Many of the men fell asleep, Scholar among them, exhausted by the
strain of the day and evening. He dreamt that he was back again in a
bunkhouse of Michigan, and came half-awake, thinking that the forest
was afire, then realised where he was, in this Bedlam, and was
crucified upon regret. If only he had not made that offer to stand
treat! He moaned; it was an anguish to him, for he had not lived even
his brief years without knowing kindliness when he met it; and these
fellows, whatever their vocabularies, their moral code, their falls
from it, their capacity to live up to it, had treated him kindly. He
would like to begin all over again with them, to go back twelve hours
in his life and theirs, and stroll towards them feeling the air again
for the method of approach, outside the barrier at the end of The Saint
Lawrence Shipping and Transport Company's shed. Tortured, he fell
asleep again, and the next he knew was the sound of voices. Perhaps
all had their dreams, or nightmares when that sound brought them from
sleep proper into a state of half awake and half asleep.
"Well, wot do yer want ter see 'im for, any'ow?"
"He is here, is he? I want to see him."
"I say 'e's a-sleepin'! Any man as wants to see Scholard 'as got ter
tell me wot 'e wants ter see 'im for!"
"It's none of your business--I want to see him. Is he there?"
"You tell me wot you want ter see 'im for, and I'll see if it's worth
disturbin' 'im for. I'm his bleedin' secretary, I am."
Scholar came wide awake, and rose upon an elbow, to find a semi-circle
of backs turned to him, Cockney's back among them; and Cockney's arm
was reaching out and brushing those of his shipmates who stood near, or
part brushing, part elbow-plucking, part signing to them in an
endeavour to form them up between Scholar's bunk and a man in the
doorway. Up sat Scholar. He had seen enough of ugly fighting during
the last few hours to feel a yearning for a life, nay, an eternity, of
peace; but he was in the pack, and he must not let Cockney take the
chances of an encounter on his behalf. As the man in the door--and he,
too, had a backing of friends--advanced upon Cockney, Scholar sat up.
He had the strong resolution to, as they say out West, "make good"
here; and it was a resolution that advertised itself on his face as he
rose and swung forward.
"All right, Cockney!" he said. "I'm awake."
The forming segment of circle broke. Cockney looked over his shoulder.
"That's hall right. You ain't one of hus. I know 'ow ter deal wiv
these fellers. We're shipmites, ain't we?"
"Do you want to speak to me?" said Scholar, looking keenly at the
advancing tough.
"Oh! No! They told me a man called Scollard was aboard. I wanted to
see a feller called Scollard!" This in a grumbling voice.
"O, yus! This hain't the feller, eh? No! Am _hi_ any use? Would you
like to push _my_ face in, eh?"
A voice above shouted: "Come on, mate, come on! She's pushing off!"
and the man who wanted to see Scollard hastened away, drawing off his
forces in the doorway.
"Thought we were off already!" said Cockney.
"Thank you very much for that," said Scholar. "Only a man must look
after himself of course."
"Yus, that's all right. Good luck! You ain't 'ust one of us; you
don't know the ropes--not 'ere, any'ow. Good luck, mate."
He and those others who had power over their legs, climbed to the deck,
Scholar accompanying them. The former jogglings must have been merely
due to the casting loose of one or two hawsers. A ladder still
stretched from ship to wharf. "Come on, come on there. Get ashore!"
the bo'sun was shouting at its top. "You fellers had no right aboard
here anyhow." The visitors hastened over the side and down the ladder,
those of them who saw a policeman at the shed end (looking up with that
frowning and sidewise consideration that suggests: "Now I don't know
but what I should run you fellows in! You look as if there might be a
charge about you!") going down with anxious precipitancy. The last
reached the wharf. Two men came up, climbed aboard--the pilot and a
ship's officer. The ladder was hauled away, the last hawser was cast
loose, and with a tug ahead and a tug astern the _S.S. Glory_ moved
from the wharf sideways like a great iron wall drifting away from a
great stone one. The space of dirty water between, with pieces of
straw, bits of wood, and such flotsam of the docks--a sodden apple or
two, and a potato--rapidly widened. The lights alongshore looked pale
and insignificant as the dawn spread; those in the low-browed windows
of the waterfront saloons that could be espied over the leaden-hued
roofs had lost their glare. Men below, those who could stand, feeling
sure now that she was off, came on deck to double-shuffle and cluster
on the poop, to cheer and scream, to wave their hands shorewards, as
though they saw a multitude of friends there waving farewell, though
really there were none.
Before the cheering was over a little unpleasantness began between Mike
and Michael. In all societies, in all walks of life, there are certain
statements that are considered insulting; but statements that in one
stratum are considered insulting are, in another, looked upon as merely
amusing; in yet another they are unheard, unknown, and so there is no
opinion on them. What should a passivist, in any walk of life, do when
some neighbour of his paddock discharges at him the supreme term of
contempt of that special paddock? They who cheered the dock roofs
turning grey in the morning, and the early stevedores, and the few late
night-birds, had now something close at hand to attract their
attention. Michael and Mike, on the poop now, met for the first time
since Mike, in the saloon ashore, had preferred the company of his two
friends to that of the "Push." And Michael, extremely fuddled, vaguely
remembered that he had some grievance against Mike. Mike leant against
a rail that ran athwart the ship, dividing the stretch of upper deck
from the stubby semi-circle of poop. His hands were behind him,
holding the rail as he leant against it. He had had a short sleep
since coming aboard, and his drunkenness was stale. The ale within
Michael, on the other hand, had not yet come to the height of its
action.
"What," he was asking Mike, "are you a-doing wearing a seaman's cap?"
Mike turned his head from surveying the shed roofs, lightly glanced
down at Michael, but did not fix him, turned his head the other way.
"A seaman's cap, I say!" Michael repeated.
Mike shook his head, as if a fly had landed on his face.
"Eh?" said Michael.
Mike looked down upon his stubby and sturdy compatriot as a Saint
Bernard dog looks down on a snarling Pomeranian between its forepaws.
"I _am_ a seaman," he replied at last.
"You're a liar!" said Michael, which in that stratum of society is no
more considered, even by those who are not passivists, as a call for
the mailed fist than, in another, is "Pardon me--have you verified
that?"
"I'm tellin' ye," said Mike.
"Let me see your discharges then," demanded Michael.
Mike tossed his head with an air of "This man bores me," tossed it to
right, and from left breast pocket drew forth a folded bundle of Board
of Trade discharges, and held them up.
"Huh!" grunted Michael. "Cattleman."
"Seaman I'm tellin' ye," Mike repeated.
"What are you a-going over as a cattleman for, then?" asked Michael.
"I'm tellin' ye I have some seaman discharges among theyse."
"Well then, you're a cattleman!"
"Yes, yes, quite so. All right."
"You're a cattleman."
"Yes, yes. Have it that way, thin."
"You're a dam' cattleman."
Mike stretched his head up as does one who wears a tall collar when the
collar's edge annoys his neck.
"Now, now," he said. "Now, now! You'll be after annoying me."
"A dam' cattleman," reiterated Michael, "with one shirt!"
"Quite so. Have it your own way."
"One shirt--a dirty shirt."
Mike unloosened his right hand from the taffrail that it was again
gripping, threw forward his left shoulder, and then, instead of
hitting, he wrung his hands, held them high, rubbed the palms together
in a kind of anguish, smashed the butt of his right hand into the palm
of his left, and "Michael," he said, "you're drunk. Ye'd better go
below. Have a sleep, have a sleep."
"I'm not drunk!" cried Michael, and hit, smash upon Mike's breast. And
then out of the crowd leapt upon him--Cockney.
"Is it a fight yer want?" asked Cockney.
Neither was so drunk that he could not hit, feint, parry; the others
circled.
"Now, now," said Mike. "See! Pull them apart!" But it was too late;
they had grappled.
Now people make laws, and they become the vogue; you are judged by
them, willy-nilly. If you cannot box, as boxing is taught in the
gymnasium, and find yourself set upon by a boxer, you will be
ostracised in some walks of life if you deliver him a kick in the
shins; or, should he fall, if you knuckle his wind so that he may lie
there long enough for you to beat your retreat from one skilled in the
"science," you will be ostracised for that; you must box him according
to the rules. But in this walk of life, upon the poop of the _S.S.
Glory_, it is a case of top dog anyhow. Mr. Smithers, on the docks,
newly arrived to see the ship clear, put teeth together, looking up,
and made the hissing sound through his teeth that a stoic makes when
operated on without an anaesthetic. For as the two men reeled to the
taffrail, and the onlookers there fell asunder to give them a full
field, they were displayed to the one or two persons who looked up from
the wharf front, displayed as on a high set stage, Michael with
Cockney's head under his left arm, an attitude, by the way, permitted
in some gymnasia, taboo in others--for there are "sets" there too.
Michael was swinging a right in upon the top of Cockney's head, when
suddenly he saw the taffrail and thought it would serve as well,
shifted his hold, and with both hands drove Cockney's head, as if it
were a turnip, against the middle rail. It was this which caused the
first hiss and spasm ashore. It would have finished most men. You
could have laid a finger in the indentation that the rail made in
Cockney's skull; but as he took the blow, refusing to be stunned, like
a tough, wild beast, he screamed, and thrust a thumb upward into
Michael's eye, even while Mike, Scholar, Pierre and the Inquisitive One
were hauling them asunder. Back went Cockney, flopped on the deck, and
held head in hands. There! They were apart. And suddenly, over the
taffrail and down the curve of the ship to the tow rope that went to
the tug astern, Michael made a kind of scramble and scuttle.
[Illustration: There! They were apart.]
"Grab that man!" shouted Smithers from the dock. "He'll fall on the
screws!"
Michael, upon all fours, had caught the tow rope and now swung himself
down, shouting: "I've been shanghaied! I won't sail on the _Glory_!"
He spun slightly left and right, clutching the rope, so that those who
craned under the bottom rail to try to grab him, and those who looked
up from the wharf, had glimpse, time about, of his ghastly face, and
the eyeball protruding like the yolk of an egg. One man was now on his
belly under the taffrail, stretching to grasp Michael, but he slithered
slightly forward on the curve to the hull.
"Somebody hold my legs!" he shouted. It was Scholar. The Inquisitive
One promptly sat down upon his feet. Mike had taken off his boots, and
was saying, one leg swung over the rail: "Here, some of youse--hold my
hand, will yez."
"Look up!" came a voice. It was the Man with the Hat. He had made a
slip-noose on the end of a rope. It hissed down and up. On shore
Smithers was shouting to the people in the tug astern: "Keep that rope
taut!" for the rope to which Michael hung was falling slack. "He'll be
down on the screws!" But the noose was now round Michael's waist, and
in their rejoicing the "Push" laid hold of the hither end of the rope
that the Man with the Hat tossed amongst them, and with a "Yo-ho!" they
put as much muscle into hauling the human being aboard as if he had
been a stern anchor.
"Easy, easy--for God's sake!" came a quiet voice to rear, a voice that
compelled attention because of the very loudness of the others. It was
Candlass; and behind him was the captain's steward, who was a good deal
more than a first aid man. They secured Michael as he was dragged over
the rail, and walked him forward along the narrow passage left between
the sheep-pens that crowded the upper deck.
"Bring that other man here," ordered Candlass over his shoulder.
"I'm all right!" said Cockney, standing up. He put up his hand to feel
his head, and laid a finger into the impression of the taffrail.
Everybody seemed a little more sober after that. The docks receded.
Montreal rose up behind them. Sea gulls that had come into port with
other ships cried one to another overhead, and came to their poising
station above the stern of the _S.S. Glory_.