There was a girl among the passengers, a tall, blonde, handsome,
strapping Irishwoman, with a wild, accommodating eye, whom Alick had
dubbed Tommy, with that transcendental appropriateness that defies
analysis. One day the Devonian was lying for warmth in the upper
stoke-hole, which stands open on the deck, when Irish Tommy came
past, very neatly attired, as was her custom.
'Poor fellow,' she said, stopping, 'you haven't a vest.'
'No,' he said; 'I wish I 'ad.'
Then she stood and gazed on him in silence, until, in his
embarrassment, for he knew not how to look under this scrutiny, he
pulled out his pipe and began to fill it with tobacco.
'Do you want a match?' she asked. And before he had time to reply,
she ran off and presently returned with more than one.
That was the beginning and the end, as far as our passage is
concerned, of what I will make bold to call this love-affair. There
are many relations which go on to marriage and last during a
lifetime, in which less human feeling is engaged than in this scene
of five minutes at the stoke-hole.
Rigidly speaking, this would end the chapter of the stowaways; but in
a larger sense of the word I have yet more to add.
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