Twoyears 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 beenmarked 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 expressedsotto voceand 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. Joakwas 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 theCardonia, and both inwardly voiced the hope that their respective daddieswould 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 theSarmania. 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 theSarmaniato-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 andmenial 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. Howcould 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 theSarmaniatoo! 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, theSarmaniawas 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 theSarmaniatoo, 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. TheSarmaniawas, 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 pennantdecorated 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.
TheSarmaniaarrived 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 theSarmania, 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 wonderfulSarmania’smaiden 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’sjist 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.
Donaldrushed 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 theSarmania. 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 thatSarmaniabeautifully, 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 thebridge 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’Sarmaniawas 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 hadlived 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 conceitedJeanetteMcKenzie 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 downfrom 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, “BarqueDunsany, 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 officeand 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 taework. 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 theSarmaniawas 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 frightfulwall 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.
Ina 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 theDunlevin. TheDunlevinwas 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 bulbousred 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, theKelvinhaugh. 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 theKelvinhaughwas 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 traverseverse 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 packedand 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!”