Over the bliss of the succeeding fortnight I must draw a curtain. Of course I saw Maud every day; and equally, of course, each twenty-four hours convinced me more and more of the wisdom of my choice. But, like the school-boy's Black Monday, the fatal day of parting had to come; and, accordingly, one miserable Wednesday night I bade my darling farewell, and next morning, with a heavy heart, rejoined my ship and put back to sea.
CHAPTER II.
A CHEQUERED CAREER.
To a sailor, perhaps the most trying parts of his courtship are the lengthy periods he is compelled to spend away from the presence of his beloved one; and yet, curiously enough, when in later life he comes to look back upon the whole business, he is pretty certain to discover that they were not the least pleasant portions of it. However that may be, it is a crucial test of the genuineness of his affection; and then it is that he has an opportunity of realizing what truth there is in the old saying, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." How often, when pacing his lonely watch, do you suppose his sweetheart's face rises before him? How often, when a stiff breeze is blowing, filling the canvas like great balloons, and driving the good ship, homeward bound, for all she is worth, do you think the thought of her he will soon hold in his arms, whose lips he will soon kiss, into whose eyes he will gaze with so fond a rapture, will cross his mind? Or, if his ship's head be turned away from home, hasn't he the sweet knowledge ever present with him that a certain voluminous epistle will meet him at the other end, destined amply to compensate for the bitterness of parting? Well, I protest, though separation may be one of the hardest parts of a sailor's courtship, yet, all things considered, it is worth undergoing, if only for the joy of reuniting. As the Frenchman has it—
"L'absence est à l'amour ce qu'est au feu le vent;
Il éteint le petit, il allume le grand."
When I bade Maud my first good-bye after our engagement, I was, though I did not know it, bound on a long cruise. We visited Calcutta, Singapore, and Hong Kong, crossed the Pacific to San Francisco, thence round the Horn to Rio; finally returning, viâ New York, home. By that time, as may be supposed, I was ravenous—no other word so fully expresses it—for a glimpse of my darling's face; I felt as if I had not seen her for a lifetime.
So soon, therefore, as we were docked, and I could be spared, away I sped, first home to the old mother, and then, as early as I could decently excuse myself, to Maud. By the time my cab pulled up at her door I was in a fever, and I remember well the cabman's expression of surprise when he realized that instead of his legal fare of eighteen-pence I had given him five shillings. Summers, the same ancient butler who opened the door to me on the day I first saw my sweetheart, invited me to enter now, and the grip I gave his honest hand he professes to feel even at this distant date. A minute later I was entering the drawing-room, prepared to clasp my dear girl in my arms.
At this point occurred a trifling circumstance—so trifling regarded in the white light of these later days that I almost hesitate to narrate it—that was, nevertheless, destined to alter the whole current of my after life, and indirectly to bring me into touch with all the curious things I have set myself to tell.