"No, no!" cried Mike to those who laughed. "No, no! I'm not talking fanciful. I know the woman."
That settled it. Those who had listened believed that she was beneath contempt, for there was verity in Mike's gesture. One of those from the lower deck, who had been in the razor queue, and was grateful, called to Scholar: "If you don't know Liverpool, Michigan," evidently he had heard whence Scholar had come, "you come with me. There's a moll I know—you'll like her."
"Pay no attintion to them," broke in Mike. "Them fellers sees a crimp in a petticoat and they starts singing about her."
"That's right," agreed another. "Don't you go with him. You come along of me." He looked Scholar up and down. He would be rather proud to introduce Scholar, as a shipmate, to the lady in question.
Mike growled: "Scholar's coming with me," and turning to Scholar, very friendly, his manner reminiscent in a far-off way of a kindly host: "You come with me, Scholar," he said. "There's a fine motherly woman I know——" and he nodded. "I'll put you on to her."
Scholar wondered if he should say: "Thank you very much." Instead he drew at his empty pipe and looked at nothingness before him; and the propeller whirled, and the screws beat on.
"What a queer homecoming these fellows know," he thought.
CHAPTER XVII
The feeding of cattle and of men was over for the afternoon. Scholar was the first up on the poop. He leant over the rail, looking away out and forward. The south end of Ireland was off there somewhere, out of sight, northwards. The Glory surged on, in a pother of spray, a mile of smoke trailing from her smoke-stack a point or two off the bows, southward. There was a touch of humidity in the air that was not the humidity of the sea. It could not be said that Scholar had enjoyed the trip any more than any of them, but nearing home the call of home seemed to be an open question. In this riff-raff below him he had found something likeable, something good amid all the evil. The people at home, where he was going, he knew, could not appreciate one word that he might have to tell of the voyage or the men. No, if they pitied, it would be a very patronising pity, and even that annulled by censure. His womenfolk would find only one more opportunity to say: "What awful creatures men are!" Last night he had pitied these men that they had no homes to go to. To-day, alert for Ireland, near home, the sentimental glow was fading from the vision of his own. He felt himself homeless as they. And then ahead there, northwards in the sea, he beheld something advancing rapidly.