(in
his ill-fitting broadcloth shore-clothes) might have passed for a
prosperous farmer, but it needed only a glance at the keen grey eyes
peering from beneath bushy eyebrows, the determined set of a square
lower jaw, to note a man of action, accustomed to command. A quick,
alert turn of the head, the lift of shoulders as he walked--arms
swinging in seaman-like balance--and the trick of pausing at a windward
turn to glance at the weather sky, marked the sailing shipmaster--the
man to whom thought and action must be as one.

Pausing at the binnacle to note the direction of the wind, he gives an
exclamation of disgust.

"A 'dead muzzler,' Pilot. No sign o' a slant in the trend o' th' upper
clouds. Sou'west, outside, I'm afraid.... Mebbe it's just as weel;
we'll have t' bring up at th' Tail o' th' Bank, anyway, for these three
hands, damn them.... An' th' rest are useless.... Drunk t' a man, th'
Mate says. God! They'd better sober up soon, or we'll have to try
'Yankee music' t' get things shipshape!"

The Pilot laughed. "I thought the 'Yankee touch' was done with at sea
now," he said. "Merchant Shippin' Act, and that sort of thing,
Captain?"

"Goad, no! It's no bye wi' yet, an' never will be as long as work has
to be done at sea. I never was much taken with it myself, but, damn
it, ye've got to sail the ship, and ye can't do it without hands. Oh,
a little of it at the setting off does no harm--they forget all about
it before long; but at the end of a voyage, when ye're getting near
port, it's not very wise. No, not very wise--an' besides, you don't
need it!"

The Pilot grins again, thinking maybe of his own experiences, before he
'swallowed part of the anchor,' and Old Jock returns to his walk.

Overhead the masts and spars are black with the grime of a 'voyage' in
Glasgow Harbour, and 'Irish pennants' fluttering wildly on spar and
rigging tell of the scamped work of those whose names are not on our
'Articles.' Sternly superintended (now that the Mate has given up all
hope of getting work out of the men), we elder boys are held aloft,
reeving running gear through the leads in the maintop. On the deck
below the new apprentices gaze in open-mouthed admiration at our deeds:
they wonder why the Mate should think such clever fellows laggard, why
he should curse us for clumsy 'sodgers,' as a long length of rope goes
(wrongly led) through the top. In a few months more they themselves
will be criticising