A really good shantier received larger pay than the other men in the gang, although his work was much less laborious. Their songs, which always had a lively refrain or chorus, were largely what are now called topical, and often not particularly chaste. Little incidents occurring on board ship that attracted the shantier’s attention were very apt to be woven into his song, and sometimes these were of a character to cause much annoyance to the officers, whose little idiosyncrasies were thus made public.
One of their songs, I remember, ran something like this:—
“Oh, the captain’s gone ashore,
For to see the stevedore.
Chorus: Hie bonnie laddie, and we’ll all go ashore.
“But the mate went ashore,
And got his breeches tore,
Hie bonnie laddie,” etc.
As Mr. Bowker had returned to the ship the day before, after a visit to the lighthouse, with his best broadcloth trousers in a very dilapidated condition, this personal allusion to the unfortunate incident, shouted out at the top of their hoarse voices by “Number One” gang was, to say the least, painful. We boys, however, thought the sentiment and the verse equally delightful.