THE TRAVELING COMPANION
A gray haze, thickened by the smoke of the city, drove out across the
water when the _Scarrowmania_ lay in the Mersey, with her cable hove
short, and the last of the flood-tide gurgling against her bows. A
trumpeting blast of steam swept high aloft from beside her squat funnel,
and the splash of the slowly turning paddles of the two steam tugs that
lay alongside mingled with the din it made. A gangway from one of them
to the _Scarrowmania's_ forward deck, and a stream of frowsy humanity
that had just been released from overpacked emigrant boarding-houses
poured up it. There were apparently representatives of all peoples and
languages among that unkempt horde--Britons, Scandinavians, Teutons,
Italians, Russians, Poles--and they moved on in forlorn apathy, like
cattle driven to the slaughter. One wondered how they had raised their
passage money, and how many years' bitter self-denial it had cost them
to provide for their transit to the land of promise.
At the head of the gangway stood the steamboat doctors, for the
_Scarrowmania_ was taking out an unusual number of passengers, and there
were two of them. They were immaculate in blue uniform, and looked very
clean and English by contrast with the mass of frowsy aliens. Beside
them stood another official, presumably acting on behalf of the Dominion
Government, though there were few restrictions imposed upon Canadian
immigration then, nor, for that matter, did anybody trouble much about
the comfort of the steerage passengers. Each steamer carried as many as
she could hold.
As the stream poured out of the gangway, the doctor glanced at each
newcomer's face, and then seizing him by the wrist uncovered it. Then he
looked at the official, who made a sign, and the man moved on. Since
this took him two or three seconds, one could have fancied that he
either possessed peculiar powers, or that the test was a somewhat
inefficient one.
A group of first-class passengers, leaning on the thwartship rails close
by, looked on, with complacent satisfaction or half-contemptuous pity.
Among them stood Mrs. Hastings, Miss Winifred Rawlinson, and Agatha. It
was noticed that Wyllard, with a pipe in his hand, sat on a hatch
forward, near the head of the gangway. Agatha drew Mrs. Hastings'
attention to it.
"Whatever is Mr. Wyllard doing there?" she asked.
Mrs. Hastings, who was wrapped in furs, to protect her from the sting in
the east wind, smiled at her.
"That," she answered, "is more than I can tell you; but Harry Wyllard
seems to find an interest in what other folks would consider most
unpromising things, and, what is more to the purpose, he is rather
addicted to taking a hand in them. It is a habit that costs him
something now and then."
Agatha asked nothing further. She was interested in Wyllard, but she was
at the moment more interested in the faces of those who swarmed on
board. She wondered what the emigrants had endured in the lands that had
cast them out; and what they might still have to bear. It seemed to her
that the murmur of their harsh voices went up in a great protest, an
inarticulate cry of sorrow. While she looked on the doctor held back a
long-haired man who, shuffling in broken boots, was following a haggard
woman. The physician drew him aside, and after he had consulted with the
other official, two seamen hustled the man towards a second gangway that
led to the tug. The woman raised a wild, despairing cry. She blocked the
passage, and a quarter-master drove her, expostulating in an agony of
terror, forward among the rest. Nobody appeared concerned about this
alien's tragedy, except one man, and Agatha was not surprised when
Wyllard rose and quietly laid his hand upon the official's shoulder.
A parley appeared to follow, somebody gave an order, and when the alien
was led back again the woman's cries subsided. Agatha looked at Mrs.
Hastings and once more a smile crept into the older woman's eyes.
"Yes," said Mrs. Hastings, "I guessed he would feel that he had to
interfere. That is a man who can't see any one in trouble." She added,
with a little whimsical sigh, "He had a bonanza harvest last fall,
anyway."
They moved aft soon afterwards, and the _Scarrowmania_ was smoothly
sliding seawards with the first of the ebb when Agatha met Wyllard. He
glanced at the Lancashire sandhills, which were fading into a pale ocher
gleam amid the haze over the starboard hand, and then at the long row of
painted buoys that moved back to them.
"You're off at last! The sad gray weather is dropping fast astern," he
said. "Out yonder, the skies are clear."
"Thank you," replied Agatha, "I'm to apply that as I like? As a matter
of fact, however, our days weren't always gray. But what was the trouble
when those steerage people came on board?"
Wyllard's manner, she noticed, was free alike from the complacent
self-satisfaction which occasionally characterizes the philanthropist,
and from any affectation of diffidence.
"Well," he answered, "there was something wrong with that woman's
husband. Nothing infectious, I believe, but they didn't seem to consider
him a desirable citizen. They make a warning example of somebody with a
physical infirmity now and then. The man, they decided, must be put
ashore again. In the meanwhile, somebody else had hustled the woman
forward, and it looked as if they would take her on without him. The tug
was almost ready to cast off."
"How dreadful!" said Agatha. "But what did you do?"
"Merely promised to guarantee the cost of his passage back if they would
refer his case to the immigration people at the other end. It is
scarcely likely that they'll make trouble. As a rule, they only throw
out folks who are certain to become a charge on the community."
"But if he really had any infirmity, mightn't it lead to that?"
"No," Wyllard responded dryly. "I would engage to give him a fair start
if it was necessary. You wouldn't have had that woman landed in
Montreal, helpless and alone, while the man was sent back again to
starve in Poland?"
He saw a curious gleam in Agatha's eyes, and added in a deprecating
manner, "You see, I've now and then limped without a dollar into a
British Columbian mining town."
The girl was touched with compassion, but there was another matter that
must be mentioned, though she felt that the time was inopportune.
"Miss Rawlinson, who had only a second-class ticket, insists upon being
told how it is that she has been transferred to the saloon."
Wyllard's eyes twinkled, but she noticed that he was wholly free from
embarrassment, which was not quite the case with her.
"Well," he said, "that's a matter I must leave you to handle. Anyway,
she can't go second-class now. One or two of the steerage exchanged when
they saw their quarters, for which I don't blame them, and they have
filled up every room."
"You haven't answered the question."
Wyllard waved his hand. "Miss Rawlinson is your bridesmaid, and I'm
Gregory's best man. It seems to me it's my business to do everything
just as he would like it done."
He left her a moment later, and, though she did not know how she was to
explain the matter to Miss Rawlinson, who was of an independent nature,
it occurred to her that he, at least, had found a rather graceful way
out of the difficulty. The more she saw of this Western farmer, the more
she liked him.
It was after dinner when she next met him and the wind had changed. The
_Scarrowmania_ was steaming head-on into a glorious northwest breeze.
The shrouds sang; chain-guy, and stanchion, and whatever caught the
wind, set up a deep-toned throbbing; and ahead ranks of little,
white-topped seas rolled out of the night. A half-moon, blurred now and
then by wisps of flying cloud, hung low above them, and odd spouts of
spray that gleamed in the silvery light leaped up about the dipping
bows. Wyllard was leaning on the rail when Agatha stopped beside him.
She glanced towards the lighted windows of the smoking-room not far
away.
"How is it you are not in there?" she asked, noticing that he held a
cigar in his hand.
"I was," answered Wyllard. "It's rather full, and it seemed that they
didn't want me. They're busy playing cards, and the stakes are rather
high. In a general way, a steamboat's smoking-room is less of a men's
lounge than a gambling club."
"And you object to cards?"
"Oh, no!" Wyllard replied with a smile. "They merely make me tired, and
when I feel I want some excitement for my money I get it another way.
That one seems tame to me."
"What sort of excitement do you like?"
The man laughed. "There are a good many that appeal to me. Once it was
collecting sealskins off other people's beaches, and there was zest
enough in that, in view of the probability of the dory turning over, or
a gunboat dropping on to you. Then there was a good deal of very genuine
excitement to be got out of placer-mining in British Columbia,
especially when there was frost in the ranges, and you had to thaw out
your giant-powder. Shallow alluvial workings have a way of caving in
when you least expect it of them. After all, however, I think I like the
prairie farming best."
"Is that exciting?"
"Yes," returned Wyllard, "if you do it in one way. The gold's
there--that you're sure of--piled up by nature during I don't know how
many thousand years, but you have to stake high, if you want to get much
of it out. One needs costly labor,--teams--no end of them--breakers, and
big gang-plows. The farmer who has nerve enough drills his last dollar
into the soil in spring, but if he means to succeed it costs him more
than that. He must give the sweat of his tensest effort, the uttermost
toil of his body--all, in fact, that has been given him. Then he must
shut his eyes tight to the hazards against him, or look at them without
wavering--the drought, the hail, the harvest frost, I mean. If his teams
fall sick, or the season goes against him, he must work double tides.
Still, it now and then happens that things go right, and the red wheat
rolls ripe right back across the prairie. I don't know that any man
could want a keener thrill than the one he feels when he drives in the
binders!"
Agatha had imagination, and she could realize something of the toil, the
hazard, and the exultation of that victory.
"You have felt it often?" she inquired.
"Twice we helped to fill a big elevator," Wyllard answered. "But I've
been very near defeat."
The girl looked at him thoughtfully. It seemed that he possessed the
power of acquisition, as well as a wide generosity that came into play
when by strenuous effort success had been attained. So far as her
experience went, these were things that did not invariably accompany
each other.
"And when the harvest comes up to your expectations, you give your money
away?" she asked with a lifting of her brows.
Wyllard laughed. "You shouldn't deduce too much from a single instance.
Besides, that Pole's case hasn't cost me anything yet."
Mrs. Hastings joined them, and when Wyllard strolled away the women
passed some time leaning on the rails, and looking at the groups of
shadowy figures on the forward deck. The attitude of the steerage
passengers was dejected and melancholy, but one cluster had gathered
around a man who stood upon the hatch.
"Oh," he declared, "you'll have no trouble. Canada's a great country for
a poor man. He can sleep beneath a bush all summer, if he can't strike
anything he likes."
This did not appear particularly encouraging, but the orator went on:
"Been over for a trip to the Old Country, and I'm glad I'm going back
again. Went out with nothing except a good discharge, and they made me
Sergeant of Canadian Militia. After that I was armorer to a rifle club.
There's places a blame long way behind the Dominion, and I struck one of
them when we went with Roberts to Afghanistan. It was on that trip I and
a Pathan rolled all down a hill, him trying to get his knife arm loose,
and me jabbing his breastbone with my bayonet before I got it into him.
I drove it through to the socket. You want to make quite sure of a
Pathan."
Miss Rawlinson winced at this. "Oh," she cried, "what a horrible man!"
"It was 'most as tough as when you went after Riel, and stole the
Scotchman's furs," suggested a Canadian.
The sergeant let the jibe go by. He said: "Louis's bucks could shoot! We
had them corraled in a pit, and every time one of the boys from Montreal
broke cover he got a bullet into him. Did any of you ever hear a dropped
man squeal?"
Agatha had heard sufficient, and she and her companions turned away, but
as they moved across the deck the sergeant's voice followed her.
"Oh, yes," he said, "a grand country for a poor man. In the summer he
can sleep beneath a bush."
For some reason this eulogy haunted Agatha when she retired to her
stateroom that night, and she wondered what awaited all those aliens in
the new land. It occurred to her that in some respects she was situated
very much as they were. For the first time, vague misgivings crept into
her mind as she realized that she had cut herself adrift from all to
which she had been accustomed. She felt suddenly depressed and lonely.
The depression had, however, almost vanished when, awakening rather
early next morning, she went up on deck. A red sun hung over the
tumbling seas that ran into the hazy east astern. The waves rolled up in
crested phalanxes that gleamed green and incandescent white ahead. The
_Scarrowmania_ plunged through them with a spray cloud flying about her
dipping bows. She was a small, old-fashioned boat, and because she
carried 3,000 tons of railway iron she rolled distressfully. Her tall
spars swayed athwart the vivid blueness of the morning sky with the
rhythmic regularity of a pendulum. The girl was not troubled by any
sense of sea-sickness. The keen north-wester that sang amid the shrouds
was wonderfully fresh; and, when she met Wyllard crossing the saloon
deck, her cheeks were glowing from the sting of the spray, and her eyes
were bright.
"Where have you been?" she asked.
"Down there," answered Wyllard, pointing to the black opening in the
fore-hatch that led to the steerage quarters. "An acquaintance of mine
who's traveling forward asked me to take a look round, and I'm rather
glad I did. When I've had a word with the chief steward I'm going back
again."
"You have a friend down there?"
"I met the man for the first time yesterday, and rather took to him. One
of your naval petty officers, forcibly retired. He can't live upon his
pension, that is why he's going out to Canada. Now you'll excuse me."
"I wonder," ventured Agatha, "if you would let me go back with you?"
Wyllard looked at her curiously. "Well," he said, with an air of
reflection, "you'll probably have to face a good deal that you don't
like out yonder, and in one way you won't suffer from a little
preparatory training. This, however, is not a case where sentimental
pity is likely to relieve anybody. It's the real thing."
"I think I told you at Garside Scar that I haven't lived altogether in
luxury!" she replied.
Wyllard, who made no comment, disappeared, and merely signed to her when
he came back. They reached the ladder that led down into the gloom
beneath the hatch, and Agatha hesitated when a sour and musty odor
floated up to her. She went down, however, and a few moments later
stood, half-nauseated, gazing at the wildest scene of confusion her eyes
had ever rested on. A little light came down the hatchway, and a smoky
lamp or two swung above her head, but half the steerage deck was wrapped
in shadow, and out of it there rose a many-voiced complaining. Flimsy,
unplaned fittings had wrenched away, and men lay inert amid the
wreckage, with the remains of their last meal scattered about them.
There were unwashed tin plates and pannikins, knives, and spoons,
sliding up and down everywhere, and the deck was foul with slops of tea,
and trodden bread, and marmalade. Now and then, in a wilder roll than
usual, a frowsy, huddled object slid groaning down the slant of slimy
planking, but in every case the helpless passenger was fully dressed.
Steerage passengers, in fact, seldom take off their clothes. For one
thing, all their worldly possessions are, as a rule, secreted among
their garments, and for another, most of those hailing from beyond the
Danube have never been accustomed to disrobing. In the midst of the
confusion, two half-sick steward lads were making ineffective efforts to
straighten up the mess.
Agatha made out that a swarm of urchins were huddled together in a
helpless mass along one side of the horrible place. The sergeant was
haranguing them, while another man, whom she supposed to be the petty
officer, pulled them to their feet one by one. A good deal of his labor
was wasted, for the _Scarrowmania_ was rolling viciously, and as soon as
a few were placed upright half of them collapsed again. Wyllard glanced
towards the boys compassionately.
"I believe most of them have had nothing to eat since they came on
board, though it isn't the company's fault," he said. "There's food
enough served out, but before we picked the breeze up the men laid hands
upon it first and half of it was wasted in the scramble. Then it seems
they pitched these youngsters out of their berths."
"Don't they belong to anybody?" Agatha asked. "Is there no one to look
after them?"
Wyllard smiled. "I believe one of your charitable institutions is
sending them out, and there seems to be a clergyman, who has a curate
and a lay assistant to help him, in charge of them. The assistant won't
be available while this rolling lasts, and the other two very naturally
prefer the saloon. In a way, that's comprehensible."
He left her, and proceeded to help the man who was dragging the urchins
to their feet.
"Get up!" commanded the sergeant. "Get up, and fall in. Dress from the
left, and number off, the ones who can stand."
It appeared that the lads had been drilled, for they scrambled into a
line that bent and wavered each time the _Scarrowmania's_ bows went
down. After that, every other lad stepped forward at the word. The order
was, "Left turn. March, and fall in on deck," and when they feebly
clambered up the ladder Wyllard, who turned to Agatha, pointed to a door
in a bulkhead of rough white wood.
"It should have been locked, but I fancy you can get in that way, and up
through another hatch," he remarked. "The single women, and women with
children, are in yonder, and if you want to be useful there's a field
for you. Get as many as possible up on deck."
Agatha left him, and her face was rather white when at last she came up
into the open air, with about a dozen forlorn, draggled women trailing
helplessly after her. The lads were now sitting down in a double line on
deck, each with a tin plate and a steaming pannikin in front of him.
There were at least a hundred of them, and a man with a bronzed face and
the stamp of command upon him was giving them the order of the voyage.
He was the one she had already noticed.
"You'll turn out at the whistle at half-past six," he said. "Shake
mattresses, roll up blankets, and prepare for berth inspection. Then, at
the next whistle, you'll fall in on deck stripped to the waist for
washing parade. Fourth files numbering even are orderlies in charge of
the plates and pannikins."
"And," announced the sergeant, "any insubordination will be sharply
dealt with. Now, when I was with Roberts in Afghanistan----"
Wyllard, who was standing close by, turned to Agatha.
"I don't think we'll be wanted. You have probably earned your
breakfast."
They went back to the saloon deck, and the girl smiled when he looked at
her inquiringly.
"It was a little horrible, but I hadn't so many to deal with," she said.
"Do you, and those others, expect to bring any order out of that chaos?"
"No," answered Wyllard, "with a little encouragement they'll do it
themselves. That is, the English, Danes, and Germans. One can trust them
to evolve a workable system. It's in their nature. You can trace most
things that tend to wholesome efficiency back to the old Teutonic
leaven. By and by, they'll proceed to put some pressure on the Latins,
Slavs, and Jews."
"But is it your business to offer them that encouragement?"
Wyllard laughed. "Strictly speaking, it isn't in the least, but
unnecessary chaos is hateful, and, any way, I'm not the only one who
doesn't seem to like it. There's the petty officer, and our friend, the
sergeant, who was with Roberts in Afghanistan."
Agatha said nothing further. She was a little surprised to feel that she
was anxious to keep this man's good opinion, though that was not exactly
why she had nerved herself for the venture into the single women's
quarters. Leaving him out altogether, it seemed to her that there was
something rather fine in the way that the sergeant and the petty officer
who was going out almost penniless to Canada, had saddled themselves
with the task of looking after those helpless lads. It was wholly unpaid
labor, for which the men who preferred to remain within the safe limits
of the saloon deck would presumably get the credit. After all, she
decided, there were, no doubt, men in every station who helped to keep
the world sweet and clean, and she believed that Wyllard was to be
counted among them. He certainly differed in many ways from Gregory, but
then Gregory was unapproachable. She did not remember that it was four
years since she had seen Hawtrey, and that her ideas had been a little
unformed then.
In the evening, Mrs. Hastings, with whom he was evidently a favorite,
happened to speak of Wyllard, and the efforts he was making in the
steerage, and Agatha asked a question.
"Does he often undertake this kind of thing?"
"No," Mrs. Hastings answered with a smile. "Any way, not on so large a
scale. He's very far from setting up as a professional philanthropist,
my dear. I don't remember his offering to point out duty to other folks,
and I don't think he goes about in search of an opportunity of
benefiting humanity. Still, when an individual case thrusts itself
beneath his nose, he generally does what he can."
"I've heard people say that the individual method only perpetuates the
trouble," remarked Agatha.
Mrs Hastings shook her head. "That," she said, "is a subject I'm not
well posted on, but it seems to me that if other folks only adopted
Harry Wyllard's simple plan, there would be considerably less need for
organized charity."