They came, all of them, crowding round the newcomers with a babble of greetings and questionings as to the world from which they had been so long cut off. So rapid was the fire of interrogation, and so multifarious the questions, that they fairly swept Jackson off his feet, and left the other two in little better case.
When the hubbub was at its height, there came, from behind the rest, a hearty, bustling sort of a voice. “Arrah! arrah! boys,” it pleaded. “Don’t you see you’re crowding the young lady? Make room for old Mother Joyce. How are you, me darlint? It’s terrible glad I am to see you; gladder than you are to see any of us, I’ll venture. There! deary! don’t cry. It’s all right.”
The old woman’s voice dropped to a soothing note. For Dorothy, all the experiences of the past two weeks coming on her afresh at sight of a woman’s face, had broken down completely, and was sobbing on Mother Joyce’s ample bosom.
“Oh!” she wailed, “I didn’t know how awful it has been until I saw you. All these dead ships——” Her voice died away.
“I know! I know! It was fifteen years agone that I—but I remimber. There, mavourneen, be aisy. Come along down to Mother Joyce’s cabin and have your cry out.”
She took Dorothy down a hatchway some distance from the babbling throng, into a cool and airy cabin.
“Sit down wid yees,” she commanded. “Sit down with Mother Joyce and wape it all out. I understand, dear heart; I understand.”
Dorothy’s curiosity soon mastered her tears, and before long the two women were exchanging confidences like old friends. Belonging to two different social worlds, elsewhere they would never have known each other. But adventure makes strange companions.
After a while Joe tapped at the door.
“Cap’n Forbes says, Mother Joyce,” he explained, “as how he hopes you an’ the young lady will take supper with him.”