Free 01 The Building of Jalna by Mazo de La Roche Page B

His pale face was alight with exhilaration.
    “I can scarcely wait,” he exclaimed in an exaggerated brogue, “to plant me feet on the ould sod! Praise be to God, I shall sleep in a dacent bed and put me teeth in some dacent food before long!”
    As he advanced he let fall one article after another on the deck but he appeared unconscious of this.
    “Where is Conway?” demanded Adeline.
    “I can’t make him stir. He’s still in bed. Mary Cameron is with him.”
    “Merciful heavens!” cried Adeline.
    Philip threw them both a warning look. Mr. Wilmott considerately moved away, out of hearing.
    “She is packing his things for him,” went on Sholto. “He says he is too tired and the silly girl believes him! She believes whatever he says and does everything he tells her.”
    “I shall attend to him,” said Adeline.
    With her eager step she went swiftly along the slanting deck. She hastened down the companionway and through the narrow passage where most of the cabins were separated from public view by only a curtain. The smell of this passage she felt she never would forget. All the smells of the ship below deck seemed concentrated here — the smell of stale cooking, the smell rising from the livestock, the smell of the lavatory! What discomfort she had endured! The sweet land breeze made it suddenly almost tangible — discomfort and fear.
    She stood outside Conway’s door listening but there was so much noise of movement and shouting she could hear nothing. She opened the door.
    Conway lay stretched on the berth, a happy smile on his face, his pale hair falling about his cheeks. His long greenish eyes followed every movement of Mary Cameron who was bent over a portmanteau carefully packing his toilet articles, under his direction.
    “Well, this is a pretty sight!” cried Adeline. “Oh, you lazy pig, Con! Get up out of that and do your own work! Mary, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Why aren’t you helping your mother?”
    Mary raised a flushed face. She said, with a touch of defiance: —
    “Everything is done for my mother. She is resting till we disembark.”
    “Then go and sit by her. Don’t you know better than to be alone with a young man in his cabin? Have you travelled halfway round the world and learnt nothing?”
    “My mamma has told me,” answered Mary, “to be afraid of Indians and to be afraid of Chinamen and Frenchmen but she has not told me to be afraid of Irishmen.”
    Adeline found it hard not to laugh but she said sternly — “Then she did wrong, for they are the worst of all. Now, run off. If Con needs help I’ll give it to him.” She pushed Mary out of the room.
    She came to her brother and took him by the ear. She bent down and put her face close to his.
    “Con,” she said, “have you ever laid a bad hand on that girl?”
    With the shamelessness of a child he distorted his face against the pain of his ear.
    “Let me be!” he said. “I shan’t tell you.”
    “You will or I’ll tell Philip to question you. You’ll not like that.”
    He twisted his head so he could kiss her forearm.
    “Sweet Sis,” he said.
    “Answer me, Con!”
    “I swear I’ve said nothing to Mary you might not have heard — or her mother.”
    She let him go. “Thank God for that! Now, get up and pack your bags.”
    But she was soft enough to help him. The beautiful harbor lay spread before them; the grey stone town rising beyond it, and beyond that the dark mountains of Clare. An ancient feudal castle stood on one of the hills. The townsfolk were gathering to see the ship for it was rarely that one of her size entered the harbor.
    Now there came all the confusion of disembarking — they who had thought not to leave the ship till they landed at Quebec! Off they came, carrying their belongings, looking paler than when they had set out, some excited, some forlorn, a few in tears. The poor livestock were led or harried off — some so weak in the leg they could hardly walk. They were dirty, they