← catalogue

The Viking Blood: A Story of Seafaring

by Frederick William Wallace · English · Gutenberg #40853 · 812,125 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Viking Blood: A Story of Seafaring
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Viking Blood: A Story of Seafaring

Author: Frederick William Wallace


        
Release date: September 24, 2012 [eBook #40853]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40853

Credits: E-text prepared by sp1nd, Matthew Wheaton, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (http://archive.org)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VIKING BLOOD: A STORY OF SEAFARING ***

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
      file which includes the original illustrations.
      See 40853-h.htm or 40853-h.zip:
      (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/40853/pg40853-images.html)
      or
      (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40853/40853-h.zip)


      Images of the original pages are available through
      Internet Archive. See
      http://archive.org/details/vikingbloodstor00wall





THE VIKING BLOOD

A Story of Seafaring

by

FREDERICK WILLIAM WALLACE

Author of "Blue Water," "The Shack-locker," etc.







Hodder and Stoughton
Limited Toronto

Copyright, Canada, 1920
by
The Musson Book Co., Limited
Publishers, ... Toronto.




    TO

    V. S. W.


    There's few who know the ocean road,
      Its way by reef and bar:
    It keeps its secret guarded well,
      In league with sun and star;
    But if you tramp it year by year,
      And watch it wild and still,
    Its heart will open unto you,
      And lead you where you will.

                          _The Sea Road_.




CHAPTER ONE


He was christened Donald Percival McKenzie, but his mother preferred
to call him Percival. The father, however insisted on the "Donald" and
demanded that it be given priority over whatever appellation the
mother might desire to add to the rare old Highland surname of
McKenzie.

Captain McKenzie received the news of his son's arrival into the world
just as his ship was leaving the coaling station at Cape Verde
Islands, but his wife's suggestion of "Percival" caused him to hold
the ship to an anchor while he dashed off a letter protesting against
the tacking of such a namby-pamby name on to a son of his. "'Donald'
is the name I have set my heart on, Janet, and I won't have the name
of McKenzie defiled by any such English designation as 'Percival'. I
won't have any Percy McKenzies in my family." Then, to conciliate his
wife, who, he felt, deserved some consideration, he added, "You may
call him Percival also if you've set your mind on it, but remember,
Donald comes first!" So Donald Percival McKenzie it was, and thus it
is inscribed in the Register of Births for the City of Glasgow, in the
County of Lanark, Scotland, in the year of our Lord, Eighteen Hundred
and Seventy-six.

Though registered thus by the laws of church and state and in the mind
of the father, yet the mother won her desire for a time and omitted
the "Donald" when addressing, or referring to, her son. It was only
during Captain McKenzie's brief home visits between voyages that
young Donald Percival discovered that he had another appellation which
he was expected to answer to. This discovery became a most pleasing
one when the boy advanced to those years of discretion when he might
fraternize with his fellows on the aristocratic "Terrace" where he
resided. Glasgow youngsters, inheriting antipathies through Scotch or
Irish ancestry, scorned anything savoring of "English" and the name of
"Percy" could only be applied to an "Englisher" or a boy so anglicized
by his "Maw" as to be only worth giving a licking to wherever and
whenever met. When one's mother hails from Inverness and speaks the
pure melodious English peculiar to that part of Scotland, it is
difficult for a lad to disprove connection with southron
antecedents--especially in the face of such circumstantial evidence as
a name like Percy, and an accent free from rolling "r's" and Scottish
idioms.

This was what young McKenzie had to fight against. Even though he
could scrape through the language test and deliver himself of a
guttural "Och, awa!" and pronounce "loch" without calling it "lock,"
yet the "Percy" damned him. He had attained the age of seven--a rather
delicate boy, much petted and spoilt by his mother--when he rebelled.
The juvenile denizens of the Terrace had jeered at him--calling him
"Percy, dear!" and added injury to insult by throwing mud and
profaning his white starched collar with unclean hands. "They called
me a mammy's boy," he sobbed, "'n they said I was English, 'n they
said English was no good 'cause they ran away from the Scotch at
Bannockburn an' Stirling Bridge. I'm _not_ English, am I, mamma?"

"No, no, dear," soothed the mother. "How dare those vulgar little
scamps abuse my little pet! Don't cry, my wee lamb! I shan't let you
go out and play with them any more----"

A renewed howl came from Donald Percival. "But I wanna play with them,
mamma! I don't wanna be kept in! It's all your fault for calling me
'Percy'! I don't wanna be called Percy! I wanna be called Donal' same
as daddy calls me. And, mamma, please don't call me Percy any more. I
like Donal' better!"

There had been several incidents of this nature, and Mrs. McKenzie was
now forced to address her offspring publicly by his first name. But
the other died hard and practically blasted young Donald's life in the
locality in which he lived. Only when the family removed to a distant
neighborhood did the youngster feel free to begin life with a clean
sheet.

There is a psychology in nomenclature which reflects the characters of
the parents. "Percival" aptly described that of Mrs. McKenzie. As
plain Janet McKinnon she grew up in the bucolic atmosphere of a small
Invernessshire farm, where she had, at an early age, to help her
mother milk cows, clean byres, plant and gather potatoes. In summer,
she ran around barefoot; in winter she wore heavy boots and homespun
stockings and red flannel petticoats. The farm was a poor one and the
McKinnon family was numerous and hungry. Janet at sixteen was sent out
to "service" as a maid-of-all-work in the home of a Glasgow baillie.

The baillie had made some "siller" in the scrap-iron business and
hankered after the desirable municipal eminence of Lord Provost of
Glasgow. As he and his wife were rather crude personages, he realized
that some training in deportment and society mannerisms was necessary,
and his establishment became something of a stamping ground for
professors of dancing and deportment, English governesses and
impecunious connections of artistocratic families. Janet, the maid,
absorbed much of the atmosphere with which she was surrounded and
unconsciously aped a great deal of what she saw being dinned into the
baillie and his kindred.

"Bonny Janet McKinnon"--good-hearted, healthy, quick-witted, and a
pretty figure of a lass, though rather proud and vain--followed the
baillie in his steps up the social ladder, and while a domestic in the
future Lord Provost's house, met handsome, rollicking Alec McKenzie,
chief officer of the Sutton Liner _Ansonia_ in the New York trade.

McKenzie could claim good family of ancient Highland lineage. His
father was a celebrated physician and a younger brother of Sir
Alastair McKenzie of Dunsany Castle. The McKenzies of Dunsany,
however, were "penniless folk wi' a lang pedigree" and the knight drew
but a meagre income from the bare northern crofts and moors which he
owned, and were it not for the wealthy English and American sportsmen
who yearly leased the place for the autumn shooting, the Laird of
Dunsany would have been forced to work to keep himself and to pay the
interest on his mortgages. The doctor was more absorbed in the theory
than in the practice of his profession, and, after devoting enough
attention to remunerative patients to provide the means for giving his
two sons a good education, he retired to his laboratory and
practically remained there until he died, and the proceeds from the
sale of his books and instruments were just sufficient to pay his
debts and bury him. The doctor's wife pre-deceased her husband by
several years, and the two sons--Alexander and David--scarce knew
their parents. When Dr. McKenzie died, David went into the office of a
Glasgow ship broker and absorbed the hard-fisted doctrines of a
parsimonious and none too scrupulous employer, while Alec went off in
a sailing ship to sea.

By the time Alec had struggled to the sublimity of a chief officer's
berth in a liner, where the donning of much gold braid was compulsory
and the acceptance of a monthly wage of twelve pounds was scarcely in
keeping with the dignity and responsibility of the position, David had
scrimped and scraped enough cash together to purchase several
sixty-fourths in a sailing ship and had blossomed out as a ship-owner.
Through his shipping connections, David became friendly with the
baillie scrap-iron merchant, and the friendship grew into intimacy
when the baillie learned of McKenzie's connection with the Laird of
Dunsany. With the tuft-hunting dealer in iron tooting a horn for him
as "Ma freen, David McKenzie, nephew o' Sir Alastair McKenzie o'
Dunsany Castle, ye ken!" the ship-broker brother prospered, while
Sailor Alec sweated and mucked about at sea.

It was during one of Alec's shore spells in Glasgow that David so
forgot himself as to take his seaman brother up to the baillie's
mansion for dinner. The dinner was memorable in more ways than one. To
Alec, who had travelled much and was quite at home in any society, the
baillie and his brood constituted a comedy. Six red-headed imps of
various ages surrounded the board and monopolized most of the
conversation and the food. Grimy fingers were surreptitiously thrust
into the preserves to be licked off under the table-cloth, and nimble
juvenile digits pilfered the choice sugar embellishments of sundry
cakes. The baillie sat beaming at the head of his festive board and
reproved those precocious excursions with divers--"Dinna touch the
jeelies, Wully!" or "Pit that cookie back on the plate, Jeanie!" while
to his guests he murmured admiring asides--"Aw, the wee laumbs!
They're hungry, the wee doos!" David sat stony-faced, but Alec almost
exploded. "Lambs and doves are they?" he thought. "They're worse than
a swarm of galley rats!"

The baillie's lessons in correct society conduct showed themselves
every now and again by the occasional "Eengleesh" which he introduced
into his conversation, but to Alec these utterances were a farce.
"Mister McKinzie, will you partake of the toastit _breed_?" "Kindly
_pawss_ the mulk to your _mummaw_, John!" "Let the _myde_ take an' gie
ye a clean plate, Captun--the bairns have dirtied the yin you 'ave!"
The latter caused the sailor to choke in his serviette and he looked
up to catch the sparkling brown eyes of Janet McKinnon.

"Pardon me, sir!" she murmured demurely as she deftly replaced the
"dirtied yin."

"Oh--ah--thanks awfully!" stuttered Alec, who suddenly realized that
something eminently desirable in femininity was ministering to his
wants. During the rest of the dinner the worthy alderman's _faux pas_
were hugely enjoyed by at least two persons, and Alec's roving eyes
shared silent amusement with those of the "myde" whenever the
unconscious host delivered himself of a particularly atrocious
observation.

Janet McKinnon, with her soft speech, her rosy Highland features and
pretty figure attracted the simple sailor heart of Alec McKenzie. He
had met many women in the manner that sailors meet them--lightly met
and readily forgotten. He had murmured "pidgin" to the sing-song girls
of Nagasaki and Yokohama; had bandied Yankee slang and bought drinks
for the damosels of the "Barbary Coast" in San Francisco, and
applauded the gyrations of the dancing houris of the Near East; but
these were but diversions of the moment and had left no impression on
the heart. Women of the more respectable sort he had met casually on
ocean passages, but he had never allowed himself to become enamored of
any. The inequality of his position as a poor sea-ranging mate; the
lack of opportunity for becoming acquainted on short voyages, and
drastic regulations of duty and ship-board intercourse, precluded all
ideas of marrying.

On a salary of twelve pounds per month, with uniforms to buy and shore
living to pay, a man cannot fraternize with his feminine equals in the
social scale and Alec McKenzie never tried it. He was a handsome man,
well-built, broad-shouldered, with blonde curly hair, a flowing silky
moustache and clipped beard. With his light hair, tanned skin, keen
blue eyes, high forehead and cheekbones and straight, determined
mouth, he looked a veritable viking--a modern example of atavistic
character descending from those Norse raiders who found the Scots
Highlands congenial habitation for permanent residence.

Thirty-eight years of age, and celebrated as "the smartest mate that
ever took a ship out the Clyde," Alec McKenzie felt that in Baillie
Ross's maid he had met his affinity, and next evening he boldly called
at the servants' entrance to the Ross home and inquired of the old
cook who answered the door "if Miss Janet was in?" (That was the only
name he knew so far.) He was ushered into the servants' parlor in the
basement of the house, and Janet awaited his overtures with
astonishment, not unmixed with suspicion as to his motives. Blushing
and more abashed than he had ever felt in his life, he came to the
point with a sailor's straightforwardness. "I saw you last night, Miss
Janet, and I like you. I'd like to know you better. My name is
McKenzie--Alec McKenzie--and I'm a chief officer on one of Sutton's
ships. What is your name, may I ask?"

Still surprised and confused, Janet had murmured, "Jeanette McKinnon,
sir!" (Janet had absorbed some of her master's ideas and 'Jeanette'
sounded more aristocratic.) "Well, Miss McKinnon," said Alec, more at
ease, "if you care to, we might go to a play or a music hall to-night.
What do you say?"

Miss McKinnon consented, and thus the wooing was begun. When she
doffed the cap and apron of domestic servitude and donned her "walking
out" clothes, Janet, with her shapely figure, her dark hair and
sparkling brown eyes, and the rich Highland bloom in her cheeks, was a
woman deserving of more than a passing glance. She had many admirers,
but they were of the class whose business brought them to the kitchen
door, and she would have none of them. The butcher, the grocer, the
gas-meter man, and the police officer on the beat had all made a set
for the alderman's pretty maid only to be haughtily rebuffed in the
manner affected by the poor but beautiful heroines in the
_feuilletons_ of the Glasgow Weekly Herald or the Heartsease Library.

Sailor Alec, absolutely unaffected by the conservatism of class and
setting no value upon aristocratic connections, felt that there was
nothing out of the way in his courting a domestic servant. There was
no sign of plebeian origin in Miss McKinnon's manners and pleasant
Inverness-shire speech; her hands were small and well-kept, and she
had a neat foot in spite of the bare feet and "brogans" of youthful
days. In his eyes, she was pretty, intelligent, and desirable, and he
made up his mind that he would ask her to marry him at the first
opportunity.

For almost a year, McKenzie courted Janet McKinnon, and during the
week his ship was in Glasgow between voyages to New York, he would
spend every evening with her. The old cook, who had a sailor brother,
connived at the meetings, kept guard over the parlor, and helped Janet
to get off duty when McKenzie called, but she would damp Miss
McKinnon's spirits every once in a while by remarking what "a
harum-scarum lot them sailors was" and what great chaps they were "for
drinkin' an' spendin' their money on furrin wimmin oot in Chinay,
Injy, Rio Grandy an' sich-like heathen parts!"

It was a somewhat hazardous wooing, and many were the occasions when
McKenzie would be waiting for Janet in the servants' parlor
downstairs, during which time his lady-love would be waiting on his
brother David at the baillie's table upstairs. David was blissfully
unconscious of Alec's doings when in port, as neither of the brothers
kept intimate touch with each other. David looked upon Alec as a "puir
waster" and the latter sympathized with David for living the life of a
"crab"--"jewing and shrivelling his soul for dollars." "Poor Dave," he
would say to Janet. "Working day and night over his books in a dusty,
dingy hole of an office. Chopping down expenses in the miserable
hookers his firm runs. Scratching, grubbing and saving money--that's
all he lives for. Poor chap! He doesn't know what life is! He's never
seen the world or its beauties. He'll fetch up as a miserable miser
some of these days!"

When David thought of Alec, which was not often, it was with scorn and
irritation. "Shiftless beggar! No ambition! Sooner waste his life and
talents at sea working for someone else rather than save his money and
have someone working for him. Suttons pay their mates too well. As
long as he has money to spend he'll chuck it around like a drunken
sailor and some of these days when he is played out he'll come to me
to help him!" David, in a way, was a better judge of human nature than
Alec. Though a splendid seaman and navigator, Alec was not aggressive
nor overly ambitious. He needed prodding. At sea, he carried out his
duties faithfully and well because they were prescribed for him, and
he hoped for the day when Suttons would give him a command. He would
wait for it to come to him, rather than work to speed the day. When
the command came, he would ask Janet to marry him. On a mate's pay, he
couldn't save anything, but when he got a ship of his own, he would
take the plunge, marry, and fit out a home on his first month's pay as
master.

However, man proposes and God disposes. It was one of the red-headed
imps of the baillie's progeny who precipitated matters. This youngster
awoke about ten o'clock one evening feeling hungry. He had vivid
recollections of the cook baking a batch of lovely "traykle scones"
during the afternoon and he made his way to the basement with feline
tread and upon robbery intent. The half-opened door of the servants'
parlor revealed a most astonishing tableau to his inquisitive vision
and, recognizing the actors, he felt that it was worth while securing
an audience to share the sight with him. Creeping upstairs to his
father's library, he astonished the worthy baillie and his wife, and
almost stunned David, who happened to be there that evening, by
shouting excitedly, "Yon yella-heided Captun that was at oor hoose fur
dinner wi' Mister McKinzie a while syne is doon-stairs in the slavey's
room wi' Jinnut on his knee!"

Janet and Alec received a rude shock a minute later when the astounded
baillie, his wife, brother David and the red-headed Ross hopeful
sallied into the sitting-room and caught the lovers in the act of
embracing.

"Captun McKinzie!" stuttered the baillie. "Whit is the meanin' o'
this?" Alec jumped to his feet, blushing furiously, but withal, deadly
calm. "Why, nothing at all, baillie. But isn't this rather
unceremonious? Should have knocked, don't you think?"

When the baillie commenced to stammer in confusion, Mrs. Ross felt
that it was her place to talk and she applied herself to Janet.

"McKinnon," she said icily. "I'm surprised an' deesgusted! I niver
thocht ye were that sorrt of a gyurl! You'll pack yer traps an' get
away frae here immediately! Sich carryin'-ons in ma hoose!" And she
snorted in contemptuous indignation.

Poor Janet's eyes filled with tears. She was deathly pale, but held
her head high with something of the dignity of her Highland forebears.
"There have been no carrying-ons, madam!"

"Don't gie me ony of yer impertinence, ye trollop!" cried madam, and
David interjected, staring coldly at his brother, "I should have
thought, Alec, that you would have shown more delicacy and respect for
your family than to be carrying on a clandestine--er--ah--" He
stammered and racked his brains for a word which would fit without
being too crude, when Alec interrupted him.

"I know what you were going to say, dear David," he retorted coolly,
"but just let me warn you not to say it! Miss McKinnon"--he turned and
bowed slightly to the baillie's wife--"will pack up her things and
leave here immediately, for to-morrow she'll become my wife!"

"Your _wife_!" chorused the trio. Young Ross was temporarily
absent--having found the treacle scones.

"Yes, my _wife_!" answered Alec, drawing the weeping Janet to him, and
raising his eyebrows, challenged, "Is there anything so very
extraordinary in that?"

David laughed bitterly--a harsh, mirthless cackle. "Your wife," he
sneered. "A common slavey! Don't be foolish, Alexander. If you believe
that is _necessary_"--he emphasized the word--"I think we could fix it
up without disgracing our family."

Alec stepped quickly before his brother and in the ominous glint in
his eye and in the grim set of his jaw, David saw an expression he had
never viewed before in the "shiftless waster," and he recoiled
involuntarily. "Look here, Dave," said the other, with menace in his
tones, "don't you dare make such beastly insinuations. I'm going to
marry Miss McKinnon. I have always intended to marry her, and my
relations with her have been square and above-board. I don't consider
I'm disgracing the family, and family doesn't enter into the thing at
all. If you feel hurt about my affairs, you are at liberty to up hook
and part company, that's all. I don't want to hear another word about
it from anybody!"

David's pale face grew dark. He was furious, but his fury was kindled
by pure selfishness and not through any affection for Alec or interest
in his welfare. He felt that his brother had disgraced him in the eyes
of the Ross family. He was afraid the incident would become the
subject of vulgar gossip and tasty quip to scarify his dignity among
the brokers on "the Street" and the Shipbrokers Association. They
would be sure to stop him and remark callously, "Heard a brother of
yours got in a mess with Baillie Ross's slavey and had to marry her!"
To his mean, narrow soul there could be no other viewpoint.
Clean-hearted love and honor had no place in his shifty mentality. He
almost screamed in excess of rage, "Very well, Alexander! If that's
your intention, go ahead! From this hour I absolutely disown you as a
brother. You are nothing to me from now on. Go to the devil your own
way!" And he turned to the others, "Come, Mrs. Ross! Come, Baillie!
Let's leave this fellow and his woman!"

That night, Alec took Janet to a hotel and left her there after
caressing her tears and fears away. Next morning, he was down to his
ship early and borrowed five pounds from the chief engineer. He saw
his skipper and secured two days leave of absence, and was in his
berth packing up a few necessary clothes in a portmanteau when the
steward announced that a gentleman would like to see him. Thinking it
was David, Alec said, "Send him in!" and waited, prepared for a stormy
session. But it was not David--David was through with him. It was
Baillie Ross, and he fussed into the narrow berth, red-faced and
perspiring.

"Ma puir laddie!" he puffed sympathetically. "I was real sorry aboot
last nicht, ye ken. I didny know ye were coortin' Jinnut, and I'm no
blamin' ye. She's a nice lass--a guid lass--a rale comely yin! Noo,
laddie, ye're gettin' merrit to-day, ye say? Huv ye ony money?"

"I've got enough to get married on, anyway, sir," replied Alec.

"Aye, aye, laddie, but that'll no be much, I'm thinkin'. Weel, weel,
Jinnut is a nice lass an' she was wi' us fur a guid mony years, sae
here's a wee bit weddin' present tae th' baith o' ye! Guid luck tae
ye, an' if ye ever want help, dinna be frichtit tae gie me a call.
Tellyphone me at ma office first though. I widny want Mistress Ross or
yer brither tae ken I was seein' ye. Guid luck an' guidbye!" He fussed
out again leaving the astonished Alec gazing at the two ten pound
notes which the good-natured alderman had thrust into his hands.

They were married quietly that afternoon and spent a brief honeymoon
around Loch Katrine. Three days later, McKenzie was at his station on
the fo'c'sle-head of the _Ansonia_ watching the tug straighten her out
on the first mile of the run from Plantation Quay to the East River
wharves. He was supremely happy, and as his ship swung down the roily
river, his thoughts were of his bride of three days awaiting his
return in a quiet but inexpensive lodging-house, and facing the future
on an income of twelve pounds per month.




CHAPTER TWO


Janet made Alec McKenzie a good wife. She supplied the ambition and
aggressiveness which her husband lacked. No one could say he lowered
himself by marrying Janet McKinnon, for she was quick to realize her
husband's assets in the way of family connections and genuine ability,
and she carried herself as if she were the accepted niece, by
marriage, of the Laird of Dunsany. Other mates' wives called on her,
more out of curiosity than kindness, but she would have none of them
and treated them coldly. Her demeanor impressed the visitors, as it
had already impressed the landlady, and the latter bruited the story
that her lodger was the daughter of a "Hielan' Chief--somewhat rejuced
in circumstances." Mrs. McKenzie did not deny the story; she rather
accepted it and even hinted at it in casual conversation with gossipy
callers.

Alec was a first-class chief officer, but that wasn't good enough for
Janet. She longed for the day when she could be referred to as "Mrs.
McKenzie--wife of Captain McKenzie of the S.S. _So-and-so_," and she
worked skilfully to that end. After much manoeuvering, she struck up
an acquaintanceship with Mrs. Duncan, wife of the marine
superintendent of the Sutton Line, and never missed an opportunity to
impress upon that simple lady the fact that Alec was a nephew of Sir
Alastair McKenzie, and brother to David McKenzie the ship-owner on
Bothwell street.

Though McKenzie longed for promotion, yet he was cursed with a
sailor's bashfulness in seeking office, and of his own volition he
would make no move which would cause his skipper to eye him askance as
a man to be watched. He had known over-ambitious mates who had been
"worked out" of the Line by superiors who felt that their positions
were imperilled by such aspiring underlings, and he abhorred the
thought of being classed as an "owner licker." But Janet had no such
scruples. She was out to speed the day, and before she had been a year
married, she had called on her late employer, Baillie Ross, and sought
his interest in Alec's favor. Ross was climbing in municipal politics
and had recently been elected a director of the Sutton Line, and he
appreciated Janet's efforts to "rise in the warl'." At the first
opportunity, he casually mentioned to the Managing Director of
Suttons' that they had "a maist promisin' young officer in Mr.
McKinzie, chief mate o' the _Ansonia_. He's a nephew o' Sir Alastair
McKinzie an' a brither tae David McKinzie--the risin' ship-broker. He
wad mak' a fine upstaundin' Captun fur wan o' yer boats some day, and
_I wad like tae see him get on_!"

The Managing Director was wise in his day and generation and made a
note of McKenzie's name, but he was too much of a Scotch business man
to promote officers unless they had ability. Captain Duncan was called
in one day and engaged in casual conversation by the manager. "What do
you know of McKenzie, chief officer of the _Ansonia_?" Duncan had been
primed by his wife. "A fine smert officer, sir," answered the marine
superintendent. "Keeps a nate shup and always attends to his wark."

"Drink?"

"No, sir! I've never heard tell o' him bein' a man that used liquor."

"How does he stand in seniority?"

"There's twa or three mates ahead o' him in length o' service, but
nane ahead in smertness. He's well connectit, sir. Nephew tae Sir
Alastair McKenzie and he's merrid on a Hielan' Chief's dochter--a fine
bonny leddy, sir!"

The Managing Director turned over a fyle of papers.

"McCallum, master of the _Trantonia_, has knocked the bows off his
ship in going out of Philadelphia and it has cost us a lot of money.
When the _Ansonia_ comes in this time, you can find a new chief
officer for her. We'll sack McCallum and give McKenzie command of the
_Trantonia_."

Duncan told his wife the news that evening over the tea table and that
worthy lady bustled over with the tidings to Janet. "Mrs. McKenzie,"
she gasped, blowing and puffing as she flopped down in Janet's
parlor-bedroom. "Jeck cam' hame th' nicht an' tells me yer husband's
tae be made captun o' th' _Trantonia_! Ye'll can ca' yersel' Mistress
Captun McKenzie efter this!"

Janet felt like embracing her visitor, but restrained her delight and
murmured. "So kind of you to come over and tell me, Mrs. Duncan. I
appreciate your thoughtfulness. I must write to-night and inform his
uncle, Sir Alastair, of the promotion"--the latter was a white fib for
Mrs. Duncan's benefit--"he'll be pleased, I'm sure."

When Alec arrived home, he was delighted with his good fortune even
though the _Trantonia_ was one of the smallest and oldest steamers in
the Line and had long been relegated to the cargo trade. But she was a
ship, and size made no difference in the status of ship-masters. The
pay--seventeen pounds per month--would enable them to take up house.
Everything was glorious and Alec marvelled at his good luck in being
promoted ahead of mates senior to him in service, and he was not above
voicing regrets for the unfortunate officers who suffered through his
advancement.

"Poor old Johnson," he said. "Been due for a command these ten years.
This will break his heart. Moore is ahead of me and should have got
the next vacancy, for he's a smart, able man. And old McCallum, whose
shoes I jump into. I'm awfully sorry for him, for he's got a large
family and nothing laid by. He'll have to go mate again in his old age
or take a job as watchman around the docks. It's cruel hard, but this
is the mill of the British Merchant Service these days. We jump ahead
over the bodies of the poor devils who slip on the ladder, and God
help those who slip!"

Janet did not share his sympathies and felt rather annoyed. "Why
should you fret about them? They wouldn't worry about you. Now, let's
go and look for a house, dear. There's a lovely three-room-and-kitchen
to let in Ibrox, which is a nice neighbourhood and many Captains live
there." She did not enlighten him as to how he got his promotion.

With Janet spurring him on, McKenzie rose from command to command. For
three years he ran the gamut of the Company's old crocks until, when
Donald Percival was born, he was master of a big five-thousand tonner
in the River Plate trade and drawing a salary of twenty pounds per
month.

McKenzie was happy then, and would have been quite content to remain
as master of a Sutton freighter doing the run from Glasgow to the
Plate. It was an easy fine-weather trade and he was drawing twenty a
month, and occasionally making a pound or two in commissions. There
was only his wife and Donald to support, and he had a comfortable home
in Ibrox--three rooms and kitchen on the second flat, with hot and
cold water, and a vestibule door off the stair landing--a real snug
spot. At sea, he was not over-worked, having a purser to write out
manifests and bills of lading, and he had plenty of time to read and
smoke and take it easy. But with the coming of Donald Percival,
Janet's ambition expanded. "Percival must have a nurse," she wrote to
her husband, "and there are several expenses to be met in connection
with our darling boy. You must get out of the cargo trade and into the
passenger ships, dear. Mrs. Davidson tells me her husband is getting
thirty pounds a month as captain of the _Zealandia_ in the Canadian
emigrant service. You must think of your connections. I shudder when I
imagine you coming up from Buenos Ayres with your ship full of smelly
cattle and sheep ... the passenger ships are more genteel ... the
doctor's bill is quite heavy, dear, and I have retained the services
of a good nurse, as I do not feel equal to housework yet and Percival
requires much care and attention...."

His wife's letter contained a memorandum of the expenses attendant
upon the ushering of Donald Percival into this mundane sphere, and it
caused McKenzie to break out into a cold sweat. "Raising kids is a
devilish expensive business," he confided to the mate, who had
"raised" six. "This youngster of mine stands me something like sixty
pounds!" "Saxty poonds?" gasped Mr. McLeish. "Losh, mon, but yer
mistress mun be awfu' delicate! Mistress McLeish brings them tae port
ivery year an' five quid covers the hale business.... Saxty poonds for
yin bairn? I c'd raise a dizzen for that amoont o' siller. Ye'll need
tae be lucky, Captun, an' fall across some disabled shups yince in a
while if ye're plannin' tae have a family. Saxty poonds? Ma
conscience!"

It was through a streak of God-given luck that the sixty pounds was
paid, and Donald could thank the Fates for sending an Italian emigrant
ship with a broken tail-end shaft across the path of his worried
Daddy. McKenzie picked her up in a gale of wind south of Madeira, and
he had his boats out and a hauling line aboard her ahead of a hungry
Cardiff tramp who had been standing-by for eight hours waiting for the
weather to moderate. "Sixty pounds has to be earned," muttered
McKenzie in his beard, "and there's no Welsh coal-scuttle going to
prevent me from getting it." After a strenuous time, and parting
hawser after hawser, McKenzie plucked the Italian into Madeira, and
the salvage money that came to him afterwards ensured his son's future
as a free-born citizen.

The incident was used by Janet as a stepping-stone to her ambitions.
After the salvage money had been awarded, she chased her husband "up
to the office" and made him interview the Managing Director and ask
for a command in the passenger trade. The official listened
courteously to McKenzie's plea (dictated by Janet) and as Suttons had
benefitted considerably by the Captain's picking up the helpless
Italian, the promotion was forthcoming. With a sigh of regret,
McKenzie carted his belongings from the comfortable River Plate
freighter to the master's quarters on the _Ansonia_--the old ship he
had served in as chief officer.

The _Ansonia_ was not the smart flyer of his younger days, but she
still carried passengers. Second cabin and continental steerage
thronged her decks outward from the Clyde to Boston, and four-footed
passengers occupied the same decks homeward. Those were the days of
the cheap emigrant fares--when the dissatisfied hordes of Central
Europe were transported to the Land of Liberty for three pounds
fifteen--and the _Ansonia_ would ferry them across in eleven days.
McKenzie drove her through sunshine and fog, calm or blow, and took
chances. There was no money in slow passages at the cut-rates
prevailing, and Alec often wished he were jogging to the south'ard in
his nine-knot freighter with but little to worry him. In the
_Ansonia_, the first grey streaks came in his blonde hair, and the
lines deepened around his mouth and eyes.

Janet was happy for a time, but Suttons had better and faster ships
than the one her husband was commanding. Their skippers were getting
more money and were able to maintain "self-contained villas" and keep
a servant. The return cargo of cattle which was the _Ansonia's_ paying
eastward freight offended Janet's sensibilities. She did not care to
have Mrs. Sandys--wife of the master of the Sutton "crack"
ship--asking her at a select "Conversazione" or "high tea"--"How many
head of cattle did your husband lose last voyage?" or "I don't suppose
you visit your husband's ship, Mrs. McKenzie. Those cattle boats are
simply impossible!"

Janet, in her younger days, was not above laboring in odoriferous
cattle byres, but, with her exalted station in life, the mere thought
of the _Ansonia's_ cluttered decks and the honest farm-yard aroma
which pervaded her and could be smelt a mile to loo'ard on a breezy
day, gave her a sinking feeling and dampened her social ambitions.

She felt that she had exhausted all her "string pulling" resources, so
she applied herself to imbuing her husband with more aggressiveness.
Though passionately fond of his wife, yet there were times when
McKenzie felt that he was being _hounded_ ahead. Every cent he earned
was spent in what his wife called "style," and what Alec called "dog."
Janet dressed expensively and did much entertaining, and young Donald
Percival was petted, spoiled, and cared for in a manner far beyond the
rightful limits of a master mariner's pay.

"Make yourself popular with the passengers, dear," counselled his
wifely mentor, "and drive your ship. Suttons like fast passages--"

"Aye," interrupted Alec somewhat bitterly, "but they don't like
accidents. You know what happened to poor Thompson of the _Syrania_?
Driving his ship in a fog to make fast time he cut a schooner in half
and stove his bows in. Suttons lost a pile of money over that, and
Thompson got the sack and is black-listed. His ticket was taken from
him and he barely escaped being tried by an American court for
manslaughter. I saw the poor chap in Boston this time, and what d'ye
think he was doing? Timekeeping for a stevedore firm and getting ten
dollars a week! A man who had commanded an Atlantic greyhound!"

Janet listened impatiently. "Oh, that was just his ill-fortune. I
heard that he was in his bunk when the accident happened--"

Her husband made a gesture of mild irritation. "Good heavens, Janet! A
man must sleep sometime," he said. "Thompson had been on the bridge
for sixty hours and was utterly played out. But that made no
difference. It was his fault. He was driving her full speed in a fog
and that's where they got him--even though Suttons were driving him
with their unwritten instructions--'Be careful with your ship,
Captain, but we expect you to make good passages!' Drive your ship,
but look-out if anything happens to her! That's the English of that!"

By persistent urging, Janet's exhortations had effect. McKenzie
hounded the old _Ansonia_ back and forth along the western ocean lanes
and grew more grey hairs and deeper lines on his face with the worry
and anxiety of long vigils on her bridge staring into the clammy
mists through which his ship was storming. With a chief engineer who
loved her wonderful old compound engines and who was willing to drive
them, McKenzie commenced clipping down the _Ansonia's_ runs until one
day she raced into Boston harbor an hour ahead of her best record
twelve years before, and two days ahead of a rival company's crack
ship, which had left Glasgow at the same time.

The Boston newspapers, heralding the feat and containing a cut of
Captain McKenzie and the ship, were forwarded to head office by the
Boston agents. The Managing Director was delighted over the defeat of
the rival company's crack ship, for the American papers played it up
strong, with two-column, heavy type head-lines and exaggerated
description. After perusal, the canny Scotch manager gave some thought
to McKenzie--the Yankee reporter dilated on the sub-head, 'Scotch
baronet's nephew commands Sutton record breaker,' (Alec had never
opened his mouth about the relationship)--and he began to consider him
seriously as master for the Sutton New York-Glasgow express steamship
_Cardonia_.

A wealthy American, returning to the States after a lease of Dunsany
Castle, unconsciously gave Alec the promotion which the manager had
considered and postponed. The American was rich and fussy, and when
booking his passage, had demanded to do so through the manager. "I
want a suite amidships, sir, 'n I want tew travel in a ship that kin
travel along, as I ain't none too good a sailor. I want to sail with a
skipper that'll make her travel some. 'N bye-the-bye, I saw by a
Boston paper that one of yewr skippers is related to Sir Alastair
McKenzie. I leased the old boy's castle for a while 'n a fine old bird
he is. I'd like mighty fine tew cross the pond with this here McKenzie
if he's on a fast packet, but ain't he on one of those twelve-day
hookers to Boston?"

The manager had made up his mind. A man with McKenzie's connections
would bring lucrative business and be popular in the New York trade.
The other masters in line for promotion would have to wait. "Captain
McKenzie _was_ in the _Ansonia_--one of our intermediate ships--but
we have now placed him in command of our New York Express steamship
_Cardonia_ and we can fix you up splendidly in her." The American
booked passage, and McKenzie commanded the _Cardonia_.

With the promotion came a substantial increase in salary and Janet
felt that her ambitions were realized--for a time at least. New worlds
to conquer would suggest themselves bye-and-bye. The flat in the
Terrace was given up, and a somewhat pretentious eight-roomed red
sandstone villa in a suburban locality was rented, expensively
decorated and furnished, and Mrs. McKenzie, with Donald Percival and a
capable Highland "general," moved in and laid plans for attaining the
rank of first magnitude in the firmament of the local social stars.




CHAPTER THREE


Donald Percival McKenzie was eight years old when the red sandstone
villa became his habitation. He was glad to leave the Terrace where
they formerly lived as his life in that locality, as far as relations
with lads of his own age were concerned, had been none too happy. The
migration to Kensington Villa, as the red sandstone eight-roomer was
called, was accompanied by a determined ultimatum from young McKenzie
that his mother drop the name "Percival" altogether and call him
"Donald" in future. As the ultimatum was presented with considerable
howling and crying and threats of atrocious behavior, the mother felt
that she would have to make the concession.

With this bar to congenial juvenile fraternization removed, Donald
felt free to begin life on a new plane. The youthful residents of the
suburb he now lived in were "superior." They did not run around
barefooted in summer, nor wear "tackety" or hobnailed boots in winter.
Not that Donald scorned either of these pedal comforts. Bare feet were
fine and cool and "tackety" boots gave a fellow a grand feeling of
heftiness in clumping around the house, in kicking tin cans, and in
scuffling up sparks through friction with granolithic sidewalks.
Though superior in mode of living and dress compared with the less
favored lads of Donald's former habitation, yet his new chums were
very much akin to the latter in their scorn and hatred for anything
savoring of "English," and Donald hadn't been in the neighborhood two
days before he had to prove his citizenship in fistic combat with a
youthful Doubting Thomas.

The other lad was bigger and older than Donald and had the name of
being a fighter. He gave young McKenzie a severe drubbing and the
latter had to go home with his clothes torn and his nose bleeding. The
mother was furious and intended to see the other boy's parents about
it, but Donald wouldn't allow her to do so. Instead, he remained home
for an hour or two, changed into a garb less likely to spoil or hinder
the free swing of his arms, and then slipped out to have another try
at defending his name. Once again, Donald, in pugilistic parlance,
"went to the mat for the count," but in rising he announced his
intention of coming back at his fistic partner later--"after I take
boxing lessons an' get my muscle up." Donald's determination, and
possibly the threat, had considerable effect upon Jamie Sampson, who
immediately made conciliatory advances. "I don't want tae hit ye any
more," he said. "Ye're a wee fella'--"

"Am I Scotch?" queried Donald aggressively.

"Shair, ye're Scoatch!" Jamie admitted heartily--adding, "And I'll
punch any fella's noase that says ye're no. Let me brush ye doon,
Donal'!"

Through the exertion of the "fecht" Donald caught a cold and was laid
up for two weeks, but he felt that it was worth it as he had gained
the friendship of Jamie Sampson--"the best fighter on the Road, mamma,
and you should see how he can dunt a ba' with his heid!" Donald's
description of Jamie's prowess in using his skull for propelling a
foot-ball caused Mrs. McKenzie some pain at the language used, and to
her husband she said, "Donald must go to school soon, but we must send
him to a place where he will learn to talk nicely. I think we'll send
him to Miss Watson's private school. She's English and very
particular."

Captain McKenzie looked thoughtfully at his son and sighed. "He's not
very strong," he murmured, "but he's got spirit if he hasn't got
stamina. Fancy him going for that big lad again after getting a
licking! Aye, aye, Janet, he's a hot-house plant, but maybe he'll grow
out of it if we're careful."

Petted and coddled by both parents; seldom rebuked or disciplined,
young Donald was inclined to be "babyish" and somewhat arbitrary. He
was a rather delicate child--a not unusual exception to the law of
eugenics where both parents were ruggedly healthy--and his frequent
sicknesses kept him much at home and in the society of his mother. He
was clever beyond his years and had mastered "A, B, C's" and
"pot-hooks and hangers" prior to his fifth birthday, while at seven,
he could read and write in a manner superior to most thick-skulled
Scotch youngsters of ten. He showed surprising evidences of artistic
talent at an early age, and the blank cover pages and flyleaves of
most of the books in the McKenzie library were adorned with pencil
drawings of railway locomotives and ships--mostly ships. Captain
McKenzie seldom arrived home from a voyage but what he had to pass
critical comment upon his son's artistic conceptions of the _Cardonia_
ploughing the seas in every manner of weather imaginable. There would
be the _Cardonia_ driving through a veritable cordillera of cresting
combers--billows which caused the Captain to shudder involuntarily and
declare that they were so wonderfully realistic that "he could feel
the sprays running down his neck when he looked at them!" The
_Cardonia_ would again be presented in odious comparison with a rival
company's ship, and the latter was always dwarfed in size and far
astern. In Donald's eyes, the _Cardonia_ was superior to anything
afloat--even the crack Liverpool greyhounds of the day were mere
tug-boats compared to her.

Occasionally other ship-masters would accompany Captain McKenzie home
to dinner when his ship was in port, and these were red-letter days
for Donald. After dinner, the seafarers would retire to the
drawing-room and, with pipes or cigars alight and seated before the
grate fire, the talk would inevitably drift to ships and shipping.
With ears open and drinking in the conversation, Donald would be
seated on a cushion in front of the blaze, revelling in the gossip,
and unconsciously absorbing the spirit which, for ages, has set the
feet of Britain's youth a-roving o'er the long sea paths.

Mrs. McKenzie would catch the look of rapt attention on her son's face
and with the long foresight of a mother's mind she would realize that
such talk was not good for a boy to hear if he were to be kept to home
and home pursuits. Besides, she had a fear of the sea--a fear which
was growing on her with time, and only her husband's monthly
home-comings lifted an unknown dread from her heart which returned
with his "good-byes." Though ambitious, proud, extravagant and
somewhat callous where the welfare of others was concerned, yet she
adored her husband and her son, and if put to the choice, would gladly
relinquish her social aspirations for their sakes.

When the wild winter gales raged on the Atlantic and ships were posted
as missing or came in with decks swept, Mrs. McKenzie had her share of
dreadful fears, as have all seamen's wives at these times, but her
husband had been so consistently fortunate that she almost believed
him to be invulnerable to ocean's caprices. True, there were occasions
when the news of the loss of a neighbor's husband at sea would cause
her to frame resolutions to save for such a contingency, but ambition
would dominate these good intentions and she would console or deceive
herself with the thought that "Alec is young yet. He's never had an
accident, and we'll save when Donald is through college."

To her perverted mentality, accidents could happen to others, but they
couldn't happen to Alec. She preferred to think of the sea-captains
who had safely dodged the wrath of the sea and who had retired to snug
stone villas in sea-side towns where they took their ease growing
geraniums and roses and acknowledging the whistle or flag salutes of
brother masters in active service as they passed by. On her lonely
couch, she dreamed of the future days when Alec would retire from the
sea for all time; when she would have him always with her, and when
young Donald Percival--man grown--would be a coming Glasgow architect,
designing structures destined to be the admiration of all eyes.

In conning over her lifetime so far, Janet felt a great pride in her
accomplishments. From the "but and ben" of a poor Highland farm she
had travelled far, and to her credit it must be said that she had
worked and studied hard to keep pace with her social progress. Her
humble origin and the menial service of her pre-marital days had been
skilfully covered, and her quick and active mind readily absorbed the
"correct" conversation, deportment and pursuits which should
necessarily accompany the social status of a "Captain's wife whose
husband was in the New York passenger service, and whose salary was
four hundred pounds a year!"

Since her marriage she had dropped home ties. She felt that she owed
her parents but little. They had brought her into the world, fed and
clothed her for a few years and were glad when she had gone into
"service" in Glasgow. She was off their hands then, and ten brothers
and sisters more than filled her place at home. Neither her father nor
mother could write, and the only time she saw her family again was
when they arrived in Glasgow en route to Canada. They were now out on
a homestead in "Moose Jaw, Chicago, Sacramento or some such outlandish
place," and she had heard nothing from them since they emigrated.

Baillie Ross had attained the coveted Lord Provostship, but with the
honors of the office, he had become unapproachable to Janet. David
McKenzie was flying his own house-flag on several sailing-ships, but
he had discouraged advances by cutting Captain and Mrs. McKenzie
"dead" on the few occasions during which they came face to face. "To
the devil with him!" laughed Alec on the first non-recognition. "I can
get along without him. His name is a curse in the mouths of sailormen
and his ships are notorious as 'work-houses' and 'starvation packets.'
Better not to claim acquaintance with such a brother. He was never
anything to me anyhow!"

Alec had written to his uncle upon one occasion--just a friendly
letter telling of his progress at sea (he was in the _Cardonia_ then),
but Sir Alastair had answered curtly, stating that "David had informed
him of his (Alec's) doings and he didn't care to hear any more about
them!" Alec read the letter thoughtfully, and mentally pictured the
story David would spin to the Baronet. With a bitter smile, he threw
the letter in the fire and wiped both his brother and his uncle
forever from his affections.

Thus, unencumbered or blessed with relations, the McKenzies ploughed
their own furrow and lived happily in their own select sphere. Donald
went to the private school and showed exceptional brilliancy at his
books, even though his tuition was interrupted often by spells of
ill-health. His frequent sicknesses worried the mother, until a famous
Glasgow specialist had examined the lad and given his verdict. "He's
as sound as a bell, madam, but he has a cauld stomach. Keep his feet
warrm and dinna gie him a lot of sweet trash to eat. Dinna coddle him.
Let him rin the streets--it's the life of a laud rinning and jeuking
aboot--and by the time he's twalve or fourteen he'll be as tough as a
louse and as hard tae kill!" Couched in homely Doric, the advice of
the great Doctor Chalmers--famous throughout Great Britain for his
skill and common-sense prescriptions--assuaged Janet's fears and
opened up a desirable vista to Donald Percival.

Captain McKenzie's interpretation of the great physician's advice was
to insist on Donald being sent to a public school. "Let him get along
with real boys, Janet," he maintained. "He's ten years old now and
should be able to take care of himself. If you coddle him too much,
he'll be a namby-pamby baby instead of a live boy--"

"But think of the rough characters he'll meet?" objected his wife.

"He'll have to meet them sometime and the sooner the better. He isn't
going to be a monk that you should want to keep him so inviolable.
Now, Janet, take him away from that kindergarten he's attending and
put him in the Gregg Street Public School right away." Captain
McKenzie was determined, and next day Janet took her ewe-lamb to the
public school in a cab and waited on the head master.

That worthy pedagogue assured Mrs. McKenzie that her hopeful would be
well looked after and that his morals would not necessarily be
contaminated by association with _his_ scholars, and he mentally
wondered how it was that all mothers imagined their own children were
lambs and those of others, wolves and jackals. Twenty years of driving
the rudiments of knowledge into the thick and stubborn skulls of
Scotch youngsters had made him cynical, and he looked upon Donald as
another mild-looking angel with probable devilish propensities.

Young McKenzie was given an examination to determine the grade or
class he was fitted for, and surprised the examiner by his general
intelligence. He was then taken and enrolled on the register of the
Fifth Standard, and a saturnine male teacher gave him a number and a
desk which he had to share with a shock-headed urchin who wore a blue
woollen "ganzey" and "tackety" boots. Shock-head glanced over Don's
black velvet suit and white collar with ill-concealed disdain and,
having taken the measure of his desk-mate, inquired huskily, "Can ye
fight?"

On Donald not deigning to answer this "rude, rough boy," Shock-head
felt encouraged to try the newcomer's spirit by a lusty jab in the
ribs with his elbow. Young McKenzie returned the prod with interest,
which caused Shock-head to grunt and make a swing with his fist. The
eagle-eyed teacher spied the movement and haled the aggressor to the
floor. Producing a snakey-looking leather strap from his pocket, Mr.
Corey took a great deal of the belligerency out of Shock-head by
administering six stinging blows with the strap on the culprit's
outstretched palm. "Now, sir, go to your seat and leave the new boy
alone!"

Shock-head never made a whimper, but returned to his seat and
endeavored to cool his injured palm by spitting and blowing on it.
Such hardihood appealed to Donald and he whispered in the parlance he
was supposed to eschew, "You're a gey tough yin!" The other, still
blowing, nodded and whispered with unmoved lips, "Ah've taken twinty
swipes an' he couldny make me greet!"

At this juncture the bell for "minutes" or recess was tolled and
Donald filed out in company with Shock-head, who evidently bore no
malice.

"Whit's yer name, new fella'?"

"Donald McKenzie! What's yours?"

"Joak McGlashan! Whaur d'ye leeve?"

"Maxwell Park! Where do you live?"

"Thurty-seevin M'Clure street an' up three stairs. Whit does yer
faither wurrk at?"

"He's a sea captain--in the Sutton Line!" declared Donald proudly. The
other paused and looked at him in surprise. "Is he? Whit boat is he
on?" There was curiosity in his tone.

"The _Cardonia_!"

McGlashan made an exclamation of pleased astonishment. "My! but that's
funny," he said. "Ma faither's bos'n on the _Cardonia_ an' he's great
pals wi' your auld man. They get on fine thegither. Jist think o' that
noo! Is she no th' fine shup th' _Cardonia_? Did ye ever see th' bate
o' her?" And the two boys were chums instantly.

Mrs. McKenzie came down at four and took Donald home in a cab. "And
how did you get on, dear?" she asked--nervously glancing at the noisy
mob of school children who were lingering around to watch "the toff
gaun hame in a cab!"

"Fine, mamma, fine! I've got a chum already--Joak McGlashan--and his
papa's bos'n on the _Cardonia_! He says his pa's great pals with my
_old man_!"--(Mrs. McKenzie gasped)--"and mamma, Joak is a gey tough
yin!"--(Another gasp)--"he can stand twenty swipes on the hand from
the teacher's strap without bubblin'! Aye, an' he's going to put a
horse-hair on his hand next time he gets punished and he'll split
Mister Corey's strap to bits. I'm going to bring Joak out to tea some
time soon"--(the mother shuddered)--"and he's going to learn me to
stand on my hands and skin the cat and sklim a lamp-post!" At the
mention of this contingency and the terms used in naming certain
athletic accomplishments, Mrs. McKenzie reached for her smelling salts
and felt that the carefully built fabric of years was crumbling.

To her husband that night, Janet said dolefully, "I'm afraid Donald is
going to lose all his gentility and good manners at that common
school. He has chummed up already with a Jock McGlashan who says that
his father is a great 'pal' of yours--a boatswain or something on your
ship--"

McKenzie laughed. "Oh, yes!--McGlashan! Well! He's a good honest sort
of a fellow and he's sailed with me a good many years. It won't hurt
Donald to be democratic. When I was a young chap I ate and slept and
shared clothes and tobacco with fellows who are quartermasters with me
now, and good chaps they are too. Don't bring our boy up to believe
he's better than anybody else. If you do, he'll be like a young
bear--all his troubles before him."

"But Donald wishes to bring this McGlashan boy up here to play with
him!" protested Janet. "Just think of the manners of M'Clure street
being introduced here!"

The other smiled and patted his wife's hand. "Don't worry, dear. If
Donald wants young McGlashan to play with him here, let him do so.
Better to have McGlashan here than have Donald go down to M'Clure
street. He won't learn any more deviltry from my bos'n's kid than he
would from young Sampson or the other imps who live in this
neighborhood." Then, in a kindly tone, he added significantly, "You
know, Janet, I was never one for making distinctions in breed or
birth. One finds true gentlemen and real ladies dressed in the meanest
clothes and serving in the humblest capacities. Let Donald have plenty
of rope and don't coddle him too much."

Young McKenzie's introduction to public school life was rather a
severe trial to a delicately nurtured boy, who had so far been, as
jeering school-mates declared, "tied tae his mither's apron strings!"
His undoubted cleverness in the school-room commanded no admiration
from his kind. On the other hand, he was reviled and held up to
contempt as one who was false to school-boy traditions by actually
studying his lessons--"tae keep in wi' th' teacher!" The majority of
Scotch boys preferred to have their lessons driven into their hard
heads by dint of much corporal punishment rather than lose valuable
play hours by "dinnin' ower their buiks."

The fact that he lived in a villa in a select suburb, took piano,
singing and dancing lessons, and wore nice clothes and a white linen
collar--clean every morning--militated against him for a time. To his
blue-jerseyed companions, white collars were the trade-marks of a
"bloomin' toff" and fair game for desecrating with ink and muddy paws.
Mrs. McKenzie used to tremble with indignation at the sight of her
son's collar on his return from school, but after a month the soiled
linen ceased to offend her eyes, as Donald simply removed his collar
before entering school and put it on again prior to his entering his
home.

He would have fared worse had it not been for Joak McGlashan. Joak was
a "tough yin" and had considerable renown as a fistic gladiator. The
arena for these encounters was a piece of waste land near the school
and screened from the eyes of prowling "polismen" by a high
bill-posting boarding. "Efter fower o'clock" was the invariable hour
of combat, and many the time Donald arrived home late for tea through
acting as second for the invincible Joak. These after-school fights
were often sanguinary affairs and the Scotch stubborness and pugnacity
were well exemplified in the savagery of the contestants. Scratching,
kicking, and hitting a downed man were strictly taboo, but everything
else went, and to see the appreciative looks on the faces, and hear
the excited yells of the spectators during one of these "after four"
meetings, one would be convinced that the Scottish youth was not far
removed from his barbaric ancestor.

No boy in the school could avoid doing a round or two behind the
bill-boards within a month of his entry into the Gregg street
institution. If he hadn't trampled the hallowed mud of the spot as a
combatant it was either because he was too big and strong to be
challenged, or because he was a coward. If the latter, his life would
be made a misery to him and he would either have to leave the school
or go into the arena with the weakest of his tormentors and either
beat him or be beaten. A boy who had fought, whether licked or not,
had proved himself and would be unmolested.

In due time Donald's hour of trial came. A dock-lumper's hulking son
had usurped Donald's hook in the cloak room and had thrown his coat on
the floor. Donald saw the action and resented it by throwing the
other's coat off. No blows were exchanged at that time, as the
argus-eyed janitor was around, but Luggy Wilson--the big
fellow--doubled up his fist and tapped his nose significantly, saying,
"Efter fower! Ah'll do ye! Ye'll fight me, McKenzie--dirrty toff!"

Luggy was big and strong but lacked "sand." Donald was endowed with
plenty of "grit," and in the fight that followed behind the
bill-boards after school, he came off the victor. A lucky punch on
Luggy's proboscis drew blood, and when the big fellow sighted his own
gore he ran away home. Intoxicated with the exhilaration of victory,
Donald insisted on Joak accompanying him to Maxwell Park as a reward
for seconding him, and Joak, feeling just pride in his protégé, was
glad to go and be in a position to give Captain McKenzie an
eye-witness's account of the fracas.

It was almost six o'clock when Donald, accompanied by Joak, burst into
the McKenzie drawing-room. Both Captain and Mrs. McKenzie were at home
and the Presbyterian minister and his wife--particular folk--were with
them awaiting dinner. At the sight of her son--covered with mud, with
swollen lips and a rapidly blackening eye, and accompanied by a
shock-headed youngster in blue woollen jersey and hob-nailed
boots--Mrs. McKenzie nearly fainted.

"Ah've had a fight, mamma!" ejaculated Donald, relapsing into the
language of the street. "Ah licked a big fella ca'd Luggy Wulson. He
was a big lump with nae guts and I bliddied his beak and gave him a
keeker! Didn't I, Joak?"

"Ye did!" grunted Joak laconically, taking in the luxurious
surroundings of his "pal's hoose."

Mrs. McKenzie rang for the maid and gasped, "Mary! Take these boys out
in the kitchen and clean them!"

The minister and his wife sat very prim and quiet. Mrs. McKenzie felt
that her darling had fallen from his pedestal, while Captain McKenzie
strode to the bay window and looked out with smiling eyes--secretly
delighted--and proud to know that he had a son that was "all boy."




CHAPTER FOUR


Two years at the Gregg Street Public School saw Donald in that exalted
grade of learning known as the "Ex-sixth"--a sort of educational
Valhalla which conferred a brevet rank upon one and caused the
scholars of lesser degree to look up to its members with awe. The
pupils of the Ex-sixth were supposed to have out-grown "the strap,"
and their curriculum led them into the envied precincts of the school
laboratory, where, at certain times, they could do all sorts of
wonderful things with Bunsen burners, and test tubes, and hydrometers
and such like. In this class a fellow could make gun-powder on the sly
and color his knife or a white-metal watch and chain to look like gold
by dipping it in copper sulphate.

Though Donald could boast of no prowess at the strenuous athletic
games of football, running, jumping, etc., yet he developed remarkable
ability as a swimmer. Swimming lessons were compulsory in the Gregg
Street School and a fine swimming bath was attached to the
institution, and the scholars had to take at least two lessons a week
under the tutelage of a master of the natatory art. Young McKenzie
took to the water like a duck, and his proficiency made him a favorite
with the master and a contestant in inter-school matches, and during
his year in the Ex-sixth he won the Glasgow Amateur Swimming Shield
for schoolboys under 14 years of age.

His educational progress at the school had been marked by
commendation and praise. He was an example to all, and on the "Prize
Day" he invariably trotted home loaded with gift-books marked inside
the cover, "Presented to Donald P. McKenzie for Excellence in
Drawing," or maybe it was for history, composition, geography, or some
such subject in which he excelled. The constant repetition of
McKenzie's name on "Prize Day" caused less-favored youngsters to feel
bored and to express their desire to give the clever one "a punch on
th' noase" for being so mentally efficient. This desideratum was
expressed _sotto voce_ and to intimates, as McKenzie's fame as a
fighter had been established since his encounter with Luggy Wilson,
and who McKenzie couldn't fight, his chum, Joak McGlashan could, so he
was treated with considerable respect for a "toff that wuz clever at
learnin'."

Joak's intellectual powers kept him to the Fifth Standard, and it was
doubtful if he would go beyond that grade. He would never have
retained his place in it were it not for Donald, who primed him and
did his home work for him during the time the two were class-mates.
Bos'n McGlashan used to regard with some wonder a prize book which his
son had won for "General Excellence in Drawing" while with Donald in
the Fifth Standard, and wonder still more when during Joak's second
year in the Fifth his drawing percentage was the lowest of any in the
class. Joak explained this inexplicable loss of artistic ability by
stating that he had sprained his thumb and couldn't hold a pencil like
during the prize-winning year, but to Donald he regretted the
deception as one which gave him a lot of unnecessary work in trying to
live up to it. The "sprained thumb" excuse came as a grateful relief.

Though separated by the gulf of learning, Donald and Joak fraternized
as of yore, but Mrs. McKenzie absolutely refused to allow the
McGlashan boy to come to the villa in Maxwell Park. Donald's frequent
lapses from the ethics of polite society in occasional interlardings
of his conversation with "Glesca" vernacular, and in lengthy absences
on Saturdays and holidays from the precincts of the villa, were laid
to the baneful influence of Joak. Joak was blamed for Donald's
home-comings with dirt-bespattered clothing and grimy face. Joak was
the leading spirit in those all-day pilgrimages "doon to the Docks,"
and Joak was to be indicted for sending Donald home one day soaked to
the skin after he had fallen off a raft which they had constructed to
sail on the stagnant waters of a railway cut.

Saturday was a day of days with the boys. It was the day in which they
toured the Port of Glasgow and conned its multifarious shipping; when
they trudged from dock to dock, and basin to basin and appraised the
model and rig of every craft that lay therein. "There's a bonny boat
fur ye noo, Donal'," Joak would say as he eyed a liner with
white-painted upper works and yarded masts. "She's a big yin--an Injia
boat, Ah'm thinkin'!" Donald would scan her with a sailorly eye.
"She's not an India boat, Joak. She's in the North Atlantic trade.
There's no coolies aboard her. There's always coolies on an India
boat. Now, just look at that big sailing-ship beyond the bend. There's
a boat for ye! Let's go down and maybe we can get aboard her." Thus
the pilgrims would go--dodging shunting engines and rumbling
coal-trucks, cargo hoisting cranes and Dock Police--and the middle of
the day would find them trudging up the odoriferous and noisy confines
of M'Clure street, where at number thirty-seven, up three flights of
stone stairs, Donald would find a welcome and a bite to eat from the
big-hearted Mistress McGlashan. Of course, Mrs. McKenzie knew nothing
of these social calls on her son's part. If she did, Donald's Saturday
pilgrimaging would have been ruthlessly cut short.

It was a memorable day when in their prowls around the docks, Donald
and Jock saw a wonderfully fine ship come up the river and moor at the
Sutton Line quay. She was a new purchase of Sutton's--a former London
East India liner, and Suttons had bought her to put her in the New
York trade as an off-set to a brand new ship which their rivals had
just launched. Both boys admitted that the "new yin" was finer than
the _Cardonia_, and both inwardly voiced the hope that their
respective daddies would have the privilege of sailing on the latest
addition to the Sutton fleet.

At school a week later, Donald sought his chum with portentous news.
"My father's going as Captain of the new ship, and she's to be called
the _Sarmania_. Isn't that fine, Joak?"

Next morning young McGlashan had news. "Ma faither's gaun as bos'n o'
th' new yin, Donal'. He told me this morrn, an' he's gey prood. She's
th' finest shup oot th' Clyde, he says!"

When Captain McKenzie discussed the new ship with his wife, Donald
showed a surprising knowledge of the vessel's rig, design and tonnage.

"By George, young man," exclaimed the father, "how do you happen to
know so much about the ship?"

Mrs. McKenzie laughed. "What is there he doesn't know?" she said. "Why
he spends all his Saturdays and holidays wandering around the docks
with that McGlashan imp and I can't prevent him. I'm always in fear
that he'll be killed or drowned there some day."

Captain McKenzie looked at his son. "What is the idea?" he enquired.
"Why this craze for dock-wandering and ship-worshipping?"

"Why?" reiterated Donald slowly. "Why? Because I intend to go to sea
myself some day!"

Captain McKenzie looked his son over critically and stroked his beard.
Donald was twelve years old then--a tall, slim, comely lad. He had his
mother's dark hair and large dark brown eyes. The eyes were clear and
sparkling and expressive of the boy's emotions and served to lend
distinction to a face which might otherwise be characterized as
"plain." His forehead was high; the nose was straight and the mouth
large and firm, but there was a pallor to the skin which did not
betoken rugged health, although he was wiry enough. His hands were
small, with long artistic fingers, and as he looked at them, Captain
McKenzie could not imagine those frail hands digging for finger-hold
into the rough canvas of a wet topsail. Nor could he vision this
carefully nurtured lad scrambling aloft on a dark, dirty night to the
dizzy height of a swaying royal-yard, or tugging and hauling at wet
ropes on a sluicing deck. A boy who had been trained in painting,
music, singing, dancing and the culture of the drawing-room to herd
with rough-spoken men who looked upon such accomplishments as
effeminate and worthy only of curseful scorn; a boy that had never
slept anywhere but in a warm, downy bed; who had never wanted for
anything; who had never known cold and hunger; who had been petted and
waited upon by a doting mother--Pah! The sea would kill him ere he had
been a dog-watch in a ship's company!

The father spoke quietly. "Donny, my lad," he said, drawing his son to
his knee, "you must give up that notion. The sea would kill you,
laddie. You're not strong enough for that life, and it's a dog's life
at the best of times. Why, boy, I'd rather be a farmer with a snug
place ashore than skipper of the _Sarmania_ to-day."

"But Nelson was a delicate boy, daddy," protested Donald, "and he came
along all right."

"Yes, Donny, but Nelson was a man in a million. He was a solitary
exception. I've seen poor little shavers go to sea and have to be
taken ashore on a mattress absolutely crocked up for the remainder of
their days. You'd be wasted at sea, laddie. You have ability and
talents far beyond what I have, and if you develop them you should be
wealthy and famous by the time you're my age. No, no, boy! You must
get that sea-fever out of your head. It's no good, believe me!"

"Joak McGlashan's going to sea, Dad, and we both planned to go
together when we were fifteen or sixteen."

The father smiled. "How are you going to work that? McGlashan's folks
could never afford to apprentice him. He'd have to go in the fo'c'sle
as a boy."

"Well, Dad, we planned we might go in a steamer together as deck-boys
and serve our time. The sailing-ships might be too hard for me at
first, but a steamer would be easier--"

The Captain burst into a guffaw. "You think so, eh? Let me tell you
that you'll do more real back-breaking and menial work aboard of a
steamer than you'll do on a sailing-ship. On a steamer! Huh! Shoveling
ashes and cleaning out holes that a man couldn't get into! A dirty
deckboy at the beck and call of every ordinary seaman--and on a
steamer! God forbid! They don't make sailors on steamers, and even if
you served your time in steam and got a master's certificate, there
isn't a ship-owner would give you a ship, nor would you obtain the
respect of officers and crew if you did get one. There's no back-door
for reaching the bridge in sea-faring. You have to serve your time in
sail, and go thro' the mill, otherwise you'd never get to be more than
a common deck-hand no matter how clever you were. There is a
time-keeper down in the wharf office with an Extra Master's
certificate, and he can't get even a second mate's berth. Why? Because
he served his time in steam. He knows all about navigation, but he
couldn't put a square-rigger about, and that has damned him in the
eyes of owners and sailormen. He might have the theory, but he hasn't
the practice, and that cooked his goose. Now, sonny, we'll just drop
all this notion of going to sea and you'll study hard and be an
architect and stay home and keep your mother company. One of us at sea
is enough!"

Donald left the room abruptly and Mrs. McKenzie sat beside her
husband. "I'm so glad you have talked to Donald, Alec," she said.
"He's just crazy about going to sea, and I've heard nothing but ships,
ships, and ships for months. He gloats over that sailing ship picture
there and reads nothing but sea-stories, and I think that he and that
McGlashan boy spend all their spare time around the docks. I hope you
can drive the fancy out of his head."

"All British boys have the fever at some time in their youth," said
the Captain with a laugh. "He'll get over it. He can't go to sea
unless he runs away, and I'm sure he won't do that!"

Upstairs in the privacy of his bedroom, Donald was prone on a sofa
crying bitterly. His dreams and ideals had been ruthlessly smashed. He
felt bitterly the lack of health and strength to do what other boys
could do. How could he face Joak and tell him that he couldn't
accompany him in his sea-faring? It was hard to give up the idea after
dreaming and weaving fancies around it so long. For an hour he lay
alone in his misery, until the father and mother found him and petted
and caressed him back to smiles again. "Don't fret, Donny-boy," said
the father, who understood. He drew the boy to him and brought the
wan, tear-stained face to his shoulder. "I tell you what I'll do,
sonny," he said.

Donald looked up expectantly. "What, daddy?"

"Next May, if all goes well, I'll take you and mamma on a voyage to
New York and back. How's that?"

"Hurray!" All disappointment was forgotten in the promise, and the boy
alternately hugged his father and skipped around the room in joyful
antics. "Won't that be great! Hurray! Jingo! I must tell Joak. And in
the _Sarmania_ too! I can hardly wait until the winter's over. Just
think of it, mamma! To New York! Three thousand miles across the
Atlantic!" His delight knew no bounds and seafaring ideals were, for
the nonce, postponed.

On a brumal November day, the _Sarmania_ was to sail on her first trip
under the Sutton house-flag. Captain McKenzie had bidden his family an
affectionate farewell early in the morning and had driven away in a
cab with his white canvas sea bag and portmanteau on the "dicky."
Mother and son had watched the four-wheeler rattle down the road and
had waved to the Captain peering for a last glance of home through the
window. Partings are holy moments, fraught with memories and fears,
and both watched the conveyance disappear from sight without speaking.
"Mamma," said Donald, when they entered the house again, "what do you
say if we take a cab this afternoon and drive down to Renfrew and see
the ship pass down the river. I'd like to see daddy's ship going down
to the sea." The idea appealed to Mrs. McKenzie and she assented
eagerly. "And mamma," continued Donald, "I'd like to ask a favor and I
hope you'll grant it."

"What is it, dear?"

"Let me go and get poor Joak McGlashan and take him with us. His papa
is on the _Sarmania_ too, and I'm sure it would be a great treat for
him to see the ship."

Mrs. McKenzie's lips pursed and she was about to refuse gently, but
something had softened her heart towards the undesirable Joak, and she
gave permission. Donald grabbed his hat and coat and was off to
thirty-seven M'Clure street.

Later in the day a cab plodded down to the grassy banks of the Clyde
at Renfrew and the occupants got out. Joak had had a hair-cut and wore
a collar--an adornment which chafed his neck and made him feel like a
"bloomin' toff." In Mrs. McKenzie's eyes, the youth, thus adorned,
looked quite passable, and were it not for his "atrocious
conversation," she would have been impelled to invite Joak to tea on
occasions. Joak's dialect, however, barred him from the polite society
of Maxwell Park, and Mrs. McKenzie felt that the restrictions could
not be relaxed.

The party sat on a seat by a river-side path until Donald, who had
been scanning the roily windings of the Clyde citywards, discerned
three tall masts coming slowly around a bend. "Here she comes!" he
cried.

Slowly and majestically the liner swung into view, with a
paddle-wheeled tug straining at a stern hawser, and the boys scanned
her over with appreciative delight. The _Sarmania_ was, indeed, a
queen among ships--a long, straight-stemmed, black-hulled dream of a
vessel, flush-decked from stem to stern, with white painted rails,
stanchions and life-boats in orderly array, and varnished teak
deck-houses, whose brass-rimmed ports glittered in the cold November
daylight. A lofty, black, red-banded funnel arose from a phalanx of
ventilators amidships, and three tall pole masts, with square yards
crossed on the fore, added to the appearance of a handsome ship.

The pilot-jack flew from a stem-head staff just in front of the
uniformed Chief Officer standing up in the eyes of her; the graceful
Stars and Stripes waved from the fore-truck, while the Sutton house
flag and a red mail pennant decorated the other masts. Astern, from
the jack-staff lazily waved "the old red duster"--the "blood and guts
of Old England"--the red ensign of Britain's Merchant Marine, and "The
Flag" never floated from a nobler looking ship.

Mrs. McKenzie saw not the ship. Her eyes were riveted on the high
bridge which stood, spider-like, on stout iron stanchions forward of
the long funnel, and upon which strode her husband, uniformed, alert,
and monarch absolute of the little world he ruled. Captain McKenzie
paused in his thwartship pacings and whipped up a pair of binoculars
to his eyes. The boys were swinging their caps and shouting; Mrs.
McKenzie was waving a handkerchief. The Captain spied them, and taking
off his uniform cap waved heartily. He turned for a moment and gave an
order. A burst of steam whirled up from the liner's funnel and the
syren blared forth a farewell roar. "He's blawin' th' whustle tae ye!"
yelled Joak. "Ah see ma faither at the front o' the shup. Haw,
faither! Haw, faither!" And Joak yelled himself hoarse at the stocky
figure which detached itself from a knot of seamen and waved a cap at
the rail.

Slowly the fine ship glided past, decks thronged with passengers, and
a column of black smoke ascended from the funnel as the firemen stoked
for "a full head of steam." The stern tug came abreast of the
watchers, and the ship swung around a bend and slowly vanished.

Mrs. McKenzie called the boys, and with something of an ache in her
heart, she drove home--remaining silent while the others chattered and
described the fine points of the wonderful ship their fathers sailed
in.

The _Sarmania_ arrived in New York after a rapid passage, and Donald
and Joak had discussed stealing down to the river-side when the ship
was due back and watching her come in, but the December weather had
set in with gales of wind and rain and the time of the ship's arrival
was problematical, so they gave up the idea and decided to meet the
ship at the quay should the time of day be appropriate.

On a cold, wet winter's morning, Donald trudged to school, intending
at lunch hour to go down to the wharf office and ask if there was any
word of the _Sarmania_, which was then due. Joak was not present that
morning, but that was nothing unusual, as Joak was becoming tired of
the Fifth Standard and played truant often. The morning dragged
slowly. It was a dark, dismal Glasgow day--a day of sullen clouds and
slashing rain--when the street lamps remained alight to do the work of
the skulking sun, but Donald hummed softly at his work and looked
forward to an evening with his father and a recital of the wonderful
_Sarmania's_ maiden passage in the New York trade. He would be in that
day, sure enough! He was a day late, but they always gave a day extra
on winter passages, and Alec McKenzie seldom exceeded it.

Noon came and Donald was seated in a corner of the play-ground shed
eating a lunch and kicking his legs to keep warm, when Joak--a grimy,
wet and haggard Joak--came running up. Donald noticed that the tears
were streaming from his eyes. "Who hit ye?" he gasped as he stood up
and caught his staggering chum.

Joak ignored the question. "Oh Donal', it's awfu', it's awfu'! Ah
dinna ken what to say!" And the tears and sobs burst forth anew.

Donald was alarmed. "What is the matter, Joak? Tell me, quick!"

Joak looked up from the bench upon which he had thrown himself prone
and in a voice punctuated by sobs and moans, told the news.

"We're orphans, Donal'. Th' _Sarmania's_ jist cam' in an' your faither
an' my faither is no aboard her. They were lost oot on the Atlantic!"

The lunch dropped from Donald's hand. For a moment he stood paralyzed,
staring at his weeping chum. The dreadful sense of his loss benumbed
his brain and he almost felt like laughing insanely. Then reason and
realization came rushing back, and he fled from the school and ran,
with fear urging him, to his mother and home.




CHAPTER FIVE


Donald rushed into the house to find visitors in the front parlor with
his mother. He peered through the curtain and saw her seated on a
lounge, deathly pale, and twisting a sodden handkerchief in her
fingers. By her red-rimmed, swollen eyes, Donald knew she had been
crying. The visitors were Captain McGillivray, the Sutton Line Marine
Superintendent, and a burly man in uniform whom Donald recognized as
Mr. McLeish, Chief Officer of the _Sarmania_. Both men rose to their
feet as Donald slipped in and ran to his mother's side. Clasped in her
arms and crying silently, he listened to Mr. McLeish's story--told
with all technical embellishments through nervousness and an effort to
keep from tears. Poor, honest, simple-hearted McLeish! It was a hard
task they gave him!

"Ye see, Mistress McKenzie," he proceeded huskily, "we left Sandy Hook
on the morn o' the sixth o' December an' ran intae a succession o'
heavy easterly gales. We made twenty west four days ago, when it
sterted in tae blow worse'n ever frae the east'ard and an awful sea
made up. Th' Captain didny dare steam her in th' face o' sich a wind
an' sea, so he keppit her heid to it and turning over jist enough to
give her steerage-way. Yer husband, madam, was a wonderful sailor and
he handled that _Sarmania_ beautifully, and mind ye, she's a shup that
needs carefu' handlin'--bein' a long, deep shup wi' no much beam. As I
was sayin', we kep' her bows-on to it waitin' for a let-up, and at
fower in th' mornin' I had jist cam' doon aff the bridge tae go tae
ma room. The Captun, yer husband, was up on the bridge wi' th' second
mate, Mister Murphy, and a quarter-master in th' wheel-hoose, when she
shipped a nasty sea what carried away a ventilator on the fore-deck.
The bos'n and three men were pluggin' th' place when the shup fell
down in a reg'lar hole, they tell me. Ah was jist in ma room, at th'
time, and I could feel th' shup slidin' doon jist as if th' sea had
droppit from under her bottom. Ah rin tae the door o' the alley-way
and looks oot tae see a tremendous comber pilin' up ahead. It was a
terrifyin' sea, that yin, madam, and I never saw anither like it in a'
ma sea-farin'! Then it must ha' hit th' shup, for she staggered
somethin' awfu' and I couldny hear nought for a meenut or twa but the
crashin' and the roarin' of it. Ah laid on ma back in the alley-way in
water and I thocht th' _Sarmania_ was done for an' goin' to the
bottom. Then I pickit masel' up an' went oot on deck and I found th'
whole bridge and wheel-house gone, the funnel, hauf o' the ventilators
and a' th' boats. She was stripped to bare decks and stanchions,
madam, but worst of all, madam, yer husband was gone! Aye, him an' the
second mate, and the quartermaster at the wheel, and th' bos'n and
fower men. Eight gone, madam, and fower sae badly mashed up that I
doot if they'll leeve!" McLeish paused and blew his nose violently.
"That's a' there is tae tell, madam," he murmured. "Ah'm awfu'
sorry--awfu'----sorry!" He repeated the words in a daze like a man
tired out.

Captain McGillivray arose to his feet. "Mrs. McKenzie," he said
quietly, "we'll no keep ye from yer sorrow. Ye've had a terrible blow,
but that's what comes tae sailors' wives at times. The Loard giveth
and the Loard taketh away. Blessed is the name of the Loard. May He
give ye comfort and strength in yer sair affliction!"

"Amen tae that!" murmured McLeish, and the two men took their leave.

       *       *       *       *       *

Janet was left with nothing. Alec had never taken out insurance of any
kind, and both husband and wife had lived up to every cent of income.
There were many bills to be paid--caterer's bills; dressmaker's
bills--useless debts, most of them, and the furniture of Kensington
Villa had to be sold to pay them. Aye, Janet was suffering and paying
the price of folly, and the double load of sorrow and recrimination
was all that she could bear.

The huge tidal wave that swept McKenzie and his men to their graves in
the chilly depths of the Atlantic did more than that. It swept the
McKenzies from comparative affluence into stark poverty. It also
cleared from Janet's eyes the scales of false pride, and she was not
too proud to go down and mourn with poor McGlashan's widow ere she
left Glasgow and her fair-weather friends.

The bos'n's wife would get along. An older son was out earning a
little, and Joak would have to do his bit also. Aye, she would manage.
She had a few pounds laid by and wouldn't starve. Poor Joak was
"greeting" when Donald bade him "Good-bye." "I'll meet you again some
day, Joak," he said, "and I'll write you, never fear!"

The management of Sutton's had sent a cautiously-worded letter of
regret, and took the liberty of "enclosing our check for fifty pounds,
which no doubt would be useful." They presumed, with the good salary
that Captain McKenzie had enjoyed, that Mrs. McKenzie would have
prepared for possible contingencies, and that she would be
comfortable.

The fifty pounds represented Janet's sole capital after all debts had
been paid, and with this in her purse and a few boxes and trunks of
personal clothing, she and Donald vanished from the ken of the
aristocratic denizens of Maxwell Park. The tired-looking, dull-eyed
woman in deep mourning who left the suburb that cold January morning,
had but little resemblance to the haughty and conceited _Jeanette_
McKenzie of a month before. Janet had commenced to learn a new
lesson--a lesson which is oft intoned in cold Scotch kirks, "Beware of
sinful pride! The pride of thine heart has deceived thee and though
thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee
down from thence, saith the Lord!" Aye, better the sight of eyes that
see humbly than the blindness of vanity and desire!

Mother and son landed in a sea-port town not fifty miles from Glasgow
and Janet rented a small furnished house in a modest street. The
neighbors wondered who the "stylish lookin'" newcomers were, yet they
evinced no great surprise when a printed placard was hung up in the
front window with the legend, "Furnished Lodgings." Buchan Road gossip
sized the matter up in a few words. "Weedah-wumman left sudden-like
an' naethin' pit by!" Such incidents were common in that locality.

And thus they lived for a space. The mother relapsed to the honest
toil of her former days and just "managed" and no more to make ends
meet, and Donald earned a few shillings per week as boy in the office
of a local ship-yard. Both worked hard and were happy, and life went
along uneventfully for two years.

Then came Mrs. McKenzie's decision. Donald was not getting ahead in
the shipyard office. The boy was restless and found it hard to apply
himself to ledgers and journals. He had no liking for a clerical life,
and he was reaching the age where he did not know what he wanted to
do. Mrs. McKenzie had her secret ambition to see her son an architect,
but in her present circumstances she couldn't afford it. There was one
source of possible assistance she had never appealed to. She would try
it right away.

On a drizzling spring day, the mother, still comely and dressed in
black, accompanied by Donald--a bit taller, perhaps, but unchanged in
features, and clad in carefully brushed clothes and with a clean white
collar on and shining black boots--stopped in front of an office
building in Bothwell Street, Glasgow. A brass plate bore the legend
they sought--"D. McKenzie & Co., Ship Owners & Ship Brokers."

Entering a rather gloomy office they waited at a counter until a lanky
clerk of undeterminable age unlimbered himself from a high stool and
brusquely asked, "What can we do for ye?"

"I want to see Mr. McKenzie, if he is in."

"He's in," grunted the clerk. "Have ye a kerd? And what's yer business
with him?"

"Purely private and personal," replied Janet, producing a visiting
card--relic of better days.

The clerk scanned the name and became obsequious. "Wait a minute,
ma'am," he said, and he took the card into a private room. He seemed
to be gone a long time--long enough for Donald to scan his uncle's
office and its contents. There were several pictures of ships on the
wall, a few maps, and insurance calendars. Numerous old-fashioned
desks and cupboards littered the place, while an old-maidish female
clerk sat at a window writing in a large book, and a bent-backed,
grey-haired man was copying letters in a press. Everything in the
establishment, material and human, seemed to be old and dried-up and
mean looking. The windows were grimy, and even the driving spring rain
failed to make them clearer. Donald figured that the grime was on the
inside.

The boy's attention was centered on a picture of a large iron barque
on the wall in front of him. It was a big ship--heavily sparred--and
it was riding along with all sail set over a sea like corrugated iron.
Painted on the frame was the legend, "Barque _Dunsany_, D. McKenzie &
Co., Glasgow, Owners." Donald was studying the painting, when the
lanky clerk issued from the sound-proof inner chamber. Addressing Mrs.
McKenzie, he said, almost insolently, "Mr. McKenzie cannot see you!"

Janet colored. "Why?" she asked calmly.

"He gave no reasons, ma'am," said the clerk. "Simply said he didny
want to see you on any matter or any excuse."

The mother went white. Her mission had failed and she was too proud to
plead. "Come, Donald," she said. "We'll go!"

They had hardly reached the stairs before the clerk caught up to them.
"Mr. McKenzie has changed his mind," he exclaimed. "He will see you if
ye'll come back with me."

A minute later they were ushered into the private office and stood
facing the man--Alec's brother--who in bitterness and unreasonable
pride had kept himself aloof from them for eighteen years.

He was seated before a large table littered with papers and books--a
hard-visaged, stiff-mouthed man, pallid-faced and stern-looking. His
thin hair straggled over his forehead, unkempt, and he sat back in his
chair with his head hunched into his collar, his clean-shaven chin
sunk into his chest, and regarded the McKenzies through steel-rimmed
spectacles with searching, unfriendly eyes.

There were two chairs in the office and he indicated one with his
hand. "Sit doon, madam!" he said in a harsh voice. "The boy can
stand!" And he glanced sternly at his brother's son.

Donald stood up with his hat in his hand and stared at his uncle with
feelings of resentment and dislike bubbling within him. It was
difficult for him to believe that this hard-faced ship-broker and his
laughing, rollicking, blue-eyed daddy were of the same blood and born
of the same mother.

McKenzie spoke and his voice burred with Scottish accent and grated
like a saw on iron. "What d'ye want me to do for ye, madam? Ye've come
to me wanting something, or I've missed my guess!"

Donald could notice a look as of pain cross his mother's face as she
nervously twisted her black-gloved fingers. She looked old that
morning. "I've come to see if you can do anything to help Donald--my
boy here," she said, a trifle nervously.

"In what way?" rasped the ship-broker.

"Well, sir," continued Mrs. McKenzie, "he has a natural talent for
drawing, and it was Alec's wish that Donald become an architect, and
it was our intention to put him through College, but, as you know, my
husband went"--here she faltered--"and--and--I--I was unable to give
him the schooling necessary. I--I thought, that, maybe for Alec's
sake, you would help Donald in some way and put him through school for
an architectural training."

David McKenzie listened unemotionally. "Humph!" he grunted, then with
his searching eyes on Janet, he enquired in the manner of a
prosecutor:

"Did you save no money from my brother's salary? I understand he was
gettin' big money from Sutton's--four hundred pounds a year as
master--for a considerable time before he was drowned."

Mrs. McKenzie winced. "I saved nothing," she murmured.

"So!" The prosecutor's voice grated on. "Ye were penniless when Alec
went? Aye! Ye spent what he earned like watter. Ye lived in a villa
and in a style fitted for people with an income twice what Alec was
gettin'. I ken all aboot it, for I made enquiries. And noo ye're
keepin' a lodgin'-hoose and comin' tae me tae help pit yer son through
tae become an architect." He paused and leaned further back in his
chair. "Why should I be asked to do this?"

"Why?" Mrs. McKenzie repeated the word dazedly. "Why? Well, I thought
as you were Alec's brother you'd be glad to do something for his son!"

"So!" Donald stood inwardly furious at the manner in which this
dead-souled man was tongue-lashing his mother. "So! The lesson ye have
learned--or ought to have learned--hasny driven the high-falutin'
notions oot yer head! Ye think because the lad can draw a bit that he
should be an architect. It's a wonder tae me ye didny want him tae be
an artist and ask me tae send him tae Paris!" McKenzie's eyebrows
elevated sarcastically and he continued. "Madam! Your coming to me for
such a thing is jist as big a piece o' presumption as if the mother of
yin of those pavement-artists came tae me on the same mission! Neither
you nor yer son have any more claim upon my charity than they would
have! If he could write poetry, ye'd want me to help him be a poet, I
s'pose? Now, look here, madam!" He tapped the table with a pencil.
"You're in no position to have such notions! It was your
high-and-mighty ideas that placed ye in the way ye are to-day! If your
boy is clever at drawing, pit him tae work with a hoose painter or a
sign painter. Let him get tae work. He's auld enough!" Then almost
fiercely to Donald. "How old are ye, boy?"

"Fifteen last October, sir!" answered the boy calmly.

"Old enough tae go to sea!" growled David McKenzie. "Would ye go to
sea, boy, after what happened to yer father?"

"I would," answered Donald wonderingly, "if I knew that mother was
provided for."

Mrs. McKenzie interposed. "I wouldn't allow him to go to sea!"

The other took no notice, but reached for a pad of paper. "Give me yer
address," he grated. "I'll see what I can do for ye, but, I'll say
this, that I'll not be makin' an architect oot of that boy there. You
may go!"

He neither rose from his seat or made any offer to shake hands. Mrs.
McKenzie hesitated for a moment at the door of the room, but David was
absorbed in some letters and did not look up. "Thank you! Good day!"
she said dully, and Donald echoed, "Good day, sir!" He took no notice,
but when they left, he jumped up and locked his office door and sat
for a long time staring out of the grimy window--oblivious to
respectful taps on the closed panels. From a scrutiny of the grey sky,
he turned and stared fixedly at a small photograph on his desk--a
picture of a young boy--and the stern look faded from his face. It was
his own son. For a minute he gazed on the picture with eyes in which a
strange light of almost idolatrous affection glowed, then he turned
and picked up Mrs. McKenzie's card and the bitter, sneering expression
returned as he murmured, "_Aye! I'll look after her brat!_"

The McKenzies were out on the street again when Donald clasped his
mother's hand. "The old beast!" he said. "How I hate him!" The mother
made no answer. She had only been with David for five or ten minutes,
but in that time he had wounded her to the soul and she felt that all
that he said was true.

They went home and tried to forget the memory of that hateful
interview, but a week later came a letter from David McKenzie.

"Dear Madam:"--it ran--"I have considered your case carefully. I will
give your boy the benefit of a free apprenticeship on a new vessel
which will be ready for sea in a month or two. For yourself, I am
enclosing a letter to the manager of the Ross Bay Hydropathic, Ross
Bay, Ayrshire, and if you will present this to him on May 1st, he will
give you a position there as assistant matron. Yours truly, David
McKenzie." There was a postscript which ran:--"I will advise you when
your boy should report here at my office. I will provide him with the
outfit necessary. D. McK."

Janet read the curt offer and for a moment she stared into space.
"Donald to go to sea! The sea that had torn her husband--his
father--ruthlessly from her! And poor Joak's father too! The sea that
yearly made widows of so many Glasgow wives...." She remembered her
dead husband's words, "The sea would kill you, laddie ... and it's a
dog's life at the best of times!" She threw the letter down on the
table. No! she wouldn't accept David's offer. It was the cruelest blow
he had yet dealt her. She would manage somehow, but she'd keep Donald
by her.

"What does he say, mamma?" Donald picked up the letter and read it.
The mother stared at him as he read and she noticed the look in his
eyes with an unknown fear gripping her heart. Ere he had laid the
missive down she knew what was in his mind.

"Mother, dear," he said, slipping his arm around her neck, "I want to
go!"

For a moment she remained silent and her mind ran back to a day two
years ago. McLeish, mate of the _Sarmania_ was talking. "It was a
terrifyin' sea, that yin, madam ... and when I pickit masel' up ... I
found tha whole bridge and wheelhouse gone ... and worst of all,
madam, yer husband was gone! Aye, him an' th' second mate, an' th'
quarter-master, the bos'n an' fower men ... an' fower sae badly mashed
up that I doot if they'll leeve! And that's all there is tae tell,
madam!" She shuddered at the horrible memory of it. The frightful
wall of grey-green sea rising up, curling and roaring. The terrible
crash as it engulfed the ship, and the bare wet decks, twisted iron
work and debris which remained. The others--the human victims--were
carried away in the maw of the monster--whipped from life into death
with a suddenness which was staggering. "No! no! no!" she cried,
clasping her son to her in a frenzy of fear. "You shan't go! He shan't
send you!" But in spite of her objections, she knew that the
irresistible lure of the sea would take her son from her and that the
ties of love and home were powerless against the magic of its
adventure and romance.




CHAPTER SIX


In a month's time, Donald received a curt note from his uncle to come
to Glasgow and to be at the office at "nine sharp." He entered the
gloomy chambers at ten minutes to the appointed hour and stood waiting
outside the counter. At nine, David McKenzie entered the office and
Donald greeted him with a respectful "Good morning, sir!" The uncle
turned and glared at him through his glasses. "Oh, ye're here, are
ye?" he rasped. "Jist wait in the office here until I want ye!" Then
he entered his own private room and left his nephew cooling his heels
until nigh twelve o'clock. By that time Donald had scrutinized every
article in the dingy office and had surmised the characters of the old
maidish clerk at the window, the grey-headed bookkeeper, and the lanky
youth, perched like the gods on Olympus, on the long stool. People
occasionally came in with papers--bills of lading and so on--and once
or twice, shawled women entered and asked if there was any word of the
_Dunlevin_. The _Dunlevin_ was evidently one of his uncle's ships,
thought Donald, and he wondered what would be the name of the ship he
would go to sea in.

At noon, a stocky man dressed in rough woollen serge entered. He
appeared about fifty-five years of age and wore a square-topped bowler
hat and heavy black boots, and had a face as red and as round as a
harvest moon. He turned and glanced at Donald as he laid an umbrella
on the counter, and the lad saw that he was clean-shaven save for a
fringe of whisker under the chin. He had a bulbous red nose and small
blue eyes--hard, mean-looking eyes, Donald thought--and his red face
was pitted with the marks of small-pox. In a quiet tone--Donald
expected a husky roar--he asked the lanky clerk "if Mister McKenzie
could see him noo?"

"He's expectin' you, Captun," said the clerk, and he vanished into the
private room.

A few moments later, the Captain entered the sacred precincts, and
after a while David McKenzie appeared at the door and cried, "Come in
here, boy!"

Donald entered the private office and found the red-faced man seated
in a chair with his umbrella between his knees and a pair of ham-like
fists clasping the handle of it.

"This is the lad I was speaking about, Captain," said the ship-owner
in his grating voice. Turning to Donald, he said, "Boy, this is
Captain Muirhead, master of oor new ship, the _Kelvinhaugh_. As you
will be going to sea in that ship wi' Captain Muirhead, it's no too
early for ye to get acquainted." Donald stepped forward and shook
hands with the Captain, who smiled and murmured something about, "Gled
tae have ye come with me, mister. Hope we'll get along." Donald
thought he would like Captain Muirhead, but he mistrusted those
piggish blue eyes of his.

"Now," said his uncle, seating himself at the table, "we'll fix up
this indenture business an' th' Captain will take ye along to an
outfitter's shop and get ye a kit. Ye'll get doon aboard the ship next
Monday mornin' at five o'clock--no six o'clock or sevin o'clock--but
five sharp, and if ye pay attention to your work and do your duty,
ye'll have a chance tae become master of a ship yersel' some day. Now,
ye can sign yer name to these indentures."

The business of signing the apprentice seaman's indentures was soon
completed and Donald voluntarily bound himself apprentice unto David
McKenzie & Co., and signed his name to "faithfully serve his said
master and obey his and their lawful commands ... and said apprentice
will not, during the service of four years, embezzle or waste the
goods of his master; nor absent himself without leave; nor frequent
taverns or alehouses; nor play unlawful games, etc., etc. Whereof the
said master hereby covenants with the said apprentice to teach the
said apprentice the business of a seaman and provide the said
apprentice with sufficient meat, drink, lodging, washing, medicine and
medical or surgical assistance." Donald saw these paragraphs and noted
them vaguely as he inscribed his name to the document prescribed for
the purpose by the British Board of Trade. Then in company with
Captain Muirhead, he went to an outfitters on Jamaica street and
procured a sea kit.

It was a poor lot of truck that his Uncle David was purchasing for
him, and the Captain evidently had instructions to keep the cost down
to a certain figure. A mattress--a common jute bag stuffed with
straw--and a blanket of thin shoddy came first. Then Donald was
measured for a cheap blue serge uniform. A peaked uniform cap, with
the "Dun Line" house-flag on the badge; a suit of two-piece oilskins,
a pair of leather sea-boots, a sou'wester, two suits of dungarees, two
woollen jerseys, some underwear and socks, towels, soap, matches,
knife, fork, spoon, an enamel mug and a deep plate practically
completed the outfit which was hove into a cheap pine chest with rope
handles. The Jew salesman threw in a belt and a sheath-knife "as a
present," and the Captain said to Donald, "Ye've got a rig there fit
to go 'round the Horn, mister, and a sight better'n I had when I first
went to sea!"

The cheap junk which constituted an outfit and which was packed in
Donald's chest, appeared quite all right to him and he was delighted
with every article. He longed for the day when he could don the
brass-buttoned blue suit and wear the badged cap of an apprentice
seaman. He pictured himself swaggering ashore in foreign ports, with
the cap set back on his head--in the manner approved of by
'prentices--and with the chin strap over the crown. "Ye'll get yer
suit in two days, sir!" said the tailor. "Will you call, or will I
send your kit?" As Donald wasn't sure if he would be in the city, he
said that he would call.

Before taking a train for home, he asked some questions of the
uncommunicative Captain Muirhead, and found out that the _Kelvinhaugh_
was a brand-new four-mast barque of about 2,500 tons, and that she was
loading railroad iron for Vancouver--a long round-the-Horn voyage.
They would probably get a homeward cargo of grain from the West Coast,
and then again they might charter to load lumber at Vancouver for
Australia or South Africa--the Captain couldn't say. Vancouver!
Australia! South Africa! thought Donald. What names to conjure with!
How he would roll them off his tongue--easily and nonchalantly, as a
sailor would. "Aye, I'm sailing to-morrow. 'Round the Horn to
Vancouver, and then across the Pacific to Australia maybe. Be back in
a year or eighteen months. So long!" As the train sped home, he sat in
a corner of the third-class compartment and thought of the wonder and
romance of it all. Running down the "Trades"; crossing the "Line" and
doubling the stormy, storied Horn! That was the life for a red-blooded
boy! And some of those future days he pictured himself pacing a
liner's bridge--monarch of all he surveyed--and saying, as he had
heard his father say: "My ship did this!" or "My ship carried them!"
Oh, it was fine castle building, and he actually blessed his uncle for
the chance he had given him and forgave his bitter words and brutal
mannerisms.

Mrs. McKenzie did not share his enthusiasm. His jubilation at getting
away to sea; his description of the ship, the voyage, his uniform and
prospects for the future were like salt on an open wound, and she
would listen mechanically to his chatter, but her mind was far away
and her heart was full of bitterness. She would be alone--frightfully
alone--and she would be afraid. Donald, her baby boy, out at sea in
that ship with rough men and living a rough life! She had heard her
husband talk of his sailing-ship days and she remembered his worst
experiences.

Could Donald stand such a life? She was afraid, and she felt that her
boy was going on a journey the outcome of which she was unable to
forecast.

Sailing day came on winged feet and mother and son journeyed to
Glasgow on the Sunday morning. They strolled through the Kelvingrove
Park on the bright Sabbath afternoon, just as they used to stroll when
Captain McKenzie was home and they were all together, and the
recollection of those happy days made the mother feel that life was
dealing harshly with her. But, whatever her feelings were, she hid
them for Donald's sake and under a smiling mask concealed the anguish
which was gnawing at her heart. What a brave little chap he looked in
his badged cap and brass-buttoned uniform! There was a flush on his
cheek and a glow in his eyes that she had never seen before. Aye! the
magic of the great waters was calling to one bewitched and whose sole
acquaintance with the sea was in the sight of the ships, the talk of
sailormen, and through the Viking strain in the British blood!

They had tea together and went to church in the evening. Strangely
enough the preacher chose as his text, "The Sea is His!" and his
discourse went direct to the mother's heart. In all that great church
there was only one to whom his slowly intoned words had a significant
meaning. "The Sea is His! He made it!" the preacher said--his
utterance rich with homely Doric. "Never the man born of woman
throughout the ages of earth could arrest its tides or command its
resistless waves. Ships traverse its wastes, but make their voyagings
only through His sufferance--a momentary loosing of His hurricanes and
they could be blotted out as utterly as though they never existed. It
is irresistible in its fearful power, and in a mere minute of time the
most marvellously wonderful, and the mightiest creations of our human
handiwork can be swept into utter oblivion, with never a trace of
where stone stood upon stone, or iron riveted to iron. It can be
neither pathed or bridged, harnessed or commanded, and all the skill
and ingenuity of man has failed, and will ever fail, to share with God
the proud boast that the sea is subject to any bidding but His. Only
He who walked on Galilee could order, 'Peace! be still!' and have His
mandate obeyed. The sea is His, my brethren, and those who traverse
verse its unmarked paths would do well to sail with God in their
hearts, for it is only God who can save and protect them in their
journeyings o'er its vast and restless expanse!"

The congregation knew the truth of the preacher's words. They were
ship-builders, many of them, and they wrought in the yards that made
the old Clyde-side city famous. They knew what the sea called for in
the structures which they framed and plated and rigged; they knew what
the sea could do to iron and steel stanchion, frame, beam and plate.
Many a twisted wreck had come to their hands to be straightened,
untwisted, flattened out and replaced. "Goad, aye! we ken its
handiwork!" they muttered. In their cold Scotch perception, this was
the manner in which they comprehended the power of Him who calmed
Galilee.

Mother and son sat up talking late into the night. It was the mother's
hours and she used them as a mother would with a son who was leaving
her for a space of months, and maybe, years. She told of old remedies
for this ail and that ill. She gave him motherly cautions regarding
wet feet, damp bedding and draughts. She gave him a little ditty-bag
well furnished with needles, cottons, threads, darning wool, buttons
and such like, and her last and greatest gift was a small Bible. They
were holy hours, and they sat and talked until her regard for his
sleep caused her to send him reluctantly to bed. She came to him then
and tucked him in and kissed him as she always did, and when she went
away, her tears wetted his cheek. He tried, as boys do, to carry it
off "big," but when she left him he cried, too, as many a brave man
has cried in similar partings since the world was young.

He awoke at four next morning to find his mother beside his bed. She
had never closed her eyes, but now she was smiling. She wasn't going
to send him to sea with tears and heart-burnings to pain his
recollections of parting. He dressed hurriedly, gulped the tea and
toast she had procured for him, and sat awaiting the cab which was to
take him down to his ship. His sea-chest was packed and ready, and
the mother had gone through it and replaced to the best of her ability
some of the shoddy gear which she knew would never stand sea-faring.

They heard the rattle of the wheels and hoofs on the stony street. The
mother clasped her son in a close embrace. "Don't you worry about me,
dear," she said. "I shall go to the Hydropathic and I will be quite
comfortable there. Be a good boy and take care of yourself. God bless
you and keep you, dear, and may your dear father watch over you!"

The cab-man came up into the room and the wet streamed off his
clothes. "Dirrty mornin', ma'am," he said huskily. "Ah'll jist hond
this box doon." And he shouldered the sea-chest and led the way.

The boy entered the cab and drove away, and Mrs. McKenzie stood in the
rain at the door and watched it vanish just as she had watched, many
times, the departures of her husband. "He's gone! he's gone!" she
murmured dully, and only turned to enter the house when the woman who
kept it led her away with a "Cheer up, mum! He'll be back, never fear!
Come and hae a cup o' tea. It's guid med'cine fur a sair heart!"




CHAPTER SEVEN


The _Kelvinhaugh_ was lying in the Queen's Dock and the cab rattled
down the silent streets which glistened wet in the glow of the
gas-lamps. It was a typical Glasgow morning--dark, cheerless and with
a cold drizzle descending from the brooding skies. They passed
men--hands in pockets and shoulders hunched--hurrying through the rain
to their "wurrk." Dock policemen loafed under the eaves of the sheds,
standing like statues with their oilskin capes reflecting the vagrant
flickering of near-by gas jets. It was a ghastly morning to be going
to sea, and Donald's spirits were at a very low ebb. There was very
little romance in this sort of thing.

The clatter of hoofs stopped and the cabman hailed a passer-by. "Hey,
you! Whaur's th' _Kelvinhaugh_ lyin'?"

"Twa berths doon!" came the answer. The hoofs and wheels clattered
again and ceased a minute later. The Jehu came down from his "dickey."
"Yer shup's lyin' here, mister," he said. "Ah'll kerry yer box an'
gear tae th' gang-way."

Donald followed him through a cargo shed, dark and dismal in its
emptiness. Some sparrows were quarrelling up in the rafters and two
pigeons picked vagrant ears of corn from the bare stone floors. Over
at an open quayside door, a knot of people were standing, and through
the opening one got a glance of the gleaming wet mast of a ship and
vertical parallels of new manilla cordage. To this door the cabman
shouldered Donald's sea-chest and bed gear and tumbled it down at the
shore end of a narrow gang-way. "Ah'll hae tae leave ye here, mister,"
he said huskily. "Ah canny trust ma hoarse tae staund verra long....
Aye! that'll be two shullin' for you, sir! Thankye, mister, and a
pleasant voyage tae ye!"

The people around the gang-way turned and stared at the boy. There
were several shawled women among them, evidently seeing their men off,
and some of the men appeared to be very drunk. As Donald pushed
through them to get to the gang-way, a man laughed and said, "Make way
fur th' binnacle-boy!" Some of the women laughed also in a manner
which testified to the brand of "tea" they had been imbibing that
morning.

The gang-way was laid on the ship's rail and opposite the half-deck,
in the door of which a young fellow was standing looking at the dock.
Donald addressed him. "Will you give me a hand to get my chest and
bedding aboard?" The other growled an "Alright!" and came ashore. He
was a youth of about twenty--a big fellow with pleasant features--but
he had a glum look in his eyes, and there was a downward droop to his
mouth. He followed Donald and roughly elbowed a passage through the
group at the gang-way end. One of the shawled women blocked his way
with a challenging look on her coarse face, but the youth shouldered
her aside ruthlessly, saying, "Out of my way, you----!" Donald was
shocked at such treatment of a woman, but he was shocked still more by
the oath-besprinkled retort which came from the aggrieved one's lips.

Both lugged the chest up the gang-way, while the lady of the shawl
spoke her mind. "Ye lousy pair o' brass-bound poop ornaments!" she
shrieked. "Ah'd like tae gie ye a scud on yer bloody jaws, ye blankety
blank----" One of the drunks beside her whipped his wet cap off his
cropped skull and gave the virago a resounding slap across the mouth
with it. "Haud yer tongue, ye gabby----!" he growled, but he got no
further. With a wild shriek, she turned on him. Off went the shawl,
and a fiend of a woman, with tousled hair flying and practically
naked above the waist, dug her nails into cropped-head's ugly face and
scraped him from hair to chin. The two of them set-to in
earnest--swearing, clawing, punching and kicking like a pair of
wild-cats--and the others looked on without attempting to interfere.

Heavy footsteps came padding up the shed. "Chuck it! Here's the
polis!" cried someone, and a stalwart Highland policeman grasped the
combatants and swung them apart. "Lemme get at him!" howled the
woman--a shocking sight in her _deshabille_, but the policeman had her
by the arm and held her off in a mighty grip. "Is that your shup?" he
asked the man. "Aye, Ah'm sailin' in her!" growled the fellow, wiping
the mud and blood off his ugly face. The officer of the law released
the woman and marched the man up the gang-plank. At the rail of the
ship he roared, "Hey! tak' this fella aboard an' lock him up!" And he
swung him down on the barque's main-deck with no gentle hand. Someone
took the man and stowed him away.

Donald had seen his chest stowed inside the half-deck and had watched
the rumpus on the dock. "Isn't that awful?" he said, utterly shocked.
The glum-looking youth grunted. "That's nothing! You'll see worse'n
that some day!" Then the glum look faded somewhat and he regarded
Donald curiously. "You're a new chap?" he enquired. "First voyage,
eh?"

Donald nodded. "What's your name?" enquired the other.

"Donald McKenzie."

"Mine's Jack Thompson." Both boys shook hands. Donald felt that he
would like Thompson. They sat down at a small mess-table and talked.
Thompson had been at sea three and a half years. He had six months of
his time to serve and hoped to go up for his second mate's ticket by
the time the _Kelvinhaugh_ made a home port--"if she ever makes a home
port," he added gloomily.

"Why?" asked Donald. He had glanced around the ship and she seemed to
be a splendid vessel. Everything was brand-new and shining. "She seems
a fine ship!"

"Fine hell!" growled the other disgustedly. "She's nothing but a big
steel tank and a cheap one at that! A great big lumbering, clumsy,
four-posted box, built by the mile and cut off by the yard, that'll
give us merry blazes when we get outside. I can see what's before us.
She'll be dirty, wet, and a bloody work-house from 'way-back. That's
what she'll be. If I had of seen her before yesterday, I'd have
skipped--'pon my soul I would!"

Donald was not unacquainted with the idiosyncrasies of sailors, so he
put Thompson's pessimism down to a sailing-day grouch. They talked a
while and Donald learned that there would be two other apprentices who
would join the ship at Greenock--a port at the mouth of the Clyde.
These lads, together with Thompson and Captain Muirhead, had been
together on the barque _Dunottar_, but this ship had been run into and
sunk in the Irish Channel a few months back. The "Dun Line" people had
bought the _Kelvinhaugh_ on the stocks to take the lost vessel's place
in a charter for carrying railroad iron out to the Pacific Coast for
one of the Canadian railways. There had been four apprentices on the
_Dunottar_, but one of them was drowned when the ship went down. "A
first voyager, too," said Thompson, "but the ruddy young fool went
back to save some of his gear and got caught!"

"What kind of a man is Captain Muirhead?" enquired Donald.

"From what I've seen of him," replied the other bluntly, "I don't like
him much. He was only on the _Dunottar_ the voyage she went to the
bottom, and as she slid for Davy's Locker four days after leaving port
we didn't get time to get acquainted. He's a mean josser and a
bad-tempered one too. But what can you expect in one of these ships?
McKenzie only pays his skippers twelve pounds a month. Good men
wouldn't go to sea in them for that." Staring curiously at Donald, he
asked, "Your name is McKenzie. Are you any relation to the owner of
these hookers?"

"Yes," replied the other. "He's my uncle."

Thompson whistled and said aggressively, "Well, you can tell your
uncle next time you write to him that he's a lousy, miserable swine
and that his ships are the worst-fed, worst-rigged, rottenest,
under-manned hookers afloat! Wouldn't I jolly well like to have him
aboard one rounding Cape Stiff! He'd get a belly-full of it--the
blasted two-ends-and-the-bight of a skin-tight Glasgow miser!"

Donald was not surprised at this freely-expressed opinion of his
uncle, but he quickly disabused Thompson's mind of any intention of
writing him. "My uncle isn't in love with me, and probably doesn't
care two pins about me!" he said shortly.

Thompson laughed. "Oh, well," he said, "we're in for it now, and we've
got to stick it out. Now, sonny, I'm going to give you some tips.
First of all, I'm top-dog in this half-deck. I'm the senior apprentice
and what I say goes--in here. Remember that!" Donald nodded. "Now,"
continued the other, "you seem a nice little chap, so I'll take you in
hand. You take this upper bunk here and chuck your bed-sack and
blanket into it. These upper bunks are the best when the water is
sloshing in here a foot-and-half deep. Don't you give that bunk up on
any pretence. The others will have to take the lowers, whether they
like it or not. Serve 'em right for being 'last-minute-men' and not
joining the ship here." Donald hove his bedgear into the bunk.
Thompson glanced at the stuff and felt the blanket. "Where did you get
that junk? Your uncle fitted you out, ye say? God help ye! It has his
trademark--a Parish Rig, a donkey's breakfast and a bull-wool and
oakum blanket! I can see he don't love ye! Now, son, get those
brass-bound rags off and get into your working clothes. You'll have to
turn-to in a minute or so. We're waiting for the tugs and the Old
Man."

While Donald was changing his clothes the door opened and a tall man
about thirty years of age and clad in an oilskin coat and with a
badged cap on his head peered inside. He had a clean-cut face, an
aquiline nose, piercing grey eyes, a flowing reddish mustache, and he
was smoking a cigarette.

"Get ready, naow!" he said in a nasal drawl which bespoke his
nationality as American. "I'll want ye in a minute or so."

Thompson looked up from the chest he was unpacking. "Yes, sir, we'll
be ready, sir. And, Mr. Nickerson, sir, it's a dirty morning. Would
you care for a nip, sir!"

The other swung his sea-booted feet over the washboard, entered, and
closed the door. "Produce th' med'cine young feller," he drawled. "The
Old Man will be singin' out in a minute. Who the devil is this
nipper?" He indicated Donald with a jerk of his head.

"The new apprentice, sir," answered Thompson. "Just joined. First
voyager, sir."

The tall man fixed Donald with his gimlet eyes. "What's yer name,
nation, an' future prospects? Donald McKenzie, eh? Scotch, I cal'late,
an' goin' to be a sailor I reckon. Waal, let me tell ye, ye're a
bloody fool an' ye'll know it before ye've bin a dog-watch at sea. I'm
the mate of this bally-hoo of blazes, and my name's Judson Nickerson
and I hail from Nova Scotia. When you address me you say 'Mister' and
'sir,' and when I address you, you jump, see?" He thrust forth a
mighty fist and crushed Donald's hand in a vice-like clasp. "You be a
good boy, obey orders an' look spry, and we'll get along fine. Skulk,
sulk or hang back, and I'll make you wish you'd never been born!"

Thompson brought forth a bottle of whisky from his chest and handed it
to the mate, who tilted it to his lips and swallowed a noggin which
caused Donald to stare in amaze. Mr. Nickerson noticed the boy's
wide-opened eyes, and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand,
laughed. "Never seen a man drink, sonny?" he asked. "Cal'late afore
ye've made a voyage or two--ef ye live it out--ye'll drink a bottle at
a sitting." He swung outside again with a parting word to get ready.

Thompson took a swig at the bottle and put it back in the chest,
saying, "I'm not going to give you a slug, nipper. You'll learn quick
enough without me starting you off! Curse it! The only way to go to
sea is half-drunk anyway."

There were numerous shouts out on deck and sea-booted feet clattered
outside the half-deck door. The crew were being mustered. Mr.
Nickerson could be heard singing out, "Look slippy, naow, you damned
Paddy Wester! Get that gear away out o' that!" and "Bos'n! Bos'n!
Where in hell is that ruddy bos'n? Aft there an' git that hawser on
th' poop an' ready to pass daown to the tug!" Then came a kick at the
half-deck door. "Turn out, naow, an' single them lines aft here!"
"Aye, aye, sir!" cried Thompson, and he went out on deck followed by
Donald.

The grey dawn was dimming the light of the gas-jets and the morning
looked clammy and cold. A number of men were working around the
barque's decks, and there was a crowd of people on the dock looking
on. Up the poop ladder scrambled the two boys--Thompson leading--and
they proceeded to the port bitts--there to wrestle with a snakey wire
mooring hawser and drag it aboard through a quarter-chock. There was a
light in the cabin and it shone up through the skylight. McKenzie
thought it must be nice and warm and homey down below as he tugged on
the cold, wet wire, grimy with coal-dust, and hard on his tender
hands.

A big hulking fellow scrambled up the ladder and stood beside them.
Donald glanced at him. He had straw-colored hair and a broad, ugly,
clean-shaven face. "Vind dot blasted wire on der drum!" he growled at
the sweating boys. "Vy der blazes don't you use your brains! Fetch der
end oop here und vind her!" Thompson dragged the end of the wire to an
iron drum and wound while Donald "lighted" the hawser along. "Who's
that chap?" asked Donald, when the man had turned away.

"The ruddy Dutchman we have for a second greaser," replied Thompson
with an oath. "Mister Otto Hinkel--a square-head from Hamburg--and a
stinkin' 'yaw-for-yes' swine if there ever was one!"

Under the orders of the Nova Scotia mate, the two were kept busy at
various tasks, and within an hour of the time he had come aboard,
Donald began to be disillusioned. There was very little romance in
what he had seen, heard or done so far. Toiling and sweating in the
cold, wet and muck on the barque's decks, with drunken, fighting men
falling foul of them, and cursed at by officers--themselves ill
tempered and harassed--who seemed to be absolutely heartless and
apparently ready to enforce orders with a blow or a kick, Donald began
to recall his father's words, "It's a dog's life at the best of
times!" The scenes on the wharf disgusted him, and during a "knock
off" to gulp a mug of coffee in the half-deck, he witnessed another
dock-side altercation between two "ladies" who both appeared to have a
claim of some sort on a stolid Swede, who, drunk and hardly able to
stand, stood looking stupidly on.

"Ay tell ju," screamed one of them, "he's my hosbond dot man is! His
wages cooms to me!"

"Ye're a liar!" shouted the other, who was Scotch. "He merrit me two
years ago! Ah hae ma merridge-lines tae prove it, which is a thing you
havny got ye dirrty Dutch----" And she applied an epithet which
implied that the lady in question had never received the benefit of
clergy in lawful ratification. "Ah, ken ye, ya yalla-haired trollop!
Ye hae a boat-load o' husbands! There's yin in ivery shup that gaes
doon the Clyde----" And casting aside their shawls in the approved
Broomielaw fashion, both went for one another in a scratching and
hair-pulling contest of most disgusting savagery.

The big Highland dock-policeman sauntered up, and with a blasé
expression on his ruddy face tried to separate the combatants. They,
however, resented interference and attacked him. His helmet rolled
off, to be slyly kicked into the dock by one of the onlookers who
detested policemen, and the two women gave him a tough tussle.
Grabbing the Swedish damsel, he shoved the Scottish maid on her back
in the mud, and blew his whistle. Another policeman ran up. "Pit yer
cuffs on that Moll lyin' doon an' bring the barra'," said the
helmetless one. "We'll tak them baith to the offis!" The prostrate
woman was evidently too drunk to rise, but kicked and struggled
fiercely as the policeman snapped the handcuffs on her wrists. Then
she lay in the mud with the rain pouring on her naked shoulders,
weeping and cursing, while her opponent struggled in the officer's
iron grip. In a few minutes the other policeman appeared with a long,
coffin-like hand-cart on two wheels. The lady in the mud was hoisted
into it, kicking and screaming, and effectually confined by means of
two straps. With one officer pushing the hand-cart, and the other
dragging the Scandinavian woman, the procession started up the shed,
followed by the "boos" and groans of the spectators.

The man who was the cause of all the row suddenly seemed to wake up.
Reaching around the back of his belt, he pulled out a sheath-knife,
and shouting, "Ay kill dot feller!" staggered, brandishing the knife,
after the policemen. Mr. Nickerson had been calmly watching the fracas
from the poop, but when he saw the man moving off, he sprang from the
poop rail to the dock, and in two or three long strides, reached the
belligerent Swede. In less time than it takes to relate, he had
knocked the fellow to the ground, and had twisted the knife out of his
hand and sent it spinning along the stone floor of the shed. Then with
a mighty heave, he jerked the man to his feet, rushed him up the
gang-way, and then hove him from the height of the to'gallant rail to
the deck. Leaping after the now thoroughly cowed sailor, the mate
booted him into the fore-castle, and then, pensively pulling at his
mustache, walked nonchalently aft along the main-deck to the poop,
utterly oblivious to the cries of "Bucko!" "Yankee bruiser!" "Come up
here an' try yer fancy tricks an' we'll pit a heid on ye!" which came
from the coterie on the quayside.

Donald was nauseated by the sights he had witnessed and the manner in
which Mr. Nickerson had handled the Swedish sailor frightened him with
its brutality. He could hear the heavy thud of the mate's boots as
they were driven into the ribs and back of the man, and it sickened
his sensitive soul.

"Ye're looking white about the gills, kid!" remarked Thompson
sarcastically. "What's worrying ye?"

"Mister Nickerson--and that sailor!" mumbled Donald.

"Huh!" said the other coolly. "He handled him fine! That's the proper
Yankee fashion, though I guess our Old Man wouldn't like to see the
mate hustle them like that around the dock. Liable to get into
trouble. This is a British ship and the authorities won't stand for
manhandling if it can be proved."

It was broad daylight now and the two tugs were alongside. The Blue
Peter was flying at the fore, and the Red Ensign from the jigger gaff.
Captain Muirhead and the pilot appeared on the poop--the former in his
square-topped bowler hat. Coming to the break of the poop, the skipper
sung out to the mate, "All hands aboard, mister?"

"Two men short, sir!" answered the mate. "Shipping master says he'll
try and locate them and send them daown to Greenock!"

The master grunted, "We'll no get them, that's sure. Weel, we hae tae
get oot o' this. Staund-by fur lettin' go fore'n aft. Send a hond tae
th' wheel!"

Mr. Nickerson motioned to Thompson. "Go'n take the wheel, you! I
cal'late there ain't a sober man in th' fo'c'sle. An' you, nipper," he
said to Donald, "jest stand-by under the break ontil I want ye. Ye're
not much account yet awhile!"

The tow-boat whistled for the swing-bridge at the dock entrance to
open, and slowly dragged the deep-laden barque away from the quay. As
the single mooring lines were cast off, the onlookers gave a few
"Hurrays!" and the women and men yelled to the members of the crew.
"Ta, ta, Joak! Bring me hame a parrot--yin that can talk!" "So long,
Gus! Look oudt for dot mate! He's a nigger-driver!" Mr. Nickerson was
up on the fo'c'sle-head rousing his Jacks around, and he came in for a
number of complimentary epithets. The cook lounged in the door of his
galley and as they passed through the swing-bridge piers, he waved his
apron at the crowd of workmen waiting to cross and shouted the
time-honored outwardbounder's fare-ye-well, "Urray for the pier 'ead
an' th' bloody stiy-at-'omes!"

"Ye may well say it, Slushy!" bawled a man on the pier. "For I'm
thinkin' ye'll be payin' yer debts wi' th' foretopsail-sheet an' maybe
the polis is lookin' for ye!" The shot evidently went home for cookie
vanished.

Out through the dock walls went the barque, just as the shipyard
whistles were blowing for eight o'clock, and with the stern tug
straightening her out in the river channel, the ship responded to the
pull of the hawser ahead and glided down to the sea.

Donald tramped up and down under the break of the poop keeping himself
warm, and in one of his turns he espied a female figure, waving a
handkerchief, standing near the Kelvinhaugh Ferry slip. He waved in
return. It was his mother, and he leaned over the high rail and
watched her until the rainy mist veiled them from each other. Then he
turned inboard with a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes. He was
feeling miserable, and oh, so lonely! Leaning his head against the
rail he began to cry.

"Vot de hell is de matter mit you, boy?" cried a strident voice from
above. Donald turned to see the German second mate looking down at him
from the poop rail.

"Nothing, sir!"

"Den if nodings is de matter," growled the other, "you yust belay dot
weepings or I gif you somedings to weep for! You go forrard dere und
haul down dot Blue Peter und bring it aft here und be damned smardt
aboudt it!"

Three hours a member of a ship's company and Donald was pretty well
sick of it all. Nothing of the glory, adventure and romance of the sea
and ships had yet unfolded itself to his eyes. No! all he had seen was
sordid wharf-side bickerings, evil women and sodden men; dirty menial
work and cruel words; autocratic authority, brutality and a scoffing
callousness for fine feelings. He thought of these things as he coaxed
the outward-bound bunting down and clear of the mazy web of rigging
aloft, but with the sight of the sky and the soaring spars and the
river gulls, came new heart and determination, and he murmured to
himself, "Others have gone through it and came out all right. My daddy
came through it all right, and so shall I!"




CHAPTER EIGHT


The tug pulled the _Kelvinhaugh_ to the Tail of the Bank and the
barque dropped her anchor there. During the journey down the river the
second mate kept Donald busy on odd jobs, and several times he was in
close proximity to Captain Muirhead, but the latter never even greeted
him by word or look. When the tug departed, the Captain eyed the sky,
cloudy and overcast, and went below to his cabin. Hinkel also went
below, after ordering Donald to sweep up the poop, and he was sweeping
when Mr. Nickerson came aft.

"Waal, boy, what d'ye think of it all?" he enquired blithely. "Goin'
to like it?"

"I'll like it after a while, sir," answered Donald with a smile. "When
I get more used to the ship and the work."

The mate laughed and a saturnine smile came over his sharp features.
"Which means you don't think a hell of a lot of it so far, eh? Waal,
son, ye're dead right. It's a dog's life, and the man who goes to sea
for a livin' nowadays 'ud go to hell for pleasure!" And after
delivering the ancient deep sea proverb, he too turned and went below.

After sweeping up the poop, Donald went down to the half-deck and
found Thompson having his dinner. "Come along, nipper!" he cried
cheerfully. "What'll you have? Roast stuffed duckling with baked
potatoes, string beans and brussels sprouts, jam roly-poly and
coffee! How would that suit you?"

"That would suit me fine!" exclaimed Donald eagerly looking for
evidences of such a menu.

"You bally well bet it would suit you!" laughed Thompson, "but there
ain't no sich luck, as the Yankees say! Here's your chow! Dig in and
curse your uncle!" As he spoke he pushed a large tin pan containing
mushy potatoes and a fat, disgusting lump of pork, towards Donald. He
also indicated a hook-pot and a small wooden half-pail. "There's the
tea and coffee in the pot--it's coffee in the morning and tea at other
times, but it's the same stuff--and there's hard bread in the barge
there. Sink me! I don't know why I left a comfortable home to go
knocking around in one of these mean Scotch ships!"

Donald helped himself to the food and made a meal of the worst viands
he had ever swallowed in his life. "Is it always like this?" he asked,
disgustedly pushing the mess-kit away from his sight.

"Always like this?" echoed Thompson in mock indignation. "Well, I'm
blowed! Godfrey, nipper, you'll appreciate chow as good as that afore
this trip's ended! Yes, siree! you'll learn to thank the good Lord for
a penny herring and a slice o' white bread and a real potato yet. And
you'll eat your fill o' rotten grub afore you hit the beach again, my
son! Such ungratefulness, Oliver Twist!--damned if it ain't!"

Thompson would have continued in this strain for a while, but there
came a tug at the half-deck door and two youths leaped in dragging
bags and chests. "Hullo, Jack!" shouted both in unison. "Here we are
again!" Both were dressed in apprentice's uniform and were chunky lads
around sixteen years of age. "Who's the new chum, Jack?" queried
one--a chubby, curly-haired chap with a pleasant smile and nice white
teeth.

Thompson waved a lazy hand. "McKenzie, meet Jenkins and Moore. Jenkins
has done one stretch, but Moore has only four days of his four years
in. Jenkins here is a fat-head for sleep, while Moore is a young
sailor but a damned old soldier and would sooner skulk than work. Now
you know them!"

Jenkins laughed, but Moore scowled. He was a swarthy complexioned lad
with a large ugly mouth and beady black eyes. Donald sized his two
shipmates up quickly. Jenkins would be alright, but Moore would be
quarrelsome. Two minutes later, his deductions were verified when both
started to protest at having to take lower bunks. "I say, Thompson,
old man," said Jenkins, "the nipper will have to turn out of that
bunk--"

"No he won't," answered Thompson, calmly smoking away. "I told him to
put his truck there and he'll stay there!"

"Oh, I say, dam'-it-all," expostulated Jenkins. Moore started to pull
Donald's stuff out of the bunk. Donald jumped to his feet. "What the
deuce are you doing with my things?" he cried calmly.

"I'm goin' to take this bunk," he growled. "If you or Jenkins want a
punch in the jaw, I'll give it to you!"

Donald realized in a flash that his comfort in future absolutely
depended upon himself--nobody else would help him here, so he gave
Moore a blow on the mouth with all the power of his right fist. The
Irish lad's beady eyes snapped savagely, and with the blood streaming
from his cut lips, he went for Donald and the two mixed it up in a
proper rough and tumble.

Thompson jumped from the seat and hauled Moore away. "You leave
McKenzie and his bunk alone, you blighter, or I'll wipe the deck with
you! You take that bunk there and be blamed glad to get it!" And he
hove Moore down into the worst located of the two lowers.

Donald sat down panting with an eye which was rapidly discoloring. "I
say, Jenkins," he said to the other apprentice, "I'm sorry to have
done you out of a good bunk, but I'm game to toss you for it--" "No,
you won't," laughed Jenkins. "It serves me right for not joining the
ship in Glasgow. First come, first served. You keep the bunk, nipper.
Let's have a drink!" He produced a bottle of whisky, and on Donald
refusing to join in, they offered a drink to Moore, who sullenly
accepted.

This whisky drinking by lads of sixteen and twenty rather shocked
Donald, but he had scarcely been an hour in the company of the three
before he heard enough to convince him that there wasn't much in the
way of vice they didn't know. The drinking, swearing, and the
recounting of vicious adventures and questionable stories caused
Donald to wonder why such wickedness was not visited by instant
retribution from Heaven. Blasphemy and the ribald use of the most
sacred things seemed to roll from the tongues of his companions like
water from a fountain.

Thompson had been applying himself to the bottle rather heavily and he
was fast becoming "tight." He turned around to Donald, who was sitting
on his chest listening to the talk. "Look at that poor l'il devil
there!" he drawled thickly. "I like that l'il feller--he's such a
pale-faced skinny l'il nipper. He c'd crawl through a ring-bolt, by
Godfrey! Ne'mind, son! You've jus' got t' learn to drink a four-finger
nip 'thout blinkin' or coughin', an' learn to spin nine hundred dirty
yarns, an' swear to music, an' keep watch snoozin' between bells, an'
you'll be a real dyed-in-the-wool shellback, with every finger a
fishhook, and every hair a ropeyarn, an' blood of Stockholm tar!"
Thompson rambled on. "His uncle owns this hooker. Th' lousy Scotch
miser! But he don't love that kid, he don't. Sends him to sea in this
ruddy coffin an' fits him out with a donkey's breakfast and a dog's
wool blanket an' a kit ye could shoot peas through--"

A heavy tramp of sea-booted feet halted outside. Jenkins whipped the
bottle away, as the broad ugly face of Mr. Hinkel appeared in the
door. "Now, den, vot are you lazy defils loafin' avay your time in
here for?" he rasped in his guttural brogue. "Gome oudt of dot und
bear a hand to bend der flying yib und overhaul some of der gear
aloft. Dam' rigger's snarls everywhere und dam' lazy boys loafin' und
yarnin' und egspecting Gottalmighty to do der vork!" He slammed the
door and Jenkins extended a spread hand with a thumb to his nose,
while Thompson cursed the second mate for a "beastly yumping yiminy
Yudas Dutchman!"

The boys toiled and mucked all afternoon in the rain and bitter wind,
and Donald crawled to his bunk at seven that evening aching in every
limb and muscle and with his hands skinned and painful. For hours he
tossed around listening to the snores of his ship-mates, and the
sighing of the rain-laden wind in the gear aloft. It had been an
eventful day, but a day in which his clean ideal of a sea-life had
been rudely shattered. He was seeing it now in its naked, unvarnished,
unromantic reality, and he was realizing that if he would hold his own
he must protect his rights by physical force and steel himself to
endure many hardships in soul and body; case-harden his finer
feelings, and rigorously restrain all impulses of sympathy and the
fine charity which can be exhibited ashore. His father was the
embodiment of all that was good and honorable and kind, yet, no doubt,
he was as unimpressionable and as callous as Thompson or even Mr.
Nickerson, while roughing it in his early days at sea. He thought of
Thompson and Jenkins. Both these lads were "straight" according to
youthful ethics, but how rough and tough they were in their sea-life,
yet, in their homes they were possibly, and probably, as fine, true
and as honorable young fellows as those environed by gentler walks of
life. Sea-ways were not shore-ways, and it did not take Donald long to
find out that a sea-life would make of a man exactly what he himself
desired. Youth was left very much to his own resources. There was no
mother to caress or to correct in a ship's half-deck, and in the ruck
of it all, with its disgusting familiarity, evil talk and callousness,
the lad who had the instincts of a gentleman and a clean heart
implanted in him, would come through it without being contaminated in
mind or speech or diseased in body.

The _Kelvinhaugh_ lay for three days at the Tail of the Bank getting
ready for sea. Though a brand new ship and fresh from the riggers'
yard, yet there was more to do in getting her ready than in a craft
that had been under sailors' hands for a dozen voyages. Standing gear
had to be screwed up again, running gear rove off through the right
leads and a hundred and one small gadgets installed which riggers omit
and sailors have to fit. In this work, Donald did his share and spent
many hours aloft working with the other lads. There was a rare thrill
in this climbing and toiling with good honest cordage up in the tops
and on the yards--and he felt that clambering and swinging about on
the barque's dizzy eminences savored of the real adventure of
sea-faring. Like all boys, he could climb, and being free from
giddiness, he thoroughly enjoyed the view from aloft. Looking down on
the ship, she appeared to his unsailorly eye, a most beautiful model,
and the men working on deck seemed as pigmies, while he, suspended
like Mahomet's tomb, between sea and sky, felt a strange
exhilaration--a sensation which lent zest to the work and made him
look to the future with a happier heart. Alas, he was unconsciously
imbibing the doctrines of all sailoring, in which one remembers the
good times and forgets the hardships and the miserable days.

On the third day there was enough blue in the sky "tae mak' a
Hielanman a pair o' breeks" and the wind was coming away fair for a
slant south. The two short-shipped men had turned up, dazed and
useless in the aftermath of a carouse, and were in the fo'c'sle
"sleeping it off." At nine a tug came out, and the bos'n having got
steam up in the donkey, the anchor was hove up without capstan-bar or
chantey, and the _Kelvinhaugh_ trailed at the end of a tow-line down
the Firth of Clyde with a fresh northerly breeze whipping the short
combers into white-capped corrugations.

By mid-afternoon the barque had pulled through the Cumbraes and the
captain was up on the poop squinting around. He had discarded his
shore toggery and slumped around in a cloth cap, a cardigan jacket,
heavy woollen pants and carpet slippers. After a long scrutiny of sky
and sea, and a tap at the mercurial barometer hanging in the
chart-house, he spoke to the mate. "We'll get the muslin on her when
she comes up wi' Arran. Wi' this northerly we're no needin' a tug and
A'm thinkin' we'll be safe in rinnin' doon the Irish Channel."

The mate nodded. "Aye, sir. Looks like a fair wind, sir!" And he
sniffed at the breeze like a hound scenting his quarry. The Old Man
grunted and resumed his pacing along the weather side of the poop.

When the high purple-heathered hills of Arran came abeam, the master
ceased his pacing. "Get yer tops'ls on her, mister!" he ordered the
mate, and his quiet command seemed to galvanize ship and crew to
stirring action. "Loose tops'ls!" roared Mr. Nickerson, and the hands
working on "stowing-away" jobs, at which they were time-spinning,
seemed to be imbued with new life. "Loose tops'ls--he says!" cried the
bos'n directing his squad. "Move yerselves, blast ye! Loose th' fore,
you! Main an' mizzen you! Look spry now, my sons, or ye'll have th'
mate down among ye wi' some Yankee salt to put on yer tails!" The
latter _sotto voce_.

Donald went up with Thompson to the lower mizzen topsail yard, and
under the senior apprentice's direction, cast the confining gaskets
adrift. Almost simultaneously from the three masts came the shout,
"All gone, sir. Sheet home!" As the canvas rustled and flapped from
the yards and bellied in the restraining gear, the mate's nasal
bawlings could be heard injecting action. "Lay daown from aloft you
skulkers 'n get some beef on them tops'l sheets. Look slippy naow!"
The chain sheets rattled and clanked through the sheaves as the men,
standing on the fife-rail and deck, hove down, "hey-ho'ing!" and
barking, on the slack and brought the lower clews of the fore lower
topsail nigh to the sheaves of the fore-yard-arms. A man squinted
aloft after the last sweat had been given at the sheets. "What a hell
ov a poor cut sail," he remarked.

"To yer main an' mizzen tops'ls naow!" came the mate's roar. "Never
mind gamming. Ye're not on a spouter (whaler)!" Main and mizzen lower
topsails were set to the wind, and the _Kelvinhaugh_ started to drive
ahead on her own and the tow-rope began to light up. "Up on yer
foretopm'st-stays'l!" "Stand-by to get that tow-line aboard. For'ard
with ye!" The tug blew a blast of her whistle and made a wide sheer
from under the bows. The tow-rope was let go, and while twenty men
hauled the wet, snakey manilla aboard over the foc'slehead, the tug
steamed around and came up on the barque's weather quarter to receive
a material valediction--in the shape of a bottle of whisky--and the
last letters. Donald saw the package being thrown down on the tug's
decks at the end of a heaving-line, and he watched with some anxiety
for the safety of the hastily-written note which he had indited to his
mother. It was a cheerful note--full of optimism which he did not feel
when writing it, and he played up the most promising and alluring
aspects of a sea-life and the men in whose company he would be for
many months. Poor lad! the romantic ideal was fast fading and it was
hard to write paragraphs of happy fiction with Thompson and Jenkins
swapping gloomy prognostications for the future over the mess-table.

The tow-boat blew a long farewell blast from her whistle and dropped
astern. Within five minutes she had swung around and was steaming up
the Firth as fast as her slatting paddle-blades would take her, and
with her went the _Kelvinhaugh's_ last link with the land for many a
long day.

"Upper tops'ls naow!" came the order, and under the curseful
directions of the two mates and the bos'n, able-bodied, ordinary and
apprentice seamen were hustled from job to job, and in the midst of
the action, Donald scarce realized that he was assisting to carry out
those wonderful manoeuvres over which he had gloated in printed
page. Somehow the actual seemed different from the visionary. There
was surly venom in the barking orders of--"Tops'l halliards naow an'
put yer bloody backs into it you lazy hounds!" and such bitter remarks
as "Struth! A poor bunch of beef in this crowd. Sailormen have all
died an' nawthin' left naow but skulking kids an' broken-down sojers!"
which came from the mate. In the novels the mate was usually a bluff,
fatherly old codger who sung out "Heave away, my lads!" or "Haul away,
my hearties!" in a hurricane roar, and with many good-humored asides
interspersed between orders, but in cold realism on the _Kelvinhaugh_,
Donald felt that Mr. Nickerson was only using his tongue because he
was denied the use of his fist and boot, and the hulking German second
mate growled and grunted and pushed in sullen self-restraint because
British sea laws forbade him commencing the voyage by killing someone.

Running with square yards past the Arran hills, the deep-laden barque
ploughed along with all hands sweating at the halliards and sheets and
dressing the _Kelvinhaugh_ in her "muslin." Her tops'l yards were
heavy, and it did not take the old hands in the crew long to realize
that they had signed in a "work-house" in this short-handed,
heavily-sparred craft. With the tops'l halliards led to a main-deck
capstan, the crew stamped around straining at the bars in sullen
silence. The stolid, brutal German barked guttural curses--he was too
thick-headed to notice anything unusual in this silent labor, but the
keen-eared mate sensed the absence of the deep-water working chorus,
and he was down on the scene in a minute giving tongue.

"Come on thar', bullies! Ain't thar' a chantey-man in the crowd?
Strike a light someone! A chantey does the work of ten men, so walk
her raound an' sing aout!" A West Indian negro showed his white teeth
in an ingratiating smile and the mate spied him. "A black-bird to sing
every time!" he cried. "Come you coon--loosen up yer pipes an' shout
an' walk them tops'l yards to the mast-head!" Thus encouraged, the
negro commenced in a clear tenor,

    "Shanandoah, I love yore daughter!"

"Bark you hounds!" roared the mate. "Sing aout an' heave 'round!" And
the chorus was timidly voiced in half-a-dozen keys.

    "Away! My rolling river!"

The black soloist pushed and sang.

    "Oh, Shanandoah, I loves to hear yo!"

Then the crowd, warming to their work, roared in unison.

    "Ah, ha, we're bound away--
    'Cross the wide Missouri!"

The ancient chantey "took hold" and the men woke up from their sullen
apathy and stamped around the clinking capstan roaring the plaintive
refrains to the negro's quavering solo. The mate stood watching with a
smile on his keen visage. "That's what we want to hear aboard these
hookers!" he said. "When I don't hear a craowd singin' out they're
liverish and I'm ready to dose 'em up with a double whack of black
draught!"

Whether it was through a new spirit of cheerfulness at getting under
sail or through dread of the old sea medicine, the crowd commenced
chanteying, and in hauling out the topgallantsail sheets and
mastheading the royal yards, Donald felt something of seafaring
romance, amidst the hard work and his burning hands, in lustily
bawling the ancient choruses of "Sally Brown I love yer daughter!"
"Whisky Johnny," or "On the plains of Mexico."

By the time Pladda was abeam, it was becoming dark, and the barque,
sail-clad from scupper to truck, was rolling, a creamy "bone in her
teeth" from her blunt bows and slugging along with a slight roll to
port and starboard. With the blue bulk of Ailsa Craig ahead over the
jib-boom and her royals and fores'l set, the big wind-jammer began to
smell the windy spaces of her unsailed traverses, while aft on the
poop paced the Old Man--proud of his new command and anxious to see
how she was shaping up. Down in the half-deck, Donald, aching in bone
and muscle, and with hands blistered, skinned and paining, gulped his
tea in a daze, with but one consuming desire--to get into his bunk and
court blessed oblivion.




CHAPTER NINE


"Clang-Clang! Clang-clang! Clang-clang! Clang-clang!" Four double
tolls sounded on the bell aft betokened the sea-time of eight bells in
the second dog-watch, or 8 p.m. shore time. Donald was half dozing in
his bunk and listening aimlessly to the hardened Thompson holding
forth to Jenkins. "Mark my words ... a ruddy workhouse. No takin' yer
ease on this lime-juicer ... nigger-drivin', back-breakin' starvation
Scotch tank ... rotten dead cargo.... She'll be a truck to steer ...
and a swine to tack. All day to-day ... sweating ... calashee
watch...." He growled away pessimistically while Donald nodded with
eyes closed. Moore was in his bunk asleep. He, like Donald, was tired
and sore, but bore it in sulky silence.

"Lay aft all handts!" bawled Mr. Hinkel on the main-deck. Jenkins gave
Donald a rude shake and brought him to wakefulness with a yell.
"Muster out on deck, nipper! Picking the watches, I guess!"

Donald scrambled out into the darkness. The barque was running with
her yards square and the trucks swayed slightly across the stars. A
light was blinking abeam, and the following wavelets plashed and
hissed against the vessel's sides. The men were coming from for'ard
and collected in knots under the poop-break. "Come up on the poop,
men!" cried the mate, leaning over the rail.

Up on the poop the wind blew cold and Donald shivered. The mate stood
by the lighted binnacle with the ship's articles in his hands.

"Sing aout naow while I call school!" he said, and he read:

"Jones!"

"Here, sir!" came from one of the crew.

"Stand to one side after you answer your names!" ordered the officer.

"Barclay!" The black chantey-man answered and joined Jones, and the
mate mustered representatives of four continents as he drawled,
"Valdez!"--"Si, senor!"

"Hansen!"--"Yaw, sir!"

"McLean!"--"Aye, mister!"

"Yedon--what th' hell is this? Yedon--"

A man answered, "Yedonowskivitch, sir!"

"'Struth," growled the officer, "yer blasted name is as long as a
flyin' jib'alliard! Yed is your name from now on!" The Russian grunted
and joined the men who had been checked off.

Englishman, Irishman, Scotchman, Welshman, Japanese, Swede, Dane,
German, Norwegian, Russian, Canadian, American, West Indian, Spaniard
and South African represented the _Kelvinhaugh's_ laborers, and as
Donald viewed them, he wondered how it was possible for such a
cosmopolitan and ill-favored gang to be gathered together. Dressed in
various garbs, scarcely one looked to be a sailor, but the keen-eyed
mates knew that clothes and general appearance do not mark the man who
is rated "Able Bodied" and who can "hand, reef and steer." When the
watch picking began, the first man Mr. Nickerson picked was the
cropped head McLean, whose face still carried the marks of the clawing
he had received on the Glasgow dock, yet Donald would have sworn that
this fellow was a steamship fireman or a ship-yard laborer. But they
were a small, weak-looking crowd after all, and when the boy scanned
the little group and allowed his eyes to wander over the barque's
great hull and the mighty fabric towering aloft--ponderous and
unwieldy in the gloom--he realized something of Thompson's forebodings
and compared the little company of ill-assorted humans, who were to
work the ship to her destination, to a squad of pigmies doomed to
undertake the tasks of giants.

Much to his dismay, Donald found himself listed with the
"starbowlines," under the broad-faced Mr. Hinkel. Thompson was picked
for the mate's watch and would rank as "acting third mate," and Chubby
Jenkins was along with him. For a watch-mate, Donald had the surly
Moore, and he felt that the luck was against him every way.

"Alright, men," said Mr. Nickerson when the watch picking was over.
"Starboard watch keeps the deck until midnight. Relieve the wheel and
look-out, and go below the port watch!"

Though dreadfully tired and aching in every bone and muscle, Donald
had to remain on deck until mid-night, and Mr. Hinkel, with brutal
directness, gave him a lecture on his watch-keeping duties. "You keep
oop here und avake and don't you let me catch you skulkin'. You keep
der binnacle lamps trimmed und vatch der time und strike der bells und
you keep handy so dot I can see you on der lee side der poop!" And
with a few curseful remarks about being pestered with useless, lazy
boys, he turned and began pacing to windward. For four long hours,
Donald trudged with leaden feet on a monotonous round--binnacle to
cabin gangway (to squint at the clock) and gangway to poop bell.
Feeling "played out," he heaved a sigh of relief when midnight came
around and he belled the news with a feeling of anticipatory pleasure
in the hours of restful sleep to come.

Utterly exhausted with a "calashee" (all hands working) watch of
eighteen hours--the most of which was hard labor--Donald kicked off
his boots and rolled into his bunk "all standing" and slept like a
dead man until Jenkins yelled "Eight bells! Turn out!" at 3.45 a.m.
Moore, who had dodged the second mate during the first watch and had
stolen a snooze then, turned out, dressed and went on deck without
giving his watch-mate another shake. When the starbowlines mustered
aft, Donald was missing, and only reported after Thompson had roused
him out of a heavy slumber.

The tyrannous Mr. Hinkel had something to say when McKenzie came up on
the poop ten minutes after the bell had tolled. "Vy der hell dond't
you turn oudt ven you are called?" he snarled. "By Gott, I'll make you
spry!" He turned and sung out to the bos'n. "Gedt a pot of slush und
let dis lazy defil grease down der yigger-top-masdt!" Donald went to
the lee side of the poop, nervous and apprehensive at the nature of
the punishment to be meted to him for lack of punctuality in turning
out on his second watch in the ship.

The bos'n, a kindly Dane, who had sailed so long in English ships as
to have sunk his nationality, brought the tin slush-pot upon the poop
and called to the wondering Donald. "Here, son," he said quietly so
that the second mate could not hear. "Dam' shame sendin' a raw nipper
like you aloft on a job like this for bein' a minute or two late. In
decent ships the new boys ain't allowed above the tops until they've
bin a month at sea. Howsomever, son,"--rigging a bos'n's chair to the
halliards as he talked--"don't git narvous. I'll tend th' halliard an'
lower ye down as ye sing out. Put the lanyard o' this slush-pot aroun'
yer neck an' grease th' mast wit' yer hands. Tie this bit o' line
aroun' th' topm'st when ye get above th' eyes o' the riggin' so's ye
won't swing out when she rolls. Don't be scared, son, you'll be
alright."

"I'm not scared, bos'n," answered Donald, taking his seat in the
chair, with the foul smelling pot of grease around his neck. Up to the
block of the halliard he went--clutching the mast, as the bos'n
hoisted him up, to keep from swinging, pendulum-wise, with the roll of
the barque. It was dark, but clear, and the stars shone bright in the
cold morning air. Far away to port a light blinked somewhere on the
Galloway coast, and from his lofty perch, he could see the wake made
by the ship's passage fading into the murk astern. The rolling of the
vessel was more pronounced up aloft, and before he commenced
"slushing-down," he took a turn of the line around the mast as the
bos'n had advised, but even then, he swayed ominously and the grease
smelt indescribably foul.

Dipping his sore hands into the mess, he massaged the smooth pole with
the grease as the bos'n lowered him down. It was very cold up aloft
and the rolling and the foul smell of the slush was making him dizzy
with nausea. Within a few minutes, he was deathly sick and hung to the
spar, white-faced and with the perspiration breaking out on him. Try
as he might to regain control of himself, Donald had to succumb to the
dreadful _mal-de-mer_, and with a feeble "Look-out, below!" he made
his first contribution to Neptune.

A volley of German curses from the poop apprised him of the fact that
the second mate had received evidence of his indisposition--Mr. Hinkel
having, unfortunately, strode to loo'ard just when Donald was ejecting
the "longshore swash out of his stomach." The realization of what had
happened frightened all the sea-sickness out of him, and he resumed
his task, fearful of the consequences when he reached the deck. Coming
down the mast, he wondered, as he had often wondered of late, what
fascination there was in a sea-life that sent lads to sea.

On deck again after the job was done, the bos'n met him with a grin.
"Ye put it all over th' secon' greaser," he said. "He's for'ard
cleaning himself off." Donald felt too nervous to smile. Mr. Hinkel
would have something to say to him when he came aft.

While he was talking to the bos'n, Captain Muirhead slipped quietly
around the chart-house and stood before them. "Whaur's the second
officer?" he said in a quiet, but ominous tone.

"Th' lad here, sir, was up aloft slushin' down an' took sick an'
Mister Hinkel got it, sir," answered Martin somewhat eagerly. "He's
gone for'ard to get somethin' to clean hisself off with, sir!"

The Old Man muttered unintelligibly under his breath, stared over the
port rail at something ahead, and then gave a quiet-spoken order to
the man at the wheel. The helm was shifted, and when the second mate
came aft, the skipper called him. Pointing into the gloom for'ard, he
said: "Do you see that ship ahead?" Hinkel followed the direction of
the Old Man's hand. "Yaw, sir!" he answered. A new phase of the silent
Captain Muirhead's character was revealed to Donald in the violent
outburst which came from his lips. "Then what th' hell dae ye mean by
leavin' th' poop afore we're clear o' th' Firth," he thundered in a
strident voice so utterly different from his usual quiet-spokeness.
"What's yer look-out doin'? Asleep, I suppose? Damn yer bloody eyes,
we'd ha' been intae that fella if Ah hadna jist spied her! Your place
is here, mister, especially while we're in th' midst o' Channel
traffic. Ye'll no dare tae leave this poop in your watch onless Ah'm
here, or th' mate, or unless it's necessary fur th' safety o' th'
shup! Awa' forrit an' see if yer look-out's awake!"

Hinkel made no reply but slouched down the poop ladder, and a moment
after his guttural cursing could be heard as he dressed down the
sleepy watchman on the fo'c'sle-head. "Hinkel will not love you for
this night, son," remarked the bos'n. "He's an ugly swine, so keep out
of his way."

Donald discreetly kept to loo'ard when Hinkel came aft again. The
captain paced the poop for a spell and then went below. Donald heard
the second mate growl something to the man at the wheel, and a moment
afterwards turned to find the hulking German in the gloom alongside of
him. Hinkel grasped him by the arm in a grip that made him wince. "Jou
verdammt schweinehunde!" he snarled through gritted teeth and shaking
the boy violently. "Mein Gott! Ich like fur kick jou in der
vasser--jou cursed rat! Jou look oudt! I'll sveat jou fur dis!" In his
rage he was almost unintelligible and he concluded by heaving Donald
violently away from him.

During the rest of the watch the boy attended most assiduously to his
duties, as he knew he had made an enemy who would only need a slight
excuse to wreak vengeance on him, but in a way that would be upheld by
the British Merchant Shipping laws and the officials administering
it.

With a fair wind and fine weather, the _Kelvinhaugh_ cleared the St.
George's Channel and swung away S.W. across the broad expanse of the
North Atlantic for the equator and on the deepwaterman's track which
would bring her in the vicinity of the land again at Cape San Roque on
the Brazilian coast. It was fine weather for the ship, but it wasn't
fine weather for Donald. Captain Muirhead ignored him absolutely, at
least by speech, though he watched him at work often with furtive
glances. The Old Man was not much of a conversationalist, but he did
talk to the other apprentices, and his ignoring of young McKenzie was
commented on in the half-deck. Thompson summed it up, rather brutally,
but Donald knew that he meant it in a kindly spirit. "Nipper," he
said, "your uncle has no love for you or the Old Man would be falling
all over you. Your stingy Scotch relative looks upon you as a charity
brat--it don't need but half an eye to see that, for he sent you to
sea parish-rigged, with an outfit as mean as what ye'd get from a
boarding-house master in Jerusalem. He shoved you off here as the
cheapest thing he could do--an apprentice without a premium paid
down--and he'll see that you work for your keep and clothes. The
skipper knows it, and that square-headed Hinkel knows it, for he'd
never dare treat any of us other fellows the way he treats you. Your
best friend aft here is that hard-case Blue-nose mate.... And, say,
kid, just you make that skulker Moore do his share. He's sojerin'
around in here smoking and loafing while you're on deck. Why doesn't
Hinkel get after _him_, I'd like to know? You just bring Moore to his
bearings, kid, and jab him one on the jaw if he gets lippy!" Donald
thanked the senior apprentice with tears in his eyes. Ever since he
had come aboard this ship, it had required all his nerve and courage
to keep from breaking down at the petty tyrannies and persecutions of
the second mate. The captain must be abetting his officer, or why
didn't he interfere in cases where, as Donald knew, he, as an
apprentice, was not supposed to be ordered to perform. Tasks, which in
most ships were done by older hands, were delegated to McKenzie, and
he carried them out cheerfully, thinking that he was going through the
rigorous course prescribed for those who would become "compleat and
perfect seamen."

Mr. Nickerson seemed indeed to be his best friend among the after
guard. Though not in the mate's watch, yet that officer did not take
long to size Donald up as a lad having the right spirit in him for a
sailor. He was willing and jumped to obey a command. He was
intelligent and mastered the intricacies of the big barque's rigging
and gear in less time than most green hands would have taken to
determine bow from stern and starboard from port. In the dog-watches
and on Sundays, the mate took Donald in hand and taught him how to
steer, and by the time the _Kelvinhaugh_ had picked up the north-east
trade winds in the latitude of the Canaries, he was able to take a
wheel in fine weather and steer "by the wind" or by compass.

The Nova Scotian's lessons were forceful and not readily forgotten. "I
jest show a boy once," he used to say, "an' then I expect him to go
ahead an' do it himself. When I have to show a thing twice I ram it
home with a rope's end!" Jenkins and Moore--the latter especially--had
cause to fear the mate's teachings, but Donald stood high in his favor
through his intelligent grasp of things and the will to master a
problem. To the other apprentices and in the eyes of the hands
for'ard, Nickerson was a "ruddy Yankee bucko," and it must be
admitted, the epithet was justified, for he was a "taut" hand and made
no bones about using his fist or boot to accentuate "nippiness."

By the time the barque caught the "trades," and in spite of the
miserable food supplied, young McKenzie had toughened up wonderfully.
The continual "horsing" to which he was being subjected by his watch
officer seemed to be the very elixir necessary to building up his
apparently frail constitution. His muscles and sinews hardened and
developed; his eyes were clear and bright, and the sallowness of his
face became replaced by a healthy tan. The soft hands became hard and
horny-palmed, while his movements were quick and active under the
spur of the mate's teachings and the second mate's spite. If the sea
killed some boys, it was making a man of Donald, and he recalled the
old Glasgow specialist's advice to his mother, "He'll be as tough as a
louse an' as hard tae kill!"

While he had benefitted physically through a sea-life, his boyish
ideals of the romance and adventure of seafaring had been ruthlessly
shattered. His treatment on the _Kelvinhaugh_ had practically killed
all the thrilling fancies and dreams of his home days. He was
beginning to realize his father's words, "It's a dog's life at the
best of times!" and even the blue-skied "trades," with the barque
bowling along through the azure ocean under clouds of brand-new
canvas, white as snow, failed to awake in him the same enthusiasm as
the ideal about which he had dreamed. True! they were glorious
days--for a passenger or the officers, maybe--but for Donald,
hard-worked and living on wretched provender and environed by men
whose imaginations were dead, the "trade" latitudes were but periods
in a voyage, just as summer and winter were seasonal phases in a
calendar year. Had he gone to sea under better auspices, his enjoyment
of the sea and its glories would have been different.

There was one lesson he did learn and which he ever afterwards
retained as a permanent part of his character, and that was dependence
upon himself and the submergence of sensitiveness and meek toleration
of injustices from equals. The rough talk of the half-deck and the
cutting jibes of his shipmates no longer wounded his sensibilities.
While he retained his inbred gentleness, yet he case-hardened it with
an armor of indifference not to be easily penetrated. Physically, he
resented being imposed upon by others not entitled to command
obedience, and gained his first step in that resolution in a "show
down" with his apprentice watch-mate, Moore.

The surly youth had never forgiven McKenzie for the bunk episode when
the ship was at Greenock. He also attempted, by reason of the fact
that he had served four days of his time at sea in the lost
_Dunottar_, to claim seniority over Donald and to delegate to the
latter the job of "Peggy" for the half-deck. Donald was willing to do
his share of fetching the food from the galley and in cleaning out the
apprentice's quarters, but he began to resent doing all of it. Moore
considered that Donald's willingness to do mess-boy work for the crowd
was a tacit acknowledgment of his seniority and freedom from such
menial tasks, but he over-stepped the bounds one dog-watch when he
insolently ordered McKenzie to sweep up the floor of the boys'
quarters, after he had littered it with shavings from a model which he
was whittling. Donald had swept the half-deck out earlier in the day,
and calmly told Moore that "as you've made the mess, it is up to you
to clean it up!" Thompson was in his bunk reading, but hearing the
words between the two, he knocked off to watch events.

"D'ye hear me, nipper!" growled Moore threateningly. "I told you to
clane this litter up. Git now or I'll be after makin' ye!"

Donald stood up, determined and very cool. "Moore!" he said calmly,
"I've made up my mind that I'm a better man than you, so put up your
hands, for I'm going to knock the tar out of you!" And he went for the
other like a shot out of a gun.

Moore was bigger and heavier than Donald, but he was one of the kind
who "sojered" in a heave or a haul and only exerted his strength when
he had to. When Donald was toiling under Hinkel's eye, Moore was
"sun-fishing" somewhere. Hinkel was too busy horsing McKenzie to care
a continental what Moore was doing, and it was thought by some of the
hands that the second mate had received a substantial monetary
consideration from the Irish lad to allow him a "jack-easy" time.
Moore's people were wealthy brewers in Liverpool, and he went to sea
with plenty of money. However, Mr. Hinkel's attentions to Donald
proved Moore's undoing. As a physical developer of soft muscles, the
second mate had been a success as far as Donald was concerned, and
within five minutes, the younger lad had Moore backed up against the
bulk-head and was "knocking the tar" out of him with fists as hard
and as bony as though shod with knuckle-dusters. Thompson was sitting
up in his bunk betting plugs of tobacco on the outcome of the "mill"
with Jenkins and the bos'n, who were watching from the door. The
sail-maker and carpenter were craning through the ports, thoroughly
enjoying the "scrap" and murmuring, "Good fur the wee fella! He's a
richt nippy yin wi' his dukes!"

Moore, badly mauled, hauled down his flag, and Donald broke away from
him. With a new gleam in his eyes--both puffed from some of Moore's
shots--he said, "From now on, Moore, you'll go half and half in any
work that's to be done in here, and you'll begin now and do a week's
"Peggy" for what I've been doing since we up-hook'd, or I'll turn to
and plug you some more!"

Thompson laughed. "That's talking, nipper," he said, "ride him down!
You gave that Irish puddler just what he was bearing up for!" And
Donald felt that he had gone a step up on the ladder of the spirit
that makes the man.




CHAPTER TEN


The monotonous routine of uneventful sea-life saw the big barque
across the equatorial line, and the usual spell of windless calms had
to be endured when the _Kelvinhaugh_ left the dying trade winds astern
in nine degrees north. After a stretch of twenty-five days, "bracing
up" and "squaring away" to innumerable "cat's paws" and flickering
zephyrs, the vessel picked up the south-east trades a few degrees
south of the line and, braced sharp up, made brave sailing for such a
huge heavily laden craft. So far the weather had been fine and the
barque had not yet been called upon to match her clumsy fabric with
angry wind and sea.

It does not take a ship's company long to size up the condition of
things aboard ship, and fo'c'sle and half-deck gossip showed that the
hands had pretty well taken the measure of the after-guard. Captain
Muirhead turned out to be a cheap skipper, a sulky old bear, an
indifferent sailor and over-fond of the bottle. In the calm, windless
doldrums, he never came up on deck but what the aroma of whisky
travelled with him. On these occasions he was more talkative than
usual, and exhibited a fondness for yarning with the second mate. The
big German would act so openly servile during these phases of the
captain's favor, that the crew had him designated as a "ruddy skipper
licker." Curiously enough, when the Old Man was sober, he treated
Hinkel to the rough side of his tongue pretty frequently, and would
often call him to task for errors and omissions in seamanship.

With Mr. Nickerson the case seemed to be different. The master had
very little to say to him at any time, but the mate acted on numerous
occasions as if he had but little use for his commander. Nickerson was
undoubtedly a splendid seaman, and Martin, the bos'n, openly averred
that he was the smartest mate he had ever sailed with as far as his
seamanship was concerned. Thompson bore testimony to the Nova
Scotian's skill as a navigator, and stated that he had taught him
wrinkles in working difficult problems which would have stumped many
an extra master. But Mr. Nickerson's harsh treatment of the crew did
not win him their affections, though it commanded their fear and
respect.

As the days passed, Donald prayed fervently for the voyage to end.
Hinkel was fast making his life a burden to him, while Thompson's and
the bos'n's gloomy prognostications of the future in the barque did
not tend to hearten his outlook on the days to come. The boy did not
worry much about the third mate's prophecies of disaster, but when
Martin began growling, it was time to take notice. "Mark me well,"
croaked he to the hands, "we'll catch hell in this hooker. Th' pitch
o' th' Horn in July ain't a good season for this big hulk down there,
an' she'll be a man-killer! Mark me well! Them big heavy yards an'
sails an' a long ship an' a deep ship means work an' dirt. She's
slower'n blazes in answerin' her helm and a lazy swine in coming
about--always gittin' in irons. An' she'll be wet ... a ruddy
half-tide rock! Th' grass'll grow on them there decks afore we get
around. Aye! Mark me well! There'll be th' devil to pay an' no pitch
hot when we git _down there_!"

The continual croaking about "down there" had but little effect upon
Jenkins and Moore. Both had never rounded the Horn; could not imagine
its frightfulness, and were not worrying. "Come day, go day, God send
Sunday!" was their motto. The barque was so big and new that the Horn
had no terrors in their imaginations. In a smaller, older ship it
might be bad, but in the big new _Kelvinhaugh_?--Tcha! there was
nothing to it! Donald, however, was not so optimistic. Possibly the
nigger-driving he was continually subjected to somewhat obscured any
rosy outlook on the future. Anyhow, he prepared for the worst and did
what he could to make his poor kit fit for dirty weather and a long
spell of it. Jenkins and Moore had plenty of clothes--they would pull
through alright, but Donald, with his wretched rig, knew that he would
get nothing more to augment it this side of the Horn. In such straits
a boy could not but wish that the voyage would end.

Hinkel became more tyrannous as the barque reached to the south'ard,
subjecting McKenzie to numerous petty tyrannies known in seafaring
parlance as "work-up jobs." A favorite trick of the second mate's was
to tug slyly on the bunt and leech-lines--breaking the twine or yarn
which kept them from chafing the sails. He would then sing out for
McKenzie to lay aloft and overhaul and stop the gear from the royal
down, generally around the end of a watch. Poor Donald would have to
skip up with a fist-full of rope-yarns and finish the task by the time
his watch had been anywhere from half to an hour in their bunks. Aye,
there are a hundred and one ways in which a despotic officer can break
the spirit of a man or boy at sea! One incident north of the Plate
showed the true calibre of the man, and gave Donald an experience he
was never likely to forget. It was one of the outstanding incidents in
his career and one of the most humiliating. Thompson had called him at
the end of the first night watch. There was a strong breeze blowing
aft and the barque was slugging along under all plain sail. As he
pulled on his clothes, Thompson remarked jocularly, "You're shapin' up
not too bad as a shell-back, nipper, but there's one thing you can't
do yet."

"What's that?"

"You can't chew tobacco," replied the other with a grin. "Until you
can masticate a quid you can't call yourself a genuine deep-waterman."
"I'll go you," said Donald. "Gimme a bite of your plug." And with a
liberal chew in his cheek, he jumped out on deck and reported aft.

The second mate had some work for the watch for'ard and told Donald to
take the wheel. The sea was slapping under the ship's stern and
causing the wheel to buck heavily, and the boy could only manage her
by putting his foot on the spokes at intervals in order to rest his
sorely strained arms. For almost an hour he steered and chewed on his
quid, but the wrenching of the wheel was beginning to exhaust him. He
had just put his foot on the lower spokes when he was conscious of Mr.
Hinkel's presence at the lee side of the wheel-box. At the same moment
a heavier sea than usual smashed under the counter and the wheel
jerked savagely--knocking his foot away. Grasping the spinning spokes
with his two hands he tried to arrest the violent whirl, but before he
could exert his strength, he was hurled completely over the wheel-box
and up against the second mate. The officer slipped to his knees, but
jumped up in a flash and arrested the whirling spokes. Donald lay
across the grating with all the breath knocked out of him and deathly
sick through swallowing the tobacco he had been valorously
masticating.

Hinkel yelled viciously for a hand to take the wheel--kicking the
prostrate Donald violently with his heavy boots and swearing vengeance
as soon as he could leave the jerking spokes. Donald was too sick to
take much heed and lay across the grating horribly ill.

"Jou verdammt schweine!" bawled the furious German as soon as he was
relieved. "Ich teach you!" He grabbed the boy by the arm and dragged
him across the deck, swearing in mixed English and German. Over to the
hen-coops at the fore-end of the poop he hauled the unresisting
apprentice, and opening up a door, jammed him headfirst in among the
screeching fowls. Slamming the barred door down again, he turned the
catch, and stood up. "Stay in dere dis vatch!" he snarled. "I'll teach
jou to gedt fonny me vit!"

Too sick to protest or cry out, Donald lay prone inside the narrow
coop while the few remaining inmates clucked and squawked and pecked
at his head. At that moment he only wished to die and end his misery,
and this feeling, together with the violent jar he had received at the
wheel, the tobacco in his stomach and the foul odor from the floor of
the coop, sent him off into a faint.

He came-to a short time later to find himself being pulled out of the
coop by Mr. Hinkel, and he heard Mr. Nickerson saying, "Bring him
out!" in a voice as harsh as a file. The mate was in his shirt and
under-drawers, and when Donald was hauled from his foul prison, the
chief officer bent down and asked, "What in blazes were you doing,
boy?" Donald related dully how he had been thrown over the wheel-box.
The second mate broke in. "I tell jou, sir, he vos star-gazink und let
der veel go! She nearly broached mit der jung fool's monkey-tricks--"

The Nova Scotian leaned forward and peered menacingly into the
German's face. "Listen, Hinkel," he said slowly and in a voice as hard
as steel, but as ominous as a death threat, "I've got your flag an'
number, my bucko, and if I catch you man-handlin' that boy again I'll
break you like a dry stick. You measly Dutchman!" That was all he
said, quietly, so that the man at the wheel could not hear, but Hinkel
was visibly impressed and without a word, turned militarily on his
heels and walked to loo'ard. The mate watched him for a moment and
bent down and raised Donald to his feet. "Go to yer bunk, boy, an'
stay there for the rest of the watch." Donald staggered away feeling
unspeakably grateful to his champion, and with a fixed determination
to forever eschew at least one of a "dyed-in-the-wool" shell-back's
accomplishments.

That the second mate hated him, Donald knew, though he was completely
at a loss to account for the continual hazing by the brutal German.
Possibly, he thought, it was because the fellow was a natural bully,
and Donald's misfortune in getting the second mate into trouble with
the skipper for being off the poop on the night in the Firth of Clyde
may have accentuated Hinkel's spite.

The captain's attitude was also unaccountable to Donald's reasoning.
During the whole of the time he had been on the barque, Captain
Muirhead had never spoken to him, nor had he taken notice of him in
any way save by furtive glances. The man had no reason to dislike
Donald, yet after the familiar conversations they had had together at
Glasgow, he had now closed up like a clam, though to the other boys he
often passed friendly remarks, and on occasions, corrected them with
the rough side of his tongue. To Donald, he neither spoke friendly or
otherwise, and the boy wondered why the skipper maintained such an
attitude towards him. Thompson often commented on the fact and put
forth several conclusions. "He's either afraid of you because you're
the owner's nephew, or else he doesn't care a continental about you
because you're a charity 'prentice. It's one thing or the other,
sure."

Off the Plate, Donald underwent another bitter experience which left a
deep and lasting impression upon him and served to put the captain in
the proper category of relationship. An English barque, homeward
bound, had passed and McKenzie was on the poop handing code flags for
the Old Man who spoke the barque and asked to be reported. It was
blowing fresh abaft the beam, but the sea was smooth save for a long
swell from the south'ard. The last hoist was flying from the
spanker-gaff, when the halliard parted and the bunting came fluttering
down on the poop. The other ship had got the signal, however, as her
answering pennant was up, and Captain Muirhead gruffly told Mr. Hinkel
to stow the flags away. During the afternoon in the second mate's
watch, the Captain suddenly told Hinkel to have the halliard rove off
again as he might require it at any time. "Ye don't need tae top up
th' gaff, mister," the Old Man added. "Send yin o' thae boys up. That
young McKenzie is spry enough tae reeve it off!"

As the ship was running, the spanker was furled, but to shin up a
slippery spar standing out from the jiggermast at an angle of about
thirty-five degrees is no easy task even in a dock, and with the
vessel rolling and the gaff swaying, even though braced with the
vangs, the job was exceedingly risky, and able seamen would have
refused to do it. Donald, however, made no demur, but jumped to obey
the second mate's guttural command. With the light halliard in his
hand, he clambered up the jigger shrouds and swung down from the top
on to the gaff and sat astride it facing towards the stern of the
ship.

With the halliard in his teeth, he started to clamber up the pole with
his arms and legs encircling it, but owing to the fact that it was a
scraped spar and recently "slushed," the task of shinning it was
exceedingly difficult. Several times he hauled himself up, only to
slide back, and once or twice the swaying of the ship almost caused
him to slip off altogether.

"Oudt jou go, now, und no verdammt nonsings!" bawled Hinkel sixty feet
below. Captain Muirhead was pacing to windward absolutely unconcerned
and scarcely bestowing a glance at the boy clutching the precarious
gaff. Several of the men, working in the waist, knocked off to watch
the performance and the bos'n growled, "Gaudy shame! That boy can't
shin that greasy gaft. A ruddy work-up job, that what I calls it.
They're hazin' that nipper."

Nervous and somewhat apprehensive as to his ability to get out to the
gaff-end, Donald essayed it once more. Gripping the spar with all his
strength, he made a desperate effort and halted for breath a few feet
short of the vangs out and above him. The swaying was worse out there
and he was almost exhausted. Hanging on to the gaff was as hard as
climbing out on it, so, perspiring and fearful, he made another
shuffle. At the moment when he had almost reached the gaff-end, the
weather vang carried away; the gaff swung to loo'ard and Donald was
hurled violently off the spar. He cleared the poop rail by a few
inches in his descent and plunged head-first into the sea.

Martin, the bos'n, had been waiting for just such an eventuality and
he was up the poop ladder in a flash, and had thrown one of the poop
life-buoys over. Without waiting for orders, the man at the wheel put
the helm down and the barque was coming sluggishly up into the wind,
with canvas rustling and banging. "Keep her off! Keep her off!" bawled
the Old Man. "Damn an' blast ye! Who told ye tae pit her doon? Dae ye
want tae tak' th' sticks oot o' her--"

The mate, in shirt and trousers, suddenly appeared aft and elbowed the
captain away from the wheel. His lean face was convulsed with fury.
"You white-livered hound!" he roared. "Ye'd leave that kid t' drown,
would ye? Not ef I know it! Ease yer helm down!" The captain stood,
astounded, red-faced and gasping, while Hinkel ran for'ard to do
something or get out of the way.

Nickerson leaped to the break of the poop. "Back yer mainyard!" he
bawled. "Aft here an' git the quarter-boat away! Rouse out the
hands--cook an' all! Aloft you, Jenkins, and keep him in sight!" Under
the spur of his curses the men skipped around, and the life-boat was
out of the chocks, swung out and lowered away in record time. Six men,
led by Martin, the bos'n, swarmed down into her, and soon had the oars
shipped and manfully pulled away in the direction indicated by Jenkins
up in the jigger-rigging.

"D'ye see him, boy?"

"Yes, sir," Jenkins answered. "He's got hold of the ring-buoy and is
about half a mile away off the beam."

"How's th' boat headin'? Kin they see him?"

"They're heading right for him, sir!" replied the apprentice.

Captain Muirhead came to himself at this juncture--he had remained
beside the wheel seemingly petrified by the mate's action in
countermanding his orders--and he walked over to Mr. Nickerson with a
face dark with rage. "Mr. Nickerson," he said, in a harsh, tense
voice, "Ah'll log you for this, by Goad! It's bliddy mutiny--no less!
It's--" He stopped at a loss for words in his passion. The Nova
Scotian gave him a contemptuous glance. "You log an' be damned to
you!" he said coolly. "You an' your 'take th' sticks out of her' in a
moderate breeze!" Then with a strange look in his eyes, he peered
truculently into the captain's face. "There's something blame' fishy
about this!" he said significantly. "What are you up to? Are you
trying to get rid of that kid?" Then threateningly he added, "Let me
tell you, sir, that if anything happens to that nipper aboard this
ship, I'll have _you_ jugged for it. I've got friends in Vancouver
who'll take you in hand, sir, an' you'll find they're rough an' ready
on that part o' the West Coast!"

The captain, with suddenly subdued expression on his face, was about
to say something, but evidently thought better of it. Instead he
remarked quietly, "When ye get yer boat aboard, pit her on her course
again. If th' laud wants a drap o' whusky, Ah'll gie ye some for him."
Then apologetically, "Ah got a bad fricht, an' didny ken whit was
happenin' when Ah gied th' man th' order." And as he turned away,
Nickerson stared at him curiously and muttered, "Liar!"

Donald's plunge into the sea knocked the breath out of him for a
moment, but when he came up, gasping and half-stunned, he saw, as in a
dream, a life-buoy being thrown over the barque's taff-rail. When he
regained his bearings he swam for it, and succeeded in reaching and
hanging on to the circle of canvassed cork. He held on for an
indefinite period, during which time he saw the _Kelvinhaugh_ coming
to the wind, and rising on top of a swell, he made out a quarter-boat
pulling towards him. He shouted several times, and in a daze, heard
voices. "Here he is! Steady all! Easy starboard! Pull port! 'Vast
pulling all!" Then he was grabbed by the arms and hauled aboard the
boat, where he lay on the bottom boards and vomited the salt water he
had swallowed.

Feeling sick and shaky, he was carried into the half-deck, and
Thompson and the steward took his clothes off and rolled him up in
warm blankets and put him in his bunk. He was given a stiff drink of
hot whisky and almost immediately went off to sleep, and the talk of
the other apprentices at tea only woke him after he had slept like a
log for almost five hours.

"How're ye feeling, nipper?" enquired Thompson kindly. "Good? That's
fine. Ye're gettin' to be a reg'lar hell-diver, you are, and, my eye!
didn't you cause a rare rumpus!" And he told what had happened after
Donald had taken the plunge. "That measly squarehead of a Hinkel is
trying to do for you!" added the senior apprentice solemnly. "You
should have seen him when the mate came up on deck an' shoved the Old
Man away from the wheel. The big Dutchman runs for'ard yelling in
Doytch an' what th' blazes he was saying nobody knew. I think he was
running away from Nickerson. If you wanted to see a reg'lar genuine
'stand-'em-up-and-knock-'em-down,' 'give-me-none-of-yer-sass' Western
Ocean bucko look on a man's face, it was on the mate's when he called
the Old Man 'a white-livered hound!' I guess Hinkel thought he would
lay _him_ out with a capstan-bar, so he skedaddled!"

Donald had got his clothes from the galley, where they had been dried
by the cook, and was sitting in the apprentice's berth talking with
Jenkins, when Mr. Nickerson looked in. He gave Donald a sharp glance.
"Nipper," he said, curtly, "you'll come in my watch after this.
Jenkins will go in the second mate's."

The mate had just come from for'ard after questioning the bos'n. "Them
spanker vangs, sir, were all right when I examined them day afore
yest'day, sir," Martin had said. "The tackles are brand new and there
ain't been nothin' to cause a chafe or enough strain to strand th'
rope. Them strands, sir, were filed or scraped, sir, to make believe
they was chafed or wore, and I thinks, sir, as how that second mate
did it."

"And the signal halliards?"

"They was alright, sir. Th' Old Man, sir, jest made a slippery bend on
th' flag, I guess, and it carried away an' un-rove."

Mr. Nickerson nodded. "You jest keep your tongue between your teeth,
Bose, an' don't open your trap about th' matter to anybody. I'll look
into this." And he walked to the half-deck and gave Donald a change of
watch.




CHAPTER ELEVEN


Donald was to go on duty with the mate's, or port watch, at midnight,
but he was awakened suddenly at six bells by loud shouting on deck and
the violent careening of the ship. Hinkel could be heard bawling,
"Ledt go royal und to'gallundt halliards and clew up! All handts!"
Then Jenkins opened the half-deck door for a second and yelled, "Roll
out! Look alive!" and mingled with his shout came the booming roar of
wind, the swash of heavy water and the thunder of slatting canvas.

"A ruddy pampero!" cried Thompson, leaping from his bunk and pulling
on his boots. "Jump, kid, she's on her beam ends!" Donald dropped to
the sloping floor of the berth, hauled his boots on the wrong feet,
and sprang after Thompson into the darkness. When he got outside he
cannoned into someone running aft, who cursed him and vanished in the
howling blackness. The lee scuppers were a boiling froth of water
waist deep, and up aloft the canvas was thundering as the royal and
t'gallant yards came down by the run. The ship was over on her port
side at an alarming angle, and for a minute Donald could do nothing
but hang on to the mizzen gear, gasping and dazed, until he got his
bearings.

The German second mate was barking commands from the break of the poop
when something banged aloft. A voice shouted, "Maint'gallan's'l's
gone!" Then Thompson grabbed him by the arm. "Bear a hand haulin' up
yer mains'l!" he roared, and Donald scrambled for'ard along the
sloping decks and hauled on the gear with a mob of "hey-ho'ing,"
swearing men. Then the mate appeared--(the captain was on the
poop)--and he gave tongue. "What in hell are you all adoin' here?" he
snarled. "Aloft an' stow th' fore an' main r'yals you boys! Git some
beef on those bunt-lin's, you hounds, or I'll kick some go in you!
None of yer 'You pull now, Bill, I pulled last' work here!"

From the height of the main-royal-yard, Donald could see the water to
windward white with foam. The stars were shining clear and bright to
the westward, but all was black in the eastern sky and the wind blew
in savage gusts, which gave them a hard tussle in subduing the
bellying, slatting canvas. By the time they had got the two royals
confined in the gaskets, the barque had come to an even keel and was
running before the blast under six topsails and foresail.

The crew had hauled up the cross'-jack, mainsail, and hauled down the
fore-and-aft sails and were aloft stowing the big t'gallan's'ls as the
barque swung off, staggering and rolling scuppers under in the cross
sea 

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/40853