These moments, too, are scarcely more pleasurable than they are salutary to us. Disengaged for the time from every worldly anxiety, we pass in review before our own selves, and in the solitude of our own hearts are we judged. That still small voice of conscience, unheard and unlistened to amidst the din and bustle of life, speaks audibly to us now; and while chastened on one side by regrets, we are sustained on the other by some approving thought; and with many a sorrow for the past, and many a promise for the future, we begin to feel “how good it is for us to be here.”
The evening wore later; the red sun sank down upon the sea, growing larger and larger; the long line of mellow gold that sheeted along the distant horizon grew first of a dark ruddy tinge, then paler and paler, till it became almost gray; a single star shone faintly in the east, and darkness soon set in. With night came the wind, for almost imperceptibly the sails swelled slowly out, a slight rustle at the bow followed, the ship lay gently over, and we were once more in motion. It struck four bells; some casual resemblance in the sound of the old pendulum that marked the hour at my uncle’s house startled me so that I actually knew not where I was. With lightning speed my once home rose up before me with its happy hearts; the old familiar faces were there; the gay laugh was in my ears; there sat my dear old uncle, as with bright eye and mellow voice he looked a very welcome to his guests; there Boyle; there Considine; there the grim-visaged portraits that graced the old walls whose black oak wainscot stood in broad light and shadow, as the blazing turf fire shone upon it; there was my own place, now vacant; methought my uncle’s eye was turned towards it and that I heard him say, “My poor boy! I wonder where is he now!” My heart swelled, my chest heaved, the tears coursed slowly down my cheeks, as I asked myself, “Shall I ever see them more?” Oh, how little, how very little to us are the accustomed blessings of our life till some change has robbed us of them, and how dear are they when lost to us! My uncle’s dark foreboding that we should never meet again on earth, came for the first time forcibly to my mind, and my heart was full to bursting. What could repay me for the agony of that moment as I thought of him, my first, my best, my only friend, whom I had deserted? And how gladly would I have resigned my bright day-dawn of ambition to be once more beside his chair, to hear his voice, to see his smile, to feel his love for me! A loud laugh from the cabin roused me from my sad, depressing revery, and at the same instant Mike’s well-known voice informed me that the captain was looking for me everywhere, as supper was on the table. Little as I felt disposed to join the party at such a moment, as I knew there was no escaping Power, I resolved to make the best of matters; so after a few minutes I followed Mickey down the companion and entered the cabin.
The scene before me was certainly not calculated to perpetuate depressing thoughts. At the head of a rude old-fashioned table, upon which figured several black bottles and various ill-looking drinking vessels of every shape and material, sat Fred Power; on his right was placed the skipper, on his left the doctor,—the bronzed, merry-looking, weather-beaten features of the one contrasting ludicrously with the pale, ascetic, acute-looking expression of the other. Sparks, more than half-drunk, with the mark of a red-hot cigar upon his nether lip, was lower down; while Major Monsoon, to preserve the symmetry of the party, had protruded his head, surmounted by a huge red nightcap, from the berth opposite, and held out his goblet to be replenished from the punch-bowl.
“Welcome, thrice welcome, thou man of Galway!” cried out Power, as he pointed to a seat, and pushed a wine-glass towards me. “Just in time, too, to pronounce upon a new brewery. Taste that; a little more of the lemon you would say, perhaps? Well, I agree with you. Rum and brandy, glenlivet and guava jelly, limes, green tea, and a slight suspicion of preserved ginger,—nothing else, upon honor,—and the most simple mixture for the cure, the radical cure, of blue devils and debt I know of; eh, Doctor? You advise it yourself, to be taken before bed-time; nothing inflammatory in it, nothing pugnacious; a mere circulation of the better juices and more genial spirits of the marly clay, without arousing any of the baser passions; whiskey is the devil for that.”
“I canna say that I dinna like whiskey toddy,” said the doctor; “in the cauld winter nights it’s no sae bad.”
“Ah, that’s it,” said Power; “there’s the pull you Scotch have upon us poor Patlanders,—cool, calculating, long-headed fellows, you only come up to the mark after fifteen tumblers; whereas we hot-brained devils, with a blood at 212 degrees of Fahrenheit and a high-pressure engine of good spirits always ready for an explosion, we go clean mad when tipsy; not but I am fully convinced that a mad Irishman is worth two sane people of any other country under heaven.”
“If you mean by that insin—insin—sinuation to imply any disrespect to the English,” stuttered out Sparks, “I am bound to say that I for one, and the doctor, I am sure, for another—”
“Na, na,” interrupted the doctor, “ye mauna coont upon me; I’m no disposed to fetch ower our liquor.”
“Then, Major Monsoon, I’m certain—”
“Are ye, faith?” said the major, with a grin; “blessed are they who expect nothing,—of which number you are not,—for most decidedly you shall be disappointed.”