Classic Audiobook Collection - The Trawler by James Brendan Connolly ~ Full Audiobook [drama]

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

The Trawler by James Brendan Connolly audiobook. Genre: drama In Gloucester, Massachusetts, the news comes ashore like a breaker in the night: Arthur Snow, a young bank fisherman, has been swept from the deck of the trawler Arbiter and lost at sea. His father, John Snow, and his niece, Mary, receive the story with grief - and with anger aimed at the vessel's skipper, Hugh Glynn, a towering, fiercely proud captain whose hunger to outwork and outrun every other craft has earned him both admiration and fear. When Glynn himself arrives to speak with the Snows, the tragedy turns into a reckoning, forcing everyone to weigh seamanship against ambition, and pride against responsibility. Watching it all is Simon Kippen, Arthur's close friend, who feels the pull of loyalty and unfinished duty. Determined to understand what took Arthur - and to prove what kind of man he will be - Simon asks for Arthur's place aboard Glynn's vessel as a dory mate, sailing into the brutal, routine danger of the Grand Banks. Between Gloucester and Newfoundland, amid hard weather, harder labor, and the tight bonds of men who risk everything for a share, Simon must face the sea, the skipper, and his own conflicted heart. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:03:16) Chapter 2 (00:17:02) Chapter 3 (00:41:38) Chapter 4 (00:58:41) Chapter 5 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the trawler by james brendon connelly chapter i to john snow's home in gloucester came the tale this night of how arthur snow was washed from the deck of hugh glynn's vessel and lost at sea and it was saul haverick his sea-clothes still on him who brought the word i'm telling you john snow said saul and he out of breath almost with the telling and others than me will by and by be telling you what a black night it was with a high-running sea and wind to blow the last coat of paint off the vessel but of course he had to be the first of the fleet nothing less would do for him to make the market with his big catch it was for others not for him to show the way to take in sale he said and not a full hour before it happened that was such was saul haverick's ending john snow said nothing mrs snow said nothing saul looked to me but i gave no sign that i had heard him only john snow's niece mary looking up from her hands folded in her lap said surely you must find it painful saul haverick to ship with such a wicked man and take the big shares of money that fall to his crew. "'Eh,' said Saul, frightened like at her.

"'I'm not denying that he is a great fish-killer, Mary Snow, and that we haven't shared some big trips with him. But it's like his religion, I'm telling you, to be able to say how he allowed no man ever he crossed tacks with to work to windred of him. He's that vain he'd drive vessel, himself, and all hands to the bottom, afore he'd let some folks think anything else of him,

"'He lost my boy, we'll say no more of him,' said John Snow. "'Aye,' said Saul Havrick, "'will speak no more of him. "'But I was Arthur's dory mate, John Snow, as you well know, "'and my heart is sick to think of it. "'I'll be going now.' "'And go he did, softly and by way of the back stairs, and he no more than gone when a knock came to the door.

After a time, the clock and the mantle ticking loud among us, John Snow called out, Come in! End of Chapter 1. Recording by Roger Maline. Chapter 2 of The Trailer This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Maline. The Trailer by James.

Brendan Connelly Chapter 2 I remember how Hugh Glynn stepped within the door of John Snow's kitchen that night, and how he bent his head to step within, and, bending his head, took off his cap, and how he bowed to John Snow, Mrs. Snow, and Mary's Snow, in turn, and, facing John Snow, made as if to speak, but how his voice would not come,

not until he had lifted his head yet higher and cleared his throat. And beginning again, he took a step nearer the middle of the floor to where the light of the bracket lamp above the kitchen table shone full on his face. He was a grand man to look at, not only his face, but the height and build of him, and he was fresh in from sea. "'John Snow, and you, Mrs. Snow?' the arbiter's to anchor in the stream and her flags to half-mast and knowing that maybe there's no need to say anything more mrs snow said nothing mary snow said nothing but i remember how from under john snow's brows the deep eyes glowed out go on said john snow at last

hugh glynn went on well he was a good boy your arthur maybe you'd like to be told that even by me though of course you that was his father john snow and you that was his mother mrs snow know better than anybody else what he was three nights ago it was and we to the south of sable island in as nasty a breeze as i'd been in for some time a living gale it was a november norwester you know what that is john snow but i'd all night been telling the crew to be careful for a sea there was to sweep to eternity whoever it could have caught loose around deck i could have hove her too and let her lay but i was never one to heave to my vessel not once i'd swung her off for home and there god help me is maybe my weakness she was under her gaff topsail but i see she couldn't stand it boys says i clew up that topsail which they did and put it in gaskets and your arthur i mind was one of the four men's to go aloft to clue it up. Never a lad to shirk, was Arthur. Well, a stouter craft of her tonnage than the arbiter may never lived,

nor no gear any sounder, but there are things of gods that the things a man were never meant to hold out against. Her jib flew to ribbons. Cut it clear, I says, and nigh half the crew jumped forward. Half a dozen of the crew to once, but arthur your arthur your boy mrs snow your son john snow he was quick enough to be among the half dozen among a smart crew he was never left behind it looked safe for us all then coming on to morning but who can ever tell fishermen's lives they're expected to go fast but they're men's lives for all that and have a care i called to them

myself to the wheel at the time where god knows i was careful well i saw this big fellow comin a mountain of water with a snow-white top to it against the first light of the mornin and i'm made to meet it a better vessel than the arbiter the hand a man never turned out all gloucester knows that but her best and my best there was no lifting her out of it like great pipe-organs are roaring the sea came and over we went over we went and i heard myself saying god in heaven you great old wagon but are you gone at last and said it again when maybe there was a fathom of water over my head her quarter was buried that deep and she that long coming up slow coming up she was was though up she came at last at last but a man was gone he had stopped but he went on it was arthur john snow and you mrs snow who was gone the boy you were expecting to see in this very room by now he was gone little arthur that ten years ago when i first saw him i could have swung to the ceiling of this room with my one finger little arthur was gone well over with a dory i said and gale and all we over with a dory with three of us in it we looked and looked in that terrible dawn but no use no man short of the son of god himself could a state afloat oilskins and red jacks in that sea but we had to look and coming aboard the dory was stove in smashed

lego was a china teacup and not a new banker's double dory against the rail and it was cold our frost-bitten fingers slipped from her ice-wrapped rail and the three of us nigh came to joining arthur and lord knows a sin maybe you'll say to think it john snow but i felt then as if i'd just as soon for it was a hard thing to see a man go down to his death maybe through my foolishness and to have the people that love him to face in the telling of it that's hard too he drew a great breath and again a deep breath and a deepened note of pain that's what i've come to tell you john snow and you mrs snow how your boy arthur was lost john snow at the kitchen table i remember one finger still in the pages of the black-lettered bible he had been reading when hugh glynn stepped in dropped his head on his chest and there let it rest mrs snow was crying out loud mary snow said nothing nor made a move except to sit in her chair by the window and look to where in the light of the kitchen lamp hugh glynn stood there was a long quiet hugh glynn spoke again twenty years john snow and you mrs snow twenty good years i've been fishing out of gloucester and in that time not much this side the western ocean i haven't laid a vessel's keel over from greenland to hatteras i've fished and many smart seamen i've been shipmates with dory bunk and watchmates with in days gone by

and many a grand one of em i've known to find his grave under the green-white ocean but never a smarter never an abler fisherman than your boy arthur boy and man i knew him and boy and man he did his work i thought you might like to hear that from me john snow and not much more than that can i say now except to add maybe that when the lord calls john snow we must go all of us the lord called and arthur went he had a good life before him if he'd lived he'd have had his own vessel soon could have had one before this if he'd wanted but no he says i'll stay with you yet a while captain hugh he loved me and i loved him i'll stay with you yet awhile captain hugh he says but staying with me he was lost and if i was old enough to have a grown son of my own if twas that little lad who lived only long enough to teach me what it is to have hope of a fine son and then to lose him if it was that little lad o mine grown up i doubt could i feel it more john snow john snow let slip his book and stood up and for the first time looked fair at hugh glynn we know captain glynn john snow said and i'm thanking you now it's hard on me hard on us all but our only son captain our only child but doubtless it had to come some goes young and some goes old

it came to him maybe earlier than we ever thought for or he thought for no doubt but it come and what you have told us captain is something for a man to be hearing of his son and to be hearing it from you and only this very night with the word of you come home my mind was hardening against you captain glen for no denying i've heard hard things even as i've heard great things of you but now i've met you i know they mixed lies in the telling captain glen and as for arthur john snow stopped as for arthur it was something to listen to the voice of hugh glynn then so soft there was almost no believing it as for arthur john snow he went as all of us will have to go if we stop long enough with the fishing i no doubt as you may go yourself captain as i expect to go john snow to be lost some day what else should i look forward to a black outlook captain maybe maybe and yet a man's death at the last so it is captain so it is john snow and hugh glynn gripped hands looked into each other's eyes and parted hugh glynn out into the night again and john snow with mrs snow to their room from where i could hear her sobbing i almost wanted to cry myself but mary snow was there i went over and stood behind her she was looking after some one through the window it was hugh glynn walking down the steep hill

turning the corner below i remember how he looked back and up at the window for a long silence mary snow sat there and looked out when she looked up and noticed me she said it's a hard life the bank fishing simon the long long nights out to sea the great gales and when you come home no face it may be at the door to greet you that it is mary i saw his wife one day simon said mary snow softly and the little boy with her but a week before they were killed together that was six years ago and he the great tall man striding between them a wonderful lovely woman and a noble couple i thought and the grand boy and i at that heedless age simon it was a rare person be it man or woman i ran ahead to see again come from the window mary i said to that and we'll talk of things more cheerful no no simon don't ask me to talk of light matters to-night with that and a good night she left me for her room out into the street i went john snow's house stood at the end of a street atop of a steep hill and i remember how i stood on the steps of john snow's house and looked down the slope of the hill and below the hill to the harbor and beyond the harbor to close to close to close to clear water. It was a cold winter moonlight, and under the moon, the sea heaved and heaved,

there was no break in the surface of that sea that night, but as it heaved, terribly slow and heavy, I thought I could feel the steps beneath me heaving with it. End of Chapter 2, recording by Roger Maline. Chapter 3 of The Trailer This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Maline The Trailer by James Brendan Connelly Chapter 3

All that night I walked the streets and roads of Cape Anne Walking where my eyes would lose no sight of that sea to which I had been born And thinking, thinking, thinking always to the surge and roar of it, and in the morning i went down to where hugh glynn's vessel lay in dock and hugh glynn himself i found standing on the string piece holding by the hand and feeding candy to the little son of one of his crew the while half a dozen men were asking him one after the other for what i too had come to ask my turn came i never met you to speak to before captain glynn i've never met you to speak to before captain glynn i've been to you to speak to before captain glynn i've been began. But I was a friend of Arthur Snow's, and I was hopeful for the chance to ship with you in Arthur's place. My name is Simon Kippen, I went on, when he made no answer. I was in John Snow's kitchen when you came in last night. I know, he waved the hand that wasn't holding

the little boy. I know, and, he almost smiled, you're not afraid to come to to see with me why more afraid i said than you to take me with you you were a great friend of arthur's a friend to arthur and more if i could i answered he had a way of throwing his head back and letting his eyes look out as from a distance or as if he would take the measure of a man twas so he'd looked out at me now he's a hard case of a man shouldn't you say simon kippen who would play a shipmate foul i said nothing to that and master or hand we're surely all shipmates he added to which again i said nothing will you take sol haverick for dory mate he said again i bear sol haverick no great love i said but i have never heard he wasn't a good fisherman, and who should ask more than that of his mate in a dory? He looked out at me once more from the eyes that seemed so far back in his head, and from me he'd look to the flag that was still to the half-mast of his vessel for the loss of Arthur Snow.

We might ask something more in a dory mate at times, but he is a good fisherman, he answered at last. a good hand to the wheel of a vessel too a cool head in danger and one of the best judges of weather ever i sailed with we're putting out in the morning you can have the chance as to what was in my heart when i chose to ship with hugh glynn i cannot say there are those who tell us how they can explain every heart-beat quick or slow when aught ails them i never could i only know that standing on the steps of mary snow's house the night before all my thought was of mary snow sitting at the window and looking down the street after hugh and god help you simon kippen i found myself saying it's not you nor sal haverick nor any other living man will marry mary snow while hugh glynn lives for there is no striving against the strength of the sea and the strength of hugh glynn is the strength of the sea but of what lay beyond that in my heart i could not say and now i was to sea with hugh and we were not four days out of gloucester when as if but to show me the manner of man he was he runs clear to the head of placentia bay in newfoundland for abating on our way to the banks and whoever knows placentia bay knows what that means, with the steam-cutters of the crown patrolling, and their sleepless watches

night and day aloft, to trap whoever would try to buy a baiting there against the law. No harm fell to Hugh Glynn that time. No harm ever fell to him, fishermen said. Before ever the cutters could get sight of him, he had sight of them, and his bait stowed below, safe away he came. driving wild-like past the islands of the bay with never a side-light showing in the night and not the first time he had done so what do you say to that simon didn't we fool em good he asked when once more we were on the high seas and laying a free course for the western banks i'm grateful you did not ask me to go in any dory to bring the bait off i answered why is that simon he asked as one who has no suspicion it was against the law captain glen but a bad law simon law is law i answered to that he walked from the wheel where i was twice to break of the vessel and back again and said in a voice no louder than was needful to be heard above what loose water was splashing over her quarter to my feet don't be put out with me for what i'll tell you now simon you're a good lad simon and come of good people but of people that for hundreds of years have thought but one way in the great matters of life and when men have lived with their mind set in the one way so long simon it comes hard for them to understand any other way

such unfrequent ones as differed from your people simon than they cast out from among them i know i know simon because i come from people something like to them only i escaped before it was too late to understand that people who split tacks with you do not always do it to fetch up on a lee shore and from those other people no doubt captain glen you learned it was right to break a country's laws? It wasn't breaking our country's law, Simon, nor any good man's law, to get a baiting last night. There are a lot of poor fishermen, Simon, as none know better than yourself, in Placentia Bay, who have bait to sell, and there is a law which says they must not. But whose law? An American law? No. God's law? No. The law of the law of the law. The law of those poor people in Placentia Bay? No. Some traders who have the making of the laws? Yes. And there you have it. If the Placentia Bay fishermen aren't allowed to sell bait to me,

or the like of me, they will have to sell it to the traders themselves, but have to take their one dollar, where we of Gloucester would pay them five, and paying it would give some of them and their families a chance to live. He stood there in his rubber boots to his hips, and his long great coat to his ankles. He was one who never wore oil-skins aboard ship, swinging with the swing of the plunging vessel as if he was built into her,

and with his head thrown back and a smile, it may be that was not a smile at all, and kept looking at me from out of eyes that were changeable as the sea itself. don't you be getting mad with me simon because we don't think alike in some things to the devil with what people think of you i've said that often enough simon but not when they're good people if some people don't like us simon there will come no nourishment to our souls some day you're going to come to my way of thinking simon because we too are alike underneath a like i smiled to myself ay alike at heart simon we may look to be sailing wide apart courses now but maybe if our papers were examined twould be found we'd cleared for the same last port of call simon and no more talk of anything like that between us until the night before we were to leave the fishing grounds for home in the afternoon we had set our trawls and leaving our trawls and leaving

the vessel the skipper had said our last set boys let them lay tonight and in the morning we'll haul and returning aboard after setting we had our supper and were making ready such as had no watch to stand to turn in for a good long sleep against the labor of the morrow it was an oily sea that evening a black oily smooth surface lifting heavy and slow to a long swell a smooth oily sea there is never any good comes out of it but a beautiful sea notwithstanding with more curious patterns of shifting colors than a man could count in a year playing atop of it the colors coming and going and rolling and squirming no woman's shop a short of a short of a year playing atop of it the colors coming and going and rolling and squirming no woman's shop ashore ever held such colors under the bright night lights as under the low sun we saw this night on the western banks it was a most beautiful and a most wicked sea to stop and look at and the sun went down that evening on a banking of clouds no less beautiful a copper-red sun and after twas gone in lovely massy forms and splendid colors were piled the clouds in all the western quarter such of the crew as stopped to speak of it did not like at all the look of that sea and sky and some stopped beside the skipper to say it he leaning against the main rigging in the way he had the while he would be studying the weather signs but he made no answer to the crew to that or any other word they had this evening except to Saul Havrick, and to him only when he came up from supper complaining of not feeling well.

He was one who could drive his crew till they could not see for very weariness, but he was one who could nurse them, too. Go below and turn in, was his word to Saul, and stay there till you feel better. Call me, Simon, if I'm not up, he then said to me, i'll stand saul's watch with you if saul is no better it was yet black night when i was called to go on watch and saul haverick still complaining i went to call the skipper but he was already up and had been the watch before me said for the better part of the night i found him leaning over the gunwales of the windered nest of dories when i went on deck gazing out on a sea that was no longer oily smooth, though smooth enough, too, what was to be seen of it under the stars of a winter night. I stood on the break, and likewise looked about me. To anchor, and alone lay the vessel,

with but her riding-light to mark her in the dark, alone and quiet, with never a neighbor to hail us, nor a sound from any living thing whatever. The very gulls themselves were asleep, only the forecastle swaying with a short sheet would roll part way to windward and back to lewd but quiet as could be even then except for the little tapping noises of the reef points when in and out the belly of the canvas would puff full up and let down again to what little wind was stirring it was a perfect calm night but no calm day was to follow wicked weather ahead said hugh glynn and came and stood beside me on the break a wicked day coming but no help for it now till daylight comes to see our trawls to hollum and as one who had settled that in his mind he said no more of it but from mainmust to weather rail he paced and back again and i took to pacing beside him a wonderful time the night watches at sea for men to reveal themselves night and sky overhead and the wide ocean to your elbow it drives men to thought of higher things the wickedest of men i have known them with all manner of blasphemies befouling their lips by day to become wholly as little children in the watches of the night no blasphemer was hugh glynn nor did the knight hold terror for him only as we paced the break together he spoke of matters that but himself and his god could know

it was hard to listen and be patient though maybe it was as much of wonder as of impatience was taking hold of me as i listened do you never fear what men might come to think of you captain glynn i said confessing your very soul. "'Ho-ho, that's it, is it?' He came to a sudden stop in our walking. "'I should only confess the body. Is that it, Simon Kippin?' "'And, of course, when a man confesses to one thing of his own free will, you know there must be something worse behind? Is that it, Simon?' He chuckled beside me, and as if only to scandalize me,

let his tongue run wilder yet his tales were of violations of laws such as it had been my religion to observe since i was a boy and little except of the comic ridiculous side of them all the serious matters of life if twas to judge by what he spoke to me that night had small interest for him but the queer power of the man had it been light where he could see me i-i'd be light where he could see me i'd i would have choked before ever i would let him hear me laugh but he caught me smiling and straightened up chuckling to say many other things you would smile at too simon if you're bringing upward but allow the frost to thaw from your soul and are reckless carryings on and desperate chancing things to smile at oh simon simon simon what a righteous man you're to be that never expects to see the day when no harbor this side of God's eternal sea will offer you the only safe and quiet mooring again i saw mary snow sitting at the window and looking down the street and remembering how she had spoken of his lonely home i said no doubt a man like a vessel captain glinn should have always a mooring somewhere a wonder you never thought of marrying again i have thought of it and with some one woman in mind it may be he answered that too without a pause and does she know it may be she knows no knowing when they know simon as men best understand the soul so it is woman's best gift to understand the heart but no fair play in me to ask her-her

i've had my great hour and may not have it again with another to offer the woman i have in mind anything less than a great love it would be to cheat simon no no no it's not the kind of man i am now but the kind you are simon should marry it's not my kind that women like best captain i said there are women to like every kind simon and almost any kind of a woman would like your kind simon if you would only learn to be less ashamed of what should be no shame and it is you already in love who-me me in love i was like a vessel luffing to escape a squall he had come on me so quickly there it is simon the upbringing of you that would never own up to a-up to a squall to a squall he had come on me so quickly there it is simon the upbringing of you that would never own up to a what you think only yourself know three weeks to see now you've been with me and never a gull you've seen skirling on the westard that your eyes haven't followed by no mistake do you watch them flying easterly and when last evening i said to-morrow boys we'll swing her off and drive her to the westard to the westard and gloucester the leaping hard on you drove the blood to your very eyes surely that was not in sorrow simon i made no answer back and forth we paced and talked as we paced until the stars were dimming in the sky and the darkness fading from the sea he stopped by the rail and stared a wary like i thought upon the waters simon surely few men but would rather be themselves than anybody else that lives

But surely, too, no man sailing his own wide courses but comes to the day when he wishes he'd been less free in his navigation at times. You are honest and right, Simon. Even when you are wrong, you are right, because for a man to do what he thinks is right, whether he be right or wrong at the time, is to come to be surely right in the end. And it is the like of you, not yet a weary in sight. soul or body should mate with the woman molded of god to be the great mothers you have done much thinking of some matters captain i said not knowing what else to say alone at sea before the dawn it is a wonderful hour for a man to cross-question himself simon and not many nights of late years that i haven't seen the first light of dawn creeping up over the edge of the ocean

you marry merry snow simon he knew what could i say i never thought to talk like this captain to a living man in the growing light we now stood plain to each other's sight i don't understand what made me i said and said it doubtless with a note of shame it may be just as well at your rage that you don't understand what made me i said and said it doubtless with a note of shame it may be just as well at your rage that you don't understand every feeling that drives you on simon our brains grow big with age but not our hearts no matter what made you talk to-night simon you marry mary snow i shook my head but opened my heart to him nevertheless i haven't the clever ways of saul haverick simon it's my judgment this night that mary snow will never marry saul haverick i'm glad to hear you think that captain twould spoil her life or any woman's no no he said quicklike almost any woman's yes but not mary snow's not altogether and why because she's too strong a soul to be spoiled of her life by any one man because no matter what man she marries in her heart will be the image not of the man her husband is but of the man she'd wish him to be and in the image of that man of her fancy will her children be born women moulded of god to be the mothers of great men are fashioned that way simon

they dream great dreams for their children's sake to come and their hearts go out to the man who helps to make their dreams come true if i've learned anything of good women in life simon it is that and no saying i may be wrong in that too simon but so far i've met no man who knows more of it than i to gainsay me you marry mary snow simon and she will bear you children who will bring new light to a darkening world the dawn was rolling up to us and the next on watch was on deck to relieve me and the cook too with his head above the forecastle hatch was calling that breakfast was ready and we said no more of that go forward simon said captain glen and have your breakfast after breakfast we'll break out her anchor and our dories and get that gear aboard afore it's too late i'll go below and see how saul's getting on with that he went into the cabin but soon was back to take his seat at the breakfast table but no word of saul until we had done eating and he standing to go up on deck then he said saul says he is still too sick to go in the dory with you simon and to that i said well i've hauled a halibut trawl single-handed before captain glynn and i can do it again if need be he put on his woollen cap and across the table he looked at me and i've hauled a halibut trawl single-handed before captain glynn and i can do it again if need be he put on his woollen cap and across the table he looked at me and i looked hard at him this will be no morning to go single-handed in a dory simon

saul is not too sick he says to stand to the wheel and handle the vessel in my place i will take his place along with you in the dory what he was thinking i could not say his head was thrown back and his eyes looking out and down at me as from the top of a far-away hill and no more knowing what thoughts lay behind them than what ships lay beyond the horizon end of chapter three recording by roger maline chapter four of the trawler this libervox recording is in the public domain recording by roger maline the trawler by james brendon connelly chapter four it was a blood-red sunrise and a sea that was making when we left the vessel but nothing to worry over in that it might grow into a dory killing day later but so far it was only what all winter trawlers face more days than they can remember we picked up our nearest buoy with its white and black flag floating high to market and as we did to windward of us we could see for five miles it might be the twisted lines of the dory's stretching rising to the top of a sea we could see them sometimes one and sometimes another lifting and lifting and falling, and the vessel lifting and falling to windward of them all. Hugh Glynn took the bow to do the hauling and myself the waist for coiling,

and it was a grand sight to see him heave it on that heavy gear on that December morning. Many men follow the sea, but not many are born to it. Hugh Glynn was. Through the gertie he hauled the heavy lines, swinging forward his shoulders, first one and than the other, swaying from his waist and all in time to the heave of the sea beneath him, and singing as he heaved, the little snatches of songs that I believe he made up as he went along. As he wore him to his work, he stopped to draw off the heavy sweater that he wore over his woolen shirt, and made as if to throw it in the bow of the dory.

"'But no,' he said, "'it'll get wet there. You put it on, Simon, and keep it dry for me.' me he was a full size bigger than me in every way and i put it on over my cardigan jacket and under my oil jacket and it felt fine and comfortable on me it came time for me to spell him on the hauling but he waved me back let be let be simon he said it's fine light exercise for a man of a brisk morning it's reminding me of my hauling of my first trawl on the banks looking back on it now simon i mind how the bravest sight i thought i ever saw was our string of dories racing afore the tide in the sea of that sunny winter's morning and the vessel like a mother to her little boats standing off and on to see that nothing happened the while we hauled and coiled and gaffed inboard the broad-backed halibut all out of myself with pride i was i that was no more than a lad but hauling halibut trawls with full-grown gloucester men on the grand banks and the passage home that trip simon oh boy that passage home without even a halt in his heaving in of the trawls he took to singing it came one day as it had to come i said to you good-bye good luck said you and a fair fair wind though you cried as if to die was all there was ahead of you when we put out to sea but now sweetheart we're headed home to the westard and to thee so blow ye devils and walk her home for she's the able lucy foster

the woman i love is waiting me so drive the lucy home to gloucester oh ho ho for this heaven-sent breeze straight from the east and all ye please come along now you whistling gales the heart o ye blow the faster she sails oh my soul there's a girl in gloucester he stopped to look over his shoulder at me simon boy i mind the days when there was no stopping the songs in me rolling to my lips of themselves they would come like foam to the crests of high seas the days of a man's youth simon all i knew of a gale of wind was that it stirred the fancies in me it's the most wonderful thing that'll ever happen you simon what is skipper why the love of a love of a love of a love-o'n't you simon what is skipper why the lovin a woman an she lovin you and you neither knowing why nor may be caring no woman loves me skipper she will boy never a fear he took to the hauling and soon again to the singing my lad comes running down the street and what says he to me says he o dada dad dada and you're back again from sea and did you catch a great big fish and bring him home to me oh dada dada take me up and toss me high says he my love looks out on the stormy morn her thoughts are on the sea she says tis wild upon the banks and kneels in prayer for me o father hold him safe she prays and-there's one simon

he called a bad sea he meant they had been coming and going coming and going rolling under and past us and so far no harm but this was one more wicked to look at than its mates so i dropped the coiling lines and with the oar already to the becket in the stern whirled the dory's bow head on the sea carried us high and far and passing left the dory deep with water but no harm in that so she was still right side up a good job simon said hugh glynn the while we were bailing not too soon and not too late that was the first one more followed in their turn but always the oar was ready in the becket and it was but to whirl bow or stern to it with the oar when it came not too soon to waste time for the hauling but never of course course too late to save capsizing, and bailing her out, if need be, when it was by. Our trawl was in, our fish in the waist of the dory, and we lay to our roading line and second anchor, so we might not drift miles to leeward while waiting for the vessel to pick us up. We could see the vessel, to her hull, when to the top of a sea we rose together,

but nothing of her at all went into the hollows we fell together. She had picked up all but the dory next to Winderd of us. We would be the last, but before long now she would be to us. When you drop Simon and me, go to the other end of the line and work back. Pick Simon and me up last of all, Hugh Glynn had said to Saul, and I remember how Saul, standing to the wheel, looked down over the tafferel and said, Simon and you last of all,

and nodded his head as our dory fell away in the vessel's wake. Tide and sea were such that there was no use trying to row against it, or we would not have waited at all. But we waited, and as we waited, the wind, which had been southerly, went into the east and snow fell. But for not more than a half hour, when it cleared, we stood up and looked about us there was no vessel or other dory in sight we said no word to each other of it but the while we waited further all the while with a windered eye to the bad little seas we talked did you ever think of dying simon hugh glynn said after a time can a man follow the winter trawling long and not think of it at time

I answered. And have you fear of it, Simon? I know I have no love for it, I said. But do you ever think of it? You? I do, often. With the double tides working to draw me to it, it would be queer enough if now and again I did not think of it. And have you fear of it?

Of not going properly, I have. have, Simon. And after a little. And I've often thought it a pity for a man to go, and nothing come of his going. Would you like the sea for a grave, Simon? I would not, I answered. Nor me, Simon. A grand, clean grave, the ocean. And there was a time I thought I would, but not now. The green grave ashore. with your own beside you a man will feel less lonesome or so i've often thought simon i've often thought so he went on his eyes now on watch for the bad seas and again looking wistful like at me i'd like to lie where my wife and boy lie she to one side and the lad to the other and rise with them on judgment day i've a notion simon that with them to bear me up i'd stand afore the lord with greater courage for if what some think is true

that it's those we've loved in this world will have the right to plead for us in the next then simon there will be two to plead for me as few can plead he stood up and looked around it is a bad sea now but worse later and a strong breeze brewing simon and drew from an inside pocket of his woollen shirt a small leather note-book he held it up for me to see with the slim little pencil held by little loops along the edges twas hers i've a pocket put in every woollen shirt i wear to sea so it'll be close to me there's things in it she wrote of our little boy and i'm writing here something i'd like you to be witness to simon he wrote a few lines there simon i've thought off in this trip how it is hard on john snow at his age to have to take to fishing again if i hadn't lost arthur he wouldn't have to i'm willing my vessel to john snow will you witness it simon will you witness it simon I signed my name below his, and he set the book back in his inside pocket. "'And you think our time is come, Skipper?' I tried to speak quietly, too. "'I won't say that, Simon, but foolish not to make ready for it.'

I looked about when we rose to the next sea for the vessel, but no vessel. I thought it hard. had you no distrust of saul haverick this morning i asked him i had and last night too simon and you trusted him a hard world if we didn't trust people simon i thought it over again this morning and was ashamed simon to think it in me to distrust a shipmate i wouldn't believe it of any man i ever sailed with but no use to fool ourselves longer make ready over with the fish over with the trawls over with everything but thirty or forty fathom of that roading line and the sail and one anchor and the two boys it was hard to have to throw back in the sea the fine fish that we'd taken hours to set and haul for hard too to heave over the stout gear that had taken so many long hours to rig but there was no more time to waste over they went and we took the two boys light made but sound and tight half-barrels they were and we last them to the risings of the dory and now the sail tour simon we put the sail tour and stand by to cut clear our anchorage i stood by with my bait-knife and when he called out i cut and away we went racing before wind and tide

me in the waist on the buoy lashed to the windered side to hold her down and he on the windered gunwale too but aft with an oar in one hand and the sheet of the sail in the other and where now i asked when the wind would let me the lee of sable island lies ahead the full gale was on us now a living gale and before the gale the sea ran higher than ever and before the high seas the flying dory mountains of slate-blue water rolled down into valleys and the valleys rolled up into mountains again and all shifting so fast that no man might point a finger and say here's one there's one quick and wild as that they were from one great hill we would tumble only to fall into the next great hollow and never did she make one of her wild place lunges, but the spume blew wide and high over her. And never did she check herself for even the quickest of breaths, striving the while to breast up the side of a mountain of water, but the sea would roll over her, and I'd say to myself once again,

Now, at last, we're gone. We tumbled into the hollows, and a roaring wind would drive a boiling foam, white as milk, atop of us. We climbed up the hills, and the roaring wind would drive the solid green water atop of us. Wind, sea, and milk-white foam between them. They seemed all of a mind to smother us. These things I saw in jumps like. Last to the windered boy, I was by a length of roading line, to my knees in water the better part of the time, and busy enough with the bailing. there was no steady looking to windward such was the weight of the bullets of water which the wild wind drove off the sea-crests but a flying glance now and again kept me in the run of it

i would have wished to be able to do my share of the steering but only hugh glynn could properly steer that dory that day the dory would have sunk a hundred times only for the boys in the waist but she would have capsized more times than that again only for the hand of him in the stern steady he sat a man of marble his jaw like a cliff rising above the collar of his woollen shirt his two eyes like two lights glowing out from under his cap brim and yet for all of him i couldn't see how we could live through it once we were so terribly beset that will be lost carrying sail like this hugh glynn i called back to him and he answered i never could see any difference myself simon between being lost carrying sail and being lost hove too after that i said no more and so to what must have been the wonder of wind and sea that day hugh glynn drove the little dorian to the knight and the lee of sable island end of chapter four recording by roger maline chapter five of the trawler this libervox recording is in the public domain recording by roger maline the trawler by james brendon connelly chapter five we took in our sail and let go our anchor hugh glynn looked long above and about him a clear night coming simon and cold with the wind backing into the northwest.

We'll lay here, for big vessels we'll be running for this same lee tonight, and maybe a chance for us to be picked up with the daylight. Did I do well this day by you, Simon? I'd be a lost man hours back, but for you, I said, and was for saying more in praise of him, but he held up his hand. So you don't hold me a reckless, desperate sail carrier, Simon,

never mind the rest his eyes were shining but your voice is weary simon and you're hungry too i know i was hungry and worn terribly worn after the day and so told him then lie down and we'll rest you and for a time make you forget the hunger and while you're lying down simon i'll stand watch and i made ready to lie down when i thought of his sweater i was wearing i unbuttoned my oil jacket to get at it's colder already skipper and you'll be needing it no it is you will be needing it simon being on my feet you see i can thrash around and keep warm but will you call me and take it if it grows too cold skipper i'll call you when i want it lie down now a wonderful calm night full as quiet as last night skipper i said only no harm in this night no gale before us on the morrow no simon he said not but peace before us but lie down you boy and you'll call me skipper i said when my watch comes i'll call you when i've stood my full watch lie down now i lay down meaning to keep awake but i fell asleep i thought i felt a hand wrapping something around me in the night and i made to sit up but a voice said lie down boy and i lay down and went to sleep again when i awoke it was to the voices of strange men and one was saying he'll be all right now

i sat up i was still in the dory and saw men standing over me and other men were looking down from a vessel's side ice was thick on the rail of the vessel it was piercing cold and i was weak with the fire of the pains running through my veins but remembering i tried to stand up hush boy they said you're all right and would have held me down while they rubbed my feet in hands i stood up among them nevertheless and looked for hugh glynn he was on the afterthwart his arms folded over the gunwale and his forehead resting on his arms his woollen shirt was gone from him i looked back and in the waist of the dory i saw it where they had taken it off me and the sail of the boat he had wrapped around me too and his woollen mitts i lifted his head to see his face if ever a man smiled twas he was smiling as i looked skipper oh skipper i called out and again oh skipper one of the men who had been rubbing my feet touched my shoulder come away boy the voice o god called him afore you and so hugh glynn came to his green grave ashore and so i came home to marry merry snow and in the end to father the children which may or may not grow great as he predicted but great in the eyes of the world they could become greater than all living men it might be and yet fall far short in our eyes of the stature of the man who thought that it was better for one to live than for two to die and that one not to be himself

desperate he was and law-breaking for law is law whosoever it bears heart upon but the heart was warm within him and if my children have not else and it is for their mother and me to say the heart to feel for others they shall have had have and having that the rest may follow or not as it will which would be hugh glynn's way of it too i think end of chapter five end of the trawler by james brendon connolly