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White Wings: A Yachting Romance, Volume II
White Wings: A Yachting Romance, Volume II
CHAPTER I.
VILLANY ABROAD
It is near mid-day; two late people are sitting at breakfast; the skylight overhead has been lifted, and the cool sea-air fills the saloon.
"Dead calm again," says Angus Sutherland, for he can see the rose-red ensign hanging limp from the mizen-mast, a blaze of colour against the still blue.
There is no doubt that the White Dove is quite motionless; and that a perfect silence reigns around her. That is why we can hear so distinctly – through the open skylight – the gentle footsteps of two people who are pacing up and down the deck, and the soft voice of one of them as she speaks to her friend. What is all this wild enthusiasm about, then?
"It is the noblest profession in the world!" we can hear so much as she passes the skylight. "One profession lives by fomenting quarrels; and another studies the art of killing in every form; but this one lives only to heal – only to relieve the suffering and help the miserable. That is the profession I should belong to, if I were a man!"
Our young Doctor says nothing as the voice recedes; but he is obviously listening for the return walk along the deck. And here she comes again.
"The patient drudgery of such a life is quite heroic – whether he is a man of science, working day and night to find out things for the good of the world, nobody thanking him or caring about him, or whether he is a physician in practice with not a minute that can be called his own – liable to be summoned at any hour – "
The voice again becomes inaudible. It is remarked to this young man that Mary Avon seems to have a pretty high opinion of the medical profession.
"She herself," he says hastily, with a touch of colour in his face, "has the patience and fortitude of a dozen doctors."
Once more the light tread on deck comes near the skylight.
"If I were the Government," says Mary Avon, warmly, "I should be ashamed to see so rich a country as England content to take her knowledge second-hand from the German Universities; while such men as Dr. Sutherland are harassed and hampered in their proper work by having to write articles and do ordinary doctor's visiting. I should be ashamed. If it is a want of money, why don't they pack off a dozen or two of the young noodles who pass the day whittling quills in the Foreign Office? – "