Part 6 (1/2)
”No, I didn't take it--and why? I didn't take it--and why? Because, though the mothers that bore us both were great women--all fire and iron--'twas in me to last longer--you a boy and your first winter fis.h.i.+ng, and me a tough, hard old trawler. And you had all of life before you, and I'd run through some hard years of mine. If I'd gone 'twould have been no great loss, but you, Maurice, innocent as a child--how could I? I'd known men and women, good and bad--I'd lived life and I'd had my chance and thrown it away--but at your age the things you had to learn! Maybe I didn't think it all out like that, but that was why I didn't take the plug strap. But, Maurice-boy, I never forgot it. 'Take the plug strap, you, Tommie,' you says. We were dory-mates, of course, but, Maurice-boy, I'll never forget it.”
Clancy took off his hat and drew his hand across his forehead. ”And where were you bound when we stopped you, Maurice?”
”Oh, I don't know. To take a walk maybe.”
”Sure, and why not? Let's all take a walk. Let's take a walk down to the dock and have a look at the vessel. Too dark? So it is, but we can see the shadow of her masts rising up to the clouds and we can open up the cabin and go below and have a smoke. Come, Maurice. Come on, Joe.”
And down to the cabin of the Johnnie Duncan we went, and Clancy never in such humor. For three hours--from a little after three o'clock until after six--we sat on the lockers, Clancy talking and we smoking and roaring at him. Only the sun coming up over Eastern Point, lighting up the harbor and striking into the cabin of the Johnnie Duncan, brought Clancy to a halt.
He moved then and we with him. We left Maurice at the door of old Mrs.
Arkell's, the old lady herself in the doorway and asking us if we had a good time at the ball. Standing on the steps, before he went in, Maurice said to me: ”Tell your cousin, Joe, that when I do race the Johnnie, I'll take the spars out of her before anything gets by--take the spars out or send her under. I can't do any more than that.”
The Johnnie Duncan was to leave at ten o'clock and so I left Clancy at his boarding-house. He looked tired when I left him. But he was chuckling, too. I asked him what it was that made him smile so.
”I'll give you three guesses,” he said, but I didn't guess.
VIII
THE SEINING FLEET PUTS OUT TO SEA
The rest of that morning, between leaving Clancy and getting back to the dock again, I spent in cleaning up and overhauling my home outfit.
My mother couldn't be made to believe that store bedding was of much use--and she was right, I guess--and so a warranted mattress and blankets and comforters and a pillow were made into a bundle and thrown onto a waiting wagon. Then it was good-by to all--good-by to my cousin Nell, who had come over from her house, good-by and a kiss for her little sister--late for school she was, but didn't care she said--and then good-by to my mother. That took longer. Then it was into the wagon with my bedding and off to the dock.
At Duncan's store I had charged up to me such other stuff as I needed: Two suits of oilskins, yellow and black, two sou'westers, heavy and light, two blue-gray flannel s.h.i.+rts, a black sweater, a pair of rubber boots, two pairs of woollen mitts and four pairs of cotton mitts, five pounds of smoking tobacco, a new pipe, and so on. When I had all my stuff tied up, I swung up abreast of Clancy and together we headed for the end of Duncan's dock, where the Johnnie Duncan lay.
Quite a fleet went out ahead of us that morning. Being a new vessel, there was a lot of things that were not ready until the last minute.
And then there was the new foretopmast--promised at nine o'clock it was--not slung and stayed up until after ten. And then our second seine, which finally we had to leave for Wesley Marrs to take next morning. And there were the usual two or three men late. Clancy and Andie Howe went up to have a farewell drink and were gone so long that the skipper sent me after them. I found them both in the Anchorage, where Clancy had met a man he hadn't seen for ten years--an old dory-mate--thought he was lost five years before in the West Indies.
”But here he is, fine and handsome. Another little touch all around and a cigar for Joe, and we're off for the Southern cruise.”
We left then and started for the dock, with Clancy full of poetry.
There happened to be a young woman looking out of a window on the way down. Clancy did not know her, nor she him, so far as I knew, but something about him seemed to take her eye. She leaned far out and waved her handkerchief at him. That was enough. Clancy broke out--
”The wind blows warm and the wind blows fair, Oh, the wind blows westerly-- Our jibs are up and our anchor's in, For the Duncan's going to sea.
And will you wait for me, sweetheart?
Oh, will you wait for me?
And will you be my love again When I come back from sea?
”Oh, sway away and start her sheets And point her easterly-- It's tackle-pennant, boom her out And turn the Duncan free.
You'll see some sailing now, my boys, We're off for the Southern cruise-- They'll try to hold the Johnnie D, But they'll find it of no use.”
I didn't wait any longer than that for Clancy, but ran ahead to the Duncan. I found her with jibs up and paying off. I was in time to get aboard without trouble, but Clancy and Howe coming later had to make a pier-head jump of it. Clancy, who could leap like a hound--drunk or sober--made it all right with his feet on the end of the bowsprit and his fingers on the balloon stay when he landed, but Howe fell short, and we had the liveliest kind of a time gaffing him in over the bow, he not being able to swim. They must have heard us yelling clear to Eastern Point, I guess. Andie didn't mind. ”I must be with a lot of dogs--have to jump overboard to get aboard.” He spat out what water he had to, and started right in to winch up the mainsail with the gang.
He had on a brand-new suit, good cloth and a fine fit.