That trip ended seining for the Duncan that year. Everything went well
with our friends, after we got home. It was late in the season, and
Maurice Blake was to stay ashore to get married, for one thing. He had
made a great season of it and could afford to. So the Johnnie Duncan
was fitted out for fresh halibuting and Clancy took her.
I went with him. I remember very well that I had no idea of going
winter fishing when the seining season ended, but, somehow or other
when Clancy came to get a crew together I was looking for a chance.
So we put out, and on the rocks of Cape Ann, near Eastern Point
lighthouse, on the day we sailed on our first halibuting trip, were
Maurice Blake and Alice Foster, my cousin Nell and Will Somers, to
wave us good luck. Clancy hauled the vessel close in to get a better
look and they waved us until I suppose they could see us no longer. Of
course they should have been able to make us out long after we had
lost sight of them, we being a tall-sparred, white-sailed vessel; and
Clancy must have had that in mind, for long after all signs of them
had been lost to us he kept the glasses pointed to the rocks. He
turned at last with a "Well, I suppose they're all happy now, Joe?"
"They ought to be," I said.
"Yes, they ought to be," he repeated, and then again, "they ought to
be," and went for'ard.
He stayed for'ard a long time, saying no word, but leaning over the
windlass and looking out ahead. Nobody disturbed him. Once or twice
when the sheets needed trimming--and in a deep sleep I think Clancy
would know that--he turned and gave the word, but the bare word and no
more. He had his spells we all knew, when he didn't want anybody near
him, and so he wanted to be alone, I suppose. And there he stayed,
with what spray came over the bow splashing him, but he paying no
attention.
At supper call he moved, but not to go below and eat--only to shift to
walking the quarter, and walking the quarter he stayed until near
midnight. He went below then after giving a few words of instruction
to the watch--went below and got out his pipe. From my bunk, the
middle port bunk in the cabin, I watched him rummaging for tobacco in
his stateroom and then his coming out with his pipe and his filling
and lighting it slowly and thoughtfully, and then his sitting and
smoking under the cabin lamp.
Looking over when he had finished that pipeful--I had not drawn my
curtain--he caught my eyes on him. He smiled, but said nothing--only
lit another pipeful, and kept on smoking.
I fell asleep watching him--fell asleep and woke again. He must have
been watching me, for his eyes were on mine when I looked for him
again. He smiled and shook his pipe out, and made as though to turn
in.
But he didn't turn in. He took off his jersey, loosened the collar of
his flannel shirt, cast off his slip-shods--stopped--looked into his
bunk, came back, filled and lit another pipeful and began to talk to
me. I thought I was sleepy, but in five minutes I didn't think so.
Joking, laughing, telling stories--in ten minutes he had me roaring.
Before long he had everybody in the cabin awake and roaring, too. Men,
coming off watch and into the cabin to warm up, or for one thing or
another, listened and stayed. He kept that up all the rest of the
night--until after six o'clock in the morning, and only the cook
called to breakfast there's no telling when he would have stopped. And
not until he was going for'ard to eat did I get a glimpse of what it
was he had been thinking of during all those earlier hours of the
night. The sun, I remember, was streaking the sky ahead of us--he
stopped just as he was about to drop into the forec's'le and pointed
it out.
"A sunrise, Joe, on a fine October morning out to
sea--beautiful--beautiful--but just one thing wrong about it. And what
is it?--you don't see? Well, Joe, it's over the bow. A sunrise, Joe,
is most beautiful when it's over the stern--and why? 'Cause then
you're going home--of course. Going home, Joe--if you've got a home to
go to. Look to it, Joe, that you've got a home of your own to go to
before you're much older. Somebody to work for--somebody waiting for
you--a wife, Joe--wife and children--or you're in for some awful
lonesome times."
That was Clancy--watch-mate, bunk-mate, dory-mate once, and now my
skipper--Clancy, who could be any man's friend, the man that everybody
jumped to shake hands with, and yet never a bit of use to himself. And
I couldn't but half wonder at that, and kept my eyes on him when, with
one foot on the top step of the companionway, he turned and looked
around again.
"And if you can't get anybody, skipper?"
"Then it's hard--though most likely you've deserved it."
"But you haven't deserved it?"
"Deserved it? Yes, and ten times over."
"That's pretty rough."
"Rough? No, it's right. When you do wrong you've got to make up for
it. It's all in the big scheme of the universe. You've got to strike a
balance some time--somewhere. And the sooner the better. Be thankful
if you have to settle it right away, Joe. If you don't and it drags
along--then it's worse again, and the Lord help those that come after
you--those that have to take up life where you've left it off. The
Lord have mercy on the heirs of your brain and heart and soul, boy.
What you hand them they've got to take. Yes, sir, you'll pay for it
somewhere--you yourself, or, what's worse, those you care for will
have to pay--in this world or another--whatever it is we're coming to,
a better or a worse world, it's there and waiting us. Be thankful, as
I said, Joe, if you have to settle for it here--settle for it yourself
alone."
All around, above and below, ahead and astern, he looked, a long, long
look astern--his foot on the step, and singing softly, almost to
himself:
"And if I come to you, my love,
And my heart free from guile,
Will you have a glance for me--
Will you on me smile?
Oh, Lord! pipe-dreams--pipe-dreams. Let's go below, Joe, and have a
bite to eat."
So below we went; and her sails lit up by the morning sun, her decks
wet by the slapping sea, sheets off and sailing free, the Johnnie
Duncan clipped her way to the east'ard.