was true, he sat down in his chair and tried to think it out. He was
still trying to think it out when Wesley himself came in the door.
“Hi-i!” hailed Wesley, and taking one of Mr. Duncan’s longest cigars,
sat down and answered Mr. Duncan’s first question by beginning to tell
the story. It took just about the length of a cigar to tell it, for,
while Wesley smoked fast, he also talked fast, and with that told barely
more than the cold facts.
Barely more than the cold facts, and yet, to get the real color of it,
one should have heard Wesley tell it; should have seen him hunch his
shoulders wrathfully in the beginning when he was picturing Glover’s
sending the messenger astray; should have seen him bring his fist down
on the desk when he drove the _Lucy_ across the Gulf to head off Glover
at Canso; then should have seen him lean back and laugh when he told how
Glover abandoned his vessel. And, finally, one should have caught a
glimpse of his eyes through the halo of smoke when he said, “And
’twarn’t no joke takin’ them frozen herrin’ out of the _Calumet_ that
night, and ’twas pump, pump, pump, and stand by on the _Lucy_ all along
the Cape shore ready to take the crew off her any minute. Yes, sir. She
leaked a little, did the _Calumet_, and she cert’nly did set
scandalously low in the water at times, but we wiggled her home. Yes,
sir, and there she is, out in the stream.”
Having smoked out his cigar, Wesley naturally slowed up. “And I misdoubt
that she’d stayed afloat of herself another half hour. There’s a hole
under her quarter that most of them herrin’, if they knowed enough or
didn’t happen to be put away in pickle, could’ve swum their way through.
A good man, that Charlie Green, Mr. Duncan; and if you could only’ve
heard the twist he put into his voice when he was talkin’ to Glover just
afore he went into Canso Harbor that night! But a week on the railway
oughter fix up the _Calumet_ so she’ll be as good as ever.
“But ain’t that a good one on Glover, though? Hah, what? Glover,
the--the--strategist? That’s it--strategist--strat-e-gist! Ho-ho!”
Wesley leaned back in his chair and blew the last ring up at the
ceiling. “And John Rose-- I don’t cal’late John Rose’ll feel so bad when
he hears the whole story--hah, what? And Glover--ho-ho!--think of him
tellin’ his friends up to Canso how it happened--and leave it to him to
tell it right; and after he gets through tellin’ them that, of him
hirin’ a tug to go down and pull her off, and him cruisin’ around
lookin’ for her--and not findin’ her--ho-ho! But I s’pose we got to talk
business now. What’s the salvage law about this, Mr. Duncan? I’ve picked
up a few vessels at sea in my time, but never one quite this way. How
about the salvage, Mr. Duncan?”
“The vessel was abandoned, you say?”
“She cert’nly was.”
“Well, then, our lawyer ought to be able to fix that up easily enough.
There’ll be a big salvage, don’t you worry about that. And however it
comes out, it will cost her owner a good many times more than if he
hadn’t got so oversmart a skipper for her. But you’re laughing again,
Captain--what is it?”
“I couldn’t help laughin’ to think of Withrow, too. I never did
partic’larly like Withrow, either. What does he think, d’y’ s’pose, Mr.
Duncan?”
“Withrow? M-m-- I wouldn’t want to say. But I know what I’d think if it
happened to one of my vessels, and I know what I’d say--and what I’d do,
too.”
“And what’s that now, Mr. Duncan?”
“If it was one of my vessels, I’d see that the next vessel I built went
to a skipper that ran a little more to seamanship and not quite so much
to strategy.”
“That’s if she’s to go fishin’?” commented Wesley.
“Of course--if she’s to go fishing,” agreed Mr. Duncan.
“That’s me, too--a little plain, ordinary seamanship for me. But I’ll be
goin’, I think. That oughter be a pretty good story to tell up the
street--hah, what? And John Rose-- I think I’ll have to write a letter to
John Rose about it. Yes, I think that’s worth a little note to
John--hah, what? Yes. But first I think I’ll tell ’em up the street, for
cert’nly up to the rooms they’ll all admire to hear about Fred Glover
and his strategy. Yes, sir, Fred and his strategy--ho, ho, ho,
strategy!” and out the door and up the street went Wesley.
Dory-Mates
Martin Carr’s dory-mate having just stepped on deck, the forec’s’le gang
began to question Martin about him. In the fast run-off to the grounds,
with everybody trying to catch up on sleep, there had been small time to
get acquainted; but the general opinion seemed to be that ’twas rather a
delicate-looking lad.
“That’s what,” summed up an unquestionably able-looking fisherman who
was overhauling a tub of trawls. “He _don’t_ look hardly rugged enough
to go winter trawlin’. D’y’ think he do, yourself, Martin?”
’Twas put in all good-nature, as Martin himself well knew; but it was
not in Martin to allow even moderate criticism of a friend pass without
retort, and so his “I never knew before ’twas looks made a man” went
flying back to the lee lockers.
The man on the lockers smoothed out a snarled ganging ere he came back
with “Now, now, Martin, we all know ’tisn’t looks alone, but leave it to
yourself--don’t looks go a great ways toward your judgment of a man?
Afore ever you _know_ what a man is, don’t the cut of his mouth or the
set of his jaw, and the way he looks out of his eyes at you, have a lot
to do with how far you’d trust him? Don’t it?”
“Sure, it does,” replied Martin. “But d’y’ mean to say this lad hasn’t
good eyes and mouth and jaw?”
“Now, Martin”--and a broken, rusted hook was snipped off and replaced
with a new shiny one--“now, Martin, nobody knows better than you what
_I_ think--you that c’n read a man’s mind ’most. The lad’s got as fine a
face in a way as ever I looked at. Man, ’tis a beautiful face. But
that’s the bother of it--’tis beauty, not strength in it. And comin’
down to facts, you know yourself, it’s no joke to be out in a dory with
a man that can’t hold his end up. ’Tis thought of you we have, Martin.
Did ever he haul a trawl or try to row a loaded dory agen a full tide
out here?”
For answer, Martin continued calmly to blow his puffs of smoke toward
the deck-beams.
“That means he never did, and I’m afraid, Martin, when it comes to it,
that maybe he won’t be able to.”
“Well, maybe he won’t,” echoed Martin placidly; “but whether he does or
no, ’tisn’t Martin Carr will be the first to tell him he’s fallin’
short.”
“But where did you pick him up, anyway, Martin?”
“I didn’t have to pick him up. His father was a dory-mate of mine, nigh
thirty year ago--as far back as the old _Aleutian_----”
“The same _Aleutian_ that was lost with all hands afterward, Martin?”
“The same. But this was some years before she was lost. This was when
Jack Teevens, this boy’s father, was lost. And how? Tryin’ to save a
shipmate. And I was the shipmate. Maybe some of you remember now?”
“Coming across Western Bank one winter’s day, warn’t it, Martin?”
“Aye, makin’ a passage--the old _Aleutian_ runnin’ before an easterly
gale--everything on and staggerin’ under it. Jack was to the
wheel--lashed. Me on watch for’ard, was standing foolish-like between
the dories and the lee-rail. In a day-dream I must’ve been. By’n’by
comes a big sea after her. I didn’t see it, but Jack to the wheel did.
‘Watch out, Martin!’ he hollers; but I was kind of slow, and when the
sea hit her, away I went over the rail. Good as gone was I, but Jack
casts off his life-line and comes jumpin’ to the waist to heave me
something or other to keep me afloat. Comes another sea and heaves me
back toward the vessel. I grabs a draw-bucket and the end of the throat
halyards, which Jack had hove, just as a third sea comes. Well, in that
third sea, which broke clean over her--she bein’ already hove most flat
by the second sea--away goes Jack Teevens. I didn’t see him go. ’Twas
when the gang came rushin’ on deck and hauled me aboard that they told
me they could just make him out--away to looard he was--as he waved
good-by afore he went down--down to stay. Lord in heaven, what a man he
was! And to go at his age!”
“’Twas hard. But he couldn’t’ve been such a young fellow, Martin?”
“Let me see. Nineteen year ago that was. Nineteen from
forty-eight--twenty-nine year he’d be that time. We were the one age.”
“Lord, Martin, ’tisn’t possible you’re forty-eight year old?”
“That’s what--forty-eight.”
“Well, you don’t look it. Do you feel it?”
“Feel what--forty-eight? Man alive, what’s forty-eight to a man that’s
never seen a sick day in his life?”
“But you’ve taken great care o’ yourself, Martin.”
“Well, maybe. A little regular smokin’ and a drink once in a while
ashore, or maybe sittin’ up a night or two by way of bein’ sociable
after weeks on end of this work out here.”
“Could you stand to a mark and jump your ten foot six inches, toe to
heel, like I see you do one time, Martin?”
“No, I couldn’t. My joints aren’t that soople. But if I couldn’t go
without sleep as long, or stay to my neck in the water as long, or go
without grub even longer----”
“That you could, Martin. ’Tis me ought to know that--me, that was three
days and three nights astray with you on Quero. An’ when it comes to
buckin’ agen wind and tide with a dory loaded to the gunnels----”
“Hi-i! below there!” This from the deck. “Out dories!”
With a sigh Martin set down his pipe and prepared to get into cardigan
jacket, boots, and oilskins. “I must say I hates to leave my little
pipeful”--and to his youthful dory-mate, dropping down from deck--“Isn’t
it so with you, too, Eddie-boy?”
“I could smoke all the time I’m awake, Martin.”
“Like your father before you, boy. You’re cert’nly like your father
other ways, too. But you’re not tough like him. Sad kind of, too, like
he was at times, ’s if he could see things ahead. O Lord, but I did love
your father, boy! And you cert’nly look like him. But, come along now.
Your first trip at this work, and we must have things right.”
* * * * *
Martin’s dory, the first over the side, was dropped up to windward. To
the Skipper’s last word, “Set to the east’ard, Martin--it don’t look
none too good, but I’ll be back to you after I’ve run the string out,”
Martin waved a free arm and nodded a cheerful acquiescence.
The vessel left them astern. Martin began to heave the trawls and Eddie
to row. There was a disquieting pitch and toss to the sea. Anybody but a
trawler would have called it bad weather for a sixteen-foot dory to be
out in. It was a much heavier sea than any Eddie had ever before tried
to row a boat in, and he soon said so.
“Yes,” answered Martin, “I s’pose it do seem hard at first--a banker’s
dory in a chop--but after three or four days you won’t mind it. ’Tis the
cross-tide that puts that little kick to it and slats her around so. And
yet the safest small boat afloat is a dory--when it’s handled right.
Here we are now, away out here in this little dory.”
“And just where are we, Martin?”
“Let me see now.” Martin was a dextrous trawler, who never had to slack
his work because of any little conversational strain. He kept the air
full of hooks and line even while he figured it all out. “We were
forty-four fifty-six north and fifty-one ten west at noon, the Skipper
said. We sailed for an hour after that--east half no’the. That ought to
put us about a hundred and fifty mile from the nearest point o’
land-- Newf’undland that’ll be. But how’s the rowin’? A bit heavy, isn’t
it? Tide and sea together’s a hard thing to buck out here, boy. You’d be
surprised how they carry you out the way at times. That’s the divil when
the fog or the snow comes and you drift. Or maybe the vessel isn’t
anchored--flyin’ sets maybe same as now--and away _she_ goes. And now,
Eddie-lad, try and see how you make out shootin’ a trawl, and let me
tend to the rowin’. Careful, now, comin’ for’ard--you’re not in a
bathin’-suit in Gloucester Harbor with smooth water and no more than a
hundred yards’ swim if you capsize the boat. That’s it--keep ’em
whirlin’. My, but you’re doin’ fine--’tis born in people, the fishin’
ways. If you were only a bit more rugged, now, there wouldn’t be your
better on the whole Grand Banks. But this life’ll soon put the strength
in you, Eddie-boy.”
“If it don’t kill me first,” laughed the young fellow.
“Kill you? What talk is that? Kill you? Why, the way you’ll eat--not
three, but four, and maybe five meals a day. And mug-ups? Every time
you think of it, a mug-up--and when you forget, always plenty to put you
in mind of it by their example. And _sleep_----”
“When there’s any time to sleep.”
“Time? Wait till it comes too rough to go out in the dory.”
“Too rough?” The boy looked over the gunnel and grimaced.
“Oh, it comes plenty rough at times. Have a care, or one of those little
seas’ll wet you through.”
“H’m-- I’m wet through already.”
“Oh, no, not real wet through. When you get real wet out here-- But,
never mind, wet or dry, we’ll be alike, anyway, and company for each
other, however it goes. Your father, now, he was great company in a
dory. Tell stories! And sing! What’s it he used to sing, now, on the old
_Aleutian_, when we were hardly more than boys together? Oh, but your
father had the voice, boy! And to hear him roll out--
“‘Let it come from the east,
Let it come from the west’--
That’s when it would be breezin’ up. Dory-mates were we, the same as you
and me be now, lad. And he was a dory-mate. I had to fight almost to
keep him from doin’ half my work as well as all his own, at times. I
mind how he used to speak of you when we’d get a breath between
haulin’, or maybe walkin’ the deck of a night-watch together. ‘Martin,
but if you could see how he’s growin’,’ he’d say. ‘Every trip in he
looks a head taller. And the grip of him, Martin, when he winds his five
little fingers around my one finger! And the beauty of him--the spit of
his mother, Martin,’ he’d say. ‘And if you could see him of a mornin’
climb up on the bed and grab the mustache of me and twist it. Only two
year old, Martin, and talk--man, he c’n talk better than I can--the long
words of him, Martin! And I do hope he’ll never have to go fishin’!’ He
said that last many a time. ‘I do hope he’ll never have to go fishin’
for a livin’! But if he do have to go, I’d lie easy in my
grave--wherever my grave may be, Martin--if he was to have a dory-mate
like you.’ And to think now we’re dory-mates-- Jack Teevens’s boy and
Jack Teevens’s old dory-mate. And he had to be lost, your father. Some
things are hard to take, believe in a Divine Providence much as we like.
And then your mother had to die, too.”
“Yes, Martin. And I often wondered if she were not glad to go. What did
she have to live for? And I think of it, what have I got to live for? If
it comes to that, what have you, Martin--no wife, no family--what have
you to live for?”
“What have I? Lad, it grieves me to hear you talk that way. What haven’t
I to live for? I’ve hundreds of things to live and be thankful for.
There’s my friends. There’s the little ones I’ve seen--not my own--my
own were taken away, please God, and their mother--but my friends’
children that I’ve seen in the bornin’ almost and now growin’ up around
me. And out here, never do I step aboard the vessel after a long day’s
haulin’ and draggin’ that I’m not glad to see the fresh faces lookin’ at
me over the rail--if it’s no more than the Skipper hangin’ to the wheel
or the cook standin’ by the painter. And at home, boy! Never a time we
breast Cape Sable goin’ home that I don’t begin to feel cheerful, no
matter how hard and rough and maybe profitless a trip we’ve had. And
when we raise Eastern Point! and goin’ into the harbor of Gloucester!
Lad, lad, but my eyes run water ’most to think of the people I’m soon to
see--to talk and shake hands with, maybe sit up a night or two with
before I go out again. Lord, boy, if there warn’t a man or woman in the
whole wide world to hail good-mornin’ to you--if it was no more than to
look at happy people’s faces when you’re ashore--or out to sea again, if
it’s no more than to look at the sky and the fine tumblin’ ocean! Even
the sea in a blow, boy, is somethin’ to soothe a troubled man’s soul.”
“To soothe? Lord, Martin, is it soothing now? Look at it. How we’re
staying gunnels up is more than I know.”
“Gunnels up? What, now? Why, Eddie, when you’ve seen it as I’ve seen it!
But _’tis_ growin’ a bit more rough--isn’t it? Have a care for some of
those seas. That oar in the becket astern, have an eye to that, and when
you notice a bad sea comin’, just give the oar a little flirt--so--and
put her head or stern to it, whichever’s handiest. It’ll save a
capsizin’ some day, maybe. And now ’tis time to begin haulin’. The
signal’s been to the peak some time now, but I like to give ’em a good
set myself. I c’n make up the time on the haulin’. But we’ll begin now,
and do you coil, boy. Here we go, four tubs of line--a mile and a half
of a trawl to haul. ’Tis the rare appetite it’ll give us; and when----”
“Isn’t the vessel rather far away, Martin?”
“Let me see. Where is she now? Oh, yes. She is a bit away, but it must
be the lee dories have gone adrift. Let’s see who’s in the lee dory.
That’ll be--let me see, now-- Jethro and Eben. Eben’s a good man, but
Jethro’s not much of a man in a dory--big enough, but not much use.”
“And I guess he’s not the only useless man out here to-day.”
“Hush, boy, hush. What kind of talk is that?”
“It’s true. Don’t I know that I could no more haul trawls in this sea
than---- Why? A mile and a half of trawl to be hauled, and don’t I know
that as your dory-mate I ought to haul half of it? And will I? Could I,
even if you’d allow me, Martin? Oh, yes--about as well as I could winch
in the vessel’s anchor alone. Don’t I know what it means--a man that
can’t do his share out here? It means that one of the crew is eating his
share of grub and by and by will get his share of the stock, and yet who
is no more use in a dory than the painter when the dory’s aboard, and no
more use aboard the vessel itself than the spare anchor with the vessel
in harbor. Don’t I know, Martin?”
“Eddie, listen to me. You talk again like that, and sure’s my name’s
Martin Carr I’ll take the privilege of your father’s friend and bat the
jaw of you. I will, boy, much as I like you. And let me tell you, ’tis
dory agen dory out here, and our dory’ll bring her share of fish aboard
this night.”
“This night? Will we get aboard this night, do you think, Martin?”
Martin looked about him--looked long about him, but said only, “Is there
a drop of water left in the bottle, Eddie?”
“About half a mugful.”
“Half a mugful? Well, keep that by you, and by’n’by you’ll have it to
drink--not now.”
“I’ll save it for you, Martin.”
“That’s your father’s own boy, Eddie, but never mind me. What’s a
mouthful of water to me that’s been without it seven days on end? It’s
nothin’--nothin’ at all. Keep it for yourself and by’n’by drink it. It
may mean a lot to you, for I know that already you’re wringin’ with the
sweat. And you’re tired, too, aren’t you, lad?”
“A little, Martin.”
“Oh, but it’s the cruel work for you, boy. But what are you at now?”
“I was going to have a smoke.”
“Well, I wish you wouldn’t yet awhile, Eddie.”
“And why, Martin?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“Tell me now--what’s wrong, Martin?”
“Well, we’re astray, lad--astray. Did you never hear what ’tis to be
astray on the Banks? And now night’s ’most on us, and ’tis small use
rowin’. The dories, last time I looked, were all points of the compass
and the vessel standin’ after them--a strong tide and their lines
parted, no doubt. I haven’t seen her for an hour or more now. We’ll be
the last to be picked up, anyway. She’ll get to us by mornin’, no
doubt.”
“If she ever does get to us, Martin.”
“And why won’t she get to us? You’re not like your father there, boy.
’Twarn’t in your father ever to give up, boy. With him, the blacker it
came the brighter he’d get. You’re more like your mother’s people in
that, Eddie.”
“I think I must be, Martin--everybody says so, anyway.”
* * * * *
Throughout the long cold night they drifted. Eddie, shivering in the
stern, broke a long silence:
“It must be near morning now, Martin?”
“Gettin’ to it, boy, gettin’ to it.”
“And the water smoother, don’t you think, Martin?”
“A lot smoother, Eddie-boy”; and under his breath, “I only wish it
hadn’t moderated for a while longer.”
“And the air not quite so cold, Martin?”
“Not quite, Eddie-boy”; and again under his breath, “And that’s not for
the best, either, just now.” He looked out ahead--out and up. It was
quite a little while before Eddie noticed what Martin had foreseen--the
white flakes fluttering down. Only when they began to settle on the back
of his woollen mitts did the young fellow take note of them--resting
there for a moment and then melting under the warmth of his hand. He
regarded the first flake curiously. That he could see it at all was
proof that morning was at hand, and he felt glad. What it might mean to
them did not then dawn on him. When his brain awoke to the warning it
brought he did not obey his first impulse--to shout out his discovery.
Instead, he waited and thought it all out, and as he waited and pondered
the flakes fell faster.
When he had thought it all out he looked toward Martin, who was leaning
over the bow. Thinking he might be asleep--he felt drowsy enough
himself-- Eddie feared to waken him at first. But he finally ventured to
call, “Martin!”
“Aye, boy.” Martin turned with eyes that clearly had not lately been
closed, eyes that regarded him tenderly.
“Will it last? Don’t be afraid to tell me, Martin. I think I know what
it means now.”
“And you’re not afraid?”
“Afraid? Why, no. ’Twas the work--the hardship I dreaded--not the danger
of being lost. None of my people were ever afraid to die. And yet, I’m
afraid of the sea, Martin. That must have come from my mother. She was
always afraid of it--on account of my father being on it so much, I
suppose. I hate to think of being drowned and being found floating in
it, or even lying on the bottom of it. There’s a good many lying on the
bottom hereabouts, aren’t there, Martin?”
“The sands hereaway, Eddie, are covered with the bones of lost
fishermen.”
“Well, that’s what I dread. If I could only die ashore, or be buried
ashore--a Christian burial with a little prayer, and then the dry earth
over you. Don’t _you_ fear being buried in the sea, Martin?”
“Fear it? Not me, boy. Sea or shore, it’s all one to Martin Carr, though
maybe I do like the sea a bit the more.”
“Ugh! I don’t. And promise me, Martin--promise me, if it rests with you,
that you’ll bury me ashore.”
“Hush, boy, hush. It’s not right now to be thinkin’ such things.”
Again Martin looked out from the bow, and the young fellow huddled in
the stern. He could not stand the long silences. “What are you thinking
of, Martin?”
“I’m thinkin’, boy, that it’s small use waitin’ around here for the
vessel. It’s as thick o’ snow as I’ve seen it in a good many winters,
and no sign of it slacking. We’ve got to be doin’ somethin’, and we
might’s well be rowin’. But first, where’s your tobacco? Well, throw
that over--see now, there goes mine. That’s so that by’n’by you won’t be
tempted to smoke. Smokin’ makes you thirsty, and to be thirsty and no
water-- I mean real thirsty, after two or three days, maybe, without a
drink, and you rowin’ hard all the time and the juice sweated out of
you--it’s an awful feeling lad. I know, I know, there _is_ the snow. But
snow where it touches here isn’t quite what you think it. Not a square
inch where the snow strikes here that isn’t crusted with salt, and you
know what comes of drinkin’ saltish water. We may be out for days, so
let’s get ready. Let me see, now--it oughter be twelve o’clock by this.
Yesterday at twelve I mind the tide set to the west’ard. We’ll row
across it--so. But first we’ll pitch out the fish. It’s a shame, isn’t
it, to have to heave the fine fat fish back after you’ve gone to the
trouble of baitin’ up four tubs of trawls--to have to haul a mile and a
half of trawls and then have to heave them overboard again after they’re
coiled nice in the buckets and the fish to your gunnels after them. Two
thousand pounds of good fish there, Eddie. ’Tis a shame, but over with
’em. And don’t try to save one to eat. It’s no use--raw fish. I tried it
once, and my stomach was upset by it--and my stomach’s not easy upset.
You’d throw it up, Eddie, and that would weaken you for the rowin’. And
we’re in for a row now. You’ve rowed a dory around in a harbor, boy, in
your day, but now for a real row.”
“How far, Martin?”
“To Newf’undland coast, maybe--a hundred and fifty miles--if we’re not
picked up.”
“Oh----”