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Page 23
"Poor Penn!" murmured Harvey. "I shouldn't ever have thought
Uncle Salters cared for him by the look of 'em together."
"I like Penn, though; we all do," said Dan. "We ought to ha' give
him a tow, but I wanted to tell ye first."
They were close to the schooner now, the other boats a little
behind them.
"You needn't heave in the dories till after dinner," said Troop from
the deck. "We'll dress daown right off. Fix table, boys!"
"Deeper'n the Whale-deep," said Dan, with a wink, as he set the
gear for 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 nodding
schooners around seemed run from the same mold.
"They ain't, though. That yaller, dirty packet with her bowsprit
steeved 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 Main Ledge. 'Way off yonder's the Day's Eye. The two
Jeraulds own her. She's from Harwich; fastish, too, an' hez good
luck; but Dad he'd find fish in 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 the shaol o' 'Oueereau."
"You won't see many boats to-morrow, Danny." When Troop
called his son Danny, it was a sign that the old man was pleased.
"Boys, we're too crowded," he went on, addressing the crew as they
clambered inboard. "We'll leave 'em to bait big an' catch small."
He looked at the catch in the pen, and it was curious to see how
little and level the fish ran. Save for Harvey's halibut, there was
nothing over fifteen pounds on 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
fog dropped on them, "between fish and fish," as they say. It drove
steadily and in wreaths, curling and smoking along the colourless
water. The men stopped dressing-down without a word. Long Jack
and Uncle Salters slipped the windlass brakes into their sockets,
and began to heave up the anchor; the windlass jarring as the wet
hempen cable strained 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 Troop steadied her at the wheel. "Up jib and foresail,"
said he.
"Slip 'em in the smother," shouted Long Jack, making fast the
jib-sheet, while the others raised the clacking, rattling rings of the
foresail; and the foreboom creaked as the 'We're Here' looked up
into the 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
part was 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 at the damp canvas of the foresail.
"No. Where are we going?"
"Fish and make berth, as you'll find out 'fore you've been a week
aboard. 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, doing
something to a big jib with a wooden spar tied to it. "But we didn't
think o' that when we manned the windlass-brakes on the Miss
Jim Buck, 1 outside Beau-fort Harbor, with Fort Macon heavin'
hot shot at our stern, an' a livin' gale atop of all. Where was you
then, Disko?"
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