The Grain Ship Part 20

"Can you attend to this--bracing of the yards?"

"Yes. I've been second mate."

"Right, Benson, go through them all and take away their guns, if they have any!" Then he raised his voice and called forward to the men, who had stopped work and were watching curiously the strange scene on the p.o.o.p. "One of you fellows get a piece of small rope cord. Bring it up here and tie these fellows' hands behind their backs."

While Benson searched the pockets of the trio--finding no weapons, however--a man had secured a ball of spun yarn from the b.o.o.by hatch and ran up the p.o.o.p steps with it. Then, under the influence of those long, blue tubes, the Captain and the two mates lay down on their faces, while the sailor securely bound their wrists behind them.

"Now, then," said Quincy, "you're in command, Rogers. We'll police this boat, and make these men obey all your orders."

"Take the wheel here!" said Rogers to the sailor. "Stand by to wear ship!" Then he mounted the cabin, and emitted a sailorly yell to the crew. "All hands down from aloft! Weather main and lee crowjack braces!"

In the dawn of the following morning some early rising fishermen of the Jersey coast saw a black ship with all canvas set resting quietly on the sands about two hundred yards from the beach, a white boat, empty of everything but oars, hauled out above high-water mark, and on boarding the ship they found and released three chilled, hungry, and angry men from the lazaret. But not a sign of her crew did they see.

SHOVELS AND BRICKS

Mr. John Murphy, boarding master, was on bad terms with himself. He had been kicked off the p.o.o.p-deck of Captain Williams's big ship, the _Albatross_, lying off Tompkinsville, waiting to dock, thence to the gangway, and from there shoved, struck in the face, and further kicked and maltreated until he had flopped into the boat at the foot of the steps. Williams was a six-footer, a graduate "bucko" now in charge of this big skysail-yarder, and he had resented Murphy's appearance on board with whisky and kind words for his men before he was through with them. Not caring to dock his ship with the help of riggers at five dollars a day, he had called Murphy aft, lectured him on the ethics and proprieties of seafaring, and then had punished him for an indiscreet reference to the rights of boarding masters who must needs solicit boarders in order to make a living. All that Murphy could do under the circ.u.mstances was to shout up from the boat his defiance of Captain Williams, and a threat to prevent his getting a new crew when ready to sail--which was clearly within his power as a member of the a.s.sociation of Boarding and Shipping Masters. But Williams, red-bearded, angry-faced, and victorious, replied with injunctions to descend to the infernal regions and remain there, and Murphy pulled ash.o.r.e and took the boat to New York, bent upon vengeance.

At the door of his boarding-house in Front Street he met Hennesey, his runner. Hennesey was a small man, sly, shrewd, and persuasive, and so far had given satisfaction in the difficult business of soliciting incoming crews to board at Murphy's house instead of the Sailors' Home, the Provident Seamen's Mission, and other like inst.i.tutions. But Murphy's mood was strong upon him, and he asked, peremptorily:

"Well, what did ye git?"

"Nothin'; the Mission launch wuz on hand and the bunch wint in a body."

"Dom yer soul, what do I pay ye fur, anyhow?" stormed Murphy. "Are ye no good? Tell me thot. Are ye no good at all? What are ye takin' my money fur?"

"To git sailors to come to yer house on commission," retorted Hennesey, hotly; "an' fur fear I'd be makin' too much, ye sind me to a b.l.o.o.d.y coaster, whose min are in the union, while you go down to the _Albatross_, in from deep water."

"I got no wan from the _Albatross_."

"No fault o' yours or mine. I'd ha' got 'em."

"None o' yer shlack."

"To hill wi' ye."

"Ye're discharged. Come in an' I'll pay ye off."

"Right ye are. From this on I'll work fur mesilf and git your business, ye skin."

Hennesey's estimate of Murphy was not far wrong, though it might also apply to himself. The profits of a sailors' boarding-house depend not upon the cash paid in by men with money, who choose their own ship and come and go as they please, but upon the advance or allotment of pay which the law allows to deep-water seamen in order that they may purchase an outfit of clothing before sailing. To get this allotment, Murphy and others of his kind would take in and feed any penniless sailor long enough to run up an inflated bill for board, money lent, and clothing, then find him a ship and walk him to the shipping-office, more or less drugged or drunk. Here the penniless sailor dared not, even if suspicious, contest the claim, for, should he do so, he would find himself not only out of a ship, but out of a boarding-house; so he would sign away his allotment, and go aboard with what clothing his benefactor had allowed him. As deep-water men on sh.o.r.e are invariably drunk, drugged, or penniless, the boarding-masters, to whom the skippers must apply for men, easily control the situation. And, as machinery for such control, nearly all boarding-houses have the front ground floor divided into barroom and clothing-store, while in the rear is the dining-room and upstairs the bedrooms, each with as many beds as there is room for. Thus, a man may be housed, fed, clothed, drugged, and shipped from the same address. The remedy for this has no place in this story.

A boarding-master, or crimp, without the machinery, becomes a shipping-master, a go-between between the skipper and the boarding-master, whose income is the blood-money paid by skippers for men. Murphy, strolling along South Street a few days later, saw a new sign over a doorway--Timothy Hennesey, Shipping-Master. He ascended the wooden stairs, and in a dingy room with one desk and chair found his former aid.

"Well, what the hill is this, Hennesey--tryin' to take the brid out of honest min's mouths?"

"I've me livin' to make, Murphy, an' I'm a-doin' it. I got the crew of the _Albatross_."

"An' what did ye do wid 'em?"

"Put 'em wid Stillman, over beyant. Ye might ha' had 'em had ye played fair."

Stillman was Murphy's most important rival, and the news did not cheer him. He glared darkly at Hennesey.

"An' I've got the shippin' o' Williams's new crew whin he sails,"

continued Hennesey, "an' I'll not go to you for 'em, Murphy."

"Ye'll not?" responded Murphy, luridly. "After all the wark I've given ye."

"I'll not. I told ye I'd git yer business, an' I'll do it."

Murphy's fist shot out and Hennesey went down. Arising with bleeding nose, he shook his small fist at his chuckling a.s.sailant pa.s.sing sidewise out of his door.

"I'll not forgit thot, John Murphy," he spluttered.

"I don't want ye to. Remember it while ye live; an' there's more where thot c.u.m from, too, ye scab."

At a meeting of the brotherhood that evening, Murphy posted the name of Timothy Hennesey, scab, and Captain Williams, outlaw; then, somewhat easier in his mind, took account of the immediate business situation.

It was bad; he had three cash boarders, of no use when their money was gone, as they signed in coasters, and there was but one ship in port, the _Albatross_, and none expected for a fortnight. So, leaving orders with his wife to watch the cash register in the bar, and to evict the boarders when they asked for trust, he took the train for Chicago, where lived a prosperous brother, for whom he had a sincere regard, and to whom he owed a long-promised visit. Brother Mike welcomed him, and under the softening influence of brotherly love he forgave Hennesey, but not Williams. It is so much easier to warm toward a fellow man you have punched than toward one who has punched you.

Mike took John down to his coal-docks, with which he was ama.s.sing a fortune, and explained their workings. A schooner lay at one, and his gang was unloading her. It was a cold day in November, and their warm overcoats felt none too warm; yet down in the hold of the schooner were men bare to the waist, black as negroes with coal dust, save where the perspiration cleared white channels as it ran down their backs and b.r.e.a.s.t.s--keeping themselves warm with the violence of their exertions.

There were two to each of the three hatches; and there were six others on the dock runway, wheeling the coal away; they had nearly unloaded the schooner, having cleared away the coal directly under the hatch, and were now loading their buckets at the two piles farther back, between the hatches. These buckets stood as high as their waists, and held, according to Brother Mike, five hundred pounds when full. But a man, having filled it to the brim, would seize the bale and drag it along the flooring to the hatch, unhook a descending bucket, hook on the full one, sing out an inarticulate cry, and drag the empty back to the coal to be filled in its turn--all with a never-lessening display of extravagant muscular force.

"Heavens! what wark!" said John, as they peered down the hatch. "An'

how long do they kape this up?"

"Tin hours a day, and not a minute longer," answered Mike; "that is, barrin' fifteen minutes at tin in the mornin' and three in the afternoon, whin they knock off for a bite and a drink up at me place on the corner. They go up and ate up me free lunch and soak in about a pint of whisky at one drink."

"The divil! and don't it kill thim?"

"Naw. They come back and sweat it out. They couldn't wurruk like this widout it."

"It's great work, Mike. Look at the devilopment. Did ye iver see a prize-fighter with such muscles?"

"A prize-fighter!" said Mike. "Jawn Murphy, luk at them. They're all sizes, big and little, in my two gangs; but give the littlest a month's trainin' in the science o' boxin' and he'd lick any heavyweight in the wurruld. Ye see, ye simply can't hurt 'em."

"Can't hurt 'em?"

"Ye can't hurt 'em. They're not human. They're wild beasts. They come from the hills and bogs of Limerick and Galway, and they can't speak the language, but call themselves Irishmin. Well, Jawn, they're Irish, mebbe, as the American Injun's an American; but they're not like you and me, dacent min from Dublin."

"But if they can't speak the language, how do ye git on wid 'em?"

"Once in a while, when they're cool and tranquil, I get on to a word or two, but usually I fall back on moral suasion and the sign language."