“Aye,” remarked Judson, “it’s a great snarl of canvas, an’ many a wealthy yachtsman would give a thousand dollars to be in that fleet racing for the Islands. This happens every spring in aour fisheries, an’ when they’re all anchored in Pleasant Bay of a night, their ridin’ lights make ’em look like th’ streets of a town.”
Within an hour, they passed the stragglers, and soon they came up with evidences of the blockade in the pieces of floating field ice which littered the sea ahead. As far as the eye could discern, the white pans of ice flecked the green of the water, but it was small and mushy and not particularly dangerous. A good look out was kept and the vessel was steered to avoid the large pieces, and by nightfall, she passed through them into clear water.
The May days slipped into the summer days of June and the West Wind wandered from Bank to Bank, with her crew working hard from daylight to dark. On Sundays they rested, though a good many fishermen work Sundays, yet Nickerson remarked, “We’re workin’ double-tides on this hooker, and a Sunday lay-off gives a feller a chance to rest up. We can work all the harder for it.”
“Do all the fleet work like we do?” enquired Donald.
“No, indeed they don’t,” replied the skipper. “We’re only driving like this because we’re out to win that bet. The other Bankers take it easier, an’ they loaf around a lot. You take it this spring. The fleet lay around Port Hawkesbury for a week doin’ nawthin’, then they’d lay around the Madaleens for another week, maybe. Then they’d run off to the Banks an’ fish their bait, an’ then some of them’ll start cruisin’ around Noof’nland ports for the capelin bait. In the blows, they’ll run in to port an’ lay ontil it’s over, but I don’t believe in that. I’d sooner ride it aout hove-to an’ keep the drift of her an’ hang on to the grounds. By using my knowledge of navigation, I can always make my berth again, but some of these other skippers have to run in to the land to get a new departure from which they’ll steer to the Banks again ... which wastes time. Then again, all these fellers won’t h’ist dories over in thick or hazy weather like we do, and if I hadn’t a good husky, willing gang, we wouldn’t do it either.”
“What counts in successful fishing—luck or work?”
“Luck—some,” replied Judson, “but mostly work. You take all the Gloucester an’ Lunenburg high-liners—they’re all hustlers. They work hard, skippers and men, and it pays them when the share checks are given aout. Some of those smart high-line skippers will make as much as two thousand dollars out of the summer’s fishin’, and if they fish winters as well, they’ll often make five thousand in the year. Haow many liner skippers are gettin’ a thousand pounds a year? I doubt if there’s a one! I claim this work ain’t as hard as when I was in th’ merchant service. What was I gettin’ as mate of that Kelvinhaugh? Nine ruddy pounds a month! Forty-five measly dollars! D’ye wonder at me gittin’ aout? What do you think?”
Donald looked over the summer sea at the dories, which here and there dotted its blue expanse. In every boat two men were pulling the lines up from the ocean floor and toiling like beavers. Not heart-breaking, hopeless toil, but work at which a man can sing, at which he is wresting silver dollars for his effort. Some of them were singing, and their voices carolled across the lazy water. When the heart is glad there is no hardship in toil! From the sea, he gazed on the schooner sluggishly rolling in the swell, with a cheeping of boom jaws and a pattering of reef-points on the great stretches of canvas which reared aloft. It was very quiet and peaceful. For’ard, McGlashan, in white apron, was shifting his galley funnel for a better draught, and he, too, was crooning a lay to—
“Bonnie wee Leezie—tha floo’er o’ Dundee!”
A delicious whiff of fresh-baked bread floated aft, suggestive of the good fare upon which they lived, and the summer breeze blew soft and warm. In the pens were a number of fine cod-fish awaiting the splitter’s knife, and on the cabin roof was a pillow where he and Judson had been dozing in the sunshine after the dories left the vessel. The memory of his days in the fishing fleet passed through his mind and they were pleasant memories. He thought of what he had seen of the sea in the past; thought of the rollicking, good-natured fellows he was now shipmates with, of Eastville and its people, and taking a deep breath, he replied, “This is the life, Skipper, and the more I see of it, the more I am convinced that you are a wise man!”