Nearing the Breakwater we had more company. Other seiners, with boats astern and dories on deck, were coming in; jumbo, jib, fore and reefed mainsail generally, and all plunging gloriously with a harbor near at hand.

For the next few hours of that morning any watcher in the lighthouse on the Breakwater could have seen plenty of samples of clever seamanship. At our time we were only one of a half-dozen at the business of working around the jetty, some making for one end and some for the other. There was a great trying of tacks and some plain criticism of tactics and weatherly qualities. There was one who tried to cut in before he could quite make it. When he had to put back or run ashore and lose her, a great laugh went up, though there was nothing the matter with the try. He had only tried too much.

Eddie Parsons was the sharp critic. “Trying to beat out the fleet, hey? And with that old hooker? Nothing wrong with your nerve, old man, but some fine day, when there’s a little wind stirring, you’ll roll that tub over a little too far. That’s 100 right––jam her up now! Think you got a steamboat? Wonder nobody ever told you about sailing a vessel. Come out of it, old man, and let her swing off.”

We had yet to get in ourselves, and that we had the Johnnie Duncan to eat into the wind we were thankful. At last we were by and reaching down to the end of the jetty. We all began to feel good once we were sure of it. It was fine, too, to listen to Clancy as we got near. He was standing on the break, leaning against the weather rigging and looking forward.

“You’d think she’d been coming here for a hundred years, wouldn’t you? Look at her point her nose now at that beacon––don’t have to give this one the wheel at all. She’s the girl. See her bow off now. Man, but she knows as well as you and me she’ll be inside and snug’s a kenched mackerel before long. Watch her kick into the wind now. Oh, she’s the lady, this one. I’ve sailed many of them, but she’s the queen of them all, this one.”

A half dozen of lucky fellows were in before us. We drove in among them, under the bow of one and past the stern of another. They were all watching us, after the custom of the fleet in harbor. We knew this and behaved as smartly as we could without slopping over.

By and by our skipper picked out a place to his fancy. “Stand by halyards and down-hauls,” was his warning.

“Ready––all ready.”

“Ready with the anchor!”

“All ready the anchor, sir!”

“Down with your jib! Down with jumbo! Let go your fore halyards! Watch out now––ready––let go your anchor!”

Rattle––whizz––whir-r-r––splash! clink––and the Johnnie Duncan of Gloucester was safe to her mooring.

And not till then did our skipper, ten hours to the wheel, unclinch his grip, hook the becket to a spoke, slat his sou’wester on the wheel-box and ease his mind.

“Thank the Lord, there’s a jeesly blow behind us. There’s some outside’ll wish they had a shore job before they get in. Hi, boys, when you get her tied up for’ard, better all go below and have a bite to eat. Let the mains’l stand and give it a chance to dry.” Then he looked about him. “And I didn’t notice that anybody passed us on the way.” There was a whole lot in that last.

After eating a bite, I went over in the dory to the lighthouse on the jetty, where seamen’s mail was taken care of. After leaving my letters I stopped to watch some of the fleet coming. It was 102 easy enough to pick them. The long, slick-looking, lively seine-boat in tow and the black pile of netting on deck told what they were, and they came jumping out of the mists in a way to make a man’s heart beat.

There was a man standing on the jetty. He was master of a three-masted coaster, he told me. “You come off one of them Gloucester mackerel-catchers?” he asked me. I said yes. “That new-looking one that came in a while ago?” I said yes again.

“I was watching her––she’s a dream––a dream. I never see anything like them––the whole bunch of ’em. Look at this one––ain’t she got on about all she can stand up under though? My soul, ain’t she staggering! I expect her skipper knows his business––don’t expect he’d be skipper of a fine vessel like that if he didn’t. But if ’twas me I’d just about take a wide tuck or two in that ever-lastin’ mains’l he’s got there. My conscience, but ain’t he a-sockin’ it to her! I s’pose that’s the way some of your vessels are sailed out and never heard from again––that was never run into, nor rolled over, nor sunk in a reg’lar way, but just drove right into it head-first trying to make a passage and drowned before ever they could rise again. Well, good-luck to you, old girl, and your skipper, whoever he is, and I guess if your canvas 103 stays on you’ll be to anchor before a great while, for you’re making steamboat time. Go it, old girl, and your little baby on behind, go it! There ain’t nothing short of an ocean liner could get you now. Go it! a sail or two don’t matter––if it’s a good mackerel season I s’pose the owners don’t mind if you blow away a few sails. Go it, God bless you! Go it! you’re the lads can sail a vessel, you fishermen of Gloucester. Lord, if I dared to try a thing like that with my vessel and my crew and the old gear I got, I rather expect I’d have a rigger’s bill by the time I got home––if ever I got home carryin’ on like that in my old hooker.”

I watched her, too. She was the Tarantula, Jim Porter, another sail-carrier. Around the point and across she tore and over toward the sands beyond, swung off on her heel to her skipper’s heave, came down by the wreck of a big three-master on the inner beach, and around and up opposite what looked like a building on the hill. Then it was down with the wheel, down with headsails, let go fore-halyards, over with the anchor, and there she was, another fisherman of Gloucester, at rest in harbor after an all-night fight with a lively breeze.

And I left the master of the coaster there and went back to the Duncan, where the crew were standing along the rail or leaning over the house and having a lot of fun sizing up those who were 104 coming in. It is one of the enjoyments of the seining fleet––this racing to harbor when it blows and then watching the others work in. I’ve heard it said that no place in the world can show a fleet like them––all fine vessels, from one hundred to one hundred and twenty feet over all, deep draught, heavily sparred, and provided with all kinds of sail. They were ably managed, of course,––and a dash to port makes the finest kind of a regatta. No better chances are offered to try vessels and seamanship––no drifting or flukes but wind enough for all hands and on all points of sailing generally.

They came swooping in one after the other––like huge sea-gulls, only with wings held close. Now, with plenty of light, those already in could easily see the others coming long before they rounded the jetty. Even if we couldn’t see the hulls of them, there were fellows who could name them––one vessel after the other––just by the spars and upper rigging. The cut of a topsail, the look of a mast-head, the set of a gaff––the smallest little thing was enough to place them, so well were they acquainted with one another. And the distance at which some of them could pick out a vessel was amazing.

George Moore, coming up out of the forec’s’le to dump over some scraps, spied one. “The Mary 105 Grace Adams,” he sang out,––“the shortest forem’st out of Gloucester. She must’ve been well inside when she started––to get in at this time. Slow––man, but she is slow, that one.”

“Yes, that’s the old girl, and behind her is the Dreamer––Charlie Green––black mast-heads and two patches on her jumbo. She’ll be in and all fast before the Mary Grace’s straightened out.”

And so it was––almost. The Mary Adams was one of the older fleet and never much of a sailer. The Dreamer was one of the newer vessels, able, and a big sailer. They were well raked by the critics, as under their four lowers they whipped in and around and passed on by.

After the Dreamer came the Madeline, with “Black Jack” Hogan, a fleshy man for a fisherman, who minded his way and remained unmoved at the compliments paid his vessel, one of the prize beauties of the fleet. The Marguerite, Charley Falvey, a dog at seining, always among the high-liners, who got more fun out of a summer’s seining than most men ever got out of yachting, who bought all the latest inventions in gear as fast as they came out and who had a dainty way of getting fish. The Marguerite dipped her bow as she passed, while her clever skipper nodded along the line.

The King Philip, another fast beauty, made her 106 bow and dipped her jibs to her mates in harbor. At sight of her master, Al McNeill, a great shout goes up. “Ho, ho! boys, here’s Lucky Al! Whose seine was it couldn’t hold a jeesly big school one day off here last spring but Billie Simms’? Yes, sir, Billie Simms. Billie fills up and was just about thinking he’d have to let the rest go when who heaves in sight and rounds to and says, ‘Can I help y’out, William?’ Who but Lucky Al McNeill, of course. Bales out two hundred barrels as nice fat mackerel as anybody’d want to see. ‘Just fills me up,’ says Al, and scoots to market. Just been to New York, mind you, that same week with two hundred and fifty barrels he got twelve cents apiece for. ‘Just fills me up,’ says Al, and scoots. No, he ain’t a bit lucky, Captain Al ain’t––married a young wife only last fall.”

Then followed the Albatross, with Mark Powers giving the orders. Then the Privateer, another fast one, but going sluggishly now because of a stove-in seine-boat wallowing astern. Then the North Wind, with her decks swept clear of everything but her house and hatches. Seine-boat, seine and dory were gone.

After her was a big, powerful vessel, the Ave Maria, with the most erratic skipper of all. This man never appeared but the gossip broke out. Andie Howe had his record. “Here comes George 107 Ross. What’s this they say now?––that he don’t come down from the mast-head now like he used to, when he strikes a school. When I was with him he was a pretty lively man comin’ from aloft––used to sort of fall down, you know. But now he comes down gentle-like––slides down the back-stay. Only trouble now he’s got to get new rubber boots every other trip, ’count of the creases he wears in the legs of them sliding down the wire. I tell you they all lose their nerve as they get older. There’s Billie Simms coming behind him. He’s given up tryin’ to sail his vessel on the side and tryin’ to see how long he c’n carry all he c’n pile on. Billie says ’t’ain’t like when a fellow’s young and ain’t got any family. I expect it’s about the same with George since he got married.” The master of the Ave Maria didn’t even glance over as he piloted his vessel along. He very well knew that we were talking about him.

Pretty soon came one that everybody looked at doubtfully. She sported a new mainmast and a new fore-gaff. “Who’s this old hooker with her new spars? Looks like a vessel just home from salt fishing, don’t she? Lord, but she needs painting.” Nobody seemed to know who she was, and as she got nearer there was a straining of eyes for her name forward. “The H-A-R-B-I––oh, the Harbinger. Must be old Marks and the old craft he 108 bought down East last fall. This the old man, of course––the Harbinger. How long’s she been down here? Came down ahead of the fleet? Well, she ought to––by the looks of her she needs a good early start to get anywhere. They ought to be glad to get in. I mind that September breeze twenty year ago that the old man said blew all the water off Quero and drove him ashore on Sable Island. He says he ain’t taking any more line storms in his. No, nor anybody else in the old square-enders he gen’rally sails in. I’ll bet he’s glad to change winter trawling for summer seining. I’ll bet he put in a few wakeful nights on the Banks in his time––mind the time he parted his cable and came bumping over Sable Island No’the-east Bar? Found the only channel there was, I callate. ‘Special little angels was looking out for me,’ he says, when he got home. ‘Yes,’ says Wesley Marrs––he was telling it to Wesley––‘yes,’ says Wesley, ‘but I’ll bet keepin’ the lead goin’ had a hell of a lot to do with it, too.’”

So they came rolling in by the end of the jetty until they could make one last tack of it. Like tumbling dolphins they were––seiners all, with a single boat towing astern and a single dory, or sometimes two dories, lashed in the waist, all gear stowed away, under four lower sails mostly––jumbo, jib, fore and main, though now and then 109 was one with a mainsail in stops and a trysail laced to the gaff, and all laying down to it until their rails were washing under and the sea hissed over the bows.

Anybody would have to admire them as they came scooting past. When they thought they were close enough to the Breakwater––and some went pretty close––up or down would go the wheel, according to which end of the jetty they came in by, around they would go, and across the flats and down on the fleet they would come shooting. They breasted into the hollows like any sea-bird and lifted with every heave to shake the water from bilge to quarter. They came across with never a let-up, shaving everything along the way until a good berth was picked out. Then they let go sails, dropped anchor and were ready for a rest.

Nobody got by our fellows without a word. And we weren’t the only crew of critics. Bungling seamanship would get a slashing here, but there was none of that. It was all good, but there are degrees of goodness, of course. First-class seamanship being a matter of course, only a wonderful exhibition won approval from everybody. And crews coming in, knowing what was ahead of them, made no mistakes in that harbor.

A dozen ordinary skippers sailed past before a famous fisherman at length came in. Everybody 110 knew him––a dog, a high-liner, truly a master mariner. A murmur went up. “There’s the boy,” said Tommie Clancy. “I mind last summer when he came into Souris just such a day as this, but with more wind stirring. ’Twas Fourth of July and we had all our flags to the peak––and some fine patriotic fights going on ashore that day––our flag and the English. The harbor was jammed with seiners and fresh-fishers. You couldn’t see room for a dory, looking at ’em end on. But that don’t jar Tom O’Donnell. What does he do? He just comes in and sails around the fleet like a cup-defender on parade––and every bit of canvas he had aboard flying––only his crew had to hang onto the ring-bolts under the wind’ard rail. Well, he comes piling in, looks the fleet over, sizes up everything, picks out a nice spot as he shoots around, sails out the harbor again––clean out, yes sir, clean out––comes about––and it blowing a living gale all the time––shoots her in again, dives across a line of us, and fetches her up standing. We could’ve jumped from our rail to his in jack-boots, he was that close to us and another fellow the other side. Slid her in like you slide the cover into a diddy box. Yes, sir, and that’s the same lad you see coming along now––Tom O’Donnell and his Colleen Bawn.”

He certainly was coming on now, and a fine 111 working vessel he had. She showed it in every move. She came around like a twin-screw launch, picked out her berth like she had intelligence in her eyes, made for it, swirled, fluttered like a bird, felt with her claws for the ground underneath, found it, gripped it, swayed, hung on, and at last settled gently in her place. There was no more jar to the whole thing than if she had been a cat-boat in a summer breeze. “Pretty, pretty, pretty,” you could hear the gang along our rail.

“They talk about knockabout racing craft,” said Clancy, “but did y’ever see anything drop to a berth slicker than that? And that’s a vessel you c’n go to sea in, and in the hardest winter gale that ever blew you c’n turn in when your watch is done and have a feeling of comfort.”

“Where’s the steam trawler, the porgy boat, we saw yesterday?”

“Put into Chincoteague most likely––nearer than here.”

“That’s what we’ll have to come to yet––steamers, and go on wages like a waiter in a hotel.”

“Yes,” said Clancy, “I s’pose so, but with vessels like we got and the seamen sailing out of Gloucester we’ll stave ’em off a long time yet, and even as it is, give me a breeze and a vessel like this one under us and we’ll beat out all the steam fishermen that ever turned a screw.”

One of the latest experiments in a fishermen’s model reached in then and her coming started a chorus. They were always trying new models in Gloucester, everybody was so anxious to have a winner. This one’s sails were still white and pretty and her hull still shiny in fresh black paint. The red stripe along her rail and the gold stripe along her run set off her lines; her gear didn’t have a speck on it, her spars were yellow as could be and to leeward we thought we could still smell the patent varnish. For that matter there were several there as new-looking as she was, our own vessel for one; but there had been a lot of talk about this one. She was going to clean out the fleet. She had been pretending to a lot, and as she hadn’t yet made good, of course she got a great raking.

“She’s here at last, boys––the yacht, the wonderful, marvellous Victory! Ain’t she a bird? Built to beat the fleet! Look at the knockabout bow of her!”

“Knockabout googleums––h-yah! Scoop shovel snout and a stern ugly as a battle-ship’s, and the Lord knows there was overhang and to spare to tail her out decent. Cut out the yellow and the red and the whole lot of gold decorations and she’s as homely as a Newf’undland jack.”

“Just the same, she c’n sail,” said somebody who wanted to start an argument.

“Sail! Yah! might beat a Rockport granite sloop. Ever hear of the Henry Clay Parker, Mister Billie Simms, and the little licking she gave this winner of yours? No? Well, you want to go around and have a drink or two with the boys next time you’re ashore and get the news. It was like a dogfish and a mackerel––the Henry just eat her up. And there’s the others. Why, this one underneath us’d make a holy show of her, I’ll bet. And there’s half a dozen others. There’s the––oh, what’s the use?”

“Oh, Eddie Parsons, a perfect lady and coming in like a high-stepper and yet you must malign her beauty and make light of her virtue,” and Clancy jammed Parsons’s sou’wester down over his eyes––“hush up, Eddie.”

Into the harbor and after the Victory heaved another one. And she was the real thing––handsome, fast and able. And she had a record for bringing the fish home––an able vessel and well-known for it. She could carry whole sails when some of the others were double-reefed and thinking of dragging trysails out of the hold. And her skipper was a wonder.

“You c’n cut all the others out––here comes the real thing. Here’s the old dog himself. Did he ever miss a blow? And look at him. Every man comes in here to-day under four lowers, no more, 114 and some under reefed mains’l, or trys’l, but four whole lowers ain’t enough for this gentleman––not for Wesley. He must carry that gaff-tops’l if he pulls the planks out of her. He always brings her home, but if some of the underwriters’d see him out here they’d soon blacklist him till he mended his ways. It’s a blessed wonder he ain’t found bottom before this. Look at her now skating on her ear. There she goes––if they’d just lower a man over the weather rail with a line on him he could write his name on her keel!”

And she certainly was something to make a man’s eyes stick out. There had been a vessel or two that staggered before, but the Lucy fairly rolled down into it, and there was no earthly reason why she should do it except that it pleased her skipper to sport that extra kite.

She boiled up from the end of the jetty, and her wake was the wake of a screw steamer. She had come from home, we knew, and so it happened she was one of the last to get in. The harbor was crowded as she straightened out. We knew she would not have too much leeway coming on, and what berth she was after kept everybody guessing.

“If she goes where’s she pointing––and most vessels do––she’ll find a berth down on the beach on that course, down about where the wreck is. It’ll be dry enough walking when she gets there. 115 If she keeps on the gait she’s going now, she ought to be able to fetch good and high and dry up on the mud. They’d cert’nly be able to step ashore––when they get there. Ah-h-h, but that’s more like it.”

She was taking it over the quarter then. She cleared the stern of the most leeward of the fleet and then kicked off, heading over to where the Johnnie Duncan and the Victory lay. The betting was that she would round to and drop in between us two. There was room there, but only just room. It would be a close fit, but there was room.

But she didn’t round to. She held straight on without the sign of a swerve. On the Johnnie, the gang being almost in her path picked out a course for her. Between the outer end of our seine-boat and the end of the bowsprit of the Mary Grace Adams was a passage that may have been the width of a vessel. But the space seemed too narrow. Our crew were wondering if he would try it. Even the skipper, standing in the companionway, stepped up on deck to have a better look.

“He’s got to take it quarterin’, and it ain’t wide enough,” said Eddie Parsons.

“Quartering––yes, but with everything hauled inboard,” said the skipper. “He’ll try it, I guess. I was with him for two years, and if he feels like trying it he’ll try it.”

“And s’pose he does try it, Skipper?”

“Oh, he’ll come pretty near making it, though he stands a good chance to scrape the paint off our seine-boat going by. No, don’t touch the seine-boat––let her be as she is. We’ll fool ’em if they think they c’n jar anybody here coming on like that. There’s room enough if nothing slips, and if they hit it’s their lookout.”

It looked like a narrow space for a vessel of her beam to go through, but she hopped along, and the eyes of all the harbor followed her to the point where she must turn tail or make the passage.

She held on––her chance to go back was gone.

“Watch her, boys. Now she’s whooping––look at her come!”

And she was coming. Her windward side was lifted so high that her bottom planks could be seen. Her oil-skinned crew were crowded forward. There were men at the fore-halyards, at jib-halyards, at the down-hauls, and a group were standing by the anchor. Two men were at the wheel.

She bit into it. There was froth at her mouth. She was so near now that we could read the faces of her crew; and wide awake to this fine seamanship we all leaned over the rail, the better to see how she’d make out. The crews of half the vessels inside the Breakwater were watching her.

She was a length away and jumping to it. It was yet in doubt, but she was certainly rushing to some sort of a finish. She rushed on, and w-r-r-rp! her weather bow came down on the Johnnie’s seine-boat. But it didn’t quite hit it. Her quarter to leeward just cut under the Adams’ bowsprit and the leech of her mainsail seemed to flatten past. For a moment we were not certain, but no jolt or lurch came and our seine-boat seemed all right. Another jump and she was clear by. And then we felt like cheering her, and her skipper Wesley Marrs, too, as he stood to the wheel and sung out, “Couldn’t scare you, could I, Maurice. I thought you’d haul your seine-boat in. I’ve got your extra seine,” and swept by.

From our deck and from the deck of the Adams, and from the decks of half a dozen others, could be heard murmurs, and there was a general pointing out of the redoubtable skipper himself to the green hands that knew him only by reputation. “That’s him, Wesley himself––the stocky little man of the two at the wheel.”

If the stocky little man heard the hails that were sent after him, he made no sign, unless a faint dipping of his sou’wester back over his windward shoulder was his way of showing it.

He had business yet, had Wesley Marrs. There was a tug and a barge and another big seiner in 118 his course. He clipped the tug, scraped the barge, and set the seiner’s boat a-dancing, and two lengths more he put down the wheel and threw her gracefully into the wind. Down came jib, down came jumbo, over splashed the anchor. She ran forward a little, rattled back a link or two, steadied herself, and there she was. Her big mainsail was yet shaking in the wind, her gaff-topsail yet fluttering aloft, but she herself, the Lucy Foster of Gloucester, was at your service. “And what do you think of her, people?” might just as well have been shot off her deck through a megaphone, for that was what her bearing and the unnatural smartness of her crew plainly were saying.

We all drew breath again. Clancy unbent from the rail and shook his head in high approval. He took off his sou’wester, slatted it over the after-bitt to clear the brim of water, and spoke his mind. “You’ll see nothing cleaner than that in this harbor to-day, fellows, and you’ll see some pretty fair work at that. That fellow––he’s an able seaman.”

“Yes, sir––an able seaman,” said the skipper also.

And Clancy and the skipper were something in the line of able seamen themselves.