While we were into Gloucester, after taking home the crew of the Ruth
Ripley, our vessel was put on the ways. That was after a talk between
the skipper and Mr. Duncan. There is always something that needs
attending to on a fisherman, and this time it was our water-tanks. And
while they were being looked after, the Johnnie was overhauled, her
bottom scrubbed and topsides painted. Old Mr. Duncan, we found, was
beginning to take a lot of pride in our vessel and balked at no
expense to have her in trim. And now that the Ripley was lost, he
would have only two vessels to represent him in the big fishermen's
race, which was then only four weeks away.
"Hurry up home now," he said to Maurice as we left the dock that time.
"Hurry up, and give yourself plenty of time to tune her up and get her
in trim for the race. I've set my heart on it. You or the Lucy Foster
must win that race, and whatever else we do we've got to beat
Withrow's vessel, anyway."
And Miss Foster said that one of her guardian's vessels would have to
win the race, and my cousin Nell said that the Johnnie Duncan would
have to win. There was a lot depending on it, she said. It meant a lot
to Will Somers, I suppose Nell meant.
We figured that we had time to make a Cape shore trip, and, with fair
luck, to fill the Johnnie with salt mackerel and be back in time to
get her in good condition for the race, which this year, because it
was anniversary year in Gloucester, promised to be the greatest ever
sailed.
Our plans were somewhat interfered with by a rescue we made. We found
a Glasgow bark, New York bound, in the Bay of Fundy, and her crew in
hard straits. We stood down and after a lot of trouble took them
off--Clancy and Long Steve in the dory. Billie Hurd came near being
the second man in the dory, but Clancy, grabbing him as he had one
foot over the rail, hauled him back with, "Way for your elders, little
man," and jumped in beside Long Steve.
"Elders, but not betters," said Hurd.
"Have it your own way," answered Clancy, "but I go in the dory."
The rescue was really a fine thing, but the important thing was that
some of the rescued men had been exposed to the battering of the sea
so long that they needed medical attention, and so we drove for
home--and cracked our foremast-head doing it. That delayed us almost a
week, for the skipper had to have that spar just so. A lot might
depend on it, same as the rest of the gear. And it was a spar--as fine
a bit of timber, Oregon pine of course, as was ever set up in a
fisherman. And maybe that too was just as well, with the race coming
on.
By the time we were down the Cape shore--down Canso way--and among the
fleet again, we had lost a week. Our hold was still to fill up, and
only two weeks and a day to the race. Wesley Marrs, Tom O'Donnell, Sam
Hollis, and the rest were then talking of going home and making ready
for the race. Bottoms would have to be scrubbed, extra gear put
ashore--a whole lot of things done--and a few try-outs in the Bay by
way of tuning up.
The race was the talk of all the fleet. Half the crews on the Cape
shore wanted to be in Gloucester when the race came off, and some of
the skippers of the slower vessels, which would not enter because they
had no show to win, were already scheming to be home just before the
race so that they could be on hand to follow it.
The morning after we were back among the fleet we got a small school
right from under the eyes of the Lynx, one of the English cutters
which were patrolling the coast to see that we didn't get any fish
within the three-mile limit. I remember that while we were satisfied
at the time that we were outside the line, we did not know what the
revenue-cutter might say, and particularly the Lynx, whose captain had
a hard name among our fleet for his readiness to suspect law-breaking
when there wasn't any. The cutter people generally seemed to want to
be fair toward us, but this Lynx's captain was certainly a vindictive
cuss. Anything hailing from Gloucester was an abomination in his eyes.
And so this morning, when, after we had decided that we were outside
the limit, and made ready to set, it was hard to have to take the
order of the Lynx and sheer off. Our judgment of distance ought to
have been as good as his--better, really, we thought it, because we
were always judging distances at sea, and more at home upon the sea,
too. But that made no difference--what the cutter people said had to
be law for us.
So this time he ordered us not to set where we were or he'd seize our
vessel. Several Gloucester vessels had been confiscated just before
this and the owners had to pay the fine to recover them. One owner
disputed the judgment and his case was then waiting settlement.
Another who refused to pay saw his vessel turned into a lightship and
placed down Miramichi way in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where it is
yet. This day the commander of the Lynx might have some reason to
think that his order ended that for us--and we could almost see him
chuckling--but it didn't. A fog was creeping up at the time and in ten
minutes it was on us, and under cover of the fog we got a little
school--the same school we thought and on the exact spot where the
cutter was lying when she ordered us off. Didn't we cackle though when
we bailed it in? Oh, no! It was not much of a school--only twenty
barrels--but it made us all feel fine. Not alone did we feel that we
had got the better of the English cutter, but also that luck was
coming to us again. We justified ourselves by saying that we honestly
believed we were outside the three-mile limit, and that our judgment
was as good as theirs.
That night the forec's'le of the Johnnie Duncan presented one of the
most beatific scenes I ever saw. Everybody was in the temper of an
angel. There was nothing doing--no whist at the table, no reading out
of upper bunks, no love song from the peak, and no fierce argument on
the lockers. We were discussing the cutters and the talk was very
soothing. The cook, as usual, was finishing up a batch of dough. You
might have thought he was the only man who had been working in a week,
were it not for the wet oil-clothes hanging up to dry, and the
overhauling of second suits of oil-clothes by some of the gang. Every
man, except the cook, who never smoked while at work, was puffing away
as if he misdoubted he would ever get another chance for a pipeful in
his life. "Harmony most ex-quis-ite," said somebody, and that's what
must have been that hung over the forec's'le, and it seemed to be
merely in keeping with the heavenly order of things that the
atmosphere showed pale blue wherever the rays of the lamp could get a
chance to strike through.
When Clancy dropped down for his usual mug-up before going to the
mast-head for the night of course, he wasn't going to let that get by
without having a word to say about it. He leaned against the foremast
and took a look around. "My soul, but it's as if the blessed angels
were fanning their wings over this forehold. There's Brian Boru and
Lord Salisbury there double-banked on the same locker, and nothing
doing on any Irish question. There's the lad that sleeps in the peak
and not a single hallelujah of praise for his darling Lucille. The
other one--the wild man that sings the Bobbie Burns songs--not a
shriek out of him. And Bill and John no longer spoiling their eyesight
on bad print. I expect it's that little school of fish--the first in
two weeks or more. The prospect must be making you all pleased. Well,
it ought. A few hundred barrels of that kind of mackerel--as fine
fish as ever I see bailed over the rail. And some of you ready
reck'ners ought to easily figure up what'll be coming to us if we ever
fill her up--say five hundred barrels. A good thing--a few hundred
barrels of mackerel. A few too many of 'em for good trim, but it's
comforting to know they're there. She seemed to be in pretty nice trim
when we tried out one or two of the fleet this morning, didn't she?
And to-night, if it breezes up--and it looks now as if it will--we'll
get some more--if it's a night like last night. One time there last
night--did you notice her, cook?--that time that crazy lad started to
cross our bow and we luffed her. Why, man, she shot over like I don't
know what--just shot like one of those torpedo boats we see around
when the Navy goes evoluting. I was near shook overboard from aloft.
They tell me they're going crazy over the race in Gloucester. Well,
here's one that'll bet his summer's earnings----"
"What's left of it, you mean, Tommie," said George Moore from his pan
of dough.
"Well, yes, what's left of it--and what I c'n borrow. Old man
Duncan'll stake me, and there's others. I hope, though, it blows a
jeesly gale. For this one, God bless her, she c'n sail, and some of
them'll find it out--when it's too late, maybe. Sam Hollis for one.
There's a man I'd give my eye almost, to beat. And maybe the
skipper hasn't got it in for him! He doesn't say much, Maurice
don't, but a while ago, after coming down from aloft, Billie Simms
hails him and tells him that the cutter people know all about that
little school to-day--and who told him, who told him? Well, the
skipper'll drive this one to the bottom before he ever lets Sam
Hollis or any of Withrow's vessels get by him when we race. Yes, sir.
But, Georgie-boy"--Clancy shouldered away from the foremast--"how
is it for a wedge or two of one of those blueberry pies you got
cooling there? Just a little wedge, now. But you don't need to be
too close-hauled with your knife--no. Sailing by the wind is all
right when you're jogging in and out among the fleet, and nothing
partic'lar doing except an eye out for mackerel, but you want to
give her a full always--always, Georgie--when you're cutting pie.
There's the lad--straight across the beam. And now at right angles
again. And now lay one atop of the other, and you have it--an
invention of my own--a blueberry sandwich. M-m--but look at the
juice squish through her scuppers!" He held it up for all of us to
have a look. "Now another little wash of coffee in the wake of that
and I'll be all right for a fine little watch aloft."
He jammed his sou'wester hard down, and heroically waved away the
remainder of the pie. "No, no. First thing I know I'll be having
dyspepsia. I never had it yet, but I might," and then heaved himself
up the companionway, humming, as he went, one of his old favorites:
"Oh, the 'Liza Jane and the Maria Louise
Sailed a race one day for a peck of peas.
You'd hardly believe the way them two
Carried sail that day--they fairly flew.
People ashore they said, 'Gee whiz!
The 'Liza Jane the fastest is.'"
We could hear him scrambling, still humming, over the barrels on deck.
He halted long enough by the rail to say, "How is it, boys?" to the
watch on deck, and then swung himself up the rigging. Once aloft he
had his work cut out, with hours of strain on brain and nerve. But
Clancy never minded--he never minded anything so far as we could make
out.