And now, my brave boys, comes the best of the fun,
It's hands about ship and reef topsails in one;
So it's lay aloft, topman, as the hellum goes down,
And clew down your topsails as the mainyard goes round.
--La Pique.
At the end of that week the Ethel and May had delivered at market her first fare of fish and her captains had divided her first shares. Mayo decided that the results were but of proportion to the modest returns. He was viewing the regeneration of the tribe of Hue and Cry. In their case it had been the right touch at the right time. For years their hopes had been hungry for a chance to make good. Now gratitude inspired them and an almost insane desire to show that they were not worthless drove them to supreme effort. The leaven of the psychology of independence was getting in its work.
The people of Hue and Cry for three generations had been made to feel that they were pariahs. When they had brought their fish or clams to the mainland the buyers were both unjust and contemptuous, as if they were dealing with begging children who must expect only a charitable gift for their product instead of a real man's price. Prices suited the fish-buyers' moods of the day. The islanders had never been admitted to the plane of straight business like other fishermen. They had always taken meekly what had been offered--whether coin or insults. Therefore, their labor had never returned them full values.
They who bought made the poor wretches feel that it constituted a special favor to take their fish at any price.
They seemed to come into their own that first day at market when the Ethel and May made her bigness in the dock at the city fish-house. Masterful men represented them in the dealings with the buyers. The crew hid their delighted grins behind rough palms when Captain Epps Candage bawled out bidders who were under market quotations; they gazed with awe on Captain Mayo when he read from printed sheets--print being a mystery they had never mastered--and figured with ready pencil and even corrected the buyer, who acknowledged his error and humbly apologized. No more subservient paltering at the doors of fish-houses!
Back home the women and the children and the old folks had a good roof over their heads; the fishers had the deck of a tidy schooner under their feet. Shiftlessness departed from them. After years of oppression they had found their opportunity. More experienced men would have found this new fortune only modest; these men grasped it with juvenile enthusiasm.
They were over the side of the schooner and out in their dories when more cautious trawlsmen hugged the fo'c'sle. On their third trip, because of this daring, they caught the city market bare on a Thursday and made a clean-up.
“I'm told that Saint Peter started this Friday notion because he was in the fish business,” stated Captain Candage, sorting money for the shares. “All I've got to say is, he done a good job of it.”
Mr. Speed, sailing as mate, always found ready obedience.
Smut-nosed Dolph never listened before to such praise as was lavished by the hungry men over the pannikins which he heaped.
Captain Mayo, casting up accounts one day, was honestly astonished to find that almost a month had passed since he had landed at Maquoit.
“That goes to show how a man will get interested when he is picked up and tossed into a thing,” he said to Polly Candage.
“You are making real men of them, Captain Mayo!” She added, with a laugh, “And you told me you were no kind of a hand at making over human nature!”
“They are doing it themselves.”
“I will say nothing to wound your modesty, sir.”
“Now I must wake up. I must! There's nothing worth while in the profit for both your father and myself. I want him to have the proposition alone. There'll be a fair make for him. I didn't intend to stay here so long. I guess I sort of forgot myself.” He went on with his figures.
“But I knew you could not forget,” she ventured, after a pause.
He glanced up and found a queer expression on her countenance. There were frank sympathy and friendliness in her eyes. He had revolved bitter thoughts alone, struggling with a problem he could not master. In sudden emotion--in an unpremeditated letting-go of himself--he reached out for somebody in whom to confide. He needed counsel in a matter where no man could help him. This girl was the only one who could understand.
“There may be letters waiting for me in the city--in the big city where I may be expected,” he blurted. “I haven't dared to send any.” He hesitated, and then gave way to his impulse. “Miss Polly, I haven't any right to trouble you with my affairs. I may seem impertinent. But you are a girl! Does a girl usually sit down and think over all the difficulties--when she doesn't get letters--and then make allowances?”
“I'm sure she does--when she loves anybody.”
“And yet it may seem very strange. I am worried out of my senses. I don't know what to do.”
She was silent for a long time, looking away from him and twisting her hands in her lap; she was plainly searching her soul for inspiration--and courage!
“You think she will understand the situation?” he insisted.
“She ought to.”
“But no word from me! Silence for weeks!”
Her voice was low, but she evidently had found courage. “I have not heard one word--not a letter has come to me--since I left my aunt's home.”
“Do you feel sure that he loves you just the same? You don't need letters?”
“Oh no! I don't need letters.”
“But in my case?”
“I could see that she loves you very much. She stood out before them all, Captain Mayo. That sort of a girl does not need letters.”
“You have put new courage in me. I believe you understand just how a girl would feel. You know a Yankee! He expects to find a friend just where he left him, in the matter of affection.”
“A girl does not need to be a Yankee to be that way in her love.”
“I can't sneak around to her by the back way--I can't do that!” he cried. “I don't want to be ashamed of myself. I don't want to bring more trouble to her. Don't you think she will wait for me until I can come--and come right!”
“She will wait for you, sir. It's the nature of women to wait--when they love.”
“But I cannot ask her to wait forever. That's why I must go away and try to make good.” He set his teeth, and his jaw muscles were ridged. “I believe a man can get what he goes after in the right spirit, Miss Polly.” He swing off the porch and left her.
The fog was heavy on shore and sea that day, holding the Ethel and May in port. He disappeared into the stifling mist, and the girl sat and stared into that vacancy for a long time.
Mayo rowed out to the schooner, which was anchored in the harbor roads. He was carrying his accounts to Captain Candage.
Standing and facing forward as he rowed, he came suddenly upon a big steam-yacht which had stolen into the cove through the fog and was anchored in his course. She was the Sprite, and he had formed a 'longshore acquaintance with her skipper that summer, meeting him in harbors where the Sprite and Olenia had been neighbors in the anchorage. He stopped rowing and allowed the dory to drift. He noted that the blue flag was flying at the main starboard spreader, announcing the absence of the owner, and he understood that he could call for the skipper without embarrassing that gentleman. One of the crew was putting covers on the brasswork forward.
“Compliments to Captain Trott, and tell him that Captain Mayo is at the gangway.”
The skipper appeared promptly, replying to the hail before the sailor had stirred. “Come aboard, sir.”
“I'll not bother you that much, captain. I can ask my question just as well from here. Do you know of any good opening for a man of my size?”
The captain of the Sprite came to the rail and did not reply promptly.
“I have left the Olenia and I'm looking for something.”
Captain Trott started for the gangway. “Oh, you needn't trouble to come down, sir.”
“I'd rather, Captain Mayo.” After he had descended he squatted on the platform at the foot of the ladder and held the dory close, grasping the gunwale. “What are you doing for yourself these days?”
Mayo had no relish for a long story. “I'm waiting to grab in on something,” he replied.
Captain Trott did not show any alacrity in getting to the subject which Mayo had broached. “It has set in pretty thick, hasn't it? I have been ordered in here to wait for my folks; they're visiting at some big estate up-river.”
“But about the chance for a job, captain!”
“Look here! What kind of a run-in did you have with the Olenia owner?”
Mayo opened his mouth and then promptly closed it. He could not reveal the nature of the trouble between himself and his former employer.
“We had words,” he said, stiffly.
“Yes, I reckon so! But the rest of it!”
“That's all.”
“You needn't tell me any more than you feel like doing, of course,” said Captain Trott. “But I have to tell you that Mr. Marston has come out with some pretty fierce talk for an owner to make. He has made quite a business of circulating that talk. I didn't realize that you are of so much importance in the world, Mayo,” he added, dryly.
“I don't know what he is saying.”
“Didn't you leave him in the night--without notice, or something of the kind?”
“It was an accident.”
“I hope you have a good story to back you up, Captain Mayo, for I have liked you mighty well ever since meeting you first. What is behind it?”
“I can't tell you.”
“But you can tell somebody--somebody who can straighten the thing out for you, can't you?”
“No, Captain Trott.”
“Well, you know what has happened in your case, don't you?” The skipper of the Sprite exhibited a little testiness at being barred out of Mayo's confidence.
The young man shook his head.
“Marston claims that you mutinied and deserted him--slipped away in the night--threw up your job on the high seas--left him to work to New York with a short crew--the mate as captain.”
“That's an infernal lie!”
“Then come forward and show him up.”
“I cannot talk about the case. I have my reasons--good ones!”
“I'm sorry for you, Mayo. You are done in the yachting game, I'm afraid. He'll blacklist you in every yacht club from Bar Harbor to Miami. I have heard my folks talking about it. He seems to have a terrible grudge--more than a big man usually bothers about in the case of a skipper.”
Mayo set his oar against the edge of the platform and pushed off. The skipper called after him, but he was instantly swallowed up by the fog and did not reply.
On board the Ethel and May his ragged but cheery crew were baiting up, hooking clams upon the ganging hooks, and coiling lines into tubs. The men grinned greeting when he swung over the rail. He scowled at them; he even turned a glowering look on Captain Candage when he met the latter on the quarter-deck.
“Yes, sir! I see how it is! You're getting cussed sick of this two-cent game here,” said Candage, mournfully. “I don't blame ye. We ain't in your class, here, Captain Mayo.” He took the papers which the young man held out to him. “I suppose this is the last time we'll share, you and me. I'll miss ye devilish bad. I'd rather go for nothing and let you have it all than lose ye. But, of course, it ain't no use to argue or coax.”
Mayo went and sat on the rail, folding his arms, and did not reply. The old skipper trudged forward, his head bowed, his hands clutched behind his back. When he returned Mayo stood up and put his hand on the old man's shoulder.
“Captain Candage, please don't misunderstand me. Just at present I feel that the only friends I have in the world are here. Don't mind the way I acted just now when I came on board. I have had a lot of trouble--I'm having more of it. I'm not going to leave you just yet. I want to stay aboard until I can think it all over--can get my grip. That is, if you're satisfied to have it that way!”
“Satisfied! Jumping Cicero!” exploded Captain Can-dage. He took the dory and rowed ashore. He found his daughter gazing into the fog from the porch of the widow's cottage. “He is going to stay a while longer,” he informed her, rapturously. “Something has happened. Do you suppose that girl has throwed him over?”
“Father, do you dare to chuckle because a friend is in trouble?”
“I'll laugh and slap my leg if he ever gets shet of that hity-tity girl,” he rejoined, stoutly.
“I am astonished--I am ashamed of you, father!”
“Polly dear, be honest with your dad!” he pleaded. “Do you want to see him married off to her?”
“I certainly do. I only wish I might help him.” Her lips were white, her voice trembled. She got up and hurried into the house.
“I'll be cussed if I understand wimmen,” declared Captain Candage, fiddling his finger under his nose. “That feller she has picked out for herself must be the Emp'ror of Peeroo.”
Captain Mayo did not come ashore again before the Ethel and May sailed.
The fog cleared that night and they smashed out to the fishing-grounds ahead of a cracking breeze, and had their trawls down in the early dawn. At sundown, trailed by a wavering banner of screaming gulls who gobbled the “orts” tossed over by the busy crew cleaning their catch, they were docking at the city fish-house.
“Lucky again,” commented Captain Candage, returning from his sharp dicker with the buyer. “The city critters are all hungry for haddock, and that's just what we hit to-day.” He surveyed his gloomy partner with sympathetic concern. “Why don't you take a run uptown?” he suggested. “You're sticking too close to this packet for a young man. Furthermore, if you see a store open buy me a box of paper collars. Rowley hain't got my size!”
Mayo, unreconciled and uneasy, hating that day the sound of the flapping, sliding fish as they were pitchforked into the tubs for hoisting, annoyed by the yawling of pulleys and realizing that his nerves were not right at all, obeyed the suggestion. He had a secret errand of his own, yielding to a half-hope; he went to the general-delivery window of the post-office and asked for mail. He knew that love makes keen guesses. The Olenia had visited that harbor frequently for mail. But there was nothing for him. He strolled about the streets, nursing his melancholy, forgetting Captain Candage's commission, envying the contentment shown by others.
In that mood he would have avoided Captain Zoradus Wass if he had spied that boisterously cheerful mariner in season. But the captain had him by the arm and was dancing him about the sidewalk, showing more affability than was his wont.
“Heifers o' Herod! youngster,” shouted the grizzled master, “have you come looking for me?”
“No,” faltered Mayo. “Did you want to see me?”
“Have worn taps off my boots to-day chasing from shipping commissioner's office to every hole and corner along the water-front. Heard you had quit aboard a yacht, and reckoned you had got sensible again and wanted real work.”
“If you had asked down among the fish-houses you might have got on track of me, sir.” Mayo's tone was somber.
“Fish! You fishing?” demanded Captain Wass, with incredulity.
“Yes, and on a chartered smack at that--shack-fishing on shares!” Mayo was sourly resolved to paint his low estate in black colors. “And I have concluded it's about all I'm fit for.”
“That's fine, seaman-like talk to come from a young chap I have trained up to master's papers, giving him two years in my pilot-house. I was afraid you were going astern, you young cuss, when I heard you'd gone skipper of a yacht, but I didn't think it was as bad as all this.”
“My yachting business is done, sir.”
“Thank the bald-headed Nicodemus! There's hopes of you. Did anybody tell you I've been looking for you?”
“No, sir!”
“Glad of it. Now I can tell you myself. Do you know where I am now?”
“I heard you were on a Vose line freighter, sir.”
“Don't know who told you that--but it wasn't Ananias. You're right. She's the old Nequasset, handed back to me again because I'm the only one who understands her cussed fool notions. First mate got drunk yesterday and broke second mate's leg in the scuffle--one is in jail and t'other in the hospital, and never neither of 'em will step aboard any ship with me again. I sail at daybreak, bade to the Chesapeake for steel rails. Got your papers?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Come along. You're first mate.”
“Do you really want me, sir?”
“Want you? Confound it all, I've got you! In about half a day I'll have all the yacht notions shaken out of you and the fish-scales stripped off, and then you'll be what you was when I let you go--the smartest youngster I ever trained.”
Mayo obeyed the thrust of the jubilant master's arm and went along. “I'll go and explain to Captain Can-dage, my partner.”
“All right. I'll go along, too, and help you make it short.”
As they walked along Captain Wass inspected his companion critically.
“High living aboard Marston's yacht make you dyspeptic, son? You look as if your vittles hadn't been agreeing with you.”
“My health is all right, sir.”
“Heard you had trouble with Marston,” proceeded the old skipper, with brutal frankness. “Anybody who has trouble with that damnation pirate comes well recommended to me. He is trying to steal every steamboat line on this coast. Thank Gawd, he can never get his claws on the old Vose line. Some great doings in the steamboat business are ahead, Mayo. Reckon it's a good line to be in if you like fight and want to make your bigness.”
Mayo walked on in silence. He was troubled by this added information that news of his affair with Marston had gained such wide currency. However, he was glad that this new opportunity offered him a chance to hide himself in the isolation of a freighter's pilot-house.
Captain Candage received the news with meek resignation. “I knowed it would have to come,” he said. “Couldn't expect much else. Howsomever, it ain't comforting.”
“Can't keep a good boy like this pawing around in fish gurry,” stated Captain Wass.
“I know it, and I wish him well and all the best!”
Their leave-taking, presided over by the peremptory master of the Nequasset, was short.
“I'll probably have a chance to see you when we come here again,” called Mayo from the wharf, looking down into the mournful countenance of the skipper. “Perhaps I'll have time to run down to Maquoit while we are discharging. At any rate, explain it all for me, especially to your daughter.”
“I'll tell all concerned just what's right,” Captain Candage assured him. “I'll tell her for you.”
She was on the beach when the skipper came rowing in alone from the Ethel and May.
“He's gone,” he called to her. “Of course we couldn't keep him. He's too smart to stay on a job like this.”
When they were on their way up to the widow's cottage he stole side-glances at her, and her silence distressed him.
“Let's see! He says to me--if I can remember it right-he says, says he, 'Take my best respects and '--let's see--yes, 'take my best respects and love to your Polly--'”
“Father! Please don't fib.”
“It's just as I remember it, dear. 'Especial,' he says. I remember that! 'Especial,' he says. And he looked mighty sad, dear, mighty sad.” He put his arm about her. “There are a lot of sad things in this world for everybody, Polly. Sometimes things get so blamed mixed up that I feel like going off and climbing a tree!”
