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THE SEINERS

by

JAMES B. CONNOLLY

Author of "Out of Gloucester," "Jeb Hutton," Etc.







[Illustration: IT WAS THE FINEST KIND OF EXCITEMENT, OUR RUNNING TO
HARBOR]



Charles Scribner's Sons
New York 1910

Copyright, 1904, by
Charles Scribner's Sons

Published, May, 1904




CONTENTS

        I. THE NEW VESSEL OF WITHROW'S                               1
       II. A LITTLE JOG ALONG THE DOCKS                              8
      III. MINNIE ARKELL                                            16
       IV. LITTLE JOHNNIE DUNCAN STANDS EXAMINATION                 27
        V. FROM OUT OF CROW'S NEST                                  35
       VI. MAURICE BLAKE GETS A VESSEL                              43
      VII. CLANCY CROSSES MINNIE ARKELL                             51
     VIII. THE SEINING FLEET PUTS OUT TO SEA                        61
       IX. MACKEREL                                                 70
        X. WE LOSE OUR SEINE                                        82
       XI. AN OVER-NIGHT BREEZE                                     87
      XII. THE FLEET RUNS TO HARBOR                                 99
     XIII. WESLEY MARRS BRINGS A MESSAGE                           119
      XIV. A PROSPECT OF NIGHT-SEINING                             123
       XV. CLANCY TO THE MAST-HEAD                                 129
      XVI. WE GET A FINE SCHOOL                                    137
     XVII. A DRIVE FOR MARKET                                      144
    XVIII. A BRUSH WITH THE YACHTING FLEET                         153
      XIX. MINNIE ARKELL AGAIN                                     159
       XX. THE SKIPPER PUTS FOR HOME                               172
      XXI. SEINERS' WORK                                           175
     XXII. ON THE CAPE SHORE                                       184
    XXIII. DRESSING DOWN                                           193
     XXIV. THE WITHROW OUTSAILS THE DUNCAN                         202
      XXV. TROUBLE WITH THE DOMINION CUTTERS                       206
     XXVI. THE GOSSIP IN GLOUCESTER                                211
    XXVII. IN CLANCY'S BOARDING-HOUSE                              217
   XXVIII. IN THE ARKELL KITCHEN                                   220
     XXIX. MAURICE BLAKE COMES HOME                                230
      XXX. THE MORNING OF THE RACE                                 235
     XXXI. THE START OF THE RACE                                   243
    XXXII. O'DONNELL CARRIES AWAY BOTH MASTS                       250
   XXXIII. THE ABLE JOHNNIE DUNCAN                                 257
    XXXIV. MINNIE ARKELL ONCE MORE                                 265
     XXXV. CLANCY LAYS DOWN THE LAW                                271
    XXXVI. MAURICE BLAKE IS RECALLED                               281
   XXXVII. THE GIRL IN CANSO                                       289
  XXXVIII. THE DUNCAN GOES TO THE WEST'ARD                         297
    XXXIX. THE HEART OF CLANCY                                     309




THE SEINERS




THE SEINERS

I

THE NEW VESSEL OF WITHROW'S


It was only a few days before this that the new vessel of Mr.
Withrow's, built by him, as everybody supposed, for Maurice Blake, had
been towed around from Essex, and I remember how Maurice stood on the
dock that afternoon and looked her over.

There was not a bolt or a plank or a seam in her whole hull, not a
square inch inside or out, that he had not been over half a dozen
times while she was on the stocks; but now he had to look her over
again, and as he looked his eyes took on a shine. She had been
designed by a man famous the world over, and was intended to beat
anything that ever sailed past Eastern Point.

She certainly was a great-looking model of a vessel, and "If she only
sails and handles half so well as she looks, she'll do for me," said
Maurice. "Yes, sir, and if she's up to what I think she ought to be, I
wouldn't be afraid to bet my share of what we make out South that
she'll hold her own with anything out of Gloucester--give her a few
weeks to loosen up, of course."

That was a good deal to say, for it was a great fleet of vessels
sailing out of Gloucester; but even so, even allowing for a young
skipper's pride in his first crack vessel, it meant a whole lot coming
like that from Maurice Blake.

And on top of all that Maurice and Withrow had to quarrel, though what
about I never found out. I only know that I was ready to believe that
Withrow was to blame, for I liked Maurice and did not like Withrow,
even though Withrow was the man from whom I drew my pay every week.
And yet I could not understand it, for Maurice Blake had been far and
away the most successful skipper sailing for Withrow, and Withrow
always had a good eye for the dollar.

No more came of it until this particular morning, some days after
Maurice and Withrow had quarrelled. Wesley Marrs and Tommie Clancy,
two men that I never tired of listening to, were on the dock and
sizing up the new vessel. Wesley Marrs was himself a great fisherman,
and master at this time of the wonderful Lucy Foster.

    When she swings the main boom over
      And she feels the wind abaft,

    The way she'll walk to Gloucester'll
      Make a steamer look a raft.

    For she's the Lucy Foster,
    She's a seiner out of Gloucester,--

was the way the fishermen of the port used to sing about the Lucy;
while Tommie Clancy was Maurice Blake's closest friend.

With ballast stored, masts stepped, rigging set up, and sails bent,
setting as sweet as could be to her lines and the lumpers beginning to
get her ready for the mackerel season, the Fred Withrow was certainly
a picture.

After a couple of extra long pulls, blowing the smoke into the air,
and another look above and below, "That one--she'll sail some or I
don't know," said Wesley.

"She sure will," said Tommie; "and it's a jeesly shame Maurice isn't
to have her." Then turning to me, "What in the devil's name ails that
man you work for, Joey?"

I said I didn't know.

"No, nor nobody else knows. I'd like to work in that store for him for
about ten minutes. I think I'd make him say something in that ten
minutes that would give me a good excuse for heaving him out the
window. He had an argument with Maurice, Wesley, and Maurice don't
know what it was half about, but he knows he came near to punching
Withrow."

And Wesley and Tommie had to talk that out; and between the pair of
them, thinking of what they said, I thought I ought to walk back to
the store with barely a civil look for my employer, who didn't like
that at all, for he generally wanted to hand out the black looks
himself.

Then the girls--my cousin Nellie and her particular chum, Alice
Foster--came in to weigh themselves, and also to remind me, they said,
that I was to take them over to Essex the next day for the launching
of the new vessel for the Duncan firm, which had been designed by a
friend of Nell's, a young fellow named Will Somers, who was just
beginning to get a name in Gloucester for fast and able models of
vessels. Withrow, who was not over-liberal with his holidays, said I
might go--mostly, I suspect, because Alice Foster had said she would
not make the trip without Nell, and Nell would not go unless I went
too.

Then Nell and Miss Foster went on with the business of weighing
themselves. That was in line with the latest fad. It was always
something or other, and physical culture was in the air at this time
with every other girl in Gloucester, so far as I could see--either
Indian-club swinging or dumb-bell drilling, long walks, and things of
that kind, and telling how much better they felt after it. My cousin
Nell, who went in for anything that anybody ever told her about, was
trying to reduce her weight. According to some perfect-form charts, or
something or other on printed sheets, she weighed seven pounds more
than she should for her height. I thought she was about the right
weight myself, and told her so, but she said no--she was positively
fat. "Look at Alice," she said, "she's just the thing."

I looked at Alice--Miss Foster I always called her myself--and
certainly she was a lovely girl, though perhaps a little too conscious
of it. She was one of the few that weren't going in for anything that
I could see. She wasn't even weighing herself, or at least she didn't
until Mr. Withrow, with his company manners in fine working order,
asked her if she wouldn't allow him to weigh her.

There were people in town who said it was not for nothing that
Alice Foster was so chummy with my cousin Nell. They meant, of
course, that being chummy with Nell, who came down regularly to see
me, gave herself a good excuse to come along and so have a word with
Withrow. Fred Withrow himself was a big, well-built, handsome
man--an unusually good-looking man, I'd call him--and a great
heart-breaker, according to report--some of it his own. And he was
wealthy, too. I did not know, but somehow or other I did not believe
it, or maybe it was that I hoped rather than believed that Miss
Foster did not care particularly for him; for I did not like him
myself, although I worked for him and was taking his money. Being day
in and day out with him in the store, you see I saw him pretty much
as he really was, and I hated to think of a fine girl--for with
all her cool ways I knew Miss Foster was that--marrying him. Just
how Withrow thought he stood with Miss Foster I did not know--he
was a pretty close-mouthed man when he wanted to be. Miss Foster
herself was that reserved kind of a girl that you cannot always
place. She struck me as being a girl that would die before she would
confess a weakness or a troublesome feeling. And yet, without
knowing how it came there, there was always a notion in the back of
my head that made me half-believe that she did not come to the
store with my cousin out of pure companionship. There was something
besides--and what could it be but Withrow?

After the weighing was done Nell asked me all at once, "I hear, Joe,
that Captain Hollis is going to have your new vessel? How is that?
We--I thought that Captain Blake was going master of her--and such a
pretty vessel!"

I answered that I didn't know how it was, and looked over at my
employer, as much as to say, "Maybe he can tell you."

I think now that I must have been a pretty impudent lad, letting my
employer know what I thought of him as I did in those days. I think,
too, he had a pretty shrewd notion of what I thought of himself and
Maurice Blake. At any rate, after the girls had gone, he worked
himself into a fine bit of temper, and I talked back at him, and the
end of it was that he discharged me--or 1 quit--I'm not sure which. I
do know that it was rapid-fire talk while it lasted.

It was some satisfaction to me to tell Withrow just about what I did
think of him before I went. He didn't quite throw me out of the door,
although he was big enough for that; but he looked as if he wanted to.
And maybe he would have, too, or tried it, only I said, "Mind I don't
give you what Tommie Clancy threatened to give you once," and his
nerve went flat. I couldn't have handled him as Clancy had any more
than I could have hove a barrel of salt mackerel over my head, which
was what the strong fishermen of the port were doing about that time
to prove their strength; but the bluff went, and I couldn't help
throwing out my chest as I went out the door and thinking that I was
getting to be a great judge of human nature.




II

A LITTLE JOG ALONG THE DOCKS


I was sorry to lose my job. I was twenty years old, without a trade or
special knowledge of any kind, and beyond the outfitting of fishing
vessels, knowing nothing of any business, and with no more than a high
school education--and that two years behind me--and I knew of no place
in Gloucester where I could begin all over and right away get as much
pay as I had left behind me. I might go to Boston, of course, and try
for something there--I was not ten minutes out of Withrow's before I
thought of doing that. But a little further thought and I knew there
were more capable men than I walking the streets of Boston looking for
work. However, a lot could happen before I would have to worry, and so
I decided to take the air and think it over.

I might go fishing certainly--I had had a little experience in my
school vacations--if my mother would only stand for it. As to that I
did not know. If it came to fishing or starving--one or the
other--then of course she would have to let me go fishing. But my
father had been lost on the Grand Banks with his vessel and all
hands--and then one brother was already fishing. So I hardly thought
she would allow me, and anyway I knew she would never have a good
night's rest while I was out.

However, I kept thinking it over. To get away by myself I took a ride
over to Essex. There I knew I would find half a dozen vessels on the
stocks, and there they were--the latest vessel for the Duncan firm and
three more for other firms. I knew one of the ship-carpenters in
Elwell's yard, Levi Woodbury, and he was telling me about some of the
vessels that had been launched lately. "Of course," he said, "you saw
the one launched a few days ago from here--that one built for Mr.
Withrow?"

I said I had, and that she was a wonder to look at and that I wished
Maurice Blake, and not Sam Hollis, was to have her.

"Yes," said Levi, "and a pity. Maurice Blake could have sailed her
right, though for that matter Sam Hollis is a clever hand to sail a
vessel, too. And she ought to sail some, that vessel. But look
here at this one for the Duncans and to be launched to-morrow.
Designed by Will Somers--know him? Yes? A nice young fellow. Ain't she
able-looking?"

She certainly was, and handsome, and Levi went on to tell me about
her. He showed me where she was like and where she differed from the
Lucy Foster, the Fred Withrow, the Nannie O, the Colleen Bawn, and the
others which were then causing trouble in Gloucester with crews
fighting over their good qualities. I did not know a whole lot about
vessels, but having been born in Gloucester and having soaked in the
atmosphere all my life and loving vessels besides, I had a lot of
notions about them. And I liked this last Duncan vessel. By the wind
and in a sea-way, it struck me she would be a wonder. There was
something more than just the fine lines of her. There is that about
vessels. You can take two vessels, model them alike, rig them alike,
handle them alike, and still one will sail rings around the other. And
why is it? I've heard a hundred fishermen at different times say that
and then ask, Why is it? This one was awfully sharp forward, too sharp
some might have said, with little more forefoot than most of the
late-built flyers; but she was deep and had a quarter that I knew
would stand up under her sail. I liked the after-part of her. Racing
machines are all right for a few months or a year or two and in smooth
water, but give me a vessel that can stand up under sail. I thought I
could see where, if they gave her sail enough, especially aft, and a
skipper that would drive her, she might do great things. And
certainly she ought to be a comfort in a blow and bring a fellow
home--and there's a whole lot in that--being in a vessel that you feel
will bring you home again.

I looked over the others, but none of them held me like the Duncan
vessel, and I soon came back to Gloucester and took a walk along the
waterfront.

It was well into March at this time--the third week in March, I
remember--and there was a great business doing along the docks. The
salt bankers were almost ready to leave--twenty-eight or thirty sail
fitting out for the Grand Banks. And then there were the seiners--the
mackerel catchers--seventy or eighty sail of them making ready for the
Southern cruise. All that meant that things would be humming for a
while. So I took a walk along the docks to see it.

Most of the vessels that had been fishing during the winter had been
stripped of their winter sails, and now aboard these they were bending
on the summer suits and sl