There are, to my way of thinking, few events more sad than the breaking up of a ship’s company, on her return after a long voyage.
At sea we have been a little community—nay, more, a family almost. We have learned each other’s ways. We have learned to love our messmates, or at all events to regard them with friendship. We know their peculiarities, their habits, even their weak points and faults. We have been, indeed, more than a community; we have been a little world afloat, knowing as little for the time being of any other people as the inhabitants of one planet do about those of another.
But now with the paying-off of the ship’s crew all is over; from the moment the ship sails into the harbour all is changed, and every tie is ruthlessly snapped asunder.
Everything is now bustle, stir, and excitement. The very ship herself begins to look unkempt and untidy. She seems to become reckless and regardless of her personal appearance—ropes anyhow, rigging awry, dirty foot-prints on a deck that erst was snowy-white, tarnished brass and soiled mahogany. Strangers, too, crowd on board—landsmen with long hats and umbrellas; lands-women who care less for a ship than they do for a barn. You feel the vessel is no longer your home, and you long to get away out of her.
The crew is broken up; and on shore, if you meet some of the seamen you sailed with, you will hardly know them, for Jack himself seems to have degenerated, and your smartest and tidiest sailor on board may, on shore, look a veritable rake or lubber.
No; my ship never looks well in dock. Let me have her leagues and leagues away out on the silent sea; be the water rough or smooth—be it blue, green, grey, or foam-flecked, I can love her then and be quietly, serenely happy.
So the men of the Alba and the survivors of the unfortunate Icebear were scattered far and near, the yacht being left in charge of McDonald and two hands.
Meta and Claude parted for a time—Meta going home to her father’s beautiful villa at R—, on the banks of the romantic Clyde. Byarnie went with his mistress. Dr Barrett became the guest of the Lady of the Towers and of Claude. The boy Bounce was here also. He took up his abode in the kitchen, and settled down to serious eating, by way, perhaps, of making up for what he had lost in the Arctic regions. And Paddy O’Connell went home to “ould Oirland” to visit his mother and his sister Biddy—“and the pig, the crayture.”