Sandy written by Alice Hegan Rice

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SANDY

by

ALICE HEGAN RICE

Author of _Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch_

New York, The Century Co.

1905

[Illustration: "Looking up, he saw a slender little girl in a long
tan coat and a whit tam-o'-shanter"]

TO MY AUNT

MISS MARY A. HEGAN
WHO USED TO TELL ME BETTER STORIES
THAN I SHALL EVER WRITE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I THE STOWAWAY
II ON SHIPBOARD
III THE CURSE OF WEALTH
IV SIDE-TRACKED
V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS
VI HOLLIS FARM
VII CONVALESCENCE
VIII AUNT MELVY AS A SOOTHSAYER
IX TRANSITION
X WATERLOO
XI "THE LIGHT THAT LIES"
XII ANTICIPATION
XIII THE COUNTY FAIR
XIV A COUNCIL OF WAR
XV HELL AND HEAVEN
XVI THE NELSON HOME
XVII UNDER THE WILLOWS
XVIII THE VICTIM
XIX THE TRIALS OF AN ASSISTANT POSTMASTER
XX THE IRONY OF CHANCE
XXI IN THE DARK
XXII AT WILLOWVALE
XXIII "THE SHADOW ON THE HEART"
XXIV THE PRIMROSE WAY

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"Looking up, he saw a slender little girl in a long tan coat and a
white tam-o-shanter" Frontispiece

"He sent up yell after yell of victory for the land of his adoption"

"He smiled away his debt of gratitude"

"Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time"

"Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"

"Sandy saw her waver"

"'It's been love, Sandy, ... ever since the first'"

CHAPTER I

THE STOWAWAY

An English mist was rolling lazily inland from the sea. It half
enveloped the two great ocean liners that lay tugging at their
moorings in the bay, and settled over the wharf with a grim
determination to check, as far as possible, the traffic of the
morning.

But the activity of the wharf, while impeded, was in no wise stopped.
The bustle, rattle, and shouting were, in fact, augmented by the
temporary interference. Everybody seemed in a hurry, and everybody
seemed out of temper, save a boy who lay at full length on the quay
and earnestly studied a weather-vane that was lazily trying to make
up its mind which way to point.

He was ragged and brawny and picturesque. His hands, bronzed by the
tan of sixteen summers, were clasped under his head, and his legs were
crossed, one soleless shoe on high vaunting its nakedness in the face
of an indifferent world. A sailor's blouse, two sizes too large, was
held together at the neck by a bit of red cambric, and his trousers
were anchored to their mooring by a heavy piece of yellow twine. The
indolence of his position, however, was not indicative of the state of
his mind; for under his weather-beaten old cap, perched sidewise on a
tousled head, was a commotion of dreams and schemes, ambitions and
plans, whose activities would have put to shame the busiest wharf in
the world.

"It's your show, Sandy Kilday!" he said, half aloud, with a bit of a
brogue that flavored his speech as the salt flavors the sea air. "You
don't want to be a bloomin' old weather-vane, a-changin' your mind
every time the wind blows. Is it go, or stay?"

The answer, instead of coming, got sidetracked by the train of thought
that descended upon him when he was actually face to face with his
decision. All sorts of memories came rushing pell-mell through his
brain. The cold and hungry ones were the most insistent, but he
brushed them aside.

The one he clung to longest was the earliest and most shadowy of the
lot. It was of a little white house on an Irish heath, and inside was
the biggest fireplace in the world, where crimson flames went roaring
up the big, dark chimney, and where witches and fairies held high
carnival. There was a big chair on each side the hearth, and between
them a tiny red rocker with flowers painted on the arms of it. That
was the clearest of all. There were persons in the large chairs, one a
silent Scotchman who, instinct told him, must have been his father,
and the other--oh, tricky memory that faltered when he wanted it to be
so clear!--was the maddest, merriest little mother that ever came
back to haunt a lad. By holding tight to the memory he could see that
her eyes were blue like his own, but her hair was black. He could hear
the ring of her laugh as she told him Irish stories, and the soft
drone of her voice as she sang him old Irish songs. It was she who
told him about the fairies and witches that lived up behind the
peat-flames. He remembered holding her hand and putting his cheek
against it when the goblins came too near. Then the picture would go
out, like a picture in a magic-lantern show, and sometimes Sandy could
make it come back, and sometimes he could not.

After that came a succession of memories, but none of them held the
silent father and the merry mother and the little white house on the
heath. They were of new faces and new places, of temporary homes with
relatives in Ireland and Scotland, of various schools and unceasing
work. Then came the day, two years ago, when, goaded by some
injustice, real or imagined, he had run away to England and struck out
alone and empty-handed to care for himself. It had been a rough
experience, and there were days that he was glad to forget; but
through it all the taste of freedom had been sweet in his mouth.

For three weeks he had been hanging about the docks, picking up jobs
here and there, accommodating any one who wanted to be accommodated,
making many friends and little money. He had had no thought of
embarking until the big English liner _Great Britain_ arrived in port
after breaking all records on her homeward passage. She was to start
on her second trip to-day, and an hour later her rival, the steamship
_America_, was to take her departure. The relative merits of the two
vessels had been the talk of the wharf for days.

Sandy had made it a rule in life to be on hand when anything was
happening. He had viewed cricket-matches from tree-tops, had answered
the call of fire at midnight, and tramped ten miles to see the finish
of a great regatta. But something was about to take place which seemed
entirely beyond his attainment. Two hours passed before he solved the
problem.

"Takin' the rest-cure, kid?" asked a passing sailor as he shied a
stick at Sandy's shins.

Sandy stretched himself and smiled up at the sailor. It was a smile
that waited for an answer and usually got it--a smile so brimming over
with good-fellowship and confidence that it made a lover of a friend
and a friend of an enemy.

"It's a trip that I'm thinkin' of takin'," he cried blithely as he
jumped to his feet. "Here's the shillin' I owe you, partner, and may
the best luck ye've had be the worst luck that's comin'."

He tossed a coin to the sailor, and thrusting his hands in his
pockets, executed a brief but brilliant _pas seul_, and then went
whistling away down the wharf. He swung along right cheerily, his rags
fluttering, his chin in the air, for the wind had settled in one
direction, and the weather-vane and Sandy had both made up their
minds.

The sailor looked after him fondly. "He's a bloomin' good little
chap," he said to a man near by. "Carries a civil tongue in his head
for everybody."

The man grunted. "He's too off and on," he said. "He'll never come to
naught."

Two days later, the _America_, cutting her way across the Atlantic,
carried one more passenger than she registered. In the big life-boat
swung above the hurricane-deck lay Sandy Kilday, snugly concealed by
the heavy canvas covering.

He had managed to come aboard under cover of the friendly fog, and had
boldly appropriated a life-boat and was doing light housekeeping. The
apartment, to be sure, was rather small and dark, for the only light
came through a tiny aperture where the canvas was tucked back. At this
end Sandy attended to his domestic duties.

Here were stored the fresh water and hardtack which the law requires
every life-boat to carry in case of an emergency. Added to these was
Sandy's private larder, consisting of several loaves of bread, a bag
of apples, and some canned meat. The other end of the boat was
utilized as a bedroom, a couple of life-preservers serving as the bed,
and his own bundle of personal belongings doing duty as a pillow.

There were some drawbacks, naturally, especially to an energetic,
restless youngster who had never been in one place so long before in
his life. It was exceedingly inconvenient to have to lie down or
crawl; but Sandy had been used to inconveniences all his life, and
this was simply a difference in kind, not in degree. Besides, he could
steal out at night and, by being very careful and still, manage to
avoid the night watch.

The first night out a man and a girl had come up from the cabin deck
and sat directly under his hiding-place. At first he was too much
afraid of discovery to listen to what they were saying, but later his
interest outweighed his fear. For they were evidently lovers, and
Sandy was at that inflammable age when to hear mention of love is
dangerous and to see a manifestation of it absolute contagion. When
the great question came, his heart waited for the answer. Perhaps it
was the added weight of his unspoken influence that turned the scale.
She said yes. During the silence that followed, Sandy, unable to
restrain his joy, threw his arms about a life-preserver and embraced
it fervently.

When they were gone he crawled out to stretch his weary body. On the
deck he found a book which they had left; it was a green book, and on
the cover was a golden castle on a golden hill. All the rest of his
life he loved a green book best, for it was through this one that he
found his way back again to that enchanted land that lay behind the
peat-flames in the shadowy memory. Early in the morning he read it,
with his head on the box of hardtack and his feet on the water-can.
Twice he reluctantly tore himself from its pages and put it back where
he had found it. No one came to claim it, and it lay there, with the
golden castle shining in the sun. Sandy decided to take one more peep.

It was all about gallant knights and noble lords, of damsels passing
fair, of tourneys and feasts and battles fierce and long. Story after
story he devoured, until he came to the best one of all. It told of a
beautiful damsel with a mantle richly furred, who was girt with a
cumbrous sword which did her great sorrow; for she might not be
delivered of it save by a knight who was of passing good name both of
his lands and deeds. And after that all the great knights had striven
in vain to draw the sword from its sheath, a poor knight, poorly
arrayed, felt in his heart that he might essay it, but was abashed. At
last, however, when the damsel was departing, he plucked up courage to
ask if he might try; and when she hesitated he said: "Fair damsel,
worthiness and good deeds are not only in arrayment, but manhood and
worship are hid within man's person." Then the poor knight took the
sword by the girdle and sheath and drew it out easily.

And it was not until then that Sandy knew that he had had no dinner,
and that the sun had climbed over to the other side of the steamer,
and that a continual cheering was coming up from the deck below.
Cautiously he pulled back the canvas flap and emerged like the head of
a turtle from his shell. The bright sunshine dazzled him for a moment,
then he saw a sight that sent the dreams flying. There, just ahead,
was the _Great Britain_ under full way, valiantly striving to hold her
record against the oncoming steamer.

Sandy sat up and breathlessly watched the champion of the sea, her
smoke-stacks black against the wide stretch of shining waters. The
Union Jack was flying in insolent security from her flagstaff. There
were many figures on deck, and her music was growing louder every
minute. Inch by inch the _America_ gained upon her, until they were
bow and bow. The crowd below grew wilder, cheers went up from both
steamers, the decks were white with the flutter of handkerchiefs.
Suddenly the band below struck up "The Star-Spangled Banner." Sandy
gave one triumphant glance at the Stars and Stripes floating overhead,
and in that moment became naturalized. He leaped to his feet in the
boat, and tearing the blouse from his back, waved the tattered banner
in the face of the vanquished _Great Britain_, as he sent up yell
after yell of victory for the land of his adoption.

[Illustration: "He sent up yell after yell of victory for the land of
his adoption"]

Then he was seized by the ankle and jerked roughly down upon the deck.
Over him stood the deck steward.

"You`re a rum egg for that old boat to hatch out," he said. "I guess
the cap'n will be wantin' to see you."

Sandy, thus peremptorily summoned from the height of patriotic
frenzy, collapsed in terror. Had the deck steward not been familiar
with stowaways, he doubtless would have been moved by the flood of
eloquent persuasion which Sandy brought to bear.

As it was, he led him ruthlessly down the narrow steps, past the long
line of curious passengers, then down again to the steerage deck,
where he deposited him on a coil of rope and bade him stay there until
he was sent for.

Here Sandy sat for the remainder of the afternoon, stared at from
above and below, an object of lively curiosity. He bit his nails until
the blood came, and struggled manfully to keep back the tears. He was
cold, hungry, and disgraced, and his mind was full of sinister
thoughts. Inch by inch he moved closer to the railing.

Suddenly something fell at his feet. It was an orange. Looking up, he
saw a slender little girl in a long tan coat and a white
tam-o'-shanter leaning over the railing. He only knew that her eyes
were brown and that she was sorry for him, but it changed his world.
He pulled off his cap, and sent her such an ardent smile of gratitude
that she melted from the railing like a snowflake under the kiss of
the sun.

Sandy ate the orange and took courage. Life had acquired a new
interest.

CHAPTER II

ON SHIPBOARD

The days that followed were not rose-strewn. Disgrace sat heavily upon
the delinquent, and he did penance by foregoing the joys of society.
Menial labor and the knowledge that he would not be allowed to land,
but would be sent back by the first steamer, were made all the more
unbearable by his first experience with illness. He had accepted his
fate and prepared to die when the ship's surgeon found him.

The ship's surgeon was cruel enough to laugh, but he persuaded Sandy
to come back to life. He was a small, white, round little man; and
when he came rolling down the deck in his white linen suit, his face
beaming from its white frame of close-cropped hair and beard, he was
not unlike one of his own round white little pills, except that their
sweetness stopped on the outside and his went clear through.

He discovered Sandy lying on his face in the passageway, his right
hand still dutifully wielding the scrub-brush, but his spirit broken
and his courage low.

"Hello!" he exclaimed briskly; "what's your name?"

"Sandy Kilday."

"Scotch, eh?"

"Me name is. The rest of me's Irish," groaned Sandy.

"Well, Sandy, my boy, that's no way to scrub. Come out and get some
air, and then go back and do it right."

He guided Sandy's dying footsteps to the deck and propped him against
the railing. That was when he laughed.

"Not much of a sailor, eh?" he quizzed. "You'll be all right soon; we
have been getting the tail-end of a big nor'wester."

"A happy storm it must have been, sir, to wag its tail so gay," said
Sandy, trying to smile.

The doctor clapped him on the back. "You're better. Want something to
eat?"

Sandy declined with violence. He explained his feelings with all the
authority of a first experience, adding in conclusion: "It was Jonah I
used to be after feelin' sorry for; it ain't now. It's the whale."

The doctor prevailed upon him to drink some hot tea and eat a
sandwich. It was a heroic effort, but Sandy would have done even more
to prolong the friendly conversation.

"How many more days have we got, sir?"

"Five; but there's the return trip for you."

Sandy's face flushed. "If they send me home, I'll be comin' back!" he
cried, clinging to the railing as the ship lurched forward. "I'm goin'
to be an American. I am goin'--" Further declarations as to his
future policy were cut short.

From that time on the doctor took an interest in him. He even took up
a collection of clothes for him among the officers. His professional
services were no longer necessary, for Sandy enjoyed a speedy recovery
from his maritime troubles.

"You are luckier than the rest," he said, one day, stopping on his
rounds. "I never had so many steerage patients before."

The work was so heavy, in fact, that he obtained permission to get a
boy to assist him. The happy duty devolved upon Sandy, who promptly
embraced not only the opportunity, but the doctor and the profession
as well. He entered into his new work with such energy and enthusiasm
that by the end of the week he knew every man below the cabin deck. So
expeditious did he become that he found many idle moments in which to
cultivate acquaintances.

His chosen companion at these times was a boy in the steerage,
selected not for congeniality, but for his unlimited knowledge of all
things terrestrial, from the easiest way of making a fortune to the
best way of spending it. He was a short, heavy-set fellow of some
eighteen years. His hair grew straight up from an overhanging
forehead, under which two small eyes seemed always to be furtively
watching each other over the bridge of his flat snub nose. His lips
met with difficulty across large, irregular teeth. Such was Ricks
Wilson, the most unprepossessing soul on board the good ship
_America_.

"You see, it's this way," explained Ricks as the boys sat behind the
smokestack and Sandy became initiated into the mysteries of a
wonderful game called "craps." "I didn't have no more 'n you've got. I
lived down South, clean off the track of ever'thing. I puts my foot in
my hand and went out and seen the world. I tramps up to New York,
works my way over to England, tramps and peddles, and gits enough
dough to pay my way back. Say, it's bum slow over there. Why, they
ain't even on to street-cars in London! I makes more in a week at home
than I do in a month in England. Say, where you goin' at when we
land?"

Sandy shook his head ruefully. "I got to go back," he said.

Ricks glanced around cautiously, then moved closer.

"You ain't that big a sucker, are you? Any feller that couldn't hop
the twig offen this old boat ain't much, that's all I got to say."

"Oh, it's not the gettin' away," said Sandy, more certain than ever,
now that he was sure of an ally.

"Homesick?" asked Ricks, with a sneer.

Sandy gave a short laugh. "Home? Why, I ain't got any home. I've just
lived around since I was a young one. It's a chance to get on that I'm
after."

"Well, what in thunder is takin' you back?"

"I don't know," said Sandy, "'cep'n' it ain't in me to give 'em the
slip now I know 'em. Then there's the doctor--"

"That old feather-bed? O Lord! He's so good he gives me a pain. Goes
round with his mouth hiked up in a smile, and I bet he's as mean as
the--"

Before Hicks could finish he found himself inextricably tangled in
Sandy's arms and legs, while that irate youth sat upon him and
pommeled him soundly.

"So it's the good doctor ye'd be after blasphemin' and abusin' and
makin' game of! By the powers, ye'll take it back! Speak one time
more, and I'll make you swaller the lyin' words, if I have to break
every bone in your skin!"

There was an ugly look in Ricks's face as he threw the smaller boy
off, but further trouble was prevented by the appearance of the second
mate.

Sandy hurried away to his duties, but not without an anxious glance at
the upper deck. He had never lost an opportunity, since that first
day, of looking up; but this was the first time that he was glad she
was not there. Only once had he caught sight of a white tam and a tan
coat, and that was when they were being conducted hastily below by a
sympathetic stewardess.

But Sandy needed no further food for his dreams than he already had.
On sunny afternoons, when he had the time, he would seek a secluded
corner of the deck, and stretching himself on the boards with the
green book in his hand, would float in a sea of sentiment. The fact
that he had decided to study medicine and become a ship's surgeon in
no wise interfered with his fixed purpose of riding forth into the
world on a cream-white charger in search of a damsel in distress.

So thrilled did he become with the vision that he fell to making
rhymes, and was surprised to find that the same pair of eyes always
rhymed with skies--and they were brown.

Sometimes, at night, a group would gather on the steerage deck and
sing. A black-haired Italian, with shirt open at the throat, would
strike a pose and fling out a wild serenade; or a fat, placid German
would remove his pipe long enough to troll forth a mighty
drinking-song. Whenever the air was a familiar one, the entire circle
joined in the chorus. At such times Sandy was always on hand, singing
with the loudest and telling his story with the best.

"Make de jolly little Irish one to sing by hisself!" called a woman
one night from the edge of the crowd. The invitation was taken up and
repeated on every side. Sandy, laughing and protesting, was pushed to
the front. Being thus suddenly forced into prominence, he suffered an
acute attack of stage fright.

"Chirp up there now and give us a tune!" cried some one behind him.

"Can't ye remember none?" asked another.

"Sure," said Sandy, laughing sheepishly; "but they all come wrong end
first."

Some one had thrust an old guitar in his hands, and he stood
nervously picking at the strings. He might have been standing there
still had not the moon come to his rescue. It climbed slowly out of
the sea and sent a shimmer of silver and gold over the water, across
the deck, and into his eyes. He forgot himself and the crowd. The
stream of mystical romance that flows through the veins of every true
Irishman was never lacking in Sandy. His heart responded to the
beautiful as surely as the echo answers the call.

He seized the guitar, and picking out the notes with clumsy, faltering
fingers, sang:

"Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted,
Savourneen deelish, signan O!"

His boyish voice rang out clear and true, softening on the refrain to
an indescribable tenderness that steeped the old song in the very
essence of mystery and love.

"As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!--
Savourneen deelish, signan O!"

He could remember his mother singing him to sleep by it, and the
bright red of her lips as they framed the words:

"Wan was her cheek which hung on my shoulder;
Chill was her hand, no marble was colder;
I felt that again I should never behold her;
Savourneen deelish, signan O!"

As the song trembled to a close, a slight burst of applause came from
the cabin deck. Sandy looked up, frowned, and bit his lip. He did not
know why, but he was sorry he had sung.

The next morning the _America_ sailed into New York harbor, band
playing and flags flying. She was bringing home a record and a
jubilant crew. On the upper decks passengers were making merry over
what is probably the most joyful parting in the world. In the steerage
all was bustle and confusion and anticipation of the disembarking.

Eagerly, wistfully watching it all, stood Sandy, as alert and
distressed as a young hound restrained from the hunt. It is something
to accept punishment gracefully, but to accept punishment when it can
be avoided is nothing short of heroism. Sandy had to shut his eyes and
grip the railing to keep from planning an escape. Spread before him in
brave array across the water lay the promised land--and, like Moses,
he was not to reach it.

"That's the greatest city in America," said the ship's surgeon as he
came up to where he was standing. "What do you think of it?"

"I never seen one stand on end afore!" exclaimed Sandy, amazed.

"Would you like to go ashore long enough to look about?" asked the
doctor, with a smile running around the fat folds of his cheeks.

"And would I?" asked Sandy, his eyes flying open. "It's me word of
honor I'd give you that I'd come back."

"The word of a stowaway, eh?" asked the doctor, still smiling.

In a moment Sandy's face was crimson. "Whatever I be, sir, I ain't a
liar!"

The doctor pursed up his lips in comical dismay: "Not so hot, my man;
not so hot! So you still want to be a doctor?"

Sandy cooled down sufficiently to say that it was the one ambition of
his life.

"I know the physician in charge of the City Hospital here in New York.
He's a good fellow. He'd put you through--give you work and put you in
the way of going to the Medical School. You'd like that?"

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