To
James Conland, MD, 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 North Atlantic fog, as the big
liner rolled and lifted, whistling to warn the fishing-fleet.
"That Cheyne
boy's the biggest nuisance aboard," said a man in a frieze overcoat,
shutting the door with a bang. "He isn't wanted here. He's too
fresh."
A white-haired
German reached for a sandwich, and grunted between bites: "I know der
breed. Ameriga is full of dot kind. I dell you you should imbort ropes' ends
free under your dariff."
"Pshaw!
There isn't any real harm to him. He's more to be pitied than anything," a
man from New York drawled, as he lay at full length along the cushions under
the wet skylight. "They've dragged him around from hotel to hotel ever
since he was a kid. I was talking to his mother this 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 a corner.
"That boy gets two hundred a month pocket-money, he told me. He isn't
sixteen either."
"Railroads,
his father, aind't it?" said the German.
"Yep. That
and mines and lumber and shipping. Built one place at San Diego, the old man
has; another at Los Angeles; owns half a dozen railroads, half the lumber on
the Pacific slope, and lets his wife spend the money," the Philadelphian
went on lazily. "The West don't suit 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 more than a second-hand hotel clerk now. When he's finished in
Europe he'll be a holy terror."
"What's the
matter with the old man attending to him personally?" said a 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 a heap 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 fifteen years old, a
half-smoked cigarette hanging from one corner of his mouth, leaned in over the
high footway. His pasty yellow complexion did not show well on a person of his
years, and his look was a mixture of irresolution, bravado, and very cheap
smartness. He was dressed in a cherry-coloured blazer, knickerbockers, red
stockings, and bicycle shoes, with a red flannel cap at the back of the head.
After whistling between his teeth, as he eyed the company, he said in a loud,
high voice: "Say, it's thick outside. You can hear the fish-boats
squawking all 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 stay outside.
You're not wanted here."
"Who'll stop
me?" he answered, deliberately. "Did you pay for my passage, Mister
Martin? 'Guess I've as good right here as the next man."
He picked up some
dice from a checkerboard and began throwing, right hand against left.
"Say,
gen'elmen, this is deader'n mud. Can't we make a game of poker between
us?"
There was no
answer, and he puffed his cigarette, swung his legs, and drummed on the table
with rather dirty fingers. Then he pulled out a roll of bills as if to count
them.
"How's your
mamma this afternoon?" a man said. "I didn't see her at lunch."
"In her
state-room, I guess. She's 'most always sick on the ocean. I'm going to give
the stewardess fifteen dollars for looking after her. I don't go down more 'n I
can avoid. It makes me feel mysterious to pass that butler's-pantry place. Say,
this is the first time I've been on the 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 little bit. No, sir!" He
brought down his fist with a triumphant bang, wetted his finger, and went on
counting the bills.
"Oh, you're
a high-grade machine, with the writing in plain sight," the Philadelphian
yawned. "You'll blossom into a credit to your country if you 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 the truck 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 as polite
as ever to their elders, an' their elders are e'en tryin' to appreciate
it."
A low chuckle
came from a corner. The German opened his cigar-case and handed a skinny black
cigar to Harvey.
"Dot is der
broper apparatus to smoke, my young friendt," he said. "You vill dry
it? Yes? Den you vill be efer so happy."
Harvey lit the
unlovely thing with a flourish: he felt that he was getting on in grownup
society.
"It would
take more 'n this to keel me over," he said, ignorant that he was 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 be on the
Grand Bank to-night; but in a general way o' speakin', we're all among the
fishing-fleet now. We've shaved three dories an' near scalped the boom off a
Frenchman since noon, an' that's close sailing', ye may say."
"You like my
cigar, eh?" the German asked, for Harvey's eyes were full of tears.
"Fine, full
flavor," he answered through shut teeth. "Guess we've slowed down a
little, haven't we? I'll skip out and see what the log says."
"I might if
I vhas you," said the German.
Harvey staggered
over the wet decks to the nearest rail. He was very unhappy; but he saw the
deck-steward lashing chairs together, and, since he had boasted before the man
that he was never seasick, his pride made him go aft to the second-saloon deck
at the stern, which was finished in a turtle-back. The deck was deserted, and
he crawled to the extreme end of it, near the flag-pole. There he doubled up in
limp agony, for the Wheeling "stogie" joined with the surge and jar
of the screw to sieve out his soul. His head swelled; sparks of fire danced
before his eyes; his body seemed to lose weight, while his heels wavered in the
breeze. He was fainting from seasickness, and a roll of the ship tilted him
over the rail on to the smooth lip of the turtle-back. Then a low, gray
mother-wave swung out of the fog, tucked Harvey under one arm, so to speak, and
pulled him off and away to leeward; 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 blow at a summer-school he had
once attended in the Adirondacks. Slowly he remembered that he was Harvey
Cheyne, drowned and dead in mid-ocean, but was too weak to fit things together.
A new smell filled his nostrils; wet and clammy chills ran down his back, and
he was helplessly full of salt water. When he opened his eyes, he perceived
that he was still on the top of the sea, for it was running round him in
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 thing is in
charge."
He groaned, and
the figure turned its head, showing a pair of little gold rings half hidden in
curly black hair.
"Aha! You
feel some pretty well now?" it said. "Lie still so: we trim
better."
With a swift jerk
he sculled the flickering boat-head on to a foamless sea that lifted her twenty
full feet, only to slide her into a glassy pit beyond. But this
mountain-climbing did not interrupt blue-jersey's talk. "Fine good job, I
say, that I catch you. Eh, wha-at? Better good job, 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 I see you come all down. Eh, wha-at?
I think you are cut into baits by the 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 particularly safe 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 get supper. Eh, wha-at?"
He seemed to have
two pairs of hands and a head of cast-iron, for, not content with blowing
through a big conch-shell, he must needs stand up to it, swaying with the sway
of the flat-bottomed dory, and send a grinding, thuttering shriek through the
fog. How long this entertainment lasted, Harvey could not remember, for he lay
back terrified at the sight of the smoking swells. He fancied he heard a gun
and a horn and shouting. Something bigger than the dory, but quite as lively,
loomed alongside. Several voices talked at once; he was dropped into a dark,
heaving hole, where men in oilskins gave him a hot drink and 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 looked into a narrow, triangular
cave, lit by a lamp hung against a huge square beam. A three-cornered table
within arm's reach ran from the angle of the bows to the foremast. At the after
end, behind a well-used Plymouth stove, sat a boy about his own age, with a
flat red face and a pair of twinkling gray eyes. He was dressed in a blue
jersey and high rubber 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 yellow
oilskins swayed to and fro beside the bunks. The place was packed as full of
smells as a bale is of cotton. The oilskins had a peculiarly thick flavor of
their own which made a sort of background to the smells of fried fish, burnt
grease, paint, pepper, and stale tobacco; but these, again, were all hooped
together by one encircling smell of ship and salt water. Harvey saw with
disgust that there were no sheets on his bed-place. He was lying on a piece of
dingy ticking full of lumps and nubbles. Then, too, the boat's motion was not
that of a steamer. She was neither sliding nor rolling, but rather wriggling
herself about in 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 whined about him.
All these things made him grunt despairingly and think of his mother.
"Feelin'
better?" said the boy, with a grin. "Hev some coffee?" He
brought a tin cup full and sweetened it with molasses.
"Isn't there
milk?" said Harvey, looking round the dark double tier of bunks as if he
expected to find a cow there.
"Well,
no," said the boy. "Ner there ain't likely to be till 'baout
mid-September. 'Tain't bad coffee. I made it."
Harvey drank in
silence, and the boy handed him a plate full of pieces of 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're hurt any."
Harvey stretched
himself in every direction, but could not report any injuries.
"That's
good," the boy said heartily. "Fix yerself an' go on deck. Dad wants
to see you. I'm his son,—Dan, they call me,—an' I'm cook's helper an'
everything else aboard that's too dirty for the men. There ain't no boy here
'cep' me sence Otto went overboard—an' he was only a Dutchy, an' twenty year
old at that. How'd you come to fall off in a dead flat ca'am?"
"'Twasn't a
calm," said Harvey, sulkily. "It was a gale, and I was seasick. 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 know more 'fore
you're through. Hurry! Dad's waitin'."
Like many other
unfortunate young people, Harvey had never in all his life received a direct
order—never, at least, without long, and sometimes tearful, explanations of the
advantages of obedience and the reasons for the request. Mrs. Cheyne lived in
fear of breaking his spirit, which, perhaps, was the reason that she herself
walked on the edge of nervous prostration. He could not see why he should be
expected to hurry for any man's pleasure, and said so. "Your dad can come
down here if he's so anxious to talk to me. I want him to take me to New York
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 down an' see him ef
you're anxious that way. 'Hear, Dad?"
The answer came
back in the deepest voice Harvey had ever heard from a human chest: "Quit
foolin', Dan, and send him to me."
Dan sniggered,
and threw Harvey his warped bicycle shoes. There was something in the tones on
the deck that made the boy dissemble his extreme rage and console himself with
the thought of gradually unfolding the tale of his own and his father's wealth
on the voyage home. This rescue would certainly make him a hero among his
friends for life. He hoisted himself on deck up a perpendicular ladder, and
stumbled aft, over a score of obstructions, to where a small, thick-set,
clean-shaven man with gray eyebrows sat on a step that led up to the
quarter-deck. The swell had passed in the night, leaving a long, oily sea,
dotted round the horizon with the sails of a dozen fishing-boats. Between them
lay little black specks, showing where the dories were out fishing. The
schooner, with a triangular riding-sail on the mainmast, played easily at
anchor, and except for the man by the cabin-roof—"house" they call
it—she was deserted.
"Mornin'—Good
afternoon, I should say. You've nigh slep' the clock round, 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 mother suffered agonies whenever
he got his feet wet; but this mariner did not seem 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 (we mistrust 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 of the accident, winding up
with a demand to be taken back immediately to New 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's speech. "I can't
say we think special of any man, or boy even, that falls overboard from that
kind o' packet in a flat ca'am. Least of all when his excuse is that he's
seasick."
"Excuse!"
cried Harvey. "D'you suppose I'd fall overboard into your dirty 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, under Providence, was the means o'
savin' ye, names. In the first place, it's blame irreligious. In the second,
it's annoyin' to my feelin's—an' I'm Disko Troop o' the We're Here o'
Gloucester, which you don't seem rightly to know."
"I don't
know and I don't care," said Harvey. "I'm grateful enough for being
saved and all that, of course! but I want you to understand that the sooner you
take me back to New York the better it'll pay you."
"Meanin'—haow?"
Troop raised one shaggy eyebrow over a suspiciously mild blue eye.
"Dollars and
cents," said Harvey, delighted to think that he was making an impression.
"Cold dollars and cents." He thrust a hand into a pocket, and threw
out his stomach a little, which was his way of being grand. "You've done the
best day's work you ever did in your life when you 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 know much—that's all. Now turn her
around and let's hurry."
Harvey had a
notion that the greater part of America was filled with people discussing and
envying his father's dollars.
"Mebbe I do,
an' mebbe I don't. Take a reef in your stummick, young feller. It's full o' my
vittles."
Harvey heard a
chuckle from Dan, who was pretending to be busy by the stump-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 about September; an' your
pa—I'm real sorry I hain't heerd tell of him—may give 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 the wad of
bills. All he brought up was a soggy packet of cigarettes.
"Not lawful
currency; an' bad for the lungs. Heave 'em overboard, young feller, 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, hunting wildly through
his pockets. "Give them back."
A curious change
flitted across old Troop's hard face. "What might you have been doin' at
your time o' life with one hundred an' thirty-four dollars, young feller?"
"It was part
of my pocket-money—for a month." This Harvey thought would be a knock-down
blow, and it was—indirectly.
"Oh! One
hundred and thirty-four dollars is only part of his pocket-money—for one month
only! You don't remember hittin' anything when you fell over, do you? Crack agin
a stanchion, le's say. Old man Hasken o' the East Wind"—Troop seemed to be
talking to himself—"he tripped 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
declared war on Sable Island because it was Bridish, an' the shoals run aout
too far. They sewed him up in a bed-bag, his head an' feet appearin', fer the
rest o' the trip, an' now he's to home in Essex playin' with little rag
dolls."
Harvey choked
with rage, but Troop went on consolingly: "We're sorry fer you. We're very
sorry fer you—an' so young. We won't say no more abaout the money, I
guess."
"'Course you
won't. You stole it."
"Suit
yourself. We stole it ef it's any comfort to you. Naow, abaout goin' back.
Allowin' we could do it, which we can't, you ain't in no fit 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 a month, let alone pocket-money; an'
with good luck we'll be ashore again somewheres abaout the first weeks o'
September."
"But—but
it's May now, and I can't stay here doin' nothing just because you want to
fish. I can't, I tell you!"
"Right an'
jest; jest an' right. No one asks you to do nothin'. There's a heap as you can
do, for Otto he went overboard on Le Have. I mistrust he lost his grip in a
gale we f'und there. Anyways, he never come back to deny it. You've turned up,
plain, plumb providential for all concerned. 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," said Harvey, with a
vicious nod, murmuring vague threats about "piracy," at which Troop
almost—not quite—smiled.
"Excep'
talk. I'd forgot that. You ain't asked to talk more'n you've a mind to aboard
the We're Here. Keep your eyes open, an' help Dan to do ez he's bid, an'
sechlike, an' I'll give you—you ain't wuth it, but I'll give—ten an' a ha'af a
month; say thirty-five at the end o' the trip. A little work will ease up your
head, and you kin tell us all abaout your dad an' your ma an' your money
afterwards."
"She's on
the steamer," said Harvey, his eyes filling with tears. "Take me 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 back naow—it's more'n a thousand
mile—we'd lose the season. The men they wouldn'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's catch is
eight men's bread; an' you'll be better in your health when you see him in the
fall. Go forward an' help Dan. It's ten an' a ha'af a 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 little fish-kettle"—Harvey
stamped on the deck—"ten times over, if you take me 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 do menial
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 own mind.
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 three times
over, an' he don't take that from any livin' bein'."
"I
won't!" Harvey almost shrieked, disregarding the advice, and still Troop
meditated.
"Seems
kinder unneighbourly," he said at last, his eye travelling down to Harvey.
"I—don't blame you, not a mite, young feeler, nor you won't blame me when
the bile's out o' your systim. Be sure you sense what I say? Ten an' a ha'af
fer second boy on the schooner—an' all found—fer to 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 the scuppers, holding on to a
nose that bled while Troop looked down on him serenely.
"Dan,"
he said to his son, "I was sot agin this young feeler when I first saw him
on account o' hasty jedgments. Never you be led astray by hasty jedgments, Dan.
Naow I'm sorry for him, because he's clear distracted in his upper works. He
ain't responsible fer the names he's give me, nor fer his other statements—nor
fer jumpin' overboard, which I'm abaout ha'af convinced he did. You be gentle
with him, Dan, 'r I'll give 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 men bunked, 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 and falling in
spasms of dry sobbing. "I know the feelin'. First time Dad laid me out was
the last—and that was my first trip. Makes ye feel sickish an' lonesome. I
know."
"It
does," moaned Harvey. "That man's either crazy or drunk, and—and I
can't do anything."
"Don't s ay that to Dad," whispered
Dan. "He's set agin all liquor, an'—well, he told me you was the madman.
What in creation made you call him a thief? He's my dad."
Harvey sat up,
mopped his nose, and told the story of the missing wad of bills. "I'm not
crazy," he wound up. "Only—your father has never seen more than a
five-dollar bill at a time, and my father could buy up this boat once a week
and never miss it."
"You don't
know what the We're Here's worth. Your dad must hev a pile o' money. How did he
git it? Dad sez loonies can't shake out a straight yarn. Go ahead."
"In gold
mines and things, West."
"I've read
o' that kind o' business. Out West, too? Does he go around with a pistol on a
trick-pony, same ez the circus? They call that the Wild West, and I've heard
that their spurs an' bridles was solid silver."
"You are a
chump!" said Harvey, amused in spite of himself. "My father hasn'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 some time in your life?"
"Slatin
Beeman he hez one," said Dan, cautiously. "I saw her at the Union
Depot in Boston, with three niggers hoggin' her run." (Dan meant cleaning
the windows.) "But Slatin Beeman he owns 'baout every railroad on Long
Island, they say, an' they say he's bought 'baout ha'af Noo Hampshire an' run a
line fence around her, an' filled her up with lions an' tigers an' bears an'
buffalo an' crocodiles an' such all. Slatin Beeman he's a millionaire. I've
seen his car. Yes?"
"Well, my
father's what they call a multi-millionaire, and he has two private 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 spoken isn't the
cold truth."
"Hundred an'
thirty-four dollars an' all?" said Dan. "I heard ye talkin' 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 person along his own lines, and
ten minutes' questioning convinced him that Harvey was not lying—much. Besides,
he had bound himself by the most terrible oath known to boyhood, and yet he sat,
alive, with a red-ended nose, in the scuppers, recounting marvels upon marvels.
"Gosh!"
said Dan at last from the very bottom of his soul when Harvey had completed an
inventory of the car named in his honour. Then a grin of 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 his jedgments." Dan lay
back and slapped his thigh. "Oh, Harvey, don't you spile 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 down again sure. The more he
was mistook the more he'd do it. But gold-mines and pistols—"
"I never
said a word about pistols," Harvey cut in, for he was on his oath.
"Thet's so;
no more you did. Two private cars, then, one named fer you an' one fer her; an'
two hundred dollars a month pocket-money, all knocked 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 fer backin' 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 been that way time an' again. But dad's a mighty
jest man; all the fleet says so."
"Looks like
justice, this, don't it?" Harvey pointed to his outraged nose.
"Thet's
nothin'. Lets the shore blood outer you. Dad did it for yer health. Say,
though, I can't have dealin's with a man that thinks me or dad or any one on
the We're Here's a thief. We ain't any common wharf-end crowd by any manner o'
means. We're fishermen, an' we've shipped together for six years an' more.
Don't you make any mistake on that! I told ye dad don't let me swear. He calls
'em vain oaths, and pounds me; but ef I could say what you said 'baout your pap
an' his fixin's, I'd say that 'baout your dollars. I dunno what was in your
pockets 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—knows anythin' 'baout the
money. Thet's my say. Naow?"
The bloodletting
had certainly cleared Harvey's brain, and maybe the loneliness 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 a fellow 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 only dad 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 his head was still
singing, to the cabin steps where the little ship's clock hung in plain sight
of the wheel. Troop, in the chocolate-and-yellow painted cabin, was busy with a
note-book and an enormous black pencil which he sucked hard from time to time.
"I haven't
acted quite right," said Harvey, surprised at his own meekness.
"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 dry smile.
"So I'm here
to say I'm sorry." Another big gulp.
Troop heaved
himself slowly off the locker he was sitting on and held out an eleven-inch
hand. "I mistrusted 'twould do you sights o' good; an' this shows I
weren't mistook in my jedgments." A smothered chuckle on deck caught his
ear. "I am very seldom mistook in my jedgments." The eleven-inch hand
closed on Harvey's, numbing it to the elbow. "We'll put a little more
gristle to that 'fore we've done with you, young feller; 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' you won't take no hurt."
"You're
white," said Dan, as Harvey regained the deck, flushed to the tips of his
ears.
"I don't
feel it," said he.
"I didn't
mean that way. I heard what Dad said. When Dad allows he don't think the worse
of any man, Dad's give himself away. He hates to be mistook in his jedgments
too. Ho! ho! Onct Dad has a jedgment, he'd sooner dip his colours to the
British than change it. I'm glad it's settled 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 like sharks 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 to learn."
"Guess I
have," said Harvey, dolefully, looking at the tangle of ropes and 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 salt wet. There's
some work first, though." He pointed down into the darkness 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 where the fish
goes."
"Alive?"
said Harvey.
"Well, no.
They're so's to be ruther dead—an' flat—an' salt. There's a hundred hogshead o'
salt in the bins, an' we hain't more'n covered our dunnage to now."
"Where are
the fish, though?"
"'In the sea
they say, in the boats we pray,'" said Dan, quoting a fisherman'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 hev full 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' ourselves instid o' them, we was so sleepy. Yes,
they're comm' in naow." Dan looked over the low bulwarks at half a dozen
dories rowing towards them over 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 lights on the barrels of the long
swells, and blue and green mackerel shades in the hollows. Each schooner in
sight seemed to be pulling her dories towards her by invisible strings, and the
little black figures in the tiny boats pulled like clockwork toys.
"They've
struck on good," said Dan, between his half-shut eyes. "Manuel hain't
room fer another fish. Low ez a lily-pad in still water, Aeneid he?"
"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 with saleratus, by the looks of him.
East o' him—see how pretty they string out all along—with the humpy shoulders,
is Long Jack. He's a Galway man inhabitin' South Boston, where they all live
mostly, an' mostly them Galway men are good in a boat. North, away
yonder—you'll hear him tune up in a minute is Tom Platt. Man-o'-war's man he
was on the old Ohio first of our navy, he says, to go araound the Horn. He
never talks of 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, and then:
"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's topping' 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 Ohio tomorrow. 'See that blue dory behind him? He's my
uncle,—Dad's own brother,—an' ef there's any bad luck loose on the Banks she'll
fetch up agin Uncle Salters, sure. Look how tender he's rowin'. I'll lay my
wage and share he's the only man stung up to-day—an' he's stung up good."
"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's perfectly 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 a hand'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's all dead
new."
"Lay a-holt
o' that tackle, then. Behind ye!"
Harvey grabbed at
a rope and long iron hook dangling from one of the stays of the mainmast, while
Dan pulled down another that ran from something he called a
"topping-lift," as Manuel drew alongside in his loaded dory. The
Portuguese smiled a brilliant smile that Harvey learned to know well later, and
with a short-handled fork began to throw fish into the pen on deck. "Two
hundred and thirty-one," he shouted.
"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's tackle, hooked it to the
stern-becket, and clambered into the schooner.
"Pull!"
shouted Dan, and Harvey pulled, astonished to find how easily the dory rose.
"Hold on,
she don't nest in the crosstrees!" Dan laughed; and Harvey held on, for
the boat lay in the air above his head.
"Lower
away," Dan shouted, and as Harvey lowered, Dan swayed the light boat 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 pretty well
now? This time last night the fish they fish for you. Now you fish for fish.
Eh, wha-at?"
"I'm—I'm
ever so grateful," Harvey stammered, and his unfortunate hand stole to his
pocket once more, but he remembered that he had no money to offer. When he knew
Manuel better the mere thought of the mistake he might 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 leave you
dreeft, dreeft all around the Banks? Now you are a fisherman eh, wha-at? Ouh!
Auh!" He bent backward and forward stiffly from the hips to 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 the man who had saved his
life.
Dan threw him a
swab, and he leaned over the dory, mopping up the slime clumsily, but with
great good-will. "Hike out the foot-boards; they slide in them
grooves," said Dan. "Swab 'em an' lay 'em down. Never let a
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, clear Manuel's boat. Long Jack's
nestin' on the top of her."
Harvey looked up
from his swabbing at the bottom of another dory just above his head.
"Jest like
the Injian puzzle-boxes, ain't they?" said Dan, as the one boat 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 him suck his pencil.
"Wan hunder
an' forty-nine an' a half-bad luck to ye, Discobolus!" said Long Jack.
"I'm murderin' meself to fill your pockuts. Slate ut for a bad 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 was even larger than
the Galway man, and his face was made curious by a purple cut running
slant-ways from his left eye to the right corner of his 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 Tom Platt, watching him
critically. "There are two ways o' doin' everything. One's
fisher-fashion—any end first an' a slippery hitch over all—an' the
other's—"
"What we did
on the old Ohio!" Dan interrupted, brushing into the knot of 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, kicked out the leg, and ducked
just in time to avoid a swinging blow from the man-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 know who'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're the
hoight av impidence, an' I'm persuaded ye'll corrupt our supercargo in 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 laid the knives
tastefully on the table, cocked his head on one side, and admired the effect.
"I think
it's forty-two," said a small voice overside, and there was a roar of
laughter as another voice answered, "Then my luck's turned fer onct, '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 any day," 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 dories swung together and
bunted into the schooner's side.
"Patience o'
Jerusalem!" snapped Uncle Salters, backing water with a splash. "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 nervous dyspepsia. You advised me, I
think."
"You an'
your nervis dyspepsy be drowned in the Whale-hole," roared Uncle Salters,
a fat and tubby little man. "You're comin' down on me agin. 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 Uncle Salters. "You
count keerful, Penn."
Disko Troop came
out of the cabin. "Salters, you pitch your fish in naow at once," he
said in the tone of authority.
"Don't spile
the catch, Dad," Dan murmured. "Them two are on'y jest
beginnin'."
"Mother av
delight! He's forkin' them wan by wan," howled Long Jack, as Uncle Salters
got to work laboriously; the little man in the other dory counting a line of
notches on the gunwale.
"That was
last week's catch," he said, looking up plaintively, his forefinger where
he had left off.
Manuel nudged
Dan, who darted to the after-tackle, and, leaning far overside, slipped the
hook into the stern-rope as Manuel made her fast forward. 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
slid him 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 a bit
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 a sailor,
too!"
"'Tweren't
fair caount," said he, stumbling out of the pen; "an' I'm stung up
all to pieces."
His thick hands
were puffy and mottled purply white.
"Some folks
will find strawberry-bottom," said Dan, addressing the newly 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 the foc'sle. Disko
Troop, Tom Platt, Long Jack, and Salters went forward on the word. Little Penn
bent above his square deep-sea reel and the tangled cod-lines; Manuel lay down
full length on the deck, and Dan dropped into the hold, where Harvey heard him
banging casks with a hammer.
"Salt,"
he said, returning. "Soon as we're through supper we git to dressing-down.
You'll pitch to Dad. Tom Platt an' Dad they stow together, an' you'll hear 'em
arguin'. We're second ha'af, you an' me an' 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. Dad ships a good cook ef
he do suffer with his brother. It's a full catch today, Aeneid it?" He
pointed at the pens piled high with cod. "What water did ye hev,
Manuel?"
"Twenty-fife
father," said the Portuguese, sleepily. "They strike on good an'
queek. Some day I show you, Harvey."
The moon was
beginning to walk on the still sea before the elder men came aft. The cook had
no need to cry "second half." Dan and Manuel were down the hatch and
at table ere Tom Platt, last and most deliberate of the elders, had finished
wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Harvey followed Penn, and sat down
before a tin pan of cod's tongues and sounds, mixed with scraps of pork and
fried potato, a loaf of hot bread, and some black and powerful coffee. Hungry
as they were, they waited while "Pennsylvania" solemnly asked a
blessing. Then they stoked in silence till Dan drew a breath over his tin cup
and demanded 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 negroes Harvey had met, did not
talk, contenting himself with smiles and dumb-show invitations to eat more.
"See,
Harvey," said Dan, rapping with his fork on the table, "it's jest as
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 are through. They're the old
fish; an' they're mean an' humpy, an' their stummicks has to be humoured; so
they come first, which they don't deserve. 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 natural tongue's kinder curious.
Comes from the innards of Cape Breton, he does, where the farmers speak
homemade Scotch. Cape Breton's full o' niggers whose folk run in there durin'
aour war, an' they talk like farmers—all huffy-chuffy."
"That is not
Scotch," said "Pennsylvania." "That is Gaelic. So I read in
a book."
"Penn reads
a heap. Most of what he says is so—'cep' when it comes to a caount o'
fish—eh?"
"Does your
father just let them say how many they've caught without checking 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 reason they 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 at once.
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 of fish by the stern shone like a
dump of fluid silver. In the hold there were tramplings and rumblings where Disko
Troop and Tom Platt moved among the salt-bins. Dan passed Harvey a pitchfork,
and led him to the inboard end of the rough table, where Uncle Salters was
drumming impatiently 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 Uncle Salters don't cut yer
eye out," said Dan, swinging himself into the hold. "I'll pass salt
below."
Penn and Manuel
stood knee deep among cod in the pen, flourishing drawn knives. Long Jack, a
basket at his feet and mittens on his hands, faced Uncle Salters at the table,
and Harvey stared at the pitchfork and the tub.
"Hi!"
shouted Manuel, stooping to the fish, and bringing one up with a finger under
its gill and a finger in its eyes. He laid it on the edge of the pen; the
knife-blade glimmered with a sound of tearing, and the fish, 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's liver dropped in
the basket. Another wrench and scoop sent the head and offal flying, and the
empty fish slid across to Uncle Salters, who snorted fiercely. There was
another sound of tearing, the backbone flew over the bulwarks, and the fish,
headless, gutted, and open, splashed in the tub, sending the salt water into
Harvey's astonished mouth. After the first yell, the men were silent. The cod
moved along as though they were alive, and long ere Harvey had ceased wondering
at the miraculous dexterity of it all, his tub was full.
"Pitch!"
grunted Uncle Salters, without turning his head, and Harvey pitched the fish by
twos and threes down the hatch.
"Hi! Pitch
'em bunchy," shouted Dan. "Don't scatter! Uncle Salters is the best
splitter in the fleet. Watch him mind his book!"
Indeed, it looked
a little as though the round uncle were cutting magazine pages against time.
Manuel's body, cramped over from the hips, stayed like a statue; but his long
arms grabbed the fish without ceasing. Little Penn toiled valiantly, but it was
easy to see he was weak. Once or twice Manuel found time to help him without
breaking the chain of supplies, and once Manuel howled because he had caught
his finger in a Frenchman's hook. These hooks are made of soft metal, to be
rebent after use; but the cod very often get away with them and are hooked
again elsewhere; and that is one of the many reasons why the Gloucester boats
despise the Frenchmen.
Down below, the
rasping sound of rough salt rubbed on rough flesh sounded 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 knife scooping away backbones; and the
flap of wet, open bodies falling into the tub.
At the end of an
hour Harvey would have given the world to rest; for fresh, wet cod weigh more
than you would think, and his back ached with the steady pitching. But he felt
for the first time in his life that he was one of the working gang of men, took
pride in the thought, and held on sullenly.
"Knife
oh!" shouted Uncle Salters at last. Penn doubled up, gasping among the
fish, Manuel bowed back and forth to supple himself, and Long Jack leaned over
the bulwarks. The cook appeared, noiseless as a black shadow, collected a mass
of backbones and heads, and retreated.
"Blood-ends
for breakfast an' head-chowder," said Long Jack, smacking his lips.
"Knife
oh!" repeated Uncle Salters, waving the flat, curved splitter's weapon.
"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," said Dan.
He was back in a
minute with a big dipperful of stale brown water which tasted like nectar, and
loosed the jaws of Disko and Tom Platt.
"These are
cod," said Disko. "They ain't Damarskus figs, Tom Platt, nor yet
silver bars. I've told you that ever single time since we've sailed
together."
"A matter o'
seven seasons," returned Tom Platt coolly. "Good stowin's good
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 set into the—"
"Hi!"
With a yell from Manuel the work began again, and never stopped till the pen
was empty. The instant the last fish was down, Disko Troop rolled aft to the
cabin with his brother; Manuel and Long Jack went forward; Tom Platt only waited
long enough to slide home the hatch ere he too disappeared. In half a minute
Harvey heard deep snores in the cabin, and he was staring blankly at Dan and
Penn.
"I did a
little better that time, Danny," said Penn, whose eyelids were heavy with
sleep. "But I think it is my duty to help clean."
"'Wouldn't
hev your conscience fer a thousand quintal," said Dan. "Turn in,
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 awake that long?"
Penn took up the
heavy basket of fish-livers, emptied them into a cask with a hinged top lashed
by the foc'sle; then he too dropped out of sight in the cabin.
"Boys clean
up after dressin' down an' first watch in ca'am weather is boy'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 red knife-blades through a wad of oakum,
and began to sharpen them on a tiny grindstone, as Harvey threw offal and
backbones overboard under his direction.
At the first
splash a silvery-white ghost rose bolt upright from the oily water and sighed a
weird whistling sigh. Harvey started back with a shout, but Dan only laughed.
"Grampus,"
said he. "Beggin' fer fish-heads. They up-eend the way when they're
hungry. Breath on him like the doleful tombs, hain't he?" A horrible
stench of decayed fish filled the air as the pillar of white sank, and the
water bubbled oilily. "Hain't ye never seen a grampus up-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 at that. Him an' me we fought
consid'ble. 'Wouldn't ha' keered fer that ef he'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 bright an' 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' seventeen brass-bound officers, all
gen'elmen, lift their hand to it that your lights was aout an' there was a
thick fog. Harve, I've kinder took to you, 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 a slim youth in
knickerbockers and a red jersey, staggering around the cluttered decks of a
seventy-ton schooner, while behind him, waving a knotted rope, walked, after
the manner of an executioner, a boy who yawned and nodded between the blows he
dealt.
The lashed wheel
groaned and kicked softly, the riding-sail slatted a little in the shifts of
the light wind, the windlass creaked, and the miserable procession continued.
Harvey expostulated, threatened, whimpered, and at last wept outright, while
Dan, the words clotting on his tongue, spoke of the beauty of watchfulness and
slashed away with the rope's end, punishing the dories as often as he hit
Harvey. At last the clock in the cabin struck ten, and upon the tenth stroke
little Penn crept on deck. He found two boys in two tumbled heaps side by side
on the main hatch, so deeply asleep that he actually rolled them to their
berths.
