“I may be, but I don’t think so,” said O’Donnell to that.
“You’re inside and you know it.”
“You’re a liar if you say I know it.”
O’Donnell had had trouble with the Lynx before, and had small patience with her captain. More words came out of it, and while they were talking back and forth another of the fleet a mile to the east’ard put out a boat.
The cutter went after him, her captain singing out as he went, “You wait here till I come back.” “Wait like hell!” said O’Donnell, “and this breeze making,” and continued to purse up. Pursed up, the fish aboard––there were forty or fifty barrels––he started off. One of those sudden breezes were springing up and it promised to be wind enough to suit anybody. We made out the Johnnie Duncan bearing down, intending no doubt to take off Clancy and me. But the cutter was coming toward 208 us then, and O’Donnell said we had better stay aboard or we would be picked up on the way by the cutter’s people and maybe get the Duncan and our skipper into trouble. That last––the thought that our skipper or the vessel might get mixed up in it––kept us aboard the Colleen Bawn.
The Lynx could steam as fast as any cutter they had on the Cape shore at that time, but the Colleen was a witch and O’Donnell a wonder at sailing her. So we stayed with O’Donnell and watched him and the cutter have it out. They had it, the cutter letting drive a shot every once in a while. The first shot, I remember, went whistling by the ear of one of O’Donnell’s crew who was standing back-to in the waist, and so astonished him, he not expecting it, that he fell into the forehold. He raised a great racket among a lot of empty barrels. The fall never hurt him, but the things he said when he came on deck again! O’Donnell made him lie flat––and then all of us but Clancy, who refused to lie down but compromised by leaning over the house and watching the cutter and making comments on her actions for the benefit of the rest of us. Through it all O’Donnell stood to the wheel and the nearest he came to honoring the cutter by a compliment was when he’d half turn his head, spit over the rail and swear at her. The wind and sea-way together were too 209 much for the cutter. The Colleen left her behind, and she at last drew off after bunching a few farewell shots.
O’Donnell then hove-to and took his seine-boat on deck. He had been towing it the wrong end foremost for the whole forty miles, and he was worried over it. “It’s strained her maybe––and she almost a new boat,” he lamented. “For the rest I don’t care. That lad had it in for me all along. The other one though, he’s decent––never bothers a man without a little reason. I was going home anyway for the race, and so it don’t matter. I suppose Maurice will be along soon, Tommie? Did you see him coming after the cutter––he held her fine and he in no trim. What’s it they say about Hollis beating the Johnnie yesterday? If he did, be sure he was specially prepared, and the Johnnie had an off-day. But I suppose he’ll be holding on now for Gloucester?”
Clancy said maybe, but no telling, and explained how it had been––the skipper’s discouragement after Hollis had beaten him.
O’Donnell said he was foolish to worry over a thing like that. “I know Sam Hollis,” he said––“’twas a trap he laid for Maurice. He’s got a smart vessel in the Withrow, but he can’t run away from Maurice. No, nor beat him I doubt––with both in trim. But wait a while––let the day of the 210 race get near and Maurice to thinking it over, and you’ll see him flyin’ home.”
We hoped so. For ourselves we went home on the Colleen. There was nothing else for us to do. We had quite a time of it that trip with O’Donnell. He sailed about five hundred miles out of his way––away to the eastward and s’uth’ard. There might be cruisers and cutters galore after him, he said––they might put out from Halifax, or telegraph ahead––you couldn’t tell what they might do, he said, and so he sailed the Colleen out to sea. But we came across the Bay one dark night without side-lights, and reached Boston all right. O’Donnell had a suit of sails stowed away in an East Boston wharf that he wanted to get out for the race. And also he didn’t like his new foremast and was going to have a new one put in if there was time.