The steers were not like that. Many of the men had pets among them. There was a big fellow on the main deck that won almost all the men over, all those that could be won over by anything. He began his engaging ways about the third day, and kept them up thereafter. As soon as he saw anything on two legs advancing he thrust his head across the alley, holding it a little tilted like a cat that asks to have its neck scratched. After the feeding and watering was over knots would linger there, beside that wise long-horn. The hand was not enough; he preferred the edge of a piece of board rubbed up and down. Seeing how he enjoyed a scratch, various men offered themselves as scratchers to other beasts. You could see the men all along the alley, each with a piece of board, arms going up and down automaton-like, the steers with their heads slowly turning, gratified. And as the men like clock-work figures scratched the beasts' necks, they carried on shouting discussions each to each. But this big fellow who inaugurated the scratching was especially charming. When one side was scratched sufficiently for the time being, he would raise his head up and over, carefully, so that his long horns might not smite his human friend, and then present the other side of the neck for treatment. If the movement was not observed he would turn his head slowly to the side, pushing—none of your swinging blows from him, no suggestion ever of drawing back his head and launching it forward with sharp horn projecting.
The bulls, too, that had been unruly the first day, were now all friendly. If a man happened to lean against their pen, he would be reminded of where he was, not by a prod of a horn, but by a ringed nose nuzzling into the hands held behind.
After the glorious scent of balsam, blown out to us from the south shore, became so thin it was scarcely perceptible amid the smell of beasts, the whoop of the siren, thrilling the decks, on and on, was added to the lowing of the steers and the bleating of sheep. TheGloryslowed down slightly and glided into the Newfoundland fog.
Fog reeked and rolled round the ship, and there was a swell on the sea. Under the fog it moved, with knolls and valleys, high and low, regular and apparently everlasting as those rolls and dips of green grazing land from Rocky Mountain House down to the Little Missouri—that country "beyant," whence came the cattle. Ever and again one could see across and along, under the fog, as a man on hands and knees might, lifting a carpet's edge, look along the floor. But even that was a doubtful kind of vision, with shifting and obliterating coils of vapour, so that even if the fog lifted for a yard or two it seemed as if the sea steamed below the lifted fog. The sea's surface seemed covered by a film, and the swell moved under it, a film that theGlorybroke as she loomed along, sliding her nose up and down, many feet to the rise, many feet to the drop, advancing all the while. It was before the day of wireless. No messages were coming and going; only her siren complained into the wilderness of fog and water. Forward, the first officer and a couple of seamen took soundings. The ship stopped in a great stillness. Sheep sneezed and coughed; the cattle lowed. Deep down there was a sound of shovelling of coal; then a bell cling-clanged, and once again there broke out a sound as of a "hush," and the whirl and whirl of the shaft with its old refrain.
Feeding and watering being over for the afternoon, the cattlemen clustered in their hot den, that little bit of an iron safe of a place, going up in the air, swinging left and right, full of such sounds as a cane chair makes. Michael, squat and broad, patch on his eye, was telling some experience of his life to somebody; another man drew near to listen and remained; still more clustered round. Twosomes, talking in corners, desisted to listen also.
"Michael!" one of them called. "Wasn't there something about you and stowing away?"
"Oh, that's an old story," answered Michael.
"What's that about?" asked several of the younger men, who wanted to gather as much data as possible on this subject. "Tell us about it, Michael," they besought him.
"Well," said Michael, "it was when I came over on theA-Chiles."
"Was Johnson boss then?"
"Oh, before Johnson's time. I've been over with Johnson, too," said Michael.
"Shut up!" several admonished. "Let him tell the story."
"I was on the rocks," said Michael. "You see I got down to the docks too late to get theA-Chilesback."
There was a movement of interest, a drawing closer. This was a predicament they understood. There are always cattle to bring eastward from Canadian and U.S. ports to Liverpool or London, and the cattleman may return with his boss on the same ship; but if he loses it there are not cattle-boats plying west across the Atlantic to give him a job again. There is stoking to be done, of course, east and west, but there is some kind of stokers' union; and the cattleman does not know whether he would be welcomed among the stokers. There are always ways of getting across, but the cattleman, or at any rate the young cattleman, needs to be posted up on them.
"Where did you stow away?" asked one of the wizened partners of that youth who morning by morning demanded his shaving water from Rafferty. Michael had already begun his story, and this question, and others discharged from the rear of those clustered near him, slightly offended him.
"As I was saying," said he, "I goes on board, and some of the fellows had left one of the boats afore fixing the tarpaulin down. I gets inside there, and I hears somebody say: 'I see you! I'll get the police to you!'"
The Inquisitive One unconsciously ducked his head into his shoulders, and the edges of his eyes narrowed. The word "police" always affected him like that. Jack took on the expression of someone who does what is called "looking the other way." He became blank.
"But I thought I knew the voice," continued Michael. "I says: 'Is that you, Jim Larson?'"
"It was a friend, was it?" a tense listener exploded.
Michael looked with his one eye at the interrupter.
"So he fastens up the tarpaulin," said he, "and there I stays till we drops Ireland, and I tell ye I was wantin' something to eat. So I puts my hand over the gunwale, and loosens them ropes, and——"
One of the men at this came a little closer, cunning and critical.
"—I comes on deck, and oh there was a——"
Michael's vocabulary broke down at this, and with a lot of by-thises and by-thats, he gave it to be understood that a bo'sun and a third officer told him that they would clap him in irons, that the skipper ordered him to be swung over the side in a cradle and start in chipping, and that he said he wouldn't go. At this point Michael looked up at the insidious critic.
"Oh, well, indeed," he hurriedly went on, "I did a bit of painting for them, and my friend on board gives me a chance to slip the coppers at Montreal."
"Yes," said somebody, "but wasn't there something about you having a fight with the bo'sun when he took you forward?"
"There was indeed, there was some kind of scrimmage." Michael looked up with his one eye at the man whose expression in listening was different from that of all the other listeners. "You been over with me before, haven't ye?" he asked him.
"Tell us about the scrap you had with the bo'sun going forward!" shouted another.
"No, indeed," Michael declared. "I'll drop that bit out. I've told the story so often that I don't know myself now which is the right way of it and which is the wrong way."
There was a laugh at this, and Michael smiled.
"Oh, indeed, there was a fight all right," he assured them. "But I've told about it different ways. I sometimes wonder myself now if I came off best."
There were sympathetic murmurs.
"Indade, of course, of course," Mike spoke, lying stretched upon his top bunk, near the door, head on hand, lenient and understanding. "You got over anyhow, and you didn't get put in the clink, and there's much to be thankful for."
"Oh, we're only cattlemen," said a voice.
"Lend us your mouth organ!" cried a youth.
The Inquisitive One looked for a moment as if he would protect his breast pocket; but fighting was getting stale, and so he handed over the instrument, the man who took it wiping it on a dirty sleeve before he plunged into the strains of "Rule Britannia!" As he played there was a movement among those near the door. Candlass was there, but he lingered outside until the air was finished and then—"Feed and water, boys," he said, looking in, and as his men defiled into the passage Rafferty arrived.
"Come on wid youse, lower deck!" he bawled. His men filed out fairly orderly. It was only at the morning call that they were still inclined to be cross-grained.
Affairs were settling down into the routine of the trip. There was, indeed, a spirit of friendliness growing among the "Push." Free of liquor, and of the after effects of liquor, the largeness of heart of many was evident, though perhaps there was something morbid, as well as of kindly interest, in their sympathy that they lavished on little Michael. He had his head turned over it, spent most of his spare time sitting on the edge of his bunk, holding up his head to let them look at his eye under the shade. Cockney and he, if they had not yet made friends exactly, had allowed the matter of their fight on the poop to be as an ancient matter now forgotten. The bad eye might have been the result of an accident for all that was said about Cockney by those who looked at it; indeed Cockney was the only one who seemed to recall the origin of it. He sat apart, looking a little ashamed during these examinations of the injured member; but his shame soon began to give way to jealousy, for had he not a bandage on his head—had he not an interesting ear that might be pried at? Yet, take it by and large, as seamen say, a feeling of amicability came to the ship—that is to say by comparison with the spirit that had inhabited it so far. Had any quietist been spirited aboard upon an Arabian carpet he might well have been excused for stepping hastily on to it again, and most hastily murmuring the incantations that would speed his departure; but for those who had seen the "Push" with the drink in it, or the drink waning in it, theS.S. Glorywas now almost on the way to being sacred!
The night-watchman, who slept away most of the day in Rafferty's cabin, was the most objectionable sight on deck. He always appeared at meal times, scooped up more than his share, then strolled about for a little while for a constitutional, but was never spoken to. As the days wore on, however, he spoke to others in a manner horribly blending intimidation and fawning, his great moustache waving. He would plant himself in front of some member of the "Push" and explain that he had come down in the world, that he had a son in the Household Cavalry, six foot three, with a fist that would fell an ox. "If my son was on board," he would say, and glare, and if the glare was returned: "Oh, not that I mean anything," he would add. The cattlemen gossiped infinitely less than do people aboard a passenger ship, but it was inevitable that the watchman should be observed, and to some extent discussed.
"What was he saying to you?" asked Jack of a young man before whom the night-watchman had been peering and glaring and fawning.
"Oh, I don't know—about a son in the army, six foot three, knock the stuffing out of anybody. Says he's been divorced."
Mike, hanging over the rail, turned around.
"He's a lazy good-for-nothing, that night-watchman," he said. "It's a wonder to me youse fellows on the lower deck don't fix him. These last nights now we haven't had a dacent sleep for him waking Rafferty." He laughed. "I hear Rafferty says to him: 'Don't you waken me,' he says, 'if there are only one or two loose. Waken me if there's more than half-a-dozen.'" Mike paused, and then added: "But there always is half-a-dozen."
Some of the lower deck men within hearing grinned.
"Oh, I know what it is," said Mike. "Some of youse slips out at night and loosens them, so as to get back on Rafferty for treating you the way he does. It's cutting off your nose to spite your face, bringing Rafferty in at twilve, at wan, at two, and at three, roaring like hill for you to tumble up, and wakenin' us all. What was he after saying now, shoving his face at you, me lad, and waving his tusks at you in the wind? Was it about his tall son that has the strong arm?"
"He says he was divorced," said the young man.
"Divorced, is it?" answered Mike. "He must have been married then, so there wouldn't be any truth in what I would be calling his lad to him if he comes along to me talking about him and his strong arm, and hinting what he would be after doing, and him thousands of miles away." His voice growled on. "Did he tell ye what he was divorced for?"
"No."
Mike's voice almost suggested that he knew himself.
"Indade, he was divorced for laziness," he said.
Jack swaggered away smiling, and the night-watchman, arriving then on the poop, came up to him, seeing he was alone.
"Are these men talking about me?" he said.
He was evidently a poor judge of character. Jack strolled slowly past and over his shoulder—"Ask them," he said.
The night watchman glared and bellowed, in the roaring voice of a bar-room bully: "I'm only asking you a simple question."
Jack stopped in his stride, looked again over his shoulder, and smiled queerly. The night-watchman thought it was a pacific smile, and stepped closer.
"I won't have it!" he roared, and thrust his tusked face forward presumably to let Jack see the determination in it.
Jack merely canted himself backwards, hands in pockets, and—"Take your face off me," he said quietly, "or I'll spit in your eye."
The night-watchman was shocked.
"That's a nice thing for a lad to say to an elderly man," he commented.
"Oh, shut up!" said Jack quietly.
"If my son was here——"
"If your son was here," said Jack mockingly. "I know all about him—he's six foot three, isn't he?—I'd pound the stuffing out of him. One of the family is enough to be going on with. If you come chumming round the decks after me any more, I'll come along and stick you in the ribs to-night, when you're down there supposed to be watching. I will. I don't want you to come talking to me. You'll waken up with a knife in you. Now, that'll do!" and he strolled on, leaving the night-watchman with a face of terror, but drawing himself erect, and twisting his moustache.
Jack walked the length of the deck and turned, but stepping a foot to one side so that he walked back, in his slow march, direct upon the night-watchman. As he walked he took his right hand from his pocket, clenched, and walked swinging it. "Get out of the way!" he said. "Shift!" The watchman moved on one side. Jack walked on, wheeled, marked where the night-watchman stood now, and, both hands in pockets again, he trod the deck back like a panther, straight toward him.
"You're doing this on purpose!" boomed the night-watchman, squaring himself again.
Jack raised his handsome and evil face.
"You come around talking to me," he said, "you say any more to me and I'll fix you all right." The night-watchman stepped aside, and when Jack turned at the end of that walk the watchman was scuttling down the companion way like a rabbit into a burrow.
Nobody congratulated Jack in words. He was a dark horse. He was one of themselves, but except with Johnnie he was not a clubable young man. Men like Cockney, men like Mike, never spoke to him, nor he to them. Sometimes, in the morning, after the watering was over, if he met Scholar's eye, he would give his head a little jerk to left and say: "Hallo!" He was of those who, when others talked, could move away and not come back again, and yet be called to account by no one for such contempt. He was of those who, if spoken to, could lean up against the rail, cross-legged, turn and look gently up and down the frame of the questioner, then move away, dumb. Perhaps it was Jack, and his partner Johnnie with his feverish devilry, who were at the bottom of an opinion that began to be current on the lower deck. The lower deck men, it appeared, thought that the main deck men were somewhat lacking in spirit. They managed to pass on their devilish restlessness to one or two on the deck in question, and these, thus affected, had the air of looking for trouble. A handy theme offered, and they fell to grumbling over the fact that they were three men short.
"Menshort, did you say?" inquired Mike.
"Thingsshort. Do you call them three thingsmen?"
The complaining voices subsided, but there were glances cast at Mike by one or two that were intended to be read as: "Who do you think you are?"
"I've had enough short-handed," broke out one of the less easily extinguished.
But here the routine interfered. A hail came from forward, and the men on the poop, and the men in the cabin below, had to file away to the afternoon feeding. When the main deck bunch spread out with hay and buckets, Candlass appeared, coming down the narrow alley to see that the men did not overdo the belabouring of those steers near the end where the hay was, great beasts whose main thought was to make a meal off the armfuls of hay that went past them while the steers at the far end looked down the alley and lowed vehemently; to see, also, that the mood of laziness in the men did not triumph over the mood of determination and prevent the steers at the far end from having a fair feed; to see also that all hands had tumbled out. So far he had had no skulkers in his crowd, but he was an experienced cattle boss. He moved along slowly, edging sideways past each hay-laden man. All were busy; he had merely to look on. Then he spoke.
"Isn't there a man short?" he asked.
Nobody answered.
"Tom," he addressed one, "do you know where that fellow with the mouth organ is?"
"Isn't he here, boss?" and the man that Candlass had spoken to looked along the decks as if he expected to see the Inquisitive One somewhere at work. Candlass went slowly up the alleyway. Scholar did not observe his approach until the boss's hand was on his shoulder, and he pushed his armful of hay aside to let Candlass go past, a steer on the side toward which he moved immediately tearing at the bundle.
"There's a man short, isn't there, Scholar?" asked Candlass.
"Don't know," answered Scholar, and was aware that Candlass peered sharply at him before hailing Mike.
"What's the matter with that man, Mike, the man that has the mouth organ?"
There was distress on Mike's forehead as he answered: "I don't know."
"Youshouldknow," said Candlass. "You're the straw boss."
"Yes, yes, I'm the straw boss maybe, but I'd rather work meself than——" and he said no more. Only Scholar, near Candlass, caught the response of: "Oh yes, quite so."
Then the boss went aft; and all the men along the alley, for some reason, turned and looked at his back. Even after he had disappeared they continued to pass the hay without a word, then they looked along the alley again, and coming forward was the Inquisitive One. The mouths of several of the men opened, an upright furrow showed between their brows. What they saw seemed inconceivable, for the Inquisitive One appeared to have shrunk, was deathly white, did not look the same man. Behind him Candlass walked, shoulders a little bent, as one under a burden, lips puckered, and eyes on the deck; and the Inquisitive One fell to work, making a whimpering sound ever and again. He was changed, as a cat that has been dipped in a tub of water, but he never told any of the men what Candlass had done to him. Some asked, who had his gift, or failing, of inquisitiveness; others left it to him to tell if he cared to; but none heard. Probably it was a bear-hug that the Inquisitive One had received, alone in the cattlemen's cabin where he sulked over Mike's contempt for those who objected to working with three men short—for Candlass had arms like steel.
The crew sober was very different indeed from the crew drunk. Their likes and their dislikes were more explicable now. There were one or two who spoke to nobody and were left alone, such as the Man with the Hat. He had made a nest of hay for himself on the upper deck; nobody knew, nobody cared, what he did when it rained; nobody was curious enough to go along to see how he weathered it when they passed through lashing rain. He had one manner for all men—one attitude—the attitude of a bulkhead. A friendly approach was met by him exactly in the same fashion as an inquisitive approach. As for openly antagonistic approach—none made it. He did not seem to want to know anything about the cattlemen. Even when at work with his half of the gang he was never known to say a word, except once when a man pushed him, and he whirled round upon him and said, low and vindictive, the one word "Quit!" And the man quit. The night-watchman halted beside him once and said "Good evening," but received no reply. He did not take the snub, stood beside the nest of the Man with the Hat, looking up at the voluminous and oily-looking smoke that rushed away from the top of the smoke stack and stretched out like a fallen pillar, diminishing across the sea.
"Well," said the night-watchman, still looking overhead, "it looks as if we might have a dirty night."
Still there was no reply, and the night-watchman, thrusting his hands deep in his coat pockets, fumbling for pipe and matches, looked round at the Man with the Hat, and peered at him from under his cream-coloured eyebrows—then moved on with a little more haste than he usually exhibited, recovered a few paces away, and made pretence that he had only moved off to light his pipe in the lee of one of the sheep-pens. He bent down there in the attitude of a boy at leapfrog, and as he lit his pipe, expending many matches, could only think to himself: "That is a dangerous young man."
Scholar, who had no distaste for the appearance of the Man with the Hat, marching to and fro on the swinging deck later on, enjoying the pillar of smoke rolling out in the deepening purple night, enjoying the wind, enjoying the sweep of the masts that gave the stars, as they came out, an appearance as of rushing up and down the sky, commented, in passing the Man with the Hat: "Bit of wind." No reply! He thought that the wind carried his words away.
"Bit of wind, I say," he repeated. No reply. He thought the man must be deaf, so passed on and took his stand near the stern that tossed high and slid down, every slide being a forward slide, the screws whirling. He was enjoying the motion and the spindrift on his shoulders—for he was only in undervest and trousers—when up came two men of the lower deck squad, and one said to him: "Rough night." He did not feel inclined to talk with them, but, a little sore from what might have been a snub forward (for the Man with the Hat might not be deaf), he put a certain warmth into his nod and smile in response. The two came closer at that. He wondered why it was that so many of these men could not chat without having the appearance of being ready at any moment to lift a hand and smite their interlocutor. They came close and plied him with questions—one a Welshman, the other from the Kingdom of Fife. Somewhat thus went the conversation:
"Whit deck are you on?"
"The main deck."
"I wondered. I never seen you on the lower deck. Where have you been?"
"What do you mean?" asked Scholar.
"Have you been in Canada?"
"Yes—part of it."
"What part?" asked the Welshman.
"Oh, I came up through Lower Ontario."
"Then you wasn't stopping there?" this from the Fifer, with a villainous scowl, as if Scholar had been trying to deceive. "You was in the States?"
Instead of giving them County and State as reply, he answered now with the bald: "Yes."
"What states?" asked the Welshman.
"Michigan."
"Whit was ye daeing in Michigan?" asked the Fifeman.
There came into Scholar's mind a brief conversation he had overheard earlier in the day. One man had told a story of something he had seen "when I was in Florida."—"What were you doing in Florida?" the Inquisitive One had asked after the story was told.—"Eh?" had said the man who had been in Florida, with a note of warning.—"I asked you what you were doing in Florida?" the Inquisitive One had returned, with a showing of the teeth.—"Ask my elbow!" had been all the answer to that, spoken as if each word was a knife-thrust. Scholar felt himself out of his sphere. He had no practice in saying: "Ask my elbow!" in that tone, or in any tone; and it seemed to him the requisite reply now. As he paused, wondering how to fob off these two catechists, the Fifer said, with a curl of his lip: "You're getting it now, then."
"Getting what? I don't understand you."
"Oh, you understand all right."
Scholar's eyelids came slightly together. He wished he knew how to act in this society, found himself squaring his chest a little, found that his jaw was tightening. At this juncture Mike appeared on deck, hitched his belt, came rolling along towards them, drew up alongside and yawned loudly, stretching himself, raising his elbows in the air, and clasping his hands behind his head. Then, leaning forward between the two catechists, he spat out into the flying scud, turned his big back on them, hitched his belt again, and said to Scholar: "Bejabbers, it's cold! Let's have a quarter-deck walk, Scholar."
Scholar fell in step with him. At the end of their walk, when they turned, he was aware, without looking too keenly, that the two men of inquisitorial mind were feeling highly vindictive; but the end of their return walk bringing them again close to these two, Mike took a brief farther step to the taffrail, swinging back largely.
"What was them two saying to you?" he asked, as they walked forward once more.
"Oh, just asking questions about where I had been, and all that sort of thing."
Mike gave a "Huh!" of disgust. They wheeled, and began the return balancing walk to the poop just in time to see "them two" going down the companion-way. Mike brought up against the taffrail at the end of their march this time, and leaning back on it, said he: "I tell you what it is, Scholar. Them fellers think they're better than us cattlemen. They're tradesmen. I've seen enough—I don't need to listen to all they're saying, after what you tell me. They're tradesmen; indade, I expect they're ruddy plumbers. They've spotted you, you see. They're thinking to themselves: 'Here's a fellow on board here, and in the Ould Counthry we'd be putting gas pipes in his father's house, and he's down now, and we'll kick him.' Just the same way they would try to kick us too, if they didn't think we was down already, beyant the likes of them to kick," he added in a grim tone, "if they didn't know that we knew how to fix them. If they come prying at ye again, Scholar—listen now to what I'm tellin' ye: Turn yourself around sideways to them, and says you to them, says you: 'Ask me elbow!' says you. And if they shoves their face up against you, says you: 'I'll spit in your eye if you shove your face at me like that!' And hit, Scholar, hit! It's different with the likes of us. You came in among us like a man; anybody could see you wasn't accustomed to us. Now you know what I mean—you understand?" said Mike, for he felt there was more in his mind than he could express. "I would rather go on a boat with you, Scholar, than with thim, if it was a case of taking to the boats; and if it was a row on the waterfronts I'd rather have you with your back to the wall with me than them plumbers. You was born different, and you don't understand thim—ye see what I mane," and he waved his hand. "But you would niver roll a shipmate; and if it came to the bit, I can see it in your eye, Scholar, you'd hang on like a bulldog."
Scholar felt a great friendliness in his heart to this man, though he feared he could not quickly learn the lesson, and would have to think out some method of his own. The "spit in your eye" method of address was foreign to him as yet. Mike had been shouting towards the end, for the wind was rising; but now he paused a spell, and his gaze roved round the night and its stars. He drew a deep breath and returned to matters mundane.
"That watchman will have to keep his eyes open to-night," he said. "He's another of them." He frowned, looking along the decks forward. "I wonder if that feller wi' the big hat is along there yet—like a dead burrd in a nest. He's blamed unsociable, that feller in the big hat," he commented. And then: "Oh, I don't blame him if he wants to be that way."
"Perhaps he's afraid of being asked questions," suggested Scholar, laughing.
"Him! No, it's different with him. I said: 'Good evening mate,' to him the other night there, and he pays no attintion. And I looks at him, and he gives me the look—you know what I mane; so I says to him, says I: 'All right, shipmate,' I says. 'All right, if that's the way of it. I know now, anyhow,' says I to him, says I. He's a great lad, ye know. I was hearing about a bit of a spar him and the cook had." He considered the darkened deck. "Yes, he could fix them two plumbers all right that was asking you questions."
Scholar had a certain depression in his heart. Mike was perhaps aware of it.
"Oh, I'd rather have you than him any day, all the same," said Mike, as if in response to a spoken regret at inability to learn the ways of the society on board. "I think I'll turn in now. Remember what I was telling ye about them gas-fitters."
Mike rattled down the companion-way, but Scholar remained on deck. A faint sound of voices came from below, now and then a laugh. The decks throbbed with the everlasting engine; a hissing and a scudding went along the weather side; a sheep snuffled and bleated; a little while ago fresh lashings had been put round their pens, tarpaulin dodgers protecting the tops. There seemed to be nobody about; here and there a lozenge of golden light, of deck lights, showed. The night was fallen almost as dark as the smoke from the smoke-stack. TheGlorytossed and slid, tossed and slid onward; spray rattled with a sound like handfuls of shot on the tops of the sheep-protecting tarpaulins. From forward the sea's assaults began to sound more loudly, with many a resonant clap, and then the rattling as of grape shot followed. Scholar thought he would go below, among his fellows. Friendliness was very dear to him. It was only prying and worming into him that ever caused his jaw to tighten, his eyes to narrow, as he wondered what the stage directions might be.
When Scholar descended out of the tearing night he choked like an asthmatical man. It was not now a smell as of fresh cattle that filled the cattlemen's safe, called cabin; it was a suffocating smell as of ammonia. Somebody was singing in the cabin that rose and fell with steely and wooden screams, and with whispers of the sea running round it, the tremendous sea that swirled and broke and sprayed on the other side of the thin iron plates. The tobacco smoke was perhaps not quite so thick to-night, for tobacco was growing scarce; but there were still plenty of pipes a-going for blue clouds to temper the callous glare of the electric light.
Scholar slipped into the cabin, feeling for a moment almost shy. He had learned how to come into the cabin when it was a kind of bedlam; but to come into it now, and find it a kind of temperance sing-song hall for poor seamen, with several of the poor seamen glancing at him in a way that suggested their thought was: "Ah! we'll ask him to sing next!" was a little upsetting. He tried to efface himself in his bunk. The applause following a heartrending solo about "For the flag he gave his young life!" had just ended.
"Charles will give us a solo upon the mouth organ," said someone.
Charles looked bashful; it was one thing to play the mouth organ on the dock front while the others double-shuffled (or, for that matter, to play it on an ordinary evening when the ordinary life was going on, some listening, others talking, voices roaring: "You're a liar!" others bellowing: "Shut up!") but quite another to have everybody quiet even before he began to play. Charles screamed that he was "fed up with the thing!" and very likely felt a qualm in his heart so soon as the words left his lips, for he was not at all "fed up" with his mouth organ; he was very keen on it.
Many coaxed him, and one-eyed Michael said: "Well, never mind if you don't want to play. Don't worry the young fellow if he doesn't feel inclined. Jimmy there will play."
Jimmy had been shouting: "Go on, Charlie!" For a moment he was like a sailing ship taken aback, but he plucked up courage, and accepting the instrument that Charles handed to him, wiped it with his sleeve and began to play. Some rose and tried to dance, but did not find dancing easy, for the gale was rising, and the stern rose and swung and fell and leapt up. They danced, collided, and fell, danced again, and the onlookers whooped with amusement, or smiled with mild disdain and pity; and the mouth organ warbled, while the sea echoed and whispered round. Candlass, appearing unexpectedly with a lamp, brought the man with the mouth organ to a stop, and the dancers reeled to their bunks, where they sat down laughing.
"Mike!" said Candlass. "Oh, you're there, Mike. Bring two or three of the men forward with you."
Mike slipped over his bunk side; three or four others rolled out of their own accord, the Inquisitive One among them, for though it must be a call to work of some kind, and he was not eager for extra work, he simply must know what was afoot.
"That will do," said Candlass. "I just want you to come along here and see to some of these ropes before you turn in."
Away they went along the reeking decks. The cattle were not in a bad plight at all; they had their four legs to stand upon, and propped each other as well. It was those upon the lee side that gave most concern to Candlass now. He carried the lamp high, casting weird shadows, and directing the men in the slacking of a rope here, the hauling up of one yonder. There was no doubt that the gale was rising; sailors were battening down a hatch overhead, and their voices, as they hailed each other before they got the whole hatch covered, shutting out the night, came down broken and blown. Seas came over the decks, smacking like the flat of a great hand, and rushed past. Now that the hatches were battened down there was a kind of confined feeling—the long deck above, and the steer-packed deck below, converged in the perspective, and gave a feeling as of being buried alive in a monstrous box full of a dance of weird lights and shadows.
Their work over, Candlass said: "That'll do, men. I'd better have a man or two up to-night, along with the watchman."
"All right," answered Mike, looking forward to the variety.
"No, no—not you," said Candlass. "You fellows can go back."
Away they went along the choking decks, one or another pausing now and then to scratch, with closed fists—fingers being useless to the big beasts—some head that thrust forward inviting. Others, when a head leant out determinedly, smote at it to make way—but most, by this time, had desisted from such methods, and were more inclined to make friends with the steers. They met Rafferty as they were on their way back.
"Where's Candlass?" he asked them.
"He's behind."
"Oh, he's behind, is he? Are you fellows going to have another man or two up with the watchman?"
"I was just talking about it," came Candlass's voice, he walking aft in the rear; "but I guess I'll stop up myself."
"All right," said Rafferty. "I'll relieve you then, if you tell me when."
They passed on to the cabin, Candlass following to thrust his head in and look sharply till silence fell.
"You fellows," he said, "if I come and call on you to-night, turn out lively."
"All right, boss," several shouted, but Candlass had already turned away.
All were soon asleep; but, as it happened, there was no night call. On a night like this, even if the bosses had not been about on the decks, the little trick of loosening some steers in distaste for the night-watchman or for Rafferty would have been allowed to lapse. All slept, or at least all were silent; for perhaps here and there, in a bunk, someone lay staring at the electric lights that were never put out, and could not be put out, there being no switch in the cabin, lay staring and wondering at the whole business, the deep breathing, the occasional sighs, the place ringing to the blows of the sea, and echoing, as though someone whispered to the sweep of the spray without; the whirl of the driving propeller going on and on, as if for ever, under foot.
They thought at first, when they were called, that it was a night call, woke gasping in the reek of ammonia, to find Candlass going his rounds along a sloping deck, theGlorynow having a tremendous list on, never swinging up to a level, but rolling all the time from the degrees of that list to a slope comparable with that of a church steeple, an almost anxious slope, then back up again, and pitching, too. The men who were already wakened began to shout: "Tumble up! Tumble up!" even before Rafferty appeared; and there was little need for him to raise his cry, for almost all were awake and rolling from their bunks as he lurched in at the door and glared round. The wind shrieked outside, the cabin echoed more than ever like a steel drum, the screams and groanings were infinitely louder. Candlass looked at his men to see what fettle they were in, but he had already arrived at an opinion and a computation regarding what men could be relied on in the event of emergency.
"Come on!" said Mike, and led the way.
Scholar followed, Michael came next. It was very dark. They went along on the windward side. All the cattle there had their broad fronts against the making-fast board, their heads over it. The men moved along, propped against the hoardings to leeward. The cattle on that side were standing well back, leaning against each other, tails against the backboards. As they manoeuvred forward a faint glow showed to starboard, which had nothing to do with the scattered lamps that, from the beams above, swung round and round in circles. One hatch (and only one) was still uncovered, and down that the shrieking and roaring song of the gale came. Mike poised along ahead like one walking on a steep roof. Up soared theGlory, and down she plunged, and over she rolled—farther over, trembling down. The cattle staggered; there was a sound of clicking horns, there were sounds of things going slide and crash all over, and still she rolled. She had a list on her beyond anything that Mike had ever known. He hung on with his right hand; he was under the hatch now, Scholar a pace or two behind, and both could look up at the dark sky overhead showing purple before the beginning of another day. It was then four o'clock. And as she hung over thus they watched the stars rush wildly up the sky like soaring rockets, up and over, and then up came the sea, following the soaring stars. It gave them pause. So far over did she hang that, from where they held tight upon the windward side, they could see clean through the hatch above, and over its lee edge, right out to the junction of sky and sea (a strip of awesome whiteness, or less whiteness than the colourless look of a glass of water) beyond an unforgettable tremendous tossing waste of a deep and velvety purple. And still she hung over, so that they saw more and more of the sea. It seemed to be rushing at them with all its great dark purple hollows, its purple hillsides, its snowy crests. And in that moment Scholar averted his eyes from it and looked toward Mike, and found Mike—hanging on—looking over his shoulder rearward. Their eyes met. And Scholar believed that perhaps Mike was right in his view of him that he had voiced the day before when the gale was rising—believed that when it came to the "bit" he would not be found wanting.
It seemed to be rushing at them with all its dark purple hollows, its purple hillsides, its snowy crests.It seemed to be rushing at them with all its dark purplehollows, its purple hillsides, its snowy crests.
Then the stars that had rushed up came rushing down again, bringing the sky with them, and it fitted over in place. TheGloryrolled and pitched onward, still with something of a list, but no following roll sent her so far over, and from no succeeding roll was she so slow to rise again.
A few of the pickpocket-faced ones hung back during the gale that morning, crawled into corners, effacing themselves, like sick cats. At the afternoon feeding and watering (despite the words of contempt, glances of contempt, and, worst of all, silences of contempt, bestowed upon them when they showed face at their own feeding-time) several did not turn out, pretended to do so—perhaps tried to do so—but slunk back to the cabin. When Rafferty, missing them, came aft to hunt them forth, they showed their peeked faces to him, worn and scared; and he despised them and left them, turned back to his working majority again and shouted through the shouting of the storm overhead, and the rushing of the draught along his deck: "There's some chickens, some chickens!" His men knew to whom he referred, looked at him—and sneered, and laughed, and tossed their heads in agreement; Jack even, whose attitude to Rafferty so far had been one of watchfulness, gave a kind of loud mutter of: "We don't want them with us, messing about here." Cockney too, energetic straw-boss, looked on them as did Rafferty.
"Let 'em lie there and shiver, then," he said.
Only two of the main deck men were perturbed beyond labour by the steadily increasing violence of the gale, scared by the consideration that it had begun to blow last night, and had been getting worse and worse ever since.
"Two men short!" commented Candlass in the afternoon, and went aft to the cabin to look for them, found one on the way, behind a bale of hay, peered at him as if wondering what he was doing there, balancing carefully with loose knees, taking hand from pocket only to grab and hang on by a protruding end of barricade. He eyed him as a man may eye a newly-bought puppy that has gone in between the sofa's end and the wall. The youth got up, scrambled out as best he could, hauled himself to his feet. Candlass spoke never a word, but bowed to him in the attitude of one listening for a whisper, mock-commiserating, and the youth dragged himself forward to find that his fellows did not want him, had fallen to work passing the hay themselves, and were inclined to treat him as if he was in the way. He had the air as of pleading to be allowed to do something. Candlass, meanwhile, walked on into the cabin, zig-zagged across, looking for his other missing man.
There were two of the lower deck hobbledehoys there. He waggled a thumb at the door, and they got up and crawled out, but he did not follow them; he went up on deck instead, to hunt out the man who was missing from his own deck in particular. The sheep sniffled and bleated occasionally under securely-lashed dodgers that now covered the tops of all the pens. They saw his feet and thrust out their black faces, wrinkled their noses, shivered and withdrew. It was near their feed time. (Mike and Cockney, with two or three others, saw to them daily on their way back, after having tended the cattle.) Candlass tilted his body along, looking left and right to see where his man might be hiding, the ship ever and again pausing in the midst of a rise, pausing much as men on deck did at a more violent and unexpected roll and kick. Some greater wave, at such times, had caught her fair, and smashing upon her hull as on a cliff, raced whirling along the length of her, shot up her side, soared thinly there beyond the bulwark, to be immediately blown wide, as is the top of a fountain in the wind, scudding and rattling along the decks. Tarpaulins had been rigged entirely across her, below the bridge, to protect the sheep on the after deck; and as far as to that barrier did Candlass now strut, tilting and balancing. And there, in a space between two sheep-pens, beside a ventilator, he saw a pair of boot-soles, bent down and grabbed at the legs beyond them, and the face of the missing man looked up at him—green. It was sea-sickness. Candlass stooped low.
"Sick?" he said.
The man's eyes rolled. He clung desperately to the ventilator.
"Don't fall overboard, don't want to lose a man. Savvey?"
The man tried to nod; his whole body sagged forward in that effort.
"You lie on your back when you ain't actually being sick," Candlass roared into his ear. "Savvey?"
Again the man tried to nod and at least succeeded in making his head go up and down instead of being powerless to keep it from doing aught but rolling left and right.
"Don't fall overboard," Candlass counselled again, and lurched away, muttering to himself: "Sick all right."
But most of the men enjoyed the gale. It was something doing. And when, next morning, the pickpocket-faced youth sat up ready to give his shout of: "Call me in another hour, Rafferty, and bring me me shaving water," his voice failed. He looked round the cabin; he had been one of the shirkers yesterday.
"That's right," said one of the men. "You keep your mouth shut this morning!" And the gunsel and his special cronies kept quiet, for it was unfitting that those who skulked in a corner during a gale should cheek Rafferty the morning after merely because they found that the swing and sweep of the tossing stern were back a little more to the normal. The gale had indeed blown itself out, or nearly so. It was a tremendous morning in the North Atlantic. A fountain of gold, preceding sunrise, shot up eastwards. A sound of hissing and of breaking foam was round the ship, and echoed in every corner. The waves soared, great and curving, blue and purple, veined like marble in their forward curves with the foam of other broken waves, soared higher, curled their tops, broke, and as they broke the wind took the foam and whirled it broadcast. There was a wonderful purple and blue and windy hilarity over that great expanse, so high a sea running that even the horizon line was ragged.
The grub that day seemed painfully scanty. The uneaten shares of the one or two seasick men made no difference, so great were the appetites of the fit. Cockney admitted, after the meal was over, that he sympathised with those persons who chummed with, or intimidated, Pierre and Four Eyes, for the sake of what food they might smuggle away from the galley—though his phrasing of this comprehension was of course all his own.
"Are they cadgin' off Frenchy and that object in the coat?" asked Mike.
"'Aven't you seen 'em?" said Cockney. "'O, Frenchy, bring hus along some pie!'" he cried out in a fleering voice.
"I quite belave it," said Mike. "I see some of 'em cadgin' tobacco. There's men aboard this ship I know I wouldn't prisint me plug of tobacco to. If they took a bite out of it you'd be thinkin' the plug was in their mouth, and the chaw they axed for was the piece they gave back to ye." There was an attempt at a laugh, an obvious attempt, for the shot had gone home. "'Have ye got a piece of chewing on ye?'" mocked Mike. "'Me pipe's empty, have you a fill about ye?'—'Have ye a ceegareet about ye?'" He paused. "'After you wid the ceegareet!'" he mocked.
And he lived up to his opinion. There are people who arrange their moral code according to what they can do and cannot do. There are people to whom a fall from fealty to their code is occasion for renouncing and deriding that code. Mike was not of these. He disliked cadging, but had his love of a smoke or a chew driven him to cadge he would not have relinquished his opinion; he would have smoked and chewed as a defeated man.
All day now there was sign of better weather. Even the wind aided to calm the seas, swinging round a point or two and besoming the wave-tops, flattening them. There was hash and pea-soup that day—the pea-soup drunk in the tin mugs, of course, along with, or after, the hash—and the "Push" were glad of it. It was a great tonic day. By night all the clouds seemed to have been blown away; stars by the billion filled the vault; the Milky Way was like a whirl of triumph, like a gesture of joy across the heavens. The wake of the tiny littleGlory(she seemed tiny now) was as an imitation of that Milky Way, full of balls, large and small, and smaller, down to the size of sparks even, of phosphorus—dancing and bursting and thinning out. Mike, coming on deck a trifle disgusted by a surfeit of what he called "soup-kitchen palaver" that was in progress amid a group of "youse," looked down at that wake, moody, and furrowed, that kind of half-broken look upon his face, like a wondering beast, a puzzled beast. He stood there at the stern, lifted high and brought low, till his back went cold.
"Bejabbers, it's all very strange," he said to himself; and being cold he looked round for shelter. Some wisps of hay, blown from windward, had been brought up against the lee rail, and he gathered them together. The sheep bleated.
"I'm using this for me own comfort," he said, addressing the sheep in the end cote; "go to sleep!" And he squatted down with his back against the cotes, and stretched out his legs—sat there a long time while the ship pulsed and pulsed on, tossing her stern and the engines racing and steadied, racing and steadied, as she slid through the sea, churning the water into foam, in which whirls of gold began like nebulas of stars, whirled into complete little globes, danced away as entrancing as opals, and then suddenly went out.
Now it happened that, below, Scholar felt he might almost suffocate, and remembering that he had been some time out of the weather, for which he had always a great friendliness, never liking to be too long out of touch with it—blow high, blow low, rain, mist or sunshine—he too came on deck. The poop companion-way had been closed these last few days, and that made the cabin all the more asphyxiating. He came up that narrow staircase, feet clattering on the worn brass edges, turned the handle; eddies of wind did the rest. He wrestled a spell with the door, then came on deck, closed the door, and looked up in awe at all these stars—stood there balancing, now drawn away from them down and down, next moment soaring and swinging up with a sensation as if he might be swung on and come up through that golden dust and see some explanation. Then down he was borne again, or felt as though his body was borne down and his spirit left up there. Explanation, or no explanation, it was good—all good, the crying of the sea, the whistle and shriek of the wind in the cordage, the feel of the wind, the scud of the spray—good!
He turned and looked forward. There seemed to be not a soul on deck. It was as if he had dropped from a star, forgetting all about it on the way, and had alighted gently upon this thing that, reeking volcano-like, tossed and swung, but always forward through the night. He had almost to take it on faith that there was a man in that hardly-discernible little barrel on the foremast, the summit of which raked from left to right. He peered up at the bridge. Yes, something moved there from port to starboard and back again, like a mouse running to and fro on a shelf. Below his feet the ceaseless whirl and whirl went on. A man suddenly appeared, jumping up on top of the sheep pens, tapping with his toe before him, then stepping, to be sure he stood on firm board top and not on tarpaulin cover, turned the top of a ventilator, disappeared, bobbed up again, revealed against the starry sky, or at any rate revealed from his head down to about his knees, the wind pluck-pluck-plucking at his short jacket. He disappeared again, jumping down and was gone. Scholar moved to one side, kicked something soft, looked down and said: "Oh, I beg your pardon!" and a coarse Irish voice answered: "All right, Scholar."
There was fresh movement at Scholar's feet.
"I seen ye against the stars, but ye couldn't see me. Bring yourself to an anchor here beside me—I have some straw here—and give us your crack."
Scholar, peering down, was now able to make out where Mike reclined, and sat down beside him, back against the end of the last sheep-pen. But they did not speak at once. Scholar felt in his pocket for pipe and tobacco, and held the tobacco-bag to Mike.
"Have a fill?" he said.
Mike put forth a hand, and drew it back.
"No," he growled.
"I've a plug of chewing-tobacco somewhere," said Scholar. "Yes—here it is."
Out went Mike's hand, then abruptly back again; and this time he thrust both hands deep in pockets.
"No, thank you, Scholar."
Scholar wondered if he had given some offence. Ignorant of how to repel in this society in which he found himself, he might also, even in sitting down in response to Mike's invitation, ignorantly have transgressed some usage of courtesy in this sphere. Next moment Mike explained.
"When I see the way the fellers on this ship go cadgin' for tobacco it gives me a pain." He shifted his position slightly, as if he really felt a physical pain. "I would think shame to keep on axing a man day after day—manytimes a day—'Have you got any chewing? Have you got any smoking?'"
"That's all right," said Scholar. "You didn't ask me—I offered to you."
"Yes, yes, I know; but I said to meself: 'Thim fellers has no daycency. I'll do without chewings and smokings until I get to Liverpool.' No, Scholar, thank you kindly—I'll go wanting it. It has too much hold upon me as it is."
Scholar did not press.
Now there began to be signs of how the cattlemen would wander off together when they came to land again. Understandings seemed to be arrived at between threes and fours and half-dozens. It was not exactly cliquishness—it was more a case of "birds of a feather"—No, that simile is bad, as are most ready-made proverbs. Not their outward parts, their mere feathers, but their inner parts arranged the groupings. The snarling was all over; drink, and the effects of drink, were old stories. One or two men, of course, were still left alone by all, men so different as the Man with the Hat and the Man with the Specs. Frenchy, or Pierre, his tobacco nearly done, and his complaisance in giving it away in a like state, was now discarded by some of the former spongers, but not by all. Probably those who had been interested in him, as well as sponging upon him, were the ones who now besought him to sing a French song, or to tell them what France looked like.
The feeding and watering were by this time matters of routine, wakening at four a habit. The cabin was almost tenantless, only the cold-blooded, or those children of the slums who felt out of their element unless they slept in rancid air, turned in there. Among the diminishing hay near the hatches—all open again—or on the upper deck, around the smoke-stack, and between the sheep-pens, most of the men slept, snatching a nap during the day when the cattle did not call them, sleeping there at night until only the extreme cold drove them down, with short gasps, from the windy deck to the asthmatical cabin. It was, indeed, easier to tolerate the cabin by day than by late night, for by day, and early in the morning, there was some tobacco smoke—not much now, to be sure—and the companion was open. At night the tobacco smoke soon ceased to combat with the ammonia fumes as the men slept, and some of the cold-blooded were sure to mount up and shut the companion-door before turning in, making the cabin's atmosphere more stifling still.
They began to talk of reaching Liverpool, of what they would do there, to ask each other: "You coming back on her?" Cockney and Michael exchanged friendly speech again. It is doubtful which started, but they were again conversing. The Inquisitive One begged Frenchy to "come with us," indicating the group round him; but Pierre explained that he was going home. One told another about the loss of Frenchy's valise, and Mike's recovery of it, as he might tell of the incident on another ship one day if Frenchmen, or valises, were mentioned. Many of the men fell to rubbing their chins, and announcing that they would be the better of a shave. They asked each other: "Have you a razor?" Frenchy taking warning by the cadging of tobacco that left him smokeless now, pretended that he didn't know what "razor" meant, was unusually dense to signs, could not be got to understand of what they talked. Somebody commented that hemusthave a shave, that they all should shave, looked too tough, that the day after to-morrow, perhaps, they would be in Liverpool, and if they went ashore like this they'd be taken for cadgers by everybody.
Scholar took pity on them. He had managed to shave twice already, despite the sea running. Now he offered the loan of his razor to one man; and many others asked to be next. Some of them sneered, both at the razor and at those who wished to use it. At any rate Scholar, carefully propped, had his shave; and others—each using his razor, each handing the razor back to him when finished. Thus, at least, they acted to begin with.
"I wonder," said Mike, approaching him, "if ye would lend me the loan of your razor, Scholar, if it's not too much to be asking ye."
"Certainly," answered Scholar, and Mike had his shave, then gave the razor back. Another man had it, and thereafter there was no more talk of the razor for an hour or two, when suddenly several were asking where it was, and it was impossible to tell who had it. Mike was greatly upset.
"I don't like it at all," he said, "not at all. Here's Scholar being kind to youse, and there's some of you fellers can't see anything without putting it in your pockut."
He looked round the crowd. Harry of the mad eyes sat humped, nursing his knees, and smiling in front of him. Jack was smiling too, a cynical smile it might be, however. Johnnie, over his shoulder, asked them to shut up about that razor. Mike's eye rested with suspicion on Mad Harry, but he was unshaven; still, that didn't signify. Cockney, with a clean bandage on his head, tried to thrash out the question of who had used the razor last. It was a task more thorny than discovering who turned out the gas for fun at the Philanthropists' Teetotal Hand Out. Little Michael, beginning to peer under his eye-patch now—with an eye and a half, as it were—grumbled a great deal about the disappearance. It would give a man who didn't know them such a poor opinion of cattlemen! Mike turned his troubled face to Michael, puzzling over him; with no vocabulary to express his feelings he wondered dumbly if Michael really had so high an opinion of a "Push." The Inquisitive One drew Scholar aside anxiously, and with intense eagerness asked him: "You don't think I got it, do you?"
"No, no," said Scholar. "That's all right—don't worry about it."
"No, but I wouldn't like you to think I had it—straight I wouldn't."
Mike was gloomy all that day. At night there was again a sing-song, but it was not a very great success. One man, called upon for a song, said he couldn't sing; another said: "Get on your feet and sing. What the hell's the matter with you? Are you sitting on the razor?" Another, who had danced a breakdown without being asked, was told that he was no dancer, and that if that there razor could only be found he'd have his throat cut.
Mike watched to see which men found these recurrent references merely amusing, which looked disgusted, which appeared guilty; but it was impossible even to begin the winnowing in that way. A flutter of more pleasant talk ricocheted about, Molls and Biddies, and what not—names of streets, descriptions of where they lay. One man stood up and sang the praises of a certain lady friend. Mike's eyes opened wide and he stared; his face gloomed. He shot out a hand, pointing at the man.
"Do you know what I'm going to tell you about her?" he said. Faces turned to see what Mike had to say, and he said. The man looked belligerent for a moment.
"No, no!" cried Mike to those who laughed. "No, no! I'm not talking fanciful. I know the woman."
That settled it. Those who had listened believed that she was beneath contempt, for there was verity in Mike's gesture. One of those from the lower deck, who had been in the razor queue, and was grateful, called to Scholar: "If you don't know Liverpool, Michigan," evidently he had heard whence Scholar had come, "you come with me. There's a moll I know—you'll like her."
"Pay no attintion to them," broke in Mike. "Them fellers sees a crimp in a petticoat and they starts singing about her."
"That's right," agreed another. "Don't you go with him. You come along of me." He looked Scholar up and down. He would be rather proud to introduce Scholar, as a shipmate, to the lady in question.
Mike growled: "Scholar's coming with me," and turning to Scholar, very friendly, his manner reminiscent in a far-off way of a kindly host: "You come with me, Scholar," he said. "There's a fine motherly woman I know——" and he nodded. "I'll put you on to her."
Scholar wondered if he should say: "Thank you very much." Instead he drew at his empty pipe and looked at nothingness before him; and the propeller whirled, and the screws beat on.
"What a queer homecoming these fellows know," he thought.
The feeding of cattle and of men was over for the afternoon. Scholar was the first up on the poop. He leant over the rail, looking away out and forward. The south end of Ireland was off there somewhere, out of sight, northwards. TheGlorysurged on, in a pother of spray, a mile of smoke trailing from her smoke-stack a point or two off the bows, southward. There was a touch of humidity in the air that was not the humidity of the sea. It could not be said that Scholar had enjoyed the trip any more than any of them, but nearing home the call of home seemed to be an open question. In this riff-raff below him he had found something likeable, something good amid all the evil. The people at home, where he was going, he knew, could not appreciate one word that he might have to tell of the voyage or the men. No, if they pitied, it would be a very patronising pity, and even that annulled by censure. His womenfolk would find only one more opportunity to say: "What awful creatures men are!" Last night he had pitied these men that they had no homes to go to. To-day, alert for Ireland, near home, the sentimental glow was fading from the vision of his own. He felt himself homeless as they. And then ahead there, northwards in the sea, he beheld something advancing rapidly.
Some of the other men came on deck, among them Mike, who drew near and looked in the direction of Scholar's gaze; and just then Scholar saw what it was that came like a low cloud through the many foam-topped, spray-topped waves—a blue-grey warship, lying low, with four short funnels, a very short mast; and he experienced a thrill. He had met Englishmen who were less moved than Frenchmen by such lines as those that tell of how "the coastwise lights of England watch the ships of England go." If they had objected to the same poet's: "Lord of our far-flung battle line," to the Hebraic self-righteousness in that, he could have been at one with them; that was a different matter. He appreciated Kipling's song of the "coastwise lights of England." He also appreciated Arnold's reminder to Victorian Englishmen that England could be improved; but he loved the England that Arnold, in his love, made to bloom and flower in such poems as his "Scholar Gipsy," that England that coloured the same poet's "Resignation." It struck him that the Englishman who could not tolerate a song simply because the name of England was in it would be highly repulsive and irksome even to Arnold, who so often lectured Englishmen upon their self-satisfaction. They could not understand, these people; the moment they were left alone they strayed. The road was pointed out to them time and again, and off they went, but the moment they were alone they deviated into paths that led otherwise, without knowing.
Scholar felt a thrill at sight of this long, low vessel that came with tremendous speed, wasp-like, sweeping out from the haze beyond which lay home. It might be a slightly tarnished home, the house not all in order, but, by God, it was home, and worth loving and setting in order. He had a feeling as of: "How they do watch!" There was nobody on her decks. She was a thing of beauty, although of steel. She was nearly abreast now, but far off. Then suddenly, hammering along between the sheep-pens (the tarpaulins off them now) came a man in haste the bo'sun—and as he ran this way sternwards upon the deck of theGlory, there appeared, as out of a hole in the deck of that long, low wasp of a thing, a small black spot that ran sternwards upon it. The bo'sun was already at the flagpole, loosening the flag halyard, the flag was dipping, and a little square of cloth, away off there on that other ship, was dipping too, down and up. She slid past, rushing through the sea; the spot went forward on her and disappeared again; she was hidden in the smoke reeking from her four short stacks.
Mike, behind Scholar, expelled a gust of air from his nostrils and drew erect.
"Bedad!" he said. "I guess she can smell us that far."
It had not occurred to Scholar before; and thereafter, when more ships began to appear, where the sea-trails of the world converged, he imagined the people on their decks all holding their noses.