Oh, hi-diddle-di for a good old craft
She’d ’ve sailed very well with her bow on aft.“
There was a long story to the Eliza Jane, but Clancy did not finish it. Maybe he felt that it was not in harmony with that lowering sky or that flashing sea. Maybe, too, in the waters that rolled and the wake that smoked was the inspiration for something more stirring. At any rate he began, in a voice that carried far, an old ballad of the war of 1812.
Two or three more stanzas to warm up, and the fight was on. And you would think Clancy 141 was in it. He laid every mast and yard of the enemy over the side of her, he made her decks run with blood, and at the last, in a noble effort, he caused her to strike her flag.
By the time he had finished that, it happened that we were running before the wind, and, going so, it was very quiet aboard the vessel. There was none of the close-hauled wash through her scuppers, nor was there much play of wind through stays and halyards. It was in fact unusually quiet, and it needed only that to set Clancy off on a more melancholy tack. So in a subdued voice he began the recitation of one of the incidents that have helped to make orphans of Gloucester children:
“Twelve good vessels fighting through the night
Fighting, fighting, that no’the-east gale;
Every man, be sure, did his might,
But never a sign of a single sail
Was there in the morning when the sun shone red,