A Marriage at Sea

by William Clark Russell

"That cabin wedding this morning," I continued, "ought to be a fact if all the rest is a dream. But you must go on wearing that ring, Grace, and since it is on I shall have to call you Mrs. Barclay. Don't go and pull it off now. I saw this captain fasten his eye upon it, and we must be one thing or the other, my sweet."

"Oh, anything to please you, Herbert," she replied, pouting as was her custom when she was not of my mind; "but try to call me Mrs. Barclay as seldom as possible."

Thus we chatted as we walked the deck. We had the afterpart of the little ship entirely to ourselves; the captain came and went, but never offered to approach. There was a mate as I supposed, a man without a gold band to his cap, but with buttons to his coat, who replaced the skipper on the bridge when he quitted it. Owing to deck structures, funnel-casing and the like, I could see but little of the forward part of the yacht; but such men as showed seldom glanced aft, and then with such an air of respect as was excessively refreshing after the narrow, inquiring and continuous inspection we had been honoured with aboard the Carthusian. The quietude of a man-of-war was in the life of the yacht; the seamen spoke low; if ever one of them smoked a pipe he kept himself out of sight with it. In fact, it was like being aboard one's own vessel, and now that we were fairly going home, being driven towards the English Channel at a steady pace of some twelve or thirteen knots in the hour by the steady resistless thrust of the propeller, we could find heart to abandon ourselves to every delightful sensation born of the sweeping passage of the beautiful steamer, to every emotion inspired by each other's society, and by the free, boundless, noble prospect of dark blue waters that was spread around us.

We were uninterrupted till five o'clock. The captain then advanced, and saluting us with as much respect as if we had been the earl and his lady, he inquired if we would have tea served in the cabin. I answered that we should be very glad of a cup of tea; but that he was to give himself no trouble; the simplest fare he could put before us we should feel as grateful for as if he sat us down to a mansion house dinner.

He said that the steward had been left ashore at Madeira, but that a sailor, who knew what to do as a waiter, would attend upon us.

"Who would suppose, Grace," said I, when we were alone, "that the ocean was so hospitable? Figure us finding ourselves ashore in such a condition as was our lot when we thought the Spitfire sinking under us—in other words, in want! At how many houses might we have knocked without getting shelter or the offer of a meal? This is like being made welcome in Grosvenor Square, and you may compare the Carthusian to a fine mansion in Bayswater."

"I have had quite enough of the sea, Herbert," she answered. "Its hospitality is not to my taste; and yet, if you owned such a steamer as this, I believe I should be willing to make a voyage in her with you when we are married."

I let this pass, holding that I had already said enough as to the legitimacy of our shipboard union.

And now what follows I need not be very minute in relating. The captain contrived for "tea," as he called it, as excellent a meal as we could have wished for; white biscuit, good butter, bananas, a piece of virgin corned-beef, and preserved milk to put into our tea. What better fare could one ask for? I had a pipe and tobacco with me, and as I walked the deck in the evening with my darling, I had never felt happier.

It was a rich autumn evening; the wind had slackened and was now a light air, and we lingered on deck long after the light had faded in the western sky, leaving the still young moon shining brightly over the sea, across whose dark, wrinkled, softly-heaving surface ran the wake of the speeding yacht, in a line like a pathway traversing a boundless moor.