Chapter 12

"Sure and I was. And better before the race than in the race. And next day--that's to-day--we spent putting in a new stick. I had to take what I could get to save time, and I don't think it's what it ought to be and maybe it won't last through to-morrow. But, anyway, you want to have an eye out for the Colleen to-morrow, for I'm telling you I never see her sail like she did yesterday coming across the Bay. Ask Tom Lowrie next time you see him. Well, to-night I had to beat down here to be sure and be here in time, and so out we put--and here I am. Blowing? Indeed and it is. And thick, is it? Standing on her knight-heads and looking aft you c'd no more than make out her side-lights. We came along, and Boston inner and outer harbor crowded with vessels, steamers and sail, waiting for it to moderate so they c'd put out. A blessed wonder it was we didn't sink somebody--or ourselves. Outside we went along by smell, I think, for only every once in awhile could we see a light. One time we almost ran into something--a fisherman it must have been, for I s'pose only a fisherman would be going in on a night like this--out of a squall of snow and blackness she came--man alive! but, whoever she was, she was coming a great clip. Winged out and we didn't see her till the end of her bowsprit caught the end of our main-boom--hauled in we were to two blocks--and over we went on the other tack--yes, sir, over on the other tack. Thinks I, ''Tis a new way to jibe a vessel over.' And the end of her fore-boom all but swept me from beside the wheel and over the rail as she went by--she was that close. And I sings out to her, 'Won't you leave us your name so I can thank you next time we meet?' but Lord, not a word out of him. He kept on to Boston, I suppose, and we kept on to Gloucester, and here I am."

"And the Colleen, Tom--she's all right?"

"Right, man? Watch her to-morrow. Barring that forem'st being too light--but whoever looked for a breeze like this?--two days and three nights now and blowing harder all the time. But never mind, she'll make great going of it to-morrow. Divil take it, but we'll all make great going of it. Tommie, dear, what's in the bowl? Milk? Man, but don't be telling me things like that--and the one thing the doctors warn me against is heart-trouble. Ah, milk-punch--that's better, man. A wee droppeen. Look at it--the color of the tip of a comber in twelve fathom of water and a cross-tide. Well, here's to every mother's son of us that's going to race to-morrow. May ye all win if the Colleen don't--all but you, Sam Hollis. But where's he gone--into the other room? Well, if he was here 'twould be the same. He's got a vessel that can sail. Let him sail her to-morrow and win, if it's in her--or in him. But a thousand dollars--and outside my house and vessel, Lord knows, it's all the money I've got in the world--beyond my house and vessel--a thousand dollars the Colleen beats the Withrow. Hello, there--what d'y'say, Sam Hollis--the Colleen and the Withrow--a thousand dollars, boat for boat. But where the divil is he? Gone? Are you sure? Gone! But a queer time to leave a party--just when it's getting to be real sociable."

"Never mind the betting now, Tom," spoke up Wesley Marrs. "Let the owners have that to themselves. And according to accounts some of them are having it. Fred Withrow and old Duncan are ready to go broke over the race to-morrow. Whichever loses, he'll remember this race, I'm thinking. Here's hoping it won't be Duncan. So to the devil with the betting, Tom. Some of us have bet all we could afford--some of us more than we could afford, I callate. Let's have a song instead, Tom."

"Anything to please you, Wesley," and O'Donnell began to sing. He started off first with his

"Oh, seiners all and trawlers all,"

but Alec McNeill and Patsie Oddie interrupted. "Oh, give us the other one, Tom--the Newf'undland and Cape Shore Men."

"Ha!" laughed O'Donnell, "it's the mention of your own you want--you and Patsie there. Well, it's all one to me. Any man from any place, so long as he's a fair man and a brave man, and Lord knows ye're both that. Well, here's to you both--a wee drop just, Tommie--easy--easy," and he began:

"Oh, Newf'undland and Cape Shore men, and men of Gloucester town, With ye I've trawled o'er many banks and sailed the compass roun'; I've ate with ye, and bunked with ye, and watched with ye all three, And better shipmates than ye were I never hope to see. I've seen ye in the wild typhoon beneath a Southern sky, I've seen ye when the Northern gales drove seas to mast-head high, But summer breeze or winter blow, from Hatt'ras to Cape Race, I've yet to see ye with the sign of fear upon your face.

Oh, swingin' cross the Bay Go eighty sail of seiners, And every blessed one of them a-driving to her rail!

There's a gale upon the waters and there's foam upon the sea, And looking out the window is a dark-eyed girl for me, And driving her for Gloucester, maybe we don't know What the little ones are thinking when the mother looks out so. Oh, the children in the cradle and the wife's eyes out to sea, The husband at the helm and looking westerly-- When you get to thinking that way, don't it make your heart's blood foam? Be sure it does--so here's a health to those we love at home.

West half no'the and drive her, we're abreast now of Cape Sable, It's an everlasting hurricane, but here's the craft that's able-- When you get to thinking that way, don't it make your heart's blood foam? Be sure it does--so here's a health to those we love at home.

Oh, the roar of shoaling waters and the awful, awful sea, Busted shrouds and parting cables, and the white death on our lee; Oh, the black, black night on Georges when eight score men were lost-- Were ye there, ye men of Gloucester? Aye, ye were--and tossed Like chips upon the water were your little craft that night, Driving, swearing, calling out, but ne'er a call of fright. So knowing ye for what ye are, ye masters of the sea, Here's to ye, Gloucester fishermen, a health to ye from me.

And here's to it that once again We'll trawl and seine and race again; Here's to us that's living and to them that's gone before; And when to us the Lord says, 'Come!' We'll bow our heads, 'His will be done,' And all together let us go beneath the ocean's roar."

I never again expect to hear a sea song sung as Tom O'Donnell sang it then, his beard still wet with the spray and his eyes glowing like coal-fire. And the voice of him! He must have been heard in half of Gloucester that night. He made the table quiver. And when they all rose with glasses raised and sang the last lines again:

"And here's to it that once again We'll trawl and seine and race again; Here's to us that's living and to them that's gone before; And when to us the Lord says, 'Come!' We'll bow our heads, 'His will be done,' And all together we shall go beneath the ocean's roar----"

any stranger hearing and seeing might have understood why it was that their crews were ready to follow these men to death.

"The like of you, Tom O'Donnell, never sailed the sea," said Patsie Oddie when they had got the last ro-o-ar--"even the young ladies come in off the street to hear you better."

He meant Minnie Arkell, who was standing in the doorway with her eyes fixed on O'Donnell, who had got up to go home, but with Wesley trying to hold him back. He was to the door when Minnie Arkell stopped him. She said she had heard him singing over to her house and couldn't keep away, and then, with a smile and a look into his eyes, she asked O'Donnell what was his hurry--and didn't he remember her?

In her suit of yachting blue, with glowing face and tumbled hair, she was a picture. "Look at her," nudged Clancy--"isn't she a corker? But she's wasting time on Tom O'Donnell."

"What's your hurry, Tom?" called Wesley. "Another song."

"No, no, it's the little woman on the hill. She knew I was to come down to-night and not a wink of sleep will she get till I'm home. And she knows there'll be bad work to-morrow maybe and she'd like to see me a little before I go, and I'd like to see her, too."

"She's a lucky woman, Captain O'Donnell, and you must think a lot of her?" Minnie Arkell had caught his eye once more.

"I don't know that she's so awfully lucky with me on her hands," laughed O'Donnell, "but I do think a lot of her, child."

"Child? to me? But you don't remember me, Captain?"

"Indeed, and I do, and well remember you. And it's the beautiful woman you've grown to be. But you always were a lovely child. It's often my wife spoke of you and wondered how you were. She's heard me speak of your father a hundred times, I know. A brave man your father, girl. And she'll be glad to see you any time, little girl--or the daughter of any fisherman lost at sea. If ever you have a blue day, go to her, for 'tis she has the heart--and, God bless her, an extra weakness for orphans. Her own children some day--there's no telling. But good-night to you, dear"--he patted her head--"good-night all. Wesley, Tommie, Patsie--all of ye, good-night. In the morning we'll have it out." Out the door he went, and I fancied there was almost a blush on Minnie Arkell's face.

Tom O'Donnell was the kind of a man a fellow would like to have for a father.

XXIX

MAURICE BLAKE COMES HOME

From Mrs. Arkell's we walked back to Clancy's boarding house. Clancy wanted to see how they made out with the punch. We found several of them up in the wind, and so no great danger of them. But two or three of them, Dave Campbell particularly, were running wild. "Boomed out and driving," said Clancy, and began to remonstrate with Dave on the evils of intemperance. He went on quite awhile, but Dave showed no signs of remorse. "Wait and I'll fix him," said Clancy, and obeying a motioning with his head two or three of the sober ones followed him out.

He led the way to the wood-shed next door where there was a goat, and the goat we carried up three flights of stairs to Campbell's room. He was a big, able goat, and we had quite a time to get him up stairs. At last we got him tied to the post of Campbell's bed. Then we went down stairs to the kitchen and Clancy persuaded Campbell to go up stairs to bed, which after awhile he did. It was not yet morning and there was no light in the bedroom. We took our position on the landing outside where we could hear everything that went on in Campbell's room, which was just at the head of the stairs.

Dave went in and we could hear him falling over something in the dark. "What's it?" we could hear him, and acting as if he was feeling around. Taking off our shoes we crawled nearer. We could barely make out his shadow in the dark, but we could easily hear him talking to himself. "What's it? Eh, what?" He must have been feeling the horns then, and the goat must have butted him. Again, and once more, for out the door and down the stairs went Dave. We ran in and cut the goat loose and down he went after Dave. The whole three flights they raced.

"He's got me at last," hollered Dave, bolting into the kitchen, slamming the door behind him and bracing himself against it.

We took the goat and put him back in the wood-shed and came back to the kitchen by way of the window. Dave, who was still braced against the door, did not know but what we had been in the kitchen all the time, and that gave Clancy a fine chance to take up his lecture on intemperance just where he had left it off,--at the very beginning. "Intemperance, Dave, is an awful thing. You'll have to be doing something for it soon, I think. Yes, when the devil himself gives you a call it's time to do something. You'd better come with me and take the pledge. Come up now to Father Haley."

"I'm a Pres--a Pres--a Pres--by--ter--ian, Tommie."

"Well, come with me to your church then--any church at all. What's the odds, so long's you reform. Here, we'll do it right here now. Come, hold up your hand," and then and there Clancy was about to get Dave to promise not to look a glass of liquor or punch in the face for a year again, when who comes bouncing in but Eddie Parsons.

"Hurroo!" said Clancy, forgetting Dave and grabbing Eddie by the shoulder, "and the Duncan's home?"

"She is," said Eddie, "and four hundred and fifty barrels of mackerel coming out of her hold. A dozen lumpers getting 'em out from both holds and two at a lick they're coming onto Duncan's Dock. And what d'y'think, Tommie----"

"But what kept you so long, man? We've all been getting heart disease waiting for you."

"I know. We ought to've been in yesterday mornin', or in the afternoon at the latest, for we swung her off Tuesday night midnight--plenty of time with a fair wind. But on Wednesday afternoon, coming like a race-horse--wung out--we sighted a dory and two men in it signalizing. Astray they were, and we took 'em aboard, and all that night we stood by. And warn't it chafing? Oh, no! Daylight came thick and we waited for it to clear, keeping the horn goin'. It lifted and we got another dory, but it was late afternoon then. Then their vessel came along with all the others accounted for, and we turned over our two and went on our way. And maybe she didn't come! Oh, no! Blowing? A living gale all the time, but the skipper kept her going. You'd hardly b'lieve if I told you where we was yesterday afternoon and we here now. A no'the-easter and a howler all the way. At four o'clock we passed in by the bell-buoy. Man, such a blow! Are we in the race, you say? Are we! And oh, the skipper says for you and Joe to be down after breakfast. We all knew you'd get home and be all right with Tom O'Donnell. So be down after breakfast--the skipper will be looking for you both. But say, let me tell you. What d'y'think? Coming into the harbor a while ago who d'y' s'pose was out in the stream with a lighter alongside his vessel? Who but Sam Hollis and the Withrow. Yes, and the gang putting ballast back in her."

"No?"

"Yes. And some one of them sees us going by in the dark. And we did go by, too! 'Lord!' says somebody--'twas Withrow himself--'but if that don't look like the ghost of Maurice Blake's vessel!' 'Yes,' hollers back the skipper--and they must've been some surprised to hear him--'and the ghost'll be with you to-morrow in the race. Yes,' the skipper says, 'and we're all ready for it. Four weeks since we've been on the ways and maybe a scrubbing wouldn't hurt her, but if it keeps a-blowin' who'll mind that? Not the Johnnie.' Oh, Tommie, if you'd seen her comin' across the Bay of Fundy yesterday afternoon and last night. Did she come?--did she come? Lord--O Lord----"

"And so that's Withrow--got his vessel tuned up like a fiddle and now he's putting extra ballast in her. Blast him and Hollis for schemers!" said Clancy. "And that's how it comes they're so ready to bet--stiffenin' her so stiff for to-morrow that they know something'll happen to the others first. But the Johnnie's a bit stiff, too--and there's no ballast out of her. And, as the skipper says, maybe we ain't been on the ways for a few weeks now, but Lord, the Johnnie ought to be able to drag a few little blades of sea-grass on her hull in this breeze. And so we're in the race, heh? Dave, I can't stop to give you the pledge now--

Oh, the Johnnie Duncan fast and able, Good-by, dear, good-by, my Mabel."

And Clancy was the joyful man as he awoke the echoes in the gray of that stormy morning.

XXX

THE MORNING OF THE RACE

I don't think that the people of Gloucester will ever forget the morning of that race, which, they will still tell you, was the only race ever sailed. Wind was what the fishermen wanted, and they got it--wind, and sea with it. The admiral of the White Squadron, then at anchor at Rockport Harbor, just around the Cape, stood on the bridge of his flagship that morning and looked out to sea. Somebody told him that the fishermen were going to race that day. He took another look. "Race to-day? Pooh! they'll do well to stay hove-to to-day." Of course, that ought to have settled it, the admiral having said it.

It blew that day. Leaving home I had time for a bite to eat and a wash-up. I turned the corner and picked up Clancy, with Maurice Blake, Tom O'Donnell and Wesley Marrs just ahead. We ran into Mr. Edkins, a nice old gentleman, who had been made secretary of the race committee. What he didn't know about fishing would be the making of a "killer," but, of course, he wasn't picked out for that--he'd never fished a day in his life--but because of his knowledge of the rules of yacht racing. Having had long experience in managing yachting regattas, he knew all about time allowances and sail measurements--though there were to be no allowances of any kind here. It was to be boat for boat in this race; every vessel for herself. So he was thought to be a good man to have to look after the stake and judges' boats. It was Gloucester's Anniversary celebration, with a lot of strangers in town--the Governor and a whole holdful of national characters--and in deference to them the race was to be managed so that spectators might have a chance to see it.

Mr. Edkins came along in his official regalia--tall hat, frock coat, umbrella, gloves, and a pink in his button-hole.

"Is it true, Captain O'Donnell, that the race is going to be held to-day?"

O'Donnell looked at him as though he didn't understand. "To-day? to-day?--Good Lord, are we all on the wrong tack? And sure isn't this the day?"

"Oh, yes--oh, yes, Captain O'Donnell, this is the day appointed. And that is the trouble. Surely you are not going to race to-day?"

"We're not going to--" broke in Wesley Marrs, "and why aren't we going to race to-day? What in the name of all that's good have we been doing with our vessels up on the railway the last week or two? What d'y'think we took the ballast out of our vessels for? What d'y'think I had that everlasting new balloon made for last trip in, what for that big mains'l that Tom here had bent on the Colleen yesterday, and for what did Maurice drive the Johnnie Duncan home only last night? What in----"

"Wait, Captain, wait. What I mean is, do you know how it is outside? They've telegraphed me that up in Boston Harbor there won't be a steamer leave the harbor to-day--it's as stormy as that. There are two big ocean liners--and we've got word that they won't leave--won't dare to leave--not a steamer of any kind will leave Boston Harbor to-day. And outside a heavy sea running--with the wind fifty-four miles an hour, the weather bureau says. Fifty-four miles an hour. That's not street corner talk--it's official. And----"

"Divil take it, does being official make it blow any harder?" asked O'Donnell.

"And I know the way you fishermen will try to carry on. I know, I know--don't tell me you're careful. I tell you, Captain O'Donnell, and you, Captain Marrs, I tell you all--that if you persist in racing to-day I wash my hands of the whole affair--completely wash my----"

"Well, 'tis a fine wash day, too. Come, Wesley--come, Maurice, we'll have to be getting on."

They left Mr. Edkins standing there. A little farther on they overtook the manager of the insurance company, which had policies on most of the fishing vessels. He was just about to enter his office when O'Donnell spied him. "Hullo, there's the man I want to see--" and hailed, "Just heave to a minute, Mr. Brooks, if you please. Now look here, you know we've took a few pigs of iron out our vessels, and you know it looks like a bit of weather outside. Now, what I want to know is if I capsize the Colleen Bawn to-day--if I don't come home with her--does my wife get the insurance? That's what I want to know--does my wife get the insurance?"

Mr. Brooks looked at O'Donnell, rubbed his chin and scratched his head, then looked at O'Donnell again. "Why, I suppose it all comes under the usual risk of fishing vessels. I suppose so--but--h-m--it will be pretty risky, won't it? But let me see--wait a moment now--there's the President inside, and Mr. Emerson, too--he's a director."

He went inside, and we could see that they were talking it over. Pretty soon they all came out with the President of the company in front. "Good-morning, Captain O'Donnell--Captain Marrs, good-morning. How do you do, Maurice? Captain O'Donnell, take it from me as official, your insurance on the Colleen Bawn is safe. For the honor and glory of old Gloucester go ahead and sink her."

"And the Lucy Foster?" asked Wesley.

"And the Lucy Foster, Captain Marrs."

"Of course the Johnnie Duncan, speaking for the owners?" asked Maurice.

"For every vessel that we insure that leaves the harbor to race to-day."

"Hurroo!" said O'Donnell. "Don't tell me, Wesley, I'm no--what's it?--dip-lo-mat. Yes, dip-lo-mat, by the Lord!"

But it certainly was a desperate morning for a race. The streets seemed to be full of men ready to go out. There were to be only nine vessels in the race, but another half dozen vessels were going over to see it, and that meant more than three or four hundred able fishermen going out. The men that were going to stay ashore would go up to those that were going out and say, "Well, good-by, old man. If you don't come back, why, you know your grave'll be kept green." And the men going out would grin and say, "That's all right, boy, but if she goes, she'll go with every rag on her," in a half-joking way, too, but it was the belief that morning that there might be a whole lot of truth in that kind of joking.

Before we reached the dock we knew that the whole town had learned pretty much that half a dozen of the skippers had promised each other in Mrs. Arkell's kitchen the night before, "No sail comes off except what's blown off," and there promised to be some blown off. Men who had only just heard their skippers speak of that were bragging of it in the streets. "Why," said one of O'Donnell's crew as we were coming down the dock, "if any crawly-spined crawfish loses his nerve and jumps to our halyards, thinkin' the Colleen's going to capsize--why, he'll get fooled--and why? Because our halyards are all housed aloft--by the skipper's orders."