"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS"

A STORY OF THE GRAND BANKS

by

Rudyard Kipling

 TO JAMES CONLAND, M. D. , Brattleboro, Vermont

 I ploughed the land with horses, But my heart was ill at ease, For the old sea-faring men Came to me now and then, With their sagas of the seas. 

 Longfellow. 

CHAPTER I

The weather door of the smoking-room had been left open to the NorthAtlantic fog, as the big liner rolled and lifted, whistling to warn thefishing-fleet. 

"That Cheyne boy's the biggest nuisance aboard, " said a man in a friezeovercoat, shutting the door with a bang. "He isn't wanted here. He'stoo fresh. "

A white-haired German reached for a sandwich, and grunted betweenbites: "I know der breed. Ameriga is full of dot kind. I dell you youshould imbort ropes' ends free under your dariff. "

"Pshaw! There isn't any real harm to him. He's more to be pitied thananything, " a man from New York drawled, as he lay at full length alongthe cushions under the wet skylight. "They've dragged him around fromhotel to hotel ever since he was a kid. I was talking to his motherthis morning. She's a lovely lady, but she don't pretend to manage him. He's going to Europe to finish his education. "

"Education isn't begun yet. " This was a Philadelphian, curled up in acorner. "That boy gets two hundred a month pocket-money, he told me. Heisn't sixteen either. "

"Railroads, his father, aind't it?" said the German. 

"Yep. That and mines and lumber and shipping. Built one place at SanDiego, the old man has; another at Los Angeles; owns half a dozenrailroads, half the lumber on the Pacific slope, and lets his wifespend the money, " the Philadelphian went on lazily. "The West don'tsuit her, she says. She just tracks around with the boy and her nerves, trying to find out what'll amuse him, I guess. Florida, Adirondacks, Lakewood, Hot Springs, New York, and round again. He isn't much morethan a second-hand hotel clerk now. When he's finished in Europe he'llbe a holy terror. "

"What's the matter with the old man attending to him personally?" saida voice from the frieze ulster. 

"Old man's piling up the rocks. 'Don't want to be disturbed, I guess. He'll find out his error a few years from now. 'Pity, because there's aheap of good in the boy if you could get at it. "

"Mit a rope's end; mit a rope's end!" growled the German. 

Once more the door banged, and a slight, slim-built boy perhaps fifteenyears old, a half-smoked cigarette hanging from one corner of hismouth, leaned in over the high footway. His pasty yellow complexion didnot show well on a person of his years, and his look was a mixture ofirresolution, bravado, and very cheap smartness. He was dressed in acherry-coloured blazer, knickerbockers, red stockings, and bicycleshoes, with a red flannel cap at the back of the head. After whistlingbetween his teeth, as he eyed the company, he said in a loud, highvoice: "Say, it's thick outside. You can hear the fish-boats squawkingall around us. Say, wouldn't it be great if we ran down one?"

"Shut the door, Harvey, " said the New Yorker. "Shut the door and stayoutside. You're not wanted here. "

"Who'll stop me?" he answered, deliberately. "Did you pay for mypassage, Mister Martin? 'Guess I've as good right here as the next man. "

He picked up some dice from a checkerboard and began throwing, righthand against left. 

"Say, gen'elmen, this is deader'n mud. Can't we make a game of pokerbetween us?"

There was no answer, and he puffed his cigarette, swung his legs, anddrummed on the table with rather dirty fingers. Then he pulled out aroll of bills as if to count them. 

"How's your mamma this afternoon?" a man said. "I didn't see her atlunch. "

"In her state-room, I guess. She's 'most always sick on the ocean. I'mgoing to give the stewardess fifteen dollars for looking after her. Idon't go down more 'n I can avoid. It makes me feel mysterious to passthat butler's-pantry place. Say, this is the first time I've been onthe ocean. "

"Oh, don't apologize, Harvey. "

"Who's apologizing? This is the first time I've crossed the ocean, gen'elmen, and, except the first day, I haven't been sick one littlebit. No, sir!" He brought down his fist with a triumphant bang, wettedhis finger, and went on counting the bills. 

"Oh, you're a high-grade machine, with the writing in plain sight, " thePhiladelphian yawned. "You'll blossom into a credit to your country ifyou don't take care. "

"I know it. I'm an American--first, last, and all the time. I'll show'em that when I strike Europe. Piff! My cig's out. I can't smoke thetruck the steward sells. Any gen'elman got a real Turkish cig on him?"

The chief engineer entered for a moment, red, smiling, and wet. "Say, Mac, " cried Harvey cheerfully, "how are we hitting it?"

"Vara much in the ordinary way, " was the grave reply. "The young are aspolite as ever to their elders, an' their elders are e'en tryin' toappreciate it. "

A low chuckle came from a corner. The German opened his cigar-case andhanded a skinny black cigar to Harvey. 

"Dot is der broper apparatus to smoke, my young friendt, " he said. "Youvill dry it? Yes? Den you vill be efer so happy. "

Harvey lit the unlovely thing with a flourish: he felt that he wasgetting on in grownup society. 

"It would take more 'n this to keel me over, " he said, ignorant that hewas lighting that terrible article, a Wheeling "stogie". 

"Dot we shall bresently see, " said the German. "Where are we now, Mr. Mactonal'?"

"Just there or thereabouts, Mr. Schaefer, " said the engineer. "We'll beon the Grand Bank to-night; but in a general way o' speakin', we're allamong the fishing-fleet now. We've shaved three dories an' near scalpedthe boom off a Frenchman since noon, an' that's close sailing', ye maysay. "

"You like my cigar, eh?" the German asked, for Harvey's eyes were fullof tears. 

"Fine, full flavor, " he answered through shut teeth. "Guess we'veslowed down a little, haven't we? I'll skip out and see what the logsays. "

"I might if I vhas you, " said the German. 

Harvey staggered over the wet decks to the nearest rail. He was veryunhappy; but he saw the deck-steward lashing chairs together, and, since he had boasted before the man that he was never seasick, hispride made him go aft to the second-saloon deck at the stern, which wasfinished in a turtle-back. The deck was deserted, and he crawled to theextreme end of it, near the flag-pole. There he doubled up in limpagony, for the Wheeling "stogie" joined with the surge and jar of thescrew to sieve out his soul. His head swelled; sparks of fire dancedbefore his eyes; his body seemed to lose weight, while his heelswavered in the breeze. He was fainting from seasickness, and a roll ofthe ship tilted him over the rail on to the smooth lip of theturtle-back. Then a low, gray mother-wave swung out of the fog, tuckedHarvey under one arm, so to speak, and pulled him off and away toleeward; the great green closed over him, and he went quietly to sleep. 

He was roused by the sound of a dinner-horn such as they used to blowat a summer-school he had once attended in the Adirondacks. Slowly heremembered that he was Harvey Cheyne, drowned and dead in mid-ocean, but was too weak to fit things together. A new smell filled hisnostrils; wet and clammy chills ran down his back, and he washelplessly full of salt water. When he opened his eyes, he perceivedthat he was still on the top of the sea, for it was running round himin silver-coloured hills, and he was lying on a pile of half-dead fish, looking at a broad human back clothed in a blue jersey. 

"It's no good, " thought the boy. "I'm dead, sure enough, and this thingis in charge. "

He groaned, and the figure turned its head, showing a pair of littlegold rings half hidden in curly black hair. 

"Aha! You feel some pretty well now?" it said. "Lie still so: we trimbetter. "

With a swift jerk he sculled the flickering boat-head on to a foamlesssea that lifted her twenty full feet, only to slide her into a glassypit beyond. But this mountain-climbing did not interrupt blue-jersey'stalk. "Fine good job, I say, that I catch you. Eh, wha-at? Better goodjob, I say, your boat not catch me. How you come to fall out?"

"I was sick, " said Harvey; "sick, and couldn't help it. "

"Just in time I blow my horn, and your boat she yaw a little. Then Isee you come all down. Eh, wha-at? I think you are cut into baits bythe screw, but you dreeft--dreeft to me, and I make a big fish of you. So you shall not die this time. "

"Where am I?" said Harvey, who could not see that life was particularlysafe where he lay. 

"You are with me in the dory--Manuel my name, and I come from schooner_We're Here_ of Gloucester. I live to Gloucester. By-and-by we getsupper. Eh, wha-at?"

He seemed to have two pairs of hands and a head of cast-iron, for, notcontent with blowing through a big conch-shell, he must needs stand upto it, swaying with the sway of the flat-bottomed dory, and send agrinding, thuttering shriek through the fog. How long thisentertainment lasted, Harvey could not remember, for he lay backterrified at the sight of the smoking swells. He fancied he heard a gunand a horn and shouting. Something bigger than the dory, but quite aslively, loomed alongside. Several voices talked at once; he was droppedinto a dark, heaving hole, where men in oilskins gave him a hot drinkand took off his clothes, and he fell asleep. 

When he waked he listened for the first breakfast-bell on the steamer, wondering why his state-room had grown so small. Turning, he lookedinto a narrow, triangular cave, lit by a lamp hung against a hugesquare beam. A three-cornered table within arm's reach ran from theangle of the bows to the foremast. At the after end, behind a well-usedPlymouth stove, sat a boy about his own age, with a flat red face and apair of twinkling gray eyes. He was dressed in a blue jersey and highrubber boots. Several pairs of the same sort of foot-wear, an old cap, and some worn-out woollen socks lay on the floor, and black and yellowoilskins swayed to and fro beside the bunks. The place was packed asfull of smells as a bale is of cotton. The oilskins had a peculiarlythick flavor of their own which made a sort of background to the smellsof fried fish, burnt grease, paint, pepper, and stale tobacco; butthese, again, were all hooped together by one encircling smell of shipand salt water. Harvey saw with disgust that there were no sheets onhis bed-place. He was lying on a piece of dingy ticking full of lumpsand nubbles. Then, too, the boat's motion was not that of a steamer. She was neither sliding nor rolling, but rather wriggling herself aboutin a silly, aimless way, like a colt at the end of a halter. Water-noises ran by close to his ear, and beams creaked and whinedabout him. All these things made him grunt despairingly and think ofhis mother. 

"Feelin' better?" said the boy, with a grin. "Hev some coffee?" Hebrought a tin cup full and sweetened it with molasses. 

"Isn't there milk?" said Harvey, looking round the dark double tier ofbunks as if he expected to find a cow there. 

"Well, no, " said the boy. "Ner there ain't likely to be till 'baoutmid-September. 'Tain't bad coffee. I made it. "

Harvey drank in silence, and the boy handed him a plate full of piecesof crisp fried pork, which he ate ravenously. 

"I've dried your clothes. Guess they've shrunk some, " said the boy. "They ain't our style much--none of 'em. Twist round an' see if you'rehurt any. "

Harvey stretched himself in every direction, but could not report anyinjuries. 

"That's good, " the boy said heartily. "Fix yerself an' go on deck. Dadwants to see you. I'm his son, --Dan, they call me, --an' I'm cook'shelper an' everything else aboard that's too dirty for the men. Thereain't no boy here 'cep' me sence Otto went overboard--an' he was only aDutchy, an' twenty year old at that. How'd you come to fall off in adead flat ca'am?"

"'Twasn't a calm, " said Harvey, sulkily. "It was a gale, and I wasseasick. Guess I must have rolled over the rail. "

"There was a little common swell yes'day an' last night, " said the boy. "But ef thet's your notion of a gale----" He whistled. "You'll knowmore 'fore you're through. Hurry! Dad's waitin'. "

Like many other unfortunate young people, Harvey had never in all hislife received a direct order--never, at least, without long, andsometimes tearful, explanations of the advantages of obedience and thereasons for the request. Mrs. Cheyne lived in fear of breaking hisspirit, which, perhaps, was the reason that she herself walked on theedge of nervous prostration. He could not see why he should be expectedto hurry for any man's pleasure, and said so. "Your dad can come downhere if he's so anxious to talk to me. I want him to take me to NewYork right away. It'll pay him. "

Dan opened his eyes as the size and beauty of this joke dawned on him. "Say, Dad!" he shouted up the foc'sle hatch, "he says you kin slip downan' see him ef you're anxious that way. 'Hear, Dad?"

The answer came back in the deepest voice Harvey had ever heard from ahuman chest: "Quit foolin', Dan, and send him to me. "

Dan sniggered, and threw Harvey his warped bicycle shoes. There wassomething in the tones on the deck that made the boy dissemble hisextreme rage and console himself with the thought of graduallyunfolding the tale of his own and his father's wealth on the voyagehome. This rescue would certainly make him a hero among his friends forlife. He hoisted himself on deck up a perpendicular ladder, andstumbled aft, over a score of obstructions, to where a small, thick-set, clean-shaven man with gray eyebrows sat on a step that ledup to the quarter-deck. The swell had passed in the night, leaving along, oily sea, dotted round the horizon with the sails of a dozenfishing-boats. Between them lay little black specks, showing where thedories were out fishing. The schooner, with a triangular riding-sail onthe mainmast, played easily at anchor, and except for the man by thecabin-roof--"house" they call it--she was deserted. 

"Mornin'--Good afternoon, I should say. You've nigh slep' the clockround, young feller, " was the greeting. 

"Mornin', " said Harvey. He did not like being called "young feller";and, as one rescued from drowning, expected sympathy. His mothersuffered agonies whenever he got his feet wet; but this mariner did notseem excited. 

"Naow let's hear all abaout it. It's quite providential, first an'last, fer all concerned. What might be your name? Where from (wemistrust it's Noo York), an' where baound (we mistrust it's Europe)?"

Harvey gave his name, the name of the steamer, and a short history ofthe accident, winding up with a demand to be taken back immediately toNew York, where his father would pay anything any one chose to name. 

"H'm, " said the shaven man, quite unmoved by the end of Harvey'sspeech. "I can't say we think special of any man, or boy even, thatfalls overboard from that kind o' packet in a flat ca'am. Least of allwhen his excuse is that he's seasick. "

"Excuse!" cried Harvey. "D'you suppose I'd fall overboard into yourdirty little boat for fun?"

"Not knowin' what your notions o' fun may be, I can't rightly say, young feller. But if I was you, I wouldn't call the boat which, underProvidence, was the means o' savin' ye, names. In the first place, it'sblame irreligious. In the second, it's annoyin' to my feelin's--an' I'mDisko Troop o' the _We're Here_ o' Gloucester, which you don't seemrightly to know. "

"I don't know and I don't care, " said Harvey. "I'm grateful enough forbeing saved and all that, of course! but I want you to understand thatthe sooner you take me back to New York the better it'll pay you. "

"Meanin'--haow?" Troop raised one shaggy eyebrow over a suspiciouslymild blue eye. 

"Dollars and cents, " said Harvey, delighted to think that he was makingan impression. "Cold dollars and cents. " He thrust a hand into apocket, and threw out his stomach a little, which was his way of beinggrand. "You've done the best day's work you ever did in your life whenyou pulled me in. I'm all the son Harvey Cheyne has. "

"He's bin favoured, " said Disko, dryly. 

"And if you don't know who Harvey Cheyne is, you don't knowmuch--that's all. Now turn her around and let's hurry. "

Harvey had a notion that the greater part of America was filled withpeople discussing and envying his father's dollars. 

"Mebbe I do, an' mebbe I don't. Take a reef in your stummick, youngfeller. It's full o' my vittles. "

Harvey heard a chuckle from Dan, who was pretending to be busy by thestump-foremast, and blood rushed to his face. "We'll pay for that too, "he said. "When do you suppose we shall get to New York?"

"I don't use Noo York any. Ner Boston. We may see Eastern Point aboutSeptember; an' your pa--I'm real sorry I hain't heerd tell of him--maygive me ten dollars efter all your talk. Then o' course he mayn't. "

"Ten dollars! Why, see here, I--" Harvey dived into his pocket for thewad of bills. All he brought up was a soggy packet of cigarettes. 

"Not lawful currency; an' bad for the lungs. Heave 'em overboard, youngfeller, and try agin. "

"It's been stolen!" cried Harvey, hotly. 

"You'll hev to wait till you see your pa to reward me, then?"

"A hundred and thirty-four dollars--all stolen, " said Harvey, huntingwildly through his pockets. "Give them back. "

A curious change flitted across old Troop's hard face. "What might youhave been doin' at your time o' life with one hundred an' thirty-fourdollars, young feller?"

"It was part of my pocket-money--for a month. " This Harvey thoughtwould be a knock-down blow, and it was--indirectly. 

"Oh! One hundred and thirty-four dollars is only part of hispocket-money--for one month only! You don't remember hittin' anythingwhen you fell over, do you? Crack agin a stanchion, le's say. Old manHasken o' the East Wind"--Troop seemed to be talking to himself--"hetripped on a hatch an' butted the mainmast with his head--hardish. 'Baout three weeks afterwards, old man Hasken he would hev it that the"East Wind" was a commerce-destroyin' man-o'-war, an' so he declaredwar on Sable Island because it was Bridish, an' the shoals run aout toofar. They sewed him up in a bed-bag, his head an' feet appearin', ferthe rest o' the trip, an' now he's to home in Essex playin' with littlerag dolls. "

Harvey choked with rage, but Troop went on consolingly: "We're sorryfer you. We're very sorry fer you--an' so young. We won't say no moreabaout the money, I guess. "

"'Course you won't. You stole it. "

"Suit yourself. We stole it ef it's any comfort to you. Naow, abaoutgoin' back. Allowin' we could do it, which we can't, you ain't in nofit state to go back to your home, an' we've jest come on to the Banks, workin' fer our bread. We don't see the ha'af of a hundred dollars amonth, let alone pocket-money; an' with good luck we'll be ashore againsomewheres abaout the first weeks o' September. "

"But--but it's May now, and I can't stay here doin' nothing justbecause you want to fish. I can't, I tell you!"

"Right an' jest; jest an' right. No one asks you to do nothin'. There'sa heap as you can do, for Otto he went overboard on Le Have. I mistrusthe lost his grip in a gale we f'und there. Anyways, he never come backto deny it. You've turned up, plain, plumb providential for allconcerned. I mistrust, though, there's ruther few things you kin do. Ain't thet so?"

"I can make it lively for you and your crowd when we get ashore, " saidHarvey, with a vicious nod, murmuring vague threats about "piracy, " atwhich Troop almost--not quite--smiled. 

"Excep' talk. I'd forgot that. You ain't asked to talk more'n you've amind to aboard the _We're Here_. Keep your eyes open, an' help Dan todo ez he's bid, an' sechlike, an' I'll give you--you ain't wuth it, butI'll give--ten an' a ha'af a month; say thirty-five at the end o' thetrip. A little work will ease up your head, and you kin tell us allabaout your dad an' your ma an' your money afterwards. "

"She's on the steamer, " said Harvey, his eyes filling with tears. "Takeme to New York at once. "

"Poor woman--poor woman! When she has you back she'll forgit it all, though. There's eight of us on the _We're Here_, an' ef we went backnaow--it's more'n a thousand mile--we'd lose the season. The men theywouldn't hev it, allowin' I was agreeable. "

"But my father would make it all right. "

"He'd try. I don't doubt he'd try, " said Troop; "but a whole season'scatch is eight men's bread; an' you'll be better in your health whenyou see him in the fall. Go forward an' help Dan. It's ten an' a ha'afa month, e I said, an' o' course, all f'und, same e the rest o' us. "

"Do you mean I'm to clean pots and pans and things?" said Harvey. 

"An' other things. You've no call to shout, young feller. "

"I won't! My father will give you enough to buy this dirty littlefish-kettle"--Harvey stamped on the deck--"ten times over, if you takeme to New York safe; and--and--you're in a hundred and thirty by me, anyhow. "

"Haow?" said Troop, the iron face darkening. 

"How? You know how, well enough. On top of all that, you want me to domenial work"--Harvey was very proud of that adjective--"till the Fall. I tell you I will not. You hear?"

Troop regarded the top of the mainmast with deep interest for a while, as Harvey harangued fiercely all around him. 

"Hsh!" he said at last. "I'm figurin' out my responsibilities in my ownmind. It's a matter o' jedgment. "

Dan stole up and plucked Harvey by the elbow. "Don't go to tamperin'with Dad any more, " he pleaded. "You've called him a thief two or threetimes over, an' he don't take that from any livin' bein'. "

"I won't!" Harvey almost shrieked, disregarding the advice, and stillTroop meditated. 

"Seems kinder unneighbourly, " he said at last, his eye travelling downto Harvey. "I--don't blame you, not a mite, young feeler, nor you won'tblame me when the bile's out o' your systim. Be sure you sense what Isay? Ten an' a ha'af fer second boy on the schooner--an' all found--ferto teach you an' fer the sake o' your health. Yes or no?"

"No!" said Harvey. "Take me back to New York or I'll see you--"

He did not exactly remember what followed. He was lying in thescuppers, holding on to a nose that bled while Troop looked down on himserenely. 

"Dan, " he said to his son, "I was sot agin this young feeler when Ifirst saw him on account o' hasty jedgments. Never you be led astray byhasty jedgments, Dan. Naow I'm sorry for him, because he's cleardistracted in his upper works. He ain't responsible fer the names he'sgive me, nor fer his other statements--nor fer jumpin' overboard, whichI'm abaout ha'af convinced he did. You be gentle with him, Dan, 'r I'llgive you twice what I've give him. Them hemmeridges clears the head. Let him sluice it off!"

Troop went down solemnly into the cabin, where he and the older menbunked, leaving Dan to comfort the luckless heir to thirty millions. 

CHAPTER II

"I warned ye, " said Dan, as the drops fell thick and fast on the dark, oiled planking. "Dad ain't noways hasty, but you fair earned it. Pshaw!there's no sense takin' on so. " Harvey's shoulders were rising andfalling in spasms of dry sobbing. "I know the feelin'. First time Dadlaid me out was the last--and that was my first trip. Makes ye feelsickish an' lonesome. I know. "

"It does, " moaned Harvey. "That man's either crazy or drunk, and--and Ican't do anything. "

"Don't say that to Dad, " whispered Dan. "He's set agin all liquor, an'--well, he told me you was the madman. What in creation made youcall him a thief? He's my dad. "

Harvey sat up, mopped his nose, and told the story of the missing wadof bills. "I'm not crazy, " he wound up. "Only--your father has neverseen more than a five-dollar bill at a time, and my father could buy upthis boat once a week and never miss it. "

"You don't know what the _We're Here's_ worth. Your dad must hev a pileo' money. How did he git it? Dad sez loonies can't shake out a straightyarn. Go ahead. "

"In gold mines and things, West. "

"I've read o' that kind o' business. Out West, too? Does he go aroundwith a pistol on a trick-pony, same ez the circus? They call that theWild West, and I've heard that their spurs an' bridles was solidsilver. "

"You are a chump!" said Harvey, amused in spite of himself. "My fatherhasn't any use for ponies. When he wants to ride he takes his car. "

"Haow? Lobster-car?"

"No. His own private car, of course. You've seen a private car sometime in your life?"

"Slatin Beeman he hez one, " said Dan, cautiously. "I saw her at theUnion Depot in Boston, with three niggers hoggin' her run. " (Dan meantcleaning the windows. ) "But Slatin Beeman he owns 'baout every railroadon Long Island, they say, an' they say he's bought 'baout ha'af NooHampshire an' run a line fence around her, an' filled her up with lionsan' tigers an' bears an' buffalo an' crocodiles an' such all. SlatinBeeman he's a millionaire. I've seen his car. Yes?"

"Well, my father's what they call a multi-millionaire, and he has twoprivate cars. One's named for me, the 'Harvey', and one for my mother, the 'Constance'. "

"Hold on, " said Dan. "Dad don't ever let me swear, but I guess you can. 'Fore we go ahead, I want you to say hope you may die if you're lyin'. "

"Of course, " said Harvey. 

"The ain't 'niff. Say, 'Hope I may die if I ain't speaking' truth. '"

"Hope I may die right here, " said Harvey, "if every word I've spokenisn't the cold truth. "

"Hundred an' thirty-four dollars an' all?" said Dan. "I heard yetalkin' to Dad, an' I ha'af looked you'd be swallered up, same's Jonah. "

Harvey protested himself red in the face. Dan was a shrewd young personalong his own lines, and ten minutes' questioning convinced him thatHarvey was not lying--much. Besides, he had bound himself by the mostterrible oath known to boyhood, and yet he sat, alive, with a red-endednose, in the scuppers, recounting marvels upon marvels. 

"Gosh!" said Dan at last from the very bottom of his soul when Harveyhad completed an inventory of the car named in his honour. Then a grinof mischievous delight overspread his broad face. "I believe you, Harvey. Dad's made a mistake fer once in his life. "

"He has, sure, " said Harvey, who was meditating an early revenge. 

"He'll be mad clear through. Dad jest hates to be mistook in hisjedgments. " Dan lay back and slapped his thigh. "Oh, Harvey, don't youspile the catch by lettin' on. "

"I don't want to be knocked down again. I'll get even with him, though. "

"Never heard any man ever got even with dad. But he'd knock ye downagain sure. The more he was mistook the more he'd do it. But gold-minesand pistols--"

"I never said a word about pistols, " Harvey cut in, for he was on hisoath. 

"Thet's so; no more you did. Two private cars, then, one named fer youan' one fer her; an' two hundred dollars a month pocket-money, allknocked into the scuppers fer not workin' fer ten an' a ha'af a month!It's the top haul o' the season. " He exploded with noiseless chuckles. 

"Then I was right?" said Harvey, who thought he had found a sympathiser. 

"You was wrong; the wrongest kind o' wrong! You take right hold an'pitch in 'longside o' me, or you'll catch it, an' I'll catch it ferbackin' you up. Dad always gives me double helps 'cause I'm his son, an' he hates favourin' folk. 'Guess you're kinder mad at dad. I've beenthat way time an' again. But dad's a mighty jest man; all the fleetsays so. "

"Looks like justice, this, don't it?" Harvey pointed to his outragednose. 

"Thet's nothin'. Lets the shore blood outer you. Dad did it for yerhealth. Say, though, I can't have dealin's with a man that thinks me ordad or any one on the _We're Here's_ a thief. We ain't any commonwharf-end crowd by any manner o' means. We're fishermen, an' we'veshipped together for six years an' more. Don't you make any mistake onthat! I told ye dad don't let me swear. He calls 'em vain oaths, andpounds me; but ef I could say what you said 'baout your pap an' hisfixin's, I'd say that 'baout your dollars. I dunno what was in yourpockets when I dried your kit, fer I didn't look to see; but I'd say, using the very same words ez you used jest now, neither me nor dad--an'we was the only two that teched you after you was brought aboard--knowsanythin' 'baout the money. Thet's my say. Naow?"

The bloodletting had certainly cleared Harvey's brain, and maybe theloneliness of the sea had something to do with it. "That's all right, "he said. Then he looked down confusedly. "'Seems to me that for afellow just saved from drowning I haven't been over and above grateful, Dan. "

"Well, you was shook up and silly, " said Dan. "Anyway, there was onlydad an' me aboard to see it. The cook he don't count. "

"I might have thought about losing the bills that way, " Harvey said, half to himself, "instead of calling everybody in sight a thief. Where's your father?"

"In the cabin. What d' you want o' him again?"

"You'll see, " said Harvey, and he stepped, rather groggily, for hishead was still singing, to the cabin steps where the little ship'sclock hung in plain sight of the wheel. Troop, in thechocolate-and-yellow painted cabin, was busy with a note-book and anenormous black pencil which he sucked hard from time to time. 

"I haven't acted quite right, " said Harvey, surprised at his ownmeekness. 

"What's wrong naow?" said the skipper. "Walked into Dan, hev ye?"

"No; it's about you. "

"I'm here to listen. "

"Well, I--I'm here to take things back, " said Harvey very quickly. "When a man's saved from drowning--" he gulped. 

"Ey? You'll make a man yet ef you go on this way. "

"He oughtn't begin by calling people names. "

"Jest an' right--right an' jest, " said Troop, with the ghost of a drysmile. 

"So I'm here to say I'm sorry. " Another big gulp. 

Troop heaved himself slowly off the locker he was sitting on and heldout an eleven-inch hand. "I mistrusted 'twould do you sights o' good;an' this shows I weren't mistook in my jedgments. " A smothered chuckleon deck caught his ear. "I am very seldom mistook in my jedgments. " Theeleven-inch hand closed on Harvey's, numbing it to the elbow. "We'llput a little more gristle to that 'fore we've done with you, youngfeller; an' I don't think any worse of ye fer anythin' the's gone by. You wasn't fairly responsible. Go right abaout your business an' youwon't take no hurt. "

"You're white, " said Dan, as Harvey regained the deck, flushed to thetips of his ears. 

"I don't feel it, " said he. 

"I didn't mean that way. I heard what Dad said. When Dad allows hedon't think the worse of any man, Dad's give himself away. He hates tobe mistook in his jedgments too. Ho! ho! Onct Dad has a jedgment, he'dsooner dip his colours to the British than change it. I'm glad it'ssettled right eend up. Dad's right when he says he can't take you back. It's all the livin' we make here--fishin'. The men'll be back likesharks after a dead whale in ha'af an hour. "

"What for?" said Harvey. 

"Supper, o' course. Don't your stummick tell you? You've a heap tolearn. "

"Guess I have, " said Harvey, dolefully, looking at the tangle of ropesand blocks overhead. 

"She's a daisy, " said Dan, enthusiastically, misunderstanding the look. "Wait till our mainsail's bent, an' she walks home with all her saltwet. There's some work first, though. " He pointed down into thedarkness of the open main-hatch between the two masts. 

"What's that for? It's all empty, " said Harvey. 

"You an' me an' a few more hev got to fill it, " said Dan. "That's wherethe fish goes. "

"Alive?" said Harvey. 

"Well, no. They're so's to be ruther dead--an' flat--an' salt. There'sa hundred hogshead o' salt in the bins, an' we hain't more'n coveredour dunnage to now. "

"Where are the fish, though?"

"'In the sea they say, in the boats we pray, '" said Dan, quoting afisherman's proverb. "You come in last night with 'baout forty of 'em. "

He pointed to a sort of wooden pen just in front of the quarter-deck. 

"You an' me we'll sluice that out when they're through. 'Send we'll hevfull pens to-night! I've seen her down ha'af a foot with fish waitin'to clean, an' we stood to the tables till we was splittin' ourselvesinstid o' them, we was so sleepy. Yes, they're comm' in naow. " Danlooked over the low bulwarks at half a dozen dories rowing towards themover the shining, silky sea. 

"I've never seen the sea from so low down, " said Harvey. "It's fine. "

The low sun made the water all purple and pinkish, with golden lightson the barrels of the long swells, and blue and green mackerel shadesin the hollows. Each schooner in sight seemed to be pulling her doriestowards her by invisible strings, and the little black figures in thetiny boats pulled like clockwork toys. 

"They've struck on good, " said Dan, between his half-shut eyes. "Manuelhain't room fer another fish. Low ez a lily-pad in still water, Aeneidhe?"

"Which is Manuel? I don't see how you can tell 'em 'way off, as you do. "

"Last boat to the south'ard. He fund you last night, " said Dan, pointing. "Manuel rows Portugoosey; ye can't mistake him. East o'him--he's a heap better'n he rows--is Pennsylvania. Loaded withsaleratus, by the looks of him. East o' him--see how pretty they stringout all along--with the humpy shoulders, is Long Jack. He's a Galwayman inhabitin' South Boston, where they all live mostly, an' mostlythem Galway men are good in a boat. North, away yonder--you'll hear himtune up in a minute is Tom Platt. Man-o'-war's man he was on the oldOhio first of our navy, he says, to go araound the Horn. He never talksof much else, 'cept when he sings, but he has fair fishin' luck. There!What did I tell you?"

A melodious bellow stole across the water from the northern dory. Harvey heard something about somebody's hands and feet being cold, andthen:

 "Bring forth the chart, the doleful chart, See where them mountings meet! The clouds are thick around their heads, The mists around their feet. "

"Full boat, " said Dan, with a chuckle. "If he give us 'O Captain' it'stopping' too!"

The bellow continued:

 "And naow to thee, O Capting, Most earnestly I pray, That they shall never bury me In church or cloister gray. "

"Double game for Tom Platt. He'll tell you all about the old Ohiotomorrow. 'See that blue dory behind him? He's my uncle, --Dad's ownbrother, --an' ef there's any bad luck loose on the Banks she'll fetchup agin Uncle Salters, sure. Look how tender he's rowin'. I'll lay mywage and share he's the only man stung up to-day--an' he's stung upgood. "

"What'll sting him?" said Harvey, getting interested. 

"Strawberries, mostly. Pumpkins, sometimes, an' sometimes lemons an'cucumbers. Yes, he's stung up from his elbows down. That man's luck'sperfectly paralyzin'. Naow we'll take a-holt o' the tackles an' hist'em in. Is it true what you told me jest now, that you never done ahand's turn o' work in all your born life? Must feel kinder awful, don't it?"

"I'm going to try to work, anyway, " Harvey replied stoutly. "Only it'sall dead new. "

"Lay a-holt o' that tackle, then. Behind ye!"

Harvey grabbed at a rope and long iron hook dangling from one of thestays of the mainmast, while Dan pulled down another that ran fromsomething he called a "topping-lift, " as Manuel drew alongside in hisloaded dory. The Portuguese smiled a brilliant smile that Harveylearned to know well later, and with a short-handled fork began tothrow fish into the pen on deck. "Two hundred and thirty-one, " heshouted. 

"Give him the hook, " said Dan, and Harvey ran it into Manuel's hands. He slipped it through a loop of rope at the dory's bow, caught Dan'stackle, hooked it to the stern-becket, and clambered into the schooner. 

"Pull!" shouted Dan, and Harvey pulled, astonished to find how easilythe dory rose. 

"Hold on, she don't nest in the crosstrees!" Dan laughed; and Harveyheld on, for the boat lay in the air above his head. 

"Lower away, " Dan shouted, and as Harvey lowered, Dan swayed the lightboat with one hand till it landed softly just behind the mainmast. "They don't weigh nothin' empty. Thet was right smart fer a passenger. There's more trick to it in a sea-way. "

"Ah ha!" said Manuel, holding out a brown hand. "You are some prettywell now? This time last night the fish they fish for you. Now you fishfor fish. Eh, wha-at?"

"I'm--I'm ever so grateful, " Harvey stammered, and his unfortunate handstole to his pocket once more, but he remembered that he had no moneyto offer. When he knew Manuel better the mere thought of the mistake hemight have made would cover him with hot, uneasy blushes in his bunk. 

"There is no to be thankful for to me!" said Manuel. "How shall I leaveyou dreeft, dreeft all around the Banks? Now you are a fisherman eh, wha-at? Ouh! Auh!" He bent backward and forward stiffly from the hipsto get the kinks out of himself. 

"I have not cleaned boat to-day. Too busy. They struck on queek. Danny, my son, clean for me. "

Harvey moved forward at once. Here was something he could do for theman who had saved his life. 

Dan threw him a swab, and he leaned over the dory, mopping up the slimeclumsily, but with great good-will. "Hike out the foot-boards; theyslide in them grooves, " said Dan. "Swab 'em an' lay 'em down. Never leta foot-board jam. Ye may want her bad some day. Here's Long Jack. "

A stream of glittering fish flew into the pen from a dory alongside. 

"Manuel, you take the tackle. I'll fix the tables. Harvey, clearManuel's boat. Long Jack's nestin' on the top of her. "

Harvey looked up from his swabbing at the bottom of another dory justabove his head. 

"Jest like the Injian puzzle-boxes, ain't they?" said Dan, as the oneboat dropped into the other. 

"Takes to ut like a duck to water, " said Long Jack, a grizzly-chinned, long-lipped Galway man, bending to and fro exactly as Manuel had done. Disko in the cabin growled up the hatchway, and they could hear himsuck his pencil. 

"Wan hunder an' forty-nine an' a half-bad luck to ye, Discobolus!" saidLong Jack. "I'm murderin' meself to fill your pockuts. Slate ut for abad catch. The Portugee has bate me. "

Whack came another dory alongside, and more fish shot into the pen. 

"Two hundred and three. Let's look at the passenger!" The speaker waseven larger than the Galway man, and his face was made curious by apurple cut running slant-ways from his left eye to the right corner ofhis mouth. 

Not knowing what else to do, Harvey swabbed each dory as it came down, pulled out the foot-boards, and laid them in the bottom of the boat. 

"He's caught on good, " said the scarred man, who was Toni Platt, watching him critically. "There are two ways o' doin' everything. One'sfisher-fashion--any end first an' a slippery hitch over all--an' theother's--"

"What we did on the old Ohio!" Dan interrupted, brushing into the knotof men with a long board on legs. "Get out o' here, Tom Platt, an'leave me fix the tables. "

He jammed one end of the board into two nicks in the bulwarks, kickedout the leg, and ducked just in time to avoid a swinging blow from theman-o'-war's man. 

"An' they did that on the Ohio, too, Danny. See?" said Tom Platt, laughing. 

"Guess they was swivel-eyed, then, fer it didn't git home, and I knowwho'll find his boots on the main-truck ef he don't leave us alone. Haul ahead! I'm busy, can't ye see?"

"Danny, ye lie on the cable an' sleep all day, " said Long Jack. "You'rethe hoight av impidence, an' I'm persuaded ye'll corrupt our supercargoin a week. "

"His name's Harvey, " said Dan, waving two strangely shaped knives, "an'he'll be worth five of any Sou' Boston clam-digger 'fore long. " He laidthe knives tastefully on the table, cocked his head on one side, andadmired the effect. 

"I think it's forty-two, " said a small voice overside, and there was aroar of laughter as another voice answered, "Then my luck's turned feronct, 'caze I'm forty-five, though I be stung outer all shape. "

"Forty-two or forty-five. I've lost count, " the small voice said. 

"It's Penn an' Uncle Salters caountin' catch. This beats the circus anyday, " said Dan. "Jest look at 'em!"

"Come in--come in!" roared Long Jack. "It's wet out yondher, children. "

"Forty-two, ye said. " This was Uncle Salters. 

"I'll count again, then, " the voice replied meekly. The two doriesswung together and bunted into the schooner's side. 

"Patience o' Jerusalem!" snapped Uncle Salters, backing water with asplash. "What possest a farmer like you to set foot in a boat beats me. You've nigh stove me all up. "

"I am sorry, Mr. Salters. I came to sea on account of nervousdyspepsia. You advised me, I think. "

"You an' your nervis dyspepsy be drowned in the Whale-hole, " roaredUncle Salters, a fat and tubby little man. "You're comin' down on meagin. Did ye say forty-two or forty-five?"

"I've forgotten, Mr. Salters. Let's count. "

"Don't see as it could be forty-five. I'm forty-five, " said UncleSalters. "You count keerful, Penn. "

Disko Troop came out of the cabin. "Salters, you pitch your fish innaow at once, " he said in the tone of authority. 

"Don't spile the catch, Dad, " Dan murmured. "Them two are on'y jestbeginnin'. "

"Mother av delight! He's forkin' them wan by wan, " howled Long Jack, asUncle Salters got to work laboriously; the little man in the other dorycounting a line of notches on the gunwale. 

"That was last week's catch, " he said, looking up plaintively, hisforefinger where he had left off. 

Manuel nudged Dan, who darted to the after-tackle, and, leaning faroverside, slipped the hook into the stern-rope as Manuel made her fastforward. The others pulled gallantly and swung the boat in--man, fish, and all. 

"One, two, four-nine, " said Tom Platt, counting with a practised eye. "Forty-seven. Penn, you're it!" Dan let the after-tackle run, and slidhim out of the stern on to the deck amid a torrent of his own fish. 

"Hold on!" roared Uncle Salters, bobbing by the waist. "Hold on, I'm abit mixed in my caount. "

He had no time to protest, but was hove inboard and treated like"Pennsylvania. "

"Forty-one, " said Tom Platt. "Beat by a farmer, Salters. An' you sech asailor, too!"

"'Tweren't fair caount, " said he, stumbling out of the pen; "an' I'mstung up all to pieces. "

His thick hands were puffy and mottled purply white. 

"Some folks will find strawberry-bottom, " said Dan, addressing thenewly risen moon, "ef they hev to dive fer it, seems to me. "

"An' others, " said Uncle Salters, "eats the fat o' the land in sloth, an' mocks their own blood-kin. "

"Seat ye! Seat ye!" a voice Harvey had not heard called from thefoc'sle. Disko Troop, Tom Platt, Long Jack, and Salters went forward onthe word. Little Penn bent above his square deep-sea reel and thetangled cod-lines; Manuel lay down full length on the deck, and Dandropped into the hold, where Harvey heard him banging casks with ahammer. 

"Salt, " he said, returning. "Soon as we're through supper we git todressing-down. You'll pitch to Dad. Tom Platt an' Dad they stowtogether, an' you'll hear 'em arguin'. We're second ha'af, you an' mean' Manuel an' Penn--the youth an' beauty o' the boat. "

"What's the good of that?" said Harvey. "I'm hungry. "

"They'll be through in a minute. Suff! She smells good to-night. Dadships a good cook ef he do suffer with his brother. It's a full catchtoday, Aeneid it?" He pointed at the pens piled high with cod. "Whatwater did ye hev, Manuel?"

"Twenty-fife father, " said the Portuguese, sleepily. "They strike ongood an' queek. Some day I show you, Harvey. "

The moon was beginning to walk on the still sea before the elder mencame aft. The cook had no need to cry "second half. " Dan and Manuelwere down the hatch and at table ere Tom Platt, last and mostdeliberate of the elders, had finished wiping his mouth with the backof his hand. Harvey followed Penn, and sat down before a tin pan ofcod's tongues and sounds, mixed with scraps of pork and fried potato, aloaf of hot bread, and some black and powerful coffee. Hungry as theywere, they waited while "Pennsylvania" solemnly asked a blessing. Thenthey stoked in silence till Dan drew a breath over his tin cup anddemanded of Harvey how he felt. 

"'Most full, but there's just room for another piece. "

The cook was a huge, jet-black negro, and, unlike all the negroesHarvey had met, did not talk, contenting himself with smiles anddumb-show invitations to eat more. 

"See, Harvey, " said Dan, rapping with his fork on the table, "it's jestas I said. The young an' handsome men--like me an' Pennsy an' you an'Manuel--we're second ha'af, an' we eats when the first ha'af arethrough. They're the old fish; an' they're mean an' humpy, an' theirstummicks has to be humoured; so they come first, which they don'tdeserve. Aeneid that so, doctor?"

The cook nodded. 

"Can't he talk?" said Harvey in a whisper. 

"'Nough to get along. Not much o' anything we know. His naturaltongue's kinder curious. Comes from the innards of Cape Breton, hedoes, where the farmers speak homemade Scotch. Cape Breton's full o'niggers whose folk run in there durin' aour war, an' they talk likefarmers--all huffy-chuffy. "

"That is not Scotch, " said "Pennsylvania. " "That is Gaelic. So I readin a book. "

"Penn reads a heap. Most of what he says is so--'cep' when it comes toa caount o' fish--eh?"

"Does your father just let them say how many they've caught withoutchecking them?" said Harvey. 

"Why, yes. Where's the sense of a man lyin' fer a few old cod?"

"Was a man once lied for his catch, " Manuel put in. "Lied every day. Fife, ten, twenty-fife more fish than come he say there was. "

"Where was that?" said Dan. "None o' aour folk. "

"Frenchman of Anguille. "

"Ah! Them West Shore Frenchmen don't caount anyway. Stands to reasonthey can't caount. Ef you run acrost any of their soft hooks, Harvey, you'll know why, " said Dan, with an awful contempt. 

 "Always more and never less, Every time we come to dress, "

Long Jack roared down the hatch, and the "second ha'af" scrambled up atonce. 

The shadow of the masts and rigging, with the never-furled riding-sail, rolled to and fro on the heaving deck in the moonlight; and the pile offish by the stern shone like a dump of fluid silver. In the hold therewere tramplings and rumblings where Disko Troop and Tom Platt movedamong the salt-bins. Dan passed Harvey a pitchfork, and led him to theinboard end of the rough table, where Uncle Salters was drummingimpatiently with a knife-haft. A tub of salt water lay at his feet. 

"You pitch to dad an' Tom Platt down the hatch, an' take keer UncleSalters don't cut yer eye out, " said Dan, swinging himself into thehold. "I'll pass salt below. "

Penn and Manuel stood knee deep among cod in the pen, flourishing drawnknives. Long Jack, a basket at his feet and mittens on his hands, facedUncle Salters at the table, and Harvey stared at the pitchfork and thetub. 

"Hi!" shouted Manuel, stooping to the fish, and bringing one up with afinger under its gill and a finger in its eyes. He laid it on the edgeof the pen; the knife-blade glimmered with a sound of tearing, and thefish, slit from throat to vent, with a nick on either side of the neck, dropped at Long Jack's feet. 

"Hi!" said Long Jack, with a scoop of his mittened hand. The cod'sliver dropped in the basket. Another wrench and scoop sent the head andoffal flying, and the empty fish slid across to Uncle Salters, whosnorted fiercely. There was another sound of tearing, the backbone flewover the bulwarks, and the fish, headless, gutted, and open, splashedin the tub, sending the salt water into Harvey's astonished mouth. After the first yell, the men were silent. The cod moved along asthough they were alive, and long ere Harvey had ceased wondering at themiraculous dexterity of it all, his tub was full. 

"Pitch!" grunted Uncle Salters, without turning his head, and Harveypitched the fish by twos and threes down the hatch. 

"Hi! Pitch 'em bunchy, " shouted Dan. "Don't scatter! Uncle Salters isthe best splitter in the fleet. Watch him mind his book!"

Indeed, it looked a little as though the round uncle were cuttingmagazine pages against time. Manuel's body, cramped over from the hips, stayed like a statue; but his long arms grabbed the fish withoutceasing. Little Penn toiled valiantly, but it was easy to see he wasweak. Once or twice Manuel found time to help him without breaking thechain of supplies, and once Manuel howled because he had caught hisfinger in a Frenchman's hook. These hooks are made of soft metal, to berebent after use; but the cod very often get away with them and arehooked again elsewhere; and that is one of the many reasons why theGloucester boats despise the Frenchmen. 

Down below, the rasping sound of rough salt rubbed on rough fleshsounded like the whirring of a grindstone--steady undertune to the"click-nick" of knives in the pen; the wrench and shloop of torn heads, dropped liver, and flying offal; the "caraaah" of Uncle Salters's knifescooping away backbones; and the flap of wet, open bodies falling intothe tub. 

At the end of an hour Harvey would have given the world to rest; forfresh, wet cod weigh more than you would think, and his back ached withthe steady pitching. But he felt for the first time in his life that hewas one of the working gang of men, took pride in the thought, and heldon sullenly. 

"Knife oh!" shouted Uncle Salters at last. Penn doubled up, gaspingamong the fish, Manuel bowed back and forth to supple himself, and LongJack leaned over the bulwarks. The cook appeared, noiseless as a blackshadow, collected a mass of backbones and heads, and retreated. 

"Blood-ends for breakfast an' head-chowder, " said Long Jack, smackinghis lips. 

"Knife oh!" repeated Uncle Salters, waving the flat, curved splitter'sweapon. 

"Look by your foot, Harve, " cried Dan below. 

Harvey saw half a dozen knives stuck in a cleat in the hatch combing. He dealt these around, taking over the dulled ones. 

"Water!" said Disko Troop. 

"Scuttle-butt's for'ard an' the dipper's alongside. Hurry, Harve, " saidDan. 

He was back in a minute with a big dipperful of stale brown water whichtasted like nectar, and loosed the jaws of Disko and Tom Platt. 

"These are cod, " said Disko. "They ain't Damarskus figs, Tom Platt, noryet silver bars. I've told you that ever single time since we've sailedtogether. "

"A matter o' seven seasons, " returned Tom Platt coolly. "Good stowin'sgood stowin' all the same, an' there's a right an' a wrong way o'stowin' ballast even. If you'd ever seen four hundred ton o' iron setinto the--"

"Hi!" With a yell from Manuel the work began again, and never stoppedtill the pen was empty. The instant the last fish was down, Disko Trooprolled aft to the cabin with his brother; Manuel and Long Jack wentforward; Tom Platt only waited long enough to slide home the hatch erehe too disappeared. In half a minute Harvey heard deep snores in thecabin, and he was staring blankly at Dan and Penn. 

"I did a little better that time, Danny, " said Penn, whose eyelids wereheavy with sleep. "But I think it is my duty to help clean. "

"'Wouldn't hev your conscience fer a thousand quintal, " said Dan. "Turnin, Penn. You've no call to do boy's work. Draw a bucket, Harvey. Oh, Penn, dump these in the gurry-butt 'fore you sleep. Kin you keep awakethat long?"

Penn took up the heavy basket of fish-livers, emptied them into a caskwith a hinged top lashed by the foc'sle; then he too dropped out ofsight in the cabin. 

"Boys clean up after dressin' down an' first watch in ca'am weather isboy's watch on the _We're Here_. " Dan sluiced the pen energetically, unshipped the table, set it up to dry in the moonlight, ran the redknife-blades through a wad of oakum, and began to sharpen them on atiny grindstone, as Harvey threw offal and backbones overboard underhis direction. 

At the first splash a silvery-white ghost rose bolt upright from theoily water and sighed a weird whistling sigh. Harvey started back witha shout, but Dan only laughed. 

"Grampus, " said he. "Beggin' fer fish-heads. They up-eend the way whenthey're hungry. Breath on him like the doleful tombs, hain't he?" Ahorrible stench of decayed fish filled the air as the pillar of whitesank, and the water bubbled oilily. "Hain't ye never seen a grampusup-eend before? You'll see 'em by hundreds 'fore ye're through. Say, it's good to hev a boy aboard again. Otto was too old, an' a Dutchy atthat. Him an' me we fought consid'ble. 'Wouldn't ha' keered fer that efhe'd hed a Christian tongue in his head. Sleepy?"

"Dead sleepy, " said Harvey, nodding forward. 

"Mustn't sleep on watch. Rouse up an' see ef our anchor-light's brightan' shinin'. You're on watch now, Harve. "

"Pshaw! What's to hurt us? Bright's day. Sn-orrr!"

"Jest when things happen, Dad says. Fine weather's good sleepin', an''fore you know, mebbe, you're cut in two by a liner, an' seventeenbrass-bound officers, all gen'elmen, lift their hand to it that yourlights was aout an' there was a thick fog. Harve, I've kinder took toyou, but ef you nod onct more I'll lay into you with a rope's end. "

The moon, who sees many strange things on the Banks, looked down on aslim youth in knickerbockers and a red jersey, staggering around thecluttered decks of a seventy-ton schooner, while behind him, waving aknotted rope, walked, after the manner of an executioner, a boy whoyawned and nodded between the blows he dealt. 

The lashed wheel groaned and kicked softly, the riding-sail slatted alittle in the shifts of the light wind, the windlass creaked, and themiserable procession continued. Harvey expostulated, threatened, whimpered, and at last wept outright, while Dan, the words clotting onhis tongue, spoke of the beauty of watchfulness and slashed away withthe rope's end, punishing the dories as often as he hit Harvey. At lastthe clock in the cabin struck ten, and upon the tenth stroke littlePenn crept on deck. He found two boys in two tumbled heaps side by sideon the main hatch, so deeply asleep that he actually rolled them totheir berths. 

CHAPTER III

It was the forty-fathom slumber that clears the soul and eye and heart, and sends you to breakfast ravening. They emptied a big tin dish ofjuicy fragments of fish--the blood-ends the cook had collectedovernight. They cleaned up the plates and pans of the elder mess, whowere out fishing, sliced pork for the midday meal, swabbed down thefoc'sle, filled the lamps, drew coal and water for the cook, andinvestigated the fore-hold, where the boat's stores were stacked. Itwas another perfect day--soft, mild, and clear; and Harvey breathed tothe very bottom of his lungs. 

More schooners had crept up in the night, and the long blue seas werefull of sails and dories. Far away on the horizon, the smoke of someliner, her hull invisible, smudged the blue, and to eastward a bigship's top-gallant sails, just lifting, made a square nick in it. DiskoTroop was smoking by the roof of the cabin--one eye on the craftaround, and the other on the little fly at the main-mast-head. 

"When Dad kerflummoxes that way, " said Dan in a whisper, "he's doin'some high-line thinkin' fer all hands. I'll lay my wage an' share we'llmake berth soon. Dad he knows the cod, an' the Fleet they know Dadknows. 'See 'em comm' up one by one, lookin' fer nothin' in particular, o' course, but scrowgin' on us all the time? There's the _Prince Leboo_;she's a Chat-ham boat. She's crep' up sence last night. An' see thatbig one with a patch in her foresail an' a new jib? She's the _CarriePitman_ from West Chat-ham. She won't keep her canvas long onless herluck's changed since last season. She don't do much 'cep' drift. Thereain't an anchor made 'll hold her. . . . When the smoke puffs up inlittle rings like that, Dad's studyin' the fish. Ef we speak to himnow, he'll git mad. Las' time I did, he jest took an' hove a boot atme. "

Disko Troop stared forward, the pipe between his teeth, with eyes thatsaw nothing. As his son said, he was studying the fish--pitting hisknowledge and experience on the Banks against the roving cod in his ownsea. He accepted the presence of the inquisitive schooners on thehorizon as a compliment to his powers. But now that it was paid, hewished to draw away and make his berth alone, till it was time to go upto the Virgin and fish in the streets of that roaring town upon thewaters. So Disko Troop thought of recent weather, and gales, currents, food-supplies, and other domestic arrangements, from the point of viewof a twenty-pound cod; was, in fact, for an hour a cod himself, andlooked remarkably like one. Then he removed the pipe from his teeth. 

"Dad, " said Dan, "we've done our chores. Can't we go overside a piece?It's good catchin' weather. "

"Not in that cherry-coloured rig ner them ha'af baked brown shoes. Givehim suthin' fit to wear. "

"Dad's pleased--that settles it, " said Dan, delightedly, draggingHarvey into the cabin, while Troop pitched a key down the steps. "Dadkeeps my spare rig where he kin overhaul it, 'cause Ma sez I'mkeerless. " He rummaged through a locker, and in less than three minutesHarvey was adorned with fisherman's rubber boots that came half up histhigh, a heavy blue jersey well darned at the elbows, a pair ofnippers, and a sou'wester. 

"Naow ye look somethin' like, " said Dan. "Hurry!"

"Keep nigh an' handy, " said Troop "an' don't go visitin' raound theFleet. If any one asks you what I'm cal'latin' to do, speak thetruth--fer ye don't know. "

A little red dory, labelled Hattie S. , lay astern of the schooner. Danhauled in the painter, and dropped lightly on to the bottom boards, while Harvey tumbled clumsily after. 

"That's no way o' gettin' into a boat, " said Dan. "Ef there was any seayou'd go to the bottom, sure. You got to learn to meet her. "

Dan fitted the thole-pins, took the forward thwart and watched Harvey'swork. The boy had rowed, in a lady-like fashion, on the Adirondackponds; but there is a difference between squeaking pins andwell-balanced ruflocks--light sculls and stubby, eight-foot sea-oars. They stuck in the gentle swell, and Harvey grunted. 

"Short! Row short!" said Dan. "Ef you cramp your oar in any kind o' seayou're liable to turn her over. Ain't she a daisy? Mine, too. "

The little dory was specklessly clean. In her bows lay a tiny anchor, two jugs of water, and some seventy fathoms of thin, brown dory-roding. A tin dinner-horn rested in cleats just under Harvey's right hand, beside an ugly-looking maul, a short gaff, and a shorter wooden stick. A couple of lines, with very heavy leads and double cod-hooks, allneatly coiled on square reels, were stuck in their place by the gunwale. 

"Where's the sail and mast?" said Harvey, for his hands were beginningto blister. 

Dan chuckled. "Ye don't sail fishin'-dories much. Ye pull; but yeneedn't pull so hard. Don't you wish you owned her?"

"Well, I guess my father might give me one or two if I asked 'em, "Harvey replied. He had been too busy to think much of his family tillthen. 

"That's so. I forgot your dad's a millionaire. You don't act millionaryany, naow. But a dory an' craft an' gear"--Dan spoke as though she werea whaleboat--"costs a heap. Think your dad 'u'd give you one fer--fer apet like?"

"Shouldn't wonder. It would be 'most the only thing I haven't stuck himfor yet. "

"Must be an expensive kinder kid to home. Don't slitheroo thet way, Harve. Short's the trick, because no sea's ever dead still, an' theswells 'll--"

Crack! The loom of the oar kicked Harvey under the chin and knocked himbackwards. 

"That was what I was goin' to say. I hed to learn too, but I wasn'tmore than eight years old when I got my schoolin'. "

Harvey regained his seat with aching jaws and a frown. 

"No good gettin' mad at things, Dad says. It's our own fault ef wecan't handle 'em, he says. Le's try here. Manuel 'll give us the water. "

The "Portugee" was rocking fully a mile away, but when Dan up-ended anoar he waved his left arm three times. 

"Thirty fathom, " said Dan, stringing a salt clam on to the hook. "Overwith the doughboys. Bait same's I do, Harvey, an' don't snarl yourreel. "

Dan's line was out long before Harvey had mastered the mystery ofbaiting and heaving out the leads. The dory drifted along easily. Itwas not worth while to anchor till they were sure of good ground. 

"Here we come!" Dan shouted, and a shower of spray rattled on Harvey'sshoulders as a big cod flapped and kicked alongside. "Muckle, Harvey, muckle! Under your hand! Quick!"

Evidently "muckle" could not be the dinner-horn, so Harvey passed overthe maul, and Dan scientifically stunned the fish before he pulled itinboard, and wrenched out the hook with the short wooden stick hecalled a "gob-stick. " Then Harvey felt a tug, and pulled up zealously. 

"Why, these are strawberries!" he shouted. "Look!"

The hook had fouled among a bunch of strawberries, red on one side andwhite on the other--perfect reproductions of the land fruit, exceptthat there were no leaves, and the stem was all pipy and slimy. 

"Don't tech 'em. Slat 'em off. Don't--"

The warning came too late. Harvey had picked them from the hook, andwas admiring them. 

"Ouch!" he cried, for his fingers throbbed as though he had graspedmany nettles. 

"Now ye know what strawberry-bottom means. Nothin' 'cep' fish should beteched with the naked fingers, Dad says. Slat 'em off agin the gunnel, an' bait up, Harve. Lookin' won't help any. It's all in the wages. "

Harvey smiled at the thought of his ten and a half dollars a month, andwondered what his mother would say if she could see him hanging overthe edge of a fishing-dory in mid-ocean. She suffered agonies wheneverhe went out on Saranac Lake; and, by the way, Harvey remembereddistinctly that he used to laugh at her anxieties. Suddenly the lineflashed through his hand, stinging even through the "nippers, " thewoolen circlets supposed to protect it. 

"He's a logy. Give him room accordin' to his strength, " cried Dan. "I'll help ye. "

"No, you won't, " Harvey snapped, as he hung on to the line. "It's myfirst fish. Is--is it a whale?"

"Halibut, mebbe. " Dan peered down into the water alongside, andflourished the big "muckle, " ready for all chances. Something white andoval flickered and fluttered through the green. "I'll lay my wage an'share he's over a hundred. Are you so everlastin' anxious to land himalone?"

Harvey's knuckles were raw and bleeding where they had been bangedagainst the gunwale; his face was purple-blue between excitement andexertion; he dripped with sweat, and was half-blinded from staring atthe circling sunlit ripples about the swiftly moving line. The boyswere tired long ere the halibut, who took charge of them and the doryfor the next twenty minutes. But the big flat fish was gaffed andhauled in at last. 

"Beginner's luck, " said Dan, wiping his forehead. "He's all of ahundred. "

Harvey looked at the huge gray-and-mottled creature with unspeakablepride. He had seen halibut many times on marble slabs ashore, but ithad never occurred to him to ask how they came inland. Now he knew; andevery inch of his body ached with fatigue. 

"Ef Dad was along, " said Dan, hauling up, "he'd read the signs plain'sprint. The fish are runnin' smaller an' smaller, an' you've took 'baoutas logy a halibut's we're apt to find this trip. Yesterday's catch--didye notice it?--was all big fish an' no halibut. Dad he'd read themsigns right off. Dad says everythin' on the Banks is signs, an' can beread wrong er right. Dad's deeper'n the Whale-hole. "

Even as he spoke some one fired a pistol on the _We're Here_, and apotato-basket was run up in the fore-rigging. 

"What did I say, naow? That's the call fer the whole crowd. Dad's ontersomething, er he'd never break fishin' this time o' day. Reel up, Harve, an' we'll pull back. "

They were to windward of the schooner, just ready to flirt the doryover the still sea, when sounds of woe half a mile off led them toPenn, who was careering around a fixed point for all the world like agigantic water-bug. The little man backed away and came down again withenormous energy, but at the end of each maneuver his dory swung roundand snubbed herself on her rope. 

"We'll hev to help him, else he'll root an' seed here, " said Dan. 

"What's the matter?" said Harvey. This was a new world, where he couldnot lay down the law to his elders, but had to ask questions humbly. And the sea was horribly big and unexcited. 

"Anchor's fouled. Penn's always losing 'em. Lost two this tripa'ready--on sandy bottom too--an' Dad says next one he loses, sure'sfishin', he'll give him the kelleg. That 'u'd break Penn's heart. "

"What's a 'kelleg'?" said Harvey, who had a vague idea it might be somekind of marine torture, like keel-hauling in the storybooks. 

"Big stone instid of an anchor. You kin see a kelleg ridin' in the bowsfur's you can see a dory, an' all the fleet knows what it means. They'dguy him dreadful. Penn couldn't stand that no more'n a dog with adipper to his tail. He's so everlastin' sensitive. Hello, Penn! Stuckagain? Don't try any more o' your patents. Come up on her, and keepyour rodin' straight up an' down. "

"It doesn't move, " said the little man, panting. "It doesn't move atall, and instead I tried everything. "

"What's all this hurrah's-nest for'ard?" said Dan, pointing to a wildtangle of spare oars and dory-roding, all matted together by the handof inexperience. 

"Oh, that, " said Penn proudly, "is a Spanish windlass. Mr. Saltersshowed me how to make it; but even that doesn't move her. "

Dan bent low over the gunwale to hide a smile, twitched once or twiceon the roding, and, behold, the anchor drew at once. 

"Haul up, Penn, " he said laughing, "er she'll git stuck again. "

They left him regarding the weed-hung flukes of the little anchor withbig, pathetic blue eyes, and thanking them profusely. 

"Oh, say, while I think of it, Harve, " said Dan when they were out ofear-shot, "Penn ain't quite all caulked. He ain't nowise dangerous, buthis mind's give out. See?"

"Is that so, or is it one of your father's judgments?"

Harvey asked as he bent to his oars. He felt he was learning to handlethem more easily. 

"Dad ain't mistook this time. Penn's a sure 'nuff loony. "

"No, he ain't thet exactly, so much ez a harmless ijut. It was this way(you're rowin' quite so, Harve), an' I tell you 'cause it's right youorter know. He was a Moravian preacher once. Jacob Boiler wuz his name, Dad told me, an' he lived with his wife an' four children somewheresout Pennsylvania way. Well, Penn he took his folks along to a Moravianmeetin'--camp-meetin' most like--an' they stayed over jest one night inJohns-town. You've heered talk o' Johnstown?"

Harvey considered. "Yes, I have. But I don't know why. It sticks in myhead same as Ashtabula. "

"Both was big accidents--thet's why, Harve. Well, that one single nightPenn and his folks was to the hotel Johnstown was wiped out. 'Dam bustan' flooded her, an' the houses struck adrift an' bumped into eachother an' sunk. I've seen the pictures, an' they're dretful. Penn hesaw his folk drowned all'n a heap 'fore he rightly knew what wascomin'. His mind give out from that on. He mistrusted somethin' hedhappened up to Johnstown, but for the poor life of him he couldn'tremember what, an' he jest drifted araound smilin' an' wonderin'. Hedidn't know what he was, nor yit what he hed bin, an' thet way he runagin Uncle Salters, who was visitin' 'n Allegheny City. Ha'af mymother's folks they live scattered inside o' Pennsylvania, an' UncleSalters he visits araound winters. Uncle Salters he kinder adoptedPenn, well knowin' what his trouble wuz; an' he brought him East, an'he give him work on his farm. "

"Why, I heard him calling Penn a farmer last night when the boatsbumped. Is your Uncle Salters a farmer?"

"Farmer!" shouted Dan. "There ain't water enough 'tween here an'Hatt'rus to wash the furrer-mold off'n his boots. He's jest everlastin'farmer. Why, Harve, I've seen thet man hitch up a bucket, long towardssundown, an' set twiddlin' the spigot to the scuttle-butt same's ef'twas a cow's bag. He's thet much farmer. Well, Penn an' he they ranthe farm--up Exeter way 'twur. Uncle Salters he sold it this spring toa jay from Boston as wanted to build a summer-haouse, an' he got a heapfor it. Well, them two loonies scratched along till, one day, Penn'schurch--he'd belonged to the Moravians--found out where he wuz driftedan' layin', an' wrote to Uncle Salters. 'Never heerd what they saidexactly; but Uncle Salters was mad. He's a 'piscopolian mostly--but hejest let 'em hev it both sides o' the bow, 's if he was a Baptist; an'sez he warn't goin' to give up Penn to any blame Moravian connection inPennsylvania or anywheres else. Then he come to Dad, towin' Penn, --thetwas two trips back, --an' sez he an' Penn must fish a trip fer theirhealth. 'Guess he thought the Moravians wouldn't hunt the Banks ferJacob Boiler. Dad was agreeable, fer Uncle Salters he'd been fishin'off an' on fer thirty years, when he warn't inventin' patent manures, an' he took quarter-share in the _We're Here_; an' the trip done Pennso much good, Dad made a habit o' takin' him. Some day, Dad sez, he'llremember his wife an' kids an' Johnstown, an' then, like as not, he'lldie, Dad sez. Don't ye talk abaout Johnstown ner such things to Penn, 'r Uncle Salters he'll heave ye overboard. "

"Poor Penn!" murmured Harvey. "I shouldn't ever have thought UncleSalters cared for him by the look of 'em together. "

"I like Penn, though; we all do, " said Dan. "We ought to ha' give him atow, but I wanted to tell ye first. "

They were close to the schooner now, the other boats a little behindthem. 

"You needn't heave in the dories till after dinner, " said Troop fromthe deck. "We'll dress daown right off. Fix table, boys!"

"Deeper'n the Whale-deep, " said Dan, with a wink, as he set the gearfor dressing down. "Look at them boats that hev edged up sence mornin'. They're all waitin' on Dad. See 'em, Harve?"

"They are all alike to me. " And indeed to a landsman, the noddingschooners around seemed run from the same mold. 

"They ain't, though. That yaller, dirty packet with her bowspritsteeved that way, she's the Hope of Prague. Nick Brady's her skipper, the meanest man on the Banks. We'll tell him so when we strike the MainLedge. 'Way off yonder's the Day's Eye. The two Jeraulds own her. She'sfrom Harwich; fastish, too, an' hez good luck; but Dad he'd find fishin a graveyard. Them other three, side along, they're the Margie Smith, Rose, and Edith S. Walen, all from home. 'Guess we'll see the Abbie M. Deering to-morrer, Dad, won't we? They're all slippin' over from theshaol o' 'Oueereau. "

"You won't see many boats to-morrow, Danny. " When Troop called his sonDanny, it was a sign that the old man was pleased. "Boys, we're toocrowded, " he went on, addressing the crew as they clambered inboard. "We'll leave 'em to bait big an' catch small. " He looked at the catchin the pen, and it was curious to see how little and level the fishran. Save for Harvey's halibut, there was nothing over fifteen poundson deck. 

"I'm waitin' on the weather, " he added. 

"Ye'll have to make it yourself, Disko, for there's no sign I can see, "said Long Jack, sweeping the clear horizon. 

And yet, half an hour later, as they were dressing down, the Bank fogdropped on them, "between fish and fish, " as they say. It drovesteadily and in wreaths, curling and smoking along the colourlesswater. The men stopped dressing-down without a word. Long Jack andUncle Salters slipped the windlass brakes into their sockets, and beganto heave up the anchor; the windlass jarring as the wet hempen cablestrained on the barrel. Manuel and Tom Platt gave a hand at the last. The anchor came up with a sob, and the riding-sail bellied as Troopsteadied her at the wheel. "Up jib and foresail, " said he. 

"Slip 'em in the smother, " shouted Long Jack, making fast thejib-sheet, while the others raised the clacking, rattling rings of theforesail; and the foreboom creaked as the _We're Here_ looked up intothe wind and dived off into blank, whirling white. 

"There's wind behind this fog, " said Troop. 

It was wonderful beyond words to Harvey; and the most wonderful partwas that he heard no orders except an occasional grunt from Troop, ending with, "That's good, my son!"

"Never seen anchor weighed before?" said Tom Platt, to Harvey gaping atthe damp canvas of the foresail. 

"No. Where are we going?"

"Fish and make berth, as you'll find out 'fore you've been a weekaboard. It's all new to you, but we never know what may come to us. Now, take me--Tom Platt--I'd never ha' thought--"

"It's better than fourteen dollars a month an' a bullet in your belly, "said Troop, from the wheel. "Ease your jumbo a grind. "

"Dollars an' cents better, " returned the man-o'-war's man, doingsomething to a big jib with a wooden spar tied to it. "But we didn'tthink o' that when we manned the windlass-brakes on the Miss Jim Buck, I outside Beau-fort Harbor, with Fort Macon heavin' hot shot at ourstern, an' a livin' gale atop of all. Where was you then, Disko?"

"Jest here, or hereabouts, " Disko replied, "earnin' my bread on thedeep waters, an' dodgin' Reb privateers. Sorry I can't accommodate youwith red-hot shot, Tom Platt; but I guess we'll come aout all right onwind 'fore we see Eastern Point. "

There was an incessant slapping and chatter at the bows now, varied bya solid thud and a little spout of spray that clattered down on thefoc'sle. The rigging dripped clammy drops, and the men lounged alongthe lee of the house--all save Uncle Salters, who sat stiffly on themain-hatch nursing his stung hands. 

"Guess she'd carry stays'l, " said Disko, rolling one eye at his brother. 

"Guess she wouldn't to any sorter profit. What's the sense o' wastin'canvas?" the farmer-sailor replied. 

The wheel twitched almost imperceptibly in Disko's hands. A few secondslater a hissing wave-top slashed diagonally across the boat, smoteUncle Salters between the shoulders, and drenched him from head tofoot. He rose sputtering, and went forward only to catch another. 

"See Dad chase him all around the deck, " said Dan. "Uncle Salters hethinks his quarter share's our canvas. Dad's put this duckin' act up onhim two trips runnin'. Hi! That found him where he feeds. " UncleSalters had taken refuge by the foremast, but a wave slapped him overthe knees. Disko's face was as blank as the circle of the wheel. 

"Guess she'd lie easier under stays'l, Salters, " said Disko, as thoughhe had seen nothing. 

"Set your old kite, then, " roared the victim through a cloud of spray;"only don't lay it to me if anything happens. Penn, you go below rightoff an' git your coffee. You ought to hev more sense than to bumaraound on deck this weather. "

"Now they'll swill coffee an' play checkers till the cows come home, "said Dan, as Uncle Salters hustled Penn into the fore-cabin. "'Looks tome like's if we'd all be doin' so fer a spell. There's nothin' increation deader-limpsey-idler'n a Banker when she ain't on fish. "

"I'm glad ye spoke, Danny, " cried Long Jack, who had been casting roundin search of amusement. "I'd clean forgot we'd a passenger under thatT-wharf hat. There's no idleness for thim that don't know their ropes. Pass him along, Tom Platt, an' we'll larn him. "

"'Tain't my trick this time, " grinned Dan. "You've got to go it alone. Dad learned me with a rope's end. "

For an hour Long Jack walked his prey up and down, teaching, as hesaid, "things at the sea that ivry man must know, blind, dhrunk, orasleep. " There is not much gear to a seventy-ton schooner with astump-foremast, but Long Jack had a gift of expression. When he wishedto draw Harvey's attention to the peak-halyards, he dug his knucklesinto the back of the boy's neck and kept him at gaze for half a minute. He emphasized the difference between fore and aft generally by rubbingHarvey's nose along a few feet of the boom, and the lead of each ropewas fixed in Harvey's mind by the end of the rope itself. 

The lesson would have been easier had the deck been at all free; butthere appeared to be a place on it for everything and anything except aman. Forward lay the windlass and its tackle, with the chain and hempcables, all very unpleasant to trip over; the foc'sle stovepipe, andthe gurry-butts by the foc'sle hatch to hold the fish-livers. Aft ofthese the foreboom and booby of the main-hatch took all the space thatwas not needed for the pumps and dressing-pens. Then came the nests ofdories lashed to ring-bolts by the quarter-deck; the house, with tubsand oddments lashed all around it; and, last, the sixty-foot main-boomin its crutch, splitting things length-wise, to duck and dodge underevery time. 

Tom Platt, of course, could not keep his oar out of the business, butranged alongside with enormous and unnecessary descriptions of sailsand spars on the old Ohio. 

"Niver mind fwhat he says; attind to me, Innocince. Tom Platt, thisbally-hoo's not the Ohio, an' you're mixing the bhoy bad. "

"He'll be ruined for life, beginnin' on a fore-an'-after this way, " TomPlatt pleaded. "Give him a chance to know a few leadin' principles. Sailin's an art, Harvey, as I'd show you if I had ye in the fore-top o'the--"

"I know ut. Ye'd talk him dead an' cowld. Silince, Tom Platt! Now, after all I've said, how'd you reef the foresail, Harve? Take your timeanswerin'. "

"Haul that in, " said Harvey, pointing to leeward. 

"Fwhat? The North Atlantuc?"

"No, the boom. Then run that rope you showed me back there--"

"That's no way, " Tom Platt burst in. 

"Quiet! He's larnin', an' has not the names good yet. Go on, Harve. "

"Oh, it's the reef-pennant. I'd hook the tackle on to the reef-pennant, and then let down--"

"Lower the sail, child! Lower!" said Tom Platt, in a professional agony. 

"Lower the throat and peak halyards, " Harvey went on. Those names stuckin his head. 

"Lay your hand on thim, " said Long Jack. 

Harvey obeyed. "Lower till that rope-loop--on the after-leach-kris--no, it's cringle--till the cringle was down on the boom. Then I'd tie herup the way you said, and then I'd hoist up the peak and throat halyardsagain. "

"You've forgot to pass the tack-earing, but wid time and help ye'lllarn. There's good and just reason for ivry rope aboard, or else'twould be overboard. D'ye follow me? 'Tis dollars an' cents I'mputtin' into your pocket, ye skinny little supercargo, so that fwhinye've filled out ye can ship from Boston to Cuba an' tell thim LongJack larned you. Now I'll chase ye around a piece, callin' the ropes, an' you'll lay your hand on thim as I call. "

He began, and Harvey, who was feeling rather tired, walked slowly tothe rope named. A rope's end licked round his ribs, and nearly knockedthe breath out of him. 

"When you own a boat, " said Tom Platt, with severe eyes, "you can walk. Till then, take all orders at the run. Once more--to make sure!"

Harvey was in a glow with the exercise, and this last cut warmed himthoroughly. Now he was a singularly smart boy, the son of a very cleverman and a very sensitive woman, with a fine resolute temper thatsystematic spoiling had nearly turned to mulish obstinacy. He looked atthe other men, and saw that even Dan did not smile. It was evidentlyall in the day's work, though it hurt abominably; so he swallowed thehint with a gulp and a gasp and a grin. The same smartness that led himto take such advantage of his mother made him very sure that no one onthe boat, except, maybe, Penn, would stand the least nonsense. Onelearns a great deal from a mere tone. Long Jack called over half adozen ropes, and Harvey danced over the deck like an eel at ebb-tide, one eye on Tom Platt. 

"Ver' good. Ver' good don, " said Manuel. "After supper I show you alittle schooner I make, with all her ropes. So we shall learn. "

"Fust-class fer--a passenger, " said Dan. "Dad he's jest allowed you'llbe wuth your salt maybe 'fore you're draownded. Thet's a heap fer Dad. I'll learn you more our next watch together. "

"Taller!" grunted Disko, peering through the fog as it smoked over thebows. There was nothing to be seen ten feet beyond the surgingjib-boom, while alongside rolled the endless procession of solemn, palewaves whispering and lipping one to the other. 

"Now I'll learn you something Long Jack can't, " shouted Tom Platt, asfrom a locker by the stern he produced a battered deep-sea leadhollowed at one end, smeared the hollow from a saucer full of muttontallow, and went forward. "I'll learn you how to fly the Blue Pigeon. Shooo!"

Disko did something to the wheel that checked the schooner's way, whileManuel, with Harvey to help (and a proud boy was Harvey), let down thejib in a lump on the boom. The lead sung a deep droning song as TomPlatt whirled it round and round. 

"Go ahead, man, " said Long Jack, impatiently. "We're not drawin'twenty-five fut off Fire Island in a fog. There's no trick to ut. "

"Don't be jealous, Galway. " The released lead plopped into the sea farahead as the schooner surged slowly forward. 

"Soundin' is a trick, though, " said Dan, "when your dipsey lead's allthe eye you're like to hev for a week. What d'you make it, Dad?"

Disko's face relaxed. His skill and honour were involved in the marchhe had stolen on the rest of the Fleet, and he had his reputation as amaster artist who knew the Banks blindfold. "Sixty, mebbe--ef I'm anyjudge, " he replied, with a glance at the tiny compass in the window ofthe house. 

"Sixty, " sung out Tom Platt, hauling in great wet coils. 

The schooner gathered way once more. "Heave!" said Disko, after aquarter of an hour. 

"What d'you make it?" Dan whispered, and he looked at Harvey proudly. But Harvey was too proud of his own performances to be impressed justthen. 

"Fifty, " said the father. "I mistrust we're right over the nick o'Green Bank on old Sixty-Fifty. "

"Fifty!" roared Tom Platt. They could scarcely see him through the fog. "She's bust within a yard--like the shells at Fort Macon. "

"Bait up, Harve, " said Dan, diving for a line on the reel. 

The schooner seemed to be straying promiscuously through the smother, her headsail banging wildly. The men waited and looked at the boys whobegan fishing. 

"Heugh!" Dan's lines twitched on the scored and scarred rail. "Now haowin thunder did Dad know? Help us here, Harve. It's a big un. Poke-hooked, too. " They hauled together, and landed a goggle-eyedtwenty-pound cod. He had taken the bait right into his stomach. 

"Why, he's all covered with little crabs, " cried Harvey, turning himover. 

"By the great hook-block, they're lousy already, " said Long Jack. "Disko, ye kape your spare eyes under the keel. "

Splash went the anchor, and they all heaved over the lines, each mantaking his own place at the bulwarks. 

"Are they good to eat?" Harvey panted, as he lugged in anothercrab-covered cod. 

"Sure. When they're lousy it's a sign they've all been herdin' togetherby the thousand, and when they take the bait that way they're hungry. Never mind how the bait sets. They'll bite on the bare hook. "

"Say, this is great!" Harvey cried, as the fish came in gasping andsplashing--nearly all poke-hooked, as Dan had said. "Why can't wealways fish from the boat instead of from the dories?"

"Allus can, till we begin to dress daown. Efter thet, the heads andoffals 'u'd scare the fish to Fundy. Boatfishin' ain't reckonedprogressive, though, unless ye know as much as dad knows. Guess we'llrun aout aour trawl to-night. Harder on the back, this, than frum thedory, ain't it?"

It was rather back-breaking work, for in a dory the weight of a cod iswater-borne till the last minute, and you are, so to speak, abreast ofhim; but the few feet of a schooner's freeboard make so much extradead-hauling, and stooping over the bulwarks cramps the stomach. But itwas wild and furious sport so long as it lasted; and a big pile layaboard when the fish ceased biting. 

"Where's Penn and Uncle Salters?" Harvey asked, slapping the slime offhis oilskins, and reeling up the line in careful imitation of theothers. 

"Git 's coffee and see. "

Under the yellow glare of the lamp on the pawl-post, the foc'sle tabledown and opened, utterly unconscious of fish or weather, sat the twomen, a checker-board between them, Uncle Salters snarling at Penn'severy move. 

"What's the matter naow?" said the former, as Harvey, one hand in theleather loop at the head of the ladder, hung shouting to the cook. 

"Big fish and lousy--heaps and heaps, " Harvey replied, quoting LongJack. "How's the game?"

Little Penn's jaw dropped. "'Tweren't none o' his fault, " snapped UncleSalters. "Penn's deef. "

"Checkers, weren't it?" said Dan, as Harvey staggered aft with thesteaming coffee in a tin pail. "That lets us out o' cleanin' upto-night. Dad's a jest man. They'll have to do it. "

"An' two young fellers I know'll bait up a tub or so o' trawl, whilethey're cleanin', " said Disko, lashing the wheel to his taste. 

"Um! Guess I'd ruther clean up, Dad. "

"Don't doubt it. Ye wun't, though. Dress daown! Dress daown! Penn'llpitch while you two bait up. "

"Why in thunder didn't them blame boys tell us you'd struck on?" saidUncle Salters, shuffling to his place at the table. "This knife'sgum-blunt, Dan. "

"Ef stickin' out cable don't wake ye, guess you'd better hire a boy o'your own, " said Dan, muddling about in the dusk over the tubs full oftrawl-line lashed to windward of the house. "Oh, Harve, don't ye wantto slip down an' git 's bait?"

"Bait ez we are, " said Disko. "I mistrust shag-fishin' will pay better, ez things go. "

That meant the boys would bait with selected offal of the cod as thefish were cleaned--an improvement on paddling bare-handed in the littlebait-barrels below. The tubs were full of neatly coiled line carrying abig hook each few feet; and the testing and baiting of every singlehook, with the stowage of the baited line so that it should run clearwhen shot from the dory, was a scientific business. Dan managed it inthe dark, without looking, while Harvey caught his fingers on the barbsand bewailed his fate. But the hooks flew through Dan's fingers liketatting on an old maid's lap. "I helped bait up trawl ashore 'fore Icould well walk, " he said. "But it's a putterin' job all the same. Oh, Dad!" This shouted towards the hatch, where Disko and Tom Platt weresalting. "How many skates you reckon we'll need?"

"'Baout three. Hurry!"

"There's three hundred fathom to each tub, " Dan explained; "more'nenough to lay out to-night. Ouch! 'Slipped up there, I did. " He stuckhis finger in his mouth. "I tell you, Harve, there ain't money inGloucester 'u'd hire me to ship on a reg'lar trawler. It may beprogressive, but, barrin' that, it's the putterin'est, slimjammestbusiness top of earth. "

"I don't know what this is, if 'tisn't regular trawling, " said Harveysulkily. "My fingers are all cut to frazzles. "

"Pshaw! This is just one o' Dad's blame experiments. He don't trawl'less there's mighty good reason fer it. Dad knows. Thet's why he'sbaitin' ez he is. We'll hev her saggin' full when we take her up er wewon't see a fin. "

Penn and Uncle Salters cleaned up as Disko had ordained, but the boysprofited little. No sooner were the tubs furnished than Tom Platt andLong Jack, who had been exploring the inside of a dory with a lantern, snatched them away, loaded up the tubs and some small, paintedtrawl-buoys, and hove the boat overboard into what Harvey regarded asan exceedingly rough sea. "They'll be drowned. Why, the dory's loadedlike a freight-car, " he cried. 

"We'll be back, " said Long Jack, "an' in case you'll not be lookin' forus, we'll lay into you both if the trawl's snarled. "

The dory surged up on the crest of a wave, and just when it seemedimpossible that she could avoid smashing against the schooner's side, slid over the ridge, and was swallowed up in the damp dusk. 

"Take ahold here, an' keep ringin' steady, " said Dan, passing Harveythe lanyard of a bell that hung just behind the windlass. 

Harvey rang lustily, for he felt two lives depended on him. But Diskoin the cabin, scrawling in the log-book, did not look like a murderer, and when he went to supper he even smiled dryly at the anxious Harvey. 

"This ain't no weather, " said Dan. "Why, you an' me could set thettrawl! They've only gone out jest far 'nough so's not to foul ourcable. They don't need no bell reelly. "

"Clang! clang! clang!" Harvey kept it up, varied with occasionalrub-a-dubs, for another half-hour. There was a bellow and a bumpalongside. Manuel and Dan raced to the hooks of the dory-tackle; LongJack and Tom Platt arrived on deck together, it seemed, one half theNorth Atlantic at their backs, and the dory followed them in the air, landing with a clatter. 

"Nary snarl, " said Tom Platt as he dripped. "Danny, you'll do yet. "

"The pleasure av your comp'ny to the banquit, " said Long Jack, squelching the water from his boots as he capered like an elephant andstuck an oil-skinned arm into Harvey's face. "We do be condescending tohonour the second half wid our presence. " And off they all four rolledto supper, where Harvey stuffed himself to the brim on fish-chowder andfried pies, and fell fast asleep just as Manuel produced from a lockera lovely two-foot model of the Lucy Holmes, his first boat, and wasgoing to show Harvey the ropes. Harvey never even twiddled his fingersas Penn pushed him into his bunk. 

"It must be a sad thing--a very sad thing, " said Penn, watching theboy's face, "for his mother and his father, who think he is dead. Tolose a child--to lose a man-child!"

"Git out o' this, Penn, " said Dan. "Go aft and finish your game withUncle Salters. Tell Dad I'll stand Harve's watch ef he don't keer. He'splayed aout. "

"Ver' good boy, " said Manuel, slipping out of his boots anddisappearing into the black shadows of the lower bunk. "Expec' he makegood man, Danny. I no see he is any so mad as your parpa he says. Eh, wha-at?"

Dan chuckled, but the chuckle ended in a snore. 

It was thick weather outside, with a rising wind, and the elder menstretched their watches. The hour struck clear in the cabin; the nosingbows slapped and scuffed with the seas; the foc'sle stove-pipe hissedand sputtered as the spray caught it; and the boys slept on, whileDisko, Long Jack, Tom Platt, and Uncle Salters, each in turn, stumpedaft to look at the wheel, forward to see that the anchor held, or toveer out a little more cable against chafing, with a glance at the dimanchor-light between each round. 

CHAPTER IV

Harvey waked to find the "first half" at breakfast, the foc'sle doordrawn to a crack, and every square inch of the schooner singing its owntune. The black bulk of the cook balanced behind the tiny galley overthe glare of the stove, and the pots and pans in the pierced woodenboard before it jarred and racketed to each plunge. Up and up thefoc'sle climbed, yearning and surging and quivering, and then, with aclear, sickle-like swoop, came down into the seas. He could hear theflaring bows cut and squelch, and there was a pause ere the dividedwaters came down on the deck above, like a volley of buckshot. Followedthe woolly sound of the cable in the hawse-hole; and a grunt and squealof the windlass; a yaw, a punt, and a kick, and the _We're Here_gathered herself together to repeat the motions. 

"Now, ashore, " he heard Long Jack saying, "ye've chores, an' ye must dothim in any weather. Here we're well clear of the fleet, an' we've nochores--an' that's a blessin'. Good night, all. " He passed like a bigsnake from the table to his bunk, and began to smoke. Tom Plattfollowed his example; Uncle Salters, with Penn, fought his way up theladder to stand his watch, and the cook set for the "second half. "

It came out of its bunks as the others had entered theirs, with a shakeand a yawn. It ate till it could eat no more; and then Manuel filledhis pipe with some terrible tobacco, crotched himself between thepawl-post and a forward bunk, cocked his feet up on the table, andsmiled tender and indolent smiles at the smoke. Dan lay at length inhis bunk, wrestling with a gaudy, gilt-stopped accordion, whose tuneswent up and down with the pitching of the _We're Here_. The cook, hisshoulders against the locker where he kept the fried pies (Dan was fondof fried pies), peeled potatoes, with one eye on the stove in event oftoo much water finding its way down the pipe; and the general smell andsmother were past all description. 

Harvey considered affairs, wondered that he was not deathly sick, andcrawled into his bunk again, as the softest and safest place, while Danstruck up, "I don't want to play in your yard, " as accurately as thewild jerks allowed. 

"How long is this for?" Harvey asked of Manuel. 

"Till she get a little quiet, and we can row to trawl. Perhapsto-night. Perhaps two days more. You do not like? Eh, wha-at?"

"I should have been crazy sick a week ago, but it doesn't seem to upsetme now--much. "

"That is because we make you fisherman, these days. If I was you, whenI come to Gloucester I would give two, three big candles for my goodluck. "

"Give who?"

"To be sure--the Virgin of our Church on the Hill. She is very good tofishermen all the time. That is why so few of us Portugee men ever aredrowned. "

"You're a Roman Catholic, then?"

"I am a Madeira man. I am not a Porto Pico boy. Shall I be Baptist, then? Eh, wha-at? I always give candles--two, three more when I come toGloucester. The good Virgin she never forgets me, Manuel. "

"I don't sense it that way, " Tom Platt put in from his bunk, hisscarred face lit up by the glare of a match as he sucked at his pipe. "It stands to reason the sea's the sea; and you'll get jest aboutwhat's goin', candles or kerosene, fer that matter. "

"'Tis a mighty good thing, " said Long Jack, "to have a frind at coort, though. I'm o' Manuel's way o' thinkin'. About tin years back I was crewto a Sou' Boston market-boat. We was off Minot's Ledge wid anortheaster, butt first, atop of us, thicker'n burgoo. The ould man wasdhrunk, his chin waggin' on the tiller, an' I sez to myself, 'If iver Istick my boat-huk into T-wharf again, I'll show the saints fwhat mannero' craft they saved me out av. ' Now, I'm here, as ye can well see, an'the model of the dhirty ould Kathleen, that took me a month to make, Igave ut to the priest, an' he hung ut up forninst the altar. There'smore sense in givin' a model that's by way o' bein' a work av art thanany candle. Ye can buy candles at store, but a model shows the goodsaints ye've tuk trouble an' are grateful. "

"D'you believe that, Irish?" said Tom Platt, turning on his elbow. 

"Would I do ut if I did not, Ohio?"

"Wa-al, Enoch Fuller he made a model o' the old Ohio, and she's toCalem museum now. Mighty pretty model, too, but I guess Enoch he neverdone it fer no sacrifice; an' the way I take it is--"

There were the makings of an hour-long discussion of the kind thatfishermen love, where the talk runs in shouting circles and no oneproves anything at the end, had not Dan struck up this cheerful rhyme:

 "Up jumped the mackerel with his stripe'd back. Reef in the mainsail, and haul on the tack; _For_ it's windy weather--"

Here Long Jack joined in:

 "_And_ it's blowy weather; _When_ the winds begin to blow, pipe all hands together!"

Dan went on, with a cautious look at Tom Platt, holding the accordionlow in the bunk:

 "Up jumped the cod with his chuckle-head, Went to the main-chains to heave at the lead; _For_ it's windy weather, " etc. 

Tom Platt seemed to be hunting for something. Dan crouched lower, butsang louder:

 "Up jumped the flounder that swims to the ground. Chuckle-head! Chuckle-head! Mind where ye sound!"

Tom Platt's huge rubber boot whirled across the foc'sle and caughtDan's uplifted arm. There was war between the man and the boy eversince Dan had discovered that the mere whistling of that tune wouldmake him angry as he heaved the lead. 

"Thought I'd fetch yer, " said Dan, returning the gift with precision. "Ef you don't like my music, git out your fiddle. I ain't goin' to liehere all day an' listen to you an' Long Jack arguin' 'baout candles. Fiddle, Tom Platt; or I'll learn Harve here the tune!"

Tom Platt leaned down to a locker and brought up an old white fiddle. Manuel's eye glistened, and from somewhere behind the pawl-post he drewout a tiny, guitar-like thing with wire strings, which he called amachette. 

"'Tis a concert, " said Long Jack, beaming through the smoke. "A reg'larBoston concert. "

There was a burst of spray as the hatch opened, and Disko, in yellowoilskins, descended. 

"Ye're just in time, Disko. Fwhat's she doin' outside?"

"Jest this!" He dropped on to the lockers with the push and heave ofthe _We're Here_. 

"We're singin' to kape our breakfasts down. Ye'll lead, av course, Disko, " said Long Jack. 

"Guess there ain't more'n 'baout two old songs I know, an' ye've heerdthem both. "

His excuses were cut short by Tom Platt launching into a most doloroustune, like unto the moaning of winds and the creaking of masts. Withhis eyes fixed on the beams above, Disko began this ancient, ancientditty, Tom Platt flourishing all round him to make the tune and wordsfit a little:

 "There is a crack packet--crack packet o' fame, She hails from Noo York, an' the _Dreadnought's_ her name. You may talk o' your fliers--Swallowtail and Black Ball-- But the _Dreadnought's_ the packet that can beat them all. "Now the _Dreadnought_ she lies in the River Mersey, Because of the tug-boat to take her to sea; But when she's off soundings you shortly will know

(Chorus. )

 She's the Liverpool packet--O Lord, let her go!

 "Now the _Dreadnought_ she's howlin' crost the Banks o' Newfoundland, Where the water's all shallow and the bottom's all sand. Sez all the little fishes that swim to and fro:

(Chorus. )

 'She's the Liverpool packet--O Lord, let her go!'", There were scores of verses, for he worked the _Dreadnought_ every mileof the way between Liverpool and New York as conscientiously as thoughhe were on her deck, and the accordion pumped and the fiddle squeakedbeside him. Tom Platt followed with something about "the rough andtough McGinn, who would pilot the vessel in. " Then they called onHarvey, who felt very flattered, to contribute to the entertainment;but all that he could remember were some pieces of "Skipper Ireson'sRide" that he had been taught at the camp-school in the Adirondacks. Itseemed that they might be appropriate to the time and place, but he hadno more than mentioned the title when Disko brought down one foot witha bang, and cried, "Don't go on, young feller. That's a mistakenjedgment--one o' the worst kind, too, becaze it's catchin' to the ear. "

"I orter ha' warned you, " said Dan. "Thet allus fetches Dad. "

"What's wrong?" said Harvey, surprised and a little angry. 

"All you're goin' to say, " said Disko. "All dead wrong from start tofinish, an' Whittier he's to blame. I have no special call to right anyMarblehead man, but 'tweren't no fault o' Ireson's. My father he toldme the tale time an' again, an' this is the way 'twuz. "

"For the wan hundredth time, " put in Long Jack under his breath

"Ben Ireson he was skipper o' the Betty, young feller, comin' home frumthe Banks--that was before the war of 1812, but jestice is jestice atall times. They fund the Active o' Portland, an' Gibbons o' that townhe was her skipper; they fund her leakin' off Cape Cod Light. There wasa terr'ble gale on, an' they was gettin' the Betty home 's fast as theycould craowd her. Well, Ireson he said there warn't any sense toreskin' a boat in that sea; the men they wouldn't hev it; and he laidit before them to stay by the Active till the sea run daown a piece. They wouldn't hev that either, hangin' araound the Cape in any sechweather, leak or no leak. They jest up stays'l an' quit, nat'rallytakin' Ireson with 'em. Folks to Marblehead was mad at him not runnin'the risk, and becaze nex' day, when the sea was ca'am (they neverstopped to think o' that), some of the Active's folks was took off by aTruro man. They come into Marblehead with their own tale to tell, sayin' how Ireson had shamed his town, an' so forth an' so on, an'Ireson's men they was scared, seein' public feelin' agin' 'em, an' theywent back on Ireson, an' swore he was respons'ble for the hull act. 'Tweren't the women neither that tarred and feathered him--Marbleheadwomen don't act that way--'twas a passel o' men an' boys, an' theycarted him araound town in an old dory till the bottom fell aout, andIreson he told 'em they'd be sorry for it some day. Well, the factscome aout later, same's they usually do, too late to be any ways usefulto an honest man; an' Whittier he come along an' picked up the slackeend of a lyin' tale, an' tarred and feathered Ben Ireson all over onctmore after he was dead. 'Twas the only tune Whittier ever slipped up, an' 'tweren't fair. I whaled Dan good when he brought that piece backfrom school. You don't know no better, o' course; but I've give you thefacts, hereafter an' evermore to be remembered. Ben Ireson weren't nosech kind o' man as Whittier makes aout; my father he knew him well, before an' after that business, an' you beware o' hasty jedgments, young feller. Next!"

Harvey had never heard Disko talk so long, and collapsed with burningcheeks; but, as Dan said promptly, a boy could only learn what he wastaught at school, and life was too short to keep track of every liealong the coast. 

Then Manuel touched the jangling, jarring little machette to a queertune, and sang something in Portuguese about "Nina, innocente!" endingwith a full-handed sweep that brought the song up with a jerk. ThenDisko obliged with his second song, to an old-fashioned creaky tune, and all joined in the chorus. This is one stanza:

 "Now Aprile is over and melted the snow, And outer Noo Bedford we shortly must tow; Yes, out o' Noo Bedford we shortly must clear, We're the whalers that never see wheat in the ear. "

Here the fiddle went very softly for a while by itself, and then:

 "Wheat-in-the-ear, my true-love's posy blowin, Wheat-in-the-ear, we're goin' off to sea; Wheat-in-the-ear, I left you fit for sowin, When I come back a loaf o' bread you'll be!"

That made Harvey almost weep, though he could not tell why. But it wasmuch worse when the cook dropped the potatoes and held out his handsfor the fiddle. Still leaning against the locker door, he struck into atune that was like something very bad but sure to happen whatever youdid. After a little he sang, in an unknown tongue, his big chin down onthe fiddle-tail, his white eyeballs glaring in the lamplight. Harveyswung out of his bunk to hear better; and amid the straining of thetimbers and the wash of the waters the tune crooned and moaned on, likelee surf in a blind fog, till it ended with a wail. 

"Jimmy Christmas! Thet gives me the blue creevles, " said Dan. "What inthunder is it?"

"The song of Fin McCoul, " said the cook, "when he wass going toNorway. " His English was not thick, but all clear-cut, as though itcame from a phonograph. 

"Faith, I've been to Norway, but I didn't make that unwholesim noise. 'Tis like some of the old songs, though, " said Long Jack, sighing. 

"Don't let's hev another 'thout somethin' between, " said Dan; and theaccordion struck up a rattling, catchy tune that ended:

 "It's six an' twenty Sundays sence las' we saw the land, With fifteen hunder quintal, An' fifteen hunder quintal, 'Teen hunder toppin' quintal, 'Twix' old 'Queereau an' Grand!"

"Hold on!" roared Tom Platt. "D'ye want to nail the trip, Dan? That'sJonah sure, 'less you sing it after all our salt's wet. "

"No, 'tain't, is it, Dad? Not unless you sing the very las' verse. Youcan't learn me anything on Jonahs!"

"What's that?" said Harvey. "What's a Jonah?"

"A Jonah's anything that spoils the luck. Sometimes it's aman--sometimes it's a boy--or a bucket. I've known a splittin'-knifeJonah two trips till we was on to her, " said Tom Platt. "There's allsorts o' Jonahs. Jim Bourke was one till he was drowned on Georges. I'dnever ship with Jim Bourke, not if I was starvin'. There wuz a greendory on the Ezra Flood. Thet was a Jonah, too, the worst sort o' Jonah. Drowned four men, she did, an' used to shine fiery O, nights in thenest. "

"And you believe that?" said Harvey, remembering what Tom Platt hadsaid about candles and models. "Haven't we all got to take what'sserved?"

A mutter of dissent ran round the bunks. "Outboard, yes; inboard, things can happen, " said Disko. "Don't you go makin' a mock of Jonahs, young feller. "

"Well, Harve ain't no Jonah. Day after we catched him, " Dan cut in, "wehad a toppin' good catch. "

The cook threw up his head and laughed suddenly--a queer, thin laugh. He was a most disconcerting nigger. 

"Murder!" said Long Jack. "Don't do that again, doctor. We ain't usedto ut. "

"What's wrong?" said Dan. "Ain't he our mascot, and didn't they strikeon good after we'd struck him?"

"Oh! yess, " said the cook. "I know that, but the catch iss not finishyet. "

"He ain't goin' to do us any harm, " said Dan, hotly. "Where are yehintin' an' edgin' to? He's all right. "

"No harm. No. But one day he will be your master, Danny. "

"That all?" said Dan, placidly. "He wun't--not by a jugful. "

"Master!" said the cook, pointing to Harvey. "Man!" and he pointed toDan. 

"That's news. Haow soon?" said Dan, with a laugh. 

"In some years, and I shall see it. Master and man--man and master. "

"How in thunder d'ye work that out?" said Tom Platt. 

"In my head, where I can see. "

"Haow?" This from all the others at once. 

"I do not know, but so it will be. " He dropped his head, and went onpeeling the potatoes, and not another word could they get out of him. 

"Well, " said Dan, "a heap o' things'll hev to come abaout 'fore Harve'sany master o' mine; but I'm glad the doctor ain't choosen to mark himfor a Jonah. Now, I mistrust Uncle Salters fer the Jonerest Jonah inthe Fleet regardin' his own special luck. Dunno ef it's spreadin'same's smallpox. He ought to be on the _Carrie Pitman_. That boat's herown Jonah, sure--crews an' gear made no differ to her driftin'. JiminyChristmas! She'll etch loose in a flat ca'am. "

"We're well clear o' the Fleet, anyway, " said Disko. "_Carrie Pitman_ an'all. " There was a rapping on the deck. 

"Uncle Salters has catched his luck, " said Dan as his father departed. 

"It's blown clear, " Disko cried, and all the foc'sle tumbled up for abit of fresh air. The fog had gone, but a sullen sea ran in greatrollers behind it. The _We're Here_ slid, as it were, into long, sunkavenues and ditches which felt quite sheltered and homelike if theywould only stay still; but they changed without rest or mercy, andflung up the schooner to crown one peak of a thousand gray hills, whilethe wind hooted through her rigging as she zigzagged down the slopes. Far away a sea would burst into a sheet of foam, and the others wouldfollow suit as at a signal, till Harvey's eyes swam with the vision ofinterlacing whites and grays. Four or five Mother Carey's chickensstormed round in circles, shrieking as they swept past the bows. Arain-squall or two strayed aimlessly over the hopeless waste, ran down'wind and back again, and melted away. 

"Seems to me I saw somethin' flicker jest naow over yonder, " said UncleSalters, pointing to the northeast. 

"Can't be any of the fleet, " said Disko, peering under his eyebrows, ahand on the foc'sle gangway as the solid bows hatcheted into thetroughs. "Sea's oilin' over dretful fast. Danny, don't you want to skipup a piece an' see how aour trawl-buoy lays?"

Danny, in his big boots, trotted rather than climbed up the mainrigging (this consumed Harvey with envy), hitched himself around thereeling cross-trees, and let his eye rove till it caught the tiny blackbuoy-flag on the shoulder of a mile-away swell. 

"She's all right, " he hailed. "Sail O! Dead to the no'th'ard, comin'down like smoke! Schooner she be, too. "

They waited yet another half-hour, the sky clearing in patches, with aflicker of sickly sun from time to time that made patches ofolive-green water. Then a stump-foremast lifted, ducked, anddisappeared, to be followed on the next wave by a high stern withold-fashioned wooden snail's-horn davits. The snails were red-tanned. 

"Frenchmen!" shouted Dan. "No, 'tain't, neither. Da-ad!"

"That's no French, " said Disko. "Salters, your blame luck holdstighter'n a screw in a keg-head. "

"I've eyes. It's Uncle Abishai. "

"You can't nowise tell fer sure. "

"The head-king of all Jonahs, " groaned Tom Platt. "Oh, Salters, Salters, why wasn't you abed an' asleep?"

"How could I tell?" said poor Salters, as the schooner swung up. 

She might have been the very Flying Dutchman, so foul, draggled, andunkempt was every rope and stick aboard. Her old-style quarterdeck wassome or five feet high, and her rigging flew knotted and tangled likeweed at a wharf-end. She was running before the wind--yawingfrightfully--her staysail let down to act as a sort of extraforesail, --"scandalized, " they call it, --and her foreboom guyed outover the side. Her bowsprit cocked up like an old-fashioned frigate's;her jib-boom had been fished and spliced and nailed and clamped beyondfurther repair; and as she hove herself forward, and sat down on herbroad tail, she looked for all the world like a blouzy, frouzy, bad oldwoman sneering at a decent girl. 

"That's Abishai, " said Salters. "Full o' gin an' Judique men, an' thejudgments o' Providence layin' fer him an' never takin' good holt He'srun in to bait, Miquelon way. "

"He'll run her under, " said Long Jack. "That's no rig fer this weather. "

"Not he, 'r he'd'a done it long ago, " Disko replied. "Looks 's if hecal'lated to run us under. Ain't she daown by the head more 'n natural, Tom Platt?"

"Ef it's his style o' loadin' her she ain't safe, " said the sailorslowly. "Ef she's spewed her oakum he'd better git to his pumps mightyquick. "

The creature threshed up, wore round with a clatter and raffle, and layhead to wind within ear-shot. 

A gray-beard wagged over the bulwark, and a thick voice yelledsomething Harvey could not understand. But Disko's face darkened. "He'dresk every stick he hez to carry bad news. Says we're in fer a shift o'wind. He's in fer worse. Abishai! Abi-shai!" He waved his arm up anddown with the gesture of a man at the pumps, and pointed forward. Thecrew mocked him and laughed. 

"Jounce ye, an' strip ye an' trip ye!" yelled Uncle Abishai. "A livin'gale--a livin' gale. Yab! Cast up fer your last trip, all youGloucester haddocks. You won't see Gloucester no more, no more!"

"Crazy full--as usual, " said Tom Platt. "Wish he hadn't spied us, though. "

She drifted out of hearing while the gray-head yelled something about adance at the Bay of Bulls and a dead man in the foc'sle. Harveyshuddered. He had seen the sloven tilled decks and the savage-eyed crew. 

"An' that's a fine little floatin' hell fer her draught, " said LongJack. "I wondher what mischief he's been at ashore. "

"He's a trawler, " Dan explained to Harvey, "an' he runs in fer bait allalong the coast. Oh, no, not home, he don't go. He deals along thesouth an' east shore up yonder. " He nodded in the direction of thepitiless Newfoundland beaches. "Dad won't never take me ashore there. They're a mighty tough crowd--an' Abishai's the toughest. You saw hisboat? Well, she's nigh seventy year old, they say; the last o' the oldMarblehead heel-tappers. They don't make them quarterdecks any more. Abishai don't use Marblehead, though. He ain't wanted there. He jes'drif's araound, in debt, trawlin' an' cussin' like you've heard. Bin aJonah fer years an' years, he hez. 'Gits liquor frum the Feecamp boatsfer makin' spells an' selling winds an' such truck. Crazy, I guess. "

"'Twon't be any use underrunnin' the trawl to-night, " said Tom Platt, with quiet despair. "He come alongside special to cuss us. I'd give mywage an' share to see him at the gangway o' the old Ohio 'fore we quitfloggin'. Jest abaout six dozen, an' Sam Mocatta layin' 'em oncriss-cross!"

The disheveled "heel-tapper" danced drunkenly down wind, and all eyesfollowed her. Suddenly the cook cried in his phonograph voice: "It wasshis own death made him speak so! He iss fey--fey, I tell you! Look!"She sailed into a patch of watery sunshine three or four miles distant. The patch dulled and faded out, and even as the light passed so did theschooner. She dropped into a hollow and--was not. 

"Run under, by the Great Hook-Block!" shouted Disko, jumping aft. "Drunk or sober, we've got to help 'em. Heave short and break her out!Smart!"

Harvey was thrown on the deck by the shock that followed the setting ofthe jib and foresail, for they hove short on the cable, and to savetime, jerked the anchor bodily from the bottom, heaving in as theymoved away. This is a bit of brute force seldom resorted to except inmatters of life and death, and the little _We're Here_ complained likea human. They ran down to where Abishai's craft had vanished; found twoor three trawl-tubs, a gin-bottle, and a stove-in dory, but nothingmore. "Let 'em go, " said Disko, though no one had hinted at pickingthem up. "I wouldn't hev a match that belonged to Abishai aboard. Guessshe run clear under. Must ha' been spewin' her oakum fer a week, an'they never thought to pump her. That's one more boat gone along o'leavin' port all hands drunk. "

"Glory be!" said Long Jack. "We'd ha' been obliged to help 'em if theywas top o' water. "

"'Thinkin' o' that myself, " said Tom Platt. 

"Fey! Fey!" said the cook, rolling his eyes. "He haas taken his ownluck with him. "

"Ver' good thing, I think, to tell the Fleet when we see. Eh, wha-at?"said Manuel. "If you runna that way before the 'wind, and she work openher seams--" He threw out his hands with an indescribable gesture, while Penn sat down on the house and sobbed at the sheer horror andpity of it all. Harvey could not realize that he had seen death on theopen waters, but he felt very sick. Then Dan went up the cross-trees, and Disko steered them back to within sight of their own trawl-buoysjust before the fog blanketed the sea once again. 

"We go mighty quick hereabouts when we do go, " was all he said toHarvey. "You think on that fer a spell, young feller. That was liquor. "

"After dinner it was calm enough to fish from the decks, --Penn andUncle Salters were very zealous this time, --and the catch was large andlarge fish. 

"Abishai has shorely took his luck with him, " said Salters. "The windhain't backed ner riz ner nothin'. How abaout the trawl? I despisesuperstition, anyway. "

Tom Platt insisted that they had much better haul the thing and make anew berth. But the cook said: "The luck iss in two pieces. You willfind it so when you look. I know. " This so tickled Long Jack that heoverbore Tom Platt and the two went out together. 

Underrunning a trawl means pulling it in on one side of the dory, picking off the fish, rebaiting the hooks, and passing them back to thesea again--something like pinning and unpinning linen on a wash-line. It is a lengthy business and rather dangerous, for the long, saggingline may twitch a boat under in a flash. But when they heard, "And naowto thee, O Capting, " booming out of the fog, the crew of the _We'reHere_ took heart. The dory swirled alongside well loaded, Tom Plattyelling for Manuel to act as relief-boat. 

"The luck's cut square in two pieces, " said Long Jack, forking in thefish, while Harvey stood open-mouthed at the skill with which theplunging dory was saved from destruction. "One half was jest punkins. Tom Platt wanted to haul her an' ha' done wid ut; but I said, "I'llback the doctor that has the second sight, an' the other half come upsagging full o' big uns. Hurry, Man'nle, an' bring's a tub o' bait. There's luck afloat to-night. "

The fish bit at the newly baited hooks from which their brethren hadjust been taken, and Tom Platt and Long Jack moved methodically up anddown the length of the trawl, the boat's nose surging under the wetline of hooks, stripping the sea-cucumbers that they called pumpkins, slatting off the fresh-caught cod against the gunwale, rebaiting, andloading Manuel's dory till dusk. 

"I'll take no risks, " said Disko then--"not with him floatin' around sonear. Abishai won't sink fer a week. Heave in the dories an' we'lldress daown after supper. "

That was a mighty dressing-down, attended by three or four blowinggrampuses. It lasted till nine o'clock, and Disko was thrice heard tochuckle as Harvey pitched the split fish into the hold. 

"Say, you're haulin' ahead dretful fast, " said Dan, when they groundthe knives after the men had turned in. "There's somethin' of a seato-night, an' I hain't heard you make no remarks on it. "

"Too busy, " Harvey replied, testing a blade's edge. "Come to think ofit, she is a high-kicker. "

The little schooner was gambolling all around her anchor among thesilver-tipped waves. Backing with a start of affected surprise at thesight of the strained cable, she pounced on it like a kitten, while thespray of her descent burst through the hawse-holes with the report of agun. Shaking her head, she would say: "Well, I'm sorry I can't stay anylonger with you. I'm going North, " and would sidle off, haltingsuddenly with a dramatic rattle of her rigging. "As I was just going toobserve, " she would begin, as gravely as a drunken man addressing alamp-post. The rest of the sentence (she acted her words in dumb-show, of course) was lost in a fit of the fidgets, when she behaved like apuppy chewing a string, a clumsy woman in a side-saddle, a hen with herhead cut off, or a cow stung by a hornet, exactly as the whims of thesea took her. 

"See her sayin' her piece. She's Patrick Henry naow, " said Dan. 

She swung sideways on a roller, and gesticulated with her jib-boom fromport to starboard. 

"But-ez-fer me, give me liberty-er give me-death!"

Wop! She sat down in the moon-path on the water, courtesying with aflourish of pride impressive enough had not the wheel-gear sniggeredmockingly in its box. 

Harvey laughed aloud. "Why, it's just as if she was alive, " he said. 

"She's as stiddy as a haouse an' as dry as a herrin', " said Danenthusiastically, as he was slung across the deck in a batter of spray. "Fends 'em off an' fends 'em off, an' 'Don't ye come anigh me, ' shesez. Look at her--jest look at her! Sakes! You should see one o' themtoothpicks histin' up her anchor on her spike outer fifteen-fathomwater. "

"What's a toothpick, Dan?"

"Them new haddockers an' herrin'-boats. Fine's a yacht forward, withyacht sterns to 'em, an' spike bowsprits, an' a haouse that 'u'd takeour hold. I've heard that Burgess himself he made the models fer threeor four of 'em. Dad's sot agin 'em on account o' their pitchin' an'joltin', but there's heaps o' money in 'em. Dad can find fish, but heain't no ways progressive--he don't go with the march o' the times. They're chock-full o' labour-savin' jigs an' sech all. 'Ever seed theElector o' Gloucester? She's a daisy, ef she is a toothpick. "

"What do they cost, Dan?"

"Hills o' dollars. Fifteen thousand, p'haps; more, mebbe. There'sgold-leaf an' everything you kin think of. " Then to himself, half underhis breath, "Guess I'd call her Hattie S. , too. "

CHAPTER V

That was the first of many talks with Dan, who told Harvey why he wouldtransfer his dory's name to the imaginary Burgess-modelled haddocker. Harvey heard a good deal about the real Hattie at Gloucester; saw alock of her hair--which Dan, finding fair words of no avail, had"hooked" as she sat in front of him at school that winter--and aphotograph. Hattie was about fourteen years old, with an awful contemptfor boys, and had been trampling on Dan's heart through the winter. Allthis was revealed under oath of solemn secrecy on moonlit decks, in thedead dark, or in choking fog; the whining wheel behind them, theclimbing deck before, and without, the unresting, clamorous sea. Once, of course, as the boys came to know each other, there was a fight, which raged from bow to stern till Penn came up and separated them, butpromised not to tell Disko, who thought fighting on watch rather worsethan sleeping. Harvey was no match for Dan physically, but it says agreat deal for his new training that he took his defeat and did not tryto get even with his conqueror by underhand methods. 

That was after he had been cured of a string of boils between hiselbows and wrists, where the wet jersey and oilskins cut into theflesh. The salt water stung them unpleasantly, but when they were ripeDan treated them with Disko's razor, and assured Harvey that now he wasa "blooded Banker"; the affliction of gurry-sores being the mark of thecaste that claimed him. 

Since he was a boy and very busy, he did not bother his head with toomuch thinking. He was exceedingly sorry for his mother, and oftenlonged to see her and above all to tell her of this wonderful new life, and how brilliantly he was acquitting himself in it. Otherwise hepreferred not to wonder too much how she was bearing the shock of hissupposed death. But one day, as he stood on the foc'sle ladder, guyingthe cook, who had accused him and Dan of hooking fried pies, itoccurred to him that this was a vast improvement on being snubbed bystrangers in the smoking-room of a hired liner. 

He was a recognized part of the scheme of things on the We're Here; hadhis place at the table and among the bunks; and could hold his own inthe long talks on stormy days, when the others were always ready tolisten to what they called his "fairy-tales" of his life ashore. It didnot take him more than two days and a quarter to feel that if he spokeof his own life--it seemed very far away--no one except Dan (and evenDan's belief was sorely tried) credited him. So he invented a friend, aboy he had heard of, who drove a miniature four-pony drag in Toledo, Ohio, and ordered five suits of clothes at a time and led things called"germans" at parties where the oldest girl was not quite fifteen, butall the presents were solid silver. Salters protested that this kind ofyarn was desperately wicked, if not indeed positively blasphemous, buthe listened as greedily as the others; and their criticisms at the endgave Harvey entirely new notions on "germans, " clothes, cigarettes withgold-leaf tips, rings, watches, scent, small dinner-parties, champagne, card-playing, and hotel accommodation. Little by little he changed histone when speaking of his "friend, " whom Long Jack had christened "theCrazy Kid, " "the Gilt-edged Baby, " "the Suckin' Vanderpoop, " and otherpet names; and with his sea-booted feet cocked up on the table wouldeven invent histories about silk pajamas and specially importedneckwear, to the "friend's" discredit. Harvey was a very adaptableperson, with a keen eye and ear for every face and tone about him. 

Before long he knew where Disko kept the old greencrusted quadrant thatthey called the "hog-yoke"--under the bed-bag in his bunk. When he tookthe sun, and with the help of "The Old Farmer's" almanac found thelatitude, Harvey would jump down into the cabin and scratch thereckoning and date with a nail on the rust of the stove-pipe. Now, thechief engineer of the liner could have done no more, and no engineer ofthirty years' service could have assumed one half of theancient-mariner air with which Harvey, first careful to spit over theside, made public the schooner's position for that day, and then andnot till then relieved Disko of the quadrant. There is an etiquette inall these things. 

The said "hog-yoke, " an Eldridge chart, the farming almanac, Blunt's"Coast Pilot, " and Bowditch's "Navigator" were all the weapons Diskoneeded to guide him, except the deep-sea lead that was his spare eye. Harvey nearly slew Penn with it when Tom Platt taught him first how to"fly the blue pigeon"; and, though his strength was not equal tocontinuous sounding in any sort of a sea, for calm weather with aseven-pound lead on shoal water Disko used him freely. As Dan said:

"'Tain't soundin's dad wants. It's samples. Grease her up good, Harve. "Harvey would tallow the cup at the end, and carefully bring the sand, shell, sludge, or whatever it might be, to Disko, who fingered andsmelt it and gave judgment As has been said, when Disko thought of codhe thought as a cod; and by some long-tested mixture of instinct andexperience, moved the We're Here from berth to berth, always with thefish, as a blindfolded chess-player moves on the unseen board. 

But Disko's board was the Grand Bank--a triangle two hundred and fiftymiles on each side--a waste of wallowing sea, cloaked with dank fog, vexed with gales, harried with drifting ice, scored by the tracks ofthe reckless liners, and dotted with the sails of the fishing-fleet. 

For days they worked in fog--Harvey at the bell--till, grown familiarwith the thick airs, he went out with Tom Platt, his heart rather inhis mouth. But the fog would not lift, and the fish were biting, and noone can stay helplessly afraid for six hours at a time. Harvey devotedhimself to his lines and the gaff or gob-stick as Tom Platt called forthem; and they rowed back to the schooner guided by the bell and Tom'sinstinct; Manuel's conch sounding thin and faint beside them. But itwas an unearthly experience, and, for the first time in a month, Harveydreamed of the shifting, smoking floors of water round the dory, thelines that strayed away into nothing, and the air above that melted onthe sea below ten feet from his straining eyes. A few days later he wasout with Manuel on what should have been forty-fathom bottom, but thewhole length of the roding ran out, and still the anchor found nothing, and Harvey grew mortally afraid, for that his last touch with earth waslost. "Whale-hole, " said Manuel, hauling in. "That is good joke onDisko. Come!" and he rowed to the schooner to find Tom Platt and theothers jeering at the skipper because, for once, he had led them to theedge of the barren Whale-deep, the blank hole of the Grand Bank. Theymade another berth through the fog, and that time the hair of Harvey'shead stood up when he went out in Manuel's dory. A whiteness moved inthe whiteness of the fog with a breath like the breath of the grave, and there was a roaring, a plunging, and spouting. It was his firstintroduction to the dread summer berg of the Banks, and he cowered inthe bottom of the boat while Manuel laughed. There were days, though, clear and soft and warm, when it seemed a sin to do anything but loafover the hand-lines and spank the drifting "sun-scalds" with an oar;and there were days of light airs, when Harvey was taught how to steerthe schooner from one berth to another. 

It thrilled through him when he first felt the keel answer to his bandon the spokes and slide over the long hollows as the foresail scythedback and forth against the blue sky. That was magnificent, in spite ofDisko saying that it would break a snake's back to follow his wake. But, as usual, pride ran before a fall. They were sailing on the windwith the staysail--an old one, luckily--set, and Harvey jammed herright into it to show Dan how completely he had mastered the art. Theforesail went over with a bang, and the foregaff stabbed and rippedthrough the staysail, which was, of course, prevented from going overby the mainstay. They lowered the wreck in awful silence, and Harveyspent his leisure hours for the next few days under Tom Platt's lee, learning to use a needle and palm. Dan hooted with joy, for, as hesaid, he had made the very same blunder himself in his early days. 

Boylike, Harvey imitated all the men by turns, till he had combinedDisko's peculiar stoop at the wheel, Long Jack's swinging overhand whenthe lines were hauled, Manuel's round-shouldered but effective strokein a dory, and Tom Platt's generous Ohio stride along the deck. 

"'Tis beautiful to see how he takes to ut, " said Long Jack, when Harveywas looking out by the windlass one thick noon. "I'll lay my wage an'share 'tis more'n half play-actin' to him, an' he consates himself he'sa bowld mariner. Watch his little bit av a back now!"

"That's the way we all begin, " said Tom Platt. "The boys they makebelieve all the time till they've cheated 'emselves into bein' men, an'so till they die--pretendin' an' pretendin'. I done it on the old Ohio, I know. Stood my first watch--harbor-watch--feelin' finer'n Farragut. Dan's full o' the same kind o' notions. See 'em now, actin' to begenewine moss-backs--very hair a rope-yarn an' blood Stockholm tar. " Hespoke down the cabin stairs. "Guess you're mistook in your judgmentsfer once, Disko. What in Rome made ye tell us all here the kid wascrazy?"

"He wuz, " Disko replied. "Crazy ez a loon when he come aboard; but I'llsay he's sobered up consid'ble sence. I cured him. "

"He yarns good, " said Tom Platt. "T'other night he told us abaout a kidof his own size steerin' a cunnin' little rig an' four ponies up an'down Toledo, Ohio, I think 'twas, an' givin' suppers to a crowd o'sim'lar kids. Cur'us kind o' fairy-tale, but blame interestin'. Heknows scores of 'em. "

"Guess he strikes 'em outen his own head, " Disko called from the cabin, where he was busy with the logbook. "Stands to reason that sort is allmade up. It don't take in no one but Dan, an' he laughs at it. I'veheard him, behind my back. "

"Yever hear what Sim'on Peter Ca'houn said when they whacked up a match'twix' his sister Hitty an' Lorin' Jerauld, an' the boys put up thatjoke on him daown to Georges?" drawled Uncle Salters, who was drippingpeaceably under the lee of the starboard dory-nest. 

Tom Platt puffed at his pipe in scornful silence: he was a Cape Codman, and had not known that tale more than twenty years. Uncle Salterswent on with a rasping chuckie:

"Sim'on Peter Ca'houn he said, an' he was jest right, abaout Lorin', 'Ha'af on the taown, ' he said, 'an' t'other ha'af blame fool; an' theytold me she's married a 'ich man. ' Sim'on Peter Ca'houn he hedn't noroof to his mouth, an' talked that way. "

"He didn't talk any Pennsylvania Dutch, " Tom Platt replied. "You'dbetter leave a Cape man to tell that tale. The Ca'houns was gypsiesfrum 'way back. "

"Wal, I don't profess to be any elocutionist, " Salters said. "I'mcomin' to the moral o' things. That's jest abaout what aour Harve be!Ha'af on the taown, an' t'other ha'af blame fool; an' there's some'llbelieve he's a rich man. Yah!"

"Did ye ever think how sweet 'twould be to sail wid a full crew o'Salterses?" said Long Jack. "Ha'af in the furrer an' other ha'af in themuck-heap, as Ca'houn did not say, an' makes out he's a fisherman!"

A little laugh went round at Salters's expense. 

Disko held his tongue, and wrought over the log-book that he kept in ahatchet-faced, square hand; this was the kind of thing that ran on, page after soiled page:

"July 17. This day thick fog and few fish. Made berth to northward. Soends this day. 

"July 18. This day comes in with thick fog. Caught a few fish. 

"July 19. This day comes in with light breeze from N. E. And fineweather. Made a berth to eastward. Caught plenty fish. 

"July 20. This, the Sabbath, comes in with fog and light winds. So endsthis day. Total fish caught this week, 3, 478. "

They never worked on Sundays, but shaved, and washed themselves if itwere fine, and Pennsylvania sang hymns. Once or twice he suggestedthat, if it was not an impertinence, he thought he could preach alittle. Uncle Salters nearly jumped down his throat at the mere notion, reminding him that he was not a preacher and mustn't think of suchthings. "We'd hev him rememberin' Johns-town next, " Salters explained, "an' what would happen then?" so they compromised on his reading aloudfrom a book called "Josephus. " It was an old leather-bound volume, smelling of a hundred voyages, very solid and very like the Bible, butenlivened with accounts of battles and sieges; and they read it nearlyfrom cover to cover. Otherwise Penn was a silent little body. He wouldnot utter a word for three days on end sometimes, though he playedcheckers, listened to the songs, and laughed at the stories. When theytried to stir him up, he would answer: "I don't wish to seemunneighbourly, but it is because I have nothing to say. My head feelsquite empty. I've almost forgotten my name. " He would turn to UncleSalters with an expectant smile. 

"Why, Pennsylvania Pratt, " Salters would shout "You'll fergit me next!"

"No--never, " Penn would say, shutting his lips firmly. "PennsylvaniaPratt, of course, " he would repeat over and over. Sometimes it wasUncle Salters who forgot, and told him he was Haskins or Rich orMcVitty; but Penn was equally content--till next time. 

He was always very tender with Harvey, whom he pitied both as a lostchild and as a lunatic; and when Salters saw that Penn liked the boy, he relaxed, too. Salters was not an amiable person (He esteemed it hisbusiness to keep the boys in order); and the first time Harvey, in fearand trembling, on a still day, managed to shin up to the main-truck(Dan was behind him ready to help), he esteemed it his duty to hangSalters's big sea-boots up there--a sight of shame and derision to thenearest schooner. With Disko, Harvey took no liberties; not even whenthe old man dropped direct orders, and treated him, like the rest ofthe crew, to "Don't you want to do so and so?" and "Guess you'dbetter, " and so forth. There was something about the clean-shaven lipsand the puckered corners of the eyes that was mightily sobering toyoung blood. 

Disko showed him the meaning of the thumbed and pricked chart, which, he said, laid over any government publication whatsoever; led him, pencil in hand, from berth to berth over the whole string of banks--LeHave, Western, Banquereau, St. Pierre, Green, and Grand--talking "cod"meantime. Taught him, too, the principle on which the "hog-yoke" wasworked. 

In this Harvey excelled Dan, for he had inherited a head for figures, and the notion of stealing information from one glimpse of the sullenBank sun appealed to all his keen wits. For other sea-matters his agehandicapped him. As Disko said, he should have begun when he was ten. Dan could bait up trawl or lay his hand on any rope in the dark; and ata pinch, when Uncle Salters had a gurry-score on his palm, could dressdown by sense of touch. He could steer in anything short of half a galefrom the feel of the wind on his face, humouring the _We're Here_ justwhen she needed it. These things he did as automatically as he skippedabout the rigging, or made his dory a part of his own will and body. But he could not communicate his knowledge to Harvey. 

Still there was a good deal of general information flying about theschooner on stormy days, when they lay up in the foc'sle or sat on thecabin lockers, while spare eye-bolts, leads, and rings rolled andrattled in the pauses of the talk. Disko spoke of whaling voyages inthe Fifties; of great she-whales slain beside their young; of deathagonies on the black tossing seas, and blood that spurted forty feet inthe air; of boats smashed to splinters; of patent rockets that went offwrong-end-first and bombarded the trembling crews; of cutting-in andboiling-down, and that terrible "nip" of '71, when twelve hundred menwere made homeless on the ice in three days--wonderful tales, all true. But more wonderful still were his stories of the cod, and how theyargued and reasoned on their private businesses deep down below thekeel. 

Long Jack's tastes ran more to the supernatural. He held them silentwith ghastly stories of the "Yo-hoes" on Monomoy Beach, that mock andterrify lonely clam-diggers; of sand-walkers and dune-haunters who werenever properly buried; of hidden treasure on Fire Island guarded by thespirits of Kidd's men; of ships that sailed in the fog straight overTruro township; of that harbor in Maine where no one but a strangerwill lie at anchor twice in a certain place because of a dead crew whorow alongside at midnight with the anchor in the bow of theirold-fashioned boat, whistling--not calling, but whistling--for the soulof the man who broke their rest. 

Harvey had a notion that the east coast of his native land, from MountDesert south, was populated chiefly by people who took their horsesthere in the summer and entertained in country-houses with hardwoodfloors and Vantine portires. He laughed at the ghost-tales, --not asmuch as he would have done a month before, --but ended by sitting stilland shuddering. 

Tom Platt dealt with his interminable trip round the Horn on the oldOhio in flogging days, with a navy more extinct than the dodo--the navythat passed away in the great war. He told them how red-hot shot aredropped into a cannon, a wad of wet clay between them and thecartridge; how they sizzle and reek when they strike wood, and how thelittle ship-boys of the Miss Jim Buck hove water over them and shoutedto the fort to try again. And he told tales of blockade--long weeks ofswaying at anchor, varied only by the departure and return of steamersthat had used up their coal (there was no chance for thesailing-ships); of gales and cold that kept two hundred men, night andday, pounding and chopping at the ice on cable, blocks, and rigging, when the galley was as red-hot as the fort's shot, and men drank cocoaby the bucket. Tom Platt had no use for steam. His service closed whenthat thing was comparatively new. He admitted that it was a speciousinvention in time of peace, but looked hopefully for the day when sailsshould come back again on ten-thousand-ton frigates withhundred-and-ninety-foot booms. 

Manuel's talk was slow and gentle--all about pretty girls in Madeirawashing clothes in the dry beds of streams, by moonlight, under wavingbananas; legends of saints, and tales of queer dances or fights away inthe cold Newfoundland baiting-ports. Salters was mainly agricultural;for, though he read "Josephus" and expounded it, his mission in lifewas to prove the value of green manures, and specially of clover, against every form of phosphate whatsoever. He grew libellous aboutphosphates; he dragged greasy "Orange Judd" books from his bunk andintoned them, wagging his finger at Harvey, to whom it was all Greek. Little Penn was so genuinely pained when Harvey made fun of Salters'slectures that the boy gave it up, and suffered in polite silence. Thatwas very good for Harvey. 

The cook naturally did not join in these conversations. As a rule, hespoke only when it was absolutely necessary; but at times a queer giftof speech descended on him, and he held forth, half in Gaelic, half inbroken English, an hour at a time. He was especially communicative withthe boys, and he never withdrew his prophecy that one day Harvey wouldbe Dan's master, and that he would see it. He told them ofmail-carrying in the winter up Cape Breton way, of the dog-train thatgoes to Coudray, and of the ram-steamer _Arctic_, that breaks the icebetween the mainland and Prince Edward Island. Then he told themstories that his mother had told him, of life far to the southward, where water never froze; and he said that when he died his soul wouldgo to lie down on a warm white beach of sand with palm-trees wavingabove. That seemed to the boys a very odd idea for a man who had neverseen a palm in his life. Then, too, regularly at each meal, he wouldask Harvey, and Harvey alone, whether the cooking was to his taste; andthis always made the "second half" laugh. Yet they had a great respectfor the cook's judgment, and in their hearts considered Harveysomething of a mascot by consequence. 

And while Harvey was taking in knowledge of new things at each pore andhard health with every gulp of the good air, the We're Here went herways and did her business on the Bank, and the silvery-gray kenches ofwell-pressed fish mounted higher and higher in the hold. No one day'swork was out of common, but the average days were many and closetogether. 

Naturally, a man of Disko's reputation was closely watched--"scrowgedupon, " Dan called it--by his neighbours, but he had a very pretty knackof giving them the slip through the curdling, glidy fog-banks. Diskoavoided company for two reasons. He wished to make his ownexperiments, in the first place; and in the second, he objected to themixed gatherings of a fleet of all nations. The bulk of them weremainly Gloucester boats, with a scattering from Provincetown, Harwich, Chatham, and some of the Maine ports, but the crews drew from goodnessknows where. Risk breeds recklessness, and when greed is added thereare fine chances for every kind of accident in the crowded fleet, which, like a mob of sheep, is huddled round some unrecognized leader. "Let the two Jeraulds lead 'em, " said Disko. "We're baound to lay among'em for a spell on the Eastern Shoals; though ef luck holds, we won'thev to lay long. Where we are naow, Harve, ain't considered noways goodgraound. "

"Ain't it?" said Harvey, who was drawing water (he had learned just howto wiggle the bucket), after an unusually long dressing-down. "Shouldn't mind striking some poor ground for a change, then. "

"All the graound I want to see--don't want to strike her--is EasternPoint, " said Dan. "Say, Dad, it looks's if we wouldn't hev to laymore'n two weeks on the Shoals. You'll meet all the comp'ny you wantthen, Harve. That's the time we begin to work. No reg'lar meals fer noone then. 'Mug-up when ye're hungry, an' sleep when ye can't keepawake. Good job you wasn't picked up a month later than you was, orwe'd never ha' had you dressed in shape fer the Old Virgin. "

Harvey understood from the Eldridge chart that the Old Virgin and anest of curiously named shoals were the turning-point of the cruise, and that with good luck they would wet the balance of their salt there. But seeing the size of the Virgin (it was one tiny dot), he wonderedhow even Disko with the hog-yoke and the lead could find her. Helearned later that Disko was entirely equal to that and any otherbusiness and could even help others. A big four-by-five blackboard hungin the cabin, and Harvey never understood the need of it till, aftersome blinding thick days, they heard the unmelodious tooting of afoot-power fog-horn--a machine whose note is as that of a consumptiveelephant. 

They were making a short berth, towing the anchor under their foot tosave trouble. "Square-rigger bellowin' fer his latitude, " said LongJack. The dripping red head-sails of a bark glided out of the fog, andthe _We're Here_ rang her bell thrice, using sea shorthand. 

The larger boat backed her topsail with shrieks and shoutings. 

"Frenchman, " said Uncle Salters, scornfully. "Miquelon boat from St. Malo. " The farmer had a weatherly sea-eye. "I'm 'most outer 'baccy, too, Disko. "

"Same here, " said Tom Platt. "Hi! Backez vous--backez vous! Standezawayez, you butt-ended mucho-bono! Where you from--St. Malo, eh?"

"Ah, ha! Mucho bono! Oui! oui! Clos Poulet--St. Malo! St. Pierre etMiquelon, " cried the other crowd, waving woollen caps and laughing. Then all together, "Bord! Bord!"

"Bring up the board, Danny. Beats me how them Frenchmen fetchanywheres, exceptin' America's fairish broadly. Forty-six forty-nine'sgood enough fer them; an' I guess it's abaout right, too. "

Dan chalked the figures on the board, and they hung it in themain-rigging to a chorus of mercis from the bark. 

"Seems kinder uneighbourly to let 'em swedge off like this, " Salterssuggested, feeling in his pockets. 

"Hev ye learned French then sence last trip?" said Disko. "I don't wantno more stone-ballast hove at us 'long o' your callin' Miquelon boats'footy cochins, ' same's you did off Le Have. "

"Harmon Rush he said that was the way to rise 'em. Plain United Statesis good enough fer me. We're all dretful short on terbakker. Youngfeller, don't you speak French?"

"Oh, yes, " said Harvey valiantly; and he bawled: "Hi! Say! Arretezvous! Attendez! Nous sommes venant pour tabac. "

"Ah, tabac, tabac!" they cried, and laughed again. 

"That hit 'em. Let's heave a dory over, anyway, " said Tom Platt. "Idon't exactly hold no certificates on French, but I know another lingothat goes, I guess. Come on, Harve, an' interpret. "

The raffle and confusion when he and Harvey were hauled up the bark'sblack side was indescribable. Her cabin was all stuck round withglaring coloured prints of the Virgin--the Virgin of Newfoundland, theycalled her. Harvey found his French of no recognized Bank brand, andhis conversation was limited to nods and grins. But Tom Platt waved hisarms and got along swimmingly. The captain gave him a drink ofunspeakable gin, and the opera-comique crew, with their hairy throats, red caps, and long knives, greeted him as a brother. Then the tradebegan. They had tobacco, plenty of it--American, that had never paidduty to France. They wanted chocolate and crackers. Harvey rowed backto arrange with the cook and Disko, who owned the stores, and on hisreturn the cocoa-tins and cracker-bags were counted out by theFrenchman's wheel. It looked like a piratical division of loot; but TomPlatt came out of it roped with black pigtail and stuffed with cakes ofchewing and smoking tobacco. Then those jovial mariners swung off intothe mist, and the last Harvey heard was a gay chorus:

 "Par derriere chez ma tante, Il'y a un bois joli, Et le rossignol y chante Et le jour et la nuit. .. . 

 Que donneriez vous, belle, Qui l'amenerait ici? Je donnerai Quebec, Sorel et Saint Denis. "

"How was it my French didn't go, and your sign-talk did?" Harveydemanded when the barter had been distributed among the We're Heres. 

"Sign-talk!" Platt guffawed. "Well, yes, 'twas sign-talk, but a heapolder'n your French, Harve. Them French boats are chockfull o'Freemasons, an' that's why. "

"Are you a Freemason, then?"

"Looks that way, don't it?" said the man-o'-war's man, stuffing hispipe; and Harvey had another mystery of the deep sea to brood upon. 

CHAPTER VI

The thing that struck him most was the exceedingly casual way in whichsome craft loafed about the broad Atlantic. Fishing-boats, as Dan said, were naturally dependent on the courtesy and wisdom of theirneighbours; but one expected better things of steamers. That was afteranother interesting interview, when they had been chased for threemiles by a big lumbering old cattle-boat, all boarded over on the upperdeck, that smelt like a thousand cattle-pens. A very excited officeryelled at them through a speaking-trumpet, and she lay and lolloppedhelplessly on the water while Disko ran the _We're Here_ under her leeand gave the skipper a piece of his mind. "Where might ye be--eh? Yedon't deserve to be anywheres. You barn-yard tramps go hoggin' the roadon the high seas with no blame consideration fer your neighbours, an'your eyes in your coffee-cups instid o' in your silly heads. "

At this the skipper danced on the bridge and said something aboutDisko's own eyes. "We haven't had an observation for three days. D'yousuppose we can run her blind?" he shouted. 

"Wa-al, I can, " Disko retorted. "What's come to your lead? Et it? Can'tye smell bottom, or are them cattle too rank?"

"What d' ye feed 'em?" said Uncle Salters with intense seriousness, forthe smell of the pens woke all the farmer in him. "They say they falloff dretful on a v'yage. Dunno as it's any o' my business, but I've akind o' notion that oil-cake broke small an' sprinkled--"

"Thunder!" said a cattle-man in a red jersey as he looked over theside. "What asylum did they let His Whiskers out of?"

"Young feller, " Salters began, standing up in the fore-rigging, "let metell yeou 'fore we go any further that I've--"

The officer on the bridge took off his cap with immense politeness. "Excuse me, " he said, "but I've asked for my reckoning. If theagricultural person with the hair will kindly shut his head, thesea-green barnacle with the wall-eye may per-haps condescend toenlighten us. "

"Naow you've made a show o' me, Salters, " said Disko, angrily. He couldnot stand up to that particular sort of talk, and snapped out thelatitude and longitude without more lectures. 

"Well, that's a boat-load of lunatics, sure, " said the skipper, as herang up the engine-room and tossed a bundle of newspapers into theschooner. 

"Of all the blamed fools, next to you, Salters, him an' his crowd areabaout the likeliest I've ever seen, " said Disko as the _We're Here_slid away. "I was jest givin' him my jedgment on lullsikin' round thesewaters like a lost child, an' you must cut in with your fool farmin'. Can't ye never keep things sep'rate?"

Harvey, Dan, and the others stood back, winking one to the other andfull of joy; but Disko and Salters wrangled seriously till evening, Salters arguing that a cattle-boat was practically a barn on bluewater, and Disko insisting that, even if this were the case, decencyand fisher-pride demanded that he should have kept "things sep'rate. "Long Jack stood it in silence for a time, --an angry skipper makes anunhappy crew, --and then he spoke across the table after supper:

"Fwhat's the good o' bodderin' fwhat they'll say?" said he. 

"They'll tell that tale agin us fer years--that's all, " said Disko. "Oil-cake sprinkled!"

"With salt, o' course, " said Salters, impenitent, reading the farmingreports from a week-old New York paper. 

"It's plumb mortifyin' to all my feelin's, " the skipper went on. 

"Can't see ut that way, " said Long Jack, the peacemaker "Look at here, Disko! Is there another packet afloat this day in this weather cud ha'met a tramp an' over an' above givin' her her reckonin', --over an'above that, I say, --cud ha' discoorsed wid her quite intelligent on themanagement av steers an' such at sea? Forgit ut! Av coorse they willnot. 'Twas the most compenjus conversation that iver accrued. Doublegame an' twice runnin'--all to us. " Dan kicked Harvey under the table, and Harvey choked in his cup. 

"Well, " said Salters, who felt that his honour had been somewhatplastered, "I said I didn't know as 'twuz any business o' mine, 'fore Ispoke. "

"An' right there, " said Tom Platt, experienced in discipline andetiquette--"right there, I take it, Disko, you should ha' asked him tostop ef the conversation wuz likely, in your jedgment, to beanyways--what it shouldn't. "

"Dunno but that's so, " said Disko, who saw his way to an honourableretreat from a fit of the dignities. 

"Why, o' course it was so, " said Salters, "you bein' skipper here; an'I'd cheerful hev stopped on a hint--not from any leadin' or conviction, but fer the sake o' bearin' an example to these two blame boys ofaours. "

"Didn't I tell you, Harve, 'twould come araound to us 'fore we'd done?Always those blame boys. But I wouldn't have missed the show fer ahalf-share in a halibutter, " Dan whispered. 

"Still, things should ha' been kep' sep'rate, " said Disko, and thelight of new argument lit in Salters's eye as he crumbled cut plug intohis pipe. 

"There's a power av vartue in keepin' things sep'rate, " said Long Jack, intent on stilling the storm. "That's fwhat Steyning of Steyning andHare's f'und when he sent Counahan fer skipper on the _Marilla D. Kuhn_, instid o' Cap. Newton that was took with inflam'try rheumatism an'couldn't go. Counahan the Navigator we called him. "

"Nick Counahan he never went aboard fer a night 'thout a pond o' rumsomewheres in the manifest, " said Tom Platt, playing up to the lead. "He used to bum araound the c'mission houses to Boston lookin' fer theLord to make him captain of a tow-boat on his merits. Sam Coy, up toAtlantic Avenoo, give him his board free fer a year or more on accountof his stories. 

"Counahan the Navigator! Tck! Tck! Dead these fifteen year, ain't he?"

"Seventeen, I guess. He died the year the _Caspar McVeagh_ was built; buthe could niver keep things sep'rate. Steyning tuk him fer the reasonthe thief tuk the hot stove--bekaze there was nothin' else that season. The men was all to the Banks, and Counahan he whacked up an iverlastin'hard crowd fer crew. Rum! Ye cud ha' floated the _Marilla_, insurance an'all, in fwhat they stowed aboard her. They lef' Boston Harbour for thegreat Grand Bank wid a roarin' nor'wester behind 'em an' all hands fullto the bung. An' the hivens looked after thim, for divil a watch didthey set, an' divil a rope did they lay hand to, till they'd seen thebottom av a fifteen-gallon cask o' bug-juice. That was about wan week, so far as Counahan remembered. (If I cud only tell the tale as he toldut!) All that whoile the wind blew like ould glory, an' the_Marilla_--'twas summer, and they'd give her a foretopmast--struck hergait and kept ut. Then Counahan tuk the hog-yoke an' thrembled over itfor a whoile, an' made out, betwix' that an' the chart an' the singin'in his head, that they was to the south'ard o' Sable Island, gettin'along glorious, but speakin' nothin'. Then they broached another keg, an' quit speculatin' about anythin' fer another spell. The _Marilla_ shelay down whin she dropped Boston Light, and she never lufted herlee-rail up to that time--hustlin' on one an' the same slant. But theysaw no weed, nor gulls, nor schooners; an' prisintly they obsarvedthey'd bin out a matter o' fourteen days and they mis-trusted the Bankhas suspinded payment. So they sounded, an' got sixty fathom. 'That'sme, ' sez Counahan. 'That's me iv'ry time! I've run her slat on the Bankfer you, an' when we get thirty fathom we'll turn in like little men. Counahan is the b'y, ' sez he. 'Counahan the Navigator!'

"Nex' cast they got ninety. Sez Counahan: 'Either the lead-line's tukto stretchin' or else the Bank's sunk. '

"They hauled ut up, bein' just about in that state when ut seemed rightan' reasonable, and sat down on the deck countin' the knots, an'gettin' her snarled up hijjus. The _Marilla_ she'd struck her gait, an'she hild ut, an' prisintly along came a tramp, an' Counahan spoke her. 

"'Hev ye seen any fishin'-boats now?' sez he, quite casual. 

"'There's lashin's av them off the Irish coast, ' sez the tramp. 

"'Aah! go shake yerself, ' sez Counahan. 'Fwhat have I to do wid theIrish coast?'

"'Then fwhat are ye doin' here?' sez the tramp. 

"'Sufferin' Christianity!' sez Counahan (he always said that whin hispumps sucked an' he was not feelin' good)--'Sufferin' Christianity!' hesez, 'where am I at?'

"'Thirty-five mile west-sou'west o' Cape Clear, ' sez the tramp, 'ifthat's any consolation to you. '

"Counahan fetched wan jump, four feet sivin inches, measured by thecook. 

"'Consolation!' sez he, bould as brass. 'D'ye take me fer a dialect?Thirty-five mile from Cape Clear, an' fourteen days from Boston Light. Sufferin' Christianity, 'tis a record, an' by the same token I've amother to Skibbereen!' Think av ut! The gall av um! But ye see he couldniver keep things sep'rate. 

"The crew was mostly Cork an' Kerry men, barrin' one Marylander thatwanted to go back, but they called him a mutineer, an' they ran theould _Marilla_ into Skibbereen, an' they had an illigant time visitin'around with frinds on the ould sod fer a week. Thin they wint back, an'it cost 'em two an' thirty days to beat to the Banks again. 'Twasgettin' on towards fall, and grub was low, so Counahan ran her back toBoston, wid no more bones to ut. "

"And what did the firm say?" Harvey demanded. 

"Fwhat could they? The fish was on the Banks, an' Counahan was atT-wharf talkin' av his record trip east! They tuk their satisfactionout av that, an' ut all came av not keepin' the crew and the rumsep'rate in the first place; an' confusin' Skibbereen wid 'Queereau, inthe second. Counahan the Navigator, rest his sowl! He was an imprompjucitizen!"

"Once I was in the Lucy Holmes, " said Manuel, in his gentle voice. "They not want any of her feesh in Gloucester. Eh, wha-at? Give us noprice. So we go across the water, and think to sell to some Fayal man. Then it blow fresh, and we cannot see well. Eh, wha-at? Then it blowsome more fresh, and we go down below and drive very fast--no one knowwhere. By and by we see a land, and it get some hot. Then come two, three nigger in a brick. Eh, wha-at? We ask where we are, and theysay--now, what you all think?"

"Grand Canary, " said Disko, after a moment. Manuel shook his head, smiling. 

"Blanco, " said Tom Platt. 

"No. Worse than that. We was below Bezagos, and the brick she was fromLiberia! So we sell our feesh there! Not bad, so? Eh, wha-at?"

"Can a schooner like this go right across to Africa?" said Harvey. 

"Go araound the Horn ef there's anythin' worth goin' fer, and the grubholds aout, " said Disko. "My father he run his packet, an' she was akind o' pinkey, abaout fifty ton, I guess, --the Rupert, --he run herover to Greenland's icy mountains the year ha'af our fleet was tryin'after cod there. An' what's more, he took my mother along with him, --toshow her haow the money was earned, I presoom, --an' they was all icedup, an' I was born at Disko. Don't remember nothin' abaout it, o'course. We come back when the ice eased in the spring, but they namedme fer the place. Kinder mean trick to put up on a baby, but we're allbaound to make mistakes in aour lives. "

"Sure! Sure!" said Salters, wagging his head. "All baound to makemistakes, an' I tell you two boys here thet after you've made amistake--ye don't make fewer'n a hundred a day--the next best thing'sto own up to it like men. "

Long Jack winked one tremendous wink that embraced all hands exceptDisko and Salters, and the incident was closed. 

Then they made berth after berth to the northward, the dories outalmost every day, running along the east edge of the Grand Bank inthirty- to forty-fathom water, and fishing steadily. 

It was here Harvey first met the squid, who is one of the bestcod-baits, but uncertain in his moods. They were waked out of theirbunks one black night by yells of "Squid O!" from Salters, and for anhour and a half every soul aboard hung over his squid-jig--a piece oflead painted red and armed at the lower end with a circle of pins bentbackward like half-opened umbrella ribs. The squid--for some unknownreason--likes, and wraps himself round, this thing, and is hauled upere he can escape from the pins. But as he leaves his home he squirtsfirst water and next ink into his captor's face; and it was curious tosee the men weaving their heads from side to side to dodge the shot. They were as black as sweeps when the flurry ended; but a pile of freshsquid lay on the deck, and the large cod thinks very well of a littleshiny piece of squid tentacle at the tip of a clam-baited hook. Nextday they caught many fish, and met the _Carrie Pitman_, to whom theyshouted their luck, and she wanted to trade--seven cod for onefair-sized squid; but Disko would not agree at the price, and the_Carrie_ dropped sullenly to leeward and anchored half a mile away, inthe hope of striking on to some for herself. 

Disco said nothing till after supper, when he sent Dan and Manuel outto buoy the _We're Here's_ cable and announced his intention of turningin with the broad-axe. Dan naturally repeated these remarks to the doryfrom the _Carrie_, who wanted to know why they were buoying their cable, since they were not on rocky bottom. 

"Dad sez he wouldn't trust a ferryboat within five mile o' you, " Danhowled cheerfully. 

"Why don't he git out, then? Who's hinderin'?" said the other. 

"'Cause you've jest the same ez lee-bowed him, an' he don't take thatfrom any boat, not to speak o' sech a driftin' gurry-butt as you be. "

"She ain't driftin' any this trip, " said the man angrily, for the_Carrie Pitman_ had an unsavory reputation for breaking her ground-tackle. 

"Then haow d'you make berths?" said Dan. "It's her best p'int o'sailin'. An' ef she's quit driftin', what in thunder are you doin' witha new jib-boom?" That shot went home. 

"Hey, you Portugoosy organ-grinder, take your monkey back toGloucester. Go back to school, Dan Troop, " was the answer. 

"O-ver-alls! O-ver-alls!" yelled Dan, who knew that one of the _Carrie's_crew had worked in an overall factory the winter before. 

"Shrimp! Gloucester shrimp! Git aout, you Novy!"

To call a Gloucester man a Nova Scotian is not well received. Dananswered in kind. 

"Novy yourself, ye Scrabble-towners! ye Chatham wreckers! Git aout withyour brick in your stockin'!" And the forces separated, but Chathamhad the worst of it. 

"I knew haow 'twould be, " said Disko. "She's drawed the wind raoundalready. Some one oughter put a deesist on thet packet. She'll snoretill midnight, an' jest when we're gettin' our sleep she'll strikeadrift. Good job we ain't crowded with craft hereaways. But I ain'tgoin' to up anchor fer Chatham. She may hold. "

The wind, which had hauled round, rose at sundown and blew steadily. There was not enough sea, though, to disturb even a dory's tackle, butthe _Carrie Pitman_ was a law unto herself. At the end of the boys' watchthey heard the crack-crack-crack of a huge muzzle-loading revolveraboard her. 

"Glory, glory, hallelujah!" sung Dan. "Here she comes, Dad; butt-endfirst, walkin' in her sleep same's she done on 'Queereau. "

Had she been any other boat Disko would have taken his chances, but nowhe cut the cable as the _Carrie Pitman_, with all the North Atlantic toplay in, lurched down directly upon them. The _We're Here_, under jiband riding-sail, gave her no more room than was absolutelynecessary, --Disko did not wish to spend a week hunting for hiscable, --but scuttled up into the wind as the _Carrie_ passed within easyhail, a silent and angry boat, at the mercy of a raking broadside ofBank chaff. 

"Good evenin', " said Disko, raising his head-gear, "an' haow does yourgarden grow?"

"Go to Ohio an' hire a mule, " said Uncle Salters. "We don't want nofarmers here. "

"Will I lend YOU my dory-anchor?" cried Long Jack. 

"Unship your rudder an' stick it in the mud, " bawled Tom Platt. 

"Say!" Dan's voice rose shrill and high, as he stood on the wheel-box. "Sa-ay! Is there a strike in the o-ver-all factory; or hev they hiredgirls, ye Shackamaxons?"

"Veer out the tiller-lines, " cried Harvey, "and nail 'em to thebottom!" That was a salt-flavoured jest he had been put up to by TomPlatt. Manuel leaned over the stern and yelled: "Johanna Morgan playthe organ! Ahaaaa!" He flourished his broad thumb with a gesture ofunspeakable contempt and derision, while little Penn covered himselfwith glory by piping up: "Gee a little! Hssh! Come here. Haw!"

They rode on their chain for the rest of the night, a short, snappy, uneasy motion, as Harvey found, and wasted half the forenoon recoveringthe cable. But the boys agreed the trouble was cheap at the price oftriumph and glory, and they thought with grief over all the beautifulthings that they might have said to the discomfited _Carrie_. 

CHAPTER VII

Next day they fell in with more sails, all circling slowly from theeast northerly towards the west. But just when they expected to makethe shoals by the Virgin the fog shut down, and they anchored, surrounded by the tinklings of invisible bells. There was not muchfishing, but occasionally dory met dory in the fog and exchanged news. 

That night, a little before dawn, Dan and Harvey, who had been sleepingmost of the day, tumbled out to "hook" fried pies. There was no reasonwhy they should not have taken them openly; but they tasted better so, and it made the cook angry. The heat and smell below drove them on deckwith their plunder, and they found Disko at the bell, which he handedover to Harvey. 

"Keep her goin', " said he. "I mistrust I hear somethin'. Ef it'sanything, I'm best where I am so's to get at things. "

It was a forlorn little jingle; the thick air seemed to pinch it off, and in the pauses Harvey heard the muffled shriek of a liner's siren, and he knew enough of the Banks to know what that meant. It came tohim, with horrible distinctness, how a boy in a cherry-colouredjersey--he despised fancy blazers now with all a fisher-man'scontempt--how an ignorant, rowdy boy had once said it would be "great"if a steamer ran down a fishing-boat. That boy had a stateroom with ahot and cold bath, and spent ten minutes each morning picking over agilt-edged bill of fare. And that same boy--no, his very much olderbrother--was up at four of the dim dawn in streaming, cracklingoilskins, hammering, literally for the dear life, on a bell smallerthan the steward's breakfast-bell, while somewhere close at hand athirty-foot steel stem was storming along at twenty miles an hour! Thebitterest thought of all was that there were folks asleep in dry, upholstered cabins who would never learn that they had massacred a boatbefore breakfast. So Harvey rang the bell. 

"Yes, they slow daown one turn o' their blame propeller, " said Dan, applying himself to Manuel's conch, "fer to keep inside the law, an'that's consolin' when we're all at the bottom. Hark to her! She's ahumper!"

"Aooo-whoo-whupp!" went the siren. "Wingle-tingle-tink, " went the bell. "Graaa-ouch!" went the conch, while sea and sky were all mired up inmilky fog. Then Harvey felt that he was near a moving body, and foundhimself looking up and up at the wet edge of a cliff-like bow, leaping, it seemed, directly over the schooner. A jaunty little feather of watercurled in front of it, and as it lifted it showed a long ladder ofRoman numerals-XV. , XVI. , XVII. , XVIII. , and so forth--on asalmon-coloured gleaming side. It tilted forward and downward with aheart-stilling "Ssssooo"; the ladder disappeared; a line ofbrass-rimmed port-holes flashed past; a jet of steam puffed in Harvey'shelplessly uplifted hands; a spout of hot water roared along the railof the _We're Here_, and the little schooner staggered and shook in arush of screw-torn water, as a liner's stern vanished in the fog. Harvey got ready to faint or be sick, or both, when he heard a cracklike a trunk thrown on a sidewalk, and, all small in his ear, afar-away telephone voice drawling: "Heave to! You've sunk us!"

"Is it us?" he gasped. 

"No! Boat out yonder. Ring! We're goin' to look, " said Dan, running outa dory. 

In half a minute all except Harvey, Penn, and the cook were oversideand away. Presently a schooner's stump-foremast, snapped clean across, drifted past the bows. Then an empty green dory came by, knocking onthe _We're Here's_ side, as though she wished to be taken in. Thenfollowed something, face down, in a blue jersey, but--it was not thewhole of a man. Penn changed colour and caught his breath with a click. Harvey pounded despairingly at the bell, for he feared they might besunk at any minute, and he jumped at Dan's hail as the crew came back. 

"The Jennie Cushman, " said Dan, hysterically, "cut clean inhalf--graound up an' trompled on at that! Not a quarter of a mile away. Dad's got the old man. There ain't any one else, and--there was hisson, too. Oh, Harve, Harve, I can't stand it! I've seen--" He droppedhis head on his arms and sobbed while the others dragged a gray-headedman aboard. 

"What did you pick me up for?" the stranger groaned. "Disko, what didyou pick me up for?"

Disko dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder, for the man's eyes werewild and his lips trembled as he stared at the silent crew. Then up andspoke Pennsylvania Pratt, who was also Haskins or Rich or McVitty whenUncle Salters forgot; and his face was changed on him from the face ofa fool to the countenance of an old, wise man, and he said in a strongvoice: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be thename of the Lord! I was--I am a minister of the Gospel. Leave him tome. "

"Oh, you be, be you?" said the man. "Then pray my son back to me! Prayback a nine-thousand-dollar boat an' a thousand quintal of fish. Ifyou'd left me alone my widow could ha' gone on to the Provident an'worked fer her board, an' never known--an' never known. Now I'll hev totell her. "

"There ain't nothin' to say, " said Disko. "Better lie down a piece, Jason Olley. "

When a man has lost his only son, his summer's work, and his means oflivelihood, in thirty counted seconds, it is hard to give consolation. 

"All Gloucester men, wasn't they?" said Tom Platt, fiddling helplesslywith a dory-becket. 

"Oh, that don't make no odds, " said Jason, wringing the wet from hisbeard. "I'll be rowin' summer boarders araound East Gloucester thisfall. " He rolled heavily to the rail, singing:

 "Happy birds that sing and fly Round thine altars, O Most High!"

"Come with me. Come below!" said Penn, as though he had a right to giveorders. Their eyes met and fought for a quarter of a minute. 

"I dunno who you be, but I'll come, " said Jason submissively. "MebbeI'll get back some o' the--some o' the-nine thousand dollars. " Penn ledhim into the cabin and slid the door behind. 

"That ain't Penn, " cried Uncle Salters. "It's Jacob Boiler, an'--he'sremembered Johnstown! I never seed such eyes in any livin' man's head. What's to do naow? What'll I do naow?"

They could hear Penn's voice and Jason's together. Then Penn's went onalone, and Salters slipped off his hat, for Penn was praying. Presentlythe little man came up the steps, huge drops of sweat on his face, andlooked at the crew. Dan was still sobbing by the wheel. 

"He don't know us, " Salters groaned. "It's all to do over again, checkers and everything--an' what'll he say to me?"

Penn spoke; they could hear that it was to strangers. "I have prayed, "said he. "Our people believe in prayer. I have prayed for the life ofthis man's son. Mine were drowned before my eyes--she and my eldestand--the others. Shall a man be more wise than his Maker? I prayednever for their lives, but I have prayed for this man's son, and hewill surely be sent him. "

Salters looked pleadingly at Penn to see if he remembered. 

"How long have I been mad?" Penn asked suddenly. His mouth wastwitching. 

"Pshaw, Penn! You weren't never mad, " Salters began "Only a littledistracted like. "

"I saw the houses strike the bridge before the fires broke out. I donot remember any more. How long ago is that?"

"I can't stand it! I can't stand it!" cried Dan, and Harvey whimperedin sympathy. 

"Abaout five year, " said Disko, in a shaking voice. 

"Then I have been a charge on some one for every day of that time. Whowas the man?"

Disko pointed to Salters. 

"Ye hain't--ye hain't!" cried the sea-farmer, twisting his handstogether. "Ye've more'n earned your keep twice-told; an' there's moneyowin' you, Penn, besides ha'af o' my quarter-share in the boat, whichis yours fer value received. "

"You are good men. I can see that in your faces. But--"

"Mother av Mercy, " whispered Long Jack, "an' he's been wid us all thesetrips! He's clean bewitched. "

A schooner's bell struck up alongside, and a voice hailed through thefog: "O Disko! 'Heard abaout the Jennie Cushman?"

"They have found his son, " cried Penn. "Stand you still and see thesalvation of the Lord!"

"Got Jason aboard here, " Disko answered, but his voice quavered. "There--warn't any one else?"

"We've fund one, though. 'Run acrost him snarled up in a mess o' lumberthet might ha' bin a foc'sle. His head's cut some. "

"Who is he?"

The _We're Here's_ heart-beats answered one another. 

"Guess it's young Olley, " the voice drawled. 

Penn raised his hands and said something in German. Harvey could havesworn that a bright sun was shining upon his lifted face; but the drawlwent on: "Sa-ay! You fellers guyed us consid'rable t'other night. "

"We don't feel like guyin' any now, " said Disko. 

"I know it; but to tell the honest truth we was kinder--kinder driftin'when we run agin young Olley. "

It was the irrepressible _Carrie Pitman_, and a roar of unsteady laughterwent up from the deck of the _We're Here_. 

"Hedn't you 'baout's well send the old man aboard? We're runnin' in fermore bait an' graound-tackle. Guess you won't want him, anyway, an'this blame windlass work makes us short-handed. We'll take care of him. He married my woman's aunt. "

"I'll give you anything in the boat, " said Troop. 

"Don't want nothin', 'less, mebbe, an anchor that'll hold. Say! YoungOlley's gittin' kinder baulky an' excited. Send the old man along. "

Penn waked him from his stupor of despair, and Tom Platt rowed himover. He went away without a word of thanks, not knowing what was tocome; and the fog closed over all. 

"And now, " said Penn, drawing a deep breath as though about to preach. "And now"--the erect body sank like a sword driven home into thescabbard; the light faded from the overbright eyes; the voice returnedto its usual pitiful little titter--"and now, " said Pennsylvania Pratt, "do you think it's too early for a little game of checkers, Mr. Salters?"

"The very thing--the very thing I was goin' to say myself, " criedSalters promptly. "It beats all, Penn, how ye git on to what's in aman's mind. "

The little fellow blushed and meekly followed Salters forward. 

"Up anchor! Hurry! Let's quit these crazy waters, " shouted Disko, andnever was he more swiftly obeyed. 

"Now what in creation d'ye suppose is the meanin' o' that all?" saidLong Jack, when they were working through the fog once more, damp, dripping, and bewildered. 

"The way I sense it, " said Disko, at the wheel, "is this: The JennieCushman business comin' on an empty stummick--"

"H-he saw one of them go by, " sobbed Harvey. 

"An' that, o' course, kinder hove him outer water, julluk runnin' acraft ashore; hove him right aout, I take it, to rememberin' Johnstownan' Jacob Boiler an' such-like reminiscences. Well, consolin' Jasonthere held him up a piece, same's shorin' up a boat. Then, bein' weak, them props slipped an' slipped, an' he slided down the ways, an' naowhe's water-borne agin. That's haow I sense it. "

They decided that Disko was entirely correct. 

"'Twould ha' bruk Salters all up, " said Long Jack, "if Penn had stayedJacob Boilerin'. Did ye see his face when Penn asked who he'd beencharged on all these years? How is ut, Salters?"

"Asleep--dead asleep. Turned in like a child, " Salters replied, tiptoeing aft. "There won't be no grub till he wakes, natural. Did yeever see sech a gift in prayer? He everlastin'ly hiked young Olleyouter the ocean. Thet's my belief. Jason was tur'ble praoud of his boy, an' I mistrusted all along 'twas a jedgment on worshippin' vain idols. "

"There's others jes as sot, " said Disko. 

"That's difrunt, " Salters retorted quickly. "Penn's not all caulked, an' I ain't only but doin' my duty by him. "

They waited, those hungry men, three hours, till Penn reappeared with asmooth face and a blank mind. He said he believed that he had beendreaming. Then he wanted to know why they were so silent, and theycould not tell him. 

Disko worked all hands mercilessly for the next three or four days; andwhen they could not go out, turned them into the hold to stack theship's stores into smaller compass, to make more room for the fish. Thepacked mass ran from the cabin partition to the sliding door behind thefoc'sle stove; and Disko showed how there is great art in stowing cargoso as to bring a schooner to her best draft. The crew were thus keptlively till they recovered their spirits; and Harvey was tickled with arope's end by Long Jack for being, as the Galway man said, "sorrowfulas a sick cat over fwhat couldn't be helped. " He did a great deal ofthinking in those weary days, and told Dan what he thought, and Danagreed with him--even to the extent of asking for fried pies instead ofhooking them. 

But a week later the two nearly upset the Hattie S. In a wild attemptto stab a shark with an old bayonet tied to a stick. The grim bruterubbed alongside the dory begging for small fish, and between the threeof them it was a mercy they all got off alive. 

At last, after playing blindman's-buff in the fog, there came a morningwhen Disko shouted down the foc'sle: "Hurry, boys! We're in taown!"

CHAPTER VIII

To the end of his days, Harvey will never forget that sight. The sunwas just clear of the horizon they had not seen for nearly a week, andhis low red light struck into the riding-sails of three fleets ofanchored schooners--one to the north, one to the westward, and one tothe south. There must have been nearly a hundred of them, of everypossible make and build, with, far away, a square-rigged Frenchman, allbowing and courtesying one to the other. From every boat dories weredropping away like bees from a crowded hive, and the clamour of voices, the rattling of ropes and blocks, and the splash of the oars carriedfor miles across the heaving water. The sails turned all colours, black, pearly-gray, and white, as the sun mounted; and more boats swungup through the mists to the southward. 

The dories gathered in clusters, separated, reformed, and broke again, all heading one way; while men hailed and whistled and cat-called andsang, and the water was speckled with rubbish thrown overboard. 

"It's a town, " said Harvey. "Disko was right. It IS a town!"

"I've seen smaller, " said Disko. "There's about a thousand men here;an' yonder's the Virgin. " He pointed to a vacant space of greenish sea, where there were no dories. 

The _We're Here_ skirted round the northern squadron, Disko waving hishand to friend after friend, and anchored as nearly as a racing yachtat the end of the season. The Bank fleet pass good seamanship insilence; but a bungler is jeered all along the line. 

"Jest in time fer the caplin, " cried the Mary Chilton. 

"'Salt 'most wet?" asked the King Philip. 

"Hey, Tom Platt! Come t' supper to-night?" said the Henry Clay; and soquestions and answers flew back and forth. Men had met one anotherbefore, dory-fishing in the fog, and there is no place for gossip likethe Bank fleet. They all seemed to know about Harvey's rescue, andasked if he were worth his salt yet. The young bloods jested with Dan, who had a lively tongue of his own, and inquired after their health bythe town-nicknames they least liked. Manuel's countrymen jabbered athim in their own language; and even the silent cook was seen riding thejib-boom and shouting Gaelic to a friend as black as himself. Afterthey had buoyed the cable--all around the Virgin is rocky bottom, andcarelessness means chafed ground-tackle and danger from drifting--afterthey had buoyed the cable, their dories went forth to join the mob ofboats anchored about a mile away. The schooners rocked and dipped at asafe distance, like mother ducks watching their brood, while the doriesbehaved like mannerless ducklings. 

As they drove into the confusion, boat banging boat, Harvey's earstingled at the comments on his rowing. Every dialect from Labrador toLong Island, with Portuguese, Neapolitan, Lingua Franca, French, andGaelic, with songs and shoutings and new oaths, rattled round him, andhe seemed to be the butt of it all. For the first time in his life hefelt shy--perhaps that came from living so long with only the _We'reHeres_--among the scores of wild faces that rose and fell with thereeling small craft. A gentle, breathing swell, three furlongs fromtrough to barrel, would quietly shoulder up a string of variouslypainted dories. They hung for an instant, a wonderful frieze againstthe sky-line, and their men pointed and hailed. Next moment the openmouths, waving arms, and bare chests disappeared, while on anotherswell came up an entirely new line of characters like paper figures ina toy theatre. So Harvey stared. "Watch out!" said Dan, flourishing adip-net "When I tell you dip, you dip. The caplin'll school any timefrom naow on. Where'll we lay, Tom Platt?"

Pushing, shoving, and hauling, greeting old friends here and warningold enemies there, Commodore Tom Platt led his little fleet well toleeward of the general crowd, and immediately three or four men beganto haul on their anchors with intent to lee-bow the _We're Heres_. Buta yell of laughter went up as a dory shot from her station withexceeding speed, its occupant pulling madly on the roding. 

"Give her slack!" roared twenty voices. "Let him shake it out. "

"What's the matter?" said Harvey, as the boat flashed away to thesouthward. "He's anchored, isn't he?"

"Anchored, sure enough, but his graound-tackle's kinder shifty, " saidDan, laughing. "Whale's fouled it. . . . Dip Harve! Here they come!"

The sea round them clouded and darkened, and then frizzed up in showersof tiny silver fish, and over a space of five or six acres the codbegan to leap like trout in May; while behind the cod three or fourbroad gray-backs broke the water into boils. 

Then everybody shouted and tried to haul up his anchor to get among theschool, and fouled his neighbour's line and said what was in his heart, and dipped furiously with his dip-net, and shrieked cautions and adviceto his companions, while the deep fizzed like freshly openedsoda-water, and cod, men, and whales together flung in upon theluckless bait. Harvey was nearly knocked overboard by the handle ofDan's net. But in all the wild tumult he noticed, and never forgot, thewicked, set little eye--something like a circus elephant's eye--of awhale that drove along almost level with the water, and, so he said, winked at him. Three boats found their rodings fouled by these recklessmid-sea hunters, and were towed half a mile ere their horses shook theline free. 

Then the caplin moved off, and five minutes later there was no soundexcept the splash of the sinkers overside, the flapping of the cod, andthe whack of the muckles as the men stunned them. It was wonderfulfishing. Harvey could see the glimmering cod below, swimming slowly indroves, biting as steadily as they swam. Bank law strictly forbids morethan one hook on one line when the dories are on the Virgin or theEastern Shoals; but so close lay the boats that even single hookssnarled, and Harvey found himself in hot argument with a gentle, hairyNewfoundlander on one side and a howling Portuguese on the other. 

Worse than any tangle of fishing-lines was the confusion of thedory-rodings below water. Each man had anchored where it seemed good tohim, drifting and rowing round his fixed point. As the fish struck onless quickly, each man wanted to haul up and get to better ground; butevery third man found himself intimately connected with some four orfive neighbours. To cut another's roding is crime unspeakable on theBanks; yet it was done, and done without detection, three or four timesthat day. Tom Platt caught a Maine man in the black act and knocked himover the gunwale with an oar, and Manuel served a fellow-countryman inthe same way. But Harvey's anchor-line was cut, and so was Penn's, andthey were turned into relief-boats to carry fish to the _We're Here_ asthe dories filled. The caplin schooled once more at twilight, when themad clamour was repeated; and at dusk they rowed back to dress down bythe light of kerosene-lamps on the edge of the pen. 

It was a huge pile, and they went to sleep while they were dressing. Next day several boats fished right above the cap of the Virgin; andHarvey, with them, looked down on the very weed of that lonely rock, which rises to within twenty feet of the surface. The cod were there inlegions, marching solemnly over the leathery kelp. When they bit, theybit all together; and so when they stopped. There was a slack time atnoon, and the dories began to search for amusement. It was Dan whosighted the Hope Of Prague just coming up, and as her boats joined thecompany they were greeted with the question: "Who's the meanest man inthe Fleet?"

Three hundred voices answered cheerily: "Nick Bra-ady. " It sounded likean organ chant. 

"Who stole the lampwicks?" That was Dan's contribution. 

"Nick Bra-ady, " sang the boats. 

"Who biled the salt bait fer soup?" This was an unknown backbiter aquarter of a mile away. 

Again the joyful chorus. Now, Brady was not especially mean, but he hadthat reputation, and the Fleet made the most of it. Then theydiscovered a man from a Truro boat who, six years before, had beenconvicted of using a tackle with five or six hooks--a "scrowger, " theycall it--in the Shoals. Naturally, he had been christened "ScrowgerJim"; and though he had hidden himself on the Georges ever since, hefound his honours waiting for him full blown. They took it up in a sortof firecracker chorus: "Jim! O Jim! Jim! O Jim! Sssscrowger Jim!" Thatpleased everybody. And when a poetical Beverly man--he had been makingit up all day, and talked about it for weeks--sang, "The _CarriePitman's_ anchor doesn't hold her for a cent" the dories felt that theywere indeed fortunate. Then they had to ask that Beverly man how he wasoff for beans, because even poets must not have things all their ownway. Every schooner and nearly every man got it in turn. Was there acareless or dirty cook anywhere? The dories sang about him and hisfood. Was a schooner badly found? The Fleet was told at full length. Had a man hooked tobacco from a mess-mate? He was named in meeting; thename tossed from roller to roller. Disko's infallible judgments, LongJack's market-boat that he had sold years ago, Dan's sweetheart (oh, but Dan was an angry boy!), Penn's bad luck with dory-anchors, Salter'sviews on manure, Manuel's little slips from virtue ashore, and Harvey'sladylike handling of the oar--all were laid before the public; and asthe fog fell around them in silvery sheets beneath the sun, the voicessounded like a bench of invisible judges pronouncing sentence. 

The dories roved and fished and squabbled till a swell underran thesea. Then they drew more apart to save their sides, and some one calledthat if the swell continued the Virgin would break. A reckless Galwayman with his nephew denied this, hauled up anchor, and rowed over thevery rock itself. Many voices called them to come away, while othersdared them to hold on. As the smooth-backed rollers passed to thesouthward, they hove the dory high and high into the mist, and droppedher in ugly, sucking, dimpled water, where she spun round her anchor, within a foot or two of the hidden rock. It was playing with death formere bravado; and the boats looked on in uneasy silence till Long Jackrowed up behind his countrymen and quietly cut their roding. 

"Can't ye hear ut knockin'?" he cried. "Pull for you miserable lives!Pull!"

The men swore and tried to argue as the boat drifted; but the nextswell checked a little, like a man tripping on a carpet. There was adeep sob and a gathering roar, and the Virgin flung up a couple ofacres of foaming water, white, furious, and ghastly over the shoal sea. Then all the boats greatly applauded Long Jack, and the Galway men heldtheir tongue. 

"Ain't it elegant?" said Dan, bobbing like a young seal at home. "She'll break about once every ha'af hour now, 'les the swell piles upgood. What's her reg'lar time when she's at work, Tom Platt?"

"Once ivry fifteen minutes, to the tick. Harve, you've seen thegreatest thing on the Banks; an' but for Long Jack you'd seen some deadmen too. "

There came a sound of merriment where the fog lay thicker and theschooners were ringing their bells. A big bark nosed cautiously out ofthe mist, and was received with shouts and cries of, "Come along, darlin', " from the Irishry. 

"Another Frenchman?" said Harvey. 

"Hain't you eyes? She's a Baltimore boat; goin' in fear an' tremblin', "said Dan. "We'll guy the very sticks out of her. Guess it's the fusttime her skipper ever met up with the Fleet this way. "

She was a black, buxom, eight-hundred-ton craft. Her mainsail waslooped up, and her topsail flapped undecidedly in what little wind wasmoving. Now a bark is feminine beyond all other daughters of the sea, and this tall, hesitating creature, with her white and gilt figurehead, looked just like a bewildered woman half lifting her skirts to cross amuddy street under the jeers of bad little boys. That was very much hersituation. She knew she was somewhere in the neighbourhood of theVirgin, had caught the roar of it, and was, therefore, asking her way. This is a small part of what she heard from the dancing dories:

"The Virgin? Fwhat are you talkin' of? 'This is Le Have on a Sundaymornin'. Go home an' sober up. "

"Go home, ye tarrapin! Go home an' tell 'em we're comin'. "

Half a dozen voices together, in a most tuneful chorus, as her sternwent down with a roll and a bubble into the troughs:"Thay-aah-she-strikes!"

"Hard up! Hard up fer your life! You're on top of her now. "

"Daown! Hard daown! Let go everything!"

"All hands to the pumps!"

"Daown jib an' pole her!"

Here the skipper lost his temper and said things. Instantly fishing wassuspended to answer him, and he heard many curious facts about his boatand her next port of call. They asked him if he were insured; andwhence he had stolen his anchor, because, they said, it belonged to the_Carrie Pitman_; they called his boat a mud-scow, and accused him ofdumping garbage to frighten the fish; they offered to tow him andcharge it to his wife; and one audacious youth slipped up almost underthe counter, smacked it with his open palm, and yelled: "Gid up, Buck!"

The cook emptied a pan of ashes on him, and he replied with cod-heads. The bark's crew fired small coal from the galley, and the doriesthreatened to come aboard and "razee" her. They would have warned herat once had she been in real peril; but, seeing her well clear of theVirgin, they made the most of their chances. The fun was spoilt whenthe rock spoke again, a half-mile to windward, and the tormented barkset everything that would draw and went her ways; but the dories feltthat the honours lay with them. 

All that night the Virgin roared hoarsely; and next morning, over anangry, white-headed sea, Harvey saw the Fleet with flickering mastswaiting for a lead. Not a dory was hove out till ten o'clock, when thetwo Jeraulds of the Day's Eye, imagining a lull which did not exist, set the example. In a minute half the boats were out and bobbing in thecockly swells, but Troop kept the _We're Heres_ at work dressing down. He saw no sense in "dares"; and as the storm grew that evening they hadthe pleasure of receiving wet strangers only too glad to make anyrefuge in the gale. The boys stood by the dory-tackles with lanterns, the men ready to haul, one eye cocked for the sweeping wave that wouldmake them drop everything and hold on for dear life. Out of the darkwould come a yell of "Dory, dory!" They would hook up and haul in adrenched man and a half-sunk boat, till their decks were littered downwith nests of dories and the bunks were full. Five times in their watchdid Harvey, with Dan, jump at the foregaff where it lay lashed on theboom, and cling with arms, legs, and teeth to rope and spar and soddencanvas as a big wave filled the decks. One dory was smashed to pieces, and the sea pitched the man head first on to the decks, cutting hisforehead open; and about dawn, when the racing seas glimmered white allalong their cold edges, another man, blue and ghastly, crawled in witha broken hand, asking news of his brother. Seven extra mouths sat downto breakfast: A Swede; a Chatham skipper; a boy from Hancock, Maine;one Duxbury, and three Provincetown men. 

There was a general sorting out among the Fleet next day; and though noone said anything, all ate with better appetites when boat after boatreported full crews aboard. Only a couple of Portuguese and an old manfrom Gloucester were drowned, but many were cut or bruised; and twoschooners had parted their tackle and been blown to the southward, three days' sail. A man died on a Frenchman--it was the same bark thathad traded tobacco with the _We're Heres_. She slipped away quitequietly one wet, white morning, moved to a patch of deep water, hersails all hanging anyhow, and Harvey saw the funeral through Disko'sspy-glass. It was only an oblong bundle slid overside. They did notseem to have any form of service, but in the night, at anchor, Harveyheard them across the star-powdered black water, singing something thatsounded like a hymn. It went to a very slow tune. 

 "La brigantine Qui va tourner, Roule et s'incline Pour m'entrainer. Oh, Vierge Marie, Pour moi priez Dieu! Adieu, patrie; Quebec, adieu!"

Tom Platt visited her, because, he said, the dead man was his brotheras a Freemason. It came out that a wave had doubled the poor fellowover the heel of the bowsprit and broken his back. The news spread likea flash, for, contrary to general custom, the Frenchman held an auctionof the dead man's kit, --he had no friends at St Malo or Miquelon, --andeverything was spread out on the top of the house, from his red knittedcap to the leather belt with the sheath-knife at the back. Dan andHarvey were out on twenty-fathom water in the Hattie S. , and naturallyrowed over to join the crowd. It was a long pull, and they stayed somelittle time while Dan bought the knife, which had a curious brasshandle. When they dropped overside and pushed off into a drizzle ofrain and a lop of sea, it occurred to them that they might get intotrouble for neglecting the lines. 

"Guess 'twon't hurt us any to be warmed up, " said Dan, shivering underhis oilskins, and they rowed on into the heart of a white fog, which, as usual, dropped on them without warning. 

"There's too much blame tide hereabouts to trust to your instinks, " hesaid. "Heave over the anchor, Harve, and we'll fish a piece till thething lifts. Bend on your biggest lead. Three pound ain't any too muchin this water. See how she's tightened on her rodin' already. "

There was quite a little bubble at the bows, where some irresponsibleBank current held the dory full stretch on her rope; but they could notsee a boat's length in any direction. Harvey turned up his collar andbunched himself over his reel with the air of a wearied navigator. Foghad no special terrors for him now. They fished a while in silence, andfound the cod struck on well. Then Dan drew the sheath-knife and testedthe edge of it on the gunwale. 

"That's a daisy, " said Harvey. "How did you get it so cheap?"

"On account o' their blame Cath'lic superstitions, " said Dan, jabbingwith the bright blade. "They don't fancy takin' iron from off a deadman, so to speak. 'See them Arichat Frenchmen step back when I bid?"

"But an auction ain't taking anythink off a dead man. It's business. "

"We know it ain't, but there's no goin' in the teeth o' superstition. That's one o' the advantages o' livin' in a progressive country. " AndDan began whistling:

 "Oh, Double Thatcher, how are you? Now Eastern Point comes inter view. The girls an' boys we soon shall see, At anchor off Cape Ann!"

"Why didn't that Eastport man bid, then? He bought his boots. Ain'tMaine progressive?"

"Maine? Pshaw! They don't know enough, or they hain't got money enough, to paint their haouses in Maine. I've seen 'em. The Eastport man hetold me that the knife had been used--so the French captain toldhim--used up on the French coast last year. "

"Cut a man? Heave 's the muckle. " Harvey hauled in his fish, rebaited, and threw over. 

"Killed him! Course, when I heard that I was keener'n ever to get it. "

"Christmas! I didn't know it, " said Harvey, turning round. "I'll giveyou a dollar for it when I--get my wages. Say, I'll give you twodollars. "

"Honest? D'you like it as much as all that?" said Dan, flushing. "Well, to tell the truth, I kinder got it for you--to give; but I didn't leton till I saw how you'd take it. It's yours and welcome, Harve, becausewe're dory-mates, and so on and so forth, an' so followin'. Catcha-holt!"

He held it out, belt and all. 

"But look at here. Dan, I don't see--"

"Take it. 'Tain't no use to me. I wish you to hev it. " The temptationwas irresistible. "Dan, you're a white man, " said Harvey. "I'll keep itas long as I live. "

"That's good hearin', " said Dan, with a pleasant laugh; and then, anxious to change the subject: "'Look's if your line was fast tosomethin'. "

"Fouled, I guess, " said Harve, tugging. Before he pulled up he fastenedthe belt round him, and with deep delight heard the tip of the sheathclick on the thwart. "Concern the thing!" he cried. "She acts as thoughshe were on strawberry-bottom. It's all sand here, ain't it?"

Dan reached over and gave a judgmatic tweak. "Hollbut'll act that way'f he's sulky. Thet's no strawberry-bottom. Yank her once or twice. Shegives, sure. Guess we'd better haul up an' make certain. "

They pulled together, making fast at each turn on the cleats, and thehidden weight rose sluggishly. 

"Prize, oh! Haul!" shouted Dan, but the shout ended in a shrill, doubleshriek of horror, for out of the sea came the body of the deadFrenchman buried two days before! The hook had caught him under theright armpit, and he swayed, erect and horrible, head and shouldersabove water. His arms were tied to his side, and--he had no face. Theboys fell over each other in a heap at the bottom of the dory, andthere they lay while the thing bobbed alongside, held on the shortenedline. 

"The tide--the tide brought him!" said Harvey with quivering lips, ashe fumbled at the clasp of the belt. 

"Oh, Lord! Oh, Harve!" groaned Dan, "be quick. He's come for it. Lethim have it. Take it off. "

"I don't want it! I don't want it!" cried Harvey. "I can't find thebu-buckle. "

"Quick, Harve! He's on your line!"

Harvey sat up to unfasten the belt, facing the head that had no faceunder its streaming hair. "He's fast still, " he whispered to Dan, whoslipped out his knife and cut the line, as Harvey flung the belt faroverside. The body shot down with a plop, and Dan cautiously rose tohis knees, whiter than the fog. 

"He come for it. He come for it. I've seen a stale one hauled up on atrawl and I didn't much care, but he come to us special. "

"I wish--I wish I hadn't taken the knife. Then he'd have come on yourline. "

"Dunno as thet would ha' made any differ. We're both scared out o' tenyears' growth. Oh, Harve, did ye see his head?"

"Did I? I'll never forget it. But look at here, Dan; it couldn't havebeen meant. It was only the tide. "

"Tide! He come for it, Harve. Why, they sunk him six miles to south'ardo' the Fleet, an' we're two miles from where she's lyin' now. They toldme he was weighted with a fathom an' a half o' chain-cable. "

"Wonder what he did with the knife--up on the French coast?"

"Something bad. 'Guess he's bound to take it with him to the Judgment, an' so-- What are you doin' with the fish?"

"Heaving 'em overboard, " said Harvey. 

"What for? We sha'n't eat 'em. "

"I don't care. I had to look at his face while I was takin' the beltoff. You can keep your catch if you like. I've no use for mine. "

Dan said nothing, but threw his fish over again. 

"Guess it's best to be on the safe side, " he murmured at last. "I'dgive a month's pay if this fog 'u'd lift. Things go abaout in a fogthat ye don't see in clear weather--yo-hoes an' hollerers and suchlike. I'm sorter relieved he come the way he did instid o' walkin'. Hemight ha' walked. "

"Don't, Dan! We're right on top of him now. 'Wish I was safe aboard, hem' pounded by Uncle Salters. "

"They'll be lookin' fer us in a little. Gimme the tooter. " Dan took thetin dinner-horn, but paused before he blew. 

"Go on, " said Harvey. "I don't want to stay here all night"

"Question is, haow he'd take it. There was a man frum down the coasttold me once he was in a schooner where they darsen't ever blow a hornto the dories, becaze the skipper--not the man he was with, but acaptain that had run her five years before--he'd drowned a boyalongside in a drunk fit; an' ever after, that boy he'd row along-sidetoo and shout, 'Dory! dory!' with the rest. "

"Dory! dory!" a muffled voice cried through the fog. They coweredagain, and the horn dropped from Dan's hand. 

"Hold on!" cried Harvey; "it's the cook. "

"Dunno what made me think o' thet fool tale, either, " said Dan. "It'sthe doctor, sure enough. "

"Dan! Danny! Oooh, Dan! Harve! Harvey! Oooh, Haarveee!"

"We're here, " sung both boys together. They heard oars, but could seenothing till the cook, shining and dripping, rowed into them. 

"What iss happened?" said he. "You will be beaten at home. "

"Thet's what we want. Thet's what we're sufferin' for" said Dan. "Anything homey's good enough fer us. We've had kinder depressin'company. " As the cook passed them a line, Dan told him the tale. 

"Yess! He come for hiss knife, " was all he said at the end. 

Never had the little rocking _We're Here_ looked so deliciouslyhome-like as when the cook, born and bred in fogs, rowed them back toher. There was a warm glow of light from the cabin and a satisfyingsmell of food forward, and it was heavenly to hear Disko and theothers, all quite alive and solid, leaning over the rail and promisingthem a first-class pounding. But the cook was a black; master ofstrategy. He did not get the dories aboard till he had given the morestriking points of the tale, explaining as he backed and bumped roundthe counter how Harvey was the mascot to destroy any possible bad luck. So the boys came override as rather uncanny heroes, and every one askedthem questions instead of pounding them for making trouble. Little Penndelivered quite a speech on the folly of superstitions; but publicopinion was against him and in favour of Long Jack, who told the mostexcruciating ghost-stories, till nearly midnight. Under that influenceno one except Salters and Penn said anything about "idolatry, " when thecook put a lighted candle, a cake of flour and water, and a pinch ofsalt on a shingle, and floated them out astern to keep the Frenchmanquiet in case he was still restless. Dan lit the candle because he hadbought the belt, and the cook grunted and muttered charms as long as hecould see the ducking point of flame. 

Said Harvey to Dan, as they turned in after watch:

"How about progress and Catholic superstitions?"

"Huh! I guess I'm as enlightened and progressive as the next man, butwhen it comes to a dead St. Malo deck-hand scarin' a couple o' poreboys stiff fer the sake of a thirty-cent knife, why, then, the cook cantake hold fer all o' me. I mistrust furriners, livin' or dead. "

Next morning all, except the cook, were rather ashamed of theceremonies, and went to work double tides, speaking gruffly to oneanother. 

The _We're Here_ was racing neck and neck for her last few loadsagainst the Parry Norman; and so close was the struggle that the Fleettook side and betted tobacco. All hands worked at the lines ordressing-down till they fell asleep where they stood--beginning beforedawn and ending when it was too dark to see. They even used the cook aspitcher, and turned Harvey into the hold to pass salt, while Dan helpedto dress down. Luckily a Parry Norman man sprained his ankle fallingdown the foc'sle, and the _We're Heres_ gained. Harvey could not seehow one more fish could be crammed into her, but Disko and Tom Plattstowed and stowed, and planked the mass down with big stones from theballast, and there was always "jest another day's work. " Disko did nottell them when all the salt was wetted. He rolled to the lazarette aftthe cabin and began hauling out the big mainsail. This was at ten inthe morning. The riding-sail was down and the main- and topsail were upby noon, and dories came alongside with letters for home, envying theirgood fortune. At last she cleared decks, hoisted her flag, --as is theright of the first boat off the Banks, --up-anchored, and began to move. Disko pretended that he wished to accomodate folk who had not sent intheir mail, and so worked her gracefully in and out among theschooners. In reality, that was his little triumphant procession, andfor the fifth year running it showed what kind of mariner he was. Dan'saccordion and Tom Platt's fiddle supplied the music of the magic verseyou must not sing till all the salt is wet:

 "Hih! Yih! Yoho! Send your letters raound! All our salt is wetted, an' the anchor's off the graound! Bend, oh, bend your mains'l, we're back to Yankeeland-- With fifteen hunder' quintal, An' fifteen hunder' quintal, 'Teen hunder' toppin' quintal, 'Twix' old 'Queereau an' Grand. "

The last letters pitched on deck wrapped round pieces of coal, and theGloucester men shouted messages to their wives and womenfolks andowners, while the _We're Here_ finished the musical ride through theFleet, her headsails quivering like a man's hand when he raises it tosay good-by. 

Harvey very soon discovered that the _We're Here_, with herriding-sail, strolling from berth to berth, and the _We're Here_ headedwest by south under home canvas, were two very different boats. Therewas a bite and kick to the wheel even in "boy's" weather; he could feelthe dead weight in the hold flung forward mightily across the surges, and the streaming line of bubbles overside made his eyes dizzy. 

Disko kept them busy fiddling with the sails; and when those wereflattened like a racing yacht's, Dan had to wait on the big topsail, which was put over by hand every time she went about. In spare momentsthey pumped, for the packed fish dripped brine, which does not improvea cargo. But since there was no fishing, Harvey had time to look at thesea from another point of view. The low-sided schooner was naturally onmost intimate terms with her surroundings. They saw little of thehorizon save when she topped a swell; and usually she was elbowing, fidgeting, and coasting her steadfast way through gray, gray-blue, orblack hollows laced across and across with streaks of shivering foam;or rubbing herself caressingly along the flank of some biggerwater-hill. It was as if she said: "You wouldn't hurt me, surely? I'monly the little _We're Here_. " Then she would slide away chucklingsoftly to herself till she was brought up by some fresh obstacle. Thedullest of folk cannot see this kind of thing hour after hour throughlong days without noticing it; and Harvey, being anything but dull, began to comprehend and enjoy the dry chorus of wave-tops turning overwith a sound of incessant tearing; the hurry of the winds workingacross open spaces and herding the purple-blue cloud-shadows; thesplendid upheaval of the red sunrise; the folding and packing away ofthe morning mists, wall after wall withdrawn across the white floors;the salty glare and blaze of noon; the kiss of rain falling overthousands of dead, flat square miles; the chilly blackening ofeverything at the day's end; and the million wrinkles of the sea underthe moonlight, when the jib-boom solemnly poked at the low stars, andHarvey went down to get a doughnut from the cook. 

But the best fun was when the boys were put on the wheel together, TomPlatt within hail, and she cuddled her lee-rail down to the crashingblue, and kept a little home-made rainbow arching unbroken over herwindlass. Then the jaws of the booms whined against the masts, and thesheets creaked, and the sails filled with roaring; and when she slidinto a hollow she trampled like a woman tripped in her own silk dress, and came out, her jib wet half-way up, yearning and peering for thetall twin-lights of Thatcher's Island. 

They left the cold gray of the Bank sea, saw the lumber-ships makingfor Quebec by the Straits of St. Lawrence, with the Jersey salt-brigsfrom Spain and Sicily; found a friendly northeaster off Artimon Bankthat drove them within view of the East light of Sable Island, --a sightDisko did not linger over, --and stayed with them past Western and LeHave, to the northern fringe of George's. From there they picked up thedeeper water, and let her go merrily. 

"Hattie's pulling on the string, " Dan confided to Harvey. "Hattie an'Ma. Next Sunday you'll be hirin' a boy to throw water on the windows tomake ye go to sleep. 'Guess you'll keep with us till your folks come. Do you know the best of gettin' ashore again?"

"Hot bath?" said Harvey. His eyebrows were all white with dried spray. 

"That's good, but a night-shirt's better. I've been dreamin' o'night-shirts ever since we bent our mainsail. Ye can wiggle your toesthen. Ma'll hev a new one fer me, all washed soft. It's home, Harve. It's home! Ye can sense it in the air. We're runnin' into the aidge ofa hot wave naow, an' I can smell the bayberries. Wonder if we'll get infer supper. Port a trifle. "

The hesitating sails flapped and lurched in the close air as the deepsmoothed out, blue and oily, round them. When they whistled for a windonly the rain came in spiky rods, bubbling and drumming, and behind therain the thunder and the lightning of mid-August. They lay on the deckwith bare feet and arms, telling one another what they would order attheir first meal ashore; for now the land was in plain sight. AGloucester swordfish-boat drifted alongside, a man in the little pulpiton the bowsprit flourished his harpoon, his bare head plastered downwith the wet. "And all's well!" he sang cheerily, as though he werewatch on a big liner. "Wouverman's waiting fer you, Disko. What's thenews o' the Fleet?"

Disko shouted it and passed on, while the wild summer storm poundedoverhead and the lightning flickered along the capes from fourdifferent quarters at once. It gave the low circle of hills roundGloucester Harbor, Ten Pound Island, the fish-sheds, with the brokenline of house-roofs, and each spar and buoy on the water, in blindingphotographs that came and went a dozen times to the minute as the_We're Here_ crawled in on half-flood, and the whistling-buoy moanedand mourned behind her. Then the storm died out in long, separated, vicious dags of blue-white flame, followed by a single roar like theroar of a mortar-battery, and the shaken air tingled under the stars asit got back to silence. 

"The flag, the flag!" said Disko, suddenly, pointing upward. 

"What is ut?" said Long Jack. 

"Otto! Ha'af mast. They can see us frum shore now. "

"I'd clean forgot. He's no folk to Gloucester, has he?"

"Girl he was goin' to be married to this fall. "

"Mary pity her!" said Long Jack, and lowered the little flag half-mastfor the sake of Otto, swept overboard in a gale off Le Have threemonths before. 

Disko wiped the wet from his eyes and led the _We're Here_ toWouverman's wharf, giving his orders in whispers, while she swung roundmoored tugs and night-watchmen hailed her from the ends of inky-blackpiers. Over and above the darkness and the mystery of the procession, Harvey could feel the land close round him once more, with all itsthousands of people asleep, and the smell of earth after rain, and thefamiliar noise of a switching-engine coughing to herself in afreight-yard; and all those things made his heart beat and his throatdry up as he stood by the foresheet. They heard the anchor-watchsnoring on a lighthouse-tug, nosed into a pocket of darkness where alantern glimmered on either side; somebody waked with a grunt, threwthem a rope, and they made fast to a silent wharf flanked with greatiron-roofed sheds fall of warm emptiness, and lay there without a sound. 

Then Harvey sat down by the wheel, and sobbed and sobbed as though hisheart would break, and a tall woman who had been sitting on aweigh-scale dropped down into the schooner and kissed Dan once on thecheek; for she was his mother, and she had seen the _We're Here_ by thelightning flashes. She took no notice of Harvey till he had recoveredhimself a little and Disko had told her his story. Then they went toDisko's house together as the dawn was breaking; and until thetelegraph office was open and he could wire his folk, Harvey Cheyne wasperhaps the loneliest boy in all America. But the curious thing wasthat Disko and Dan seemed to think none the worse of him for crying. 

Wouverman was not ready for Disko's prices till Disko, sure that the_We're Here_ was at least a week ahead of any other Gloucester boat, had given him a few days to swallow them; so all hands played about thestreets, and Long Jack stopped the Rocky Neck trolley, on principle, ashe said, till the conductor let him ride free. But Dan went about withhis freckled nose in the air, bung-full of mystery and most haughty tohis family. 

"Dan, I'll hev to lay inter you ef you act this way, " said Troop, pensively. "Sence we've come ashore this time you've bin a heap toofresh. "

"I'd lay into him naow ef he was mine, " said Uncle Salters, sourly. Heand Penn boarded with the Troops. 

"Oho!" said Dan, shuffling with the accordion round the backyard, readyto leap the fence if the enemy advanced. "Dad, you're welcome to yourown judgment, but remember I've warned ye. Your own flesh an' blood ha'warned ye! 'Tain't any o' my fault ef you're mistook, but I'll be ondeck to watch ye. An' ez fer yeou, Uncle Salters, Pharaoh's chiefbutler ain't in it 'longside o' you! You watch aout an' wait. You'll beplowed under like your own blamed clover; but me--Dan Troop--I'llflourish like a green bay-tree because I warn't stuck on my ownopinion. "

Disko was smoking in all his shore dignity and a pair of beautifulcarpet-slippers. "You're gettin' ez crazy as poor Harve. You two goaraound gigglin' an' squinchin' an' kickin' each other under the tabletill there's no peace in the haouse, " said he. 

"There's goin' to be a heap less--fer some folks, " Dan replied. "Youwait an' see. "

He and Harvey went out on the trolley to East Gloucester, where theytramped through the bayberry bushes to the lighthouse, and lay down onthe big red boulders and laughed themselves hungry. Harvey had shownDan a telegram, and the two swore to keep silence till the shell burst. 

"Harve's folk?" said Dan, with an unruffled face after supper. "Well, Iguess they don't amount to much of anything, or we'd ha' heard from 'emby naow. His pop keeps a kind o' store out West. Maybe he'll give you's much as five dollars, Dad. "

"What did I tell ye?" said Salters. "Don't sputter over your vittles, Dan. "

CHAPTER IX

Whatever his private sorrows may be, a multimillionaire, like any otherworkingman, should keep abreast of his business. Harvey Cheyne, senior, had gone East late in June to meet a woman broken down, half mad, whodreamed day and night of her son drowning in the gray seas. He hadsurrounded her with doctors, trained nurses, massage-women, and evenfaith-cure companions, but they were useless. Mrs. Cheyne lay still andmoaned, or talked of her boy by the hour together to any one who wouldlisten. Hope she had none, and who could offer it? All she needed wasassurance that drowning did not hurt; and her husband watched to guardlest she should make the experiment. Of his own sorrow he spokelittle--hardly realized the depth of it till he caught himself askingthe calendar on his writing-desk, "What's the use of going on?"

There had always lain a pleasant notion at the back of his head that, some day, when he had rounded off everything and the boy had leftcollege, he would take his son to his heart and lead him into hispossessions. Then that boy, he argued, as busy fathers do, wouldinstantly become his companion, partner, and ally, and there wouldfollow splendid years of great works carried out together--the old headbacking the young fire. Now his boy was dead--lost at sea, as it mighthave been a Swede sailor from one of Cheyne's big teaships; the wifedying, or worse; he himself was trodden down by platoons of women anddoctors and maids and attendants; worried almost beyond endurance bythe shift and change of her poor restless whims; hopeless, with noheart to meet his many enemies. 

He had taken the wife to his raw new palace in San Diego, where she andher people occupied a wing of great price, and Cheyne, in averanda-room, between a secretary and a typewriter, who was also atelegraphist, toiled along wearily from day to day. There was a war ofrates among four Western railroads in which he was supposed to beinterested; a devastating strike had developed in his lumber camps inOregon, and the legislature of the State of California, which has nolove for its makers, was preparing open war against him. 

Ordinarily he would have accepted battle ere it was offered, and havewaged a pleasant and unscrupulous campaign. But now he sat limply, hissoft black hat pushed forward on to his nose, his big body shrunkinside his loose clothes, staring at his boots or the Chinese junks inthe bay, and assenting absently to the secretary's questions as heopened the Saturday mail. 

Cheyne was wondering how much it would cost to drop everything and pullout. He carried huge insurances, could buy himself royal annuities, andbetween one of his places in Colorado and a little society (that woulddo the wife good), say in Washington and the South Carolina islands, aman might forget plans that had come to nothing. On the other hand--

The click of the typewriter stopped; the girl was looking at thesecretary, who had turned white. 

He passed Cheyne a telegram repeated from San Francisco:

Picked up by fishing schooner _We're Here_ having fallen off boat greattimes on Banks fishing all well waiting Gloucester Mass care DiskoTroop for money or orders wire what shall do and how is Mama Harvey N. Cheyne. 

The father let it fall, laid his head down on the roller-top of theshut desk, and breathed heavily. The secretary ran for Mrs. Cheyne'sdoctor who found Cheyne pacing to and fro. 

"What--what d' you think of it? Is it possible? Is there any meaning toit? I can't quite make it out, " he cried. 

"I can, " said the doctor. "I lose seven thousand a year--that's all. "He thought of the struggling New York practice he had dropped atCheyne's imperious bidding, and returned the telegram with a sigh. 

"You mean you'd tell her? 'May be a fraud?"

"What's the motive?" said the doctor, coolly. "Detection's too certain. It's the boy sure enough. "

Enter a French maid, impudently, as an indispensable one who is kept ononly by large wages. 

"Mrs. Cheyne she say you must come at once. She think you are seek. "

The master of thirty millions bowed his head meekly and followedSuzanne; and a thin, high voice on the upper landing of the greatwhite-wood square staircase cried: "What is it? What has happened?"

No doors could keep out the shriek that rang through the echoing housea moment later, when her husband blurted out the news. 

"And that's all right, " said the doctor, serenely, to the typewriter. "About the only medical statement in novels with any truth to it isthat joy don't kill, Miss Kinzey. "

"I know it; but we've a heap to do first. " Miss Kinzey was fromMilwaukee, somewhat direct of speech; and as her fancy leaned towardsthe secretary, she divined there was work in hand. He was lookingearnestly at the vast roller-map of America on the wall. 

"Milsom, we're going right across. Private car--straightthrough--Boston. Fix the connections, " shouted Cheyne down thestaircase. 

"I thought so. "

The secretary turned to the typewriter, and their eyes met (out of thatwas born a story--nothing to do with this story). She lookedinquiringly, doubtful of his resources. He signed to her to move to theMorse as a general brings brigades into action. Then he swept his handmusician-wise through his hair, regarded the ceiling, and set to work, while Miss Kinzey's white fingers called up the Continent of America. 

"_K. H. Wade, Los Angeles--_ The 'Constance' is at Los Angeles, isn't she, Miss Kinzey?"

"Yep. " Miss Kinzey nodded between clicks as the secretary looked at hiswatch. 

"Ready? _Send 'Constance, ' private car, here, and arrange for special toleave here Sunday in time to connect with New York Limited at SixteenthStreet, Chicago, Tuesday next_. "

Click-click-click! "Couldn't you better that?"

"Not on those grades. That gives 'em sixty hours from here to Chicago. They won't gain anything by taking a special east of that. Ready? _Alsoarrange with Lake Shore and Michigan Southern to take 'Constance' onNew York Central and Hudson River Buffalo to Albany, and B. And A. Thesame Albany to Boston. Indispensable I should reach Boston Wednesdayevening. Be sure nothing prevents. Have also wired Canniff, Toucey, andBarnes. _--Sign, Cheyne. "

Miss Kinzey nodded, and the secretary went on. 

"Now then. Canniff, Toucey, and Barnes, of course. Ready? _Canniff, Chicago. Please take my private car 'Constance' from Santa Fe atSixteenth Street next Tuesday p. M. On N. Y. Limited through to Buffaloand deliver N. Y. C. For Albany. _--Ever bin to N' York, Miss Kinzey?We'll go some day. --Ready? _Take car Buffalo to Albany on LimitedTuesday p. M. _ That's for Toucey. "

"Haven't bin to Noo York, but I know that!" with a toss of the head. 

"Beg pardon. Now, Boston and Albany, Barnes, same instructions fromAlbany through to Boston. Leave three-five P. M. (you needn't wirethat); arrive nine-five P. M. Wednesday. That covers everything Wadewill do, but it pays to shake up the managers. "

"It's great, " said Miss Kinzey, with a look of admiration. This was thekind of man she understood and appreciated. 

"'Tisn't bad, " said Milsom, modestly. "Now, any one but me would havelost thirty hours and spent a week working out the run, instead ofhanding him over to the Santa Fe straight through to Chicago. "

"But see here, about that Noo York Limited. Chauncey Depew himselfcouldn't hitch his car to her, " Miss Kinzey suggested, recoveringherself. 

"Yes, but this isn't Chauncey. It's Cheyne--lightning. It goes. "

"Even so. Guess we'd better wire the boy. You've forgotten that, anyhow. "

"I'll ask. "

When he returned with the father's message bidding Harvey meet them inBoston at an appointed hour, he found Miss Kinzey laughing over thekeys. Then Milsom laughed too, for the frantic clicks from Los Angelesran: "We want to know why-why-why? General uneasiness developed andspreading. "

Ten minutes later Chicago appealed to Miss Kinzey in these words: "Ifcrime of century is maturing please warn friends in time. We are allgetting to cover here. "

This was capped by a message from Topeka (and wherein Topeka wasconcerned even Milsom could not guess): "Don't shoot, Colonel. We'llcome down. "

Cheyne smiled grimly at the consternation of his enemies when thetelegrams were laid before him. "They think we're on the warpath. Tell'em we don't feel like fighting just now, Milsom. Tell 'em what we'regoing for. I guess you and Miss Kinsey had better come along, though itisn't likely I shall do any business on the road. Tell 'em thetruth--for once. "

So the truth was told. Miss Kinzey clicked in the sentiment while thesecretary added the memorable quotation, "Let us have peace, " and inboard rooms two thousand miles away the representatives of sixty-threemillion dollars' worth of variously manipulated railroad interestsbreathed more freely. Cheyne was flying to meet the only son, somiraculously restored to him. The bear was seeking his cub, not thebulls. Hard men who had their knives drawn to fight for their financiallives put away the weapons and wished him God-speed, while half a dozenpanic-smitten tin-pot toads perked up their heads and spoke of thewonderful things they would have done had not Cheyne buried the hatchet. 

It was a busy week-end among the wires; for now that their anxiety wasremoved, men and cities hastened to accommodate. Los Angeles called toSan Diego and Barstow that the Southern California engineers might knowand be ready in their lonely roundhouses; Barstow passed the word tothe Atlantic and Pacific; and Albuquerque flung it the whole length ofthe Atchinson, Topeka, and Santa Fe management, even into Chicago. Anengine, combination-car with crew, and the great and gilded "Constance"private car were to be "expedited" over those two thousand threehundred and fifty miles. The train would take precedence of one hundredand seventy-seven others meeting and passing; despatchers and crews ofevery one of those said trains must be notified. Sixteen locomotives, sixteen engineers, and sixteen firemen would be needed--each and everyone the best available. Two and one half minutes would be allowed forchanging engines, three for watering, and two for coaling. "Warn themen, and arrange tanks and chutes accordingly; for Harvey Cheyne is ina hurry, a hurry, a hurry, " sang the wires. "Forty miles an hour willbe expected, and division superintendents will accompany this specialover their respective divisions. From San Diego to Sixteenth Street, Chicago, let the magic carpet be laid down. Hurry! Oh, hurry!"

"It will be hot, " said Cheyne, as they rolled out of San Diego in thedawn of Sunday. "We're going to hurry, Mama, just as fast as ever wecan; but I really don't think there's any good of your putting on yourbonnet and gloves yet. You'd much better lie down and take yourmedicine. I'd play you a game of dominoes, but it's Sunday. "

"I'll be good. Oh, I will be good. Only--taking off my bonnet makes mefeel as if we'd never get there. "

"Try to sleep a little, Mama, and we'll be in Chicago before you know. "

"But it's Boston, Father. Tell them to hurry. "

The six-foot drivers were hammering their way to San Bernardino and theMohave wastes, but this was no grade for speed. That would come later. The heat of the desert followed the heat of the hills as they turnedeast to the Needles and the Colorado River. The car cracked in theutter drouth and glare, and they put crushed ice to Mrs. Cheyne's neck, and toiled up the long, long grades, past Ash Fork, towards Flagstaff, where the forests and quarries are, under the dry, remote skies. Theneedle of the speed-indicator flicked and wagged to and fro; thecinders rattled on the roof, and a whirl of dust sucked after thewhirling wheels. The crew of the combination sat on their bunks, panting in their shirtsleeves, and Cheyne found himself among themshouting old, old stories of the railroad that every trainman knows, above the roar of the car. He told them about his son, and how the seahad given up its dead, and they nodded and spat and rejoiced with him;asked after "her, back there, " and whether she could stand it if theengineer "let her out a piece, " and Cheyne thought she could. Accordingly, the great fire-horse was "let 'ut" from Flagstaff toWinslow, till a division superintendent protested. 

But Mrs. Cheyne, in the boudoir stateroom, where the French maid, sallow-white with fear, clung to the silver door-handle, only moaned alittle and begged her husband to bid them "hurry. " And so they droppedthe dry sands and moon-struck rocks of Arizona behind them, and grilledon till the crash of the couplings and the wheeze of the brake-hosetold them they were at Coolidge by the Continental Divide. 

Three bold and experienced men--cool, confident, and dry when theybegan; white, quivering, and wet when they finished their trick atthose terrible wheels--swung her over the great lift from Albuquerqueto Glorietta and beyond Springer, up and up to the Raton Tunnel on theState line, whence they dropped rocking into La Junta, had sight of theArkansaw, and tore down the long slope to Dodge City, where Cheyne tookcomfort once again from setting his watch an hour ahead. 

There was very little talk in the car. The secretary and typewriter sattogether on the stamped Spanish-leather cushions by the plate-glassobservation-window at the rear end, watching the surge and ripple ofthe ties crowded back behind them, and, it is believed, making notes ofthe scenery. Cheyne moved nervously between his own extravagantgorgeousness and the naked necessity of the combination, an unlit cigarin his teeth, till the pitying crews forgot that he was their tribalenemy, and did their best to entertain him. 

At night the bunched electrics lit up that distressful palace of allthe luxuries, and they fared sumptuously, swinging on through theemptiness of abject desolation. 

Now they heard the swish of a water-tank, and the guttural voice of aChinaman, the click-clink of hammers that tested the Krupp steelwheels, and the oath of a tramp chased off the rear-platform; now thesolid crash of coal shot into the tender; and now a beating back ofnoises as they flew past a waiting train. Now they looked out intogreat abysses, a trestle purring beneath their tread, or up to rocksthat barred out half the stars. Now scour and ravine changed and rolledback to jagged mountains on the horizon's edge, and now broke intohills lower and lower, till at last came the true plains. 

At Dodge City an unknown hand threw in a copy of a Kansas papercontaining some sort of an interview with Harvey, who had evidentlyfallen in with an enterprising reporter, telegraphed on from Boston. The joyful journalese revealed that it was beyond question their boy, and it soothed Mrs. Cheyne for a while. Her one word "hurry" wasconveyed by the crews to the engineers at Nickerson, Topeka, andMarceline, where the grades are easy, and they brushed the Continentbehind them. Towns and villages were close together now, and a mancould feel here that he moved among people. 

"I can't see the dial, and my eyes ache so. What are we doing?"

"The very best we can, Mama. There's no sense in getting in before theLimited. We'd only have to wait. "

"I don't care. I want to feel we're moving. Sit down and tell me themiles. "

Cheyne sat down and read the dial for her (there were some miles whichstand for records to this day), but the seventy-foot car never changedits long steamer-like roll, moving through the heat with the hum of agiant bee. Yet the speed was not enough for Mrs. Cheyne; and the heat, the remorseless August heat, was making her giddy; the clock-handswould not move, and when, oh, when would they be in Chicago?

It is not true that, as they changed engines at Fort Madison, Cheynepassed over to the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers anendowment sufficient to enable them to fight him and his fellows onequal terms for evermore. He paid his obligations to engineers andfiremen as he believed they deserved, and only his bank knows what hegave the crews who had sympathized with him. It is on record that thelast crew took entire charge of switching operations at SixteenthStreet, because "she" was in a doze at last, and Heaven was to help anyone who bumped her. 

Now the highly paid specialist who conveys the Lake Shore and MichiganSouthern Limited from Chicago to Elkhart is something of an autocrat, and he does not approve of being told how to back up to a car. None theless he handled the "Constance" as if she might have been a load ofdynamite, and when the crew rebuked him, they did it in whispers anddumb show. 

"Pshaw!" said the Atchinson, Topeka, and Santa Fe men, discussing lifelater, "we weren't runnin' for a record. Harvey Cheyne's wife, she weresick back, an' we didn't want to jounce her. 'Come to think of it, ourrunnin' time from San Diego to Chicago was 57. 54. You can tell that tothem Eastern way-trains. When we're tryin' for a record, we'll let youknow. "

To the Western man (though this would not please either city) Chicagoand Boston are cheek by jowl, and some railroads encourage thedelusion. The Limited whirled the "Constance" into Buffalo and the armsof the New York Central and Hudson River (illustrious magnates withwhite whiskers and gold charms on their watch-chains boarded her hereto talk a little business to Cheyne), who slid her gracefully intoAlbany, where the Boston and Albany completed the run from tide-waterto tide-water--total time, eighty-seven hours and thirty-five minutes, or three days, fifteen hours and one half. Harvey was waiting for them. 

After violent emotion most people and all boys demand food. Theyfeasted the returned prodigal behind drawn curtains, cut off in theirgreat happiness, while the trains roared in and out around them. Harveyate, drank, and enlarged on his adventures all in one breath, and whenhe had a hand free his mother fondled it. His voice was thickened withliving in the open, salt air; his palms were rough and hard, his wristsdotted with marks of gurrysores; and a fine full flavour of codfishhung round rubber boots and blue jersey. 

The father, well used to judging men, looked at him keenly. He did notknow what enduring harm the boy might have taken. Indeed, he caughthimself thinking that he knew very little whatever of his son; but hedistinctly remembered an unsatisfied, dough-faced youth who tookdelight in "calling down the old man, " and reducing his mother totears--such a person as adds to the gaiety of public rooms and hotelpiazzas, where the ingenuous young of the wealthy play with or revilethe bell-boys. But this well set-up fisher-youth did not wriggle, looked at him with eyes steady, clear, and unflinching, and spoke in atone distinctly, even startlingly, respectful. There was that in hisvoice, too, which seemed to promise that the change might be permanent, and that the new Harvey had come to stay. 

"Some one's been coercing him, " thought Cheyne. "Now Constance wouldnever have allowed that. Don't see as Europe could have done it anybetter. "

"But why didn't you tell this man, Troop, who you were?" the motherrepeated, when Harvey had expanded his story at least twice. 

"Disko Troop, dear. The best man that ever walked a deck. I don't carewho the next is. "

"Why didn't you tell him to put you ashore? You know Papa would havemade it up to him ten times over. "

"I know it; but he thought I was crazy. I'm afraid I called him a thiefbecause I couldn't find the bills in my pocket. "

"A sailor found them by the flagstaff that--that night, " sobbed Mrs. Cheyne. 

"That explains it, then. I don't blame Troop any. I just said Iwouldn't work--on a Banker, too--and of course he hit me on the nose, and oh! I bled like a stuck hog. "

"My poor darling! They must have abused you horribly. "

"Dunno quite. Well, after that, I saw a light. "

Cheyne slapped his leg and chuckled. This was going to be a boy afterhis own hungry heart. He had never seen precisely that twinkle inHarvey's eye before. 

"And the old man gave me ten and a half a month; he's paid me half now;and I took hold with Dan and pitched right in. I can't do a man's workyet. But I can handle a dory 'most as well as Dan, and I don't getrattled in a fog--much; and I can take my trick in light winds--that'ssteering, dear--and I can 'most bait up a trawl, and I know my ropes, of course; and I can pitch fish till the cows come home, and I'm greaton old Josephus, and I'll show you how I can clear coffee with a pieceof fish-skin, and--I think I'll have another cup, please. Say, you'veno notion what a heap of work there is in ten and a half a month!"

"I began with eight and a half, my son, " said Cheyne. 

"That so? You never told me, sir. "

"You never asked, Harve. I'll tell you about it some day, if you careto listen. Try a stuffed olive. "

"Troop says the most interesting thing in the world is to find out howthe next man gets his vittles. It's great to have a trimmed-up mealagain. We were well fed, though. But mug on the Banks. Disko fed usfirst-class. He's a great man. And Dan--that's his son--Dan's mypartner. And there's Uncle Salters and his manures, an' he readsJosephus. He's sure I'm crazy yet. And there's poor little Penn, and heis crazy. You mustn't talk to him about Johnstown, because--

"And, oh, you must know Tom Platt and Long Jack and Manuel. Manuelsaved my life. I'm sorry he's a Portuguee. He can't talk much, but he'san everlasting musician. He found me struck adrift and drifting, andhauled me in. "

"I wonder your nervous system isn't completely wrecked, " said Mrs. Cheyne. 

"What for, Mama? I worked like a horse and I ate like a hog and I sleptlike a dead man. "

That was too much for Mrs. Cheyne, who began to think of her visions ofa corpse rocking on the salty seas. She went to her stateroom, andHarvey curled up beside his father, explaining his indebtedness. 

"You can depend upon me to do everything I can for the crowd, Harve. They seem to be good men on your showing. "

"Best in the Fleet, sir. Ask at Gloucester, " said Harvey. "But Diskobelieves still he's cured me of being crazy. Dan's the only one I'velet on to about you, and our private cars and all the rest of it, andI'm not quite sure Dan believes. I want to paralyze 'em to-morrow. Say, can't they run the 'Constance' over to Gloucester? Mama don't look fitto be moved, anyway, and we're bound to finish cleaning out bytomorrow. Wouverman takes our fish. You see, we're the first off theBanks this season, and it's four twenty-five a quintal. We held outtill he paid it. They want it quick. "

"You mean you'll have to work to-morrow, then?"

"I told Troop I would. I'm on the scales. I've brought the tallies withme. " He looked at the greasy notebook with an air of importance thatmade his father choke. "There isn't but three--no--two ninety-four orfive quintal more by my reckoning. "

"Hire a substitute, " suggested Cheyne, to see what Harvey would say. 

"Can't, sir. I'm tally-man for the schooner. Troop says I've a betterhead for figures than Dan. Troop's a mighty just man. "

"Well, suppose I don't move the 'Constance' to-night, how'll you fixit?"

Harvey looked at the clock, which marked twenty past eleven. 

"Then I'll sleep here till three and catch the four o'clock freight. They let us men from the Fleet ride free as a rule. "

"That's a notion. But I think we can get the 'Constance' around aboutas soon as your men's freight. Better go to bed now. "

Harvey spread himself on the sofa, kicked off his boots, and was asleepbefore his father could shade the electrics. Cheyne sat watching theyoung face under the shadow of the arm thrown over the forehead, andamong many things that occurred to him was the notion that he mightperhaps have been neglectful as a father. 

"One never knows when one's taking one's biggest risks, " he said. "Itmight have been worse than drowning; but I don't think it has--I don'tthink it has. If it hasn't, I haven't enough to pay Troop, that's all;and I don't think it has. "

Morning brought a fresh sea breeze through the windows, the "Constance"was side-tracked among freight-cars at Gloucester, and Harvey had goneto his business. 

"Then he'll fall overboard again and be drowned, " the mother saidbitterly. 

"We'll go and look, ready to throw him a rope in case. You've neverseen him working for his bread, " said the father. 

"What nonsense! As if any one expected--"

"Well, the man that hired him did. He's about right, too. "

They went down between the stores full of fishermen's oilskins toWouverman's wharf where the _We're Here_ rode high, her Bank flag stillflying, all hands busy as beavers in the glorious morning light. Diskostood by the main hatch superintending Manuel, Penn, and Uncle Saltersat the tackle. Dan was swinging the loaded baskets inboard as Long Jackand Tom Platt filled them, and Harvey, with a notebook, represented theskipper's interests before the clerk of the scales on thesalt-sprinkled wharf-edge. 

"Ready!" cried the voices below. "Haul!" cried Disko. "Hi!" saidManuel. "Here!" said Dan, swinging the basket. Then they heard Harvey'svoice, clear and fresh, checking the weights. 

The last of the fish had been whipped out, and Harvey leaped from thestring-piece six feet to a ratline, as the shortest way to hand Diskothe tally, shouting, "Two ninety-seven, and an empty hold!"

"What's the total, Harve?" said Disko. 

"Eight sixty-five. Three thousand six hundred and seventy-six dollarsand a quarter. 'Wish I'd share as well as wage. "

"Well, I won't go so far as to say you hevn't deserved it, Harve. Don'tyou want to slip up to Wouverman's office and take him our tallies?"

"Who's that boy?" said Cheyne to Dan, well used to all manner ofquestions from those idle imbeciles called summer boarders. 

"Well, he's kind o' supercargo, " was the answer. "We picked him upstruck adrift on the Banks. Fell overboard from a liner, he sez. He wasa passenger. He's by way o' hem' a fisherman now. "

"Is he worth his keep?"

"Ye-ep. Dad, this man wants to know ef Harve's worth his keep. Say, would you like to go aboard? We'll fix up a ladder for her. "

"I should very much, indeed. 'Twon't hurt you, Mama, and you'll be ableto see for yourself. "

The woman who could not lift her head a week ago scrambled down theladder, and stood aghast amid the mess and tangle aft. 

"Be you anyways interested in Harve?" said Disko. 

"Well, ye-es. "

"He's a good boy, an' ketches right hold jest as he's bid. You've heardhaow we found him? He was sufferin' from nervous prostration, I guess, 'r else his head had hit somethin', when we hauled him aboard. He's allover that naow. Yes, this is the cabin. 'Tain't in order, but you'requite welcome to look araound. Those are his figures on the stove-pipe, where we keep the reckonin' mostly. "

"Did he sleep here?" said Mrs. Cheyne, sitting on a yellow locker andsurveying the disorderly bunks. 

"No. He berthed forward, madam, an' only fer him an' my boy hookin'fried pies an muggin' up when they ought to ha' been asleep, I dunno asI've any special fault to find with him. "

"There weren't nothin' wrong with Harve, " said Uncle Salters, descending the steps. "He hung my boots on the main-truck, and he ain'tover an' above respectful to such as knows more'n he do, speciallyabout farmin'; but he were mostly misled by Dan. "

Dan in the meantime, profiting by dark hints from Harvey early thatmorning, was executing a war-dance on deck. "Tom, Tom!" he whispereddown the hatch. "His folks has come, an' Dad hain't caught on yet, an'they're pow-wowin' in the cabin. She's a daisy, an' he's all Harveclaimed he was, by the looks of him. "

"Howly Smoke!" said Long Jack, climbing out covered with salt andfish-skin. "D'ye belave his tale av the kid an' the little four-horserig was thrue?"

"I knew it all along, " said Dan. "Come an' see Dad mistook in hisjudgments. "

They came delightedly, just in time to hear Cheyne say: "I'm glad hehas a good character, because--he's my son. "

Disko's jaw fell, --Long Jack always vowed that he heard the click ofit, --and he stared alternately at the man and the woman. 

"I got his telegram in San Diego four days ago, and we came over. "

"In a private car?" said Dan. "He said ye might. "

"In a private car, of course. "

Dan looked at his father with a hurricane of irreverent winks. 

"There was a tale he told us av drivin' four little ponies in a rig avhis own, " said Long Jack. "Was that thrue now?"

"Very likely, " said Cheyne. "Was it, Mama?"

"He had a little drag when we were in Toledo, I think, " said the mother. 

Long Jack whistled. "Oh, Disko!" said he, and that was all. 

"I wuz--I am mistook in my jedgments--worse'n the men o' Marblehead, "said Disko, as though the words were being windlassed out of him. "Idon't mind ownin' to you, Mr. Cheyne, as I mistrusted the boy to becrazy. He talked kinder odd about money. "

"So he told me. "

"Did he tell ye anything else? 'Cause I pounded him once. " This with asomewhat anxious glance at Mrs. Cheyne. 

"Oh, yes, " Cheyne replied. "I should say it probably did him more goodthan anything else in the world. "

"I jedged 'twuz necessary, er I wouldn't ha' done it. I don't want youto think we abuse our boys any on this packet. "

"I don't think you do, Mr. Troop. "

Mrs. Cheyne had been looking at the faces--Disko's ivory-yellow, hairless, iron countenance; Uncle Salters's, with its rim ofagricultural hair; Penn's bewildered simplicity; Manuel's quiet smile;Long Jack's grin of delight, and Tom Platt's scar. Rough, by herstandards, they certainly were; but she had a mother's wits in hereyes, and she rose with out-stretched hands. 

"Oh, tell me, which is who?" said she, half sobbing. "I want to thankyou and bless you--all of you. "

"Faith, that pays me a hunder time, " said Long Jack. 

Disko introduced them all in due form. The captain of an old-timeChinaman could have done no better, and Mrs. Cheyne babbledincoherently. She nearly threw herself into Manuel's arms when sheunderstood that he had first found Harvey. 

"But how shall I leave him dreeft?" said poor Manuel. "What do youyourself if you find him so? Eh, wha-at? We are in one good boy, and Iam ever so pleased he come to be your son. "

"And he told me Dan was his partner!" she cried. Dan was alreadysufficiently pink, but he turned a rich crimson when Mrs. Cheyne kissedhim on both cheeks before the assembly. Then they led her forward toshow her the foc'sle, at which she wept again, and must needs go downto see Harvey's identical bunk, and there she found the nigger cookcleaning up the stove, and he nodded as though she were some one he hadexpected to meet for years. They tried, two at a time, to explain theboat's daily life to her, and she sat by the pawl-post, her glovedhands on the greasy table, laughing with trembling lips and crying withdancing eyes. 

"And who's ever to use the _We're Here_ after this?" said Long Jack toTom Platt. "I feel as if she'd made a cathedral av ut all. "

"Cathedral!" sneered Tom Platt. "Oh, if it had bin even the FishC'mmission boat instid of this bally-hoo o' blazes. If we only hed somedecency an' order an' side-boys when she goes over! She'll have toclimb that ladder like a hen, an' we--we ought to be mannin' the yards!"

"Then Harvey was not mad, " said Penn, slowly, to Cheyne. 

"No, indeed--thank God, " the big millionaire replied, stooping downtenderly. 

"It must be terrible to be mad. Except to lose your child, I do notknow anything more terrible. But your child has come back? Let us thankGod for that. "

"Hello!" cried Harvey, looking down upon them benignly from the wharf. 

"I wuz mistook, Harve. I wuz mistook, " said Disko, swiftly, holding upa hand. "I wuz mistook in my jedgments. Ye needn't rub in any more. "

"Guess I'll take care o' that, " said Dan, under his breath. 

"You'll be goin' off naow, won't ye?"

"Well, not without the balance of my wages, 'less you want to have the_We're Here_ attached. "

"Thet's so; I'd clean forgot"; and he counted out the remainingdollars. "You done all you contracted to do, Harve; and you done it'baout's well as if you'd been brought up--" Here Disko brought himselfup. He did not quite see where the sentence was going to end. 

"Outside of a private car?" suggested Dan, wickedly. 

"Come on, and I'll show her to you, " said Harvey. 

Cheyne stayed to talk with Disko, but the others made a procession tothe depot, with Mrs. Cheyne at the head. The French maid shrieked atthe invasion; and Harvey laid the glories of the "Constance" beforethem without a word. They took them in in equal silence--stampedleather, silver door-handles and rails, cut velvet, plate-glass, nickel, bronze, hammered iron, and the rare woods of the continentinlaid. 

"I told you, " said Harvey; "I told you. " This was his crowning revenge, and a most ample one. 

Mrs. Cheyne decreed a meal, and that nothing might be lacking to thetale Long Jack told afterwards in his boarding-house, she waited onthem herself. Men who are accustomed to eat at tiny tables in howlinggales have curiously neat and finished manners; but Mrs. Cheyne, whodid not know this, was surprised. She longed to have Manuel for abutler; so silently and easily did he comport himself among the frailglassware and dainty silver. Tom Platt remembered the great days on theOhio and the manners of foreign potentates who dined with the officers;and Long Jack, being Irish, supplied the small talk till all were attheir ease. 

In the _We're Here's_ cabin the fathers took stock of each other behindtheir cigars. Cheyne knew well enough when he dealt with a man to whomhe could not offer money; equally well he knew that no money could payfor what Disko had done. He kept his own counsel and waited for anopening. 

"I hevn't done anything to your boy or fer your boy excep' make himwork a piece an' learn him how to handle the hog-yoke, " said Disko. "Hehas twice my boy's head for figgers. "

"By the way, " Cheyne answered casually, "what d'you calculate to makeof your boy?"

Disko removed his cigar and waved it comprehensively round the cabin. "Dan's jest plain boy, an' he don't allow me to do any of his thinkin'. He'll hev this able little packet when I'm laid by. He ain't nowaysanxious to quit the business. I know that. "

"Mmm! 'Ever been West, Mr. Troop?"

"'Bin's fer ez Noo York once in a boat. I've no use for railroads. Nomore hez Dan. Salt water's good enough fer the Troops. I've been 'mosteverywhere--in the nat'ral way, o' course. "

"I can give him all the salt water he's likely to need--till he's askipper. "

"Haow's that? I thought you wuz a kinder railroad king. Harve told meso when--I was mistook in my jedgments. "

"We're all apt to be mistaken. I fancied perhaps you might know I own aline of tea-clippers--San Francisco to Yokohama--six of'em--iron-built, about seventeen hundred and eighty tons apiece. 

"Blame that boy! He never told. I'd ha' listened to that, instid o' histruck abaout railroads an' pony-carriages. "

"He didn't know. "

"'Little thing like that slipped his mind, I guess. "

"No, I only capt--took hold of the 'Blue M. ' freighters--Morgan andMcQuade's old line--this summer. " Disko collapsed where he sat, besidethe stove. 

"Great Caesar Almighty! I mistrust I've been fooled from one end to theother. Why, Phil Airheart he went from this very town six yearback--no, seven--an' he's mate on the San Jose--now--twenty-six dayswas her time out. His sister she's livin' here yet, an' she reads hisletters to my woman. An' you own the 'Blue M. ' freighters?"

Cheyne nodded. 

"If I'd known that I'd ha' jerked the _We're Here_ back to port allstandin', on the word. "

"Perhaps that wouldn't have been so good for Harvey. "

"If I'd only known! If he'd only said about the cussed Line, I'd ha'understood! I'll never stand on my own jedgments again--never. They'rewell-found packets. Phil Airheart he says so. "

"I'm glad to have a recommend from that quarter. Airheart's skipper ofthe San Jose now. What I was getting at is to know whether you'd lendme Dan for a year or two, and we'll see if we can't make a mate of him. Would you trust him to Airheart?"

"It's a resk taking a raw boy--"

"I know a man who did more for me. "

"That's diff'runt. Look at here naow, I ain't recommendin' Dan specialbecause he's my own flesh an' blood. I know Bank ways ain't clipperways, but he hain't much to learn. Steer he can--no boy better, if Isay it--an' the rest's in our blood an' get; but I could wish he warn'tso cussed weak on navigation. "

"Airheart will attend to that. He'll ship as boy for a voyage or two, and then we can put him in the way of doing better. Suppose you takehim in hand this winter, and I'll send for him early in the spring. Iknow the Pacific's a long ways off--"

"Pshaw! We Troops, livin' an' dead, are all around the earth an' theseas thereof. "

"But I want you to understand--and I mean this--any time you thinkyou'd like to see him, tell me, and I'll attend to the transportation. 'Twon't cost you a cent. "

"If you'll walk a piece with me, we'll go to my house an' talk this tomy woman. I've bin so crazy mistook in all my jedgments, it don't seemto me this was like to be real. "

They went blue-trimmed of nasturtiums over to Troop'seighteen-hundred-dollar, white house, with a retired dory full in thefront yard and a shuttered parlour which was a museum of overseaplunder. There sat a large woman, silent and grave, with the dim eyesof those who look long to sea for the return of their beloved. Cheyneaddressed himself to her, and she gave consent wearily. 

"We lose one hundred a year from Gloucester only, Mr. Cheyne, " shesaid--"one hundred boys an' men; and I've come so's to hate the sea asif 'twuz alive an' listenin'. God never made it fer humans to anchoron. These packets o' yours they go straight out, I take it' andstraight home again?"

"As straight as the winds let 'em, and I give a bonus for recordpassages. Tea don't improve by being at sea. "

"When he wuz little he used to play at keeping store, an' I had hopeshe might follow that up. But soon's he could paddle a dory I knew thatwere goin' to be denied me. "

"They're square-riggers, Mother; iron-built an' well found. Rememberwhat Phil's sister reads you when she gits his letters. "

"I've never known as Phil told lies, but he's too venturesome (likemost of 'em that use the sea). If Dan sees fit, Mr. Cheyne, he cango--fer all o' me. "

"She jest despises the ocean, " Disko explained, "an' I--I dunno haow toact polite, I guess, er I'd thank you better. "

"My father--my own eldest brother--two nephews--an' my second sister'sman, " she said, dropping her head on her hand. "Would you care fer anyone that took all those?"

Cheyne was relieved when Dan turned up and accepted with more delightthan he was able to put into words. Indeed, the offer meant a plain andsure road to all desirable things; but Dan thought most of commandingwatch on broad decks, and looking into far-away harbours. 

Mrs. Cheyne had spoken privately to the unaccountable Manuel in thematter of Harvey's rescue. He seemed to have no desire for money. Pressed hard, he said that he would take five dollars, because hewanted to buy something for a girl. Otherwise--"How shall I take moneywhen I make so easy my eats and smokes? You will giva some if I like orno? Eh, wha-at? Then you shall giva me money, but not that way. Youshall giva all you can think. " He introduced her to a snuffy Portuguesepriest with a list of semi-destitute widows as long as his cassock. Asa strict Unitarian, Mrs. Cheyne could not sympathize with the creed, but she ended by respecting the brown, voluble little man. 

Manuel, faithful son of the Church, appropriated all the blessingsshowered on her for her charity. "That letta me out, " said he. "I havenow ver' good absolutions for six months"; and he strolled forth to geta handkerchief for the girl of the hour and to break the hearts of allthe others. 

Salters went West for a season with Penn, and left no address behind. He had a dread that these millionary people, with wasteful privatecars, might take undue interest in his companion. It was better tovisit inland relatives till the coast was clear. "Never you be adoptedby rich folk, Penn, " he said in the cars, "or I'll take 'n' break thischecker-board over your head. Ef you forgit your name agin--which isPratt--you remember you belong with Salters Troop, an' set down rightwhere you are till I come fer you. Don't go taggin' araound after themwhose eyes bung out with fatness, accordin' to Scripcher. "

CHAPTER X

But it was otherwise with the _We're Here's_ silent cook, for he cameup, his kit in a handkerchief, and boarded the "Constance. " Pay was noparticular object, and he did not in the least care where he slept. Hisbusiness, as revealed to him in dreams, was to follow Harvey for therest of his days. They tried argument and, at last, persuasion; butthere is a difference between one Cape Breton and two Alabama negroes, and the matter was referred to Cheyne by the cook and porter. Themillionaire only laughed. He presumed Harvey might need a body-servantsome day or other, and was sure that one volunteer was worth fivehirelings. Let the man stay, therefore; even though he called himselfMacDonald and swore in Gaelic. The car could go back to Boston, where, if he were still of the same mind, they would take him West. 

With the "Constance, " which in his heart of hearts he loathed, departedthe last remnant of Cheyne's millionairedom, and he gave himself up toan energetic idleness. This Gloucester was a new town in a new land, and he purposed to "take it in, " as of old he had taken in all thecities from Snohomish to San Diego of that world whence he hailed. Theymade money along the crooked street which was half wharf and halfship's store: as a leading professional he wished to learn how thenoble game was played. Men said that four out of every five fish-ballsserved at New England's Sunday breakfast came from Gloucester, andoverwhelmed him with figures in proof--statistics of boats, gear, wharf-frontage, capital invested, salting, packing, factories, insurance, wages, repairs, and profits. He talked with the owners ofthe large fleets whose skippers were little more than hired men, andwhose crews were almost all Swedes or Portuguese. Then he conferredwith Disko, one of the few who owned their craft, and compared notes inhis vast head. He coiled himself away on chain-cables in marinejunk-shops, asking questions with cheerful, unslaked Western curiosity, till all the water-front wanted to know "what in thunder that man wasafter, anyhow. " He prowled into the Mutual Insurance rooms, anddemanded explanations of the mysterious remarks chalked up on theblackboard day by day; and that brought down upon him secretaries ofevery Fisherman's Widow and Orphan Aid Society within the city limits. They begged shamelessly, each man anxious to beat the otherinstitution's record, and Cheyne tugged at his beard and handed themall over to Mrs. Cheyne. 

She was resting in a boarding-house near Eastern Point--a strangeestablishment, managed, apparently, by the boarders, where thetable-cloths were red-and-white-checkered and the population, whoseemed to have known one another intimately for years, rose up atmidnight to make Welsh rarebits if it felt hungry. On the secondmorning of her stay Mrs. Cheyne put away her diamond solitaires beforeshe came down to breakfast. 

"They're most delightful people, " she confided to her husband; "sofriendly and simple, too, though they are all Boston, nearly. "

"That isn't simpleness, Mama, " he said, looking across the bouldersbehind the apple-trees where the hammocks were slung. "It's the otherthing, that what I haven't got. "

"It can't be, " said Mrs. Cheyne quietly. "There isn't a woman here ownsa dress that cost a hundred dollars. Why, we--"

"I know it, dear. We have--of course we have. I guess it's only thestyle they wear East. Are you having a good time?"

"I don't see very much of Harvey; he's always with you; but I ain'tnear as nervous as I was. "

"I haven't had such a good time since Willie died. I never rightlyunderstood that I had a son before this. Harve's got to be a great boy. 'Anything I can fetch you, dear? 'Cushion under your head? Well, we'llgo down to the wharf again and look around. "

Harvey was his father's shadow in those days, and the two strolledalong side by side, Cheyne using the grades as an excuse for laying hishand on the boy's square shoulder. It was then that Harvey noticed andadmired what had never struck him before--his father's curious power ofgetting at the heart of new matters as learned from men in the street. 

"How d'you make 'em tell you everything without opening your head?"demanded the son, as they came out of a rigger's loft. 

"I've dealt with quite a few men in my time, Harve, and one sizes 'emup somehow, I guess. I know something about myself, too. " Then, after apause, as they sat down on a wharf-edge: "Men can 'most always tellwhen a man has handled things for himself, and then they treat him asone of themselves. "

"Same as they treat me down at Wouverman's wharf. I'm one of the crowdnow. Disko has told every one I've earned my pay. " Harvey spread outhis hands and rubbed the palms together. "They're all soft again, " hesaid dolefully. 

"Keep 'em that way for the next few years, while you're getting youreducation. You can harden 'em up after. "

"Ye-es, I suppose so, " was the reply, in no delighted voice. 

"It rests with you, Harve. You can take cover behind your mama, ofcourse, and put her on to fussing about your nerves and yourhigh-strungness and all that kind of poppycock. "

"Have I ever done that?" said Harvey, uneasily. 

His father turned where he sat and thrust out a long hand. "You know aswell as I do that I can't make anything of you if you don't actstraight by me. I can handle you alone if you'll stay alone, but Idon't pretend to manage both you and Mama. Life's too short, anyway. "

"Don't make me out much of a fellow, does it?"

"I guess it was my fault a good deal; but if you want the truth, youhaven't been much of anything up to date. Now, have you?"

"Umm! Disko thinks . . . Say, what d'you reckon it's cost you to raiseme from the start--first, last and all over?"

Cheyne smiled. "I've never kept track, but I should estimate, indollars and cents, nearer fifty than forty thousand; maybe sixty. Theyoung generation comes high. It has to have things, and it tires of'em, and--the old man foots the bill. "

Harvey whistled, but at heart he was rather pleased to think that hisupbringing had cost so much. "And all that's sunk capital, isn't it?"

"Invested, Harve. Invested, I hope. "

"Making it only thirty thousand, the thirty I've earned is about tencents on the hundred. That's a mighty poor catch. " Harvey wagged hishead solemnly. 

Cheyne laughed till he nearly fell off the pile into the water. 

"Disko has got a heap more than that out of Dan since he was ten; andDan's at school half the year, too. "

"Oh, that's what you're after, is it?"

"No. I'm not after anything. I'm not stuck on myself any justnow--that's all. . . . I ought to be kicked. "

"I can't do it, old man; or I would, I presume, if I'd been made thatway. "

"Then I'd have remembered it to the last day I lived--and neverforgiven you, " said Harvey, his chin on his doubled fists. 

"Exactly. That's about what I'd do. You see?"

"I see. The fault's with me and no one else. All the same, something'sgot to be done about it. "

Cheyne drew a cigar from his vest-pocket, bit off the end, and fell tosmoking. Father and son were very much alike; for the beard hidCheyne's mouth, and Harvey had his father's slightly aquiline nose, close-set black eyes, and narrow, high cheek-bones. With a touch ofbrown paint he would have made up very picturesquely as a Red Indian ofthe story-books. 

"Now you can go on from here, " said Cheyne, slowly, "costing me betweensix or eight thousand a year till you're a voter. Well, we'll call youa man then. You can go right on from that, living on me to the tune offorty or fifty thousand, besides what your mother will give you, with avalet and a yacht or a fancy-ranch where you can pretend to raisetrotting-stock and play cards with your own crowd. "

"Like Lorry Tuck?" Harvey put in. 

"Yep; or the two De Vitre boys or old man McQuade's son. California'sfull of 'em, and here's an Eastern sample while we're talking. "

A shiny black steam-yacht, with mahogany deck-house, nickel-platedbinnacles, and pink-and-white-striped awnings puffed up the harbour, flying the burgee of some New York club. Two young men in what theyconceived to be sea costumes were playing cards by the saloon skylight;and a couple of women with red and blue parasols looked on and laughednoisily. 

"Shouldn't care to be caught out in her in any sort of a breeze. Nobeam, " said Harvey, critically, as the yacht slowed to pick up hermooring-buoy. 

"They're having what stands them for a good time. I can give you that, and twice as much as that, Harve. How'd you like it?"

"Caesar! That's no way to get a dinghy overside, " said Harvey, stillintent on the yacht. "If I couldn't slip a tackle better than that I'dstay ashore. . . . What if I don't?"

"Stay ashore--or what?"

"Yacht and ranch and live on 'the old man, ' and--get behind Mama wherethere's trouble, " said Harvey, with a twinkle in his eye. 

"Why, in that case, you come right in with me, my son. "

"Ten dollars a month?" Another twinkle. 

"Not a cent more until you're worth it, and you won't begin to touchthat for a few years. "

"I'd sooner begin sweeping out the office--isn't that how the big bugsstart?--and touch something now than--"

"I know it; we all feel that way. But I guess we can hire any sweepingwe need. I made the same mistake myself of starting in too soon. "

"Thirty million dollars' worth o' mistake, wasn't it? I'd risk it forthat. "

"I lost some; and I gained some. I'll tell you. "

Cheyne pulled his beard and smiled as he looked over the still water, and spoke away from Harvey, who presently began to be aware that hisfather was telling the story of his life. He talked in a low, evenvoice, without gesture and without expression; and it was a history forwhich a dozen leading journals would cheerfully have paid manydollars--the story of forty years that was at the same time the storyof the New West, whose story is yet to be written. 

It began with a kinless boy turned loose in Texas, and went onfantastically through a hundred changes and chops of life, the scenesshifting from State after Western State, from cities that sprang up ina month and--in a season utterly withered away, to wild ventures inwilder camps that are now laborious, paved municipalities. It coveredthe building of three railroads and the deliberate wreck of a fourth. It told of steamers, townships, forests, and mines, and the men ofevery nation under heaven, manning, creating, hewing, and diggingthese. It touched on chances of gigantic wealth flung before eyes thatcould not see, or missed by the merest accident of time and travel; andthrough the mad shift of things, sometimes on horseback, more oftenafoot, now rich, now poor, in and out, and back and forth, deck-hand, train-hand, contractor, boarding-house keeper, journalist, engineer, drummer, real-estate agent, politician, dead-beat, rum-seller, mine-owner, speculator, cattle-man, or tramp, moved Harvey Cheyne, alert and quiet, seeking his own ends, and, so he said, the glory andadvancement of his country. 

He told of the faith that never deserted him even when he hung on theragged edge of despair--the faith that comes of knowing men and things. He enlarged, as though he were talking to himself, on his very greatcourage and resource at all times. The thing was so evident in theman's mind that he never even changed his tone. He described how he hadbested his enemies, or forgiven them, exactly as they had bested orforgiven him in those careless days; how he had entreated, cajoled, andbullied towns, companies, and syndicates, all for their enduring good;crawled round, through, or under mountains and ravines, dragging astring and hoop-iron railroad after him, and in the end, how he had satstill while promiscuous communities tore the last fragments of hischaracter to shreds. 

The tale held Harvey almost breathless, his head a little cocked to oneside, his eyes fixed on his father's face, as the twilight deepened andthe red cigar-end lit up the furrowed cheeks and heavy eyebrows. Itseemed to him like watching a locomotive storming across country in thedark--a mile between each glare of the open fire-door: but thislocomotive could talk, and the words shook and stirred the boy to thecore of his soul. At last Cheyne pitched away the cigar-butt, and thetwo sat in the dark over the lapping water. 

"I've never told that to any one before, " said the father. 

Harvey gasped. "It's just the greatest thing that ever was!" said he. 

"That's what I got. Now I'm coming to what I didn't get. It won't soundmuch of anything to you, but I don't wish you to be as old as I ambefore you find out. I can handle men, of course, and I'm no fool alongmy own lines, but--but--I can't compete with the man who has beentaught! I've picked up as I went along, and I guess it sticks out allover me. "

"I've never seen it, " said the son, indignantly. 

"You will, though, Harve. You will--just as soon as you're throughcollege. Don't I know it? Don't I know the look on men's faces whenthey think me a--a 'mucker, ' as they call it out here? I can break themto little pieces--yes--but I can't get back at 'em to hurt 'em wherethey live. I don't say they're 'way 'way up, but I feel I'm 'way, 'way, 'way off, somehow. Now you've got your chance. You've got to soak upall the learning that's around, and you'll live with a crowd that aredoing the same thing. They'll be doing it for a few thousand dollars ayear at most; but remember you'll be doing it for millions. You'lllearn law enough to look after your own property when I'm out o' thelight, and you'll have to be solid with the best men in the market(they are useful later); and above all, you'll have to stow away theplain, common, sit-down-with-your chin-on your-elbows book-learning. Nothing pays like that, Harve, and it's bound to pay more and more eachyear in our country--in business and in politics. You'll see. "

"There's no sugar in my end of the deal, " said Harvey. "Four years atcollege! 'Wish I'd chosen the valet and the yacht!"

"Never mind, my son, " Cheyne insisted. "You're investing your capitalwhere it'll bring in the best returns; and I guess you won't find ourproperty shrunk any when you're ready to take hold. Think it over, andlet me know in the morning. Hurry! We'll be late for supper!"

As this was a business talk, there was no need for Harvey to tell hismother about it; and Cheyne naturally took the same point of view. ButMrs. Cheyne saw and feared, and was a little jealous. Her boy, who roderough-shod over her, was gone, and in his stead reigned a keen-facedyouth, abnormally silent, who addressed most of his conversation to hisfather. She understood it was business, and therefore a matter beyondher premises. If she had any doubts, they were resolved when Cheynewent to Boston and brought back a new diamond marquise ring. 

"What have you two been doing now?" she said, with a weak little smile, as she turned it in the light. 

"Talking--just talking, Mama; there's nothing mean about Harvey. "

There was not. The boy had made a treaty on his own account. Railroads, he explained gravely, interested him as little as lumber, real estate, or mining. What his soul yearned after was control of his father'snewly purchased sailing-ship. If that could be promised him within whathe conceived to be a reasonable time, he, for his part, guaranteeddiligence and sobriety at college for four or five years. In vacationhe was to be allowed full access to all details connected with theline--he had not asked more than two thousand questions about it, --fromhis father's most private papers in the safe to the tug in SanFrancisco harbour. 

"It's a deal, " said Cheyne at the last. "You'll alter your mind twentytimes before you leave college, o' course; but if you take hold of itin proper shape, and if you don't tie it up before you're twenty-three, I'll make the thing over to you. How's that, Harve?"

"Nope; never pays to split up a going concern. There's too muchcompetition in the world anyway, and Disko says 'blood-kin hev to sticktogether. ' His crowd never go back on him. That's one reason, he says, why they make such big fares. Say, the _We're Here_ goes off to theGeorges on Monday. They don't stay long ashore, do they?"

"Well, we ought to be going, too, I guess. I've left my business hungup at loose ends between two oceans, and it's time to connect again. Ijust hate to do it, though; haven't had a holiday like this for twentyyears. "

"We can't go without seeing Disko off, " said Harvey; "and Monday'sMemorial Day. Let's stay over that, anyway. "

"What is this memorial business? They were talking about it at theboarding-house, " said Cheyne weakly. He, too, was not anxious to spoilthe golden days. 

"Well, as far as I can make out, this business is a sort ofsong-and-dance act, whacked up for the summer boarders. Disko don'tthink much of it, he says, because they take up a collection for thewidows and orphans. Disko's independent. Haven't you noticed that?"

"Well--yes. A little. In spots. Is it a town show, then?"

"The summer convention is. They read out the names of the fellowsdrowned or gone astray since last time, and they make speeches, andrecite, and all. Then, Disko says, the secretaries of the Aid Societiesgo into the back yard and fight over the catch. The real show, he says, is in the spring. The ministers all take a hand then, and there aren'tany summer boarders around. "

"I see, " said Cheyne, with the brilliant and perfect comprehension ofone born into and bred up to city pride. "We'll stay over for MemorialDay, and get off in the afternoon. "

"Guess I'll go down to Disko's and make him bring his crowd up beforethey sail. I'll have to stand with them, of course. "

"Oh, that's it, is it, " said Cheyne. "I'm only a poor summer boarder, and you're--"

"A Banker--full-blooded Banker, " Harvey called back as he boarded atrolley, and Cheyne went on with his blissful dreams for the future. 

Disko had no use for public functions where appeals were made forcharity, but Harvey pleaded that the glory of the day would be lost, sofar as he was concerned, if the _We're Heres_ absented themselves. ThenDisko made conditions. He had heard--it was astonishing how all theworld knew all the world's business along the water-front--he had heardthat a "Philadelphia actress-woman" was going to take part in theexercises; and he mistrusted that she would deliver "Skipper Ireson'sRide. " Personally, he had as little use for actresses as for summerboarders; but justice was justice, and though he himself (here Dangiggled) had once slipped up on a matter of judgment, this thing mustnot be. So Harvey came back to East Gloucester, and spent half a dayexplaining to an amused actress with a royal reputation on twoseaboards the inwardness of the mistake she contemplated; and sheadmitted that it was justice, even as Disko had said. 

Cheyne knew by old experience what would happen; but anything of thenature of a public palaver was meat and drink to the man's soul. He sawthe trolleys hurrying west, in the hot, hazy morning, full of women inlight summer dresses, and white-faced straw-hatted men fresh fromBoston desks; the stack of bicycles outside the post office; thecome-and-go of busy officials, greeting one another; the slow flick andswash of bunting in the heavy air; and the important man with a hosesluicing the brick sidewalk. 

"Mother, " he said suddenly, "don't you remember--after Seattle wasburned out--and they got her going again?"

Mrs. Cheyne nodded, and looked critically down the crooked street. Likeher husband, she understood these gatherings, all the West over, andcompared them one against another. The fishermen began to mingle withthe crowd about the town-hall doors--blue-jowled Portuguese, theirwomen bare-headed or shawled for the most part; clear-eyed NovaScotians, and men of the Maritime Provinces; French, Italians, Swedes, and Danes, with outside crews of coasting schooners; and everywherewomen in black, who saluted one another with gloomy pride, for this wastheir day of great days. And there were ministers of manycreeds, --pastors of great, gilt-edged congregations, at the seaside fora rest, with shepherds of the regular work, --from the priests of theChurch on the Hill to bush-bearded ex-sailor Lutherans, hail-fellowwith the men of a score of boats. There were owners of lines ofschooners, large contributors to the societies, and small men, theirfew craft pawned to the mastheads, with bankers and marine-insuranceagents, captains of tugs and water-boats, riggers, fitters, lumpers, salters, boat-builders, and coopers, and all the mixed population ofthe water-front. 

They drifted along the line of seats made gay with the dresses of thesummer boarders, and one of the town officials patrolled and perspiredtill he shone all over with pure civic pride. Cheyne had met him forfive minutes a few days before, and between the two there was entireunderstanding. 

"Well, Mr. Cheyne, and what d'you think of our city?--Yes, madam, youcan sit anywhere you please. --You have this kind of thing out West, Ipresume?"

"Yes, but we aren't as old as you. "

"That's so, of course. You ought to have been at the exercises when wecelebrated our two hundred and fiftieth birthday. I tell you, Mr. Cheyne, the old city did herself credit. "

"So I heard. It pays, too. What's the matter with the town that itdon't have a first-class hotel, though?"

"--Right over there to the left, Pedro. Heaps o' room for you and yourcrowd. --Why, that's what I tell 'em all the time, Mr. Cheyne. There'sbig money in it, but I presume that don't affect you any. What we wantis--"

A heavy hand fell on his broadcloth shoulder, and the flushed skipperof a Portland coal-and-ice coaster spun him half round. "What inthunder do you fellows mean by clappin' the law on the town when alldecent men are at sea this way? Heh? Town's dry as a bone, an' smells asight worse sence I quit. 'Might ha' left us one saloon for softdrinks, anyway. "

"Don't seem to have hindered your nourishment this morning, Carsen. I'll go into the politics of it later. Sit down by the door and thinkover your arguments till I come back. "

"What good is arguments to me? In Miquelon champagne's eighteen dollarsa case and--" The skipper lurched into his seat as an organ-preludesilenced him. 

"Our new organ, " said the official proudly to Cheyne. "Cost us fourthousand dollars, too. We'll have to get back to high-license next yearto pay for it. I wasn't going to let the ministers have all thereligion at their convention. Those are some of our orphans standing upto sing. My wife taught 'em. See you again later, Mr. Cheyne. I'mwanted on the platform. "

High, clear, and true, children's voices bore down the last noise ofthose settling into their places. 

"O all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise him and magnifyhim for ever!"

The women throughout the hall leaned forward to look as the reiteratedcadences filled the air. Mrs. Cheyne, with some others, began tobreathe short; she had hardly imagined there were so many widows in theworld; and instinctively searched for Harvey. He had found the _We'reHeres_ at the back of the audience, and was standing, as by right, between Dan and Disko. Uncle Salters, returned the night before withPenn, from Pamlico Sound, received him suspiciously. 

"Hain't your folk gone yet?" he grunted. "What are you doin' here, young feller?"

"O ye Seas and Floods, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify himfor ever!"

"Hain't he good right?" said Dan. "He's bin there, same as the rest ofus. "

"Not in them clothes, " Salters snarled. 

"Shut your head, Salters, " said Disko. "Your bile's gone back on you. Stay right where ye are, Harve. "

Then up and spoke the orator of the occasion, another pillar of themunicipality, bidding the world welcome to Gloucester, and incidentallypointing out wherein Gloucester excelled the rest of the world. Then heturned to the sea-wealth of the city, and spoke of the price that mustbe paid for the yearly harvest. They would hear later the names oftheir lost dead one hundred and seventeen of them. (The widows stared alittle, and looked at one another here. ) Gloucester could not boast anyoverwhelming mills or factories. Her sons worked for such wage as thesea gave; and they all knew that neither Georges nor the Banks werecow-pastures. The utmost that folk ashore could accomplish was to helpthe widows and the orphans, and after a few general remarks he tookthis opportunity of thanking, in the name of the city, those who had sopublic-spiritedly consented to participate in the exercises of theoccasion. 

"I jest despise the beggin' pieces in it, " growled Disko. "It don'tgive folk a fair notion of us. "

"Ef folk won't be fore-handed an' put by when they've the chance, "returned Salters, "it stands in the nature o' things they hev to be'shamed. You take warnin' by that, young feller. Riches endureth butfor a season, ef you scatter them araound on lugsuries--"

"But to lose everything, everything, " said Penn. "What can you do then?Once I"--the watery blue eyes stared up and down as if looking forsomething to steady them--"once I read--in a book, I think--of a boatwhere every one was run down--except some one--and he said to me--"

"Shucks!" said Salters, cutting in. "You read a little less an' takemore int'rust in your vittles, and you'll come nearer earnin' yourkeep, Penn. "

Harvey, jammed among the fishermen, felt a creepy, crawly, tinglingthrill that began in the back of his neck and ended at his boots. Hewas cold, too, though it was a stifling day. 

"That the actress from Philadelphia?" said Disko Troop, scowling at theplatform. "You've fixed it about old man Ireson, hain't ye, Harve? Yeknow why naow. "

It was not "Ireson's Ride" that the woman delivered, but some sort ofpoem about a fishing-port called Brixham and a fleet of trawlersbeating in against storm by night, while the women made a guiding fireat the head of the quay with everything they could lay hands on. 

 "They took the grandma's blanket, Who shivered and bade them go; They took the baby's cradle, Who could not say them no. "

"Whew!" said Dan, peering over Long Jack's shoulder. "That's great!Must ha' bin expensive, though. "

"Ground-hog case, " said the Galway man. "Badly lighted port, Danny. "

 * * * * * * "And knew not all the while If they were lighting a bonfire Or only a funeral pile. "

The wonderful voice took hold of people by their heartstrings; and whenshe told how the drenched crews were flung ashore, living and dead, andthey carried the bodies to the glare of the fires, asking: "Child, isthis your father?" or "Wife, is this your man?" you could hear hardbreathing all over the benches. 

 "And when the boats of Brixham Go out to face the gales, Think of the love that travels Like light upon their sails!"

There was very little applause when she finished. The women werelooking for their handkerchiefs, and many of the men stared at theceiling with shiny eyes. 

"H'm, " said Salters; "that 'u'd cost ye a dollar to hear at anytheatre--maybe two. Some folk, I presoom, can afford it. 'Seemsdownright waste to me. . . . Naow, how in Jerusalem did Cap. BartEdwardes strike adrift here?"

"No keepin' him under, " said an Eastport man behind. "He's a poet, an'he's baound to say his piece. 'Comes from daown aour way, too. "

He did not say that Captain B. Edwardes had striven for fiveconsecutive years to be allowed to recite a piece of his owncomposition on Gloucester Memorial Day. An amused and exhaustedcommittee had at last given him his desire. The simplicity and utterhappiness of the old man, as he stood up in his very best Sundayclothes, won the audience ere he opened his mouth. They sat unmurmuringthrough seven-and-thirty hatchet-made verses describing at fullestlength the loss of the schooner _Joan Hasken_ off the Georges in the galeof 1867, and when he came to an end they shouted with one kindly throat. 

A far-sighted Boston reporter slid away for a full copy of the epic andan interview with the author; so that earth had nothing more to offerCaptain Bart Edwardes, ex-whaler, shipwright, master-fisherman, andpoet, in the seventy-third year of his age. 

"Naow, I call that sensible, " said the Eastport man. "I've bin overthat graound with his writin', jest as he read it, in my two hands, andI can testify that he's got it all in. "

"If Dan here couldn't do better'n that with one hand before breakfast, he ought to be switched, " said Salters, upholding the honor ofMassachusetts on general principles. "Not but what I'm free to own he'sconsiderable litt'ery--fer Maine. Still--"

"Guess Uncle Salters's goin' to die this trip. Fust compliment he'sever paid me, " Dan sniggered. "What's wrong with you, Harve? You actall quiet and you look greenish. Feelin' sick?"

"Don't know what's the matter with me, " Harvey implied. "Seems if myinsides were too big for my outsides. I'm all crowded up and shivery. "

"Dispepsy? Pshaw--too bad. We'll wait for the readin', an' then we'llquit, an' catch the tide. "

The widows--they were nearly all of that season's making--bracedthemselves rigidly like people going to be shot in cold blood, for theyknew what was coming. The summer-boarder girls in pink and blueshirt-waists stopped tittering over Captain Edwardes's wonderful poem, and looked back to see why all was silent. The fishermen pressedforward as that town official who had talked to Cheyne bobbed up on theplatform and began to read the year's list of losses, dividing theminto months. Last September's casualties were mostly single men andstrangers, but his voice rang very loud in the stillness of the hall. 

"September 9th. Schooner _Florrie Anderson_ lost, with all aboard, offthe Georges. 

"Reuben Pitman, master, 50, single, Main Street, City. 

"Emil Olsen, 19, single, 329 Hammond Street, City. Denmark. 

"Oscar Standberg, single, 25. Sweden. 

"Carl Stanberg, single, 28, Main Street. City. 

"Pedro, supposed Madeira, single, Keene's boardinghouse. City. 

"Joseph Welsh, alias Joseph Wright, 30, St. John's, Newfoundland. "

"No--Augusty, Maine, " a voice cried from the body of the hall. 

"He shipped from St. John's, " said the reader, looking to see. 

"I know it. He belongs in Augusty. My nevvy. "

The reader made a pencilled correction on the margin of the list, andresumed. 

"Same schooner, Charlie Ritchie, Liverpool, Nova Scotia, 33, single. 

"Albert May, 267 Rogers Street, City, 27, single. 

"September 27th. --Orvin Dollard, 30, married, drowned in dory offEastern Point. "

That shot went home, for one of the widows flinched where she sat, clasping and unclasping her hands. Mrs. Cheyne, who had been listeningwith wide-opened eyes, threw up her head and choked. Dan's mother, afew seats to the right, saw and heard and quickly moved to her side. The reading went on. By the time they reached the January and Februarywrecks the shots were falling thick and fast, and the widows drewbreath between their teeth. 

"February 14th. --Schooner _Harry Randolph_ dismasted on the way home fromNewfoundland; Asa Musie, married, 32, Main Street, City, lost overboard. 

"February 23d. --Schooner _Gilbert Hope_; went astray in dory, RobertBeavon, 29, married, native of Pubnico, Nova Scotia. "

But his wife was in the hall. They heard a low cry, as though a littleanimal had been hit. It was stifled at once, and a girl staggered outof the hall. She had been hoping against hope for months, because somewho have gone adrift in dories have been miraculously picked up bydeep-sea sailing-ships. Now she had her certainty, and Harvey could seethe policeman on the sidewalk hailing a hack for her. "It's fifty centsto the depot"--the driver began, but the policeman held up hishand--"but I'm goin' there anyway. Jump right in. Look at here, Al; youdon't pull me next time my lamps ain't lit. See?"

The side-door closed on the patch of bright sunshine, and Harvey's eyesturned again to the reader and his endless list. 

"April 19th. --Schooner _Mamie Douglas_ lost on the Banks with all hands. 

"Edward Canton, 43, master, married, City. 

"D. Hawkins, alias Williams, 34, married, Shelbourne, Nova Scotia. 

"G. W. Clay, coloured, 28, married, City. "

And so on, and so on. Great lumps were rising in Harvey's throat, andhis stomach reminded him of the day when he fell from the liner. 

"May 10th. --Schooner _We're Here_ [the blood tingled all over him] OttoSvendson, 20, single, City, lost overboard. "

Once more a low, tearing cry from somewhere at the back of the hall. 

"She shouldn't ha' come. She shouldn't ha' come, " said Long Jack, witha cluck of pity. 

"Don't scrowge, Harve, " grunted Dan. Harvey heard that much, but therest was all darkness spotted with fiery wheels. Disko leaned forwardand spoke to his wife, where she sat with one arm round Mrs. Cheyne, and the other holding down the snatching, catching, ringed hands. 

"Lean your head daown--right daown!" he whispered. "It'll go off in aminute. "

"I ca-an't! I do-don't! Oh, let me--" Mrs. Cheyne did not at all knowwhat she said. 

"You must, " Mrs. Troop repeated. "Your boy's jest fainted dead away. They do that some when they're gettin' their growth. 'Wish to tend tohim? We can git aout this side. Quite quiet. You come right along withme. Psha', my dear, we're both women, I guess. We must tend to aourmen-folk. Come!"

The _We're Heres_ promptly went through the crowd as a body-guard, andit was a very white and shaken Harvey that they propped up on a benchin an anteroom. 

"Favours his ma, " was Mrs. Troop's only comment, as the mother bentover her boy. 

"How d'you suppose he could ever stand it?" she cried indignantly toCheyne, who had said nothing at all. "It was horrible--horrible! Weshouldn't have come. It's wrong and wicked! It--it isn't right!Why--why couldn't they put these things in the papers, where theybelong? Are you better, darling?"

That made Harvey very properly ashamed. "Oh, I'm all right, I guess, "he said, struggling to his feet, with a broken giggle. "Must ha' beensomething I ate for breakfast. "

"Coffee, perhaps, " said Cheyne, whose face was all in hard lines, asthough it had been cut out of bronze. "We won't go back again. "

"Guess 'twould be 'baout's well to git daown to the wharf, " said Disko. "It's close in along with them Dagoes, an' the fresh air will freshMrs. Cheyne up. "

Harvey announced that he never felt better in his life; but it was nottill he saw the _We're Here_, fresh from the lumper's hands, atWouverman's wharf, that he lost his all-overish feelings in a queermixture of pride and sorrowfulness. Other people--summer boarders andsuch-like--played about in cat-boats or looked at the sea frompier-heads; but he understood things from the inside--more things thanhe could begin to think about. None the less, he could have sat downand howled because the little schooner was going off. Mrs. Cheynesimply cried and cried every step of the way and said mostextraordinary things to Mrs. Troop, who "babied" her till Dan, who hadnot been "babied" since he was six, whistled aloud. 

And so the old crowd--Harvey felt like the most ancient of marinersdropped into the old schooner among the battered dories, while Harveyslipped the stern-fast from the pier-head, and they slid her along thewharf-side with their hands. Every one wanted to say so much that noone said anything in particular. Harvey bade Dan take care of UncleSalters's sea-boots and Penn's dory-anchor, and Long Jack entreatedHarvey to remember his lessons in seamanship; but the jokes fell flatin the presence of the two women, and it is hard to be funny with greenharbour-water widening between good friends. 

"Up jib and fores'l!" shouted Disko, getting to the wheel, as the windtook her. "See you later, Harve. Dunno but I come near thinkin' a heapo' you an' your folks. "

Then she glided beyond ear-shot, and they sat down to watch her up theharbour, And still Mrs. Cheyne wept. 

"Pshaw, my dear, " said Mrs. Troop: "we're both women, I guess. Like'snot it'll ease your heart to hev your cry aout. God He knows it neverdone me a mite o' good, but then He knows I've had something to cryfer!"

Now it was a few years later, and upon the other edge of America, thata young man came through the clammy sea fog up a windy street which isflanked with most expensive houses built of wood to imitate stone. Tohim, as he was standing by a hammered iron gate, entered onhorseback--and the horse would have been cheap at a thousanddollars--another young man. And this is what they said:

"Hello, Dan!"

"Hello, Harve!"

"What's the best with you?"

"Well, I'm so's to be that kind o' animal called second mate this trip. Ain't you most through with that triple invoiced college of yours?"

"Getting that way. I tell you, the Leland Stanford Junior, isn't acircumstance to the old _We're Here_; but I'm coming into the businessfor keeps next fall. "

"Meanin' aour packets?"

"Nothing else. You just wait till I get my knife into you, Dan. I'mgoing to make the old line lie down and cry when I take hold. "

"I'll resk it, " said Dan, with a brotherly grin, as Harvey dismountedand asked whether he were coming in. 

"That's what I took the cable fer; but, say, is the doctor anywheresaraound? I'll draown that crazy nigger some day, his one cussed jokean' all. "

There was a low, triumphant chuckle, as the ex-cook of the _We're Here_came out of the fog to take the horse's bridle. He allowed no one buthimself to attend to any of Harvey's wants. 

"Thick as the Banks, ain't it, doctor?" said Dan, propitiatingly. 

But the coal-black Celt with the second-sight did not see fit to replytill he had tapped Dan on the shoulder, and for the twentieth timecroaked the old, old prophecy in his ear. 

"Master--man. Man--master, " said he. "You remember, Dan Troop, what Isaid? On the _We're Here_?"

"Well, I won't go so far as to deny that it do look like it as thingsstand at present, " said Dan. "She was a noble packet, and one way an'another I owe her a heap--her and Dad. "

"Me too, " quoth Harvey Cheyne.