While he was aloft on the main-royal yard tieing the rovings which lash the head of the sail to the jack-stay, he saw Ruth and Walter Moodey on the wharf below talking to the skipper. His heart gave a queer little jump at the sight, and something of a depressed feeling seized him when he saw Moodey helping her up the gang-plank, but he went on with his work. He was on wages and had no right to knock-off for social receptions unless his commander gave him permission. From his perch, a hundred and forty feet aloft, he saw Judson pilot the two about the brig’s decks, and from the corner of his eye he could see Ruth looking up at him, but he made no sign that he had seen her. Finally, they went into the cabin.
From bending the sail, he commenced to overhaul the furling gear and was reeving the bunt-lines through the leads when Judson’s voice came rolling up from below, “R’yal yard there! Lay down from aloft!” He was standing on the poop with his sister and Moodey, and they were chatting and joking. McKenzie took the short cut to the deck by sliding down the royal backstay and when he stepped on the poop, he whipped off his cap and bowed to Ruth and extended a tarry hand to Walter with a “Hullo, Moodey, how are you?”
The other shook hands cordially and there was no resentment in his expression at the dropping of the “Mister.” If it had been anybody else whose station in life was similar to McKenzie’s, Moodey would have had something to say on the omission. Ruth took Donald by the arm and walked him over to the rail. “You wouldn’t look at me when I came down,” she pouted prettily. “I’ve been getting a crick in my neck looking up at you and trying to catch your eye, but you went on playing with your strings and cords and refused to look at me.”
Donald laughed. “Well, you know, Ruth, I’m on the ship’s books now and I can’t do as I like. I thought you might not care to have a dirty-looking sailor hailing you from the mast. I humbly apologize for my neglect.”
“My friends are all gentlemen no matter what their garb or their work,” answered the girl, “and you are a friend of mine.” Mentally, the youth wished he could be more than a friend, and with that wish in his heart he could not frame a suitable answer. Instead he asked, “What do you think of our little ship?”
They chatted for a while until Moodey, who was talking with the skipper, cried out, “Will we go along now, Ruth?” There was a proprietory tone in his voice which Donald was quick to note, and it pleased him when Miss Nickerson replied, “I’ll be with you in a minute!” And to McKenzie she said, “Will you come over to-night? Bring your mother with you. You know, I’m going to Halifax on Monday to study music and painting, and I’ll be staying with the Stuarts until the spring. You’ll come—won’t you?”
Donald promised readily and when she went off with her escort he watched her slim figure walking gracefully up the wharf with a feeling of mixed admiration and regret in his breast. Moodey’s presence disturbed him and the thought of her being in Halifax all winter—which meant being in the too-near proximity of Walter—did not make him feel happy. It was very easy for a girl to forget the absent one. He turned to make his way aloft again, when the skipper remarked, “Y’know, Don, I can’t cotton to that blighter somehow. He’s chock-full of bazoo about himself, and he’s forever hitching at his tie or scrapin’ his nails or patting his hair. He’s got a notion that he’s hell’n-all ’raound here and that he’s patronizing us Nickersons by paying attentions to my sister. I said so to her last night, but she gave me an earfull and told me to mind my own business so I have to be nice, for Ruth’s sake, to that pink-faced, powdered, manicured, scented pup!”
“You’re too hard on him,” grinned McKenzie. “That’s only his manner. I’ll bet he’s alright at heart, or Ruth wouldn’t tolerate him. I was a bit of a namby-pamby kid myself one time, until I went to sea and got it all knocked out of me—and you did some of the knocking out yourself, Judson.”
The other growled, “Oh, shucks, Don, you were different. I hustled you araound to make a sailor out of you, but you had the stuff in you even though you were a mammy’s boy. But that feller? I’ll bet he’s got a yeller streak in him a yard wide. I can tell! I’m a judge of men, and some day you’ll see.... Naow, Don, we’ll go through the bos’n’s locker and see what we need for the voyage.”