'There she is, Miss Marie. There's your ocean home. What do you think of her as a picture?'
She pointed to a vessel that was straining at a buoy almost immediately opposite. A tug was lying near her. It was a young April day; the sunshine thin and pale, the blue of the heavens soft and dim, with a number of swelling bodies of clouds, humped and bronzed, sailing with the majesty of line-of-battle ships into the south-west. A brisk wind blew and the river was full of life. The grey water twinkled and was flashed in places into a clearness and beauty of bluish crystal by the brushing of the breeze. The eye was filled and puzzled for some moments by the abounding tints and motion. A large steamer with her line of bulwarks palpitating with heads of emigrants was slowly passing down; another with frosted funnel and drainings of red rust on her side, as though she still bled from the scratches of a recent vicious fight outside, was warily passing up: beside her was a large, full-rigged ship towing to London, and the sluggish passage of the masts, yards, and rigging of the two vessels, the steamer sliding past the other, combined with the sudden turning of a little schooner close by, all her canvas shaking, and with the heeling figure of a brig, her dark breasts of patched canvas swelling for the flat shores opposite, a spout of white water at her forefoot, and a short-lived vein of river-froth at her rudder; then, close in, two barges heaped with cargo, blowing along stiff as flag-poles under brown wings of sail; these with vessels at both extremities of the Reach, coming and going, interlacing the perspective of their rigging into a complication of colours and wirelike outlines, for ever shifting: all this wonderful changing life, I say, adding to it the trembling of the stream of river, the pouring of smoke, the pulling and shivering of flags, put a giddiness into the scene, and for some moments I stared idly, with Mrs. Burke beside me pointing to the 'Lady Emma.'
My eye then went to the ship, and rested upon as pretty a little fabric as probably ever floated upon the water of the Thames. I may venture upon a description of her and speak critically: indeed I must presuppose some knowledge of the sea in you, otherwise I shall be at a loss; for as you shall presently discover I was long enough upon the ocean, under circumstances of distress scarcely paralleled in the records, to learn by heart the language of the deep, how to speak of ships and tell of sailors' doings, and I cannot but name the things of the sea in the language in which the mariner talks of them.
The 'Lady Emma' was a full-rigged ship, between six hundred and seven hundred tons in burthen; she was a wooden ship—iron sailing vessels were few in those days; she was painted black; but though loaded for the voyage she sat lightly upon the water, and a hand's-breadth of new metal sheathing burned along her water-line like a gilding of sunlight the length of her. Her lower masts were white, her upper masts a bright yellow; her yards were very square, or as a landsman would call them wide: the most inexperienced eye might guess that when clothed in sail she would spread wings as of an albatross in power, breadth, and beauty for a meteoric flight over the long blue heave.
'How do you like her, Miss Marie?' said Mrs. Burke.
'She is a pretty ship, I think,' I answered.
'She is a beauty,' said the good woman; 'she outsails everything.'
'She has a fine commanding lift about the bows,' said Mr. Moore, passing his arm through mine. 'Captain Burke tells me she has done as much as three hundred and twelve miles in the twenty-four hours.'
'So she has, sir,' said Mrs. Burke.
'I wish she'd maintain that rate of sailing all the time Marie is aboard,' said my father.