The Johnnie Duncan only needed to have her stores taken aboard to go
to sea. And that was attended to next morning, and she was out for her
trial trip the same afternoon. Everybody said she looked as handsome
as a photograph going out, though all the old sharks, when they saw
her mainsail hoisted for the first time, said she'd certainly have
need of her quarter and draught to stand up under it.
It was a great day for sailing, though--the finest kind of a breeze,
and smooth water. We early carried away our foretopmast, which had a
flaw in it. It was just as well to discover it then. Without topsail
and balloon we had it out with the Eastern Point on her way back from
Boston. She was not much of a steamer for speed, but her schedule
called for twelve knots and she generally made pretty near it--eleven
or eleven and a half, according to how her stokers felt, I guess. We
headed her off after a while, and that was doing pretty well for that
breeze, with a new vessel not yet loosened up.
"But the balloon was too much for her," said Mr. Duncan, as we shot
into the dock after beating the Eastern Point.
"No, the balloon was all right--'twas the topm'st was a bit light,"
answered Maurice.
Old Mr. Duncan smiled at that. "But what do you think of her, Captain
Blake?"
"Oh, she's like all the rest of them when she's alone--sails like the
devil," the skipper answered to that, but he smiled with it and we all
knew he was satisfied with her.
That night was the Master Mariners' Ball, and I waited up till late to
talk with my cousin Nell, who had gone there with Will Somers. Finally
they came along past my house and I hailed them.
Nell broke right in as usual with what was uppermost in her mind. "I
don't suppose you saw me and Alice, but we were in Mr. Duncan's office
when you and Mr. Clancy and Captain Blake were coming up the dock
to-day after the trial trip. Mr. Duncan told us what Captain Blake
said of the Johnnie Duncan, but now tell me, what did the rest of you
think of her? What does your friend Clancy say? He knows a vessel."
"Clancy," I answered, "thought what we all thought, I guess--that
she's a fast vessel any way you take her, but he won't say she's the
fastest vessel out of Gloucester, even after she's put in trim and
loosened up. But in a sea-going way and with wind enough--with wind
enough, mind--he thinks she'll do pretty well."
"With wind enough and in a sea-way?" repeated Nell. "Then I hope that
when the fishermen's race is sailed next fall it's a howling gale and
seas clear to your mast-head. Yes, and you needn't laugh--don't you
know what it means to Will?"
And I did realize. Somers, a fine fellow, was just then beginning to
get a chance at designing fishermen. So far he had done pretty well,
but it was on the Johnnie Duncan, I knew, he had pinned his faith. For
his own sake, I hoped that the Johnnie would do great things, but for
Nell's sake I prayed she would. Nell thought a lot of Will and wasn't
ashamed to show her liking, and thinking of that set me to thinking of
other things.
"Was Miss Foster to the ball?" I asked her.
"She was," said Nell.
"And with whom?"
"Mr. Withrow."
"Oh-h, Lord!"
"Oh-h!--and why Oh-h-h?"
"I wish she'd gone with Maurice."
"H-m--that was drunk the other day?"
"Yes, I suppose that queers him forever. And the other fellow does
ten times as bad, only under cover. Who told you?"
"Never mind. Wasn't he?"
"Was Maurice to the ball?"
"He was."
"And who with?"
"With nobody."
"Good. Was Mrs. Miner there?"
"Mrs. Miner?"--and such a sniff!--"yes, she was there."
"With Sam Hollis?"
"Yes, and flirted with half the men in the hall and with your Maurice
Blake outrageously."
"That so? Could Maurice help that much? But I wish, just the same,
that Miss Foster had gone with Maurice."
"Well, there was one very good reason."
"What?"
"He didn't ask her. And Mr. Withrow made a handsome cavalier anyway."
"A handsome"--I was going to say lobster, but I didn't. Instead I told
her why Maurice didn't ask Miss Foster--that he didn't think enough of
himself, probably. And that led up to a talk about Maurice Blake and
Clancy. Before I got through I had Nell won over. Indeed, I think she
was won over before I began at all.
"There's a whole lot you don't know yet," she 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 somebody. And not wanting to have her know that I saw
her waiting at her door steps at that time of night, I stepped in the
shadows until she should go in. It was then that Maurice came along,
and she called him up. And he went up and stood on the step below her
and she bent over him as if she wanted to lift him up. And it was less
than five minutes since Sam Hollis left her.
"Come around by way of the side door of grandma's house, Maurice, and
through her yard and into my house, and nobody will see you. And then
no old grannies will talk and we'll have a little supper all to
ourselves. Hurry now." She was 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.
"Hulloh, if it ain't Joe Buckley. Why, Joey, but aren't you out pretty
late to-night? But maybe you're only standing watch for somebody?
Three o'clock, Joey, and no excuse for you, for you didn't have to
stand by the supplies--" But then I rushed him around the corner, and
down the street to the side door of Mrs. Arkell's and just in time to
head off Maurice, bound as I knew for Minnie Arkell's house across the
yard. I didn't have a chance to say a word to Tommie, but he didn't
have to be told. If I'd been explaining for a week he couldn't have
picked things up any better than he did.
"Maurice--hi, Maurice! Oh, 'tis you, isn't it. Well, Maurice-boy, all
the night I waited for a chance to have a word with you, but ne'er a
chance could I get. Early in the evening--when I was fit for ladies'
company--Miss Foster said how proud she was to know me--me, who had
saved her cousin Johnnie's life. And then she asked me about the
vessel, and I told her, Maurice, that nothing like the Duncan ever
pushed salt water from out of her way before. 'Nothing with two sticks
in her,' says I, and I laid it on thick; 'and Maurice Blake,' says
I--and there, Maurice, I only spoke true catechism. 'Maurice Blake,'
says I, 'is the man to sail her.' She was glad, she said, to know
that, because her chum, Miss Buckley--Joe's cousin there--wanted that
particular vessel to be a success. And she herself was interested in
it. Never mind the reasons, she said. And she always did believe--and,
Maurice, listen now--she knew that Captain Blake would do the Johnnie
Duncan justice. And I said to her--well, Maurice, what I said you can
guess well enough. No, come to think, you can't guess, but I won't
tell you to your face. But thinking of it now, I mind, Maurice, the
time when we were dory-mates--you and me, Maurice--and the cold
winter's day our dory was capsized. And dark coming on and nothing in
sight, and I could see you beginning to get tired. But tired as you
were, Maurice, tired as you were and the gray look beginning to creep
over you, you says, 'Tommie, take the plug strap for a while, you.'"
"But you didn't take it, Tommie."
"No, I didn't take it--and why? I didn't take it--and why? Because,
though the mothers that bore us both were great women--all fire and
iron--'twas in me to last longer--you a boy and your first winter
fishing, and me a tough, hard old trawler. And you had all of life
before you, and I'd run through some hard years of mine. If I'd gone
'twould have been no great loss, but you, Maurice, innocent as a
child--how could I? I'd known men and women, good and bad--I'd lived
life and I'd 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 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 anything gets by--take
the spars out or send her under. I can't do any more than that."
The Johnnie Duncan was to leave at ten o'clock and so I left Clancy at
his boarding-house. He looked tired when I left him. But he was
chuckling, too. I asked him what it was that made him smile so.
"I'll give you three guesses," he said, but I didn't guess.