Lazy days, truly! When the crew, bare-footed and clad only in shirt and trousers, steered or worked in the sun. When the Skipper, similarly attired, smoked and paced the quarter, hour after hour, or lounged on the cabin house reading old papers and magazines—breaking off only to take morning and afternoon sights for longitude, with Thompson or Donald jotting down the chronometer time, and the noon observation for latitude. On clear nights, he invariably amused himself taking star sights and working them up. Navigation was a hobby with Nickerson, and during the run down the Trades, he initiated Donald into its mysteries until he was able to work out the ship’s position accurately. Many a night the skipper would stop in his deck pacing and say to McKenzie, “Skip below, son, an’ bring up my sextant. We’ll take a star.” And when the workings of the celestial triangulation were explained, he would hand the sextant over to Donald and ask him to take a sight and work it out alone. These diversions, with a trick at the wheel, a spell on look-out, and some scraping, painting and “sailorizing” during the day, helped to make the watches pass pleasantly.
There was no loafing on the Helen Starbuck. Loafing breeds discontent, and Nickerson found enough work to keep the hands busy apart from steering and sail-trimming. The vessel was painted from stem to stern, inside and out, and when nothing more in the painting line appeared to be done, the Skipper had all the bitts, sky-lights, companions, fife-rails and ladders—previously painted—scraped, sand-and-canvased, and varnished. Every scrap of brass-work on the schooner was polished bright; anchors and cable chipped and painted, and then a complete overhaul of the rigging was started.
Though Donald had picked up a good deal of sailorizing aboard the Kelvinhaugh, yet it was on the Helen Starbuck where he really completed his knowledge of knotting and splicing, worming, parcelling and serving. On the barque, iron turn-screws took the place of the lanyards and dead-eyes which the schooner used to set up her rigging; iron rods were seized to the shrouds in place of rope rattlins, and wire rope and iron blocks were used wherever possible. On the Helen Starbuck, with the exception of the stays and shrouds, it was honest hemp and manilla—grand stuff for a sailor’s hands, and under the tutelage of the Norwegian seamen, Donald learnt all the fine points of “marline-spike seamanship,” in setting up rigging, stropping blocks, hitching and seizing rattlins, turning in dead-eyes, making chafing-mats and sennet, and the hundred and one accomplishments of fingers, fid, marline-spike, and serving mallet. Sailorizing was fine work for a “Trade” day when one could sit in the sun “passing the ball” in a serving job, or sit, perched aloft, seizing new rattlins, or overhauling some of the gear in the cross-trees. Engaged in such pleasant tasks, Donald would feel a returning wave of the romantic sea-fever which had caused him to choose a sailor’s life. Under the better auspices of his present existence, he began to love his chosen profession, but it was only on this small schooner that he really understood and appreciated the lure of the sea and sail. Sea-faring on the Kelvinhaugh had been a nightmare.
Young McKenzie’s eight months from home had worked a wonderful change in him, both mentally and physically. The hard grind on the Kelvinhaugh had toughened his muscles and steadied his nerves, while the discipline had mentally improved him by making him a “do-er” rather than a “dreamer.” With the contented mind, better food and better quarters on the schooner, he had put on flesh and filled out. There was a healthy tan in his cheeks, and his dark brown eyes sparkled with vitality and keen intelligence. The Skipper noticed the change and remarked: “By Godfrey, son, you’re starting to beef up! Your mammy’ll never know you now for the skinny, pasty-faced kid that left her apron strings in auld ‘Glesca’ a while ago. Well, boy, ye’re getting stout and strong—see’n don’t lose it by drinkin’ an’ muckin’ about in shore dives, for many a good sailor has bin dumped to the fish rotten with drink and the diseases of vice.” He paused and gave Donald a keen glance. “Are you religious, son?”
The boy returned his gaze. “I’m not a crank on it, sir, but I read my Bible on Sundays and say my prayers at night,” he replied.
The Captain nodded. “Good,” he said. “Carry on with that an’ you won’t go wrong. It’s when a lad gets adrift from his mother’s teachings and kinder loose about religion that he trips up. Of course, there are times when a man can’t be too much of a devil-dodger or a Holy Joe—such as when you have to drive a deep-laden ship with a poor, spineless bunch o’ hands an’ feet. They won’t do anything by preachin’ to ’em or askin’ ’em politely. No, siree! You have to bang ’em some an’ haze ’em and curse ’em to get the work done. That’s what I had to do on the Kelvinhaugh, but don’t imagine that I’m a heathen or anything like that. I was well brought up, and read my Bible and went to church and all that, and I still believe in God and the Ten Commandments, though I don’t put much stock on the rest of the frills. Religion for a sailor should be simple and free from the gadgets of ritual and all that sort of truck. And this hell-fire bunk! Who believes that? Aye, as sailors say—‘To work hard, live hard, die hard an’ go to hell after all would be hard indeed!’”
Nickerson often talked in this strain—especially in the quiet night watches, and as this calmer side of the young Nova Scotian’s character revealed itself, Donald began to regard the man with affection mixed with admiration for his capable two-fisted manhood and iron nerve. Judson Nickerson was the type of Nova Scotian who built ships and sailed them: whose seamanship was renowned among sailormen the world over, and whose ships were to be found all over the seven seas in the palmy days of wooden hulls—the days of “wooden ships and iron men.”
He regaled Donald with tales of the Grand Bank fishermen: their seamanship: their wonderful schooners, and the freedom and camaraderie of their life. “And these fellows make money, too,” he explained. “Skipper of a Bank schooner can make a sight more money in a year than most of your brass-bound liner masters. And they live well—best o’ grub and the best o’ cooks. None of yer hard biscuit, bull-meat an’ salt junk aboard those hookers. All of them have comfortable homes ashore with a bit of land which they farm a little ... snug an’ comfortable. I know the game on the Banks, son, for I first went seafaring on a fisherman and put in three years at the life off and on, and believe me, when we reach home this time I’m agoin’ back to it. No more of this knockin’ about the world for me, shovin’ lime-juice windjammers south an’ north-about. I’ve had my spell at it, and now I’m goin’ home to God’s country. And, son, ef you’re wise, you’ll keep under my lee and get in on my game!”
Fishing for cod on the Grand Banks of the North Atlantic did not appeal much to Donald. To him, it seemed a poor life, and he had the notion that fishermen were wretched creatures who lived in a state of semi-poverty and who toiled, year in and year out, barely making a living. Fishing seemed a messy business—an uncouth trade among uncouth men. With his ideals and education, how was he going to fit into that life? Captain Nickerson’s anecdotes of the Nova Scotia fishermen failed to awaken in him a fair idea of their type, their work, and their industry. He listened to the yarns, however, and endeavoured to appreciate them in proper perspective, but when one is absolutely ignorant of fishing and unacquainted with colonial life, a lack of understanding can be forgiven. Donald often wondered why Nickerson—splendid seaman and skilled navigator and holding a Liverpool certificate of competency as master foreign—should be anxious to return to the existence and labor of a deep-sea fisherman. A man of Nickerson’s ability would, in time, rise to command a liner. He was well educated, though in his conversation he slipped into vernacular and ungrammatical phrases, and he had studied and delved deep into the profound sciences of nautical astronomy, oceanography and the errors and attractions of the compass. The man had read a great deal of thoughtful literature, and surprised Donald on numerous occasions with his intimate acquaintance of such subjects as political economics, histories of ancient civilizations, shipbuilding, sea trade and sea power in vogue in many countries. Truly, he was a strange character, and Judson Nickerson, mate of the Kelvinhaugh and Captain Nickerson of the Helen Starbuck seemed to be a typical Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of the sea.
He talked a great deal with young McKenzie—possibly because the youngster was better read and more thoughtful than the others of the Starbuck’s company, and one night, when Donald was on the look-out, he sat on the cable-box and told how he had met the boy’s father.