STEERAGE SCENES
Our companion (Steerage No. 2 and 3) was a favourite resort. Down
one flight of stairs there was a comparatively large open space, the
centre occupied by a hatchway, which made a convenient seat for about
twenty persons, while barrels, coils of rope, and the carpenter's
bench afforded perches for perhaps as many more. The canteen, or
steerage bar, was on one side of the stair; on the other, a no less
attractive spot, the cabin of the indefatigable interpreter.
I have seen people packed into this space like herrings in a barrel,
and many merry evenings prolonged there until five bells, when the
lights were ruthlessly extinguished and all must go to roost.
It had been rumoured since Friday that there was a fiddler aboard,
who lay sick and unmelodious in Steerage No. 1; and on the Monday
forenoon, as I came down the companion, I was saluted by something in
Strathspey time. A white-faced Orpheus was cheerily playing to an
audience of white-faced women. It was as much as he could do to
play, and some of his hearers were scarce able to sit; yet they had
crawled from their bunks at the first experimental flourish, and
found better than medicine in the music.
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