This was the more characteristic, as, for all his
daffing, he was a modest and very polite little fellow
among ourselves.
He would not have hurt the feelings of a fly, nor
throughout the passage did he give a shadow of offence;
yet he was always, by his innocent freedoms and love
of fun, brought upon that narrow margin where politeness
must be natural to walk without a fall. He was
once seriously angry, and that in a grave, quiet manner,
because they supplied no fish on Friday; for Barney
was a conscientious Catholic. He had likewise
strict notions of refinement; and when, late one evening,
after the women had retired, a young Scotsman struck
up an indecent song, Barney’s drab clothes were
immediately missing from the group. His taste
was for the society of gentlemen, of whom, with the
reader’s permission, there was no lack in our
five steerages and second cabin; and he avoided the
rough and positive with a girlish shrinking.
Mackay, partly from his superior powers of mind,
which rendered him incomprehensible, partly from his
extreme opinions, was especially distasteful to the
Irishman. I have seen him slink off with backward
looks of terror and offended delicacy, while the other,
in his witty, ugly way, had been professing hostility
to God, and an extreme theatrical readiness to be
shipwrecked on the spot. These utterances hurt
the little coachman’s modesty like a bad word.
THE SICK MAN
One night Jones, the young O’Reilly, and myself
were walking arm-in-arm and briskly up and down the
deck. Six bells had rung; a head-wind blew chill
and fitful, the fog was closing in with a sprinkle
of rain, and the fog-whistle had been turned on, and
now divided time with its unwelcome outcries, loud
like a bull, thrilling and intense like a mosquito.
Even the watch lay somewhere snugly out of sight.
For some time we observed something lying black and
huddled in the scuppers, which at last heaved a little
and moaned aloud. We ran to the rails.
An elderly man, but whether passenger or seaman it
was impossible in the darkness to determine, lay grovelling
on his belly in the wet scuppers, and kicking feebly
with his outspread toes. We asked him what was
amiss, and he replied incoherently, with a strange
accent and in a voice unmanned by terror, that he
had cramp in the stomach, that he had been ailing all
day, had seen the doctor twice, and had walked the
deck against fatigue till he was overmastered and
had fallen where we found him.
Jones remained by his side, while O’Reilly and
I hurried off to seek the doctor. We knocked
in vain at the doctor’s cabin; there came no
reply; nor could we find any one to guide us.
It was no time for delicacy; so we ran once more
forward; and I, whipping up a ladder and touching
my hat to the officer of the watch, addressed him
as politely as I could —
’I beg your pardon, sir; but there is a man
lying bad with cramp in the lee scuppers; and I can’t
find the doctor.’
