"Captains Courageous": A Story of the Grand Banks

light struck into the riding-sails of three fleets of anchored schooners - one to the north, one to the westward, and one to the south. There must have

ropes and blocks, and the splash of the oars carried for miles across the heaving water. The sails turned all colo

n, all heading one way; while men hailed and whistled and cat-called

Harvey. "Disko was r

nd men here; an' yonder's the Virgin." He pointed to a v

after friend, and anchored as nearly as a racing yacht at the end of the season. The B

the caplin," cried

wet?" asked t

th Dan, who had a lively tongue of his own, and inquired after their health by the town-nicknames they least liked. Manuel's countrymen jabbered at him in their own language; and even the silent cook was seen riding the jib-boom and shouting Gaelic to a friend as black as himself. After they had buoyed the cable - all around the Virgin i

perhaps that came from living so long with only the 'We're Heres'- among the scores of wild faces that rose and fell with the reeling small craft. A gentle, breathing swell, three furlongs from trough to barrel, would quietly shoulder up a string of variously painted dories. They hung for an instant, a wonderful frieze against the sky-line, and their men p

to leeward of the general crowd, and immediately three or four men began to haul on their anchors with intent to lee-bow the 'We're

red twenty voices. "L

as the boat flashed away to the so

's kinder shifty," said Dan, laughing. "Whale'

ver fish, and over a space of five or six acres the cod began to leap like trout in

ike freshly opened soda-water, and cod, men, and whales together flung in upon the luckless bait. Harvey was nearly knocked overboard by the handle of Dan's net. But in all the wild tumult he noticed, and never forgot, the wicked, set little eye - something

l fishing. Harvey could see the glimmering cod below, swimming slowly in droves, biting as steadily as they swam. Bank law strictly forbids more than one hook on one line when the dories are on the Virgin o

ected with some four or five neighbours. To cut another's roding is crime unspeakable on the Banks; yet it was done, and done without detection, three or four times that day. Tom Platt caught a Maine man in the black act and knocked him over the gunwale with an oar, and Manuel served a fellow-countryman in the same way.

rises to within twenty feet of the surface. The cod were there in legions, marching solemnly over the leathery kelp. When they bit, they bit all together; and so when they stopped. There was a slack time at noon,

cheerily: "Nick Bra-ady." It

pwicks?" That was

ady," sang

oup?" This was an unknown back

leased everybody. And when a poetical Beverly man - he had been making it up all day, and talked about it for weeks - sang, "The Carrie Pitman's anchor doesn't hold her for a cent" the dories felt that they were indeed fortunate. Then they had to ask that Beverly man how he was off for beans, because even poets must not have things all their own way. Every schooner and nearly every man got it in turn. Was there a careless or dirty cook anywhere? The dories sang about him and his food. Was a schooner badly found? The Fleet was told at full length. Ha

anchor, and rowed over the very rock itself. Many voices called them to come away, while others dared them to hold on. As the smooth-backed rollers passed to the southward, they hove the dory high and high into the mist, and dropped her in ugly, sucki

'?" he cried. "Pull for y

et. There was a deep sob and a gathering roar, and the Virgin flung up a couple of acres of foaming water, white, furiou

"She'll break about once every ha'af hour now, 'les the swell pil

you've seen the greatest thing on the Banks; an'

were ringing their bells. A big bark nosed cautiously out of the mist, and w

enchman?" s

lin'," said Dan. "We'll guy the very sticks out of her. Guess it'

and this tall, hesitating creature, with her white and gilt figurehead, looked just like a bewildered woman half lifting her skirts to cross a muddy street under the jeers of bad little boys. That was very m

' of? 'This is Le Have on a Sunda

in! Go home an' tel

chorus, as her stern went down with a roll and a

er your life! You'r

daown! Let go

ds to th

ib an' p

if he were insured; and whence he had stolen his anchor, because, they said, it belonged to the Carrie Pitman; they called his boat a mud-scow, and accused him of dumping garbage to fr

" her. They would have warned her at once had she been in real peril; but, seeing her well clear of the Virgin, they made the most of their chances. The fun was spoilt when

gers only too glad to make any refuge in the gale. The boys stood by the dory-tackles with lanterns, the men ready to haul, one eye cocked for the sweeping wave that would make them drop everything and hold on for dear life. Out of the dark would come a yell of "Dory, dory!" They would hook up and haul in a drenched man and a half-sunk boat, till their decks were littered down with nests of dories and the bunks were full. Five times in their watch did Harvey, with Dan, jump at the foregaff where it lay lashed on the boom,

parted their tackle and been blown to the southward, three days' sail. A man died on a Frenchman - it was the same bark that had traded tobacco with the 'We're Heres'. She slipped away quite quietly one wet, white morning, moved to a patch of deep water, her sails all hanging anyhow, and Harv

brig

a tou

et s'i

m'ent

ierge

oi pri

u, p

c, ad

dead man's kit,- he had no friends at St Malo or Miquelon,- and everything was spread out on the top of the house, from his red knitted cap to the leather belt with the sheath-knife at the back. Dan and Harvey were out on twenty-fathom water in the Hattie S., and naturally rowed over to j

ing under his oilskins, and they rowed on into the heart of a

e anchor, Harve, and we'll fish a piece till the thing lifts. Bend on your biggest lead. Th

's length in any direction. Harvey turned up his collar and bunched himself over his reel with the air of a wearied navigator. Fog had no special terror

id Harvey. "How did

with the bright blade. "They don't fancy takin' iron from off a dead

aking anythink off a de

o' superstition. That's one o' the advantages o' livi

Thatcher,

Point come

' boys we so

r off Ca

bid, then? He bought his boo

eir haouses in Maine. I've seen 'em. The Eastport man he told me that the knife had

kle." Harvey hauled in his f

en I heard that I was k

ing round. "I'll give you a dollar for it when I

der got it for you - to give; but I didn't let on till I saw how you'd take it. It's yours and w

t out, be

here. Dan,

" The temptation was irresistible. "Dan, you're a whi

t laugh; and then, anxious to change the subjec

and with deep delight heard the tip of the sheath click on the thwart. "Concern the thing!

way 'f he's sulky. Thet's no strawberry-bottom. Yank her once or t

at each turn on the cleats, and

before! The hook had caught him under the right armpit, and he swayed, erect and horrible, head and shoulders above water. His arms were tied to his side, and -

said Harvey with quivering lips, as

Dan, "be quick. He's come for i

want it!" cried Harvey. "I

ve! He's on

ast still," he whispered to Dan, who slipped out his knife and cut the line, as Harvey flung the belt

a stale one hauled up on a trawl and I di

taken the knife. Then he

r. We're both scared out o' ten years'

look at here, Dan; it couldn't hav

ard o' the Fleet, an' we're two miles from where she's lyin' now. Th

with the knife - up

ake it with him to the Judgment, an' s

overboard,"

We sha'n'

le I was takin' the belt off. You can keep y

, but threw his

g 'u'd lift. Things go abaout in a fog that ye don't see in clear weather - yo-hoes an' hollerers

f him now. 'Wish I was safe aboar

. Gimme the tooter." Dan took the tin

y. "I don't want to

blow a horn to the dories, becaze the skipper - not the man he was with, but a captain that had run her five years before - he'd

through the fog. They cowered again,

ied Harvey; "

et fool tale, either," said Dan

Dan! Harve! Harve

heard oars, but could see nothing till the

" said he. "You wil

"Anything homey's good enough fer us. We've had kinder depressin'

hiss knife," was al

e had given the more striking points of the tale, explaining as he backed and bumped round the counter how Harvey was the mascot to destroy any possible bad luck. So the boys came override as rather uncanny heroes, and every one asked them questions instead of pounding them for making trouble. Little Penn delivered quite a speech on the folly of superstitions; but public opinion was against him and in favour of Long Jack, who told the most excrucia

an, as they turn

ess and Catholic

ad St. Malo deck-hand scarin' a couple o' pore boys stiff fer the sake of a thirty-cent kni

r ashamed of the ceremonies, and went to work

ined. Harvey could not see how one more fish could be crammed into her, but Disko and Tom Platt stowed and stowed, and planked the mass down with big stones from the ballast, and there was always "jest another day's work." Disko did not tell them when all the salt was wetted. He rolled to the lazarette aft the cabin and began hauling out the big mainsail. This was at ten in the morning. The riding-sail was down and the main - and topsail were up by noon, and dories came alongside with letters for home, envying their good

o! Send your l

ted, an' the anchor

r mains'l, we're b

een hunde

en hunder

er' toppin

'Queereau

ssages to their wives and womenfolks and owners, while the 'We're Here' finished the musical rid

t by south under home canvas, were two very different boats. There was a bite and kick to the wheel even in "boy's" weather; he could f

dfast way through gray, gray-blue, or black hollows laced across and across with streaks of shivering foam; or rubbing herself caressingly along the flank of some bigger water-hill. It was as if she said: "You wouldn't hurt me, surely? I'm only the little 'We're Here'." Then she would slide away chuckling softly to herself till she was brought up by some fresh obstacle. The dullest of folk cannot see this kind of thing hour after hour through long days without noticing it; and Harvey, being anything but dull, began to comprehend and enjoy the dry chorus of wave-tops turning over w

ainbow arching unbroken over her windlass. Then the jaws of the booms whined against the masts, and the sheets creaked, and the sails filled with roaring; and when she slid in

d Sicily; found a friendly northeaster off Artimon Bank that drove them within view of the East light of Sable Island,- a sight Disko did not linger ove

you'll be hirin' a boy to throw water on the windows to make ye go to sleep. 'Guess yo

. His eyebrows were all

your toes then. Ma'll hev a new one fer me, all washed soft. It's home, Harve. It's home! Ye can sense it in the air. We're

lightning of mid-August. They lay on the deck with bare feet and arms, telling one another what they would order at their first meal ashore; for now the land was in plain sight. A Gloucester swordfish-boat drifted alongside, a man in the

the fish-sheds, with the broken line of house-roofs, and each spar and buoy on the water, in blinding photographs that came and went a dozen times to the minute as the 'We're Here' crawled in on half-flood, and the whistling-buoy moan

" said Disko, sudden

ut?" said

. They can see us

He's no folk to Gl

in' to be marri

ittle flag half-mast for the sake of Otto, swept o

land close round him once more, with all its thousands of people asleep, and the smell of earth after rain, and the familiar noise of a switching-engine coughing to herself in a freight-yard; and all those things made his heart beat and his throat dry up as he stood by the foresheet. They heard

ther, and she had seen the 'We're Here' by the lightning flashes. She took no notice of Harvey till he had recovered himself a little and Disko had told her his story. Then they went to Disko's house together as the dawn was bre

en him a few days to swallow them; so all hands played about the streets, and Long Jack stopped the Rocky Neck trolley, on principle, as he said,

way," said Troop, pensively. "Sence we've come

ine," said Uncle Salters, sourly.

ur own flesh an' blood ha' warned ye! 'Tain't any o' my fault ef you're mistook, but I'll be on deck to watch ye. An' ez fer yeou, Uncle Salters, Pharaoh's chief butler ain't in it 'longs

"You're gettin' ez crazy as poor Harve. You two go araound gigglin' an' squinchin' a

less - fer some folks," Dan

erry bushes to the lighthouse, and lay down on the big red boulders and laughed themselves hu

y don't amount to much of anything, or we'd ha' heard from 'em by naow. His pop k

d Salters. "Don't sputter