UP ANCHOR
Yo-o heave ho! an’ a y-o heave ho!
And lift her down the bay—
We’re off to the Pillars of Hercules,
All on a summer’s day.
We’re off wi’ bales of our Southdown wool
Our fortune all to win,
And we’ll bring ye gold and gowns o’ silk,
Veils o’ sendal as white as milk,
And sugar and spice galore, lasses—
When our ship comes in!
VII
THE VENTURE OF NICHOLAS GAY
HOW NICHOLAS GAY, THE MERCHANT’S SON, KEPT FAITH WITH A STRANGER AND SERVED THE KING
Nicholas Gay stood on the wharf by his father’s warehouse, and the fresh morning breeze that blew up from the Pool of the Thames was ruffling his bright hair. He could hear the seamen chanting at the windlass, and the shouts of the boatmen threading their skiffs and scows in and out among the crowded shipping. There were high-pooped Flemish freighters, built to hold all the cargo possible for a brief voyage; English coasting ships, lighter and quicker in the chop of the Channel waves; larger and more dignified London merchantmen, that had the best oak of the Weald in their bones and the pick of the Southdown wool to fill them full; Mediterranean galleys that shipped five times the crew and five times the cargo of a London ship; weather-beaten traders that had come over the North Sea with cargoes of salt fish; and many others.
The scene was never twice the same, and the boy never tired of it. Coming into port with a cargo of spices and wine was a long Mediterranean galley with oars as well as sails, each oar pulled by a slave who kept time with his neighbor like a machine. The English made their bid for fortune with the sailing-ship, and even in the twelfth century, when their keels were rarely seen in any Eastern port, there was little of the rule of wind and sea short of Gibraltar that their captains did not know.
Up Mart Lane, the steep little street from the wharves, Nicholas heard some one singing a familiar chantey, but not as the sailors sang it. He was a slender youth with a laugh in his eye, and he was singing to a guitar-like lute. He was piecing out the chantey and fitting words to it, and succeeding rather well. Nicholas stood by his father’s warehouse, hands behind him and eyes on the ship just edging out to catch the tide, and listened to the song, his heart full of dreams.
“Hey, there, youngster!” said the singer kindly as he reached the end of the strophe. “Have you a share in that ship that you watch her so sharply?”
“No,” said Nicholas gravely, “she’s not one of father’s ships. She’s the Heath Hen of Weymouth, and she’s loaded with wool, surely, but she’s for Bordeaux.”