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Hands-on
Test-Driven
Development
Using Ruby, Ruby on Rails, and RSpec
—
Greg Donald
Hands-on Test-Driven Development
Greg Donald

Hands-on Test-Driven
Development
Using Ruby, Ruby on Rails, and RSpec
Greg Donald
Clarksville, TN, USA

ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-4842-9747-6 ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4842-9748-3

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9748-3

Copyright © 2024 by Greg Donald

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Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
What Are We Building? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Our Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Why Another TDD Book? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
My Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Why You Should Trust Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Audience and Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
How to Read This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 What Is Test-Driven Development? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Problems with Late Test Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
No Code Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Passing by Accident . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Code Spikes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
The Red-Green-Refactor Development Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Red Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Green Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Refactor Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Wash, Rinse, and Repeat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Advantages of Building Software Using TDD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Code Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
No Broken Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Maintaining Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Acceptance Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Code Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3 Getting Started with Ruby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Installing Homebrew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Installing rbenv . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Installing Ruby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4 Getting Started with Ruby on Rails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Installing Bundler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Installing Ruby on Rails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Installing PostgreSQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Installing Node.js . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

vii
viii Contents

Creating a New Ruby on Rails Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Running Rails Locally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5 Setting Up RSpec and FactoryBot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Installing RSpec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Installing FactoryBot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Debugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
6 Adding Initial Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
The User Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
The User Factory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
How to Run Specs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
User Model Validations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
The Page Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
RSpec’s “subject” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
FactoryBot “build” vs. “create” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
The Page slug . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Page Factory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Final Thoughts on Model Validations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
User Spec Cleanup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Advice on Writing Too Many Specs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
7 Creating Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
8 Build Homepage Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
View Specs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Shared Partial Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
More View Specs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Homepage Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
CSS Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Layout Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Sidebar Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
9 Sidebar Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Search As a Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Implementing a Search Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Searching by Term . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Searching for Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Adding a Search Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Displaying Search Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Pages Archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Creating a List of Months and Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Archive List View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Archive Integration Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Contents ix

10 Page Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Adding Page Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Creating the Tag Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Creating the Page Tag Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Jumping Over Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Tagging Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
After Save Callbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Display Tags on Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Handling Missing Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Refactor Duplicate Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
11 Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Active Storage for Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Getting Started with Active Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Adding an Image Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Serving Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Adding an Image Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
12 User Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Improving Our User Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Password Hashing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Adding Fields to Our User Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Add a Hashing Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Authenticating a User . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Improving Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Password Confirmation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Skipping Password Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
13 Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Adding Active Admin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Adding the Gem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Testing Active Admin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Logging In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Admin Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Managing Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Overriding Active Admin Form Field Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Factoring Out Duplicate Login Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Previewing a Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Managing Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Viewing Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Uploading New Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Editing Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Deleting Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Admin Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Managing Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Adding New Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
x Contents

Deleting Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
14 Odds and Ends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Build a Sitemap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Pagination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Fixing Specs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Styling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
CSS in Rails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Styling Our Public Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Styling Our Admin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Wrapping Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Code Highlighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Stimulus and Turbo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
15 Bonus: Deploy to Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Why This Non-cloud Approach? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Acquiring a Production Linux Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Getting Production Ready . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Installing Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Installing Ruby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Installing Phusion Passenger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Configuring PostgreSQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Storing Code on GitHub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Installing Capistrano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Configuring Capistrano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Deploying Our Rails Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Configuring Our Apache Virtual Host . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Logging In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
About the Author

Greg Donald has been a professional software engineer since

1996 and has worked with Ruby on Rails since 2006. Prior
to that, he worked on many Perl and PHP projects, finding
the applications messy and hard to maintain. He became a test
driven development enthusiasts after having seen the results of
software written in various forms, and determining no style was
more successful than TDD. He decided to write this book to
promote TDD and share his positive experiences using it.

xi
About the Technical Reviewer

Eldon is a senior technologist, creator, and United States Marine Corps veteran. He’s the author
of two software development books. His career has allowed him to work across a wide variety of
technologies and domains. His career has taken him from working in successful startups in roles
ranging from senior developer to chief architect to working as a principal technologist for a global
software consulting firm, helping enterprises and companies rescue software projects and/or evolve
their software delivery capabilities.
These days, he works as a technical fellow with a mission of raising the bar of software
development globally for a technology company providing tools, AI, and research to advance the
rule of law.
Currently, he lives in Florida where he enjoys scuba diving and creating video content.

xiii
Introduction
1

Hello, and welcome! I’m very excited to share with you my book about test-driven software
development. I’ve been a software engineer for over 25 years, and I’ve seen the results of software
written using many different styles and techniques. It wasn’t so long ago that we didn’t even write tests
for our software. At some point, some very smart people realized that writing tests for our software
was actually a good idea. Our tests would provide us with confidence that our software worked as
expected and even more importantly keep us from getting phone calls in the middle of the night to fix
things that would break in production.
Not long after we started writing tests, some other very smart people realized that writing our tests
first would give us an opportunity to think about what we were going to write before we would write
it. It would give us a target to aim at, in effect. This was the birth of test-driven development (TDD).
TDD is a style of software development where we write our tests first, see that they are failing as
expected, and only then do we pursue writing the code to make those tests pass.
This is the central idea of my book. We will think about what we want to do, then we will capture
that idea with a properly failing test. We will then write the code to make the test pass. We will then
refactor our code to make it better, or prettier, or less repetitive, and then we will write another test.
We will repeat this process over and over until we have a fully functional web application.
Let’s get started!

What Are We Building?

As you pick up this book and look inside at the first few pages, you may be wondering, what exactly
are we going to build? I’m so glad you asked! We will build a fully functional blog! A “blog,” short
for “weblog” or “web log,” is a web application that allows its administrator (you) to post articles to
the Web. Instead of downloading premade blog software, for example, WordPress,1 we’re going to
build our own blog software from scratch.
We’ll be using the Ruby2 programming language and the Ruby on Rails3 web framework to build
everything. These are the best tools for the job, in my opinion. Ruby is a very expressive and powerful
programming language, and Ruby on Rails is a very powerful web framework.
1 https://wordpress.org/
2 https://ruby-lang.org/
3 https://rubyonrails.org/

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to APress Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024 1
G. Donald, Hands-on Test-Driven Development,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9748-3_1
2 1 Introduction

Figure 1-1 Blog database diagram

We’ll use the test-driven development (TDD) style of software design and engineering, which
means we’ll write failing tests first and only then write our implementation code to get our failing
tests passing.
We’ll use the RSpec4 testing framework to write our tests. RSpec describes itself as a tool for
performing “behavior-driven development” and is in fact the best tool available for testing Ruby
code. If you’ve never used RSpec before, don’t worry; in this book, I’ll cover more than enough to
get you started and productive.
Our blog will be a simple web application overall, but will be complex enough to demonstrate the
test-driven development style of software development. Our blog will allow us to create and update
pages as well as search them by keyword and tag them for easy categorization.
Let’s take a look at our database design next.

Our Database

We will use the PostgreSQL5 relational database management system (RDBMS) to store our blog’s
data. When it comes to free and open source databases, PostgreSQL is best in its class.
At the end of the book, our database design will look similar to the diagram in Figure 1-1.

4 https://rspec.info/
5 https://postgresql.org/
Why Another TDD Book? 3

We’ll go into much more detail about our database design in later chapters, but I want to give you
an initial idea of what we’ll be building early on. We will have database tables for users, pages, tags,
and images. Our image table is not connected to any of the other previously mentioned tables. Our tag
table is connected to our page table through our page_tags join table. Each of our pages will belong
to a single user. With this design, we can have more than one user, and each user can be an author of
many pages.
We will build up our database design as we go, adding new tables and columns as we need them,
as that’s the nature of practicing proper test-driven development.

Why Another TDD Book?

The main goal of this book is to provide a practical, hands-on introduction to the test-driven style of
software design and engineering.
Many books on the topic of test-driven development have been written before this one. Some of
them are actually very good, but none of them were written in the practical, hands-on style of this
book. In fact, very few books are written in this style.
This book covers the building of an entire web application, from start to finish. Our focus
application, a blog, is the most practical thing I could think to build, given my audience of software
engineering readers. Every software engineer has their own online blog, right? A blog is simple
enough that it can be covered in a single book, but complex enough that it can be used to demonstrate
my favorite parts of RSpec while building a Ruby on Rails web application.
Most other TDD books are written in a small-problem sort of writing style. They cover single
topics, one at a time, barely more than a reference guide. They do not cover the entire process of
building a software application from start to finish, using TDD. As a result, they are, in my opinion,
less practical and much less useful for actually learning practical TDD.

My Motivation

About five years ago, I joined a team of software engineers who were busy working on a very
important (people’s lives were at stake) large-scale web application. They were several months into
it at the time, and there were deadlines. The application was being written in Ruby on Rails, and the
team was using TDD to build it. They were practicing Extreme Programming (XP),6 as described
by Kent Beck,7 pretty much to the letter. I had heard of TDD and XP before, but had never actually
practiced them. I had never even pair-programmed8 an entire day prior to joining the team. I was
eager to learn, and little did I know at the time that I was working with some of the best software
engineers I had ever met.
These girls and guys were amazingly agile. They refactored their code constantly. They were
always looking for ways to reduce code complexity and improve their processes. They
were constantly learning new things, and they were always teaching each other new things. They
were very passionate about their craft and passionate about leveling up their team even more so.
I soon realized I was in over my head. I was a n00b to the team, to TDD, and to XP. They did not
seem to care about any of that.

6 www.extremeprogramming.org/
7 http://wiki.c2.com/?KentBeck
8 http://wiki.c2.com/?PairProgramming
4 1 Introduction

They were very patient with me, and they were completely willing to teach me everything they
knew. They taught me how to practice proper TDD and XP. They taught me how to write failing tests
first and how to write code that is easy to test. They taught me how to write tests that supplied courage
for when I would later perform fearless refactoring.
Over the next couple of years, I became a much better software engineer. The first major change I
noticed in myself was how I had stopped worrying about code I had recently pushed into production.
I was no longer thinking about code breaking in production during my off hours or how these sorts
of breakages were often followed by an emergency phone call to hurry to fix things. I had stopped
worrying about code breaking because I knew my code was completely covered with well-written
tests and very unlikely to break.
Another change I noticed in myself was that I was writing cleaner code. I was writing code that
was easier to later understand. I was only writing the code that was necessary to get my tests into a
passing state. I got into a pattern of knowing that once my tests pass, my implementation work was
done. Moving on to refactor any ugliness or code duplication is my only next step before writing my
next failing test.
I’m telling you all of this because I want you to understand how I’ve come to learn and respect
test-driven development. I learned it by doing it, for many years, with a team of experts. I know that
developing software using TDD produces better software than not using TDD to develop software. I
know this because I have seen the final results with my own eyes.

Why You Should Trust Me

I’ve been a computer programmer for a long time. If we’re counting uncompensated work, then I’ve
been programming since 1984, when I wrote my first bits of BASIC9 code on my grandpa’s TI-
99/4A,10 saving my work to a cassette tape. I went on to write more advanced programs and games
in BASIC at my junior high school, where we had Apple IIe11 computers in our computer lab. A few
years later, in high school, we had IBM PC clones12 in our computer lab, and it was at this time I
learned to program in Turbo Pascal.13
I joined the US Navy in 1990 and didn’t have much contact with computers for the next few years.
When I got out in 1995, I discovered the World Wide Web was a thing, and I became instantly hooked
on my newly found favorite hobby, building web pages. I taught myself HTML and enough Perl14
to be dangerous, and by late 1996, I had landed my first paid programming job as a web developer
working on Perl-based shopping cart software.
So if we’re counting compensated work, I’ve been a self-taught professional software engineer
since late 1996. I’ve written code in almost every major programming language and on many different
operating systems and platforms. My focus has been on web development for the most part, but I
also have significant experience working on mobile applications and games, in native code, for both
Android and iOS. I was an early publisher on Google’s Android platform, having the first published
Blackjack game there.

9 http://hopl.info/showlanguage.prx?exp=176
10 www.ti994.com/
11 www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=83
12 www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/pc/pc_1.html
13 http://progopedia.com/implementation/turbo-pascal/
14 www.perl.org/
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
before now of being old enough to be young ladies' fathers, and she
could also recollect instances of men who were actually old enough
to be young ladies' grandfathers marrying those very young ladies.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Crawford, “Daireen is a dear natural little thing.”
Into the paternal potentialities of Mr. Harwood's position towards this
dear natural little thing Mrs. Crawford did not think it judicious to go
just then.
“She is a dear child,” he repeated. “By the way, we shall be at
Funchal at noon to-morrow, and we do not leave until the evening.
You will land, I suppose?”
“I don't think I shall, I know every spot so well, and those bullock
sleighs are so tiresome. I am not so young as I was when I first
made their acquaintance.”
“Oh, really, if that is your only plea, my dear Mrs. Crawford, we
may count on your being in our party.”
“Our party!” said the lady.
“I should not say that until I get your consent,” said Harwood
quickly. “Miss Gerald has never been at the island, you see, and she
is girlishly eager to go ashore. Miss Butler and her mother are also
landing”—these were other passengers—“and in a weak moment I
volunteered my services as guide. Don't you think you can trust me
so far as to agree to be one of us?”
“Of course I can,” she said. “If Daireen wishes to go ashore you
may depend upon my keeping her company. But you will have to
provide a sleigh for myself.”
“You may depend upon the sleigh, Mrs. Crawford; and many
thanks for your trusting to my guidance. Though I sleigh you yet you
will trust me.”
“Mr. Harwood, that is dreadful. I am afraid that Mrs. Butler will
need one of them also.”
“The entire sleigh service shall be impressed if necessary,” said the
“special,” as he walked away.
 Mrs. Crawford felt that she had not done anything rash. Daireen
would, no doubt, be delighted with the day among the lovely heights
of Madeira, and if by some little thoughtfulness it would be possible
to hit upon a plan that should give over the guidance of some of the
walking members of the party to Mr. Glaston, surely the matter was
worth pursuing.
Mr. Glaston was just at this instant looking into, Daireen's face as
he talked to her. He invariably kept his eyes fixed upon the faces of
the young women to whom he was fond of talking. It did not argue
any earnestness on his part, Mrs. Crawford knew. He seemed now,
however, to be a little in earnest in what he was saying. But then
Mrs. Crawford reflected that the subjects upon which his discourse
was most impassioned were mostly those that other people would
call trivial, such as the effect produced upon the mind of man by
seeing a grape-green ribbon lying upon a pale amber cushion.
“Every colour has got its soul,” she once heard him say; “and though
any one can appreciate its meaning and the work it has to perform
in the world, the subtle thoughts breathed by the tones are too
delicate to be understood except by a few. Colour is language of the
subtlest nature, and one can praise God through that medium just
as one can blaspheme through it.” He had said this very earnestly at
one time, she recollected, and as she now saw Daireen laugh she
thought it was not impossible that it might be at some phrase of the
same nature, the meaning of which her uncultured ear did not at
once catch, that Daireen had laughed. Daireen, at any rate, did
laugh in spite of his earnestness of visage.
In a few moments Mr. Glaston came over to Mrs. Crawford, and
now his face wore an expression of sadness rather than of any other
emotion.
“My dear Mrs. Crawford, you surely cannot intend to give your
consent to that child's going ashore tomorrow. She tells me that that
newspaper fellow has drawn her into a promise to land with a party
—actually a party—and go round the place like a Cook's excursion.”
“Oh, I hope we shall not be like that, Mr. Glaston,” said Mrs.
Crawford.
 “But you have not given your consent?”
“If Daireen would enjoy it I do not see how I could avoid. Mr.
Harwood was talking to me just now. He seems to think she will
enjoy herself, as she has never seen the island before. Will you not
be one of our party?”
“Oh, Mrs. Crawford, if you have got the least regard for me, do
not say that word party; it means everything that is popular; it
suggests unutterable horrors to me. No subsequent pleasure could
balance the agony I should endure going ashore. Will you not try
and induce that child to give up the idea? Tell her what dreadful
taste it would be to join a party—that it would most certainly destroy
her perceptions of beauty for months to come.”
“I am very sorry I promised Mr. Harwood,” said the lady; “if going
ashore would do all of this it would certainly be better for Daireen to
remain aboard. But they will be taking in coals here,” she added, as
the sudden thought struck her.
“She can shut herself in her cabin and neither see nor hear
anything offensive. Who but a newspaper man would think of
suggesting to cultured people the possibility of enjoyment in a
party?”
But the newspaper man had strolled up to the place beside
Daireen, which the aesthetic man had vacated. He knew something
of the art of strategical defence, this newspaper man, and he was
well aware that as he had got the promise of the major's wife, all
the arguments that might be advanced by any one else would not
cause him to be defrauded of the happiness of being by this girl's
side in one of the loveliest spots of the world.
“I will find out what Daireen thinks,” said Mrs. Crawford, in reply
to Mr. Glaston; and just then she turned and saw the newspaper
man beside the girl.
“Never mind him,” said Mr. Glaston; “tell the poor child that it is
impossible for her to go.”
“I really cannot break my promise,” replied the lady. “We must be
resigned, it will only be for a few hours.”
 “This is the saddest thing I ever knew,” said Mr. Glaston. “She will
lose all the ideas she was getting—all through being of a party. Good
heavens, a party!”
Mrs. Crawford could see that Mr. Glaston was annoyed at the
presence of Harwood by the side of the girl, and she smiled, for she
was too old a tactician not to be well aware of the value of a
skeleton enemy.
“How kind of you to say you would not mind my going ashore,”
said Daireen, walking up to her. “We shall enjoy ourselves I am sure,
and Mr. Harwood knows every spot to take us to. I was afraid that
Mr. Glaston might be talking to you as he was to me.”
“Yes, he spoke to me, but of course, my dear, if you think you
would like to go ashore I shall not say anything but that I will be
happy to take care of you.”
“You are all that is good,” said Mr. Harwood. This was very pretty,
the lady thought—very pretty indeed; but at the same time she was
making up her mind that if the gentleman before her had conceived
it probable that he should be left to exhibit any of the wonders of
the island scenery to the girl, separate from the companionship of
the girl's temporary guardian, he would certainly find out that he
had reckoned without due regard to other contingencies.
Sadness was the only expression visible upon the face of Mr.
Glaston for the remainder of this day; but upon the following
morning this aspect had changed to one of contempt as he heard
nearly all the cabin's company talking with expectancy of the joys of
a few hours ashore. It was a great disappointment to him to observe
the brightening of the face of Daireen Gerald, as Mr. Harwood came
to tell her that the land was in sight.
Daireen's face, however, did brighten. She went up to the ship's
bridge, and Mr. Harwood, laying one hand upon her shoulder,
pointed out with the other where upon the horizon lay a long, low,
gray cloud. Mrs. Crawford observing his action, and being well aware
that the girl's range of vision was not increased in the smallest
degree by the touch of his fingers upon her shoulder, made a
resolution that she herself would be the first to show Daireen the
earliest view of St. Helena when they should be approaching that
island.
But there lay that group of cloud, and onward the good steamer
sped. In the course of an hour the formless mass had assumed a
well-defined outline against the soft blue sky. Then a lovely white
bird came about the ship from the distance like a spirit from those
Fortunate Islands. In a short time a gleam of sunshine was seen
reflected from the flat surface of a cliff, and then the dark chasms
upon the face of each of the island-rocks of the Dezertas could be
seen. But when these were passed the long island of Madeira
appeared gray and massive, and with a white cloud clinging about
its highest ridges. Onward still, and the thin white thread of foam
encircling the rocks was perceived. Then the outline of the cliffs
stood defined against the fainter background of the island; but still
all was gray and colourless. Not for long, however, for the sunlight
smote the clouds and broke their gray masses, and then fell around
the ridges, showing the green heights of vines and slopes of sugar-
canes. But it was not until the roll of the waves against the cliff-faces
was heard that the cloud-veil was lifted and all the glad green
beauty of the slope flashed up to the blue sky, and thrilled all those
who stood on the deck of the vessel.
Along this lovely coast the vessel moved through the sparkling
green ripples. Not the faintest white fleck of cloud was now in the
sky, and the sunlight falling downwards upon the island, brought out
every brown rock of the coast in bold relief against the brilliant
green of the slope. So close to the shore the vessel passed, the
nearer cliffs appeared to glide away as the land in their shade was
disclosed, and this effect of soft motion was entrancing to all who
experienced it. Then the low headland with the island-rock crowned
with a small pillared building was reached and passed, and the lovely
bay of Funchal came in view.
Daireen, who had lived among the sombre magnificence of the
Irish scenery, felt this soft dazzling green as something marvellously
strange and unexpected. Had not Mr. Glaston descended to his cabin
at the earliest expression of delight that was forced from the lips of
some young lady on the deck, he, would have been still more
disappointed with Daireen, for her face was shining with happiness.
But Mr. Harwood found more pleasure in watching her face than he
did in gazing at the long crescent slope of the bay, and at the white
houses that peeped from amongst the vines, or at the high convent
of the hill. He did not speak a word to the girl, but only watched her
as she drank in everything of beauty that passed before her.
Then the Loo rock at the farther point of the bay was neared, and
as the engine slowed, the head of the steamer was brought round
towards the white town of Funchal, spread all about the beach
where the huge rollers were breaking. The tinkle of the engine-room
telegraph brought a wonderful silence over everything as the
propeller ceased. The voice of the captain giving orders about the
lead line was heard distinctly, and the passengers felt inclined to
speak in whispers. Suddenly with a harsh roar the great chain cable
rushes out and the anchor drops into the water.
“This is the first stage of our voyage,” said Mr. Harwood. “Now,
while I select a boat, will you kindly get ready for landing? Oh, Mrs.
Crawford, you will be with us at once, I suppose?”
“Without the loss of a moment,” said the lady, going down to the
cabins with Daireen.
The various island authorities pushed off from the shore in their
boats, sitting under canvas awnings and looking unpleasantly like
banditti. Doctor Campion answered their kind inquiries regarding the
health of the passengers, for nothing could exceed the attentive
courtesy shown by the government in this respect.
Then a young Scotchman, who had resolved to emulate Mr.
Harwood's example in taking a party ashore, began making a
bargain by signs with one of the boatmen, while his friends stood
around. The major and the doctor having plotted together to go up
to pay a visit to an hotel, pushed off in a government boat without
acquainting any one with their movements. But long before the
Scotchman had succeeded in reducing the prohibitory sum named
by the man with whom he was treating for the transit of the party
ashore, Mr. Harwood had a boat waiting at the rail for his friends,
and Mrs. Butler and her daughter were in act to descend, chatting
with the “special” who was to be their guide. Another party had
already left for the shore, the young lady who had worn the blue
and pink appearing in a bonnet surrounded with resplendent flowers
and beads. But before the smiles of Mrs. Butler and Harwood had
passed away, Mrs. Crawford and Daireen had come on deck again,
the former with many apologies for her delay.
Mr. Harwood ran down the sloping rail to assist the ladies into the
boat that rose and fell with every throb of the waves against the
ship's side. Mrs. Crawford followed him and was safely stowed in a
place in the stern. Then came Mrs. Butler and her daughter, and
while Mr. Harwood was handing them off the last step Daireen
began to descend. But she had not got farther down than to where
a young sailor was kneeling to shift the line of one of the fruit boats,
when she stopped suddenly with a great start that almost forced a
cry from her.
“For God's sake go on—give no sign if you don't wish to make me
wretched,” said the sailor in a whisper.
“Come, Miss Gerald, we are waiting,” cried Harwood up the long
rail.
Daireen remained irresolute for a moment, then walked slowly
down, and allowed herself to be handed into the boat.
“Surely you are not timid, Miss Gerald,” said Harwood as the boat
pushed off.
“Timid?” said Daireen mechanically.
“Yes, your hand was really trembling as I helped you down.”
“No, no, I am not—not timid, only—I fear I shall not be very good
company to-day; I feel——” she looked back to the steamer and did
not finish her sentence.
Mr. Harwood glanced at her for a moment, thinking if it really
could be possible that she was regretting the absence of Mr. Glaston.
Mrs. Crawford also looked at her and came to the conclusion that, at
the last moment, the girl was recalling the aesthetic instructions of
the young man who was doubtless sitting lonely in his cabin while
she was bent on enjoying herself with a “party.”
But Daireen was only thinking how it was she had refrained from
crying out when she saw the face of that sailor on the rail, and when
she heard his voice; and it must be confessed that it was rather
singular, taking into account the fact that she had recognised in the
features and voice of that sailor the features and voice of Standish
Macnamara.
 CHAPTER XII.
Your visitation shall receive such thanks
As fits... remembrance.

... Thus do we of wisdom and of reach,

With windlasses and with assays of bias,
By indirections find directions out.

More matter with less art.—Hamlet.

T
HE thin white silk thread of a moon was hanging in the blue
twilight over the darkened western slope of the island, and
almost within the horns of its crescent a planet was burning
without the least tremulous motion. The lights of the town were
glimmering over the waters, and the strange, wildly musical cries of
the bullock-drivers were borne faintly out to the steamer, mingling
with the sound of the bell of St. Mary's on the Mount.
The vessel had just begun to move away from its anchorage, and
Daireen Gerald was standing on the deck far astern leaning over the
bulwarks looking back upon the island slope whose bright green had
changed to twilight purple. Not of the enjoyment of the day she had
spent up among the vines was the girl thinking; her memory fled
back to the past days spent beneath the shadow of a slope that was
always purple, with a robe of heather clinging to it from base to
summit.
“I hope you don't regret having taken my advice about going on
shore, Miss Gerald,” said Mr. Harwood, who had come beside her.
 “Oh, no,” she said; “it was all so lovely—so unlike what I ever saw
or imagined.”
“It has always seemed lovely to me,” he said, “but to-day it was
very lovely. I had got some pleasant recollections of the island
before, but now the memories I shall retain will be the happiest of
my life.”
“Was to-day really so much pleasanter?” asked the girl quickly.
“Then I am indeed fortunate in my first visit. But you were not at
any part of the island that you had not seen before,” she added,
after a moment's pause.
“No,” he said quietly. “But I saw all to-day under a new aspect.”
“You had not visited it in September? Ah, I recollect now having
heard that this was the best month for Madeira. You see I am
fortunate.”
“Yes, you are—fortunate,” he said slowly. “You are fortunate; you
are a child; I am—a man.”
Daireen was quite puzzled by his tone; it was one of sadness, and
she knew that he was not accustomed to be sad. He had not been
so at any time through the day when they were up among the
vineyards looking down upon the tiny ships in the harbour beneath
them, or wandering through the gardens surrounding the villa at
which they had lunched after being presented by their guide—no, he
had certainly not displayed any sign of sadness then. But here he
was now beside her watching the lights of the shore twinkling into
dimness, and speaking in this way that puzzled her.
“I don't know why, if you say you will have only pleasant
recollections of to-day, you should speak in a tone like that,” she
said.
“No, no, you would not understand it,” he replied. If she had kept
silence after he had spoken his previous sentence, he would have
been tempted to say to her what he had on his heart, but her
question made him hold back his words, for it proved to him what he
told her—she would not understand him.
 It is probable, however, that Mrs. Crawford, who by the merest
accident, of course, chanced to come from the cabin at this moment,
would have understood even the most enigmatical utterance that
might pass from his lips on the subject of his future memories of the
day they had spent on the island; she felt quite equal to the solution
of any question of psychological analysis that might arise. But she
contented herself now by calling Daireen's attention to the flashing
of the phosphorescent water at the base of the cliffs round which
the vessel was moving, and the observance of this phenomenon
drew the girl's thoughts away from the possibility of discovering the
meaning of the man's words. The major and his old comrade Doctor
Campion then came near and expressed the greatest anxiety to
learn how their friends had passed the day. Both major and doctor
were in the happiest of moods. They had visited the hotel they
agreed in stating, and no one on the deck undertook to prove
anything to the contrary—no one, in fact, seemed to doubt in the
least the truth of what they said.
In a short time Mrs. Crawford and Daireen were left alone; not for
long, however, for Mr. Glaston strolled languidly up.
“I cannot say I hope you enjoyed yourself,” he said. “I know very
well you did not. I hope you could not.”
Daireen laughed. “Your hopes are misplaced, I fear, Mr. Glaston,”
she answered. “We had a very happy day—had we not, Mrs.
Crawford?”
“I am afraid we had, dear.”
“Why, Mr. Harwood said distinctly to me just now,” continued
Daireen, “that it was the pleasantest day he had ever passed upon
the island.”
“Ah, he said so? well, you see, he is a newspaper man, and they
all look at things from a popular standpoint; whatever is popular is
right, is their motto; while ours is, whatever is popular is wrong.”
He felt himself speaking as the representative of a class, no doubt,
when he made use of the plural.
 “Yes; Mr. Harwood seemed even more pleased than we were,”
continued the girl. “He told me that the recollection of our
exploration to-day would be the—the—yes, the happiest of his life.
He did indeed,” she added almost triumphantly.
“Did he?” said Mr. Glaston slowly.
“My dear child,” cried Mrs. Crawford, quickly interposing, “he has
got that way of talking. He has, no doubt, said those very words to
every person he took ashore on his previous visits. He has, I know,
said them every evening for a fortnight in the Mediterranean.”
“Then you don't think he means anything beyond a stupid
compliment to us? What a wretched thing it is to be a girl, after all.
Never mind, I enjoyed myself beyond any doubt.”
“It is impossible—quite impossible, child,” said the young man.
“Enjoyment with a refined organisation such as yours can never be
anything that is not reflective—it is something that cannot be shared
with a number of persons. It is quite impossible that you could have
any feeling in common with such a mind as this Mr. Harwood's or
with the other people who went ashore. I heard nothing but
expressions of enjoyment, and I felt really sad to think that there
was not a refined soul among them all. They enjoyed themselves,
therefore you did not.”
“I think I can understand you,” said Mrs. Crawford at once, for she
feared that Daireen might attempt to question the point he insisted
on. Of course when the superior intellect of Mr. Glaston
demonstrated that they could not have enjoyed themselves, it was
evident that it was their own sensations which were deceiving them.
Mrs. Crawford trusted to the decision of the young man's intellect
more implicitly than she did her own senses: just as Christopher Sly,
old Sly's son of Burton Heath, came to believe the practical jesters.
“Should you enjoy the society and scenery of a desert island
better than an inhabited one?” asked the girl, somewhat rebellious
at the concessions of Mrs. Crawford.
“Undoubtedly, if everything was in good taste,” he answered
quietly.
 “That is, if everything was in accordance with your own taste,”
came the voice of Mr. Harwood, who, unseen, had rejoined the
party.
Mr. Glaston made no reply. He had previously become aware of
the unsatisfactory results of making any answers to such men as
wrote for newspapers. As he had always considered such men
outside the world of art in which he lived and to the inhabitants of
which he addressed himself, it was hardly to be expected that he
would put himself on a level of argument with them. In fact, Mr.
Glaston rarely consented to hold an argument with any one. If
people maintained opinions different from his own, it was so much
the worse for those people—that was all he felt. It was to a certain
circle of young women in good society that he preferred addressing
himself, for he knew that to each individual in that circle he
appeared as the prophet and high priest of art. His tone-poems in
the college magazine, his impromptus—musical aquarellen he called
them—performed in secret and out of hearing of any earthly
audience, his colour-harmonies, his statuesque idealisms—all these
were his priestly ministrations; while the interpretation, not of his
own works—this he never attempted—but of the works of three
poets belonging to what he called his school, of one painter, and of
one musical composer, was his prophetical service.
It was obviously impossible that such a man could put himself on
that mental level which would be implied by his action should he
consent to make any answer to a person like Mr. Harwood. But apart
from these general grounds, Mr. Glaston had got concrete reasons
for declining to discuss any subject with this newspaper man. He
knew that it was Mr. Harwood who had called the tone-poems of the
college magazine alliterative conundrums for young ladies; that it
was Mr. Harwood who had termed one of the colour-harmonies a
study in virulent jaundice; that it was Mr. Harwood who had, after
smiling on being told of the aquarellen impromptus, expressed a
desire to hear one of these compositions—all this Mr. Glaston knew
well, and so when Mr. Harwood made that remark about taste Mr.
Glaston did not reply.
 Daireen, however, did not feel the silence oppressive. She kept her
eyes fixed upon that thin thread of moon that was now almost
touching the dark ridge of the island.
Harwood looked at her for a few moments, and then he too
leaned over the side of the ship and gazed at that lovely moon and
its burning star.
“How curious,” he said gently—“how very curious, is it not, that
the sight of that hill and that moon should bring back to me
memories of Lough Suangorm and Slieve Docas?”
The girl gave a start. “You are thinking of them too? I am so glad.
It makes me so happy to know that I am not the only one here who
knows all about Suangorm.” Suddenly another thought seemed to
come to her. She turned her eyes away from the island and glanced
down the deck anxiously.
“No,” said Mr. Harwood very gently indeed; “you are not alone in
your memories of the loveliest spot of the world.”
Mrs. Crawford thought it well to interpose. “My dear Daireen, you
must be careful not to take a chill now after all the unusual exercise
you have had during the day. Don't you think you had better go
below?”
“Yes, I had much better,” said the girl quickly and in a startled
tone; and she had actually gone to the door of the companion
before she recollected that she had not said good-night either to
Glaston or Harwood. She turned back and redeemed her negligence,
and then went down with her good guardian.
“Poor child,” thought Mr. Glaston, “she fears that I am hurt by her
disregard of my advice about going ashore with those people. Poor
child! perhaps I was hard upon her!”
“Poor little thing,” thought Mr. Harwood. “She begins to
understand.”
“It would never do to let that sort or thing go on,” thought Mrs.
Crawford, as she saw that Daireen got a cup of tea before retiring.
Mrs. Crawford fully appreciated Mr. Harwood's cleverness in reading
the girl's thought and so quickly adapting his speech to the
requirements of the moment; but she felt her own superiority of
cleverness.
Each of the three was a careful and experienced observer, but
there are certain conditional influences to be taken into account in
arriving at a correct conclusion as to the motives of speech or action
of every human subject under observation; and the reason that
these careful analysts of motives were so utterly astray in tracing to
its source the remissness of Miss Gerald, was probably because none
of the three was aware of the existence of an important factor
necessary for the solution of the interesting problem they had
worked out so airily; this factor being the sudden appearance of
Standish Macnamara beside the girl in the morning, and her
consequent reflections upon the circumstance in the evening.
But as she sat alone in her cabin, seeing through the port the
effect of the silver moonlight upon the ridge of the hill behind which
the moon itself had now sunk, she was wondering, as she had often
wondered during the day, if indeed it was Standish whom she had
seen and whose voice she had heard. All had been so sudden—so
impossible, she thought, that the sight of him and the hearing of his
voice seemed to her but as the memories of a dream of her home.
But now that she was alone and capable of reflecting upon the
matter, she felt that she had not been deceived. By some means the
young man to whom she had written her last letter in Ireland was
aboard the steamer. It was very wonderful to the girl to reflect upon
this; but then she thought if he was aboard, why should she not be
able to find him and ask him all about himself?
 CHAPTER XIII.
Providence
Should have kept short, restrained, and out of haunt
This mad young man...
His very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,
Shows itself pure.

Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing

To what I shall unfold.

It is common for the younger sort

To lack discretion.

Queen.... Whereon do you look?

Hamlet. On him, on him! look you, how pale he glares.

... It is not madness
That I have uttered: bring me to the test.—Hamlet

T
HE question which suggested itself to Daireen as to the
possibility of seeing Standish aboard the steamer, was not the
only one that occupied her thoughts. How had he come
aboard, and why had he come aboard, were further questions whose
solution puzzled her. She recollected how he had told her on that
last day she had seen him, while they walked in the garden after
leaving The Macnamara in that side room with the excellent
specimen of ancient furniture ranged with glass vessels, that he was
heartily tired of living among the ruins of the castle, and that he had
made up his mind to go out into the world of work. She had then
begged of him to take no action of so much importance until her
father should have returned to give him the advice he needed; and
in that brief postscript which she had added to the farewell letter
given into the care of the bard O'Brian, she had expressed her regret
that this counsel of hers had been rendered impracticable. Was it
possible, however, that Standish placed so much confidence in the
likelihood of valuable advice being given to him by her father that he
had resolved to go out to the Cape and speak with him on the
subject face to face, she thought; but it struck her that there would
be something like an inconsistency in the young man's travelling six
thousand miles to take an opinion as to the propriety of his leaving
his home.
What was she to do? She felt that she must see Standish and
have from his own lips an explanation of how he had come aboard
the ship; but in that, sentence he had spoken to her he had
entreated of her to keep silence, so that she dared not seek for him
under the guidance of Mrs. Crawford or any of her friends aboard
the vessel. It would be necessary for her to find him alone, and she
knew that this would be a difficult thing to do, situated as she was.
But let the worst come, she reflected that it could only result in the
true position of Standish being-known. This was really all that the
girl believed could possibly be the result if a secret interview
between herself and a sailor aboard the steamer should be
discovered; and, thinking of the worst consequences so lightly, made
her all the more anxious to hasten on such an interview if she could
contrive it.
She seated herself upon her little sofa and tried to think by what
means she could meet with Standish, and yet fulfil his entreaty for
secrecy. Her imagination, so far as inventing plans was concerned,
did not seem to be inexhaustible. After half an hour's pondering over
the matter, no more subtle device was suggested to her than going
on deck and walking alone towards the fore-part of the ship between
the deck-house and the bulwarks, where it might possibly chance
that Standish would be found. This was her plan, and she did not
presume to think to herself that its intricacy was the chief element of
its possible success. Had she been aware of the fact that Standish
was at that instant standing in the shadow of that deck-house
looking anxiously astern in the hope of catching a glimpse of her—
had she known that since the steamer had left the English port he
had every evening stood with the same object in the same place,
she would have been more hopeful of her simple plan succeeding.
At any rate she stole out of her cabin and went up the companion
and out upon the deck, with all the caution that a novice in the art
of dissembling could bring to her aid.
The night was full of softness—softness of gray reflected light
from the waters that were rippling along before the vessel—softness
of air that seemed saturated with the balm of odorous trees growing
upon the slopes of those Fortunate Islands. The deck was deserted
by passengers; only Major Crawford, the doctor, and the special
correspondent were sitting in a group in their cane chairs, smoking
their cheroots and discussing some action of a certain colonel that
had not yet been fully explained, though it had taken place fifteen
years previously. The group could not see her, she knew; but even if
they had espied her and demanded an explanation, she felt that she
had progressed sufficiently far in the crooked ways of deception to
be able to lull their suspicions by her answers. She could tell them
that she had a headache, or put them off with some equally artful
excuse.
She walked gently along until she was at the rear of the deck-
house where the stock of the mainmast was standing with all its
gear. She looked down the dark tunnel passage between the side of
the house and the bulwarks, but she felt her courage fail her: she
dared do all that might become a woman, but the gloom of that
covered place, and the consciousness that beyond it lay the
mysterious fore-cabin space, caused her to pause. What was she to
do?
Suddenly there came the sound of a low voice at her ear.
“Daireen, Daireen, why did you come here?” She started and
looked around trembling, for it was the voice of Standish, though
she could not see the form of the speaker. It was some moments
before she found that he was under the broad rail leading to the
ship's bridge.
“Then it is you, Standish, indeed?” she said. “How on earth did
you come aboard?—Why have you come?—Are you really a sailor?—
Where is your father?—Does he know?—Why don't you shake hands
with me, Standish?”
These few questions she put to him in a breath, looking between
the steps of the rail.
“Daireen, hush, for Heaven's sake!” he said anxiously. “You don't
know what you are doing in coming to speak with me here—I am
only a sailor, and if you were seen near me it would be terrible. Do
go back to your cabin and leave me to my wretchedness.”
“I shall not go back,” she said resolutely. “I am your friend,
Standish, and why should I not speak to you for an hour if I wish?
You are not the quartermaster at the wheel. What a start you gave
me this morning! Why did you not tell me you were coming in this
steamer?”
“I did not leave Suangorm until the next morning after I heard you
had gone,” he answered in a whisper. “I should have died—I should
indeed, Daireen, if I had remained at home while you were gone
away without any one to take care of you.”
“Oh, Standish, Standish, what will your father say?—What will he
think?”
“I don't care,” said Standish. “I told him on that day when we
returned from Suanmara that I would go away. I was a fool that I
did not make up my mind long ago. It was, indeed, only when you
left that I carried out my resolution. I learned what ship you were
going in; I had as much money as brought me to England—I had
heard of people working their passage abroad; so I found out the
captain of the steamer, and telling him all about myself that I could
—not of course breathing your name, Daireen—I begged him to
allow me to work my way as a sailor, and he agreed to give me the
passage. He wanted me to become a waiter in the cabin, but I
couldn't do that; I didn't mind facing all the hardships that might
come, so long as I was near you—and—able to get your father's
advice. Now do go back, Daireen.”
“No one will see us,” said the girl, after a pause, in which she
reflected on the story he had told her. “But all is so strange,
Standish,” she continued—“all is so unlike anything I ever imagined
possible. Oh, Standish, it is too dreadful to think of your being a
sailor—just a sailor—aboard the ship.”
“There's nothing so very bad in it,” he replied. “I can work, thank
God; and I mean to work. The thought of being near you—that is,
near the time when I can get the advice I want from your father—
makes all my labour seem light.”
“But if I ask the captain, he will, I am sure, let you become a
passenger,” said the girl suddenly. “Do let me ask him, Standish. It is
so—so hard for you to have to work as a sailor.”
“It is no harder than I expected it would be,” he said; “I am not
afraid to work hard: and I feel that I am doing something—I feel it. I
should be more wretched in the cabin. Now do not think of speaking
to me for the rest of the voyage, Daireen; only, do not forget that
you have a friend aboard the ship—a friend who will be willing to die
for you.”
His voice was very tremulous, and she could see his tearful eyes
glistening in the gray light as he put out one of his hands to her. She
put her own hand into it and felt his strong earnest grasp as he
whispered, “God bless you, Daireen! God bless you!”
“Make it six bells, quartermaster,” came the voice of the officer on
watch from the bridge. In fear and trembling Daireen waited until
the man came aft and gave the six strokes upon the ship's bell that
hung quite near where she was standing—Standish thinking it
prudent to remain close in the shade of the rail. The quartermaster
saw her, but did not, of course, conceive it to be within the range of
his duties to give any thought to the circumstance of a passenger
being on deck at that hour. When the girl turned round after the bell
had been struck, she found that Standish had disappeared. All she
could do was to hasten back to her cabin with as much caution as it
was possible for her to preserve, for she could still hear the hoarse
tones of the major's voice coming from the centre of the group far
astern, who were regaled with a very pointed chronicle of a certain
station in the empire of Hindustan.
Daireen reached her cabin and sat once more upon her sofa,
breathing a sigh of relief, for she had never in her life had such a call
upon her courage as this to which she had just responded.
Her face was flushed and hot, and her hands were trembling, so
she threw open the pane of the cabin port-hole and let the soft
breeze enter. It moved about her hair as she stood there, and she
seemed to feel the fingers of a dear friend caressing her forehead.
Then she sat down once more and thought over all that had
happened since the morning when she had gone on deck to see that
gray cloud-land brighten into the lovely green slope of Madeira.
She thought of all that Standish had told her about himself, and
she felt her heart overflowing, as were her eyes, with sympathy for
him who had cast aside his old life and was endeavouring to enter
upon the new.
As she sat there in her dreaming mood all the days of the past
came back to her, with a clearness she had never before known. All
the pleasant hours returned to her with even a more intense
happiness than she had felt at first. For out of the distance of these
Fortunate Islands the ghosts of the blessed departed hours came
and moved before her, looking into her face with their own sweet
pale faces; thus she passed from a waking dream into a dream of
sleep as she lay upon her sofa, and the ghost shapes continued to
float before her. The fatigue of the day, the darkness of the cabin,
and the monotonous washing of the ripples against the side of the
ship, had brought on her sleep before she had got into her berth.
 With a sudden start she awoke and sprang to her feet in
instantaneous consciousness, for the monotony of the washing
waves was broken by a sound that was strange and startling to her
ears—the sound of something hard tapping at irregular intervals
upon the side of the ship just at her ear.
She ran over to the cabin port and looked out fearfully—looked
out and gave a cry of terror, for beneath her—out from those gray
waters there glanced up to her in speechless agony the white face of
a man; she saw it but for a moment, then it seemed to be swept
away from her and swallowed up in the darkness of the deep
waters.
 CHAPTER XIV.
... Rashly,
And praised be rashness for it....
Up from my cabin,
My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark
Groped I to find out them... making so bold,
My fears forgetting manners.

Give me leave: here lies the water; good: here stands the
man; good.
Let us know
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well
... and that should learn us
There's a divinity that shapes our ends
Rough-hew them how we will.—Hamlet.

A
SINGLE cry of terror was all that Daireen uttered as she fell
back upon her berth. An instant more and she was standing
with white lips, and hands that were untrembling as the rigid
hand of a dead person. She knew what was to be done as plainly as
if she saw everything in a picture. She rushed into the saloon and
mounted the companion to the deck. There sat the little group
astern just as she had seen them an hour before, only that the
doctor had fallen asleep under the influence of one of the less
pointed of the major's stories.
 “God bless my soul!” cried the major, as the girl clutched the back
of his chair.
“Good heavens, Miss Gerald, what is the matter?” said Harwood,
leaping to his feet.
She pointed to the white wake of the ship.
“There—there,” she whispered—“a man—drowning—clinging to
something—a wreck—I saw him!”
“Dear me! dear me!” said the major, in a tone of relief, and with a
breath of a smile.
But the special correspondent had looked into the girl's face. It
was his business to understand the difference between dreaming
and waking. He was by the side of the officer on watch in a moment.
A few words were enough to startle the officer into acquiescence
with the demands of the “special.” The unwonted sound of the
engine-room telegraph was heard, its tinkle shaking the slumbers of
the chief engineer as effectively as if it had been the thunder of an
alarum peal.
The stopping of the engine, the blowing off of the steam, and the
arrival of the captain upon the deck, were simultaneous occurrences.
The officer's reply to his chief as he hurried aft did not seem to be
very satisfactory, judging from the manner in which it was received.
But Harwood had left the officer to explain the stoppage of the
vessel, and was now kneeling by the side of the chair, back upon
which lay the unconscious form of Daireen, while the doctor was
forcing some brandy—all that remained in the major's tumbler—
between her lips, and a young sailor—the one who had been at the
rail in the morning—chafed her pallid hand. The major was scanning
the expanse of water by aid of his pilot glass, and the quartermaster
who had been steering went to the line of the patent log to haul it in
—his first duty at any time on the stopping of the vessel, to prevent
the line—the strain being taken off it—fouling with the propeller.
When the steamer is under weigh it is the work of two sailors to
take in the eighty fathoms of log-line, otherwise, however, the line is
of course quite slack; it was thus rather inexplicable to the
quartermaster to find much more resistance to his first haul than if
the vessel were going full speed ahead.
“The darned thing's fouled already,” he murmured for his own
satisfaction. He could not take in a fathom, so great was the
resistance.
“Hang it all, major,” said the captain, “isn't this too bad? Bringing
the ship to like this, and—ah, here they come! All the ship's
company will be aft in a minute.”
“Rum, my boy, very rum,” muttered the sympathetic major.
“What's the matter, captain?” said one voice.
“Is there any danger?” asked a tremulous second.
“If it's a collision or a leak, don't keep it from us, sir,” came a stern
contralto. For in various stages of toilet incompleteness the
passengers were crowding out of the cabin.
But before the “unhappy master” could utter a word of reply, the
sailor had touched his cap and reported to the third mate:
“Log-line fouled on wreck, sir.”
“By gad!” shouted the major, who was twisting the log-line about,
and peering into the water. “By gad, the girl was right! The line has
fouled on some wreck, and there is a body made fast to it.”
The captain gave just a single glance in the direction indicated. .
“Stand by gig davits and lower away,” he shouted to the watch,
who had of course come aft.
The men ran to where the boat was hanging, and loosened the
lines.
“Oh, Heaven preserve us! they are taking to the boats!” cried a
female passenger.
“Don't be a fool, my good woman,” said Mrs. Crawford tartly. The
major's wife had come on deck in a most marvellous costume, and
she was already holding a sal-volatile bottle to Daireen's nose,
having made a number of inquiries of Mr. Harwood and the doctor.