CHAPTER ONE

He was christened Donald Percival McKenzie, but his mother preferred to call him Percival. The father, however insisted on the "Donald" and demanded that it be given priority over whatever appellation the mother might desire to add to the rare old Highland surname of McKenzie.

Captain McKenzie received the news of his son's arrival into the world just as his ship was leaving the coaling station at Cape Verde Islands, but his wife's suggestion of "Percival" caused him to hold the ship to an anchor while he dashed off a letter protesting against the tacking of such a namby-pamby name on to a son of his. "'Donald' is the name I have set my heart on, Janet, and I won't have the name of McKenzie defiled by any such English designation as 'Percival'. I won't have any Percy McKenzies in my family." Then, to conciliate his wife, who, he felt, deserved some consideration, he added, "You may call him Percival also if you've set your mind on it, but remember, Donald comes first!" So Donald Percival McKenzie it was, and thus it is inscribed in the Register of Births for the City of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, Scotland, in the year of our Lord, Eighteen Hundred and Seventy-six.

Though registered thus by the laws of church and state and in the mind of the father, yet the mother won her desire for a time and omitted the "Donald" when addressing, or referring to, her son. It was only during Captain McKenzie's brief home visits between voyages that young Donald Percival discovered that he had another appellation which he was expected to answer to. This discovery became a most pleasing one when the boy advanced to those years of discretion when he might fraternize with his fellows on the aristocratic "Terrace" where he resided. Glasgow youngsters, inheriting antipathies through Scotch or Irish ancestry, scorned anything savoring of "English" and the name of "Percy" could only be applied to an "Englisher" or a boy so anglicized by his "Maw" as to be only worth giving a licking to wherever and whenever met. When one's mother hails from Inverness and speaks the pure melodious English peculiar to that part of Scotland, it is difficult for a lad to disprove connection with southron antecedents--especially in the face of such circumstantial evidence as a name like Percy, and an accent free from rolling "r's" and Scottish idioms.

This was what young McKenzie had to fight against. Even though he could scrape through the language test and deliver himself of a guttural "Och, awa!" and pronounce "loch" without calling it "lock," yet the "Percy" damned him. He had attained the age of seven--a rather delicate boy, much petted and spoilt by his mother--when he rebelled. The juvenile denizens of the Terrace had jeered at him--calling him "Percy, dear!" and added injury to insult by throwing mud and profaning his white starched collar with unclean hands. "They called me a mammy's boy," he sobbed, "'n they said I was English, 'n they said English was no good 'cause they ran away from the Scotch at Bannockburn an' Stirling Bridge. I'm _not_ English, am I, mamma?"

"No, no, dear," soothed the mother. "How dare those vulgar little scamps abuse my little pet! Don't cry, my wee lamb! I shan't let you go out and play with them any more----"

A renewed howl came from Donald Percival. "But I wanna play with them, mamma! I don't wanna be kept in! It's all your fault for calling me 'Percy'! I don't wanna be called Percy! I wanna be called Donal' same as daddy calls me. And, mamma, please don't call me Percy any more. I like Donal' better!"

There had been several incidents of this nature, and Mrs. McKenzie was now forced to address her offspring publicly by his first name. But the other died hard and practically blasted young Donald's life in the locality in which he lived. Only when the family removed to a distant neighborhood did the youngster feel free to begin life with a clean sheet.

There is a psychology in nomenclature which reflects the characters of the parents. "Percival" aptly described that of Mrs. McKenzie. As plain Janet McKinnon she grew up in the bucolic atmosphere of a small Invernessshire farm, where she had, at an early age, to help her mother milk cows, clean byres, plant and gather potatoes. In summer, she ran around barefoot; in winter she wore heavy boots and homespun stockings and red flannel petticoats. The farm was a poor one and the McKinnon family was numerous and hungry. Janet at sixteen was sent out to "service" as a maid-of-all-work in the home of a Glasgow baillie.

The baillie had made some "siller" in the scrap-iron business and hankered after the desirable municipal eminence of Lord Provost of Glasgow. As he and his wife were rather crude personages, he realized that some training in deportment and society mannerisms was necessary, and his establishment became something of a stamping ground for professors of dancing and deportment, English governesses and impecunious connections of artistocratic families. Janet, the maid, absorbed much of the atmosphere with which she was surrounded and unconsciously aped a great deal of what she saw being dinned into the baillie and his kindred.

"Bonny Janet McKinnon"--good-hearted, healthy, quick-witted, and a pretty figure of a lass, though rather proud and vain--followed the baillie in his steps up the social ladder, and while a domestic in the future Lord Provost's house, met handsome, rollicking Alec McKenzie, chief officer of the Sutton Liner _Ansonia_ in the New York trade.

McKenzie could claim good family of ancient Highland lineage. His father was a celebrated physician and a younger brother of Sir Alastair McKenzie of Dunsany Castle. The McKenzies of Dunsany, however, were "penniless folk wi' a lang pedigree" and the knight drew but a meagre income from the bare northern crofts and moors which he owned, and were it not for the wealthy English and American sportsmen who yearly leased the place for the autumn shooting, the Laird of Dunsany would have been forced to work to keep himself and to pay the interest on his mortgages. The doctor was more absorbed in the theory than in the practice of his profession, and, after devoting enough attention to remunerative patients to provide the means for giving his two sons a good education, he retired to his laboratory and practically remained there until he died, and the proceeds from the sale of his books and instruments were just sufficient to pay his debts and bury him. The doctor's wife pre-deceased her husband by several years, and the two sons--Alexander and David--scarce knew their parents. When Dr. McKenzie died, David went into the office of a Glasgow ship broker and absorbed the hard-fisted doctrines of a parsimonious and none too scrupulous employer, while Alec went off in a sailing ship to sea.

By the time Alec had struggled to the sublimity of a chief officer's berth in a liner, where the donning of much gold braid was compulsory and the acceptance of a monthly wage of twelve pounds was scarcely in keeping with the dignity and responsibility of the position, David had scrimped and scraped enough cash together to purchase several sixty-fourths in a sailing ship and had blossomed out as a ship-owner. Through his shipping connections, David became friendly with the baillie scrap-iron merchant, and the friendship grew into intimacy when the baillie learned of McKenzie's connection with the Laird of Dunsany. With the tuft-hunting dealer in iron tooting a horn for him as "Ma freen, David McKenzie, nephew o' Sir Alastair McKenzie o' Dunsany Castle, ye ken!" the ship-broker brother prospered, while Sailor Alec sweated and mucked about at sea.

It was during one of Alec's shore spells in Glasgow that David so forgot himself as to take his seaman brother up to the baillie's mansion for dinner. The dinner was memorable in more ways than one. To Alec, who had travelled much and was quite at home in any society, the baillie and his brood constituted a comedy. Six red-headed imps of various ages surrounded the board and monopolized most of the conversation and the food. Grimy fingers were surreptitiously thrust into the preserves to be licked off under the table-cloth, and nimble juvenile digits pilfered the choice sugar embellishments of sundry cakes. The baillie sat beaming at the head of his festive board and reproved those precocious excursions with divers--"Dinna touch the jeelies, Wully!" or "Pit that cookie back on the plate, Jeanie!" while to his guests he murmured admiring asides--"Aw, the wee laumbs! They're hungry, the wee doos!" David sat stony-faced, but Alec almost exploded. "Lambs and doves are they?" he thought. "They're worse than a swarm of galley rats!"

The baillie's lessons in correct society conduct showed themselves every now and again by the occasional "Eengleesh" which he introduced into his conversation, but to Alec these utterances were a farce. "Mister McKinzie, will you partake of the toastit _breed_?" "Kindly _pawss_ the mulk to your _mummaw_, John!" "Let the _myde_ take an' gie ye a clean plate, Captun--the bairns have dirtied the yin you 'ave!" The latter caused the sailor to choke in his serviette and he looked up to catch the sparkling brown eyes of Janet McKinnon.

"Pardon me, sir!" she murmured demurely as she deftly replaced the "dirtied yin."

"Oh--ah--thanks awfully!" stuttered Alec, who suddenly realized that something eminently desirable in femininity was ministering to his wants. During the rest of the dinner the worthy alderman's _faux pas_ were hugely enjoyed by at least two persons, and Alec's roving eyes shared silent amusement with those of the "myde" whenever the unconscious host delivered himself of a particularly atrocious observation.

Janet McKinnon, with her soft speech, her rosy Highland features and pretty figure attracted the simple sailor heart of Alec McKenzie. He had met many women in the manner that sailors meet them--lightly met and readily forgotten. He had murmured "pidgin" to the sing-song girls of Nagasaki and Yokohama; had bandied Yankee slang and bought drinks for the damosels of the "Barbary Coast" in San Francisco, and applauded the gyrations of the dancing houris of the Near East; but these were but diversions of the moment and had left no impression on the heart. Women of the more respectable sort he had met casually on ocean passages, but he had never allowed himself to become enamored of any. The inequality of his position as a poor sea-ranging mate; the lack of opportunity for becoming acquainted on short voyages, and drastic regulations of duty and ship-board intercourse, precluded all ideas of marrying.

On a salary of twelve pounds per month, with uniforms to buy and shore living to pay, a man cannot fraternize with his feminine equals in the social scale and Alec McKenzie never tried it. He was a handsome man, well-built, broad-shouldered, with blonde curly hair, a flowing silky moustache and clipped beard. With his light hair, tanned skin, keen blue eyes, high forehead and cheekbones and straight, determined mouth, he looked a veritable viking--a modern example of atavistic character descending from those Norse raiders who found the Scots Highlands congenial habitation for permanent residence.

Thirty-eight years of age, and celebrated as "the smartest mate that ever took a ship out the Clyde," Alec McKenzie felt that in Baillie Ross's maid he had met his affinity, and next evening he boldly called at the servants' entrance to the Ross home and inquired of the old cook who answered the door "if Miss Janet was in?" (That was the only name he knew so far.) He was ushered into the servants' parlor in the basement of the house, and Janet awaited his overtures with astonishment, not unmixed with suspicion as to his motives. Blushing and more abashed than he had ever felt in his life, he came to the point with a sailor's straightforwardness. "I saw you last night, Miss Janet, and I like you. I'd like to know you better. My name is McKenzie--Alec McKenzie--and I'm a chief officer on one of Sutton's ships. What is your name, may I ask?"

Still surprised and confused, Janet had murmured, "Jeanette McKinnon, sir!" (Janet had absorbed some of her master's ideas and 'Jeanette' sounded more aristocratic.) "Well, Miss McKinnon," said Alec, more at ease, "if you care to, we might go to a play or a music hall to-night. What do you say?"

Miss McKinnon consented, and thus the wooing was begun. When she doffed the cap and apron of domestic servitude and donned her "walking out" clothes, Janet, with her shapely figure, her dark hair and sparkling brown eyes, and the rich Highland bloom in her cheeks, was a woman deserving of more than a passing glance. She had many admirers, but they were of the class whose business brought them to the kitchen door, and she would have none of them. The butcher, the grocer, the gas-meter man, and the police officer on the beat had all made a set for the alderman's pretty maid only to be haughtily rebuffed in the manner affected by the poor but beautiful heroines in the _feuilletons_ of the Glasgow Weekly Herald or the Heartsease Library.

Sailor Alec, absolutely unaffected by the conservatism of class and setting no value upon aristocratic connections, felt that there was nothing out of the way in his courting a domestic servant. There was no sign of plebeian origin in Miss McKinnon's manners and pleasant Inverness-shire speech; her hands were small and well-kept, and she had a neat foot in spite of the bare feet and "brogans" of youthful days. In his eyes, she was pretty, intelligent, and desirable, and he made up his mind that he would ask her to marry him at the first opportunity.

For almost a year, McKenzie courted Janet McKinnon, and during the week his ship was in Glasgow between voyages to New York, he would spend every evening with her. The old cook, who had a sailor brother, connived at the meetings, kept guard over the parlor, and helped Janet to get off duty when McKenzie called, but she would damp Miss McKinnon's spirits every once in a while by remarking what "a harum-scarum lot them sailors was" and what great chaps they were "for drinkin' an' spendin' their money on furrin wimmin oot in Chinay, Injy, Rio Grandy an' sich-like heathen parts!"

It was a somewhat hazardous wooing, and many were the occasions when McKenzie would be waiting for Janet in the servants' parlor downstairs, during which time his lady-love would be waiting on his brother David at the baillie's table upstairs. David was blissfully unconscious of Alec's doings when in port, as neither of the brothers kept intimate touch with each other. David looked upon Alec as a "puir waster" and the latter sympathized with David for living the life of a "crab"--"jewing and shrivelling his soul for dollars." "Poor Dave," he would say to Janet. "Working day and night over his books in a dusty, dingy hole of an office. Chopping down expenses in the miserable hookers his firm runs. Scratching, grubbing and saving money--that's all he lives for. Poor chap! He doesn't know what life is! He's never seen the world or its beauties. He'll fetch up as a miserable miser some of these days!"

When David thought of Alec, which was not often, it was with scorn and irritation. "Shiftless beggar! No ambition! Sooner waste his life and talents at sea working for someone else rather than save his money and have someone working for him. Suttons pay their mates too well. As long as he has money to spend he'll chuck it around like a drunken sailor and some of these days when he is played out he'll come to me to help him!" David, in a way, was a better judge of human nature than Alec. Though a splendid seaman and navigator, Alec was not aggressive nor overly ambitious. He needed prodding. At sea, he carried out his duties faithfully and well because they were prescribed for him, and he hoped for the day when Suttons would give him a command. He would wait for it to come to him, rather than work to speed the day. When the command came, he would ask Janet to marry him. On a mate's pay, he couldn't save anything, but when he got a ship of his own, he would take the plunge, marry, and fit out a home on his first month's pay as master.

However, man proposes and God disposes. It was one of the red-headed imps of the baillie's progeny who precipitated matters. This youngster awoke about ten o'clock one evening feeling hungry. He had vivid recollections of the cook baking a batch of lovely "traykle scones" during the afternoon and he made his way to the basement with feline tread and upon robbery intent. The half-opened door of the servants' parlor revealed a most astonishing tableau to his inquisitive vision and, recognizing the actors, he felt that it was worth while securing an audience to share the sight with him. Creeping upstairs to his father's library, he astonished the worthy baillie and his wife, and almost stunned David, who happened to be there that evening, by shouting excitedly, "Yon yella-heided Captun that was at oor hoose fur dinner wi' Mister McKinzie a while syne is doon-stairs in the slavey's room wi' Jinnut on his knee!"

Janet and Alec received a rude shock a minute later when the astounded baillie, his wife, brother David and the red-headed Ross hopeful sallied into the sitting-room and caught the lovers in the act of embracing.

"Captun McKinzie!" stuttered the baillie. "Whit is the meanin' o' this?" Alec jumped to his feet, blushing furiously, but withal, deadly calm. "Why, nothing at all, baillie. But isn't this rather unceremonious? Should have knocked, don't you think?"

When the baillie commenced to stammer in confusion, Mrs. Ross felt that it was her place to talk and she applied herself to Janet.

"McKinnon," she said icily. "I'm surprised an' deesgusted! I niver thocht ye were that sorrt of a gyurl! You'll pack yer traps an' get away frae here immediately! Sich carryin'-ons in ma hoose!" And she snorted in contemptuous indignation.

Poor Janet's eyes filled with tears. She was deathly pale, but held her head high with something of the dignity of her Highland forebears. "There have been no carrying-ons, madam!"

"Don't gie me ony of yer impertinence, ye trollop!" cried madam, and David interjected, staring coldly at his brother, "I should have thought, Alec, that you would have shown more delicacy and respect for your family than to be carrying on a clandestine--er--ah--" He stammered and racked his brains for a word which would fit without being too crude, when Alec interrupted him.

"I know what you were going to say, dear David," he retorted coolly, "but just let me warn you not to say it! Miss McKinnon"--he turned and bowed slightly to the baillie's wife--"will pack up her things and leave here immediately, for to-morrow she'll become my wife!"

"Your _wife_!" chorused the trio. Young Ross was temporarily absent--having found the treacle scones.

"Yes, my _wife_!" answered Alec, drawing the weeping Janet to him, and raising his eyebrows, challenged, "Is there anything so very extraordinary in that?"

David laughed bitterly--a harsh, mirthless cackle. "Your wife," he sneered. "A common slavey! Don't be foolish, Alexander. If you believe that is _necessary_"--he emphasized the word--"I think we could fix it up without disgracing our family."

Alec stepped quickly before his brother and in the ominous glint in his eye and in the grim set of his jaw, David saw an expression he had never viewed before in the "shiftless waster," and he recoiled involuntarily. "Look here, Dave," said the other, with menace in his tones, "don't you dare make such beastly insinuations. I'm going to marry Miss McKinnon. I have always intended to marry her, and my relations with her have been square and above-board. I don't consider I'm disgracing the family, and family doesn't enter into the thing at all. If you feel hurt about my affairs, you are at liberty to up hook and part company, that's all. I don't want to hear another word about it from anybody!"

David's pale face grew dark. He was furious, but his fury was kindled by pure selfishness and not through any affection for Alec or interest in his welfare. He felt that his brother had disgraced him in the eyes of the Ross family. He was afraid the incident would become the subject of vulgar gossip and tasty quip to scarify his dignity among the brokers on "the Street" and the Shipbrokers Association. They would be sure to stop him and remark callously, "Heard a brother of yours got in a mess with Baillie Ross's slavey and had to marry her!" To his mean, narrow soul there could be no other viewpoint. Clean-hearted love and honor had no place in his shifty mentality. He almost screamed in excess of rage, "Very well, Alexander! If that's your intention, go ahead! From this hour I absolutely disown you as a brother. You are nothing to me from now on. Go to the devil your own way!" And he turned to the others, "Come, Mrs. Ross! Come, Baillie! Let's leave this fellow and his woman!"

That night, Alec took Janet to a hotel and left her there after caressing her tears and fears away. Next morning, he was down to his ship early and borrowed five pounds from the chief engineer. He saw his skipper and secured two days leave of absence, and was in his berth packing up a few necessary clothes in a portmanteau when the steward announced that a gentleman would like to see him. Thinking it was David, Alec said, "Send him in!" and waited, prepared for a stormy session. But it was not David--David was through with him. It was Baillie Ross, and he fussed into the narrow berth, red-faced and perspiring.

"Ma puir laddie!" he puffed sympathetically. "I was real sorry aboot last nicht, ye ken. I didny know ye were coortin' Jinnut, and I'm no blamin' ye. She's a nice lass--a guid lass--a rale comely yin! Noo, laddie, ye're gettin' merrit to-day, ye say? Huv ye ony money?"

"I've got enough to get married on, anyway, sir," replied Alec.

"Aye, aye, laddie, but that'll no be much, I'm thinkin'. Weel, weel, Jinnut is a nice lass an' she was wi' us fur a guid mony years, sae here's a wee bit weddin' present tae th' baith o' ye! Guid luck tae ye, an' if ye ever want help, dinna be frichtit tae gie me a call. Tellyphone me at ma office first though. I widny want Mistress Ross or yer brither tae ken I was seein' ye. Guid luck an' guidbye!" He fussed out again leaving the astonished Alec gazing at the two ten pound notes which the good-natured alderman had thrust into his hands.

They were married quietly that afternoon and spent a brief honeymoon around Loch Katrine. Three days later, McKenzie was at his station on the fo'c'sle-head of the _Ansonia_ watching the tug straighten her out on the first mile of the run from Plantation Quay to the East River wharves. He was supremely happy, and as his ship swung down the roily river, his thoughts were of his bride of three days awaiting his return in a quiet but inexpensive lodging-house, and facing the future on an income of twelve pounds per month.