‘Rose,’ says Wentworth, ‘let us watch the beauty of Douglas as we steam out of the Bay. In a little while we shall see Snaefell, monarch of Manx mountains. We shall pass the little glen which leads to Laxey, with that wonderful wheel of which we hear so much, and then we are in Ramsey. Leaving Ramsey for the Point of Ayr, a lighthouse familiar to the traders between Barrow and Belfast, we shall note how the aspect of the land is changed, and that a sandy shore has taken the place of the rocks, which, looking across the water, seem to set England and Scotland at defiance. In a little while we shall be off Peel, with its ancient Castle and its hardy fishermen. The further we go, the bolder becomes the scenery. There we shall see a cavern which no one yet has had the courage to explore, but which our captain will tell us leads to Port St. Mary. Then the steam-pipe whistles, and the rocks re-echo the whistle as we float along. Then we come to cliffs white with sea-gulls, who, startled by our approach, flap their heavy wings and fly like snowflakes. As we come to the Calf of Man the picturesqueness of the scene is increased tenfold as the rocks in their wildness guard their native shores. Fain would we linger, but our steamer urges on her wild career, and we must needs go with her. All we can do is to admire from a distance the rough and rugged coast, with its tiny bay, where the swimmer might enjoy his pastime, only disturbed, it may be, by a merman bold, or a mermaid a little bolder, as is the habit of the female, or by a glimpse of the great sea-serpent, which assuredly is to be found, if anywhere, haunting these azure waters, and then we are back in Douglas in time for dinner.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said the lady, laughing. ‘The dinner you will be thinking of all the while.’
‘How unkind of you to say so. We shall have a quarrel if you talk like that.’
‘Is it not time?’ said Rose, as she turned to him a look more bewitching than she had ever cast upon the buckram hero of the stage.
‘Perhaps so. We have been married a week.’
‘Good gracious!’ said the lady archly; ‘only a week! I thought it had been much longer.’
‘I am sure you did nothing of the kind. There, I’ve caught you telling stories already.’
‘But you know we did not get married according to ordinary notions of propriety. We did not go to a fashionable church. We had no fashionable people to see us made one, and there were none to wish us God-speed as we took the cab to the Midland Railway en route for Liverpool. So what can you expect?’
‘And worst of all,’ said Wentworth, laughing, ‘we got married—’
‘At the registrar’s office,’ said Rose, shrugging up her shoulders and making a face with a sad expression of horror, adding, after an interval: ‘And I don’t believe anyone knows it yet.’