It seemed direfully early next morning when the same functionary appeared to awake me, with the intelligence that breakfast would shortly be on the table, and the gentleman had sent her to call me, and to see if there was any way in which she could help me. "The gentleman" had evidently backed his suggestion with some specimens of the United States currency, for she was overwhelmingly attentive, and helped me to dress in "no time." Breakfast, arranged again as a little colony, at the end of the long table, was considerably more inviting than last night's meal, Thomas having had orders to beat up the town for spring chickens and fresh butter, and, being a veteran in the recruiting service, had of course succeeded. Mr. Rutledge looked a little anxiously at me, and said I was wretchedly pale, and he did not know about going on. I laughed at the idea, and we were soon en route again, driving briskly along in the eye of a strong wind, and with the bluest of skies overhead.
Arrived at C——, we had an hour to spare, before the arrival of the boat, which I spent in the parlor of the very pretending steamboat hotel, in writing a few lines of adieu and apology to Mrs. Arnold, accounting, as satisfactorily as I could, for my unceremonious and abrupt departure, and desiring a renewal of my acknowledgments to Mr. Shenstone. Of this, Mr. Rutledge approved, and wrote a few lines to Mr. Shenstone to accompany it. Then came the parting from Tigre, and the sending back of the carriage, which seemed like severing the last tie to Rutledge. Tigre was much affected, poor beast, and looked wistfully back, out of the carriage window, as far as we could see.
A bell rings, a rush occurs, Thomas devotes himself to the baggage, Mr. Rutledge gives his arm to me, we thread the crowded wharf, the blue Hudson dances in the sunlight, the fine steamer holds her breath, and tries to lie still while we get on board.
"O Tiber! Father Tiber! To whom the Romans pray, A Roman's life, a Roman's arms, take thou in charge this day."
I am luxuriously established in the saloon, with every imaginable wish attended to, and easy-chairs, books, papers, and cushions enough to satisfy five invalids, but they do not satisfy me. I am bored with the heat, and the whimpering of the pale children, whom a lean, sallow-looking mother feeds unremittingly with "bolivars" and "taffy;" I am tired with the swinging of those lamps overhead, and the everlasting rocking of a stout lady in a red plush rocking-chair, and with looking at the gaudy colors in the carpet, and I rush out for a brisk walk on the deck with Mr. Rutledge. What a day it is! How impossible to be otherwise than happy and hopeful; how inevitably the dark phantoms of doubt and dread take themselves off in the light of such a sun as this, and in the sight of such a scene! The waves dance bright and gay in the sunshine; the mountains rise, on either hand, into the blue and cloudless sky; in a word, the loveliest river in all this lovely river-braided New World lays before me, the heart of seventeen beats in my bosom, the glow of health and exercise tingles in my veins; what wonder that I forget the tears of yesterday, the separation, the homesickness, the loneliness that I so dreaded.
Neither can my companion altogether resist the influences of the hour. If the sharp air and the quick walk have, as he says, made the tardy roses bloom again on my cheeks, they have also brought a glow to his face, and a sparkle to his eye, and untamed wit and sarcasm to his lips. He quizzes our fellow voyagers, tells me odd stories of former travel, droll sketches of western journeyings, and California "experiences." Then the laugh dies, as some winding of the river brings suddenly before us a picture too grand to be looked at with trifling words and laughter on our lips. And Mr. Rutledge has the "right thing" to say then, in his rich manly voice, and the right words to embody the voiceless thoughts that crowd to my own lips—words that do not jar or desecrate, but make the beauty tangible and the grandeur more ennobling.
By and by, most of our fellow travellers give up to the cold and go below; and at last we are left with only a persevering artist, who holds his hat on with one hand, and sketches with the other, and a couple of ladies, whose ruddy cheeks, thick shoes, grey dresses, plaid shawls, "boas" and big bonnets, proclaim indisputably to be H.B.M.'s loyal and unalienated subjects. It has always been a question with me, as yet unanswered, whether by any act of Parliament these "proud islanders," out on their travels, are prohibited from appearing in anything but the invariable grey dress, plaid shawl, boa, and big bonnet, in which they invariably do appear. After a while, even they go down, and a solitary cadaverous-looking man, in the dress of a Romish priest, is our only companion. He paces up and down one corner of the deck, never raising his heavy eyes, but reading prayers diligently out of a little book, his thin lips moving rapidly. It is no doubt a good and pious thing to read prayers out of a little book; but it seems to me, that with that grand and glorious lesson spread upon the mountains there before us, it would be a very pardonable thing to look up at it, and to give God thanks.
It is rather a bore to go down to dinner, and after that, to be sentenced to a term of imprisonment in the saloon, because, forsooth, it is too cold outside, and I must rest. But late in the afternoon, I plead that the wind has fallen, that there is no possible chance of my taking cold, and I must see the sun set among the Highlands, and I gain reluctant permission; and now for another walk!
The sunset is beyond my hopes; the twilight steals down after it, soft and dusky, and broods about the rocky Palisades, and dulls to dimness the dancing waves, and settles, grey and thick, around the pretty villas and white cottages that dot the banks, and deepens slowly, till all is one sombre hue in earth and sky, and one fair star comes out to establish the reign of night.
We are late this evening in arriving at New York; we should have been there some time ago; in less than half an hour we shall be at the wharf, Mr. Rutledge says. All my gaiety and spirits have fled; I wonder that I could have forgotten. Still we pace the deck; there is no talk of cold or fatigue now; indeed, not much talk of any kind.