Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: The Glory glided into the Newfoundland fog.]
THE S.S. GLORY
BY
FREDERICK NIVEN
AUTHOR OF "JUSTICE OF THE PEACE"
"HANDS UP!" ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY FRED HOLMES
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
London: William Heinemann, 1915
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The "Glory" ... glided into the Newfoundland fog . . . Frontispiece
The new comer approached more closely and looked at the crowd
There! They were apart
Asked of the evil-smelling darkness below many insulting questions
Flailed his way along the line
It seemed to be rushing at them with all its great dark purple hollows,
its purple hillsides, its snowy crests
Again the other cattleship forged level
The Manager says this is an American coin
CHAPTER I
Somebody was playing a mouth-organ in the midst of a group of "hard
cases" that waited on a certain wharf at Montreal. You who arrive
there in spick and span passenger steamers can pick out the place from
the promenade decks as you come alongside, for on the shed roofs is
painted, with waterproof paint, "The Saint Lawrence Shipping and
Transport Co., Ltd."
At the gable of these sheds the Hard Cases waited, alert for anybody of
importance coming from citywards. But they did not forget that the
important person might be already in the sheds. Therefore, as they
strolled a step or two forth and back, or double-shuffled in response
to the mouth organ, they cast glances now and then into the shed,
between the lattice-work of a barrier at its end, a barrier that
continued the slope of the roof to the wharf-side and about a foot
beyond. A determined man could have clambered round it at the
projecting part, or over it for that matter--although it looked fragile
at the top as well as showing many prominent nails. But no one did
clamber over it, or round it even. In America there is a sneaking
regard for the man who climbs over, or crawls round, barricades; but it
was hardly likely that any of the Hard Cases, who waited for a job
outside the barrier, would have obtained that job at the end of such
gymnastics. These men were not hoboes, tramps, sundowners,
beachcombers, though there was not a handkerchief-full of luggage in
the crowd. They were cattlemen, who lead a life more hard and
uncertain than that of sparrows, crossing and recrossing the great,
grey Atlantic, with Liverpool for their British port; and, for their
American ports, Montreal, Halifax, Boston.
"Well, what's this?" said one of them, Big Mike.
The "Push" glanced at "this"--a lean man, brown as an Indian, wearing a
broad-brimmed hat that set him apart from the "Push," which wore,
chiefly, scooped sailor-caps, and, secondly, dilapidated Trilbys.
True, the latter were of felt, but only in regard to material were they
like this hat that hove in sight on the newcomer's head.
[Illustration: The new comer approached more closely and looked at the
crowd.]
"What's he?" asked Jack, a slender and finely-built young man with a
face handsome and devil-may-care and cunning, a face oddly aristocratic
though leathery, and bearing signs that ablution was not a daily matter
in his life any more than in the lives of the others.
"It's one of them cow-boys," said Mike. "One of them fellers that
comes from beyant, in the cars with the cattle, and takes a thrip over
sometimes to see what its loike in our counthry."
"I suppose 'e'll go fer nuthin'," said Cockney. "Do one of hus out of
a job."
"Well, ye needn't be supposing till ye hear," answered Mike. "I never
seen wan of them do that yet."
The newcomer approached more closely and looked at the crowd, one of
whose members, an inquisitive youth, caught his eye and daringly
proffered assistance.
"You goin' on this ship?" he asked.
"I hope so. I've just come down to see how the chances are."
The "Push" that had been listening mostly in quarter and three-quarter
face, wheeled about, and all their "dials," as they would have
expressed it, confronted him.
"'Ow much you goin' to hask?" said Cockney.
"What do they usually give?"
"Oh, I don't know," several replied.
Jack extracted himself from the "Push" to spit over the wharf-side, and
then turned back again.
"Thirty shillings," he said.
"Is that what you get?" asked the Inquisitive One.
Canted back, hands in pockets, Jack leered at him.
"You hask thirty shillings then," said Cockney.
Big Mike pushed through.
"What are ye all talking about?" he said. "I tell ye what it is, now,"
he went on, turning to the stranger. "There's some of these fellers go
over for tin shillin's; the most of them don't get more'n a pound, and
when it's getting cold here you'll find 'em runnin' round and saying,
'I'll go for fifteen shillin's, mister.' But if ye came down from
beyant in the cars yourself ye're all right. You fellers that come
down from The Great Plains goes on with your own cattle on the ships if
ye want."
Some of the lesser lights in the "Push" snarled.
"Want more than ten shillings," said the subject of their discussion.
"Ten shillings for across the Atlantic! Good Lord!"
"There now! What was I tellin' ye?" asked Mike of Cockney.
"What does he want comin' round?" said a man with eyes in which madness
showed.
"Did ye come down on the cars?" asked Mike again.
"No--I didn't come down with cattle. I can't tell them that so as to
get on."
"There you are then!" cried he of the mad eyes, and walked away.
Mike looked frowningly at the young man.
"Well, young feller," he said, "you've no cause for worry. It doesn't
matter whether ye came down in the cattle cars or not. That hat of
yours will get ye the first chance."
Some of them laughed, and he turned and looked scathingly at them, but
did not deign to explain that he was serious. Cockney, who had
understood the significance of Mike's words, if he did not now come
over exactly as ally to the newcomer, at least withdrew from his
position as a possible enemy.
"That's right!" he declared. "That's the kind of 'at the fellers wear
up there w'ere the cattle comes from. You hask thirty shillings. You
know about cattle any'ow wiv that 'at. They'll bring yer down to a
quid. Well, that's all right, ain't it? Good luck."
The others seemed to see the justice of this. Mike hitched his belt
and regained his position as Bull of that herd by saying: "Pay no
attintion to thim----"
"To _me_?" yelled Cockney, breaking in.
"That's all right, that's all right," said Mike soothingly to him.
"You're all right. See, young feller,"--to the man with the Stetson
hat--"you come over here beside me and I'll tell you when there's a
chance."
The young fellow came toward him.
"Good luck!" said Cockney.
"What _I_ get," added Mike, "is none of their business."
"Well," said the young fellow, "ten bob to 'tend cattle across the
Atlantic seems pretty poor. I'll ask thirty."
"Well, ye can't do better than that, can ye?" answered Mike. "Askin'
it, I mane."
Cockney whirled round upon someone who had muttered, and thrust forward
his face at the end of an elastic neck.
"No, he's not--'e's not goin' over fer nuthin'! Didn't yer 'ear 'im
say? I bet yer 'e'll go over fer more'n you."
A short broad man, somewhat like Mike in miniature, declaimed: "What's
the use o' listening? Can't believe anybody. I hear a feller say: 'I
wouldn't go over for ten shillings--wouldn't go over for less than two
quid.' Believe he goes over just to get across--for nothing."
Several, at this, glanced grinning at the young man whom Mike had
befriended.
"No," said the miniature edition of Mike, "I don't mean him. _He's_
not a liar anyhow. I can tell that. I mean fellers that talks and
talks about what they would do and what they wouldn't do."
"Pay no attintion to thim fellers," said Mike, less talking to the
newcomer in particular than generally, to those in the group who had
ears to hear. And then to his new friend: "You didn't come down in the
cars then, young feller?"
"I've come from the West," answered the young fellow.
"That's good enough," said Mike, in the accents of one instilling hope.
"There's no need to answer what they don't ask. You look as if you
came from beyant. Let yer hat spake for ye. Here he comes now."
Hands behind back, walking slow, came a man of forty or so, lean,
grizzled, projecting himself with easy swinging steps toward the
"Push," looking at them, head bent, from under his brows, with eyes so
calculating and keen that the glance might have been considered
malevolent were it not for a faint smile, or suggestion of a smile,
about his close-pressed lips. There was a fresh agitation among the
"Push," as of a pool when a stone is dropped therein. Mike stood a
little more erect and drew his chin back. The aristocratic-looking
Jack--in some queer way, despite his old, seedy, hand-me-down garments,
he was almost dandyish--hands in pockets, jacket wrinkled up behind,
body canted backwards, strolled out of the group a step or two with
eyes on the man who advanced upon them, and strolled back again, as one
who would draw attention to himself.
"Is this one of the bosses?" inquired the young man who had come by
kind request if not exactly under Mike's wing at least to his side.
Mike gave a brief nod and closed one eye.
"Candlass," he said; and Candlass coming now level with them, Mike
leant towards him and made a grimace which evidently Candlass
understood. The others, at this, tried to crowd in between them.
Candlass frowned grimly, opened a door in that latticed barricade
between shed and wharf-side, and passed through. The "Push"--one might
now have a hint of the derivation of its name--flocked after him, but
he stood in the narrow entrance way and considered it over his shoulder
as a man looks at a bunch of doubtful dogs that snap at his heels.
Mike commented, in the background: "What are yez all crowding for?
He'll tell ye when he wants us." Candlass closed the gate in the
barricade, moved slowly away, but was still to be seen by those
outside. He walked along the wharf looking up at the iron wall of the
_S.S. Glory_ that lay there, considered the high-sided cattle gangways
that stretched up to the hull. Then he turned away and disappeared in
the rear of the nearest shed, to reappear anon with a stout, fatherly
man whose clothes had the appearance of rather being made to measure
than reached off a hook. This man seemed to be trying to look grim,
but when Candlass swung over to the barricade, whipped open the door,
and wheeled back again as a sign to the "Push" to enter--and they did
enter--any mere looker-on could have seen a quick droop of his eyelids,
a momentary biting of his lip as of a man who is hurt in some way.
There was a deal of the milk of human kindness about Mr. Smithers,
wharf-manager of the St. Lawrence Shipping and Transport Co., and he
never became used to the Hard Cases. He often wanted to know all about
them, where they were born, how they lived, what they thought of it
all. Some of the men, out of their breast-pockets, were tentatively
withdrawing bundles of discharge papers lest John Candlass might care
to see them. Candlass looked over the crowd again as it thronged into
the St. Lawrence shed. He spoke now, for the first time, and his voice
was amazingly quiet.
"I don't want _you_," he said to one man, with a quick lift of his
eyebrows; and the man went out backwards, and swiftly, suggesting in
his manner that he was ready either to put up a fight if pursued, or to
turn tail and run the moment he passed through the barrier again. He
backed away from the sultry and quiet Candlass much as a lion-tamer
leaves a cage. Another man prepared to follow him, yet not as if
whole-hearted in his retreat. Candlass had an eye on him.
"Er----" he began, in the tone of one who considers to himself. The
retreating man heard this and paused like a weather-cock in a lull,
looked at Candlass, and Candlass looked at him. They studied each
other thus in a way that made the others, brief though the time of
study might be, realise that there had been some prior understanding or
misunderstanding, between the two.
"Well," said Candlass, still in that low voice, "if you think you can
behave yourself."
The man's expression changed. A waggish look came on his face.
"All right, Mr. Candlass."
"All right then," said Candlass. "You can wait around and I'll see--if
I don't get plenty otherwise. Leave it that way."
Candlass looked over the group once more, then nodded to Mr. Smithers.
"All right. Come this way, boys," said Mr. Smithers. But though he
straightened his back and thrust his neck into his collar in the
recognised attitude of people who are not to be trifled with, there was
something paternal that he could not efface from himself as he walked
over to a little office on wheels that stood in a backward corner of
the shed. In the wall of this box contrivance a small window opened on
his arrival, and a clerk was beheld within.
Candlass said: "Line up, boys; one at a time."
Mike elbowed himself to leading position, looking round at his new
friend. "You come with me, lad." And when some grumbled, "Well,
well," he said. "We all have a chance."
The man to whom Candlass had decided to give another trial strolled
backward and stood beyond the group so as to be last in the string.
"Now then, come along," said Smithers, and tapped twice with the end of
a fountain pen on the little ledge before the diminutive window. The
"Push," realising that all would have a chance, seeing how few there
were, did not crowd now. There was more of: "You go ahead"--"No,
that's all right, you go!"--than of anxiety. One by one they stepped
up to the wicket, to one side of which Smithers leant, and in front of
which Candlass had taken his stand. Each in turn exchanged a few quiet
words with these two; the clerk within, pen in hand, bent over his
tome, giving ear at the window. Once or twice Candlass looked round
and beckoned to a man, when the group, milling instead of retaining the
queue, was slow to decide who should go next. He did this by raising a
hand, thumb and forefinger in air, looking keen and cold in some man's
eye, and then flicking down the forefinger and dropping his hand to his
side again. While this signing on was still in progress there entered
the shed, slowly swinging his legs forward, clad in dirty khaki,
large-hatted like the young man of whom we have already heard, a
close-lipped, short-nosed youth. Candlass remarked him as he came in
and said: "All right, you. Come ahead."
"One of the fellows what come down in the cars," it was suggested, or
explained.
A little later there came a man in a long coat, tweed cap, heavy boots,
leggings, wearing spectacles.
"What's this blown in?" one asked.
Smithers, by the side of the wicket, drew a deep breath.
"All right. Come ahead," called Candlass.
"Did _that_ come down in the cars?" inquired a little pale-faced,
thin-handed youngster.
Mike, standing over to one side with those who had already signed on,
offered explanation:
"He's one of them young fellers from up behind somewheres. Comes from
feedin' pigs, and doin' the chores, and what they call learnin'
farmin'." He noticed that his newly adopted friend had allowed some
others to precede him and had not yet signed on. "Go on there forward,
young feller," he admonished. "Take your turn there after Four Eyes
with the coat."
"Go on, then, go on," chorussed several of the "Push," and he who,
though he wore the Hat of the Great Plains, had not come down on the
cars with cattle, as indeed had that other large-hatted recent arrival,
stepped up to the wicket. The onlookers noticed that with him, as with
others, there was evidently a little bargaining being done.
"No--'e's not goin' fer nuthin'; 'e's all right," said Cockney to Mike.
Mike merely turned his head toward Cockney and then turned it away
again.