He discovered Sandy lying on his face in the passageway, his right hand still dutifully wielding the scrub-brush, but his spirit broken and his courage low.
"Hello!" he exclaimed briskly; "what's your name?"
"Sandy Kilday."
"Scotch, eh?"
"Me name is. The rest of me's Irish," groaned Sandy.
"Well, Sandy, my boy, that's no way to scrub. Come out and get some air, and then go back and do it right."
He guided Sandy's dying footsteps to the deck and propped him against the railing. That was when he laughed.
"Not much of a sailor, eh?" he quizzed. "You'll be all right soon; we have been getting the tail-end of a big nor'wester."
"A happy storm it must have been, sir, to wag its tail so gay," said Sandy, trying to smile.
The doctor clapped him on the back. "You're better. Want something to eat?"
Sandy declined with violence. He explained his feelings with all the authority of a first experience, adding in conclusion: "It was Jonah I used to be after feelin' sorry for; it ain't now. It's the whale."
The doctor prevailed upon him to drink some hot tea and eat a sandwich. It was a heroic effort, but Sandy would have done even more to prolong the friendly conversation.
"How many more days have we got, sir?"
"Five; but there's the return trip for you."
Sandy's face flushed. "If they send me home, I'll be comin' back!" he cried, clinging to the railing as the ship lurched forward. "I'm goin' to be an American. I am goin'—" Further declarations as to his future policy were cut short.
From that time on the doctor took an interest in him. He even took up a collection of clothes for him among the officers. His professional services were no longer necessary, for Sandy enjoyed a speedy recovery from his maritime troubles.
"You are luckier than the rest," he said, one day, stopping on his rounds. "I never had so many steerage patients before."
The work was so heavy, in fact, that he obtained permission to get a boy to assist him. The happy duty devolved upon Sandy, who promptly embraced not only the opportunity, but the doctor and the profession as well. He entered into his new work with such energy and enthusiasm that by the end of the week he knew every man below the cabin deck. So expeditious did he become that he found many idle moments in which to cultivate acquaintances.
His chosen companion at these times was a boy in the steerage, selected not for congeniality, but for his unlimited knowledge of all things terrestrial, from the easiest way of making a fortune to the best way of spending it. He was a short, heavy-set fellow of some eighteen years. His hair grew straight up from an overhanging forehead, under which two small eyes seemed always to be furtively watching each other over the bridge of his flat snub nose. His lips met with difficulty across large, irregular teeth. Such was Ricks Wilson, the most unprepossessing soul on board the good ship America.
"You see, it's this way," explained Ricks as the boys sat behind the smokestack and Sandy became initiated into the mysteries of a wonderful game called "craps." "I didn't have no more 'n you've got. I lived down South, clean off the track of ever'thing. I puts my foot in my hand and went out and seen the world. I tramps up to New York, works my way over to England, tramps and peddles, and gits enough dough to pay my way back. Say, it's bum slow over there. Why, they ain't even on to street-cars in London! I makes more in a week at home than I do in a month in England. Say, where you goin' at when we land?"
Sandy shook his head ruefully. "I got to go back," he said.
Ricks glanced around cautiously, then moved closer.
"You ain't that big a sucker, are you? Any feller that couldn't hop the twig offen this old boat ain't much, that's all I got to say."
"Oh, it's not the gettin' away," said Sandy, more certain than ever, now that he was sure of an ally.
"Homesick?" asked Ricks, with a sneer.
Sandy gave a short laugh. "Home? Why, I ain't got any home. I've just lived around since I was a young one. It's a chance to get on that I'm after."
"Well, what in thunder is takin' you back?"
"I don't know," said Sandy, "'cep'n' it ain't in me to give 'em the slip now I know 'em. Then there's the doctor "
"That old feather-bed? O Lord! He's so good he gives me a pain. Goes round with his mouth hiked up in a smile, and I bet he's as mean as the "
Before Hicks could finish he found himself inextricably tangled in Sandy's arms and legs, while that irate youth sat upon him and pommeled him soundly.
"So it's the good doctor ye'd be after blasphemin' and abusin' and makin' game of! By the powers, ye'll take it back! Speak one time more, and I'll make you swaller the lyin' words, if I have to break every bone in your skin!"
There was an ugly look in Ricks's face as he threw the smaller boy off, but further trouble was prevented by the appearance of the second mate.
Sandy hurried away to his duties, but not without an anxious glance at the upper deck. He had never lost an opportunity, since that first day, of looking up; but this was the first time that he was glad she was not there. Only once had he caught sight of a white tam and a tan coat, and that was when they were being conducted hastily below by a sympathetic stewardess.
But Sandy needed no further food for his dreams than he already had. On sunny afternoons, when he had the time, he would seek a secluded corner of the deck, and stretching himself on the boards with the green book in his hand, would float in a sea of sentiment. The fact that he had decided to study medicine and become a ship's surgeon in no wise interfered with his fixed purpose of riding forth into the world on a cream-white charger in search of a damsel in distress.
So thrilled did he become with the vision that he fell to making rhymes, and was surprised to find that the same pair of eyes always rhymed with skies and they were brown.
Sometimes, at night, a group would gather on the steerage deck and sing. A black-haired Italian, with shirt open at the throat, would strike a pose and fling out a wild serenade; or a fat, placid German would remove his pipe long enough to troll forth a mighty drinking-song. Whenever the air was a familiar one, the entire circle joined in the chorus. At such times Sandy was always on hand, singing with the loudest and telling his story with the best.
"Make de jolly little Irish one to sing by hisself!" called a woman one night from the edge of the crowd. The invitation was taken up and repeated on every side. Sandy, laughing and protesting, was pushed to the front. Being thus suddenly forced into prominence, he suffered an acute attack of stage fright.
"Chirp up there now and give us a tune!" cried some one behind him.
"Can't ye remember none?" asked another.
"Sure," said Sandy, laughing sheepishly; "but they all come wrong end first."
Some one had thrust an old guitar in his hands, and he stood nervously picking at the strings. He might have been standing there still had not the moon come to his rescue. It climbed slowly out of the sea and sent a shimmer of silver and gold over the water, across the deck, and into his eyes. He forgot himself and the crowd. The stream of mystical romance that flows through the veins of every true Irishman was never lacking in Sandy. His heart responded to the beautiful as surely as the echo answers the call.
He seized the guitar, and picking out the notes with clumsy, faltering fingers, sang:
"Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted,