So sang Feargus as he paced the deck one blustery, brilliant morning, two days before the ship reached port. Every little wave wore a whitecap on that beautiful day, and the sky only was bluer than the candid eyes of the young Irishman pacing the deck. Billie walked, or rather ran, beside him, her cheeks glowing with exercise, her fine brown hair tossed about by the breezes.
“Oh, it’s a glorious life, Miss Billie,” cried the young man. “The sea, the wonderful, splendid sea! I sometimes wish I were a deep-sea fisherman and could spend six weeks at a time out of sight of land in a smelly little sailing vessel.”
“Why were you not a sailor, then?” demanded Billie, who clung to her father’s theory that people should follow their own bent.
“I had always expected to go into the Navy,” replied Feargus, “but it was impossible when the time came.”
“Why impossible?”
“Well, you see, we lost our home. Irish people are awfully poor. What few chances we had were snatched away from us. We have been crushed! Oh, you can never know what bitterness I feel——” he clenched his fist and raised it to heaven. “The home my people have been living in for hundreds of years,—the land we owned—or thought we owned——”
He broke off, unable to speak for the choking rage that clutched his throat. “When I am rich,” he cried at last, “I shall get even. There will come a time when I shall be the man on top. It may take fifty years, but it will come.”
Billie felt awed and silenced by this revengeful prophesy. The changes from fair to stormy weather which appeared with such suddenness in the young man’s disposition almost frightened her.
“Do you think it will help any by filling your mind with hatred like that, Feargus?” she asked presently. “I should think it would only weaken your case and poison your whole nature.”
“Weaken?” he cried. “It makes it stronger and me, too. I’m a perfect giant when I think of it. I shall bring down the skies on that man’s head some day.”