The Schooner Bentley

Come shipmates and listen, I story I'll tell
About a flash packet you all know her well. 
She is a flash packet and a packet of fame.
She hails from Toronto and Bentley's her name.

Derry down, down, down derry down.

The dimensions of this packet now to you I'll tell:
She was built by the yard and cut off by the mile.
She's round stem and bluff forward, no dead rise at all,
And she's owned in Toronto by Aldermen Hall.

I shipped in this packet at the northern docks.
I first took a streetcar from Church Street to Brock,
And from there I steered straight for the ship,
With a satchel in one hand, in the other a grip.

But on the way down I got blazing drunk.
I lost the old satchel and busted my trunk.
I tripped and I tumbled and down I did fall,
And I cursed the old Bentley, the sidewalks and all.

At last to the ship I chanced for to stray,
The captain came forward, "We'll get underway -- 
We're bound for Charlotte going there to load coal."
And down the rough Lake the old Bentley did roll.

I was tired and weary, oh yes I was sick
From hearing the pumps go clackety click.
My bones they were sore from lying in my bunk,
And the rotten old bed clothes were nothing but junk.

Then we left Charlotte for the Welland Canal,
And forget that last trip, oh no, I ne'er shall,
And then on our port bow Port Dalhousie did loom,
And all hands gathered forward to top the jibboom.

We towed into harbor our jibboom topped high,
And all of the people they started to cry,
"Oh where did you get it?  Where did it come from?
Oh where in the devil does that raft belong?"

And when we got ready to go in the lock,
The Sammies all gathered like geese in a flock, 
And Grogan was there and he shinned up a fender
Saying, "captain you know me, I'm an old lock tender."

There lives in Toronto and ugly old thief.
He's called Burke the butcher who sells us tough beef. 
It gives us the toothache and causes much pain.
We'll murder the old villain when we go there again.

We worked at canalling that entire night,
And in order to work we had to keep tight.
But on the next morning the captain did say,
"At last we're arrived in Gravelly Bay."

Obtained in 1933 from Captain Jeremiah Cavanagh of Port Dalhousie, 
by Ivan Walton. Sammies are Americans.