It is well known to most of my readers that woman is a problem; but it may not be as well known that nowadays she is a mathematical problem. Yet so it is. As in the latter you have certain known quantities given by which you are to find a quantity unknown, so in a lady you have the hand, the foot, the mouth, &c., apparent; and 'tis only by calculation, now that modern dresses are made so full, that you can arrive at a just estimate of her approach to total perfection. All good arithmeticians, as they scrutinised the outward and the visible of Isabel Revel, were perfectly assured as to her quotient. But if I talked for hours, I could say no more than that she was one of those ideal images created in the dream of youth and poetry, fairly embodied in flesh and blood. As her father had justly surmised, could she have been persuaded to have tried her fortune on the stage, she had personal attractions, depth of feeling, and vivacity of mind to have rendered her one of the very first in a profession, to excel in which there is, perhaps, more correct judgment and versatility of talent required than in any other, and would have had a fair prospect of obtaining that coronet which has occasionally been the reward of those fair dames who "stoop to conquer."
Mr Revel, who had been made acquainted with the customs on board of East India ships, had been introduced to Mrs Ferguson, and had requested her to take upon herself the office of chaperon to his daughters, during the passage: a nominal charge indeed, yet considered to be etiquette. Mrs Ferguson, pleased with the gentlemanlike demeanour and personal appearance of Mr Revel, and perhaps at the same time not sorry to have an authority to find fault, had most graciously acquiesced; and the three Miss Revels were considered to be under her protection.
As I said before, Miss Isabel Revel made her appearance not unattended, for she was escorted by Doctor Plausible, the surgeon of the ship. And now I must again digress while I introduce that gentleman. I never shall get that poor girl from the cuddy-door.
Doctor Plausible had been summoned to prescribe for Miss Laura Revel, who suffered extremely from the motion of the vessel, and the remedies which she had applied to relieve her uneasiness. Miss Laura Revel had been told by somebody, previous to her embarkation, that the most effectual remedy for sea-sickness was gingerbread. In pursuance of the advice received, she had provided herself with ten or twelve squares of this commodity, about one foot by eighteen inches, which squares she had commenced upon as soon as she came on board, and had never ceased to swallow, notwithstanding various interruptions. The more did her stomach reject it the more did she force it down, until, what with deglutition, et vice versa, she had been reduced to a state of extreme weakness, attended with fever.
How many panaceas have been offered without success for two evils—sea-sickness and hydrophobia! and between these two there appears to be a link, for sea-sickness as surely ends in hydrophobia, as hydrophobia does in death. The sovereign remedy prescribed, when I first went to sea, was a piece of fat pork, tied to a string, to be swallowed, and then pulled up again; the dose to be repeated until effective. I should not have mentioned this well-known remedy, as it has long been superseded by other nostrums, were it not that this maritime prescription has been the origin of two modern improvements in the medical catalogue—one is the stomach-pump, evidently borrowed from this simple engine; the other is the very successful prescription now in vogue, to those who are weak in the digestive organs, to eat fat bacon for breakfast, which I have no doubt was suggested to Doctor Vance, from what he had been eye-witness to on board of a man-of-war.
But here I am digressing again from Doctor Plausible to Doctor Vance. Reader, I never lose the opportunity of drawing a moral; and what an important one is here! Observe how difficult it is to regain the right path when once you have quitted it. Let my error be a warning to you in your journey through life, and my digressions preserve you from diverging from the beaten track, which, as the Americans would say, leads clean slick on to happiness and peace.
Doctor Plausible was a personable man, apparently about five-and-thirty years old; he wore a little powder in his hair, black silk stockings, and knee-breeches. In this I consider Doctor Plausible was right; the above look much more scientific than Wellington trousers; and much depends upon the exterior. He was quite a ladies' man; talked to them about their extreme sensibility, their peculiar fineness of organic structure, their delicacy of nerves; and soothed his patients more by flattery than by physic. Having discovered that Miss Laura was not inclined to give up her gingerbread, he immediately acknowledged its virtues, but recommended that it should be cut into extremely small dice, and allowed, as it were, to melt away upon the tongue; stating, that her digestive organs were so refined and delicate, that they would not permit themselves to be loaded with any large particles, even of farinaceous compound. Isabel Revel, who had been informed that Mrs Ferguson was on deck, expressed a wish to escape from the confined atmosphere of the cabin; and Dr Plausible, as soon as he had prescribed for Miss Laura, offered Miss Isabel his services; which, for want of a better, perhaps, were accepted.
The ship at this time had a great deal of motion. The gale was spent; but the sea created by the violence of the wind had not yet subsided, and the waves continued still to rise and fall again, like the panting breasts of men who have just desisted from fierce contention. Captain Drawlock hastened over to receive his charge from the hands of the medical attendant; and paying Isabel some compliments on her appearance, was handing her over to the weather-side, where Mrs Ferguson was seated, when a sea of larger dimensions than usual careened the ship to what the sailors term a "heavy lurch." The decks were wet and slippery. Captain Drawlock lost his footing, and was thrown to leeward. Isabel would most certainly have kept him company; and indeed was already under weigh for the lee-scuppers, had not it been that Newton Forster, who stood near, caught her round the waist, and prevented her from falling.
It certainly was a great presumption to take a young lady round the waist previous to any introduction; but, at sea, we are not very particular; and if we do perceive that a lady is in danger of a severe fall, we do not stand upon etiquette. What is more remarkable, we generally find that the ladies excuse our unpolished manners, either upon the score of our good intentions, or because there is nothing so very impertinent in them, after all. Certain it is, that Isabel, as soon as she had recovered from her alarm, thanked Newton Forster, with a sweet smile, for his timely aid, as she again took the arm of Captain Drawlock, who escorted her to the weather-side of the quarter-deck.
"I have brought you one of your protegees, Mrs Ferguson," said Captain
Drawlock. "How do you feel, Miss Revel?"