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

      See 40853-h.htm or 40853-h.zip:
      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40853/40853-h/40853-h.htm)
      or
      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40853/40853-h.zip)

      http://archive.org/details/vikingbloodstor00wall

THE VIKING BLOOD

A Story of Seafaring

by

FREDERICK WILLIAM WALLACE

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

Hodder and Stoughton
Limited Toronto

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

    TO

    V. S. W.

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

                          _The Sea Road_.

CHAPTER ONE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER TWO

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

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

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

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

"Drink?"

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

"How does he stand in seniority?"

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

The Managing Director turned over a fyle of papers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER THREE

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

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

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

"Am I Scotch?" queried Donald aggressively.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Donald McKenzie! What's yours?"

"Joak McGlashan! Whaur d'ye leeve?"

"Maxwell Park! Where do you live?"

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

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

"The _Cardonia_!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER FOUR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Donald looked up expectantly. "What, daddy?"

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

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

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

"What is it, dear?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER FIVE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Janet colored. "Why?" she asked calmly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER SIX

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER SEVEN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Donald McKenzie."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Under the orders of the Nova Scotia mate, the two were kept busy at
various tasks, and within an hour of the time he had come aboard,
Donald began to be disillusioned. There was very little romance in
what he had seen, heard or done so far. Toiling and sweating in the