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.