“I’ve been lucky; and I shall start to-morrow for Sydney. I shall find the one I love waiting for me—I hope, with some impatience; and, if I don’t miscalculate time, we shall be married, before I’ve been a week in Sydney.
“I am young, and have health and strength. With these advantages, I should not consider myself a man, if, in a new world like this, I allowed my warmest inclinations to be subdued by the selfish worldly influences, that control the thoughts and actions of European people.”
I believe the company were a little disappointed in the “Elephant’s” story. From the remarkable character of the man, and the evidence of superior polish and education—exhibited both in his bearing and conversation—all had expected a more interesting narrative—something more than the tale he had told us, and which was altogether too simple to excite their admiration. Some of them could not help expressing their surprise—at what they pronounced the silliness of the “Elephant,” in “sacking” a fine lady with fifty thousand pounds, and an aristocratic connection, for a poor Sydney sempstress. To many of them, this part of the story seemed scarce credible, though, for my part, I believed every word of it.
Reasoning from what I knew of the character of the narrator, I felt convinced that he was incapable of telling an untruth—even to amuse his audience; and I doubted not that he had refused his rich English cousin; and was really going to marry the poor sewing girl of Sydney.
In judging of the Elephant—to use his own words—I did not allow my “inclinations to be subdued by the selfish worldly influences, that control the thoughts and actions of European people.”
Volume Three—Chapter Seventeen.
Sailor Bill’s Life Yarn.
As the autobiography of the “Elephant,” had been of too common-place a character to create any excitement, there was but little interruption in the proceedings; and Sailor Bill, according to the conditions, was next called upon to spin the yarn of his life.