I had no notion in the beginning of going anywhere near Newfoundland
that winter, but the word was passed to me from old John Rose of Folly
Cove that if I thought of running down for a load of herrin', then he'd
ought to have a couple o' thousand barrels, by the looks o' things, fine
and fat in pickle, against Christmas Day, and old John Rose being a
great friend of mine, and the market away up, I kissed the wife and baby
good-by and put out for Placentia Bay in the _Aurora_.
Now if anybody'd come to me before I left Gloucester that trip and asked
me to turn a smuggling trick, why, I'd 'a' said: "Go away, boy, you're
crazy." But on the way down I put into Saint Pierre. You know Saint
Pierre? In the Miquelons, yes, where in the spring the fishing vessels
from France put in--big vessels, bark-rigged mostly, and carrying forty
or fifty in a crew--they put in to fit out for the Grand Banks fishing.
And they come over with wine mostly for ballast. And in the fall they
sail back home, but without the wine.
And, of course, somethin's got to be done with that wine, and though
wine's as cheap in Saint Pierre as 'tis to any port in France, yet
'tisn't all drunk in Saint Pierre--not quite. The truth is, those people
in Saint Pierre aren't much in the drinking line. One American shacking
crew will come in there and put away more in one night than that whole
winter population will in a week--that is, they would if they could get
the kind they wanted. But that Saint Pierre wine isn't the kind of booze
that our fellows are looking for after hauling trawls for a month o'
winter days on the Banks. No, what they want is something with more bite
in it. And what becomes of it? H-m--if you knew that you'd know what a
lot of people'd like to know.
Well, I put into Saint Pierre, for I knew old John Rose and his gang of
herring netters would cert'nly relish a drink of red rum now and again
on a cold winter's night, and, going ashore, I runs into a sort of fat,
black lad about forty-five, half French, half English, that was a great
trader there, named Miller. 'Twas off him I bought my keg of rum for old
John Rose. I'd heard of this Miller before, and a slick, smooth one he
was reported to be, with a warehouse on one of the docks.
He'd been looking at my vessel, he said, had noticed her come to anchor,
and a splendid vessel she was--fast and weatherly, no doubt of that.
Well, that was all right, for, take it from me, the _Aurora_ was all
that anybody could say of her that was good. And when you believe that
way, and a man comes along and begins to praise your vessel like that,
whether you like his sail plans or not, why you just naturally can't
help warming up to him. We took a walk up the street together.
And a master and a crew that knew how to handle her, too, Miller goes
on. Now I blinked a little at that, straight to my face as it was, but
after two or three more drinks I says to myself: "Oh, hell, what's the
good o' suspectin' everybody that pays a compliment of trying to heave
twine over you?" We got pretty friendly, and, talking about one thing
and another, he finally asked me if I ever had a notion of selling my
vessel. I only smiled at him, and asked him if he had any idea what she
cost to build. I told him then. Fourteen thousand dollars to the day of
her trial trip, and all the money my wife and I had in the world had
gone into her. He had no idea she cost so much; but, on reflection, it
must be so--of a certainty yes. A splen-did, a su-pairb vessel, so swift
to sail, so perfect to manoeuvre. If he himself possessed such an
enchanting vessel--well, he could use her to much profit. There was a
way.
He said that so slyly that I had to ask him what that way was. He
winked. "I deal in wines--what way can it be?" And, of course, I winked
back to show that I was a deep one too. It's wonderful what things a man
c'n get up to wind'ard of you after he's half filled you up. Well, no
more then, but we left our caffay for a walk around the port, me looking
for a little souvenir in the jewelry line for the baby. Christmas was
comin', and though I didn't expect to be home till after New Year's,
still I wanted the wife to know I hadn't forgotten the baby.
I was tellin' that to Miller, and a little more about them, of how I
hadn't been but a couple of years married, and how I kissed her and the
baby good-by on the steps, and her tellin' me the last thing not to go
pilin' the vessel up on the rocks anywhere, that the baby's fortune was
in her now, and so on.
Well, sir, that farewell scene, that adieu, was too touching for him--he
insisted on picking out the souvenir himself, and he picked out a good
one, a pretty brooch to fasten the baby's little collar, and he paid for
it--forty francs--and I just had to take it.
Well, we had another drink and parted, me not expecting to see any more
of him; but that night as I was down on the dock hailing the vessel for
a dory to go aboard, a man stepped up to me and laid his hand on my
arm. "Captain Corning?" he said, and I said yes.
Well, he was a friend of Mr. Miller--he had seen me talking to Mr.
Miller, and learned that I was about to depart in the early morning,
bound for Placentia Bay; he would like to ask me to do him a small
favor. Could I take one package and land it on my way to Auvergne, where
was one friend of his? A small matter, one five-gallon keg of rum, that
rum which was of such trivial price in Saint Pierre, but on which the
duty was so high in Newfoundland, and his friend was one poor man, one
fisherman, who could not afford to pay the duty.
Now this Auvergne was twenty-five miles this side of any port of entry,
and my first landing in Newfoundland, according to law, had to be at a
port of entry. And so I told this chap that, and how I was liable to a
heavy fine, and so on.
Yes, he discerned much truth in what I said, but consider that poor
fisherman who could have his good rum merely for the landing--no other
cost, none whatever--he, a friend of Mr. Miller, was sending it as a
gift for the holiday Christmas time. And that rum--consider the
piteously cold nights hauling the nets when a drink of good rum was so
soothing, so grateful, so inspiring. And a little favor like that--the
Colonial Government would not be--truly not--and if I did not take the
rum that poor fisherman of Auvergne would have none in its stead. He
could not afford it, the duty was so high--an impossible duty, as no
doubt I knew.
I did know, and also I remembered many a drink of Saint Pierre rum I'd
had on a cold night in Newfoundland and no duty paid on it, and many a
cold night hauling herring when I didn't have it, but wished I had, and
would've gone a long ways to get it, duty or no duty. And then I
remembered how Miller had been pretty decent to me that day--the little
brooch he'd bought for the baby I could even then feel in my vest
pocket--and I said all right, and when half an hour later a dory slipped
up to the side of the _Aurora_ and a keg was handed over the rail I
didn't ask any questions, but took and stowed it under the cabin run.
Next morning we sailed, and, after a four hours' easy run, made
Auvergne, a little port in Placentia Bay, tucked away between two
headlands--one easterly, one westerly. Coming from Saint Pierre, it was,
of course, the westward one we rounded. According to directions, I
ground out two long and two short woofs on the fog-horn, at which a man
pops from behind a big rock and waves a handkerchief three times.
Well, that was according to directions, too, and I drops a dory over the
side with Sam Leary and Archie Gillis and the keg in it, and tells them
to row over to the beach, ask the name of the lad that jumped from
behind the rock, and if it was the same as on the tag to leave the keg
with him. It was about a mile to the bit of beach, and the dory was
almost there, when from behind the easterly headland comes the
revenue-cutter. "That looks bad," I says, "but we'll say we've come for
fresh water, that our tanks were leakin', and that we had to have fresh
water to cook dinner, and Sam and Archie in the dory--'specially
Sam--they'll have wit enough to empty the keg over the side and go on up
as if they was really lookin' for water."
And that's what would 'a' happened if it'd not been for the thirst that
Sam Leary and Archie Gillis most always had with them. They see the
revenue-cutter, and they knew just what they oughter done, but they
couldn't let go that keg without having one last drink out of it, and
when they got that drink down they couldn't help thinking what a pity to
waste so much good rum, and taking a look back at the cutter, and seeing
she was still half a mile away--"Time enough," says Sam to Archie--"this
lad behind the big rock'll have something to stow it in," and he and
Archie walks without any hurry up to the rock where the man was hiding.
But instead of one man behind that rock, there was six, and right away
there was a battle. Sam and Archie bowls over a couple and gets away up
the beach and safe among rocks, but the revenue people got the keg. By
that time the cutter was alongside us, and so they wouldn't get the
little Christmas keg I had tucked away for John Rose I pulled the plug
out of it in no time and let it drain into her bilge. And that was an
awful waste of good liquor, and I knew John Rose would grieve when I
told him.
They had a clean case against me, and I was taken with the _Aurora_ to
Harbor Grace for trial. When they asked me what I had to say, I told 'em
that I was simply bringing a little keg of rum from a man in Saint
Pierre to his friend in Auvergne. They asked me the name of the man in
Saint Pierre, and I said I didn't know. They asked me the name of the
man in Auvergne, and I said I didn't know. "Was this the man?" they
asks, and shows me the tag on the keg. I didn't answer. And they went on
to show there was no man in Auvergne by that name, and what were they to
understand by that?
I told them I didn't know--it was past me. And it cert'nly was. But they
knew what to make of it, they said. There were people in Auvergne doing
this illegal business under false names. And I had used a false name,
and to try to tell the honorable court that I did not know the name of
the man in Saint Pierre who gave me the rum, nor the man I was bringing
it to--why, I knew very well who gave me the rum, and I knew who I was
bringing it to, and if the truth were known, I knew a lot more about the
rum-smuggling traffic. And they were going to put a stop to it.
And they laid a fine of twenty-five hundred dollars against my vessel.
Maybe you might think that a pretty heavy fine, but that's nothing.
Almost any little local magistrate down that way can soak an American
skipper or owner for almost any amount and get away with it. And how's
that? Well, we pay two or three dollars a barrel to Newfoundland
fishermen for herring. Before we went down here the St. John's merchants
used to pay them about fifty cents a barrel, and it's the St. John's
merchants who have all the money and came pretty near running
Newfoundland.
Well, when my little local magistrate fines me twenty-five hundred
dollars I said I wouldn't pay it, that I'd stir things up at Washington,
and so on, but they only laughed at me, and put her up for sale.
Now I'd 've bid her in myself if I'd had the money, but I only had a
couple of hundred dollars in cash for running expenses with me. All my
Newfoundland friends down that way were poor people--fishermen. If
'twas home we could 'a' raised plenty of money on her, but I was in
Newfoundland, not Gloucester, and they rushed the thing through.
Well, the _Aurora_ was bid in for just the amount of the fine, and that
was a shame, the vessel she was, and she was bid in by a man nobody
seemed to know. I went to the man who bid her in and told him the whole
story, of what the vessel meant to me, of how I came to bring the rum
over, and asked him would he give me the chance to communicate with some
business men in Gloucester and buy her back, but he only laughs at me,
and laughs in a way to make me think I was a child.
And in one way I was sort of a child, then, but I didn't begin to
realize how much of a child till I heard a voice giving orders to make
sail on the _Aurora_. A coast steamer had just come in, and from her had
come a crew of men to take the _Aurora_ away, and this was the voice of
the man who gave me the keg of rum that night in Saint Pierre. And while
I was looking at him another man came alongside from the coast steamer,
and this was Miller himself. If the _Aurora_ had been within distance I
would have jumped aboard; but she had her lower sails up then and was
moving in pretty lively fashion out of the harbor.
I sat on a rock on the beach to think it over, and, "Alec Corning," I
said to myself at last--"they cert'nly tried you with the right kind o'
bait--and hooked you good."
And I wondered how I could get square with Miller. No use trying to stir
up Washington. There was an old skipper of mine, and they'd fined him
three thousand dollars once for just a difference of opinion and he
couldn't pay it, and his vessel at that moment was being used for a
light-ship, and all he'd been getting out of Washington were State
Department letters for ten years. And he had cert'nly as much political
pull as I had, for I had none.
No, no State Department for mine, I says at last, and ships my crew up
to John Rose to Folly Cove, telling them to help John with the herring,
and to tell him, too, to save the herring for me, that I'd get 'em back
to Gloucester some way, and myself takes passage next day on the mail
packet to Saint Pierre.
It was after dark of Christmas Eve when I landed at Saint Pierre. I went
up to Argand's Caffay, a place where all kinds of seafaring people used
to go to get a drink and a bite to eat. There were quite a few in there
now--French stokers from a steamer or two and half a dozen French
man-of-war's men from a French gun-boat that was lying in the harbor, I
remember.
I didn't see any American fishermen in Argand's, but I knew that some
of 'em would be drifting in before long. And by and by a few did, but me
saying nothing to any of them, only sitting over to a table in a corner
with a little bit of supper, and thinking that it was going to be a blue
kind of Christmas for me, and a blue Christmas at home, too, for by this
time Gloucester must've got the news of the seizure of the _Aurora_, and
somebody'd surely passed the word to the wife.
I was sitting there, in the corner, figuring things out and not
bothering much about the people coming and going, when somebody sits
down at my table, and no sooner down than I felt his boot pressing mine
under the table. I looked up, and it was Archie Gillis.
"A fine one _you_!" I breaks out--"where's Sam?"
"Gi'me a chance now, skipper," says Gillis, and orders a little
something, and when the waiter was gone: "Sam's not far away. I left him
up to Antone's rolling dice for turkeys. We came over, him and me, on a
little French packet. Sam guessed you'd come back to Saint Pierre, and
if you did he knew you'd drop in here. Sam'll be here soon, he guessed
you'd come here. We've been tryin' to find out about the _Aurora_. She's
in the harbor, and they're going to put out to-night."
"For where?"
"Well, it's a fishin' trip she's cleared for, but she's got more than
offshore bait in her hold."
Archie had been talking straight down at his plate. Now he stood up, and
from behind his napkin said: "There's the skipper o' the
_Aurora_--tryin' to collect his gang together. Don't look around. But
he'll have hard work, 'cause Sam and me spent most of th' afternoon
gettin' 'em drunk--specially Sam. An' Sam says don't notice him when you
see him come in, for the new _Aurora_ gang don't know yet that we was
any of your crew." Gillis tossed his napkin down and strolled over to
the bar.
By and by I heard a familiar voice at the door--could 'a' heard it a
block--and pretty soon Sam himself comes rolling in. He was carrying a
monstrous turkey, and he spied Archie first thing. And, "Hullo, Archie
boy," he shouts. "Throw your binnacle lights on that, will you? Thirty
pounds he weighs--like you see him--and twenty-five he'll weigh, or I'm
no fancy poultry raiser, when he's ready for the oven."
Gillis poked his finger into the breast of the turkey. "I wish we had
him for to-morrow, Sammie. He'd make a nice little lunch, that lad."
"Well, we'll have him, Archie, for to-morrow. We'll have him--the
biggest turkey ever sailed out of ol' Sain' Peer. A whale, look at him."
"Aye, some tonnage to him. But y' never won him here, Sammie?"
"Win _him_ here? _Here_? In Argand's? Ever know anybody win anything
here? No, sir. I won him up to ol' Antone's. Twenty-seven throws at
twenty-five cents a throw."
"Twenty-seven! You could 'a' bought two of 'em for that."
"Bought? Of course I could 'a' bought; but who wants to buy a turkey
Christmas time? Why, any fat old shuffle-footed loafer can take a basket
under his arm and go down t' the market and pay down his money and come
away with a turkey or anything else he wants. 'Tain't the _getting_ him.
Archie--it's the winnin' him from a lot of hot sports that think they
c'n roll dice. Twenty-seven throws I took and with every throw a free
drink of good old cassy--"
"Twenty-seven drinks o' cassy! A lot you knew about what you was rollin'
by then, Sammie."
"'Tain't what I knew, but what I _did_, that counted, Archie, and it
takes more than twenty-seven glasses o' cassy to put my rail under.
_You_ oughter know that, Archie. I knew what I was doin'--don't worry.
An' that twenty-seventh rollin'! I shook 'em up--spittin' to wind'ard
for luck--and lets 'em run. And out they comes a-bowlin'. Seventeen!
Cert'nly a fine run-off that, I says, and drops 'em in again, limbers my
wrist a couple o' times, and then--two fives and a six--thirty-three! I
gathers 'em in again, takes off my cardigan jacket, lays my cigar on the
rail, jibes my elbows to each side--'Action,' I says. 'Action.' Yer
could hear 'em breathin' a cable length all around me. I curls my
fingers over the box, snaps her across an' back again. The len'th of the
table they rolled. Three sixes--fifty-one. 'Mong doo,' yells ol'
Antone--'Sankantoon--not since fifteen year do I see such play.' Well,
for another hour they rolled, but that fifty-one was still high-line. I
took him away. And alongside this lad when we have him to-morrow,
Archie, there'll be a special bottle o' wine--some red-colored wine. I
don't know the name of it. Good stuff, though, and ol' Antone gave it to
me--a special bottle."
"An' well he might arter all the money you spent there, Sammie."
"An' why not there as well as the next place? Why not there as well as
here? Why not?" Sam glared down to the end of the bar, where Argand
himself was taking in the cash, and his eyes, roaming round the room,
caught mine and he winked. "A gen'l'man, ol' Antone, which every caffy
keeper ain't--an' because he's a gen'l'man, and because some others
ain't--" Sam looked around to see if Argand was getting that--"because
some others ain't--because some others ain't, I say--an' I could name
'em, too, if I wanted--I could, yes."
I caught another flash from Sam's eyes, and, looking where his eyes
pointed, I saw my _Aurora_ captain and three or four of his crew, who
had just come in.
"Name him, Sammie--name him," urged Gillis. "Name the cross-breeded
dog-fish--name 'im, Sammie, name 'im."
All this was foolish enough, perhaps, but not to Henri Argand, who ran
this place. He didn't have reputation enough to be able to stand off and
laugh at Sammie and Archie--probably not--for by and by, with four or
five helpers, he comes with a rush and in ten seconds it was a mix-up.
Sam and Gillis put their backs to the bar and gave battle. There were
only the two of them, and the turkey, at first. A great bird a
turkey--especially when you swing him by the ankles. Down went a waiter,
and down went another waiter. Sam made a couple of tremendous swipes,
and then down went the _Aurora's_ captain and one of his crew. The
_Aurora's_ captain's head, I thought, would be knocked clean off, the
way the turkey hit him. Then over went a row of French stokers, and,
with a back-handed sweep of the turkey, down went the bartender behind.
And Sam and Archie, I could see, were working over to finish the
_Aurora's_ new crew, and would've got 'em, too, but Argand, inside the
bar, picks up a bung-starter, sneaks down and gives Sam and Archie a
couple of slick taps over the ear, and down they went--just slid feet
first away from the bar and on to the floor, flat--and as they slid
Argand reaches over and grabs the turkey out of Sam's hand.
[Illustration: Sam made a couple of tremendous swipes, and then down
went the _Aurora's_ captain and one of his crew]
That sort of put it up to our national pride--there was six or seven
American fishermen in the place--and we waded in, and the French
man-of-war's men, they waded in, and it was one fine battle for maybe
ten minutes, with nothing in the way of empty bottles, or full ones
either, being overlooked. And when we couldn't reach any more chairs or
table legs we pulled off our sea boots, and, believe me, a big red jack
with a three-quarter-inch sole and an inch and a half of heel--you grab
a sea boot o' that size--it don't weigh more than four pounds or so--you
grab it by the ears and get a full healthy swing on it and let it hit a
man anywhere above the water-line, and he won't mistake it for any sofa
cushion.
It was a fine fight, and I think we'd 'a' won out only for the
re-enforcements from outside. A liberty party of French man-of-war's men
come first, and then the police lads with the red trousers and the
swords, and out we went into the street.
And when they got us out they locked the doors and barred the windows.
While I was pulling on my red jacks again, out under the lamp, on the
corner of the street, up comes Sam and Archie. "Say, Alec," begins Sam,
"but you cert'nly laid 'em out with your sea boot."
I thought Sam and Archie would be pretty well smashed up, but there
wasn't a mark on 'em except a couple of lumps behind their ears.
"Not us," explained Sam. "Nothin' happened to us except bein' stepped on
a few dozen times. But did y' land the rest o' the _Aurora's_ crew,
Alec?"
"I don't know. I swung for 'em, Sam."
"You got 'em all right, and that'll put it out o' their heads to bother
with the _Aurora_ to-night, though"--he cocked up an ear to the whistle
of a rising breeze--"it begins to feel like they wouldn't 'a' gone out
anyway--it's breezing up so."
"Where's she layin'?"
"Off the end o' the big dock. An' if it keeps on breezin' they won't be
goin' out in the mornin' either. A bad time anyway to put out on a
cruise--Christmas Day. But what d'y' say, Alec, if we take a look around
the place?"
We'd got a pretty good start for Christmas Eve, and around Saint Pierre
we went, Sam and Archie and four men of the _Lucy Foster's_ crew who'd
been in the mix-up. They were ready to tear things up, but there wasn't
much to tear up, because everybody heard us coming, and whenever we'd
get to a place, we'd find the doors locked and the windows barred. The
only place not locked that night was the little cathedral, and by and
by, when we found there was no place else to go, we all went in there.
It was a midnight mass being celebrated, and it was the sound of the
choir voices coming from there that got us, and, Catholics or no, no
matter, we all went in and heard mass, too, and when we came out, not
feeling like trouble any more, we all went down to old Antone's and
turned in.
Christmas morning everybody was feeling better, all but Sam Leary and
me. I was thinking of my vessel, and Sam of his big turkey. He wanted to
get that turkey. He wasn't going to leave Saint Pierre till he got it
back. No, sir, he wasn't. And he had a pretty good notion just where it
was then. Up to Argand's, cooking for Henri's Christmas dinner. Or maybe
him gettin' fifty cents a plate for it for customers' dinners. And he'd
cut up for about forty platefuls. And for forty plates at fifty cents or
two francs a plate. "Mong doo an' sankantoon," yells Sam all at once.
"Come on, Archie--come on, fellows"--and up the street went Sam and
Archie and the four of the _Lucy Foster's_ crew to see about the turkey.
But that wasn't getting me my vessel, and I went down to the water-front
to look for her. There she was, my lovely _Aurora_, to anchor in the
stream, and there was me on the end of the dock looking at her, and
that's all I could do--look at her. She was lying to two anchors and
with her mains'l standing. A little further off shore and even her two
anchors couldn't 've kept her from dragging and piling up on the rocks
with that mains'l up, for a rocky harbor is Saint Pierre, and now it was
blowing a living gale of wind.
While I was standing there on the big dock, along comes the trader
Miller with another chap. He must 've seen me, but he pretended not, and
I didn't make any sign I saw him. He pointed out the _Aurora_ to the
man, saying a few things in French. And then he raised his voice.
"When it moderates she will depart--and with a car-go," he said--the
last in English, and by that I knew he meant it for me. "Go on," I grit
out, "go on, have your fun."
"Yes, I pur-chased her ver-ry cheap," goes on Miller, and then a great
racket, and down the dock on the run comes Sam with his big turkey,
which was all cooked, I could see, fine and brown--and Archie behind Sam
and the four _Lucy Foster_ men behind Archie and behind them again a
bunch of Argand's waiters and the gendarmes with the red trousers and
swords.
There was a dory tied up to the end of the dock; I don't know who owned
it, but there it was. "Come on, jump in." I yells, and all hands piled
in, and we shoved off; all in one motion almost, and by the time
Argand's crowd got to the stringpiece we were a vessel length away, and
pulling like homeward bound.
"Lay to it." I kept saying to them.
"Aye, lay to it, and we'll eat that turkey for Christmas yet," yells
Sam.
"Lay to it, and we'll have more than the turkey." I says.
"What's that we'll have, Alec?" hollers Sam.
"Pull to the Aurora and see." I hollers back. It was blowing so hard we
could hardly hear each other, and what with the chop we were driving the
dory through we might well have been in swimming.
We made the _Aurora_, and, looking back as I leaped over her rail, I
could see Miller running back up the dock.
"Hurry, fellows." I yells to them, "Miller's gone to head us off."
As we drops onto the _Aurora's_ deck a head pops out of the fo'c's'le
companion-way. He looked like he'd just come out of a fine sleep.
"You," I yelled, "allay you--rauss--beat it," and rushed him to the dory
we'd just come aboard in. He looks up at me in the most puzzled way. Two
more heads popped up out of the companion-way. "And allay you two,"
yells Sam and Archie, and grabs 'em and heaves 'em into the dory, casts
off her painter, and they drifts off like men in a trance. One minute
they were sound asleep in their bunks and the next adrift and
half-dressed in a dory in the middle of the harbor with a gale of wind
roaring in their ears and a choppy sea wetting 'em down.
"In with her chain-anchor slack," I calls, "and then up with her jibs,"
which they did. "And now her fores'l--up with her fores'l." Then we
broke out her chain-anchor. I was to the wheel and knew the second the
anchor was clear of the bottom by the way she leaped under me. "Don't
stop to cat-head that anchor," I calls, "but cut her hawser." They cut
her hawser free, and with the big anchor-rope kinking through the
hawse-hole, away went the _Aurora_, picking up, as she went, the
chain-anchor with its eight or ten fathoms of chain still out and
tucking it under her bilge; and there that anchor stayed, jammed hard
against her bottom planking, while she rushed across the harbor.
"Now," I said, "let's see if we c'n work out of this blessed pocket
without somebody having to notify the insurance companies afterward."
All along the water-front the people by now were crowding to look at us.
All they saw was an American fishing schooner with a crazy American crew
trying to pick her way through a crowded harbor with her four lowers set
in a living gale.
We were across the harbor in no time. "Stand by now--stand by sheets," I
sung out. Steady as statues they waited for the word, and when they got
it--"Har-r-d a-lee-e!" Whf-f the steam came out of them, and the busiest
of all was Sam Leary, with the big turkey between his feet.
As she came around I was afraid her anchor would take bottom and her way
be checked. It did touch, but the _Aurora_ spun on her toes so quick
that before that anchor knew it was down she was off and flying free
again.
All this time I was looking around for Miller and at last I saw him in a
little power boat. He had the French gun-boat in mind that was sure, but
his craft was making heavy weather of it, and before he was half-way to
the gun-boat we were under her stern, on our shoot for the harbor
entrance, and from the gun-boat's deck they were peeping down on us,
grinning and yelling the same as everybody else, waiting to see us pile
up on the rocks somewhere.
But no rocks for the _Aurora_ that Christmas Day. She knew what we
wanted of her. There's a spindle beacon in Saint Pierre harbor,
white-painted slats on a white-painted rock sticking out of the water,
and there was a French packet lying to the other side. We had to go
between. I knew they were betting a hundred to one we'd hit one or the
other.
We weathered the packet and squeezed by the beacon. The end of our long
bowsprit did hit the white-painted slats, gave 'em a good healthy
wallop, but that wasn't any surprise--we figured on going close. We were
by and safe, and looking back from the wheel to mark her wake swashing
over the very rock itself, I had to whisper _to_ her:
"_Aurora_, girl, you're all I ever said you were." But if you'd seen
her, the big spars of her, the set of her rigging, the fine-fitting
sails, the beautiful line of the rail, and the straight flat deck, you'd
have to admit it wasn't any surprise. You couldn't 've done it with
every vessel--but the _Aurora!_ A great bit of wood, the _Aurora!_
And looking past her wake, I picked out Miller's motor boat along inside
the French gun-boat. But no gun-boat was worrying me then. They might
chase me, but the gun-boat wasn't afloat that could 've chased and
caught the _Aurora_ in that gale. A man didn't need to be a French
captain to know that.
But for fear they might chase us, I kept her going. And after we'd had
time to get our breath, we took a peek into her hold. And it was loaded
with cases--wine, brandy--liquors of all kinds. And the gang said: "How
about it, skipper?" And I said: "Help yourself--you've earned it," and
they helped themselves.
And they had their promised Christmas dinner. The turkey had only to be
warmed up. After it was warmed up, it was fine to hear Sam telling about
the recapturing of it. "He was in the kitchen--just been hauled out the
oven--and the chef, he was standing over him with a big carving knife,
when I spots the pair of 'em through the window. 'Stand by, fellows,' I
hollers, and jumps through the window and grabs the carving knife and
chases cheffie out the room with it. And back through the window comes
me and the turk. An' they all hollers murder and comes after us. And
look at him now! Twenty-five pounds he weighs--the biggest turkey, I'm
tellin' you, ever sailed out of ol' Saint Peer. A whale, twenty-five
pounds as he lies there. And four kinds of wine--four kinds. Cassie,
champagne, claret, which you don't have to drink 'less you want to, and
that red-colored wine I don't know the name of, but good stuff--I
sampled it. And that's what I call a Christmas dinner."
And I guess it was. Pretty soon they were hopping around like a lot of
leaping goats. The best-natured crowd ever you see, mind, but it was
Christmas Day, and they'd done a good job; the blood was running wild
inside them, and I let them run a while. And then when I thinks it time
to begin to straighten them out, I looks them over and finally picking
out Archie Gillis I says, 'Archie, I think you're the drunkest! Take the
wheel and soak it out.'
And Archie stood to the wheel, and up the cabin steps the rest of the
gang kept passing him drinks of champagne when they thought I wasn't
looking.
By dark of that Christmas we shot into Folly Cove in Placentia Bay and
came to anchor off John Rose's wharf. And the _Aurora's_ crew were there
helping John, and there was the load of herring John had promised. And
he thought I'd come for the herring, but I hadn't--not yet. I had a word
in private with John, and he found a nice little place among the cliffs,
and with John Rose and the _Aurora's_ crew it didn't take long to stow
those cases of wine where no stranger would find them in a hurry.
And when that was done I goes over the papers again. And sure enough,
her papers read for a fishing trip to the Grand Banks. Her crew had been
shipped for a fishing trip. Her gear, dories, bait (not much bait
though) was all for a fishing trip. It was plain as could be, I had
Miller under my lee. And so we put out again into the night, and before
daylight we were back in Saint Pierre harbor again, and all hands
ashore.
And when Miller woke up in the morning there was the _Aurora_ laying to
anchor in the stream just where she'd been the morning before. And we
were having a nice little breakfast up to Antone's when Miller and the
governor and the gun-boat captain comes to get me. And Miller was going
to arrest me, put me in irons, not a minute's delay, not one, and I says
"For what?" And Miller throws up his hands and repeats: "For what? He
says for what? Mong Doo, for what?" And I says: "Yes, for what? What are
you going to arrest me for? For a little excursion trip, a little run
off shore, is it?--so's to eat our Christmas turkey in peace?" I see
that my play lay with the French naval officer, so I turns to him.
"There was a turkey. Old Antone here will tell you that it belonged to
one of my men, Mr. Leary here--that he won it fairly, and that the same
turkey was stolen from him in Henri Argand's. And Mr. Leary got it back.
And they would not let him have it in peace, and so, to escape
mistreatment, we jumped aboard the first vessel we saw in the stream and
put out the harbor. You yourself doubtless, saw us." He nodded. "Your
whole crew saw us. The whole harbor saw us. There was no concealment." I
stopped for the French captain and the governor to get that. Miller was
looking at me goo-goo-eyed, but both the officials nodded and said:
"That is true."
"And when we found ourselves safe out to sea, we had our dinner, our
Christmas dinner--in the peace we had sought. And surely these
gentlemen"--I bowed my best to the gun-boat captain and the
magistrate--"do not consider that a crime--to ask to be allowed to eat
our Christmas dinner in peace."