You're saved from soiling your fingers, and if you have no

child,

It all comes back to the business. Gad, won't your wife be wild!

66

'Calls and calls in her carriage, her 'andkerchief up to 'er eye: Daddy! dear daddy 's dyin'!" and doing her best to cry. Grateful? Oh, yes, I'm grateful, but keep her away from here.

Your mother 'ud never ha' stood 'er, and, anyhow, women are

queer.

There's women will say I've married a second time. Not

quite!

But give pore Aggie a hundred, and tell her your lawyers 'll

fight.

She was the best o' the boiling

ends;

you'll meet her before it

I'm in for a row with the mother - I'll leave you settle my

friends:

For a man he must go with a woman, which women don't understand

Or the sort that say they can see it they are n't the marrying brand.

But I wanted to speak o' your mother that's Lady Gloster

I'm going to up and see her, without its hurting the will. Here! Take your hand off the bell-pull. Five thousand's waiting for you,

If you'll only listen a minute, and do as I bid you do.

They'll try to prove me crazy, and, if you bungle, they can; And I've only you to trust to! (O God, why ain't he a man?) There's some waste money on marbles, the same as M'Cullough

tried

Marbles and mausoleums - but I call that sinful pride. There's some ship bodies for burial - we've carried 'em, soldered and packed;

Down in their wills they wrote it, and nobody called them cracked.

4

But me

I've too much money, and people might . . . All my fault:

It come o' hoping for grandsons and buying that Wokin'

I'm sick o' the 'ole dam' business. I'm going back where I

came.

Dick, you 're the son o' my body, and you'll take charge o' the same!

I want to lie by your mother, ten thousand mile away,

And they'll want to send me to Woking; and that's where you 'll earn your pay.

I've thought it out on the quiet, the same as it ought to be done

Quiet, and decent, and proper-an' here's your orders, my

son.

You know the Line? You don't, though. You write to the Board, and tell

Your father's death has upset you an' you're goin' to cruise for a spell,

An' you'd like the Mary Gloster - I've held her ready for this

They'll put her in working order and you'll take her out as

she is.

Yes, it was money idle when I patched her and put her

aside

(Thank God, I can pay for my fancies!)

your mother died,

the boat where

By the Little Paternosters, as you come to the Union Bank, We dropped her — I think I told

you and I pricked it off

["Tiny she looked on the grating that oily, treacly sea-] 'Hundred and Eighteen East, remember, and South just Three.

-

Easy bearings to carry-Three South Three to the dot;
But I gave M'Andrew a copy in case of dying—or not.
And so you'll write to M'Andrew, he's Chief of the Maori

Line;

They'll give him leave, if you ask 'em and say it's business o'

mine.

I built three boats for the Maoris, an' very well pleased they

were,

An' I've known Mac since the Fifties, and Mac knew me

and her.

After the first stroke warned me I sent him the money to keep Against the time you'd claim it, committin' your dad to the

deep;

For you are the son o' my body, and Mac was my oldest friend,

I've never asked 'im to dinner, but he 'll see it out to the end. Stiff-necked Glasgow beggar, I've heard he 's prayed for my

soul,

But he could n't lie if you paid him, and he'd starve before he stole!

He'll take the Mary in ballast - you'll find her a lively

ship;

And you'll take Sir Anthony Gloster, that goes on 'is wedding

trip,

Lashed in our old deck-cabin with all three port-holes wide, The kick o' the screw beneath him and the round blue seas outside!

Sir Anthony Gloster's carriage our 'ouse-flag flyin' free Ten thousand men on the pay-rool and forty freighters at

sea!

He made himself and a million, but this world is a fleetin'

show,

And he'll go to the wife of 'is bosom the same as he ought to

go

By the heel of the Paternosters there is n't a chance to

mistake

And Mac 'll pay you the money as soon as the bubbles break! Five thousand for six weeks' cruising, the stanchest freighter

afloat,

And Mac he 'll give you your bonus the minute I'm out o' the boat!

He'll take you round to Macassar, and you'll come back

alone;

He knows what I want o' the Mary.

with my own.

Your mother 'ud call it wasteful, but I've seven-and-thirty

more;

I'll come in my private carriage and bid it wait at the

door. . .

For my son 'e was never a credit: 'e muddled with books and

art,

And 'e lived on Sir Anthony's money and 'e broke Sir Anthony's heart.

There is n't even a grandchild, and the Gloster family's

done

The only one you left me, O mother, the only one!

Harrer and Trinity College - me slavin' early an' lateAn' he thinks I'm dying crazy, and you're in Macassar Strait!

Flesh o' my flesh, my dearie, for ever an' ever amen,

That first stroke come for a warning; I ought to ha' gone to you then.

But cheap repairs for a cheap 'un-the doctors said I'd

do:

Mary, why didn't you warn me? I've allus heeded to you, Excep❜ I know about women; but you are a spirit now; An', wife, they was only women, and I was a man. That's

how.

An' a man 'e must go with a woman, as you could not understand;

But I never talked 'em secrets. I paid 'em out o' hand. Thank Gawd, I can pay for my fancies! Now what's five thousand to me,

For a berth off the Paternosters in the haven where I would be?

I believe in the Resurrection, if I read my Bible plain,

But I wouldn't trust 'em at Wokin'; we're safer at sea

again.

For the heart it shall go with the treasure

go down to the

sea in ships. I'm sick of the hired women - I'll kiss my girl on her lips! I'll be content with my fountain, I'll drink from my own well, And the wife of my youth shall charm me an' the rest can

go to Hell!

(Dickie, he will, that 's certain.) I'll lie in our standin'-bed, An' Mac'll take her in ballast an' she trims best by the

head.

Down by the head an' sinkin', her fires are drawn and cold, And the water's splashin' hollow on the skin of the empty

hold

Churning an' choking and chuckling, quiet and scummy and

dark

Full to her lower hatches and risin' steady. Hark!

That was the after-bulkhead.

to stern.

Never seen death yet, Dickie? learn!

She's flooded from stem

THE BALLAD OF "THE BOLIVAR "

1890

SEVEN men from all the world back to Docks again,
Rolling down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:
Give the girls another drink 'fore we sign away.
We that took the "Bolivar" out across the Bay!

shifted;

We put out from Sunderland loaded down with rails;
We put back to Sunderland 'cause our cargo
We put out from Sunderland met the winter gales
Seven days and seven nights to the Start we drifted.

Racketing her rivets loose, smoke-stack white as snow,
All the coals adrift adeck, half the rails below,
Leaking like a lobster-pot, steering like a dray -
Out we took the Bolivar, out across the Bay!