Perceval Gibbon - The Second Class Passenger

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Old Captain Price sighed. "Aye, he looks well on the bridge," he
said. "I hope he'll watch the ship, though; she's a big old tub to
handle."

He saw the Burdock into dry dock and strolled down each day to look
at her. Minnie and Arthur were busy with preparations for the
wedding. But the girl found time to go down once with the old man,
and he took her into the dock under the steamship.

"A big thing she looks from here," he said, half to himself.

The girl looked forward. Over them the bottom plates of the Burdock
made a great sloping roof; her rolling chocks stood out like
galleries. Her lines bulged heavily out, and the girl saw the
immensity of the great fabric, the power of the tool her husband
should wield.

"She's big, indeed," she answered. "Five thousand tons and forty
lives in one man's hands. It's splendid, uncle. And Arthur," her
voice softened pleasantly, "is the man."

The old Captain wheeled on her sharply. "Tons and lives!" he cried.
"Tons and lives be damned! It's not for them she's been run to a
thumb-span and tended like a sick baby. It's for the clean honesty of
it, to do a captain's work like a wise captain and not soil a record.
D'ye think I stump my bridge for forty-eight hours on end because of
the underwriters and the deck hands? Not me, my girl, not me! It's my
trade to lay her sweetly in Barcelona bay, and it's my honor to know
my work and do it."

He seemed to shrug his shoulder. The girl could not know it was his
right hand he flung up to the scarred steel plates above him.

"There's your Burdock," he said. "She's your dividend-grinder; she's
my ship. And if I'd thought of no more than your five thousand tons
and your forty lives, she'd not be where she is."

He held out his left hand, palm uppermost, and started and blinked
when there came no smack of the right fist descending into it.

"There's me talking again," he said. "Never mind, Minnie dear, it's
only your old uncle. Let's be back up town."

The wedding day was a Thursday. The ceremony was to take place in the
chapel of which David Davis was a member; the subsequent festivities
were arranged for at an hotel. It wag to be a notable affair, an
epochmaker in the local shipping world, and when all was over there
would be time for the newly-wedded to go aboard the Burdock and take
her out on the tide. Old Captain Price, decorous in stiff black,
drove to the church with his son in a two-horse brougham. Neither
spoke a word till they were close to the chapel door. Then the old
man burst out suddenly.

"For God's sake, Arthur boy, do the right thing by your ship."

Arthur Price was a little moved. "I will, father," he said. "Here's
my hand on it." There was a pause. "Why don't you take my hand,
father?" he asked.

"Eh?" The old man started. "I thought I'd took it, Arthur. I'll be
going soft next. Here's the other hand for you."

The reception at the hotel and the breakfast there were notable
affairs. Everybody who counted for anything with the hosts were
there, and after a little preliminary formality and awkwardness the
function grew to animation. The shipping folk of Cardiff know
champagne less as a beverage than as a symbol, and there was plenty
of it. Serious men became frivolous; David Davis made a speech in
Welsh; Minnie glowed and blossomed; Arthur was everybody's friend.
The old Captain, seated at the bottom of the table with an iron-clad
matron on one side and a bored reporter on the other, watched him
with a groan. The man who was to take the Burdock out of dock was
drinking. Even one glass at such a time would have breached the old
man's code; it was a crime against shipmastership. But Arthur, with
his bride beside him, her brown eyes alight, her shoulder against his
shoulder, had gone much further than the one glass. The exhilaration
of the day dazzled him; a waiter with a bottle to refill his glass
was ever at his shoulder. His voice rattled on untiringly; already
the old man saw how the muscles or the jaw were slack and the eyes
moved loosely. The young Captain hid a toast to respond to; he swayed
as he stood up to speak, and his tongue stumbled on his consonants.
The reporter on Captain Price's left offered him champagne at the
moment.

"Take it away," rumbled the old man. "Swill it yourself."

The pressman nodded. "It is pretty shocking stuff," he agreed. "I'm
going nap on the coffee myself."

It came to a finish at last. The bride went up to change, and old
Captain Price took a cab to the docks. The Burdock was smart in new
paint, and even the deck hands had been washed for the occasion.

"I'll go down with you a bit," he explained to Sewell, the chief
mate. "The pilot'll bring me back. I suppose I can go up to the
chart-house?"

"Of course, sir," said Sewell. "If you can't go where you like aboard
of us, who can?"

The old man smiled. "That'll be for the Captain to say," he answered,
and went up the ladder.

She was very smart, the old Burdock, and Arthur had made changes in
the chart-house, but she had the same feel for her old Captain. Under
her paint and frills, the steel of her structure was unaltered; the
old engines would heave her along; the old seas conspire against her.
Shift and bedeck and bedrape her as they might, she was yet the
Burdock; her lights would run down the Channel with no new
consciousness in their stare, and there was work and peril for men
aboard of her as of old.

"Ah, father," said Arthur Price, as he came on the bridge. "Come to
shee me chase her roun' the d-dock, eh?" Even as he spoke he
tottered. "Damn shiip-pery deck, eh!" he said. "Well, you'll shee
shome shteering, 'tanyrate."

He wiped his forehead and his cap fell off. The old man stooped
hurriedly and picked it up for him.

"Brace up, Arthur," he said, in an urgent whisper, "an' let the pilot
take her down the dock. For God's sake, don't run any risks."

"I'm Captain," said the younger man. "Aren't I Capt'n? Well, then,
'nough said!" He went to the bridge rail.

"All ready, Mish' Mate?" he demanded, and proceeded to get his
moorings in.

The mud pilot came to the old Captain's side.

"Captain," he said, "that man's drunk."

The old man shuddered a little. "Don't make a noise," he said. "He--
he was married to-day."

"Aye." The pilot shook his head. "You know me, Captain; it's not me
that would give a son of yours away. But I can't let him bump her
about. He isn't you at handling a steamship, and he's drunk."

The old Captain turned to him. "Help me out," he said. "Pilot, give
me a help in this. I'll stand by him and handy to the telegraph.
We'll get her through all right. There's that crowd on the dock"--he
signed to the festive guests--"waiting to see him off, and we mustn't
make a show of him. And his wife's aboard."

The pilot nodded shortly. "I'm willing."

Arthur, leaning on the rail, was cursing the dock boat at the buoy.
The lock was waiting for them, and he lurched to the telegraph,
slammed the handle over with a clatter and rang for steam. The pilot
and the old man leaned quickly to the indicator; he had ordered full
speed ahead.

"Stop her!" snapped the pilot as the decks beneath them pulsed to
the awakening engines. Arthur's hand was yet on the handle, but the
old man's grip on his wrist was firm, and the bell below clanged
again. The young Captain wheeled on them furiously.

"Get off my brish," he shouted. "Down with you, th' pair of you." He
made to advance on them, those two square old shipmen; he projected a
general ruin; but his feet were not his own. He reeled against the
rail.

"Port your helm!" commanded the pilot calmly. "Slow ahead!" Old
Captain Price rang for him and they began to draw out. Ashore the
wedding guests were a flutter of waving handkerchiefs and hats. They
thanked God Minnie was not on the bridge. At the rail, Arthur lolled
stupidly and seemed to be fighting down a nausea.

"Steady!" came the sure voice of the pilot. "Steady as you go! Stop
her!"

Arthur Price slipped then and came to his knees. Ashore, the party
was cheering.

"Up with you, Arthur," cried the old man in an agony. "Them people's
looking. Stiffen up, my boy."

"Half speed ahead!" droned the pilot, never turning his head.

The old man rattled the handle over and stooped to his son.

"You can lie down when you turn her over to the mate," he said
grimly. "Till then you'll stand up and show yourself, if your feet
perish under you. I'll hold you."

They were drawing round a tier of big vessels, going cautiously, not
with the speed and knife-edge accuracy with which the old man had
been wont to take her out, but groping safely through the craft about
them. Arthur swayed and smiled and slackened, his head nodding as
though in response to the friends on the dock who never abated their
farewell clamor. The grip on his arm held him up, for he had weakened
on his drink, as excitable men will.

"Starboard!" ordered the pilot, and Captain Price half turned to pass
the word. It was then that it happened. The drunken man pivoted where
he stood and stumbled sideways, catching himself on the telegraph.
The old man snatched him upright, for his knees were melting under
him, and from below there came the clang of the bell. Arthur Price
had pulled the handle over. Forthwith she quickened; she drove ahead
for the stern of the ship she was being conned to clear; her prow was
aimed at it, like a descending sword.

"Hard a-port!" roared the pilot, jumping back to bellow to the wheel.
"Spin her round, sheer over with her!" The wheel engine set up its
clatter; with a savage wrench the old Captain shook his son to
steadiness for an instant and lifted his eyes to see the Burdock
charging to disaster.

"Stop her!" cried the pilot. "Full astern!" Captain Price tightened
his grip on his son's arm and reached for the handle with his other
hand.

Clang! clang! went the deep-toned bell below, and swoosh went the
reversed propeller. The pilot's orders rattled like hail on a roof;
she came round, and old Captain Price had a glimpse of a knot of
frantic men at the taff-rail of the ship they barely cleared. Then,
slowly they wedged her into the lock-mouth and hauled in.

"Close thing!" said the pilot, panting a little.

The old man let his son lean against the rail, and turned-to him.

"P'raps not," he said. "Pilot, what did I ring them engines with?"
The other stared. "I had a hold of him with this hand of mine; I
reached for the handle with my--other--hand."

"But," the pilot was perplexed--"but, Captain, you ain't got no other
hand.."

"No!" Captain Price shook his head. "But I rang the engines with it
all the same. I rang the Burdock out of a bump with it; and--" he
hesitated a moment and nodded his head sideways at the limp, lolling
body of his son--"I rang his honor off the mud with it."

The pilot cleared his brow; he simply gave the matter up. "And what
about now?" he asked. "He ain't fit to be trusted with her?"

"No," said Captain Price firmly. "He's going to retire from the sea;
and till he does I'll sail as a passenger. And then I'll take the
Burdock again. She don't care about that old spar of mine, the
Burdock don't."

XV

THE WIDOWER

In the evening they sat together, John Morrison and his mother, with
the curtains drawn, and the clear fire glowing on the red bricks of
the fireplace. The old lady, after her custom, was prone to silence.
Since Hilda's death she had said little, sparing the occasion the
triviality of useless words. That afternoon she had ridden with her
son to the funeral, holding him up with her strength, fortifying him
with her courage. But now that his wife was gone for ever, and the
pleasant house was overcast with its haunting emptiness, it seemed
that her power was gone.

She had a piece of knitting to occupy her fingers, and over it she
watched her son. He had been stunned when Hilda died, bewildered and
uncomprehending; for no young man fully grasps the meaning of death.
Now, as he sat, he seemed to be convincing himself. He had brought
down his dead wife's work-basket and a drawer from her dressing-
table. He sat in a low arm-chair, and had them beside him on the
floor, and fingered deliberately among their contents for definite
things, little landmarks of lost days that stabbed him with their
associations. But what stirred his mother was not the sorrow of his
loss so much as the uncertainty of parted lips and knitted brows that
softened his thin, aquiline face, so strongly in contrast with his
habit of brisk assurance.

She spoke at last. "John, dear, you should go to bed now," she said.
"It's past eleven, my boy; and I'm afraid you'll wear yourself out."

He had a small silver-backed hand-mirror in his hands. He had been
staring into the glass of it for ten minutes. He looked up now and
shook his head. "I couldn't," he answered. "I couldn't, mother.
There's no sleep in me."

"But John----" began the mother again.

"Please don't bother about me," he interrupted. "I couldn't sleep,
really. And I couldn't bear to lie awake--alone." His eyes dropped
toward the mirror again. "You know," he said, "it's only now, mother,
that I realize that Hilda is really gone. I can't explain it very
well, but before this evening it seemed--well, it seemed idiotic to
think that my wife was dead. It felt impossible, somehow."

"My poor boy!" said the old lady gently.

"And even now," he went on, with bowed head, "I have fancies."

"What fancies, John?" asked Mrs. Morrison.

He laid the mirror down on the floor, and glanced over his shoulder
toward the door of the room before he answered. Then he looked at his
mother squarely.

"I'll tell you," he said. And then he sat for some seconds in
thought. "You know, mother, how close together we lived--Hilda and I.
I suppose it's the same with all husbands and wives who are young and
love one another. We had a world of familiar little household jokes
and tricks of our own. There was one in particular. Whenever I was
in here, and Hilda came in, she'd tiptoe through the door and try to
get close and surprise me before I heard her. Does it sound foolish
to you, mother? If it does, you don't understand at all."

Mrs. Morrison picked up her knitting and worked a dozen quick
stitches. "No; it doesn't seem foolish. I understand it all, my
dear," she replied.

He nodded. "Well," he said, "that's what my fancies are about. There
are moments when I seem to hear something; and I feel quite sure--
absolutely, utterly certain--that if I turn round I shall see her
there, coming up behind me, all sparkling with laughter. But I've
looked, and----"

He dropped his head into his hands, and his shoulders heaved.

Mrs. Morrison laid her knitting down and went over to him. "John,
dear," she said, laying a hand lightly on his arm--"John, dear, this
won't do at all. I want to help you, my boy. You know that, don't
you? But I can't let you comfort yourself with these dreams, dear.
They're bad--very bad for you. It's not that way that we shall see
our Hilda again, John."

"Oh, I know," he answered. "I know, mother." He sat up again, and put
her hand away with a warm pressure of thanks.

The old lady went back to her chair with a grave face, and for a
while they sat again in silence. The fire was burning now a little
dull, and about the room were sober shadows. John fell again to
handling trifles from the work-basket and the drawer, lifting each to
look at it carefully, and laying it aside again.

"Are you looking for something, dear?" asked Mrs. Morrison at last.

"Eh? Oh no," he answered absently. "But I was thinking."

"Don't think too much, my boy," she said.

"It was nothing much," he said, frowning. "But, mother, what horrible
things these are!" He pointed with a sharp thrust of his finger to
the trinkets on the floor. "She used them, mother. She had them
about her every day. She handled them, and used them for her
momentary purposes and necessities and there is no trace of her on
any one of them."

"John, John!" Mrs. Morrison appealed to him with an outstretched
hand, for he spoke with a kind of passion that hurt her like an
impropriety.

He went on as though he had heard nothing. "Look at this thing," he
said. "It was the silver mirror. She used it a dozen times a day. Her
face was bright in it a thousand times--when she put up her hair, and
when she let it down in a cascade over her shoulders. She was
beautiful, and it was the companion of her beauty. And--yet it's
empty now, as empty as her bed, as empty as all this stricken house.
As though she had never lived, mother--as though there had been no
Hilda."

He dropped the mirror beside him, and rose from his chair, to pace up
and down the room with quick, nervous strides.

Mrs. Morrison rose too. "John, dear," she said, stopping him with
outstretched hands, "don't talk like that. We know better--you and I.
The mirror can tell us nothing, nor any of those things you are
torturing yourself with. She gave them nothing, my boy; it was for us
she lived, not them. Our love, dear, and the pain of our loss, and
all our memories; these are Hilda's witnesses. They remain to prove
her to us and fulfil the beauty and goodness of her life. Don't speak
as though Hilda had been wasted on us, dear."

"Wasted!" He started at the word. "Wasted! Oh God!"

She took him by the arm and drew him back to his chair by the fire.
But even as he sat down he glanced again over his shoulder at the
door. To all her entreaties to go to bed he remained obdurate.

"Do you know that I am very tired, John?" she said at last.

He looked up quickly. "Then you go to bed, mother," he urged. "I--I
wish you would. I'd like to be alone for a little.

"If I leave you, will you promise you will not stay long?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "All right. I'll promise, mother."

When she had left him he stood for a while in the centre of the
floor, hands in pockets, his head drooping, in deep thought. He was a
spare man, lean and tall, bred to composure, and serenity. Thus when
there came a tragedy to overwhelm his training, he had few reserves;
his propriety of demeanor lost, his soul was raw. His very attitude,
as he stood, was eloquent of pain and helplessness. He had been
married a little more than a year, and it seemed now as though that
year stood vignetted on a broad border of sadness.

The fire rustled and clicked as the coals spent themselves. He had a
feeling of chill and faintness, and he went back slowly to his
chair. Seated there again, the silver toys were all round him,
gleaming slyly at him with a sort of suggestiveness. He packed up the
mirror, once more, and looked into the oval glass at it. He was
feeling a little dizzy, these last days had burdened him heavily, and
the afternoon had been a long stress of emotion. Thus, for a space of
minutes he sat, the glass before him, his eyes half closed.

It seemed to him that he must have dozed, for he sat up with the
start of a man who arrests himself on the brink of sleep. The mirror
was in his hand. He stared at it with wide eyes, thrusting it at
arm's length before him. For in it he saw--not a flicker of the
firelight swaying on the wall, but a face that moved across from the
door--the face of his dead wife.

He saw it cross the field of the little mirror, reflected in profile,
and pass beyond it. He sat yet a moment, enthralled in senseless
amazement, then let the glass fall from his outstretched hand, and
turned where he sat.

He sprang to his feet. "Hilda!" he cried. "Hilda!"

Her face welcomed him with a little smile, sober and kind.

"Yes, dear," she said gently; "it is Hilda!"

He did not go to her, but stood staring, and groping for the key to
his understanding. She was about five paces from him--Hilda
undeniably, to the soft contour of her cheek and the shaded gold of
her hair.

He found words: "Are you here with me, Hilda? Or have I gone mad? Or
perhaps I've been mad all along!"

She smiled again, and through the fog of his bewilderment and wonder
he recognized the smile.

"Not mad, dear," she was saying. "Not mad. But it is very strange and
wonderful at first, isn't it?"

"Strange and wonderful?" He put an uncertain hand to his face and
passed it over his eyes. "Something has happened to me," he said. "To
my eyes, I think. Things look strange. And--and there is Hilda!" He
paused. "I'd been longing for Hilda."

She came a step nearer to him then. "I know," she murmured softly. "I
know, dear. But that is past now."

There was an infinite tenderness in her tone, the tenderness of a
mother who uplifts her child through a season of pain. He felt it,
and it seemed to help him to clear away some of the dimness that
besieged his senses.

"Then----" he began, but stayed himself. "You know," he said
haltingly, "you died. Hilda died. I saw it: my arms were round her."

"Yes, dear," she answered. "Hilda died. But don't you understand?"

"No," he replied, but none the less understanding was dawning upon
him. "How--how did you come here?" he asked.

"I came by the same way as you, John, dear," she said. As again she
seemed to take one step toward him. "There is no other way."

"No other way!" He repeated the words twice.

"Hilda," he said, and went to her.

"Yes, dear?"

He took her hand; it lay close and familiarly in his palm.

"Everything seems to be far away from me--except you," he said. "I
see you; I hear you speak. What does it mean, my darling?"

Her eyes were full of love. "Don't you know yet, John?" she asked.

"No," he answered slowly; "unless--unless----Hilda, am I dead?"

She did not speak to answer him, but nodded thrice, very slowly.

They found him in his chair before the ashes of the fire. At his feet
the mirror was broken across, where it had dropped from his hand.
And the lips were parted in a sort of uncertainty.

Cahill & Co., Ltd., London, Dublin and Drogheda.

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