Scholar need not indeed have worried, telling himself that he it was
who started the pandemonium. Those who had accompanied him were but a
few, and sooner or later they would surely have marked the absence of
the others and gone ashore to share their pleasures. In the whole
"Push" upon the _Glory_, as she churned slowly down the river, there
was hardly a sober man. And virulent, not ecstatic, are the nepenthes
offered, to the men who go down to the sea in ships, along the
waterfront by the people ashore. Some were still in fighting key; many
were in a condition that recalled to whosoever drew near them the adage
to let sleeping dogs lie; many were in a kind of mad misery. Perhaps a
third showed wounds, as of battle, cuts and bruises. The veering wind
about the poop carried mostly swear-words, and these more obscene than
blasphemous, to the captain and the pilot on the bridge. The pilot
paid no heed; the captain only looked now and then over his shoulder,
like one thinking: "Yes, just as usual!" instead of: "That's rather
bad." He was held aloft upon the bridge as are spectators in the
zoological gardens above the bear pits.
The Man with the Hat, sober and solitary, reclined on a bale of hay to
leeward of the smokestack on the upper deck--the sheep deck; its whole
length was crowded with sheep in pens, only narrow passage-ways being
left between the packed central pens and the narrow pens along the
side--these latter being protected from overmuch wind by canvas
dodgers. Jack--he who spoke French--and Jack's partner sat laughing
and talking alone, telling tales of adventurous lives one to the other,
the glitter of those who look upon the wine while it is red still in
their eyes, and as they sat nursing their knees, and colloguing, the
wind plucked the frayed edges of their pants. Jack pulled his hat down
upon his head with a gesture in keeping with that manner of his as of a
dandy in his sphere. It is not to be imagined that he had "come down."
Men do come down, of course. He was just a hard case, not beyond
helping himself to shoes from a shoe-shop door, not beyond looking upon
a derelict suburbanite, crossing vacant lots to his home, with unsteady
steps, late at night, as a fair prey, if Johnnie was with him. In his
walk of life such a way of replenishing the exchequer was considered no
more inestimable that in another walk of life is a little sharp
practice in business. There they sat, laughing and chatting.
Pierre had drawn apart, elbows on the rail, his shoulders suggesting
that he would fain have them hide him from his fellows. He looked at
the shores spreading out, onward and onward, as the _Glory_ threshed
along and the tugs left her--a shore that Nature, and the inhabitants,
make to look much like certain parts of the real and original France.
There were the poplar rows, the little belfrys, the little French
villages. If his knowledge of English prevented him from understanding
all the obscene oaths behind him, so much the better for him and his
dream of the Picardy home.
As for the Inquisitive One--he was not, of course, only inquisitive,
but was thus introduced to help to distinguish him from others in first
telling of the "Push"--he shuffled round among the rest, hands in
pockets, jerking left shoulder forward, jerking right shoulder forward,
very young, very crass, trying to keep drunk by acting drunk. If a
policeman had stepped up to him he would have been sober on the
instant. He was always scared of policemen, unlike men like Jack, who
were merely alert to them. There were a great many others, many of
whom need not be mentioned in detail, because as the voyage went on
they were not considered so by Mike, and he was a man worth heeding in
his own walk of life. They were just "them" or "youse"; if referred to
in the singular they were "him" or "you," with an indicative jerk of a
thumb, or pointing of a finger. They did not even rise to
nicknames--shrimpy-looking lads who could pick pockets and knew the
soup kitchens of all the Atlantic ports.
The sounds of discord ebbed; and now more plaintive than irritable was
the lowing of the cattle on the main and lower decks. On the upper
deck sheep gave voice here and yonder, though the majority were quiet.
It was as if every now and again they thought it over and gave a little
bleat of "Why?" Scholar, stealing away from the diminishing group on
the poop, easily, not to attract attention, went forward along the
upper deck and looked at the faces of these woolly creatures with
something like affection, as a man disgusted in the society in which he
finds himself will welcome his dog, or a lonely woman the upturned face
of a cat.
The day wore on, the lowings increasing, the cursings decreasing. The
warm sun helped to stupefy farther the drink-stupefied. They had now
the appearance, most of them, that comes to those who have missed sleep
through some long and harassing vigil. Taunting smells of food wafted
aft from the galley ventilator; but there was none for the cattlemen.
They were left alone on the railed-off poop and in the cabin under it,
as in a cage and a wild beast pit. The Man with the Hat, lying on his
chest, a straw in his mouth, near the smoke-stack, rolled over and
pulled his belt up two holes and looked round casually, wondering when
something was going to happen; and then there appeared, in the narrow
path to starboard between the sheepcots, John Candlass, with his air of
reserve; and behind him, lurching, Rafferty, axe in hand.
There was a difference between these two cattle bosses; Candlass had
come into the business--no one knows why but Candlass--and Rafferty had
mounted in it, and, mounting, he had not discarded the ancient custom
known as "tanking up" on the day that the ship clears the wharf.
Nominally they were colleagues, but his clear eye and brain made
Candlass actually the boss aboard and Rafferty, red-eyed and
swollen-faced, was as lieutenant. Smithers, of the Saint Lawrence
Shipping and Transport Co., Ltd., wished they might meet more mysteries
like Candlass, but such mysteries were scarce, or did not come their
way.
[Illustration: Asked of the evil smelling darkness below many insulting
questions.]
Candlass, coming to the poop, poked his head down the companion-way and
said sharply: "All cattlemen on deck!" Then he stood back. He seemed
to pay hardly any heed to whether they came promptly or leisurely. To
Rafferty's mind they did not come quickly enough, so he leapt to the
companion-way and asked of the evil-smelling darkness below many
insulting questions. His vocabulary put to the blush the vocabularies
of all the others. Candlass glanced sideways at him, and, stepping a
little more close, in a low voice, that caused Rafferty to come near to
hear what was said, engaged him in conversation. Rafferty, drunk or
sober, was rather proud of his job; he had climbed to the top, as may
the reporter to be editor, the bank clerk to be manager, the stable
mucker to be ranch foreman. But Candlass was a celebrated boss, and it
was an honour for any other boss to chat with him, or to sail with him.
Even Rafferty drunk did not forget that, and Rafferty only three sheets
in the wind, as he was at present, was none averse to letting the men
come up as they would, when all could see the terms he was on with
Candlass. Not that his ways were Candlass's ways; he esteemed
Candlass's control, but would not imitate--indeed could not. There was
always some intimidating weapon in Rafferty's hand; but Candlass's
hands generally lay negligently one within the other behind his back.
One may suspect that he felt a slight pity for Rafferty rather than
contempt, and would have been sorry to see him do a murder in his cups;
looked upon him somewhat as Scholar, coming aft now from the
sheep-cotes amidships, looked upon the large, dishevelled Mike who
emerged on to the deck, scoop-cap awry on his ruffled hair, eyes
puckered to the sunlight after the dusk of the cabin, licking dry lips,
working dry tongue, disgustedly grunting "Ach!" over his condition and
his stale feeling--referred to by callous topers as "the morning
after." Candlass produced a coin and handed it, perhaps by some
convention of courtesy, to Rafferty; Rafferty rejected it with a "Go
ahead!" and Candlass tossed.
"Heads!" cried Rafferty.
It came down tails. Candlass pointed to Mike, and Mike made four steps
of it, with a touch of swagger, to one side. Rafferty pointed to
Cockney, who staggered to the other side. Candlass said, very quietly:
"All right. You can pick your own men now!" for these were "straw
bosses"--Mike under Candlass, Cockney under Rafferty. Neither Cockney
nor Mike had a coin left, so Cockney stooped and picked up a splinter
of wood, and, laying it between his two palms, held them forth.
"Sharp--blunt!" said Mike, tapping first the fingers then the wrist of
the covering hand, which Cockney then lifted. The pointed end of the
splinter was toward the fingers, the blunt toward the wrist. Mike
looked at Scholar, but at that moment there arrived, from his patching
and his sleep amidships under the steward's care, Michael, one eye
under a blind, the other riveting an imploring gaze upon Mike.
"Come over, Michael," said Mike, in a tone of resignation.
"I'll have----" snapped Cockney, and out shot his hand and he pointed
to Scholar.
"No, you won't!" roared Mike.
"It's his pick!" shouted Rafferty
"I don't give a curse," said Mike. "I'll----"
"You'll do _wot_?" Cockney interrupted.
"Can't do it, Mike," said Candlass quietly, "it's his pick."
"I'm after doin' this," persisted Mike doggedly, "for everybody's sake.
I want Scholar meself, but I'm takin' Michael from him, for they've
sane enough of each other. He can pick somebody else for Michael, if
he's half a man, and then I'll begin afresh with Scholar. Come over
here, me lad; ye're picked."
"Oh, hall right!" said Cockney, "There's somethink in that."
Rafferty, with an evil oath, demanded Scholar, and Cockney, for a
moment, had the air of veering round again, then he grinned and was
silent. Candlass said something that nobody caught.
"Oh, all right--go ahead!" growled Rafferty. "Let Mike have him, and
you take that fellow there with the hat--and that thin fellow with the
impudent eyes." This was Jack, who could quelle-heure-est-il.
Mike then picked another; Cockney looked round, and Jack's partner, of
his own accord, stepped over beside Jack.
"What t'ell? O, hall right!" said Cockney.
Things went fairly smoothly thereafter, till it came to the last shamed
few--at least most of them seemed shamed; only a small number appeared
to look upon the lack of desire for them with unmixed levity.
Apparently the sign-on had been an even one; two men were left. It was
Mike's choice. Suddenly an odd cough drew everybody's attention; and
there, foolish behind them, was the youth in the long coat, the
spectacles, and the leggings. Mike stared at him.
"Oh, be jabbers! Come here, me lad!" he said. Some laughed; others
said: "What the hell are you laughin' at the poor feller for?" Mike
stepped forward and put a hand on Four Eyes' shoulder, and an arm out
behind the two remaining pick-pockets who stood together, and herded
them, all three, like a man driving pigs, herded them across to
Cockney's side. Cockney's receding under jaw hung down, his eyes
goggled under the bandage he had tied over his forehead, covering the
mark of the taffrail.
"I give ye a prisent of them," said Mike. "The three of 'em." Some of
his underlings grumbled. He looked slowly round at them. "Whaat?" he
asked. "Would ye not prefer to be short-handed than disgraced?"
"That's hall right!" cried Cockney. "Any ole thing fer me!"
So that was all quite satisfactory.