Our boat was gaining on the Aurora’s and the skipper was warming up. The fish was going the same way we were, still a quarter of a mile ahead.
“Drive her,” said the skipper. “Drive her––drive her––another length and you got ’em. And, Kenney, it’s the best of ash you’ve got. Don’t be afraid of breaking it. And, Dan Burns, didn’t y’ever learn to keep stroke in the Bay of Islands with nine more men beside you rowing? And drive her––hit her up now––here’s where we got ’em––they can’t hold it on their lives. Now then, another dozen strokes and it’s over. One, two, three––quicker, Lord, quicker––six, seven––oh, now she’s fair flying––look at her leap. You blessed lobster, keep rowing and not looking over your shoulder. We got to get the fish first.”
A quarter mile of that with the foam ripping by us, and every man with his blood like fire jumping to his oar, when the skipper leaped back to the steering oar. “Stand by,” he called, and then, “Now––over with the buoy,” and over it went, with the dory at hand and Tommie Clancy right there to pick it up and hold it to windward. And then went the seine over in huge armfuls. Just to see Long Steve throw that seine was worth 79 a trip South. And he was vain as a child of his strength and endurance. “My, but look at him!” Clancy called out––“look at the back of him!” “He’s a horse,” somebody else would have to say, and “H-g-gh,” Steve would grunt, and “H-g-gh” he would fill the air full of tarred netting, “H-g-gh––pass them corks,” and over it would go, “H-g-gh,” and the skipper would say, “That’s the boy, Steve,” and Steve would heave to break his back right then and there. All the time they were driving the seine-boat to its limit, and the skipper was laying to the big steering oar, the longest of them all and taking a strong man to handle it properly––laying to it, swinging from the waist like a hammer-thrower, and the boat jumping to it. She came jumping right for us in the dory in a little while. It doesn’t take a good gang long to put a quarter mile of netting around a school of mackerel.
It was a pretty set he made. “Pretty, pretty,” you could almost hear the old seiners saying between their teeth, even as they were all rowing with jaws set and never a let-up until the circle was completed, when it was oars into the air and Clancy leaping from the dory into the seine-boat to help purse up. “It’s a raft if ever we get ’em,” were his first words, and everybody that wasn’t too breathless said yes, it was a jeesly raft of fish.
“Purse in,” it was then, and lively. And so we pursed in, hauling on the running line in the lower edge of the seine, something as the string around the neck of a tobacco bag is drawn tight. It was heavy work of course, but everybody made light of it. We could not tell if the fish were in it or not. The leaders might have dove when they felt the twine against their noses and so escaped with the whole school following after, or they might have taken no alarm and stayed in.
So we pursed in, not knowing whether we were to have a good haul with a hundred or a hundred and fifty dollars apiece at the end of it, or whether we would have our work for nothing. All hands kept up the pretence of joking, of course, but everybody was anxious enough. It was more than the money––it was fisherman’s pride. Were we to get into New York and have it telegraphed on to Gloucester for everybody that knew us to read and talk about––landing the first mackerel of the year? We watched while the circle narrowed and the pool inside grew shallower. Somebody said, “There’s one,” and we could see the shine of it, and another––and another––and then the whole mass of them rose flipping. They lashed the water into foam, rushed around the edges, nosed the corks of the seine. I don’t think myself that mackerel are particularly intelligent, take them 81 generally; but at times they seem to know––these fellows, at least, seemed to know they were gone and they thrashed about in fury. A mackerel is a handsome fish any time, but to see him right you want to see him fresh-seined. They whipped the water white now––tens of thousands of them. I don’t believe that the oldest seiner there didn’t feel his heart beat faster––the first mackerel of the year. “And Lord knows, maybe a couple of hundred barrels,” and the skipper’s eyes shone––it meant a lot to him. And some of the men began to talk like children, they were so pleased.