Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
“If I could have found a New York captain who knew the short cuts along
this coast I could have had some decency and dignity on board my yacht.
I'm even forgetting my own sense of what is proper--out here wasting
words and time in this fashion. You're all of the same breed, you
down-easters!”
“I am quite sure you can find a New York captain--” began Mayo.
“I don't want your opinion in regard to my business, young man. When I
need suggestions from you I'll ask for them.” He flung his soggy cigar
over the rail and went down the ladder, and the fog closed immediately
behind him.
Captain Mayo paced the bridge. He was alone there. A deck-hand had
hooded the brass of the binnacle and search-light, listening while the
owner had called the master to account. Mayo knew that the full report
of that affair would be carried to the forecastle. His position aboard
the yacht had become intolerable. He wondered how much Marston would
say aft. His cheeks were hot and rancor rasped in his thoughts. In the
hearing of the girl he adored his shortcomings would be the subject for
a few moments of contemptuous discourse, even as the failings of cooks
form a topic for idle chatter at the dinner-table.
Out of the blank silence of the wrapping fog came many sounds. Noises
carried far and the voice of an unseen singer, who timed himself to
the clank of an Apple-treer pump, brought to Mayo the words of an old
shanty:
“Come all you young fellows that follow the sea,
Now pray pay attention and lis-ten to me.
O blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!
Way-ay, blow the man down.
O blow the man down in Liverpool town!
Give me some time to blow the man down.
'Twas aboard a Black-Bailer I first served my time,
And in that Black-Bailer I wasted my prime.
'Tis larboard and starboard on deck you will sprawl,
For blowers and strikers command the Black Ball.
So, it's blow the man down, bullies--”
Alma Marston's voice interrupted his somber appreciation of the
significance of that ditty. “Are you up there, Boyd?” she asked, in
cautious tones.
He hurried to the head of the ladder and saw her at its foot, half
hidden in the mists even at that short distance. He reached down his
hand and she came up, grasping it.
She was studying his expression with both eagerness and apprehension. “I
couldn't stay away from you any longer,” she declared. “The fog is good
to us! Father could not see me as I came forward. I must tell you, Boyd.
He has ordered me to stay aft.”
He did not speak.
“Has he dared to say to you what he has been saying below about you?”
“I don't think it needed any especial daring on your father's part; I am
only his servant,” he said, with bitterness.
“And he--he insulted you like that?”
“I suppose your father did not look on what he said as insult. I repeat,
I am a paid servant.”
“But what you did was right! I know it must have been right, for you
know everything about what is right to do on the sea.”
“I understand my duties.”
“And he blamed you for something?”
“It was a bit worse than that from my viewpoint.” He smiled down at
her, for her eyes were searching his face as if appealing for a bit of
consolation.
“Boyd, don't mind him,” she entreated. “Somebody who has been fighting
him in business has been very naughty. I don't know just what it's all
about. But he has so many matters to worry him. And he snaps at me just
the same, every now and then.”
“Yes, some men are cowards enough to abuse those who must look to them
for the comforts of this world,” he declared.
“We must make allowances.”
“I'll not stay in a position where a man who hires me thinks he can
talk to me as if I were a foremast hand. Alma, you would despise me if I
allowed myself to be kicked around like a dog.”
“I would love you all the more for being willing to sacrifice something
for my sake. I want you here--here with all your love--here with me as
long as these summer days last.” She patted his cheek. “Why don't you
tell me that you want to stay with me, Boyd? That you will die if we
cannot be together? We can see each other here. I can bring Nan Burgess
on the bridge with me. Father will not mind then. Let each day take care
of itself!”
“I want to be what you want me to be--to do what you want me to do. But
I wish you would tell me to go out into the world and make something of
myself. Alma, tell me to go! And wait for me!”
She laid her face against his shoulder and reached for his fingers,
endeavoring to pull one of his arms about her. But both of his hands
were clutching the rail of the bridge. He resisted.
“Are you going to be like all the rest? Just money and trouble and
worry?” She stretched up on tiptoe and brushed a kiss across his fog-wet
cheek. “Are you asleep, my big boy? Yesterday you were awake.”
“I think I am really awake to-day, and that I was dreaming yesterday.
Alma, I cannot sneak behind your father's back to make love to you. I
can't do it. I'm going to give up this position. I can't endure it.”
“I say 'No!' I need you.”
“But--”
“I'll not give you up.”
There was something dramatic in her declaration; her demeanor expressed
the placid calm of absolute proprietorship. She worked his unwilling
fingers free from the rail.
“I love you because you can forget yourself. Now don't be like all the
others.”
He realized that a queer little sting of impatience was pricking him.
The girl did not seem to understand what his manhood was prompting.
“You mustn't be selfish, Boyd!”
She put into words the vague thought which had been troubling him in
regard to her attitude; and now that he understood what his thought had
been he was incensed by what seemed his own disloyalty. And yet, the
girl was asking him to make over his nature!
“I'm afraid it's all wrong. These things never seem to come out right,”
he mourned.
“You are trying to turn the world upside down all at once--and all
alone. Don't think so much, you solemn Yankee. Just love!”
He put his aims about her. “I'm sailing in new waters. I don't seem to
know the true course or the right bearings!”
“Let's stay anchored until the fog lifts! Isn't that what sailors
usually do?”
He confessed it, kissing her when she lifted her tantalizing face from
his shoulder.
“Now you'll let the future alone, won't you?” she asked.
“Yes.” But even while he promised he was obliged to face that future.
Julius Marston, at the foot of the ladder, called to his daughter. “Are
you up there?” he demanded, sharply.
“Yes, father.”
“Come down here.”
She gave her lover a hasty caress and obeyed.
Captain Mayo was obliged to listen. Marston, in his anger, showed no
consideration for possible eavesdroppers.
“I have told you to stay aft where you belong.”
“Really, father, I don't understand why--”
“Those are my orders! I understand. _You_ don't need to understand. This
world is full of cheap fellows who misinterpret actions.”
Captain Mayo grasped the rails of the bridge ladder and did down to the
deck without touching his feet to the treads. He appeared before the
father and daughter with startling suddenness.
“Mr. Marston, I am leaving my position on board here as soon as you can
get another man to take my place.”
“You are, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You signed papers for the season. It is not convenient for me to make
a change.” Marston spoke with the crispness of a man who had settled the
matter.
Captain Mayo was conscious that the girl was trying to attract his gaze,
but he kept his eyes resolutely from her face.
“I insist on being relieved.”
“I have no patience with childishness in a man! I found it necessary to
reprimand you. You'll probably know your place after this.” He turned
away.
“I have decided that I do not belong on this yacht,” stated Mayo, with
an emphasis he knew the girl would understand. “You must get another
master!”
“I cannot pick captains out of this fog, and I allow no man to tell
me my own business. I shall keep you to your written agreement. Hold
yourself in readiness to carry telegrams ashore for me. I take it there
is an office here?”
“There is, sir,” returned Mayo, stiffly.
The girl, departing, bestowed on him a pretty grimace of triumph,
plainly rejoicing because his impetuous resignation had been overruled
so autocratically. But Mayo gave a somber return to the raillery of her
eyes. He had spoken out to Marston as a man, and had been treated with
the contemptuous indifference which would be accorded to a bond-servant.
He was wounded by the light manner in which she viewed that affront,
even though her own father offered it.
He stood there alone for a time, meditating various rash acts. But
under all the tumult of his feelings was the realization that the
responsibility for that yacht's discipline and safety rested on his
shoulders and he went about his duties. He called two of the crew and
ordered the gangway steps down and the port dinghy cleared and lowered.
Then he went to the chart-room and sat on a locker and tried to figure
out whether he was wonderfully happy or supremely miserable.
Marston promptly closeted himself with his three wise men of business
after he went aft. “We'll frame up those telegrams now and get them
off,” he told them. “I thought I'd better wait until I had worked the
bile out of my system. Never try to do sane and safe business when
you're angry, gentlemen! I'm afraid those telegrams would not have
been exactly coherent if I had written them right after that Bee liner
smashed past us.”
“I have been ready to believe that Tucker would come in with us on the
right lay,” said one of the associates.
“So did I,” agreed Marston. “I have thought all his loud talk has been
bluff to beat up a bigger price. But, after what he did to-day! Oh
no! He is out to fight and he grabbed his chance to show us! I do not
believe a lot of this regular fight talk. But when a man comes up and
smashes me between the eyes I begin to suspect his intentions.”
“There's no need of dickering with him any longer, Mr. Marston. He
made his work as dirty as he could to-day--he has left nothing open to
doubt.”
“I'm sorry,” said another of the group. “Tucker has let himself get
ugly.”
“So have I,” replied Marston, dryly. “And I'm growing senile, too, I'm
afraid. I went forward and wasted as much anathema on that skipper of
mine as I would use up in putting through a half-million deal with an
opposition traffic line. Next thing I know I'll be arguing with, the
smoke-stack. But I must confess, gentlemen, that Tucker rather took my
breath away to-day. Either he has become absolutely crazy or else he
doesn't understand the strength of the combination.”
“He hasn't waked up yet. He doesn't know what's against him.”
“That may be our fault, in a measure,” stated one of the men. “We
haven't been able to let men like Tucker in on the full details.”
“In business it's the good guesser who wins,” declared Marston. “Our
merger isn't a thing to be advertised. And if we do any more explaining
to Tucker the whole plan _will_ be advertised, you can depend on it.
The infernal fool has been holding us up three months, demanding more
knowledge--and he can't be trusted. There's only one thing to do,
gentlemen! That!” He drove his fist into his palm with significant thud.
“Is the Bee line absolutely essential in our plans?”
“Every line along this coast is essential in making that merger stock an
air-tight proposition.”
“It's a new line and is not paying dividends.”
“Well, for that matter, it's got nothing in that respect on some of the
other lines we're salting down in the merger,” suggested a member of the
party, speaking for the first time.