II
The Lucy Foster was lying into Big Whale Gut with Wesley Marrs chafing to complete his cargo. Five hundred barrels would just about fill her up—fill her up nicely.
A man in a rowboat came into the cove. The one sail on the boat had evidently been blown away, for only some strips of canvas were tied to the little mast.
Wesley Marrs, leaning against the main rigging of the Lucy, watched the weary oarsman approach.
“Looks as if he’d been boxin’ the compass in strange waters,” commented Wesley meditatively. “What’s wrong?” he hailed.
“Captain Marrs?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been three days looking for you, Captain Marrs. But I don’t cal’late you have such a thing as a drink of good liquor aboard, have you, Captain? I’m most famished.”
Wesley said no more—only led the way to the cabin and handed out a jug, a jug so full that from it the cork was yet to be taken for the first time. The messenger took the cork out and without help. He bit it out, and let the red rum of old Saint Pierre gurgle down after the manner in which all men said it should.
“Good?” asked Wesley.
The messenger sucked in his cheek and his lips kissed together lingeringly. “Good—m—m—you ought to try it yourself, Captain Marrs.”
Wesley did try it—a small, safe drink. “It is good, ain’t it?” and was about to put it back in the locker of his stateroom—was about to, but looking around and observing that wistful gathering he hadn’t the heart. Six of his own crew and a dozen natives were there, and they passed it along the locker, though not too rapidly. When Wesley got it back he “hefted” it. It felt pretty light. He shook it up. Gauging by sound was a good way, too, when the jug itself was heavy. It was light. “Lucky ’twas the little jug,” said Wesley, and he laid it at his feet with a sigh. “But what was it you was goin’ to say?” he asked of the boatman he had rescued from famishing.
“John Rose, of Folly Cove—you know him, Captain?”
“For more than twenty year. But what of him?”
“Well, John’s got five hundred barrels of as fine frozen herrin’ as ever a man laid eyes on, and he says for you to come and get ’em.”
“Five hundred barrels? Man, but that’s good news—better have another little touch.”
After that second drink, the boatman, who had been nursing a few little suspicions for two days now, thought he had better tell Captain Marrs of his meeting with Captain Glover. And he did, or rather began to. He was about one-quarter through when Wesley jumped for the companionway. “Break out the anchor and make sail,” ordered Wesley, and then, dropping back into the cabin, and suggesting to the boatman that he had better have one more drink, he started to fill his pipe. With his pipe going freely Wesley could think more rapidly—could fathom things more surely.
“Harry Glover,” said Wesley, to himself as he supposed, but really half aloud, “I know you, Harry Glover, and your father and your grandfather afore you, and all the rest of your fore-people on Cape Ann by hearsay, and not one of you I’d trust with so much as the price of a bait-knife—no. Now, let’s see— Glover, he’s got them herrin’.”
“But how’s he going to get ’em, Captain? John Rose is keepin’ ’em for you,” said the belated boatman at this point.
“Who in the devil,” began Wesley, but recovering himself, pushed the jug toward the messenger. “About one more drink is what you need, and that about empties the jug, too. Take it and keep quiet, or I’ll carry you up on deck and heave you over the rail, and heave the jug after you to make sure you go down.
“Let’s see, now”— Wesley resumed his meditations—“he’s got them herrin’ and off long afore this. Now, where’ll he go first? To Saint Peer? That’s it, to Saint Peer for a few cases of wine to take home. And then? To Canso, of course, to see that girl that’s makin’ such a fool of him. Yes, and he’ll make a great fellow of himself by givin’ a case of cassy wine to her people. It’s most Christmas-time, and he’ll make a great hit, and it won’t cost him too much—a dozen bottles of cassy. And then? Then he’ll tell the girl, and everybody else in Canso, that he’s the first vessel to leave Newf’undland with anything like a load of frozen herrin’ this winter. And he’ll be right—he’ll be easy the first to Gloucester this season—or oughter be. And ‘Let me tell you how I filled up,’ he’ll say, and go on to spin a fine yarn on how he got the best of Wesley Marrs. Never let on he lied and cheated, not Mister Glover. And they’ll think he’s a devil—yes, sir, a clean devil of a man. ‘And Wesley Marrs,’ he’ll go on to say, ‘Wesley’s all right—he can handle a vessel pretty well, can Wesley, but when he gets to figurin’ against Harry Glover—’” Wesley drew a breath—“If I get near enough to lay my hands on him and don’t welt the head off him, then may the dogfish get me and——”
“Anchor’s hove short up, sir,” came down the companion-way.
Wesley took the jug from the messenger and locked it up. Then he went on deck.
Five minutes later the Lucy Foster was off and away. “I’ll chase him,” muttered Wesley, “chase him clear to Gloucester, but I’ll get him,” and himself standing close to the wheel, he drove the Lucy out of Big Whale Gut and across Placentia Bay.
“Just a minute at Folly Cove to drop this blessed fool of a messenger John Rose sent, and just another minute to hail John himself and make certain, and then across the Gulf to Canso,” said Wesley, and stood on the Lucy’s quarter and watched her go along.