young lad, an’ what might ye be after?”
The voice of the man at the drafting table brought me back with a start. A flavor of the hielands hung about his speech, like a smell of heather blown across a moor. I saw a stocky man, ruddy colored, with thick, black hair growing after its own impulse. His mouth was firm, even stern; his eyes direct and piercing; his chin square and deep-cleft.
My throat felt tight and my voice small, but I remember the friendliness that sparked his eyes as he glanced across the drawing table at me.
Turning back to me, Donald McKay demanded, “An’ what mak’s ye come to me for a position?”
“I—I want a position, sir.”
“An’ what can ye do?”
“I can draw ships, too,” came my answer, with courage mustered from somewhere.
He laughed then. “Hoot! An’ that’s a braw deeclaration! What’s yer name?”
“Enoch Thacher.”
“Son of Joel Thacher, the merchant?”
When I nodded in the affirmative, he said: “I knew yer faither weel, laddie. A fine mon he was, too.” His mouth relaxed into a smile and I felt my heart grow warm toward him.
Donald McKay turned and laid his hand upon the ship model that had cast a spell over me. For a moment he was silent.
“I caught ye lookin’ upon this ship,” he said at last. His eyes lighted and he moved his fingers over the model with a sculptor’s touch. “Up New York way they’re sayin’ that we Doon Easters canna’ build ships to outsail theirs. Weel—they can tak’ a round turn out o’ theirsel’s and go to Tophet! I ken that this sweet lassie will mak’ them eat their words. She’ll be as quick in light airs as in a howlin’ blaw, or I’m a Dutchman. Look-ye how I’ve sharpened her bows and flattened her forebody, and peeled her under the counters! She’ll hold to a maximum o’ speed wi’out drivin’ hersel’ under. An’ as for they newfangled teapots that run wi’ engines!” He gave a snort of disgust and patted the model almost with reverence. “The end o’ sail, the wise oracles are sayin’. Just wait till you tak’ to water, my pet!” Turning back toward me, he demanded, “An’ what mak’s ye come to me for a position?”
“Well, sir,” I stammered, “I often heard my father speak of you as—as a man of genius, sir. And I’ve loved ships ever since I was born.” I was twisting my hat and wondering why I had been cursed with such a clumsy tongue.
Donald McKay looked at me with those piercing eyes that could have found out the flaw in any living thing.
“So ye love ships, eh?” he chuckled. “I mind when I was yer age I loved them too. Grand fun it was to be a-straddle a skys’l yard, swaying to the pitchin’ o’ the ship. Sometimes as I sit here on the land, designin’ ships for other men tae sail, I think aboot it, an’ remember the gales an’ the storms. An’ I tell ye, it mak’s a shiver run through the marrow o’ my bones! Ye ken, laddie, there are men this world who ne’er see a drop o’ water but what they wash in? To them the sea is an auld wife’s tale wi’out muckle o’ truth to it. But for men like you an’ me, laddie, it’s a braw sight, an’ ane that plucks at yer heart wi’ cold fingers. Bonnie, but awesome.” His eyes had the look of a man who sees a vision, and I held my breath lest I break the spell.
Donald McKay turned back toward his work. “All right, laddie,” he said abruptly, “I’ll sign ye on. Three dollars a week, an’ mind ye spend it cannily. Nip awa’ home noo, an’ report tomorrow.”
I was dismissed. I could only stammer my thanks as I backed toward the door and stumbled over the boot scraper. My mind churned with the things I had seen and heard and felt. In a stride Donald McKay had taken his place beside Messina Clarke as one of the gods of my childhood. But there was a pivot, a focal point, around which even he whirled as a minor impression, as they say a satellite whirls about an orb of greater magnitude: the Flying Cloud …
Out in the street again I stood stock-still before McKay’s office, stood there like one daft, and stared up at his window, through which I could see the top of his head as he bent over his work. The Flying Cloud! To work all day within hand’s reach of her. To see her taking shape as one week merged into another, expanding, growing to the fulfilment of her perfection. To have a part, no matter how small, in her creation.
The gold of that wintry late afternoon was round about me. The striking of the old South Church bell reached my ear across the clear air. The sea was as blue as an oath.
I felt suddenly charged with resolution and purpose. A knight of old seeing a vision of the Grail could have known no more solemn consecration than did I.
For the Flying Cloud, I vowed I would give the best that was in me: my strength, my youth, my life if need be!
CHAPTER II
A SHIP IS BORN
AS I HURRIED homeward, I could scarce contain myself. I wanted to shout and jump for joy. A job in Donald McKay’s shipyard! To work all day within sight of the water; to see ships come and go, and to earn three dollars a week!
The wind had risen and the bite of it sent my chin deeper within my greatcoat collar. Sparrows huddled on the roof tops, like Millerites awaiting the call to Judgment. First I must tell my good news to old Messina Clarke. I found him chipping the ice off his front walk, without hat or overcoat. He was as tough as a length of new hemp, and he wielded a rusty hoe with as much vigor as if he were bending sail in the teeth of a nor’easter.
“Cap’n! Cap’n Clarke!” I shouted. “I got it!”
“Got wot?” he grunted.
“Got a job, Cap’n!”
He set down the hoe then and looked up. “Where?”
“With Donald McKay,” I bragged. “You know—the man whose clippers they’re all talking about.”
“Humph, McKay!” growled old Messina, with a sour look.
“Well, don’t you want to hear about it?” I demanded, angling to be invited into the warmth of his study. There a fire was sure to be burning on the hearth and there, I knew, the old man would brew a pot of coffee strong enough to fell a bucko mate.
Without answering, old Messina turned to enter the house. This was his invitation. Otherwise he would have roared, “Home with ye, ye blitherin’ coot, or I’ll lay a marlinespike around yer ears!”
Once inside the narrow study, I threw off my beaver cap and shrugged out of my greatcoat. Here I felt at home, and here I had passed the happiest hours of my life. In one corner stood the revolving globe on which I had traced the course of all the old man’s voyages. Over the mantle hung a model of the Indiaman Aeolus, last of his commands. Beautifully carved and finished in each detail she was, with gold leaf laid on below the water line in place of copper; the pride of the old man’s heart. Three years he had given to the making of her. Maps hung about the walls, and trophies from every corner of the world:
