A Marriage at Sea

by William Clark Russell

We passed one or two shadowy ships, picking them up and then dropping them with a velocity, that to our homeward-yearning hearts was exceedingly soothing and comforting. Then, when the strong, continuous sweep of the breeze raised by the passage of the steamer grew too strong for Grace, we descended into the cabin, where our sailor attendant, lighted the fine chandelier or candelabra, and Grace and I sat in splendour, our forms reflected in the mirrors, everything visible as by sunlight, though there must have been some magic above the art of the sun in those soft pencils of light flowing from the centre-piece of oil-flames; for never before had I observed in my darling so delicate and tender a bloom of complexion; her hair, too, seemed to gather a deeper richness of dye, and her eyes—

But, enough of such parish talk; though I know not why a lover should not be as fully privileged to celebrate his sweetheart's perfection in prose, as a poet is in verse. It is a matter of custom rather than of taste. Dante might have praised his Beatrice, Waller his Sacharissa, Horace and Prior their Chloes, and a very great many other gentlemen a very great many other ladies in prose sentences, quite as fine and true to the understanding as their verse. But would they have found readers? It is this consideration that makes me take a hurried leave of Grace's eyes.

CHAPTER XIV

HOMEWARD BOUND

I heartily appreciated the Earl of ——'s theory of sea-beds when I sprang into my narrow shelf of bunk, and found myself buoyant on some very miracle of spring mattress. I slept as soundly as one who sleeps to wake no more; but on going on deck some little while before the breakfast was served, I was grievously disappointed to find a wet day. There was very little wind, but the sky was one dismal surface of leaden cloud, from which the rain was falling almost perpendicularly with a sort of obstinacy of descent that was full of the menace of a tardy abatement. Fortunately, the horizon lay well open; one could see some miles, and the steamer was washing along at her old pace—a full thirteen, with a nearly becalmed collier, ragged, wet and staggering, all patches and bentinck-boom, dissolving rapidly into the weather over the starboard quarter. Captain Verrion, in streaming oilskins, catching sight of my head, came aft to inquire if I had slept comfortably. We then talked of the weather.

"One may know the English Channel ain't fur off, sir," said he, with a grin, as he looked up at the sky.

"Ay," said I, "and how would it be with us if we depended upon sails? There is better music to me in the noise of your engine-room than in the finest performance of the first opera orchestra in the world."

He respectfully assented; and to kill the time as I stood under shelter, I asked a few questions about the earl and countess, related our adventures, taking care, however, to let him suppose that we were a young married couple out on a yachting honeymoon—not that I said this; I allowed him to infer it; spoke of the chances of the Spitfire, and then seeing Grace at the foot of the ladder, joined her, and presently we were at breakfast.

It rained incessantly, but, happily, the wind remained small, and we travelled along as quietly in that three hundred and fifty ton yacht as though we reposed in the saloon of an Atlantic giantess. A number of volumes filled the shelves of a sumptuous bookcase; I took the liberty of seeking for a book for Grace, and found that the collection consisted almost entirely of novels. His lordship was as wise in his choice of literature for sea-going purposes as in his taste for spring-mattresses, for what but a novel in a yacht's cabin on a wet day can fix the attention?