"What’s this-what’s this, Madam?" asked Captain Bradley, coming to meet Mrs. Cameron.
She flung herself against his shoulder.
"Oh, save her! Save my little girl!" she cried hysterically.
"Where is she?" he asked, in his resonant voice.
"There!" She pointed landward. "She left the ship with those horrible Irish boys! I call everyone to witness that she was as pure as the driven snow! Oh, what shall I do?"
"What’s all this about?" Captain Bradley demanded of Philip.
"The girl has eloped with my young brother-in-law, a lad of eighteen", he replied gruffly. "But from what was said in the letter they’ve gone straight to his father’s house".
"If you’d like to go back for them, Captain dear", put in Adeline, "I’ll pay for the cost of it".
It was to the Captain’s shame that he looked more tenderly on Adeline than on Mrs. Cameron, whom he regarded as a complaining woman of depressing appearance.
"Do you think the young gentleman will marry her?" he asked Philip, in a low voice.
"I’m sure he intends to", said Philip, with rather more certainty than he felt.
"Come, come, it may not be so bad as you think", the Captain comforted Mrs. Cameron. To Adeline he said, "Look backward, Mrs. Whiteoak! The ship’s been flying away like a bird. You must understand that it’s impossible for us to return for a young runaway couple".
"It’s all her fault!" shrieked Mrs. Cameron. "She’s as wicked as her brothers. We don’t want their kind in our beautiful young country! They’re evil!"
Mrs. Cameron became hysterical and it was with difficulty that the Captain and the steward got her back to her cabin. For the remainder of the voyage she never left it. Fortunately there had joined the ship at Galway two new passengers with whom she made friends. They were a married couple from Newfoundland. The husband was in the fisheries business; the wife, deeply religious, was a great comfort to Mrs. Cameron.
The other passengers, and particularly those in the steerage, chose to regard the elopement as a youthful romance and poor Mrs. Cameron as a tyrannical parent. Conway Court had been a favourite on board and it was the general opinion that the plain young girl had done extremely well for herself-for it was taken for granted that he would marry her.
The winds were fair and the ship sped on. The livestock became fewer. A poor woman from Liverpool, under a terrible lack of privacy, gave birth to a child. In the salon Captain Whiteoak, Messrs. D’Arcy, Brent and Wilmott played at bezique each evening, while they sipped French brandy out of small green glasses that were filled from a wicker-clad bottle. Adeline would sit watching them, her wide skirts spread gracefully about her, her chin in her palm while her eyes moved contemplatively from one face to the other of the players.
Then one night a frightening thing happened. James Wilmott had just carried a small glass of the liquor to Adeline’s side, for she looked pale and rather languid. There came a shuffling sound on the companion-way, a growling sound of voices. Adeline half rose in her chair. The four men turned their heads toward the door. Crowding into it they saw a mob of rough, fierce-looking men. They were carrying clubs, sticks, any weapon they could lay their hands on. The whites of their eyes glistened in the light of the swaying hanging-lamp. One of them raised a hairy arm and pointed to Wilmott.
"Yon’s him!" he exclaimed.
With a threatening growl the others moved in a body toward Wilmott, who faced them coolly.
"I don’t know what you mean", he said.
"You are Thomas D’Arcy, Esquire, ain’t ye?"
"No, my name is Wilmott".
D’Arcy rose to his feet. "I am Thomas D’Arcy", he said, smiling a little.
"Yes-that’s him-the blackguard! The bloody villain! The cold-hearted brute!"
They came forward with cursings, most of them unintelligible from the brogue.
"What’s all this about?" shouted Philip, putting his stalwart figure in opposition to the mob.
Their spokesman shouted, "Get out o’ the way, yer honour! That villain, D’Arcy, is the man we want. We’re not going to leave two whole bones in his body, and may hell-fire blast it when we’re done with it!"
"I’ve done no harm to any of you", said D’Arcy, pale but contemptuous.
"Haven’t ye, thin? And didn’t ye evict Tom Mulligan’s ould parents into the winter night, and the rint for the tumble-down hovel that was their home only three months behind? And didn’t his poor ould father die of the cold and wet and his poor ould mother of a broken heart? And here’s Tom to give ye the first blow himsilf!"
A thick-set man, waving long arms and a club, detached himself from the rest and, with a black scowl, shrieked:
"Take that, ye black-sowled murderer!" D’Arcy’s skull would have been opened by the blow if he had not snatched up his chair and defended himself with it.
In an instant Adeline found herself the spectator of a terrifying scene. Philip, Brent and Wilmott also snatched up their chairs and met the attackers shoulder to shoulder with D’Arcy.
Philip shouted to her, "Run, Adeline! Out through the other door!"
Instead she ran forward and flung herself on the raised arm of the spokesman, who brandished a hammer. She uttered a shriek that was heard even above the tumult. And at the same instant Captain Bradley and the mate appeared from the companion-way carrying pistols.
"Now, men, do ye want a bullet in you?" shouted Captain Bradley. "Lay down those cudgels!"
Like a sudden squall, the fury of the peasants passed. They stood quiet, relaxed, like the sails from which the gale has receded. They stared in silence at the Captain.
"These men", explained D’Arcy, "seem to think I evicted the parents of one of them and caused their death, but I did nothing of the sort".
"It was yer agent done it!" retorted the spokesman. "It was that twister, McClarty-the murderer-and yoursilf off to the races at Dublin or Liverpool and niver knowing how yer tenantry is trated! Ye didn’t care, if you could lay hands on the rints".
"Ay, that’s true", added Mulligan. "And my poor ould parents getting their death out of it!"
"It’s a shame to him!" cried Adeline. "And if I had known it I should have been fighting on your side, Mulligan, instead of against you!" She was beside herself with excitement and exhilaration. She could hear the whistle of the wind, the clash of the waves. The wild scene had stirred something savage in her. The peasants crowded about her.
"Thank you, me lady! God save you".
"May the Saints bless you! May yer children grow up to comfort you".
D’Arcy spoke calmly to the men. "Why did you attack me", he asked, "after all these weeks?"
"Sure, we’d just found out who you are, divil take you!"
A movement passed through them and it seemed for a moment that Adeline might be put to the test. But Captain Bradley’s authoritative voice ordered them below and like a troubled wave they receded, though with mutterings.
Philip had been embarrassed by Adeline’s outbreak against D’Arcy. He foresaw that their relations would not be so pleasant for the rest of the voyage. D’Arcy was watching her sulkily as she paced up and down the salon declaiming against the cruelties of absentee landlords, telling of how her own father never left his estate and knew the personal history of every man, woman and child on it.
"Your father may be a paragon, in all truth, Mrs. Whiteoak", returned D’Arcy, "but you cannot blame me for all the wrongs of Ireland".
"You’ve no love for the people nor for the land", she answered. "Your heart is not there! So what can you bring to the place but misfortune?"
"Well", put in Brent, "I’ve sold every acre I owned in Ireland, and I’m glad of it!"