They got the West Wind down to the end of the wharf on a cold March morning. It was dark and the sky was overcast, and as he hauled on the schooner’s mooring lines, Donald wondered how it was that ships invariably seemed to sail at unearthly morning hours—hours when the soporific influence is strongest and vitality is at its lowest ebb. He called to mind the morning he came down to the Kelvinhaugh, and the spirit of romance and adventure which filled him then, until the actual experiences of sea-faring in the barque dissipated his rosy visions and made him wonder what there was in the life that sends lads to sea. He recalled the stirring voyage in the Helen Starbuck—an adventure which brought back some of the glamor and fascination of the windy sea-roads to his soul, and now he was outwardbound on a new traverse with the deep-sea fishermen of Nova Scotia. Would he like the life? He wondered. If he didn’t, he would have to make a cast back into the merchant service, or give up all thoughts of a nautical vocation and stay ashore. He didn’t like the thought of the latter alternative—sure testimony that Old Ocean had him in its thrall.

“All right, boys, she’s daown far enough!” Skipper Nickerson was singing out. “Aft here, my sons, an’ git yer mains’l on her.” Eighteen men tallied on to the throat and peak halliards, and with the skipper directing them with a “Hold yer peak! Up on yer throat!” and vice-versa, they soon had the big sail up. “Throat an’ peak jigs, naow, boys!” and the gang swayed up the sail until it set like a board, with the wrinkles running from peak to tack.

“Fores’l, naow, an’ when you’re ready, give her th’ jumbo!” To Donald, “Jump on the wharf, Don, an’ cast off th’ bow line, then stand-by yer starn line.”

They soon got the foresail up, jigged and the halliards belayed, and Donald cast off the bow line as the jumbo, or fore-stays’l was run up. “Make yer jumbo tail-rope fast to wind’ard!” cried Captain Nickerson, “and when she pays off, give her the jib an’ hang on to yer weathersheet!”

Standing by the stern mooring, Donald gazed up at the Nickerson home and fancied he could see a female figure looking out of one of the upper windows. He saw her wave a handkerchief, and he returned the fare-well gesture. It was Ruth Nickerson—he could see that even in the half light—and he wondered if she was waving to him or her brother. He waved again, and the salute was returned. “Alright, Don!” came the skipper’s voice. “Leggo yer starn mooring an’ jump aboard!” He slipped the loop off the spile and leaped aboard as the West Wind payed off with her heads’ls a-weather. The skipper spun the wheel and paced athwart the quarter staring at the anchored vessels ahead—some of whom were getting under way.

“Your sister is at the window, captain,” said Donald, still looking up at the house. The other turned and waved a hand. “Good little kid is Ruthie,” he remarked to McKenzie. “A good little girl—full of fun, an’ clever as they make ’em. She always was a favorite of mine. I’ve got a box of chocolate mush in my bunk which she gave me this morning—” Donald would have liked to continue the conversation in this strain, but the skipper broke off. “Skip for’ard, Don, an’ leggo that tail-rope an’ weather jib sheet!”

The schooner glided down the harbor with a light air filling her sails. The men had gone below to the fore-castle and cabin awaiting breakfast, and were filling in the time by working on their lines and hooks. Donald, shipped as spare hand, was supposed to work under the captain’s orders and to look after the vessel’s gear. Fishermen do no work on the schooner’s hull or gear when at sea. All overhauling must be done in port. The fishing crew ship only to fish, handle sail, steer and keep watch. The spare hand is supposed to make all repairs to the vessel’s rigging while at sea, and to look after the stops, reefing and furling gear. When the men are out in the dories fishing, or when they are dressing fish, he must assist the skipper in sailing the schooner, in getting dories hoisted in or out, and wherever he can be of use.

Donald busied himself coiling up halliards and picking up gaskets, and as he worked, he whistled a song to himself and thought of Ruth Nickerson. He had seen her that morning. She had come down in slippers and a pink silk kimono, and he thought that she looked ravishingly pretty in such a garb. While he and the skipper were drinking a cup of coffee which she had prepared, he wondered how she could look so dainty and fresh at four o’clock in the morning. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks had a healthy bloom in them like the Okanagan apples he had seen out in British Columbia, and she teased both of them about the bet with Ira Burton. “If you lose,” she said, with a laugh, “Juddy and you will have to go to Halifax and go on the stage. You play the piano and sing, and Juddy will take the money. I’m sure he can look so fierce sometimes that people will be glad to give you something.” And they all had laughed heartily at the thought.

How he envied brother Juddy when she threw her arms around his neck and hugged and kissed him! A young fellow of seventeen is at the susceptible age, and Donald was not blind to the charms of the fair sex, even though he had had but little opportunity to tread the primrose path of dalliance with fascinating young ladies. How he blessed his mother for keeping him to his piano, singing and dancing lessons! He had looked upon these accomplishments with scorn in his Glasgow days, and had carefully hidden them from Joak and his other school-boy chums. “A lassie’s wurrk,” they would have jeered. “Ye sh’d take knittin’ an’ croshay lessons as weel!” Aye! he appreciated such culture now!

She said “Good-bye!” with a simple clasp of the hand, and the memory of the soft, warm pressure of her small fingers in his roughened fist thrilled him yet. “I hope to see you when you come back,” she added, and he had stumbled away in the dark of the morning with a pang of regret at leaving. He did not know why he should have felt that way, but the fact remained that he did, and he was glad when he saw her again waving from the window.

When the Lower Eastville Head came abeam, the cook sang out, “Breakfast!” and Donald went down into the fo’c’sle. Nine fishermen were already seated, and when he came below they shouted, “Make room for Scotty McKenzie—an’ ol’ Cape Horner but a noo trawler! Sit ye daown son, an’ eat hearty an’ give th’ ship a good name!” They were a merry crowd, and Donald compared them with the all-nation scrubs of the Kelvinhaugh and the wretched provender which they had to eat aboard the barque. It was vastly different here! There was a blue checkered tablecloth spread over the triangular table, and upon it were heaped enamelware pots of first-class porridge, sausages, fried eggs, new white bread, doughnuts, biscuits and cheese. Each man ate off white graniteware plates and drank steaming coffee out of china-clay mugs—no tin pannikins and cups on a Bank fisherman! As they “scoffed” the good victuals, they joked boisterously over the wager with Ira Burton, and “cal’lated when they got agoin’ they’d trim him daown to his boot-straps, by Judas!” There were no sullen faces or growling oaths from this crowd. Every man wore a contented smile, and they talked and joked and chaffed, but managed to get away with the food in spite of the conversational interruptions.

“This minds me o’ the time I wuz cookin’ on a Behring Sea sealer,” remarked Joak to Donald. “They were a’ like these chaps—a verra jolly bunch.” McGlashan, as cook on a fisherman, held an exalted position. Everybody tried to “stand in” with him, and on a Banker, the cook and the skipper are the two officers whose word is law and whose commands must be obeyed.

They ran into South-east Harbor that afternoon and dropped anchor off the Cold Storage Company’s wharf. Nickerson went ashore to procure a quantity of frozen herring for use as bait, but found that he could only purchase a few barrels, as several salt Bankers had already spoken for the available supply. Captain Ira Burton had left for the fishing grounds that morning with a full baiting, and this fact caused Nickerson to hustle aboard what he could get. “Hang the patch on her!” he shouted. “Burton’s off and he’s got plenty bait. We’ll have to start with what we have and run in for more later.”

Under four lowers, they sped out of the harbor to a freshening sou’-west breeze, and the skipper set the watches. “Number One dory will take first wheel and look-out,” he said, “and the other seven will follow. It’ll be one hour and a half to a watch, but Donald and I will look after her this afternoon while you fellers bait yer gear. Draw for baiting places now!”

Hardwood planks were fixed around the cabin house and the gurry-kid—a huge box for’ard of the house and used for stowing fish-offal while in port or odd gear at sea—and a man went around with a piece of chalk and marked and numbered off certain spaces on the planks. Upon these planks or “bait boards,” the fishermen cut their bait, and certain spots were more desirable than others—hence the drawing for places. When this was accomplished, the skipper sung out for the stays’l to be hoisted, and told Donald to stream the taff-rail log. “Four miles off Salvage Island and four o’clock,” remarked the captain. “A hundred an’ thirty miles to make to the sou’-west edge of the Western Bank. Take the wheel, Donald, and let her go east by south half south. I’ll help the boys bait up!”

Seated on the wheel-box, he steered the able little schooner and listened to the conversation of the fishermen. The breeze was blowing fresh and there was a short sea running and the vessel was laying down to it with the water squirting in through the lee scuppers, and she was pulling over the rollers as gracefully as a steeple-chaser at a low hurdle. The well-made sails were full with the wind, and it thrummed in the rigging and under the booms, while the foam from the sharp bows hissed and bubbled to loo’ard and raced aft to mingle with the wake astern. A myriad of gulls, attracted by the herring offal which was being whisked overboard every now and again, wheeled and squawked around them, and their graceful winging, with the buoyancy and gentle pitching and rolling of the flying schooner, combined to make a picture symbolical of the poetry of sea motion. Wing and sail were closely allied in this exhilarating off-shore flight, and McKenzie was thrilled with it to a degree which he had never felt before.

Chop, chop, chop! went the men’s knives on the baitboards as they deftly severed the frozen herring into portions for garnishing the hundreds of hooks which went to a tub of trawl. With yellow oilskins on their stalwart bodies, they stood around the quarters, singing and bantering one another—a picturesque crowd of clear-eyed, hard-muscled men. True sons of the sea! thought Donald, and he steered and listened to a ballad which one of the men was trolling:—

The crowd chopped bait and howled the last line with gusto—drawling the “dro-o-gher!” with all a chantey-man’s vim, until it wound up with the final verse of the cook’s troubles on the “pine-wood drogher.”

A howl of guffaws greeted the last verse, and with a “Tune her up again, Tommy-boy!” the ballad singer broke into another Blue-nose “Come-all-ye” describing the voyage of an Annapolis barquentine to Demerara. The singer worked her every foot of the way to her destination and back, and even dilated upon the flirtations of the crew in the South-American port.

There was a rare, seaman-like swing to a verse which ran:—

With the droning of the wind, the seething of the sea, and the squawking of the gulls as accompaniments, this deep-sea concert went on, and every man worked like a busy tailor baiting his gear and chiming in the choruses. Someone struck up an inspiring song about the record run of the fishing schooner Mary L. MacKay, and it reflected the spirit of those hardy Banksmen.

Captain Nickerson leaned over the taff-rail and glanced at the log dials. “Ten knots, Donny-boy,” he murmured happily. “She can travel this one! Sock it to her, son!” And he jumped back to assist in the baiting up. When supper was announced, the work was finished and the watches were set. McKenzie lazied the evening away stretched out on a cabin locker listening to the yarns of his ship-mates. Some of their quiet relations were the very heart of adventure and hazard. “You’ll mind th’ time, skipper, when the Annie Crosby was hove down and came up with a dory hangin’ to her fore spreader!” or “Was you around in that bad blow when Harry Winslow soaked his vessel over th’ Cape ledges an’ smashed th’ skeg off her bangin’ over the rocks! He was a haound, that Winslow!” Aye, they know thrills who fish the Banks—the thrills of “Breakers ahead!” and the desperate clawing off a lee-shore; the scares of the smoking mists, sinister with the raucous bellowings of driving liners; the exhilarating drives for port in a brave wind, and the lying-to in piling seas, blinding snows and savage gales! Donald lolled with sparkling eyes and open ears drinking it all in until the last yarner had knocked out his pipe and rolled into his bunk.

Joak turned them out for breakfast next morning at four. It was black dark, and they ate in the light of oil lamps while the schooner tore along on her east by south course. “She’s run a hundred an’ twenty miles naow,” remarked a fisherman just relieved from his “trick.” “This one’s a grand little hooker to sail! Steers like a witch!” He sat down at the table. “I’m as hungry as a bear. Slap some o’ them beans on this plate, Westley-boy, an’ give th’ bread an’ butter a fair wind this way.”

At five, the Skipper shot the schooner up in the wind. “Take a cast of the lead, Don!” he cried, and when the youth gave him the sounding, “Thirty-five fathoms, sir!” he examined the tallow on the bottom of the lead. “Fine sand. Right! Call the gang, Donald! We’ll hoist the dories over here an’ spin the gear aout! There’s a fellow to wind’ard there dressing down fish.” As he went for’ard, Donald looked to the sou’west and saw the twinkle of torch-lights low down on the far horizon—unmistakable sign of a Banksman at work.

The men came from below, oil-skinned and booted, and with mittens and woollen caps on, for the air was biting and cold. They began getting the tubs of trawl, anchors and buoys ready, and scurried around picking up the impedimenta necessary for going overside in the dories. “Lower away top dories!” bawled Judson from the wheel. Though this was his first order as a fishing skipper yet he seemed to have adapted himself to the life as if he had known no other. The experiences of his younger days came readily to mind and hand and he carried on as though he had never seen the “lime-juice” merchant service.

The four fishermen who went in the two dories (nested on top of the port and starboard sets) placed their thwarts and pen-boards in position, kicked the dory-plug into its hole in the bottom of the boat, and saw to it that two pairs of oars, sail, water-jar, bait-knife, bailer, bow-roller and gurdy-winch were in place. Then they hooked the dory hoisting tackles into the bow and stern beckets of the twenty-foot boats, and with two men heaving on the fall of each tackle, they swung the dory to the rail. Throwing in anchors, buoys and buoy lines, they shoved the little craft out and lowered her into the water while Donald held her alongside by the painter. Joak did the same for the dory on the port side.

One of the fishermen jumped into the boat, while his dory-mate handed him down the tubs of baited trawls. “Set two tubs, boys,” advised the skipper, “and if fish are strikin’ we’ll spin th’ whole string. Pull to the east’ard when you’re setting your gear!” The two fishermen jumped into the dory and Donald allowed the boat to drift astern and belayed the painter to the taffrail pin.

Within a very short time, all eight dories were overboard with their crews in them, and the schooner towed them along in a string of four in line ahead from each quarter. Heading the vessel away from the schooner to windward, the skipper waved his hand. “Leggo port dory!” The last dory on the port string cast off. One man shipped the oars and pulled to the eastward, while the other hove the trawl-buoy over and payed out the anchor line. When the line had run out sufficiently for a thirty-five fathom depth of water, he bent the end of the baited line to the crown of the light trawl anchor and hove it overboard. Placing the tub of trawl-line before him in the stern-sheets of the dory, the fisherman commenced throwing the baited gear out by means of a heaving stick which he held in his right hand, while his dory-mate rowed the boat. It did not take long before the two thousand odd feet of trawl was whisked out and the end line of the second tub was bent to the tub-end of the first and shot overside in a similar manner. When the whole line was in the water, another anchor was bent to the baited gear and thrown over, and the fishermen hung to the anchor-rode until it was time to haul the trawl. With a buoyed anchor at the first end and another at the last end, the four thousand feet of line with its sixteen hundred baited hooks, was securely stretched along the sea floor, and in readiness to entrap the hungry cod and haddock which roamed over the bottom looking for food.

All eight dories were cast off from the schooner and all set their trawls at a distance of about half a mile from each other, and when the last dory was slipped, the skipper put the schooner about, and with the jumbo belayed to windward, the mainsheet eased off, and the wheel made fast a spoke from hard-down, the West Wind lurched along in that semi-hove-to condition known in fishermen’s parlance as “jogging.” Joak went to his galley to get dinner ready; Captain Nickerson shipped the fish-pen boards on the schooner’s decks between rail and cabin house, and Donald whetted dressing knives.

As they worked, Captain Nickerson kept up a running fire of explanations about the fishery, and Donald listened with increasing interest. “This manner of running dories aout is called making ‘flying-sets,’” said Judson, “and the schooners fishing fresh for market usually work this way. If we strike good fishin’ hereabouts, we’ll let go the anchor an’ ride to that big cable hawser, an’ th’ men will pull away from th’ vessel an’ set their gear all ’round her. Ef we do that, we’ll stow all th’ sail an’ hoist a trysail, or ridin’ sail on th’ main to steady her an’ keep her headin’ up to her cable. We’re only setting’ two tubs this time to try th’ ground aout, but ef fishin’s good, we’ll run four or six tubs an’ buoy them an’ leave them in th’ water. Th’ boys’ll under-run th’ trawls then—takin’ th’ fish off th’ hooks an’ re-baiting them without liftin’ th’ whole tub o’ gear out o’ th’ water. You’ll notice that each trawl buoy has a short stick with a black-ball or flag on it inserted into it. That marks th’ gear an’ enables us to pick it up easily. They’ll start ahaulin’ th’ lines in half an hour, an’ we’ll see ef there’s any fish hereabouts.”

They jogged past a dory which was hauling in their gear. A fisherman stood in the bow and pulled the line up from the bottom over a lignumvitÆ roller fixed in the bow-gunnel. His dory-mate stood immediately behind him with the empty trawl tub, and as his mate hauled, he coiled the gear down in the tub again. “There’s a scale!” cried Judson. The fisherman in the dory had a big cod on his line and he lifted it up with his right hand and swung it deftly behind him with a sharp jerk which tore the hook out of the mouth of the fish and sent it wriggling into the penned-off fish pound in the dory bottom. Donald could see a number of fish being hauled up, and the skipper was scanning the other dories through his glasses. “They’re all gittin’ something,” he remarked. “I hope there’s fish here, for we’ve got to hustle. Ira Burton’ll have a full deck by naow I reckon, an’ he’s got plenty bait to keep him agoin’!”

They started picking up the dories shortly afterwards, and as they came alongside, Donald and Joak caught their painters and allowed them to drift abreast the quarters. Pitching and rolling in the swell, the fishermen forked the cod, haddock and pollock up into the deck pens—counting the catch as they threw the fish aboard. “A hundred an’ twenty-one!” sung out a fisherman. A couple of forks or “pews” spun over the rail, followed by the two dory-mates. “Tie yer dory astern,” said Captain Nickerson. “Go’n have a bite an’ spin aout four tubs. We’ll let go the anchor here.”

When the eight dories delivered their catch, there were five thousand pounds of cod, pollock and large haddock in the pens. Donald had never seen so many fish in his life before. “Is that a good catch, skipper?” he asked. The other pursed his lips. “Only fair,” he replied. “I’ve seen th’ whole quarter full o’ fish on two tubs, but it ain’t a good sign to strike fish right away. We’ll get a deck later.”

They anchored the schooner on the Bank and after furling sail, the gang bent and hoisted the trysail or riding sail, had a “mug up” of tea and cold victuals, and pulled away in their dories to set and haul their lines again. They were “on fish,” and when they left their buoyed trawls at nightfall, there was fifteen thousand pounds in the deck pens. After supper, the work of “dressing down,” splitting and salting the catch began.

Several kerosene torches with huge wicks were set alight on the cabin house; dressing tables were rigged, and the men, armed with sharp knives, commenced gutting and beheading and splitting open the fish. They were adepts at the work, and Donald watched them with wonder. “Slop!” a large cod would be slapped on to the table; a fisherman would seize it in his gloved hand and give it a slash with a knife across the throat and up the belly; his neighbour would scoop the viscera and gills out with one motion and snap the head off with another, and, when passed around the board, the beheaded and disemboweled fish would be whisked into a huge tub of salt water, split from nape to tail and scraped free from blood and adhering viscera. After a sousing in the tub, it would be hove out to drain in a pen alongside the fish room hatch, and finally it would be shot below, where the “salters” in the hold would pile it neatly in a pen, skin down, and cover it liberally with coarse salt.

The men worked like Trojans in the glare of the torches—gossiping and singing—and the low hum of their talk would be punctuated by a shout for a fresh knife, a drink of water, or a pipe or a chew of tobacco. The skipper seemed to be everywhere. One minute he would be pitching fish down into the hold; another time he would be slapping fish on to the dressing tables. He jumped around whetting knives, lighting torches, and occasionally gutted fish. “You ain’t forgot haow to split ’em, Cap!” remarked a man, complimenting his dexterity with the knife. Nickerson laughed. “When a feller has spent three years of his boyhood days doin’ this, he ain’t likely to forget—even though he has been deep-waterin’ since. I was two seasons with old Abner Westhaver in the Carrie Watson, and he kep’ a boy ahumpin’—believe me! I’ve split ten thousand pounds hand-runnin’ many a time with that ol’ Turk, an’ he wouldn’t let ye straighten yer back ’til the work was done.”

In the spells between assisting the men, Donald sat on the wheel-box and surveyed the scene. The schooner, with all canvas furled, except the try-sail on the main, rolled gently to the swell—her shining spars and new running gear outlined in the glare from the flaming torches. These flickering flares limned the rugged faces of the fishermen at work and illuminated the objects within their effulgent radius in the manner of Rembrandt. Decks gleamed wet like a city street on a rainy night; the slimy bodies of the fish and the oilskins of the men stood out vivid against the darkness where the light caught them. All around was the night—opaque, impalpable, and only definable when a heavier swell lifted its crest above the low quarter and caught the torch glow. Sea birds squawked in the blackness—quarrelling over the choice scraps of viscera dumped overside—and occasionally flying into the circle of light, so near that Donald could discern their unwinking, bead-like eyes as they poised for a moment above the rail. There were myriads of gulls around while they were dressing fish; when the work was done, they vanished. “Them beggars knows,” observed a fisherman to McKenzie. “They’ll keep away ontil they sees you begin to rig th’ dressing keelers, then they’re round in hundreds. Winter time’s th’ time for gulls ... don’t see ’em so much in summer. Stinkin’ Carey Chickens then ... hundreds of ’em. Fly agin yer face when dressin’ daown fish by torches an’ ’most choke ye with th’ carrion smell of ’em. Deep-water sailors think Carey Chickens are sacred. We fishermen take no ’count of ’em ... snip their heads off with th’ dress-knife when they flops in front of ye.”

When the last fish was below and in the salt, Donald cleaned up the decks and the men proceeded to bait up their gear and prepare bait for taking out with them on the morrow. Then, with draw-buckets of clean salt water, they washed their oilskins free of fish slime, wrung out their gloves and mittens, and went below to fo’c’sle and cabin for a mug-up, a smoke, and a long, satisfying “kink” in a warm, comfortable bunk. “Breakfast at two, boys,” Captain Nickerson said. “We’ll get the gear ’bout three an’ set an’ haul all day to-morrow. We’ve got to hustle day an’ night to trim Ira Burton.” And to McKenzie, he said, “Go’n turn into your pew, Don. I’ll keep watch ’til midnight, then I’ll give you a hail. We’ll catch up on sleep when the boys are out in the dories to-morrow.”

Donald rolled into his berth in the cabin after a “mug-up” of molasses cake and coffee from the “shack locker” or quick lunch cupboard in the forecastle. He felt tired but happy, and soon closed his eyes, lulled to slumber by the steady ticking of the cabin clock, the regular snores of his shipmates, and the gentle rolling of the vessel. As he slept he dreamed that he was skipper of a fishing schooner as big as the Kelvinhaugh, running a hundred dories, and that he had brought her in full of fish and had won Ira Burton’s money. Ruth Nickerson met him on the dock as he landed and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. With a satisfied “Um-hum!” he rolled his back to the light of the lamp and “sounded for forty fathoms,” while Nickerson paced the weather quarter, smoking and planning how he, a green fishing skipper, would “get to wind’ard” of an old fish-killer like Ira Burton.