Maid of the Mist Part 9

He came, in time, upon a brig loading in one of these outer basins, and even to his untutored eye she was a picture,--so graceful her lines, so tapering her masts, so trim and taut the whole look of her.

"Where does she go to?" he asked of an old sailor-man, who was sitting on a cask, chewing his quid like an old cow and spitting meditatively at intervals.

"Bawst'n, 'Merica, 's where she's bound this v'y'ge, Mister, an' ef she did it in twenty days I shouldn' be a bit s'prised, not a bit, I shouldn'."

"Good-looking boat! What does she carry?"

"Miskellaneous cargo. Bit o' everything, as you might say."

"And when does she sail?"'

"Fust tide, I reck'n, ef so be's her crew a'n't been ganged. Finished loading not ha'f an hour ago she did."

"Does she take any pa.s.sengers?"

"Couldn' say. Pa.s.senger boats is mostly down yonder."

"I know, but I like the look of this one better than the big ones."

"Well, you c'n ask aboard."

"Yes? How can I get on board?"

"Why, down that there ladder," and Wulfrey, following the direction of a ponderous roll of the old fellow's head and a squirt of tobacco-juice, came upon some iron rungs let into a straight up-and-down groove in the face of the quay-wall. By going down on his hands and knees, and making careful play with his feet, he managed at last to get on to this apology for a ladder and succeeded in climbing down it, over the side of the s.h.i.+p on to its deck.

The deck, dirty as it was with the work of loading, felt springy to his unaccustomed feet. It was the first s.h.i.+p's deck he had ever trodden.

The very feel of it was exhilarating. It was like setting foot on the bridge that led to the new life.

As he looked about him,--at the neatly-coiled ropes, the rope-handled buckets, the blue water-casks lashed to the deck below one of the masts, the masts themselves, ma.s.sive below but tapering up into the sky like fis.h.i.+ng-rods, the mazy network of rigging, four little bra.s.s carronades and the s.h.i.+p's bell, all polished to the nines and s.h.i.+ning like gold,--the worries and troubles of the last few months fell from him like a ragged garment. Elinor Carew, and Croome, and Jim Barclay, and even Graylock and Billyboy, the parting with whom had been as sore a wrench as any, all seemed very far away, things of the past, shadowy in presence of these stimulating realities of the new life.

He walked aft along the deck towards a door under the raised p.o.o.p, and at the sound of his coming a man came out of the door and said, "h.e.l.lo!" and stood and stared at him out of a pair of very deep-set, sombre black eyes.

He was a tall, well-built fellow of about Wulfrey's own age, black-haired, black-bearded and moustached, and of a somewhat saturnine countenance. His face and neck were the colour of dark mahogany with much sun and weather. He wore small gold rings in his ears, and Wulfrey set him down for a foreigner,--a Spaniard, he thought, or perhaps an Italian.

"I was told you were sailing tomorrow for Boston," said Wulfrey. "I came to ask if you take pa.s.sengers."

The man's black brows lifted a trifle and he took stock of Wulfrey while he considered the question. Then he said, "Ay? well, we do and we don't," and Wulfrey rearranged his ideas as to his nationality and decided that he was either Scotch or North of Ireland, though he did not look either one or the Other.

"That perhaps means that you might."

"Et's for the auld man to say----"

"The Captain?"

"Ay, Cap'n Bain."

"Where could I see him?"

"He's up in the toon."

"If you'll tell me where to find him I'll go after him."

The other seemed to turn this over in his mind, and then said, "Ye'd best see him here. He'll mebbe no be long."

"Then I'll wait. What time do you expect to clear out?"

"We'll know when the old man comes."

"Perhaps you would let me see the rooms, while I'm waiting."

The dark man turned slowly and went down three steps into the small main cabin. His leisurely manner suggested no more than a willingness not to be disobliging.

It was a fair-sized room, with a grated skylight overhead, portholes at the sides, seats and lockers below them, and a table with wooden forms to sit on. At the far end were two more doors.

"Cap'n's bunk and mine," said his guide, with a roll of the head towards the left-hand door, and opened the other for Wulfrey to look in at the narrow pa.s.sage off which opened two small sleeping-rooms.

"You are then----?" asked Wulfrey.

"Mate."

"You're Scotch, aren't you? I took you at first sight for a foreigner."

"I'm frae the Islands.... Some folks hold there's mixed blood in some of us since the times when the Spaniards were wrecked there. Mebbe! I d'n know."

"And Captain Bain? He's Scotch too, I judge, by his name."

"Ay, he's Scotch--Glesca."

"If he'll take me as pa.s.senger I'll be glad. This would suit me uncommonly well."

"Ay, well. He'll say when he comes," and whenever his black eyes rested on Wulfrey they seemed to be questioning what it could be that made him wish to travel on a trading-brig rather than on a pa.s.senger-liner.

However, he asked no questions but pulled out a black clay pipe, and Wulfrey pulled out his own and antic.i.p.ated the other's search for tobacco by handing him his pouch. They had sat silently smoking for but a few minutes when a heavy foot was heard on the deck outside, and there came a gruff call for "Macro!"

"Ay, ay, sir!" and the doorway darkened with the short burly figure of a man whose words preceded him, "Tom Crimp'll have 'em all here by ten o'clock an' we'll---- Wha the deevil's this?"

"Wants to go pa.s.senger to Boston," explained the mate, and left Wulfrey to his own negotiations.

"If you're open to take a pa.s.senger, Captain Bain, I've fallen in love with the looks of your s.h.i.+p."

"What for d'ye no want to go in a pa.s.senger-s.h.i.+p? We're no a pa.s.senger-s.h.i.+p," and the Captain eyed him suspiciously.

"Just that I dislike travelling with a crowd, I've been looking round for some days and your s.h.i.+p pleases me better than any I've seen."

"Where are you from, and what's your name and rating!"

"I'm from Ches.h.i.+re. Name, Wulfrey Dale. Rating, Doctor."