I think he thoroughly enjoyed what was to him an unknown experience, a ten days' rest; but I doubt whether he took it as a holiday; he had books and papers to keep him company that looked suspiciously like business, and when he reclined full length on his steamer-chair, contemplating the rolling sea through his eye-glasses, he looked as if he were meditating a revival of "The Tempest," and consulting with Neptune and Æolus as to the best way of producing it.
As for Ellen Terry, she was facile princeps on our floating city, fascinating everybody, from captain and crew, viâ first and second class passengers, down to the emigrant's crowing baby. There had been a grand gathering to see her and Irving off. Friends had come, laden with parting gifts; golden-haired children were there, bringing baskets full of flowers that should intertwine themselves with their dear Ellen's existence, till others could be gathered to greet her on her arrival.
When the bell sounded, recalling the visitors to the tender that had brought them, the process of leave-taking went through its acutest stage; there were the cordial grips and moist eyes, the crisp, resonant kisses, and the long, silent embraces. "Good-bye; take care of him, take care of her, till I come back! Good-bye, again!"
Ay! some of us had taken return tickets, some had not. Which of us would return?
We got sorted at last; all the good clothes on our side; the new suits, ulsters, and dresses to be bodily introduced into the country that produces the like only at ruinous prices. We all looked brand new, as if we were equipped for our respective honeymoons. Soon we were passing the last outstretched arm of land, that seemed to bid us one more farewell; but the greeting only came from Cinderella, the Emerald Isle, and we, I suppose being an English vessel, refused to hug the coast, and made for the open sea, whence for some time we could see her knowingly wink her revolving Cyclopean eye at us.
The moon had risen majestically; it could not do otherwise with those Lyceists on board. We had achieved something like order in our cabins, and were reappearing above to have a look at one another. Ellen was leaning over the bulwarks with one of those flowers in her hand, which by any other name would smell as sweet. She was still gazing shorewards, as if she would keep on saying Good-bye until to-morrow; a living picture, long lines of beauty flowing from her shoulders to her feet, such as natural grace will evolve even from the slender material of a travelling dress.
But for all that, she must not be imagined as addicted to mooning or posing; just the reverse, she was the most practical soul on board, ever active and thoughtful. Before the first twenty-four hours had passed, all those hothouse grapes the old friends had brought had found their way to the new friends, the steerage passengers; so, too, what of shawls and wraps she could lay her hands on. "I have hidden away one or two warm things," said her maid, "or there would be nothing of the kind left for her."
For a day or two we had very rough weather, and the attendance at poet's corner was small; our first night in particular set many of us wishing that Columbus had minded his own business and not gone out of his way to discover a new continent. If a ship would only roll and pitch, an average land-lubber might have a chance, but it has a nasty trick of seceding from beneath you when you are lying on your back, and leaving that back to follow as best it can. This particular hiatus was not new to me, but such a multiplicity of noises as made that night hideous I had never encountered before. The wiseacres said that a cargo of pig-iron had been badly stowed in the ship's entrails, and was trying to knock a hole in its side, and so it sounded. The drillings of the screw I could recognise as it doggedly worked its way, occasionally writhing in impotent rage as it was lifted out of the water; but all the other squeaking, grating, bond-bursting sounds I could not analyse. As for my cabin, it soon presented the appearance of a Pandemonium. There was no provision for securing anything, so portmanteaux were colliding with one another, and with various articles of furniture and crockery that had put in an appearance; my dressing-case was sliding along the floor like a schoolboy on the ice, and in fact every mortal thing was on the alert, trying to find its ever-shifting centre of gravity. For all that I went to sleep, to dream of alligators and lifebelts, and of the list of the saved, amongst whom I could not find my name.
That chivalrous White Star Company had constructed a special state-room on deck for their guest, the histrionic star, and had furnished it comfortably, as I know full well, for when, after the demoralising experiences of that night, I had crawled to the surface limp and crushed, a ministering angel at once took me in hand, laid me out in full state in that room of hers, propped me with cushions, tended me with creature comforts, and finally willed me to sleep. When after some hours I came out vivified and refreshed, I found her squatting on the deck in true schoolgirl fashion, writing letters in her big handwriting. Later on what on terra firma I call my better half had also emerged from below, and was organising a personally conducted five-o'clock tea, made attractive by certain canisters in her private possession. Full justice was done to the popular meal by the small but select circle of friends come together on that occasion.
As we proceeded, many an incident occurred, partly connected with the vagaries of the Atlantic, partly with the thousand and one social and humanitarian interests awakened on board a floating city. They seemed noteworthy then, but to-day, and to make a long voyage short, I will only say that it's an ill wind that can't leave off blowing, and it's a long water-course that has no landing-stage, and that consequently, after a good deal of boisterous weather, the sea calmed down and we arrived safely in New York harbour. On the morning when the pilot came on board, we were most of us still in our berths; but Ellen was up and on deck, and the first to shake hands with him, and greet him with a hearty "Good-morning, Mr. Pilot!"