"Never mind the betting now, Tom," spoke up Wesley Marrs. "Let the owners have that to themselves. And according to accounts some of them are having it. Fred Withrow and old Duncan 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'Donnell began to sing. He started off first with his

"Oh, seiners all and trawlers all,"

but Alec McNeill and Patsie Oddie interrupted. "Oh, give us the other one, Tom—the Newf'undland 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 compass 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 a-driving 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. 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 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 understood 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 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. 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, Tommie, Patsie—all of ye, good-night. In the morning 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.



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 began to remonstrate with Dave on the evils of intemperance. 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 bedroom. We took our position on the landing outside 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. 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 reform. 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 Duncan'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 afternoon, coming like a race-horse—wung out—we sighted a dory and two men in it signalizing. 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'Donnell. 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 vessel!' 'Yes,' hollers back the skipper—and they must've 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 maybe a scrubbing wouldn't hurt her, but if it keeps a-blowin' 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 Withrow—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—stiffenin' 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.



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 admiral 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 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 allowances 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 spectators 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 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 everlasting 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 Harbor 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——"

"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 insurance 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 insurance? 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'Donnell 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 inside, 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, Maurice? 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.

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'Donnell's 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 himself 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 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 mast-head, 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 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 and 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.



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 promised to make better weather of it than any of the others.

Billie Simms was one of the men who were not 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 reputation 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. "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 whatever 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 worrying particularly. He saluted Peter as if he were 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 Tommie, 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 jockeying 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 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 racing 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 fishermen 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 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-sou'west 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 waiting 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 fishermen 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 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 themselves.

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 passages—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 said 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 minutes, which is better than a 16-1/2 knot clip, and that means over nineteen land miles an hour. I 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.



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 Foster and the Colleen Bawn level. The Withrow showed herself to be a wonderful vessel off the wind, too. Wesley Marrs was around the stake-boat first. In the fog and drizzle the leaders did not find the stake-boat at once. Wesley happening to be nearest to it when they did see it, got the benefit and was first around. We were close up, almost near enough to board the Withrow's quarter rounding. I am not sure that the skipper and Clancy, who were to the wheel, did not try to give Hollis a poke with the end of our long bowsprit; but if they did, the Johnnie was not quite fast enough for that. The Withrow beat us around. Looking back we could see the others coming like wild horses. Every one of them, except one that carried away something and hauled up and out of it, was diving into it to the foremast with every leap the same as we had been. On that first leg nobody could stand anywhere 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 Nelson took his place beside Clancy. It was drizzling then, every now and then that settling down so that we couldn't see three lengths ahead. At such times we simply hoped that nobody ahead would carry away anything or in any way become disabled in the road.

Well clear of the stake-boat, however, it lifted and we could see what we were doing. The Lucy Foster was still ahead with O'Donnell and Ohlsen and Hollis almost abreast—no more than a few lengths between. Practically they were all about just as they started. We were next. It was a broad reach to Minot's Ledge and hard going for all hands. It must be remembered that we all had everything on, even to balloon and staysails, and our halyards were lashed aloft. The men to the mast-head, who were up there to shift tacks, were having a sweet time of it hanging on, even lashed though they were.

Everybody was pretty well strung up at this time. The skipper, a line about his elbow, was hooked up to the main-rigging—the weather side, of course—and it was up to a man's waist and boiling white on the lee side. The crew were snug 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 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 Boston. That was all right, but her action threw Ohlsen off. She was right in the Nannie O's way, and to save the steamer and themselves from a collision and certain loss of life, Ohlsen had to jibe the Nannie O, and so suddenly that the Nannie O's gaff broke under the strain. And that lost Ohlsen his chance for the race. It was too bad, for with Ohlsen, Marrs, and O'Donnell, each in his own vessel in a breeze, you could put the names in a hat and shake them up. When we went by the Nannie O her crew were getting the trysail out of the hold, and they finished the race with that, and made good going of it, as we saw afterward. Indeed, a trysail that day would have been sail enough for almost any men but these.

Before we reached Minot's there was some sail went into the air. One after the other went the balloons—on the Foster, the Colleen, the Withrow and at last on us. I don't know whether they had any trouble on the others—being too busy with our own to watch—but we came near to losing men with ours. It got caught under our keel, and we started to try to haul it in—the skipper having an economical notion of saving the owner the expense of a new sail, I suppose. But Mr. Duncan, seeing what he was at, sang out: "Let the sail go to the devil, Captain—I'll pay for the new one myself." Even at that we had to crawl out on the bowsprit—six or eight of us—with sharp knives, and cut it away, and we were glad to get back again. The Johnnie never slackened. It was desperate work.

Rounding Minot's, Tom O'Donnell gave an exhibition of desperate seamanship. He had made up his mind, it seems, that he was due to pass Wesley Marrs along here. But first he had to get by the Withrow. Off Minot's was the turning buoy, with just room, as it was considered, for one vessel at a time to pass safely in that sea.

O'Donnell figured that the tide being high there was easily room for two, and then breasted up to the Withrow, outside of her and with the rocks just under his quarter. Hollis, seeing him come, made a motion as if to force him on the rocks, but O'Donnell, standing to his own wheel, called out—"You do, Sam Hollis, and we'll both go." There certainly would have been a collision, with both 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 outcome. And yet he might have got away with it but for his new foremast, which, as he had feared, had not the strength it should have had. He let her go, never stopped to haul in his sheets—he had not time to if he was to cross Wesley's bow. So he swung her and the full force of the wind getting her laid both spars over the side—first one and then the other clean as could be.

Hollis never stopped or made a motion to help, but kept on after the Lucy Foster. We almost ran over O'Donnell, but luffed in time, and the skipper called out to O'Donnell that we'd stand by and take his men off.

O'Donnell was swearing everything blue. "Go on—go on—don't mind me. Go on, I tell you. We're all right. I'll have her under jury rig and be home for supper. Go on, Maurice—go on and beat that divil Hollis!"

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.



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 followed Wesley Marrs's every move. Wesley was sailing her wide. And our skipper approved of that, too. To attempt a too close course in the sea that was out in the Bay that day, with the blasts of wind that were sweeping down, would have deadened her way altogether too much—maybe hung her up. And so it was "Keep her a full whatever you do," and that, with coming about when the others did—we being afraid to split tacks—made plenty of work for us.

"Hard-a-lee" it was one after the other, and for every "Hard-a-lee" twenty of us went down into the roaring sea fore and aft and hauled in and slackened away sheets, while aloft, the fellows lashed to the foremast head shifted top and staysail 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 listened to hear what else he might have to say. But he didn't realize at once what it meant. His eyes and his mind were on the Lucy Foster.

"What d'y'think of the Lucy and the Withrow, Tommie?" Mr. Duncan said next.

Tommie took a fresh look at the Lucy Foster, which was certainly doing stunts. It was along this time that big Jim Murch—a tall man, but even so, he was no more than six feet four, and the Lucy twenty-four feet beam—was swinging from the ring-bolts under the windward rail and throwing his feet out trying to touch with his heels the sea that was swashing up on the Lucy's deck. And every once in a while he did touch, for the Lucy, feeling the need of her ballast, was making pretty heavy weather of it. Every time she rolled and her sheer poles went under, Jim would holler out that he'd touched again.

We could hear him over on the Johnnie at times. Mr. Duncan, who believed that nothing ever built could beat the Lucy Foster, began to worry at that, and again he spoke to Clancy. He had to holler to make himself heard.

"But what do you think of the Lucy's chances, Tommie?"

Clancy shook his head.

And getting nothing out of Clancy, Mr. Duncan called out then: "What do you think of the Lucy, you, Captain Blake?"

The skipper shook his head, too. "I'm afraid it's too much for her."

And then—one elbow was hitched in the weather rigging and a half hitch around his waist—the skipper swung around, and looking over to the Withrow, he went on:

"I don't see, Mr. Duncan, why we don't stand a pretty good chance to win out on Hollis."

"Why not—why not—if anything happens to the Lucy."

It jarred us some to think that even there, in spite of the great race the Johnnie was making of it, she was still, in the old man's eyes, only a second string to the Lucy Foster.

About then the wind seemed to come harder than ever, but Clancy at the wheel never let up on the Johnnie. He socked it to her—wide and free he sailed her. Kept her going—oh, but he kept her going. "If this one only had a clean bottom and a chance to tune her up before going out," said somebody, and we all said, "Oh, if she only had—just half a day on the railway before this race."

We were fairly buried at times on the Johnnie—on the Lucy Foster it must have been tough. And along here the staysail came off the Withrow and eased her a lot. We would all have been better off with less sail along about that time. In proof of that we could see back behind us where the Nannie O, under her trysail, was almost holding her own. But it wouldn't do to take it off. Had they not all said before putting off that morning that what sail came off that day would be blown off?—yes, sir—let it blow a hundred miles an hour. And fishermen's pride was keeping sail on us and the Foster. Hollis tried to make it look 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 making easier weather of it that the Withrow crossed the Lucy's bow for the first time in the race and took the lead.

We all felt for Mr. Duncan, who couldn't seem to believe his eyes. We all felt for Wesley, too, who was desperately trying to hold the wind of the Withrow—he had even rigged blocks to his jib sheets and led them to cleats clear aft to flatten his headsails yet more. And Wesley's crew hauled like demons on those jib sheets—hauled and hauled with the vessel under way all the time—hauled so hard, in fact, that with the extra purchase given them by the blocks they pulled the cleats clean out, and away went the Lucy's jib and jumbo—and there was Wesley hung up. And out of the race, for we were all too near the finish for her to win out then unless the Johnnie and the Withrow capsized entirely.

Mr. Duncan, when he saw the Lucy's crew trying to save the headsails, couldn't contain himself.

"Cut 'em away—cut 'em to hell!" he sang out, and we all had to smile, he spoke so excitedly. But it was no use. The Lucy was out of the race, and going by her, we didn't look at Mr. Duncan nor 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 Gloucester'll come up, this one'll come up."

He was standing with the water, the clear water, 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 lightship in a surf gale—tried to crowd us out just as an awful squall swooped down. It was the Johnnie or the Withrow then. We took it full and they didn't, and there is all there was to it. But for a minute it was either vessel's race. At the critical time Sam Hollis didn't have the nerve, and the skipper and Clancy did.

They looked at each other—the skipper and Clancy—and Clancy soaked her. Held to it cruelly—recklessly. It was too much to ask of a vessel. Down she went—buried. It was heaven or hell, as they say, for a while. I know I climbed on to her weather run, and it was from there I saw Withrow ducking her head to it—hove to, in fact, for the blast to pass.

The Johnnie weathered it. Able—able. Up she rose, a horse, and across the line we shot like a bullet, and so close to the judge's boat that we could have jumped aboard.

We all but hit the Henry Clay Parker, Billie Simms's vessel, on the other side of the line, and it was on her that old Peter of Crow's Nest, leaping into the air and cracking his heels together, called out as we drove by:

"The Johnnie Duncan wins—the able Johnnie Duncan—sailin' across the line on her side and her crew sittin' out on the keel."



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 Gloucester in a breeze that was a breeze. We had taken the chance of being capsized or hove-down and 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 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 sparkling water—and peaches and oranges and grapes floating on a little raft close by—but him fixed so he couldn't bend his head down to get a drink nor 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—skipper, owner and crew—we're all corkers."

"Drive her, Tommie!" roared a dozen voices, and Tommie drove her for a good pint before he set the cup down again.

It was a great celebration altogether. Wherever one of our gang was there was an admiring crowd. Nobody but us was listened to. And the questions we had to answer! And of course we were all willing enough to talk. We must have told the story of the race over about twenty times each. After a while, of course, some of our fellows, with all the entertaining and admiration that was handed out to them, had to put a touch or two to it. It was strong enough to tell the bare facts of that race, I thought, but one or two had to give their imaginations a chance. One man, a fisherman, one of those who had been on one of the excursion boats, and so didn't see the race at all, came along about two hours after the Duncan crew struck the Anchorage and listened to Andie Howe for a while. And going away it was he who said, "It must have been a race that. As near as I c'n make it out the Johnnie sailed most of that race keel up."

"Oh, don't go away mad," Andie called after him. "Come back and have a little touch of carte blanche—it's on the old man."

"I'll take it for him," came a voice. It was old Peter of Crow's Nest, who took his drink and asked for Clancy. Clancy was in the back part of the room, and I ran and got him. Peter led the way to the sidewalk.

"Tommie, go and get Maurice, if it ain't too late."

"What is it?"

"It's Minnie Arkell. Coming up the dock after the race she ran up and grabbed him and threw her arms about his neck. 'You're the man to sail a 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."



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 hurried out. On the sidewalk we almost ran into little Johnnie Duncan.

"Oh, Captain Clancy—or you, Joe Buckley—won't you tell me about the race? Grandpa was too busy to tell me, but went down the wharf with a lot of people to show them the Johnnie Duncan. They all left the office and told me to mind it. And my cousin Alice came in with Joe's cousin Nell. And I saw Captain Blake with some people and ran after him and I just caught up with him and they went off and left me. And then a little while ago he came back by himself and ran toward the dock and didn't even see me. And Captain Blake used to be so good to me!" Poor Johnnie was all but crying.

"Toward the dock? That's good," breathed Clancy. "Stay here, Johnnie, and we'll tell you about the race when we get back," and led the way to Mr. Duncan's office.

We found the skipper in the outer office, standing beside the bookkeeper's desk and looking out of the window next the slip. Hearing us coming he turned and then we saw that he held in his hands an open box with a string of beautiful pearls. Noticing us gaze at the pearls in surprise, he said, "Mr. Duncan gave me these for winning the race. And I took them, thinking that somebody or other might like them."

"And don't she?" asked Clancy—it seemed to slip out of Tommie without his knowing it.

"I guess not," said Maurice. Only then did it flash on me what it all might mean.

"Did you try?" asked Clancy.

"Try! Yes, and was made a fool of. Oh, what's the use—what in hell's the use?" He stood silent a moment. "I guess not," he said then—looked out the window again, and hove the whole string out of the open window and into the slip.

Clancy and myself both jumped to stop him, but we weren't quick enough. They were gone—the whole beautiful necklace. The skipper fixed his eyes on where they had struck the water. Then he turned and left the office. At the door he stopped and said: "I don't know—maybe I won't take the Johnnie next trip, and if I don't, Tommie, I hope you'll take her—Mr. Duncan will let you have her if you want. I hope you'll take her anyway, for you know what a vessel she is. You'll take care of her—" and went and left us.

Clancy swore to himself for a while. He hadn't quite done when the door of the rear office opened and Miss Foster herself came out. She greeted me sweetly—she always did—but was going out without paying any attention to Clancy. She looked pale—although perhaps I would not have noticed her paleness particularly only for what had just happened.

I was surprised to see then what Clancy did. Before she had got to the door he was beside her.

"Miss Foster, Miss Foster," he said, and his tone was so different from what I had ever heard from him before that I could hardly believe it. He was a big man, it must be remembered, and still on him were the double-banked oilskins and heavy jack-boots he wore through the race. Also his face was flushed from the excitement of the day—the salt water was not yet dry on him and his eyes were shining, shining not alone with the glow of a man who had been lashed to a wheel steering a vessel in a gale—and, too, to victory—for hours, and not alone with the light that comes from two or three quarts of champagne—it was something 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 drinker—reveller—night-owl—disturber of the peace—at best only a fisherman who'll by and by go out and get lost like thousands of the other fishermen before him—as a hundred every year do now and have three lines in the paper—name, age, birthplace, street and number of his boarding-house, and that will be the end of it. But that don't matter—Tommie Clancy, whatever he is, is a friend of Maurice Blake's. And he means to speak a word for Maurice.

"For a long time now, Miss Foster, Maurice has thought the world of you. He never told me—he never told anybody. But I know him. He waited a long time, I'm sure, before he even told himself—maybe even before he knew it himself. But I knew it—bunk-mates, watch-mates, dory-mates we've been. He's master of a fine vessel now and I'm one of his crew. He's gone ahead and I've stayed behind. Why? Because he's carried in his heart the picture of a girl he thought could be all a woman ought to be to a man. And that was well 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 something like it, and now look at me. And why? Why, Miss Foster, you're a woman—could you guess? No? Think. What's running in a man's head, do you think, in the long winter nights when he's walking the deck, with the high heavens above and the great, black rolling sea around him? What's in his head when, trawls hauled and his fish aboard, when the danger and the hard work are mostly by, his vessel's going to the west'ard? What when he's an hour to rest and he's lying, smoking and thinking, in his bunk? What's been in Maurice's head and in his heart all the years he's loafed with the likes of me and yet never fell to my level? Anything he ever read anywhere, do you think, or was it a warm image that every time he came ashore and was lucky enough to get a look at you he could see was true to the woman it stood for? When you had no more idea of it than what was going on at the North Pole he was watching you—and thinking of you. Always thinking of you, Miss Foster. He never thought he had a chance. I know him. Who asks a woman like you to share a fisherman's life? Is it 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. I've been with him on the bottom of a capsized dory when we both expected we'd hauled our last trawl—with the seas washing over us and we both getting weak and him getting black in the face—and maybe I was, too. I told you this once before, but let me tell it again. 'Come and take the plug strap, Tommie,' he says to me. 'Come and take the plug strap.' Do you know what that means, Miss Foster?—and the seas sweeping over you and your whole body getting numb? And I've been with him four days and four nights—astray in the fog of the Western Banks in winter, and, for all we knew and believed, we were gone. In times like those men get to know each other, and I tell you, Miss Foster—" Clancy choked and stopped. "To-day he sailed a race the like of which was never sailed before. A dozen times he took the chance of himself going over the rail. And why? The better to keep an eye on things and help his vessel along? Yes. But why that? For that cup we've drowned a dozen times in wine to-day? He never looked 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—engraved. We used it for a growler for all Maurice cared for the value of it, and there's forty men walking the streets now that's got a list they got out of that cup. We might have lost it, battered each other's drunken heads in with it, and he wouldn't have said a dozen words about it. But there was a necklace of pearls, and he thought you'd like them. 'To you, Maurice, for winning the race,' says Mr. Duncan, 'for winning the race,' and hands Maurice the pearls—your own guardian, Miss Foster, and most crazy, he was that pleased. And that's what Maurice ran up to get when the race was over—there was something a girl might like, or thought so. And then what? On the way down a woman that I know—that you know—tried to hold him up. Kissed him before a hundred people—she knew you were waiting—she knew, trust a woman—and walked down part way with him, because you were looking. And he being a man, and weak, and only twenty-six—and the racing blood still running through him—maybe forgot himself for five minutes—not knowing you 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 himself for you, but you must rub it into him while he's doing it. Maurice—or maybe you don't understand. You could say things like that to a dog—if a dog could understand—and he'd come back and lick your hand. Maurice has blood and fire in him. And here's a woman—whatever else she is—is warm-blooded too. She wants Maurice, and, by God, she'll get him if you keep on. Do you remember the night of the Master Mariners' ball—the night before we sailed on the Southern cruise? Well, that night this woman, she waits for Maurice and stops him on his way home. But she didn't get him. He was up in the wind for a minute or two, but one spoke of the wheel and he found his head again. Again last June in Newport on a 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, and 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.



XXXVI

MAURICE BLAKE IS RECALLED

The morning after the race I was eating breakfast at home and I could not remember when I enjoyed a meal like that one. I had had a fine long sleep and the sleep that comes to a man after he's been through a long and exciting experience does make him feel like a world-beater. I felt that I could go out and about leap the length of a seine-boat or rip up a plank sidewalk. It was worth while to be alive, and everything tasted so good.

I had put away six fried eggs and about fourteen of those little slices of bacon before I even thought of slacking up (with my mother piling them up as fast as I lifted them off)—and maybe I wouldn't have slacked then only my cousin Nell came skipping in.

She kissed my mother half a dozen times, and danced around the room. "Four vessels off the Johnnie Duncan's model have already been ordered. Four, auntie—four. There will be a fleet of them yet, you'll see. And how are you, Joe?"

"Fine," I said, and kept on eating.

Nell didn't like my not noticing how glad she was feeling, I suppose, for all at once, as I was about to sugar another cup of coffee, she ran her hands through my hair and yanked till I couldn't pretend any longer.

"There, now, with your mind off your stomach, perhaps you'll look up and converse when a lady deigns to notice you. How much money did Mr. Withrow lose on the race?"

"I don't know, but it was a good pile; I know that."

"And how much did Mr. Duncan win?"

"I don't know that, either; but I hope it was a good roll, for he won about all Withrow lost."

"M-m—but aren't you in love with your old employer? But let's not mind common money matters. What do you think of the Johnnie Duncan for a vessel?"

"She's a dog—a dog."

"Isn't she! And the fastest, able-est and the handsomest vessel that ever sailed past Eastern Point, isn't she?"

"That's what she is."

"And who designed her?"

"Who? Let me see. Oh, yes, some local man."

"You don't know! Look up here. Who designed her!"

"Oh, yes. 'Twas a Gloucester man."

"A Gloucester man? Look up again. Now—who—de—signed—the—John—nie—Dun—can!"

"Ouch, yes. A ver-y fine and a-ble—and handsome gen-tle-man—a wonderful man."

"That's a little better. And his name?"

"William Somers—William the Illustrious—William the First—'First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of Gloucestermen'—and if you let me stand up, I'll do a break-down to show you how glad I am."

"Now you're showing something like appreciation. And now where do you suppose your friend Clancy is and your skipper?"

"Clancy? Lord knows. Maybe in a circle of admiring friends, singing whatever is his latest. 'Hove flat down' was the last I heard. If it was earlier in the day—about three in the morning—it would be pretty sure to be that."

"What a pity, and he such a fine man otherwise!"

"What's a pity?"

"Why, his getting drunk, as I hear he does very often."

"Gets drunk? Who gets drunk? Clancy? That's news to me. As long as I've known him I never saw him drunk yet. He gets mellow and loose—but drunk! Clancy drunk? Why, Nell!"

"Oh, well, all right, he's an apostle of temperance then. But Captain Blake—where is he?"

"I couldn't say—why?"

"I have a message for him."

"Did you try his boarding-house?"

"Yes. That is, Will did, and he wasn't there, hadn't been there at all, they said, since the afternoon before."

"That so? Where else did you try? Duncan's office?"

"We did, and no word of him there."

"Try Clancy's boarding-house?"

"Yes, and no word."

"Try—h-m—the Anchorage?"

"Oh, Joe, you don't think he's been loafing there since?"

"No, I don't. And yet after the way he got turned down yesterday, you know—there's no telling what a man might do."

"Well, Will looked in there, too."

"You fat little fox! Why didn't you say that at first? And no word?"

"No."

"Well, I don't know where he'd be then."

"Nor I, except—did you notice the wind has hauled to the northwest?"

"I did."

"Well. Do you know that old vessel that Mr. 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 east'ard, it is said. And Will says that he thinks—he doesn't know, mind you, because they won't tell him anything down to Withrow's—but he thinks that Maurice Blake's shipped in her."

"Wow! She won't last out one good breeze on the Banks."

"That is just what Will said. And it's too bad, for I had a message for him—a message that would make everything all right. I suppose you can guess?"

"Guess? H-m-m—I don't know as I want to."

"Well, don't get mad about it, anyway. How would you feel if you saw that horrid Minnie Arkell rush up and—Oh, you know what I mean. However, I've been pleading with Alice since yesterday afternoon. For two hours I was up in her room last evening, and poor Will walking the veranda down below. I put Captain Blake's case as I thought a friend of his would put it—as you would put it, say—perhaps better in some ways—for I could not forget that he sailed the Johnnie Duncan yesterday, and her winning meant so much 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 standing by. Go and find Maurice Blake. Go ahead, won't you, Joe? Tell him that everything is all right. She is proud."

"That's a nice sounding word for it—pride. Stuck on herself is what I'd say."

"No, she isn't. You must allow a woman self-respect, you know."

"I guess so. And it must be her long suit, seeing she's always leading from it."

"Oh, keep your fishermen's jokes for the mugging-up times on your vessel. You go and get Maurice Blake—or find Mr. Clancy and have him get him—if he hasn't gone on the Flamingo."

So I went out. On a cruise along the water front I found a whole lot of people. I saw Wesley Marrs and Tommie Ohlsen—sorrowful and neither saying much—looking after their vessels—Ohlsen seeing to a new gaff. "I ought to've lost," said Ohlsen. "Look at that for a rotten piece of wood." Sam Hollis was around, too, trying to explain how it was he didn't win the race. But he couldn't explain to anybody's satisfaction how his stays'l went nor why he hove-to when that squall struck him—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,' he said at the same time. ''Tis you that takes a licking hard. But maybe 'tis the insurance,' I says. 'If that's what you're thinking,' says he, 'she isn't insured.' 'Then it must be the divil's own repair she's in when no company at all will insure her,' I says. Sure, we had hard words over it, but that won't bring back Maurice—he's gone in the Flamingo, Joe."

I went after Clancy then, and after a long chase, that took me to Boston and back, I caught up with him. He was full of repentance and was gloomy. It was up in his boarding-house—in his room. He, looking tired, was thinking of taking a kink of sleep.

"Hulloh, Joe! And I don't wonder you look surprised, Joe. I must be getting old. Thursday morning I got up after as fine a night's sleep as a man'd want. That was Thursday. Then Thursday 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."



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 seining 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.

"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 Flamingo and Dave Warner and the girl in the case—one after the other and sometimes all together. "Blast Withrow and that crazy fool Dave Warner, 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 over-night 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 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 sociability. A little fizzy stuff, say, and some good cigars, Miss Luce."

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 affected 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 aneurism 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. Smoking's the death of aneurisms. Have another cigar, Joe. And Miss Luce, shall we exchange a health?"

"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——"

"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, whatever made you think I thought that? But let's 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 he's——"

"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 tuppenny 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 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 aneurisms? 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 nothing. "Nobody's driving you away," she said again.

At that Clancy looked at her. "There's no telling," 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.



XXXVIII

THE DUNCAN GOES TO THE WEST'ARD

Getting back to the vessel Clancy was pretty gloomy. "That's settled. We can't chase them as far to the east'ard 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 anyway, 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 little excitement. What I don't understand is how Dave ever left old man Luce's place without breaking 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."