“You needn’t heave in the dories till after dinner,” said Troop from the deck.  “We’ll dress daown right off.  Fix table, boys!”

“Deeper’n the Whale-deep,” said Dan, with a wink, as he set the gear for dressing down.  “Look at them boats that hev edged up sence mornin’.  They’re all waitin’ on Dad.  See ’em, Harve?”

“They are all alike to me.”  And indeed to a landsman, the nodding schooners around seemed run from the same mold.

“They ain’t, though.  That yaller, dirty packet with her bowsprit steeved that way, she’s the Hope of Prague.  Nick Brady’s her skipper, the meanest man on the Banks.  We’ll tell him so when we strike the Main Ledge.  ’Way off yonder’s the Day’s Eye.  The two Jeraulds own her.  She’s from Harwich; fastish, too, an’ hez good luck; but Dad he’d find fish in a graveyard.  Them other three, side along, they’re the Margie Smith, Rose, and Edith S. Walen, all from home.  ’Guess we’ll see the Abbie M. Deering to-morrer, Dad, won’t we?  They’re all slippin’ over from the shaol o’ ’Oueereau.”

“You won’t see many boats to-morrow, Danny.”  When Troop called his son Danny, it was a sign that the old man was pleased.  “Boys, we’re too crowded,” he went on, addressing the crew as they clambered inboard.  “We’ll leave ’em to bait big an’ catch small.”  He looked at the catch in the pen, and it was curious to see how little and level the fish ran.  Save for Harvey’s halibut, there was nothing over fifteen pounds on deck.

“I’m waitin’ on the weather,” he added.

“Ye’ll have to make it yourself, Disko, for there’s no sign I can see,” said Long Jack, sweeping the clear horizon.

And yet, half an hour later, as they were dressing down, the Bank fog dropped on them, “between fish and fish,” as they say.  It drove steadily and in wreaths, curling and smoking along the colourless water.  The men stopped dressing-down without a word.  Long Jack and Uncle Salters slipped the windlass brakes into their sockets, and began to heave up the anchor; the windlass jarring as the wet hempen cable strained on the barrel.  Manuel and Tom Platt gave a hand at the last.  The anchor came up with a sob, and the riding-sail bellied as Troop steadied her at the wheel.  “Up jib and foresail,” said he.

“Slip ’em in the smother,” shouted Long Jack, making fast the jib-sheet, while the others raised the clacking, rattling rings of the foresail; and the foreboom creaked as the ‘We’re Here’ looked up into the wind and dived off into blank, whirling white.

“There’s wind behind this fog,” said Troop.

It was wonderful beyond words to Harvey; and the most wonderful part was that he heard no orders except an occasional grunt from Troop, ending with, “That’s good, my son!”

“Never seen anchor weighed before?” said Tom Platt, to Harvey gaping at the damp canvas of the foresail.

“No.  Where are we going?”

“Fish and make berth, as you’ll find out ’fore you’ve been a week aboard.  It’s all new to you, but we never know what may come to us.  Now, take me—­Tom Platt—­I’d never ha’ thought—­”