“Yes. And some one of them sees us going by in the dark. And we did go by, too! ‘Lord!’ says somebody––’twas Withrow himself––‘but if that don’t look like the ghost of Maurice Blake’s vessel!’ 234 ‘Yes,’ hollers back the skipper––and they must’ve been some surprised to hear him––‘and the ghost’ll be with you to-morrow in the race. Yes,’ the skipper says, ‘and we’re all ready for it. Four weeks since we’ve been on the ways and maybe a scrubbing wouldn’t hurt her, but if it keeps a-blowin’ who’ll mind that? Not the Johnnie.’ Oh, Tommie, if you’d seen her comin’ across the Bay of Fundy yesterday afternoon and last night. Did she come?––did she come? Lord––O Lord–––”
“And so that’s Withrow––got his vessel tuned up like a fiddle and now he’s putting extra ballast in her. Blast him and Hollis for schemers!” said Clancy. “And that’s how it comes they’re so ready to bet––stiffenin’ her so stiff for to-morrow that they know something’ll happen to the others first. But the Johnnie’s a bit stiff, too––and there’s no ballast out of her. And, as the skipper says, maybe we ain’t been on the ways for a few weeks now, but Lord, the Johnnie ought to be able to drag a few little blades of sea-grass on her hull in this breeze. And so we’re in the race, heh? Dave, I can’t stop to give you the pledge now––
Oh, the Johnnie Duncan fast and able,
Good-by, dear, good-by, my Mabel.“
And Clancy was the joyful man as he awoke the echoes in the gray of that stormy morning.
XXX
THE MORNING OF THE RACE
I don’t think that the people of Gloucester will ever forget the morning of that race, which, they will still tell you, was the only race ever sailed. Wind was what the fishermen wanted, and they got it––wind, and sea with it. The admiral of the White Squadron, then at anchor at Rockport Harbor, just around the Cape, stood on the bridge of his flagship that morning and looked out to sea. Somebody told him that the fishermen were going to race that day. He took another look. “Race to-day? Pooh! they’ll do well to stay hove-to to-day.” Of course, that ought to have settled it, the admiral having said it.