Chapter Vii.

On the first day of February in the New Year the “Druimuachdar” crossed the 160th parallel in latitude 44 south. One hundred and twenty-two days of almost continuous fair winds and easy sailing on the “great circle” had passed since a fussy paddle tug had snaked her out of Denny's Tidal Basin, and now another six or seven should raise the snowy peaks of the Southern Alps.

Six days! Catherine Lenzie, reclining at ease in a canvas chair set against the lee rail of the poop, was conscious of a feeling of supreme happiness as she glanced idly at the pay of sunshine and shadow across the deck. To her the ship with its lofty spars and violet shadowed canvas, the song of the breeze in the rigging and the gentle hiss of water alongside, appeared as a vivid segment of the great wheel of life epitomised in the heap of sewing in her lap. Tiny garments lovingly tucked and hemmed, all ready for the arrival of a new heir to the Lenzie fortunes three weeks hence in New Zealand.

Her thoughts went back as she fingered the soft linen, to those last few days at Glenmayne, the days of heartache and the weary weeks of waiting that followed in the cottage overlooking the Firth near Gourock. The “Druimuachdar,” a comfortable but slow old sailing ship, was leisurely and irregular in her comings and goings, so much so that instead of the predicted six weeks it was two months before she came beating up the Firth.

That had been a morning of the wildest excitement; a waterman's dory leaping over the short steep estuary seas. Jewelled drops of spray stinging the face, and the perilous climb up a swinging rope ladder to meet Charley Barcle, red faced, booming commands, with a bear-like hug for his sister. But the excitement had died away when it was learned that, after discharging her cargo the ship was to go over to Port Glasgow to refit, another two months probably before she would be loaded and ready for sea again.

Charley Barcle was home, however, and came whenever he could to the cottage at Gourock, and in the evenings they would sit at the window watching the traffic of the river. The tall deep-sea tramps outward bound; the collier brigs and the flapping, panting tugs, and they would make him tell over and over again all he knew of the wonderful new lands in which, in spirit, they were already settled.

Then at last the journey up to Glasgow, the train whistling shrilly as it clattered through a wilderness of slate roofs and chimney pots. The grumbling grimy station; the ferocious cabmen. They had lunched in the coffee room of the “Outward Bound,” and Catherine had eaten little, unable to take her eyes off the vessel that, fretted by the rising tide, tugged at her moorings in the basin below. The vessel that was to take them to the other side of the world.

That afternoon with a light autumn mist softening the drab outlines of the waterfront, they cast off. Warehouses, masts, cranes, and tall chimneys went slipping by and presently Captain Barcle called Ardoch and Catherine to his side as he leaned over the port rail.

“Do you see that tall building with the clock tower?” he said, “beyond it lies Pollockshaws and Cathcart and the road to Kirkconnel. If you were to draw a line, south by east from where we stand over the top of that tower you would strike Glenmayne Priory.”

Ardoch and Catherine, their hands lightly clasped, remained staring while the clock tower went slipping astern through the gathering mist.

page 46

page 47

The “Druimuachdar” lay at anchor that night off Dumbarton Castle. After supper in the cosy main cabin, Mrs. McBride, the old woman who had been Catherine's nurse and who, ever since her marriage, had acted as housekeeper and general factotum at Glenmayne, retired to the Lenzie's cabin to unpack and make ready for the night. More than once in the past four months, though she had stoutly refused to be left behind, she had protested against this voyaging half across the world to live among heathen cannibals. It was flying in the face of a stern Calvinistic Providence, and there was no doubt at all in her mind that such rashness would be visited with the direst consequences. She was not altogether surprised, therefore, when, having lit the lamp, there came from out the dark, unfamiliar world of creaking cordage and tramping feet that was the main deck, a sinister face which suddenly leered at her through the closed scuttle. She was not surprised, but she shrieked loud enough to bring Ardoch and Captain Barcle running to her aid.

“We'll have to get Catherine to sew some curtains,” laughed Captain Barcle. “In the meantime I'll close the shutters outside. Stepping from the main cabin he collided with Mr. Holloway, who appeared suddenly from the shadows beneath the starboard poop ladder.

If there could have been said to be any shadow to mar the pleasant, voyage of the “Druimuachdar,” it was, at any rate from Catherine's point of view, Mr. Holloway. Captain Barcle found him an efficient officer, and a good seaman, but his manner, whether on deck or at the cabin table, was always one of furtive taciturnity, which in the close confines of their little floating world, became irksome in the extreme, and at times filled Catherine with a vague unreasoning fear. He seemed to her an incalcuable force which, like the sea, itself, was only held in leash by the domination of Captain Barcle's superior intelligence. When the wind freshened and grey bearded combers went roaring past the cabin scuttles and the “Druimuachdar,” groaning and creaking in all her bones, went plunging down watery hillsides and laboured up the crests beyond, was the time unthinkable thoughts came. What if Charley were hurt up there in the shouting wind and rattling spray? What if one of those great seas came bursting over the poop instead of sliding harmlessly away beneath it? Catherine's storm-tossed fancy saw Mr. Holloway take command, not over the ship alone, but over their very lives and fortunes as well; free to give rein to the dark thoughts that seemed forever to be brooding under his heavy brows.

But the next day would dawn light and clear. Charley would come stamping down to breakfast, red faced and cheerful; and Mr. Holloway, the spirit of calamity, would be, with the tearing black clouds and great grey seas, defeated once more!

Captain Barcle's head and shoulders appeared out of the hood of the companion-way. He lifted a hand in greeting to Catherine, and took a turn over to the weather rail. He spoke a word with the second mate standing there, cast an eye aloft, and then, passing close to the binnacle, which he studied for a minute, came down to where Catherine was seated.

“My word,” he said, watching her fingers ply the swift needle, “he is going to be a little swell, isn't he?”

Catherine looked up smiling, with a faint blush in her cheeks. “How long will you be in Wellington, Charley?” she asked.

“A month maybe, perhaps more, can't tell, y'see, until I've, been to the agents. We may have to go south for a cargo.”

“Tell me all about what it's like,” said Catherine.

“God bless me soul ma'am! I've told you a hundred times already.” Then he patted her shoulder reassuringly. “Don't you worry—there'll be sunshine all the time, and green hills and blue water, and we'll dress the ship with all the bunting we've got— and Ardoch—well,” he broke off, “here he comes now—he'll tell you the rest.”

As Ardoch, who had been forward “to look round the farm” as he laughingly called the main deck (for the “Druimuachdar” was carrying two or three sheep, an Ayrshire bull, and several coops of fowls) came up the poop ladder, the foot of the mainsail came against the mast with a sharp clap. Captain Barcle glanced up and then, excusing himself, crossed once more to the port rail. For some days past now the weather had been uncertain, the wind chopping and changing first from one quarter and then another, and there was an uneasy “jobble” in the sea. From daylight this morning, though the glass was lower, there had been a fairly steady breeze from the north-west, which, however, now showed signs of dying away.

Mid-day dinner was served, and Catherine, finding her cabin somewhat airless felt disinclined to take her usual afternoon rest, and returned on deck.

The ship lay becalmed, but rolling heavily on a glassy swell that set the whole fabric of her creaking and slatting and banging with a hundred voices of unrest.

Mr. Holloway, pacing the poop from rail to rail gave her a surly greeting, and as Catherine looked about for her chair, announced that he had told the steward to take it below. He was about to make some further observation when he paused, and cocking his head on one side, scanned the narrowed horizon intently. Then he sprang forward to the break of the poop bellowing orders.

A shadow like the swift drawing of a curtain fled across the sun, and a queer droning rose above the rattle and boom of empty sails. Captain Barcle appeared. “Better get below Catherine,” he said shortly, “and tell Ardoch to stay down too.”

The first blast of the cyclonic storm laid the “Druimuachdar” on her beamends and threw Catherine from the bottom step of the companion-way. The ship quickly recovered, but Ardoch, springing forward, missed his footing on the careening cabin floor, and Catherine sustained a heavy fall.

The ship was brought up into the wind while all hands strove desperately to stow such canvas as had not already been blown to ribbons and for several hours thereafter, with only a rag of staysail set, she rode the mountainous seas easily enough.

But almost as suddenly as it had started the wind dropped, and the sea, released from its steadying pressure, rose to fantastic heights. Hills of turbulent black water leaped seemingly of their own volition to fall aboard from all points. The waist of the ship, unable to free itself through the spouting wash ports, was a boiling maelstrom in which the hen coops, with their drowned occupants, struggling animals, and the splintered wreckage of the long boat washed dismally back and forth. Suddenly there came a warning shout as a mountain of water rose up astern. Higher and higher it rose until it was almost on a level with the crossjack yard, and then hung poised a moment illumined by a lightning flash before it crashed down upon the quarter deck and obliterated all sight and sound in a welter of foam.

As the ship slowly recovered it was seen that the mizzen topmast had carried away and trailed with a raffle of gear over the smashed rail to port at the spot where, a minute before, Captian Barcle had been holding on by the mizzen shrouds.

page 48