A KNOCK came at the prison door.

“Is Mrs. Alec Tweedie here?”

Yes, Mrs. Alec Tweedie was having her tea, and heard the question. Truly a nice situation! To be enquired for at a gaol.

But even that is capable of explanation. The man on the doorstep held a letter in his hand addressed to me by name, but only vaguely “Glasgow” otherwise. With the usual brilliancy of the postal authorities, they had found the rest of the address and pinned me to the prison, for I was staying with the Governor, who had married a friend of my kindergarten days.

The letter was an invitation to christen a “P. & O.” steamer on the Clyde at Greenock: to be godmother to an infant of twelve thousand six hundred tons, that, lying in her cradle, was four hundred and fifty feet long and fifty-four feet wide. When she sailed out to sea on January 6th of 1900, this mighty goddaughter of mine carried two thousand three hundred troops between her ample decks.

Needless to say, the sponsorial honour thus offered—the responsibility being light—was duly accepted.

It was a most glorious day when the Governor of the prison escorted me to Greenock. The P. & O. has become one of the most important factors in the commerce of the nation, under Sir Thomas Sutherland, so the christening was not only impressive to “those who go down to the sea in ships,” but to all onlookers. Those great yards on the Clyde employ several thousand men, all of whom, with their wives and children, were spectators of the ceremony, to say nothing of an invited public.

How enormous that ship looked, her great iron sides standing out from what shipwrights are pleased to call the “permanent ways”. She owned as yet no masts or funnels, or indeed any et ceteras, only there loomed her enormous iron carcase. One felt a fly on the wall standing beneath the shadow of her massive frame. She literally towered above us, a monster of steel and bolts and rivets. At the stern a wooden erection had been made, with a little staircase leading to a platform, and on this the builder of the vessel, Mr. Patrick Caird, and I stood alone.

It was a most exciting moment. The sun shone, there resounded a dull thud, thud, thud, for the men below were hammering her sides loose from the wood in which she had been embedded for about two years. Then came an almost breathless silence among the vast audience, when Mr. Caird turned to me and said:

“Be sure and break the bottle.”

I had never thought of doing anything else, knowing the importance to the superstitious sailor-man that the glass should be shattered to atoms, but his serious tones sent a shiver through me, and I recognised, as in a flash, the gravity of the moment.

There was, as usual, a bottle of champagne, decked with ribbons and flowers, hanging from the top of the vessel to a level with the place on which we stood.

“Remember,” he continued, in an undertone of adjuration, “that once the ship starts to move, she will run; so you must waste no time in throwing the wine.”

I did not really feel nervous until this, but on being suddenly told that the boat might be out of reach before one had time to execute the critical deed, and also being reminded of the importance of scattering the fluid, I felt a cold douche down my back.

We waited breathless—it seemed ages of suspense, and yet it was probably only a few minutes. Suddenly the vast bulk began to tremble, next gave herself little shakes like a dog, then she appeared to pause and shiver again. It was a breathless moment. Then the mighty carcase started. What a grand sight! There was something awe-inspiring as that vast thing slid slowly, majestically, and then more and more rapidly, down to the sea. I seized the flagon, and with might and main flung it against the side of the ship, determined that it should be broken more completely than bottle had ever been broken before.

“With this I wish all luck and prosperity to the Assaye,” I cried, with a strange sensation of chokiness in my throat, while I flung the ribbon-decked flagon towards her. Truly a thrilling scene.

Whether the heat of the day or the strength of my fling was the cause, I know not, but the amount of froth that came out of that bottle of champagne was quite impossible to believe. I was drowned in it. The quart bottle seemed to contain gallons of froth. It effervesced over my hat, ran in rivers down my nose, and scattered white foam all over my shoulders. Mr. Caird, having recovered from his bath, produced a handkerchief, and kindly began to mop my dripping face and dry my watery eyes. It was a funny scene, rendered all the more funny, as it turned out, because some of the cinematograph people were behind us (those were the early days of cinematographs), and that night in the music-halls of Glasgow and Edinburgh the Launching of a P. & O. Steamer caused much amusement to the audience. Only my back view showed, I believe, but the black of my dress and the white champagne froth made an interesting production.

Having slid down the permanent ways, the ship’s pace became quicker and quicker, she really did run, and then she appeared to literally duck as if to make a bow when she entered the Clyde. For a moment, to my uninitiated eyes, it seemed as if she would turn a somersault. Not a bit of it. She righted herself, while the great chain anchors fixed to her sides were dragging mother-earth along with them, holding her sufficiently in check, or else she would have run up the opposite bank before the tugs had time to make her fast and tow her down-stream.

There was a rumour in the air that war was imminent in South Africa, and Mr. Caird murmured in my ear that it was possible they would receive a command to have her ready for transport as quickly as possible. And although, as I have said, she had nothing whatever inside her on October 7th, 1899, six weeks from that date the Assaye left Southampton fully equipped for the seat of war, and during the next two or three years she made so many voyages with troops, that she conveyed more soldiers to and from the Cape than any other boat afloat.

As a memento of the occasion, Mr. Caird gave me a charming brooch representing the three crescents of the Orient in diamonds. It was a pleasant, happy, and interesting experience.

Some years later it was my good fortune to go for the trial trip, as the guest of the Chairman of the Cunard Company, in the greatest ship and wonder of her day, the Lusitania (July, 1907), and lastly, to have been to the inaugural luncheon on one of the five new (1909) ships of the Orient Line, fitted with all the latest modern improvements, from electric plate-washers to electric potato-peelers and egg-boilers. This last was truly a little history in shipping. Where will wondrous labour-saving inventions end? It is these magnificent boats which do so much to cement the friendship and foster family ties between us and our Colonies, and when one sees that in an Orient steamer third-class passengers can travel twenty-six thousand miles for eighteen pounds, one opens one’s eyes at the comfort and marvels. These travellers have even a third-class music-room, and never more than six people in a cabin. Children can visit their parents, husbands their wives, in fact, the East and West become as one. Sir Frederick Green, the Chairman of the Orient Company, is not only a delightful man, but is extremely enterprising, and has achieved wonderful things. Even the amateur band, composed of stewards, has been abolished, and proper professional music is provided for the passengers. Those terrible days when one packed up sufficient underlinen for six weeks’ use have gone by, and everything can now be sent to the laundry on board on Monday morning, as regularly as it is done at home.

The christening of the proud P. & O. Assaye amused me the more at the time because of its sharp contrast with a humble Highland “baptisement,” at which it had also been my lot to assist a few years earlier. This last committal of a boat to the sea was the subject a year or two after of one of my sketches in words, and may be here given again, for who amongst us, on watching a fishing-smack going out from harbour, does not feel a stir of interest, and wish that “weel may the boatie row”?

At that time we—my husband was alive—had a little house in Sutherland, and became much interested in the simple fisher-folk near by.

“Can you speak to Mrs. Murray, the fishwife, for a minute. Very particular, she says, ma’am,” said the parlourmaid one morning.

“All right,” and, leaving the steaming herrings on the breakfast-table, I went to the door to see Mrs. Murray.

“Good morning, Mrs. Murray. Did you want to see me?”

“’Deed, mem, yes, mem,” and the old body in short serge skirt, so full at the waist that her creel of fish literally rested on the pleats, beamed all over inside her nice, clean, white “mutch” cap.

“Maybe ye ken, mistress, we have got a new haddie boatie [haddock boat], and we want to have the baptisement whatever.”

“Well?”

“And maybe, mem, ye would be sae guid as to humble yersel’, mistress, and come down—the laddies want ye to come down and do the baptisement yersel’.”

“Me?”

“Yes, mem, if we might make sae bold in the asking,” and the old body looked quite shy at having asked, and actually the colour mounted to her weather-worn cheeks.

“But what do you want me to do?” I enquired, really interested in what a baptisement could be.

“Jist the baptisement, whatever.”

“Yes, but how do you do it?” I persisted.

“Law, mem, ye jist break the bottlie, whatever.”

“Oh; all right, I know all about that, and I’ll do it with the greatest possible pleasure; but which day?”

“If ye’ll jist please to name the dee yersel’.”

“High tide would be nicest, I think. It would not be so wet and sloppy, would it?”

“Weel, weel. I near forgot the laddies want ye to come pertikeler Tuesday at three or Wednesday at four, for the tide be high then; and they’ll bait some hooks, and ye can go out and catch the first haddie yersel’ for luck, mem.”

“All right, then, Tuesday, at three.”

So on Tuesday we hurried over luncheon and drove in the dogcart to the fishing village of Haddon, for the official ceremony, carefully armed with a bottle of red wine to sprinkle the sides of the boat, and a bottle of whisky for the family to drink the boat’s health; both being suggestions of the dear old fishwife herself—the one for the cold, the other for the boat, as she wisely remarked.

All our friends, the minister among them, refused to believe I—a stranger—had actually been asked to perform such a ceremony: the Haddon folk being usually so exclusive. They marry amongst themselves and do everything amongst themselves, no outsider ever being asked to partake in any of their functions.

Arrived at the quaint little village, driving with difficulty between the pigs, the babies, and the chickens, we sought the heather-thatched, whitewashed house of the Murrays.

“Good dee to ye, mem—good dee to ye au,” and out of the kitchen tumbled the mother, father, sons, and daughters, pigs, chickens, and grandchildren.

Carefully carrying a bottle in each arm, I marched to the beach, followed by the Murray family, our numbers being swelled by other villagers at every step.

There, on the sand, reposed the haddie boatie—a fine big boat, capable of taking a dozen or twenty men to sea. She was lying on rollers, ready to be put in the water—but, oh! what water. Great white horses lashed the shore; Neptune truly was riding fiery steeds. We were admiring the majestic crested waves breaking over the rocks when Mr. Murray said, “The hooks is baited, and ye shall catch the first haddie for luck yersel’, mem.”

Should I, or should I not, disgrace myself on that turbulent water, over which the seagulls screeched and whirled and flapped their wings?

By this time fifty or sixty of the villagers had arrived to help launch the boat, and my heart trembled when I remembered the one bottle of whisky brought for the Murray family to drink to the boat’s success. How far would it go amongst so many?

But my cogitations were interrupted by Willie Murray exclaiming, “Will ye please to gie the name?”

“Yes; what do you want it called?”

“Your own name, mem, if ye will please to humble yersel’ to gie it.”

“Mrs. Tweedie.”

“Na, na, na, mistress, whatever, jist yer surname.”

“Well, Tweedie is my surname.”

“Na, na, no’ that surname. Yer other surname, mistress.”

“Do you mean Ethel?”

“Oi, oi, Essel—Essel.” (There is no “th” in Gaelic, and their tongues cannot frame it.) “Oi, oi, that be it, mem—Essel Tweedie, whatever,” and he took off his hat as though he hoped the wind would blow such an extraordinary name into his cranium.

By this time men and women had put their shoulders to the boat, and had got her down to the water’s edge. Just as she touched the sea I threw the bottle with all my might, nearly upsetting myself in the endeavour, for, if the bottle should not shatter to atoms, these superstitious fisher-folk would think that their new boat was cursed.

As she touched the water the red wine ran down her side, and I cried, “I name her Ethel Tweedie, and wish her all luck.”

“May the evil eye ne’er take upon her,” called Mrs. Murray, as the red wine mingled with the crested waves.

Into the water with a cheer both men and women went, right up to their waists, the waves breaking over their shoulders; but every time they got the Ethel Tweedie launched, a huge wave brought her back again.

“Come and drink her health before you put her into the sea,” I called. “Has anyone a glass?”

“Oi, oi,” replied Mrs. Murray; and unfastening the front of her blue cotton blouse, she brought forth a wine-glass, evidently brought down in anticipation. The chief members of the party drank the health of the boat and her namesake in Gaelic, and then one lad replied, when the glass was offered to him, “I’m no’ for the tasting the dee.”

Had he a cold, or why couldn’t he taste? So I offered the glass to his neighbour.

“I’m no’ for the tasting the dee,” he likewise replied; and we afterwards learnt they were teetotallers, and that was their way of expressing the fact.

“The hooks is baited, and ye shall catch the first haddie for luck yersel’, mem,” resounded in our ears; and the roar of the sea kept up a strange accompaniment, as a seagull shrieked in triumph at our discomfiture.

I dare not say no; I must risk disgracing myself, endure any agony of mind or body, but I must for the honour of Old England go and catch that first haddie.

How the wretched folk struggled to get that boat into the sea! I remonstrated at the women going into the water and working so hard on my account, feeling particularly sympathetic when I thought of the rough sea awaiting us outside, but all to no avail. I assured them I should not be disappointed if I could not catch the haddie to-day, I could easily come again; but no, they would struggle on, a few feet only at a time, always to be rebuffed again and again by the waves.

At last Mr. Murray took off his cap, scratched his head, talked Gaelic to everyone in turn, and, after his consultation, came over to me and said, “I’m right sad, mem, but the haddie boatie can no’ go in the water the dee; she’d jist go to pieces on the rocks, whatever.”

“Oh, I am so sorry, but don’t mind me,” I replied as graciously as I could, thankful for the deliverance.

“Na, na, but the haddie for luck! We au wanted ye to catch the haddie for luck yersel’, mem.”

“Oh, I’ll come another day and catch the haddie for luck,” and I inwardly thanked Heaven I had been saved the terrors of the deep.

“To-morrow I will come again and catch the haddie, and paint the name on the boat, if you like.”

“Oi, oi, paint the name yersel’, that’ll be fine; but ye’ll do it nice, now, won’t you? I want it weel done.”

Who could be offended at such a remark, made without the slightest idea of rudeness? A little such honest, straight-forward speaking is a treat, not an offence, in these days of gilded sayings and leaden thoughts.

I never caught that haddie, but I took my palette and painted the name in oils upon her sides, and happily the Ethel Tweedie has proved one of the luckiest boats in the herring fleet.

What a contrast those two launches were—the wealth of the one ship, the wealth of the onlookers, the wealth of the prospective passengers and cargo, the power and strength and value of it all.

On the other side—the simplicity of the humble little craft, the simplicity of the fisher-folk, the simplicity of the life of the fishing village.

Both were ships to go down to the sea, and yet how different.