Mrs. K. groaned. There came to me one last gleam of hope. What if it were possible to brave it out! In a moment my feet were on the floor, but whether my name were McGregor, or not, I could not tell. I made an abortive attempt after the pretty hood, prepared with such pleasant anticipations, and had a dim consciousness that somebody's hands tied it about my head. Then we started. We climbed heights, we descended depths indescribable, in that short walk to the saloon, and there was a queer feeling of having a windmill, instead of a head, upon my shoulders. A number of sympathizing faces were nodding in the most remarkable manner, as we reached the door, and the tables performed antic evolutions.
"Take me back!" and the berth and the little round stewardess received me. There followed a night of misery. One can form no idea, save from experience, of the horrors of the first night upon an ocean steamer. There are the whir, and buzz, and jar, and rattle, and bang of the screw and engine; the pitching and rolling of the ship, with the sensation of standing upright for a moment, and then of being made to rest comfortably upon the top of your head; the sense of undergoing internal somersaults, to say nothing of describing every known curve externally. You study physiology involuntarily, and doubt if your heart, your lungs, or indeed any of your internal organs, are firmly attached, after all; if you shall not lose them at the next lurch of the ship. Your head is burning with fever, your hands and feet like ice, and you feel dimly, but wretchedly, that this is but the beginning of sorrows; that there are a dozen more days to come. You are conscious of a vague wonder (as the night lengthens out interminably) what eternity can be, since time is so long. The bells strike the half hours, tormenting you with calculations which amount to nothing. Everything within the room, as well as without, swings, and rolls, and rattles. You are confident your bottles in the rack will go next, and don't much care if they do, though you lie and dread the crash. You are tormented with thirst, and the ice-water is in that same rack, just beyond your reach. The candle in its silver case, hinged against the wall, swings back and forth with dizzy motion, throwing moving distorted shadows over everything, and making the night like a sickly day. You long for darkness, and, when at last the light grows dim, until only a red spark remains and the smoke that adds its mite to your misery, long for its return. At regular intervals you hear the tramp, tramp, overhead, of the relieving watch; and, in the midst of fitful slumbers, the hoarse voices of the sailors, as the wind freshens and they hoist the sails, wake you from frightful dreams. At the first gray dawn of light come the swash of water and the trickling down of the stream against your window, with the sound of the holy-stones pushed back and forth upon the deck. And with the light—O, blessed light!—came to us a dawn of better things.
There followed days when we lay contented upon the narrow sofa, or within the contracted berths, but when to lift our heads was woe. A kind of negative blessedness—absence from misery. We felt as if we had lost our heart, our conscience, and almost our immortal soul, to quote Mark Twain. There remained to us only those principles and prejudices most firmly rooted and grounded. Even our personal vanity left us at last, and nothing could be more forsaken and appropriate than the plain green gown with its one row of military buttons, attired in which, day after day, I idly watched the faces that passed our door. "That's like you Americans," said our handsome young Irish doctor, pointing to these same buttons. "You can't leave your country without taking the spread-eagle with you!"
Our officers, with this one exception, were English. Our captain, a living representative of the traditional English sailor. Not young, save in heart; simple, unaffected, and frank in manner, but with a natural dignity that prevented undue familiarity, he sang about the ship from morning till night, with a voice that could carry no air correctly, but with an enjoyment delightful to witness—always a song suggested by existing circumstances, but with
"Cheer, boys, cheer; my mother's sold her mangle,"
when everything else failed. He was forward among the men on the deck with an eye to the wind, down below bringing fruit and comfort to the sick in the steerage, dealing out apples and oranges to the children, with an encouraging word and the first line of a song for everybody.
The life of the ship was an Englishman, with the fresh complexion almost invariably seen upon Englishmen, and forty years upon a head that looked twenty-five. He was going home after a short tour through the United States, with his mind as full of prejudices as his memorandum-book was of notes. He chanced, oddly enough, to room with the genuine Yankee of the company—a long, lean, good-natured individual from one of the eastern states, "close on ter Varmont," who had a way of rolling his eyes fearfully, especially when he glared at his food. He represented a mowing machine company, and we called him "the Mowing Machine Man." He accosted us one day, sidling up to our door, with, "How d'ye do to-day?"
"Better, thank you," I replied from the sofa.
"That's real nice. Tell ye what, we'll be glad to see the ladies out. How's yer mar?" nodding towards the berth from which twinkled Mrs. K.'s eyes. I laughed, and explained that our relations were of affection rather than consanguinity. His interest increased when he found we were travelling alone. He gave us his London address, evidently considering us in the light of Daniels about to enter the lions' den. "Ef ye have any trouble," said he, as he wrote down the street and number, "there's one Yankee'll stand up for ye." He amused the Englishman by calling out, "Hullo. D'ye feel good this morning?" "No," would be the reply, with a burst of laughter; "I feel awful wicked; think I'll go right out and kill somebody."
There was a shout one morning, "A sail! See the stars and stripes!" I had not raised my head for days, but staggered across the floor at that, and clinging to the frame, thrust my head out of the window. Yes, there was a ship close by, with the stars and stripes floating from the mast-head, I found, when the roll of the steamer carried my window to its level. "Seems good ter see the old rag!" I looked up to find the Mowing Machine Man gazing upon it with eyes all afloat. "I'd been a thinking," said he, "all them fellers have got somebody waiting for 'em over there,"—our passengers were mostly English,—"but there wasn't nobody a waiting for me. Tell ye what,"—and he shook out the folds of a red and yellow handkerchief,—"it does my heart good ter see the old flag." There was a bond of sympathy between us from that moment.