The Great Lines 



simple sign of friendship and concern about his welfare. They had 

 no sooner reached the first of the deep-water banks they intended 

 to fish, however, than he was forced to admit that a fair share of 

 self-interest entered into their concern. Each man of them owned 

 more than five hundred pounds worth of gear, of hemp lines and 

 Kirby hooks, and each stood to lose a fair proportion of this capi- 

 tal if Jan made a fool of himself. That was why they coached him 

 so lovingly in the arranging of hooks on a rim of cork, in the tech- 

 niques of baiting and casting a hook and in the mechanical intri- 

 cacies of the line hauler that stood on the port rail alongside a 

 slightly raised wooden staging. 



In all, the Honor was fishing a hundred lines, nearly fifty miles of 

 rope, and these were usually shot in fleets of twenty-four at a time. 

 Of these twenty-four Jan would shoot six, and these six belonged 

 to Sandy. Every one of the six share holders shot his own lines, 

 even RadcliflFe, though it was unusual for a skipper to work on 

 deck. And every man's lines lay between the lines of his mates 

 tied inextricably to them. Five lines, then his own. Five more 

 lines, and his own. So it went on. If, then, a rope had to be cut 

 and part of a fleet was lost, the chances were that each man would 

 lose the same amount of gear. It didn't matter who was respons- 

 ible for the mistake that caused the loss. The whole crew shared 

 it. A greenhorn, like Jan, was studied as closely by the men he 

 might ruin as a patch of fungus would have been studied by a gard- 

 ener, and with almost the same degree of distaste. Only Jan's 

 absurd faith in the good intentions of all mankind could have mis- 

 taken their anxiety for affection. 



Even when he did understand their solicitude, Jan was not dis- 

 comfited. This was his last trip and it was also like a homecoming. 

 Once more he was in the Atlantic and the broad swell of it had 

 soon lulled him back to the easy days when he had been on a traw- 

 ler and had not been tied down by the responsibility of his own 

 boat or another man's lines. Then, too, once he had shown his 

 competence, his mates on the Honor proved as good companions 

 as ever his compatriots on the Stanislaw had been. They had, in- 



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