et the mains'l stand and give it a chance to dry." Then he
looked about him. "And I didn't notice that anybody passed us on the
way." There was a whole lot in that last.

After eating a bite, I went over in the dory to the lighthouse on the
jetty, where seamen's mail was taken care of. After leaving my letters
I stopped to watch some of the fleet coming. It was easy enough to
pick them. The long, slick-looking, lively seine-boat in tow and the
black pile of netting on deck told what they were, and they came
jumping out of the mists in a way to make a man's heart beat.

There was a man standing on the jetty. He was master of a three-masted
coaster, he told me. "You come off one of them Gloucester
mackerel-catchers?" he asked me. I said yes. "That new-looking one
that came in a while ago?" I said yes again.

"I was watching her--she's a dream--a dream. I never see anything like
them--the whole bunch of 'em. Look at this one--ain't she got on about
all she can stand up under though? My soul, ain't she staggering! I
expect her skipper knows his business--don't expect he'd be skipper of
a fine vessel like that if he didn't. But if 'twas me I'd just about
take a wide tuck or two in that ever-lastin' mains'l he's got there.
My conscience, but ain't he a-sockin' it to her! I s'pose that's the
way some of your vessels are sailed out and never heard from
again--that was never run into, nor rolled over, nor sunk in a reg'lar
way, but just drove right into it head-first trying to make a passage
and drowned before ever they could rise again. Well, good-luck to you,
old girl, and your skipper, whoever he is, and I guess if your canvas
stays on you'll be to anchor before a great while, for you're making
steamboat time. Go it, old girl, and your little baby on behind, go
it! There ain't nothing short of an ocean liner could get you now. Go
it! a sail or two don't matter--if it's a good mackerel season I
s'pose the owners don't mind if you blow away a few sails. Go it, God
bless you! Go it! you're the lads can sail a vessel, you fishermen of
Gloucester. Lord, if I dared to try a thing like that with my vessel
and my crew and the old gear I got, I rather expect I'd have a
rigger's bill by the time I got home--if ever I got home carryin' on
like that in my old hooker."

I watched her, too. She was the Tarantula, Jim Porter, another
sail-carrier. Around the point and across she tore and over toward the
sands beyond, swung off on her he