Part 5

“Sure, boy--here y’are--an armful of plates. Cook on a fisherman’s the last job I’d want--you’re never done. And you’re right it was a bad business, cook. When you’ve seen nineteen men washed over one after the other, every man--every man but one, that is--putting up the divil’s own fight for his life before he went-- I dunno but what it must be worse than going down at sea altogether, all hands in one second, with no chance at all--though that must be hard enough, too.”

Silence for a while, and then Martin continued: “If I had it to do over again”--two long puffs--“to do it over and be lost instead of saved, I dunno but what I’d rather founder at sea myself. Nineteen men lost--eighteen good men-- Lord, but ’twas cruel!”

Martin, with his head back, was gazing thoughtfully up at the deck-beams. A gentle leading question, and he resumed.

“We left Gloucester that trip with the Skipper’s-- But to tell that story right a man ought to begin away back. But will you give me a match, somebody?”

He lit up again, and then settled himself snugly between the edge of the table and his bunk-board, after the manner of a man who is in for a long sitting-out. Once he really started there were but few interruptions. The loss of the _Cromwell_ was a serious affair, and nobody broke in thoughtlessly; and only when Martin would stop to refill his pipe, or to light up again when he found he had let it go out, did he make any halt himself.

* * * * *

“What the Hoodleys of Cape Ann were, and are still,” began Martin, “of course all of you, or most all of you, anyway, know. Or maybe some of you don’t know. Well, they were a hard crowd--but didn’t know it--the kind of people that whenever they got to talking about their own kind, never had any tales to prove maybe that there was even the lightest bit of wit or grace or beauty among them; no, none of that for the Hoodleys of Cape Ann. But to show you what thrifty, hard-headed fore-people they had, they could spin off, any of ’em, a hundred little yarns, almost any day, as if anybody on earth that knew those of them that were alive would ever doubt what the dead-and-gone ones must’ve been. Hard they were--even neighbors that didn’t take life as a dream of poetry said that much of them. Hard they were--man, yes--the kind that little children never toddled up to and climbed on to their knees, nor a man in hard luck by any mistake ever asked the loan of a dollar of--the kind that never a man walked across the street to shake hands with. That’s the kind they were. Take ’em all in all, I guess that the Hoodleys were about as hard a tribe as you’d find in all Essex County--surely ’tisn’t possible there were any harder. And yet you couldn’t pick a flaw in ’em before the law. They were honest. Everybody had to say that for them--paying their debts, their just debts--as they put it themselves--and collecting their own dues, don’t fear, and a great respect for the letter of the law--for the letter of it. And I mind they used to boast that for generations their people had kept clear of the poorhouses, and that all had been church-members in good standing. Well, not exactly all; for, to be exact and truthful--they themselves used to put it that way--there was one here and there that had broken away. But such had been rare, as one of them--a strong church-member--used to put it, and the devil is ever active; and speaking of the devil, this particular member’d go on, there is always the blistering pit for the unrighteous. That last I s’pose he thought he ought to put in, because everybody knew that of all the people that fell from grace, the wickedest, the most blasphemous, the most evil of all evil livers had been those of the Hoodleys that had back-slided. Once they went to the bad they cert’nly went beyond all hope; and nobody did they curse out more furiously than their own people every time they did start in.

“Well, the Hoodleys weren’t a seafaring people originally. They moved over to Gloucester, y’see, at one particular time when everybody was expecting in some way to make money out of fishing. George Hoodley was a lad then--seventeen--with the hard kind of a face and the awkward body that everybody nat’rally looked for in one of his breed. And he had the kind of a mind, I cal’late, that his father would like a boy of his to have. Well, George signed right away for a boy’s wages with a prudent master--old Sol Tucker it was--that went in the _Distant Shore_ so long. They used to say that Sol wore the same pair of jack-boots out of her that he had when he first went aboard, and there was eighteen years between his first and last trips in her. I mind the jack-boots--and they were cert’nly well patched when I saw them--though no more than twelve year old then. That’ll give you an idea of Sol. And George Hoodley put in thirteen years with Sol, and thirteen long hard drags of years they must’ve been. I misdoubt that any of us here could’ve stood those thirteen--no, sir, not for vessel’s, skipper’s, and hand’s share together. Well, George stood it, and I don’t b’lieve he ever knew he was missing anything in life. But he had something to show for it, as he’d say himself. When he left old Sol he was able to buy a half interest and go master of a good vessel. I went with him in her--the _Harding_--two trips--just two, no more.”

Martin halted to light up again, and somebody asked, “Warn’t it the _Harding_, Martin, that had the small cabin?”

“Yes, the smallest, they say, that ever was seen in a fisherman. Just about room to stand between the steps and the stove and between the stove and the bulkhead again; and not much better for’ard--a forec’s’le so small that the crew used to say they had to go on deck to haul on their oilskins. She was all hold. Well, while he was in the _Harding_ George made a great reputation for all kinds of carefulness. Most men that went with him said he was altogether too careful for any mortal use; and maybe that was so. But his savings kept piling up, and there was plenty of other careful men to ship with him and abide by him.

“One thing that George and his people used to boast about was that he warn’t like a good many other fishermen. While a good many of them were putting in time ashore drinking, skylarking, or if it warn’t no more than to spend a quiet sociable evening with their friends or their own families--during all that George was attending to business, for business it was to him. He was talking one day of those who said fishing was a venture, or even adventure, and he’d been reading somewhere, he said, of the joy that somebody thought fine, strong men ought to get out of fishing. He almost smiled when he was telling it. The joy of fishing! If you had a good trip of fish and got a good price for it, why, yes, fishing was good fun then. But as far as he could see it was like any other kind of work. You put in about so much time at it and took good care of your money, and at the end of the year you had about so much to show for it. And as for the fun of fighting a breeze of wind that some of them talked about, seeing how long you could hang on to your canvas without losing your spars, or how far down you could let your vessel roll before she’d capsize--none of that for him. And it was all rot, their pretending they got any fun out of it. They had the same blood and nerve and senses as any other humans, and he knew that for himself he was content to stay hove-to when it blew one of the living gales they talked about, and satisfied, too, to shorten sail in time, even if he was bound home, when it blew hard enough. Gloucester would be there when he got there--it wouldn’t blow away. Cert’nly, he’d admit, the drivers’d outsail him on a passage and beat him out of the market once in a while; but in the long run his way paid best. He could name the foolish fellows that’d been lost, and the fingers of both hands wouldn’t begin to name them. Yes, and left families to starve, some of ’em. And he himself was alive and still bringing home the fish, and everybody in Gloucester knew what he had to show for it.

“Well, by that time everybody in Gloucester did know what he had to show for it, and everybody in Gloucester said it was about time he began to look around for a wife, though nobody expected George Hoodley to look around for a wife after the regular manner of fishermen, who don’t look around at all, so far as I c’n see. We ourselves, or most of us, anyway, liking the girl pretty well and she willing, gen’rally hurry up to get married ’bout as soon as we find ourselves with a couple of months’ rent ahead.

“But not that way with George Hoodley. It wasn’t until he was forty-five that he began to look around after the manner of his people for a wife. There was to be no rushing into the expenses of matrimony; but with two good vessels, and a house all clear, a man might well think of it--or leastways I imagine that’s the way he thought it out, if he wasted any time thinking of it at all.

“Now, if George Hoodley had not been like other men during all the years he was fishing, if he hadn’t joined in the talk of his mates on what was worth having in life--you know how fishermen gen’rally talk when they get going on some things--even if George Hoodley pretended to think that he thought they were a lot of blessed fools, yet it is more than likely that the opinions of the men he went to sea with had their influence with him just the same. It stands to reason they were bound to, after years of it. And then, clear back he must’ve come of flesh-and-blood people, like anybody else. For, though nobody could imagine the Hoodleys having weaknesses like other people, yet cert’nly, if you went far enough back, there must’ve been ancestors among ’em all--one or two--that enjoyed life the same as other people.

“Well, for a wife George took a very pretty girl who was young enough--some of you that know her know that well--young enough to have had grandchildren to him. Twenty or twenty-one, light-haired, pretty face, and a trim figure. I didn’t like her eyes or her mouth myself, but everybody agreed she was pretty. She had never been so far away from home that she could not be back again the same day--and that certified to her character with some people. For other things, she would come into some money when her father died. And her father didn’t object to George Hoodley. He was a thrifty man, too, and said all right--made George’s way easy, in fact.

“Now, I cal’late that George thought that he never did a wiser thing in all his life than when he married that girl. Among the men he knew there were some that’d got pretty wives, but no money; and others money, but plain-lookers. He was getting both, good looks and money, and he could laugh at them all--those who wanted her because of the money in prospect or those others who were in love with her face. And maybe he didn’t laugh at some of ’em!--the sail-carriers and others who imagined that a reputation for foolishness at sea won women’s hearts. It was a great stroke of business altogether. He would get his share of good living yet--he boasted of that. He had always taken the best care of himself--never drank and seldom smoked, and then only in the way of business--was in the prime of life, had a tough constitution, and his wife-to-be was young and pretty. He could laugh at all of them.

“Nearly everybody in Gloucester said nice things to George. ‘My, but you’re the deep one--and lucky? Oh, no, you’re not a bit lucky! But you always did have a long head--’ That’s the way most people talked to him, and he liked it. As for the few who didn’t seem pleased--the three or four who hinted, but didn’t ask outright if he thought he was doing a wise thing-- George said it was easy enough to place them--they’d like to get her themselves. If he was only another kind of a man he might have been warned in time, but he was that kind that nobody felt sorry for. And that’s a hard thing, too.

“Well, they were married, and the wonderful thing of George letting his vessel go out a trip without him was on exhibition to the people of Gloucester. Yes, sir, she went to sea the day he was married. He stayed ashore that trip--that trip, but not the second.

“The truth was, they didn’t get along well together; which warn’t remarkable, maybe--she young and pretty, and he the age he was and more than looking it. Forty-seven’s a fine age for some men, but not for George’s kind. Leather-skinned he was, with lean chops of jaws, a mouth as tight as a deck beam, a turkey neck--you’ve seen turkey necks--and eyes that were cold as a dead haddock’s.

“George, I cal’late, was beginning to learn that a woman was a different proposition from a vessel, and that there were things about a woman that had to be studied out. Not that I think he tried overhard to study this one out. Listening to him as I had many a time before he got married, I knew that he figured that a woman, like everything else, had her place in the universe, and she ought to know it, or be made to know it. And now here was his wife’s case: a steady man for a husband, a good house to live in, grub and her clothes all found, or, anyway, as much clothes as he thought fit and proper for her to have. Could a woman expect more, or a man do more, than that?

“’Twarn’t long after he got married that things began to go wrong, not only at home but out to sea. There was the trip he broke his ankle. Coming home, he looked maybe for a little show of grief on the part of his wife, but, if he did, he didn’t find it. Indeed, she even said he ought to go to a hospital instead of making it hard for her at home. ’Twas common talk that she said that.

“Going out his next trip, with his leg not yet well-knit and himself having to limp out the door, he and his wife had words. Billie Shaw, passing by, heard them. ‘I don’t care if I never see you again,’ he said. ‘And if you think I’d care if I never saw you again either, you’re mistaken. I wouldn’t care if you’re lost--you and your vessel. Only I wouldn’t like to see all the crew lost.’

“That last must have set him to thinking, for he didn’t sail that day, as he said he would, but put in a day talking to people around town. I know he asked me, for one, a lot of questions. I didn’t know till later what he was driving at. ’Twas while he was questioning me that he coaxed me into shipping with him. ‘Just this trip, Martin,’ he said. ‘And your cousin Dan Spring’s thinking of coming out with me this time, to help me out. Two men left me suddenly to-day, and if you’ll come out Dan’ll surely come.’ And so out of good-nature I said I’d go with him. It’s blessed little he got out of me, though, in answer to his other questions, but he found plenty of others willing to talk.

“Well, on the passage out we all noticed he seemed an absent-minded man. We noticed, too, or thought we did, that he used to forget that his leg warn’t yet very strong, and that now and then he had to pull up when it seemed to hurt him bad.

“That trip--well, it was a queer one from the first. With myself and my cousin Dan, who were dory-mates, it warn’t nothing but accidents. There was that after the first haul of fish when we were dropping down to come alongside. It was a bit rough, that’s a fact. Some said that for so careful a man it was surprising that the Skipper had ordered the dories out at all that day. However, we were just ahead of her--under the end of her bowsprit almost--and of course Dan and myself nat’rally looked for the Skipper to look out for us. We were so near that Dan had taken in his oars and had the painter ready to heave aboard. I was at the oars. One stroke more, I thought, and we’ll be all right, when whing! the first thing we knew around came the vessel and down on us. I couldn’t do anything with the dory, she being down to her gunnels with fish. Well, Dan had time to holler to me, and I hollered to him--no more than that--when she was on us. By a miracle, you might say, we both managed to grab the bob-stay. The stem of the vessel cut the dory like it was a cracker, and then under her keel it went.

“Not knowing what to make of it all, we climbed aboard over the bow. Our faces were no more than above the knight-heads than the Skipper yelled. We ran aft and asked him what was wrong. He stared at us for a second as if he couldn’t understand.

“‘What’s it?’ I asked.

“‘Why, I thought you two were gone.’

“‘And so we were, for all of you. A man that’s been to sea as long you, George Hoodley,’ I said, ‘and put a wheel the wrong way! Nobody ever said you were the cleverest man out of Gloucester to handle a vessel, but cert’nly you know down from up.’

“‘Martin,’ he said, ‘I give you my word. Just as I grabbed the wheel that time a sea came aboard, the vessel lurched, and down on deck I went, with my weak ankle giving way under me.’

“Well, our dory was gone, but later in the trip one of the crew, Bill Thornton, was troubled with a felon on his finger. ’Twarn’t anything very bad, and Bill himself said it didn’t amount to anything, but the Skipper thought Bill’d better stay aboard, and his dory-mate with him. ‘And Martin, you and Dan take his dory,’ says the Skipper--‘you two being so used to each other it’ll be the best way.’

“Well, that was all right. We took their dory and gear and went out the next set--only two days after our own dory had been lost, mind you. Well, this time we got lost in the fog and were out overnight. It turned out a snowy night, and cold, with fog again in the morning. That morning, so we heard from the crew later, the Skipper said, after a little jogging about, ‘They must be gone; we may as well give it up.’ Well, everybody aboard thought there was a good chance for us yet, and one or two hinted at that. But he wouldn’t have it. ‘Run her westerly,’ he said, and went below. Well, to everybody’s surprise we popped up just then almost under her bow. ’Twas quite a little sea on at the time, but the man at the wheel this time didn’t have any bad ankle. He jibed her over in time and we climbed aboard. One man ran down to call the Skipper and tell him the news, but the Skipper only swore at him. ‘Do you mean to tell me that the watch shifted the course of this vessel without orders from me? I’ll talk to him.’ And he did talk to him, and in a most surprising way. We didn’t know what to make of it. He raved. ‘Discipline,’ he said--he’d always been a great hand for discipline aboard his vessel, but this warn’t any case for discipline--’twas men’s lives.

“Well, they expected to have two or three more days of fishing aboard the _Cromwell_ after that day, but I made a kick. Never again would I haul a trawl for a skipper of his kind, I said.

“‘What?’ asked the Skipper. ‘You mean to mutinize on me?’

“‘Call it mutiny or what you please,’ said I, ‘but myself and Dan don’t leave this vessel again in a dory.’

“‘Don’t you know I can run into the nearest port, Newf’undland or Nova Scotia, and put you ashore?’

“‘I do.’

“‘Or take you both back to Gloucester and have you up before the court?’

“‘You can put us up before forty courts--the highest in the land, if you want--and maybe they’ll sentence us to ten years in jail, or to be strung up to a yard-arm somewheres. But I don’t cal’late they will-- I don’t cal’late so--not after we tell our story. It’s a fine thing fishermen have come to when their own skippers try to lose ’em.’

“‘Lose you? Me try to lose you? And why, in God’s name, would I try to lose you?’

“‘Lord knows. But you do, and there’s an end of it. Dan and I don’t swing any dory over the rail of this vessel this trip again.’

“He said nothing to that. Only he looked at me, then a long look at Dan, and turned into his bunk again. Later in the day he drew out a quart bottle of whiskey and began to drink. That was a new thing to his crew that knew him so long. They’d pretty good reason to believe that he’d kept a bottle in his closet under lock and key for a little drink on the quiet when the dories were out and nobody by; but they knew he did it slyly so as not to have the name of it, or maybe so’s not to have to ask anybody to join him, and so save expense. But everybody knew that whatever liquor he took that way was not enough to hurt him. Yes, a sober man he’d always been--everybody had to say that for him. But now he was drinking with all hands looking on, taking it down in gulps, and when the first quart was gone he brought out another, drinking by himself all the time.

“However, he warn’t drunk by a good deal when in the middle of the night he ordered all hands on deck to make sail. The men thought he was crazy; but he was the skipper. If anything happened, ’twas his lookout, not theirs. So they gave her the full mains’l, and then he ordered the man at the wheel to swing her off.

“‘Yes, sir, and what course?’

“‘What course? Didn’t I say to swing her off? Put her fair before it. Jibe over your fores’l and let her run--let her run, I tell you! Whichever way she goes, let her run.’

“And we let her run all that night and all next day. She was under her winter rig--in March it was--no topm’sts; but the four lower sails alone were enough for any Gloucester fisherman that second night. I mind ’twas nine o’clock that night, and Abner Tucker’s watch. A staid, sober man was Abner. He’d been to sea for twenty years, and been with George for ten years--stayed with him because he knew him for a prudent man, I s’pose. Well, Abner took the wheel, and getting the feel of it, cried out, ‘Lord in heaven, it’s like trying to steer two vessels--she’s running wild!’ and braced himself against the wheel, but warn’t braced firm enough, or he warn’t strong enough, for he let her broach, and a sea swept her quarter, burying him and the vessel both. Over the top of the house went that sea and down into the cabin by the ton. They were floated out in the cabin and came tumbling up on deck. Josh Whitaker, a bait knife in his hand, jumped to the main peak halyards.

“The Skipper noticed him. ‘What you goin’ to do?’

“‘Cut,’ says Josh.

“‘You cut, and I’ll cut you!’ The Skipper, too, had a bait-knife, and he lunged with it for Josh. Then he stood guard by the halyards. ‘Or if anybody else thinks to cut’--and we saw the rest of it in his face--dark as it was, we saw that.

“The Skipper was still on guard there when Dan and myself came on deck for our watch. That was eleven o’clock. Dan went for’ard to look out and I took the wheel from Abner, and glad enough he was to turn the wheel over when he gave me the course. I looked in the binnacle to make sure he had it right.

“‘Still on that course?’ I asked, when I’d seen ’twas so. ‘Where’s the Skipper?’

“‘Here,’ said the Skipper himself from between the house and the weather rail, where he was still watching that nobody bothered the halyards, I s’pose. ‘What’s it?’

“‘How about the course?’ I asked.

“‘What’s wrong with the course?’

“‘No’west by west half west--is it right?’

“‘No’west by west half west, or whatever it is--yes. And why not?’

“‘Oh, nothin’, if you say it’s right.’

“‘And why isn’t it right? Why not? Why don’t you spit it out? What’s wrong, anyway?’

“‘What’s wrong?’ I said. ‘Don’t you know we warn’t much more than three hundred miles off shore on this course when we swung her off last night, and we’ve been coming along now for twenty-three hours--and the clip she’s been coming!’

“He said nothing to that for a while, and then it was, ‘And so you don’t think the course is right?’

“‘No, I don’t--not if you’re intending to make Gloucester.’

“‘That so? Not if I was intending to make Gloucester? And where in the name o’ heaven am I headin’ for if not Gloucester?’

“‘Where? where? Damned if I know,’ says I. ‘Hell, maybe.’

“‘That so? Well, Gloucester or hell, drive her you.’