“Twa berths doon!” came the answer. The hoofs and wheels clattered again and ceased a minute later. The Jehu came down from his “dickey.” “Yer shup’s lyin’ here, mister,” he said. “Ah’ll kerry yer box an’ gear tae th’ gang-way.”
Donald followed him through a cargo shed, dark and dismal in its emptiness. Some sparrows were quarrelling up in the rafters and two pigeons picked vagrant ears of corn from the bare stone floors. Over at an open quayside door, a knot of people were standing, and through the opening one got a glance of the gleaming wet mast of a ship and vertical parallels of new manilla cordage. To this door the cabman shouldered Donald’s sea-chest and bed gear and tumbled it down at the shore end of a narrow gang-way. “Ah’ll hae tae leave ye here, mister,” he said huskily. “Ah canny trust ma hoarse tae staund verra long.... Aye! that’ll be two shullin’ for you, sir! Thankye, mister, and a pleasant voyage tae ye!”
The people around the gang-way turned and stared at the boy. There were several shawled women among them, evidently seeing their men off, and some of the men appeared to be very drunk. As Donald pushed through them to get to the gang-way, a man laughed and said, “Make way fur th’ binnacle-boy!” Some of the women laughed also in a manner which testified to the brand of “tea” they had been imbibing that morning.
The gang-way was laid on the ship’s rail and opposite the half-deck, in the door of which a young fellow was standing looking at the dock. Donald addressed him. “Will you give me a hand to get my chest and bedding aboard?” The other growled an “Alright!” and came ashore. He was a youth of about twenty—a big fellow with pleasant features—but he had a glum look in his eyes, and there was a downward droop to his mouth. He followed Donald and roughly elbowed a passage through the group at the gang-way end. One of the shawled women blocked his way with a challenging look on her coarse face, but the youth shouldered her aside ruthlessly, saying, “Out of my way, you——!” Donald was shocked at such treatment of a woman, but he was shocked still more by the oath-besprinkled retort which came from the aggrieved one’s lips.
Both lugged the chest up the gang-way, while the lady of the shawl spoke her mind. “Ye lousy pair o’ brass-bound poop ornaments!” she shrieked. “Ah’d like tae gie ye a scud on yer bloody jaws, ye blankety blank——” One of the drunks beside her whipped his wet cap off his cropped skull and gave the virago a resounding slap across the mouth with it. “Haud yer tongue, ye gabby——!” he growled, but he got no further. With a wild shriek, she turned on him. Off went the shawl, and a fiend of a woman, with tousled hair flying and practically naked above the waist, dug her nails into cropped-head’s ugly face and scraped him from hair to chin. The two of them set-to in earnest—swearing, clawing, punching and kicking like a pair of wild-cats—and the others looked on without attempting to interfere.
Heavy footsteps came padding up the shed. “Chuck it! Here’s the polis!” cried someone, and a stalwart Highland policeman grasped the combatants and swung them apart. “Lemme get at him!” howled the woman—a shocking sight in her deshabille, but the policeman had her by the arm and held her off in a mighty grip. “Is that your shup?” he asked the man. “Aye, Ah’m sailin’ in her!” growled the fellow, wiping the mud and blood off his ugly face. The officer of the law released the woman and marched the man up the gang-plank. At the rail of the ship he roared, “Hey! tak’ this fella aboard an’ lock him up!” And he swung him down on the barque’s main-deck with no gentle hand. Someone took the man and stowed him away.
Donald had seen his chest stowed inside the half-deck and had watched the rumpus on the dock. “Isn’t that awful?” he said, utterly shocked. The glum-looking youth grunted. “That’s nothing! You’ll see worse’n that some day!” Then the glum look faded somewhat and he regarded Donald curiously. “You’re a new chap?” he enquired. “First voyage, eh?”
Donald nodded. “What’s your name?” enquired the other.
“Donald McKenzie.”
“Mine’s Jack Thompson.” Both boys shook hands. Donald felt that he would like Thompson. They sat down at a small mess-table and talked. Thompson had been at sea three and a half years. He had six months of his time to serve and hoped to go up for his second mate’s ticket by the time the Kelvinhaugh made a home port—“if she ever makes a home port,” he added gloomily.