Good for a “spec,” and took us as actors among his lot.
We hadn’t a friend in England—we’d only ourselves to please—
And we jumped at the chance of trying our fortune across the seas.[430]
We went on a sailing vessel, and the journey was long and rough;
We hadn’t been out a fortnight before we had had enough.
But use is a second nature, and we’d got not to mind a storm,
When misery came upon us,—came in a hideous form.[431]
My poor little wife fell ailing, grew worse, and at last so bad
That the doctor said she was dying,—I thought ’twould have sent me mad,[432]—
Dying where leagues[433] of billows seemed to shriek for their prey,