Paddy O'Rayne, the doctor's red marine, was the same old Paddy.
All the time he had been out, although constantly in danger in the trenches and attending to the sick and wounded, he had, to use his own expression, "never been sick nor sorry, sorr." I must tell you, however, that he was slightly disappointed because he hadn't had an opportunity of saving Dr. Reikie's life.
"Troth sure," he told our old friend the bos'n, "it was the bad luck was in it entoirely. It's niver out av danger the dhoctor was, but niver a chance did I have to show me gratitude. If a cannon-ball had only taken his leg off, I'd have nursed him like a baby; but no such luck for poor Paddy O'Rayne."
I daresay Paddy O'Rayne could see as far through a mile-stone as a mason, so he was not long in discovering that Dr. Reikie had lost his heart to bonnie Maggie, as this Scottish surgeon called her—I mean as he called her when talking to his pillow. But having made what he considered a very interesting discovery, Paddy O'Rayne thought he could see his way to do the doctor a good turn, and pave the road, as it were, for the advancement of his suit. So frequently, when he found Maggie reading by herself, either leaning over the bulwarks or in her chair, he would advance respectfully and salute military fashion. Then he would address her in a form of which the following is merely a specimen:—
"If ye plaze, miss, the dhoctor sends me to inquire if there's anything in the wide worrld you stand in nade av. Nothing at all, at all, miss? Sure and you'd better think again. There's nothing my master wouldn't do to plaze you. A dhrop o' wine and a biscuit, miss, a pill or a plaster, or a taste o' quinine in a tay-cup? Well, well, miss, but sure you're not to be shy, and it's swate my master is on you altogether. Well, I'm going, miss; but he'd shave his head if ye tould him to, and it's the blissed truth I'm telling ye."
* * * * *
One day while standing aft near the binnacle, Sister Mary let fall her book, a volume of Burns. Sturdy, who was walking near with his telescope, man-o'-war fashion, under his left arm, stooped to pick it up. As she smiled her thanks, Sturdy "took two observations," as he phrased it. First he noticed how red her lips were, and secondly that she had a very white wee hand.
Next day—all by chance, I suppose—he found himself walking on the weather side of Sister Mary. The day after, Dr. Reikie saw him deliberately place her chair on the sunny side of the mizzen, and put a camp-stool beside it for himself. Sailors, you may say, are very daring. Yes, granted, but then Sturdy had begun to see the beauties of Burns, and there were many words and expressions in it that were a stumbling-block to him; what more natural, then, than that he should ask this Scotch lassie to help him to their meaning? And so day after day—but there, I won't go any further.
* * * * *
While Sturdy was studying Burns, honest Dr. Reikie took every opportunity of showing Miss Mackenzie his specimens. For during all the time he was in the Crimea, hardly a day passed that this born naturalist did not add to his collection. And now he and she dragged the sea together with little gauze nets, and she showed herself most deft in arranging microscopic creatures on cards.