"
With this he disappeared down the companion-way.
About five minutes afterwards Andrew Murgatroyd showed his grizzled,
long-bearded face with its high forehead, heavy brows, and broad-set
eyes, long nose and shaven upper lip, just above the stairway and said,
for all the world as though he might have been giving out the number of
the hymn in his beloved Ebenezer at Smeaton:
"If it pleases yer Ladyship, his Lordship is ready, and if you'll please
come down I'll show you the way."
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Murgatroyd!" said Zaidie, getting up and going
towards the companion-way; "but I'm afraid you don't think that--I mean
you don't seem to take very much interest----"
"If your Ladyship will pardon me," said the old man, standing aside to
let her go down, "it is not my business to think on board his Lordship's
vessel. I am his servant, and my fathers have been his fathers' servants
for more years than I'd like to count. If it wasn't that way I wouldn't
be here. Will your Ladyship please to come down?"
Zaidie bowed her beautiful head in recognition of this ages-old
devotion, and said as she passed him, more sweetly than he had ever
heard human lips speak:
"Thank you, Mr. Murgatroyd. You've taught me something in those few
words that we have no knowledge of in the States. Good service is as
honourable as good mastership.
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