"But it enables you to realize her vanity in aspiring to the wisdom of
man."
Father Burke laughed. "Fighting the Boer, Captain Boyd, is a different
thing from skirmishing with the American girl."
"Indeed it is! For on the battle-field there is always one chance of
victory. But I have not been fighting the Boers. I was trying to help
the Boers against the English."
"Ah, good!" said the priest. "You were on the right side."
But the lady shook her head. "I don't know about that. I should have
joined the English and fought against the Boers."
"But, my dear child," exclaimed Father Burke, "the cause of the Boers is
so manifestly the cause of right and justice! They were fighting for
their freedom,--the very existence of their country."
"Possibly, but the English officers are very handsome, and so stylish!
And the Boers are common creatures--mostly farmers."
Pats regarded her in surprise. "That doesn't affect the principle of the
thing. Even a farmer has rights."
"Principles are so tiresome!" and she looked away, as if the subject
wearied her.
"Does it make no difference with your sympathies," he asked with some
earnestness, "whether a man is in the right or in the wrong? Would you
have had no sympathy for the Greeks at Marathon?"
She raised her eyebrows, and with a faint shrug replied, "I am sure I
don't know. Was that an important battle?"
"Very."
"In South Africa?"
Pats thought, at first, this question was in jest. She looked him
serenely in the face, however, and he saw nothing in her eyes but the
expectation of a serious answer to a simple question. Before he was
ready with a reply, she inquired:
"Were you at that battle?"
He was so bewildered by this question, and from such a woman, that for a
moment he could not respond. Father Burke, however, in his calm,
paternal voice, gave the required facts.
"The battle of Marathon was fought about twenty miles from Athens
between the Greeks and invading Persians nearly five hundred years
before Christ."
"Ah, yes, to be sure!" she murmured, indifferently, her eyes looking
over the sea.
Pats, who was sitting in front of his two companions, regarded her in
surprise. As she finished speaking, he turned away his head, but still
watching her from the corners of his eyes. Her own glance, with an
amused expression, went at once to his face, as he anticipated. He
laughed aloud in a frank, boyish way as their eyes met. "I knew you had
some sinister motive in that speech. You almost fooled me."
And she smiled as she retorted, "I was merely trying to please you. You
say you are averse to intelligence in a woman."
"Well, I take it all back. I am averse to nothing in a woman, except
absence."
Father Burke took all this in, and he disapproved. Captain Boyd was by
no means the sort of man he would have selected for companion to this
maiden. The young man's appreciation of the lady herself was too honest
and too evident. It bore, to the observant priest, suspicious
resemblance to a tender passion unskilfully concealed. Perilous food for
a yearning spirit! Of course she was heavenly minded, and spiritual to
the last degree, at present; but she was mortal. And the soul of a girl
like Elinor Marshall was too precious an object to be thrown away on a
single individual--above all, on a Protestant. Was it not already the
property of The Church? And then, there was little consolation in the
knowledge that she was to be in constant intercourse with this man for a
week, and during that time beyond all priestly influence.
* * * * *
The _Maid of the North_, until she passed Deer Island, bore a
cheerful band of passengers. Then, in the open sea, she turned her nose
a little more to the north, and while riding the waves as merrily as
ever, she did it with a greater variety of motion. And this variety of
motion, a complex, unhallowed shifting of the deck, first sidewise down,
then lengthwise up, then all together and further down--with a
nauseating quiver--was emphasized by zephyrs from the engine-room and
kitchen--zephyrs redolent with oil and cooking and bilge water. All
these, in time, began to trifle with the interiors of certain
passengers, and to paralyze their mirth.
Among early victims was Mr. Appleton Marshall. After storing his mind
with the financial news and social gossip of the morning paper, he had
rejoined his friends. Sitting beside his niece, he participated, at
intervals, in the conversation, his manner becoming more and more
distant until, at last, it vanished altogether. To all who cared to see,
it was plain that this stately and usually complacent gentleman was
losing interest in external matters.
He seemed annoyed when a steward, about one o'clock, appeared on deck
and rang a bell, announcing dinner. At this summons Patrick Boyd took
out his watch and was obviously astonished at the flight of time.
"I had forgotten my friend," he exclaimed, and he hurried below.
At the dinner-table Elinor Marshall sat between her confessor and her
uncle, the latter clinging bravely to his post through the soup and
fish. Then, after watching for a moment the various viands as they rose
and fell with the heaving of the ship, accompanied, as it seemed to him,
by a similar rising and sinking of his own digestive apparatus, he
remarked, with some severity, that he felt no hunger. And he left the
table with dignity, yet with a certain expedition. As the uncle
disappeared, Patrick Boyd came in and took a seat opposite the lady and
the priest.
"How did you find your friend?" Father Burke inquired.
"Discouraged."
"Poor fellow! Nothing serious, I hope."
"No. But he doesn't quite understand this starting right off again on
another voyage."
"Is he--er--is his mind affected?"
This question appeared to surprise Captain Boyd. "No. But they have
fastened him to a windlass, near the engine-room, and he resents it."
This reply merely intensified the curiosity of the questioner.
"Did you say they have fastened him?"
"Yes. It seems to be a rule of the boat."
The young lady also opened her eyes. After a pause, she inquired, in a
low voice, "Is he dangerous?"
"No, indeed! Not at all!"
"Then why tie him?"
"It is a rule of the boat, as I said."
"A rule of the boat to tie passengers?"
At this question Pats smiled, for a light broke in upon him. "My friend
is a dog. I thought I told you."
"A dog!" and she seemed to find diversion in the seriousness with which
Father Burke accepted the explanation. "I love dogs. Why shouldn't I go
down and see him?"
"The honor would be appreciated."
"I will go after dinner. What sort of a dog is he?"
"A setter."
"And what is his name?"