An American Girl Abroad Part 1

An American Girl Abroad.

by Adeline Trafton.

CHAPTER I.

ABOARD THE STEAMER.

We two alone.--"Good by."--"Are you the captain of this ship?"--Wretchedness.--The jolly Englishman and the Yankee.--A sail!--The cattle-man.--The Jersey-man whose bark was on the sea.--Church services under difficulties.--The sweet young English face.--Down into the depths to worship.--"Beware! I stand by the Parson."--Singing to the fishes.--Green Erin.--One long cheer.--Farewell Ireland.

WE were going to Europe, Mrs. K. and I--alone, with the exception of the ship's company--unprotected, save by Him who watches over the least of his creatures. We packed our one trunk, upon which both name and nationality were conspicuously blazoned, with the necessaries, not luxuries, of a woman's toilet, and made our simple preparations for departure without a shadow of anxiety. "They who know nothing, fear nothing," said the paterfamilias, but added his consent and blessing.

The rain poured in torrents as we drove down to the wharf. But floods could not have dampened our enthusiasm. A wild Irishman, with a suggestion of spirituous things in his air and general appearance, received us at the foot of the plank, one end of which touched earth, the other that unexplored region, the steamer. We followed the direction of his dirty finger, and there fell from our eyes, as it were, scales.

In our ignorance, we had expected to find vast s.p.a.ce, elegant surroundings, gla.s.s, glare, and glitter. We peered into the contracted quarters of the ladies' cabin. One side was filled with boxes and bundles; the other, with the prostrate form of an old lady, her head enveloped in a mammoth ruffle. We explored the saloon. The purser, with a wen and a gilt-banded cap on his head, was flying about like one distracted. An old gentleman similarly attired, with the exception of the wen,--the surgeon as we afterwards learned,--read a large book complacently in one corner, murmuring gently to himself. His upper teeth lacked fixity, so to speak; and as they fell with every word, he had the appearance of gnashing them continually at the invisible author. There was a hurrying to and fro of round, fresh-faced stewards in short jackets, a pushing and pulling of trunks and boxes, the sudden appearance and disappearance of nondescript individuals in slouched hats and water-proofs, the stirring about of heavy feet upon the deck above, the rattling of chains, the 'yo-ing' of hoa.r.s.e voices, as the sailors pulled at the ropes, and, with it all, that sickening odor of oil, of dead dinners--of everything, so indescribable, so never-to-be-forgotten.

Somewhat saddened, and considerably enlightened upon the subject of ocean steamers, we sought our state-room. It boasted two berths (the upper conveniently gained by mounting the stationary wash-stand), and a velvet-covered sofa beneath the large, square window, which last we learned, months later, when reduced to a port-hole for light and air, to appreciate. A rack and half a dozen hooks against the wall completed its furniture.

The time of departure arrived. We said the two little words that bring so many tears and heartaches, and ran up on the deck with the rain in our faces, and something that was not all rain in our eyes, for one last look at our friends; but they were hidden from sight. There comes to me a dim recollection of attempting to mount to an inaccessible place: of clinging to wet ropes with the intention of seeing the last of the land; of thinking it, after a time, a senseless proceeding, and of resigning ourselves finally to our berths and inevitable circ.u.mstances. Eight bells and the dinner bell; some one darkened our doorway.

"What's this? Don't give it up so. D'ye hear the dinner bell?"

"Are--are you the captain of this ship?" gasped Mrs. K., feebly, from the sofa.

"To be sure, madam. Don't give it up so."

Mrs. K. groaned. There came to me one last gleam of hope. What if it were possible to brave it out! In a moment my feet were on the floor, but whether my name were McGregor, or not, I could not tell. I made an abortive attempt after the pretty hood, prepared with such pleasant antic.i.p.ations, and had a dim consciousness that somebody's hands tied it about my head. Then we started. We climbed heights, we descended depths indescribable, in that short walk to the saloon, and there was a queer feeling of having a windmill, instead of a head, upon my shoulders. A number of sympathizing faces were nodding in the most remarkable manner, as we reached the door, and the tables performed antic evolutions.

"Take me back!" and the berth and the little round stewardess received me. There followed a night of misery. One can form no idea, save from experience, of the horrors of the first night upon an ocean steamer.

There are the whir, and buzz, and jar, and rattle, and bang of the screw and engine; the pitching and rolling of the ship, with the sensation of standing upright for a moment, and then of being made to rest comfortably upon the top of your head; the sense of undergoing internal somersaults, to say nothing of describing every known curve externally.

You study physiology involuntarily, and doubt if your heart, your lungs, or indeed any of your internal organs, are firmly attached, after all; if you shall not lose them at the next lurch of the ship. Your head is burning with fever, your hands and feet like ice, and you feel dimly, but wretchedly, that this is but the beginning of sorrows; that there are a dozen more days to come. You are conscious of a vague wonder (as the night lengthens out interminably) what eternity _can_ be, since time is so long. The bells strike the half hours, tormenting you with calculations which amount to nothing. Everything within the room, as well as without, swings, and rolls, and rattles. You are confident your bottles in the rack will go next, and don't much care if they do, though you lie and dread the crash. You are tormented with thirst, and the ice-water is in that same rack, just beyond your reach. The candle in its silver case, hinged against the wall, swings back and forth with dizzy motion, throwing moving distorted shadows over everything, and making the night like a sickly day. You long for darkness, and, when at last the light grows dim, until only a red spark remains and the smoke that adds its mite to your misery, long for its return. At regular intervals you hear the tramp, tramp, overhead, of the relieving watch; and, in the midst of fitful slumbers, the hoa.r.s.e voices of the sailors, as the wind freshens and they hoist the sails, wake you from frightful dreams. At the first gray dawn of light come the swash of water and the trickling down of the stream against your window, with the sound of the holy-stones pushed back and forth upon the deck. And with the light--O, blessed light!--came to us a dawn of better things.

There followed days when we lay contented upon the narrow sofa, or within the contracted berths, but when to lift our heads was woe. A kind of negative blessedness--absence from misery. We felt as if we had lost our heart, our conscience, and almost our immortal soul, to quote Mark Twain. There remained to us only those principles and prejudices most firmly rooted and grounded. Even our personal vanity left us at last, and nothing could be more forsaken and appropriate than the plain green gown with its one row of military b.u.t.tons, attired in which, day after day, I idly watched the faces that pa.s.sed our door. "That's like you Americans," said our handsome young Irish doctor, pointing to these same b.u.t.tons. "You can't leave your country without taking the spread-eagle with you!"

Our officers, with this one exception, were English. Our captain, a living representative of the traditional English sailor. Not young, save in heart; simple, unaffected, and frank in manner, but with a natural dignity that prevented undue familiarity, he sang about the ship from morning till night, with a voice that could carry no air correctly, but with an enjoyment delightful to witness--always a song suggested by existing circ.u.mstances, but with

"Cheer, boys, cheer; my mother's sold her mangle,"

when everything else failed. He was forward among the men on the deck with an eye to the wind, down below bringing fruit and comfort to the sick in the steerage, dealing out apples and oranges to the children, with an encouraging word and the first line of a song for everybody.

The life of the ship was an Englishman, with the fresh complexion almost invariably seen upon Englishmen, and forty years upon a head that looked twenty-five. He was going home after a short tour through the United States, with his mind as full of prejudices as his memorandum-book was of notes. He chanced, oddly enough, to room with the genuine Yankee of the company--a long, lean, good-natured individual from one of the eastern states, "close on ter Varmont," who had a way of rolling his eyes fearfully, especially when he glared at his food. He represented a mowing machine company, and we called him "the Mowing Machine Man." He accosted us one day, sidling up to our door, with, "How d'ye do to-day?"

"Better, thank you," I replied from the sofa.

"That's real nice. Tell ye what, we'll be glad to see the ladies out.

How's yer mar?" nodding towards the berth from which twinkled Mrs. K.'s eyes. I laughed, and explained that our relations were of affection rather than consanguinity. His interest increased when he found we were travelling alone. He gave us his London address, evidently considering us in the light of Daniels about to enter the lions' den. "Ef ye have any trouble," said he, as he wrote down the street and number, "there's one Yankee'll stand up for ye." He amused the Englishman by calling out, "Hullo. D'ye feel _good_ this morning?" "No," would be the reply, with a burst of laughter; "I feel awful wicked; think I'll go right out and kill somebody."

There was a shout one morning, "A sail! See the stars and stripes!" I had not raised my head for days, but staggered across the floor at that, and clinging to the frame, thrust my head out of the window. Yes, there was a ship close by, with the stars and stripes floating from the mast-head, I found, when the roll of the steamer carried my window to its level. "Seems good ter see the old rag!" I looked up to find the Mowing Machine Man gazing upon it with eyes all afloat. "I'd been a thinking," said he, "all them fellers have got somebody waiting for 'em over there,"--our pa.s.sengers were mostly English,--"but there wasn't n.o.body a waiting for me. Tell ye what,"--and he shook out the folds of a red and yellow handkerchief,--"it does my heart good ter see the old flag." There was a bond of sympathy between us from that moment.

We had another and less agreeable specimen of this free people--a tall, tough western cattle dealer, who quarrelled if he could find an antagonist, swore occasionally, drank liquor, and chewed tobacco perpetually, wore his trousers tucked into his long boots, his hands tucked into his pockets, and, to crown these attributes, believed in Andrew Johnson!--a middle-aged man, with soft, curling brown hair above a face that could be cruelly cold and hard. His hair should have been wire; his blue eyes were steel. But hard as was his face, it softened and smoothed itself a little at sight of the sick women. He paused beside us one day with a rough attempt to interest and amuse by displaying a knife case containing a dozen different articles. "This is ter take a stun out of a hoss's huf, and this, d'ye see, is a tooth-pick;" putting it to immediate use by way of explanation. At the table he talked long and loud upon the rinderpest, and other kindred and appetizing topics. "I've been a butcher myself," he would say. "I've cut up hundreds o' critters. What part of an ox, now, d'ye think that was taken from?" pointing to the joint before him, and addressing a refined, delicate-faced old gentleman across the table, who only stared in silent horror.

But even the "Cattle Man" was less marked in his peculiarities than the "Jersey Man," a melancholy-eyed, curly-wigged individual from the Jersey sh.o.r.e, who wore his slouched hat upon one side of his head, and looked as though he were doing the rakish lover in some fifth-rate theatre; who was "in the musical line myself; Smith and Jones's organs, you know; that's me;" and who, being neither Smith nor Jones, we naturally concluded must be the organ. He recited poetry in a loud tone at daybreak, and discussed politics for hours together, arguing in the most satisfactory manner with the principles, and standing most willingly upon the platform, of everybody. He a.s.sumed a patronizing air towards the Mowing Machine Man. "Well, you _are_ a green Yankee," he would say; "lucky for you that you fell in with me;" to which the latter only chuckled, "That's so." He had much to tell of himself, of his grandmother, and of his friends generally, who came to see him off; "felt awfully, too," which we could hardly credit; rolled out s.n.a.t.c.hes of sentimental songs, iterating and reiterating that his bark was on the sea,--and a most disagreeable one we found it; wished we had a piano on board, to which we murmured, "The Lord forbid;" and hoped we should soon be well enough to join him in the "White Squall." He was constantly reminding us that we were a very happy family party, so "congenial," and evidently agreed with the Mowing Machine Man, who said, "They're the best set of fellows I ever see. They'll tell ye anything."

We numbered a clergyman among us, of course. "Always a head wind when there's a parson aboard," say the sailors. So this poor dyspeptic little man bore the blame of our constant adverse winds. Nothing more bigoted, more fanatical than his religious belief could be imagined. You read the terrors of the Lord in his eye; and yet he won respect, and something more, by his consistency and zeal. Earnestness will tell. "The parson will have great influence over the Cattle Man," the captain said, Sabbath morning, as we were walking the deck. "The Cattle Man?" "Yes, the parson will get a good hold of him." Just then, as if to prove the old proverb true, that his satanic majesty is always in the immediate neighborhood when his character is under discussion, the Cattle Man and Jersey came up the companion-way. "If you please, captain," said the former, "we are a committee to ask if the parson may preach to the steerage people to-night." "Certainly," was the reply; "I will attend myself." They thanked him, and went below, leaving me utterly amazed.

They were the last men upon the ship whom one would have selected as a committee upon spiritual things!

The church service for the cabin pa.s.sengers was held in the saloon. A velvet cushion upon one end of the long table const.i.tuted the pulpit, before which the minister stood, holding fast to the rack on either side, and bracing himself against the captain's chair in the rear. Even then he made, involuntarily, more bows than any ritualist, and the scripture, "What went ye out for to see? A reed shaken by the wind?"

would present itself. The sailors in their neat dress filed in and ranged themselves in one corner. The stewards gathered about the door, one, with face like an owl, most conspicuous. The pa.s.sengers filled their usual seats, and a delegation from the steerage crept shyly into the unoccupied s.p.a.ce--women with shawls over their heads and babies in their arms, shock-headed men and toddling children, but all with an evident attempt at appropriate dress and manner. Among them was one sweet young English face beneath an old c.r.a.pe bonnet. A pair of shapely hands, which the shabby black gloves could not disguise, held fast a little child. Widowhood and want in the old world; what was waiting her in the new? The captain read the service, and all the people responded.

The women's eyes grew wet at the sound of the familiar words. The little English widow bent her face over the head of the child in her lap, and something glistened in its hair. Our sympathies grew wide, and we joined in the prayer for the queen, that she might have victory over her enemies, and even murmured a response to the pet.i.tion for Albert Edward and the n.o.bility, dimly conscious that they needed prayers. The good captain added a pet.i.tion for the president of the United States, to which the Mowing Machine Man and I said, "Amen." Then the minister, having poised himself carefully, read a discourse, sulphurous but sincere; the Mowing Machine Man thrusting his elbow into my side in a most startling manner at every particularly blue point. We were evidently in sympathy; but I could have dispensed with the expression of it. We closed with the doxology, standing upon our feet and swaying back and forth as though it had been a Shaker chant, led by an improvised choir and the Jersey Man.

At night we descended into the depths of the steamer to worship with the steerage pa.s.sengers. It was like one of Rembrandt's pictures--the darkness, the wild, strangely-attired people, the weird light from the lanterns piercing the gloom, and bringing out group after group with fearful distinctness; the pale, earnest face of the preacher, made almost unearthly by the glare of the yellow light--a face with its thin-drawn lips, its eyes like coals of fire such as the flames of martyrdom lit once, I imagine. Close beside him stood the Cattle Man, towering like Saul above the people, and with an air that plainly said, "Beware--I stand by the parson."

"There is a land of pure delight,"

repeated the minister; and in a moment the words rolled out of the Cattle Man's mouth while he beckoned with his long arm for the people to rise. Throwing back his head, he sang with an unction indescribable, verse after verse, caught doubtless at some western camp-meeting, where he had tormented the saints. One after another took up the strain. Clear and strong came the tones from every dark corner, until, like one mighty voice, while the steamer rolled and the waves dashed against its sides, rose the words

"Not Jordan's stream, nor death's cold flood, Shall fright us from that sh.o.r.e."

A great stillness fell upon the people as the minister gave out his text, and began his discourse. He had lacked freedom in the saloon, but here he forgot everything save the words given him; hard words they seemed to me, containing little of the love of G.o.d. I glanced at the Mowing Machine Man, who had made a seat of half a barrel under the stairs. He winked in a fearful manner, as though he would say, "Just see how he's a goin' on!" But the people received it gladly. One after another of the sailors crept down the stairs and stood in the shadow. I watched them curiously. It may be that this stern, hard doctrine suited these stern, hard men. It made me shudder.

But the record of all these days would have no end. How can I tell of the long, happy hours, when more than strength, when perfect exhilaration, came to us; when existence alone was a delight? To sit upon the low wheel-house, with wraps and ribbons and hair flying in the wind, while we sang,--

"O, a life on the ocean wave!"

to admiring fishes; to watch the long, lazy swell of the sea, or the spray breaking from the tops of the white caps into tiny rainbows; to walk the rolling deck for hours with never a shadow of weariness; to cling to the flag-staff when the stern of the ship rose in the air then dropped like a heavy stone into the sea, sending the spray far over and above us; to count the stars at night, watching the other gleaming phosph.o.r.escent stars that seemed to have fallen from heaven upon the long wake of the steamer,--all this was a delight unspeakable.

One morning, when the land seemed a forgotten dream, we awoke to find green Erin close beside us. All the day before the sea-gulls had been hovering over us--beautiful creatures, gray above and white beneath, clouds with a silver lining. Tiny land birds, too, flew about us, resting wearily upon the rigging. The sea all at once became like gla.s.s.

It seemed like the book of Revelation when the sun shone on it,--the sea of gla.s.s mingled with fire. For a time the land was but a line of rock, with martello towers perched upon the points. On the right, Fastnet Rock rose out of the sea, crowned with a light-house; then the gray barren sh.o.r.e of Cape Clear Island, and soon the sharp-pointed Stag Rocks. It is a treacherous coast. "I've been here many a night," said the captain, as he gave us his gla.s.s, "when I never expected to see morning." And all the while he was speaking, the sea smiled and smiled, as though it could never be cruel.

We drew nearer and nearer, until we could see the green fields bounded by stone walls, the white, winding roads, and little villages nestling among the hills. Towards noon the lovely harbor of Queenstown opened before us, surrounded and almost shut in by rocky islands. Through the gla.s.s we could see the city, with its feet in the bay. We were no longer alone. The horizon was dotted with sails. Sometimes a steamer crossed our wake, or a ship bore down upon us. We hoisted our signals. We dipped our flag. The sailors were busy painting the boats, and polishing the bra.s.s till it shone again. Now the tender steams out from Queenstown.

The steerage pa.s.sengers in unwonted finery, tall hats and unearthly bonnets, and one in a black silk gown, are running about forward, shaking hands, gathering up boxes and bundles, and pressing towards the side which the tender has reached. There are the shouting of orders, the throwing of a rope, and in a moment they are crowding the plank. One long cheer, echoed from the stern of our steamer, and they are off.

All day we walked the deck; even the sick crawled up at last to see the panorama. We still lingered when night fell, and we had turned away from the land to strike across the channel, and the picture rests with me now; the purple sky with one long stretch of purple, hazy cloud, behind which the sun went down; the long, low line of purple rock, our last glimpse of Ireland, and the shining, purple sea, with not a ripple upon its surface.

CHAPTER II.

FIRST DAYS IN ENGLAND.

Up the harbor of Liverpool.--We all emerge as b.u.t.terflies.--The Mersey tender.--Lot's wife.--"Any tobacco?"--"Names, please."--St.

George's Hall.--The fashionable promenade.--The coffee-room.--The military man who showed the purple tide of war in his face.--The railway carriage.--The young man with hair all aflame.--English villages.--London.--No place for us.--The H. house.--The Babes in the Wood.--The party from the country.--We are taken in charge by the Good Man.--The Golden Cross.--Solitary confinement.--Mrs. B.'s at last.

WE steamed up the harbor of Liverpool the next morning. New Brighton, with its green terraces, its Chinese-paG.o.da villas, spread out upon one side, upon the other that solid wall of docks, the barricade that breaks the constant charges of the sea, with the masts of ships from every land for an abattis. The wraps and shapeless garments worn so long were laid aside; the pretty hood which had, like charity, covered so many sins of omission, hidden, itself, at last, the soft wool stiffened with the sea spray, the bright colors dimmed by smoke, and soot, and burning sun. We crept shyly upon the deck in our unaccustomed finery, as though called at a moment's notice to play another woman's part, half-learned. Not in us alone was the transformation. The girl in blue had blossomed into a bell--a blue bell. The Cattle Man, his hands released at last from the thraldom of his pockets, stalked about, funereal, in wrinkled black. A solferino neck-tie and tall hat of a pie-Adamite formation transmogrified our Mowing Machine friend. Nondescripts, that had lain about the deck wrapped in coc.o.o.ns of rugs and shawls, emerged suddenly--b.u.t.terflies! A painful courtesy seized us all. We had doffed the old familiar intercourse with our sea-garments. We gathered in knots, or stood apart singly, mindful at last of our dignity.

The Mersey tender (a tender mercy to some) puffed out to meet us, and we descended the plank as those who turn away from home, leaving much of our thoughts, and something of our hearts, within the ship. It had been such a place of rest, of blessed idleness! Only when our feet touched the wharf did we take up the burden of life again. There were the meeting of friends, in which we had no part; the maelstrom of horses, and carts, and struggling humanity, in which we found a most unwilling place; and then we followed fast in the footsteps of the Mowing Machine Man, who in his turn followed a hair-covered trunk upon the shoulders of a stout porter, our destination the custom-house shed close by. For a moment, as we were tossed hither and thither by the swaying ma.s.s, our desires followed our thoughts to a certain sheltered nook, upon a still, white deck, with the sunbeams slanting down through the furled sails above, with the lazy, lapping sea below, and only our own idle thoughts for company. Then we remembered Lot's wife.

There was a little meek-faced custom-house officer in waiting, with a voice so out of proportion to his size, that he seemed to have hired it for the occasion, or come into it with his uniform by virtue of his office. "Any tobacco?" he asked, severely, as we lifted the lid of our one trunk. We gave a virtuous and indignant negative. That was all. We might go our several ways now unmolested. One fervent expression of good wishes among our little company, while we make for a moment a network of clasped hands, and then we pa.s.s out of the great gates into our new world, and into the clutches of the waiting cabmen. By what stroke of good fortune we and our belongings were consigned to one and the same cab, in the confusion and terror of the moment, we did not know at the time. It was clearly through the intervention of a kind fellow-pa.s.senger, who, seeing that amazement enveloped us like a garment, kindly took us in charge. The dazed, as well as the lame and lazy, are cared for, it seems. By what stroke of good fortune we ever reached our destination, we knew still less. Our cab was a triumph of impossibilities, uncertainties, and discomfort. Our attenuated beast, like an animated hoop skirt, whose bones were only prevented, by the encasing skin, from flying off as we turned the corners, experienced hardly less difficulty in drawing his breath than in drawing his load.

We descended at the entrance to the hotel as those who have escaped from imminent peril. We mounted the steps--two lone, but by no means lorn, damsels, two anxious, but by no means aimless females, knowing little of the world, less of travelling, and nothing whatever of foreign ways.