Before we reached the dock we knew that the whole town had learned pretty much that half a dozen of the skippers had promised each other in Mrs. Arkell’s kitchen the night before, “No sail comes off except what’s blown off,” and there promised to be some blown off. Men who had only just heard their skippers speak of that were bragging of it in the streets. “Why,” said one of O’Donnell’s crew as we were coming down the dock, “if any crawly-spined crawfish loses his nerve and jumps to our halyards, thinkin’ the Colleen’s going to capsize––why, he’ll get fooled––and why? Because our halyards are all housed aloft––by the skipper’s orders.”
That sounded strong, but it was true. When we reached the end of our dock we looked for ourselves, and there it was. The Colleen’s crew had hoisted their mains’l already and there she lay swayed up and all ready, and men aloft were even then putting the seizing on. Tom O’Donnell himself was pointing it out to Sam Hollis with a good deal of glee, thinking, I suppose, to worry Hollis, who, to uphold his reputation, would have to do the same and take the chances that went with it. By this time everybody knew that Hollis had put his ballast back during the night. One of Wesley Marrs’s men jumped onto the Withrow and below and had a look for himself. He couldn’t get down 241 by way of the hatches––they were battened down––but he dropped into the forec’s’le and, before anybody knew what he was up to, he had slipped through the forehold and into the mainhold and there he saw where they had hurriedly put back the flooring, and he also saw extra barrels of sand tiered low for further stiffening of the Withrow. He was discovered before he got on deck and nearly beaten to a jelly before he got up on the wharf again. It ended in a fine little riot with some of our gang and O’Donnell’s mixing in. Clancy came down the back-stay like a man falling from the mast-head, so as to be into it before it was over. He was almost too late––but not quite. Only old Mr. Duncan coming along with half a dozen other dignified owners stopped it. But there was time for Clancy to speak his mind out to Sam Hollis. And that gave Hollis a chance to say, “Well, talk away, Tommie Clancy, but this is the day I make the Johnnie Duncan take in sail.” And Clancy answered him, “That so! Well, no matter what happens, put this down, Maurice Blake hangs to his canvas longer than Sam Hollis to-day––hangs to it or goes over with it or the spars come out of the Johnnie Duncan.”
After the talking was over we thought Hollis would be shamed into sending a man aloft to mouse his halyards too. But not for Hollis. That was 242 a little too much for him. Clancy and three or four others finished attending to our own halyards and overhauling the gear aloft. Our mains’l was already hoisted and the other three lowers with stops loosed were all ready to hoist too. The mains’l had been left standing just as it was when the Johnnie Duncan came in that morning. It was flat as a board, and I remember how grieved we were when we had to lower it again because the tug that came to give us a kick out from the dock could not turn us around with it up––it was blowing so. The tug captain said he might manage to turn it against the sun, but that would be bad luck of course, and he knew the crew wouldn’t stand for it, especially with a race like this on hand. It had to be with the sun; and so we had to lower it again, and when the vessel was turned around, hoist it again, not forgetting to lash the halyards aloft again too. But after we’d got it swayed up it didn’t set near so well as before––too baggy to our way of thinking.
XXXI
THE START OF THE RACE
We got away at last and beat out the harbor with the Lucy Foster, the Colleen Bawn, the Withrow, the Nannie O, and four others. For other company going out there was a big steam-yacht with Minnie Arkell and her friends aboard, which did not get out of the harbor. Out by the Point they shipped a sea and put back, with Minnie Arkell waving her handkerchief and singing out––“Don’t take in any sail, Maurice,” as they turned back. There was also the Eastern Point, a high-sided stubby steamer, at that time running regularly to Boston; and there was the New Rochelle, a weak-looking excursioner that might have done for Long Island Sound, where somebody said she’d just come from, but which didn’t seem to fit in here. Her passengers were mostly fishermen––crews of vessels not in the race. There was also a big powerful iron sea-tug, the Tocsin, that promised to make better weather of it than any of the others.
Billie Simms was one of the men who were not 244 going in the race but intended to see some of it. He was in the Henry Clay Parker, a fine-looking vessel that was not so very fast, but had the reputation of being wonderfully stiff. Coming out past Eastern Point lighthouse, where he could begin to get a look at things, Billie hollered out that he was sorry he hadn’t entered. “Looks to me like the vessel that’ll stay right side up the longest ought to win this race, and that’s the Henry C.” He hauled her across our stern while he was yelling and I remember she took one roll down to her sheer poles when passing on, and Maurice sang out, “Look out, Billie, or you’ll capsize her.”