Daireen. Complete

by Frank Frankfort Moore

The passengers were for the most part very cheerful, as passengers generally are during the first couple of hours of a voyage, when only the gentle ripples of the Channel lap the sides of the vessel. The old voyagers, who had thought it prudent to dine off a piece of sea-biscuit and a glass of brandy and water, while they watched with grim smiles the novices trifling with roast pork and apricot-dumplings, were now sitting in seats they had arranged for themselves in such places as they knew would be well to leeward for the greater part of the voyage, and here they smoked their cigars and read their newspapers just as they would be doing every day for three weeks. To them the phenomenon of the lessening land was not particularly interesting. The novices were endeavouring to look as if they had been used to knock about the sea all their lives; they carried their telescopes under their arms quite jauntily, and gave critical glances aloft every now and again, consulting their pocket compasses gravely at regular intervals to convince themselves that they were not being trifled with in the navigation of the vessel.

Then there were, of course, those who had come aboard with the determination of learning in three weeks as much seamanship as should enable them to accept any post of marine responsibility that they might be called upon to fill in after life. They handled the loose tackle with a view of determining its exact utility, and endeavoured to trace stray lines to their source. They placed the captain entirely at his ease with them by asking him a number of questions regarding the dangers of boiler-bursting, and the perils of storms; they begged that he would let them know if there was any truth in the report which had reached them to the effect that the Atlantic was a very stormy place; and they left him with the entreaty that in case of any danger arising suddenly he would at once communicate with them; they then went down to put a few casual questions to the quartermaster who was at the wheel, and doubtless felt that they were making most of the people about them cheerful with their converse.

Then there were the young ladies who had just completed their education in England and were now on their way to join their relations abroad. Having read in the course of their studies of English literature the poems of the late Samuel Rogers, they were much amazed to find that the mariners were not leaning over the ship's bulwarks sighing to behold the sinking of their native land, and that not an individual had climbed the mast to partake of the ocular banquet with indulging in which the poet has accredited the sailor. Towards this section the glances of several male eyes were turned, for most of the young men had roved sufficiently far to become aware of the fact that the relief of the monotony of a lengthened voyage is principally dependent on—well, on the relieving capacities of the young ladies, lately sundered from school and just commencing their education in the world.

But far away from the groups that hung about the stern stood a girl looking over the side of the ship towards the west—towards the sun that was almost touching the horizon. She heard the laughter of the groups of girls and the silly questions of the uninformed, but all sounded to her like the strange voices of a dream; for as she gazed towards the west she seemed to see a fair landscape of purple slopes and green woods; the dash of the ripples against the ship's side came to her as the rustle of the breaking ripples amongst the shells of a blue lough upon whose surface a number of green islets raised their heads. She saw them all—every islet, with its moveless I shadow beneath it, and the light touching the edges of the leaves with red. Daireen Gerald it was who stood there looking out to the sunset, but seeing in the golden lands of the west the Irish land she knew so well.

She remained motionless, with her eyes far away and her heart still farther, until the red sun had disappeared, and the delicate twilight change was slipping over the bright gray water. With every change she seemed to see the shifting of the hues over the heather of Slieve Docas and the pulsating of the tremulous red light through the foliage of the deer ground. It was only now that the tears forced themselves into her eyes, for she had not wept at parting from her grandfather, who had gone with her from Ireland and had left her aboard the steamer a few hours before; and while her tears made everything misty to her, the light laughter of the groups scattered about the quarter-deck sounded in her ears. It did not come harshly to her, for it seemed to come from a world in which she had no part. The things about her were as the things of a dream. The reality in which she was living was that which she saw out in the west.

“Come, my dear,” said a voice behind her—“Come and walk with me on the deck. I fancied I had lost you, and you may guess what a state I was in, after all the promises I made to Mr. Gerald.”

“I was just looking out there, and wondering what they were all doing at home—at the foot of the dear old mountain,” said Daireen, allowing herself to be led away.

“That is what most people would call moping, dear,” said the lady who had come up. She was a middle-aged lady with a pleasant face, though her figure was hardly what a scrupulous painter would choose as a model for a Nausicaa.

“Perhaps I was moping, Mrs. Crawford,” Daireen replied; “but I feel the better for it now.”

“My dear, I don't disapprove of moping now and again, though as a habit it should not be encouraged. I was down in my cabin, and when I came on deck I couldn't understand where you had disappeared to. I asked the major, but of course, you know, he was quite oblivious to everything but the mutiny at Cawnpore, through being beside Doctor Campion.”