CHAPTER X.

TRAWLS AND WHALES.

A trawler, such as the _Vixen_ was, is fitted out very differently from a seiner or a hand-liner, the styles of craft on which Breeze had made his previous fishing trips. Instead of a large seine-boat, she carries from four to eight dories, and a crew sufficiently large to allow two men to each dory, besides the skipper and cook. The trawls are tarred cotton ropes the size of a lead-pencil, that come in lengths of about fifty fathoms, or three hundred feet each. To these are attached at distances of a fathom apart for cod, and a fathom and a half apart for halibut, short lines of from three to six feet long, to the ends of which hooks are made fast. About six of these lengths of trawl, or 1800 feet, are coiled in a tub, and each dory will carry out and set from four to six tubs of trawl in from twenty to two hundred fathoms of water. The lines contained in the several tubs are made fast to each other, and all are set in one straight line, from one to two miles in length. The trawls are anchored at each end, and buoyed by small kegs, so that the hooks shall hang just clear of the bottom.

As the _Vixen_ was on a “salt trip,” the pens in the hold, instead of being filled with ice, contained several hundred bushels of coarse rock-salt. She had a crew of fourteen men all told, and on her deck, fitting into each other like nests of buckets, were six dories, three on each side.

The next morning after reaching the Bank a fishing-ground was chosen, and the anchor was dropped overboard. Then the canvas was furled, the riding-sail was bent on, top-masts were sent down, and everything was made as snug as possible, and put in readiness for all sorts of weather. Baskets of frozen herring were got up from the hold, and cut into bait sizes with sharp knives on the bait-boards. These are heavy planks laid on top of the cabin. With this cut-up herring each dory crew baited the thousand or more hooks of their own trawl, and coiled the lines snugly away again in the tubs.

That afternoon the trawls were set, one astern of the schooner, one ahead, one off each quarter, and one off each bow, these positions having been drawn for by lot beforehand. Thus the schooner formed the centre of a circle of trawls, the outer ends of which were nearly two miles from her. The position falling to Breeze and Wolfe was that directly ahead of the vessel. After going far enough away to be sure of being well clear of her, in case she should have swung round by morning, they began to set their trawl. Breeze continued to row in a straight line away from the schooner, while Wolfe, after dropping overboard the light anchor and the buoy-line attached to its floating keg, began to pay out the trawl with its baited hooks. It required great care and considerable skill to get them overboard without snarls or knots, so that each hook would be certain to hang straight down by itself and clear of all the others. After the job had been done neatly and properly, the second anchor was dropped, and a buoy, with a flag on it to mark the outer end of the trawl, was flung overboard. Then their work was finished for the present; for the line was to be left “set” all night, and would not be visited until early in the morning.

As they rowed back to the schooner Breeze said, “Wolfe, I want always to carry out some fresh water and some hard-tack in the dory after this. I’ve heard my father say a great many times that if all fishermen would only do this, half the lives that are now lost on the Banks might be saved.”

“You’ll be well laughed at on board for a coward if you do,” replied Wolfe.

“I don’t care. I’d rather any time be laughed at than to be lost out there somewhere in a fog, and perhaps drift round for days without anything to eat or drink.”

“All right,” said Wolfe; “I guess I can stand it if you can.”

That night Breeze hunted up a small keg, which he filled with fresh water, and a box into which he put a couple of dozen ship biscuit wrapped in paper and stuffed into a sort of a water-proof bag that he made out of an old oil-skin jacket.

When the whole crew was turned out at daylight the next morning, they found dreary, shivering weather up on the cold deck; but after the hot coffee and hearty breakfast which the cook had ready for them, they felt better. All were then soon off in their dories, going in the direction of the several buoy-flags left at the outer ends of their trawls the night before.

As Breeze stowed his fresh water and provisions in the stern of dory No. 6, Hank Hoffer noticed what he was doing, and sung out to know what he was afraid of, and if he didn’t want to be tied to an apron-string for fear of getting lost.

Wolfe’s hot Irish blood rushed to his face at these taunts, and he would have answered back but for Breeze, who said,

“Let him alone, Wolfe. It makes him feel a great deal worse not to be noticed at all. Nothing would please him better than to get us into a muss, and to have the skipper order us off about our business.”

“Well, I don’t know but what you are right, Breeze; but what a queer fellow you are, anyhow. It seems to me you must have been born with a wise head on your shoulders. Here I am a year older than you, but most any one hearing us talk would take you for the old boy and me for the young one.”

They rowed steadily while they talked, and soon reached the little canvas flag that marked the buoy at the outer end of their trawl.

“I wonder what luck we’re going to have?” said Breeze. “What I like best about fishing is the not knowing what you are going to catch, and the thinking whenever you have bad-luck you may have better next time.”

“I expect that is the most interesting part about most things in this world,” said Wolfe; “but with all my luck I can’t start this anchor. It’s got foul of something. I expect we’ll have to rig up the hurdy-gurdy.”

This was a small iron winch that could be set up in the bows of the dory, and which is often found necessary in heaving up heavy trawls. With its aid the refractory anchor was soon got aboard. The buoy had already been picked up, and at length the trawl began to appear. Now came the exciting moment. What would it bring? Would every hook have its fish, or would they be few and far between? They would not even consider the possibility of its being what fishermen describe as a “water haul,” or one bringing them nothing but empty hooks. Wolfe stood forward in the dory pulling in the line, while Breeze stood a few feet behind him, ready to take off the fish and stow the trawl in its tubs.

“Here he is!” cried Wolfe at last. “Number one a cod, and a jolly big fellow at that. My eye! but he must weigh fifty pounds at least. Our luck’s begun good at any rate. Bear a hand here with the gaff, Breeze. Quick! There, my hearty! lie still where you are put, and we’ll soon give you plenty of company.”

After this came two or three bare hooks, and then a small halibut. Then half a dozen more codfish, one close after the other, and next only the skeleton of a fish with its bones picked as clean as though there had never been a particle of flesh on them. It astonished Breeze greatly, and he said,

“Well! I never knew before that a fish’s skeleton would take bait. How hungry it must have been! It does look rather thin and gaunt, for a fact,” he added, laughing.

“He was something a good deal better than a skeleton when he took that hook,” explained Wolfe, who had hauled trawls before. “The sand-fleas have made a meal off of him, and there must have been a pretty lot of them to go through him so quickly and completely.”

“Sand-fleas?” repeated Breeze, inquiringly.

“Yes, just such chaps as you may see almost any time hopping on a beach.”

A haddock bearing the teeth-marks of the halibut that had tried to swallow him after he was caught came next. Then followed cod, cod, cod, so fast that by the time the trawl was half hauled, dory No. 6 was deep in the water and her crew did not dare to put another fish into her.

They were in fine spirits over their good-luck, as they buoyed the trawl and pulled back to the schooner to get rid of their load before attempting to finish the haul. By this time a stiff northerly breeze was blowing, and the _Vixen_ had swung with the change of wind, so that she now lay stern to them. This made their pull much shorter than it otherwise would have been. Owing to this they had the satisfaction of pitching the first fish of that cruise on the schooner’s deck. This greatly disappointed Hank Hoffer, who came up a minute later in dory No. 5, and who had fully expected to be able to claim the honor of “first fish.”

He began to make ugly remarks to the effect that if they had waited to get a full load they would not have been back so quickly. This time the skipper cut him short with, “Look to your own load, Hank. If you’d ’a’ waited to make it as big as the one these lads have brought in, you wouldn’t have come for half an hour yet.”

As soon as the fish had been unloaded from dory No. 6, and the two tubs of trawl already hauled had been lifted out, the boys returned for the rest of their catch. They had hardly got the buoy aboard, and were just beginning to haul in the remainder of the trawl, when suddenly the most surprising thing occurred.

The dory was at once, and without the slightest warning, lifted bodily several feet into the air, and both its occupants were flung down, Wolfe striking and breaking a thwart in his fall. Immediately afterwards the dory slid on its side, and apparently downhill, into the water. It was only by scrambling hastily to the upper gunwale that the boys kept it from capsizing. As it was, it was half full of water before they succeeded in righting it.

At the same moment they heard a loud rushing sound like escaping steam, a column of spray was thrown high in the air, and they caught a glimpse of a huge black object sinking out of sight but a short distance from them. As it disappeared, their boat was rocked violently on the waves that surged over the place where it had been.

Both the boys were terribly startled, and for a moment greatly frightened, by this mysterious occurrence. They had instinctively begun bailing the water from the dory almost as soon as they found that she still floated right side up. Breeze was the first to recover the breath which had been nearly driven from his body by the shock of his overthrow, and now he gasped out,

“Do you think it was an earthquake, Wolfe?” Before Wolfe could answer, a large whale, evidently the mate of the one that had given them such a scare, rose to the surface to blow, a hundred yards to one side of them, and Breeze exclaimed, “So that’s what it was! Well, I’m mighty glad he didn’t come along and hoist us on his back while the dory was loaded down as she was half an hour ago.”

“So am I,” began Wolfe, “but hello!” he cried, stopping his bailing and starting up. “Whatever has got into the old _Vixen_? She must have a steam-engine aboard.”

Breeze looked, and, to his astonishment, saw the schooner moving away from them, and going through the water at a speed of ten or twelve knots an hour. Her sails were still furled, and apparently her anchor was still down; but she was certainly moving, and that at a rapid rate. The white water was foaming under her bows, and a wake, like that of a steamer, was trailing and eddying behind her.

“It’s one of those whales, and he’s caught a fluke of her anchor in his blow-hole or in his jaws. Yes, sir, he’s running away with her!” exclaimed Breeze, who had heard his father describe a similar occurrence as having happened to him once on the Banks.

“That’s what it must be,” said Wolfe. “But it beats anything I ever heard of. My eye! isn’t she going, though!”

“Well,” remarked Breeze, as they watched the rapidly vanishing schooner, “I should say that fishing in these waters was pretty exciting work. I know it beats mackerelling, or life on George’s. Do you know whether it is always as lively here as it seems to be this morning, Wolfe?”

“This goes ahead of anything in my experience,” was the reply. “I only hope the old man will cut his cable before he loses sight of us, or that he has had sense enough to take our bearings so that he can pick us up again. Now that we have got a quiet spell, I suppose we might as well finish bailing before the next performance begins.”

After they had rid the boat of all the water she had shipped, they began once more to haul in on their trawl. They reasoned that if the schooner came back they would be so much ahead with their work, and if she did not, they could pitch the fish overboard; while, in the mean time, the occupation would keep them from worrying over what might happen.

They had got nearly to the end of their trawl, and the dory was again deeply laden with fish, when Breeze cried out, joyfully, “Here she comes back!”

He was right. The white sails of the schooner could be seen, though at a great distance from them, and they knew that she had in some way got rid of her unwelcome tow-boat, and was on her way back.

Two of the other dories that had been left behind now approached them, and a man in one of them called out, “I don’t suppose you fellows have got any fresh water aboard, have you?”

“Yes, we have plenty of it,” shouted Wolfe. “I declare I had forgotten it, though, and I’m awfully thirsty myself,” he added to Breeze.

The latter had no reason to regret his thoughtfulness when he saw how heartily they all enjoyed the water and a lunch of biscuit that, but for him, they would have gone without.

So far had the schooner been towed before the whale had managed to clear himself from his encumbrance that she was nearly two hours in making her way back to them. Her skipper had refused to cut the cable, for he was a part owner in the vessel, and did not want to be put to the expense of a new one. Thus he showed one of the traits in his character that made him so unpopular. He was always ready to sacrifice the comfort, and even the safety, of his men, rather than run the risk of losing money.

At last the schooner did return to the waiting dories, and their loads of fish were transferred to her deck, after which the trawls were rebaited and again set out. Then came a busy time spent in “dressing down;” that is, cleaning the fish, cutting off their heads, splitting and salting them, and finally packing them in the hold. After this, the trawls were again hauled and again set for the night. Owing to the delay of the morning, the second catch had to be “dressed down” by lantern-light, so that it was nearly eleven o’clock before the tired crew were allowed to throw themselves into their bunks for a few hours’ sleep.

The air during the day had been growing steadily colder, and before dark the peculiar chill denoting the presence of ice at no great distance had been noticed, and had occasioned some anxiety. The season was unusually backward, and a recent succession of northerly gales had driven the arctic ice almost to the edge of the Gulf Stream. This had been reported before the _Vixen_ left Gloucester; but, as her crew had not yet met with any ice, they hoped it had again gone north, and that they were to escape it entirely.

While Hank Hoffer was on watch that night he busied himself for some time with the contents of dory No. 6, and any one standing close beside him might have heard him mutter, “There, I hope those sneaks will enjoy the drink I’ve fixed for them. I’ll teach ’em that we don’t want any cowards aboard this craft.”

An hour later, or shortly before daylight, the tired sleepers in cabin and forecastle were roused from their dreams, and brought shivering out from their warm bunks by the hoarse voice of the watch on deck shouting down the companion-ways, “Hear the news below there! Tumble out all hands! Lolly ice all around us, and a big berg bearing down from dead ahead!”