The name was recorded and I touched the pen to make binding the contract I had signed by proxy.
“All right! Fi’ bob fer the run. Next!”
Our boss was entitled to eight men, four of whom he had already chosen. The last of these had barely given his name, when the “agency stiffs” swept aside the policeman who had held them back, and surged screaming into the office. We left them to fight for the coveted places and, stepping out into the night, groped our way on board the Sardinian. Even while we wandered among the empty cattle pens, built on her four decks, we clung jealously to our bundles, for the skill of the Montreal wharf-rat in “lifting bags” is proverbial among seafaring men.
Towards midnight several loads of baled straw were sent on board, and those of us who had not succeeded in hiding “turned to” to bed down the pens. Like many another transatlantic liner, the Sardinian, homeward bound, carried cattle in the spaces allotted to third-class passengers on the outward journey. It was not, however, for this reason, as one of my new acquaintances was convinced, that this section of the ship was known as the steerage.
The bedding completed, we threw ourselves down in the stalls and fell asleep. Long before the day broke, the entire ship’s company, from the first mate to the sleepiest “stiff,” was rudely awakened by a stampede of excited cattle and the blatant curses of their drivers. The stock-yard tenders had tied up alongside. In three hours our cargo was complete; the panting animals were securely tied in their stanchions; the winch had yanked up on deck the three or four bulls that, having been killed in the rush, were to be dumped in the outer bay; and we were off down the St. Lawrence. The crew fell to coiling up the shore-lines and joined the cattle men in a rousing chorus:—
“We’re homeward bound, boys, for Glasgow town,
Good-by, fare thee well! good-by, fare thee well!
We’ll soon tread the Broomielaw now, my belle,
Good-by, fare thee well; good-by.”
Our passage varied little from the ordinary trip of a cattle boat. A few quarrels and an occasional free-for-all mélée were to be expected, for the “stiffs’ fo’c’stle” housed a heterogeneous company. Some of our mates were skilled workmen of industry and good habits, bound on a visit to their old homes. Contrasted with them were several incorrigible wharf-rats, bred on the docks of the United Kingdom, who had somehow contrived to cross the Atlantic to what had been pictured to them as a land “where a bloke c’n live like a gent at ’ome widout wavin’ ’is bleedin’ flipper.” The western hemisphere had proved no such ideal loafing-place. Bound back now to their accustomed haunts, the disillusioned rowdies spent their energies in heaping curses on America and those who had painted it in such glowing colors. They were not pleasant messmates.