From the row of figures that were seen to be crowding gunnel and
thwarts and hauling on the seine, one shadow straightened up beside
the smoky torch and spoke. "Can't be sure yet, Tommie, but things look
all right so far. A fair-sized school if we don't lose 'em."
"Lord, don't lose 'em, skipper, though I think you've got 'em fast
enough now. Sounds natural to hear 'em flipping inside the corks,
don't it? Ought to be hurrying 'em up, skipper--it's getting along in
the night."
Clancy, very well satisfied, stood away again and continued to sail
triangles around boat and dory. Being now clear of the greater part of
the mental strain his spirits began to lighten. Merely by way of being
sociable with himself he hummed some old ditties. There was that about
the old coaster, the Eliza Jane. I liked to hear him sing that, as,
dancing a one-footed jig-step by the wheel-box, he bumped it out:
"Oh, the 'Liza Jane with a blue foremast
And a load of hay came drifting past.
Her skipper stood aft and he said, 'How do?
We're the 'Liza Jane and who be you?'
He stood by the wheel and he says, 'How do?
We're from Bangor, Maine--from where be you?'
"The 'Liza Jane got a new main truck--
A darn fine thing but wouldn't stay stuck.
Came a breeze one day from the no'-no'-west
And the gosh-darned thing came down with the rest.
Oh, hi-diddle-di--a breeze from the west--
Who'd 'a' thunk the truck wouldn't stuck with the rest?
"Oh, the 'Liza Jane left the wharf one day,
A fine flood tide and the day Friday,
But the darned old tide sent her bow askew
And the 'Liza Jane began for to slew.
Oh, hi-diddle-di--she'd 'a' fairly flew,
If she only could sail the other end to.
"Oh, the 'Liza Jane left port one day,
With her hold full of squash and her deck all hay.
Two years back with her sails all set
She put from Bath--she's sailing yet.
Oh, hi-diddle-di for a good old craft
She'd 've sailed very well with her bow on aft."
There was a long story to the Eliza Jane, but Clancy did not finish
it. Maybe he felt that it was not in harmony with that lowering sky or
that flashing sea. Maybe, too, in the waters that rolled and the wake
that smoked was the inspiration for something more stirring. At any
rate he began, in a voice that carried far, an old ballad of the war
of 1812.
Two or three more stanzas to warm up, and the fight was on. And you
would think Clancy was in it. He laid every mast and yard of the
enemy over the side of her, he made her decks run with blood, and at
the last, in a noble effort, he caused her to strike her flag.
By the time he had finished that, it happened that we were running
before the wind, and, going so, it was very quiet aboard the vessel.
There was none of the close-hauled wash through her scuppers, nor was
there much play of wind through stays and halyards. It was in fact
unusually quiet, and it needed only that to set Clancy off on a more
melancholy tack. So in a subdued voice he began the recitation of one
of the incidents that have helped to make orphans of Gloucester
children:
"Twelve good vessels fighting through the night
Fighting, fighting, that no'the-east gale;
Every man, be sure, did his might,
But never a sign of a single sail
Was there in the morning when the sun shone red,
But a hundred and seventy fine men--dead--
Were settling somewhere into the sand
On Georges shoals, which is Drowned Men's Land.
"Seventy widows kneeling----"
A long hail came over the water and a torch was raised and lowered.
"Hi-i--" hallooed the voice.
"Hi-i-i--" hallooed back Clancy as he pulled down his wheel. You might
have thought he intended to run over them. But no, for at the very
last second he threw her up cleverly and let her settle beside the
boat, from which most of the men came tumbling immediately over the
side of the vessel. Of those who stayed, one shackled the boat's bow
onto the iron that hung from the boom at the fore-rigging, and having
done that, braced an oar between himself and the vessel's run to hold
the boat away and steady while another in the stern of the boat did
the same thing with his oar. In the boat's waist two men hung onto the
seine.
A section of the cork edge of the seine was then gathered inboard and
clamped down over the vessel's rail, with the mackerel crowded into
the middle part, and the bunt of the seine thus held safely between
boat and vessel. Into this space the sea swashed and slapped after a
manner that kept all in the boat completely drenched and made it
pretty hard for the men in bow and stern to fend off and retain their
balance at the same time.
And then began the bailing in. Guided by the skipper, who stood on the
break, our big dip-net, which could hold a barrel easily, was dropped
over the rail and in among the kicking fish. A twist and a turn and
"He-yew!" the skipper yelled. "Oy-hoo!" grunted the two gangs of us at
the halyards, and into the air and over the rail swung the dip-net,
swimming full. "Down!" We let it sag quickly to Clancy and Parsons,
who were at the rail. "Hi-o!" they called cheerfully, and turned the
dip-net inside out. Out and down it went again, "He-yew!" and up and
in it came again. "Oy-hoo!" "Hi-o!" and flop! it was turned upside
down and another barrel of fat, lusty fish flipped their length
against the hard deck. Head and tail they flipped, each head and tail
ten times a second seemingly, until it sounded--they beat the deck so
frantically--as if a regiment of gentle little drummer boys were
tapping a low but wonderfully quick-sounding roll. Scales flew. We
found some next morning glued to the mast-head. I never can get some
people to believe that it is so--mackerel scales to the mast-head.
"He-yew!" called the skipper, "Oy-hoo!" hollered the halyards gang,
"Hi-o!" sung out Clancy and Parsons cheerily at the rail. "Fine fat
fish," commented the men in the seine-boat, the only men who had time
to draw an extra breath.
Blazing torches were all around us. Arms worked up and down, big boots
stamped, while inboard and out swung the dip-net, and onto the deck
flopped the mackerel. "Drive her!" called the skipper, and "He-yew!"
"Oy-hoo!" and "Hi-o!" it went. Drenched oilskins steamed, wet faces
glowed, glad eyes shone through the smoke flare, and the pitching
vessel, left to herself, plunged up and down to the lift and fall of
every sea.