It was a beautifully formed key, nor had we ever met with one like it before.
The watchmaker appeared to us as a second Jean Batiste Schwilgué of Strasbourg.[11] “Ha! ha!! ha!!!” laughed the merry little man, “all is mystery. We eat and drink, but we comprehend nothing. Ah! we often end in believing nothing.” We remarked that no one who contemplated with attention the works of Nature could overlook the design of a great Creator. The watchmaker went to an inner door. A pretty girl probably his daughter, changed a shilling for him. “Ah!” continued he, “you see by travel; you take in through the eyes; they are the great vehicles of human life. I laugh at them, ha! ha!! ha!!!” and he bowed as I left the shop.
We were now nearly ready for the voyage; as we passed from the gates of the railway station an interesting-looking boy, pleaded hard to black our boots. It is an honest way of making a livelihood. In this instance we stepped aside—one boot was just finished, when he suddenly bolted. Although he did not wait for his money, he did not forget the paraphernalia of his business. Another boy explained, that he was not allowed to black boots so near the station, and a policeman in the distance had caused his hasty disappearance.
The boy again met us soon after, and completed his work; we were glad to have the chance of paying him.
When we went on board the steamer, all was confusion. On the wharf, we had 1s. wharfage, to pay for each animal. The total expenses of our party to join the steamer amounted to 10l. 9s. 6d. including 6s. 11d. for hay, supplied to the donkeys for the voyage.
The evening was damp and gloomy. An old weather-beaten Norwegian pilot wandered about the deck. Men in oilskin coats, smelling strongly of tar and tobacco-quid, hustle and bustle, against everything. Very comfortable accommodation, had been erected specially for the animals near the engines, in the waist of the steamer. Esmeralda was feeding them with hay.
When the gipsies were afterwards looking over the side of the vessel, they formed an interesting group. Then came the active steward, of the second cabin, who promised us to take care of them. The second steward was a small, but firmly-knit, active young fellow, who said he had been wrecked twice, in the old coat he was then wearing, and for which, therefore, he had a strong affection; after saying he should go next winter to California, he left us to look after his many arrangements.
We were informed that Sir Charles Mordaunt and also Lord Muncaster,[12] who had so narrowly escaped the Athenian brigands, had left Hull in the special steamer for Throndhjem on the previous evening.
CHAPTER IV.
“Zarca. It is well.
You shall not long count days in weariness:
Ere the full moon has waned again to new,
We shall reach Almeria; Berber ships
Will take us for their freight, and we shall go
With plenteous spoil, not stolen, bravely won
By service done on Spaniards. Do you shrink?
Are you aught less than a Zincala?”
George Eliot’s Spanish Gipsy.