They came swooping in one after the other––like huge sea-gulls, only with wings held close. Now, with plenty of light, those already in could easily see the others coming long before they rounded the jetty. Even if we couldn’t see the hulls of them, there were fellows who could name them––one vessel after the other––just by the spars and upper rigging. The cut of a topsail, the look of a mast-head, the set of a gaff––the smallest little thing was enough to place them, so well were they acquainted with one another. And the distance at which some of them could pick out a vessel was amazing.
George Moore, coming up out of the forec’s’le to dump over some scraps, spied one. “The Mary 105 Grace Adams,” he sang out,––“the shortest forem’st out of Gloucester. She must’ve been well inside when she started––to get in at this time. Slow––man, but she is slow, that one.”
“Yes, that’s the old girl, and behind her is the Dreamer––Charlie Green––black mast-heads and two patches on her jumbo. She’ll be in and all fast before the Mary Grace’s straightened out.”
And so it was––almost. The Mary Adams was one of the older fleet and never much of a sailer. The Dreamer was one of the newer vessels, able, and a big sailer. They were well raked by the critics, as under their four lowers they whipped in and around and passed on by.
After the Dreamer came the Madeline, with “Black Jack” Hogan, a fleshy man for a fisherman, who minded his way and remained unmoved at the compliments paid his vessel, one of the prize beauties of the fleet. The Marguerite, Charley Falvey, a dog at seining, always among the high-liners, who got more fun out of a summer’s seining than most men ever got out of yachting, who bought all the latest inventions in gear as fast as they came out and who had a dainty way of getting fish. The Marguerite dipped her bow as she passed, while her clever skipper nodded along the line.
The King Philip, another fast beauty, made her 106 bow and dipped her jibs to her mates in harbor. At sight of her master, Al McNeill, a great shout goes up. “Ho, ho! boys, here’s Lucky Al! Whose seine was it couldn’t hold a jeesly big school one day off here last spring but Billie Simms’? Yes, sir, Billie Simms. Billie fills up and was just about thinking he’d have to let the rest go when who heaves in sight and rounds to and says, ‘Can I help y’out, William?’ Who but Lucky Al McNeill, of course. Bales out two hundred barrels as nice fat mackerel as anybody’d want to see. ‘Just fills me up,’ says Al, and scoots to market. Just been to New York, mind you, that same week with two hundred and fifty barrels he got twelve cents apiece for. ‘Just fills me up,’ says Al, and scoots. No, he ain’t a bit lucky, Captain Al ain’t––married a young wife only last fall.”
Then followed the Albatross, with Mark Powers giving the orders. Then the Privateer, another fast one, but going sluggishly now because of a stove-in seine-boat wallowing astern. Then the North Wind, with her decks swept clear of everything but her house and hatches. Seine-boat, seine and dory were gone.
After her was a big, powerful vessel, the Ave Maria, with the most erratic skipper of all. This man never appeared but the gossip broke out. Andie Howe had his record. “Here comes George 107 Ross. What’s this they say now?––that he don’t come down from the mast-head now like he used to, when he strikes a school. When I was with him he was a pretty lively man comin’ from aloft––used to sort of fall down, you know. But now he comes down gentle-like––slides down the back-stay. Only trouble now he’s got to get new rubber boots every other trip, ’count of the creases he wears in the legs of them sliding down the wire. I tell you they all lose their nerve as they get older. There’s Billie Simms coming behind him. He’s given up tryin’ to sail his vessel on the side and tryin’ to see how long he c’n carry all he c’n pile on. Billie says ’t’ain’t like when a fellow’s young and ain’t got any family. I expect it’s about the same with George since he got married.” The master of the Ave Maria didn’t even glance over as he piloted his vessel along. He very well knew that we were talking about him.
Pretty soon came one that everybody looked at doubtfully. She sported a new mainmast and a new fore-gaff. “Who’s this old hooker with her new spars? Looks like a vessel just home from salt fishing, don’t she? Lord, but she needs painting.” Nobody seemed to know who she was, and as she got nearer there was a straining of eyes for her name forward. “The H-A-R-B-I––oh, the Harbinger. Must be old Marks and the old craft he 108 bought down East last fall. This the old man, of course––the Harbinger. How long’s she been down here? Came down ahead of the fleet? Well, she ought to––by the looks of her she needs a good early start to get anywhere. They ought to be glad to get in. I mind that September breeze twenty year ago that the old man said blew all the water off Quero and drove him ashore on Sable Island. He says he ain’t taking any more line storms in his. No, nor anybody else in the old square-enders he gen’rally sails in. I’ll bet he’s glad to change winter trawling for summer seining. I’ll bet he put in a few wakeful nights on the Banks in his time––mind the time he parted his cable and came bumping over Sable Island No’the-east Bar? Found the only channel there was, I callate. ‘Special little angels was looking out for me,’ he says, when he got home. ‘Yes,’ says Wesley Marrs––he was telling it to Wesley––‘yes,’ says Wesley, ‘but I’ll bet keepin’ the lead goin’ had a hell of a lot to do with it, too.’”
So they came rolling in by the end of the jetty until they could make one last tack of it. Like tumbling dolphins they were––seiners all, with a single boat towing astern and a single dory, or sometimes two dories, lashed in the waist, all gear stowed away, under four lower sails mostly––jumbo, jib, fore and main, though now and then 109 was one with a mainsail in stops and a trysail laced to the gaff, and all laying down to it until their rails were washing under and the sea hissed over the bows.