In a month’s time, Donald received a curt note from his uncle to come to Glasgow and to be at the office at “nine sharp.” He entered the gloomy chambers at ten minutes to the appointed hour and stood waiting outside the counter. At nine, David McKenzie entered the office and Donald greeted him with a respectful “Good morning, sir!” The uncle turned and glared at him through his glasses. “Oh, ye’re here, are ye?” he rasped. “Jist wait in the office here until I want ye!” Then he entered his own private room and left his nephew cooling his heels until nigh twelve o’clock. By that time Donald had scrutinized every article in the dingy office and had surmised the characters of the old maidish clerk at the window, the grey-headed bookkeeper, and the lanky youth, perched like the gods on Olympus, on the long stool. People occasionally came in with papers—bills of lading and so on—and once or twice, shawled women entered and asked if there was any word of the Dunlevin. The Dunlevin was evidently one of his uncle’s ships, thought Donald, and he wondered what would be the name of the ship he would go to sea in.

At noon, a stocky man dressed in rough woollen serge entered. He appeared about fifty-five years of age and wore a square-topped bowler hat and heavy black boots, and had a face as red and as round as a harvest moon. He turned and glanced at Donald as he laid an umbrella on the counter, and the lad saw that he was clean-shaven save for a fringe of whisker under the chin. He had a bulbous red nose and small blue eyes—hard, mean-looking eyes, Donald thought—and his red face was pitted with the marks of small-pox. In a quiet tone—Donald expected a husky roar—he asked the lanky clerk “if Mister McKenzie could see him noo?”

“He’s expectin’ you, Captun,” said the clerk, and he vanished into the private room.

A few moments later, the Captain entered the sacred precincts, and after a while David McKenzie appeared at the door and cried, “Come in here, boy!”

Donald entered the private office and found the red-faced man seated in a chair with his umbrella between his knees and a pair of ham-like fists clasping the handle of it.

“This is the lad I was speaking about, Captain,” said the ship-owner in his grating voice. Turning to Donald, he said, “Boy, this is Captain Muirhead, master of oor new ship, the Kelvinhaugh. As you will be going to sea in that ship wi’ Captain Muirhead, it’s no too early for ye to get acquainted.” Donald stepped forward and shook hands with the Captain, who smiled and murmured something about, “Gled tae have ye come with me, mister. Hope we’ll get along.” Donald thought he would like Captain Muirhead, but he mistrusted those piggish blue eyes of his.

“Now,” said his uncle, seating himself at the table, “we’ll fix up this indenture business an’ th’ Captain will take ye along to an outfitter’s shop and get ye a kit. Ye’ll get doon aboard the ship next Monday mornin’ at five o’clock—no six o’clock or sevin o’clock—but five sharp, and if ye pay attention to your work and do your duty, ye’ll have a chance tae become master of a ship yersel’ some day. Now, ye can sign yer name to these indentures.”

The business of signing the apprentice seaman’s indentures was soon completed and Donald voluntarily bound himself apprentice unto David McKenzie & Co., and signed his name to “faithfully serve his said master and obey his and their lawful commands ... and said apprentice will not, during the service of four years, embezzle or waste the goods of his master; nor absent himself without leave; nor frequent taverns or alehouses; nor play unlawful games, etc., etc. Whereof the said master hereby covenants with the said apprentice to teach the said apprentice the business of a seaman and provide the said apprentice with sufficient meat, drink, lodging, washing, medicine and medical or surgical assistance.” Donald saw these paragraphs and noted them vaguely as he inscribed his name to the document prescribed for the purpose by the British Board of Trade. Then in company with Captain Muirhead, he went to an outfitters on Jamaica street and procured a sea kit.

It was a poor lot of truck that his Uncle David was purchasing for him, and the Captain evidently had instructions to keep the cost down to a certain figure. A mattress—a common jute bag stuffed with straw—and a blanket of thin shoddy came first. Then Donald was measured for a cheap blue serge uniform. A peaked uniform cap, with the “Dun Line” house-flag on the badge; a suit of two-piece oilskins, a pair of leather sea-boots, a sou’wester, two suits of dungarees, two woollen jerseys, some underwear and socks, towels, soap, matches, knife, fork, spoon, an enamel mug and a deep plate practically completed the outfit which was hove into a cheap pine chest with rope handles. The Jew salesman threw in a belt and a sheath-knife “as a present,” and the Captain said to Donald, “Ye’ve got a rig there fit to go ’round the Horn, mister, and a sight better’n I had when I first went to sea!”

The cheap junk which constituted an outfit and which was packed in Donald’s chest, appeared quite all right to him and he was delighted with every article. He longed for the day when he could don the brass-buttoned blue suit and wear the badged cap of an apprentice seaman. He pictured himself swaggering ashore in foreign ports, with the cap set back on his head—in the manner approved of by ’prentices—and with the chin strap over the crown. “Ye’ll get yer suit in two days, sir!” said the tailor. “Will you call, or will I send your kit?” As Donald wasn’t sure if he would be in the city, he said that he would call.

Before taking a train for home, he asked some questions of the uncommunicative Captain Muirhead, and found out that the Kelvinhaugh was a brand-new four-mast barque of about 2,500 tons, and that she was loading railroad iron for Vancouver—a long round-the-Horn voyage. They would probably get a homeward cargo of grain from the West Coast, and then again they might charter to load lumber at Vancouver for Australia or South Africa—the Captain couldn’t say. Vancouver! Australia! South Africa! thought Donald. What names to conjure with! How he would roll them off his tongue—easily and nonchalantly, as a sailor would. “Aye, I’m sailing to-morrow. ’Round the Horn to Vancouver, and then across the Pacific to Australia maybe. Be back in a year or eighteen months. So long!” As the train sped home, he sat in a corner of the third-class compartment and thought of the wonder and romance of it all. Running down the “Trades”; crossing the “Line” and doubling the stormy, storied Horn! That was the life for a red-blooded boy! And some of those future days he pictured himself pacing a liner’s bridge—monarch of all he surveyed—and saying, as he had heard his father say: “My ship did this!” or “My ship carried them!” Oh, it was fine castle building, and he actually blessed his uncle for the chance he had given him and forgave his bitter words and brutal mannerisms.

Mrs. McKenzie did not share his enthusiasm. His jubilation at getting away to sea; his description of the ship, the voyage, his uniform and prospects for the future were like salt on an open wound, and she would listen mechanically to his chatter, but her mind was far away and her heart was full of bitterness. She would be alone—frightfully alone—and she would be afraid. Donald, her baby boy, out at sea in that ship with rough men and living a rough life! She had heard her husband talk of his sailing-ship days and she remembered his worst experiences.

Could Donald stand such a life? She was afraid, and she felt that her boy was going on a journey the outcome of which she was unable to forecast.

Sailing day came on winged feet and mother and son journeyed to Glasgow on the Sunday morning. They strolled through the Kelvingrove Park on the bright Sabbath afternoon, just as they used to stroll when Captain McKenzie was home and they were all together, and the recollection of those happy days made the mother feel that life was dealing harshly with her. But, whatever her feelings were, she hid them for Donald’s sake and under a smiling mask concealed the anguish which was gnawing at her heart. What a brave little chap he looked in his badged cap and brass-buttoned uniform! There was a flush on his cheek and a glow in his eyes that she had never seen before. Aye! the magic of the great waters was calling to one bewitched and whose sole acquaintance with the sea was in the sight of the ships, the talk of sailormen, and through the Viking strain in the British blood!

They had tea together and went to church in the evening. Strangely enough the preacher chose as his text, “The Sea is His!” and his discourse went direct to the mother’s heart. In all that great church there was only one to whom his slowly intoned words had a significant meaning. “The Sea is His! He made it!” the preacher said—his utterance rich with homely Doric. “Never the man born of woman throughout the ages of earth could arrest its tides or command its resistless waves. Ships traverse its wastes, but make their voyagings only through His sufferance—a momentary loosing of His hurricanes and they could be blotted out as utterly as though they never existed. It is irresistible in its fearful power, and in a mere minute of time the most marvellously wonderful, and the mightiest creations of our human handiwork can be swept into utter oblivion, with never a trace of where stone stood upon stone, or iron riveted to iron. It can be neither pathed or bridged, harnessed or commanded, and all the skill and ingenuity of man has failed, and will ever fail, to share with God the proud boast that the sea is subject to any bidding but His. Only He who walked on Galilee could order, ‘Peace! be still!’ and have His mandate obeyed. The sea is His, my brethren, and those who traverse verse its unmarked paths would do well to sail with God in their hearts, for it is only God who can save and protect them in their journeyings o’er its vast and restless expanse!”

The congregation knew the truth of the preacher’s words. They were ship-builders, many of them, and they wrought in the yards that made the old Clyde-side city famous. They knew what the sea called for in the structures which they framed and plated and rigged; they knew what the sea could do to iron and steel stanchion, frame, beam and plate. Many a twisted wreck had come to their hands to be straightened, untwisted, flattened out and replaced. “Goad, aye! we ken its handiwork!” they muttered. In their cold Scotch perception, this was the manner in which they comprehended the power of Him who calmed Galilee.

Mother and son sat up talking late into the night. It was the mother’s hours and she used them as a mother would with a son who was leaving her for a space of months, and maybe, years. She told of old remedies for this ail and that ill. She gave him motherly cautions regarding wet feet, damp bedding and draughts. She gave him a little ditty-bag well furnished with needles, cottons, threads, darning wool, buttons and such like, and her last and greatest gift was a small Bible. They were holy hours, and they sat and talked until her regard for his sleep caused her to send him reluctantly to bed. She came to him then and tucked him in and kissed him as she always did, and when she went away, her tears wetted his cheek. He tried, as boys do, to carry it off “big,” but when she left him he cried, too, as many a brave man has cried in similar partings since the world was young.

He awoke at four next morning to find his mother beside his bed. She had never closed her eyes, but now she was smiling. She wasn’t going to send him to sea with tears and heart-burnings to pain his recollections of parting. He dressed hurriedly, gulped the tea and toast she had procured for him, and sat awaiting the cab which was to take him down to his ship. His sea-chest was packed and ready, and the mother had gone through it and replaced to the best of her ability some of the shoddy gear which she knew would never stand sea-faring.

They heard the rattle of the wheels and hoofs on the stony street. The mother clasped her son in a close embrace. “Don’t you worry about me, dear,” she said. “I shall go to the Hydropathic and I will be quite comfortable there. Be a good boy and take care of yourself. God bless you and keep you, dear, and may your dear father watch over you!”

The cab-man came up into the room and the wet streamed off his clothes. “Dirrty mornin’, ma’am,” he said huskily. “Ah’ll jist hond this box doon.” And he shouldered the sea-chest and led the way.

The boy entered the cab and drove away, and Mrs. McKenzie stood in the rain at the door and watched it vanish just as she had watched, many times, the departures of her husband. “He’s gone! he’s gone!” she murmured dully, and only turned to enter the house when the woman who kept it led her away with a “Cheer up, mum! He’ll be back, never fear! Come and hae a cup o’ tea. It’s guid med’cine fur a sair heart!”