A NIGHT'S PERIL.
Two days before I sailed from Mauritius, I was sitting at breakfast on one of the packages containing my traps. The walls were stripped of their pictures, the cherished whips and pipes were gone from the chimney-piece—the crockery which ministered to my occasions was borrowed. The Sarah transport floated in the harbour, and almost sent the tail of her pendant into my window.
There was no mistake about it,—I was on the move; and, of course, as I was bound to Old England, I ought to have been in ecstatics. But there is no such thing as "of course," in human affairs. Of them, the tide is subject to so many perturbations, that, like Mrs M'Stinger, there is no saying which way they may head at any moment. For myself, I have ever been somewhat of a cosmopolite, and felt it to be bad policy for a creature of condition so erratic as man, to circumvent too closely with particulars of locality his idea of home. It is a narrowing of our capabilities to anchor our hopes in some village or county, and to persuade ourselves that thence they cannot be started without shipwreck. If ever any of the sons of men were senseless of ambition, and the auri sacra fames—those circulating forces that draw men from the native hearth, and prevent the stagnation of societies—they would need a triple defence against Necessity to fortify such a position. When this "Daughter of Jove" descends in her might, and hurls them from their strongholds—when go from home they must, even then will men sometimes go resistingly, which is the same thing as to go painfully. A man who should cling to some particular post or pillar till torn thence by mechanical force, would probably be wounded in the struggle. And so is it that the mental lacerations which some emigrants exhibit as the work of cruel necessity, are but the effect of their own obstinate clinging to some spot or outward object from which the fiat of necessity has separated them. Such men are cruel to themselves, and must often move the pity of their fellow-wayfarers. Such men are to be seen nursing their sorrows, blinding their eyes, and denying the sympathies of their immortal and infinite spirits. The World is man's habitation; and a good Providence has so adorned its every part, that no where can we be called to dwell where a wise man may not be happy and at home. The sacred asylum of home, is of no geographical nor material limitation. Its building is of love, and faith, and peace; and these foundations may be laid any where, for they dwell within the spirit of man, and are evoked by the voice of wisdom. Be wise, then, oh wanderer from the land of thy sires! Open thine arms to thy new brethren and sisters, and live no longer as though possessing no higher innate powers than an oyster or a cauliflower. Here, where you are, you have what may serve your present aptitude; for aught more you must wait till hereafter.
I by no means intend to infer that it required any high strain of philosophy to accommodate one's self to the circumstances of a few years' sojourn at Mauritius. One might, perhaps, assume it to be one of the most beautiful islands in the world. The good merchants and planters exhibit hospitality in its very pink, and abundantly evoke for your benefit the resources of the island. Objections, on the score of climate, I look upon as unworthy of a prudent traveller; for to one who will be at the pains of a little concession to circumstances, all climates soon become the same. 'Tis but an extra cloak at St Petersburg, and an hour or two's siesta at Calcutta. The one really assailable point in the constitution of Mauritius, is, that it is a little out of the twopenny-post line,—but as I was not in love, this mattered little to me.
When I say that I was not in love, I must be understood as speaking irrespectively of Mauritius. Till I set foot on those bewitching shores I had deservedly enjoyed the character of a hard-hearted, impregnable bachelor. It would be tedious to sum up the names of my messmates, whom one after another I had seen fall victims to eyes that had vainly expended fascination on me. The girls always gave me up as a bad job within three weeks of our arriving at new quarters. But now my time was come—dedi manus—I had stretched my tether to the utmost; and soon after I had set foot on the island of Paul and Virginia I had ceased to be a freeman.
Now, put all these things together, and you will not be surprised to hear that I was not out of my wits with joy, at being ordered home.
Mine was one of those complicated cases of love that will occur sometimes; not one flame, but many consumed me,—not one image of female loveliness, but many such specimens, beset my reveries. I would turn out in the morning with the perfect conviction that Maria was the real girl after all, and so rest satisfied, till some person or thing, envious of my peace, would call up to my mind's eye, Lucie, or some other of the score of pretty names that rejoice Echo in that favoured spot. Thus did I shift my allegiance from one to another, and live in such uncertainty, that had Hymen's self decked for me the altar, I should have been so long in settling what name should thereon be inscribed, that he would infallibly have put his torch out in disgust.
So tempered I sat breakfasting. With the confusion of softer feeling, which I have tried to describe, was mingled a little indignation at a letter which I had just received from my old friend Jack Hardy. He did me to wit, that he had heard of my goings on, and congratulated me on being ordered off, before I was regularly nabbed. In case of the worst,—and this was the part for which I could have thrashed him,—in case of the nabbing aforesaid having actually taken place, he suggested, that I need be under no alarm, since now I had an obvious opportunity of going home to "consult my friends." Considering how often I had myself used this weary old joke, I remember it did seem to me a little odd, that I should so wince at it then. "Nabbed," thought I, "I only wish that Jack, or any body else, would tell me by whom." And then I began to think, how like my state was to that of a hypochondriac, who, assailed by fifty symptoms at once, knows not which to regard, and so misses the cause of all the evil. Authorities agree in stating, that a man can be in love with but one person at one time; so in spite of appearances, I was obliged to conclude that some one particular young lady was the motive power of the distraction I exhibited.