“Gale. I’d go if it was a hundred gales. Good-by––and take care of yourself, dear.”
“And will you come back if you don’t find him?”
“Lord, Lord, how can I say? Can anybody say who’s coming back and who isn’t?”
He went by me and out the door. She looked after him, but he never turned––only plunged out of the house and into the street and I right after him.
XXXVIII
THE DUNCAN GOES TO THE WEST’ARD
Getting back to the vessel Clancy was pretty gloomy. “That’s settled. We can’t chase them as far to the east’ard as the big banks––a three hundred mile run to the nearest edge of it and tens of thousands of square miles to hunt over after we’d got there. And it would be child’s work anyway to ask Maurice to leave her on the bank. Who’d take his place even if Dave would stand for it? ’Twould mean laying up a dory or taking his dory-mate too. Maurice wouldn’t leave her anyway, even if he believed he’d never get home––no real fisherman would. And yet there it is––Dave in a devil of a mood, and a vessel according to all reports that won’t live out one good easterly. And there’s a crazy crew aboard her that won’t make for the most careful handling of a vessel. Oh, Lord, I don’t see anything for it, but, thank the Lord, Maurice has been behaving himself––and that in spite of how blue he must have been feeling. By this time he’s cert’nly made up his mind he’s with a pretty bad crowd, but maybe he’s glad of a 298 little excitement. What I don’t understand is how Dave ever left old man Luce’s place without breaking up the furniture before going away. Gen’rally that’s his style. Maybe Maurice being along had something to do with it––a pretty able man in close quarters is Maurice. Yes, he must be glad of the excitement, but Lord, that won’t save him from being lost. Oh, oh, and now what’ll we do? Let’s see, the Flamingo’s on the way to the Banks, and that’s the end of that chase. We’ve got to wait now and see that she comes home––or don’t come home––one or the other. I told that girl that I was going to put out––put out if it blew a hundred gales. And so I would if any good would come of it, but putting out to sea a day like this because you bragged you would––risking your vessel and crew, or making hard work for them if nothing else––that ain’t good sense, is it? Besides, I had to tell her something to get away without setting up to be a model of virtue. What else could I do? Women are the devil––sometimes––aren’t they, Joe? There’s some are. I suppose it wouldn’t do any great harm to head her for home. I don’t believe there’s going to be much more fish going to be seined this fall––and wouldn’t she make a passage of it in this easterly? Oh, Lord, it would be the race all over again, only ten times as long a drag.”