She and I Volume II Part 16

ACROSS THE ATLANTIC.

O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless and our souls as free, Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, Survey our empire and behold our home!

"Sir," said the Honourable Mister Pigeonbarley of Missouri, "we _air_ a peculiar people. Jes so!"

Have you never noticed how, when travelling on a long journey, the wheels of the railway carriage in which you are sitting seem always to be rattling out some carefully studied tune, to which the jolts of the vehicle beat a concerted ba.s.s; while, the slackening of the coupling chains, in combination with the concussion of the buffers as they hitch up suddenly again, sounds a regular obbligato accompaniment--the scream of the steam whistle, and the thundering whish and whirr of the train through a deep cutting or tunnel, or over a bridge with water below, coming in occasionally as a sort of symphony to the main air?

Have you never noticed this?

No? Bless me, what a _very_ unimaginative person you are! I have, frequently; and yet, I do not think I am any brighter than the ordinary run of people.

Drawn some odd thousands of miles by the iron horse, as it has been my fortune to be during different periods of my life, I have seldom failed to a.s.sociate his progress thus with those lesser Melpomenean nymphs, who may be selected to watch over the destinies of the steam G.o.d and fill up their leisure hours by "riding on a rail," in the favourite fashion of the South Carolinian darkeys.

Of course the carriage wheels do not perpetually sing the same song:-- that would be monotonous.

They know better than that, I can a.s.sure you. Sometimes they rattle out the maddest of mad waltzes--such as that which the imprudent German young lady, living near the Harz Mountains, found herself dancing one day against her will, when she had given expression to the very improper statement, that, she would "take the devil for a partner," if he only would put in an appearance at the gay and festive scene at which she was then present. Sometimes, again, they will evolve, note by note, the dreariest air that the composer of the Dead March in _Saul_ could have devised; or, croon you out a soothing lullaby, should you feel sleepy, to which the charming melody of "The Cradle Song" would bear no comparison. In fact, the nymphs know their work well; and so alter their strains as to suit every mood and humour of the variously-tempered travellers that listen to their musical cadences.

As I proceeded now on my way to Southampton, where I was to take the ocean steamer for my pa.s.sage to America, the railway nymphs were busy with their harmonies.

Not sad or dispiriting by any means, but briskly enlivening was their lay.

They seemed to me to sing--

"You're off on your travels! Off on your travels, To fame and fortune in another land!

To wait and work, Frank! Wait and work, Frank!

Ere you gain your own Min's hand!"

And, perhaps, it was from the recollection of Monsieur Parole d'Honneur's kindness, and from my having been in company with him that winter in Paris, where I had heard that opera of Offenbach's for the first time, but the tune of the carriage wheels was strangely like the "Pars pour Crete" chorus in the second act of _La Belle Helene_--where, if you remember, the unfortunate Menelaus is hustled off the stage, in company with his portly umbrella and other belongings, in order to make room for the advent of Paris, the "gay deceiver," the successful intriguant!

Although my thoughts were wrapped up in memories of Min and her parting, hopeful words, and my inner eyes still saw her standing at the window, waving her handkerchief to me in mute adieu, my outward vision was keenly watchful of each landpoint the train hurried by.

I remember every incident on the way.

Not a thing escaped me.

The outlook for baggage at Waterloo; the feeing of the obsequious porter expectant of a douceur; the mistake I made in getting my ticket which had to be rectified at the last moment; the confused ringing of bells and clattering of trucks up and down the platform; the slamming of doors and hurrying of feet to and fro:--then, the sudden pause in all these sounds; the shrill whistle, betokening all was ready; the converting of all the employes into animated sign-posts, that waved their arms wildly; the grunt and wheeze from the engine, as if from a giant in pain; the sharp jerk, and then the steady pull at the carriage in which I was sitting; the "pant, pant! puff, puff!" of the iron horse, as he buckled to his work with a will; and then, finally, the preliminary oscillation of the ponderous train, the trembling and rumbling of creaking wheels along the rails--as we glided and b.u.mped, slowly but steadily, out of the terminus--the distance signal showing "all clear" to us, and blocking the up line with the red semaph.o.r.e of "danger."

Past Vauxhall, once famed for its revelry--conspicuous, now, only for its picturesque expanse of candle-factory roofs and the dead boarding that is displayed skirting the railway:--Clapham, villa-studded and with gardens laid out in bird's-eye perspective:--Surbiton, dainty in its pretty little road-side station, all garnished with roses and sh.e.l.l- walks:--Farnborough, where a large proportion of our pa.s.sengers, of military proclivities, alight en route for Aldershot, and celebrated of yore for the "grand international" contest with fisticuffs between a British Sayers and a Transatlantic Heenan:--Basingstoke, the great ugly "junction" of many twisted rails and curiously-intricate stacks of chimneys; until, at length, Southampton was reached--a town smelling of docks and coal-tar, and dismal in the evening gloom.

Not a feature of the landscape on my way down was lost to me; although, as I've said, I was thinking of Min all the time the train was speeding on.

I was wondering within myself, in a duplicate system of thought, when I would see the scene again, in all its variations, as I saw it clearly, now; and whether the green meadows, and fir-summited hills, and shining water-courses that wandered through and around them--nay, whether the very telegraph posts and wires, and the country stations we rattled past so quickly and unceremoniously, as if they were not worth stopping for-- would look the same on my coming back to England and my darling once more!

But, I was not sad or down-hearted.

Her last words had rendered me almost as hopeful as she professed to be; so, in spite of my great grief at our parting, a grief which was too deep for words, I was endeavouring more to look forward sanguinely to the future than dwell on all our past unhappiness--which I tried to put away from me as a bad dream.

I was only musing, that's all.

It is impossible to keep one's mind idle, you know; for, even when engaged in an abstract contemplation of the most engrossing theme, the fancy _will_ stray off into by-paths that lead to strangely dissimilar ideas and very disconnected a.s.sociations.

As the German steamer in which I was going to New York did not start until next day, I put up for the night at Radley's--that haven of sh.o.r.e- comfort to the Red-Sea-roasted, Biscay-tossed, sea-sickened Indian warriors returning home by the P and O vessels--where, you may be sure, I met with every attention that my const.i.tution required in the way of rest and refreshment; and, at midday on the morrow, embarking on board the stately _Herzog von Gottingen_, I pa.s.sed through the Needles, outward-bound across the Atlantic to the "New World" of promise!

Ocean voyages are so common now-a-days that they are not worth mentioning.

Mine was no exception to the rule; the only noticeable point that I observed being the rare courageous temperament of the Teutonic ladies, and the undaunted spirit they displayed in "fighting their battles o'er again" at the saloon table, in despite of the insidious attacks of Neptune. No matter how frequently the fell malady of the sea should a.s.sail them--at breakfast, or lunch, or dinner, or at any of the other and many meals which the ship's caterer thought necessary to our diurnal wants--these delicate fair ones would "never say die," on having to beat a precipitate retreat to their cabins. They would return again, I a.s.sure you, in a few minutes, to resume the repast which had been temporarily interrupted; smiling as if nothing had happened, and showing, too, that nothing _had_ happened, to seriously interfere with their deglutinal faculties!

This was not my first voyage--I did not tell you so before?

Well, suppose I did not; don't you remember my saying that I was not aware of being under any obligation to you which would make me regard you as the receptor of _all_ my secrets?

This was not my first voyage, I say; consequently, ship-board life was no novelty to me--nor the Atlantic Ocean, either, for that matter. I was used to the one, I had seen the other previously. I was as much at home to both, in fact, as I had been in the vicarage parlour standing beside dear little Miss Pimpernell's old arm-chair in the chimney corner!

I love the sea, in rest or unrest.

It is never monotonous to me, as some find it; for I think it ever- changing, ever new. I love it always--under every aspect of its kaleidoscopic face.

When, bright with mellow sunshine, it reflects the intense blue of the ocean sky above, with a brisk breeze topping its many-furrowed waves-- that are racing by and leaping over each other like a parcel of schoolboys at play--and cutting off sheets and sparkling showers of the prismatic foam that exhibits every tint of the rainbow--azure and orange, violet, light-green, and pale luminous white,--scatters it broadcast into the air around; whence it falls into yeasty hollows, a sort of feathery snow of a fairy texture, just suited for the bridal veils of the Nereides--only to be churned over again and tossed up anew by the wanton wind in its frolicsome mirth.

Or, when, in a dead calm, it appears to lie sleeping, heaving its tumid bosom in occasional long-drawn sighs--that make it rise and sink in rounded ridges of an oily look and a leadeny tinge, except at the equator, where they shine at midday like a burnished mirror.

Or, again, when storm-tossed and tempest-weary, it rages and raves with all its pent-up fury broken loose--goaded to frenzy by the howling lashes of Aeolus and the roar of the storm-fiend. Then it is grand and awful in its majesty; and when I see it so it makes me mad with a triumphant sense of power in overriding it--as it boils beneath the vessel's keel, longing to overwhelm it and me, yet impotent of evil!

Whether in calm or in storm--at dawn of day, with the rosy flush of the rising sun blushing the horizon up to the zenith, or at night, with the twinkling stars shining down into its sombre depths and the recurring flashes of sheet lightning lighting up its immensity, which seems vaster as the darkness grows--it is to me always attractive, ever lovable.

In its bright buoyancy it exhilarates me; in its calm, it causes me to dream; and, in its wild moods, when heaven and sea appear to meet together in wrestling embrace, I can--if joyous at the time--almost shout aloud in ecstasy of admiring awe and kindred riot of mind; while, should I feel sad during the carnival of the elements, I get reflective, and--

"As I watch the ocean In pitiless commotion, Like the thoughts, now surging wildly through my storm-tost breast, The snow-capt, heaving billows Seem to me as lace-fring'd pillows Of the deep Deep's bed of rest!"

Did you ever chance to read Chateaubriand's _Genie du Christianisme_?

It is a queer book for a Frenchman to have written, but abounding in beautiful description and startling bits of observation. I remember, one evening on the pa.s.sage out, when it was very rough, having a particular sentence of this work especially called to my mind. It was that in which the author discourses on the Deity, and says,--

"I do not profess to be anything myself; I am only a solitary unit.

But I have often heard learned men disputing about a chief originator, or prime cause, and I have never been able to comprehend their arguments; for I have always noticed that it is at the sight of the stupendous movements of nature that the idea of this unknown supreme 'origin' becomes manifested to the mind of man."

This sentence was the more impressed on my memory, from the fact, that, on the very same evening, while reading the appointed portion of the Psalms out of the little Prayer-book which Min had given me--a duty that I had promised her to perform regularly every day--I came across a verse, which, in different language, expressed almost the very same thing. It was the one wherein David exclaims, "They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters, these men see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep!"

Our voyage was uneventful, beyond this one instance of rough weather-- when, throughout the night, as the steamer pitched and heaved, rolling and labouring, as if her last hour was come, the screw propeller worked round with a heavy thudding sound, as if some Cyclops were pounding away under my bunk with a broomstick to rouse me up, my cabin being just over the screw shaft. It went for awhile "thump:--thump! thump, thump, thump! Thump:--thump! Thump, thump, thump!" with even regularity; and then would suddenly break off this movement, whizzing away at a great rate, as the "send" of the sea lifted the blades out of the water, buzzing furiously the while like some marine alarum clock running down, or the mainspring of your watch breaking!

In the morning, however, only the swelling waves--that were rapidly subsiding--remained to remind us of the gale; and, from that date, we had fine weather and a good wind "a-beam," until we finally sighted Sandy Hook lightship at the foot of New York Bay.

We did this in exactly ten days from the time of our "departure point"

being taken, off the Needles.--Rather a fair run on the whole, when you consider that we lost fully a day by the storm, compelling us as it did, not only to slacken speed, but also to reverse our course, in order to keep the vessel's head to the sea, and prevent her being p.o.o.ped by some gigantic following wave--as might have been the case if we had kept on before it, as the unfortunate _London_ did, a short period before.

My first impressions of "the Empire city," as the proud Manhattanese fondly style it, were, certainly, not favourable; rather the contrary, I may say at once, without any "beating about the bush."

You see, I landed on a Sunday. It was likewise wet--a nasty, drizzling, misty morning, fit to give you the blues with its many disagreeables and make you bless Mackintosh, while cursing Pleiads. Now, either of these two conditions--I do not refer to the act of benediction or its reverse, but to the fact of its being Sunday and wet--would have been sufficient to detract from the attractive merits of any English town; how much more, therefore, from those possessed by the great cosmopolitan metropolis of Transatlantica? This city is in bad weather a hundred- fold more desolate than London, in an aesthetic sense, and that is saying a good deal; and, on a Sunday, through the absence of any Sabbatarian influences and the working of teetotal tastes, it is more outwardly dull and inwardly vicious than any spot north of Tweed-- Glasgow, for example, where the name of the ill.u.s.trious Forbes Mackenzie is venerated!