She certainly was a great-looking model of a vessel, and “If she only sails and handles half so well as she looks, she’ll do for me,” said Maurice. “Yes, sir, and if she’s up to what I think she ought to be, I wouldn’t be afraid to bet my share of what 2 we make out South that she’ll hold her own with anything out of Gloucester––give her a few weeks to loosen up, of course.”
That was a good deal to say, for it was a great fleet of vessels sailing out of Gloucester; but even so, even allowing for a young skipper’s pride in his first crack vessel, it meant a whole lot coming like that from Maurice Blake.
And on top of all that Maurice and Withrow had to quarrel, though what about I never found out. I only know that I was ready to believe that Withrow was to blame, for I liked Maurice and did not like Withrow, even though Withrow was the man from whom I drew my pay every week. And yet I could not understand it, for Maurice Blake had been far and away the most successful skipper sailing for Withrow, and Withrow always had a good eye for the dollar.
No more came of it until this particular morning, some days after Maurice and Withrow had quarrelled. Wesley Marrs and Tommie Clancy, two men that I never tired of listening to, were on the dock and sizing up the new vessel. Wesley Marrs was himself a great fisherman, and master at this time of the wonderful Lucy Foster.
When she swings the main boom over
And she feels the wind abaft,
The way she’ll walk to Gloucester’ll
Make a steamer look a raft.
For she’s the Lucy Foster,