of the after-deck, where the emigrants may not go, and where they are out of sight and out of hearing.
The ocean is retreating behind us with storm-scud and smoke of foam threshed out from our riven road. Vast theatres of waves are falling away behind us and slipping out of our ken backward into the homeward horizon. Above us the sky is grey, and the sea also is grey, waving now and then a miserable flag of green.
What an empty ocean! There is nothing happening in it but our ship. And for me, that ship is just part of my own purpose: there is nothing happening but what I willed. The slanting red funnels are full of purpose, and the volumes of smoke that fly backward are like our sighs, regrets, hopes, despairs, the outward sign of the fire that is driving us on.
Up on the steward's promenade on Thursday morning I fell into conversation with a young Englishman, and he poured out his heart to me. He was very homesick, and had spoken to no one up till then. He was in a long cloak, with the collar turned up, and a large cloth cap was stuck tightly on his head to keep it from the wind. His face was red with health, but his forehead was puckered, and his eyes seemed ready to shed tears.
"Never been so far away from the old country before?" I hazarded.
"No."
"Would you like to go back?"
"No."
"Are you going to friends in America?"
He shook his head.
"I'm going on my own."
"You are the sort that America wants," I ventured. He did not reply, and I was about to walk away, snubbed, when another thought occurred to me.
"I once left the old country to seek my fortune elsewhere," said I. "I felt as you do, I expect. But it was to go to Russia."
He looked up at me with an inquisitive grimace. I suggested that I knew what it was to part with a girl I loved, and a mother and friends and comforts, and to go to a strange country where I knew no one, and thought I had no friends. At the mention of parting with the girl he seemed to freeze, but curiosity tempted him and he let me tell him some of my story.
"I reckon that England's pretty well played out," said he.
"Not whilst it sends its sons out into the world—you to America, and me to Russia," said I with a smile. "It will only be played out when we haven't the courage to go."
"Well," said he, "I reckon I had to go, there wasn't anything else for me to do. It wasn't courage on my part. I didn't want to go. I reckon there ought to be room in England for the likes of me. It isn't as if I had no guts. I'm as fit as they make them, only no good at figures. I think I had the right to a place in England and a decent screw, and England might be proud of me. I should always have been ready to fight against the Germans for her. I joined the Territorials, I learned to shoot, I can ride a horse."
"Why didn't you go into the army?"
"That's not the place for a decent fellow. Besides, my people wouldn't allow it, and my girl's folks would be cut up. And I reckon there's something better to do than be drilled and wait for a war. My people wanted me to be something respectable, to go into the Civil Service, or a bank, or an insurance office, or even into the wholesale fruit business. I was put into Jacob's, the fruit firm, but I couldn't work their rate. I've been hunting for work the last five months. That takes it out of you, don't it? How mean I felt! Everybody looked at me in such a way—you know, as much as to say 'You loafer, you lout, you good-for-nothing,' so that I jolly well began to feel I was that, too, especially when my clothes got shabby and I had nothing decent to put on to see people."
As my acquaintance talked he rapidly became simpler, more child-like, confiding, and tears stole down his cheek. The reserved and surly lad became a boy. "What a life," said he, "to search work all day, beg a shilling or so from my mother in the evening, meet my girl, tell her all that's happened, then at night to finish the day lying in bed trying to imagine what I'd do if I had a thousand a year!
"I reckon I could have earned a living with my hands, but my people were too proud; yes, and I was too proud also, and my girl might not have liked it. Still, I'd have done anything to earn a sovereign and take her to the theatre, or go out with her to the country for a day, or make her a nice present and prove I wasn't mean. I used to be generous. When I had a job I gave plenty of presents; but you can't give things away when you have to borrow each day. You even walk instead of taking a car, and you are mean, mean, mean—mean all day. Then in the evening you talk of marrying a girl, of having a little home, and you dare to kiss her as much as you can or she will let, and all the while you have in the wide world only a few coppers—and a mother."
"ONE OF THE YOUNG LADIES WAS BEING TOSSED UP IN A BLANKET WITH A YOUNG IRISH LAD."
We went and leaned over the ship and stared down at the sea.
Tears! I suppose millions had come there before and made that great salt ocean of them.
The boy now lisped his confidence to me hurriedly, happily, tenderly.
"But I reckon I've got a good mother, eh? She loved me more than I dreamed. How she cried on Friday! how she cried! It was wild. Sometimes I used to say I hated her. I used to shout out angrily at her that I'd run away and never come back. That was when she said hasty things to me, or when she wouldn't give me money. I used to think I'd go and be a tramp, and pick up a living here and there in the country, and live on fruit and birds' eggs, sleeping anywhere. It would be better than feeling so mean at home. But then, my girl—every night I had to see her. I felt I could not go away like that, never to come home with a fortune—never, never to be able to marry her. Every night she put her arms round my neck and kissed me, and called me her old soldier, her dear one—all sorts of sweet things. I reckon we didn't miss one night all this last year.
"Her father's all right. I had thought he would be different. I was a bit afraid of what he'd say if he got to hear. But she told him on her own, and one night she took me home. They had fixed it up themselves without asking me, and he was very kind. I told him I wanted a job, and I thought p'raps he was going to get me one. But no; he was a queer sort, rather. 'I'm going to wipe out that story of yours,' he says. Then he goes to his bureau and writes a note and puts it in an envelope and addresses it to me. 'Here you are, young man,' says he. I opened the envelope and read one word on a slip of paper—America. 'Millions have told your story before,' says he, 'and have had that word given them in answer. You get ready to go to America; I'll find you your passage-money and something to start you off in the new country. You'll do well; you'll make good, my boy,' and he slapped me on the back.
"You bet I felt excited. He saw my mother and told her his plan. She said she couldn't stand in my way. I got the Government Handbook on the United States, and the emigration circular. I read up America at the public library. I wonder I hadn't thought of it before. America is a great country, eh? They look at you differently, I bet, and a strong young man's worth something there. My word, when I come back. …
"I wonder if I shall come back or if she'll come out to me. I wonder if her father would let her. I guess he would. …
"She loves me. My word, how she loves me! I didn't dream of it before. I used to think the harder you kissed, the more it meant; but she kissed me in a new way, so softly, so differently. She said I was hers, that I would be safe wherever I went in the wide world,
