The West Wind’s crew arrived in Halifax on a Monday morning at the end of September to attend the inquiry, and the evidence was given by both sides. The Greeks had no case. It was proved that they were navigating at full speed in a dense fog; that a proper look-out was not kept; and that sound signals were not given at the intervals required by the International Rules of the Road for navigation “in fog, mist, snow or heavy rainstorms.” The Court severely condemned the absolute disregard for Articles 15 and 16 of the Rules, and the Commissioner was most scathing in his remarks regarding the conduct of the Greeks in running away from the vicinity after sinking the schooner. To the Greek master and watch-officers he said, “Your conduct on this occasion was such as to merit for you the scorn and contempt of all seafarers, and your action can only be characterized as one of the most despicable cowardice. If this Court had power to deal with your certificates, we would have no hesitation in cancelling for all time that of the master, and the second and fourth mates, in order that such callous brutes may never hold a position of responsibility at sea again; as it is, a copy of this judgment will be handed to the Grecian Consul!” The West Wind secured a judgment against the Livadia, and the Greeks left the Court Room amidst the hisses of the spectators. An Admiralty Court action for damages was immediately entered by the owners and crew of the fishing schooner, and the skipper remarked to Donald, “We’ll win our case. You can go over to Glasgow naow an’ bring your mother aout. I’ll have a berth in my West Indiaman for you when you get back.”

That evening after supper at their hotel, the skipper and Donald went to the Stuart home to call on Helena and Ruth. Judson had telephoned earlier in the day that they would be around, and McKenzie was wildly excited at the thought of seeing Ruth once more. With his new suit on, he felt more presentable, though he was not altogether pleased with the cut of the garment, nor the pattern. The collar did not “sit” nicely and the coat sleeves reached the knuckles of his hands. The pants seemed horribly wide, and they had a loose feeling around the waist. Mrs. Nickerson had spoken of their roominess as just the thing for a growing lad, but then the dear old lady did not know that the “growing lad” was in love, and therefore more than usually fastidious and critical of personal appearance. The pattern—a pepper and salt effect—gave Donald the creeps to look at it, but there was one thing in the outfit’s favor, and that was the strength and durability of the cloth. As Donald soliloquised, “This suit was built—not tailored. They sewed it with sail-twine and lined and stiffened it with double-ought storm canvas. It would make a grand sail when everything else blew away!” After numerous surveys in the mirror, straightenings of tie and collar, and buttonings and unbuttonings of the coat and vest, the skipper remarked with a grin, “Oh, you’ll do, Donny-boy! With that rig on, you look as handsome as a silver dollar on a Swede’s pants, or a monkey’s eye in a frying-pan. Anybody that walks aout with you naow sh’d be as proud as a dog with two tails. Knock off yer glass-goggling and we’ll git along!” And blushing self-consciously, Donald followed him—inwardly condemning the fit and texture of his gift suit.

The Stuarts lived in a fine house not far from the Public Gardens, and when the skipper rang the bell, Donald gave his drooping sleeves a hitch up and patted the recalcitrant collar into place. A maid answered the door and ushered them into a parlor. Judson was perfectly at ease. Donald, who ought to have felt at home in such surroundings, sat on a spider-legged gilt chair feeling awkward and out of place.

A rustle of skirts, a ripple of laughter, and Helena and Ruth entered the room. McKenzie’s heart leaped and he rose to his feet, and while Ruth was greeting her brother with hugs and kisses, Helena, looking particularly charming and attractive, walked over to him. “I’m so glad to see you again, Donald,” she said sweetly. “And you’re not looking any the worse for your shipwreck out on the Banks.” She shook hands and turned to the skipper, “And how is Captain Judson?” And the two of them drew away to a corner sofa, leaving Ruth standing before McKenzie.

She had her dark hair coiled up and wore a dress of some pink silky material, which showed her slim girlish figure to advantage. There was a soft rose blush in her cheeks and her blue eyes sparkled as she advanced to Donald, but he, with the critical discernment of the love-lorn, thought there was a hint of coldness in her gaze. It might have been reserve. “And how are you, Mister McKenzie?” she enquired calmly. Donald mentally winced at the Mister, and instinctively felt the reserve, the chill—just a suspicion of it—in her voice and manner. He clasped her hand warmly and inclined his head with a courteous gesture. “I’m very well—Ruth,” he answered quietly, “and you?” He raised his large dark eyes to her face and continued, “I needn’t ask for my sight tells me you’re the picture of health.” Mentally he added, “And lovelier than ever!”

She sat down in a chair near-by and Donald admired the ease and grace with which she walked. He was keen to notice all the little traits and points in her carriage and manner and in the sedate environment of the Stuart home, it was evident that Ruth had adopted her “city manners” in dress and actions. They murmured a few commonplaces about the weather, while McKenzie noticed that she had small neat feet and wore white silk stockings and fine kid dancing slippers. He liked to see a girl attired in nice frocks and “things” feminine, fluffy, soft, silky and lacey, but Scotch-like, he mentally figured the cost and wondered when he would earn enough to provide a wife with the articles he would like to see her clothed in.

“You had quite a mishap out on the Banks, I hear,” she observed, leaning back and gazing at him with steady eyes. McKenzie imagined she was looking critically at his suit and he hitched the sleeves up off his knuckles before he replied. “Yes! It was quite a smash-up. It might have been worse if we’d all been aboard the schooner. McGlashan regrets losing an alarm clock and a fine chowder which he was cooking at the time—” He smiled as Ruth laughed and revealed her white, even teeth. The ice seemed to be broken by his remark, and soon the pair were chatting away and rivalling the skipper and Helena, who were conversing most earnestly.

They talked about Eastville, and Donald told of his renting a house for his mother, and how he hoped to be leaving Halifax that week to bring her out to Canada. Ruth nodded interestedly and asked many questions, but not once during her conversation did she address him as “Donald,” and the youth puzzled his brains to account for this sudden formality. Was she trying to keep their intimacy upon the plane of “merely friends and nothing more”? Donald worried.

“Do you intend to remain at the fishing?” she asked. Something in the tone of her voice lent moment to the question.

“Yes!” replied the other. “I’m in it now, and I intend to make it my work. I like the life. It’s full of interest and every day brings something new. Your fishermen are splendid chaps and dandy shipmates, and these fishing schooners are wonderful vessels—comfortable and seaworthy. I hope I shall be skipper of one by the time I’m twenty-one.”

“It’s a hard life and a dangerous life though,” said the girl, with a far-away look in her blue eyes. “It must be awful to be a fisherman’s wife. In those terrible winter gales ... a lot of fishermen are drowned. Just think what might have happened on Juddy’s boat if that collision had occurred at night and you were all in bed. A good many of you would have been drowned. We’ve had accidents of that sort before in Eastville ships and I know—” She shuddered half-fearfully.

“You can get drowned on other craft besides fishermen,” observed Donald. “I’ll bet there are as many people killed in Halifax in a year as there are drownings from vessels on the Banks. There’s a good many fishermen out there at times—Lunenburg has twenty-five hundred men in her fleet alone—and look at the crowds from Gloucester, Boston, Newfoundland, France and other places.” He regarded her intently and gave his creeping cuffs another upward hitch.

“That may be so, Mr. McKenzie,” said Ruth decidedly, “but if the fishermen do not worry, their women do. I’d go crazy if I had a husband out at sea in those fogs and cyclones. It’s bad enough to have Juddy in that risky, messy business, but a husband—?” She closed her eyes for a moment, while Donald stared at her with a strange tremor in his breast. It was as though he had received a blow and the impressions left by her words were painful. If he were to be at all favored by Ruth’s heart and hand, it was evident that he would have to change his profession, unless she changed her views.

They chatted on other subjects for a while and McKenzie noticed that his companion was glancing every now and again at the ormolu clock on the mantel, and when she answered his questions she seemed abstracted and her remarks were terse and spoken in a manner which betokened that she was forcing the conversation. A ring came at the door-bell, and as the maid pattered down the hall to answer it, Ruth sat up in her chair and straightened out her frock. “She’s expecting someone,” mentally surmised McKenzie, and his spirits dropped a shade when he heard a male voice speaking to the maid. Helena looked over at Ruth with a knowing smile. “That’s Walter, I guess!” she whispered, and Miss Nickerson colored a trifle and looked expectantly at the door of the room.

The male voice spoke in the hall. “Miss Nickahson’s in the pawloh, eh?” and they all rose as a young man about twenty entered the room. He was an athletic-looking fellow, dressed in the height of fashion, and he wore a striped tie and clothes of a cut much affected by college students. His sandy hair was long and parted in the middle; he had blue eyes, teeth with much gold filling in them, and a face which was clear-skinned, regular and good-looking. Smiling, he advanced to Miss Nickerson and extended a white, well-manicured hand. “Good evening, Ruth,” he said breezily, “and how do I find you to-night?” The girl took his hand and murmured something while the color deepened in her cheeks. The visitor then wheeled and greeted Helena, who introduced Judson and Donald. “I’m happy to meet you, Captain! How do, McKenzie!” he drawled in the stilted English of certain Haligonians who endeavor to ape the style and accent of the Naval Dock-yard and Garrison fops. The skipper gave him a sharp, keen, appraising glance and Donald could note a hostile light in Judson’s eyes.

Mr. Walter Moodey strode lightly across the room and, drawing a chair with him, sat down alongside Miss Nickerson. After pulling up his immaculately creased pants and revealing a fancy colored sock above sharp-toed shoes, he leaned towards the girl in a cool, self-possessed manner. “Have you rested up since the dawnce the otha’ night?” And the two were soon engaged in bubbling reminiscences, while Donald sat quiet and with a complacent look on his face which did not accord with the feeling in his breast. At last, Ruth, conscious of her neglect, turned to him with an effort to include him in the conversation. “Mr. McKenzie is going over to Scotland this week to bring his mother out to Canada,” she said. “Now, isn’t he a good boy?”

Mr. Moodey endeavored to look interested. His keen eyes rambled over Donald’s clothes, and conscious of the scrutiny, McKenzie squirmed in his chair and hitched his sleeves up. “Ah, really!” He pronounced it “rully.” “Going ovah in the Sardonia, Mistah? She sails for Glasgow this week.” Donald gave him a clear-eyed gaze. “I don’t know what ship I’m going on,” he answered.

“You haven’t booked your passage yet? Bettah hurry—all the ships are full—”

“Are you going as a passenger?” queried Ruth absently.

McKenzie reddened slightly. “No! I’m shipping before the mast if I can get a chance,” he answered calmly.

Moodey’s eyebrows went up. “Oh!” He pronounced it “Ow!” “I see! You’re a sailoh then I take it?”

“I’m a fisherman,” said Donald bluntly. Judson on the sofa with Helena was listening intently while carrying on a tÊte-À-tÊte with his fair companion.

“Oh, really!” The eyebrows went up still further and McKenzie thought Mr. Moodey was about to hold his nose. His manicured fingers did lift towards his face, but he changed his mind and pulled a silk handkerchief out of his sleeve and carefully smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “You ketch cods and kippahs and all that sort of thing, do you? Out on the Banks, eh? It must be an awfully jolly life pulling nets all day long—makes one think of the Apostles, eh, what?—but it’s such a messy, smelly one, I should imagine, eh?”

“We don’t pull nets,” said Donald a mite aggressively. “We use hooks and lines.”

“Quite so! Quite so!” returned Moodey unabashed. “I forgot ... cods. Good money in cods, McKenzie?” There was a tone in his voice that Donald did not like, nor Judson either. The latter had been listening to the conversation and he wheeled around from Helena and observed in a steely significant voice, “You sh’d know that, Moodey. Your old gran’pop made all his little whack on the fishflakes. Many a cod the ol’ man split, salted an’ turned on the flakes himself, and a terror to bargain was the same Salt Hake Moodey. Useter cut th’ whiskers off the hakes an’ try an’ pass ’em off as cod-fish—” Both Moodey and Ruth were fidgetting, and Helena, sensing something, rose and beckoned to Donald. “Come on, Don! Let’s have some music.”

They spent some time at the piano playing and singing together. Mr. Moodey exhibited some surprise at McKenzie’s talents at first, but latterly slid back in his chair with an air of boredom. They were singing old songs and Walter did not care much for them, though Ruth was listening with appreciation, and several times when he started to speak, she held up her hand for silence.

“I say, old chap,” he said to Donald at the conclusion of a piece, “cawn’t you give us something with a little life to it? That old fire-side and heart-throb stuff is awfully depressing, don’t y’ know? Give us some musical comedy or light opera stuff—but, I don’t suppose you know anything in that line?” The slight, and possibly unintentional, sarcastic note in his voice when he spoke the last words annoyed Donald. He would show this Halifax fop that a fisherman wasn’t necessarily a creature without culture or education, and when it came down to playing and singing snatches from musical comedies or operas—Huh! he had possibly seen and heard more of them in Glasgow than Moodey ever knew existed.

“What’ll you have? What do you know?” queried Donald calmly, without turning from the piano. “Florodora? San Toy? The Geisha? Mikado? The Cingalee? Pinafore?”

Walter’s expressive eyebrows went up. “Oh, you do know something in that line? How odd. Let’s see—! Give us that snappy thing from Pinafore! It’s called ‘Tell me, pretty maiden, are there any more at home like you?’” A snort of disgust was barely stifled by Judson, and without a smile on his face, Donald remarked, “That’s from Florodora!” And he played the song from memory while Helena sang. For a while he remained at the piano running off several well-known pieces, and occasionally he carolled the words. He was playing and singing for a purpose. He wanted to show Mr. Moodey—whom he looked upon as a rival for the affections of Ruth Nickerson—that he was quite at home in the culture that was supposed to be Mr. Moodey’s, and he also wanted to impress Ruth that Mr. Moodey had nothing on him when it came to social accomplishments. Were it not for the wretched clothes he was wearing and which had taken a lot of his self-assurance away from him, he could have crossed swords with the other youth in anything.

Ruth was warming up to him again, and several times she asked him to sing and play pieces which she selected from Helena’s music cabinet, and Donald played them with a great deal of pleasure. Mr. Moodey’s star was going down a little and he knew it, and Donald knew it. Both youths were carrying on a subtle duel of wits which the girls were not aware of, though Judson, keen judge of human nature that he was, reclined on the sofa lazily and mentally seconded and applauded his young protÉgÉ.

When Donald had played a number of pieces—purposely working in snatches from “Il Trovatore,” the sextette from “Lucia” and other well-known airs popular among people who appreciate real music—Ruth called to him. “Come over and have a rest, Donald,” she said sweetly. “You’ve been doing the lion’s share of the entertaining and we’ve enjoyed it immensely. I cannot understand how you can play so well from memory and with such little practice, and it is too bad that your talents should be lost to your friends by your going off to sea for the best part of your life.” She gave him an admiring glance from her blue eyes and McKenzie felt very happy. His little bit of “swank” was evidently worth the effort, for she had called him by his first name again, and his youthful heart fluttered. Moodey was quick to note the familiar appellation too, and he felt that he must do something to pull his stock up to par.

“Er—Ruth,” he said. “You’re coming down to the game to-morrow afternoon, aren’t you? We’re playing Acadiaville for the championship and it’ll be a tough game to-morrow afternoon, aren’t you? We’re playing ball, McKenzie?”

“I used to play a bit while at school in Scotland.”

“Rugby?”

“No! Soccer—Association.”

“Oh,” Walter gave a half-sneer. “That’s a kid’s game. We play Rugby.”

Miss Nickerson interposed. “You know, Donald, Mr. Moodey here is a great athlete. He is captain of the college team and immensely popular here in Halifax. He is what they call a ‘grid-iron hero’.”

“A grid-iron?” The term puzzled Donald. “That’s what they use in cooking. Nothing to do with eating, has it?”

Ruth laughed and Moodey looked dark. “A grid-iron,” he explained, frostily, “is a slang term for a football ground. It is marked out in squares like a grid-iron.” And as Ruth was still laughing, he gave Donald a look which gave him a hint of the “hero’s” feelings towards him.

Mr. Moodey was now launched into a subject in which he could shine, and he commanded Ruth’s attention for several minutes telling her of past games, the prospects for the morrow, and a good deal of his talk centered around his own personal prowess. “I’m in great shape now,” he observed. “I’ve trained down until I’m as hard as nails.” He raised his right arm and flexed his biceps. “Feel that, Ruth! Hard, isn’t it?” Ruth felt. “Oh, it certainly is hard!” she exclaimed. “You must be strong, Walter. Just feel his muscle, Donald!” There was a merry twinkle in her eye when she made the request. Donald, feeling rather nauseated at Moodey’s brag, gave the muscle a squeeze with his fingers which caused Walter to wince a trifle. A sailor’s grip, with fingers toughened by canvas clawing and rope hauling, is not to be despised, and McKenzie purposely gave the “grid-iron hero” a hard nip and Moodey felt that he would like to get McKenzie where he could hit him for it.

Totally unconscious of the veiled hostility between the two, Ruth chattered away, addressing her talk to both. When Donald spoke to Moodey he was icily polite; when Moodey passed remarks to Donald, they were thinly sarcastic and he, on occasions, introduced a nasty trick of imitating McKenzie’s slightly Scotch accent. Had the circumstances been otherwise, Donald would not have taken any notice, but when these conversational shots occurred, the young sailor felt like giving the college man something more painful than the retort courteous. With the two youths playing a dual role, the evening passed until Helena, who had been holding an earnest colloquy with the skipper, cried out, “Did you know that, Ruthie? Judson tells me that Donald saved his life when the steamer ran them down. They were in the water for an hour.” Ruth’s fine eyes flashed to Donald’s face and there was an expression of surprise and fear in their blue depths. He flushed and squirmed on his chair and shot the creeping sleeves up again as Moodey drawled, with another eye-brow raising, “Oh, really!”

“He sure did,” vouchsafed Judson. “If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be here now. You can thank him, Ruth, that your dear brother is not feeding the fish on Quero Bank this night, for I was nearly a goner.”

The girl glanced from McKenzie to her brother with a strange look on her face. “I—I didn’t know there was anything like this in your accident,” she said quiveringly. “I—I thought you were all picked up in your dories a few minutes after the collision. That’s what you said, Juddy. You said it was nothing—”

“Juddy evidently didn’t tell you the whole story,” interrupted Helena. “He has just been telling me how Donald swam about in the sea and found him just as he was going under, and held him up and eventually got him over to a spar and upon it. They were both thrown into the sea by the steamer’s bow and had a dreadfully narrow escape.”

Ruth remained speechless for a moment, as if trying to comprehend it all, then she gave McKenzie a most expressive glance—a look of unspoken thankfulness—and she leaned forward and murmured softly to him, “I don’t know what to say, Donald, but—we’ll talk about it again.” And the youth blushed still redder, felt hot, and to cover his confusion, patted the recalcitrant coat collar into place.

Mr. Moodey, after a period of silence, cleared his throat. “You’re a swimmah, McKenzie?” he enquired.

Donald nodded. “I can swim a little.”

“Jolly useful thing to know,” continued the other, “specially if one’s a fisherman. They’re always getting spilled out of their boats. I do some swimming myself. It is one of the sports I pride myself on. Just won this trinket the otha day for swimming out at the Nor’west Arm.” He took a watch-fob out of his pocket and handed it to Donald. It was a gold medallion—a first prize for a half-mile contest—and Donald knew enough about swimming to give Moodey credit for being an athlete of distinction. “That’s very nice,” he remarked, handing the fob back. “I’ve done a little racing when I was at school. Y’know, in Glasgow schools swimming is compulsory, and I rather liked it.” Modestly, he made no mention of having won the Glasgow Amateur Swimming Shield for schoolboys under 14 years of age.

After Helena’s revelation, Moodey became quite cordial. He realized that McKenzie was a superior sort of a fellow in spite of his vocation and his frightful taste in clothes, and he dropped his patronizing and sarcastic attitude towards him. Besides, he found in McKenzie a foe-man worthy of his steel and he was quick to assume that any baiting of the Scotch lad would lose him Ruth’s friendship. It was evident that this McKenzie chap had a strong stand-in with the Nickersons and Helena Stuart, and an exhibition of antipathy would probably end in Mr. Moodey being the loser. With the change in both Ruth’s and Moodey’s attitude towards him, Donald found himself spending the most enjoyable period of the evening.

After having some cake and coffee, the men rose to depart. Moodey took his leave first—saying that he was in training and would have to get to bed early for the game on the morrow—and he shook hands quite cordially with Donald. “Try and get around to the game to-morrow afternoon, old chap,” he said, “and if you’re going to be in Halifax for a few days, why we might go over to the Arm and have a swim togethaw.” And after saying to the girls that he would look for them in the grand stand—front row—next afternoon, he said “Good-night!” and departed.

When McKenzie was leaving, Ruth took him to one side. “It was lovely of you to come,” she said sweetly, giving him a squeeze of the hand and a glance from her blue eyes which set his heart in a whirl. “And you’ve been so nice and obliging in playing and singing for us. And, moreover, we Nickersons are very much in your debt for what you did ... out on the Banks.” Donald made a deprecatory gesture. “It was nothing. I am a good swimmer,” he murmured happily.

“If you are going to be in town to-morrow, Donald,” said Helena, “you must come up and have tea with us. Judson is coming, too.” And when Ruth echoed the invitation, Donald accepted with delight.

At their hotel that night, Judson seemed in great spirits. He and Helena had had a wonderful evening together, and he was feeling very happy. He whistled and hummed a song to himself as he undressed for bed, and Donald knew things were going well with him. McKenzie was in a similarly joyous mood. He felt that he had left Ruth on an extremely good footing and Moodey ceased to worry him, and when Judson remarked from the depths of his blankets, “I’d like to have that Moodey pup in my watch aboard a wind-jammer for a spell, I’d give that haw-hawing specimen of the cod-fish aristocracy a hot time, by Jupiter! I’d harden his muscles up, by Jingo! Hear him talk as though he didn’t know what a codfish was ... and his old gran’pop made a fortune out of the codfish he jewed aout of the poor devils of fishermen up the shore and on the Gaspe coast. Huh! Him and his ‘kippahs’ and his ‘pulling nets all day long’—”

McKenzie laughed. “Oh, he’s all right. He’s a decent sort of a chap. It’s just his manner and the way he has been brought up.”

Next morning he went down to the Shipping Master’s office to see about getting signed on in a steamer for Glasgow. The captain of a ship was in the place at the time, and when McKenzie asked the official if he was looking for any men to a British port, the ship-master turned and spoke. “You looking for a ship?” Donald nodded. “Yes, sir! I’d like to ship for the run to Glasgow, or, failing that, to any British port.”

The other looked him over critically. “I’m looking for a hand—an able seaman—and I’m Glasgow bound. Ever been to sea before?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Show me your discharges.”

“Haven’t got any,” said Donald, slightly flustered.

“What ships were you serving in?”

“I made a voyage from the Old Country to the Pacific Coast in a barque, and from Victoria, B.C., to Halifax in a schooner. I’ve been fishing on a Banker for the past four months.”

The captain looked at him narrowly. “You’re Scotch, eh? What barque were you in, and what did you do aboard her?”

“Never mind the name of the ship, sir, but I was serving my time—”

The other grunted. “Huh! Runaway apprentice, I guess, eh?”

Donald laughed, and after a pause he said, “The skipper of the schooner I came around the Horn in is in Halifax now. He’ll vouch for me.”

The Shipping Master looked over the desk. “Was that the Helen Starbuck?”

“Yes, sir!”

The official smiled and observed to the captain, “I reckon, Cap’en, that a lad that has made a voyage from the Coast to Halifax in a ninety-five-ton schooner is a sailor.”

The master nodded. “Can you steer?”

“Of course, but sail only.”

“We-e-ell,” the captain gave him a searching glance, “I guess you’ll do. You look bright. I’ll sign you as an A.B. How’s that?” McKenzie replied in acceptance.

“Alright, Mister, sign him up!” Then to Donald he said, “Get your clothes and get down aboard the ship right away. We’re ready to sail. Hurry now.”

Donald had only time to run to his hotel, collect his sea kit and pay the bill. Judson was out, but he scribbled a note to him and left it on the dressing table. “Confound it!” he muttered, as he walked down to the dock. “I didn’t expect to get hustled out like this. And I was looking forward so much to that tea to-night. Now it’s all off and I haven’t even got a chance to telephone her. Hang the luck!”

That evening he was eating his tea in the starboard fo’c’sle of a big freighter, in company with an all-nation gang of deck-hands, and the place was swinging to the roll of the off-shore swell, while the shores of Nova Scotia were fading away in the dim distance astern as the propeller drove the steamer for Glasgow and his mother.