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."