First day out. Weather horrible, uncertain and squally, but interesting Developments promised Feel fine. ~ Smith's Log
Several tugs were persuasively nudging the Clan Macgregor out from herpier. Beside the towering flanks of the sea-monster, newest and biggestof her species, they seemed absurdly inadequate to the job. But theymade up for their insignificance by self-important and fussy puffingsand pipings, while, like an elephant harried by terriers, the vast massslowly swung outward toward the open. From the pier there arose acomposite clamor of farewell.
The Tyro gazed down upon this lively scene with a feeling of loneliness.No portion of the ceremonial of parting appertained personally to him.He had had his fair fraction in the form of a crowd of enthusiasticfriends who came to see him off on his maiden voyage. They, however,retired early, acting as escort to his tearful mother and sister who hadgiven way to uncontrollable grief early in the proceedings, on a theoryheld, I believe, by the generality of womankind in the face ofconsiderable evidence to the contrary, that a first-time voyager seldomif ever comes back alive. Lacking individual attention, the Tyro decidedto appropriate a share of the communal. Therefore he bowed and wavedindiscriminately, and was distinctly cheered up by a point-blank smileand handkerchief flutter from a piquant brunette who liked his looks.Most people liked his looks, particularly women.
In the foreground of the dock was an individual who apparently didn't.He was a fashionable and frantic oldish-young man, who had burst throughthe barrier and now jigged upon the pier-head in a manner notcountenanced by the Society for Standardizing Ballroom Dances. Atintervals he made gestures toward the Tyro as if striving, againstunfair odds of distance, to sweep him from the surface of creation. Asthe Tyro had never before set eyes upon him, this was surprising. Thesolution of the mystery came from the crowd, close-pressed about theTyro. It took the form of an unmistakable sniffle, and it somehowcontrived to be indubitably and rather pitifully feminine. The Tyroturned.
At, or rather underneath, his left shoulder, and trying to peep over orpast it, he beheld a small portion of a most woe-begone little face,heavily swathed against the nipping March wind. Through the becloudingveil he could dimly make out that the eyes were swollen, the cheeks weremottled; even the nose--with regret I state it--was red and puffy. Anunsightly, melancholy little spectacle to which the Tyro's young heartwent out in prompt pity. It had a habit of going out in friendly andhelpful wise to forlorn and unconsidered people, to the kind of folkthat nobody else had time to bother about.
"What a mess of a face, poor kiddy!" said the Tyro to himself.
From the mess came another sniffle and then a gurgle. The Tyro, with alithe movement of his body, slipped aside from his position of vantage,and the pressure of the crowd brought the girl against the rail.Thereupon the Seven Saltatory Devils possessing the frame of the franticand fashionable dock-dancer deserted it, yielding place to a demon ofvocality.
"I think he's calling to you," said the Tyro in the girl's ear.
The girl shook her head with a vehemence which imparted not so muchdenial as an "I-don't-care-if-he-is" impression.
Stridently sounded the voice of distress from the pier. "Pilot-boat," ityelled, and repeated it. "Pilot! Pilot! Come--back--pilot-boat."
Again the girl shook her head, this time so violently that herhair--soft, curly, luxuriant hair--loosened and clouded about herforehead and ears. In a voice no more than a husky, tremulous whisper,which was too low even to be intended to carry across the wideningwater-space, and therefore manifestly purposed for the establishment ofher own conviction, she said:
"I wo-won't. I won't. I WON'T!!!" At the third declaration she broughta saber-edged heel down square upon the most afflicted toe of a verysore foot which the Tyro had been nursing since a collision in thesquash court some days previous. Involuntarily he uttered a cry ofanguish, followed by a monosyllabic quotation from the originalAnglo-Saxon. The girl turned upon him a baleful face, while thelong-distance conversationalist on the dock reverted to his originalpossession and faded from sight in a series of involuted spasms.
"What did you say?" she demanded, still in that hushed and catchyvoice.
"'Hell,'" repeated the Tyro, in a tone of explication, "'is paved withgood intentions.' It's a proverb."
"I know that as well as you do," she whispered resentfully. "But whathas that to do with--with me?"
"Lord! What a vicious little spitfire it is," said he to himself. Then,aloud: "It was my good intention to remove that foot and substitute theother one, which is better able to sustain--"
"Was that your foot I stepped on?"
"It was. It is now a picturesque and obsolete ruin."
"It had no right to be there."
"But that's where I've always kept it," he protested, "right at the endof that leg."
"If you want me to say I'm sorry, I won't, I won't--I--"
"Help!" cried the Tyro. "One more of those 'won'ts' and I'm a cripplefor life."
There was a convulsive movement of the features beneath the heavy veil,which the Tyro took to be the beginning of a smile. He was encouraged.The two young people were practically alone now, the crowd having movedforward for sight of a French liner sweeping proudly up the river. Thegirl turned her gaze upon the injured member.
"Did I really hurt you much?" she asked, still whispering.
"Not a bit," lied the Tyro manfully. "I just made that an excuse to getyou to talk."
"Indeed!" The head tilted up, furnishing to the Tyro the distinctmoulding, under the blurring fabric, of a determined and resentful chin."Well, I can't talk. I can only whisper."
"Sore throat?"
"No."
"Well, it's none of my business," conceded the Tyro. "But you ratherlooked as if--as if you were in trouble, and I thought perhaps I couldhelp you."
"I don't want any help. I'm all right." To prove which she began to cryagain.
The Tyro led her over to a deck-chair and made her sit down. "Of courseyou are. You just sit there and think how all-right you are for fiveminutes and then you will be all right."
"But I'm not going back. Never! Never!! Nev-ver!!!"
"Certainly not," said the Tyro soothingly.
"You speak to me as if I were a child!"
"So you are--almost."
"That's what they all think at home. That's why I'm--I'm running awayfrom them," she wailed, in a fresh access of self-commiseration.
"Running away! To Europe?"
"Where did you think this ship was bound for?"
"But--all alone?" queried the other, thunderstruck.
"All alone?" She contrived to inform her whisper with a maliciousmimicry of his dismay. "I suppose the girls you know take the wholefamily along when they run away. Idiot!"
"Go ahead!" he encouraged her. "Take it out on me. Relieve yourfeelings. You can't hurt mine."
"I haven't even got a maid with me," mourned the girl. "She got left.F-f-father will have a fu-fu-fit!"
"Father was practicing for it, according to my limited powers ofobservation, when last seen."
"What! Where did you see him?"
"Wasn't it father who was giving the commendable imitation of a whirlingdervish on the pier-head?"
"Heavens, no! That's the--the man I'm running away from."
"The plot thickens. I thought it was your family you were eluding."
"Everybody! Everything! And I'm never coming back. There's no way theycan get me now, is there?"
A reiterated word of the convulsive howler on the dock had stuck in theTyro's mind. "What about the pilot-boat?"
"Oh! Could they? What shall I do? I won't go back. I'll jump overboardfirst. And you do nothing but stand there like a ninny."
"Many thanks, gentle maiden," returned her companion, unperturbed, "forthis testimonial of confidence and esteem. With every inclination to aidand abet any crime or misdemeanor within reach, I nevertheless think Iought to be let in on the secret before I commit myself finally."
"It--it's that Thing on the dock."
"So you led me to infer."
"He wants to marry me."
"Well, America is the land of boundless ambitions," observed the youngman politely.
"But they'll make me marry him if I stay," came the half-strangledwhisper. "I'm engaged to him, I tell you."
"No; you didn't tell me anything of the sort. Why, he's old enough to beyour father."
"Older!" she asseverated spitefully. "And hatefuller than he is old."
"Why do such a thing?"
"I didn't do it."
"Then he did it all himself? I thought it took two to make anengagement."
"It does. Father was the other one."
"Oh! Father is greatly impressed with our acrobatic friend's eligibilityas son-in-law?"
"Well, of course, he's got plenty of money, and a splendid position, andall that. And I--I--I didn't exactly say 'No.' But when I saw it in thenewspapers, all spread out for everybody to read--"
"Hello! It got into the papers, did it?"
"Yesterday morning. Father put it in; I know he did. I cried allnight, and this morning I had Marie pack my things, and I made a rushfor this old ship, and they didn't have anything for me but a stuffylittle hole 'way down in the hold somewhere, and I wish I were dead!"
"Oh, cheer up!" counseled the Tyro. "I've got an awfully decentstateroom--123 D, and if you want to change--"
"Why, I'm 129 D. That's the same kind of room in the same passage. Doyou call that fit to live in?"
Now the Tyro is a person of singularly equable temperament. But to havean offer which he had made only with self-sacrificing effort thuscavalierly received by a red-nosed, blear-eyed, impudent littlechittermouse (thus, I must reluctantly admit, did he mentallycharacterize his new acquaintance), was just a bit too much.
"You don't have to accept the offer, you know," he assured her. "I onlymade it to be offensive. And as I've apparently been successful beyondmy fondest hopes, I will now waft myself away."
There was some kind of struggle in which the lachrymose maiden's wholeanatomy seemed involved, and then a gloved hand went out appealingly.
"Meaning that you're sorry?" inquired the Tyro sternly.
Some sounds there are which elude the efforts of the mostonomatopoeic pen. Still, as nearly as may be--
"Buh!" said the damsel. "Buh--huh--huh!"
"Oh, in that case." The Tyro turned back.
There was a long pause, while the girl struggled for self-command,during which her squire had time to observe with some surprise that shehad a white glove on her left hand and a tan one on her right, and thather apparel seemed to have been put on without due regard to thecardinal points of the compass. Through the veil she perceived andinterpreted his appraisal.
"I'm a dowdy frump!" she lamented, half-voiced. "I dressed myself whileMarie was packing. But you needn't be so--so supercilious about it."
"I'm not," protested he, conscience-stricken.
"You are! When you look at me that way I hate you! I'm not sorry I wasnasty to you. I'm glad! I wish I'd been nastier!"
The Tyro bent upon her a fascinated but baleful regard. "Angel child,"said he in sugared accents, "appease my curiosity. Answer me onequestion."
"I won't. What is it?"
"Did you ever have your ears boxed?"
"Never!" she said indignantly.
"I thought as much."
"You'd like to do it, perhaps."
"I'd love to. It would do me--I mean you--so much good."
"Maybe I'll let you if you'll help me get away. I know they'll find me!"At the prospect the melancholy one once more abandoned herself to thetragedy of existence. "And you don't do a thing but m-m-make fu-fu-funof me."
Contrition softened the heart of the Tyro. "Oh, look here, Niobe," hebegan.
"My name isn't Niobe!"
"Well, your nature's distinctly Niobish. I've got to call yousomething."
"You haven't! You haven't got to ever speak to me again. They'll findme, and catch me, and send me back, and I'll marry that--thatCreature, if that's what you want."
This was the argumentum ad hominem with a vengeance. "I want? Whaton earth have I got to do with it?"
"Nothing! Nobody has anything to do with it. Nobody gives a--a--a darnfor me. Oh, I wish I were back home!"
"Now you're talking sense. The pilot-boat is your play."
"Oh! And you said you'd help me." And then the last barrier gave way,and the floods swept down and immersed speech for the moment.
"Oh, come! Brace up, little girl." His voice was all kindness now. "Ifyou're really bound to get away--"
"I am," came the muffled voice.
"But have you got any place to go?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"My married sister's in London."
"Truly?"
"I can show you a cablegram if you don't believe me."
"That's all right, then. I'll take a chance. Now for one deep, dark, anddeadly plot. If the pilot-boat is after you, they'll look up your nameand cabin on the passenger list."
"I didn't give my real name."
"Oho! Well, your father might wire a description."
"It's just the kind of thing he would do."
"Therefore you'd better change your clothes."
"No. I'd better not. This awful mess is a regular disguise for me."
"And if you could contrive to stop crying--"
"I'm going to cry," said the young lady, with conviction, "all the wayover."
"You'll be a cheerful little shipmate!"
"Don't you concern yourself about that," she retorted. "After the pilotleaves, you needn't have me on your mind at all."
"Thank you. Well, suppose you join me over in yonder secluded corner ofthe deck in about two hours. Is there anybody on board that knows you?"
"How do I know? There might be."
"Then stay out of the way, and keep muffled up as you are now. Your ownmother wouldn't recognize you through that veil. In fact I don't supposeI'd know you myself, but for your voice."
"Oh, I don't always whisper. But if I try to talk out loud my throatgets funny and I want to c-c-cry--"
"Quit it! Stop. Brace up, now. We'll bluff the thing through somehow.Just leave it to me and don't worry."
"And now," queried the Tyro of himself, as he watched the forlorn littlefigure out of sight, "what have I let myself in for this time?"
With a view to gathering information about the functions, habits, andcapacities of a pilot-boat, he started down to the office and was seizedupon the companionway by a grizzled and sunbaked man of fifty whogreeted him joyously.
"Sandy! Is it yourself? Well met to you!"
"Hello, Dr. Alderson," returned the young man with warmth. "Going over?What luck for me!"
"Why? Need a chaperon?"
"A cicerone, anyway. It's my first trip, and I don't know a soulaboard."
"Oh, you'll know plenty before we're over. A maiden voyager is a sort ofpet aboard ship, particularly if he's an unattached youth. My first wasthirty years ago. This is my twenty-seventh."
"You must know all about ships, then. Tell me about the pilot."
"What about him? He's usually a gay old salt who hasn't been out ofsight of land for--"
"That isn't what I want to know. Does he take people back with him?"
"Hello! What's this? Don't want to back out already, do you?"
"No. It isn't I."
"Somebody want to go back? That's easily arranged."
"No. They don't want to go back. Not if they can help it. But could wordbe got to the pilot to take any one off?"
"Oh, yes. If it were sent in time. A telegram to Quarantine would gethim, up to an hour or so after we cast off. What's the mystery, Sandy?"
"Tell you later. Thanks, ever so much."
"I'll have you put at my table," called the other after him, as hedescended the broad companionway.
So the pilot-boat scheme was feasible, then. If the unknown weeper'sfather had prompt notice--from the disciple of Terpsichore, forexample--he might get word to the pilot and institute a search.Meditating upon the appearance and behavior of the dock-dancer, the Tyrodecided that he'd go to any lengths to see the thing through just forthe pleasure of frustrating him.
"Though what on earth he wants to marry her for, I don't see," hethought. "She ought to marry an undertaker."
And he sat down to write his mother a pilot-boat letter, assuring herthat he had thus far survived the perils of the deep and had alreadyfound a job as knight-errant to the homeliest and most lugubrious girlon the seven seas. At the warning call for the closing of the mails hehastened to the rendezvous on deck. She was there before him, stillmuffled up, still swollen of feature, and still, as he indignantly putit to himself, "blubbering."
Meantime there had reached the giant ship Clan Macgregor a messagesigned by a name of such power that the whole structure officiallythrilled to it from top to bottom. The owner of the name demanded theinstant return, intact and in good order, C.O.D., of a valuabledaughter, preferably by pilot-boat, but, if necessary, by running theship aground and sending said daughter ashore in a breeches-buoy, or byturning back and putting into dock again. In this assumption there wasperhaps some hyperbole. But it was obvious from the stir of officialdomthat the signer of the demand wanted his daughter very much and wasaccustomed to having his wants respectfully carried out. One feature ofthe message would have convinced the Tyro, had he seen it, of thefatuity of fatherhood. It described the fugitive as "very pretty."
The search was thorough, rigid, and quite unavailing. The reason why itwas unavailing was this: At the moment when that portion of the chase towhich the promenade deck was apportioned, consisting of the secondofficer, the purser, and two stewards, approached the secluded nookwhere the Tyro stood guardian above the feminine Fount of Tears, theybeheld and heard only a young man admonishing a stricken girl inunmistakably fraternal terms:
"Now, Amy, you might just as well stop that sniveling. [The Tyro wastaking a bit of revenge on the side.] You can't change your stateroom.There isn't another to be had on board. And if it's good enough forMother, I think it ought to be good enough for you. Do have somegumption, Amy, and cut out the salty-tear business. Come on down andeat."
The pursuit passed on, and an hour later the pilot-boat chugged awaypassengerless; for even the mightiest cannot hold indefinitely an oceanliner setting out after a possible record. Almost at the moment that theman of power received a message stating positively that his daughter wasnot on the Clan Macgregor that perverse little person was saying to herpreserver, who--foolish youth--had expected some expression ofappreciation:--
"What do you mean by calling me Amy? I hate the name."
"Short for 'amiability,' your most obvious quality."
"You're a perfect pig!" retorted the lady with conviction.
The Tyro made her a low bow. "Oh, pattern of all the graces," said he,"I accept and appreciate the appellation. The pig is a praiseworthycharacter. The pig suffereth long and is kind. The pig is humble, pious,a home-lover and a home-stayer. You never heard of a pig changing hisheart and running away across the seas on twelve hours' notice, becausethings didn't go exactly to suit him. Did you, now? The pig is mild oftemper and restrained of speech. He always thinks twice before hegrunts. To those that use him gently the pig is friendly andaffectionate. Gratitude makes its home in that soft bosom. Well has thepoet sung:--
"How rarer than a serpent's tooth It is to find a thankless pig!
"The pig does not grouch nor snap nor stamp upon the feet of thedefenseless. Finally and above all, he does not give way to uselesstears and make red the lovely pinkness of his shapely nose. Proud am Ito be dubbed the Perfect Pig."
"Oh!" said the tearful damsel, and potential murder informed themonosyllable.
"See here," said the Tyro persuasively: "tell me, why are you so crosswith me?"
"Because you pitied me."
"Anybody would. You look so helpless and miserable."
"I'm not muh-muh-miserable!"
"I beg your pardon. Of course you're not. Any one could see that."
"I am. But I don't care. I won't be pitied. How dare you pity me! Ihate people that--that go around pitying other people."
"I'll promise never to do it again. Only spare my life this time. NowI'm going to go away and stop bothering you. But if you find thingsgetting too dull for you during the voyage, I'll be around somewherewithin call. Good-bye, and good luck."
A little hand went out to him--impulsively.
"I am sorry," came the whisper--it was almost free of tragic effectthis time--"and I really think you--you're rather a dear."
The Tyro marched away in the righteous consciousness of having done hisfull duty by helpless and unattractive girlhood. The girl retiredpresently to her cabin, and made a fair start on her announced policy ofcrying all the way from America to Europe. When, however, the ship metwith a playful little cross-sea and began to bobble and weave and splashabout in the manner of our top-heavy leviathans of travel, she wasimpelled to take thought of her inner self, and presently sought thefresh and open air of the deck lest a worse thing befall her. There in asheltered angle she snuggled deep in her chair, and presently, braced bythe vivifying air, was by way of almost enjoying herself. And thitherfate drove the Tyro, with relentless purpose, into her clutches.
With his friend Alderson, who had retrieved him late in the afternoonafter he had unpacked, the Tyro was making rather uncertain weather ofit along the jerking deck, when an unusually abrupt buck-jump executedby the Macgregor sent him reeling up against the cabin rail at the anglebehind which the girl sheltered.
"Let's stop here for a minute," panted Alderson. "Haven't got mysea-legs yet." There was a pause. "Did I see you making yourselfagreeable to a young person of the dangerous sex a couple of hours ago?"
"Agreeable? Well, judging by results, no. I doubt if Chesterfieldhimself could have made himself agreeable to Little Miss Grouch."
"Miss Who?"
"Little Miss Grouch. Don't know her real name. But that's good enoughfor descriptive purposes. She's the crossest little patch that ever grewup without being properly spanked."
"Where did you run across her?"
"Oh, she wrecked my pet toe with a guillotine heel because I ventured tosympathize with her."
"Oh," commented the experienced Alderson. "Sympathy isn't in much demandwhen one is seasick."
"It wasn't seasickness. It was weeps for the vanished fatherland; suchblubbery weeps! Poor little girl!" mused the Tyro. "She isn't muchbigger than a minute, and so forlorn, and so red-nosed, and sohomely, you couldn't help but--"
At this moment a drunken stagger on the part of the ship slewed thespeaker halfway around. He found himself looking down upon asteamer-chair, wherein lay a bundle swathed in many rugs. From thatbundle protruded a veiled face and the outline of a swollen nose, abovewhich a pair of fixed eyes blazed, dimmed but malevolent, into his.
"Er--ah--oh," said the Tyro, moving hastily away. "If you'll excuse me Ithink I'll just step over the rail and speak to a fish I used to know."
"What's the matter?" inquired Alderson suspiciously, following him. "Notalready!"
"Oh, no. Not that. Worse. That bundle almost under our feet when Ispoke--that was Little Miss Grouch."
Alderson took a furtive glance. "She's all mummied up," he suggested;"maybe she didn't hear."
"Oh, yes, she did. Trust my luck for that. And I said she was homely.And she is. Oh, Lord, I wouldn't have hurt her poor little feelings foranything."
"Don't you be too sure about her being so homely. Any woman looks afright when she's all bunged up from crying."
"What's the difference?" said the Tyro miserably. "A pretty girl don'tlike to be called homely any more than a homely one."
"There's where you're off, my son," returned Alderson. "She can summonher looking-glass as a witness in rebuttal."
"Anyway, I've put my foot in it up to the knee!"
"Oh, go up to-morrow when she's feeling better and tell her you weretalking about the ship's cat."
"I'd show better sense by keeping out of her way altogether."
"You'll never be able to do that," said the sea-wise Alderson. "Try toavoid any one on shipboard and you'll bump into that particular personeverywhere you go, from the engine-room to the forepeak. Ten to one shesits next to you at table."
"I'll have my seat changed," cried the other in panic. "I'll eat in mycabin. I'll fast for the week."
"You be a game sport and I'll help you out," promised his friend. "Allhands to repel boarders! Here she comes!"
Little Miss Grouch bore down upon them with her much-maligned nose inthe air. As she maneuvered to pass, the ship, which had reached theclimax of its normal roll to port, paused, and then decided to go acouple of degrees farther; in consequence of which the young lady fledwith a stifled cry of fury straight into the Tyro's waiting arms.Alderson, true to his promise, extracted her, set her on her way, andturned anxiously to his young friend.
"Did she bite you?" he inquired solicitously.
"No. You grabbed her just in time. This affair," he continued withprofound and wretched conviction, "is going to be Fate with a capitalF."
Meantime, in the seclusion of her cabin, the little lady was maturingthe plot of deep and righteous wrath. "Wait till to-morrow," shemuttered, hurling her apparel from her and diving into her bunk. "I'llshow him," she added, giving the pillow a vicious poke. "He said I washomely! (Thump!) And red-nosed. (Plop!) And cross and ugly! (Whack!) Andhe called me Little Miss Grouch. And--and gribble him!" pursued themaligned one, employing the dreadful anathema of her schoolgirl days."He pitied me. Pitied! Me! Just wait. I'll be seasick and have it overwith! And I'll cry until I haven't got another tear left. And then I'llfix him. He's got nice, clear gray eyes, too," concluded the littleogress with tigerish satisfaction. "Ouch! where's the bell!"
For several hours Little Miss Grouch carried out her programmefaithfully and at some pains. Then there came to her the fairygodmother, Sleep, who banished the goblins, Grief and Temper, and workedher own marvelous witchery upon the weary girl to such fair purpose thatshe awoke in the morning transformed beyond all human, and moreparticularly all masculine, believing. One look in her glass assured herthat the unfailing charm had worked.
She girded up her hair and went forth upon the war-path of her sex.