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!"