of the seine-boat again. We came near to being 
 lost in the dory. Mel Adams, who was in the dory 
 with me, thinking she was surely going to capsize 
 one time she rode up over the stern of the seine- 
 boat, took a flying leap into the seine-boat. He 
 had a hard time getting back, for there was quite 
 a little sea on. Even in the seine-boat they were 
 all glad enough to hear Clancy give the word to 
 cast off and pull after the school. 
 
 It was a big school, and hard work in that sea, 
 but we had them safe at last. The vessel then came 
 alongside and the bailing in began. Having had 
 a good long lay-off we bailed them in with plenty 
 of good-will. It was "He-yew!" "Oy-hool" 
 "Hi-o!" and "Drive her!" all along the line until 
 we had on deck what the skipper thought was a 
 hundred barrels. Then the bag was put around 
 
 193 
 
The Seiners 
 
 the seine to protect the rest of the mackerel from 
 dogfish and sharks, and we were ready to dress. 
 
 Barrels were tossed out of the hold, keelers set 
 up, sharp-edged knives drawn from diddy-boxes 
 below, and a chance had to see a smart crew dress 
 ing a haul of mackerel that were to be salted. It 
 was too long a run, four hundred miles or so, to 
 take a chance of getting them fresh to market. It 
 needed a fair and fresh breeze to be sure of it, and 
 besides with the market for salt mackerel getting 
 stronger all the time it was good judgment to salt 
 down and fill her up before going home. 
 
 We had been through the same thing before, 
 even with as good a deck-load, but now we were 
 getting near the end of the season. This trip, then 
 the race, and maybe one more trip after the race, 
 and we would be done seining. And so we drove 
 things. 
 
 Four gangs of four men each took corners in the 
 waist. Each gang had two keelers yard square 
 boxes, eight inches or so in depth, and set up on 
 two or three barrels. Into the keelers the mack 
 erel on deck were bailed and around them the 
 men gathered, with long-handled torches set up all 
 about. 
 
 All hands came into the dressing skipper and 
 cook too and the work went on. It was one 
 gang against the other, each jealously counting 
 
 194 
 
Dressing Down 
 
 barrels when they were filled, that full credit might 
 be given for speed. Sixteen men were accounted 
 for in this way. The seventeenth and eighteenth 
 were to keep the keelers filled, draw water for 
 pickle from over the side, roll the filled barrels out 
 of the way in short, to help out generally. 
 
 It was fine to watch the splitters. One left- 
 handed grab and the mackerel was in place, flat 
 and smooth, one right-handed slit and he was laid 
 open the length of his back. Forty-five mackerel 
 a minute either the skipper, Clancy or Moore could 
 split that is, pick them up, place in position, split 
 from nose to tail along the back, and slide out of 
 the way again. Sixty a minute they could do in 
 spurts, if somebody would place the mackerel in 
 rows for them. 
 
 The busiest man of all was the skipper. He had 
 to keep an eye out for the course of the Johnnie. 
 Vessels that are dressing fish, vessels on which the 
 entire crew are soaked in blood, gills, intestines, and 
 swashing brine, might be allowed privileges, one 
 might think; but no, they must keep a lookout 
 just the same. On this dark night, the Johnnie 
 Duncan, though making a great effort consider 
 ing that she had jibs down and wheel in the becket 
 to stay as she was put, yet would fall away or 
 come-to, especially when the wind shifted two or 
 three points at a jump. And just as soon as she 
 
 195 
 
The Seiners 
 
 did the skipper would notice it instantly, jump aft 
 and set her right. Generally, to shift the wheel a 
 few spokes would be enough, but now and then he 
 would have to give the wheel a good round whirl. 
 At such a time he would sing out a warning, the 
 torches would be lowered, we would duck our 
 heads, the boom would go swinging by in the 
 smoky yellow glare, and the Johnnie Duncan would 
 be off on another tack. We would brace our legs 
 to a new angle, the skipper would hop back to his 
 knife, and again the dressing would go humming 
 along. 
 
 When we had the first hundred barrels of 
 mackerel swashing in brine, the rest of them, per 
 haps another hundred barrels, were bailed in. And 
 all night long like that we stood to it driving. 
 Under the yellow and smoky light of the torches 
 I could see nothing but mackerel or the insides of 
 mackerel in the air. Keelers, deck, rail, our hands, 
 faces, boots and oilskins were sticky with the blood 
 and gurry. At top speed we raced like that 
 through the night. Once in a while a man would 
 drop his knife or snap off his gibbing mitt, rinse 
 his hand in the brine barrel by his side, slap his 
 hand across the hoops, and condemn the luck of a 
 split finger or a thumb with a fish-bone in it. An 
 other might pull up for a moment, glance up at 
 the stars or down at the white froth under the 
 
 196 
 
Dressing Down 
 
 rail, draw his hand across his forehead, mutter, 
 "My soul, but I m dry," take a full dipper from 
 the water-pail, drink it dry, pass dipper and pail 
 along to the next and back to his work. 
 
 When the cook called out for breakfast we were 
 still at it, with the deck of the vessel covered with 
 barrels of pickling mackerel. It was beginning to 
 get light then. "Oh, the blessed day s coming on. 
 Smother the torches, boys," said the skipper, and 
 led the way below for the first table to have a 
 bite. 
 
 Before the sun came up we were beginning to 
 make out the rest of the fleet. One after another 
 they were coming into view, their long hulls and 
 high spars reaching across the wind. Between the 
 gray sky and the slaty sea their white sails looked 
 whiter than chalk. 
 
 We had to name the different vessels then. 
 "There s Tom O Donnell and Wesley Marrs 
 and Sam Hollis and " sung out Andie Howe. 
 
 "Sam Hollis where s Sam Hollis?" broke in 
 Mel Adams. 
 
 "Away to the east ard, ain t it, Andie? the 
 fellow with jibs down?" spoke up Billie Hurd, who 
 was a bit proud that he too could pick her out at 
 such a distance. 
 
 "So it is, ain t it?" said Mel, and he began to 
 tell our troubles in the dory. " Twas him near ran 
 
 197 
 
The Seiners 
 
 over us last night remember, Joe? Leastways, it 
 looked like Hollis s new one s quarter goin by. 
 He was pointin bout no the-east then, but he 
 couldn t Ve held on that tack long or he d be some 
 where up by Miquelon and not here this mornin* 
 the gait he was goin . Man, but there was smoke 
 coming out of his scuppers when he went by. 
 Why don t y come aboard whilst you re about it 
 come aboard and be sociable, I hollers. Oh, don t 
 cry, y ain t hurted, says whoever s to the wheel 
 of her. Least it sounded like that, Y ain t 
 hurted, he says." 
 
 "Must have been pretty close, Mel?" said 
 Clancy, never stopping, but keeping a string of split 
 mackerel rolling into his keeler. Mel and I were 
 gibbing for Clancy. 
 
 "Close? I could ve touched his chain-plates like 
 that," and Mel, getting excited, reached his mit- 
 tened hand across the keeler and touched Clancy 
 on the arm. Clancy s knife took a jump and cut a 
 finger. For a few seconds Clancy laid down the 
 law of a splitting knife to Mel, but Mel didn t 
 mind. 
 
 "That s just about the way I swore at the man 
 to the wheel of the Withrow. Didn t I, Joe? 
 (Yes, sir, I cert nly swore at him good, but it no 
 more jarred him than but when their seine-boat 
 came by, half of em smokin , some half-breed 
 
 198 
 
Dressing Down 
 
 among em has to sing out, Y ought to hang up a 
 riding light if your vessel s hove-to, he says. 
 What do you think of that, Tommie if your ves 
 sel s hove-to ! and if the Johnnie was going one 
 she was going ten knots an hour." 
 
 "That s right, Mel I heard you to the mast 
 head," said Clancy. Clancy heard it about as 
 much as old Mr. Duncan back in Gloucester did, 
 but he was always ready to help a man out. 
 
 "Did you? Well, I hove-to him. I hove the 
 bailer at him, that s what I did, and he ducked. 
 But he ducked too late, I callate, for Bam! it 
 caught him or somebody in the seine-boat with 
 him. He swore some, or somebody swore, you c n 
 bet. I don t know who y are, he hollers, but if 
 ever I meet you ashore, and he was so far away 
 then I couldn t ketch no more of it. Don t know 
 who y are, but if I ketch you ashore Lord " 
 
 "So, if a lad with a bump on the side of his head 
 waltzes up to you on Main Street and whangs you, 
 Mel, next time you re ashore in Gloucester, what ll 
 you do?" asked Clancy. 
 
 "I ll say, Where s that bailer, you loafer? but 
 first I ll whang him back. I had to finish the bail 
 ing out with my sou wester. I sings out to Andie 
 Howe in the boat here to hand me one of the 
 bailers in the boat. I m usin my hat, I hollers, 
 and Joe s using his sou wester, thinkin that would 
 
 199 
 
The Seiners 
 
 fetch him all right. Well, we re usin ten sou - 
 westers here/ says Andie, and one or two of em 
 leaks, and that was all the satisfaction I got." 
 
 "Yes," said Eddie Parsons, u the seine-boat was 
 sure wallerin then. The skipper had only just 
 told Jimmie Gunn to quit his growling. You ll 
 be wanting hot-water bags to your feet next, I 
 suppose, says the skipper." 
 
 "I was thinking of the boat afraid she d be 
 so logy with the water in her that we couldn t drive 
 her when the time came," bristled up Jimmie Gunn 
 to that. 
 
 "Y-yah!" snorted Eddie, "if you weren t scared, 
 then I never saw a man scared. Logy? I notice 
 we made her hop along all right after we cast off 
 from the vessel. Man, but she fair hurdled some 
 of them seas some of the little ones, I mean. 
 Didn t she, Steve? We thought we d lost Joe and 
 you, Mel, in the dory, didn t we, fellows?" 
 
 "You did, hey? Well, you didn t, nor nowheres 
 near it," broke in Mel. "We were right there with 
 the goods when they hove the seine, warn t we, 
 Joey?" 
 
 And so it went on through all that day, while 
 the men worked, dressing, salting, and putting all 
 in pickle. It was a drive all through without any 
 quitting by anybody, except when it was time to 
 relieve lookouts at the masthead. In the middle 
 
 200 
 
Dressing Down 
 
 of it all, had the call of "School-O!" been heard 
 from aloft, we would have been only too glad to 
 drop everything, jump into the boat and dory, get 
 after the mackerel, and do the same thing over 
 split, gibb and pack away for all of the next 
 night, and the night after that for a week if 
 necessary. 
 
 Not until well into the afternoon, when the last 
 mackerel was flattened out in its barrel, did any of 
 us feel that we could step back in our own time, 
 straighten ourselves out, and take a look over our 
 work. Then we counted the oozing barrels with 
 great satisfaction, you may be sure, even while we 
 were massaging our swollen wrists with our aching 
 fingers. It was a good bit of work that, well and 
 quickly done, and it was fine to get a rest after it, 
 although it might be only for a little while. Even 
 though we had to do it all over again to stay 
 half-drowned and chilled through in the seine-boat 
 or dory for half the night and then dress down for 
 eighteen or twenty hours on top of it what did 
 a little hard work matter? "Think of the hundred- 
 dollar bill, maybe, to be carried home and laid in 
 the wife s lap," said Long Steve. 
 
 "Or the roaring night ashore when a fellow s 
 not a family man m-m !" said Eddie Parsons. 
 Eddie was not a family man. 
 
 201 
 
* 
 
 XXIV 
 
 THE WITHROW OUTSAILS THE DUNCAN 
 
 WE certainly were feeling pretty good along 
 about that time, and we felt better when 
 next day, cruising in and out among the fleet, 
 other crews began to take notice of our catch. By 
 that time the word had gone around. One after 
 another they came sailing up as if to size us up 
 was the last thing that could enter their heads 
 rounding to, and then a hail. Something like this 
 it went: 
 
 "Hulloh, Maurice." 
 
 "Hulloh, Wesley," or George Drake, or Al 
 McNeill, or whoever it might be. 
 
 "That s a mighty pretty deckload of fish. 
 When dy get em?" 
 
 "Oh, twenty barrels yesterday morning and the 
 rest last night." 
 
 "That so? How many d y call em, Maurice?" 
 
 "How many? Oh, two hundred and eighty or 
 ninety wash barrels. Ought to head up about two 
 sixty." 
 
 "That so? Fine, Maurice, fine. As handsome 
 a deckload as I ve seen this year." 
 
 202 
 
The Withrow Outsails the Duncan 
 
 And he would bear off, and another vessel would 
 come and go through the same ceremony. It was 
 very satisfying to us and the skipper must have 
 felt proud. Not that a lot bigger hauls had not 
 been made by other men before indeed, yes, and 
 by the very men perhaps who were complimenting 
 him. But three hundred barrels, or near it, in 
 pickle at one time does look fine on a vessel s deck, 
 and they looked especially fine at this time because 
 there was not another vessel in the fleet that had 
 half as many, so far as we knew. 
 
 Not another but Sam Hollis or so he claimed. 
 He came ranging up that same day and began ask 
 ing how the Duncan was sailing lately, and fol 
 lowed that up by saying he himself had two hun 
 dred odd barrels in the hold. He showed about 
 sixty wash barrels on deck. We did not believe 
 he had twenty below. She looked cork light. 
 "If she sets as high out of water with two hun 
 dred and forty barrels, then you ought to put two 
 hundred and forty more in her and she d fly," 
 called out Clancy to Hollis, and that was pretty 
 much what we all thought. 
 
 And twas Sam Hollis made trouble for the 
 Duncan that day. He bore off then but came back 
 in the afternoon. More talk there was, and it 
 wound up by our racing with him. We did not 
 start out to race, but gradually, as we found our- 
 
 203 
 
The Seiners 
 
 selves jogging along side by side, jibs were drawn 
 away and sheets began to be trimmed. The first 
 thing we knew we found ourselves swaying up sails, 
 and then before we really woke up to it we were 
 both off and away before a little breeze. 
 
 Hollis had all the best of it. He was bound to, 
 with the Duncan carrying most of her mackerel 
 aft and away down by the stern. Even had we had 
 time to we did shift some of it forward we 
 were too deep for any kind of racing in that mod 
 erate breeze. We said that to ourselves, anyway, 
 and yet we held on. But it was no use it wound 
 up by Hollis giving us a scandalous beating. And 
 after running away from us he kept straight on 
 to the westward, and by that we knew that he was 
 bound for Gloucester to get ready for the big 
 race. 
 
 The skipper felt it. He was one that took things 
 to heart. 
 
 "I ve been bragging about this one what she 
 could do. I told the old man only the last time we 
 were in that he could go broke that I d beat Sam 
 Hollis, and here the first time we come together 
 he makes her look like a wood-carrier. The best 
 thing I can do, I guess, is to keep out of the race ; 
 maybe it will save the old man some money. I ex 
 pected he d beat us, the trim we were in but to 
 beat us the way he did !" 
 
 ,204 
 
The Withrow Outsails the Duncan 
 
 Nothing the crew could say seemed to make him 
 think otherwise, and that night it was not nearly 
 so joyful below in the Johnnie Duncan. The talk 
 was that she would not go home for the race. Only 
 Clancy seemed to be as cheerful as ever. "Don t 
 any of you get to worrying/ he said. "I know the 
 skipper the Johnnie Duncan ll be there when the 
 
 time comes." 
 
 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. 
 
 205; 
 
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 him 
 self 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 in-shore 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 com 
 mander 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 
 
 206 
 
Trouble With the Dominion Cutters 
 
 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. Any 
 way, we know that as the Colleen Bawn s crew 
 were pursing in the seine he came along and or 
 dered 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 Don 
 nell 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 be 
 fore, 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 hell!" 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 Dun 
 can bearing down, intending no doubt to take off 
 Clancy and me. But the cutter was coming toward 
 
 207 
 
The Seiners 
 
 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 shore at that time, but the Col 
 leen was a witch and O Donnell a wonder at sail 
 ing 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 fore- 
 hold. 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 com 
 promised 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 Don 
 nell 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 
 
 208 
 
Trouble With the Dominion Cutters 
 
 much for the cutter. The Colleen left her behind, 
 and she at last drew off after bunching a few fare 
 well 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 
 
 209 
 
The Seiners 
 
 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 Don- 
 nell. 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 sidelights, 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 fore 
 mast and was going to have a new one put in if 
 there was time. 
 
 210 
 
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. Dun 
 can Miss Foster, my cousin Nell, and Will 
 Somers were boiling over. Where was Maurice 
 Blake ? Where was the Johnnie Duncan ? Every 
 body in town seemed to know that Sam Hollis had 
 given us a bad beating down Cape shore 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 ves 
 sel 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 Hol- 
 lis s stock was booming, you may be sure and the 
 race right close to hand, too. 
 
 211 
 
The Seiners 
 
 "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 
 shore 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 sea 
 son 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 polishing 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 
 
 212 
 
The Gossip in Gloucester 
 
 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. Fisher 
 men, 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 bal 
 last 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 blow 
 ing 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 toVe 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. 
 
 213 
 
The Seiners 
 
 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 dif 
 ference?" 
 
 "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 
 nobody 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 fisher 
 men 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 him 
 self, who, it was said, was taking up every bet 
 made by any of the Withrow s crew. That was 
 
 214 
 
The Gossip in Gloucester 
 
 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 passage home on the Col 
 leen 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 
 
The Seiners 
 
 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 bet 
 ting 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. 
 
 216 
 
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 bet 
 ter, too, after you hear. And into the crock I puts 
 two gallons of rum fine rum it was for a bot 
 tom. Every good punch has to have a bottom. 
 
 217 
 
The Seiners 
 
 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 gal 
 lons 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 bet 
 ter 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 skip 
 per 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 
 
 218 
 
In Clancy s Boarding-House 
 
 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 nobody 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." 
 
 219 
 
XXVIII 
 
 IN THE ARKELL KITCHEN 
 
 WE left Clancy s boarding house and went 
 over to old Mrs. Arkell s place, where 
 most of the skippers who were going to race next 
 day had gathered. Clancy at once started in to 
 mix milk-punches. And he sang his latest favor 
 ite, with the gang supping his mixture between the 
 stanzas : 
 
 " Oh, hove flat down on Quero Banks 
 Was the Bounding Billow, Captain Hanks, 
 And the way she was asettlin* was an awful sight to see " 
 
 Then Wesley Marrs sang a song and after him 
 Patsie Oddie followed with a roarer. 
 
 The punch-mixing, singing and story-telling 
 went on and in the middle of it Tom O Donnell 
 came driving in. He was like a whiff of a no the- 
 easter out to sea. u Whoo!" he said. "Hulloh, 
 Wesley-boy and Patsie Oddie and Tommie 
 Ohlsen and, by my soul, Tommie Clancy again. 
 Lord, what a night to come beating down from 
 Boston! What s that, Wesley? did the Colleen 
 outfoot the cutter down the Cape shore way? In* 
 
 220 
 
In the Arkell Kitchen 
 
 deed and she did, and could do it over again in the 
 same breeze to half their logy old battleships. 
 Into Boston I was Monday morning, and the fish 
 out of her the same morning. Tuesday I took her 
 across to Cape Cod, tuning her up, and into Prov- 
 incetown that night. Next day it was blowing 
 pretty hard. A fine day for a run across the Bay, 
 I thinks, and waits for maybe a Boston vessel, one 
 of the T Wharf fleet. For I ll go to Boston, I 
 thinks, to put the Colleen on the railway to-day, 
 because maybe in Gloucester I may have to wait 
 or may get no chance at all with half a dozen 
 or more that will be waiting to be scrubbed for the 
 race. And who comes along then but Tom Lowrie. 
 Waiting for me? he asks, and I tells him I was 
 hoping it would be the new Whalen vessel, 
 here s one that s as good as any Whalen vessel, 
 he says as good as anything out of Boston or 
 Gloucester, he says. So across the Bay we had 
 it out. And, gentlemen, I m telling you the Col 
 leen sailed all the wind she wanted. She came 
 along, and Lowrie by the looks of things then 
 he s sailing yet. Well, I never did like that 
 forem st that was in the Colleen, and so, thinks I, 
 here s a chance to test it and why not, with the 
 race coming on? So I jibed her over off Minot s 
 just and sure enough it cracked about ten feet 
 below the mast-head." 
 
 221 
 
The Seiners 
 
 "You were satisfied then, Tom?" 
 
 "Sure and I was. And better before the race 
 
 than in the race. And next day that s to-day 
 
 we spent putting in a new stick. I had to take 
 
 what I could get to save time, and I don t think 
 
 Jt s what it ought to be and maybe it won t last 
 
 or h to-morrow. But, anyway, you want to 
 * .1 eye out for the Colleen to-morrow, for I m 
 r you I never see her sail like she did yester- 
 , coming across the Bay. Ask Tom Lowrie 
 
 t time you see him. Well, to-night I had to 
 beat down here to be sure and be here in time, and 
 so out we put and here I am. Blowing? Indeed 
 and it is. And thick, is it? Standing on her 
 knight-heads and looking aft you c d no more 
 than make out her side-lights. We came along, 
 and Boston inner and outer harbor crowded with 
 vessels, steamers and sail, waiting for it to mod 
 erate so they c d put out. A blessed wonder it was 
 we didn t sink somebody or ourselves. Outside 
 we went along by smell, I think, for only every 
 once in awhile could we see a light. One time we 
 almost ran into something a fisherman it must 
 have been, for I s pose only a fisherman would be 
 going in on a night like this out of a squall of 
 snow and blackness she came man alive! but, 
 whoever she was, she was coming a great clip. 
 Winged out and we didn t see her till the end of 
 
 222 
 
In the Arkell Kitchen 
 
 her bowsprit caught the end of our mainboom 
 hauled in we were to two blocks and over we 
 went on the other tack yes, sir, over on the other 
 tack. Thinks I, * Tis a new way to jibe a vessel 
 over/ And the end of her foreboom all but swept 
 me from beside the wheel and over the rail as s^e 
 went by she was that close. And I ^ : ^ o /> 
 her, Won t you leave us your name so I c*^: ; 
 you next time we meet? but Lord, not a wV*r ji 
 of him. He kept on to Boston, I suppose, ar i 
 kept on to Gloucester, and here I am." 
 
 "And the Colleen, Tom she s all right? 
 "Right, man? Watch her to-morrow. Barring 
 that forem st being too light but whoever looked 
 for a breeze like this ? two days and three nights 
 now and blowing harder all the time. But never 
 mind, she ll make great going of it to-morrow. 
 Divil take it, but we ll all make great going of it. 
 Tommie, dear, what s in the bowl? Milk? Man, 
 but don t be telling me things like that and the 
 one thing the doctors warn me against is heart- 
 trouble. Ah, milk-punch that s better, man. A 
 wee droppeen. Look at it the color of the tip of 
 a comber in twelve fathom of water and a cross- 
 tide. Well, here s to every mother s son of us 
 that s going to race to-morrow. May ye all win 
 if the Colleen don t all but you, Sam Hollis. But 
 where s he gone into the other room? Well, if 
 
 223 
 
The Seiners 
 
 he was here twould be the same. He s got a vessel 
 that can sail. Let him sail her to-morrow and win, 
 if it s in her or in him. But a thousand dollars 
 and outside my house and vessel, Lord knows, it s 
 all the money I ve got in the world beyond my 
 house and vessel a thousand dollars the Colleen 
 beats the Withrow. Hello, there what d y say, 
 Sam Hollis the Colleen and the Withrow a 
 thousand dollars, boat for boat. But where the 
 divil is he ? Gone ? Are you sure ? Gone ! But 
 a queer time to leave a party just when it s get 
 ting to be real sociable." 
 
 "Never mind the betting now, Tom," spoke up 
 Wesley Marrs. u Let the owners have that to 
 themselves. And according to accounts some of 
 them are having it. Fred Withrow and old Dun 
 can are ready to go broke over the race to-morrow. 
 Whichever loses, he ll remember this race, I m 
 thinking. Here s hoping it won t be Duncan. So 
 to the devil with the betting, Tom. Some of us 
 have bet all we could afford some of us more 
 than we could afford, I callate. Let s have a song 
 instead, Tom." 
 
 "Anything to please you, Wesley," and O Don- 
 nell began to sing. He started off first with his 
 
 " Oh, seiners all and trawlers all," 
 
 but Alec McNeill and Patsie Oddie interrupted. 
 
 224 
 
In the Arkell Kitchen 
 
 "Oh, give us the other one, Tom the Newf und- 
 land and Cape Shore Men." 
 
 "Ha!" laughed O Donnell, "it s the mention of 
 your own you want you and Patsie there. Well, 
 it s all one to me. Any man from any place, so 
 long as he s a fair man and a brave man, and Lord 
 knows ye re both that. Well, here s to you both 
 a wee drop just, Tommie easy easy," and he 
 began : 
 
 " Oh, Newf undland and Cape Shore men, and men of 
 Gloucester town, 
 
 With ye I ve trawled o er many banks and sailed the com 
 pass roun ; 
 
 I ve ate with ye, and bunked with ye, and watched with 
 ye all three, 
 
 And better shipmates than ye were I never hope to see. 
 
 I ve seen ye in the wild typhoon beneath a Southern sky, 
 
 I ve seen ye when the Northern gales drove seas to mast 
 head high, 
 
 But summer breeze or winter blow, from Hatt ras to Cape Race, 
 
 I ve yet to see ye with the sign of fear upon your face. 
 
 Oh, swingin cross the Bay 
 
 Go eighty sail of seiners, 
 
 And every blessed one of them adriving to her rail ! 
 
 There s a gale upon the waters and there s foam upon the 
 
 sea, 
 
 And looking out the window is a dark-eyed girl for me, 
 And driving her for Gloucester, maybe we don t know 
 What the little ones are thinking when the mother looks out 
 
 so. 
 
 225 
 
The Seiners 
 
 Oh, the children in the cradle and the wife s eyes out to sea, 
 
 The husband at the helm and looking westerly 
 
 When you get to thinking that way, don t it make your 
 
 heart s blood foam? 
 Be sure it does so here s a health to those we love at home. 
 
 West half no the and drive her, we re abreast now of Cape 
 
 Sable, 
 
 It s an everlasting hurricane, but here s the craft that s able 
 When you get to thinking that way, don t it make your 
 
 heart s blood foam? 
 Be sure it does so here s a health to those we love at home. 
 
 Oh, the roar of shoaling waters and the awful, awful sea, 
 Busted shrouds and parting cables, and the white death on 
 
 our lee ; 
 Oh, the black, black night on Georges when eight score 
 
 men were lost 
 Were ye there, ye men of Gloucester? Aye, ye were 
 
 and tossed 
 
 Like chips upon the water were your little craft that night, 
 Driving, swearing, calling out, but ne er a call of fright. 
 So knowing ye for what ye are, ye masters of the sea, 
 Here s to ye, Gloucester fishermen, a health to ye from me. 
 
 And here s to it that once again 
 
 We ll trawl and seine and race again ; 
 
 Here s to us that s living and to them that s gone before ; 
 
 And when to us the Lord says, Come! 
 
 We ll bow our heads, His will be done, 
 
 And all together let us go beneath the ocean s roar." 
 
 I never again expect to hear a sea song sung as 
 226 
 
In the Arkell Kitchen 
 
 Tom O Donnell sang it then, his beard still wet 
 with the spray and his eyes glowing like coal-fire. 
 And the voice of him ! He must have been heard 
 in half of Gloucester that night. He made the 
 table quiver. And when they all rose with glasses 
 raised and sang the last lines again: 
 
 " And here s to it that once again 
 
 We ll trawl and seine and race again ; 
 
 Here s to us that s living and to them that s gone before ; 
 
 And when to us the Lord says, < Come ! 
 
 We ll bow our heads, His will be done, 
 
 And all together we shall go beneath the ocean s roar " 
 
 any stranger hearing and seeing might have un 
 derstood why it was that their crews were ready 
 to follow these men to death. 
 
 "The like of you, Tom O Donnell, never sailed 
 the sea," said Patsie Oddie when they had got the 
 last ro-o-ar "even the young ladies come in off 
 the street to hear you better." 
 
 He meant Minnie Arkell, who was standing in 
 the doorway with her eyes fixed on O Donnell, 
 who had got up to go home, but with Wesley trying 
 to hold him back. He was to the door when 
 Minnie Arkell stopped him. She said she had 
 heard him singing over to her house and couldn t 
 keep away, and then, with a smile and a look into 
 
 227 
 
The Seiners 
 
 his eyes, she asked O Donnell what was his hurry 
 and didn t he remember her? 
 
 In her suit of yachting blue, with glowing face 
 and tumbled hair, she was a picture. "Look at 
 her," nudged Clancy "isn t she a corker? But 
 she s wasting time on Tom O Donnell." 
 
 "What s your hurry, Tom?" called Wesley. 
 "Another song." 
 
 "No, no, it s the little woman on the hill. She 
 knew I was to come down to-night and not a wink 
 of sleep will she get till I m home. And she knows 
 there ll be bad work to-morrow maybe and she d 
 like to see me a little before I go, and I d like to 
 see her, too." 
 
 "She s a lucky woman, Captain O Donnell, and 
 you must think a lot of her?" Minnie Arkell had 
 caught his eye once more. 
 
 "I don t know that she s so awfully lucky with 
 me on her hands," laughed O Donnell, "but I do 
 think a lot of her, child." 
 
 "Child? to me? But you don t remember me, 
 Captain?" 
 
 "Indeed, and I do, and well remember you. 
 And it s the beautiful woman you ve grown to be. 
 But you always were a lovely child. It s often my 
 wife spoke of you and wondered how you were. 
 She s heard me speak of your father a hundred 
 times, I know. A brave man your father, girl. 
 
 228 
 
In the Arkell Kitchen 
 
 And she ll be glad to see you any time, little girl 
 or the daughter of any fisherman lost at sea. If 
 ever you have a blue day, go to her, for tis she has 
 the heart and, God bless her, an extra weakness 
 for orphans. Her own children some day there s 
 no telling. But good-night to you, dear" he 
 patted her head "good-night all. Wesley, Tom- 
 mie, Patsie all of ye, good-night. In the morn 
 ing we ll have it out." Out the door he went, and 
 I fancied there was almost a blush on Minnie 
 Arkell s face. 
 
 Tom O Donnell was the kind of a man a fellow 
 would like to have for a father. 
 
 229 
 
XXIX 
 
 MAURICE BLAKE COMES HOME 
 
 FROM Mrs. Arkell s we walked back to 
 Clancy s boarding house. Clancy wanted to 
 see how they made out with the punch. We found 
 several of them up in the wind, and so no great 
 danger of them. But two or three of them, 
 Dave Campbell particularly, were running wild. 
 "Boomed out and driving," said Clancy, and be 
 gan to remonstrate with Dave on the evils of in 
 temperance. He went on quite awhile, but Dave 
 showed no signs of remorse. "Wait and I ll fix 
 him," said Clancy, and obeying a motioning with 
 his head two or three of the sober ones followed 
 him out. 
 
 He led the way to the wood-shed next door 
 where there was a goat, and the goat we carried 
 up three flights of stairs to Campbell s room. He 
 was a big, able goat, and we had quite a time to get 
 him up stairs. At last we got him tied to the post 
 of Campbell s bed. Then we went down stairs to 
 the kitchen and Clancy persuaded Campbell to go 
 up stairs to bed, which after awhile he did. It was 
 not yet morning and there was no light in the bed- 
 
 230 
 
Maurice Blake Comes Home 
 
 room. We took our position on the landing out 
 side where we could hear everything that went on 
 in Campbell s room, which was just at the head of 
 the stairs. 
 
 Dave went in and we could hear him falling over 
 something in the dark. "What s it?" we could 
 hear him, and acting as if he was feeling around. 
 Taking off our shoes we crawled nearer. We could 
 barely make out his shadow in the dark, but we 
 could easily hear him talking to himself. "What s 
 it? Eh, what?" He must have been feeling the 
 horns then, and the goat must have butted him. 
 Again, and once more, for out the door and down 
 the stairs went Dave. We ran in and cut the goat 
 loose and down he went after Dave. The whole 
 three flights they raced. 
 
 "He s got me at last," hollered Dave, bolting 
 into the kitchen, slamming the door behind him and 
 bracing himself against it. 
 
 We took the goat and put him back in the wood 
 shed and came back to the kitchen by way of the 
 window. Dave, who was still braced against the 
 door, did not know but what we had been in the 
 kitchen all the time, and that gave Clancy a fine 
 chance to take up his lecture on intemperance just 
 where he had left it off, at the very beginning. 
 "Intemperance, Dave, is an awful thing. You ll 
 have to be doing something for it soon, I think. 
 
 231 
 
The Seiners 
 
 Yes, when the devil himself gives you a call it s 
 time to do something. You d better come with me 
 and take the pledge. Come up now to Father 
 Haley." 
 
 "I m a Pres a Pres a Pres by ter ian, 
 Tommie." 
 
 "Well, come with me to your church then any 
 church at all. What s the odds, so long s you re 
 form. Here, we ll do it right here now. Come, 
 hold up your hand," and then and there Clancy was 
 about to get Dave to promise not to look a glass 
 of liquor or punch in the face for a year again, 
 when who comes bouncing in but Eddie Parsons. 
 
 "Hurroo!" said Clancy, forgetting Dave and 
 grabbing Eddie by the shoulder, "and the Dun 
 can s home?" 
 
 "She is," said Eddie, "and four hundred and 
 fifty barrels of mackerel coming out of her hold. 
 A dozen lumpers getting em out from both holds 
 and two at a lick they re coming onto Duncan s 
 Dock. And what d y think, Tommie " 
 
 "But what kept you so long, man? We ve all 
 been getting heart disease waiting for you." 
 
 "I know. We ought to ve been in yesterday 
 mornin , or in the afternoon at the latest, for we 
 swung her off Tuesday night midnight plenty of 
 time with a fair wind. But on Wednesday after 
 noon, coming like a race-horse wung out we 
 sighted a dory and two men in it signalizing. 
 
 2J2 
 
Maurice Blake Comes Home 
 
 Astray they were, and we took em aboard, and all 
 that night we stood by. And warn t it chafing? 
 Oh, no ! Daylight came thick and we waited for 
 it to clear, keeping the horn goin . It lifted and we 
 got another dory, but it was late afternoon then. 
 Then their vessel came along with all the others 
 accounted for, and we turned over our two and 
 went on our way. And maybe she didn t come ! 
 Oh, no ! Blowing? A living gale all the time, but 
 the skipper kept her going. You d hardly b lieve 
 if I told you where we was yesterday afternoon and 
 we here now. A no the-easter and a howler all the 
 way. At four o clock we passed in by the bell- 
 buoy. Man, such a blow ! Are we in the race, you 
 say? Are we! And oh, the skipper says for you 
 and Joe to be down after breakfast. We all knew 
 you d get home and be all right with Tom O Don- 
 nell. So be down after breakfast the skipper will 
 be looking for you both. But say, let me tell you. 
 What d y think? Coming into the harbor a while 
 ago who d y s pose was out in the stream with a 
 lighter alongside his vessel? Who but Sam Hollis 
 and the Withrow. Yes, and the gang putting 
 ballast back in her." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 "Yes. And some one of them sees us going by 
 in the dark. And we did go by, too! Lord! says 
 somebody twas Withrow himself but if that 
 don t look like the ghost of Maurice Blake s ves- 
 
 233 
 
The Seiners 
 
 sell Yes, hollers back the skipper and they 
 mustVe been some surprised to hear him and 
 the ghost ll be with you to-morrow in the race. 
 Yes/ the skipper says, and we re all ready for it. 
 Four weeks since we ve been on the ways and may 
 be a scrubbing wouldn t hurt her, but if it keeps 
 ablowin who ll mind that? Not the Johnnie. 
 Oh, Tommie, if you d seen her comin across the 
 Bay of Fundy yesterday afternoon and last night. 
 Did she come? did she come? Lord O 
 
 Lord " 
 
 "And so that s Wi throw got his vessel tuned 
 up like a fiddle and now he s putting extra ballast 
 in her. Blast him and Hollis for schemers!" said 
 Clancy. "And that s how it comes they re so ready 
 to bet stiff enin her so stiff for to-morrow that 
 they know something ll happen to the others first. 
 But the Johnnie s a bit stiff, too and there s no 
 ballast out of her. And, as the skipper says, 
 maybe we ain t been on the ways for a few weeks 
 now, but Lord, the Johnnie ought to be able to 
 drag a few little blades of sea-grass on her hull in 
 this breeze. And so we re in the race, heh? Dave, 
 I can t stop to give you the pledge now 
 Oh, the Johnnie Duncan fast and able, 
 Good-by, dear, good-by, my Mabel." 
 
 And Clancy was the joyful man as he awoke the 
 echoes in the gray of that stormy morning. 
 
 234 
 
XXX 
 
 THE MORNING OF THE RACE 
 
 I DON T think that the people of Gloucester 
 will ever forget the morning of that race, 
 which, they will still tell you, was the only race 
 ever sailed. Wind was what the fishermen wanted, 
 and they got it wind, and sea with it. The ad 
 miral of the White Squadron, then at anchor at 
 Rockport Harbor, just around the Cape, stood on 
 the bridge of his flagship that morning and looked 
 out to sea. Somebody told him that the fishermen 
 were going to race that day. He took another 
 look. "Race to-day? Pooh! they ll do well to 
 stay hove-to to-day." Of course, that ought to 
 have settled it, the admiral having said it. 
 
 It blew that day. Leaving home I had time for 
 a bite to eat and a wash-up. I turned the corner 
 and picked up Clancy, with Maurice Blake, Tom 
 O Donnell and Wesley Marrs just ahead. We ran 
 into Mr. Edkins, a nice old gentleman, who had 
 been made secretary of the race committee. What 
 he didn t know about fishing would be the making 
 of a "killer," but, of course, he wasn t picked out 
 
 235 
 
The Seiners 
 
 for that he d never fished a day in his life but 
 because of his knowledge of the rules of yacht 
 racing. Having had long experience in managing 
 yachting regattas, he knew all about time allow 
 ances and sail measurements though there were 
 to be no allowances of any kind here. It was to be 
 boat for boat in this race ; every vessel for herself. 
 So he was thought to be a good man to have to 
 look after the stake and judges boats. It was 
 Gloucester s Anniversary celebration, with a lot of 
 strangers in town the Governor and a whole 
 holdful of national characters and in deference 
 to them the race was to be managed so that spec 
 tators might have a chance to see it. 
 
 Mr. Edkins came along in his official regalia 
 tall hat, frock coat, umbrella, gloves, and a pink 
 in his button-hole. 
 
 "Is it true, Captain O Donnell, that the race is 
 going to be held to-day?" 
 
 O Donnell looked at him as though he didn t 
 understand. "To-day? to-day? Good Lord, are 
 we all on the wrong tack? And sure isn t this the 
 day?" 
 
 "Oh, yes oh, yes, Captain O Donnell, this is 
 the day appointed. And that is the trouble. 
 Surely you are not going to race to-day?" 
 
 "We re not going to " broke in Wesley Marrs, 
 "and why aren t we going to race to-day? What 
 
 236 
 
The Morning of the Race 
 
 in the name of all that s good have we been doing 
 with our vessels up on the railway the last week or 
 two? What d y think we took the ballast out of 
 our vessels for? What d y think I had that ever 
 lasting new balloon made for last trip in, what for 
 that big mains l that Tom here had bent on the 
 Colleen yesterday, and for what did Maurice drive 
 the Johnnie Duncan home only last night? What 
 in " 
 
 "Wait, Captain, wait. What I mean is, do you 
 know how it is outside? They ve telegraphed me 
 that up in Boston Harbor there won t be a steamer 
 leave the harbor to-day it s as stormy as that. 
 There are two big ocean liners and we ve got 
 word that they won t leave won t dare to leave 
 not a steamer of any kind will leave Boston Har 
 bor to-day. And outside a heavy sea running 
 with the wind fifty-four miles an hour, the weather 
 bureau says. Fifty-four miles an hour. That s not 
 street corner talk it s official. And " 
 
 "Divil take it, does being official make it blow 
 any harder?" asked O Donnell. 
 
 "And I know the way you fishermen will try 
 to carry on. I know, I know don t tell me you re 
 careful. I tell you, Captain O Donnell^ and you, 
 Captain Marrs, I tell you all that if you persist 
 in racing to-day I wash my hands of the whole 
 affair completely wash my " 
 
 237 
 
The Seiners 
 
 "Well, tis a fine wash day, too. Come, Wesley 
 come, Maurice, we ll have to be getting on." 
 
 They left Mr. Edkins standing there. A little 
 farther on they overtook the manager of the in 
 surance company, which had policies on most of 
 the fishing vessels. He was just about to enter his 
 office when O Donnell spied him. "Hullo, there s 
 the man I want to see " and hailed, "Just heave 
 to a minute, Mr. Brooks, if you please. Now look 
 here, you know we ve took a few pigs of iron out 
 our vessels, and you know it looks like a bit of 
 weather outside. Now, what I want to know is 
 if I capsize the Colleen Bawn to-day if I don t 
 come home with her does my wife get the in 
 surance? That s what I want to know does my 
 wife get the insurance?" 
 
 Mr. Brooks looked at O Donnell, rubbed his 
 chin and scratched his head, then looked at O Don 
 nell again. "Why, I suppose it all comes under the 
 usual risk of fishing vessels. I suppose so but 
 h-m it will be pretty risky, won t it ? But let me 
 see wait a moment now there s the President in 
 side, and Mr. Emerson, too he s a director." 
 
 He went inside, and we could see that they were 
 talking it over. Pretty soon they all came out 
 with the President of the company in front. 
 "Good-morning, Captain O Donnell Captain 
 Marrs, good-morning. How do you do, Mau- 
 
 238 
 
The Morning of the Race 
 
 rice? Captain O Donnell, take it from me as 
 official, your insurance on the Colleen Bawn is 
 safe. For the honor and glory of old Gloucester 
 go ahead and sink her." 
 
 "And the Lucy Foster?" asked Wesley. 
 
 "And the Lucy Foster, Captain Marrs." 
 
 "Of course the Johnnie Duncan, speaking for 
 the owners?" asked Maurice. 
 
 "For every vessel that we insure that leaves the 
 harbor to race to-day." 
 
 "Hurroo!" said O Donnell. "Don t tell me, 
 Wesley, I m no what s it? dip-lo-mat. Yes, 
 dip-lo-mat, by the Lord!" 
 
 But it certainly was a desperate morning for a 
 race. The streets seemed to be full of men ready 
 to go out. There were to be only nine vessels 
 in the race, but another half dozen vessels were 
 going over to see it, and that meant more than 
 three or four hundred able fishermen going out. 
 The men that were going to stay ashore would 
 go up to those that were going out and say, 
 "Well, good-by, old man. If you don t come 
 back, why, you know your grave ll be kept green." 
 And the men going out would grin and say, 
 "That s all right, boy, but if she goes, she ll go 
 with every rag on her," in a half-joking way, too, 
 but it was the belief that morning that there might 
 be a whole lot of truth in that kind of joking. 
 
 239 
 
The Seiners 
 
 Before we reached the dock we knew that the 
 whole town had learned pretty much that half a 
 dozen of the skippers had promised each other in 
 Mrs. Arkell s kitchen the night before, "No sail 
 comes off except what s blown off," and there 
 promised to be some blown off. Men who had 
 only just heard their skippers speak of that were 
 bragging of it in the streets. "Why," said one of 
 O DonnelFs crew as we were coming down the 
 dock, "if any crawly-spined crawfish loses his nerve 
 and jumps to our halyards, thinkin the Colleen s 
 going to capsize why, he ll get fooled and 
 why? Because our halyards are all housed aloft 
 by the skipper s orders." 
 
 That sounded strong, but it was true. When 
 we reached the end of our dock we looked for 
 ourselves, and there it was. The Colleen s crew 
 had hoisted their mains l already and there she lay 
 swayed up and all ready, and men aloft were even 
 then putting the seizing on. Tom O Donnell him 
 self was pointing it out to Sam Hollis with a good 
 deal of glee, thinking, I suppose, to worry Hollis, 
 who, to uphold his reputation, would have to do 
 the same and take the chances that went with it. 
 By this time everybody knew that Hollis had put 
 his ballast back during the night. One of Wesley 
 Marrs s men jumped onto the Withrow and below 
 and had a look for himself. He couldn t get down 
 
 240 
 
The Morning of the Race 
 
 by way of the hatches they were battened down 
 but he dropped into the forec s le and, before 
 anybody knew what he was up to, he had slipped 
 through the forehold and into the mainhold and 
 there he saw where they had hurriedly put back 
 the flooring, and he also saw extra barrels of sand 
 tiered low for further stiffening of the Withrow. 
 He was discovered before he got on deck and 
 nearly beaten to a jelly before he got up on the 
 wharf again. It ended in a fine little riot with 
 some of our gang and O Donnell s mixing in. 
 Clancy came down the back-stay like a man falling 
 from the masthead, so as to be into it before it was 
 over. He was almost too late but not quite. 
 Only old Mr. Duncan coming along with half a 
 dozen other dignified owners stopped it. But there 
 was time for Clancy to speak his mind out to Sam 
 Hollis. And that gave Hollis a chance to say, 
 "Well, talk away, Tommie Clancy, but this is the 
 day I make the Johnnie Duncan take in sail." And 
 Clancy answered him, "That so ! Well, no matter 
 what happens, put this down, Maurice Blake hangs 
 to his canvas longer than Sam Hollis to-day 
 hangs to it or goes over with it or the spars come 
 out of the Johnnie Duncan." 
 
 After the talking was over we thought Hollis 
 would be shamed into sending a man aloft to mouse 
 his halyards too. But not for Hollis. That was 
 
 241 
 
The Seiners 
 
 a little too much for him. Clancy and three or 
 four others finished attending to our own halyards 
 and overhauling the gear aloft. Our mains l was 
 already hoisted arid the other three lowers with 
 stops loosed were all ready to hoist too. The 
 mains l had been left standing just as it was when 
 the Johnnie Duncan came in that morning. It was 
 flat as a board, and I remember how grieved we 
 were when we had to lower it again because the tug 
 that came to give us a kick out from the dock could 
 not turn us around with it up it was blowing so. 
 The tug captain said he might manage to turn it 
 against the sun, but that would be bad luck of 
 course, and he knew the crew wouldn t stand for it, 
 especially with a race like this on hand. It had to 
 be with the sun ; and so we had to lower it again, 
 and when the vessel was turned around, hoist it 
 again, not forgetting to lash the halyards aloft 
 again too. But after we d got it swayed up it 
 didn t set near so well as before too baggy to our 
 way of thinking. 
 
 242 
 
XXXI 
 
 THE START OF THE RACE 
 
 WE got away at last and beat out the harbor 
 with the Lucy Foster, the Colleen Bawn, 
 the Withrow, the Nannie O, and four others. For 
 other company going out there was a big steam- 
 yacht with Minnie Arkell and her friends aboard, 
 which did not get out of the harbor. Out by the 
 Point they shipped a sea and put back, with Minnie 
 Arkell waving her handkerchief and singing out 
 "Don t take in any sail, Maurice," as they turned 
 back. There was also the Eastern Point, a high- 
 sided stubby steamer, at that time running regularly 
 to Boston; and there was the New Rochelle, a 
 weak-looking excursioner that might have done for 
 Long Island Sound, where somebody said she d 
 just come from, but which didn t seem to fit in 
 here. Her passengers were mostly fishermen 
 crews of vessels not in the race. There was also a 
 big powerful iron sea-tug, the Tocsin, that prom 
 ised to make better weather of it than any of the 
 others. 
 
 Billie Simms was one of the men who were not 
 243 
 
The Seiners 
 
 going in the race but intended to see some of it. 
 He was in the Henry Clay Parker, a fine-looking 
 vessel that was not so very fast, but had the repu 
 tation of being wonderfully stiff. Coming out past 
 Eastern Point lighthouse, where he could begin 
 to get a look at things, Billie hollered out that he 
 was sorry he hadn t entered. u Looks to me like the 
 vessel that ll stay right side up the longest ought 
 to win this race, and that s the Henry C." He 
 hauled her across our stern while he was yelling and 
 I remember she took one roll down to her sheer 
 poles when passing on, and Maurice sang out, 
 "Look out, Billie, or you ll capsize her." 
 
 "Capsize this one? Lord, Maurice, I ve tried 
 it a dozen times and I m damned if I could," and 
 he went rolling on like nothing I ever saw, unless 
 it was the rest of us who were then manoeuvring for 
 the start. We passed the Parker again before we 
 got to the line, and old Peter Hines, who was 
 hanging to her main-rigging, had to yell us his 
 good wishes. "Drive her, Maurice-boy, and what 
 ever you do don t let the man that took your 
 vessel from you beat you home," meaning Sam 
 Hollis of course. Maurice waved his hand, but 
 said nothing. He was looking serious enough, 
 however. 
 
 Tommie Clancy was the boy who wasn t worry 
 ing particularly. He saluted Peter as if he were 
 
 244 
 
The Start of the Race 
 
 going out on a holiday excursion. "Ain t she a 
 dog, Peter? Watch her." 
 
 "That s what she is and drive her, Tommie 
 drive her." 
 
 "Oh, we ll drive her, Peter," called back Tom 
 mie, and began : 
 
 " 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." 
 
 "Let you alone, Tommie, and you ll get your 
 prayer some day," was Peter s last hail as we 
 straightened out for the swoop across the line. 
 
 Clancy was to the wheel then with the skipper. 
 Both were lashed and we had life-lines around 
 deck. To the wheel of every vessel in the fleet 
 were two men lashed, and they all had life-lines 
 around deck. 
 
 In crossing the line there was no attempt at jock 
 eying such as one often sees in yacht racing. There 
 was no disposition on the part of any skipper to do 
 anything that would set anybody else back. Of 
 course, everybody wanted to be in a good berth and 
 to cross between the guns ; but the idea was to give 
 the vessels such a try out as they would get out to 
 sea as if they were making a passage in a breeze. 
 The course forty-two miles or so was very short 
 
 245 
 
The Seiners 
 
 for a fisherman, for one great thing in a fisherman 
 is her power to stand a long drag. Day and night 
 in and day and night out and driving all the time 
 is the way a fisherman wants it. Any sort of rac 
 ing machine could be built to stand a little hard 
 going for a while. But that wouldn t be living 
 through a long hard winter s gale on the Banks 
 one of those blows where wind and sea and in 
 shoal water at that have a chance to do their 
 worst. Fishermen are built for that sort of work 
 and on their sea-worthiness depends not only the 
 fortunes of owners but the lives of men of real 
 men and the happiness and comfort of wives and 
 children ashore. And so the idea in everybody s 
 mind that day was to make this test as nearly fair 
 as could be and see who had the fastest and most 
 weatherly boat in the fleet. There were men to 
 the wheel that day who could handle big fisher 
 men as if they were cat-boats, who would have 
 dared and did, later, dare to sail their vessels as 
 close to a mark in this sea as men sail a twenty-foot 
 knockabout in the smoothest of waters inshore 
 only with the fishermen a slip-up meant the loss of 
 a vessel, maybe other vessels too, and twenty-five 
 or fifty lives perhaps. 
 
 And so the skill of these men was not used to 
 give anybody the worst of it. A fair start and 
 give everybody his chance was the idea. Thus 
 
 246 
 
The Start of the Race 
 
 Tommie Ohlsen could have forced the Withrow 
 outside the starting boat and compelled her to come 
 about and maybe lose a few minutes, but he did 
 not. He held up and let her squeeze through. 
 O Donnell in his turn could have crowded Ohlsen 
 when he let up on the Withrow, but he did not. 
 He, too, held up in turn and let Ohlsen have his 
 swing going across. 
 
 Across we went, one after the other. West- 
 souVest was the course to a stake-boat, which we 
 were told would be found off Egg Rock, fourteen 
 miles away. We had only the compass to go by, 
 for at the start it was rain and drizzle, as well as 
 wind and a big sea, and you couldn t see a mile 
 ahead. On the way we shot by the New Rochelle, 
 which had started ahead with the intention of wait 
 ing for the fleet at the first stake-boat. Now she 
 was headed back, wabbing awfully. From Billie 
 Simms, who went over part of the course in the 
 Henry Clay Parker ahead of the fleet, we got 
 word of the trouble as we went by. The New 
 Rochelle was beginning to leak. "You c n spit 
 between her deck-planks and into her hold she s 
 that loose," hollered Billie. I don t think the fish 
 ermen aboard of her minded much so long as she 
 stayed afloat, but her captain, a properly licensed 
 man, did, I expect, and so she put back with some 
 of them growling, I heard afterward, "and after 
 
 247 
 
The Seiners 
 
 paying their little old three dollars to see only the 
 start of the race." Her captain reported, when he 
 got in, that he didn t see anything outside but a 
 lot of foolish fishermen trying to drown them 
 selves. 
 
 The first leg was before the wind and the Lucy 
 Foster and the Colleen Bawn went it like bullets. 
 I don t expect ever again to see vessels run faster 
 than they did that morning. On some of those 
 tough passages from the Banks fishing vessels may 
 at times have gone faster than either of these did 
 that morning. It is likely, for where a lot of able 
 vessels are all the time trying to make fast pas 
 sages skippers who are not afraid to carry sail 
 and vessels that can stand the dragging and in 
 all kinds of chances there must in the course of 
 years of trying be some hours when they do get 
 over an everlasting lot of water. But there are 
 no means of checking up. Half the time the men 
 do not haul the log for half a day or more. Some 
 of the reports of speed of fishermen at odd times 
 have been beyond all records, and so people who 
 do not know say they must be impossible. But 
 here was a measured course and properly anchored 
 stake-boats and the Lucy and the Colleen did that 
 first leg of almost fourteen sea-miles in fifty min 
 utes, which is better than a i6y 2 knot clip, and 
 that means over nineteen land miles an hour. I 
 
 248 
 
The Start of the Race 
 
 think anybody would call that pretty fast going. 
 And, as some of them said afterward, "Lord in 
 Heaven! suppose we d had smooth water!" But 
 I don t think that the sea checked them so very 
 much not as much as one might think, for they 
 were driving these vessels. 
 
 249 
 
XXXII 
 
 O 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 Fos 
 ter 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 hap 
 pening 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 With- 
 row 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 anywhere 
 
 250 
 
O Donnell Carries Away Both Masts 
 
 for 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 Nel 
 son 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 dis 
 abled 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 snug 
 
 251 
 
The Seiners 
 
 up 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 reach 
 252 
 
O Donnell Carries Away Both Masts 
 
 to 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 Bos 
 ton. That was all right, but her action threw Ohl 
 sen 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 whether 
 
 253 
 
The Seiners 
 
 they had any trouble on the others being too busy 
 with our own to watch but we came near to los 
 ing 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: u 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 ex 
 hibition 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 both 
 
 2 54 
 
O Donnell Carries Away Both Masts 
 
 vessels 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 out 
 come. 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!" 
 
 255 
 
The Seiners 
 
 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. 
 
 256 
 
XXXIII 
 
 THE 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 fol 
 lowed 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 stay- 
 
 257 
 
The Seiners 
 
 sail tacks. 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 lis 
 tened 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, and 
 
 258 
 
The Able Johnnie Duncan 
 
 the Lucy twenty-four feet beam was swinging 
 from the ringbolts 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." 
 
 259 
 
The Seiners 
 
 "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 sec 
 ond 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 bet 
 ter 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 hold 
 ing her own. But it wouldn t do to take it off. 
 Had they not all said before putting off that morn 
 ing 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 look 
 
 260 
 
The Able Johnnie Duncan 
 
 that 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 mak 
 ing 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 cap 
 sized entirely. 
 
 Mr. Duncan, when he saw the Lucy s crew 
 trying to save the head-sails, 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 nor 
 
 261 
 
The Seiners 
 
 Wesley 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 Glouces- 
 ter ll come up, this one ll come up." 
 
 He was standing with the water, the clear water, 
 262 
 
The Able Johnnie Duncan 
 
 not 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." 
 
 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 light-ship 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. 
 
 263 
 
The Seiners 
 
 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, leap 
 ing 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." 
 
 264 
 
XXXIV 
 
 MINNIE 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 Glouces 
 ter in a breeze that was a breeze. We had taken 
 the chance of being capsized or hove-down and 
 
 265 
 
 
The Seiners 
 
 losing 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 quarts 
 
 266 
 
Minnie Arkell Once More 
 
 level. 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 spark 
 ling 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 nor 
 
 267 
 
The Seiners 
 
 lift 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 skip 
 per, 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. Wher 
 ever 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 times 
 
 268 
 
 
Minnie Arkell Once More 
 
 each. After a while, of course, some of our fel 
 lows, 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 fisher 
 man, one of those who had been on one of the ex 
 cursion 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 a 
 
 269 
 
The Seiners 
 
 race 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." 
 
 270 
 
XXXV 
 
 CLANCY 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 hur 
 ried 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 you 
 
 271 
 
The Seiners 
 
 about the race when we get back," and led the 
 way to Mr. Duncan s office. 
 
 We found the skipper in the outer office, stand 
 ing 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, 
 
 272 
 
Clancy Lays Down the Law 
 
 I hope you ll take her Mr. Duncan will let you 
 have her if you want. I hope you ll take her any 
 way, 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 something 
 
 273 
 
The Seiners 
 
 more 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 drink 
 er 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, birth 
 place, 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 well, 
 
 274 
 
Clancy Lays Down the Law 
 
 A 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 some 
 thing 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 it 
 
 275 
 
The Seiners 
 
 a 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. IVe 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 be 
 lieved, we were gone. In times like those men get 
 to know each other, and I tell you, Miss Fos 
 ter " 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 him 
 self 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 looked 
 
 276 
 
Clancy Lays Down the Law 
 
 twice 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 en 
 graved. 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 guar 
 dian, 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 you 
 
 277 
 
The Seiners 
 
 were 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 him 
 self for you, but you must rub it into him while 
 he s doing it. Maurice or maybe you don t un 
 derstand. 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 re 
 member 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 a 
 
 278 
 
Clancy Lays Down the Law 
 
 warm 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, ancj 
 
 279 
 
The Seiners 
 
 I 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. 
 
 280 
 
XXXVI 
 
 MAURICE BLAKE IS RECALLED 
 
 morning after the race I was eating 
 A breakfast at home and I could not re 
 member 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 ex 
 citing 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 side 
 walk. It was worth while to be alive, and every 
 thing tasted so good. 
 
 I had put away six fried eggs and about four 
 teen 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 or 
 dered. 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. 
 281 
 
The Seiners 
 
 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 Dun 
 can 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 de 
 signed her!" 
 
 "Oh, yes. Twas a Gloucester man." 
 
Maurice Blake is Recalled 
 
 "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 hand 
 some 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 apprecia 
 tion. 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 other- 
 
 wise! 
 
 "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!" 
 
 283 
 
The Seiners 
 
 "Oh, well, all right, he s an apostle of temper 
 ance 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 after 
 noon 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. 
 284 
 
Maurice Blake is Recalled 
 
 Withrow 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 eastward, 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 yes 
 terday 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 much 
 
 285 
 
The Seiners 
 
 to 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 stand 
 ing 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, see 
 ing she s always leading from it." 
 
 "Oh, keep your fishermen s jokes for the mug- 
 ging-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 ex 
 plain to anybody s satisfaction how his stays l went 
 nor why he hove-to when that squall struck him 
 
 286 
 
Maurice Blake is Recalled 
 
 the same 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, 1 he said at the same time. * Tis you 
 that takes a licking hard. But maybe tis the in 
 surance, 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 Thurs- 
 
 287 
 
The Seiners 
 
 day night, 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." 
 
 288 
 
XXXVII 
 
 THE GIRL IN CANSO 
 
 THAT was Saturday evening. The crew of 
 the Johnnie had been told just after the race 
 by the skipper that he would not need them again 
 until Monday. Scattering on that, some going to 
 Boston, they could not be got together again until 
 Monday morning, and it was not until Monday 
 noon that we got away. 
 
 We fitted out as though for a Cape Shore sein 
 ing trip, and that s what we were to do in case we 
 missed the Flamingo or could not persuade her 
 skipper or Maurice himself that he ought to leave 
 her and come back on the Johnnie Duncan. It 
 was Clancy who had the matter in charge. Indeed, 
 it was only Clancy who knew what it was really 
 all about. 
 
 We had a good run-off before a stiff westerly 
 that gradually hauled to the north, and Tuesday 
 night late saw us in Halifax Harbor. It was too 
 late to do anything that night, but Clancy went 
 ashore to find out what he could. Before sunrise 
 he was back with word to break out the anchor 
 and put to sea. He had word of the Flamingo. 
 
 289 
 
The Seiners 
 
 "That girl of Dave s it seems she s moved to 
 Canso with her folks, and Dave s gone there. He s 
 probably there before this maybe left again. 
 She s an old plug, the Flamingo, but she ought ve 
 made Canso before this. He only stayed a few 
 hours here and left Monday." 
 
 It was bang, bang, bang all the way to Canso, 
 with Clancy swearing at Withrow and the Fla 
 mingo and Dave Warner and the girl in the case 
 one after the other and sometimes all together. 
 "Blast Withrow and that crazy fool Dave War 
 ner, too. And why in the devil couldn t her folks 
 stayed in Gloucester or in Halifax, at least. 
 They ought ve put a few sticks of dynamite in her 
 and blown her to pieces ages ago. She s forty 
 years old if she s a day her old planks rotten. 
 They won t keep her afloat overnight if they re 
 out in this. Why d y s pose people leave a good 
 lively little city like Halifax to go to a place like 
 Canso? Why?" 
 
 Andie Howe happened to be within hearing, 
 and "Maybe the rent s cheaper," suggested Andie. 
 
 "Maybe it is and maybe if you don t talk sense 
 I ll heave you over the rail some fine day. Better 
 give her a grain more fore-sheet. Man, but it s a 
 wicked night." 
 
 We made Canso after the worst day and night 
 we had had in the Johnnie Duncan since she was 
 
 290 
 
The Girl in Canso 
 
 launched. Outside Canso Harbor it looked bad. 
 We didn t think the skipper would try to enter the 
 harbor that black night, but he did. "Got to go 
 in and get news," said Clancy, and in we went. It 
 was as black as could be squalls sweeping down 
 and Canso is not the easiest harbor in the world 
 to make at night. 
 
 I went ashore with Clancy to hear what the 
 young woman might have to say. We found her 
 in a place run by her father, a sort of lodging house 
 and "pub," with herself serving behind the bar 
 a bold-looking young woman, not over-neat and 
 yet attractive in her way good figure, regular 
 features, and good color. "There, Joe, if you 
 brought a girl like that home your mother would 
 probably die of a broken heart, but there s the kind 
 that a foolish man like Dave Warner would sell his 
 soul for." Then Clancy explained while we were 
 waiting for her to see us privately, "I don t know 
 if she ll remember me, but I met her two or three 
 times in Gloucester." 
 
 When she came in she recognized Clancy right 
 away. "How do you do, Captain Clancy?" 
 
 "How do you do, Miss Luce? My friend, Mr. 
 Buckley. Now what we ve come for but first, 
 suppose we have a little something by way of so 
 ciability. A little fizzy stuff, say, and some good 
 tigars, Miss Luce." 
 
 291 
 
The Seiners 
 
 She brought the wine and the cigars. Clancy 
 pulled the cork, filled both glasses, pushed one 
 glass toward the young woman and drew one to 
 himself. 
 
 "But, Captain, your friend hasn t any." 
 
 "My friend," said Clancy, "doesn t drink. The 
 last thing the doctor said to him before we came 
 away was, Don t touch a drop of liquor or your 
 life will pay the forfeit. You see, Miss Luce, he s 
 been a dissipated youth drink and having been 
 dissipated and coming of delicate people, it s af 
 fected his health." 
 
 "You don t tell me? I m sure he doesn t look 
 it." 
 
 "No, he don t that s a fact. But so it is." 
 
 "Stomach?" she asked me. 
 
 "No heart," answered Clancy for me. "What 
 they call an aneurism. You know what an aneur 
 ism is, of course?" 
 
 "Yes-yes oh, yes " 
 
 "Of course. Well, he s got one of them." 
 
 "That s too bad. So he only smokes instead?" 
 
 "That s all. Here, Joe, smoke up." 
 
 "My, I always thought smoking was bad for the 
 heart." 
 
 "It is for everything except aneurisms. Smok- 
 ing s the death of aneurisms. Have another cigar, 
 Joe. And Miss Luce, shall we exchange a health?" 
 
 292 
 
The Girl in Canso 
 
 "But I never drank anything in all my life." 
 
 "Of course not. But you will now, won t you? 
 Consider the occasion and I m sure you won t 
 let me drink alone. And I ve come so far to 
 see you, too only of course not Well, here s 
 to your good health, and may you live long 
 and " 
 
 The rest of it was smothered in the gurgle. And 
 nobody would ever think to see the way she put 
 down hers that Miss Luce had never had a drink 
 of wine before. 
 
 "And now, Miss Luce, may I ask how long it 
 has been since your friend Dave Warner left " 
 
 u Oh-h Dave Warner? He s no friend of 
 
 mine." 
 
 "Isn t he? Well, he s no particular friend of 
 mine, either. But a friend of mine of both of us, 
 Joe here, too is with Dave Maurice Blake. 
 Any word of him?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. A good-looking fellow, nice eyes and 
 hair and nice manners. I do like to see refined 
 manners in people. Now if it was him " 
 
 "If it was him, you wouldn t have told him to 
 go to sea and the devil take him " 
 
 "I d have you know, Captain Clancy, I don t 
 
 swear." 
 
 "Swear? You, Miss Luce? Dear me, what 
 ever made you think I thought that? But let s 
 
 293 
 
The Seiners 
 
 have another taste of wine. But of course you 
 didn t encourage Dave to stay ashore here?" 
 
 "Him? I guess not. When he said he didn t 
 care if he never came back, I told him I was sure 
 I didn t and out he went." 
 
 "O woman, gentle woman," murmured Clancy 
 in his glass, "especially real ladies. But Dave 
 never did know how to talk to a lady." 
 
 "I should say he didn t." 
 
 "No, not Dave. And so his money gone 
 
 I > M 
 
 "Money? Why, he never had any money." 
 
 "Well, that s bad. Not even enough to open a 
 bottle of wine to drink a lady s health?" 
 
 "Bottle of wine? No, nor a thimbleful of tup 
 penny ale." 
 
 "That was bad, Miss Luce. Dave ought Ve 
 come better heeled 
 
 And so his money gone he puts out to sea- 
 It may happen to you or happen to me. 
 
 And which way did he say he was going?" 
 
 "He didn t say and I didn t ask, though one of 
 the men with him said something about going to 
 the Grand Banks." 
 
 "Grand Banks, eh? That s comforting it 
 isn t more than a couple of days sail from here 
 to the nearest edge of it, and twenty-odd thousand 
 or more square miles of shoal water to hunt over 
 
 294 
 
The Girl in Canso 
 
 after you get there. Had they taken their bait 
 aboard, did you hear, Miss Luce?" 
 
 "Yes, they had. That was yesterday afternoon 
 late. His vessel was leaking then, I heard him say 
 to that nice-looking man Maurice Blake his 
 name, did you say? A nice name Maurice, isn t 
 it? Well, he said to Maurice going out the door, 
 Well, we ll put out and I callate I don t know 
 how she ll get out but out we ll go to-night. The 
 sooner you go the better it will suit me, Blake 
 said, and they went off together." 
 
 "And how was Mr. Blake?" 
 
 "How do you mean? How did he act? My, I 
 never saw such a man. Wouldn t open his head 
 all night wouldn t drink, but just sat and smoked 
 like your friend there. Anything the matter with 
 him?" 
 
 "With Maurice? Oh, in the way of aneur 
 isms? Not that I know of. Oh, yes, he has 
 heart-trouble too, come to think. But I must be 
 getting back to the vessel." 
 
 "So soon?" 
 
 "Yes, we ve got to go to sea. I m like Dave 
 Warner in that I m going to sea too." 
 
 "But nobody s driving you away." She had her 
 eyes on Clancy s face then. 
 
 He didn t look up only stared into his glass. 
 
 She was silent for a full minute. Clancy said 
 295 
 
The Seiners 
 
 nothing. "Nobody s driving you away," she said 
 again. 
 
 At that Clancy looked at her. "There s no tell 
 ing," he said at first, and then hastily, "Oh, no 
 of course nobody s driving me to sea." 
 
 "Then what s your hurry?" 
 
 I got up and went to the door then. I heard 
 the sound of a scraping chair and then of Clancy 
 standing up. A moment s quiet and then it was : 
 "No, dear, I can t stay nobody s driving me 
 away, I know that. I m sure you wouldn t not 
 with your heart. And you ve a good heart if you d 
 only give it a chance. But I can t stay." 
 
 "And why not? You won t, you mean. Well, 
 I never thought you were that kind of a man." 
 
 "No? Well, don t go to giving me any moral 
 rating. Don t go to over-rating me or maybe 
 you d call it under-rating. But you see, it s my 
 friend that s calling." 
 
 "And you re going out in this gale?" 
 
 "Gale. I d go if it was a hundred gales. Good- 
 by and take care of yourself, dear." 
 
 "And will you come back if you don t find him ?" 
 
 "Lord, Lord, how can I say? Can anybody 
 say who s coming back and who isn t?" 
 
 He went by me and out the door. She looked 
 after him, but he never turned only plunged out 
 of the house and into the street and I right after 
 him. 
 
 296 
 
XXXVIII 
 
 THE DUNCAN GOES TO THE WESTWARD 
 
 GETTING back to the vessel Clancy was 
 pretty gloomy. That s settled. We can t 
 chase them as far to the eastward as the big banks 
 a three hundred mile run to the nearest edge of it 
 and tens of thousands of square miles to hunt over 
 after we d got there. And it would be child s work 
 anyway to ask Maurice to leave her on the bank. 
 Who d take his place even if Dave would stand for 
 it? Twould mean laying up a dory or taking his 
 dory-mate too. Maurice wouldn t leave her any 
 way, even if he believed he d never get home no 
 real fisherman would. And yet there it is Dave 
 in a devil of a mood, and a vessel according to all 
 reports that won t live out one good easterly. And 
 there s a crazy crew aboard her that won t make 
 for the most careful handling of a vessel. Oh, 
 Lord, I don t see anything for it, but, thank the 
 Lord, Maurice has been behaving himself and 
 that in spite of how blue he must have been feeling. 
 By this time he s cert nly made up his mind he s 
 with a pretty bad crowd, but maybe he s glad of a 
 
 297 
 
The Seiners 
 
 little excitement. What I don t understand is how 
 Dave ever left old man Luce s place without break 
 ing up the furniture before going away. Gen rally 
 that s his style. Maybe Maurice being along had 
 something to do with it a pretty able man in close 
 quarters is Maurice. Yes, he must be glad of the 
 excitement, but Lord, that won t save him from 
 being lost. Oh, oh, and now what ll we do? Let s 
 see, the Flamingo s on the way to the Banks, and 
 that s the end of that chase. We ve got to wait 
 now and see that she comes home or don t come 
 home one or the other. I told that girl that I 
 was going to put out put out if it blew a hundred 
 gales. And so I would if any good would come of 
 it, but putting out to sea a day like this because 
 you bragged you would risking your vessel and 
 crew, or making hard work for them if nothing 
 else that ain t good sense, is it? Besides, I had 
 to tell her something to get away without setting up 
 to be a model of virtue. What else could I do? 
 Women are the devil sometimes aren t they, 
 Joe ? There s some are. I suppose it wouldn t do 
 any great harm to head her for home. I don t 
 believe there s going to be much more fish going 
 to be seined this fall and wouldn t she make a 
 passage of it in this easterly? Oh, Lord, it would 
 be the race all over again, only ten times as long 
 a drag." 
 
 298 
 
The Duncan Goes to the West ard 
 
 While he sat there in the cabin, smoking and 
 meditating, letting us into his thoughts every now 
 and then, the voices of some of our crew were 
 heard on deck. 
 
 We all went up and got the word that was being 
 passed around. A coast steamer had just come 
 to anchor in the harbor with the report that just 
 outside about ten miles to the west ard was a 
 vessel, dismasted and clean-swept, and dragging 
 toward the rocks. They could not help her them 
 selves too rough a hurricane outside to launch 
 a boat was out of the question. They didn t mind 
 taking a chance, they said, but to attempt her rescue 
 would be suicide. 
 
 It looked like a pretty hard chance going out in 
 that gale, but Clancy didn t wait. "Nobody else 
 seems to be hurrying to get out, and we being the 
 able-est looking craft in the harbor, I callate it s 
 up to us to go." He got the exact location of the 
 distressed vessel from the coaster, and then it was 
 up anchor, make sail, and out we went. 
 
 There were people who called Clancy a fool for 
 ordering out his vessel and risking his crew that 
 day men in that very harbor and maybe he was. 
 But for myself, I want that kind of a fool for my 
 skipper. The man that will take a chance for a 
 stranger will take a bigger chance for his own by 
 and by. 
 
 299, 
 
The Seiners 
 
 We saw her while we were yet miles away, 
 down to the west ard near Whitehead and with 
 the cruel stretch of rocks under her lee quarter. 
 Even with plenty of sea-room she could not have 
 lasted long, and here with these ledges to catch 
 her she looked to be in for a short shrift. We had 
 a good chance to get a look at her as we bore 
 down. Everything was gone from her deck, even 
 the house and rail. There was not as much loose 
 wood on deck as would make a tooth-pick. After 
 wards we learned that two seas hove her down so 
 that they had to cut the spars away to right her, 
 and then just as she was coming up another monster 
 had caught her and swept her clean not only 
 swept clean, but stove in her planks and started 
 some of her beams so that she began to leak in a 
 fashion that four men to the pumps could just 
 manage to keep up with. 
 
 We could just see them the men to the pumps 
 working desperately with the others lashed to the 
 stumps of the masts and the stanchions which were 
 left when the rail went. Her big hawser had 
 parted and her chain was only serving to slightly 
 check her way toward the rocks. 
 
 With spars and deck gear gone and her hull 
 deep in the water, a vessel is not so easily distin 
 guished. But there was something familiar in this 
 one. We had seen her before. All at once it 
 
 300 
 
The Duncan Goes to the West ard 
 
 fashed on half a dozen of us "the Flamingo!" 
 we said. "God! that s tack!" said Clancy. 
 
 She lay in a sort of inlet that was wide open to 
 the gale, rocks OB the better part of three sides 
 of her, north, south and west. She was then within 
 all but striking distance of the rocks, and the seas, 
 high and wkked were weeping over her. It 
 looked like a bad place to work out of if we should 
 get dose in, but Clancy held on. 
 
 "Not much ICMDOM, but plenty of water under 
 her keel anyway, 1 and himself ID the wheel, sailed 
 the Johnnie around the Flamingo. He hailed 
 Maurice as he went by, waved his hand to the 
 others, and hove a fine aboard. They took the 
 line, hauled in the hawser at the cad of it, made 
 that fast to the windlass, and then we started off 
 with her in tow. 
 
 We were doing pretty well, what with plenty of 
 wind and the Johnnie buckling down to her work 
 like she was a steamer, till the hawser parted and 
 back toward the rods went the Flamingo again. 
 
 "No use," said Clancy, "sea s too much for any 
 line we got. We ll try it with the seine-boat 
 Who ll go in the seine-boat and try to take them 
 off? Think quick, but mind what it means." 
 
 Every man of the crew of the Johnnie Duncan 
 said, "Here!" The cook even came out of the 
 forec s le and put in his "And me, too, skipper." 
 
 301 
 
The Seiners 
 
 "You re good men," said Clancy, "damn good 
 men," and looked us up and down. We felt proud, 
 he said it in such a way. "But you re taking your 
 lives in your hands and some of you got wives and 
 children mothers or something. Who hasn t 
 anybody depending on him ? Which of you hasn t 
 any woman somewhere, or little brothers or 
 sisters?" 
 
 About twelve of the sixteen men standing on the 
 deck of the Johnnie Duncan said u Me !" 
 
 "Three-quarters of you, at least," said Clancy, 
 "are damn liars. Over with the seine-boat and be 
 careful nobody gets hurt." 
 
 Somebody did get hurt, though. Andie Howe 
 got his foot smashed and was helped below. 
 Clancy gave the rest of us a scolding in advance. 
 "You re not hurt yet, but some of you will be 
 like Andie if you don t watch out. You d think 
 that some of you were out on some little pond up 
 in the country somewhere launching a canoe off 
 one of those club-house floats. Keep an eye out 
 for those seas when they board. And watch out 
 for that foreboom or some of you ll have a head 
 cut off. A man killed or a man washed over the 
 rail what s the difference it s a man lost. Look 
 out now watch, you Steve damn you, watch 
 out! Over with it!" 
 
 And over it went and with it leaped two men 
 302 
 
The Duncan Goes to the West ard 
 
 before it could sag away, while the rest of us stood 
 by the rail watching our chance. 
 
 "Nelson," called Clancy, "come away from that 
 rail ! Steve, come away ! come away, I say, and 
 no back talk. Pat, you can go jump in watch 
 your chance or it s the last of you. Eddie, you can 
 go, and you Bill, and you Frenchy. Joe! stand 
 away from that rail or I ll put you in the hold and 
 batten the hatches on you. Now, that s better. 
 And that s enough six men to the oars and one 
 to steer." 
 
 "And who ll steer?" asked somebody. 
 
 "You ll know in a minute," said Clancy, and 
 he leaped for the seine-boat and made it, and 
 grabbed the steering oar. "Stand by push off! 
 Fend off in the vessel there! Steve, if anything 
 happens you know you re to take the Johnnie 
 home. Give way, fellows. Now ! Watch out ! 
 now now then, around with her end on, 
 and there she is like a bird! And now drive 
 her!" 
 
 "A bird!" said Clancy but a wild-looking 
 bird fifty feet she looked to be going into the 
 air one moment and down out of sight the next, 
 and water slamming aboard her so that we thought 
 she was swamped half a dozen times. Two had 
 to leave the oars and go to bailing, while Clancy 
 with an arm and shoulders and back and swinging 
 
 303 
 
The Seiners 
 
 waist like well, like nothing a man ever had be 
 fore kept her end to it. 
 
 "Good luck!" we called. 
 
 "Never fear we ll bring em back I" said 
 Clancy. 
 
 "Or stay with them," we thought. 
 
 But he didn t stay with them. It was a ticklish 
 job, but Clancy got away with it. He didn t dare 
 to go too near the Flamingo, for that meant that 
 the seas would pitch the seine-boat up and dash it 
 to kindling wood against her hull. What he did 
 do was to go as near the Flamingo as he could and 
 keep her clear, then heave a line aboard and call to 
 her crew one after the other to make it fast around 
 themselves and jump overboard. It took some 
 nerve to make that jump from the rigging of 
 the Duncan we watched them saw them shiver 
 and draw up these were men accustomed to face 
 danger reckless men but the shiver was over 
 in a breath, and then over the rail and into that 
 sea a game fight and they were hauled into the 
 seine-boat. Some of them we thought would never 
 make it, for it was an awful sea. 
 
 As fast as one of the Flamingo s men made the 
 seine-boat he was set to work bailing out or taking 
 a haul at the oars, for it was a difficult matter in 
 that sea to keep the seine-boat at the right distance 
 from the Flamingo. But they got them all ten 
 
 304 
 
The Duncan Goes to the Westward 
 
 of them. Two were hauled in unconscious, but 
 came to after awhile. 
 
 To get aboard the Johnnie again was almost as 
 bad as to get into the seine-boat from the Flamingo. 
 But we managed it. Long Steve was swept over 
 while we were at it, but we got him back with the 
 help of Maurice Blake and another of the Fla 
 mingo s crowd. By smart clever work they 
 grabbed Steve before he could go down and 
 hauled him into the seine-boat. 
 
 When they were all safe aboard the Duncan 
 Clancy shook hands with Maurice. "I call that 
 luck, Maurice to come out to save a stranger and 
 find you ve saved your own. And now whose trick 
 to the wheel you, Joe ? Put her on the off-shore 
 tack till we re well clear of that headland maybe 
 we c n make it in one leg. No? Then a short 
 tack and have an eye out for the ledges not too 
 close. And Maurice, go below you and Dave 
 and all hands of you, and we ll get out dry clothes 
 for you. Man, but you must be cold and hungry, 
 but the cook s getting coffee and grub ready. And 
 for the Duncan s crew on deck all hands and put 
 the tops ls to her. For, Maurice-boy, we re going 
 home going home, Maurice where there s peo 
 ple waiting for you. Hang on a while longer, 
 Joe, and I ll take her myself." 
 
 No need to tell me to hang on. If I hadn t hung 
 305 
 
The Seiners 
 
 on or been lashed to the wheel I could never have 
 kept my feet, for at this time it was so bad that 
 they had passed a line from my waist to the 
 windward bitt and I was up to my waist with every 
 dive of her. 
 
 "Lord, she s a dog, ain t she ! If old man Dun 
 can could see her now ! Remember Tom O Don- 
 nell singing that song the other night : 
 
 West half-no the and drive her we re abreast now of Cape 
 
 Sable 
 Tis an everlasting hurricane, but here s the craft that s able. 
 
 We re not abreast of Cape Sable yet, but it won t 
 take us too many hours at this clip. And here s the 
 craft that s able. Man, wouldn t it be fine if Tom 
 O Donnell himself was with us and the pair of us 
 racing home ? Let me take the wheel, Joe. And 
 go for ard and have a mug-up for yourself and 
 have a care going, Joe, for it s leaping she is now 
 and seas that d lift you a cable s length to looard 
 if ever they caught you fair. That s it oh, but 
 if your mother could see you now, Joe, it s never 
 to sea you d come again." 
 
 I made my way for ard. A dash between the 
 house and windward rail, a shoot for the mainmast 
 and holding on there for awhile. Another dive 
 for the gripes on the dories, another shoot between 
 rail and dories, a grip of the bow gripes, a swing 
 
 306 
 
The Duncan Goes to the West ard 
 
 around and I was at the forecYle hatch. Here I 
 thought I heard him call and looked aft. 
 
 He had a leg either side of the wheel, standing 
 full height and sawing the spokes a bit up and 
 down to get the feel of her. The life line was 
 trailing from his waist to the bitt the clear white 
 sea was up to his middle and racing over the taff- 
 rail. He had cast away his mitts the better to grip 
 the spokes, and even as I looked he took off his 
 sou wester and sent it scaling. The wind taking 
 hold of it must have carried it a quarter a mile to 
 leeward. Watching it go, himself looking out 
 under the boom, he laughed laughed such a 
 roar of a laugh stamped his feet and began to 
 sing: 
 
 " Oh, I love old Ocean s smile, 
 
 I love old Ocean s frowning 
 My love s for Ocean all the while, 
 
 My prayer s for death by drowning." 
 
 The devil was in him then. "Did you call me, 
 skipper?" I sang out. 
 
 "Did I? Did I? Lord, Joe, I don t know. 
 Maybe I did. I feel like calling from here to 
 Gloucester, and if I did I bet they d hear me. 
 God, Joe, but it s good to be alive, isn t it? just 
 to be alive. Whew ! but I wish I had a few more 
 sou westers just to see em scale. But what was 
 it I wanted but is the cook there?" 
 
 307 
 
 
The Seiners 
 
 "He is I c n hear him talking." 
 Then go below and tell him, Joe tell him to 
 mouse his pots and kettles, for with sail alow and 
 sail aloft, with her helmsman lashed and her house 
 awash, in a living gale and the devil s own sea, 
 the Johnnie Duncan s going to the westward." 
 
 And she certainly went. 
 
 * 
 
 308 
 
XXXIX 
 
 THE HEART OF CLANCY 
 
 THAT trip ended seining for the Duncan that 
 year. Everything went well with our 
 friends, after we got home. It was late in the 
 season, and Maurice Blake was to stay ashore to 
 get married, for one thing. He had made a great 
 season of it and could afford to. So the Johnnie 
 Duncan was fitted out for fresh halibuting and 
 Clancy took her. 
 
 I went with him. I remember very well that I 
 had no idea of going winter fishing when the 
 seining season ended, but somehow or other when 
 Clancy came to get a crew together I was looking 
 for a chance. 
 
 So we put out, and on the rocks of Cape Ann, 
 near Eastern Point lighthouse, on the day we sailed 
 on our first halibuting trip, were Maurice Blake 
 and Alice Foster, my cousin Nell and Will Somers, 
 to wave us good luck. Clancy hauled the vessel 
 close in to get a better look and they waved us until 
 I suppose they could see us no longer. Of course 
 they should have been able to make us out long 
 
 39. 
 
The Seiners 
 
 after we had lost sight of them, we being a tall- 
 sparred, white-sailed vessel ; and Clancy must have 
 had that in mind, for long after all signs of them 
 had been lost to us he kept the glasses pointed to 
 the rocks. He turned at last with a "Well, I sup 
 pose they re all happy now, Joe?" 
 
 "They ought to be," I said. 
 
 "Yes, they ought to be," he repeated, and then 
 again, "they ought to be," and went for ard. 
 
 He stayed for ard a long time, saying no word, 
 but leaning over the windlass and looking out 
 ahead. Nobody disturbed him. Once or twice 
 when the sheets needed trimming and in a deep 
 sleep I think Clancy would know that -he turned 
 and gave the word, but the bare word and no more. 
 He had his spells we all knew, when he didn t want 
 anybody near him, and so he wanted to be alone, 
 I suppose. And there he stayed, with what spray 
 came over the bow splashing him, but he paying 
 no attention. 
 
 At supper call he moved, but not to go below and 
 eat only to shift to walking the quarter, and 
 walking the quarter he stayed until near midnight. 
 He went below then after giving a few words of 
 instruction to the watch went below and got out 
 his pipe. From my bunk, the middle port bunk in 
 the cabin, I watched him rummaging for tobacco 
 in his stateroom and then his coming out with his 
 
 310 
 
The Heart of Clancy- 
 pipe and his filling and lighting it slowly and 
 thoughtfully, and then his sitting and smoking un 
 der the cabin lamp. 
 
 Looking over when he had finished that pipeful 
 I had not drawn my curtain he caught my 
 eyes on him. He smiled, but said nothing only 
 lit another pipeful, and kept on smoking. 
 
 I fell asleep watching him fell asleep and woke 
 again. He must have been watching me, for his 
 eyes were on mine when I looked for him again. 
 He smiled and shook his pipe out, and made as 
 though to turn in. 
 
 But he didn t turn in. He took off his jersey, 
 loosened the collar of his flannel shirt, cast off his 
 slip-shods stopped looked into his bunk, came 
 back, filled and lit another pipeful and began to 
 talk to me. I thought I was sleepy, but in five 
 minutes I didn t think so. Joking, laughing, tell 
 ing stories in ten minutes he had me roaring. Be 
 fore long he had everybody in the cabin awake and 
 roaring, too. Men, coming off watch and into the 
 cabin to warm up, or for one thing or another, lis 
 tened and stayed. He kept that up all the rest of 
 the night until after six o clock in the morning, 
 and only the cook called to breakfast there s no 
 telling when he would have stopped. And not 
 until he was going for ard to eat did I get a glimpse 
 of what it was he had been thinking of during all 
 
The Seiners 
 
 those earlier hours of the night. The sun, I re 
 member, was streaking the sky ahead of us he 
 stopped just as he was about to drop into the 
 forec s le and pointed it out. 
 
 "A sunrise, Joe, on a fine October morning out 
 to sea beautiful beautiful but just one thing 
 wrong about it. And what is it? you don t see? 
 Well, Joe, it s over the bow. A sunrise, Joe, is 
 most beautiful when it s over the stern and why? 
 Cause then you re going home of course. Going 
 home, Joe if you ve got a home to go to. Look 
 to it, Joe, that you ve got a home of your own to 
 go to before you re much older. Somebody to 
 work for somebody waiting for you a wife, 
 Joe wife and children or you re in for some 
 awful lonesome times." 
 
 That was Clancy watch-mate, bunk-mate, 
 dory-mate once, and now my skipper Clancy, 
 who could be any man s friend, the man that every 
 body jumped to shake hands with, and yet never a 
 bit of use to himself. And I couldn t but half 
 wonder at that, and kept my eyes on him when, 
 with one foot on the top step of the companion- 
 way, he turned and looked around again. 
 
 "And if you can t get anybody, skipper?" 
 
 "Then it s hard though most likely you ve de 
 served it." 
 
 "But you haven t deserved it?" 
 
 31* 
 
 
The Heart of Clancy 
 
 "Deserved it? Yes, and ten times over." 
 
 "That s pretty rough." 
 
 "Rough? No, it s right. When you do wrong 
 you ve got to make up for it. It s all in the big 
 scheme of the universe. You ve got to strike a 
 balance some time somewhere. And the sooner 
 the better. Be thankful if you have to settle it 
 right away, Joe. If you don t and it drags along 
 then it s worse again, and the Lord help those 
 that come after you those that have to take up 
 life where you ve left it off. The Lord have 
 mercy on the heirs of your brain and heart and 
 soul, boy. What you hand them they ve got to 
 take. Yes, sir, you ll pay for it somewhere you 
 yourself, or, what s worse, those you care for will 
 have to pay in this world or another whatever 
 it is we re coming to, a better or a worse world, 
 it s there and waiting us. Be thankful, as I said, 
 Joe, if you have to settle for it here settle for it 
 yourself alone." 
 
 All around, above and below, ahead and astern, 
 he looked, a long, long look astern his foot on 
 the step, and singing softly, almost to himself: 
 
 And if I come to you, my love, 
 And my heart free from guile, 
 Will you have a glance for me 
 Will you on me smile ? 
 
 3 3 
 
The Seiners 
 
 Oh, Lord! pipe-dreams pipe-dreams. Let s go 
 below, Joe, and have a bite to eat." 
 
 So below we went; and her sails lit up by the 
 morning sun, her decks wet by the slapping sea, 
 sheets off and sailing free, the Johnnie Duncan 
 clipped her way to the east ard. 
 
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U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
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