III

Lucy Woodrow did not appear on the deck until after nightfall. Jim

understood that she would insist upon expressing lifelong gratitude with

the usual effusion and the usual tears. He feared the ordeal, and

prepared himself for it. He had seen the girl often during the voyage,

sometimes accompanied by a blonde youth, whose beautiful clothes and

exquisite manners afforded unfailing material for primitive satire in the

forecastle, but, as a rule, quite alone, muffled in a dark, hooded cloak,

watching the sea, always with her face turned yearningly back, as if

England and home lay straight out along the vessel's wake. She was

middling tall, eighteen perhaps, with a thin but supple and pleasing

figure, and a quiet, smileless face, that wanted only happiness to make

it beautiful.

Done's misanthropy was not a quality of his nature, it was thrust upon

him, and did not prevent his being a close observer of men and things;

but that he had the smallest interest in any person on board was not

believed by one of his shipmates, since he was instinctively careful to

betray no concern. He had been struck by the girl's apparent loneliness.

The attentions of the blonde youth were borne meekly, as part of the

contiguous discomforts--that much was obvious to the forecastle and all

under. It never occurred to Jim that she was probably placed like

himself, and had good reason to stand aloof.

When he had been on board the Francis Cadman a month or so, Jim was

amazed to find that the attitude of the passengers and the crew towards

himself was almost analogous to that of the people of Chisley. Nearly

every phase of feeling that was manifested amongst the villagers

presented itself here, and he was troubled. His first suspicion was that

his identity had become known. He had small knowledge of men, and a sick

fear gripped him at the thought that all communities were alike, and

would reflect the suspicions and animosities of his little village if it

were known among them that one of his blood had done murder, and had

suffered as a murderer. But no whisper of his story reached his ears, and

he remained perplexed. He had yet to learn that society in all its phases

is ever intensely suspicious of the man apart. His one desire had been

that he might be lost amongst the passengers, that he might efface

himself in the crowd by keeping carefully out of every man's way and

concerning himself with the interests of none. By doing this he hoped to

land in Australia unknown, unheeded, and start his life again, cut off

from the past completely. He had only succeeded in making himself

notorious. He was silent, reserved, but he was different to the others,

and to hide amongst sheep one must be a sheep. Jim's very anxiety to

escape notice made him conspicuous. His aloofness was resented as 'dirty

pride,' and, being strange to all, he became the butt of many.

Jim Done was not of the type that rough-living men select as the victims

of their small jokes; but in the forecastle the disposition to play upon

the Hermit developed from small and secret things into open harassment,

and Jim's stoicism was wholly misconstrued. He did not seem to see things

that would have caused others in the company to fill the ship with bad

language and dread of death; he was impervious to rhymed jibes and broad

sarcasms that were supposed to have peculiar powers of irritation if

repeated constantly, day after day and night after night, without any

apparent feeling, or motive, or reason under the sun.

Fire was struck one evening with a particularly good joke played upon

Done in his bunk. Jim stepped down amongst the laughing men in his shirt,

and selecting the one whose laugh was loudest and most hearty, he struck

him an open-handed blow that drove him like a log along the floor. There

was little noise. A narrow 'ring' was improvised, two or three bits of

candle were found to help the sooty ship's lantern, and the men fought as

they stood.

Jim's opponent was Phil Ryan, a smart young sailor, six or seven years

his senior. The fight was short but lively, and the onlookers had not one

word of comment to offer after the first round. The men gazed at Done

with a ludicrous expression of stupid reproach. He had deceived, betrayed

them; he had posed as a quiet, harmless man, with the manners of an

aristocrat, when he might have been ship's champion at any moment by

merely putting up his hands.

Phil went down five times. The fifth time he remained seated, gazing

straight before him, with one sad, meditative eye, and another that

looked as if it could never be of any use as an eye again.

'Get up, Ryan!' urged Phil's second.

Phil did not move; he gave no indication of having heard.

'Ryan, get up, man!' The second prompted him with his toe.

'Meanin' me?' said the vanquished.

'To be sure. Be a man! Get up and face him.'

'Divil a fear o' me!' said Ryan. 'I'm never goin' to get up agin till you

put that wild man to bed.' He pointed at Jim.

'Are you licked, then, Ryan?'

'Licked it is. Any man is li'ble to wander into error, maybe, but there's

wan thing about Phil Ryan, he's open to conviction, an' he's had all the

conviction he wants this blessed night.'

'Then we've had enough?' said the second, with an uneasy eye on Jim.

'We have that,' continued Ryan, 'onless some other gintleman would like

to resoom th' argumint where I dthropped it.' The fallen hero ran his

good eye eagerly from face to face.

But Done had already returned to his bunk, and the others seemed

indisposed to put him to further trouble. No more jokes were played upon

the Hermit. The cynics and the wits developed a pronouncedly serious

vein, and it was resolved that for the future Jim Done should take his

own road, and behave in his own peculiar way, without provoking objection

from the company.

'Tis a curtyis an' gintlemanly risolution,' said Ryan, tenderly

caressing his inflated eye, 'an' a great pity it is we forgot to think iv

it sooner.'

The respect the forecastle had acquired for Done was vastly increased by

his rescue of Lucy Woodrow. Conduct that had previously been ascribed to

mere conceit was now accounted for by most romantic imaginings, for it is

a cardinal belief amongst men of their class that the true fighter is

superior to all little weaknesses and small motives. When the girl

crossed the moonlit deck to Done's side, the sailors drifted away out of

earshot, and inquisitive eyes could not turn in Jim's direction without

provoking a profane reproof.

Done's heart beat heavily as the slim, dark figure faced him, extending a

trembling hand.

'I am Lucy Woodrow,' she said in a voice little above a whisper.

'Yes,' he answered simply.

Her hand closed upon his fingers, and she was silent for a moment,

evidently deeply agitated. Her head was bent, hiding her face from his

eyes; and he noticed curiously the moonlight glimmering like tiny sparks

in her red-brown hair.

'You saved my life,' she continued; 'you risked your own. I thank you

with all my heart.'

There was something in her voice that made the simple, formal words quite

eloquent, but Jim scarcely heeded them; he was terrified lest she should

kiss his hand, and withdrew it abruptly.

'I can only say thank you--thank you! And one says that in gratitude for

a mere politeness. But you understand, don't you? My heart is full.'

'Yes, I understand,' he said. 'Now, please, try to say no more about it.

I'm glad to have helped you; but the risk I took was very small after

all. I've almost lived in the sea.'

She raised her face and looked into his eyes.

'It is very easy for you to speak like that,' she said; 'but I know that

if it were not for you at this moment my poor body--' She sobbed and

turned to the sea, with something of its terror and desolation in her

face, and Done understood the grim idea that possessed her.

'Thank God, it was not to be!' he said; and he felt more deeply at that

moment than he had done for many years.

Lucy Woodrow remained silent, leaning upon the gunwale with her face to

the sea, and he noticed presently that she was weeping, and was silent

too. When she spoke again the new feeling in her voice startled him.

'Why did you save me?' she asked in a passionate whisper.

'Why?' He was full of wonder, and repeated the interrogation vaguely.

'Yes, why--why? You had no right!'

'Is it a matter of right?' he asked, stunned. 'I saw you fall. I don't

know why I jumped over. My next conscious action was of striking out in

the water. The act was quite involuntary.'

'You had no right!' Her voice was very low, but instinct with a grief

that was tragic.

'Tell me what you mean.' Unconsciously, he spoke in the soothing tone one

adopts towards an injured child.

'I did not fall overboard.'

'Then, what happened?'

'I threw myself into the sea!'

'You--you wished to drown?'

'Yes, I wanted to die--to be rid of my wretched, empty life.'

Done was thrilled. He gazed earnestly upon the frail young figure; he had

a dawning sense of the possibilities of life and emotion in others. He,

too, had often thought of self-slaughter in an abstract way as the final

defiance; but here was a mere girl for whom life held so little that she

craved for and dared death. A remembrance of his own sister came back to

him, softening his heart to pity. He touched Lucy's arm gently.

'And when you were thanking me just now,' he said, 'you--'

'I lied? No, no, no!' she cried, with a revulsion of feeling; 'I meant

it! I am grateful--indeed I am grateful! I longed to die; but the thought

of washing about in these terrible waters makes me ill with fear. When

the waves took hold of me and swept me under I wished to live--I had a

wild yearning for life. Many times since last night I have felt the water

sucking me down and the mighty waves piling above me, and have felt again

the utter helplessness and terror.' Shuddering, she covered her face with

her hands, but continued speaking after a moment's pause. 'It was

horrible to die; but I am wretched--wretched! and I shall never be brave

enough to venture again--never!'

She threw the hood back from her abundant hair and stood a little apart,

her hands pressed upon her eyes, struggling with her tears, already

wondering at the sudden, overwhelming emotion that had swept her into

this betrayal. He mused in a troubled way, perplexed by her

contradictions avowal, feeling that, after all, he might have done this

girl a great wrong.

'Has your life been so unhappy, then?' he asked.

'It has been too happy,' she replied in a constrained voice.

'Too happy?'

'If I had learned to know sorrow sooner I could have borne it better,

perhaps; but until a year ago my life was all happiness. Before that I

had those who loved me, and neither fears nor cares. My father died, and

mother followed him within seven months. I was their only child; I found

myself alone, beset with anxieties and terrors, utterly desolate. I am

going to be Mrs. Macdougal's companion at her husband's sheep-run, deep

in the Australian Bush, and to teach their children. Since coming aboard

I have been too much alone; I have had too much time to think of my

hopelessness, my loneliness. There were moments when I seemed to be cut

off from the world. It was in one of these moments that I--I--' She made

a significant gesture. Her voice had grown faint, and her limbs trembled.

'Stay,' he said gently, 'I'll get you a seat.'

His concern about this stranger, his curiosity, occasioned no

self-questionings, no probing into motives. For the time being his

customary attitude of mind--that of the pessimist sceptically weighing

every emotion--deserted him. He had been, in his small circle in Chisley,

the one person with a tangible grievance against life, but here he found

another at more bitter variance with Fate, and weaker by far for the

fight. A mutual grievance is a strong bond. He was lifted out of himself.

When he returned he found Lucy Woodrow much more composed. She thanked

him, and seated herself in the shadow.

'Mr. Done,' she said, 'I owe you an apology. You did me a great service,

and I have made that an excuse for inflicting my troubles upon you.' Jim

noted the conventional phrases with a feeling of uneasiness. 'You are

very kind, but something I have confessed I want you to forget. I lost

control of myself.'

'You may trust me to say nothing.'

Yes, yes; I am sure of that,' she added hastily, 'but I want you to

forget. I should not like to see it in your face if we meet again.'

'Why fear that? For what you did you have to answer to yourself alone.'

'I did not confess the truth even to Mrs. Macdougal,' the girl went on in

a low voice. 'I have been a little hysterical, and it is very good of you

to bear with me.'

'I'm glad you told me; it gives me an interest, and I've never been

interested in the fate of another human creature since I was a mere boy.'

'I did wrong in the sight of God. You have saved me from a great crime.'

'No! If life had become unbearable you were justified. When you said I

had no right to interfere, you spoke the truth. No man has the right to

insist upon a fellow-creature continuing to live when life has become

intolerable.' Jim was most emphatic on this point.

'Hush! Oh, hush! I know I said it, and I have thought it too; but the

thought was born of weakness and cowardice.'

Done, who thought he understood himself clearly, and believed he had a

plan of life as precise and logical as the multiplication table, was

puzzled by a nature almost wholly emotional, and she continued:

'I mean to be brave, to meet the future with hope. It was my loneliness

that terrified me. I thought it might be always so, but perhaps real

happiness awaits me out there. I may make true friends.'

She spoke eagerly, anxiously, seeking corroboration, looking to him for

encouragement with touching wistfulness, as if he had been a graybeard

and an old and trusted friend, rather than a mere youth in years, and an

acquaintance of only a few hours.

He felt the appeal, and tried to respond.

'Yes yes,' he said. 'Then, at least, one can always fight the world. If

we can't be loved, we can make ourselves feared. There's a great deal in

that.'

The girl was surprised at his warmth, and a little startled by his

philosophy.

'I could not think that,' she said softly. 'It must be terrible to be

feared--to meet always with doubt and shrinking where you look for

confidence and affection.'

'But when the world refuses to accept us, when it uses all our fine

emotions as scourges to torture us, then we must fight.'

'I--I fight the world!' The girl rose in some agitation, and raised two

tremulous hands, as if in evidence of her weakness.

The gesture staggered him a little. He had been not so much defining her

position as defending his own, and although he could see the futility of

his principle of resentment as applied to her case, it was not in his

nature to preach the pleasing gospel of sentimental optimism. He had no

words of comfort to offer her; the gentle platitudes of encouragement and

consolation she needed, and which would have fallen so glibly from the

lips of an average man, were impossible to him. He was silent.

'One had better die,' continued Lucy Woodrow, 'than live at enmity with

one's fellow-creatures. Ah! the world is good and kind, under its seeming

cruelties. People are more generous than we know, but we should meet them

with open hearts, and give a warm welcome to their affection and

confidence. There must be something evil in the nature that is shut out

from human sympathy, human fellowship--something wanting in the heart

that is lonely, where there are scores of men and women eager to give

friendship and love. We repel those who are drawn to us by their goodness

of heart; we refuse what we most long for, and then blame others because

we are unhappy.'

The girl was speaking the thoughts in which she had vainly sought

comfort. She ceased abruptly, and, moving to the side, stood with her

eyes turned yearningly back over the sea, oppressed by her loneliness and

the home-sickness that had not left her since the shores of England faded

from her sight.

Jim felt a stir of something like resentment at his heart. He found in

the girl's words a reflection of the beliefs of his native village, and

perhaps justification of them, and saw her for the moment as the

embodiment of the respectability, the piety, and all the narrowness of

Chisley. The thought revived his habitual reserve. He meditated an

escape, already regretting that he had permitted himself to drift into

this extraordinary position.