"Is not this trustfulness?" thought Tony, as he walked onward; "I suppose this little bundle contains all this poor fellow's worldly store, and he commits it to a stranger without one moment of doubt or hesitation." It was for the second time on that same morning that his heart was touched by a trait of kindness; and he began to feel that if such proofs of brotherhood were rife in the world, narrow fortune was not half so bad a thing as he had ever believed it.
It was a long walk he had before him, and not much time to do it in, so that he was obliged to step briskly out. As for the bundle, it is but fair to own that at first he carried it with a certain shame and awkwardness, affecting in various ways to assure the passers-by that such an occupation was new to him; but as time wore on, and he saw, as he did see, that very few noticed him, and none troubled themselves as to what was the nature of his burden, he grew more indifferent, well consoled by thinking that nothing was more unlikely than that he should be met by any one he knew.
When he got down to the river-side, boats were leaving in every direction, and one for the "Foyle," with two passengers, offered itself at the moment. He jumped in, and soon found himself aboard a large mercantile boat, her deck covered with fragments of machinery and metal for some new factory in Belfast. "Where's the captain?" asked Tony of a gruff-looking man in a tweed coat and a wideawake.
"I'm the captain; and what then?" said the other.
In a few words Tony explained that he had found himself short of cash, and not wishing to be detained till he could write and have an answer from home, he begged he might have a deck passage. "If it should cost more than I have money for, I will leave my trunk with your steward till I remit my debt."
"Get those boats aboard; clear away that hawser there; look out, or you 'll foul that collier," cried the skipper, his deep voice ringing above the din and crash of the escaping steam, but never so much as noticing one word of Tony's speech.
Too proud to repeat his address, and yet doubting how it had been taken, he stood, occasionally buffeted about by the sailors as they hurried hither and thither; and now, amidst the din, a great bell rang out; and while it clattered away, some scrambled up the side of the ship, and others clambered down, while with shouts and oaths and imprecations on every side, the great mass swung round, and two slow revolutions of her paddles showed she was ready to start Almost frantic with anxiety for his missing friend, Tony mounted on a bulwark, and scanned every boat he could see.